Anna was visiting her mother and was on her way home. She had already promised herself many times not to react in any way to her mother’s remarks and barbs. She understood that she could not change her mother, and that she had to be more tolerant. This did not reassure her. Emma always knew how to get under her skin.
And this time too – for the one hundred and twentieth time! – she began to accuse her of abandoning her daughter for a new lover:
– Who was he to you? No one! And you keep taking care of him, you’re always cooking for him and taking care of him.
– Mom, what are you saying, we’ve been living for ten years.
– So what? You’re not even married, so he’s a stranger to you. You serve him for no reason. But he won’t be with you long. You’ll see, he’ll meet a younger girl who’ll clean up after him and leave you.
Emma became an early widow, very fond of her late husband, and had no intention of marrying anyone else. She put her whole life on her daughters, it was important to her to bring them up and raise them on their feet. And they were ungrateful – one ran away somewhere abroad at almost eighteen, and the other was married to a good man and left him. And you had the opportunity to live for yourself and enjoy life. or move in with your mother and rent out your apartment.
Then Anna asked:
– Mom, don’t you want me to be happy.
Emma muttered sullenly, waved her hand, and turned up the volume on the TV. Anna silently packed her things and left. She tried to gain strength and patience for their next meeting. Sometimes she would interrupt her mother halfway through:
– Mom, do you even know how old I am? I’ll be sixty soon!
– That can’t be, and then how old am I? They don’t live that long.
But no matter how much her daughter bragged, every little quarrel made Anna sad. She often had the feeling that she was guilty before her mother: she was unhappy, I had done something wrong, she was not happy with my choices. Anna still can’t forgive herself that awful scene when she shouted at her mother in her heart:
– You didn’t want to give birth to me, and you never loved me!
Then her cold, unwavering mother blinked and turned away. They did not speak for over a month, did not even call each other. And then Anna received a letter. Emma was apologizing! She wrote about how she herself had been deprived of maternal care as a child, how hard it was for her to bring up her eldest daughter – her husband did not care, grandmothers were not around. So she really didn’t want a second child. But now she is grateful to fate that she had such a daughter and wrote that she loved her very much.
She cried while reading her mother’s message, but afterwards Anna went straight to her mother, she wanted reconciliation. their relationship improved a little, they became closer to each other. Several years have passed since then, and Mom has aged even more. She has become weaker; she can no longer restrain her caustic remarks. Sometimes she forgets, Emma begins again, as if to take revenge on her daughter, who has made her life difficult by her birth.
Mom has turned into a feeble old woman, now she needs her daughter more than Anna once needed her. And it seems clear that you’ve been an adult for a long time, living your life in a way that makes you feel good. But you hear those very words from your mother, and you feel sick. Even at 60 it hurts to hear that your mother doesn’t accept you. Especially when you realize that mom will no longer be there, but her words will remain…
