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The mistakes are part of the deal. You must make and taste them, otherwise you won’t know who you are.
“We were drifting apart for ages, Mum. I haven’t confided in you for a long time. You found me broken with pain, and talked everyone into believing that I’d lost my sanity. The panic you caused in the house about my mental state was unbearable to deal with.”
I stand and start to pace, stressed about her tendency to march into my life without taking into consideration any boundaries I set.
“I tried to escape, hiding in my room under the covers. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to cry and be alone with the memories of my children. You would barge into my room and pull me out of my bed, tearing my clothes off so I would take a shower! Why the fuck would you do that! I felt violated every time, you know that, right?!”
“But I’m your mother. Why you would feel like that, Sandra? I have a right to look after you.” Her understanding of her rights astounds me sometimes.
How many times did I tell her that? I am not her property. My soul is free to make decisions, as well as mistakes. How many times did she manipulate me with her made-up stories, so I would have to defend myself?
“You know why.” I look at her meaningfully as she lowers her eyes, silently weeping for the mistakes she has made in the name of love.
Deliberating if this visit will lead us anywhere near reconciliation, I turn away from her, trying to look for the solution.
“I should have stopped him,” she whispers from behind me, while my hands coil tight into fists.
“No, you should have kicked him out. You should have chosen us!” I turn to look at her. “You’re pretending that you weren’t aware of what he was doing, b
ut you knew pretty well. So much energy you’ve put into a justification for his actions. You manipulated us into believing that it was normal. He’d hurt us, Mum, and you did nothing. So, when I started to push you away from me, you forced your way back in, trying to regain every inch you lost.”
I look into her remorseful eyes, noticing she finished the ball, and now connects yellow with green and red with blue threads. A cry escapes my mouth, as I realize she probably hasn’t listened at all, expecting me merely to forget and move on.
“I loved him so much, Sandra. I was ready to forgive and forget everything. And I didn’t realize what the cost would be for keeping him,” she tells me regretfully, her lips bleeding from her teeth bites.
Her summer dress with wildflowers printed on the bottom makes her look like the beautiful Moiré, who looks after the threads of fate.
“I didn’t think that leaving him would bring us a better life, so I made us all suffer his oppressing, degrading behavior. I was wrong, my love, so damn wrong. Forgive me, please.”
We both weep as she works on the new wool ball, and I join her. The wilderness of the tall weeds and wheat dance calmingly, brushing against our bodies, comforting our souls. After a while, she starts to hum the melody she used to sing to us when we were little. I close my eyes, letting it soothe me.
Two women, with their jaded hearts, sit in a middle of the overgrown field, humming the lullaby to their aching souls.
She finally weaves eight of them together into one ball. Gently, she gathers my hands in hers, and kisses them as she kneels in front of me, looking straight into my eyes. Unexpectedly, she twists a hidden dandelion from the tall grass and brings it to my face.
“It is time for you to go back,” and she blows the white dancers into my face, making me feel as weightless as the dandelion seed, until the white clouds shroud me into the pure softness. The light’s too bright for my eyes, and I close them in surrender as I float away.
Forgiven, I whisper into the air.
Groggily, I open my eyes. In the white cushioned room, my hands are still tied, and I whimper. Lifting my head to look around, I see the big woolen thread ball and my mother sitting next to it, waiting for me to wake up. Unsteadily, I wiggle into a sitting position, and then push myself backward until I reach the wall.
She put me in this cage. Dazed, I look at her as she watches me like an animal that, if startled, might kick her in the chest.
Beep... Beep… Beep… Whoosh… Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh!
I look around, searching for the source of the strange beat, but seeing only two things different. My mum, who wears black jeans and a blouse, sits a few feet away from me, and the colorful thread ball, catching my eyes with a vibrancy I am denied here.
“I want you to know that I am sorry. It was scary to watch you deteriorate in front of my eyes. The numbness, the silence, the faraway look, and disorientation worried us. You would forget to eat or have a shower. Sometimes, you would come downstairs and tell us that you were going to bake or cook for them, and get so angry when we reminded you that they were dead. The month we spent with you had been horrifying, because I was watching my daughter fading and losing the will to live.”
I look away from her, locking my eyes onto the white wall, trying to shut her out but failing.
“You decided that you must take control of the situation by locking me away, and pumping me with drugs that kept me under.” I look at her accusingly, trying to gauge her mood, needing her to be honest with me.
“Is this how you see it, Sandra, the execution of my authority over you?” Her eyebrows crease, making me think she’s overdone it with her expression of disbelief.
“But it was. When I am at my weakest, you could have me however you wanted. The drugs were perfect suppressants of character, weren’t they?” I smirk at her, knowing she had an ulterior motive to change our relationships, molding them as she saw fit.
I promised myself never to be weak and manipulated by anyone. And here my mother is, trying to paint herself a saint for what she has done to me. Sandra loves this woman, but me, I have plenty of disdain in my heart to look skeptically at her regretful act.
