By the time I reached my early teens, Gabriel had become part of the landscape behind our house.
He was there in the mornings.
He was there when I returned from school.
And on some evenings, when I looked through the kitchen window, I could see him sitting quietly near the fence while my mother brought him dinner.
Twenty years was a long time to feed someone.
At least, that's what I thought when I was old enough to understand how long a year could feel.
My mother never talked about stopping.
She never announced that Gabriel had earned another meal or that she had decided he deserved more help.
She simply continued.
A plate.
A container.
A knock at the back door when he returned the empty dishes.
Sometimes I wondered whether she would notice if I stopped coming home.
The thought embarrassed me, so I kept it to myself.
I became more difficult as I grew older.
If my mother asked about school, I gave her one-word answers.
If she asked whether I wanted to help prepare dinner, I said I had homework.
If she mentioned Gabriel, I left the room.
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
One evening, she found me sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my schoolbooks spread around me.
The door was open, and she stood in the doorway holding a folded towel.
"You've barely spoken to me all week."
"I'm busy."
"You can be busy and still answer a question."
I turned a page without reading it.
"What do you want me to say?"
She looked at me for a long moment.
"I want you to tell me what's wrong."
I nearly told her.
I nearly said that I missed her.
That I was tired of watching her give away things we could barely afford.
That sometimes I felt ashamed for being angry at a hungry boy, but I didn't know what to do with the anger once it was there.
Instead, I said the one thing I knew would hurt her.
"You care more about him than you care about me."
My mother lowered the towel.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she sat on the edge of my bed.
"I love you," she said. "That has never changed."
I looked at the wall.
"Then why does he get everything?"
"He doesn't get everything."
"How would I know? You're always giving him something."
She rubbed her forehead.
I could see the tiredness in her face, the same tiredness that had been there since my father died.
"I cannot make you understand this tonight," she said quietly.
"Then don't."
She stood.
She didn't shout.
She didn't punish me.
She simply carried the towel out of my room and closed the door halfway behind her.
I felt victorious for about five minutes.
Then the house became quiet, and I felt worse.
I didn't apologize.
That was one of the things I learned to do well.
I could hurt someone, watch them retreat, and convince myself that the distance was their fault.
Gabriel remained patient with me.
I wish I could say that made me kinder.
It didn't.
When I was fourteen, he tried speaking to me while I was carrying groceries from the car.
One of the bags was cutting into my fingers.
He noticed and stepped forward.
"Here. Let me take that."
"I can carry my own things."
He stopped.
"I was only offering."
"I didn't ask."
He nodded and moved aside.
I walked past him without looking back.
Inside, I put the groceries on the counter and discovered that one of the bags had torn.
A can of peaches had fallen out and rolled beneath the table.
My mother came in from the laundry room.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
She saw the broken bag.
Then she looked through the window and noticed Gabriel standing near the fence.
She understood.
I could tell by the way she pressed her lips together.
But she didn't say anything.
That silence bothered me more than another argument would have.
A few weeks later, I found the wooden bird Gabriel had once offered me.
My mother had placed it on a shelf beside the kitchen window.
The carving was rough, and one wing was slightly shorter than the other.
I picked it up and turned it over.
There were small marks along the bottom where the knife had slipped.
I wondered how long it had taken him to make it.
Then I put it back in the same place.
I told myself it meant nothing.
By then, I had become very good at telling myself things that weren't true.
When I was sixteen, I began talking about leaving town.
I wanted to study somewhere else.
I wanted a different house, a different street, and a life where nobody knew about the boy who lived behind our property.
My mother encouraged me to apply to colleges.
She helped me fill out forms at the kitchen table.
She found the old documents I needed and reminded me about deadlines.
She did everything she could to help me go.
I didn't notice the contradiction.
I wanted her support, and she gave it.
I wanted her to be proud of me, and she told everyone she was.
But I still resented her for feeding Gabriel.
When I received an acceptance letter from a college in another city, I carried it into the kitchen.
My mother read it twice.
Then she hugged me.
"Oh, sweetheart."
Her voice trembled.
I stood stiffly in her arms before finally hugging her back.
For one brief moment, I felt like her child again.
Then she asked whether I had told Gabriel.
The warmth disappeared.
"Why would I tell him?"
She let go of me.
"I thought he might want to know."
"Why? Is he part of the family now?"
She looked down at the letter.
"No," she said. "He isn't."
There was something in her voice that made me pause.
