Hear my lullaby

8.

8. Red roses

Freya

I was waiting for my mom to stop talking with Kalf on the phone. I kept on spinning the spoon in my tea mug as I kept on staring at mom under my eyebrows, mad. She looked outside of the window, and then she turned her eyes on me. She stayed silent for like a minute while Kalf was explaining something. We kept that eye contact, I saw that my gaze made her uncomfortable. When the call ends, I will tell her everything that I feel. I think it's finally time. She needs to understand that this is my life, and I won't do things like she would.
"Okay, say greetings to Aud and have a nice vacation." Mom finally said to Kalf. Now it was my turn. She lowered the phone away from her ear, and then pressed the red button.
I let go of the spoon and I rested my hands on the table, I leaned a bit closer. She put the phone away.
"Kalf and -"

"Now you listen to me mother." I interrupted her. She looked uncomfortable and a bit worried. She was nervous.
"I feel like you never truly understand me, I feel that deep inside you're always judging me. You think that there's always something I could do better. When I told you that I want to study photography and start doing a career of it, you laughed. You wanted me to be a doctor. You never supported me while I studied photography after high school!" I started from the bottom, and slowly I would come to present. By now mom was staring at her tea.

"You were so good at school, you easily had the possibility to get in to university." She was shaking her head slowly while checking her nails.
I laughed disbelieved.
"You do it again. Don't you get that I'm not like you? You started dating with dad when you were, what, twenty? And soon you got Kalf and couple of years later me. Sadly when I was one year old you two break up, and since that I had to deal with you comparing me to Kalf. Even though we lived in different countries. And when Kalf quit the job as a doctor, you got mad." I continued my sermon. She raised her eyebrows.

"It must've hit your ego. With Kalf we're just some employees to you and you're the manager and you want us to do everything that you want. Oh, yeah, you live your dreams through us." I smiled a little, but not from happiness or anything. I smiled sarcastically. She didn't like that.

"Do you even understand how disrespectfully you're talking to me?" She said strictly with poker face. I tilted my head a bit.

"You need to face the truth. I'm so tired of you giving me those stupid advices how I should live my life. Do you really want me to live my life with Gilbert's money? And in his house that he got from his parents? Don't you want me to work at all? That I would be just a housewife or something? I am a woman god damnit! And it means nowadays that I'm free to do what I want and I want to make my own money if I want to." My tone started heating up as I was spitting the facts to the table.
My mom stayed silent after that, she only nodded slowly. My mom raised me to be a strong woman, since she raised me alone. And I can't believe how she's talking now, that I should really do all the things that she told me.
Then suddenly it looked like that she would start crying.
Fastly she wiped her tears and tried to stay calm. I didn't know what to do, should I apologize? Making my own mother cry is the last thing I want to do.

"You're right. I've been.. a bad mom." She took one tissue paper from her bag and kept on wiping her tears. I sighed silently, I leaned closer and put my hand on top of her's.
"You're not a bad mom." I mumbled, my tone was sad.
Then when mom cries, I know that something has hit her deeply. She never cries, and it's also a bad thing. You need to show your emotions, no matter what the situation is and what might be the reason.
When I was a kid, I remember once when mom was crying in the kitchen. I was listening to her behind the corner and I was worried and also a bit scared. Firstly I was thinking that someone had died. I was so nervous to go closer and look behind the corner. But I did it, and I saw her sitting around the kitchen table, her hand was on her forehead. Her eyes were closed and it was late night, I was supposed to be sleeping already. But I couldn't sleep without her singing the lullaby, wolf song. I was about seven years old then.
And when I finally dared to ask that what was wrong, she wiped her tears away and tried so hard to smile.
"Don't you worry about me." She said then, her voice shaking. I didn't believe her.
And when I told her that I can't sleep and I want her to sing to me, she stood up and walked to me.
She kneeled in front of me and hold me by my arms.