Kidnapped

Mom -18

Things weren't always so bad, at least not in the very beginning. When I was growing up with my biological mom, things were semi-peaceful. If not heavenly, when compared to what was to come. My mom never told me about my dad, she said that wouldn't change the fact that he isn't in our lives. I used to get flustered, too young to understand why those two things mattered-- knowing about someone and having them in our lives are completely unrelated. Back then, I was too young to articulate myself, to ask for information without being dismissed. 

My mom, as flawed as she was, tried her best. I realized that after I got older. I was too young back then to understand many of the difficult decisions she had to make. I would throw tantrums, angry as to why she wouldn't spend time with me. "You always spend time with some man, but why not me?!"

"You, my little nugget" she would always say, "you're too young to understand this adults stuff."  She'd smile at me, but there was always something sad lurking behind her smile. Whenever she saw me, she always put on a smile, even when I knew she had no reason to. 

"Little, nugget, this isn't anything to fuss over." She would always assure me. She was always assuring me. Always so gentle. "Mommy is just clumsy, I just fell." 

It was a while before I was old enough to figure out she was lying. Her smiles were always tight, always joyless. But some of her smiles were worse than others. The ones that worried me the most, were the ones she'd give me as she tucked me into bed before locking my bedroom door. 

It took me a while before I figured out crying wouldn't make a difference. No use in crying when I knew that no one would answer my calls. I wasn't old enough to comprehend that she wasn't punishing me. I was too young to understand much about my mom's behaviors. But I tried my best to please her. Always hoping that maybe if I was good enough, I wouldn't be locked in the dark. As it turned out, nothing I did would make a difference. 

"Mom you're a liar! I'm 10 years old!"  I would shout at her, "I know you're sick! I saw you cough blood!"  My mom indeed started to steadily grow more ill and hollow. Her smiles never fit her anymore. They never looked right. 

One night, after having figured out the pattern, I told my mom as she tucked me into bed that I knew. "Mommy, I heard what you do." When I had said that, her fake smile fell, her whole body went stiff. "Mommy, I know you're a whore." I didn't know what that meant, but the man walking out of my mom's room told me that. Apparently, that night she forgot to lock the door, because I never saw the men she had over.

I didn't understand why she slapped me that night. It was the first time she ever hit me. It wasn't the last. She never tucked me into bed after that incident. I was convinced that if I apologized enough, then she won't be mad anymore. That if I tried to articulate that didn't know the meaning of that word, then she would talk to me again. I did my best to be extra nice, extra helpful with house chores, extra hardworking in school. I would try to please her, making her cereal in the mornings, and doing homework, cleaning up my room. 

I tried my best, I really did. 

On a particularly joyful friday evening I decided to surprise my mom right after she came back from work at Target. I made her bed, placed the dry dishes in their rightful places in the cupboards and cleaned the dining table. I prepared my mom a bowl of cereal, because that was the only thing I knew how to make. And I was carefully holding my report card, excited to show her that I got four A's and two B+ in my classes. 

When my mom got home that evening, her eyes still looking hollow, I called for her. She reluctantly walked towards the kitchen, her face blank. I smiled at her excitedly and presented her with my "surprise." Silently she stepped towards the dining table and looked over at the report card which I held proudly up to her. "Mommy, look! I got As on almost everything!" 

Without saying a word she took the report card. Compared to my gentle handling of the report card, her grip caused the paper to wrinkle. Her eyes glazed over it, her facial expression unchanged. I was holding my breath, waiting for her to give me one of her smiles, even if it was fake. Because a fake smile meant that she at least cared enough to make the effort for my sake. 

Her eyes shifted from my report card to the bowl of cereal on the table. I gulped anxiously, but maintained my smile. "Look mom! I made you food, you must be very tired from working so much!"  

When her eyes sharply snapped from the cereal bowl to me, I knew something was wrong. That I did something to upset her. She stared at me, her blank face almost unrecognizable. Sometimes it made me wonder if she was actually a different person, that maybe this woman replaced my mom. 

Without a word, my mom picked up the bowl with her other hand, opened the trashcan and threw both the bowl and my report card. I was still wearing my forced smile, too stunned to register what just happened. My face fell, and I realized that my face muscles hurt from all that fake smiling I was doing. My eyes were glued to the trash can when my mom spoke her first words to me in over two weeks. "Go to your room".

For the most part of a year my mom barely spoke to me. When she did, her words became increasingly hurtful. She would invite men earlier in the night than before, walk with them right past me. She would sometimes say things that I knew were wrong. I knew they were wrong because when I had repeated them, on several occasions, my teacher gave me detention. When things got really bad, she would sit with the men in our living room and start doing drugs. When the lot of the would get high, my mom and the men would say things that always had me either crying or running to my room and shoving everything I could move in front of the door. 

"Emma, if you don't go to your room, you might as well come and learn how your future will look like."

"See Emma? you were born because the condom broke."

"I think you will be whoring yourself soon, so don't give me that face."

"Your daughter seems to take after you, she'd definitely get many fans in a couple of years." 

"It would be hot if your daughter watched, don't you think?" 

"A broken condom like you needs to realize her place in the world." 

They would make fun of me, sometimes they would invite me to get high with them. A few times, some men asked if my mom would be willing to let them have me for the night. I felt immensely grateful that she didn't ever allow any of them touch me. I was so starved for my mom's love that any ounce of kindness she threw my way made me pathetically more grateful than it should. 

The social workers picked me up one day, I was almost 12 at the time. Apparently the beating the man gave me as my mom watched, left me with enough bruises for my teacher to report abuse.  

Shortly after being put in the system, I was told my mom had died from an overdose. The revelations crushed my hopes of reuniting, and going back to how things used to be. 

Maybe Evan was right, no one cares for me. He was also right about me having no purpose. Maybe, just maybe, I can do better. If he plans to use me, I'll try my best to use him  as well.

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Art by: Ko Byung Jun