The Turbulant World of Mothers and Daughters

Part of a Short Story

Janine plunked herself down onto the bench beside her girlfriend, Meredith, her blood boiling. She could feel the heat in her face as she thought about the words she'd had with her mother a short time ago.

"What's wrong?" Meredith asked, seeing her friend's face.

"It's my mother again. She does nothing but criticize me. I can't do anything to please her. I thought it would be better when I moved out on my own. But it's not."

"I thought my mother was critical but I think yours does take the prize. What did she do this time?"

"I stopped by to say hello because it's been a couple of weeks since I've been there. Was she glad to see me? No! She pounced on me with, 'Well, you finally managed to find some time in your busy life to come and visit your father and I."

"What did your father say?" Meredith asked.

You know my Dad. He's always trying to smooth the waters. If it was just him, I'd go over more often. Dad always says nice things to me - he's a builder-upper kind of person. He doesn't try to shred me into little bits every time he sees me." Janine ran her hands through her hair in frustration. "I'd love to have a mother like yours, Meredith."

"We have our problems occasionally too. Yesterday she said, 'I love how you're wearing your hair today, Meredith. It's much nicer than how you had it a few days ago.' It wasn't a terribly bad thing to say. I guess you could call it kind of a left-handed compliment."

"What did you say when she said that?"

"I just laughed and said I like your hair better today too. It's much nicer than last week. But you know my mom, she never changes her hairstyle. I think she's worn the same style since the day she got married. She laughed too."

"I guess part of it is you handle things differently than I do. My mother is more critical than yours but I react to her rather than just letting things roll off me, like you do. I'd hate to think that my mother and I have similar personalities. That would be a scary thought. Expecially if I thought I would treat my own daughter like she treats me."

"I think we can be who we want to be. You already know you don't want to be like your mom, so you can work towards not being that way."

"Yeah, I guess. I try not to react when she says hurtful things to me, but it's hard. Two weeks ago when I was over there, I had only just come in the door and she said, 'Janine, what are you wearing? That looks awful on you. It's far too short and it makes you look dumpy'."

"Wow, that's a tough one. What did you say?"

"I said, 'That's it, I'm leaving. I get nothing but criticism from you. I don't know why I ever come over here. You are the biggest reason I left, Mother.' My dad heard the shouting and came to see what was going on. He looked at me and came over right awway to give me a hug and said, 'It's nice to see you, Sweetheart. You are always the highlight of my day.' That's the difference between my mother and father."

"Let's go and get a cup of tea," Meredith said as she took her friend's arm. "I could use one and from the sounds of it, I think you could too. How do you think Josh will get along with her after the two of you are married?"

"That fiasco has already started. She has made it clear that she doesn't like Josh."

"What doesn't she like about him? Everyone likes Josh; there's nothing not to like. In fact he reminds me of your father, very easy-going."

"She said he's not a go-getter and he'll never amount to anything and I'll probably have to support us for the rest of our lives. I told her he had a good job and she just grunted. You know the way she has of doing it that can be so infuriating. Now she said she knows a good place for us to have our wedding and reception. She wants a big extravaganza with all of her friends. We want it small, just family and our close friends."

"Why is she so into the wedding planning when she doesn't like Josh?"

"I guess she figures marrying Josh is inevitable and she wants to put her stamp on it and be the 'mother of the bride' in a big way. She's driving us crazy." ...

The Demons of Alcohol

Part of a Short Story

She watched him stagger in the general direction of the sofa, making an effort to hold up the walls as he went, his feet shuffling across the carpet. "You're drunk again." Becky's heart was pounding with anger and frustration. She knew he would deny it as he usually did, even though the whiskey fumes washed over her like waves on the shore, filling the entire room with evidence of his drunkenness. Between the whiskey and the cigarettes, Becky found it difficult not to feel nauseous when she was near her husband.

She had moved into the second bedroom several months previously but was beginning to think that even that was too close. "Would you consider going to AA?" she had asked him again a few weeks ago.

His answer had been typical of him. "No, I don't need to go."

"But surely even you must admit that alcohol has had an adverse effect on your life. Eventually your health is going to be seriously affected by it. You probably already have liver disease because of it. And you could hardly call our relationship functional. You're going to have to do something, Paul. I'm not going to continue to live like this. You're going to have to decide what it's going to be - me or your alcohol." Becky knew she was nagging but was having difficulty controlling her feelings of frustration.

