Lisa,
I don't know how to start this letter if I'm being honest. You're almost 19 years old now. That makes five years that I haven't had contact with you. I've sent you gifts, for every year of your birthday and every Christmas. But I never hear back from you. I understand that a gift is not enough. I understand that nothing materialistic could ever make right how I left you. Ever. I left you in a horrible way. I did not say goodbye to my eldest child and that can never be excused. Even though I am very sorry about that, it will never be enough. I don't know how you thought of me before opening this letter and I don't know how you will think of me after it. The only thing I can do is hope that you don't hate me.
I do not know if your father has explained the situation to you, but I think you at least deserve an explanation from me. Your father and I were deeply in love when we got married. After a while though, it got to a point where love was not enough to save our marriage. You were very young when our fights began. They started innocent, but at some point they became extreme. We tried hard to make it work because we both knew we still loved each other. But we had to consider our children. You and your little brother and sister were in the midst of two constantly arguing parents and it was far from fair. I suggested to your father that I'd leave for a while and take the three of you with me. I though that was a good idea, I thought maybe afterwards we could work things out properly as a family. But he dismissed the idea. I understood why, though.
It was when the arguments started to get out of hand, I had to make a very difficult choice. I had to leave and take my children with me. I was planning on leaving for just a while, a week tops. So when your father left for his late night shift, I packed my bag, Bambam and Minnie's bag and yours, Lisa. I carried a sleepy Bambam and Minnie to the car and came back for you. When I saw you sleeping peacefully, I knew I couldn't do it. I could not take you. You and your father had a bond, Lisa. A very special one. And I dared not not break that by taking you away from him. You were always his favourite. I could not be that cruel to him or you. So I took off the cross necklace my mother gave me and put it next to your bed. Then I left. I left my eldest child, which was the worst decision of my life.
I cried on the way to my mothers house. The next day, I got a lot of angry text messages and calls from your father and I told him that I wouldn't be back for a while. I could not face you, knowing that I left you. He was upset, that is understandable. A few months later I filed for divorce, it was the best thing to do for us all. Your father and I kept in touch and he spoke to your brother and sister on special occasion like their birthdays, so they knew who he was. Even though it was just vaguely. But anytime he would ask if I wanted to speak to you I couldn't. I would send you gifts and money instead. Do you know why?
Because I knew what I did was wrong. I should have never left you. It wouldn't have ever mattered if I said goodbye or not, I shouldn't have left in the first place. I thought you hated me and I couldn't face what I done to you.
Weekly conversations between your father and I slowly turned into monthly ones and after a while we wouldn't even speak for a year. I couldn't speak to you because I could not face the fact that I ripped you from your siblings and me. I did not know how to explain myself to you, you were so young, I didn't know if you would understand. I didn't know if you hated me, I didn't know if you even remembered me. But I never forgot you Lalisa Manoban. I always loved you. And I did what I did because I loved you.
I really hope that you still want anything to do with me. I want to explain myself to you face to face, Lisa. I understand if that is something you don't want. You have the right to not want to speak to me. This letter is way overdue, I know. If you will just give me a chance to explain myself. Please.
Your brother and sister miss you a lot. I miss you a lot. We love you. We never stopped loving you,
From mom.
This was it. This was what I've been wanting to hear for the longest time, an explanation. I've got it. I have it here in my trembling hands. Why is the only thing that it is doing breaking me further? I though that this was what I need to hear to end a chapter in my life and move on, maybe happily. But all this letter is doing right now, is starting a new and more confusing chapter.
I didn't realise I was crying before I heard a sob escape through my also trembling lips. My head was spinning, my breath ceased repeatedly. Feelings that I had avoided and ignored for years are coming back all at once. I have never been more overwhelmed than I was now. All I ever wanted was in my hands and it was killing me instead of healing me. My knees gave up on me and so did the shield I have been carrying around for too long. Happiness, sadness, anger, jealousy they all came to me at once. Why did she wait so long to acknowledge the fact that I was suffering? Why did she take so long to reach out to her firstborn child? Bambam and Minnie were young when this all happened but after it happened, their father reached out to them. Although it wasn't regularly, they spoke to him and knew who he was, they knew of his existence. But she did not grant me the same for my mother.
I was on the floor, sobbing, when I felt two strong arms wrap around me.
"It's okay, Lisa. We are in this together now, it's going to be okay Lisa." My father spoke honestly. He was right and I believed him, we are in this together now. We sat there on the floor for a while more. Our soft sobs died down but his grip on me got stronger by the second.
"Why, dad?" I managed to say. I did not really know who the question was directed to. But whether it was to him, my mother, or myself, I needed an answer. "Why?"
