𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝒀𝒐𝒓𝒌 {𝑯.𝑺}

Chapter Forty Eight | Forgiveness

My mother was sort of a foreign relative to me.

We didn't talk unless it was completely necessary, which hadn't been much these last few months because she was grieving Aiden in her own way—ignoring that she even had a family before Nick, like always.

So I was surprised when she arrived at my doorstep this morning. I had briefly told her about my new place in a passing conversation--deciding to leave out that I had only moved because my dad had kicked me out--but I never thought she would actually show up.

Once she walked in, she inspected the place with a certain look of judgement. She was silently nitpicking at every flaw.

"This is...quaint." She acknowledged. Nevertheless, she pulled me in for a hug, dresssuit brushing against my skin roughly as her perfume engulfed my nostrils. It wasn't like her old scent that I grew up adoring. After she tied the knot with Nick, she told me how she wanted to smell more sophisticated. In my opinion, it made her reek of old-lady. "I missed you, baby." She coo'd.

That part, I knew was true. It warmed my heart slightly, so I hugged her back nonetheless, but I didn't allow my walls to fall down entirely. Because this wasn't the woman that I used to know.

The last time I recognized my mom was several years ago, when she still loved my dad, and reminded him of it every second she could; when she still nurtured Aiden and I, and treated us like the most precious beings on the Earth.

Those were the days when she would walk around smelling like her favorite Britney Spears perfume. She loved wearing bell-bottomed jeans and silky blouses. Platformed sandals adorned her feet all year round, and she always made us watch the Friends sitcom with her.

She was absolutely beautiful—inside and out.

But then money became tight. Dad's record store wasn't doing as well as it used to. She became an assistant accountant at a local bank. The stress from that job began to wear away at her genial spirit. She wasn't as warm as she used to be and began to adopt short-tempered tendencies and neurotic worrying.

Then she began working constantly, always carrying around her laptop, to pick up the brunt of the bills.

Aiden started to gain weight which—Dad hadn't told me until years later—triggered her hidden issues of an eating disorder. My grandmother constantly railed Mom about her weight growing up. She suffered from binging and purging in particular, a very gruesome characteristic of Bulimia. Aiden's weight gain had triggered her unresolved trauma.

My parents generation wasn't as accepting when it came to mental health issues. So she spent most of her life dealing with it on her own. No clinics, no therapy sessions, and no resolved issues.

Mom brutally projected her worries onto Aiden, which fed his disorder even more, and made him fall deeper into his sickness. I couldn't say that my Mom was the only reason for Aiden's disorder, because there were many factors that caused it. But she was definitely one of the most influencing contributors.

Our family fell to shit soon afterwards. Aiden began having health scares, resulting in numerous clinical stays, while Mom found solace in workplace affairs—more specifically, her boss, Nikolas.

Dad began drinking—always sloppy and belligerent—so, I guess that was her last straw. They separated, divorced, and she started a new family with Nick. I was the only person from her 'old family' that she still managed to talk to. I was there for her whenever she was going through a rough patch in her marriage, or whenever her step children had another fight with her.