Muse [18+] • REVISING

41 | Vertigo

It's the first photo I've ever seen of the two of us.

I was wrong. We did have a photo together. The only one that would ever matter for the rest of my life, no matter how long it took for my own blood to meet me halfway. She was still my mother.

"You were the only thing in my life that I did right," she sniffles. "And I'm not even truly responsible for it. I'll spend the rest of my life and everything that comes after apologizing."

She brought me into this world, but she didn't teach me how to live in it. It's either nature versus nurture, and because there was never any nurture, I had to learn on my own. I can't say that I'm okay with the way things are, and how they're going to end with her, but I've accepted where she is.

"Oh, mon ange," My angel. She hasn't called me that since I was little. Her fingers wrap around my hand, rubbing over the dried paint in the web of my thumb from spending the night in her studio. "You deserve so much more than this world. Everything papa and I failed to give you. My sweet boy, I'm so sorry." I feel my eyes itch, my throat closing up at the sight of my mother regretting her life.

The regret she carries like a ball and chain is something I never wanted to feel. She knew she'd be buried with that, no matter how many times she apologized for it. The one thing I could do for her right now to take off maybe even a link of that burden was telling her that I understood.

Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. To understand all is to forgive all.

"I know you are, mama," I squeezed her hand, glancing up at her. My eyes sting. "I know."

I think back to what I told Vera. Hurt people hurt people. No one taught them, and so how could they teach anyone else? How could they promise a world when no one ever made that promise to them? It doesn't make it right, but it makes it less sufferable to know there's a reason. There's always a reason.

Then, I think about those three words. They could've loved me, but I would've never known. They didn't know how to show it. I wanted the words to leave their mouth, for them to show up more than the nannies and the gold watches they'd leave under my pillowcase as an apology, for them to just be my fucking parents. I wanted to know what it was like to be ten again, and not have to cry myself to sleep because all I ever did every night was wait for them to tuck me in and tell me they love me.

Those three fucking words.

I've only ever said those words once in my life, three syllables leaving my mouth like caught hair like maybe I shouldn't have admitted something I didn't know how to show. I remember using those words like a signature on a contract, but love is not binding in that sense. Deep down, I might've meant them, but you don't tell someone you love them when your time is up. You're supposed to tell them when you know you're able to live up to it.

When you wait out of fear, that is how regret suffocates you. It's what's suffocating my mother as she sits inches away from me. It's what drives her to finally say those words because her time is up.

"I love you, mon bébé," she barely whispers, tears streaming down her face. "I have always loved you. Please know this, if it's the only thing you ever remember about me." It's like her signature on a contract. It's what'll bind us long after she's gone.

Another link off the chain, although the ball remains.

I blink, feeling little drops fall down my face. She loves me. I know that now. I feel it now. It doesn't make up for the ten-year-old who lies awake at night, but as I stare at her, her eyes heavy, her face pale and sunken in, it's enough for me. It's enough for me to realize that, unlike my mother, my time isn't up. That if she could find the courage on her deathbed, I could find the courage for the rest of my life.