that?
“That
“Fucking
“Cunt!”
She wasn’t fazed by my swearing, probably expected it really. But now she dropped her hands and those deep blue eyes that were stained with tears stared into me with determination.
“He raped me too, son,” she said - her pitiful voice filling the shop with a resonance that tried to tear me in half.
“What?”
“Before you were born, after you were born…he couldn’t function unless it was that way.” Her words - “that way” - were uttered with such vile contempt that I thought she was going to be sick. Now it was my turn to say nothing.
Shock.
“In those days, women were told to ‘love, honour and obey’ - and not necessarily in that order. I had no choice. I knew that even if I did leave him, he would kill us. I was so trapped, I didn’t know what to do.”
The weight seemed to lift off my old Mum as she unloaded. Her shoulders straightened up, her chin pulled itself away from being buried into her chest as she gained courage and exposed the past, the truth about my dear old Dad.
I tried with: “But you could have-”
“What? Left? No chance - he told me that what he would do if I ever left him. I’m not telling you what it was but let me say it was disgusting. And he would do it to you too. I was happy when the truth came out and you left home. My only boy, my only child, I loved you so much and I just wanted you gone - out of there. I was a failure, I couldn’t protect you from that monster - you had to leave to save yourself.”
Her tears flowed again as she relived the past.
“I remember standing over you at night, when you were about eleven I think. I had a kitchen knife in my hand and I was going to end it all right there and then. End your pain, and mine. But I couldn’t do it! How could I kill my son? My lovely boy! So beautiful, so precious in every way. That sick monster spoiled you, took that innocence and that trusting, loving nature and threw it away with his filthy rags.
“I would sit above him at night as well, that kitchen knife against his throat. He would be passed out from the beer, or the whiskey, snoring his head off. I’d lay the blade against that unshaven neck of his, slowly moving the icy cold steel against his skin. All it would take was a few moments of pressure and it could have been all over.
“But I was so scared!
“What if he woke up halfway through?
“What if he didn’t die?
“Then you simply took off. Over ten years ago now. At first, in here, I didn’t recognize you. But then, as your eyes met mine, I knew who you were. It was like looking into a mirror when I saw your face.”
It was then I noticed the exhaustion hit me like a Mack truck - the exhaustion of crying and venting.
The exhaustion of emotion.
It was ten years of running away, of hiding the past in a fractured part of my mind without openly confronting it. I kept the pent up hatred, the pain, the abandonment held within. I didn’t realize until this moment that it had been eating away at me inside - and now it was gone.
I had to ask.
“How did he die, Mum. How did he die?”
She paused and looked down at her feet, perhaps unsure how to answer. Then she looked me straight in the eye and said: “Horribly.”
That was enough for me.
I hugged my Mum with the love of ten abandoned years - I felt the pain ebb out of me like a rushing tide only to be replaced by a kinship of love that I had never felt before. It was so right, so natural - I felt the energy of love flow into me. I was both empty and full at the same time and that meant one thing to me…freedom.
It was several hours later, back in my tiny apartment, that my mother finished the story.
After I had left home, my father had continued his reign of terror, abusing Mum until he died of a heart failure. This was not a congenital disorder, but rather an illness brought about after years of alcoholic poisoning. It was easy for my mother to hide her efforts inside that veil of terror - a little rat-sack here, some drain-o there. Never enough to kill him, but enough to make him stop and slowly eat away at his life.
I realized then that I had abandoned her too - we were even in my mind. I had grown to an age where I could have protected myself and her, but I chose the easy option and simply left them to it, believing that her silent compliance was also tacit approval.
I can never forget that, but I can forgive. And that is what I have chosen to do - to forgive, to understand, to empathize. We are survivors, Mum and me. Always were.
About the Author
Jamie J. Buchanan is based in Perth, Western Australia. He spent many years playing in rock bands, mostly loud, fast, heavy metal and hard rock bands - the sort your parents warned you about. But his first love has always been writing.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamiebuchanan1971
Publishing history:
Jamie has had a short story “On My Goat” published by Cardigan Press in 2006 in the anthology “Allnighter”.
The short story “Sanguine Saviour” won second place in the monthly “Darker Times” competition and was included in the inaugural Darker Times anthology as well.
The short story “The Woman on the Pavement” has been published in an upcoming Editor’s Choice anthology by Stringybark Press entitled “Hitler Did it”.
The short story “Battle of Wits” won first prize in the Twice-yearly Short Story Competition “Raspberry & Vine”.
Jamie enjoys the films of Robert Rodriguez, The Coen Brothers and Guy Richie, music by Bad Religion, The Offspring, Clutch, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica, and books by James Ellroy, Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk and Stephen King amongst dozens of others. His only hates are people who talk about themselves in the third person...and Brussel Sprouts. He hates Brussel Sprouts.
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