That’s who my mom was. Someone who gave everything and asked for nothing. She’d work ten-hour days, come home, help with my homework, then stay up late handling bills or mending clothes.
I’d sometimes find her asleep at the kitchen table, calculator and budget notebook still open.
“Mom, you should rest more,” I’d tell her.
She’d just smile. “I’ll rest when you’re in college, kiddo.”
I thought everything was fine in our lives. Sure, money was tight, but we managed. Mom never complained, and I tried not to either.
We were a good team.
Until the day I overheard her talking to Grandma on the phone.
I was heading to the kitchen for a snack when I heard her voice. She sounded different.
She was in her bedroom with the door nearly closed, just a sliver of light escaping into the hallway.
“I don’t know how much longer I can take it, Mom,” she was saying, her voice catching. “Today, he made a joke about my blazer in front of everyone. Said I look like a joke in my thrift store clothes… that I should be grateful I even have a job.”
She was crying. My mom, whom I’d seen cry maybe twice in my life, was sobbing into the phone.
