Amy Tan said, "A mother is the one who fills your heart in the first place." Which is why I'll never be a mother.

Before Kellen, my life was routine. Monday, I had Piano lessons. Tuesday, Calligraphy. Wednesday, basketball practice. Thursday, dance. Friday, therapy and on Saturday I was to read an entire novel before I was allowed to hang out. Sunday, we brunched.

It was a Saturday when Colleen called for me somewhere in our Manhattan condo. I pressed my lips together. I wasn't expecting her home, slacking off and watching videos of my friends exciting Friday nights.

I stood to my feet, quickly rushing from the room. After we were reunited, I learned quickly when Colleen Idris-Almanzar called for you, she didn't want to do it twice.

I found her at her breakfast nook, wearing her Doctor's coat, drinking coffee and reading something on her phone. My mother is a beautiful woman. She was thirty-two at the time with smooth chocolate skin, perfect cheekbones, and intelligent downturn almond-shaped eyes much like my own.

My anxiety in human form.

"Yes mother?"

"What are you wearing?" Colleen mumbled.

Boyfriend jeans and my school sweatshirt. I was a tomboy before Kellen, taking fashion cues from Colleen and my friends to please him.

"Wrenner is having company," I said, and for all I knew it could have been true.

Though she encouraged me to be a lady, Colleen never wanted me to do or wear anything that caught the attention of men. For a time I thought it had a lot to do with Cal.

She rarely spoke about him; learning about their relationship from her advocacy speeches and sparse interviews. My mother is an inspiration and I was her burden.

"Did you take your pills?" Colleen questioned.

I had tried to kill myself once. Those close to me and my therapist will disagree with that body count but it was only once. I was eleven, away at boarding school at the time when I messed up real bad.

I wanted control. I wanted to do it before Colleen did. The pain from that experience turned me off from the idea but now and then while I wait to cross the street at a busy road I think, what if I just... walk. I won't though, I'm suicidal but I'm afraid to die.

I was misdiagnosed with Bipolar 2 and given mood stabilizers. They made me feel hollow. Like the world lost color and I couldn't remember a life before the sea of grey. I wouldn't have the error corrected to a borderline personality disorder for years to come.

"Yes mother," I waited to see if that was all.

"Your father and I—" she began.

"He's not my father," I reminded her, still unwilling to let any man take the place of Cal.

"Where do you live?" Colleen asked, not bothering to look at me.

"What?" I replied.

"Don't what, answer," she said, growing impatient.

"Chel—" I began.

Colleen's face turned sour. "You live in my husband's house," she interjected. "Now, who pays for your education?" she went on.

"You do?" I answered.

"I do?" Colleen queried.

"You do, mam...?" I corrected.

"Don't answer a question with a question, Rue. Now, let's try this again because I know the stupidest thing that has ever been in my vagina is your father," she snarled. "Your therapy. The clothes on your back. The food you guzzle into your fat mouth. I'm putting you on another diet by the way, your ass is too large for your age," she told me, despite the fact I was only four pounds overweight. "Your phone, your toys, your whole life is courtesy of whom?" my mother glared at me intensely.

"You mam," I mumbled.

"No. Damian," Colleen corrected me. "Because had it been up to me, I would have aborted you, but since you can't abort ungrateful ten-year-olds my second option would have been to leave you to be another statistic with that monster you cling so desperately to. Damian is your father. Damian is the only reason you are here, and you will show him respect!" she yelled, sending the hot cup hurling past my head and crashing onto the floor.

I stood deathly still. Not flinching as a few drops of scalding coffee hit my skin.

"Now look what you made me do," Colleen sighed as though I telepathically ripped the cup from her hand. "Marta!" she called for the housekeeper.

She never learned their names. Colleen goes through housekeepers faster than my ex went through a pack of cigarettes. That one's name was Sarra, but to my mother, they were all Marta which in English translates to 'The Lady'.

Marta-Sarra flew into the room quickly and quietly cleaning the mess as I stood frozen in place. She wouldn't last long. It took her maybe a month to realize what was happening to me and, when child protective services came calling, Colleen knew only five people knew our secret. Her Stockholm infected children, herself, and Sarra.

"What was I going to say?" Colleen wondered, touching the brim of her nose in frustration. "Oh... your father and I are getting away for the week," she said as if they weren't gone all the time. "The nanny will tend to your brothers, but your aunt is back in town and wants to know if you would like to spend the weekend on the east side."

