“Dennis, your situation frankly sucks,” I said. “You’re a prisoner in your own house by someone who only cares about you as an ATM.”
“Hey, hey,” Dennis protested. “She is still my mother, you know.”
“She’s right,” Valerie agreed with me. “Why would you want to live like this?”
“Who said I wanted to?” he said. “I don’t have much choice in this. She’ll never change, so until she’s…gone, I’ve got to stay where I am.”
I couldn’t disagree with his logic. I trusted his story and his mother seemed unstable to say the least. Given her physical appearance, let alone her mental state, I didn’t think she stood much chance of finding a new husband, either. Dennis’s situation had to change. Lucky for me I had a ring that granted wishes.
“Dennis, what if I told you I could make some changes for you?” I asked.
“Changes?” he questioned.
“Yea,” I said. “Something big, drastic, that will let have the chance to make your own decisions.”
He squinted at me with a suspicious look on his face. “What is this, ‘Strangers on a Train’ or something?”
“Wait…what?” I asked.
“You suggesting you’ll kill my mother for me and then I have to return the favor for you?” he asked.
Valerie looked flabbergasted. “Dennis,” I said, “you have a wonderful logical mind, so stick with using it and not letting your imagination run wild.”
“Then what?” he asked. “Are you going to convince her to change?”
“Something like that,” I answered as I rubbed the ring. I made a wish for her to come downstairs. Several seconds later the sound of the basement door being opened was heard. Dennis’s mother plodded down the stairs and I could hear her mutter to herself as she navigated the stairs. Dennis looked at me with confusion. I smiled knowingly at him. “Just watch the fun,” I assured him.
Dennis’s mother walked into the room with a lit cigarette in her hand. “What’d ya want?” she asked.
“Huh?” Dennis asked with confusion in his voice.
“Ya called me down here and ya never do that, so ya must want something,” she said.
“That’s right,” I said before Dennis could give another awkward response. “But that cigarette is bad for the equipment so I wish you would put it out.” I wished for an ashtray to appear in my hand and that she wouldn’t question how it got there. Once it appeared Dennis looked like he would fall off the chair in shock. I handed the ashtray to her and she did as I wished.
“So what did ya want?” she demanded. “I’m missing my programs.” I wished that she would sit down in the other chair, and she obliged. “So what is it?”
“We have some questions for you, and just to make this quick, I wish that you will answer all of my questions truthfully,” I explained. She shook her head slightly. “So, to start, why do you hate your son?”
“What has he been telling ya?” she asked as she rose up from the chair. She glared with malice at Dennis. I was a little surprised to find that apparently my wish didn’t prevent her from getting upset at my questions.
“Sit down!” I yelled as I wished for her to oblige. “Just answer the question, please.”
She fidgeted in her chair after she sat down. “I don’t hate my son,” she said.
“But you blame him for your husband leaving, don’t you?” I asked.
She glared at her son. “Yes, I do,” she affirmed. “Everything was fine for a while. But my husband didn’t take to Dennis. Thought he was a sissy or worse, thought it was my fault for how I was raising him. So he just up and left and that left me with nothing. Nothing but a reminder of what caused my husband to leave.”
“So why did you turn so uncompassionate after you got out of the psych hospital?” I asked.
“I was convinced that I was not to blame for my husband leaving,” she replied. “So I had to put the blame somewhere. Dennis was the easy target. There was this other woman in the hospital who told me she had the exact same thing happen to her, but her children were older and so they could have done something to help her, but they never did. She was the person who told me I wasn’t to blame, not those worthless doctors.”
Wonderful, I thought to myself. She took the advice of another person with mental issues over professionals. No wonder she was messed up. “How is it that you don’t hate your son then? That’s what it sounds like to me.”
“Ya can blame someone without hating ‘em,” she answered. “I just wish he was different, not into all this techno-junk. I wish he cared more about sports or cars or showed an interest in girls.”
“Is that the kind of person your husband was?” Valerie asked.
“Yes!” she replied angrily. “He was a real man. He was strong and handsome and…just everything I wanted.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was just a scumbag who treated you poorly?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “Of course I did, but it was because he thought I was to blame for Dennis. I didn’t live up to his expectations,” she said.
I figured this was a lost cause. She was too stubborn to believe she was in the wrong. “So what will it take for you to be happy, outside of your husband returning to you?” I asked.
“I’d be happy if I could find someone else,” she said. “I don’t want to be an old maid with an ungrateful son.”
Dennis rolled his eyes in disgust. “Fine,” I said. “Why don’t you go back upstairs so you don’t miss anything else in your shows?”
“Fine,” she said. “I hope you don’t interrupt me again.” She walked out of the room and I waited until the sounds of her footsteps were gone before I was willing to speak.
Before I could, Dennis took the initiative. “I hope you got the answers you wanted,” he said. “Not that they’ll do you any good. You heard her, she’s just stuck in that mindset. But I’ve got some questions for you. You’re holding out on me, I mean how did you make that ashtray appear?”