Chapter 31: The Mom Date

Cheryl and I held hands as we walked the few blocks down to what passed for the main strip of my hometown, with my mother walking in front of us. There were two bars within a block or so of each other. Neither was classy enough to be called a pub, but Paddy’s was the classier of the two. It was a cool night, pleasant enough for early November. No one said much. I think Mom was gathering her thoughts, and I was trying to guess what she wanted to talk about. I glanced at Cheryl, and saw the nervousness written on her face. I gave her hand a squeeze, and when she turned to look at me, I mouthed “I love you” to her. She smiled at me.

We found a booth in the corner, and removed our coats. Cheryl slid in first, so that she was sitting between Mom and I.

The server came over to take our orders, and gave a little squeal. “Johnny!”, she exclaimed, holding her arms open for a hug. Yep, it was her, alright. I’d recognize that rack anywhere, and while the blonde hair had a few pink strands dyed into it now, there was no mistaking who it was. I wanted to crawl under the table, but it was too late for that, so I stood and hugged her.

“I didn’t know you were working here,” I said, when she let me go.

“I just started a month or so ago,” she replied. “I dropped out of school and moved back home. And what are you doing here? Are you just back for the weekend?”

“Yep,” I nodded, stepping aside slightly so that I didn’t have my back to Cheryl. “I brought my girlfriend home to meet Mom and my sisters. Courtney, this is Cheryl Roberts. Cheryl, this is Courtney Woodland.”

Cheryl, God bless her, was a pro. She stood up and held out her hand to Courtney, who took it and then looked Cheryl up and down before turning back to me.

“Holy crap, Johnny. I mean ... wow. She’s gorgeous.”

I nodded.

“I’ve noticed,” I responded. “And you know my mother, of course.”

“Yes, of course. Nice to see you again, Ms McDonald.”

Cheryl and I sat down again, and Courtney took our drink orders. Cheryl contained herself until Courtney had walked away, and then she started to giggle. I elbowed her, which didn’t help. My mother gave us a suspicious look.

“Can I ask what this is all about?”

I sighed.

“We were just talking about Courtney this afternoon,” I explained, hoping to leave it there. My mother raised an eyebrow.

“John was telling me that he used to have a thing for her,” Cheryl explained.

Now it was my mother’s turn to sigh. I was doomed.

“I honestly do not know what boys see in girls like her,” my mother said.

Courtney came back at that moment, and set our drinks on the table: red wine for Mom, a beer for me, rum and Coke for Cheryl. I watched her lean over the table, her tits barely contained by her blouse and bra. Then I watched her walk away, her ass barely covered by her tiny skirt.

“I would have thought that was pretty obvious, Mom,” I said. “I mean, what guys see in her is pretty much all hanging out of that outfit she’s squeezed into.”

My mother rolled her eyes. Cheryl elbowed me. I decided to quit while I was ahead - or at least to quit before I got any further behind - and took a sip of my beer. My mother took a drink of her wine. The silence was awkward.

“Mom,” I asked. “I put all our stuff in my room. I figured Cheryl could sleep there - but you haven’t told me yet what you think about where I might sleep.”

My mother drank again, then took a deep breath.

“I know I haven’t,” she said. She sighed again. “This conversation seemed like a good idea when I planned it. Now, well, I guess I have to go through with it.

“Johnny, you and I should likely have had this talk just with the two of us. But it seemed too early to have it at Thanksgiving, and then I didn’t want to have it over the phone, and then you said you wanted to bring Cheryl home...”

Cheryl interrupted.

“Mandy, if you want, I can go back to your place and hang out with the girls. I’d need John to give me directions, but I’m sure I could find it. I don’t mind leaving you two to talk.”

Mom shook her head.

“No, it’s likely best if you stay.” She took another swallow of wine. “Johnny, I know that this seems strange. I mean, you’ve been away from home for three terms now. You’ve had your own place that whole time. You could be doing anything you want to there. And I assume that you and Cheryl have had sex, and so it seems ridiculous to try to insist that you don’t sleep with her when you’re here. But ... I worry.”

“Mom, it’s ok. I don’t mind sleeping separately when we’re here. It’s not a big deal.”

“I appreciate that. But it’s not just the sleeping together. I feel ... well, I’m happy you have a girlfriend. Really. But ... it’s just ... like I said, I worry.”

“About what, Mom?”

She raised her eyes from the table and looked me in the eyes. I could see a single tear on her cheek.

“About how serious this seems to be. But mostly, about you, Johnny.”

Cheryl reached over to hold my hand.

“Mom, all parents worry about their kids. You’re supposed to worry about me. That’s part of your job.”

Mom shook her head.

“That’s not it, Johnny. I worry about you because ... well ... because you’re easily taken advantage of. Manipulated even. Especially by women.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I took a drink of my beer, and tried again.

“Mom, if you are suggesting that Cheryl is manipulating me somehow...”

My mother shook her head.

“No, Johnny, that’s not necessarily what I’m suggesting. Though it certainly sounds to me like she has manipulated you in the past.” She glanced at Cheryl. “Am I right, Cheryl?”

Cheryl nodded, sadly.

“I’m not saying she’s still doing it. But I am saying that I know how easily you can be used. Your sisters do it to you all the time. They have you wrapped around their little fingers, both of them. If one of them asked you to do something criminal for them, you’d do it.”

I interrupted again.

“Mom, that is not true. I would not knowingly break the law, even for Jamie and Julie. Now, if they had already done something that had broken the law, I might try to help them cover it up. But that’s different.”