He had stared at her, seemingly unmoved by her words. And then he had shrugged and turning his back on her had gone to get himself another drink. There, she thought, was her answer. She was beginning to suspect that there wasn't much mixing going on in those drinks, more like undiluted whiskey. He added a little ice but drank it before the ice had a chance to melt.

Today he sat slumped on the sofa, smoke curling around his face from the cigarette he held in his hand. Her heart continued to pound. She was tempted to just turn and leave right now. One day, she was afraid, he was going to burn down the house. He was an alcoholic, like his father before him had been. And his mother hadn't been far behind. Becky admitted to herself that Paul hadn't had a chance but if he wasn't going to help himself, she couldn't do it for him. She was slowly beginning to admit to herself that she wasn't going to let him drag her down with him into his misery and whatever hell it was he existed in.

He had lost his job about a year ago because of his drinking - drinking on the job to be exact. And every day when she arrived home from work, she found him like this. He had made no effort to look for other work and with each passing day instead had gradually drunk more until by dinnertime, he was usually passed out. It was no longer a marriage or a relationship of any kind. Nothing existed between them any longer.

She continued to watch him. "I can see you have made your decision."

He raised his head slightly from his chest and through bleary, unfocused eyes glanced in her direction. "Wh ... you talk ... 'bout," he slurred his words and then his head fell back onto his chest again. Becky knew that would probably be it until morning for him.

Walking over to where he lay slouched in the corner of the sofa, she took the cigarette from between his fingers and butted it out in the nearby ashtray. And removing the glass from his unresisting fingers, she carried it into the kitchen. The counters were littered with dirty glasses and crumbs from his morning toast. The forty pounder of whiskey sat uncapped on the table along with a glass, moist with condensation. She grimaced. Another water mark was visible on its surface.

Going back into the living room she threw a blanket over him. There was a time when she would try to get him into bed but that time had long since passed. She had phoned his doctor and told him how much he was drinking especially since his job loss and then had set up an appointment for him. That had served no purpose. On his return home he has said everything was fine.

"Did the doctor say anything about your drinking," she had asked.

"No, he didn't mention it. He said everything was good. He did say you had called him though. I don't know what you're so worried about, I don't drink much."

Becky could only shake her head. Sometime later he had complained of stomach pains and she'd suggested he go to the doctor again. Surprisingly he had gone and even taken tests. When she asked him about the results, he had only said that it was nothing serious; nothing that was going to kill him."

'Maybe not immediately,' she had thought, 'but it will eventually'. She had thought during the last few years of their marriage of the children they might have had and that she was now glad they hadn't had. She had been consumed with a deep sadness at the time when she realized it wasn't going to happen but realized later that it would have been difficult for children to witness a parent in an inebriated condition on a daily basis. What would it have done to them? What had it done to him seeing his father drunk and belligerent and very often violent? ...

Turf War

Part of a story from 'Life's Challenges, A Short Story Collection'

Head detective of the Major Crime Division, Matthew Williams, stood on the sandy beach, a puzzled expression altering the contours of his normally handsome visage. Shrugging further into his light-weight jacket, he pulled the collar up as the wind and rain continued to hammer him from the east. He turned his back to the pounding elements and pulled a notebook from his inside pocket.

"What do you make of it?" he asked his new partner, Detective Tiffany Meadows. He shook his head in an attempt to hide his smile, one that lurked whenever he thought of her unlikely name. 'She'd better change it if she plans to get anywhere as a detective in the police department,' he thought.

Tiffany's blue eyes, now clouded with concern, surveyed the small crime scene, an area contained in yellow police tape. In the centre lay a left foot encased in what appeared to be a man's good quality Nike running shoe. An early morning jogger had discovered the grisly remains and had called it in. "Why just a foot, Matthew?" she asked.

"You'd prefer the whole body, would you, Meadows? We're going to find where the rest of the body is and where this foot came from," Matthew Williams replied curtly.

"Well, right off the bat we know it's a man's foot. And we know he wasn't a down-and-outer because that's an expensive sneaker. Maybe he fell off a boat. And I doubt very much that he was a fisherman either so it would more likely be a yacht. Fishermen don't wear expensive shoes like that. Maybe we could start checking out boating accidents; especially since there's been such stormy weather lately. Have there been any missing persons reports lately?"

