I sighed at the burnt crap in my pan.
After trying and retrying, I ended up burning all four pieces of chicken. By five o’clock, the entire kitchen was fuming with a light smoke. Later, I heard my mother screaming my name. She must have gotten off work early.
“Mom?”
“Ashleigh! Are you alright?” She quickly looked at the source of the smoke. “What’re you doing?”
“A school project, but…I failed that, too.”
Her panicked frown quickly turned into a rueful grin. “Ash, if you missed my home-cooked meals you should have said something.”
I huffed. “No offense, Mom, but your cooking sucks.”
She snickered, her booming laugh filling the entire kitchen. “Exactly. That’s why we don’t cook. What kind of school project is this anyway?”
I sulked at the chaos in the pan. “Culinary Arts… I hate that class.”
For a while it was quiet, then I noticed her attention was focused on something in her hands. She miserably looked through the many envelopes which mostly likely held bills, bills, and more bills.
“The cell phone bill’s overdue.”
“I’ll handle it. Since I’ve been . . . working extra hours, I have more money.” The money that I’d collected from the babysitting job would have to cover it. “Anything from Dad, yet?” I whispered. Anything to take my mother’s mind off of the other stack of bills.
She shook her head. After quietly staring at the kitchen clock for a long while she said, “You know, we haven’t heard from him in a while. Five months.”
Five months? It’d been that long? I wasn’t surprised to find that Mom had been counting the days…months.
“He’s alright, Mom.” I reassured her. Anyone who was blind could see that she loved Dad like bees love honey. No, scratch that. She loved him much more than that. She loved him enough to drop her wonderful rich life and marry my underprivileged father. At least that’s what she told me in the stories when she talked about him.
On the outside she was a trooper. On the inside I could tell she wanted to throw dishes at the wall out of pure grief, but she didn’t do that. She stayed brave. Just for me.
“I just wish he could at least tell us how he’s been for the past half year or so. A phone call…a letter. Something.”
I grabbed her shoulders so she could snap out of her depressing state. “I’m sure he’s just busy with work, Mom. You know how things can get.”
“Ashleigh, he hasn’t been sending over money for the bills.”
I felt my stomach drop into my stomach. There had to be some sort of explanation for him not showing any sign of life.
“At first I thought that…that maybe he got too tied up, but even then, he would’ve sent something, anything.” Then her depressed emotions sharply changed into a frightful one. “Oh, God! What if he’s been k–”
“No!” I shouted. “No,” the second one was more for myself to believe. This time, I almost lost it. I pulled her into a hug, mostly to hide my face since I was so close to breaking. Mom was strong for me all of these years, so it was my turn to be strong for her.
* * *
I caught the cab, but before heading to the house, I went to the cell phone company to pay the overdue bill. It took forever to pay it! But, luckily, it wasn’t too much and I had just enough for the cab and the bill.
YOU ARE READING
Mr. Stupid Rich
Teen Fiction"He was made of money, and I knew anything but that. How was I supposed to trust him when people like him cared about nothing but themselves? If they did care, the poor wouldn’t be poor, right?" Meet Ashleigh Wills, your typical high school senior t...
