it was christmas. my mother was crying.
it was christmas, and my mother was crying.
this - this - is the first time i remember thinking: i want to die. i don't deserve to live. please. now.
when you have thoughts like that, they don't usually come out in complete sentences. the way the first two and the way the last two were constructed hints at the increasing turmoil of the bad-to-worse situation and its effect on my ability to think coherently. i couldn't. think. or move for that matter.
you really should have been there for it.
no, really. you should have. because then she wouldn't be able to deny it as fiercely as she does. if there had been more witnesses to the show, she'd have to face up to what really happened the first time her older daughter had wished herself dead.
i was nine.
you know how when you flip the lenses on a pair of binoculars, instead of being able to see things close up they only seem an entirely unreachable distance away? so far away, in fact, you'd need a telescope to closely examine them?
it was kind of like that. something three feet away from me suddenly appeared as distant as the planet pluto. totally unable to be attained, understood.
i was nine.
i was helpless to stop the trickle that she attempted to conceal behind the palms of her hands. at first i thought maybe it was only my imagination playing tricks on me - mom's do not cry, after all - or maybe it was just an odd reflection on her thin, silver-rimmed frames of the twinkling white lights nestled stunningly between the still-fresh green needles of the pine's boughs. we had picked it out together, the four of us, at the tree farm.
she left the sitting room suddenly. shelby was racing to tear the shimmery and festive paper from yet another gift under the carefully selected very aesthetic two week plant that graced the front of the bay window in typical christmas splendor. the wrap depicted an old-fashioned scene of bundled-up, blond and brunette children with blue eyes, clutching mittened hands and figure skating on a freshly frozen pond, sporting santa hats and oversized smiles, nary a care in the world.
their mom's never cried, i thought to myself, as i heard the familiar whisper of a tissue torn from its cardboard container. muffled sniffles.
i knew she would not be satisfied with the gorgeous gold and gemstone necklace we had purcahsed months ago for her while viewing the mary cassatt exhibit at boston's museum of fine arts. i knew the cd wasn't the newest release, but i had thought it was the one containing a favourite song of hers that she turned up every time it played on the radio. i knew i should have saved my school art project christmas gift despite its numerous imperfections (i swear, they positively glared at me even from the bottom of the trash can) and grossly glued glitter, messy marker mistakes because i had forgotten to start with an easily erasable pencil first.
shelby, oblivious, continued to tear at the picture-perfect scene on the thoughtfully chosen paper of her next present and dad had another sip of his coffee with a sigh.
a piece of me died. just as i had wanted. deserved.