Chapter Thirty-nine
Mother Dearest
Mothers are supposed to know what cupcake flavor is your favorite. That's just fact.
They're supposed to know how many pills to give you when you have a headache to soothe the pain. They're supposed to drop you at the gates of school each morning and welcome you home each afternoon. They're supposed to be there to catch you if you fall until you're strong enough to stand on your own.
They aren't supposed to vanish on you at the age of six and return eleven years later.
When I turn around, my teeth are clenched together and I'm digging my fingernails into my palms to distract myself from the lump building in the back of my throat.
The woman – my mother, Elise – wears a hopeful smile that lifts her lips and twinkles in her emerald eyes.
“Can we talk?” she asks.
“I. . . I can't.” I stammer. “Not now. Not. . . “
My throat hurts with barely restrained tears. My lips tremble, my vision blurs, and my resolve slips further away with each passing second that I stay staring.
“I have to go.”
And then I'm turning my back and hurrying towards the car waiting by the sidewalk as something inside of me starts to break.
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I'm trembling so hard that I can barely hold onto the steering wheel. The keys are in the ignition but the car is silent.
Eleven years she's been gone. Eleven years since she walked out that night and didn't came back. Eleven years since my father picked up a bottle and never set it down. Eleven years I've spent wondering why; why she left, why she didn't love us, why she didn't want to stay, why, why, why.
Tears fill my eyes, obscuring my sight, before spilling down my cheeks in rivers. I sink my face down into my shaking hands, resting my forehead against the steering wheel, as my whole body is racked with violent, painful sobs that choke the breath out of me.
I'm left gasping with pain.