My partner’s mother, Duckie, is a high maintenance woman; because she is 88 there are some charitable souls who would attribute this to her age, but Duckie has always been high maintenance. Although she has been blessed with good health and financial security, she spends her time cursing the fate that has allowed her to live to a ripe, healthy old age. I know many older people who are far less healthy and far less secure who are far, far happier.
Duckie is an angry woman, and lonely, with a “victim” mentality. She has two sons: One, my partner, moved away when he turned 18 and with the exception of his annual, 48-hour Christmas trips has never gone back to the ancestral home in New Jersey. The other son, Louis, single and unemployed, lives 2 miles away and makes excuses for why he is too busy to spend much time with her. Duckie had one brother who married a woman (in 1945!) that Duckie did not approve of. This escalated into a major falling out sometime in the early 1950s, and, unforgiving, she never spoke to her brother or his wife again. My partner’s father was a fine man but in the 15 years I knew him before he died I never once heard him laugh and only rarely heard him speak. Now Duckie’s entire world pretty much consists of her two ill-tempered cats and her ancient friend Edna, who, impossibly, is even angrier than Duckie is.
It was in late 2012, right after we adopted our puppy, Ali, that my partner was talking to Duckie on the phone; this consisted of spending several hours listening to her complaining about how bored and lonely she was. In a weak moment I felt sorry for her and later that day I took a picture of Ali being terminally cute and I spontaneously texted it to Duckie; thinking that Ali could make anyone smile.
Duckie was delighted. “That made my day!” she texted me. “What a cute puppy! Thanks!”
Well that was all I needed — and for the next 18 months or so I texted Duckie pictures of Ali on a regular basis. She eventually stopped thanking me for the pictures, but it never occurred to me that I should stop sending them to her.
Then, about six weeks ago Duckie sent me a text message that her phone’s memory was filled up so she could not receive any more pictures.
“No problem, “ I said brightly, via text. “You can either erase them or have Louis transfer them to his laptop for you.”
“Louis and I don’t have that kind of time,” Duckie texted right back and I, wondering about what two unmarried, unemployed people could possibly be doing to keep them that busy, responded: “OK. But I can’t send you any more pictures since your memory is full.”
“That’s fine,” Duckie texted snappishly,. “All the pictures look alike anyway. She not a cute puppy anymore.”
“Ali’s not cute?” I thought to myself, stung, and, with admirable restraint I resisted the urge to send a retaliatory text. My next thought was, “That’s fine, Lady. Have it your way.” I showed Duckie’s text to my partner who, after a lifetime of dealing with her, shook his head, sighed and said nothing.
Several weeks later my partner was on the phone with his mother for his weekly phone call. This consists of him listening to her complain for several hours; generally he just puts her on speaker phone and sets the phone down while he goes about his business and I still marvel about the day when he put the phone down and went to Publix for dog food. When he returned 20 minutes later Duckie was still talking; she never noticed his absence.
On this day however, I was in the room, half listening to her on the speaker phone when I heard her say, “Why is You-Know-Who mad at me?”
I thought nothing of this; Duckie uses the term “You-Know-Who” for whoever she is mad at any given time. But then she continued, “What the hell did I ever do to him? He doesn’t even send me any pictures of Ali anymore.” I looked at my partner and gave him my “WTF?” look. He shrugged and looked away, sighing.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Duckie continued. “He knows how I enjoyed those pictures. Why would he just stop and hurt my feelings like that?”