Flashback
December, 1994
(TW: Intrafamiliar physical and psychological abuse, mention of self-harm, suicide by overdose)
A constant feeling of frustration haunted me every day.
It was probably the most accurate word to encapsulate the constant urge to burst into tears about not being enough, even though I was doing my best.
The issue of finding out about my father was still a burning sore on my skin, desperately seeking improvement but only becoming more and more unbearable.
Far from being sympathetic about it, my mother has always been the type to get even angrier when she saw me angry, so I had to suck it up and pretend that everything was going great, especially since it was exactly 23rd December, just two days before Christmas.
This used to be the season I was most excited about; it meant going out to the bazaars in town to buy souvenirs, having the homey hot chocolate at Mrs. Grant's coffee shop, finding an area full enough of snow to make a snowman... ever since my mother worked for that man, my sense of infinite excitement for any holiday had faded until I had to settle for the vain hope that every year would be different. Barely two years had passed since then, and everything pointed to the fact that the third was approaching.
Most infuriating of all, my mother seemed unwilling to change any of this, and my attempts to make her life a little less difficult always went unnoticed by her. I was sick and tired of feeling that no matter how hard I tried to make her notice my efforts, it was nothing compared to what she expected of me. Worst of all, when she was not in a good mood, the consequences were dire.
The front doorknob made the characteristic sound of the key being inserted.
I was used to receiving a tired woman, who was irritated by my thrill at her return. It was no surprise, it was eleven o'clock at night and she had been out since four in the morning. She was right in not possessing the liveliest attitude.
"Hi, mom," I turned off the TV, which was playing a DVD I rented of Nirvana's MTV: Unplugged. I wasn't really watching it, I was just using it in the background to read my book.
My mother blew smoke out of her mouth, and that's when I noticed she was smoking a cigarette.
I hated those things, they always managed to bring up a bad kind of butterfly feeling in my stomach. Put aside the hope that the days would be different, or the hope that at least the holidays would be different, the magnitude of longing to never see those things again was like absolutely nothing else.
"Good evening," she replied curtly, moving to the two-seater armchair next to me. And yet, I already felt the need to get away from her, not because I wanted to, it was really a constant fear of past experiences repeating themselves.
"Today I went grocery shopping, swept and mopped the whole house, dusted all the furniture, did the laundry, cleaned the toilets..." I told her. I never expected an award or excessive praise for it, since it was the least I could do if my job was not as demanding as hers. The only thing I always longed for was just a word or two of kindness.
"Did you wash the dishes?" She inquired, leaving me again, defeated. As much as I tried my best to feel disdain for these circumstances, they were always bigger than me and ate at me in the cruelest possible way.
"No, but today during my break, I ate at a Thai restaurant. There's only what I used for breakfast this morning," I explained, as if that would prevent what was about to happen. Somehow, I clung to expecting the best even if life showed me that it always ended terribly.
"The one thing I ask you to do! Thank you very much. Now, extremely tired, I'll have to do what you didn't do, after having had the whole damn afternoon," she rose from her seat, causing me to take a few steps back, and gave me a disappointed look.
I was trying my best to avoid the look she had just given me. I refused to accept the fact that I could not be what my mother expected, for she was insatiable with an ability to focus on the negative in me. If I had done the dishes, she probably would have complained about something I had totally forgotten because I had been too busy avoiding such complaints.
"Give me that, I'll do the dishes," I headed for the kitchen, having worked up the courage to speak to her.
"No. I can tell you think you deserve everything. I'm telling you, a mildly functional person your age would be living on their own by now, with a job and halfway through college," and here she was again, throwing in my face the fact that I was settling for a job at the local pharmacy. "I still give you a roof over your head, I work so much..."
"And I do what I can, but I should let you keep living the hell you chose!" I interrupted her, feeling the constant tightness in my chest lighten. "So many jobs I've looked for you, and you insist on working for that man, who by the way, you didn't deign to tell me he was my fucking father. You're resigned and maybe you're still there so you can have an excuse to manipulate me and make me miserable! I hate to break it to you but I am not responsible for your misfortune!"
As I snapped the last word, I knew I had made a serious mistake when I watched her freeze at my statement. I was ready to leave, maybe run out of the house. The December cold was less frightening than what was happening inside this warm house.
"Oh, I see you've hardened, little brat," she murmured with her teeth clenched.
