Bury Me(32)

My mother doesn’t pay me any attention; she just continues to stare out the window. The only movement she makes is to pull the object away from her chest, pressing the length against the side of her head, pointing it up at the ceiling.

I should be afraid that my mother came into my room in the middle of the night, mumbling nonsense as she holds a gun in her hand. I should scream for my father, shout for help, run out of the room as fast as I can. Clutching onto the edge of my mattress, I slowly push myself up from the floor and face her head on. She looks so sad and full of apology, small and miserable with her shoulders sagging in defeat, and I smile in the darkness that she’s falling apart right in front of my eyes. I ran away that night in the woods and look where it got me? A fractured mind that no one wants to help me fix. I refuse to run away this time.

I’m not scared of this pathetic woman; my head is too busy filling with memories of her looks of disgust, the slap of her hand, the vitriol she screamed at me, the blame she placed on my shoulders for the actions she was responsible for, and how easily she could pretend like I didn’t exist.

My heart doesn’t beat in fear: it thumps in anger. How dare she come in here, dumping her guilt all over me to try and clear her conscience? She’s had plenty of time to make amends and now that the truth is unraveling, now that I’m starting to put things together and refuse to believe their lies, she decides it’s time for honesty.

“You never loved me,” I finally speak.

She doesn’t move or make any indication that she heard me. My memory is still spotty, large chunks of time are still unaccounted for, but I know the words I say are true. I can feel their certainty ringing through my mind just like it did with knowing I can swim. For days I tried to tell myself my memories were wrong. It made more sense that I might be crazy than to think my entire life is a lie and my parents were just perpetuating it.

“It was me out by the lake,” she whispers, ignoring my statement.

She suddenly throws her head back and laughs, the sound bouncing off the walls in my small room.

“I had to see. I had to know for sure and I was right.”

My mouth drops open in shock, not at her admittance of what she did, but the sound of glee in her voice.

“You pushed me in the lake,” I mutter through clenched teeth. “What exactly did you have to know for sure? If you had the courage to try and kill your own daughter?”

My body vibrates with rage and I want to vault over my bed, wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze and squeeze until her face turns red and every last breath leaves her body. I keep my feet firmly planted where they are because right now I want the truth more than I want to hurt her.

My mother lets out a huge, tired sigh and finally turns to look at me, carelessly waving the gun around by her head.

“I’m sorry you had to pay for my sins and my weakness,” she tells me in a robotic voice. “I just had to see. I had to know for sure that I was right. I felt bad as soon as I saw you go under, wondering if I’d made a mistake, but I didn’t. You came up and you proved me right. I ignored what was right in front of my face because I just wanted it so badly. I was blind and I was stupid, but I’m going to fix all of it now.”

She speaks so quickly that it’s hard for me to keep up, but I do, and I get the truth I’ve been waiting for. My own mother tried to drown me. I glare across my bed at her, refusing to cower when she turns the gun and aims it right at my chest.

“I’m sorry. This is the only way I know how to fix things. This is the only way I can stop the pain,” she tells me sadly.

“You are a coward,” I growl at her. “You are weak and pathetic. You can apologize all you want, but it means nothing to me. I’ve remembered things on my own, no thanks to you and Dad. I drove myself crazy with the thoughts in my head that didn’t match the lies you both told me. The only thing you accomplished by pushing me into the lake was waking me up to the person I really am. I deserve the truth, Mother.”

Her hold on the gun falters and it lowers a few inches, pointing at the bed instead of me. Knowing I have a little more time before everything ends pushes me to keep going.

“I deserve to know why all I can remember is pain and hate when this house is filled with happy memories of a loving family that obviously never existed. Tell me the truth. TELL ME THE DAMN TRUTH! ALL OF IT!” I shout in fury.

She whimpers painfully, bringing the gun back up where it was.

“It was real… all of it was real. We were happy… we were so happy. I made up for my mistakes and everything was perfect… everything was just as it should be. I should have known better. Secrets never stay hidden no matter how deep you bury them. Mistakes will always come back to haunt you and get their revenge.”