My mother has always been the brazen kind, tactless as I preferred to say behind her back, so I wasn’t all that surprised when I walked into my lake house one dreary summer afternoon and saw her feet propped on my coffee table, totally uninvited. I silently cursed that I let it slip that I’d be up at the lake this weekend when we’d last met.
“Clara!” she said as if she was surprised that I’d be there. “I used the key under the mat, the one you leave there for emergencies. You understand.”
I put my phone and my purse down on the sofa and sat next to her. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring your texts. It’s been a hard week at work-”
“No need to make excuses, dear. I understand that I’m not your top priority,” she said in that condescending voice that often made me feel like I was six years old again and she was scolding me for leaving my toys strewn about.
I glanced at my phone. 3:55. John wouldn’t be here for another two hours. Two hours.
“Put that thing away,” she pointed at my phone, her red fingernail pointedly casting judgment over it. “How about you offer me a drink?”
I tossed my phone in my purse, If it was out of sight it wouldn’t be the cause for any additional ire. “Yes, Mom. Would you like some tea?”
“I would. Earl Gray. You know how I like it.”
When I got up to start boiling water I got a hot feeling in my chest. For a brief moment, I had a desire to break out and scream at her, to scream that I was an adult and she still treated me like a child. Those moments were always fleeting. I sighed, poured the water, and started the kettle. She was still my mother and I felt obliged to make her happy.
“Would you like anything else?” I asked her.
“No,” she said without even a line of a smile creasing her lightly wrinkled face. Her pale makeup was doing a worse job than usual of hiding her age and I noticed that the blonde coloring she normally applied to her hair was unusually thin. I could even spot a couple of gray patches. These lapses in her appearance were strange, she was normally in tip-top form. I didn’t dare ask.
She took her feet off of the table and crossed her legs, smoothing her flowered yellow sundress out carefully, as if she was about to have tea with the Queen. One of the things that infuriated me about her was how she would shove manners constantly down my throat, but totally failed to observe them when she was with me. She should’ve never had her feet on my table, to begin with. Only in public would she be the picturesque form of what she often said, “a woman should be.”
“You’ve gained weight,” she said, eying my waistline with the same scrutiny one would apply to a car that needed a paint job.
That was the last thing I wanted to talk about. It triggered those repressed memories of my childhood when she would weigh me once a week to make sure I was “at a healthy weight,” and then cut down my food if I was one pound over. Only when I was under would she increase my food again until I was at exactly the weight “I was supposed to be.”
I turned to monitor the water for the tea, hoping to let her comment slide.
“You know, your dad and I have been attending these sermons… We met a man who’s been excellent.”
This piqued my curiosity. My mother rarely made conversation that wasn’t either small talk or questioning my every decision in life, and even more rarely about anything she was doing. I turned to face her. “For what?”
“It started because your dad needed to lose a few pounds, and I’ve been having trouble getting him. He’s been more resistant as of late. He needed to turn to the Lord.”
My father had always been oblivious to my mother’s treatment of me, mostly because he believed the same schtick about being a proper woman that she did. It came as a surprise that he’d suddenly fallen out of line.
“His name is Maxwell, he ran a small group at the church.”
“Ran?” I held my mouth open. Far be it from my mother to depart with anything associated with the church.
“Yes. It turns out that his calling was more pastoral. He’s since started his own church. Your father and I are founding members.”
Red flags flew like fireworks in my mind. Far be it from my mother to break away from the mainstream. “I’m… shocked,” I said with my face over my mouth. Embarrassment rose like lava in my cheeks. I instinctively stepped away, expecting her to scold me.
“I want you to join us,” she said, unexpectedly ignoring my rudeness.
I stared at her speechless.
She went into a tirade. “You really need this. Your life is a mess! You’re 34, have no children, spend all your days working, don’t do your hair, wear awful clothes, and look upwards of 180 pounds. I’m still shocked you got married!”
It was nothing I didn’t hear every time I was with her, and I’d heard it all so many times it didn’t faze me in the least bit. “No,” I said firmly. I decided long ago that I would treat my mother decently, but participating in her life was strictly off the table. That’s why I worked so hard to get a scholarship and go to college, just so that I wouldn’t have to live constantly in her shadow.
“Look, your father and I, we’ve found so much happiness with him. I know that if you go to just one session, all it will take is one, you’ll see what he could do for you.”
