I had just visited my dad after the third day of him being at the doctors. He was still sick but he was talking, which was a good sign.

  I walked home from the doctors. It was a five minute walk maximum. Not too long. I walked back into my home, breathing in the familiar air. I put my shoes neatly next to each other by the door, walking further in my house. I turned into the living room and I saw a person standing there. Not just a random person.

  My mother.

  Her back was facing towards me, dispying her brown hair that looked just like mine, sitting just below her shoulders. She spun around and her hair flicked around in time with her. Her facial features, although simir to mine, were almost new to me. Ever since my dad got sick, she’d been working non-stop.

  Anyone would have thought that when a mother finally saw their daughter after a long time of basically no contact, she would be happy. But not my mother. She looked angry. Very angry.

  “So, where’s your father?” She crossed her arms. Her eyes were squinted to the point I would have thought that she had sun shining directly in her eyes.

  “You mean your husband?”

  “Your father, sweetheart,” she said ‘sweetheart’ in a sarcastic way. Everything she was saying was passive-aggressive, but I knew it would soon be just aggressive.

  “He’s recovering.”

  “I asked where he is, not how he is doing.”

  “He’s at the doctor’s.”

  “So he’s been sitting in there for days, wasting the doctor’s time with his stupid sickness?”

  I was getting angry. Pissed off.

  “It’s not his fault he’s sick. In fact, you should feel bad for him. Not insult him,” I crossed my own arms to mirror her action.

  “Your father is a burden. He left me to work. All. On. My. Own. Do you know how hard it is for me? I have to work all day, and there’s no point in even coming home because all I do is work because your father decided to not fight his little sickness.”

  She angrily voiced all her thoughts, directing her frustration towards me by just dumping it all on me. Her own child. Even if I was an adult, she was one too. But she certainly wasn’t acting like one.

  “I don't even know what to say. You are being ridiculous,” I said.

  She flung her arms up in the air in exasperation.

  “You can’t even work because you're ‘too busy looking after your dad’. You’re just as useless as him!”

  “But I am looking after him! I buy all the food we need and I make sure he’s alright and I clean the house and cook for him and me. And I could for you as well if you ever even tried to come home!” I was holding back from yelling.

  “You are wasting precious time, time you could be making money during, by looking after your worthless father! He just takes up space and uses our money for his necessities. The doctor should just give him the injection and leave it at that.”

  I looked at her in pure shock and disbelief. Anger was seeping through my veins and I wanted to scream and shout and punch her until she shut that foul mouth of hers. I clenched my fists by my side, opening my mouth then shutting it.

  She smirked. She smirked.

  “Speechless. Sheepish. Awkward. Useless. Like father, like daughter.”

  She continued talking. I don’t know what she was saying. Something awful, for sure. I turned and walked out. Out of the house. My bare feet stung as small rocks and grains of sand dug into my soles. I walked fast, then started running, then started sprinting. Tears sprung at my eyes, threatening to spill an ocean. I ran into the forest, pushing past the bushes and avoiding the trees. I ran. I ran to our spot, bursting into the clearing. Asher. Asher sitting on a log.

  Oh my gosh, I was so gd to see Asher.