Mother's Day Story

My mom came to visit me at my new place for the first time. She hadn't met my guy, Drongo, yet so we had him over for dinner the night before mother's day. Drongo brought us roses for mom's day, and shrimp cocktail for appetizer. Both my mom and Drongo listen to Coast to Coast, and they seemed to hit it off. I felt nervous and distant, but more or less ok.

We said our goodbyes--Drongo said he'd see us tomorrow, with a hint that he might take us to some Tibetan museum.

The next morning I woke up with a sore throat, and so did my kid, but I called him anyway to see if he wanted to do anything. He was sick too, and wanted to stay in bed.

My mom asked me if I was disappointed. Of course I was (I love seeing that man o'mine) but I was okay, until my mom started saying this in a hardened voice:

"I'm not disappointed. Oh, I bet he has mama-itis. I knew he wasn't going to come today. Just the way he said good bye yesterday, and he didn't make reservations for lunch today, and he gave us the roses yesterday and not today. And we went to that art community yesterday, so there's nothing to do today. I'm not disappointed. I knew."

I didn't say anything. All those things were true. I felt really down, and started feeling like maybe my guy really had called in "sick" on us--and how come I didn't see this coming, she's so much wiser than me, and I'm a real nothing.

And then that night I was lying in bed and all this was coming back to me, I thought, really, why would anyone say those things? How could anyone know they were true? She doesn't really know my guy well enough to say that about him.

This morning I said, "Mom, I got really angry lying in bed last night..."

And she said, "About yesterday? You shouldn't be mad at him..."

"No," I said, "Mad at you. You made all that up about Mama-itis, that you knew that he wasn't coming and stuff. Because he's not the only one sick. I'm sick, and so is the baby, too."

"Yes," she said. "I make up stories like that all the time."