My parents resent me.

I'm not saying that to be dramatic, and I'm not looking for pity. And it doesn't mean they don't love me in their own strange and limited way. It's just true.

My mom and dad were 17 when she got pregnant with me, and with both of their parents being older and very "traditional", they were forced to get married.

On top of that, my mom had an extremely dangerous pregnancy with me. She ended up on bed rest because she had complete placenta previa. That's where the placenta, which keeps the baby alive and nourished, gets in the way of the cervix so the baby is kind of trapped inside, and it often means an automatic caesarean section. She went into premature labor and ended up  having a c-section, but because of intense bleeding, she also had to have a complete hysterectomy to save her life. Meaning, at age 17, my parents got married, and at age 18, they became parents, but at the same time lost the hope of having any more biological children.

How do I know they resent me? Because they have said it often throughout my life. Maybe not in so many words, but when they made comments like, "I was going to go to art school, but when you were born, I had to say good-bye to that dream," I figured it out. That was my dad, who has worked as a railway engineer since 2003, the year I was born. He makes very good money, and his job is solid as a rock since Chicago is the biggest railway hub in the country. But I get that making money isn't all there is to life.

And as soon as I turned 16, my mother insisted that we visit a gynecologist so I could get on birth control, repeatedly drilling into my head that nothing would be worse than having a baby at my age, when I have my whole life ahead of me. She wouldn't even believe me when I told her I wasn't having sex with anyone. At all.

Gradually, I got the message from both of them - I had been a death sentence to their future.

I've never felt neglected exactly, but maybe more like an inconvenience. The only time my mom and I get along is when we're working together in her salon. When I was much younger, I would sit on the back porch turned workspace and watch her as she cut and styled many women from the neighborhood. She also had an occasional manicurist come in and do nails, so I'd watch Tham for hours while she trimmed and painted nails. She made it look so easy to turn someone's grubby cracked nails into a work of art. And when no one was sitting at her station, she taught me everything she knew. My mom also taught me her trade, so I can honestly say I've learned something useful by just hanging out with older woman and connecting with my mom.

So, this Friday afternoon, I found my mom putting the last touches on Mrs. Clay's hair. I grabbed the broom and started sweeping  up the snips on the floor. Mrs. Clay waved good-bye as I dumped the last load of hair into the trash. Then I began gathering up towels and throwing them into the small washing machine that was used only for salon laundry.

"Mom?" I set the temperature to HOT and added the soap.

"What?"

"Could we please do a mani-pedi tonight?" I asked hopefully. I could reasonably do it myself, but I tried to do things we both enjoyed whenever possible, since we had so few things in common.

"Something special?" She asked as she sanitized her tools and the styling chair. 

I turned around to face her, but she continued focusing her attention on cleaning. "I'm going somewhere with Leo tomorrow. Oh, and his uncle? I hope that's okay."

"The music guy? The one from LA?" I nodded yes, barely containing the excitement in my chest, but she didn't see me. "Where?"

"Um, Leo is going to work with his uncle for the summer, and uh, well Tito Rod just signed a new artist." She didn't really catch on to the fact that I was just about to explode with emotion. She was still tidying and simply said, "Mhm," as an invitation for me to keep going, but I wanted her full attention. "Mom!"

"What?" She asked, sounding slightly exasperated, but she finally looked straight at me.

"I'm meeting Adam Hayes tomorrow!" I blurted, my voice sounding high and unusually shrill.

"Are you going to throw up?"

"No!" I sighed and took a deep breath to even out my tone. "Did you hear what I said?"

"You're going to meet Adam Hayes tomorrow. Who is Adam Ha-" She stopped mid-sentence and her eyes grew so wide I thought they might pop out of her head. "What?! You're going to meet Adam Hayes? The Adam Hayes?" She asked, finally absorbing the relevance of this event. Thank goodness because I was about to disown her if she didn't figure it out.

"Yes! That's what I've been trying to tell you." Then she stood still, perfectly engaged as she listened to the whole story. "So that's why I want to do a mani-pedi tonight," I finished with a pleading grin.

"What about your hair?" She asked.

"What's wrong with my hair?"

"Nothing, but I thought you'd want to be washing it with glitter or something," she teased.

"No, I just did a Moroccan Oil treatment on it a few days ago," I said carefully, hoping she wouldn't mind that I used her products without asking.

She gave me one of those looks that meant, Fine, but don't do it again. "So, mani-pedis?" She asked. "Sounds fun. How about we order some Chinese?"

"Perfect," I said happily. My dad was gone most weekends so it was just the two of us again.

After eating far too much crab rangoon and getting my nails done in a cute faded orange design that seemed to scream summer, Mom asked if I wanted her to help me pick out my outfit. That was unexpected, but I gladly said yes. As I tried on just about every outfit in my closet and started to pull out all of my summer clothes, Mom happily chatted about her dates with dad when they were in high school. As if this compared to her experience at all. Still, I patiently listened, thinking it was kind of fun that she was opening  up to me like this.

I finally decided on a crisp, plain white tank top with spaghetti straps and some loose fitting pants with a belted bow around the waist. They were almost the same color as my nails. I thought it was pretty good for the occasion since I was meeting music royalty - okay, so maybe he was more like a Duke or a cousin to the Prince of Wales, but he was pretty high up there - I wanted to wear something comfortable and semi-dressy, and this outfit just nailed. My mom approved as well.

Now, don't go thinking that I've been exaggerating about my parents neglecting me. What happened between my mom and me that evening was extremely unusual. Like, it's never happened before, ever. It was kind of refreshing to know that she and I could get along when we were speaking the same language.

* * * * *

Sorry it took me so long to post another chapter. Life just gets away from me sometimes. I hope to post the next chapter soon. It's mostly written but I have to figure out a few things before it goes live because it will be the actual meeting, and I want it to be perfect.

Thanks for being patient!