The Aftermath

by Matayo, Amy

  When did I become such an internally violent person?

  I suppose I could turn my shirt around.

  “I don’t want company,” I call. To this, my phone rings again. With a growl, I stand up and head for the door. I’m the walking wounded, the discarded and downtrodden, and this is the way I’ll be for the rest of my life. Pathetic. Wallowing in sameness. I am woman, let me sleep. End of story. That’s that.

  I’m greeted with my mother’s disapproving stare. The woman could make wax melt with that look. She gives me a slow perusal up and down, just like she gave me every morning in high school during my blue eyeshadow and pink-streaked hair phase. She still has the ability to make me squirm. Do all mothers have this superpower, or just mine?

  “What have you done to yourself? You look terrible.”

  Probably just mine. She reaches out a hand and pulls something from my hair, yanking out an actual twelve-inch strand in the process.

  “Ow! I found out my boyfriend’s a cheater, that’s what. And thanks for the compliment.” I rub the sore spot on my head and walk back into the living room. Falling on the sofa has become an art form today. If it became an Olympic sport, gold medallions would totally be swinging from my neck. Like a noose. Again with the violence.

  “A cheater? You really know how to pick men, Dillon.”

  Like I said, no subtlety.

  “What’s that’s supposed to mean? I don’t intentionally go for losers, Mother.”

  I throw an arm over my eyes and look up at her through a crack at my elbow. She stands over me and observes me in the way mothers do. Counting my flaws and working out ways to fix them. Hovering. Coming up with advice to magically cure my singleness. That’s what she’s doing. Hovering and internally criticizing me. She’s probably even got a problem with the way I’m breathing. I can see it in her judgmental gaze.

  I don’t intentionally go for losers. It’s just that none of them will ever be as perfect as—

  “Well maybe not intentionally. But there was Dan last month, and then David last Christmas. And what was the one guy’s name…Judah? The one with the big mole right beside his eye? I could never figure out how he had any peripheral vision with that thing sitting there. Someone needs to tell him to have that checked so he doesn’t—”

  “Mother, I don’t talk to Judah anymore. He can check his own mole. And if you’re trying to make me feel better, it isn’t working.”

  “I’m just saying that cancer is a serious issue. I wonder if he’s seen a doctor…”

  My mother, the perpetual worrier about things that are none of her business. Like my ex-boyfriends. The state of my hygiene. Next up, she’ll be asking about my plans to have kids.

  “I’m never going to have any grandchildren at this rate.”

  And…there it is. I flip onto my stomach and growl into the sofa cushion. What would life be like if I wasn’t continually reminded of my growing list of failures? If it didn’t come from my mother, it would be from my grandmother. Or my uncle Bob. Or my other grandparents on my father’s side. Or one of my eight thousand cousins, because both my parents have what feels like a hundred siblings a piece—the main reason I’m an only child. All my aunts and uncles contributed to population growth with at least four kids apiece. I’m certain I belong to the largest family in history aside from that one family in Arkansas with the twenty kids. They used to have a television show before scandal ripped it apart. I wish scandal would descend on me right now—something embarrassing that would result in my mother’s quick exit.

  The most scandalous thing I’ve done all year is drink two Starbucks Frappuccinos on the same unseasonably warm Monday afternoon last March. Coincidently, it was the same day Judah broke up with me via text. While we dated, my mother never stopped worrying about his mole. My father, by comparison, never stopped insisting he was the cowardly type from the moment they first shook hands. The cowardly break-up only confirmed it. I should have listened to my dad.

  Of all the people in my outrageously large family, he’s the one that is firmly on my side without fail.

  “Where’s dad?”

  My mother pushes my leg mostly out of the way and sits next to me. There’s a chair by the fireplace but no, my lap it is. “He’s with the plumber at our house. The bathtub isn’t draining right so he wanted to have it checked. That’s the reason I came over here.”

  I push myself up on my elbows and scoot back, mainly because my mom is sitting on my thigh, and I need to move it.

  “You just needed a place to hang out until he’s finished?”

  “No. I wanted to know your decision about the cruise. We need to finalize the head count tomorrow.” She reaches for an old Cosmopolitan magazine and opens it to the middle.

  There’s logic in that sentence somewhere, I think. “Your backed-up bathtub made you think about the cruise? Not exactly the best mental image, Mom.”

  She discards the magazine without even looking at it. “That girl was half-naked. I don’t know why you read this trash.” She sighs, loudly. “Honestly Dillon, can you please just go? It would mean a lot to your grandparents, and it’s only for a week. They’ve already paid for it, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like you’ll be out any money.”

  What my mother lacks in subtlety, she makes up for it in guilt trips. The worst thing is, she’s right. It’s my grandparents fiftieth wedding anniversary next month. To celebrate, they pre-paid a cruise for our entire family—that’s aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, a few random friends thrown in because my musician-cousin Teddy doesn’t travel without an entourage. The whole lot of us will be under the same swaying roof. If you’re the curious math type, that’s fifty-nine men, women, and children heading toward the same Caribbean destination while sleeping under a not-big-enough-for-me third-floor hallway.

  I don’t want to go.

  I don’t have a choice.

  “I’ll be there. Put me down as a yes.” I may as well have said, “I have poison oak. Buy me some ointment,” for all the enthusiasm in my tone. But I’m showing up, right? No one said I had to be happy about it.

  “You could be a little happier about it.”

  Except my mother, of course. It’s like she has a one-way ticket straight inside my brain.

  I roll away from her and bury my head in a sofa cushion. My boxers have ridden down, and I can feel some air on my butt, but I don’t move to pull them up. She came here without my permission, so she can deal with a little crack in my personality. So to speak.

  “I’ll get happy about it next week.” I won’t, but I keep that information to myself.

  “Honestly Dillon, pull up your pants. No wonder.”

  Wait just a gosh darn minute. I flip over to glare at her, tugging my shorts up because I want to and no other reason.

  “No wonder what?”

  My mother stands and shakes her head. Her sigh could be heard at the Grand Ole Opry if anyone craned an ear.

  “Nothing. Just…please take a shower and pack a bag before we leave for heaven’s sake.” She takes a few steps, then pauses to look back at me from the doorway. “And just for the record, no man is worth wallowing like this, especially covered in dried ice cream. Self-pity doesn’t look good on you, not when you’re that beautiful. Now get up and find someone who treats you better than Jonah or Kurt or whatever their names were. And brush your hair, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Judah and Kirk. Not to mention Dan and David, even though you did.”

  She tilts her head. “Two things about that. One, I barely recall the other men, but I still insist you couldn’t have looked at that horrible mole the rest of your life. Seriously, he needs to have it checked. I swear it has cancer written all over it. Someday it will probably spread to his actual eye.”

  As usual, we’re off track. “And two?”

  Her eyebrows pinch together. “Two what?”

  I swallow my sigh, feeling my insides explode just a little bit. “You said two things?”

  “Oh. In t
he Bible, Judah was a snake.” And with that, my mother leaves.

  I can’t help a tiny smile.

  That might be the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.