Cross
Mary finally came to understand her son the night she killed a man with her MPV.
By the time she left the office late that evening, making her way through the dim catacomb of cubicles, corridors pulsing in the supernatural glow of screensavers, it was deserted.
Mary was used to it. She had been the PA to Mr Tan the CEO for almost twenty years now, from the time when it was just a three person start-up. She was always the last to leave each night. She had to get everything ready for the daily conference at nine each morning.
On her way to the elevator, Mary waved a phatic goodbye at the security guard, Muthu, across the cavernous, marble and oak lobby.
“See you!” she said, a little surprised by the dryness in her throat, her voice sounding harsher than she intended, as she stepped into the empty lift.
“Ya! Ya! See you, Miss! See you tomorrow, Miss!” echoed the portly man after her, making a clumsy effort at dragging himself back from the edge of sleep.
Tomorrow? She won’t be coming in tomorrow, Mary thought as she felt her insides float loose from the swiftly descending lift, then sink abruptly, as it lurched to a stop, at the basement carpark.
She had taken the day off. Her son was getting married.
Mary had told no one at the office. In fact, she had told no one at all. John had only told her of the wedding last week and she had to scramble to swap off-days with Iris. It was good of Iris to stand in for her. She must remember to buy her lunch. She just told Iris and the Boss that it was “a family matter.”
Mary had always looked forward to the day when her son would get married. Johnny was her only child and she had always pictured a solemn church wedding at St Peter’s Cathedral. And after, a grand champagne reception, fanned by the Westerlies off the promenade, in the sun-dappled garden under the prodigious boughs of ancient rain trees. Come evening would be the smart black-tie gala at the suitably resplendent Raffles Ballroom where the night would ring loud and long with rounds of toasting and warm genial laughter.
Standing in the reception area receiving the parade of friends, colleagues and family, she would feel a sense of pride and joy. She could feel the lump forming in her throat. She would know at least that her lonely, single-handed struggles through the years have amounted to something. He would not be the only one crossing a threshold. It was selfish of her, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. She needed to complete this rite of passage misfortune had sent careening head-on into her path in the form of a drunk driver a lifetime ago. Over Peter’s casket, Mary had made a promise to give her life over to Johnny and had buried herself in work to support the both of them. But lately the grind was wearing her down. Sometimes when she allowed herself a look at her own person in the half-light of the bathroom, distended and obscene from the toll of time and toil, the only comfort she could conjure was the thought of him. It was starting to feel more and more meaningless. She had done all she could. Yet sometimes she wondered if she had done anything at all.
Thinking of him now, strong, decisive, and since a boy, sure of himself, Mary could not help feeling that John would have turned out no different in spite of her.
Silly. She gave in to a little smile. Without her, he wouldn’t have been born. He would be nothing. Silly Mary. How could it be? She could have just given up after the accident but she didn’t. She made the decision to carry on. She shouldn’t sell herself short. She made him, she told herself, reaching in her handbag for her car keys. And he’s turned out fine.
Still, when John broke the news over Friday night dinner it had come as a shock. As had been their habit since he found a place of his own, Johnny would come home and have dinner with her every Friday night. Cynthia would eat with the Wongs.
“Mom.”
“Ya, Boy?” Even at twenty-nine, Mary still called him Boy.
“Cynthia and I decided to register our marriage next week.”
“Oh…” Mary remembered thinking that the chicken was a little bland. Next time she must remember to season it longer, she thought to herself. Wonder what happened?
“Ya. Booked already. We think no need to have a church wedding and wedding dinner and all.” John continued, trying to scoop up the last stubborn grains of rice stuck to the bottom of his plate.
“Oh,” thought Mary. It must be the new sauce is not as good.
“Ya. So troublesome.” John said, giving up and deciding to pick the whole plate off the table and shovel the rice directly into his mouth.
“Ya,” she said, thinking she shouldn’t have changed the sauce.
“Better like that,” he went on.
Mary gave a quick nod. She will change back.
“Thursday. Seventeenth. Nine-thirty in the morning.” John said, satisfied, getting up, pushing his chair back from the dining-table.
Just off her field of vision, Mary thought she saw him pause for a moment, eyes on her, searching.
“And mom,” he said, finally, “the chicken was delicious.”
But really, what could she have said? Mary tried to reason with herself as she turned the key in the ignition. Broken strains of a woman’s voice on the FM slid and slithered through the furious hiss of the basement carpark’s poor reception, tumbling into the cabin.
“Like endless rain…” the woman sang,”… slip away… possessing and caressing…”
Mary knew the song. She hadn’t heard it for so long. But she didn’t know the voice. It had been his father’s favourite. Wasn’t it by The Beatles? She remembered it being slower and gentler. This one sounded harsh and insincere.
Oh I’m just getting old, she thought, as she drove round the ramp and over the speed bump and out of the white-hot fluorescent of the carpark into the sudden dark. The night lay moonless and empty, the industrial park barely illuminated by the periodic street lamps receding into the distance.
They had made up their minds. It wasn’t like they had done anything wrong. Actually their decision was in line with what a lot of other young couples were doing. Priorities have changed for the younger generation. Two of her colleagues’ children had also skipped the wedding dinner. It’s the trend now. The Times had an article on it. Too much trouble and too much money. And most of the people who turn up you won’t even know. Mary even seemed to remember once mentioning to Johnny about her account manager Michael’s son. Last year. Or maybe before that.
Yet they could have discussed it with her. Not so much Cynthia. But at least Johnny. Johnny could have discussed it with her. Come to think of it, it’s not so much the announcement that was bothering her, it was the suddenness of it. It hurt Mary that they had arrived at the decision without her. That they had, that he had, decided without her. A major decision. She would have gone along with his wishes anyway. Why not talk to her? What did he think she was going to do? Say no? Would that have changed anything? Instead she was kept out of it. It hurt. And to admit it hurt hurt even more.
Then Mary figured out why it was so dark. And she reached down and fumbled with the switch for the headlamps and looked up again and in the flash of light saw a pair of eyes in the middle of the road, staring straight back at her, dilating with the sudden realisation.
And she understood that it was already too late.
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