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The Truth About My Mother's Best Friend Who Never Married
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Aunt Leona, my mother's lifelong best friend, was like ivy grown deep into the wall of our home. She looked harmless, but little by little she drank up all the sunlight and air in the whole house. She lived with us for a full six months, polite and courteous at first, then treating it all as her due. She used our water, ate our food, and even had opinions about how I ran my life.
챕터 (5)
第1章
Aunt Leona, my mother's best friend for a lifetime, was like a stubborn creeping vine rooted into the walls of my home. She looked harmless, but slowly she drank up all the sunlight and air in the whole house.
She had lived with us for a solid six months, and she'd gone from polite at the start to acting like it was all her due.
She used our water, ate our food, and even told me how to run my life.
My husband's eye-rolls, my son pulling away, the low pressure hanging over the house. All of it became the background noise to her presence.
I bore it and bore it, until that night when, a few drinks in, she muttered something to my mother, slurred but laced with poison, and it struck like a thunderclap that split apart every bit of fog in front of me.
The question that had puzzled me for so long, why she'd never married in all her life, was answered in the last way I ever expected, all at once.
My name is Natalie Fox. I'm thirty-five this year, and I work as an administrative supervisor at a company that's neither big nor small.
My husband, George Chavez, is a programmer. He makes more than I do, and he's busier than I am too.
We have a seven-year-old son, Caleb Martinez, who just started first grade.
We'd worked hard in Bayport for ten years, and three years ago we finally won the housing lottery and bought this three-bedroom place, twelve hundred square feet. The mortgage ran over ten thousand a month, but at least we had a home of our own.
To make it easier to look after our son, we brought my mother, who was on her own back home, to live with us.
Once my mother came, life really did get a lot easier.
Every day after work I came home to hot meals, a clean and tidy house, and Caleb's homework already done under her supervision. From the bottom of my heart, I was grateful to her.
But that peace was completely shattered three months later, when a woman named Leona Chavez arrived.
Aunt Leona was my mother's childhood friend, someone she'd known since they were little, her best friend for life.
The way my mother told it, Aunt Leona had had a hard life. She'd dated a man when she was young, and right before the wedding he called it off, and after that she never dated seriously again.
She lived alone in a small county town back home, no children of her own, getting by on the thin wages of odd jobs at a supermarket.
Half a year ago, the supermarket where she worked laid people off. She lost her income, then got diagnosed with a mild slipped disc in her lower back, and money got tight.
My mother heard her cry about it on the phone a few times, and her heart softened.
"Nat, why don't we let your Aunt Leona stay with us for a while? She's all alone back home, it's just too pitiful. She can come to Bayport, see a doctor, get her mind off things. She won't stay long."
That's how my mother put it to me, with a careful, pleading note in her voice.
What could I say?
My mother has been a soft touch her whole life, more devoted to her friends than to her own daughter.
And besides, Aunt Leona really did sound pretty pitiful.
"All right, Mom, tell her to come. We've got a spare room." I agreed without a second thought.
The "for a while" I had in mind was a month or two at most.
I even looked into a few good hospitals in Bayport for Aunt Leona, thinking that once her health was sorted and her spirits lifted, we'd buy her a ticket back.
But I never imagined this "for a while" would stretch out with no end in sight.
When Aunt Leona first arrived, she was still very polite.
She'd rush to go grocery shopping with my mother, clear the dishes after meals on her own, and when she saw me mopping the floor she'd say, a little embarrassed, "Nat, you rest, I'll do it, I'll do it."
Naturally I couldn't actually let a "patient" work, so I'd always press her back onto the couch. "Aunt Leona, you're a guest, just rest."
So she stopped insisting, settling comfortably onto the couch, watching TV while she cracked the nuts I'd bought for Caleb, spitting the shells all over the floor.
My mother followed behind her with a broom and dustpan, cleaning it all up without a word.
Back then I just found it a little awkward, but she was my mother's best friend, after all, so I always gave her some benefit of the doubt.
But little by little, everything soured.
That night George's company rarely didn't have overtime, so the three of us, plus my mother and Aunt Leona, five of us in all, sat around the table for dinner.
My mother had made pork rib and corn soup, Caleb's favorite.
I ladled out a bowl for my son, then a bowl for George.
Just as I was about to serve myself, Aunt Leona, sitting across from me, held out her bowl and said, like it was only natural,
"Nat, dish me one too. Lots of ribs, no corn."
I froze for a second, then quietly took the bowl and filled it for her.
She took a sip, smacked her lips. "The soup's a little bland today. Did you skimp on the salt?"
