She Chose Him Over My Dying Mother

1: 1

Twenty below.

My mother came back from the grocery store, and with no code to get through the door, she stood outside alone all night.

I was away on a business trip, half sick with worry and anger, and I called my wife.

We agreed you'd add my mother to the door code, didn't we?

Her voice came thick with sleep and irritation.

"Oh, Malcolm's back. We grew up together, I can't have him locked out."

"The lock holds five faces, doesn't it? One more slot for my mother wouldn't get in anyone's way."

"It's already full. You and me, Malcolm and his two dogs. That's exactly five."

I settled for the next best thing.

"Then just delete one of the dogs."

Her voice shot up, sharp with displeasure.

"Malcolm and his dogs come as a set. If the dogs can't get in, he won't either."

Then came the beep of the line going dead in my ear.

Seven years of marriage, worth less than two dogs.

Then let it end here.

After my wife, Hope James, got pregnant, her morning sickness was severe.

Worried about her, I asked if she'd agree to have my mother come stay and take care of her.

She said yes to adding my mother to the door code. Instead she added her childhood friend Malcolm Delgado and his two dogs.

And left my mother standing outside a whole night in the freezing winter.

I booked the earliest flight home.

My hands and feet were ice cold the whole way, and I couldn't stop shaking.

When I saw my mother, her face was ghost white and her lips a dark blue.

"Mom, how are you feeling?"

"Gerard Pruitt, don't be scared, I'm fine. Don't let this hold up your work."

She was burning up all over, and still she pulled herself together to comfort me.

"Go home, don't carry any germs back to Hope, she's still pregnant."

My eyes went hot, and a dull ache spread through my chest.

I remembered when my mother first came, right after the wedding. Hope had cleaned the guest room three days ahead, bought a new mattress, new pillows.

"Mom, once you're here, you're in your own home. I'll take good care of you for Gerard's sake."

And now the same person who'd sworn to honor her had, with her own hands, locked her out at twenty below.

It took two days for my mother's fever to break, and in all that time Hope never called once.

On the third day, I brought my mother home.

Malcolm was lounging on the couch in my pajamas, watching a show.

Hope sat beside him, peeling an orange for him.

The nursery we'd set up had been turned into a full kennel.

Hearing us come in, Malcolm looked up and complained.

"Ma'am, I hate to say it, but he only asked you to buy some groceries, and you go and storm off in a sulk? Why the big temper?"

My eyes red, I stared hard at Hope.

"My mother stood outside all night. You didn't know that?"

"She called and you didn't pick up. She rang the bell and you didn't open. What was that?"

Malcolm curled his lip.

"Gerard, don't blame Hope."

"I just got back from overseas and I'm jet-lagged. She didn't want anything disturbing my rest, so she put her phone on silent for me."

My mother tugged at my sleeve, trying to smooth things over.

"Gerard, don't be angry. Hope's still pregnant, she can't get upset."

"I'm fine, really, it's nothing."

She'd frozen herself into pneumonia. The doctor said a little later and her life could have been in danger.

But her stepping back didn't buy her any understanding. It only fed the mockery.

"Ma'am, aren't you being a little delicate? You waited outside one night, that's all. Did you really have to put on a whole pity act and go to the hospital?"

"Hope and I used to get up before dawn in winter to run, in short sleeves, and we were fine."

"Right, Hope?"

From the moment we walked in, Hope hadn't said a word. Now she finally answered, siding with him openly.

"Such a small thing, and you have to turn the whole house upside down over it."

"I always said you shouldn't live with old people. If she couldn't get in, couldn't she just go to a hotel?"

"Making herself suffer for nothing, and now she comes and blames us."

I lifted my head and stared at Hope.

"Her ID was in the house. How was she supposed to check into a hotel?"

"Didn't it once cross your mind that my mother not coming back for days might mean something had happened to her?"

Malcolm's eyes went red.

"It's all my fault. Stop fighting, both of you. I'll just leave."

Hope pressed the neatly peeled orange into his hand.

"She's standing here just fine now, isn't she? What's all the drama about?"

She pulled Malcolm into the study and slammed the door.

A moment later, the two of them were laughing and chatting inside.

They'd grown up together.

Hope knew every one of Malcolm's likes.

Knew he couldn't stand bitter things, knew he had to hold something to sleep, knew he hated picking bones out of his fish.

