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“I’m sorry. No child should lose their mother at such a young age like you did.” Her hand reaches out and grabs mine. I open my fist, letting our fingers lock together. The simple gesture shouldn’t mean much but holding on to Zahra feels like clutching onto a lifeline. Like I could hold on to her or get swooped up into the darkest corners of my mind.
“One of the last memories I have with her was at Dreamland.”
Zahra nods, her eyes reflecting some sort of understanding.
“My mom was everything to us. And the few good memories I have of my parents together include my dad waiting on her hand and foot. If my mom smiled at something, my dad found a way to own more of it. If she cried about something, my dad was hell-bent on demolishing it.”
Zahra shoots me a wobbly smile. “He sounds like a man in love.”
“Love. Such a simple word for something so devastating.”
“Nothing that good can be given freely.” Her hand squeezes mine even tighter, cutting off any chance for blood flow. I’m not sure who she does it for but I’m grateful for the grounding caress of her thumb brushing across my knuckles.
“My dad was never the same after she passed, and neither were we.” My eyes focus on the fireplace beside us rather than Zahra’s face because I can’t take her sympathy. Not when I don’t deserve it. The selfish monster I’ve become over the past two decades is a far cry from the boy she pities.
I stare at the dancing flames. “My father treated us like shit because I think he wasscared. Because taking care of us on his own meant accepting that my mother was truly gone, and he wasn’t ready for that. He abandoned us when we needed him most and replaced himself with someone none of us recognized. And instead of losing one parent, we lost both. One to cancer, and the other to his vices.” My voice cracks.
“We protected him because we thought he would get better. Looking back, we were too young to know any better. We should’ve told someone about his issues. But he kept his alcoholism so well hidden. Our grandfather was suspicious, sure, but we protected our father. Not out of loyalty for him, but maybe for our mother? I don’t know.”
“You werechildren.”
“But maybe if we had gotten him the help he needed early, we could’ve stopped the years of pain we felt after.” I shut my eyes, afraid Zahra might catch the wetness building in them.
Men don’t cry.
You’ve always been weak.
Pathetic.
All the memories flood my head at once.
“Pain tests us all in different ways.”
I nod. “I think for him, he ruined what everyone else loved because he couldn’t stand to lose the one person he cared for most in the world.”
“And what do you think he ruined for you?”
“The one thing I was good at. My brothers had sports, or comic books, or special clubs. But me? I was the odd one out. The disappointing artistic one who talked too much and dreamed too big.”
Zahra’s lips remain pressed together, although I can read a hundred questions in her eyes.
I exhale. “I got to the point that I started resenting myself. All I wanted to do was make my dad happy, but instead, I proved to him time and time again why I failed. Why I was the weakest of his sons. Why my mother was better off never seeing me become such a pathetic child.”
A tear trickles down Zahra’s face. “You can’t believe that.”
Look at you making her cry. Always the same disappointment.
I shake the thought away. “I—I don’t know. But I changed. There was a shift in my mindset after—” I stop myself from revealing too much. “I withdrew. Learned everything I could from my brothers and stopped caring about anything but proving my father wrong. I spent every day proving why I wasn’t a disappointment.”
“At the expense of what you loved?”
“It was a price to pay for peace. I didn’t think I would draw again—”
“Until you saw my atrocious drawings.”
I nod with a small smile. “Because I didn’t know it at the time, but I wanted you to seeme.”
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