Lingo Slinger

Mom used to always tell me that husbands lasted about as long as a roll of toilet paper. She sort of robbed me of any romanticized view of marriage I might have had. Now on husband number five (Jack) she had successfully transformed herself from a loving, nurturing mom to a cold-hearted money-grubbing bitch.

It was cool in high school being dropped off in a Rolls Royce or limo once in while. But it quickly became old; as did the increase in age of the men she wed.

I still remember the way she used to look at dad. We might not have had much, but we were happy. They were in love, and we made due with what we had. When he cheated on her, everything changed. He took away our happy normal life and I became the bastard child of a gold digging bitter alcoholic. He used to send letters but stopped when mom married husband number two.

We lived in a huge estate home in Fern Hill, but our house was cold. We had a kitchen the size of some people’s apartments, but it never smelled like home cooking.  Mom didn’t like me calling her mom anymore either, she said I was too old to call her mom and that I should instead call her Louise.  So here I was in this giant estate home with an absent mom, no father, grieving my former life. A life in which some would say I had nothing. But truly, I had everything.

One day Jack was reading the stock section of the newspaper as I drank my morning tea. Jack was an all right guy. Man of few words, but very good at investing his money.

“Hey Jack. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure you can doll. What is it?”

“What did you see in my mom?”

Jack laughed heartily “You better be a little quieter asking questions like that dear. She might come in here and beat you over the head with a frying pan.”

I smiled “Seriously though.”

Jack sighed. “Well, it had been less than a year since Margie died and your mom and I met at a singles dance. For the first time in a long time she made me feel happy. Happiness was something that was missing from my life.”

“So… you were lonely?” I asked

Jack sipped his coffee deliberately and smiled at me. “I think we were both lonely. But we both had something the other needed” he said. “Plus we were drunker than a skunk” he joked.

I almost felt bad for Jack. That he was spending the last good years of his life with my mother, who was going to divorce him, take him for half of everything and move on to the next poor sucker.

It embarrassed me that I was even related to her. We literally had nothing in common and said very little to each other on a daily basis. Our relationship was hostile at best. She knew what I thought of her, and couldn’t blame me for it. Any woman who views marriage as disposable as toilet paper, has some serious issues to work out.

One day I came home from my theatre group and found mom half naked on the couch.

“Mom – are you okay?”

She was drunk… Or high. I wasn’t quite sure, since in addition to being a hard-working alcoholic, was also an avid pill popper.

She began to cry “Why did he have to go and cheat on me Mel, why?”

It took me a minute, but I was shocked to realize that she was talking about my dad. She actually still held a torch for him in that cold blooded barely beating heart of hers.

“Mom. Don’t do this to yourself. You’ve moved on. You left him. You remarried four times… You never looked back. Why bother torturing yourself? Let it go.”

“I loved him” she said, as she wiped her mascara dripping eyes.

“So… What about Jack?” I asked

She paused. “He was there…”

This was the first honest thing I had heard come out of my mother’s mouth in years.

“Well, why don’t you stop being this person and start being yourself again mom… I can’t fucking stand calling you Louise. The men you date are old enough to be my grandfather, and you are just a shallow shell of a human being. I want my old mom back. The one who didn’t mind me calling her MOM.”

She broke down crying. Something she rarely did. Long streaks of jet-black mascara lined her face. Her camisole strap fell off of her shoulder as she clutched her snotty tissue.

“I’m a horrible mother” she said

“Yes. You have been. But you don’t have to continue to be” I said

I was shocked at the size of my balls. These were things I had wanted to say to her for years, but had never built up the courage. I guess her weakened state of mind made it easy.

“Is this how you really want to live your life mom?”

She looked down at the hand-woven Indian rug. “No” she said. “No it isn’t.”

**********

Within a few weeks, she filed for divorce (yet again). Only this time things were different. She didn’t replace Jack. She stopped getting drunk every night at pathetic cougar bars, and she sold our estate home. She didn’t even take Jack for everything he had and was still able to be friends with him.

We moved into a modest home in a nice neighbourhood. One where our neighbours were a few feet away, as appose to a few acres away. It felt more normal to me. And our kitchen was even used for cooking sometimes!

Somehow, mom had done a total 360. I didn’t know how or why or even if it was what I said to her that night that changed her. But I was glad to have her back.

For my 18th birthday she booked a trip to Bali for us and we spent a week and a half hanging out. No men, no games, no Louise. Just me and my mom… hanging out. Trying to catch up on ten lost years.