The Rented Room by Muriel

Short Story about a women's triumph over a difficult situation.

My forty-seven year old mom was in transition from a divorce to a life of her own. Out of five kids only two were left in the nest, my eleven year old brother and me " a teenaged gal.

As with some divorces, the women’s status goes down. This was the case with us. My mom was a well-educated woman graduating at the top of her class at Ohio State University. She wound up teaching deaf and hard of hearing children. She did a great job with the kids, but when her marriage broke up, she wanted to get far away from her husband who happened to leave her for a younger woman. My mom certainly was upset with that, but that is a whole other story.

 We were awaiting help from a low-income housing program and in the meantime my mom rented a room in a house for her, my brother and me. That is where all of us wound up living which turned out to be one disturbing month of our lives.

The couple who rented the room would talk bad things about us and we would overhear it. None of the mean spirited stuff they said was true. It was awful to hear them speaking that way about us and not only that but treating us cruelly, too.

The couple had BBQ’s in their backyard and never invited us. We would smell delicious food cooking and it was actually sad they would not share.

Or they would have a birthday party and you would hear cheerful laughter and see that there was plenty of food and cake and ice cream and again, we were not invited.

Their 10 year old child would get all kinds of treats and eat them in front of us while she visited us in our room. She of course being raised by greedy parents, didn’t learn about sharing and never offered any of her treats to us.

They had a swimming pool and we were not allowed to use that either. Even in the heat of a hot summer day, all we got to hear was their splashing and having fun in the pool without us being able to partake in any of the cooling off.

Time and again we would overhear them speaking very loudly to each other and their friends about how sickening it was that they rented the room out to us and couldn’t wait until we moved out. They would yell,” It will be great when they move so we can have our privacy back!”

My mom was so upset that she would not even go in their kitchen any longer because she wanted to just stay far away from them. She sent me in to get her hot water for her instant coffee and that was about it for us. We used paper plates, cups and plastic utensils. We had lots of sandwiches and had an ice chest to pack our grocery items in. All because of the horrible family we were living with.

But then the time came when my mom got a notice that her Section 8 Low Income Housing Certificate was ready to be picked up. She soon found a really nice townhome for us to live in and found a teaching job at the same time which was great.

After my mom gathered up the last of our belongings from the rented room and put them in the car for our new place, she went back for her final say to the rude couple.

Here is what I heard my mom scream at them: “I have never been treated so unkindly in my entire life. You both should be ashamed of yourselves. How dare you speak or behave so poorly in front of me and my two beautiful children? If you only had an ounce of their love in you " you would be damn lucky. You are vile and evil persons. There is a rented room in Hell for you greedy poor excuses for human beings. Your day will come where you will be treated 100 times worse than you treated us. I need do nothing. ‘Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord’. You are both an utter disgrace to the human race. God have mercy on your pathetic souls. You better do a lot of praying and changing of your ways if you don’t want that hot rented room saved for you in Hell. Good-bye and Good riddens you stupid imbeciles’!”

I never was more proud of my mom than at that moment. The rented room was a horrible time, but my moms overheard grand rant made up for it. As I remember back it fills my heart with joy that my mom was one strong woman and you dare not do evil to her or her kids or God forbid what would come out of her mouth. And as sneaky as my mom was at times, I am not quite sure if she left the vengeance to the Lord. I have a feeling she did something to get even with them. But of course she would never tell anyone.

And just in case she didn’t get even with them, my brother and I had our way of doing it. The day we were moving out, we snuck into the parents room while they were in the pool. Their dog was a poorly trained dog and would often poop on the floor. So we quickly picked up some of the doggy’s mistakes with a paper towel and under their pillows it went! Maybe the owners of that rented room were upset that night, but my brother and I had a great laugh that night about our stinky revenge.

Author's Note

Worth Reading?

Reviews

[Meat of Dog]

This is an interesting memoir. Something similar to this happened to my step mother before she came to be with us (in regards to being left for someone younger). I feel very sorrowful for how your family was treated. Your mother power burned those horrible people in the end, which was nice to see only because so few women have the courage to defend themselves like that. I'm glad it worked out and you were able to get away from that situation. And yes, I feel like it was worth reading.