Short Story: My Mother and Her Secret Chocolate

by Kay Begalke

My mother and I share a lot of similarities.

We both have dark brown hair, brown eyes and wear black glasses.

We’ve got a similar body shape and voice (people mixed us up a lot for a long time).

We’re both bookworms, we make horrible puns, both enjoy cooking….

And we both LOVE chocolate.

There’s a standing law in the house:

“No sweets before dinner!”

So mom had to be really sneaky about eating chocolate when it wasn’t dessert time.

She would hide chocolate stashes and eat them in secret. And for the first few years of my life, it worked. I was small, and so was my brain and thinking at the time.

But I am still my mother’s daughter. I was just as sneaky, creative and determined as she is.

And with every new age, these abilities blossomed.

One day, I just had a feeling that my mom was hiding chocolate somewhere and was eating it in secret.

So I went searching around the house, finally finding it in the back of the pantry.

Every now and again, I would secretly go there for a tiny little taste. Nothing big, just enough to satisfy me without mom noticing there was anything missing.

For awhile, we sneaked around each other.

Mom is intuitive so she probably figured out at some point that I had found the chocolate stash.

She moved it somewhere else and, while holding my ear, told me, “No sweets before dinner”.

But at the time I was thinking: “If you do it, then it must be okay. And it’s chocolate.”

I tricked her into a false sense of security before secretly going about my quest to find the secret chocolate treasure.

Again, it didn’t take me long.

The pattern repeated itself many times.

Mom tried every place she could think of.

Somewhere high? I’d climb to get it.

Behind the vegetables? I was one of the few kids who actually liked vegetables.

Deep in the cabinet or among the Tupperware drawer? I’d dig through until I find it.

In her room? I was not afraid to go in there.

Mom and I are stubborn when it comes to chocolate so this happened for years.

My mom grew weary, it was evident in her eyes. Sometimes I got a little scared and wonder if she was going to send me away, or give me up for adoption.

But nothing of sort happened, so the chocolate game continued.

It only stopped when I got a part-time job as a teenager, and created my own stash.

By now my mom and I had realized how much chocolate means to us. Plus we especially needed chocolate during our periods and we always supported each other during that time.

Eventually we created chocolate meetings when we both come together and relish in the sweet.

Till this day, we still have the chocolate stash and our secret location, hidden away from the boys and other members of the family.

None of them have a clue where it is.

Mom and I are now fine with sharing. If there is something that the other cannot have, no matter what (like mom getting valentine chocolates or me bringing a cookie from work), we let each other know and respect their wishes.

I have a feeling that someday I’ll have a daughter that is going to be just as obsessed with chocolate as we both are!

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Kay Begalke is a college student with a major in English.