It Should Have Been Like This

Book Thirty-four: to be a mother again

   "It's okay, Angel, you'll be fine," he whispered to weeping Serenity. Would we ever be? Is this the calm before the storm? What do I do now?

~~~

   Two weeks, two awfully painful weeks. Serenity was discharged but she changed. She remained in her room, rarely eating, barely seizing from crying and never speaking a word to anyone. The gifts sent by her school wasn't any help and Sera was still not talking to her or anyone. Sera was quiet because she was angry at herself, me and Serenity and Rominic wasn't happy with me.

   "So because you don't want her to dislike you or be mad at you, you willingly watch your daughter offer herself to death. You knew that she is just a child and doesn't know any better, that she needs the right guidance but yet you let it slide because you didn't want her to be mad. You forgot that she is nine and her future does not just depend on being a swimmer. She can do anything she wants with the right encouragement and comfort but like always, you let your mind convince you into making the wrong decision. When will you stop making mistakes, Lavender? When will you freaking start acting like their mother once again and not a confuse woman trying to get use to her stepchildren. Lavender, when will you stop letting your mind convince you that they are big enough to take care of themselves? They are nine, Laverne, give them a break. Zachary and Serafina might be an exception but notwithstanding, they are still what they are, kids."

   "It's our job to parent them, not leave them to figure things out on their own. You used to take good care of them before I came, what happened? Why can't you go back to being their mother and not just my girlfriend? Lavender, you are not just my girlfriend but the mother of five so start acting like one. What would you have done if she died? How would you have lived with yourself?"

   Those were the bitter words he gently said to me after he kicked me out of our bedroom because he can't stand looking at my face. He was right. So I did the only thing I knew how to do best, I told Zachary I was going to see my mother and left. With my backpack stacked and ready, I went to her grave, again. I'm please to announce I stayed in the cemetery for three good days. I cried the first two days without eating, just drinking my tears and water. Then on the third day, I pondered on his every word.

How much more mistakes would I make?

I was my mother's only child but she never made a mistake with me.

Every mistake I am is not from her.

   I indeed had convince myself that they would always be okay and even if they are not, they have others to care for them. What mattered was Rominic. How would I have lived with myself if she died? How? He would never forgive me and so would the kids. I needed to start acting more like a mother than a girlfriend. I used my time to remember every single thing I could think of my mother, to build back my motherly instinct. Then I remembered how I suffered with them, what we were and what we should have been.

I finally knew what to do.

~~~

   I returned home, dirty and probably stinky, but feeling different. I would not just be more like a mother than a girlfriend, I would be both. I already knew how to fix my family, and it started with Serenity.

   Ignoring Rominic in the hallway, I walked to the room she shared with Sera who moved out to camp in Zachary's. I opened the door quietly, walked in and shut the door. Serenity was sitting on Sera's bed, hugging her cat whose name I don't care to remember. She lifted her head and when she saw me, her eyes lit up with hope and wet with tears.

   Since I was now using my head, I finally knew what was going on in hers. She wasn't sad about her predicament but what she did to cause it. Serene was blaming herself for everything. She cried because she thought Sera hated her and would never want to be her sister again. She cried because Zachary was disappointed in her. She cried because Zyaire didn't show much concern towards her. She cried because she knew her father was mad at her and me because I let her be. She cried when she saw Zayne because the guilt of what she would have done to him was unbearable. She was wallowing in guilt and regret.