Not coming home for Christmas

I have spent the past couple of weeks in a bundle of anxiety.

In November, Raven (my husband) and I have a week off to celebrate his birthday. We also have a hard rule that we do not discuss Christmas until after his birthday.

In the week before this week off, Mother texted to say… in fact, let’s bring up receipts – but don’t worry, I’ll transcribe for anyone using a screen reader – I’ve also cleaned her grammar to make sure it reads properly.

Wednesday 15 November

She called me three times during work to leave a vague message saying she needed to talk. I couldn’t answer because 1) I was at work; and 2) I’d just come out of hospital and had lost my voice, following having been intubated while under anaesthetic, the latter of which I absolutely did not want to share with her because she loves bad things happening to me, and will call me up to talk about them, and ask how scared I was/am, and there was no way I was telling her why I’d been in hospital. She’d have had a field day with it.

I’m not going into it, but I will say: if you have a cervix, keep up to date on your smears. They will catch things early. I am proof of that.

With a bit of context like that, you can probably understand why I didn’t want to share that with someone who is obsessed with death and people dying while in the peak of their lives, particularly if they have loved ones left behind.

So this leads into the text conversation:

Me: I’ve lost my voice but Raven will call you shortly.

Raven did call her. She “couldn’t remember” why she wanted to speak to us so urgently. She also spent several gleeful minutes making pathetic jokes about how much easier marriage must be with me not talking. Basically, think of the 80s-style wife-hating jokes. Them. Raven just stayed silent. This was actually the second time that day an unwanted sexist had made opinions about our marriage. Unfortunately, the first time was from the guy who could fix our boiler, and we hadn’t had showers for nearly a week. So we were both obligated to pretend that this sexism was hilarious.

We were under no such obligation to my mother. Raven just let the silence stretch out until she asked, “Are you still there?”

The call was fairly short, and then she followed it up some time later with these texts:

Her: Do you want to sell that extra TV you bought? I am thinking of having a telly in bedroom.

Her: Hi there. Sorry about your sore throat, when did that start, hope it doesn’t last long.

I ignored them both. I have no idea why she’s obsessed with buying our stuff, but ever few months she asks us to give or sell her something we own, and I just ignore that too. I have learned that giving or selling her anything is a fucking nightmare. She accepts it, acts like it’s perfect, and then spends the next year or two calling every couple of hours to ask how X works or complain that Y is broken.

(Also, we don’t have an extra TV. We have our living room one and our bedroom one. They’re ours. We use them.)

I also ignored the throat thing, because if your first instinct is to mock your offspring for being ill and it only occurs to ask about their wellbeing several hours later, then you can fuck off.

At this point, I ignore most of her texts. They’re usually stuff that requires no answer, like announcing that she’s going for a shower before going into town. And she always texts during work. I’m in HR. In a law firm. I’m fucking busy.

Monday 20 November

New texts.

Her: Hi Dove, hope the sore throat is a thing of the past. I would really like to see you, and there are things that need sorting for the future. I don’t mean mine, I mean you. I know I can’t undo things, but I would like to

Her: It all seemed to come

Me: We can come down on Thursday, if you’re free.

She then called me immediately, but hung up when I answered, and I followed with:

Me: You called? Did you want to speak to me?

That might sound like a dick thing to send, but she calls me all the time for no reason. And I don’t mean boring parent stuff. I mean: my phone will ring at 3am, and I will hear breathing and the sound of some handling the phone. And then it will cut out.

And the thing is, she will absolutely not acknowledge that she does this. She says she never called, so I don’t know if she dialled me by accident and can’t admit it. That sounds daft, but I’m sure at least some of the NParent brigade are nodding along and can tell equally daft shit that their parents can’t admit to that normal humans would have no problem admitting. Also, my mother loves calling people and breathing at them then hanging up. It’s like how my entire family deals with conflict. They just call and breathe at each other. It’s fucking weird.

So, sure, it was a bit dickish, but now you know why I’m so fed up of these calls that “don’t exist”.

And nothing. No response. Nothing at all. I sent her a text asking her to transfer ownership of the car to Raven (I’ll explain that one another day, but just know I paid every single penny and more for that car, it’s not hers) but it bounced back. I sent an email. Nothing. Raven sent a couple of texts. Nothing.

Nothing.

And I started to think, what if she wasn’t feeling well? She’s in her eighties. What if she felt strange and panicky and on the verge of some terrible affliction, and decided to make peace with me, and that’s why those sentences didn’t end?

But I kept going back and forth, because this is just normal nonsense from her. But I was agonising over it. I had even googled a UK wellness check to see if the emergency services would check on her. (They would, provided that there was adequate concern that she was in danger.)

Friday 1 December

My aunt texted me to thank me for her birthday card and chocolates… huh, so it’s not a family thing. They were brought up with manners. Interesting.

Anyway, my aunt texted to say thanks, so while I had her number, I asked if she’d spoken to mum recently.

Yes. Just this morning.

Apparently mother is feeling down because I’m not going to see her at Christmas.

So she has been deliberately avoiding the texts and emails and calls, because… of a conversation we never had, about a topic I wouldn’t discuss before today, and an outcome that she completely imagined.

I can’t even fathom how we got here.