But she folded the letter carefully and handed it back to me.
"You should be proud of yourself."
I wanted to ask why she sounded sad.
I wanted to ask whether she was afraid of being alone.
I wanted to tell her that I was afraid, too.
Instead, I went upstairs and shut my bedroom door.
The months before I left were filled with small preparations.
My mother bought a suitcase at a discount store.
She washed my clothes and folded them into neat stacks.
She tucked a little money into an envelope and told me to keep it for emergencies.
I protested because I knew money was tight.
She insisted.
"Take it. You'll need it more than I do."
I accepted it.
I didn't ask whether she had enough for herself.
The morning I left, Gabriel was nowhere in sight.
I was almost relieved.
My mother stood beside the car while I loaded my suitcase.
The sky was pale, and the air smelled like wet earth from the rain the night before.
She adjusted the collar of my jacket.
"Call me when you arrive."
"I will."
"And don't skip meals just because you're busy."
I smiled faintly.
"I won't."
She looked as if she wanted to say more.
Then her eyes moved toward the fence.
"Your mother will always be here," she said, correcting herself almost immediately. "I'll always be here."
I didn't understand why she had stumbled over the words.
I was already thinking about the road ahead.
She hugged me before I got into the car.
I remember that clearly.
Her arms were tight around me, and she held on for a little longer than usual.
I should have held her just as tightly.
Instead, I pulled away.
"Mom, I'm going to be late."
She stepped back.
"All right."
I drove away without looking in the rearview mirror.
That is the memory that hurts me most now.
Not the arguments.
Not the pie.
Not even the years I spent blaming Gabriel.
It is the fact that my mother was standing alone beside our old house, and I was in such a hurry to escape that I couldn't bear to look at her.
At first, I called home regularly.
I told her about classes, my roommates, and the small apartment I rented after my first year.
She asked whether I was eating properly.
She asked whether I had warm clothes.
She asked whether I was getting enough sleep.
She rarely talked about herself.
Whenever she mentioned Gabriel, I changed the subject.
Eventually, our conversations became shorter.
I was busy with work.
She didn't want to disturb me.
I had plans for weekends.
She said we could talk another time.
There was always another time.
Until there wasn't.
Years passed.
I built a life in the city.
I found steady work, made friends, and learned to live without asking anyone for help.
I told myself that independence meant I didn't need the past.
My mother still called on birthdays.
She sent small packages around the holidays, usually with something homemade wrapped in paper.
I thanked her.
Sometimes I called her back days later.
Sometimes I forgot.
When I did call, I could hear the television playing in the background or the faint clatter of dishes from the kitchen.
I pictured her at the old table, sitting alone with the phone pressed to her ear.
I didn't ask whether she was lonely.
I didn't want the answer.
Once, when I was in my twenties, she told me Gabriel had been unwell.
I remember standing in my apartment with a cup of coffee in my hand.
"What happened to him?"
"He hasn't been feeling strong lately."
"Does he have a doctor?"
"He's managing."
I almost laughed.
She had spent years feeding him, and now she was still worrying about his health.
"Mom, he's an adult. He can take care of himself."
She was quiet.
Then she said, "Not everyone has had the same chances, sweetheart."
I stared at the coffee.
I knew what she meant.
I also knew I didn't want to hear it.
"Can we talk about something else?"
"Of course."
She changed the subject.
She always did.
After that, I called less often.
I told myself we had grown apart naturally.
It sounded better than admitting I had spent years punishing her for loving someone who wasn't me.
Then, one winter evening, my phone rang while I was preparing dinner.
Her number appeared on the screen.
I answered with a smile already forming because I assumed she was calling about something ordinary.
But I heard another voice first.
A hospital employee asked whether I was her daughter.
I set the knife down.
"Yes. What's happened?"
There was a pause.
My mother had suffered a stroke.
She was in serious condition.
I gripped the edge of the counter.
For a moment, I couldn't remember how to breathe.
Then I asked which hospital she was in.
The person gave me the address.
I wrote it on the back of an envelope, grabbed my coat, and left the apartment without turning off the kitchen light.
I had spent years telling myself there would always be another time.
Now I had no idea whether there would be another conversation at all.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Returned to the Hospital Expecting My Mother to Ask About Herself, but Her First Request Was About the Boy I Had Left Behind
I Was Eight When My Mother Started Feeding a Stranger, and I Never Understood Why He Seemed to Matter More Than Me
Part 2 of 12
