Jennifer looked at her mother who wore a long sleeved brown blouse, a ankle low red and black polka skirt and a long pair of black socks with shoes with small heels. Every part of her mother’s skin was covered in clothing expect for the face and her hands. Silvia was very slim and petite looking for a mother. There was no more mature wrinkles in her face and she could have passed as Jennifer’s 20-year-old sister more than as her almost 30-year-old mother.
The next thing what Jennifer noticed was how short her mother was. Her mother was only head-and-a-half taller than Jennifer was currently. For a 27-year-old young adult Jennifer’s mother must have been the shortest and the youngest looking person in the room if she was surrounded by other adults of her age. Silvia’s resting face had gone from stern to a shy and unsure. The way Silvia preferred looking at floor told more than enough for Jennifer what type of change her mother was going through. There wasn’t even a slight hint of confidence left inside her mother.
Silvia’s long straight black hair was covering one of her eyes and her posture looked weak when she leaned towards the room’s door frame. The other thing that caught Jennifer’s eyes was the dark patches under the mother’s eyes. Jennifer could tell by looking at them that her mother looked tired.
Silvia fiddled with his hands and kept looking down as if she was expecting for Jennifer to say something to her. Jennifer could tell right away that something was bothering her mother.
Jennifer didn’t want to ask what was bothering her mother as that might have offended her. Jennifer nodded her head and followed her mother to the living room to start her homeschooling. Jennifer noticed from the way how her mother sat down and begun to speak how meek and shy Silvia really was. Silvia tried her best to avoid an eye contact with her daughter and she acted like as if she didn’t want to educate her own daughter.
Jennifer saw that Silvia had two sets of papers beside her for studying. Silvia picked a single paper from the first pile and then she would read the text in it like a script. It sounded like someone had written the text for her as her mother’s voice was robotic, uninterested and monotonic. Then Silvia would take another paper from the second pile and tried to hand it to Jennifer. When Silvia made an eye contact with Jennifer. She pulled the paper back towards her instead.
“Mom?” Jennifer asked from her mother when she saw her mother crushing the paper with her hand.
“Jenny, please. Don’t use that word in front of me, okay? It doesn’t sound right when you call me your mom.” Silvia whimpered. “I know I told you the truth just two months ago on my birthday. I’m really sorry that I did that. I shouldn’t have had said anything to you. It’s my fault that someday you are going end up in my shoes.”
Jennifer could see from Silvia’s face that the whole topic was very uncomfortable for her mother.
“It’s okay mom.” Jennifer tried to comfort her mother but noticed how she accidentally called Silvia as her mother again.
“Jenny! No! No, it’s not okay!” Silvia jumped from her chair. “Do you even understand how hard it was to keep that secret inside me. The amount of embarrassment and shame I had to endure when I had to pretend to be your older sister to strangers. At some point I even convinced myself to think that maybe, in some level, I was your sister. In the end I couldn’t hold it in and I accidentally said the truth."
Jennifer didn’t know how to react to her mother’s monologue.
“I’m sorry Jenny. I think the homeschooling time is over for today. Your Sis needs something stronger to calm herself down.” Silvia said as she stormed to the kitchen.
Jennifer saw how her mother took a can of beer from the fridge and opened it. The scent it produced smelled familiar as if Jennifer already knew what beer smelled like. Jennifer watched how her mother downed the whole can in one go and then opened another one. After the third can she came back to the living room with a big cardboard box full of them.
“Jenny. Go to your room. I don’t want that you see your sister getting blasted again. I’m so sorry what I’m about to do Jenny. This is the second best substitute as mom stole all my meds.” Silvia apologized. “Speaking of her. Call mom if something happens to me or you when I pass out. She knows what to do better than those lousy hospital people.”
Jennifer didn’t know how to respond back to her mother. Jennifer could only watch in dread and walk away from the living room when she saw her mother opening a fourth beer as Silvia opened the TV to watch junk soap operas.
Jennifer could feel her body getting goosebumps all over her body she got back to her room. Jennifer had hard time processing the image of her mother day drinking and saying that she really had to do it. Jennifer was scared that her mother had become an alcoholic that used beer to ease her pain. Jennifer felt more memories unlocking in her head where she remembered how her mother would buy beer in bulk, pretend it was meant for her imaginary husband and then her mother would drink all of them all by herself in the following week.
Jennifer’s worry grew bigger when she heard her mother opening more cans one after another in rapid succession. Jennifer counted two more cans and wanted to go back to the living room to apologize for her mother.
When Jennifer arrived back at the living room she saw that her mother had taken off the blouse, skirt and her socks. Jennifer was flabbergasted when her mother’s skin was full of healed cut marks.
“MOM! What happened to your skin!?” Jennifer screamed which alerted Silvia to turn around and throw one of the cans in panic at Jennifer’s direction. Luckily the can flew past Jennifer as the liquid it had inside splattered all over the living room floor.
“What the hell Jennifer! You scared me!” Silvia shouted.
“Sorry, uhm, Sis. I wanted to come and say that I’m sorry that I acted so rudely.” Jennifer said to her mother but couldn’t stop herself from staring at her mother’s cuts.
“Jenny. Don’t look at me like that. You give the same vibes as those nurses at the hospital. I know these look bad but don’t worry. I wouldn’t ever harm you. I promise.” Silvia laughed and opened one more beer.
Jennifer saw her mother’s left forearm was bleeding.
“Sis. Did you do that?” Jennifer said and pointed at the fresh open cut that looked like as if it was opened just seconds ago.
“Fuck. You weren’t supposed to see that. I’m sorry Jenny. I’m acting like a bad Sis again aren’t I?” Silvia said as she tried her best to hide the freshly opened cut from Jennifer’s sight. “Sis. You know that I don’t like it when I need to act like your mother and force you to go back to your room. So before I do that. I’m asking you to do that but as a sister.”
Jennifer felt that her own problems were just a drop in a bucket compared what her mother was going through. Jennifer had completely forgotten her own anxiety when she had to watch her beer smelling mother acting so casually in front of her. Jennifer had only one option to do and it was to apologize for her mother and go back to her room.
“Good girl Jenny! Your Sis loves you!” Silvia shouted from the living room sofa when Jennifer went back into her bedroom and closed the room’s door behind her.
Jennifer couldn’t believe how much her mother’s life had derailed from the norm. Jennifer’s anxious feeling got stronger when she thought about her own future. Was she going to be just like her mother someday? Jennifer had no time to think when she saw her phone vibrating on the nightstand. Someone was texting to her. Who was it?