My Mother's Lies

Katerina

“Kàte, we didn’t expect you tonight!” My mother scowls at me before she moves away to let me in, eying the suitcase I drag along.

I am still dressed in my dark pink shorts and my favourite silk tank top and I know she doesn’t approve it, even though my clothes are expensive enough for her liking and not that short at all. I am not like her with her perfect blonde hairdo, not a hair out of place, her youthful face gleaming from within even on a relaxing evening at home.

Damn her, she looks so perfect even after a long day at work, and it makes me feel small.

She gives me an absent hug and a polite smile as we walk into the living room where my little shit of a brother is playing some video game and barely notices us.

Everything in the apartment shines like we are in some kind of museum, not a real home.The air smells of fancy perfume, one of those specifically designed luxurious home scents, perhaps one of my mom’s special deliveries from Paris, or wherever. It does a perfect job at hiding the slightest scent of cooking onion from the kitchen. Which I bet looks polished and pristine like no-one has set foot there in ages or whatever.

“Asen is on a working trip,” mom informs me of her husband’s absence and I kind of regret it he’s not here, because he’s actually cool and has always been a buffer between us when our tempers tend to collide. Which is usually the case. “But you’d stay for dinner, right?”

“Dinner?” My brother, Tony, perks up at that, his dark unruly hair falling in front of his eyes like a curtain as he lifts his head from the game. It’s when he finally notices me and gives me a nod. “Hey, you ugly!”

I roll my eyes at him, warmth spreading through me because yeah, he’s a little shit, but he’s also my brother and I’d die for him if I have to. Doesn’t mean he has to know it. I roll my eyes at him in fake annoyance. “Hey, rat. What’s up?”

“Dinner will be ready in half an hour,” mom chimes in, already annoyed with our friendly bickering.

Tony only gives me a stupid grin and continues playing his game, completely forgetting about me. Yeah, I get him. I’ve been sixteen before, living in the same perfect place like this, feeling out of touch most of the time. I know how and why nothing is more important than the new shit he’s into. I don’t hold it against him, plus I am not here for him. I make a mental note to take him to hang out next weekend or so to see what he really is up to, because sometimes I feel like he’s not getting all the attention he needs at home. And he does need some wiseness from his older sister.

“I swear, sometimes it’s like he doesn’t care about anything but his stupid games,” mom says as we walk into the kitchen.

I don’t comment on it as it will be no difference any way to share what I think about it. Instead, I slide into a chair next to the window with the view to the mountain which now seems golden-red and blue with the last rays of the setting sun over the trees, and drag a cup of chopped carrots to me. As I pop some of them in my mouth, Lina does everything she can to avoid my stare. She’s making herself busy at the stove, stirring the pots, grating the cheese, anything to stall.

She’s nervous, my mother. There is some defensiveness in her stance, like she can’t take a moment to relax, which despite everything is not like her. I’ve rarely seen her this tense. Lina is usually this calm and collected, gracious woman who looks down on the world and is unapologetic as fuck about it. It’s like us lesser creatures are all indebted to her just because we were graced with her presence. The fact that she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen doesn’t help her case at all. She knows it, she knows the effect she has on people and she’s using it to her full advantage. It’s usually fun to watch her grind the world, but not tonight.

“Relax, Lina, I won’t bite,” I murmur after a few minutes of silence and she finally leaves the grater, lifting her head up to look at me.

“Don’t call me by my name,” she scolds. “I am your mother.”

“Okay, mom. Let’s talk and then I will be out on my merry way.”

“You can stay…”

I hold her gaze, a brow raised in question. She says I can stay but we both know she’s not particularly happy about it, it’s just the polite thing to say to your estranged daughter when she shows up out of the blue. In this regard we are alike, I too don’t like it when people, even family, show up uninvited and mess up with my plans. Eva is the only exception to that rule.

“Tell me about Petar,” I say instead and she is quick to scoff at that.

“You know everything there is to know about that bastard,” mom says, her voice stern and defensive as her eyes elude my gaze again. The old anger and hatred seep through through her words like every time he is mentioned. The man who got her pregnant at seventeen and left just a few years later to deal with the consequences alone, ruining her life and future in the process. “If he died, good riddance.”