My mother jumped in at once.
"Really? Let me taste. Oh, it does seem a touch bland. Leona, you like it saltier, let me go get you some more salt."
Aunt Leona waved a hand, poking her chopsticks around the plate, picked up a piece of the roasted eggplant, and frowned again.
"This eggplant's way too greasy. Everyone cares about healthy eating these days. Nat, you young people need to watch it, or you'll have high blood pressure, cholesterol, and sugar before you're old."
I gripped my chopsticks and said nothing.
I'd thrown that eggplant together in a rush after work, and I had used a little extra oil so it would take on more flavor.
Beside me, George set down his bowl, looked at Aunt Leona, and said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes,
"Aunt Leona, if it doesn't suit you, tomorrow Natalie can make you a special dish of your own. Steamed, boiled, guaranteed healthy."
There was a clear barb in what George said, and Aunt Leona's face fell in an instant.
"I... I'm only saying it for your own good." she mumbled, her voice trailing off.
The mood at the table dropped straight to freezing.
Caleb kept his head down, pushing the rice around his bowl, not daring to make a sound.
My mother hurried to smooth things over.
"Oh, come on, it's family sitting down to eat, what's all this talk. Eat, eat, the food's getting cold."
As she spoke, she picked up a big piece of the braised pork I'd set aside especially for George and dropped it into Aunt Leona's bowl.
In that moment, looking at my mother's placating smile, then at Aunt Leona wearing that expression like it was all owed to her, something in my chest clenched.
Was this still my home?
第2章
On the weekend, George suggested taking Caleb to the country park to fly a kite, saying it had been too long since they'd done anything as a proper family.
I knew what he was really doing. He was trying to pull me out of the low pressure hanging over the house, even if only for a little while.
The day before, I'd already bought snacks and fruit, and the octopus kite Caleb had been begging for.
The morning we set out, the three of us had just gotten our shoes on and were ready to leave when my mother's voice came from the living room.
"Hm? Where are you all off to?"
She was holding a glass of water, and beside her sat Leona, parked in front of the morning news like she was every day.
"Mom, we're taking Caleb to the park for a bit," I said with a smile.
"Oh, the park," my mother said. She glanced over at Leona, and a flicker of awkwardness crossed her face. "Then... could you bring your Aunt Leona along?"
Before I could say a word, Leona was already on her feet, all warmth.
"Yes, let's do that. I've been in Bayport this long and haven't been to the park once. Natalie, it's no trouble, is it?"
What could I say?
If I said it was trouble, where would that leave my mother?
I squeezed out a smile. "No trouble, Aunt Leona. Go change, then. We'll wait for you at the door."
George's face darkened in an instant. He grabbed my hand and dropped his voice. "You caved again!"
"What else was I supposed to do? Blow up at my mom's best friend right in front of her?" I felt just as helpless.
What was supposed to be a cozy outing for the three of us had turned into an awkward trip for five.
At the park, George took charge of flying the kite with Caleb while I spread the picnic blanket on the grass and set out the snacks.
Leona plopped herself down, picked up a bunch of the imported grapes I'd bought specially, and started eating, talking as she went.
"This park's pretty big, just too many people. All this noise and mess. And the grass isn't even clean. It's lumpy to sit on."
My mother quickly grabbed a cushion and handed it to her. "Here, Leona, sit on this."
A little while later, my sister-in-law, George's sister Arlene Chavez, called. She said she happened to be nearby taking care of something, and since she knew we were here, she'd swing by to see Caleb.
Arlene was a straightforward sort. Her voice arrived before she did. "George! Nat! Caleb!"
She was carrying a big fruit basket, fresh cherries and blueberries inside, all the things Caleb loved.
"Auntie!" Caleb spotted her and threw himself at her, thrilled.
We were chatting happily when Leona sidled over, fixed her eyes on the cherries in the basket, and said to Arlene as if she'd known her for years,
"Oh my, what a handsome boy. Those cherries look good. Where'd you buy them?"
Arlene faltered for a second.
I made the introduction, feeling awkward about it. "This is my mother's best friend, Aunt Leona."
"Oh. Hello, ma'am."
Arlene greeted her politely, then handed me the basket. "Nat, these are for Caleb. Have some."
I'd barely taken it when Leona reached straight into the basket, grabbed a big handful of cherries, popped one in her mouth without washing it, and said around it,
"Mm, sweet enough. Bit pricey though, aren't they? Young people these days, throwing money around."
Arlene's smile froze on her face.