"There is a reason for every little thing, Baby. The answer will come to you when the time is just right, believe me." His voice was calm, smooth. His voice was everything I had missed in the past years. It was him I was waiting for. My father. My hero. I needed him back in my life to make me feel whole again. This moment right now made me feel like things made sense while they could not be any crazier. My mother was right in her letter, my father and I had a special unexplainable bond. And maybe, just maybe, she had faith that things would be alright between me and him sooner or later. Maybe she did the right thing by leaving me with him. The doorbell rang which made us flinch. My father stood up immediately.
"Clean up your room quickly. I'm going down to open the door for your girlfriend.." He trailed off.
"Jennie." I finished for him.
"Jennie," he repeatedly and slowly nodded. I still didn't know what he thought of me having a girlfriend. But in this case, his opinion did not matter to me. Jennie was Jennie. Jennie was my girlfriend. She was the reason that I managed to crack a smile in my darkest days and the reason that I felt the need to get out of bed everyday and not just sleep forever. Everything was Jennie and Jennie was everything. His or anybody else's opinion could not change that.
He rushed down the stairs and opened the front door as I cleaned up my room. I folded up some clothes hastily and shoved them in my closet. I looked over at my desk and saw the letter. I walked over to it and slid it carefully back in the envelope. Very slowly, as if cautious to damage it in any way. I gave the envelope a good look and saw something more in it that the letter. It were pictures. Five of them.
One picture was of my little brother. He was posing happily as I made a silly face behind him. We were both very young and I believe it was his 4th birthday that day. How could I ever forget that day? Tears stained my eyes. This time they weren't sad ones. There were other pictures, like one where I was holding my baby sister in the hospital. One were my mom was holding me as a baby and one family picture with all of us in it. We were so happy, so complete. I took the fifth picture in my hand and the first thing I saw were the words written on the back of it.
I love you my little cow
X Mom
When I turned the picture around, i saw the picture of me in a cow onesie. The one picture that Jennie really liked. Had my mother kept these pictures for all these years? Did she have more? I was brought back to the present when I heard cautious footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Lisa?" I heard my girlfriend's voice and smiled. I stuffed the letter and the picture in my top drawer, where the important things were, and sat on my bed.
"In here, Nini." I called out. She entered my room but stopped at the door with a confused expression on her face.
"Lili, are you okay?" She approached me carefully and bent down and wiped away the tears I forgot to wipe away. She sighed and so did I.
"Honestly?"
"Yes, please." Her delicate voice whispered.
"I'm the best I have been in a long time." I smiled. Up until this moment, I have been very closed off to people, including Jennie. But as I have mentioned before, I trust her now. I've never trusted anybody more in my life. She deserved to know me. The real me.
I walked over to my top drawer and took the family photo that came with the envelope and handed it to her. She took it in her hands and smiled at it, then frowned, then smiled again. I giggled at her facial expression and at the fact that she didn't know how much this picture meant to me. Yet.
"Is this your family? You were so young." She stared at the picture in an adoring way. "Your father, I just met him. He is such a nice man."
"I'm sure he is," I said in a way that obviously confused her, due to the way she looked at me. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. No, not at my situation. I sighed at the story I had to explain. I sighed because I did not know if Jennie could handle the truth if I told her. Perhaps, she would find the whole truth too much if I told her.
She opened her mouth to say something but stopped herself. I know what she was doing. I have know since the day one. There are things she wants to know from me. Her captivating mind is full with unanswered questions about me. Her girlfriend. But she did not want to push me to answer them. She knew that if I wanted, I would answer them on my own time someday. She respected my privacy and I respected and adored her enormously for that alone.
"It's okay Jennie. You can ask." I put my hand over hers and smiled at the sight of it.
"Why did you give me this?" She asked as if she was deactivating a bomb. I was somebody who lashed out easily, yes. But I would not dream of even raising my voice to the graceful being in front of me. I interlaced our fingers and took a deep breath. I was mentally preparing myself, even though there was not ever enough preparing I could do.
"The day we made things official between us. The day I finally had the honour to call you mine, do you remember?" I decided to start at that. She looked a little confused. And I could understand.
"Ofcourse I do, Lisa. How could I ever forget?" She smiled sympatheticly.
"Well, that was more to me than the day we became girlfriends." I said. Her eyebrows were knitted together and I decided it was best if I got it over with. "That day made 5 years that I haven't seen or spoken to my mother or siblings." I sighed.
