you ain't lying
Aug. 26th, 2003 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
axiom_of_stripe posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionactually, it's 555 words, mostly not about lies. but hey, read it anyway. maybe i'm lying about that.
*****
Mendacity challenge: Would your mother lie to you?
You'll catch your death of cold, I said, and Francesca looked at me with big startled eyes, as if she didn't realize that it was nigh on twenty below out that front door. More likely, she hadn't realized that I'd gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water and wasn't in the back with my soaps. And her with her skirt up to there and that tiny little jacket just to impress her girlfriends! I knew what her father would say if he saw that makeup, but there's no future in all that, not with all the girls doing it these days. When I was a girl we didn't do such things, but the world is changing, you know. The world is changing, and I took her long coat out of the front closet, put it on her, and slipped a dollar into her pocket so that she could call home if some boy got too fresh. She gave me a hug just like she was still my baby girl before running out the door to see her friends.
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, every woman knows that, but sometimes she needs her mother to remind her of it. Maria was always a good girl. She wanted to help in the kitchen even before she could reach the counter, and I had to hold her up to let her stir the pots. I can still see it in this kitchen, little Francesca crawling underfoot and Maria, so solemn, standing on a chair to make sure the sauce wasn't burning. Now Maria has a kitchen of her own and children on the floor of it, the only one of my children to keep a marriage going. It's her cooking, I tell you. She's a marvelous cook. My son-in-law won't go to his own mother's house for the holidays, no, it's Maria's cooking or mine that he wants. Even Francesca has given up those new-fangled diet shakes of hers, which warms my heart. I don't know what the world's coming to these days, I really don't, but I do know it still needs to be fed.
You can't lie to your mother -- if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, and it's true. Not a one of them has ever been able to look me in the eye and tell me a fib. So when that shy Canadian boy stood in the doorway with his hat in his hands and my Raymond shuffling his feet beside him, I just gave Raymond a look, and the first thing he said was I never lied, Ma. I swear I didn't know, and I believed him. He tried to act as though he were too old for a hug from his mother, but don't believe a word of it. He'd been married to a good woman, one who fed him right and dressed him warmly, but he couldn't lie to his own mother. I knew what was best in this world for my boy and it was standing right beside him, hat in hand.
I brought my children up well. You can say what you like about my no-good husband, God rest his soul, but don't you ever speak a word against my children. I brought them up well.
END
*****
Mendacity challenge: Would your mother lie to you?
You'll catch your death of cold, I said, and Francesca looked at me with big startled eyes, as if she didn't realize that it was nigh on twenty below out that front door. More likely, she hadn't realized that I'd gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water and wasn't in the back with my soaps. And her with her skirt up to there and that tiny little jacket just to impress her girlfriends! I knew what her father would say if he saw that makeup, but there's no future in all that, not with all the girls doing it these days. When I was a girl we didn't do such things, but the world is changing, you know. The world is changing, and I took her long coat out of the front closet, put it on her, and slipped a dollar into her pocket so that she could call home if some boy got too fresh. She gave me a hug just like she was still my baby girl before running out the door to see her friends.
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, every woman knows that, but sometimes she needs her mother to remind her of it. Maria was always a good girl. She wanted to help in the kitchen even before she could reach the counter, and I had to hold her up to let her stir the pots. I can still see it in this kitchen, little Francesca crawling underfoot and Maria, so solemn, standing on a chair to make sure the sauce wasn't burning. Now Maria has a kitchen of her own and children on the floor of it, the only one of my children to keep a marriage going. It's her cooking, I tell you. She's a marvelous cook. My son-in-law won't go to his own mother's house for the holidays, no, it's Maria's cooking or mine that he wants. Even Francesca has given up those new-fangled diet shakes of hers, which warms my heart. I don't know what the world's coming to these days, I really don't, but I do know it still needs to be fed.
You can't lie to your mother -- if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, and it's true. Not a one of them has ever been able to look me in the eye and tell me a fib. So when that shy Canadian boy stood in the doorway with his hat in his hands and my Raymond shuffling his feet beside him, I just gave Raymond a look, and the first thing he said was I never lied, Ma. I swear I didn't know, and I believed him. He tried to act as though he were too old for a hug from his mother, but don't believe a word of it. He'd been married to a good woman, one who fed him right and dressed him warmly, but he couldn't lie to his own mother. I knew what was best in this world for my boy and it was standing right beside him, hat in hand.
I brought my children up well. You can say what you like about my no-good husband, God rest his soul, but don't you ever speak a word against my children. I brought them up well.
END
