It was a fairly standard Tuesday evening. School had been uneventful and easy to get through, I had finished all my homework in class, and I was blissfully freed up from my usual tight evening schedule. Shortly after school ended I had made plans with a friend to come to her house for a few hours to watch some hilariously shallow reality TV shows, among them America’s Next Top Model. Being the morally aloof, visionary teenager that I was, pop culture satire was among my favorite pastimes, especially when I had a friend to join.
My mother hadn’t been home all day, and her absence carried into the evening. My plan was to give her a break and take the bus (my unfailing link to my social life at the time) to the aforementioned friend’s home. As luck and dire coincidence would have it, the bus’ scheduled arrival time was just a few minutes after my mother was slated to return home that evening, and its arrival at my friends house was the same time that she got home from her voice lesson. I decided I would wait for my mother to return home to ask to go, since she was so close already.
A half hour and change past five and I was ready to go. My mother walked through the door with an air about her. This air was roughly as breathable as gravel. Enamored with my plans, I did not notice. With a good amount of hope and cheer in my voice, I pitched the masterfully crafted plan to her.
“I don’t feel like going out tonight. I had a pretty bad day,” she responded. I explained that the bus would take me one way, and my friend’s mother the other. “Will you have dinner with me?” she asked.
“Sorry mom, but the bus is leaving right about now.”
And with that I was out the door. My mind had no room for idle speculation or thought. The mission was to reach the bus stop as quickly as possible. It was only a short walk from my house, but still I hurried. When I reached the stop I knew that my chances of catching the bus were fine, since the bus doubled back down the road I lived on. Now I waited.
The hurrying over, my mind was available for thinking once again. Several things started to hit me, one at a time. The first was that my mother hadn’t actually said I could go. No matter, I could later argue that it was implied. The second was that she hadn’t seemed in a great mood. I searched for the reason. Ah yes, she had a bad day. A day really can’t be that bad, can it? The third was that she had wanted me to stay for dinner. This was the proverbial straw for the ill-fated camel, and so everything else just piled on at this point.
Dinner with me was likely the bright light at the end of my mother’s day that she had been hoping for throughout whatever proceedings she had undergone which had taken such a grave toll. I had denied her that light for some cheap reality television. Her boyfriend wasn’t home that night, so she now had no one to discuss the day with for at least a bit of venting. Yet I had just brushed it off without giving it thought. And still I waited for the bus.
I frantically began trying to justify my continued stillness. The friend I was off to visit! She was going through some rough times, too. She was borderline suicidal, after a fashion, anyway. She was in therapy. I needed to comfort her. Yes, that was it.
“She’s fine tonight. There’s no comforting needed. You know that’s not why you’re going.” My conscience broke in, gaining strength in its voice. “Besides, your mother has cancer. That could very well be related to her day.”
There I stood at the bus stop, a self-serving teenager trying to justify to himself leaving behind his cancerous mother who just needs to have dinner with someone. I made a weak compromise. I decided to call my mother and talk to her for as long as she needed. This failed, of course.
My mother had no interest in talking to me on the phone. I was not home, therefore I was not there for her. More feverish internal debating followed. Finally I arrived at another compromise.
The bus was running awfully late. Perhaps it would not come, and I would be saved the pain of having to make the decision myself. Ingenious. Pathetic. I set a deadline for the bus and waited some more. The deadline neared, but the bus didn’t seem to. I felt sicker and sicker by the second. As the agreed upon time (agreed upon by my two wily debaters) arrived, I decided I’d best start walking home. No sooner did I start walking than the bus appeared in the distance. It’s still not at the bus stop, argued my shoulder angel. Oh well, said the more persuasive devil. And so I boarded.
I presented my school ID to the driver. He told me that I needed a student bus pass as well. No problem. I would just pay in change. I fished into my pockets for a couple of quarters, and was surprised to find none. I had forgotten them on my way out the door, so eager had I been to abandon my mother. “Shoot.”
I un-boarded the bus and watched it drive off. “You’re pathetic,” scolded my conscience. Not only had I avoided making the decision, leaving the matter up to limited chance, but I had allowed myself to accept the choice I knew to be wrong. And now I didn’t even reap the guilt-ridden benefits. I trudged home.
I walked through the front door, and she was sitting on the couch watching TV. The irony certainly seemed to be piling up where morality wasn’t that night. “Did you come back because you felt bad?” asked my mother, beaming. I could only manage a weak smile. She stood up and hugged me. I hugged her back. Hard.
We had dinner (stuffed peppers) and we talked about her day. It was every bit as bad as she had told me, and I said so. By the end of the meal her mood was dramatically improved and she decided that maybe she could go out after all, so long as I drove one way. I spent the drive imagining my head slamming into the dashboard repeatedly.