She gasped. "Are they-"
"No they're not dead." I chipped in quickly. Actually until today, I never really knew for sure. "My childhood has been hectic ever since I was 10 years old and my parents started arguing heavily. At first I would fall asleep with my hands over my ears, crying. But after a while, I learned to sleep right through it. It was just white noise to me. But in reality it made me miserable that the two people I loved the most could not get along anymore. I was desperate the find ways to escape my home situation and that was when I started hanging around bad people. I was 13 years old when I woke up and the house was empty. When I returned to my room, I saw this necklace on my bed stand, it was my mothers and hers before her." I paused, clutching the cross necklace.
"After a while my father came home and he was fuming. He was so angry that day. I was in panic, asking where my mother and siblings were. Which made him even more angry. All he said to me was that they were not going to back for a while and then he left. I didn't believe him till months later. Later that evening, he was back. But he was different. He was under the influence." I stopped speaking when breathing became an issue. I took a deep breath and looked into Jennie's eyes, instantly relaxing. The feline eyed girl squeezed my hand and gave a supporting nod. I went on.
"He was drunk and that was new to me. I carried him to bed and looked at him, at that moment I seriously believed everything was going to be alright." I laughed bitterly at my naïvety. "In the beginning, me and my father got along as if nothing happened. Between us, everything was okay. Then a week passed, then a month passed. When both started to lose hope, he started to come back home drunk more often and out good bond just slowly died." I paused to look at Jennie who was rubbing the back of my hand. She lifted our hands and kissed the place she was rubbing earlier one. This was by far the most intimate I have felt to her before and it meant so much to me.
"Sometimes he would stay away for days. I started to hang out with the bad crowd more and more. I drunk too, I smoked cigarettes at well. I've never done anything worse than that though. God, I was so young. Too young." I paused. "When I realised that my father would not stop coming home drunk anytime soon, I stopped drinking. I realised I had to start fending for myself. And I did. Everything I could do myself, I did."
"What about the bad people, the smoking? And your.." She trailed off again and I gave her an encouraging nod. "Your mom, brother and sister?"
"Sadly, the story is not over." I sighed. "The bad people, I still hung out with them. I recently stopped smoking so there was not really anything that I did with them, but for some reason, I felt like owed it to anyone to hang around them. The fact that I hung around them so much was probably also the reason that people spread such unbelievably cruel rumours about me. I didn't care I still hung out with them. Till I met you. When I met you, I didn't want to be associated with any one them anymore."
"Why?" My girlfriend wondered.
"I did not want any of them anywhere near you. They were bad people. No, they were people that did bad things, Jennie. Do you understand why I didn't want to be near them anymore?" Jennie carefully nodded.
"The girl from the diner. The waitress, Nikki.." "Was she one of them?" I nodded.
"But you don't have to worry about them anymore. There are a part of my life that I want to forget and also will forget, eventually." I smiled at the thought of me being able to forget about my dark past someday. "As for my mom and siblings," I sighed. "I have not heard anything from them since they left that day."
I walked over to my top drawer, took out the letter and handed my girlfriend the final piece of me. She stared the letter and then looked up at me in confusion once more.
"I haven't heard from her since that day. Till today her eyes widened in surprise. "Go on, read it."
"Lisa, I don't think I'm entitled to. I-"
"Jennie," I joined her on the bed. "I've kept all of this to myself for years. I want you to be the first person to know the whole truth." I said sincerely. "So, please?"
"Okay.." She said as she opened up the letter. By the end of it, her eyes were filled with tears that were almost spilling. Her reaction alone made a tear roll down my cheek and I embraced her. We laid there quietly for a while. She broke the silence.
"How do you feel about this?" A sob escaped her lips at the end.
"To be honest, I don't know yet" I said. "All these years I have basically been by myself. For a little while now, I've seen my father changing again. He is slowly changing back to the man he used to be, before all of this. And then this letter. All this time I thought my mother didn't care enough about me to take me with her. I thought so negatively about myself because of this." I was finally crying now, it was all coming together and spilling out now. "Then she sends me a letter after years saying that she can explain it all if I let her.."
Jennie did not say anything. She just wrapped her arms around me. I buried my face in her neck and was not holding anything back anymore. I let the tears flow freely like I should have done long ago.
"Shh." Jennie stroked head gently. "You have been through so much. I can tell you with certainty that it will all be okay. You are not alone anymore Lisa. You have me now and I will be here for you as from now."
I lifted my head to look her in the eye. She wiped my tears away with such delicacy that I didn't know how to answer her. So I did the only thing I knew how to do to show her my feelings for her.
I kissed her. More passionately than I ever had before. I pushed her down on the bed softly and hovered over her. I looked at her and I couldn't be any happier. Things were uncertainties all around me. Nothing was stable. Not in my world, not in my mind. But there was one thing I knew for sure:
I was in love with Jennie Kim. I loved her so incredibly much.