Incapacity or unwilling, he can’t make it out. It’s not that she is not around. He recalled she was rarely not at home when he was at home. When she retired he noticed that sometimes when went out on her own, it could be hours before she returned.
At that time he did think whether he ought to have informed mom when he went out for social reasons. He knew in some cases he got into trouble when he got home very late in the night. But since mom didn’t appear to inform dad or the rest of us where she would go, he thought on the same token it was not that important for him to do the same.
His mom enjoys having people around, chatting, visiting places. She regularly cooked when he was young, but she rarely does much cooking now. The thing is, there are so many places to eat within 15 minutes drive. Cost of eating out is more affordable now. But it is not as straightforward as this. There was a period of time when mom would fetch him from school, he didn’t fully explain why. And they would then go to eat in town centre. He said it felt like mom got tired, didn’t feel like cooking. Buying things for later, to cook dinner in the evening is better option.
After the years of school, when he started working, that’s when things could get unpredictable. He could not help to return home late at night. One in four or five times, his mom would get extremely annoyed, angry, and boiling over. I remember he told me a little bit of this before; back then I thought he was exagerating. Not quite, it was real alright. How he got out of it, he didn’t really say. Did he have to promise anything – he said he didn’t remember. I asked if it was more of him having done anything wrong, or is it more she wanted to feel angry, he surprised me by saying he does not know.
He understands in mom’s eyes, coming back home late is “wrong”; there is however no clear basis for what the “wrong” is. So I asked how does he feel at other times with mom. He said it was normal.
So you mean you only experienced this sudden burst of anger in the middle of the night? Well, he said, sometimes he has seen her change mood suddenly, and yes, she would be like over boiling in the same way. But in his experience this is “not unusual”, but also not “rare”, in that when it happens, it’s not completely out of extraordinary. Unplanned and untimely? Yes. Unbounded? That’s yes too.
