Mother’s arrival

Tabitha came home early from work to see Julie sitting on the couch watching TV with a huge smile on her face. She wondered what had put her in such a good mood. She made her way over and decided to ask for herself.

“Hey Julie, what’s got you in such a good mood?”

Julie smiled, “I just found out how good life could be with the right tools.”

She raised her eyebrow, “What kind of tools?”

Julie paused for a moment before saying, “Simply knowing the right people to do the right things. I learned that someone close to me was more special than I thought.”

Tabitha wasn’t convinced by that explanation. She knew her daughter was trying to hide something from her but decided to let it go since she could count on Julie to be responsible most of the time. Hopefully, it wasn’t something to get back at her sister. Those two couldn’t get along no matter what she did.

“People are full of surprises, Julie, in both the best and worst possible ways,” responded Tabitha as she sighed.

“Did something happen?”

“Nothing I can’t deal with, but one of my bosses keeps hitting on me even though I keep refusing his advances. If he keeps it up, then I plan to go to HR about it. The worst part about it is that he’s married.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Mom. Some guys can’t take a hint and are too selfish for their own good, but at least all guys aren’t like that.”

Tabitha smiled, “You’re right. My son is nothing like that selfish idiot. I raised him to be the politest, charismatic, and most handsome man in the world.”

“My brother is certainly something special,” replied Julie with more energy than she usually does.

“All right, I’m going to go talk to your sister before starting dinner.”

Tabitha was going to leave and head to her daughter’s room but was stopped by Julie.

“Mom, you should at least put your stuff down and get more comfortable before talking to Ashley.”

“Why?”

“She seems to be in one of her moods, so I would prepare yourself before talking to her.”

Tabitha's eyes narrowed, “You wouldn’t happen to be the cause of her bad mood, right?”

“Of course not, mom. I barely even spoke to her today. You’re overthinking things.”

Tabitha sighed in response to Julie’s response. They really needed to stop fighting with each other. Why couldn’t they be more like her son who's perfect in every way? She might as well take Julie’s advice only because she wasn’t in a rush to confront Ashley when she was enraged by her sister.

Tabitha left Julie on the couch and made her way to her room. She closed the door behind her and dropped her bags onto the floor while thinking about what Julie had done to make Ashley so angry. Knowing the two of them, it could’ve been about anything. Tabitha kicked off her shoes and stripped out of work clothes before putting on something looser and more comfortable. After gathering her bearings, she left the room and made her way over to Ashley’s room.

She knocked on the door, and a slightly disheveled Ashley opened the door. She didn’t look as angry as I thought she’d be, if anything she looked somewhat satisfied.

“Hey Ashley, can I come in?”

“Yeah,” said Ashley as she let her mother in. She sat back on her bed and waited for her to speak.

“How was your day?”

Tabitha immediately knew that was the wrong question to ask as a vein seemed to pop on her forehead.

“My sister is the rudest, most insufferable person I know. I can’t even believe we're related.”

Tabitha sighed, “What happened?”

“She was rude to me like normal, but something’s different now.”

“Different?”

“She did something to me, I know she did. I just can’t prove it.”

“Are you sure that it was your sister?”

The question seemed to enrage her as she replied, “I’m certain.”

“What even changed?”

Ashley quickly shut her mouth and looked down to avoid the question.

“Ashley, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

“I... I...I can’t...”

Tabitha frowned, “Ashley, look at me when I'm talking to you.”

Ashley’s face seemed **** to look up, but eventually, it did. However, her face was slightly flushed, and there was a bit of drool leaking out of her mouth as a happy expression crossed her face.

“Are you okay?”

That seemed to snap her out of the trance she was in. As a result, the anger flooded back even more strongly.

“NO, but I will be! Please, leave.”

“Ashley...”

“Please, I need to be alone,” muttered Ashley with sadness in her voice.

Tabitha felt that Ashley needed to be alone for a bit, so she reluctantly left the room. She heard the door close behind her as she made her way back to the living room to see Julie gone. She checked her phone to see a message from Julie telling her that she’d gone to a friend’s house. How convenient. She sighed harder knowing this was going to be an even bigger headache than she thought. She’d confront Julie about this tomorrow, and hopefully, Ashley would calm down by then to tell her what happened. In the meantime, she might as well make one of Ashley’s favorites for dinner.