She was sharp. She didn't say a thing, but I saw it plain as day, that sized-up, uncomfortable look in her eyes.
She played with Caleb for a bit, then made an excuse about having somewhere to be and hurried off.
Before she left, she pulled me aside and murmured, "Nat, that relative of yours, what's the story there?"
The taste in my mouth went bitter. All I could manage was something vague. "She's a friend of my mom's, staying with us a few days."
"A few days?"
Arlene raised an eyebrow. "George has complained to me about it more than once. Says the house has picked up a little tyrant."
After seeing Arlene off, my heart was a tangle of feelings.
Leona's presence had already begun to strain things between me and George's family.
I looked off into the distance, George holding the kite line, Caleb running across the grass, the sun so good, and yet inside me was nothing but gloom.
Leona was still over there, loudly ordering my mother around.
"Hey, Priscilla, get me a bottle of water, I'm dying of thirst here! And bring some of those cookies, those are the good ones!"
The imperious way she said it, as if she were the woman of the house.
第3章
The days dragged on, one after another, in that same suffocating patience.
Aunt Leona had settled into my home for good.
Gone was any trace of manners or restraint. She treated the place like her own.
Mornings, while George and I left for work, she slept until she woke on her own.
When we were out, she cranked the TV to full volume and watched decades-old dramas. The neighbors had come knocking twice already.
But what I truly couldn't stand was how fast the cost of living had climbed.
At the end of the month, I pulled up the water, power, and gas bills on my phone the way I always did, and the moment I saw the total I sucked in a breath.
Electricity: eight hundred and sixty dollars.
Water: three hundred and twenty dollars.
You have to understand, even at the peak of summer, our power bill had never topped five hundred and change.
I thought about everything Leona did.
She couldn't stand the heat. Whenever she was home, the AC in the living room and in her room ran from morning to night, set to sixty-eight degrees.
She said her back was bad, so she soaked in the tub every day, over an hour at a time, the bathroom light and the heat lamp both blazing, the water running and running while I listened and felt my heart bleed.
Phone in hand, I walked over to my mother, who was watching TV, and tried to keep my voice steady.
"Mom, look at this month's power bill. Isn't it a little much?"
She glanced at the screen and said, unbothered,
"So it's a little more. It's hot. How are we supposed to get by without the AC?"
"But this is way too much." I couldn't stop my voice from rising. "It's over three hundred dollars more than last month! And the water bill's nearly doubled!"
Her face darkened. She glanced back at the closed door of Leona's room and lowered her voice.
"Nat, what are you getting at? It's just a little extra on the water and power. Your Aunt Leona is staying here for free, and you're going to nickel-and-dime her over this?"
"I'm not nickel-and-diming anyone!"
My hands were shaking with anger. "Mom, this isn't about the money! It's about the way she lives! She can't just waste like this! We've got a mortgage every month, a kid to raise. All of it costs money. And it's money we worked hard for!"
"Oh, so you're something special because you earn a paycheck?"
Her voice went sharp too. "Have you forgotten how poor we were when you were little, how your Aunt Leona bought you new clothes and treats every few days? You've forgotten even that? She's got nowhere else to go, her health is bad, she came to me for help, and you, the younger one here, you can't make room for her?"
The same old speech.
Every time I brought up Leona, my mother pulled out that scrap of kindness from my childhood and held it up like a shield.
But those so-called new clothes and treats left almost no mark in my memory at all.
"Mom, that was years ago! And she's not staying a few days, she means to stay for good! She's turned my house into her retirement home!"
"That's nonsense!"
She slapped the remote down on the coffee table. "Natalie, I never thought you'd turn into this cold-blooded, penny-pinching person! She's been my friend my whole life. As long as I'm alive, I can't just abandon her! If you can't stand the sight of her, then throw me out along with her!"
As she said it, her eyes rimmed red.
I looked at her, and all the hurt and anger inside me gave way in an instant to a vast helplessness.
What else could I say? Fight with her? Push her until she made herself sick?
I went quietly back to my room, shut the door, and buried my face in the pillow.
George came in, wrapped his arms around me from behind, and sighed. "Let it go. Just think of it as money spent to keep your mom happy."
I didn't answer, but the tears came anyway, whether I wanted them or not.
And so Leona stayed in my home for half a year. It was supposed to be temporary, but in truth she became someone who freeloaded meals every single day and ran the whole household like an empress with everyone waiting on her hand and foot.
The atmosphere at home grew stranger by the day. George and I spoke less and less, and even Caleb turned cautious, afraid to raise his voice.
This home, the one I'd traded ten years of my youth to build, was being turned upside down by an outsider.
