“You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute.”

The first time I heard those words, I was only thirteen. I was having dinner with my parents in a restaurant. A tall man in a blue jacket sat at the table next to us.

The tall man in a blue jacket had been staring at my mother from the moment we entered the restaurant. When we finished our dinner, the tall man in the blue jacket approached our table.

Looking at my mother, he said: “You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute.”

There was complete silence at our table. None of us knew what to say to him. We just stared at him. The man in a blue jacket had a big smile on his face. Slowly, he turned around and walked out of the restaurant, laughing loudly.

After the strange incident in the restaurant, our lives were never the same again. My mother stopped being a wife. My mother stopped being a mother. My mother abandoned us. My mother became a prostitute.

***

“Nobody loves her the way I love her. My love will bring her back,” my father said.

My father worshipped the ground that my mother walked on.

My father said: “She was my first love and I was her first love. Nobody forgets their first love. Your mother will come home. She will become a better mother to you and a better wife to me.”

My father became a religious man. Every day, he begged the son of God to bring the woman he loves, back into his life, again. In the past, my father believed all religion was man-made.

“Jesus is Santa Claus for adults,” he used to say.

He loved making fun of God, Jesus, and religious people in general. Not anymore.

He said: “God has been kind to me. God blessed my life with happiness and love. But I was ungrateful. I abandoned God. I made jokes out of him. And God has punished me. God made my wife abandon me. God wanted me to feel the pain that God feels when I abandoned Him. But now, I am repenting for my sins. One day, God will forgive me. God will make your mother stand in front of our house, begging for forgiveness. I will forgive her the same way God had forgiven me. We will be one happy family, again.”

My father has no doubt that God will give him a happy ending. As for me, I am totally convinced that God is obsessed with sad endings.

***

Twenty years have passed. My mother has not returned home. The doctors have found cancer in my father. His days on earth are numbered.

My father said: “I want to die in the arms of your mother… in the arms of the woman I love.  I must pray harder so God will fulfill my last wish.”

All of our friends and relatives had given up hope that my mother will return home. Not my father.

He said: “I have faith in God… God is not cruel… God will not let me die with a broken heart.”

Out of the blue, to everyone’s surprise, my father’s prayers were answered. My mother was standing in front of our house with her two suitcases. My mother had tears of regret. She begged for forgiveness.

My father did not waste any time. He immediately hugged the woman he loves with all his heart.

He said: “I forgive you. The past is the past. Do not talk about the past. Let us start life with a clean slate.”

My father’s dream came true. Thirteen months later, my father died in the arms of the woman he loves.

Before dying, my father said to me: “I told you that God is not cruel… God is great… God had performed a miracle… God did not let me die with a broken heart.”

But God was cruel. God was not great. God did not perform any miracles. God did absolutely nothing. God is just stood there like some useless statue and silently watched my father in misery.

***

“I want to hire you,”

That was my first sentence to my mother who I had not seen for two decades. I searched for my mother high and low.  She was a prostitute and a proud owner of a brothel.  I told my mother about my father’s illness.

I said: “His last wish is to die in your arms. I want to hire you to play the good wife to my father. Make my father a happy man before he dies.”

“I can only love a man if I get paid and my services are not cheap,” my mother said.

“I will pay whatever you want. My father must never know that I hired you. You must convince my father that you came home on your own accord, feeling regret over what you have done,” I said.

A week later, my mother was standing in front of our house with her two suitcases. She had tears of regret…

***

The money I spent on my mother was worth it. My mother played the part of the good wife brilliantly. She brought back happiness, love, and laughter into my father’s life.

My father died with a smile on his face. My father did not have a clue that everything my mother did was a charade.

The moment my father was buried, my mother started packing her suitcases. She was ready to go back to her old life as a prostitute and running her brothel home.

“You are leaving so soon,” I asked.

“My job is done here,” my mother answered.

I said: “You could stay if you want. I will pay you to be my mother.”

She said: “I can play any role my client wants except a mother. I do not think I will make a good mother.”

I was furious. I was angry. I did not expect my mother would refuse my offer to be my mother.

I shouted: “Mother, tell me why you abandoned my father? Why did you choose to abandon your son? Why did you choose the filthy road that you had chosen?”

Calmly, my mother took my hands in hers and gently kissed them.

