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“Then the memory is real. The lyrics already existed in your brain, you just had to find the melody,” I said.
She rubbed her palms against her knees, and for a moment, I thought she was bracing herself to stand up and go inside. Instead, she let out an extended breath and closed her eyes while she tilted her head toward the sun.
“I was in bed. We shared a one-bedroom apartment. It was the evening. I had just gotten out of the bathtub and crawled into bed when I heard her body hit the floor. I knew it was her body. There is a certain sound a body makes when it falls and the person falling doesn’t even try to catch themselves. Nothing else makes that sound. I waited for a second, waiting for her to say something, but she never did. I opened the door and I could see her feet sticking out into the hallway from inside the bathroom. At first, I shut the bedroom door again. I ran into the bed and hid under the covers. I don’t even know how long I stayed in bed. Sometimes I wonder if she was still alive at that moment, if she heard me shut the door and run away, if her last thought was that her daughter was abandoning her.” She almost shivered along with that sentence.
Taking a deep breath, she continued, “Eventually, I creeped back out and went into the bathroom. She was laying back with her head craned against the bathtub, her body sprawled out between the tub and the sink.” I winced at the thought of finding my own mother in such a position. “There was so much blood. I didn’t know the human body held so much blood and how it could flow so freely from our veins. The blood was everywhere, there was no way to tell where she was bleeding from. I knelt and tried to shake her awake, but nothing happened. The only thing I could think was that I was too small, and I couldn’t shake her hard enough. I needed someone bigger to shake her awake for me.”
Her fear of blood.She’s always feared blood. Whether a scraped knee or a bloody nose. Her blood or others, it didn’t matter. It all terrified her. I’d always thought it was some kind of irrational fear that some people are just born with. Like heights or clowns. She had a reason, though. A reason that ran so deep she couldn’t even look at red paint without seeing it.
She looked at me and all I could see was numbness. As if she was talking about nothing but the weather. That broke my heart. Yet, she continued, “I ran outside and downstairs to our neighbor who lived below us. I didn’t even know her name, I had never spoken to her before. She was older, probably in her sixties. She had three grandchildren that lived with her. I knocked on her door and when she opened it, she screamed. I couldn’t figure out why she was screaming, until I looked down at myself. My pajamas were sticking to my body with blood. I told her my mom wouldn’t wake up. I remember seeing the color drain from her face. She knew before I did that my mother was dead. She called nine-one-one and waited with me outside for the ambulance. She gave me a pair of her granddaughter's pajamas to change into.
“When the ambulance took my mom, I rode in the back of a police car to the hospital. There was already a social worker waiting there for me. She sat with me in the lobby for probably six or seven hours, but in my little-kid brain it felt like days. My dad– well, Dan. Not my birth dad. I don’t even know who he is.” She sighed. “My dad was the one to come out and tell us she had died. He said it to me, not the social worker. He bent down on his knees to meet my eyes and placed his hand on my shoulder. He said what all doctors say, ‘We did everything we could, but her injuries were too severe. I’m sorry, but your mother has died.’ He was the first person who didn’t tell me it would be okay. He just told me the truth. I hugged him. Much to his confusion, and the confusion of my social worker. I don’t even know why I did it. I just already felt safe, like his guy would never lie to me. My social worker left to make some calls, trying to find me a placement for a foster home. She asked my dad to wait with me, and he did. We played go fish, and he told me he liked my name. I obviously wasn’t present for any of these conversations, but it turned out that my dad and Jenna had already become certified to foster. They had been interested in it for a while, but Jenna was always afraid she’d become too attached to a child and then lose them. They’d always wanted a third child but had a hard time getting pregnant. I don’t think my dad even called Jenna to ask if he could take me home at the end of that shift. He just did it. Regardless, she accepted me immediately. They all did.”
“Kids at school used to say your mom died of an overdose?” I asked, immediately regretting the words as they came from my mouth. Living in a small town, there were a lot of people who were privy to her mom’s death and her adoption. Rumors flew around, and she was used to hearing them, but I hadn’t meant to ask so bluntly.
“She did.” Penelope cleared her throat. “I didn’t know that for a while. My parents told me a few years after it happened. Her official cause of death was cardiac arrest. The number of opiates in her system determined that she overdosed first and fell back against the bathtub and hit her head. That’s where the blood came from. She was addicted to just about any kind of prescription med she could get her hands on, apparently. I don’t remember that about her, though. I don’t remember anything ever being wrong with her. Other than the fact that we were poor, I guess. I remember her being sick a lot. It kind of always seemed like the cold, though. I never thought much about it,” she said as she shrugged.
“After a few weeks, my social worker came for a visit. She asked me how I liked it there, and of course, I said only the best things. They are the best parents. But my dad– he really felt like my dad. He felt like my dad from the minute he told me I didn’t have a mom anymore. I was afraid that if I said something wrong, the social worker would take me away. I was always walking on eggshells when she was around. Even after I was adopted, I sometimes still felt like I was walking on eggshells. Like if I said or did something wrong, they’d un-adopt me.”
“You can’t un-adopt someone,” I scoffed. I was still trying to process all the things she said prior to that sentence.
“I know. I didn’t even really know what it meant to be adopted, though. My parents have never, ever, done anything to make me feel this way. This is all me, but I sometimes feel like their love is conditional. They took me in and gave me everything, so I owe them something back.”
I leaned forward, my head falling between my knees. Anger burned the back of my throat. The way she spoke about her experience was so casual, and that almost made it worse. It felt as if nobody had ever told her they were sorry for what she went through, as if she felt like she didn’t have a right to hurt from it. “I’m so sorry, Penelope. I’m sorry.”
She rubbed my back. “I know.”She was comforting me.As if she had expected this reaction. As if this was how she had to handle the situation every time she told someone this story. No wonder she never brought it up. It was more strenuous for her to tell the story than it was to keep it hidden. In one movement, I sat up straight and hardly noticed the confusion on her face as I grabbed her and pulled her to my chest. I ran my fingers through her hair as my arm held her head against me.
“Youare the one who should be held, Pep,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
She deflated in my arms and one hand lightly landed on my chest. “I feel like I don’t have the right to be sad. I feel like I should feel lucky to have been adopted by my parents. I could’ve spent my entire childhood in foster care or group homes.”
“You are lucky in that regard. But you can still be sad about losing your mom,” I said. I took a moment to absorb her words as I rubbed her head. She feels like she has to earn the love she’s given. I wonder if she has ever told her parents that. Surely, if she had, they would’ve done something to make sure she knew. “‘One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving,’” I whispered to her, quotingThe Alchemist.
She moved her head away from my chest and looked up at me. “What?”
I chuckled. “You didn’t finish the book?”
Her eyes fluttered. “I skimmed. I mostly focused on what I needed to know for the class’s lesson plan.”
“Well, you should read it again. Not for work, or because I told you to. For yourself. I think there are some messages in there that you should hear.”
She smiled softly with a slight nod.
“You can always talk to me, Pep,” I said.
“I know that.” I knew she was ready to change the subject. As if on cue, she cleared her throat, “Speaking of the book, my class will be finished with the project after spring break, and I’ll return it to you then.”
“Keep it as long as you want,” I said. “Keep it forever.”
“What happens when you get lost again? And you need it to find yourself?”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to come find you.”
A flush ran to her cheeks.
“I have one more question,” I said. She looked at me inquisitively. “You said your mother liked to read to you. Is that why you don’t read? It reminds you of her?”
She nodded once. “She never got her happy ending.”
