Suzie’s House 148: A Quality Mom

“I am so sorry.”

It was probably the worst thing Diane could have said. If she’d stopped to think, she would have kept it to herself. Of course Gene would resent her sympathy. What teenage boy wouldn’t?

“Humph.” He shoved past her, bumping her shoulder with his with all the finesse of a bulldog.

Well, it was already too late. She might as well own up to her soft heart.

“You know, I used to think it would be better if my mother wasn’t around.”

Gene looked at her with mild horror, as if she were crazy.

“She’s the kind of woman who goes through marriages like they were White Castle burgers. It’s always one bad match after another. All the while she told me never to rely on a man. You have to stand on your own two feet. I ask you, what kind of an example is that?”

“Humph,” Gene said with a different intonation. “Still better than walking out and never coming back. My mom said she’d take me with her, but she didn’t.”

“How old were you?”

“I don’t know,” Gene slurred the words together into something closer to raw sound than words and shrugged the way a guy does when he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s hurt. “Four? Five?”

“Wow. So young. Do you think there might have been something going on you didn’t know about?”

“Oh, I knew about it all along.” He nodded, a grimace on his face. “Even before my father started beating me, he was beating her. She ran away because she couldn’t take it any more.”

“Oh.”

Diane swallowed hard. She didn’t know what to say, or even how to feel. His father beat him? And his mother ran away? And he thought she was like his mother?!

“Wait. What makes you think I’m anything like your mother?”

“You act just like she did, all nervous and jumpy.”

“I am not nervous and jumpy,” Diane asserted indignantly.

“Yeah?” He lifted a finger like he was going to poke her.

Diane put her hands out to intercept and found them shaky. Ben cleared his throat. With a quick glance, Gene let his hand drop to his side. His chin came out stubbornly.

“All right. Maybe I’m a little nervous. I’ve never had to baby-sit anyone as old as you two before. In my mind Ben was still little and any friend of his would be the same. But look at you! You’re as tall as I am.” She didn’t bother to say he also had a thousand mile stare, probably from the abuse. “Look, it’s around dinner time.” She glanced at her watch. “How about I make you something healthier than cookies.”

“Now you’re acting like MY mom,” Ben teased.

“That I don’t mind,” Diane said with a smile.

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