The past beats inside me like a second heart.
~John Banville~
Sophie
*Unedited*
"She was beautiful, your mother"
My grandmother said one morning. I was standing by the kitchen sink washing dishes, singing out of tune and she was seated on one chair on the small dinning table placed on the opposite side of the sink. Leaning back, her small fingers crossed on her tummy. I didn't say a thing but I swear my heart stopped for a millisecond.
This talk was to be held after our new year celebration but I guess my she didn't plan on waiting. I wasn't ready to hear it at this time, I had programmed my mind to be ready by then, to hear it all, but not now, not at this minute. I wasn't ready.
She looked lost and sad, or maybe her brain was re-living the past, her eyes looked misty, looking through the opened window but I doubt she saw anything.
"The first time she ran away from home was when she was sixteen..." she paused, her voice trailing, her face thoughtful.
'Your grandfather always told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world. The brightest and the belle of the county if not the world."
One of my hand held the edge of the sink until it started hurting. My mouth trembled as I tried unsuccessfully to hold off the tears. I glanced up at my grandmother sitting strongly narrating her daughter's past, digging into a past that she hadn't spoken about for more than a decade and I knew this wasn't just hard for me, it was painful for her as well.
"Her hair was the same color as yours. A smile that would make the recipient forget their problems. Her smile invited you to smile with her." She smiled fondly, her expression steady and firm.
"Her smile later changed to calculating and self serving."
My throat constricted, my heart beat too loud I could hear it, my hands still trembled, my whole body was unsteady and I had to walk two steps to sit on the long stool at the kitchen aisle.
"For more than forty-eight hours we didn't know whether she was dead or alive. The police couldn't find her, her friends didn't know where she was. No one knew her whereabouts. And for the first time since I met him, your grandfather broke down."
"Oh God!" I groaned, tears shimmering with tears, my hands holding unto my stomach, I felt like throwing up except I couldn't, I needed to stay strong for her, for the stoutly way she held herself. She needed me to be as strong.
"Then one evening on the third day she walks through the door and I heard you grandfather squeal, it was a sound that bordered between joy and pain and I wished never to hear it again. It was more pain than joy really" she whispered.
"Your mother had on a miniskirt, she had dyed her beautiful hair black, her nails were painted red and huge a tattoo on her arm that was as disgusting as it must have been painful, but she looked oblivious to the pain, your grandfather said she must have been high."
"What was the first thing she said?" I asked flatly, my voice controlled
"She didn't." Nana paused for more than a heartbeat before she continued "She waltzed to the house, walked past both your grandfather and I without saying a single word. No apology, or where she had been. Nothing, not even acknowledgement"
My eyes widened, opened my mouth to speak but no words came out, but worst of all I felt ashamed. I was filled with shame for having come out of two of the most selfish, cruel people I've ever known.
My mother broke her parents heart when she was only sixteen and broke mine when I was barely eight. Both of my parents were a disappointment.
I thought of the many times I had despised my mother, loathed my father, wished that I hadn't been born; that one time that I had felt brave enough to kill myself.
We sat in in silence, nana's eyes fixed at the cup in front of her, mine on her, feeling guilty and an overwhelming shame.
I had never seen nana so sad like she was at the time, her eyes unfocused, her hands slightly shaking, her forehead perspiring and her eyes dry. Not a single tear in her eyes or wetness in them. She looked like she was trying really hard not to cry.
"She did not talk to us for a while, every time we tried she would shrug and walk out. I didn't know what to do especially after she threatened to run away again and never come back"
What kind of a person does this to their parents? I thought. Narcissistic, cruel, self centered person! That's who.
Listening to my nana clinically talk about my mother, I wondered whether I had a similar gene. Will I wake up one day and decide to be a bitch to the people I loved?
I didn't think so, but then again I was a product of two selfish people who cared about no-one else but themselves.
"What did you do?" I asked, running my hands through my face, exhausted already by the emotional roller-coaster that seemed to be endless.
"Fifteen moths later, at seventeen and three months, she filed for an emancipation"
"What?"
"Yes. That was your grandfather's breaking point, it's what eventually killed him. He never recovered from it"
I chocked loudly, unable to hold my tears anymore, crying until I started convulsing.
"It's Okay sweetheart" she soothed, her voice soft, breaking and I knew she was about to cry as well.
"I didn't cry. Not when she ran away at sixteen, or when she came back, not even after she walked out of home, not once did I break down. But when your father wrote that Celia had a daughter, I cried, I couldn't sleep that day, I felt like God was granting me another chance to be a mother"
"When was that?"
"Three days before you came to live with me?"
"You didn't know about me before that?"
She shook her head, solemn and almost tired.
"If I had known, I would have come for you sooner"
"Oh nana" I cried, going round to hug her. She clasped me to her, holding me tight as we both cried in each others arms.