"Yes!" I excitedly smiled, happy to get a break from that place.

I met my aunt Alexa when I was twelve. She blew in from Europe and I idolized her since. Alexa Idris, a breath of fresh air who looked just like me.

Colleen looked sad, tilting her head and saying, "You look so happy to leave me..." as though it pained her to know.

I know it's sick, but it hurt me to hurt her. It still does to a point. I knew she abandoned me, I knew she hated me, but all I wanted was my mother's love. Sometimes I still do.

Like a moth drawn to a flame, my legs moved. One foot after another until I was wrapping my arms around Colleen's shoulders and telling her a lie wrapped in the truth.

"No, mommy, I never want to leave you," I lied, feeling her body tense in my arms. "I love you so much it hurts." I smiled, and that was the truth.

Present

"I never liked him," Colleen reminds me, her voice echoing from my kitchen.

When have you liked anything good for me? I wonder, hand over my face as I lay back on my baby blue living room sofa with my journal on my lap.

"I told you this would happen and now look: twenty-five, barely an education, living in some hick town four hours from your family and on the verge of divorce!" she berates me.

Who the fuck said we're getting a divorce?

I fight the urge to be petty, say it could be worse; I could be forced to raise two bastards I didn't want, but I refrain.

Her words, her voice, her presence in my home make me queasy.

Colleen would have never come here if Gage was home. They had never gotten along. She accused him of being an opportunist. Told him I changed lovers faster than people change underwear, and she didn't see us lasting.

A slow-acting hex from the wicked witch of Chelsea. They had been at odds since.

On another note, Athens, New York is not a hick town. It's just not Manhattan. We live outside of town on Sleepy Hollow road. My love found a fixer-upper on the main lake because when he told me where he was from I was excited to know someone who lived in the place the horsemen rode.

When we first moved here the house wasn't the best but it had strong bones; large cathedral ceilings, creaky floors, and a stone wood-burning fireplace we both hated. It's a two-story, four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath, single-family home with acres of private land.

I love this house. I love Athens. I have a job I don't hate and friends I consider family. My happiest memories are here, so I don't care what she thinks.

"I don't think she wants to hear that," my grandmother Lina scolds.

Lina is yet another woman I have a hot-cold relationship with. When we met, she insisted we call her Mother Lina, Wrenner refused but I have always been accommodating.

She moved from her large mansion California to an expensive brownstone in New York after Winston's death. My grandmother loves to throw parties, calling this morning to invite Gage and I to stay for the weekend.

They were here in under four hours. Probably convinced crazy little Rue was ten seconds from drowning herself in the lake.

"Mother, when you said you were coming over you didn't say you were bringing her," I complain, placing my journal on the coffee table and walking into my country-style kitchen.

It's completely overrun by the two women. They're rearranging my cabinets and cooking my food.

"She is your mother, and I am her mother. I don't have to tell you anything," Lina passes me a cup of tea.

Colleen was barely a mother, not to me anyway, but I'm too emotionally exhausted to argue, and my house does need to be cleaned so I watch quietly, sipping from my cup trying to be civil.

"One good thing that comes from this is you can finally come home. There's nothing keeping you in this... place," Colleen says with disgust.

When was that place ever my home?

"I'm not leaving," I quickly retort, taking a seat at our small red breakfast table.

"What do you mean, you're not leaving?" she asks, her tone hysterical. "You can go back to school; become a doctor like you always wanted."

Well, I tried.

"Like you always wanted." I narrow my eyes.

I wanted to be a writer. I thought I had a story to tell and the world would want to hear it. Then life broke me while my mother held her hand over my mouth ordering me not to scream.

I didn't want to be much after that.

"Or at least... what you claim you wanted," I say with a wry smile. "Hard to tell with you auctioning off my virginity for daddies love, after all."

"Rue!" Lina scolds, clearly in no mood to hear the truth about her late husband.

"Lina!" I snap with the same judgmental tone.

I try to be nice. I try not to be petty. I think back to the girl I once was, and I fear her. Listless, spiteful, and angry, lashing out because she could.

Gage gave me center. Made me want to be a better person. Built a home I adore and gave me a life to be proud of. I'm not leaving. I refuse to let go. No one can make me. Not even Colleen Almanzar.