2: 2
2
Early the next morning, Mom pushed through how awful she felt, got up, and started making breakfast for Hope.
Malcolm stood with his arms folded, wearing the look of a man who was owed all of it.
"Ma'am, I can't do heavy oil or heavy salt. Keep my food light."
"Oh, and my Snowball and Toffee want a fresh meat meal in the morning."
"Fix their food first. They're delicate, and if they go hungry, you couldn't afford to make that up to me."
Mom stood frozen where she was, her lips working around words that wouldn't come.
"I've never done it before. I don't know how..."
Malcolm's eyes reddened at once, brimming with hurt, and he turned to Hope, who had only just woken.
"Hope, did I say something wrong?"
"I just don't want the dogs going hungry, but your mother keeps making excuses, and Gerard glared at me. It scared me."
Hope's expression went cold.
"Gerard, are you done making a scene?"
"To Malcolm, those dogs are family. So my mom cooks one meal for them. What's the harm?"
"Can you please be a little bigger about this? Stop nickel-and-diming everything."
Watching her take his side like that, my heart sank another notch toward the bottom.
"Hope, where's your conscience?"
"My mother came here to take care of you. She is not his maid."
Mom hurried over and caught my arm, pleading under her breath.
"Gerard, don't. It's fine, I'm fine."
"It's only cooking for the dogs. I'll do it. Don't fight."
Then she turned and walked quietly into the kitchen.
Every move she made was careful, terrified of doing it wrong and setting off another argument.
Malcolm's mouth curled into the smile of a man who had won.
Breakfast was ready, the table covered with it.
Malcolm went straight to the head seat.
His two dogs pranced up onto the dining chairs and sprawled at the table's edge with their tongues hanging out.
Off to the side, Mom quietly ladled porridge for everyone and passed out the chopsticks.
Hope tenderly picked out food for Malcolm and peeled his egg.
"Eat more. You're too thin."
She never once noticed that these past weeks, sick with worry over her pregnancy, I had dropped twenty pounds.
So it turned out that once you stopped caring, a person could stand in front of you all day and you still wouldn't see him.
Mom was just about to sit down when Malcolm frowned.
"Ma'am, I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I can't eat anything other people's chopsticks have touched."
"Maybe from now on you should use your own set of bowls and chopsticks. Don't mix them in with ours."
The insult in it was unmistakable.
He was plainly saying my mother, a country woman, was dirty, unfit to sit and eat at the same table as them.
I couldn't stand to listen anymore.
"My mother worked all morning. She's not fit to eat here?"
Malcolm bowed his head, wounded, his voice catching.
"I'm sorry, Gerard. I'm too high-maintenance. I shouldn't have a germaphobe thing, I shouldn't be staying here upsetting you."
Hope set her chopsticks down at once, her face like iron.
"Gerard, can you stop picking at everything?"
"Malcolm spent years abroad. He's particular about table manners. His germaphobia isn't aimed at anyone on purpose."
"Do you have to be this aggressive about it?"
Mom rushed forward and bent to apologize.
"It's fine, it's fine, I'm the one who doesn't know the rules. I'll use my own bowl and chopsticks. Please, both of you, stop fighting."
With that, she quietly picked up the oldest set of bowl and chopsticks and went off to the kitchen alone.
Back bent, all by herself, head down, shoveling in her rice.
A dense, needling ache spread through my chest.
I looked down at the porridge in my bowl, the rising steam blurring my sight.
If this mismatched marriage could only go on at the price of sacrificing my mother over and over,
then it wasn't worth keeping.