All these years, every holiday, big or small, Hope would fly overseas to be with him.

At first I used to complain.

"Can't you be more reasonable? Malcolm and I have spent every holiday together since we were kids. How can I just abandon him because I married you?"

So from beginning to end, I was the outsider.

My mother stood there at a loss, then slipped into the messy kitchen.

She bent over the days' worth of pots and dishes and started washing.

"Mom, let me do it."

"No, no, you sit and rest. I'll wash them, it's fine."

She stayed bent over, scrubbing every bowl carefully.

And it hit me all at once.

My mother had gotten old.

Her hair had gone white.

The lines on her face had deepened.

Her hands weren't as quick as they used to be.

She was sixty-one this year.

The age when she should be at home, taking it easy.

Instead, for me, she'd traveled all this way to take care of Hope.

And here, she was treated like she was in the way.

"Mom, I'm sorry."

She froze, then reached up and wiped the corner of her eye.

"Silly boy, what are you apologizing for?"

"I'm fine. As long as you're doing well, I don't mind anything."

The tears came before I could stop them.

And all at once, the future felt like something I couldn't see my way through at all.

2: 2

Early the next morning, Mom pushed through how awful she felt, got up, and started making breakfast for Hope.

Malcolm stood with his arms folded, wearing the look of a man who was owed all of it.

"Ma'am, I can't do heavy oil or heavy salt. Keep my food light."

"Oh, and my Snowball and Toffee want a fresh meat meal in the morning."

"Fix their food first. They're delicate, and if they go hungry, you couldn't afford to make that up to me."

Mom stood frozen where she was, her lips working around words that wouldn't come.

"I've never done it before. I don't know how..."

Malcolm's eyes reddened at once, brimming with hurt, and he turned to Hope, who had only just woken.

"Hope, did I say something wrong?"

"I just don't want the dogs going hungry, but your mother keeps making excuses, and Gerard glared at me. It scared me."

Hope's expression went cold.

"Gerard, are you done making a scene?"

"To Malcolm, those dogs are family. So my mom cooks one meal for them. What's the harm?"

"Can you please be a little bigger about this? Stop nickel-and-diming everything."

Watching her take his side like that, my heart sank another notch toward the bottom.

"Hope, where's your conscience?"

"My mother came here to take care of you. She is not his maid."

Mom hurried over and caught my arm, pleading under her breath.

"Gerard, don't. It's fine, I'm fine."

"It's only cooking for the dogs. I'll do it. Don't fight."

Then she turned and walked quietly into the kitchen.

Every move she made was careful, terrified of doing it wrong and setting off another argument.

Malcolm's mouth curled into the smile of a man who had won.

Breakfast was ready, the table covered with it.

Malcolm went straight to the head seat.

His two dogs pranced up onto the dining chairs and sprawled at the table's edge with their tongues hanging out.

Off to the side, Mom quietly ladled porridge for everyone and passed out the chopsticks.

Hope tenderly picked out food for Malcolm and peeled his egg.

"Eat more. You're too thin."

She never once noticed that these past weeks, sick with worry over her pregnancy, I had dropped twenty pounds.

So it turned out that once you stopped caring, a person could stand in front of you all day and you still wouldn't see him.

Mom was just about to sit down when Malcolm frowned.

"Ma'am, I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I can't eat anything other people's chopsticks have touched."

"Maybe from now on you should use your own set of bowls and chopsticks. Don't mix them in with ours."

The insult in it was unmistakable.

He was plainly saying my mother, a country woman, was dirty, unfit to sit and eat at the same table as them.

I couldn't stand to listen anymore.

"My mother worked all morning. She's not fit to eat here?"

Malcolm bowed his head, wounded, his voice catching.

"I'm sorry, Gerard. I'm too high-maintenance. I shouldn't have a germaphobe thing, I shouldn't be staying here upsetting you."

Hope set her chopsticks down at once, her face like iron.

"Gerard, can you stop picking at everything?"

"Malcolm spent years abroad. He's particular about table manners. His germaphobia isn't aimed at anyone on purpose."

"Do you have to be this aggressive about it?"

Mom rushed forward and bent to apologize.

"It's fine, it's fine, I'm the one who doesn't know the rules. I'll use my own bowl and chopsticks. Please, both of you, stop fighting."

With that, she quietly picked up the oldest set of bowl and chopsticks and went off to the kitchen alone.

