Ella was sad. She was on her way back from her mother’s house. How many times had she promised herself not to give in to her mother’s caustic remarks… Hundreds of times she reminded herself that her mother would never change. Nothing helped. Her mother had a way of getting under her skin. And this time she started the old record about how her ungrateful daughter left her for her roommate.
– Who is he to you, this David? He’s nobody! And you keep courting him.
– Mom, what are you talking about? We’ve been together for 10 years.
– So what? You haven’t been to the registry office. So he’s nothing to you. You obey an unrelated person for no apparent reason. He’s there today and gone tomorrow.
Ella’s mother, when she was widowed, couldn’t look at anyone. She brought up her daughters herself, devoted her whole life to them. But they turned out to be ungrateful: one got married abroad, just turned 18, and the other left a decent husband and lives with some simpleton. And I could live at my own pleasure, or I could move in with my mother. When she had finished, the old woman hummed meaningfully, waved her hand, and turned up the TV.
The daughter silently packed her things and left. Saved her strength until the next meeting. Sometimes Ella would interrupt her mother halfway through:
– Mom, have you forgotten how old I am? I will soon be 60!
Each quarrel left her sad. There was a sense of guilt: Mom is unhappy, she’s not happy with everything, she did not like my husband, she did not like what I do. Ella still can’t forgive herself that awful scene when she shouted angrily to her mother:
– You did not want to give birth to me and never loved me! At that moment my mother blinked and turned away.
They did not speak for over a month, not even calling each other. One day Ella received a letter. It was from her mother. She was apologizing! She wrote how she herself had lacked a mother’s love as a child, how hard it was for her to bring up her older daughter alone. That is why she did not want a second child. But now she is happy to have a younger daughter, whom she loves very much.
Several years have passed since then, Mom has aged even more. She had weakened, no longer able to keep her sharp tongue behind her teeth. The woman had become an old woman; she needed her daughter’s attention now more than her daughter once did. But her mother’s hurtful words are even louder – and Ella gets sick. Even at 60, it hurts to hear that her mother disapproves of her choices.