"I-sorry... I didn't mean to talk to you like that." I whispered in fear and my eyes down.
"Let's see if you're as brave as you think you are," her voice was so calm and that's what scared me the most.
I finally shed tears in my eyes and shook my head quickly, filled with terror.
I saw it coming, I knew it the moment I saw her walk towards me, grabbing her cigarette that was resting on the edge of the kitchen counter. It was a new one, since it seemed recently lit.
I felt like a failure. Something that I had promised myself that I would not let happen again, was repeating itself. Lately, the infinite fear was manifesting itself through nocturnal revieres, and there was no more torturing pain than the one I felt when I had to live it in reality.
"P-please, I won't ever talk to you like that again," I whispered desperately with my face soaked in tears.
And without further ado, that cigarette sank into my skin, along with all the other marks that had already healed. I let out a scream.
No one would listen to because everyone preferred to ignore what was going on. She knew that, maybe that was the main reason why she kept doing this to me. I was her main venting source whenever she had a bad day at work, and I hated it. When did Christmas season became... this?
Nevertheless, this moment was different from the others.
It was as if her eyes had given me access to the deepest part of her mind, and I was able to read it. Somehow I knew she had asked herself that question too; when did Christmas season become... this? She was just as perplexed as the first time.
The first time she burned a cigarette on my skin, she was shocked at how far her anger had taken her. I was also shocked but too scared to ask her what was going on.
It was only a matter of time before that became a "punishment" for not fulfilling my responsibilities, but that was a stupid excuse. It was really a very twisted method of venting that she resorted to, in order to reward the lack of control she experienced while working for Peter Westerholt.
And then I would resort to self-punishment. I really began to feel that I had to injure myself every time I failed at something. She would burn a cigarette, I would go to my room and pull out a razor blade I stole from the counter at work, to finish punishing myself.
I wasn't sure when this would end, and little did I know it would end that very day.
By the time I left my room, I was calm enough and ready to go and apologize to her.
Yes, as if that wasn't enough, I always apologized, even if she had to sit down and make a list of all the things she had to apologize to me for.
I still loved her, infinitely. It was just a matter of the stress ceasing for everything to go back to the way it was.
I always stayed true to myself and didn't change one iota of my essence towards her, even if she had become a monster stalking me every second of my existence. I didn't know why I kept having gestures of kindness towards her if they were long ago answered by complaints or rejections, maybe because I wasn't ready to let go of that version of me.
"Mom?" I gave two light knocks on the door, but no response from the other side. "I want to apologize for not washing the dishes. You're right, you give me a place to live and you work to give me the best even if I should have been independent long ago. I'll work harder, I'll do better, and you'll see that you'll never need to punish me ever again."
Hearing nothing, I sighed deeply.
I proceeded to open the door and there she was, lying on the bed with multiple medicine bottles scattered everywhere.
I could have dragged her into the shower and stuck two fingers in her mouth for her to regurgitate what she swallowed. I could have saved her.
And I didn't.
I decided to respect her wishes to end this misery, because if I didn't know when it would end, she didn't know either. The thought of facing another day frightened her a thousand times more than it did me. My mother had become the worst version of herself, and that, too, was taking its toll.
Did she leave me a letter? No. Just a note that was pretty much self-explanatory, it said: "I'm sorry for everything I've put you through. This is the kindest thing I've done for both of us for two years."
I didn't cry, I just went to sleep and dreamt that she said goodbye properly. I had a huge smile plastered on my face because she looked just the way I wanted to remember her; without those dark circles under her eyes and without said eyes that had died long before she did. Back before she lost her humanity.
It wasn't until the funeral that I burst into tears.
The one who was present from the moment the police arrived was my beloved Stefan. No matter how much I insisted, he sacrificed his Christmas to be with me at the wake -which did not last long- and the funeral. It was no secret that my mother was extremely selective when it came to family, so two of my uncles and my grandfather were the only ones who showed up.
All of those family members offered me a place in their homes, but I refused. Besides the fact that they lived in different states, the main reason was because I was sick of sitting around crying over what my mother told me, and decided that I was willing to do something about it.
I was more than happy to bury that abusive, non-conforming mother, but along with her I was also burying the sweet mother I once had, who had raised me with so much love that she wouldn't let some idiot man defeat her.
Despite everything, she died a winner, because I knew that she had hung in there as long as she could and tried her best to survive everyday.