Back bent, all by herself, head down, shoveling in her rice.

A dense, needling ache spread through my chest.

I looked down at the porridge in my bowl, the rising steam blurring my sight.

If this mismatched marriage could only go on at the price of sacrificing my mother over and over,

then it wasn't worth keeping.

3: 3

The weather service issued a red blizzard warning.

Malcolm was curled up on the couch, not even lifting his head.

"Edith, I feel like the breakfast pudding from that old place on the south side today."

Mom froze for a second, then looked out at the raging wind.

That diner was an hour and a half away by bus.

Mom only hesitated a moment, and Malcolm's face changed.

He turned to Hope, his mood dropping.

"Hope, does Edith not like me?"

"I just wanted one bowl of breakfast pudding, and she won't even give me that."

"Living here in your house, am I just a burden? Am I in the way?"

Hope's brow furrowed, her voice cold.

"Mom, you're a grown woman. Can't you be a little more considerate?"

"Malcolm spent all those years abroad, and this is the one thing he's been craving. Can't you just go along with it?"

I was about to speak when Mom cut in first.

"All right, I'll go get it."

"Mom!"

"It's fine, I was thinking of getting out for a walk anyway."

The wind outside was fierce.

It tore her hair loose and knocked her thin frame this way and that.

Watching her walk off, something in me ached that I couldn't put into words.

I kept looking out the window, and after a full three hours and more, Mom finally came back, limping.

Her face was flushed raw with cold, her lips purple, frost caught on her brows and lashes.

"Malcolm, I got the breakfast pudding. It's still warm."

Malcolm opened it and glanced inside.

"Ugh, took too long. I've lost my appetite."

Mom froze.

"I, I got back as fast as I could."

"Never mind, never mind, I won't eat it."

He tossed the thermos into the trash.

The pale breakfast pudding spilled out.

Mom stood there, mud and snow on her knees, head down like a child who'd done something wrong.

I grew up in a single-parent home.

On our wedding day, Hope held my hand.

"Gerard, for the rest of my life I'll treat your mom like my own and be good to her. I'll never let either of you suffer again."

But every hurt now came from her.

My voice shook, and I couldn't stop it.

"That's my mother, not a servant you hired."

Malcolm's eyes went red.

"Hope, I didn't say a word. Why is Gerard always coming after me like this?"

Hope glared at me.

"She went on her own. Nobody forced her. And she lives here free, so doing a little something is only right, isn't it?"

I was shaking with anger, and for a moment I couldn't get a word out.

Malcolm cut a sideways look at my mom, pinching his nose, disgust all over his face.

"Ugh, so filthy. It reeks."

"Edith, go rinse off in the bathroom, right now. Don't get the place dirty."

My mom nodded, flustered, and quietly turned toward the bathroom.

I followed her in and watched her carefully roll up her pant leg. The skin underneath was one big bruise, purple and blue.

My voice broke.

"Mom, how did this happen? Does it hurt?"

"It's fine, I just slipped and fell. It'll heal in a couple of days."

"Mom, I want a divorce."

Her voice was worn out.

"Silly boy, Hope's pregnant. Where would you go?"

"A baby needs a whole family. How can a child do without a father?"

"It doesn't matter if I have it hard, if I'm worn out, if I take some hurt. As long as you're happy, that's enough for me."

The heart of a parent is much the same the world over.

All her life she'd been proud and stood on her own.

The year my father walked out on the two of us, she wasn't even forty.

Relatives and friends all urged her to remarry, said raising a child alone was too hard.

She refused, and gritted her teeth, and raised me, and put me through college.

When the neighbors picked on us, a widow and her boy, she stood in the doorway with a kitchen cleaver and cursed them up and down three whole streets, and after that nobody dared bother us.

And now, in this house, for me and for the baby in Hope's belly, she had ground down every scrap of her pride and dignity, until she didn't even dare raise her voice.

My happiness shouldn't come from her swallowing everything.

That night, I texted the lawyer.

"Please draw up a divorce agreement for me as soon as you can. I'm willing to leave with nothing."

"If Hope wants the baby, I'll pay double child support. If she doesn't want it, I'll raise it myself."

4: 4

From that day on, Malcolm acted like the man of the house.

The smallest thing not to his liking, and he ran straight to Hope to complain.

And every time, Hope took his side without asking a single question.

"Try to be a little more careful with what you do. Stop being such a nuisance to everyone."

