Pork Soda

Twenty-Five

"Мама? Where are you going?", I asked as I watch my father's men load up bags into the trunk of the car.

My mother stood beside the car, watching them too. She wore her black hijab and the crescent pin father gifted her, and a long grey coat draped over her shoulders. I had seen father give her the coat a few minutes ago before retreating into their room. Mother's face was usually soft and her almond eyes would always look down at me and my other siblings with love and kindness. However, now, her face was cold and hard, her lips drawn into a thin line, and the kind eyes of my mother showed no love but despisement and annoyance.

A few days ago, mother and father had been fighting. I was the one that tucked my siblings to bed that night. I was going to go to my bedroom right after, but I was stopped when I heard a commotion go on in mother and father's bedroom. I hadn't meant to be nosy, but it was hard when they were loud and we lived in the same house together.

Mother wanted a divorce, I had heard her say. Father said he loved her and didn't want her to go, but mother had slapped him and told him that he was only being selfish. I didn't stay long after understanding their quarrel and I didn't want to think that would be true and that they will be divorced. Mother can't leave. Father is never home because he's too busy with work. I can't take care of all my siblings on my own, there were just too many of us!

"I'm going back to my homeland, زوی," mother replied to me, her cold eyes turning warm when she looked at me. (son)

"Will you take my siblings and I with you?", I asked her. I didn't want us to stay with father. Mother only frowned and shook her head. "Why? Are you abandoning us?"

"No, زوی! I'll come visit, of course," she said. "It's just that you father and I don't love each other anymore."

"Father loves you," I said.

Mother laughed and only shook her head. "You father does not love anyone. Not even you," she said in a cold voice.

"Then why leave us with him?!", I asked furiously. "Just let us come with you!"

Mother shook her head again. "I love you, روسیه. I love you, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Belarus. I'm leaving you with your father because he is rich. Besides, you'll fare better in a place you've grown up your entire life in than in an unknown one." (Russia)

"You only said you loved me, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Belarus. What about the others?"

"I hate them."

I looked at mother.

"Мама?"

"They're not my children. Do you know where you father got them? He stole them from other families and killed them. It's another reason why I no longer love your father: he valued children who were not even from his own wife."

I stayed quiet.

The trunk of the car was closed and a man walked up to mother, saying that all the bags had been stored already. Mother thanks him and then turns to me. She kisses my forehead and says goodbye before stepping into the car. The car rumbles and shakes, making the ground under my feet shake with it. I wave at my mother, watching as the car slowly disappears in the distance. I suddenly feel my skin crawl and shiver, as if someone's eyes were on the back of my head. I turn around and look, noticing that the curtains from the window above moved. I frown. That window connected to mother and father's room.

-----

Things quieted down when night had fallen. Father hadn't come out of the room all day even when I had called him down to eat for lunch and dinner so I had fed the stray cats outside with his portions. My siblings asked where mother was. They were sad when I had told them that she and father were having a hard time so mother left. I didn't tell them about mother's feelings towards most of them, knowing that it would crush them. They all loved mother. I only told Kazakhstan and Ukraine the truth as they were both adults and old enough to understand like me. Ukraine was sad; Kazakhstan was even sadder after finding out that mother hated him for not being biologically hers and that his real family were actually killed by father.