~Episode-4~
"You made soup again?" Ivan bent down and checked under the bowl his mother had placed after cooking the warm, fragrant soup.
The soup's fragrance filled the entire home. The two bread slices and soup it was their daily meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Ivan rarely ate lunch or breakfast; he only ate the last meal of the day. Only one meal.
"I... I made it. It's your favorite." She ate the first bite of her bread with soup, pretending it tasted good and that she didn't feel bored of the meal. Of the tasteless food she made every day because it was easy to make and saved her time to meet her boyfriend Marcus.
"It's never been my favorite, Mother," he corrected her.
Ivan took a bite unwillingly, as if he didn't care what food his mother was making. He had become a boy who didn't care about such things. Food or taste was nothing important to him.
She blinked and took a long breath, collecting all her courage to open her mouth. "Ivan, listen. I know what happened last year. Things between us suddenly changed."
Before she could complete her words, Ivan interrupted, "Dad committed suicide... You're free now."
"Ivan, you don't understand what I'm feeling." She leaned closer to the table, looking at Ivan, who was silently staring down at his soup bowl.
Without looking at her, still sipping the soup, he said, "I don't care about you anymore."
She said with frustration, "You cared about your dad, right?"
Ivan looked at her this time, finding the courage to talk back. "He was a good person."
"Yeah, I know. That's why I married him." She grabbed the unfinished soup and bread, ready to throw it all in the dustbin.
"Are you sure?" Ivan's question stopped her. She stood frozen for a few seconds before asking in a low voice,
"Sure for what?"
"You married him because he was a good person?"
The tension between them rose rapidly. She felt ashamed; she understood that her son knew everything that had happened between her and her husband. Ivan's father was very quiet and a good person. He avoided going out except for his artwork. He spent his days making paintings, and she felt ignored. That's why she avoided him... avoided her husband.
She moved to the kitchen corner where an old dustbin was located. It was old and dull, already packed with garbage. She threw the bread and soup into the dustbin. Her hands trembled... her eyes lowered in shame.
"Ivan, things change after marriage... many happy couples grow apart. That doesn't mean they don't love each other," she tried to explain, but more than that, she tried to defend herself.
"But Dad still loved you after seventeen years of marriage. Things didn't change for him he remained who he was before meeting you." Ivan spoke straight, looking at her.
"I'm not denying that." She came back and sat on the chair before Ivan.
"You changed. If marriage becomes a burden, choose to separate. Don't leave the other person to suffer alone in a room." The anger Ivan had suppressed for a long time burst out all at once.
"He tried everything in the end to save the marriage, but you were already far from him... far from your child. He lost the only love he had loved every day for the last seventeen years. He loved you more than his child."
He lost control of his tongue. His hands trembled, his body trembled. He didn't want to say this to his mother, but the emotions were eating him from inside. He couldn't let them win. Emotions always come out the more we try to suppress them, the louder they return.