I hold my breath at the finality in her tone. I mean, she’s not wrong, but deep down, I don’t want it to be true even after all those years of feeling inferior because of the way he left.

“Did you know he changed his name?”

Another scoff. She starts to turn back to the counter, then catches herself and stops mid movement. A loud sigh escapes her.

Her jaw trembles and she looks away, her hands slightly shaking.

“Oh my god, you do!” I muse as I jump up from my seat, my heart beating like crazy in my chest.

She’s avoiding my gaze now, and her face turns darker at that but she’s not denying it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What difference would it make? Whether he calls himself Pesho or Pedro, he did what he did.”

I don’t reply to that, I guess she’s right. Just because he changed his name to one I hold dear to my heart, it doesn’t mean he did it for me, or that he cared.

Finally, mom sits in a chair next to me, reaching out to take my hand in hers. Her warmth melts away a little of that freeze I’ve been feeling ever since I received the news about my dad’s demise.

“Look, Kàte, he was a wreck when he left. He owed money to everyone, money I had to pay.  Even if he changed his name it was to cover his tracks from the loan sharks and all the banks that wanted to sue him.” There is spite in her tone even when she tries to soften it for my benefit. I understand that spite, I was there, another burden for her when she had to fight every step of the way dealing with the consequences of her ex-husband’s actions. And she was still just a kid when she had to go through all of it. “There is nothing to add to the story.”

Silence settles between us and I can feel her tensing again as the seconds go by. Slow breeze comes from the open window, sending in the sweet aroma of baked blue plums and spices, and it take it in deeply, letting it ground me with the memory of my grandmother’s house up north and our autumn ritual of preparing her special jam which smelled just the same. My grandma is gone now, a part of my past, a sweet reminder it was not all so bad even when my mom wanted nothing to do with her small town and the mistakes of her youth.

I lift my eyes to hers, which have the same blue color as mine and I can almost read the secrets hidden there. Almost. The truth is I have never been good at reading my mother. She’d have to let me in first, let that wall she’s erupted between us crumble, but she’d never do it. Letting people is for the weak as she says. Being vulnerable in front of others is a weakness. Being open with me, the burden of her life, is out of the question. She loves me, I know that, it’s just she’d never forgive me for being born and dragging her to the bottom.

Looking away again, I try not to think about it. Whatever happened, it is in the past. I am grown now and mom and me are friends. Distant friends, but still it’s not all bad between us. I am just tired and hearken right now, and that’s why I am focusing on all our issues, instead of the good things, and they were there, they still are.

Yet, I am not mistaken when I think Lina looks vulnerable tonight. Guilty. Maybe it’s the bad memories my questions bring, but maybe it’s something entirely else. Something she’s not telling me.

“What did you do, mother?” I ask with a firm voice full of suspicion.

Her shoulders betray her as they slump a little and she squirms in her seat.

A second later she schools her features, the iron mask back on her pretty face, and her lips tremble a little, the words remaining unsaid on her perfect lips. “He… he sent some letters, okay?”

“What? Why do I not know anything about that?” I snap.

Her lips flutter again and that’s the only sign she’s nervous, defensive.

“They were rare, sent here and there, no sender address, no date, nothing.”

I feel like my heart is sinking. My first instinct is to lash out at her, to pin her in the corner and accuse her for keeping things from me. Deep down I know it’s because of the stupid subconscious hope of the abandoned little girl who wants her daddy to love her.

“Still, I had the right to know,” I reply icily, the words hissing through my gritted teeth as my heart starts beating faster.

“You were better off without that bastard and you know it. Don’t get emotional now, Katerina.”

“Wow, that stung,” I muse because she never calls me by my full name. Nobody does.

My lips flutter in the same nervous tic as my mom’s and I blink away the stupid, useless tears that prickle my eyes.

“I want those letters. You have them, don’t you?”

“Kàte!” She shakes her head in denial, eyes pleading me to let it go.

“They are mine, mother. I deserve to know.”

She sighs. “Fine! But don’t come running to me again when he disappoints you. Again. Even from the grave.”