apropos of anything

I brought my mother the tea she requested, and as I handed it to her, the woman sitting next to her said hello.

“She always asks about you,” my mother said.

“Yes,” her friend agreed, “I always ask about you, but you never come talk to me.”

I wanted to say, well, I don’t go talk to a lot of people. I’ve mostly given up doing the rounds these days, so I only go see those of my mother’s friends that I particularly like, the ones who have always gone out of their way to treat me as they treat their own children. But there’s no nice way to say that, and in any case, she wasn’t done.

“It’s because you think you have all that money now that you don’t talk to me,” she continued, laughing as though she’d said something side-splittingly hilarious. “But one day you’ll learn money isn’t everything!”

I was completely floored.

If there was one way I would never have characterized myself, it would be as someone who was stuck-up about money. I do have a job now, Alhumdulillah, and I am glad to have it. I do not think I spend my earnings cavalierly, and I certainly don’t think I’ve ever really had any public discussions about my salary except when one of my mother’s friends brings it up, and then I usually smile, nod, and change the subject as quickly as possible because what I earn is nobody’s business but mine and my boss’s.

I wanted to say, the reason I don’t come talk to you is actually because you say things like this. Because you think whether I’m married is your personal business. Because when I was a kid you would let your bratty children wreak havoc on our house and our toys and then laugh when we asked you to make them stop. The reason I don’t come talk to you is because you don’t understand what it means to have an inside voice.

(For what it’s worth, the bratty children are now remarkably mature and well-adjusted. I wonder how it happened.)

But it’s Ramadan, and a Lailatul Qadr night to boot, and I wasn’t about to throw it all away over her. Plus, “the retribution for injury is an equal injury, but those who forgive the injury and make reconciliation will be rewarded by God,” right? So I smiled politely and said nothing, and then at the next convenient opportunity, made my escape.

It still rankles, what she said, mostly because I’m worried that maybe it’s true and I just don’t see it. I certainly don’t intend to do it, but maybe there’s something anyway.

As John Cage would say, I’m troubled.