Looking into my eyes, my mother said: “When a girl is born, everyone teaches her to be a good daughter… To be a good wife… To be a good mother. But what if she doesn’t want to be a good daughter? What if she doesn’t want to be a good wife? What if she doesn’t want to be a good mother? What if she doesn’t want to be good? Do you think a woman has a choice not to be good?”

I did not have any answer for her. There was a long silence between us.

Then, slowly, she kissed my cheeks and whispered into my ears: “Not all women want to be good. Some women are born to be a woman with no morals.”

Carrying her suitcases in each hand, my mother slowly walked out of the house. I never saw my mother again.

***

“You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute.”

Those words were written in blood all over my naked body. The man in a blue jacket was laughing his heart out. I jumped on him. I hit him.

His face was covered in blood. He did not feel any pain. The more I hit him, the more he laughed. What happened was not real. It was a nightmare.

Those words never stopped haunting me. I knew in my heart that I had to meet the man in a blue jacket who had changed my life and the lives of my parents, forever. I had so many questions to ask him.

I hired a private investigator to find the man in a blue jacket. For many years, the man in a blue jacket was nowhere to be found. I had given up all hope of seeing the man in a blue jacket. But then one morning, I got a call from the private investigator I had hired.

“I found him,” said the private investigator.

The man in a blue jacket had become a homeless drunkard. I hired some goons to kidnap the man in a blue jacket and brought him to an abandoned building. The man in a blue jacket was tied to the chair. My goons were beating him black and blue.

“Why are you doing this to me? What do you want from me?” the man in a blue jacket shouted in pain.

“If you give me what I want, I will let you live,” I said.

I reminded him about the first time we met in a restaurant years ago.

“Why did you say those words to my mother,” I asked.

He said: “You do not have to beat me to get the answers. I will you tell everything.”

***

When he was thirteen, he was having dinner in the same restaurant with his mother and father. A bald man was sitting at the next table.

“The bald man kept staring at my mother,” he said.

When they finished eating their dinner, the bald man approached their table.

Looking at his mother, the bald man said: “You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute.”

The bald man smiled and left the restaurant, laughing loudly. After hearing those words, his life was never the same again. His mother abandoned his father and him and became a prostitute.

“It is never easy to accept the fact that your mother is a woman with no morals… a woman who will serve any man who will pay her. I was miserable. I was a tortured soul,” he said.

He searched high and low for the bald man. He wanted some answers to the chaos have taken in his life. He could not find the bald man anywhere. Then, one day, out of frustration, he went to the same restaurant where he had met the bald man for the first time.

He sat in the same place where the bald man had sat. He had ordered the same dish that the bald man had ordered.

He said “Thirty minutes later, you and your parents walked into the restaurant. You and your parents sat where my parents and I sat.

“I had an urge to do the same thing the bald man beard had done to me and my parents to you and your parents.

“I waited for you and your parents to finish your meal. When I said those horrible words to your mother, I could see in your mother’s eyes that I had triggered something inside her… She was no longer the same woman who had walked into the restaurant… She would abandon her husband… She would abandon her son… She would become a prostitute… Some women are born to be a woman with no morals.”

“Why did you laughed after saying those horrible words?” I asked.

He answered: “Because I am not the only man who has a woman with no morals as a mother. I have told you what you wanted. Keep your word and let me live.”

I did not keep my promise. I showed no mercy. He was killed viciously.

***

I went back to the restaurant where I first met the man in a blue jacket. The restaurant looked old and run down. I sat in the same place where the man in a blue jacket sat. I ordered the same dish the man in the blue jacket had ordered.

Thirty minutes later, a teenage boy walked into the restaurant with his parents. They sat at the same table where I had sat with my parents years ago.

I kept staring at the boy’s mother. Once they finished their dinner, I stood up and approached their table.

Looking at the mother, with a big smile, I said: “You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute.”

From her eyes, I could see I had triggered something inside her… She was no longer the same woman who had walked into the restaurant… She will abandon her husband… She will abandon her son… She will become a prostitute… Some women are born to be a woman with no morals.

There was complete silence at their table. The teenage boy and his parents kept staring at me. They did not know how to react to my statement.

I walked out of the restaurant, laughing my heart out. I have good reason to laugh. I am not the only man who has a woman with no morals as a mother.

Cover image by Wan San Yip on Unsplash. The copyright for All About My Mother belongs to Bissme S.

All About My Mother was first published in 2015 in Bitter, a book that features a collection of short stories from Bissme S. Submit your short stories, poems, essays, reviews, and more here.