For years, my mother wore long sleeves even in the middle of summer. One day I finally asked, “Did Dad do something to you?” She went pale, closed the door, and said something that frightened me even more…
For years, my mother wore long sleeves even in the middle of summer. One day I finally asked, “Did Dad do something to you?” She went pale, closed the door, and said something that frightened me even more…
I was twelve years old when I first noticed there was something unusual about my mother.
Until then, she was simply Mom to me.
She was the one who drove me to school, baked my birthday cakes, and came into my room at night to make sure I was covered.
But that summer, something began to bother me.
It was nearly forty degrees outside.
I was wearing shorts, my father was in a T-shirt, and my mother was sitting in the backyard in a dark green blouse that covered her arms all the way to her wrists.
“Mom, aren’t you hot?” I asked.
She quickly looked at my father.
I still remember that look.
My father looked back at her.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then my mother smiled.
“I’m used to it.”
That was the first time I wondered why she had looked at my father before answering.
After that, I began noticing more things.
My mother never went into the swimming pool.
Whenever we went to the beach, she always wore a lightweight long-sleeved shirt.
In family photographs, you could almost never see her bare arms.
If someone accidentally touched her left arm, she would instinctively pull away. And my father… He acted strangely
whenever the subject came up.
