My evil mother an amazon original story by margaret atwood performed by hilary huber you’re so evil i said to my mother i was 15 the talkback age i take that as a compliment she said yes i’m evil as others might define that term but i use my evil powers only for good yeah tell me another i replied we were having an argument about my new boyfriend brian anyway who gets to say what’s good my mother was in the kitchen grinding something in her mortar she often ground things in her mortar though sometimes she used the mix master if i said what’s that she might say garlic and parsley and i’d know she was in joy of cooking mode but if she said look the other way or what you don’t know won’t hurt you or i’ll tell you when you’re old enough i’d realize there was trouble in store for someone she was ahead of her time with the garlic i feel compelled to mention most people in our kind of neighborhood hadn’t found out about it yet our neighborhood was on the northern margin of toronto one of many cities that were rapidly expanding over farm fields and drained swamps wreaking havoc with the vole populations and flattening burdocks as they went out of the bulldozed mud had sprouted post-war split levels in tidy rows each with a picture window ranch style with flat roofs that hadn’t yet begun to leak in the winters those who lived in these houses were young moderns with children the fathers had jobs the mothers not my mother was an anomaly no visible husband no job exactly though she did seem to have a means of support our kitchen was large and sunlit with a canary yellow linoleum floor a breakfast snook and a white dresser with rows of blue plates and bowls my mother had a thing for blue in tableware she said it warded off any evil eyes intent on ruining the food her eyebrows were plucked into two incredulous arches as was almost still the fashion she was neither tall nor short neither plump nor thin in everything she took care to imitate the third choice of goldilocks just right that day she was wearing a flowered apron tulips and daffodils over a shirt weight dress with small white and pastel green stripes and a peter pan collar cuban heels single strand of pearls wild not cultured worth it she said only the wild ones had souls protective coloration she called her outfits she looked like a dependable mother from a respectable neighborhood such as ours as she worked at the kitchen counter she might have been demonstrating a jiffy recipe in good housekeeping magazine something with tomato aspic this being the mid 50s when tomato aspect was a food group she had no close friends in the vicinity i keep myself to myself she’d say but she performed the expected neighborly duties presenting tuna noodle casseroles to the sick taking in the mail and newspapers of those on vacations so their houses wouldn’t be targeted by burglars babysitting the occasional dog or cat though not the occasional baby even when my mother offered parents of babies hesitated could they have picked up on her invisible but slightly alarming aura invisible to others she claimed that she herself could see it purple according to her maybe they were afraid they’d return to find their infant in a roasting pan with an apple in its mouth my mother would never have done such a thing however she was evil but not that evil sometimes women in distress they were always women would come over to our house and she would make them a cup of something that might have been tea sit them at the kitchen table and listen scanning their faces nodding silently did money change hands is that how she made her living at least in part i couldn’t swear to it but i have my suspicions i’d see these consultations going on as i trudged upstairs to do my homework or homework was my cover story i was just as likely to be painting red nail polish on my toes or examining my mirrored face for flaws too sallow to ziti to chipmunk tooth or applying a thick layer of deep red lipstick and admiring my pouty reflection or whispering to brian over the hall telephone my evil mother an amazon original story by margaret atwood performed by hilary huber you’re so evil i said to my mother i was 15 the talkback age i take that as a compliment she said yes i’m evil as others might define that term but i use my evil powers only for good yeah tell me another i replied we were having an argument about my new boyfriend.

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