Treading Lightly. Elise Lanier

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Yes,” she said wistfully, imagining the joy of the sick and horrified hairless teen who would receive it. “I suppose.”

      They ate in relative silence, a habit they’d gotten into over the past couple of years. “So how was school?” she asked before the meal wound down. She knew he’d lock himself in his room for the rest of the night, and they’d shared such a nice moment before, she wanted to extend it.

      Wanting and getting were two different things when one had a teenage child.

      “What is this? Twenty questions?” he asked, his wall of attitude now firmly placed around him.

      “It was one question.”

      “One too many,” he said snidely.

      Yes, their Hallmark moment was over. “What’s the matter, Craig, did I hit a nerve?”

      He rolled his eyes. “Everything you do hits a nerve, Mom.”

      A smarter woman would have quit while she was ahead. She went on. “Oh yeah, I forgot. But help me out here, a little. You’re not failing anything, are you?”

      “No,” he said sullenly.

      “Anything I should know about?”

      “No.”

      “Any teachers want to see me?”

      “No.”

      “Doing drugs?”

      “Jeez, Mom!”

      “Answer the question and it’ll be the last one I ask.”

      “For tonight.”

      “So, sue me for caring about my kid!”

      He rolled his eyes again.

      “Well?”

      “Well what?”

      “Drugs?”

      “No!”

      “Good. And can I trust you?”

      “You said that would be the last question.”

      She shoved a huge forkful of spaghetti into her mouth. “I did, didn’t I. Okay, you don’t have to answer that last one.”

      Like her, he shoveled a large forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.

      “Just nod.”

      “Mo-om,” he cried, spitting bits of spaghetti and sauce on his side of the table.

      “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

      He finished chewing and swallowed hard, eyeing her mischievously. “You’ll have to forgive me, my mother never taught me manners.”

      “Don’t try to change the subject, Craig.” She wasn’t going to let up until she had her answer, and he must’ve known that, since he’d lived with her for his entire lifetime.

      Capitulation was inevitable. She’d wear him down eventually. It was easier to answer and move on with life. “Yes, Mom. You can trust me. I don’t do drugs.”

      “Okay, just checking,” she said with a smile.

      “Anything else you want to drill me about?” He took a swig of his soda from the can.

      “No. I’m good for now. Eat your spaghetti, dear. And didn’t your mother ever teach you to use a glass?”

      “We don’t have any clean ones.”

      “Oh. Okay. I’ll have to buy some more.”

      “You could break down and wash some, Mom.”

      She opened her own can of soda and took a swig. “What? I’m the only one that lives here? Your hands are damaged?”

      “It’s easier to give in than argue,” he said with a smirk as he pushed over the ever-present pad of paper that sat on their table, and handed her the pen that stayed permanently on top of it.

      She wrote: Buy More Glasses!

      As she pushed the pad away, the phone rang and Craig reached to get it. Janine didn’t bother answering it anymore after three o’clock. It was always for him, and never for her, so why bother.

      “Hey, Dad,” she heard her son say after a brief pause. He listened for a while then looked at her cautiously.

      Here it comes. It was another one of those conversations that was going to make her out to be the bad guy. She could see it in her offspring’s eyes. She could feel it in her stomach. Either it was that, or the half pound of pasta and tomato sauce sitting like a brick down there.

      She ate too fast. Always did. It was a trait her ex-husband had pointed out frequently. Of course it didn’t help that after a long while of hearing him constantly assert that she ate too fast, she responded with a concise remark of what she thought he did too fast! True, it’s not the most high-minded or confidence-building thing to criticize about a man, but any man should know not to criticize a woman about her eating habits. Both were hitting below the belt, if you’d ask her. So she’d always considered it a fair comeback. He didn’t.

      But he was never a match for her. She’d overpowered him from the moment they’d met. When they were first together and newlyweds, he’d told her he thought her assertiveness and aggressiveness was sexy and exciting, but after a while, he’d changed his mind.

      For her, when they’d first met, she’d thought his shyness and passive-aggressive, soft-spoken ways were endearing. Plus, it was easy to always get her way. But after a while, there was no way around it for her. She’d only perceived him as “wimpy.”

      Wimpy, but very manipulative. It was that passive-aggressiveness that threw her off every time.

      She wasn’t used to that because she’d always called ’em like she saw ’em—saying what was on her mind. She was always up-front. There was never a hidden agenda when Janine was involved. She let everything show. Whether the other person wanted to see it or not.

      Her ex-husband, on the other hand, played so many head games she never knew what his intentions were, or what he was getting at. All through their entire marriage—and their divorce—she had never known what he was trying to accomplish. He’d always had an order of business—of that she was certain—but she was never privy to it. And obviously, by the one-sided conversation she was hearing from her son, her ex was up to his usual scheming, underhanded tricks again. Which only goes to show, she thought to herself, a leopard never changes his spots.

      It reminded her of a story.

      One day a man found a frozen snake in the forest. Feeling sorry for it, he took it home and nursed it back to life. He defrosted it—or whatever the hell it is you do to a frozen snake to nurse it back to life—and gave it water and food.

      As СКАЧАТЬ