Functional Nuggets

She never hugged him. But she never stopped caring.

****

Mother's Day. A day Paul Fong learned what mothers should do. 

He spent the Friday before dribbling his basketball on the school concourse floor, watching other mothers reach to pick his classmates first. They often had arms wrapped around each other. 

He waited for his. 

His stood at the crowd's periphery,  half-hidden by a wall. 

At the edge of tenderness--

The maternal wallflower. 

She wouldn't hug him. Her hands remained folded. 

She wouldn't hold his hand; she'd instead adjust his collar or dust sand off his shorts. 

Always composed. Always physically present. 

Her stoic face numbed him when he cried. 

Numbed. 

****

Love arrived in functional nuggets.

They would open their doors to their home, with peeled fruit waiting for him in a bowl. A school uniform set would hang on his bedroom door, neatly pressed and totally creaseless. Detached buttons were always reattached.

Her still expressionless face along with "Chi bao le ma(Have you eaten)?"

He'd nod.

Her still expressionless face. The question asked, more anxiously.

"Chi bao le ma?"

There were warm meals--but they waited where there were no words. 

She never said "Mummy loves you." Care was her language. 

****

The years passed with pressed uniforms and repeated, clipped instructions to eat. 

Other homes seemed--

Softer. Warm invitations to tuck in. 

The teenager always sat at the back of the classroom, tucked away, half-seen. 

As the teacher droned on, his eyes would fall on Lily.

He liked Lily. She was always so--

Expressive. Expression was always new to him.

But he'd always avoid her attempts to nudge his shoulder. He'd always shy away from his playful shoves. 

At home, there was always the peeled fruit. Hot chicken curry 

for lunch. Fried noodles in a hot wok. 

But his mother's face. Expressionless. 

****

Paul never married. Affection for any girl remained restrained. 

Work came first. He was the consummate accountant. 

Precise, Patterned. Pedantic. 

His mother's hair turned a steely silver, and her mind, forgetful. 

He prepared himself, his face stoic. 

Expressionless. 

As he combed his mother's belongings, he came across his archived childhood. Carefully preserved report cards. As and Bs. 

No time for a C.

His straight-faced mother, with alert eyes. She had studied him like precious glass. 

There was a diary of his food preferences, carefully catalogued in

his mother's neat Mandarin hand. Medicine schedules she always

reminded him to keep.

Her hair grew more gray. And he, more steely. 

****

Perhaps tenderness had bypassed his generation. Forgotten him.

In its place had been maintenance. It had tightened life, but didn't hold it well. 

Paul's mother passed. 

She had lived, but never loved him--

Not without the only tools she had. 

***

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

For Mikeydred's May Challenge

Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.