The Reluctant Bride: part 3

I’m abruptly brought back to the present by Jacob’s warm and comforting hand on my knee. We’ve had this discussion before, I don’t like mama having full access to the house – to our lives.

Truthfully speaking my mother and I we’re as thick as thieves before this whole ordeal. I just cannot forgive how she sold me like a bag of potatoes to the first rich man who looked my way.

Of course I mustn’t misconstrue the situation with my husband as anything other than what it is. Someone in his family, an elder most likely stumbled upon me somewhere at some point in the past year and they decided that I would be good enough for their family.

Investigations were made and files were compiled about my personal life and when my mother found out about all this, instead of being indignant and fearful for my life, which was unbeknownst to us put under such a microscope, she thrilled at the idea of having one of her daughters marry rich.

To her my privacy, safety and security is only measured by how much someone is willing to pay for it.

My eye inadvertently glance up to her, chattering away about the new ladies club she’d joined only a couple of days ago. I close my eyes, my hand sliding to my husbands that still rests on my knee and squeeze tightly.

Give me strength, I pray silently.

He startles, looking at me with a bewildered expression.

I turn away from his piercing gaze, not wanting to acknowledge the slight change in our dynamic. We can be friends, I decide. After all, I will need an ally in this new world I’ve been thrust in.

“Maria, you should come with to the next event. The women are wonderful and they are very supportive,” mama says polishing off the glass of wine. The glass stem rests carelessly between her dainty blood red fingernails. My heart ratchets in my chest, feeling like that glass, seconds away from falling and shattering on the perfect tiled floor.

“No thank you,” the words slip out of my mouth without faltering. The glass sways between her fingers, closer to slipping. She doesn’t seem to notice, or simply doesn’t care about it. After all, her son-in-law can afford a hundred more like that – or so she likes to say.

Standing up straighter, mother fixes me with her most fiercest glare. I return the fiery look, fed up with all the new changes and her.

“Maria, honestly sometimes I wonder if I dropped you one too many times as a child. Mathata a hao ke eng?” [what’s your problem?]

My glare intensifies and I shoot up from the chair, Jacob all forgotten.

“You might have no qualms with having sold your daughter for some red soled shoes and a new look, but don’t be mistaken and think I’m crazy enough to jump on this band wagon with you. And don’t you dare take up such a tone in my house again!”

I am fuming, having only some of the weight that was rested in the pit of my stomach released. Mom blinks, startled. I sigh and in a completely perfectly cataclysmic moment the glass falls.

Shards spread on the floor, having captivated my attention for a moment. Bonds. This is how it happens, how trust breaks. How relationships end. The pieces lay scattered between my mother’s Gucci clad feet and mine, an ocean between us.

One single tear falls down, the silence in the room making so much noise that it booms in my soul. I wipe the tear away, looking back to the woman who gave birth to me.

“Ma-” she starts. I shake my head, cutting her off.

“Leave,” I whisper. All the fight having left my body. Our relationship has not been the same in a while. A part of me doubts that we could ever get back to what we once had and I don’t know if I care enough to find out at this point.

She broke me. My own mother who swore to protect me, hurt me most of all. And for that I wish, oh my soul how I wish I could hate her…