"Mum .....you are hurt"
My voice came out barely louder than a breath.Even at seven years old,I knew better than to speak too loudly.Silence was something we learned early in that house.Silence kept us alive.
She looked at me and smile,The kind of smile that tried too hard. "I'm fine, muffin,"
She said softly .I could see cut beneath her lip ,the skin spilt open , swallow and dark.A thin line of dried blood traced the curve of her mouth.she tried to hide it,but i saw everything.
I lifted her face into my tiny hand ,my finger trembled as they touched her skin .Her cheekbones are bruised, painted in shades of blue and purple,but even like this- especially like this- she was beautiful.My mother was always beautiful .There was never any doubt .Her smile,even broken, even forced,she was still most beautiful women i had ever known.
But her eyes told the truth.pain lived there,deep and quiet.A pain she carried without complaint, without tears.She never showed it,she never allowed herself to be weak-not for herself, not for me.
She wrapped her hands around mine,her grip shaking ."I'm fine,my girl,"she said again."i promise ."
Promise were easy to give.Keeping them was something else entirely.
I wrapped my arms around her neck and buried my face in her long hair breathing her in like i was afraid she might disappear if I let go.Her scent-soap-warmth, something gentle-felt like a safety .Her arms came around me, tight and trembling .I felt her body shake as she held me,as if she were trying to hold herself together too.
I heard her whisper something,so soft it barely existed.I never knew what she said . The words vanished before i could catch them.
The movement was a piece of peace stolen from hell.
i held onto that hug with everything I had,not knowing it would be last time .I would ever feel her hold me like that . Not knowing that i was memorizing a goodbye .
I am sitting at same couch now.
Fourteen years had been passed, but the room feels frozen in time.Every night, I came back here in my mind .The couch remembers.The Walls remember.The house remembers my father's Sin-the violence,the cruelty,the damage he inflicted on the most beautiful women i will ever known.
I saw how he beat her.
How his fist because his punishment.
How her turned love into fear.
She was the woman who gave me everything.The woman who taught me how to read, how to speak kindly, how to love gently in a world that was anything but gentle . She taught me strength without ever calling it that.
And i heard her cries.
Every day.
Every night.
They follows me into my dreams now.I woke up gasping, heart racing,her voice echoing in my head.She suffered while i watched.But what could seven year old girl can do? What power did she have to stop that nightmare.
None.
I asked myself the same questions over and over until they burn holes into my chest.
Why didn't she leave him?
Why did she stay?
And the answers comes,sharp and merciless.
Me.
Maybe she stayed just because of me.maybe she believed she was protecting me.maybe she thought a broken home would hurt me more than violent one.Maybe she believed love meant enduring pain in silence.
If i haven't been there,she would have left.
If i haven't born,she would still be alive.
She was too good for him.far too good.She married a man who was nothing but a monster wearing a mask of a husband.A good -for-nothing aashole who drained the light from her patience,her kindness,or her love.
Her smile haunts me.
In the end, she died.
And the guilt buried itself deep inside me, growing heavier with every passing year.A voice inside my head whisper the same truth over and over.
I killed her.
It's my fault.
I was the burden.
No matter how many years pass,I am still that little girl on the couch, holding my mother battered face in my hands, wishing love had been enough to save her.
And wishing-more than anything, that I could tell her now what I didn't know how to say then:
I'm sorry.