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Exiting the photos, she hovers over the video one. Our smiles slowly disappear as she stares at it. “Should we?” She glances up at me again, and I hesitate.
Can we handle that? Seeing Jane move around, hear her voice? It would be like watching her live again, and I don’t know if her heart can take it.
If mine can take it.
But I see the glimmer in Eve’s eyes, the one that tells me she wants this. Roughly clearing my throat, I nod.
She needs this.
“Might as well.”
And even if it’ll tear me apart to see the only mother I’ve ever known alive again, she clicks the file.
Similar to the file of photos, it’s full of us. Of Eve and me over the years. Of our family. Of the church.
Of our life.
There’s a video at the top, the most recent one, and my stomach drops. The still image is of the ceiling. Why would it be that?
Then I look at the date, and dread coils tightly inside me.
“Click on it,” I mutter. The cursor shakes as Eve’s hand drags up, double clicking on the video.
Sounds of Jane moving around fill the speakers, and Eve lets out another broken sob. “Mama,” she breathes, her voice so small, so fragile. She runs her fingers over the cool computer screen as Jane’s face comes into view.
“Is this thing even on?” Jane mutters to herself, and my throat tightens at the sound of her voice. It’s a voice I didn’t think I’d ever hear again. A voice I thought was lost forever.
But here it is, pouring through the speakers as if she’s standing right in front of us.
I see the worry and exhaustion in her weary eyes, like the weight of the whole world was on her thin shoulders. Living the life she had, dealing with Isaac, was a burden too heavy for her to carry alone.
Yet, she did.
She forced a smile on her face every day and made sure her daughter had one, too. She never made Eve want for anything, never made her live in the shadows. She always made sure Eve was front and center, her golden light shining bright. She never let anyone know of the turmoil, of the ugly, searing pain slashing through her as she mourned for her late husband, and was abused by her current one.
I should’ve seen it.
I should’ve noticed the darkness in her that matched my own. It’s a darkness only my father can build, one he births in those around him. It’s one I might’ve come into this world with, but it’s one that bloomed in Jane and Eve because of him.
As I stare at her, my own mother flashes through my mind, the same expression on her sunken face. Lines creased her too-young skin, her eyes were too heavy—she’d seen too much. Been through too much.
Did my father put her through the same things? Did she endure the same pain as Jane? As Eve?
A sob breaks through as I think about my mother, the one I never got to know because…
Because she was taken from me too soon.
Was it his fault, like Jane’s journal theorized? Or was it really an accident?
Those moments have always been blurry, a mix of what I think happened and what Isaac’s always told me. But what’s the truth?
The air around us seems to crackle with our mixed pain. In this moment, we’re connected by the loss of our mothers, by the pain of wanting to be held by them, just one more time.
Unlike Eve, I don’t remember what my mother’s arms felt like. I don’t remember the way she smelled, or the way her laugh sounded.
But I remember her eyes, the same as my own.
I remember her smile.
