Don't judge a mother by her Apron

She hadn’t exactly been the best mother. Oh, don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t abusive or anything. She had kept a steady job for a whole year now, working as a waitress at the dinner in town. Even though she spent nearly half of her pay-checks in cigarettes, we always had enough to eat, and there was always beer in the fridge. We were happy. No, she wasn’t exactly a bad mom either. In fact, I thought she was doing a super job of raising her accident-child for the past seventeen years. That is, until I found her corpse in the bathtub.

         Jean Ridout had committed suicide on the eighth of October, 2005. She had drowned herself, using pills that I had no clue that she was taking for severe depression, to fall unconscious in the running bathwater.  Attached to the mirror with a chewed up piece of gum was a note for me. I hadn’t noticed it until the police had come, and then it had to be taken for evidence. They wouldn’t even let me read it.

         I stayed the week at my friend Jani’s house. Her whole family was acting weird around me, asking if I wanted food all of the time, never leaving me alone in a room. They didn’t have a spare bedroom, So Jani and I had to share her bed. I offered to sleep on the couch, But her mother thought that it would be too uncomfortable. I knew that she really just didn’t trust me by myself. I was pretty sure they thought I would try to kill myself too. And why not? Like mother, like daughter....

By the time I was finally allowed to see the note my mother written to me, I had stopped caring. I was pissed off at her for leaving me here, for just giving up like that. And the worst part was that I had had no clue. She had always seemed so happy! I had wasted all week crying about her, thinking about the stupid little things she would say about life being a game. She would always say there were winners and losers, and you had to work to be a winner. A few years ago, I had come home from school, crying because my best friend, Wilma, had used me. She was supposed to be helping me get Gill, a guy I’d been crushing on, to ask me to the spring formal for freshmen. But instead, she convinced him to go out with her. I never did go to that dance.

         “Hailey,” mom had said for the hundredth time, “It’s all a game, you know? Life has winners, and life has losers. Keep working, and don’t get distracted by boys, and you might pull through and become one of the winners.” Funny what memories cropped up that week.

That day, when she was giving me the moral pep-talk any football coach would approve of, I really looked up to her. I was always proud of her, but that day was different. I realised she was right. Even if I had been a pawn in Hillary’s scheme to get Gill, it wasn’t the end of the world. Mom was right, I had to stop dwelling on things that would just bring me down. She had stayed up with me that night, and we had pigged out on pineapple ice cream. One thing about me and mom, we both liked the taste of anything sweet.                                                                          She had been so happy that day, ranting on about how short life was and how we had to live it to the fullest. I never would have thought that she would have ended it all, judging by that day. But after reading her letter, I realized that she wasn’t happy then at all.

Hailey,

I can’t go on. Every day has been so difficult for me, living the way we do, working at the diner, and trying to keep up with all of the bills. Ever since your step-father left us, life hasn’t been the same. I tried to be a good mother to you, but in the end, it was all a front. I’ll never be able give you the care your real father can, and it was wrong of me to keep you from him. I want you to live with him until you graduate high school, he’d love to get the chance to meet you, now that you’re older. He only left because he thought that he couldn’t handle a child, and I suppose it spooked him. I never told you this, but a year ago he phoned me, and wanted to know how you were doing. I didn’t want to raise your hopes and let you think that he wanted to be a part of our lives, but I feel comfortable leaving you with the knowledge that you aren’t alone.

I hope you’ll have a better life with him,

-Mama Jean

         I had seen movies where actresses came across some great revelation, and they would collapse on a convenient bed or dresser, sobbing hysterically in self-pity. This wasn’t like one of those moments. I hated her. And for a while, I hated my father too. I knew it was stupid to think he had left mom because of me, but it was the truth, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t showed up, my mom would have still been in a relationship with him. Maybe she could have been happy for real... But instead she had pretended that everything was o.k, she had told me that she was content with what she had.

         Everything she had told me about life being a game sounded false. All of my memories were tainted by her suicide, and this stupid, stupid note. My step-father had walked out on us when I was 8. That meant that my mother had been battling depression for nearly ten years. It felt like every day of my life had been a lie. No, not mine. Every day of her life.

         If you asked me today, I wouldn’t be able to explain my feelings of hatred towards my mom. It was like when she died, all that I used to believe in wasn’t true anymore. As if Mom had represented everyone in the world, and she had failed.

            I did as she asked though. I moved in with my biological father for my last two years of high school. I almost didn’t graduate, because I wanted to rebel against all of mom’s bull shit speeches about being a winner. But my father convinced me to take an intersession course combined with summer school, and catch up with my classmates. At first, coming from him, I thought I wouldn’t bother. After all, mom had gotten a diploma, but that hadn’t gotten her a career. But then I came to my senses and realized that graduating wouldn’t turn me into the woman she was. I was just so god-damn paranoid that I’d end up like her, that I’d get some minimum-wage job and get knocked up, and convince myself that this was the life I wanted. I didn’t want to live my life as some phony. No, the only way I was going to act happy was if I actually was. Until then though....