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Blurry
by zprymantis@smilingwithteeth.com
I was about to snap her picture, and saw the glow. When I looked
at my mom, she always seemed to have a fuzzy glow around her head.
It was probably either that I had very poor vision, or I saw auras
or something. She was beautiful, more beautiful than a mother
should be, embarrassingly beautiful.
On parents visiting day that year, in the fifth grade, she had
nudged her way to sit between Mrs. Wall and Mrs. Harvey at the
back of the classroom. I heard the other kids whispering and wondering
whose mother she was. I was both proud, and uncomfortable. She
wouldn't have seemed out of place between June Cleaver and Laura
Petri, but here in my fifth grade classroom, her tight woolen
skirt, hose, high cheek bones, perfect posture and confident smile
made me feel not quite worthy, or something.
She had been working hard before our vacation that summer to have
her daughter cross over from clumsy childish girl to woman, and
I guess I just wasn't ready. She had gone shopping with me in
the weeks before, buying new spring outfits, and like girlfriends
we picked out matching huarache sandals. I had been instructed
to pack the new things until our vacation, to keep them nice until
our trip, since I was notoriously hard on clothes. I was also
hard on myself, with skinned knees, ragged fingernails and messy
hair; I was oceans away from my mother's feminine perfection.
There we were, on vacation, in a fancy Niagara Falls hotel room.
She had just taken my picture, as I sat posed at the desk pretending
to write on the hotel stationary .
"You can show this picture to your friend, Charlene, she will
be so jealous!" my mom said, as she snapped the picture. For that
one moment, I was pretty, I was my mother's daughter.
Then it was her turn, and I lifted the camera and focused as she
posed on the edge of the bed. I took the picture that lived in
my wallet for years. She had that familiar glow about her, one
hand on her hip, the other laying gently on her lap. Her waist
thin, her posture perfect, her smile had that movie star quality,
and I snapped the picture.
It was right after that picture snapped, a few moments later,
that I spilled the ashtray. The dirty sooty contents landed in
her open suitcase and I kneeled down to help, and ultimately made
matters worse.
Her frustration with her daughter must have reached a peak at
that moment, and I was quickly pulled across her lap. My mother's
hard slaps to my thighs and bottom stung right through my skirt
and though we had been more like girlfriends when picking out
our sandals, it was definitely an angry mother who bent down to
remove her shoe and lift up her daughter's skirt.
When the huarache sandal landed on my panty clad bottom, I could
feel the edge of the small heel crack against my skin. I was a
strong girl, not too small for my age, but I was no match for
the anger that kept my mother's gripe tight around my waist and
that shoe landing hard on my panties. Then she lowered them, exposing
my reddened bottom, and I suppose that was when she reached for
the hairbrush laying on the bed near her thigh. The hairbrush
did it's job, filling in the blanks left by the sandal. My entire
bottom glowed an angry red when my mother finally set me free.
I was gasping for breath, having been crying and kicking to struggle
from her hold, and once I was free, flung myself exhausted on
the bed and sobbed. My mom had a strange way of making things
right again. She silently poked through her suitcase and removed
the things that needed to be cleaned, and then unexpectedly spoke
when she noticed her sandal's sole had cracked in half. "Look
what you made me do!" she laughed.
I sat up and smiled back at her, forgiving her and myself, the
blurry aura still around her, emphasized by my tears.
© 2003 by zprymantis@smilingwithteeth.com, not to be reposted or distributed
without permission |