It’s official. My mother is an impossible human being. Sometimes I even doubt if she’s a human being. There’s no way out of this conversation and I quite hate it.

“If you couldn’t sleep, why didn’t you just read a book?”

“Because last week you got it in your head that all books should be together, and you put all mine in your room. I didn’t wanna wake you guys up.”

“That is no way to speak to your mother!”

“Well, it is, since I’m doing it.” I’m so sick of this all. I see the anger rising on my mother’s face and I know what she’s going to say now.

“If you want a slap, just tell me!”

See. I knew it.

“Mom, really, what’s the sense in all of this? We’re having the same conversation over and over again.”

“And you refuse to learn from your mistakes.”

I sigh, close my eyes, take a deep breath and count silently to ten.

“Christina Kennard, don’t you do that! You’re so arrogant, you think you know it all!” She’s getting really pissed now. “If you’re out of line one more time today, you can forget about tonight.”

“WHAT?!” I can’t believe this. I can’t seriously believe this. I have no choice. “What are they supposed to do without their singer?”

“I heard Bette has quite a good voice,” mom says coolly. I just hate her right now.

“If I’m not there, people will ask questions. And I’ll have to tell them why I wasn’t at that gig – because I woke up early, couldn’t sleep anymore and did a bit of editing. Do you think your students will like that?”

“I don’t care what my students think of me.”

“Yes, you do.” I know I’m a bit mean here, but I have to.

“I’m warning you!”

“Go ahead.”

There it is. My cheek is warm and the pain tantalizes. A tear burns in the corner of my eye. She gave me the slap. I hurry to the mirror – oh shit – there’s a print of her hand! Fuck! And I can’t even go to Bette because she thinks that… and… oh fuck, I can’t let my mom spoil my special way of letting her know.