London

44 - "You could have been my mother."

"Harry, can you give me a hand?" Abby asks as I'm painting her bedroom walls white, covering the dark purple it was before. 

I roll my eyes and put my roller down. Afraid to touch anything with my in paint covered hands, I tiptoe to the door where I find her sitting on the ground going through photo's. 

"What do you need a hand with?" I wonder as I watch her grin at a photo that I can't see. 

She looks up to me, frowning the second she sees me with white hands. "Oh, sorry, I forgot you were painting. I was just wondering if you'd pick up Maxxie since I'm finally doing this, but I'll go."

"Thanks," I mumble, stepping back in the room. 

"It's almost done," she says, suddenly standing behind me. "This is so much better. I don't get what we ever saw in that purple."

"It was all the rage back in the day, I think."

"Fuck's sake, Harry, don't make me sound as if I'm old."

"Almost thirty If I recall," I say, picking up my roller to finish the last part of the wall. 

"Next year. So it is still twenty-nine for you."

"Still three whole years older than me," I tell her and when I look over my shoulder I see she's still smiling. "You could have been my mother."

"Now you're just taking the piss."

"Are you going to get Maxxie or not?" I wonder and she rolls her eyes and then stalks off. 

Since the school is close by, so close that I often wish Max wasn't so lazy and would just go by foot, it doesn't take them long to return and by the sound of the doors falling shut, I can sense that they're having some sort of argument. 

"You are such a bitch. I only want to go there for a few hours!" I hear Maxi yell. Children are so frustrating. I have yet to witness a moment where Max listens to her mother. 

"I have to go to work, and your grandma is stopping by later. You should be grateful that she's still around and willing to look after you."

"Oh please," she scoffs. "I don't need to be looked after. You don't care about me at all."

There is another bang and I know that Max has gone up to her room. A few seconds later Abby enters the bedroom, a smile on my face as if I didn't just hear her millionth fight with her daughter. 

"Oh, you're done!" She says, clapping her hands as I cover the last piece of wall with white. "You were right, two coats is what it needed. It looks brand new."

She looks around the place and her smile is replaced by a grimace. "What's wrong?"

"Just... I never thought that this would be my room and not 'ours' when we bought this. Nor did I imagine to suddenly have a hot son to paint it," she adds trying to make the situation lighter by joking. "Maxxie blames me for everything. For the breakup, for his death, for being unhappy."

"It's unfair to take it out on you," I tell her. "But I have blamed my mother for a lot of stuff as well. Sometimes I was right and sometimes I knew I was wrong, but it was easier to hate her because the real problem or person wasn't around."

"Your father?" She wonders and I nod. "If only she understood how life works, but she's too young to know, but old enough to think she knows."

"There will come a time when she'll realize she was wrong to treat you like this. All you can do is suck it up."

"That's the best advice ever," she says with a laugh.

"Well, it is the truth. If you react to it or hold it against her, you'll only push her away. It is the best advice I can give you. To try and not take it personally, because she'll remember all you said and did even when she knows she was wrong too."