"She was cruel and I'm so sorry that you went through that, losing your daughter and husband almost at the same time"
"Don't cry" when whispered to my ears.
"Where is she now?"
Suddenly she stopped rubbing my back, her breath hitched as she kissed my forehead.
"Your father said she walked out on him and left you with him"
"Did she?"
"I don't know child, your father is a liar and your mother was unstable, I'm not sure. I wish I could give you a definitive answer but I can't. I hired a PI to find her but he was unsuccessful."
"My mother never told you about me?"
"No. She didn't" she paused for a heartbeat, then she said "I don't think I'll ever forgive her for that. She was horrible for that one year after she came back, horrible and cruel sometimes I wanted to hit her so bad but your grandfather couldn't hear of it. But nothing hurt me the most than knowing she'd hidden my granddaughter from me, out of spite. Spite, that I never really understood"
"I'm sorry nana, but I'm so glad he told you about me eventually, it was hell living with him"
"I know, I know." she pulled me back to her arms and I leaned on her shoulders, feeling lighter yet my heart heavy.
"I can't believe my father eventually did the right thing"
"He didn't, he asked me for money in exchange of you"
Suddenly I couldn't stop my tears. It was like I was ten again, hearing his vicious voice yelling at me, calling me stupid and ugly.
I felt the pain. There, in my grandmother's kitchen I felt unworthy, uncertain of myself, just like he had said I was.
What kind of a father sells his own daughter? But most importantly what kind of a daughter drives her father into selling her?
Maybe my father was right, maybe I was everything he said I was.
Maybe no one loves me and those who claim to, just pity me!
"Don't! Don't even think about it!" Nana said as grabbed both of my hands into hers.
"You're beautiful, lovable and loved. I love you, Gabby loves, your young man loves you. Don't let your parents viciousness interfere with your happiness or the kind of person you are. Your heart is big, a giving heart, nothing like your parents"
"Do you think I have the potential to be just like my mother?" I asked and she laughed softly.
"Not a chance"
"How can you be so sure?"
"Would you walk out of your own child leaving her in the care of a man like your father?"
I shook my head vehemently.
"Would you treat me the same way she did to your grandfather and I?"
I shook my head again.
"You See. You're nothing like either of them."She stated certainly.
"Do you think she is dead?"
"No." she said sadly, raising to her feet and walking to stand over the window. "I think I would know if she was, my heart would feel it, she is my daughter after all." she touched her heart slightly.
"Last I heard she was working the pole"
"What's that?"
This time her laughter wasn't sad, it was amused, her eyes twinkled.
"Oh, my sweetheart, never worry that you'll ever be like them, you're one of the good ones"
My heart sang at that. My love for this woman was beyond anything I could think about.
"Stop stalling nana"
"It means a stripper"
My mother had been a stripper! Maybe this pronouncement should have shocked me, but it didn't. In fact, I didn't have any feeling whatsoever about it.
That was her choice, just as it was my choice to live with Raphael even though we were unmarried.
I realized I didn't have any feelings for my parents, that's not to say I wouldn't want to see my mother; the only photos of her that I had seen was when she was young. My father had once said he'd burnt everything that belonged to her the day she left her with the spawn of Satan, meaning me.
I don't think there is anyone I hated like I hated my father. Maybe I should let the past remain in the past and look at the future and the present which was beyond my wildest dreams.
But I still thought of him sometimes.
The day he beat me so much I had to be taken to the emergency room, or when he slapped me so hard my cheek had an imprint of his hand for more than three days; or for the fear that had become my constant companion.
I hated my father. Loathed him but a part of me wished I could one day forgive him.
"Don't blame yourself dear"
"I'm not" I retorted.
"Yes you are"
Maybe I was, a little bit, wondering if my father would have been that abusive if I had been a boy,
Would she have walked out?
Would it have made a difference?
Probably not.
Suddenly I missed Raphael. His strength, his control, his ability to make me feel better. My grandmother was right, I was loved, Raphael loved me.
"Thank you for telling me nana"
"You had the right to know
"It must have been really hard to talk about it"
"Yeah, but it was time"
"You know.." I said abruptly "I think Raphael knows where she is"
"Knows where who is" she quickly moved her eyes to my face, it was comical the confused look she wore looking at me quizzically.
"Mother"
"Why would he know?"
"Because he knows my father is remarried"
"Remarried? I wasn't aware your father had been married before"
Now it was my turn to look confused.
"What do you mean? What about my mother?"
"He wasn't married to your mother!"
"You mean I'm a bastard?"
"No. You're my grandchild. It doesn't matter how you came into this world, you're mine."
"Oh my god! What if Raphael doesn't love me anymore after this?"
"He will!"
"Are you sure?" I asked weakly
"I would bet on it. He loves you and I'm beyond excited to know my granddaughter is loved that much."
One word for Sophie's mother?
Bitch?