Kate slammed the door as she heard the other line go dead. Her mom had called again. This time to inform her that she had missed her college cutoff. So what if she couldn’t clear it to Harvard? It wasn’t the end of the world was it? Her mother hadn’t even waited till she came home to spread the news. Right after her mom cut the call on her after yelling so badly that her entire class could hear the screams in spite of it not being in the speaker mode, her dad called next. His words were like salt on the bruises. His voice was softer, yet harsher. He simply stated that she had a lack of focus and the attention span of a 3 year old. Kate nodded through the whole conversation. She blinked at her tears as she heard him speak his words of how he had done so much for her and she couldn’t achieve her own dreams.
She had a very queer situation back home. Her father was away in Nigeria earning money, her mom taking care of her. It was as good as a single parent family. Her dad visited her once in 6 months and got her some chocolates or a nice Gucci watch. Kate often thought that to him, affection was giving your kid what you didn’t have. He didn’t have a great education. He was a college drop out. So he obviously wanted the best for his daughter. Nothing wrong with that. He would tell “Your words are like magic. You’re writing has some power in it”. She would smile and say “You never know, I may become a writer”. He would quickly reply “No no, that isn’t a career. I want to see you with a Harvard or an MIT degree. People should know me as your father not you as my daughter”. And though her heart screamed protests she would smile and say “Sure dad. I won’t let you down”.
Even as she willed herself to do things she had least interest in, she never met their expectations. Her mom yelled at her for silly things. Her dad asked her to compromise as her dear mother was under too much pressure. “What about me?” she wanted to ask. No one gave a second thought to what she wanted. Her mom blamed her cell phone for the distance. She rolled her eyes once and broke out of the shell she was surrounded in. “You treat me like a loser mom. How do you expect me to achieve all these things when you don’t believe them yourself? If you really think I’m not working hard, then keep the thought to yourself instead of saying it to my face”. That did it.
Her mom wailed over the phone with her dad for over an hour saying “She’s grown up. She’s answering me back. She’s not what she was. It’s all changed. Teenagers are always this way”. Kate stood hidden behind a curtain as she listened to her mom sniff and complain to her dad. They had no idea how much she toiled. She travelled thirty miles just to take classes. She walked out of her home at 6:30 every morning and came back late at 11:30 in the night. All the while, she studied. She couldn’t understand why they thought she wasted time. She barely had time to eat. She also had to cope with the death of her best friend. She had died of pneumonia. God had been very unfair to that innocent who had done no harm to anyone in her life. It took Kate 3 months to wrap her head around that thought. Now her mom was accusing her of traumatizing her life and saying the sacrifice they had made by staying apart to help with my education was in vain.
They had saved up much more than required for the tuition. She had even offered to pay for it herself. She ran back into my room, bolted the door and let the tears escape. She screamed. Felt like dying the first hour through tears. The second hour of crying made her want to run away. The third hour made her want to prove to them that she wasn’t a loser they thought she was. Vengeance. The next half an hour told her that she needed to kick out the nonsense from her brain. It was her choice to agree to their decisions. And no matter how much harder they were making it for her she wasn’t going to give up on them. She would always hope they understand that she respected them and cared for them. The last fifteen minutes were the most unexplained ones filled with mixed emotions. Some were of despair and some were of self-actualization. They were her parents and no matter how erratic they were, they loved her. She wouldn’t let them down.
She walked to her mom and said “I’m sorry mom. I was stressed. It will not happen again”. She listened to her mom yelling at her and her dad giving her a lecture on how to respect people. She apologized calmly and went back into her room. She looked at herself in the mirror and said to herself “You’re right mom. I did grow up”.