第4章
The blowup finally came on Caleb's seventh birthday.
I'd always made a big deal of his birthday.
I'd started planning two weeks out, ordered him the car-themed cake he loved, and promised him he could invite his two best friends over for a little party at the house.
His birthday fell on a Saturday, and I was up early hitting the grocery store for ingredients, ready to cook the kids a real feast with my own hands.
George took charge of the balloons and streamers, turning the place into something bright and playful.
Caleb tore around the apartment, wild with excitement. For once the house felt like a holiday.
Around noon, while I was going full tilt in the kitchen, Aunt Leona came shuffling out of her room in her pajamas, yawning.
She stretched, glanced at the decorations in the living room, and drifted over to the kitchen doorway.
"Well, well, all this fuss?"
She leaned in, looking at the vegetables I'd chopped and laid out. "So much food. You'll never finish it. Such a waste."
I ignored her and kept working.
Then she went on. "Nat, honey, let me tell you something. My two old girlfriends, your Aunt May and Aunt Lisa, they heard I'm staying here in this big place of yours and they're just green with envy, been wanting to come sit for a while. Today's already lively, so how about I give them a call and have them come over this afternoon too? They can help celebrate while they're at it."
My knife came down on the board with a hard thunk.
I turned and stared her dead in the eye, spacing out every word.
"Aunt Leona. Today is my son Caleb's birthday. We just want to keep it simple, family and his little friends."
My voice was cold, without a trace of warmth.
The smile froze on her face. She probably hadn't expected me, always the one who swallowed it, to speak to her like that.
She pursed her lips and muttered.
"What kind of attitude is that. It's just two people. Your place is huge, you scared of two extra pairs of chopsticks? So stingy."
With that she turned to go, still grumbling under her breath. "Never met anyone so cold…"
Something in me caught fire and shot up fast.
I threw down the knife, strode out of the kitchen, and called after her back.
"Aunt Leona! This is my home, not yours! You want to throw a party, go throw one at your own place!"
The living room went dead silent in an instant.
George stopped what he was doing and looked at me, stunned.
My mother came rushing out of her room, saw the standoff, and immediately roared.
"Natalie! Is that any way to talk to your Aunt Leona?"
The second my mother appeared, Aunt Leona's spine went straight again.
She turned around, dropped onto the couch, and her eyes reddened as she started dabbing at tears.
"Priscilla, look at this daughter of yours. I was only trying to make the house a little more cheerful, out of the goodness of my heart, and this is how she treats me? She's stabbing me right in the heart! Treating me like an outsider, resenting me for eating your food and living under your roof…"
"She didn't! Nat didn't mean it that way!"
My mother comforted her with one breath and glared at me with the next. "Apologize to your Aunt Leona right now!"
"Apologize? For what?"
I laughed, furious. "Mom, ask her what she's done these past six months! AC cranked to the coldest setting, an hour soaking in the tub, the utility bills doubled. Has she ever once said sorry? She picks apart the food I cook, tells me how to raise my own kid. Has she ever respected me as the woman of this house? Today is my son's birthday. She won't lift a finger to help, fine, but now she wants to drag her random friends over to ruin it too! Mom! You tell me, who exactly is the outsider here!"
Every bit of grievance and resentment from the past six months came pouring out of me at once, like beans spilling from a jar.
"My best friend of a lifetime, so she stays with you a few days, so what? Don't you have even that much human warmth in you?"
My mother was shaking with rage, and still she trotted out the same tired lines.
"A few days? You call this a few days? It's been half a year!"
I gave it right back to her. "If she really thought of you as a best friend, she'd know to spare you, to spare your daughter! Not sit here without a shred of shame, turning your daughter's home upside down!"
"You… you ungrateful girl!" My mother, choked with anger, clutched her chest and gasped for breath.
"Mom!" My heart lurched. But in that instant, one thought came to me with total clarity.
This couldn't go on.
I took a deep breath, walked over to George, and took the phone from his hand.
Then, right in front of my mother and Aunt Leona, I calmly opened the hotel-booking app.
"Aunt Leona, I'm done arguing with you."
My voice wasn't loud, but it was unshakable. "There's a five-star hotel not far from here, very nice. I've already booked a deluxe single room for a week under your name, and I'm covering the bill. At two o'clock this afternoon, I'll call a car to take you there. After the week's up, whether you go back home or find somewhere else, that's up to you. But you can't live in this house anymore."
Aunt Leona's crying cut off mid-sob. She and my mother both stared at me like I was some kind of monster.
