Page 60 of My Rules for Revenge
On one particular day, when I walked inside my house, I heard nothing but silence—it was unprecedented. Usually, if they weren’t fighting, my father would be complaining about his job to my mother, who had to listen to him.
When I walked into the kitchen, I saw my mother washing dishes. I went over to greet her. When I saw her face, she was crying. I knew something was very wrong. A painful lump formed in my throat as I prepared for whatever news I would inevitably hear.
“Hey, Mom. What’s wrong?”
“I’m okay, honey. It’s nothing.”
“Oh…okay,” I replied as usual.
My mom brushing me off like that was nothing new. She wanted to always stay strong and never show me weakness. That’s the way she was raised, I guess.
“How was school? How are your studies?” she asked.
“School was good. I’m doing well in my classes,” I replied.
“How are your grades? Do you still have straight A’s?”
“I have one B, but I’ll fix it,” I said hesitantly.
“I know you will, honey. You’ll get that scholarship to Bright Rock or wherever. You’re an incredible student. You work so hard.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You’ll be great at chemistry. That’s still what you want to do, right?”
“Yeah, I want to be a chemical engineer. It’s interesting stuff, Mom.”
“That sounds excellent!” she exclaimed.
I sensed a tinge of sadness in her voice. Something was definitely on her mind, but I never pressed her to talk when I saw her like that, because it was typical in my culture for people to keep their issues internalized. You just learned to deal with it and not burden others with your problems. Unfortunately, I learned that too late, and that in itself is a problem.
“I need to talk to you, Indira,” she requested.
That day was different. If she wanted to talk to me about something serious that was going on, it meant it was something huge. Something that she couldn’t hide from me.
I softly nodded and sat down at our wooden dining table. My mother sat right in front of me. She looked at me with gloomy eyes.
“Your father isn’t home, so we have the chance to talk,” she explained.
“Okay. What’s going on?”
“Indira, it is a wonderful thing when two people fall in love and get married. However, the passion in the marriage that was once there can deteriorate. It can slowly die,” she sadly remarked.
“Why are you telling me this? What’s going on?”
“I’ve never told you this before, but your father and I had a marriage of convenience back in Nicaragua. His parents and my parents practically forced us to be together,” she explained.
“Oh, wow! That’s something.”
They never revealed this to me, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. I knew since I was young that their pairing seemed a bit engineered—more about convenience than love.
“I love your father, Indira, but lately it’s been hard to keep going.”
“I know, Mom. I get it.”
My mom began to sob as she wiped away her tears.
“Sweetie, I think your father is sleeping with another woman.”
