A name! He said a name and I hated it. Just the sound of it made me feel like someone was hurting me. I squeeze my eyes closed tighter, trying to pluck the name forward, trying to keep picturing myself on those stairs but everything in my head suddenly disappears like a brick wall has slammed down, blocking me from what I need.
The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly rise and my eyes fly open, realizing I’m not alone in my dark, quiet room. I slowly roll over and turn my head to the side, my heart pounding in my chest when I see a dark figure standing next to my bed staring down at me. It makes me remember that night in the woods, lying on the muddy, wet ground and looking up to see a shadow hovering over me. Is it the same person here to finish what he or she started?
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The words are soft, barely a whisper of sound, and my heart thumps loudly in my chest. I remain perfectly still in my bed as the shadow leans closer, the light from the moon shining through my window finally allowing me to make out who it is.
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” my mother whispers again.
Her voice is full of anguish, and I hear her sniffle and realize she’s crying.
She doesn’t move any closer, just continues to stand in the shadows staring down at me.
“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I was so weak and he was so strong,” she rambles quietly. “I made a mistake, and everyone suffered. I didn’t know. You have to believe me, I didn’t know.”
I stay quiet and still, letting her unload her guilt and make her confessions, even though I have no idea what she’s rambling about.
Gazing at her in the darkness, I watch as she turns away from me, moving to the window to stare out into the night in a daze. The moonlight illuminates her profile, and I see tears fall like a river down her cheeks. I notice that she’s clutching something in her hands, holding it against her chest, but the light from the moon isn’t strong enough for me to make out what it is.
“My daughter, so beautiful and perfect and good. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have believed him. I should have seen the truth all along. It hurts so much. Oh my God, it hurts. I deserve this; I understand that now.”
So far, that’s the only statement she’s made that I can understand and agree with. The secrets, the lies, the dreams and memories I have of so much pain…she was the cause of it. She and my father both were, and they deserve to suffer as much as I have.
“I have to make this right. I have to stop the pain,” she whispers, bringing one hand up to swipe away the tears.
With her palm pressed against her cheek, the moonlight glints off the object still clutched in her other hand against her chest and I can clearly make out what it is now.
I jerk my body up and kick the covers off me, scrambling off of my bed on the opposite side of where my mother stands, moving so quickly that I stumble to the ground, my knees smacking roughly against the hardwood.
My mother doesn’t pay me any attention; she just continues to stare out the window. The only movement she makes is to pull the object away from her chest, pressing the length against the side of her head, pointing it up at the ceiling.
I should be afraid that my mother came into my room in the middle of the night, mumbling nonsense as she holds a gun in her hand. I should scream for my father, shout for help, run out of the room as fast as I can. Clutching onto the edge of my mattress, I slowly push myself up from the floor and face her head on. She looks so sad and full of apology, small and miserable with her shoulders sagging in defeat, and I smile in the darkness that she’s falling apart right in front of my eyes. I ran away that night in the woods and look where it got me? A fractured mind that no one wants to help me fix. I refuse to run away this time.
I’m not scared of this pathetic woman; my head is too busy filling with memories of her looks of disgust, the slap of her hand, the vitriol she screamed at me, the blame she placed on my shoulders for the actions she was responsible for, and how easily she could pretend like I didn’t exist.
My heart doesn’t beat in fear: it thumps in anger. How dare she come in here, dumping her guilt all over me to try and clear her conscience? She’s had plenty of time to make amends and now that the truth is unraveling, now that I’m starting to put things together and refuse to believe their lies, she decides it’s time for honesty.
“You never loved me,” I finally speak.
She doesn’t move or make any indication that she heard me. My memory is still spotty, large chunks of time are still unaccounted for, but I know the words I say are true. I can feel their certainty ringing through my mind just like it did with knowing I can swim. For days I tried to tell myself my memories were wrong. It made more sense that I might be crazy than to think my entire life is a lie and my parents were just perpetuating it.
“It was me out by the lake,” she whispers, ignoring my statement.
She suddenly throws her head back and laughs, the sound bouncing off the walls in my small room.
“I had to see. I had to know for sure and I was right.”