I was very young when my mother died.
Well, okay, that's a little bit of an overstatement, because she didn't die in a "shove the corpse in a box and lower it into the ground" sort of way. My mother still walked and talked and pretended to laugh.
I suppose I should say I was very young when my mother changed. Not a cocoon/butterfly change, but the change that occurs in a house when it becomes too old to be fashionable. Dilapidation.
But the statement "I was very young when my mother dilapidated" is pretty pretentious, so here we are.
It was just after my little sister was born. I was just 8 at the time. Her name is Lucy, and I remember thinking that she was so small that she would fit into a jewelry box.
After the accident with Lucy, Mom changed. There was a certain fire in her eyes before - a fire that made her keep fighting against Dad, a fire that gave her the strength to stand up against him for the both of us.
And so I was eight when I got my first punishment from Dad, really. Mom watched from the kitchen. Later, after night had fallen, she snuck me out of my room and helped me cover the burns down my back with bandages. It took hours to fall asleep. She had just watched from the kitchen, her eyes mildly disinterested, like she was watching a rerun that she had already seen too many times.
The fire stopped. I guess that's the part of Mom that really died.
I remember that Mom and Dad got into a fight - the last fight they ever had - when Lucy was a few weeks old. I can't remember what it was about, but Mom didn't fight back much, even back then, before she dilapidated.
There was a breath of silence in their screaming match before a crunching noise resounded through the room. This was followed by a cry from Lucy that was so desolate and painful that it resounded through my head for hours.
I had been watching them from the doorway, through a small slit of open door. Jonah, 5 years old and crying into my shoulder, stood just behind me. I saw Dad take Lucy from Mom with a deliberate hand as Mom stood, her wide eyes gleaming with tears, just before Lucy started crying.
And, goddess, there was so much blood. It covered all over Lucy's legs, which were hanging limp from her hips, a contrast to her flailing arms.
Dad wouldn't let us take her to the hospital. Somehow, she lived. I often wonder if she wishes that she hadn't.
12 years into the future, here we are.