Like Me

We visited our Grandparents one humid Sunday afternoon, the kind where the air clung to your skin and the old electric fan groaned softly in the corner, doing little to ease the heat gathering at our temples.

My sister had already stolen my mother’s phone to play games with our cousins, their laughter spilling through the living room like background music I’d heard my whole childhood. I sat across from Grandma at the round dining table, absently tracing my fingers against the worn wood while silence settled between us. She didn’t seem to mind. Her attention stayed fixed on the phone in her hands.

Beside her, my Mother sank into a chair with the same exhausted expression she wore almost every day. But then, she leaned closer to Grandma, resting her cheek against the table with a dramatic little pout I’d never seen before.

“You should learn to control your children.”

“I try to, but they keep whining! Please let me use your phone.”

“What would you even do with it?”

“YouTube, Candy Crush, Crossword. I know you have it.”

“Esme, no. I’m still using it.”

I remember watching them with quiet amusement. Until then, I had never imagined that my mother as someone childish once. My mother— the same woman who sighed whenever I begged too much, the same woman who called me impatient and dramatic, was acting no different herself. She's just like me, after all.