Filial Pity

“So she finally shows herself.”

The creaking of floorboards outside the room stops.

“Four days home without leaving your room once. All you do is tiptoe to the kitchen and then go back.” The woman paused in her diatribe, looking the girl up and down through the half-open door. “And you wonder why you don’t have your figure anymore? Aiya. You should move around more and circulate your blood. Why don’t you exercise every now and then?”

 The door is slammed wide open.

“Okay hold on, we literally had this conversation yesterday. I have work, ok? I am studying, just like you wanted me to.” The girl scoffs. “I wanted to go to Vail with my friends, but no-o. I had to do what YOU want but surprise, you’re still yelling at me. ”

“When will you stop wasting your time with that short boy? He looks unintelligent.”

“I was literally in my room studying, didn’t you want me to be a good student? You won’t let me hang out with my friends, and you aren’t happy when I’m home. Haven’t I already appeased you enough? Dictator. ”

The appropriate response, the woman decides, is silence. When the girl was still a teenager, they had screamed at each other until their accusations were punctuated by sobbing hiccups. But the girl is fully an adult now–21 and a college junior. And the woman? She had evolved. Tried to make her peace with an empty nest. Started seeing a therapist twice a month. Whether out of pride or exhaustion, her message is clear–the argument is beneath her. 

The woman turns away from the girl to lie on her side, easing her tired bones and sagging flesh into cracked leather. She finds a kindred spirit with the couch that engulfs her, with every creak threatening to collapse resounding in her own body. These fights–and the never ending cycle of cooking, cleaning, working, barely sleeping–had worn her down, etching into the wrinkles of her face. A daily concoction of detergent, dishwater, and grease had calloused her slender fingers into the rough knobs she was now wringing together. Before her eyelids drooped from crow’s feet, when her smile lines were charming features rather than signifiers of expiration, the woman might’ve been described as pretty–even beautiful. But that had long been swept under the faux fur carpet adorning her oak floor. She had enshrined those golden memories in her museum of rare foreign treasures for reminiscent times, imagining herself regaling her daughter when she got to the same age. But the moment was never right and now they were collecting dust. She longed to forget all of it. 

The woman finds herself hugging the soft rings of her stomach, shielding her ugly vulnerabilities from a girl half her age, refusing to fuel the fickle outbursts battering at her proud back. Even with her traitorous heart pounding at every accusation, the woman refuses to concede. She had always done things her way, refusing to be humbled. Success never came to her from appeasing others, and experience told her she knew what was best. She had starved herself of familiarity, stripped herself bare of all comforts so the girl had food to eat and clothes to wear. In return, the girl spent her time partying and vacationing, worrying about a ski trip rather than the woman who had dedicated everything to her service. Her distasteful interests were wasting both of their youths.

Her therapist had said that children are not responsible for their parent’s emotions, and she had just nodded because sure, the words made sense. But was it really so wrong to expect back just a sliver of the love she’d poured into the girl? 

At the periphery of the woman’s consciousness, the girl began her attacks once more.

“Are you ignoring me? Aren’t you the one  who started this discussion and now you’re running away?” 

The woman straightens her neck, shaping her battlement. 

Another blow follows. “Hello? I thought you were supposed to be the mature one here.”

The woman hugs herself tighter, filling the gaps in her curtain wall.

“You’re always criticizing everyone like you’re so perfect? Why don’t you ever try to fix your own issues? I’m sure you’d be a lot happier that way.”

The woman completes her fortifications, blocking every verbal lash before it can reach her heart, before what she won’t admit–no, can’t admit– spills out. 

Straightening her own posture, the girl forces out her final attack.

“What have you ever done for me to be thankful for you? All you do is nag and critique. Like it’s my fault you have no friends? All you ever do is ruin everything, so no wonder. If you aren’t going to actually try to solve anything, I’m leaving.”

From the corner of her eye, the woman sees the blank expanse of the girl’s back before the door slams shut, filling her with a strange, bitter cold. Shiny memories of happier times suddenly flash through her mind as if to supply warmth, weak compensation for the growing numbness in her chest. When the girl was younger, they had gotten along so well, blossoming  in each other’s presence. Returning home from elementary school with two bouncing pigtails, the girl used to speed through her times tables so the two had time to read together. They had sat side by side in the living room, going through book after book, pointing and laughing at silly illustrations of walking mice and dancing frogs until their sides hurt. Now, the woman can’t even remember the last time she had touched those silly storybooks. What happened? The woman is nearly overwhelmed with a feeling to mend something, but she can’t quite place what. 

A throbbing sensation in the woman’s temple temporarily blurs her vision with dark spots, forcing her to shift and shuffle awkwardly until the episode passes. To her shame, she imagines an ant under a microscope, writhing under the sun shining high above it. But when her vision returns, her weakened gaze has nothing to fall on. 

In the darkness of the room, the woman is truly alone, with only her own grievances for solace.