Mother of Mine

Simon’s pov

The sound of a door slam startled me from what I was working on; I looked up and saw my fuming mother.

 ‘Oh, I guess it’s my door that slammed then’ I thought,

She stormed over to me, ‘what is this I hear on the news about you, what is this I hear you did to Tina’ she says,

‘Mum, you know better than to believe everything you see on the TV’ I told her and went back to what I was doing on my laptop.

She slammed my laptop shut and yelled at me ‘Tina told me what happened, she told me you dragged her to a gynae to find out if she was pregnant for your baby, 

I scoffed at her words ‘so Tina has made a habit of talking to you about me’

‘Do you expect her to suffer in silence, do you know how hard I tried before I got her to open up to me’ she adds.

‘When I saw the article about you two in front of a gynae, I thought I would be expecting good news only for me to find out about how you threatened that you would have made her get an abortion had she been pregnant.’

I stood up and faced her with my nose flaring ‘is it my fault that I don’t want to have anything to do with her, she forced herself into this marriage’

‘You know what, it’s your fault that all this is happening mother, you went out of your way and got me a wife when I didn’t ask for one, you pushed her into this so don’t blame me’ I add.

My mum ran her hand through her hair in frustration, ‘I just wanted the best for you, I wanted you to be happy.’

‘Don’t give me that, don’t you hide behind the word happy; you took happiness away from me, the same way you took happiness away from my father until he died from it’

‘Don’t bring your father into this’ she replied hurriedly,

‘You took Sarah away from me, we had our issues but that gave you no right to blackmail her out of my life. The same way you kept my friends away from me since childhood, the same way you ostracized dad away from his friends.’  

My voice increased in tempo ‘your selfishness, your need to control everyone around you killed my father, yes, you killed him.’ I said with a note of finality.

I heard the sound of the slap that hit me ricochet through my study before I felt the sting in my cheek. Not that I didn’t expect that, my father’s death had always been a touchy subject with my mum.

‘You know nothing about what happened with your dad, don’t you jump to horrible conclusions’ she spat.

She took a deep breath, ‘I expect you to apologize to Tina for the way you treated her, she has nothing to do with our godforsaken mother-son relationship, she’s just an innocent woman who got roped into this family’s drama, a woman who loves you despite your coldness.’

 I scoffed again ‘I don’t care if she loves me, I’m not interested in opening up my heart to anyone else and I made that clear to you when you got us engaged.’

An email notification popped up on my phone screen and a smile spread over my face as I read its contents,

‘Your plans to separate me from Sarah have come to fruition, Sarah is coming back tomorrow and when she’s here I’m kicking Tina out of my life.’

Confusion marred her face ‘I thought the both of you broke up, you had a shouting match and you told her to get out, that you couldn’t deal with her anymore.

‘So you even know the contents of a conversation that happened in private, not that it surprises me, I’ll just fire a few of the maids so they know not to gossip about me’ I say nonchalantly

‘You call that private’ she scoffs, ‘the whole house resounded with the sound of your voices’

‘Yes, we fought but now we’ve made up, she apologized to me.  I know it’s the last thing you want to hear but we decided to give our relationship a second chance’

My mother’s eye widen in shock, she quickly recovered and her eyes harden ‘do you even know the reason she left’

‘Yes’ I reply her ‘I know the reason why she fell off the face of the earth after our fight, I know what you blackmailed with her with and I don’t care, her past actions has nothing to do with me.’

‘Fine, do whatever you want, don’t say I didn’t tell you’, she stormed out of my room and the door vibrated on its hinges as she slammed it shut’.

I ran my hands through my hair and called Sarah, the call goes to voicemail. I threw my phone on the wall in frustration.

The next morning, I got a phone call on my way to work, it was one of my acquaintances from M&K law firm. I fist my hand and slammed it on the steering wheel as I hear what he says.

I hurriedly turned and drove back home. I storm up the stairs to my wife’s room.

I opened the door to meet a shocked look on her face. In her hand was a travel bag that she had wheeled towards the door.

I slammed the door shut and my eye caught the brown envelope that was at the bottom of her bed.

It was kind of hard to miss, since it was the only brown thing on a bed that was draped in white.

I pick up the envelope and see the logo of M&K law firm at the bottom corner. My eyes pay no mind to the sticky note as I rip the envelope together with its contents to shreds.

‘What the hell is wrong with you’ my wife said but I silenced her with my hand raised.

‘What the hell is wrong with me?’ I ask ‘no, what the hell is wrong with you, to think I had begun to feel some sort of remorse for my actions, but no, you deserved every single thing I said and did to you.’ 

‘You never change, you let me find out about us getting married through the TV and now you let me find out about our divorce through a stranger’ I added

‘I did it for you, you love someone else don’t you.’

‘Don’t you use that word, you sound just like my mother, the both of you pretentious lots, after you’ve gotten what you wanted from me, you want to leave just like that’ I yelled.

‘What else do you want from me’ her voice shook and her eyes moistened,

‘I tried my best to hold on to this marriage despite your coldness towards me, despite the way you belittled me but you love someone else, someone you’re willing to give a second chance to’

‘Oh! Don’t give me those crocodile tears, you put yourself into this, don’t act like you were forced to get married to me, you laughed and smiled brightly on the TV when you were announcing to the whole world of a union I knew nothing about, I said.

I refused to let her tears fool me, the way she fooled everyone with her pretentious smile.

‘You and my mother forced me into this, so if anyone wants out it would be me, if anyone is to apply for a divorce, it would be me, so you better start unpacking.’

With these words I stormed out of her bedroom.