“I was ghosting you last night because I was with someone else.” For a second the possibility of this being true crossed my mind as I read the text. Just as the panic set in, my eyes flew open. “It was just a dream,” I breathed. The feeling of my stomach in my throat quickly subsided as I looked out the window and saw his car sitting in its usual spot. Wondering where he could be, I began searching the house.
It wasn’t that big: only one bathroom, three bedrooms which led down one hallway, and our tiny kitchen which sat connected to our living room. It had been his childhood home, which we had moved into shortly after his mother passed away. It was hard for both of us when she passed, but we took our grief and made it our mission to renovate every inch of the house so it could stand for many generations to come.
The basement was the workshop, and the most likely explanation of his whereabouts. The light was off however when I opened the door. Again I felt the slow creep of my stomach, as if it was stalking prey up my throat. ‘He had to be home’ I thought to myself. He hadn’t been home when I had gone to bed, but that was far from unusual.
I heard the floor groan with someone’s weight shifting on top of it. It was all I could do to keep from turning around and yelling. I had decided that I was holding him responsible for my nightmare-filled sleep, and I wouldn’t rest until he told me where he had been and who he had been with. I wanted all the answers, and I wanted them now. But with a deep breath I calmly turned around.
Heat violently moved up to my face as I saw who stood in front of me. With my tongue tangled, I stood there unable to contain my stream of cussing and confusion running through my head.
He stood on the left holding the hand of a woman, someone who I had cut out of my life years ago. Someone who not in a million years would I expect to be in MY house. And why had he brought her here? Without telling me? But there she was, the bane of my existence. My mother.