MAMA SAID: ONE SHOTS

Orphan's Holiday

Beyoncé meant mom. She couldn't even picture anyone else when she heard the word.

She thought back to the first time she could remember someone asking her who her mother was. She and Chloe had been at the park by themselves and Halle had been playing a little too rough with some of the neighborhood kids and took a nasty fall. It was a woman. Older, with graying hair who had picked up a crying Halle and asked. Her eyes grew wide from her answer.

"Um um my my mom?" She said it as a question.

The woman's frown was so big the eight year old couldn't pull her eyes away from the deep set wrinkles that covered her face.

"The woman who takes care of you?"

"My sister takes care of me," Halle pointed to the swing Chloe sat on as she stared at her loose shoelaces that barely grazed the wood chips. The woman's face became uglier. Maybe that wasn't what she meant. At the time, Halle hadn't had a mother in a year and as for a father? Well, he was too depressed to get out of bed and brush his teeth sometimes. Chloe was her go to for pretty much everything.

"That's a child. A mother births you, they protect you, pick you up when you fall..." The lady had pushed on. She kept getting louder and her wrinkles grew tighter as she spoke. At least that's how Halle remembered it.

She wasn't stupid, of course she knew what a mother was, but she didn't know how to answer the question as it related to her. She didn't know how or didn't want to say that she no longer had one. She simply stared up at the woman.

"Bless your heart," the graying woman tapped her shoulder with a look of pity. The woman took a seat on a nearby bench and looked over to the slides to watch her grandchildren, leaving a confused Halle standing and staring.

Halle remembered feeling so deprived of love that she went home that day and made up an imaginary mother. She still remembered holding her own hand, when she was scared, pretending it was her mother's hand reaching down to reassure her. When she was sad, she would sit in her room and stroke her own hair, pretending it was her mother wanting to comfort her. When she was happy, she would wrap her arms around herself in a hug, pretending it was her mother's embrace.

Chloe told her people would come and put her in the crazy house if she continued, but the child didn't care. When she was months older and placed into her foster home, the blatant fact that she was indeed motherless had finally been realized, and she grew more solemn and sad. It was times like those that she so desperately wanted her mother's care.

That's why she was crying. The guilt. Guilt from her forgetfulness. Guilt from actually forgetting she had a mother before Beyoncé. A mother who loved her, cherished her. How could she forget that?

The tears came down faster. No matter how many times Halle called herself irrational, weak, stupid, and immature, the one fact didn't change:

She wanted her mommy to hold her hand through this.

Then, like a miracle, her hand was squeezed. She looked up to see the worried eyes of Chloe. Her hand was reached out, grasping hers.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

She buried her face in her sister's shoulder, letting the tears flow freely, unbridled. "I didn't mean to forget her." She choked, holding back another sob.

"It's okay," Chloe soothed, knowing exactly what she meant.

Halle finally pulled away, hiccuping. "I feel bad for calling mama 'birth mother' because I know she was more than that but it's like. Sometimes those memories fade and only show up when they want to and I can only see mommy as our mother, you know?"