<< Go Back

When is My Forever

By Aileen Friedman

Order Now!

1.

Driving past the pick-up-and-go for the fifth time, I was quickly losing my patience. Dena, my mother, was supposed to have been there waiting for me. According to the person who had answered the phone at the information desk, her flight had landed forty-five minutes ago – yet there was still no sign of her. This was typical of her, so allowing myself to get irritated over her actions made my annoyance even greater.
The fact that I had to fetch her from the airport was unusual. Her fancy Mercedes-Benz S-Class was at the workshop after it had broken down five meters from our house that morning, almost making her late for her flight to Johannesburg. I’d had to get up at four o’clock to drop her off while being forced to listen to her high-pitched whining for the entire thirty kilometres. It was no wonder I’d been in a bad mood the entire day.
On my eighth round past the pick-up-and-go station, just as I had had enough and was about to leave, there she was. I almost waved and drove on, but my conscience kept me from doing so. Standing with her arm outstretched, she signalled to me as though I were a taxi and as though I would miss her.
One couldn’t miss Dena. She was an attractive woman of fifty-five. With her bottle-blonde hair and all the immaculate grooming that money could buy, she looked, at least, ten years younger. Her lengthy high heels added height to her already tall frame. She had an aura about her that demanded attention the minute you set eyes on her, and she looked like she would easily devour anyone who was not careful to treat her as she expected.
She took her gracious time getting into my car while another car waited patiently for the spot we were in. Not that this concerned her at all; she was of the opinion that life was always all about her.
‘Why are you late?’ she accused me before she’d even greeted me.
Glaring at her, I struggled to contain my anger. I snarled through my clenched jaw that I’d been around the airport eight times and asked her what on earth had taken her so flipping long. She calmly told me about someone she had met on the plane and how they had enjoyed each other’s company so much. No doubt it was a man, and, not wanting to hear any further details, I told her to keep it to herself as I was not interested. We drove in silence for the rest of the way home, thank goodness.
Dena had raised me with a nanny, Josie. My father, I had never known. Apparently he’d left us when I was two years old, and, quite frankly, if my mother had been the way she was now, I can’t say I blamed him. Since he had never bothered to be a part of my life, I was not bothered to find him or find out about him. Dena was hard enough to deal with.
I had been told that I looked more like him than Dena. I had natural blonde hair, which I never missed a chance to remind Dena of when she was in one of her spiteful moods. I had green eyes and strong, rather unfeminine features. The only trait I seemed to have inherited from Dena was my height.
I completely understood that she’d had no husband to help her while I was growing up, but she’d had no shortage of partners throughout my life, too many that I cared to remember.
It had taken her a quick two years to gain a senior position in the investment company in which she worked, and it was another four years until she was a director and a member of the Board. That put me at about eight years old when she became Miss Most Important Selfish Person in the World, even more so than she had been before.
When Josie finished work at five o’clock, I would go home with her to her house until my mother would eventually pick me up on her way home from work. When I was about thirteen, I started staying at home on my own rather than go to Josie’s, but I always kept the phone by my side with Josie’s number on speed dial.
Every moment that Dena wasn’t at the office, she spent either working from home, at beauty parlours, or at social events that suited her needs. When I did not want to go with her for a full day of people touching me and putting creams and smelly stuff on my face, she would throw a tantrum and accuse me of never wanting to spend quality time with her. It was no use accusing her in return or reminding her of the many, many hours I had spent alone in the house, or of the important events that she had just not bothered to show up for in my life. No, I quickly learnt that the best way to handle her outbursts was to leave the house. Most times I would go to Josie’s to escape my mother’s wrath.
Our relationship was a volatile one, and we were never close or loving towards each other. It was merely one in which we went through the motions; Dena always terribly concerned about what others thought. Since I could remember, I would endlessly dream of one day being as far away from her as possible, happy and with a family of my own – the complete opposite of what I had known all my life.
Arriving home from the airport, Josie, who had become our maid in later years, was there to greet us. She was my surrogate mother, my confidant, and she greeted me with a curious smile that I knew translated into, ‘How is her mood, must I tread on eggshells or not?’
I smirked, and Josie knew I meant, ‘Yep, stay away.’
I had never wanted for anything materialistic in my life. I went to the best school money could buy and always had the most fashionable wardrobe in comparison to all my snobbish school acquaintances. Of all the designer outfits hanging in my closet, I preferred jeans and T-shirts. I had been the first in my class to get a car, and it hadn’t just been any car, it had been a Mercedes-Benz, and yet, I had never been an overly happy child. I would spend every free moment I had in my room or with Josie and her daughter, Patty, who had always been a real friend to me, more like a sister.
After giving Josie a hug, I immediately retreated to my room and to my books once again to finish my assignment, submission due date was in two days’ time.
After graduating from school, everyone, especially Dena, had assumed I would go to the best and greatest university and get a degree in something Dena wanted me to study. I’d have the application forms shoved in my face on many occasions along with a string of threats and tantrums. I did not budge. I found myself being stronger than Josie, Patty or I had ever imagined I could be in resisting Dena. I got my way on the condition that I went to work for a company she recommended and that I studied investment banking part-time.
I did both for a year, and then resigned and started with an Events Management Diploma. I cannot explain or describe the scene that took place that night. I only really remember that it would have made an award-winning scene from a movie and that I had walked out and gone to a hotel for a few nights until she had calmed down.
My room wasn’t just a room but a cottage on the side of the house. It had a quaint feel to it with a thatched roof, wooden floors and large sliding doors in every room rather than windows. The lounge, kitchen and dining room were open-plan. There were two bedrooms; mine an en suite and the other had a guest bathroom between the two bedrooms. I used the spare room as a study since I never really had guests.
I had wanted to move into a place of my own when I started working at Luxous, a furniture manufacturing company in Somerset West. But, when Dena suggested renovating the house for me I was touched as this was very out of character for her. I could come and go without ever having to enter the main house, which suited us both.
Josie lived with her husband Marco, and Patty, in a small house in the Strand area. Josie, I’m convinced, could have found employment elsewhere and had a better employer by far, but she loved me like a daughter, and I would be forever grateful to her for sticking with us – without her who knows how I would’ve turned out.

Order Now!

<< Go Back