Mother's Day's coming

Went to Ikea after work with YF to get one of those support pillows in the hope of combatting my sleep problems. For some unfathomable reasons I told mum of the plan during the day. She was about to burst into abusives to make me realise her concern for the lack of storage space for pillows at home. Then she checked herself and said, I told you your present pillow's too high. I feared that this acknowledgement would bring back her bitterness for my insisting on bringing it back from Cornell while at the same time throwing away a wollen blanket she specially packed for me four years ago. I thought it was heavy and smelly while providing no substantial warmth. She said I was unappreciative of the effort of fishing out a blanket from the bottom of heavy chests and carrying it all the way here from Shanghai. But the linen-related resentment was not incurred for this time. She said, we've got a lot of pillows at home. Why don't you try them out before deciding if you want to buy any. I said, sure, that's at least a plan of action.

But YF bought the pillow anyway. When I got home she was still up. The radio was on. Her hunched figure was at the dining table over her domino tiles. In my memory the kitchen is synonymous with brightness and spaciousness, in stark contrast with my grandma's home by the river. But right now as my mum sit under the light she looked old. The whole scene looked hoary and tiring. Maybe the brightness and spaciousness belong only to the day. Maybe the lights in the kitchen are also yellowing. I've gotten used to yellow light again, I thought. I noiselessly closed and padlocked the door, opened my dad's unoccupied room and left the huge, bulging Ikea plastic bag on his empty bed. Living in this house made me learn to move around without making a sound. Then went to the kitchen and greeted mum with extra warmth. She said she tried to sleep but couldn't, and has been up with the radio for three hours. Her voice sounded tired and faint, adding to the desolation of the whole picture and confirming my impression that at that instant she was but a lonely old woman. It filled me with a piercing dread for leaving home again. Then she said, you came back alone? You saw me didn't you? I was immediately pulled back to the reality and my mind switches to combat-ready mode. I said, no, YF was with me right to the door. Yeah, I could hear the radio. She said, yeah I know you saw me or he would've come in. She said so quickly as if she's conscious of the things she says that are not to my liking. To that the best strategy was not to reply, so I didn't.

Took shower and thought both of us were going sleep, when she took out two pillows that she'd already found in the afternoon. She got into my room and made me try them and choose one. It was a stroke of luck that I didn't hide the Ikea pillow in my room. The relief made me attentive and enthusiastic about the pillow-choosing process. I even tried to make her laugh, saying that I wish I had two heads. As she put away the other she remarked that apparently and eventually Shanghai pillows are superior to Singaporean ones. That made me realise the nationality of those two pillows, but didn't stop me from taking out the Swedish support pillow from its hiding after mum's gone and spending the night with it.

The support pillow engulfed the neck which resulted in a little stuffiness, but I'd like to believe its advantages, and attributed the lingering of my teeth-gritting habit over the night to an excess consumption of drinking water before sleeping. All should be well except that I didn't count on my mum to be still around in the morning. A late night resulted in the late morning. She kept the radio volume low. Still I could hear her preparing breakfast and dressing up to go out to her usual stadium hang-out. Instinct seized me to grab the Shanghainesse pillow thrown aside for the night. Still I only had time to stuff it between me and the support pillow to hide the latter. My mum entered my room inquiring the effectiveness of my sleep. I was inclined awkwardly on two pillows and pretended to sleep on. She looked hard at me but eventually just said, it seems you didn't sleep too well. And she left. I got up, hid the Ikea pillow, did the morning things, went to work.