“No way,” I said.
I thought I heard the kettle bubbling behind me, so I turned to look at it.
“You should listen to your mother,” a strange man’s voice said.
I turned back around and gasped. Standing on the other side of the room was a man in a jet-black tuxedo, his deep gray hair and beard giving him a regal impression.
“Wha-” I tried to speak through inhaling air.
“Maxwell,” he stepped forward. “Pardon my intrusion.”
“What are you doing-”
“Your mother cordially invited me,” he smiled. “Like a proper lady should. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to ask - what do you think about being a proper lady?”
I wanted to tell him that it was a crock of bullshit that people did in the old days because they were half-intelligent, but I couldn’t begin to utter it. The room suddenly felt cold.
“She hasn’t been one in her entire life,” my mother said while shaking her head. “She has no idea how much good it would do her to forget about workin’ and to take care of herself.”
“I asked her, miss,” he held up his left palm in the direction of my mother.
She bowed her head in shame, placing her hands carefully in her lap.
I didn’t know which was more terrifying, the fact that he was in my house or what he just did to my mother. Not even my father could get her to look ashamed like that.
“Who- who are you?” I asked so softly it came out like a whisper.
“I’m just who your dear mother told you I am. I’m the pastor of God’s Will church, and I’m starting up a group for disaffected people such as yourself.”
“But… I’m not disaffected!”
“You know, that’s what they all say,” he smiled, moving into the kitchen so that he was only a few feet away. It was only then that I noticed how tall he was, towering over six feet, his head well above mine. “Problem is that you’ve been taught by modern society that you’re supposed to be something you were never intended to be. When you learn what God intended for you, you’ll find it so freeing that I guarantee it’ll change your life.”
I stepped back into the corner, cowering near the kettle which was starting to bubble. “I’m perfectly happy. I have a good life and a good husband. I don’t need you!”
“I haven’t seen you smile once since you entered the house.”
A chill ran down my spine. He’d been watching us the entire time. How had I failed to notice him? Had he been hiding somewhere?
He walked closer. “You should be happily serving your mother with a smile. She asked you for tea, but you should’ve served her biscuits as well, even though she didn’t ask. Then offered to rub her feet. She’s had a hard day, has she not?”
The kettle began to whistle. “I’m not my mother’s servant!” I yelled, putting my hands up in the hope that he’d back off.
“There is freedom in servitude, young lady,” he said. “Gone are all the responsibilities. The job, the bills, and the upkeep of daily life. You make your focus on God first, then others. Soon you see that nothing else is important. If your mother is happy, then you are happy.”
I wanted to turn to address the whistle of the kettle roaring in my ears, but not daring to take my eyes off of him. If figured that if I said nothing, then he would go away.
“I want you to try it. I’ll even pray for it,” he said. “You can’t possibly know something you haven’t tried. Take a day off of work and invite your mother over, spend the entire day just focused on serving her. See how you feel at the end. When you feel as good as I know you will, you will come to a meeting with her.”
It occurred to me that this was why my mother liked this guy. She’d been wanting me to serve her hand-over-foot for her entire life, and he was preaching it. “No!” Anger replaced terror. How dare my mother! “GET OUT!”
He moved in closer, within inches, enough for me to feel restrained. Terror rising fast within me, I instinctively grabbed the kettle behind me and flung it at him. It hit him square in the chest, forcing him backward. Boiling water ran down the sides of his tux, unfortunately not hitting his bare skin in any way to deter him. The kettle landed zigzag on the floor nearby, a puddle forming around it.
For a brief moment, he looked shocked. Then he went into a fit of rage, lunging on top of me and pinning my arms to the counter. “You ungrateful, despicable, disgusting… thing!”
My vision went blank, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. His awful musk seemed to fill the crevices of my every sense, the sweat from his beard felt like the bathwaters of Hell. I thought for sure he was going to kill me right then and there, and I’d wake up in the afterlife.
I was shocked when I regained my vision and saw that he’d backed away. Rage had been replaced with terror on his face.
I turned to my right and saw John in the doorway, his face as shocked as mine must have been. How? He wasn’t supposed to be home for two hours.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Call the police, now!” I screamed.
“You’ll prove nothing you ungrateful child!” Maxwell screamed as he fled with my mother in tow. “I’ll be back for you!”
“I came home early because I had the strangest feeling,” John said as he embraced me. “That you needed me.”