The Whispers

23: Dead

"What's all this?" I hear from the kitchen.

Mom.

It can't be Mom. This has to be a trick. Another voice I'm hearing.

"Rosalie?" The voice calls out to me. I walk contemplate whether or not to go and check if it's really her - if it is, I don't want to see her, and if it isn't then the coke isn't doing it's job and I need more of it. I decide quick to head out and immediately I know I'm hallucinating things. Mom is here, standing in the middle of the kitchen, her hands at her hips, and her lips pursed. "What is all this mess?"

She isn't real. She can't be. She should be dead in a ditch or living with some deadbeat alcoholic that gave her a place to stay after she left her own children.

I'd prefer her to be dead than in the house.

"I leave and you trash the place?" She's angry. She has no right to be angry as I didn't think she'd ever come back and the mess wasn't a problem. She has no right to be here at all. "What's that smell? It smells like rotting milk, did you spill it everywhere and not clean it for, what, months? Why didn't you drink it?"

She's mad over the fact that I spilled dairy?

"Answer me," she demands. It's then I realize that I just can't be hallucinating - she's not looking into my eyes. She never does. I'm sure if I imagined her she'd be slightly more polite and make eye contact.

"Where did you go?" I ask. I have to ask that question first - for all I knew she was living with some meth addict who claimed to hear voices... like me.

"There's mess everywhere," she huffs. She takes her hands off of her hips and walks around the table to examine the mess around the room. She's judging me for the clutter and disorder that the house is in since she left. She shouldn't be judging me for anything, it would be a menace. I'd lose my shit and run away if she told me to my face that she was judging me for anything.

"That's not an answer to my question," I point out. I don't want her to just pay attention to the rotting food and garbage and not tell me where she's been for weeks.

"I was staying with a friend," she snaps. What a disappointment I didn't get more details about this 'friend' - I'm sure I would have approved of her staying with them over being here during her family's time off need. "Whereas you clearly have been rooming with Oscar The Grouch."

"Oscar The Grouch?" What does a Muppet have to do with my living conditions?

"He lives in the garbage," she shrugs, "And has seemed to pass on his living conditions to you. You're a slob."

"I can do what I want with the house," my voice is shaking. I'm shocked that she's here. I don't understand why she came back. "You left."

"And you survived didn't you?" She asks.

"Hardly," I feel faint. I should sit down. I have to sit down or else I'll pass out and mom will think I'm in a terrible state. I'm not. I'm on cocaine, a magic drug, I can take on the world, I don't need her for anything.

"Oh, you hardly survived?" Mom laughs. "You have food, water, clothes, school, and Dallas. That's all you need."

"Excuse me?" I'm not sure exactly what to say. I don't feel on top of the world anymore - I want to run and hide and leave mom to rot here like the milk I threw. "I didn't go to school because I'm psychologically not okay and everyone was pitying me-"

"Why would they pity you?" She asks. "They never noticed you before, they shouldn't now."

"Thanks for that shitty comment, mom, I really needed that."

"Don't be sarcastic with me," she warns.

"Dallas and I had a falling out. We don't talk anymore, so no, I don't need him for survival. I was starving, so I didn't have food until his cousin-"

"Dallas's cousin?" Mom interrupts. "The one who just got out of rehab? His mom told me about him, you better not have been with him."

"Why not?" I ask her. "You left, you clearly didn't want anything to do with Maggie or me anymore, so you shouldn't try and dictate who I do and do not hang out with."

She's suddenly in front of me, her hand under my chin, forcing me to face her. For the first time in what seems like years, she looks at me in the eyes.

"Your pupils are too big for your irises," she has the look of pure disgust on her face as she stares at me. "You're impaired."

"You shouldn't care," I swat her hand away. I don't want her grimy hands all over me, contaminating me with whatever diseases she might have caught while she was away.

"I don't care," she clarified, "That's why I left in the first place, I didn't care anymore. My husband is never coming back to me and taking care of inconsiderate children that take after him so much... I left. I didn't want to be here anymore, not after what happened to Maggie. It was too much. It would have been a shit show. She's not even my kid."

"What?" I didn't want to believe what the doctor had told me, but it seems like mom is confirming it.

"She's adopted," she says. "I never wanted her, your dad did. I don't want to be here, this was a mistake, I'm sure you can fend for yourself."

"Then why did you come back?" I demand to know. I deserve to know.

"Because," she sighs, "Maggie is dead."