Darling

Darling didn’t know what made her mother so upset. Darling didn’t know, so Darling didn’t ask, but mother answered anyway.

“We can go to any ice-cream parlour we like because we have the money.” she said while sitting petite in the left corner of her chaise lounge, sipping tea from her handmade china. She was wearing her prettiest dress today. I sat across from her, in the chair I had taken from the dining room. I could smell the strong, bitter taste and could almost taste the sweet, musky smell. The reason why I’ve never liked tea. It was too deceptive. Bittersweet.

I couldn’t understand why mother was telling me this. I hadn’t asked about our money, of course, or ice-cream. But mother didn’t care anyway.

I did not respond to my mother’s comment. I just carried on scribbling on my piece of paper. I wasn’t sure what I was drawing, maybe this room, the drawing room.

One day, I wanted to be a painter. A successful one at that, like picasso or Da Vinci. Mother said I could do it, if I just started with something simple, and noticed the little things and so she educated me in the art of portraying visual thought precisely, abstractly, and realistically. Then, all I had to do was translate that feeling I got from that thing and draw it. This was our usual sunday evening talk, always held in the drawing room. Always.

But this day was different. The day was shrinking away as the sun was snatched into the tunnel of dark clouds, filled with rain.. Today, mother was going to talk in secrets. Secrets that she told no one other than me.

The first thing mother told me was that she was scared.

“When I was little we couldn’t go to any ice-cream parlour because we didn’t have the money, darling.” I looked directly at mother when she told me this. Her eyes just barely looking in my direction and I realized something about her.

Mother was beautiful. Of course, no one noticed her delicate allure, because she hid it so well behind her sharpness. But sometimes, she let me see it sparkle in her eyes or lips.

Mother wanted to tell me something, because of the way her eyes shifted in my glance, so I prompted her. “Did you have enough money for dresses, mother?”

Mother smiled, “Darling, everyone could afford dresses. But I didn’t own any pretty ones.”

I had been told many times that my mother’s life before me was both fun and penniless. No, she couldn’t afford the prettiest of clothes, but she still went about her life, confident.

Mother’s gaze had shifted; drifted out a window as she told the rest of her secret. “Now that we have the money, darling, I have nothing to be confident about.” She paused. “Now that I have the pretty dresses, darling, I have been forced into a woman that I had never wanted to be.”

Her eyes shifted down at her crossed legs, covered by a pretty floral pattern. Her hands delicately brushed out the folds in her dress. Her eyes met mine.

“Now that we have the money, darling, I’m scared.”

Mother was an artist. Not a known one, but she was a brilliant one. She liked to draw flowers, just like the ones on her dress. We owned many art books in our bookcase, most of them second hand, but all of her knowledge was held in those books.

“Darling, now that we have the money, I have no inspiration.” She looked at my hand, still holding the pencil. “But you can have the inspiration for me.”

Mother looked down at her dress once more and picked up her empty teacup.

“Do you want to get ice-cream, Darling?”

“From any ice-cream parlour we please?” I asked.

Mother smiled as she stood up, smoothing her dress, and said, “Yes, from any ice-cream parlour we please.”