”Why, Honey?” is a short story written by Raymond Carver. It tells about mother and her son who is acting odd towards her.
Their cat dissapeared on the Fourth of July and it was found next day in their neighbours backyard. Someone had stuffed firecrackers into Trudy’s ears and you know where. The neighbout said to the mother that one of the boys was her son but the mother could not believe it.
Son was working as a stockyboy at Hartley’s. The night that he was given his first check he came home and lied about the wage that he got, he said that he was paid 80 dollars but it was really 28 dollars. There is no particular reason why he would lie about his wage.
If mother asked from her son that where was he last night and he answered ”to the show”. But mother found out that he was lying. She did not know why he lied to her instead of telling the truth.
One day son was supposed to go to a field trip and mother asked what did he saw during the field trip and he looked mother into the eyes and lied that he saw land formations ash and so on. The next day mother got a note from the schoold saying they need permission for the field trip.
Mother found a bloody shirt from son’s car trunk and thought that he had murdered someone but son said that his nose had been bleeding. It scared the mother.
One day son had made a supper for mother as an apologize. Mother told him about her feelings towards the sons lies and asked why he did that. Son kept staring at her but didn’t say anything. Then son moved alongside mother and said ”kneel is what I say, kneel down is what I say”. Mother ran into her room and locked the door. Son packed all his necessary thing and left that night for good.
One night mother went to sons room when he was bent over the dresser and slammed a drawer and shouted to mother to get out. Son said that he is sick of her spying on him.
Mother’s claims about her son are very unfortunate. Her evidence is very convincing. The mother writes about her son very distantly and does not mention his name in any turn. The final paragraph tells about the narrator that she has been holding this unfortunate story inside her and she has wanted to tell it to somebody. I consider that the narrator is very reliable, nobody could lie about this kind of story, expect his son. I think that the mother is writing to son’s wife.