"There are a lot of people living here. Could you show some basic hygiene?"

Every time, my mother only lowered her head and apologized, murmuring that she'd do better next time.

She never once defended herself.

Every bit of it she swallowed down in silence.

On my birthday, I came home from grocery shopping with her.

Malcolm rushed up to us, his eyes red.

"Where's my pocket watch? My grandmother gave it to me before she died. Please, give it back to me."

We had no idea what he was talking about.

"What pocket watch?"

Hope's face darkened, and she turned to my mother.

"Were you in Malcolm's room today?"

My mother nodded without thinking. "I went in to clean."

Malcolm threw himself sobbing into Hope's arms.

"She's the one who stole it. She's had it out for me from the start, always taking her son's side."

My mother's face flushed red in an instant.

"I didn't. Why would I ever take your things?"

"Then let us search. Your room, and you too."

My mother stood in the doorway, her lips trembling, her eyes rimmed red.

In more than sixty years of living, she had never been humiliated like this.

"I didn't steal anything."

I stepped in front of her. "That's enough. My mother isn't that kind of person."

"Of course you're taking her side. The two of you are ganging up on me!"

He shoved past us into her room and tore through everything.

Hope upended my mother's bag, and a pocket watch fell out.

Her voice was ice. "What else is there to say? Caught red-handed."

My mother's mouth opened, and she stared at the scene, lost.

"I didn't. I don't know how it got into my bag."

She turned to me, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Gerard, believe me, I didn't take his things"

Watching the smug smile pull at Malcolm's mouth, I shook with rage.

"This is a setup."

"Enough!"

Hope's eyes were full of disappointment and disgust, and she kicked my mother's things out the door.

"There's no room for a thief in this house. Get out!"

The anger sent a sharp pain through my chest. I pressed a hand over it and forced myself to speak.

"Hope, we can check the security footage. One look and we'll know exactly who took it."

Malcolm's sobbing hitched, and something like panic flickered across his eyes.

"You're all bullying me. Fine, I'll go, I'll leave, is that what you want?"

And he bolted out the door.

Hope snatched up the car keys.

"If anything happens to Malcolm, I will never let this go."

I gripped her arm and held on.

"Hope, my chest hurts so much"

Hope wrenched her arm free.

"Quit the act. That fake look on your face makes me sick."

The pull threw me hard against the corner of the table.

The pain hit, and I slid to the floor with my hand still on my chest.

Something warm ran down from my head.

My mother threw herself down beside me, her hands shaking.

"Gerard, Gerard"

She rushed to the door and blocked Hope, begging with everything she had.

"Hope, please, take him to the hospital, I'm begging you!"

Hope looked down at her, cold, unmoved.

"What an act. One little push and it's life or death. I never knew you had this much drama in you."

"Malcolm's out there alone. What if something happens to him?"

My mother knelt on the floor and shuffled forward on her knees until she was in front of Hope.

"Hope, I'm begging you, save Gerard first."

"Make me kneel and beg forgiveness, throw me in jail, whatever you want, just save Gerard first"

I wanted to hold her back, but there was no strength left in me.

Hope looked down at my kneeling mother, her face blank.

"I used to think it wasn't easy, you raising Gerard all on your own. I actually admired you for it."

"But now I understand. Some people's misfortune is something they bring on themselves."

"The child in my belly doesn't need genes this cheap. I'm going right now to get rid of it."

My mother's eyes went wide, and she clutched at Hope's pant leg in a panic.

"Hope, please, don't do this out of spite. The child is innocent."

"It's all my fault, just don't hurt yourself or the baby, I'll do anything you ask"

Hope stepped around her in disgust and strode off.

I remembered when we first found out she was pregnant, how Hope had cried out in front of everyone.

"I'm going to be a mother!"

That night she'd held my hand, thrilled, planning the baby's name, the preschool, the college

And now, over Malcolm's lie, she wanted to get rid of our child.

"Hope, if you dare abort this baby, we're getting divorced."

She gave a cold snort, without a moment's hesitation.

"The morning sickness that's made me so miserable, it's your cheap genes doing this to me."

"As long as Malcolm hasn't forgiven you, I won't be keeping your child."

"And if you want to divorce me over the baby, go right ahead."

With that she kicked my mother aside and hurried out.

Watching her walk away without looking back, everything inside me went to ash.

Hope, there really is no future left for us.