Mother

My mother’s hair was always perfect. Well everything about my mother was perfect. As

much I couldn't stand her sometimes, I couldn't deny that she was a beautiful woman. Her piercing blue eyes, that matched mine, would always glow in the light, and her breathe-taking smile would create the deep dimples in her cheeks, which had also matched mine. She was a perfectionist. Everything she put her hands or name on had to be perfect, no exceptions. People around the neighborhood would call her the Martha Stewart of Dearborn, but I thought of her as someone else.

Bree Van De Kamp was a fictional character from the hit TV series Desperate Housewives. The series chronicles the lives of four different women who cope with the surprising suicide of a mutual friend. One of the women was Bree Van De Kamp. Bree was the traditional woman, the home-maker, and the strict parent.

I swear that writers of the show, Marc Cherry, completely based Bree on my mother, because they were the exact same. Bree is always in charge of things in the neighborhood, and is more than willingly to make gourmet meals for special events. My mother was the head chairman of the homeowners committee here in our neighborhood, and she cooked and catered at every event, refusing to let anyone else bring something. Bree always served dinner at a specific time, and the meals were always homemade and freshly cooked from scratch. My mother always made her food from scratch, never in my life have I had take-out, pizza or fast food for dinner.
Dinner started at precisely seven o'clock with a five minute warning time. If anyone for whatever reason was just the slightest bit tardy, they wouldn’t eat until everyone was done.

             One thing that Bree and my mother had in common the most was their way of holding in their feelings. People could never tell if Bree was upset or hurting because she'd always, no matter what the case maybe, keep a warm smile on her face. My mother was no different. There were times when I thought she wanted to just rage at my father for some of the s**t he did, but she never would. To get her mind off things, she would simply walk slowly down into the kitchen, grab a handful of vegetables from the fridge, and just chopped them slowly. Whenever I would hear the loud chomping sound of the knife cutting into the flesh of a vegetable or fruit, I knew it was my mother and that she was upset about something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I first sat down with her and told her I was gay, she kept the brightest smile on her face, and she said "Would you like some fresh cantaloupe?"
I told her no, but she insisted by going to the kitchen and cutting the cantaloupe.
My mother did not want to believe I was gay, she would argue that it was the devil inside me, and that I was possessed. She'd never listen to me when I talked about something that was gay-related in some way, she'd just tune me out completely or change the subject.

From what my grandmother told me, Mother expressed at a young age that she always wanted the American Dream. She would prance around the house saying how she was going to have he perfect home, the perfect husband, the perfect football star son, and the perfect life, but instead she got a never home, alcoholic, husband and an un-athletic, gay son, who she tried mercilessly to turn straight. (Talk about ironic) We never ever talked about my sexuality. She would not allow it. It was like saying a bad word, every time someone mentioned it or said something about it, she would immediately change the subject. I found it quite odd that my dad was completely fine with me being gay. You would think that he would be the one hurt by it, giving that I was his only son, his little man, but no. My mother was the one. She was the one who made it her mission everyday to make me feel even more insecure about myself. Knowing that your own mother doesn’t support you for who you really are, it truly does hurt, but it doesn’t even bother me because I’ve become so used to it.

 

 

"Honey, Mrs. Sullivan called this morning.” My mother said to me as I walked down the steps “Why haven’t you called Lily Ann?”

 

            Lily Ann was the daughter of the reverend at my mother’s church. My mother had a knack for hooking me up with the girls at church. She was very well known there, and I’m pretty positive that me dating the reverends daughter would get her cool points with the church. A few months back, I went on a date with Lily Ann and it was the most awkward situation of my life. (Except for my summer disaster with Daniel, nothing was more awkward than that) Lily Ann was all over me, rubbing and touching on me. It was disgusting. I hated her so much but I knew it I couldn’t say that, giving that my mother would lose her place as Vice President of the church, so I did what I always do.

 

 

"I'll call her later on, promise" I lied.

 

My mom smiled, “No need dear, I called her for you, and told her you’ll be able to spend time with her next Saturday evening. I bought you this outfit to wear, because I knew you wouldn’t have anything to appropriate to wear”

 

I forgot to mention my mom was a real b***h when she wanted to be. I rolled my eyes, not even surprised.

"Thank you mom" I said dryly.

"No problem. Dinner will be ready soon, what time is your friend coming over?"

I paused. "Friend? What friend? I don't recall anyone coming over today"

"I forgot who you said it was, but i remember you saying someone was coming over"

I tried to remember me mentioning anyone coming over.
Jackson and Ari weren't necessarily talking to me at the moment, I guess, so I didn’t exactly have many friends at the moment. So who did I say was coming over?

"I don't think anyone’s coming over, I might’ve been talking about something else.”

“No, no I remember you saying that someone was coming over today”

“Well I don’t remember, do you know who it is?”

“No, I just remember you saying someone was coming over, otherwise I wouldn’t have made those muffins.” I looked over to the left of our kitchen counter and saw the freshly baked muffins resting on my mother’s signature plate. Someone was definitely coming over. “You didn’t seem too excited about it.”

“About what?” I asked

“About this person coming over, you didn’t seem like you wanted them to come over” I paused to think to myself. Was it Jackson? Maybe it’s Lily Ann! Oh I hope it’s not Lily Ann. It couldn’t have been Lily Ann; we were just talking about her. “Oh, I remember you saying something about a project?”

My body turned to complete stone. My eyes were close to popping out of their socket. The blood boiled through my entire body as if it was going to erupt through my skin. My mother was right someone was coming over today. It was Eli. Eli was coming over my house today to work on the project for Elzik. How I could I forget that? I remember he did ask me to come over. Well he didn’t necessarily ask, it was more like “Ill be at your house at five”. The way he said it was so forceful, like I had no choice. He just snapped at me, before I could even tell him if it was okay or not or if I was available.

Having Eli over I figured was going to be a bit interesting. We both were going to be in the same room together and we hated each other’s guts. Being that we weren’t in school, I can’t lie I was afraid that Eli would end up beating the s**t out of me. Every time our eyes met, even if it was for a split second, he would give me this look like he wanted me dead. Part of me was kind of glad that my mom was going to be here. She would never let me stay home alone with a boy so I knew she wouldn’t be going anywhere.

 

I went upstairs and fixed myself up. When I got out the shower, I for some reason started looking in the mirror more than normal. I examined my face. I never really cared much for what my face looked like before because to me it was fine, but today it was the complete opposite. My pores seemed bigger than usual and my skin became so oily. I screamed in horror, feeling stress lines forming on my forehead.  I gave myself an ice facial, holding it longer than I usually do, which ended up making my face extremely numb. Unfortunately the numbness wasn’t strong enough, because the oil of my skin soothed its way back. I decided to just leave it alone, “it can’t stay like this forever” I told myself.

 

Initially, I put out a simple T-shirt and shorts to put on but, for some reason I decided to go with jeans and a sleeveless tank top. After a few seconds, I ended up changing into black jeans and white button up. I looked into the mirror, gazing at my reflection. The only word I could mutter out of my mouth was “Ew”, because it was repulsive. I had always liked this outfit and for some reason, today I hated myself in it. In frustration, I took it off. I ended up trying on about twelve different outfits, in the last thirty seconds

Reviews

[The Ink Chapters]

This is excellently written, it felt very real. Well described and almost like you were writing about your own life. You are truly a great writer, keep up the great work. Loved the part about his Mother.

[Dante]

I like this chapter. However, it started off randomly. At least that is what I think. Also, the ending seems to be quite abrupt. But, other than those two things, the story is good. :)