Waiting at the Finish

Chapter One Darkness came one hour earlier on that cold November day, but the clock wasn’t the only thing that needed to change. “What are you doing with those wet shoes on my floor?” Mother was ready for a fight. Typical. “It’s raining.” As if she hadn’t noticed. “I just cleaned up my kitchen. Put those shoes on the porch before you walk through here.” Lydia, barely out of her raincoat, stuffed her keys in her purse and wiped the bottom of the shoes with a dry paper towel in the presence of her mother. “Are you happy now?” She continued down the hallway, but not fast enough to avoid the onslaught of further put-downs. “Where were you?” “Church.” Lydia set down her things in her bedroom and walked back into the kitchen, drying her long, drippy hair with a towel she had pulled from the linen closet. “It’s past nine o’clock.” Beatrice always stated the obvious. She held her cup of coffee like an eagle with a fish in its talons. This game was exhausting. “Yes, it’s after nine. We went out for a bite to eat following the service.” “You left your wet towel in the bathroom behind the door this morning.” “Is there anything else you would like to complain about since I just walked in the door?” “Don’t backtalk me, young lady. What kind of things are they teaching you at that church? Shouldn’t you be honoring your parents?” She always threw something in there about ‘the church people’ as if they were roaches, termites, or some other detestable insects. Another session of provoking and meaningless prattle was sure to follow, only to end with headaches and hard feelings like every other time. She was done. “Look, I’m tired of the constant bantering. I don’t want to fight with you.” Surely a calm and rational approach might work best. “You started it. You know where the door is.” Beatrice stood to face her daughter with the scowl Lydia had grown all too accustomed to in the last twenty-two years. “Why is it my fault, Mother? You always make yourself out to be a victim. Poor you. You’ve been on the attack since I walked in. What is wrong with you?” Lydia’s voice quivered with a rage that had been building for years. “Don’t you talk to me like that!” Beatrice’s face reddened as the grip on her cup remained firm. Her voice rose suddenly and cracked like a pubescent boy as she continued, “I paid all of that money to put you through school and this is the thanks I get? You’re so ungrateful.” Lydia sighed. “Is money the only thing that you think about? What a shallow woman you are.” She threw tinder into a fire that already burned hot. Beatrice set down her cup, spilling half of the contents onto the countertop. She pointed a finger toward the back door. “Get out of my house! I don’t need your smart mouth. You and those church people you associate with are all the same.” Beatrice was shouting by now, but it’d the last time Lydia would put up with it. She breathed deeply and exhaled. “Okay, Mother. I’ll do what you’ve asked. But I have to ask you one question before I go. Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you that you treat me this way? I don’t believe you’ve ever loved me. Not the way a mother should love her daughter.” Beatrice wagged a finger in Lydia’s face. It was as if the words fumbled out before she realized what she had said. “I could never love you because your father never loved me.” Showing no emotion, she grew silent and brushed past Lydia, bumping her shoulder as she disappeared down the hallway. So that was it. Lydia was blind-sided in a way she had never been. Even the third-grade bully she warded off on the school playground years before had been more merciful than this. And yet, at least her years of abuse could now be explained, somehow. Her mother never loved her. Lydia could move on with her life. She looked down at her watch and realized she had forgotten to change the time. A tear dripped down her cheek as she started packing up her room.