Small Talk
It was difficult to determine which is more excruciating, the pain in my hand, my heart, or the drive home.
Though his motives were genuine and were stemming out of concern, I still knew what he was up to and what he was trying to do.
When I came out to the waiting room, Frasier gave me his lame excuse for not being able to take me home and in return, why he had called Daphne.
He was trying to get Daphne and I back together, or at the very least, to start talking.
Here we are, in Daphne's car and on our way home.
Awkward silences sporadically punctuated with nonessential small talk.
"Is that the best you can do?" she accuses.
Before answering, I had to double-check who was questioning my failure.
Mother or Maris.
"Your performance was," she continues her review and ridicule, "seriously lacking, inadequate, insufficient, meager, feeble, defective and error filled."
She sighs in disgust and disappointment.
"I had hoped that by withholding it from you all these months you would have improved."
"It." I mentally echo. She never could say the "s" word, and I determine who my accuser is.
Her face and lips then proceed to curl into a frown, indicators of her disappointment in my continuing "inadequate" performance.
Now it was my turn to frown.
For I had hoped it was Mother.
After all practice makes perfect, and it was much easier to practice on the piano then it was to…
"I'm sorry. I'll do better the next time," I vow.
"Isn't that what you promised me six months ago?" she reminded, pouncing on the opportunity that I had provided for her and to serve as a reminder of my shortcomings and continuing failure.
I apologize once more, but this time not for my performance.
But because the small boy had grown up to be an equally small man."
As with Mother, my apology was not enough.
She then banishes me, echoes of Mother, to my room.
To be continued…