“I don’t want to live with you,” Jane screamed at her husband, Morgan, the veins at her neck popping out. “I hate you Morgan.”
Morgan swatted the phone book at the wall and kicked the stool at his side. “I hate you more Jane. I was forced to marry you. I never loved you.”
“Fine,” Jane said, walking from behind the table. “Leave me, let me marry him, let me choose for myself for one time in my life.”
“I never stopped you from doing anything. You always treated me like a puppet at your hands and I remained silent.” Morgan dashed to the bathroom and after washing his face; he went into his room and took off his clothes.
“You can’t leave.” His wife said, tearing the shirt off Morgan’s hand and throwing it at the chair. “Be a man for one time in your life, face me.”
“What do you want me to do?” Morgan yelled, “I just don’t want to be with you,”
Jane raised her palm and was about to slap Morgan, but Morgan grasped her from the wrist and threw her hand away.
As he was about to open his mouth, the phone at the drawer beside his bed rang with moonlight sonata tone.
Morgan replied with a much lower, serious voice. “Hello.”
Jane watched him as the speaker on the other handle spoke. Morgan’s eyes widened slowly and all of a sudden, he said, “When that happened? I’m coming.”
After placing the handle back, he collapsed at his bed and rested his head against his hands. “Mom is dying,” he said to the ground, “A car crashed her.”
Jane spoke no word on their way to Morgan’s mother. She sat at the back seat, gazing through the half-drawn window at the world outside. She remembered her dead mother who committed suicide after her father’s death.
It was three years ago. She was sitting beside her mother at the balcony, drinking at a mug of American coffee and reading Stephen King’s new book “the stand.” Her mother got to her feet with a dejected look all over her face. “Life is so sad,” she said as she gazed at the world in front of her. “Your father was a good man, he didn’t deserve to die.”
“I know that Mom, but we must forget.” Jane spoke, careless to move her eyes from the pages. “Just relax and everything will be fine.”
All of a sudden, she heard a loud scream that diminished slowly downwards.
Jane got to her feet and peered at the body of her mother, resting in the middle of the street, with an ever-increasing patch of blood around her.
Back at the car, Morgan parked in front of his mother’s house and Jane walked out, wiping a tear with her knuckle.
Inside, they found Morgan’s mother reclining in her bed with the quilt wrapped all over her body. Her eyes were swollen with remains of make up under her eyes. Her right arm was raised on a rope that hung from the ceiling.
She tilted her eyes the moment she saw her son with his wife at the door of her room. “Thank you for coming.” She said her voice airy and weak.” Sit down.”
Erda, the servant walked into the room with two chairs in her hand. After thanking her, Morgan and Edna sat beside each other at the side of the bed, smiling at Morgan’s mother.
“Please bring some tea for them, Edna.” Morgan’s mother said, “I know I really annoyed you today but, sorry.”
Edna smiled, wearing her white skirt over which a red apron hung. “Glad to serve you Mrs. Wilkinson” and she headed to the kitchen.
“What happened mother?” Morgan said, arching forward in his chair and pressing his mother’s stuffy hand. “Edna called me and I headed directly to you.”
“Your eyes are teary Jane,” Mrs. Wilkinson said, “Have you been fighting again?”
“Forget about it mother,” Morgan said hastily trying to drive the conversation away from his troubles with Jane.
“I’m dying Morgan,” she said, with crystal eyes. “I want to feel that I left my son in a safe place in life.”
Morgan dropped his head to the wooden ground and eyed Jane who sat expressionless beside him. “What do you think? Is everything all right?”
“We had a fight.” Jane said, “He refuses to buy me a new car.”
Mrs. Wilkinson laughed uneasily, but, shortly, she started coughing. Morgan arched lower in his chair, forcing some water down his mother’s pale lips. “ don’t talk.”
“I have to say something my boy,” she said, holding her son’s hand and patting it gently. “If you were really a child, a true child, instead of worrying about what you can’t do, you would contemplate Creation in silence. And you would become used to looking calmly at the world, nature, history and the sky.
"If you really were a child, at this moment you would be singing Hallelujah for the things before you. Then – free from tensions, fears and useless questions – you would use this time to wait with curiosity and patience for the things in which you invested so much love to bear fruit."