The Other Side of the Coin

385

“Is this all you cooked today” she asked me.

I answered yes.

“No, this is not enough, It’s tasteless. I want something nice, thick meaty, creamy and delicious”

I understood what I cooked was not enough, and not appetizing at all, but what can I do, my sources are limited.

My mother piled up her money but it’s hard to find where the money is.

Ask my sisters, they accuse me that I am hard up over her money, and if I was sincere to look after her, then I should fork out my money. OMG! I had already agreed to spare my time yet they are calculative over money.

For love or money, it was up to me to decide. Yes, I could have made by with my limited resources which were enough to buy fish and egg but no chicken and poultry.

When it came to cooking, I needed to take precautions, too. I needed to lock the kitchen door prior to cooking and to finish cooking before she started knocking or banging the door.

I need to pull out the gas cylinder head before leaving the kitchen or she will start the stove again.

She forgot how to turn on the rice cooker, at times she pulls out the pot from the cable.

Many times, she will ransack the refrigerator. I was confused over her need, and at times she wanted the refrigerator to be empty and spick and span clean. I had to answer why there were many things that remained uncooked in it. It’s hard for me to make her understand the function of the refrigerator, that things were kept for later use.

It was better not to explain as nothing was received or understood. But not explaining meant that she will keep demanding an answer or else she will take the matter into her own hands. She takes out every single thing in it. Now how am I to stop her?

“This is my house, and every single thing here belongs to me, I paid for all this. Dare you to touch any of this. You are here to waste everything.”

My head spins. I don’t know what was the right thing to do. What I knew was that there was nothing right in whatever I did.

I had nobody to support me. Every time when her other children came to visit for an hour or two (not a whole day or a night of sleep over), my mother would be good as an angel and I will be blamed as a hindrance to the sweet, gentle, poor old lady. Every coin has two sides. Unfortunately, nobody ever saw the other side of the coin.