My mother laughed, but her laughter had a hollow ring to it.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “I think they could get you to do just about anything they wanted you to do. And they know how to do that because ... well, because ... they learned it from me.”

“Mom, don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “When have you ever manipulated me?”

She didn’t respond for a moment, and when she finally spoke, she didn’t look at me.

“If I’m honest,” she said, sadly, “I’ve manipulated you pretty much every single day since your father left home.”

“Mom, that’s crazy. You haven’t -”

“Yes, Johnny, I have. I did it for good reasons, at the time. But that doesn’t feel like it matters, now.”

I didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, Cheryl took over.

“Ms Mc - Mandy - what do you mean?”

My mother took another drink, and sighed.

“When the kids’ father left me, I ... it was a mess. I had three little kids to feed, a car that was on its last legs, and a house with a mortgage that I had no hope of ever paying off. I thought we had savings, but Jason had gambled all that away. My parents had never liked him, and told me that they’d tried to warn me that he was bad news. There was no one I could turn to for help, and in any case I was damned if I was going to admit that I couldn’t do it. So I set out to prove that I could do it.

“The first thing I did was to look for a job. It was the end of the summer, and I got hired at the elementary school as the secretary. Johnny was in grade 5, Jamie in grade 1. Julie was just starting junior kindergarten, which was only mornings, but there was a childcare program in the school that would cover the afternoons, and it didn’t cost too much.

“About a month after Jason left, his father called, and asked if he could come and see me. I said yes. He drove over one night after the kids were asleep. I had no idea what he wanted, and I was worried, though in the end I didn’t need to be. He told me that he hated what his son had done to me, and that he had a suggestion. He offered to give me, then and there, a third of what he owned - the share that would otherwise have been left to Jason when he died. If I accepted, he’d rewrite his will and leave Jason out of it, dividing his estate evenly between Jason’s two brothers instead. I thought it over, and agreed.

“He showed me some figures, and then wrote me a cheque. Basically he gave me most of his savings, and left himself the equity in his home. That money paid off the mortgage on our house, bought me a new car, and started the kids’ school fund. Now I could make it work - financially at least - because my job paid enough for food and utilities and even a bit extra now and then, but it wouldn’t have covered the mortgage or a new car.”

I shook my head.

“I’ve never heard you talk about this, Mom,” I interrupted, “and I’m interested in hearing about it. I really am. But what does this have to do with manipulating me?”

“I’m getting to that,” she continued. “So I had a way to support myself and the kids. Financially, I could make it work. Now I just had to find a way to be two parents. And I knew I couldn’t do that. So I leaned on Johnny. I told him he was the oldest, and that he was the man in the family now, and that he had to help out. Every morning, I’d get up and get lunches packed and breakfast laid out, then I’d wake the kids, and leave to go to work. Johnny would make sure the girls ate and got dressed, then walk them to school. He’d see that they were in their lineups, then go to class himself. In the afternoon, he’d collect them and bring them home. He’d give them a snack and start supper. He taught them to ride their bikes and their scooters. He helped them with their homework. He helped them clean up their toys. He helped with the laundry and the yardwork. He spent his childhood being a parent instead of a child.

“Johnny wanted to please me, and he knew it made me happy when he helped out, so he went out of his way to do more and more. And I knew I should stop him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

I snorted. “Don’t be crazy, Mom.”

“Right. I’m crazy. So when Julie started having nightmares and coming into my bedroom in the middle of the night, why did you convince her to go to your room and wake you up instead? Because you wanted me to sleep, so you sacrificed your own rest for mine.”

“When did you find out -”

“I knew all along. And I should have stopped it. I should have told Julie to come to me, and not to you. I should have stepped up and actually acted like a parent. But I was so very tired, and if I’m honest, I loved the fact that she was waking you up at night instead of me. So I let you do it. I know that she still comes into your bed sometimes, when she’s upset about something. And I cannot imagine you ever telling her to get out, or to let you sleep, or to leave you alone and let you cuddle your girlfriend, because I trained you to do whatever your sisters needed you to do to keep them from bothering me.”

“But that isn’t manipulating, Mom. That’s just teaching someone to be a decent human being.”

“But does a mom trying to raise her son to be a ‘decent human being’ tell him lies to get what she wants?”

“What? When did you ever lie to me?”

“Big brother dates. Remember those?” I nodded. “Why do you do that? ‘Because mom doesn’t like pizza.’ Right? Except that I love pizza. I sometimes sneak it when you’re not looking. I told you that I didn’t like pizza because I knew all three of you loved it, and it was a way to get an evening to myself.”

I stared at my mother, in utter disbelief.

“You don’t believe me, I can tell. But it’s true. It was one Friday that first fall. I’d had an awful week. The kids had been rowdy, the principal grumpy, the teachers demanding, and to top it all off I had a bad case of PMS. I came home exhausted. I hadn’t been organized that morning, so there was nothing to make for supper, and I had no interest in making anything anyway. So I pulled a twenty dollar bill from my wallet and suggested that you walk down to the pizza place with your sisters and buy them dinner. Jamie asked if it was a date. I said yes, of course it was a date. A big brother date. You all headed off, as happy as clams, and I took a bottle of wine upstairs and ran a bath. It was heavenly. And every couple of weeks from then on, I did the same thing. I lied to you just to get some peace and quiet. And as soon as you were 16, and I could legally book a campsite in your name, I started to make you take your sisters camping every summer. I told you it was so that the three of you could bond. But really, I just wanted a couple of days to myself.”