Rage

After getting in touch again when my son was born and with the awful memory of their behaviour at the funeral still not far from anyone's mind, they had not caused any huge upset since. A Mom now, I had become a little stronger and when there were the first signs she was slipping back into her old ways I was on my guard. As I begin to type this post I can feel the memory of both the bittersweet happiness and the sense foreboding both my Father and I felt on the day I am about to recall. The novelty of my adorable baby boy was beginning to wear off for her, she was realising that he was competition for the limelight and if we made plans, and I`m guessing if she could see my Father looking happy and eager to see us, she had begun to cancel at short notice because she was tired or not feeling too well. I could see what was happening.

So they were due to pop over for lunch and have an hour or two with their Grand Son but she called mid morning to say they couldn`t come as she wasn`t feeling up to it. I said OK, no problem but after ringing off it played on my mind that my Father was not even considered in this and I just knew he would of been looking forward to coming. Without knowing the proper name I sort of felt I was enabling by just accepting it. So in a moment of strength {sane reasoning more like} I called back and caught her by surprise, she answered quite cheerily, not expecting it to be me. "Mom, I was thinking, I know you don`t feel up to it but I`ll pop over for Dad anyway, he could still come and have an hour with us couldn`t he, it will give him a change of scene as you were saying he doesn't get out hardly" {she often used my Father to wrangler an invite over to mine, even if she cancelled in the end anyway} She was taken completely by surprise and faltered, unable to think of a reason to block this happening as I had worded it with such ease, she stuttered... "Well....yes..I...I suppose so....." Put him on then I said and I quickly told him I`d be over in an hour for him and rang off before he had a chance to bail on me. I pulled on the drive and he came out of the front door straight away. I surmise that she`s not impressed he had cut the strings and rather than give her the chance to be vile to me he thought he would keep us apart. He gets in the car and we pull off, I have a weird feeling she is watching us as we go. This was unprecedented, she had played the dying duck card and I had seen it and raised it by springing him free. I could hardly believe it myself.

He chatted to my lad and my lad cooed back to him. I tried to keep the atmosphere as easy and light as I could. It almost felt like we were on the run ! He stayed at mine for about an hour and a half, the last 30 mins he could not stop himself from continually looking at the clock. We had tea and a sandwich but full of anxiety and dread for what would be waiting for him on his return, he seemed to struggle to get it down. The conversation trailed away and we ended up sharing sympathetic glances at each other his seeming to say `I know you tried but it will never be any use` and mine saying `If she makes you suffer for this there hardly seemed any point did there?`. I remember that day so well. Where he sat, where I sat, the defeated sadness in his eyes, he had become so completely enmeshed with her, she cast such a long dark shadow over him. It smacked of Stockholm Syndrome. He looked quite relieved when I said shall I drop him home. He lingered over my lad though and held him on his lap a few minutes more. 
 When I pulled on the drive something told me I should go in. I told him to wait by the car and watch my Son a moment and I`ll go and say Bye to Mother. I went in and called We`re back Mom.... Silence. Looking about I realise she was in bed, I knock on the door and step in, shes lying with her back to me. I say "We`re back Mom, you OK?" and off we go.....
"Am I OK, AM I OK...? No I`m bloody not. Av you been keep ringin ere ?"  ....Me: "No I havent rang you at all, why ? "....Her: "The bloody phone keeps going, I`ve ad to keep gerrin {getting} up all the bloody time and you know I`m not too good" Me: "Well it wasn`t me" she then begins to rant and rave all the time laying with her back to me. And then I have a light bulb moment....1471 !

She had not thought this through at all had she. Me: "Well don`t worry Mom, we will soon know who`s been messing about phoning, I`ll go and dial 1471 and see who called last and when" The SILENCE was deafening !! And guess who it was ?? Why it was ME !! That morning when I rang to ask my Dad over. I go back in and tell her just that. That I know no one has called other than me when she answered and she can check if she wants.  She then seriously looses it....something about Don`t come swanning in ere being clever, n I remember ow you were when you were young....etc etc.... I tell her shes told a ridiculous lie simply because she could not bear that my Father went to mine without her and if she wishes to lay in bed, making her own life a misery then to get on with it but I`m not going to let her make mine a misery any more. {OK, now I`m lying myself!} As I turn to go she leaps from the bed and crouching down as if to spring at me, her face contorted with demonic rage she growls....yes she growls " I`m guna fetch ya Aunty Iris to ya...Ger out..GER OUT....I`m going, rest assured, but I as a step from the room I am almost bracing myself for her to spring at me, clawing at my back. That was just how she would get when I was a child, almost like a deranged animal, unless you have seen a narcissist really loose it its hard to imagine. It was quite scary for me as a grown woman who could get in her car and drive away...as a child it sowed the seeds of dread and fear and anxiety. And my inner child whispered.....I remember this......

 I went outside to where my Father was, I told him what had happened and he shock his head, not in disbelief but rather in belief. I said I was sorry I was leaving him to face her, he said he was used to it after all these years and he was sorry she had done this again. The only person who never seemed sorry....... was her.