“I’m not embarrassed, I'm just a bit confused. You could be in a much better position right now if you had made different choices. Why did you keep us? Why did you keep my brother when he wasn’t planned? Why did you plan my sister when you weren’t in the position to?” These were questions I had been wondering about for years, and I finally got to ask them. I’m not sure why I even wanted the answer though, after all, there is a reason I rarely relax around her.

I remember once my mother said she doesn’t believe in abortions. This is when my questions about her choices started. It seemed odd to me that someone could put a fetus that doesn't feel pain, emotions, or even have a conscience yet above their own needs. I had read that the brain pathways associated with conscious awareness are not developed until around the third trimester; so why does an undeveloped organism come before a person whose life is already progressing? 

My mother's response did not surprise me. We went back and forth about why her having kids before she was financially stable is a big part of why she isn’t as far in life as she could be. I listen to her complain once a month about how she hasn’t gotten as far as she would like in life. She believes she is where she is right now because she was too kind towards people. I believe it's because she spent millions (JMD) on three kids, when if she had invested it in herself instead of giving birth, she would be a doctor right now, just like she always wanted.

At this point in the conversation, only my brother is on his phone, my sister is on hers but her chest is tight and I can see she's only scrolling back and forth between two videos; she's nervous. My mother is getting defensive and repetitive. We all keep asking her “Why?” and she keeps repeating an answer that’s too vague to answer any of our questions. She’s beginning to sound like a criminal being interrogated, but instead of the cops being the interrogators, it’s her victims. Every chuckle to fill the silence, to make the conversation feel lighter than it is, just fills the room with smoke from a smoke grenade. Every “Why?” is another grenade that goes off; my sister's chest keeps getting tighter as the smoke fills her lungs.

I can tell she never expected these questions; her body language has changed. She isn’t leaning back anymore, and she keeps looking away from us. I can’t tell if it's nervousness, discomfort, or even shame. I think my sister is trying to figure it out as well; she looks as if she’s scared to ask another “Why?”. She seems to be trying to figure out if there are any landmines coming up. My brother doesn’t seem to care; he’s still on his phone, with the occasional eye contact he makes with me and our sister whenever my mother responds to her victims. 

The air in the room feels heavier now, like it has thickened into something we all have to breathe through carefully. Even the smallest sounds feel amplified; the soft tapping of my brother’s phone, the faint scrolling from my sister, and the pauses in my mother’s voice before she answers again. It feels like we are all orbiting around something unstable, trying not to push it too far in any direction, like one wrong question could change everything. I can’t tell if I feel satisfaction, guilt, or something in between watching her struggle to hold her ground. It makes me realize how easily someone can feel known one moment and completely unfamiliar the next, depending on the questions being asked. I don’t know if I’m learning something about her or deconstructing what I thought I understood before this moment; like I’m watching something I used to belong to but don’t fully fit inside anymore.

I believe everyone should have the opportunity to make their own choices. Yet I still feel an internal conflict for resenting my mother for hers. I try to tell myself that just because she deserves to make the choice that doesn't mean it's the right one; but that conclusion makes me wonder if it's fair to judge her based on what I think is wrong. The thought sits in my chest like a weight I can’t fully push away, tightening every time I replay her voice from my grandmother’s room.

This experience helped me realise that resentment can coexist with love and that people's choices affect others long after they're made. Yet it still leaves me feeling split, as if I'm standing on two sides of the same argument at once; one side trying to understand her as a person, and the other unable to ignore what those choices created. I don’t know if I’m being fair, or if fairness even matters when it feels like I’m judging something I was already shaped by, like a river questioning the current that carried it.