Williams glared at her. "What makes you think it was washed up and not dropped here?"

Tiffany stared back at the senior detective, refusing to be intimidated. "I know you don't think I'm very bright Matthew but you haven't given me a snowball's chance in hell of proving I can be a good detective. Every time I say something, you shoot me down." She placed her hands on her hips and stared defiantly into his face. His dark eyes bore into hers. "Just look at the shoe," she continued, "it looks waterlogged and, if you look closer, instead of trying to find fault with everything I say, you'd see that the part of the ankle that's exposed above the top of the shoe looks as if it's been in the water for some time, like we look if we stay too long in a bubble bath."

"I wouldn't know. Bubble baths aren't my thing. Are you trying to be a trouble maker here, Meadows?"

"You asked me what I made of it, so I'm telling you," Tiffany said suddenly flashing Williams one of her spectacular smiles. "And also, since you did ask me, you do remember, don't you that about two months ago another left foot was washed up on the banks of the Golden River. That one had a rather unusual tattoo of a dragon curling around the ankle. Wouldn't it be interesting if this one did too?"

"You don't need to act like a know-it-all, Meadows, I'm not verging on dementia. We're still working on the origins of that foot. And yes, before you get too cocky, there quite possibly is a connection between the two left feet." Matthew didn't know why she got under his skin; most times she was a major pain in the butt but, he thought to himself, she did have a killer smile. ...

The Young Girl Inside of Me

Part of a Story - from Life's Challenges, A Short Story Collection

I look in the mirror and see the wrinkles the years have worn in my face, the loose skin that hangs like appendages beneath my chin and the folds of flesh surrounding my eyes. Silver hair adorns my head like an unwanted old hat. The woman who stares at me from the looking glass is a stranger.

My hands, twisted with arthritis, move slowly through their tasks and my legs shuffle as I use my cane for balance. This stranger's body has betrayed me. It had once been my friend as it swung gracefully around the dance floor, ran up the stairs to a friend's house, took me canoeing and helped me win games on the tennis court. But I know, though no one else does, that a young dark-haired girl continues to reside deep within me.

That young girl can still feel the wind in her hair when she rides down Brickyard Hill on her bicycle as if it was only yesterday. Applying her brakes she comes to a screeching halt at the bottom of the hill where she quickly jumps off her bike. Although I can feel her spirit and the agility of her body as she moves, my outer shell no longer obeys my inner commands.

When I think of summers long past, I remember her excitement for the first baseball games of the season. While I sit with pain in my joints, I can still feel her sure-footed race around the bases. And when she stands ready on third base, her glove poised. I hear the 'whack' as the ball is hit and see it soar through the air. Her strong hands catch it and another one is out. The north island wins over the south again.

That young girl within me remembers many of the thoughts and wishes she had as she walked to school, thinking nothing of the three mile hike each way and proud of her ability to make it in under half an hour. She feels that no time has passed since she roamed the beach in search of the ornamental shells of the oyster and water-worn pieces of driftwood, leaping confidently from boulder to boulder. It seems that it was only yesterday she sat on the rocks and listened to the waves lap onto the shore while she watched seagulls swoop and squawk as they grabbed morsels of food from the orange beaks of the oyster catchers.

That girl is very much alive but she is locked within a body whose flesh is no longer firm or supple and whose movements are no longer quick. Her skin is smooth and her hair is shining while the stranger who is home to this girl lacks enthusiasm and exuberance.

When I was busier and more able-bodied and those around me valued what I had to offer, I saw only the young girl in the mirror but she no longer looks back at me; she's no longer seen by anyone, not even myself. But I know she's still there; I can feel her and hear her, and her thoughts are still mine. Late at night when the only light are the stars in the sky, we remember the friends we once knew. They are all gone, like the young girl in the mirror.

My own children are now getting their own wrinkles, thick waists and gray hair; they have aches and pains and health issues of their own. They spend their leisure time at the gym and take vitamins hoping to hold old age at bay. How did it happen that these children of mine look older than the girl within me feels? And my grandchildren, looking like my children did only yesterday, look at me like the stranger I am. ...