Unfortunately, the change was only physical. A new chest beard doesn’t bring social grace or confidence. I was still the whipping boy at school and if anything, puberty emboldened my mother to lynch the apron strings tighter so I’d never get away. Her guilt trips became more intense and far more frequent. Coincidentally, they always seemed to occur at the same time I pushed for a little bit of freedom.

Crocodile tears fell like rain. No one appreciated her, nobody cared about her, no one would notice if she died. She was a slave in her own home, so she would behave like one. “I’ll just cook your meals and wash your clothes don’t bother talking to me, I know you don’t really want to anyway.”

I can’t remember if there was a seminal event that changed me, but I gradually stopped reacting. My mother always came out of her moods in a few days, and the other kids stopped picking on me if I pretended not to care. When the other kids teased me, I fought back tears, biting my tongue until it bled. When they hit me, I let them, but not one scream or cry for mercy escaped my lips. If my mom started wailing that nobody loved her, I ignored it and refused to act on the guilt that burned inside. Eventually, it stopped being an act. I’d suppressed nearly every emotion I had.

We’ll skip over high school and college. I made real friends, I started a lifelong love affair with the outdoors, and I went through a crisis of faith and became an atheist after being raised an Evangelical Christian, my mother threatened suicide in front of me, and I fought drug addiction. All those stories will wait for another time. For now, I’ll end where we stared, with a cold dinner and a slamming door.

She was gone. There wouldn’t be reconciliation this time. As I opened the first in a long line of beers, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My grandfather stared back at me. The features were unmistakable. I look more like his brother two generations removed. I don’t know why I never noticed it before that night.

I went to see him a few days later. He had just recovered from a hip injury the doctors said would cripple him for the rest of his life. “To hell with them,” he said. He hasn’t trusted doctors since they failed to save or even diagnose my grandmother. I don’t know if he has really healed or if he ignored it by sheer force of will. He did hug me with more strength than an eighty two year old man has any right to have. We talked for a while. He didn’t ask about my breakup (though he knew) and I didn’t volunteer the information. After a while, we sipped wine together in amicable silence. I’m still in awe of the old man.

There is a lot of new age, feel good shit in this world. Everyone wants validation. Everyone wants to know what you’re feeling and why you feel it. Somewhere there is a woman who wanted me to express every little notion that popped into my head. Maybe they’re right. I don’t care. My grandfather never told me he loves me, and I can’t remember saying it to him as an adult. We both know. That is enough.

That was interesting. Some of what you wrote reminded me all to well of my own childhood. Parts of what I read were almost as if I'd written them myself.

I am sorry to see that your mother turned you away from Christianity--or at least that's the way it appears. We all aren't like that. I am an evangelical Christian myself, and it makes me sad when I think of how some people turn others away from Christ because of their actions.

Great story! I always enjoy reading your work. You are a fantastic writing, and there's never a dull moment in your writing.

And what publisher? I haven't been very active in a while and don't know anything about that.

The publisher is Rudius Media, anyone can try to get a site with them. As far as religion goes, I actually started college a a theology major. I thought I was going to be a minister, but I became an atheist through my studies. I have metaphysical, logical, and philosophical problems with the existence of any god that go run far deeper than my upbringing. I'll write the story some day.