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ChapterOne
Alina
Your mother is a nutjob.
Your mother is batshit crazy.
Your mother is a lying slut, a dirty whore.
Your mother is a murderer.
Carefully, I unfolded the piece of paper. Its creases had become so well-worn it frayed at the folds.
All their foul words were put to rest on this page.
All the taunting and teasing I’d been subjected to when I was young now made sense.
What had been bullies in my childhood, throwing rocks and calling names while my heart twisted and broke, had now morphed into a reality I’d never known or hoped to grasp as a child.
I reread the lines before folding it and tucking it away in the back pocket of my jeans, where it had lived since it had arrived a week ago. Raising my hand in the tight fist I wanted to use so many times on a wall, a face, or even the front fender of my beat-up car, I rap on the old wooden door, the sound echoing through the house I’d grown up in and waited.
Turning my back to the door, I scanned the unkempt mess of the garden. The prickles and weeds had waged a war on the plants my mother had loved to nurture, and they’d won. A sweet smile crossed my lips. I had so many memories of her working in the garden—her safe haven—memories of her crawling on hands and knees from one garden bed to another, pruning and turning soil while singing to her roses. She was happy here.
We felt safe here.
Until the day we didn’t. The day the men came.
Her words told me she blamed herself. I wished she hadn’t because maybe the words would have been unnecessary, the letter would never have arrived, and the evil truth would never have been revealed to me.
The door resisted before creaking behind me, scraping on the wooden floor like it had grown too big for the doorframe around it.
A cherub face greeted me. “Alina, welcome home. It’s so wonderful to see you.”
“Mr. Wilson, good afternoon.” He looked old,olderthan old.He looked ancient.
He’d lookedoldwhen I lived here, and now, in all the time which had passed, he’d aged terribly. Liver spots dotted his frail skin.
We continued the awkward standoff on the front steps of my mother’s house as if sucked into a time-lapse where everything had come to a screeching halt except for growing discomfort.
“May I come in?”
“Oh, yes, dear, of course.” Mr. Wilson stepped aside, granting me access to what recently had become my possession.
Asking permission to enter seemed like a pointless formality. Mr. Wilson sent me the letter among the last of my mother’s possessions and her will. Both arrived only a week ago, requesting I return to the town where my childhood was scarred with spite and jealousy.
I hadn’t wanted to return, not in this lifetime or even in the next. Over a decade ago, I scraped the remnants of their hate and anger from my bones before making myself a promise never to return.
But there I was, standing in the dingy foyer of the home where I was raised. How could I be there as a different person and still feel the same as I had on the day I left?
The memories flooded back as if watching an old black and white film on the projector in our living room like we did when I was young.
The house needed attention. There was no denying it. Layers of dust tainted every surface and were the same soft brown color as the dirt outside. It was stuffy as if all the air had been exhaled after being locked up for years with no love, attention, or even a simple breath of fresh air.
My eyes roamed the walls where our photos still hung. Then, leaning closer, I saw the image I’d committed to memory long ago. Mom and I were on the only vacation we ever took to Celcia Beach when I was fourteen, the summer before I developed into a woman.
Rubbing my thumb over the glass, I revealed the picture below. It had become faded around the edges over time, like my memories.
The house stood like a time capsule of a different life.