I didn't look at either of them. I bent down to Caleb, who was too scared to make a sound, and said,
"Caleb, I'm sorry. We'll do the birthday party another day."
Then I took George and Caleb by the hand and walked out the door without looking back.
第5章
I booked a restaurant and gave Caleb his makeup birthday.
At the table, George didn't ask anything. He just quietly kept putting food on my plate.
Caleb was a little let down, but he was good about it, no tears, no fuss.
When we got home that night, the place was dead quiet.
Aunt Leona's door was shut tight, and my mother sat on the living room couch with her back to me, her whole frame looking small and worn out.
I didn't say a word to her. I went straight to my room.
The next two days, the house fell into a strange cold war.
Aunt Leona didn't move out, and the hotel booking I'd made was canceled by the next morning. I didn't have to guess who'd done it.
My mother didn't scream and fight with me again. She switched tactics.
She stopped eating, said she had no appetite.
Whatever I cooked, she wouldn't touch.
Aunt Leona followed her lead, and the two of them lived on plain oatmeal and pickles.
George couldn't stand it. He tried to talk me down. "Why don't you just give a little? Your mom's getting old. Don't actually make her sick over this."
I shook my head.
This time, I couldn't back down.
I knew my mother. Give her an inch and she'd take ten, and we'd never have a moment's peace again.
By the third night of the standoff, my mother must have figured the hunger strike wasn't working on me, because she finally changed her approach.
She sent George downstairs to buy liquor, specifically asking for two bottles of strong whiskey.
"Tonight your Aunt Leona and I are going to have a real drink. We're not stopping till we're drunk."
My mother said it to me with red eyes. "Call it a... a send-off for her."
Something shifted in me. I thought she'd come around.
The dinner table that night was heavier than any of the days before.
I made four dishes, but neither my mother nor Aunt Leona picked up their chopsticks. They just sat over a plate of salted peanuts, drinking one glass after another in silence.
George and I ate quietly. Neither of us dared to speak.
A few rounds in, Aunt Leona started to talk more.
She held my mother's hand and poured out all her misfortunes, sobbing and wiping her nose.
Abandoned by a man in her youth, laid off in middle age, and now old age with no children, no one, nothing but loneliness.
My mother cried right along with her, patting her back over and over to comfort her.
"Leona, it's okay, you have me. As long as I have food on my table, I'll never let you go hungry."
It ran cold through me to hear it. I quietly gathered the dishes and hid myself in the kitchen.
I didn't want to hear the same old sob story, and I didn't want to watch the two of them put on their devoted-sisters act.
I stood at the sink and washed the dishes slowly, the running water covering the broken sobbing from the living room.
I don't know how long it was before I finished the last plate and was about to dry my hands and go back out.
The crying in the living room had stopped. In its place was Aunt Leona's slurred, drink-thick muttering.
Something made me stop, and I turned my ear toward it.
I heard my mother sigh, coaxing her. "Enough, you've had too much. Don't talk anymore."
The living room went silent for a few seconds. Then, clear as anything, I heard Aunt Leona laugh, low and strange and full of spite, her words thick and slurred.
"Don't talk? I've held it in for thirty years... Priscilla... I hate it... why should she... why did she get to keep all the good things..."
The rest was cut off by a panicked snap.
"Leona Chavez! Shut your mouth!"
It was my mother's voice, shrill, fast, full of a fear and panic I had never heard from her.
It hit me like lightning, and I froze where I stood. The dishcloth dropped from my hand and slapped against the floor, kicking up a tiny splash of water.
My mind went blank.
I've held it in for thirty years?
Why should she get to have it?
Who was this "she"? What had happened thirty years ago? Why was my mother's reaction so violent, like she was desperately covering up some enormous secret?
In that instant I felt like a fool who'd wandered into forbidden ground and overheard a curse strong enough to overturn my entire world. I'd always thought Aunt Leona was just an ordinary woman who chased small advantages and had no sense of boundaries, but that terrified "Shut your mouth" from my mother turned the blood in my body cold.
I turned sharply, looking through the little pane of glass in the kitchen door at the two women weeping in each other's arms in the living room.
I'd always thought I was watching some absurd family scene play out, and only now did it hit me that I might have been living inside a massive lie all along.
My hands and feet went cold, my heart pounding. Something suddenly made sense, and at the same time everything blurred worse than before.
The answer to that question felt close enough to touch, and yet it was wrapped in a thick black fog.
I stared at my mother in disbelief, the person I was closest to, the one I trusted most.
Mom, what on earth... are you afraid of?