Were All Animals by Mima

Author:Mima [Mima]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532006982
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2016-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

His mother believed that it was a bad omen to light a candle unless it was during a power outage. Louise Jacobs insisted that doing so for any other reason was a way of ‘inviting darkness into your life’ and therefore, the children were never allowed candles on their birthday cake nor could Angel ever light a candle in her room; it was unacceptable in their mother’s eyes. She insisted that a terrible tragedy would follow.

Several days before Carl Jacobs’ death, apparently, she arrived at her son’s home to discover Audrey had lit a candle. It was an innocent act that was meant to freshen the air in a home that smelled like baby shit; she had forgotten about her mother-in-law’s peculiar beliefs regarding candles and was stunned when the older woman blasted her for such an ‘inconsiderate act’. Audrey attempted to calm the older woman with the assumption that her irrational beliefs stemmed from grief and anguish due to Carl’s deteriorating state.

“Chase, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think your mother might suffer from some form of mental illness,” Audrey said to him one morning over breakfast, as he wolfed down a huge bowl of steel cut oats and attempted to scan his phone for news. He almost choked on a strawberry that was combined in the mixture and immediately began to laugh.

“Really, Audrey? All these great psychology classes you took in college and the ones you take online now, and you just started to see that my mother has a mental illness?” Chase asked and felt laughter rise from his belly and light his whole body on fire, as he considered her attempt to make a serious diagnose of something that was crystal clear to the most uneducated person. “Really? What was the first clue? When she practically threw herself on dad’s casket at the funeral and made a huge scene or when she insisted that the name ‘Leland’ was actually evil and he was cursed? I mean, how many clues did you need?”

“It helps me understand your issues more clearly,” she continued, ignoring his attempts to belittle her suggestion, purposely showing her as little respect as possible. Audrey always bragged up her education as if he were a moron in comparison and took herself a little too seriously, so it was nice to remind her that even he was able to make an uneducated guess.

“Sure, Audrey,” Chase said in the most patronizing voice he could find, unconcerned with hurting her feelings; in fact, since his father’s death, he somehow felt more free, as if nothing owned him anymore, like no one had a grasp on him. He had even seriously considered leaving Audrey. Perhaps, the best way was to do everything in his power to make her hate him. It was better that she hate him than he hated himself.

“Your mother’s odd behavior made you into this weak man, who feels the need to ‘look after’ women, in some discipline or another, to have

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.