I Am Not Your Mother
“Young lady, get off your tablet and wash these dishes. Now,” Kate Buttons said, distracted herself, watching the stock market on her phone while pouring coffee into a mug from the machine.
“Why?” her daughter, Carolyn, looked up from her tablet and groaned, stomping her feet on the kitchen floor. “You have no idea how hard my life is. You should do it.” Then she folded her arms across her chest, mouth pouted, her position of defiance.
Kate blinked her eyes in disbelief, her stock watch forgotten for a moment. She looked at the mountain of plates her daughter had somehow managed to accumulate over the past two days. And their housekeeper called in sick that morning.
“I am not your mother,” Carolyn said, imitating the dramatic tone of a girl she had seen in a TV show.
Kate raised an eyebrow. “No, but I'm beginning to think you need a good smacking on your backside to make you well behaved. Now, get busy, young lady.”
Carolyn rolled her eyes and reluctantly began to wash the dishes. Being an only child, she had grown used to having the world arranged around her comfort. And now, she complained about everything and Kate blamed her father who was rarely at home due to demands of his business.
Kate sighed and shook her head when Carolyn put on her coat and marched outside.
She was barely ten feet away from their house when she heard a noise, turned and saw a tiny, grey and white kitten following her. It paused too and raised pitiful yet adorable eyes at her. Its ears were enormous and the tail seemed too thin for its body.
“Go away,” she said before crossing the road to her friend's house. Yet the kitten followed her, padding behind her with its little paws and giving a soft, miserable cry that sounded nothing like the meows cats were known for.
She paused with her hand on the doorbell and told it in the dramatic tone again, “I am not your mother, okay? Go away. You're not my problem.”
When Carolyn left for school the next day, the kitten followed until Kate sped away with their car. “That kitten likes you,” she said, gazing at the rearview mirror to catch her daughter's eyes. “You should feed and take care of it.”
Carolyn curled her lips and turned to look out the window. Kate sighed, knowing the girl missed her father and was taking it out on everything and everyone around her.
The next afternoon, it was drizzling when she returned from school and saw the kitten by the roadside. Ahead was a delivery van coming at fast speed to probably park at the spot.
For once, she had no complaint or dramatic speech about how the rain had ruined the designer shoes Daddy bought her from Venice. She dropped her backpack and ran to grab the kitten just as the van screeched to a top in front of her. She stumbled backwards from the side of the road and landed hard in the muddy gutter.
“Are you okay?” The driver asked, rushing out of the van with wide eyes. “Why did you do that?” Then he paused, seeing the kitten in her arms.
“That was a good save,” he said.
“And you are a terrible driver,” she snapped, shocking the young man, before picking herself up and running home.
She cleaned the kitten and smiled as it purred in her arms. They ate dinner together and Kate watched with mild surprise as her daughter washed the dishes without any complaint.
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "I am not your mother”.
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