2. SQUALO #2
I knew no one cared for me or loved me the way she did.
And now I’d lost the only person who had been there with me.
I ran back to her bedroom, tears blurring my vision as I reached her bed again. This time I picked up the note, but I didn’t read it. I only crumpled it in my hand, my fingers squeezing the paper, before climbing onto the other side of the bed again.
I crawled to her and rested my face against her chest, wrapping my arm around her cold body.
“Mommy,” I cried, my tears soaking her skin. “Please don’t leave me,” I whispered. “Please. Please don’t leave me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“No one loves me. Please don’t leave me.” I shook my head. “No one. No one. Just you. Mommy, please… I can’t lose you.”
I sniffled, clutching the blanket against my chest and burying my face in it.
Hours passed, and no one came.
I cried until there were no tears left, and eventually I fell asleep holding her.
I must have slept the whole day because a scream woke me.
A maid had come to bring Father his coat he left in the office. She stepped closer, her hand flying to her mouth. She tried to pull me away, but I pushed her aside and climbed back onto the bed.
She called Father. He arrived within minutes, and soon everyone knew my mother was gone.
They looked at me with pity, tears filling their eyes. I was the boy who had found his mother dead. It was something that would stay with me forever.
Father called for all the maids. Even though it was Sunday, a day when no one worked and families stayed together, the house became a place of preparation. Relatives and friends would soon arrive to mourn Sarah Sinclair.
The maids took down the white curtains and replaced them with black veils. In the large window overlooking the port, they hung a black scarf to silently signal to everyone passing by that this house was grieving.
They all cried for different reasons.
I didn’t.
I felt empty.
It hurt.
The pain was there, but I didn’t know how to process any of it. I just sat at the bottom of the stairs, watching everyone. Watching my father look at me, yet never come closer.
I pulled the note from my pocket, the one I had tucked away before they took me out of Mommy’s room.
I read it.
She didn’t know I would be the one reading it. It began with Dear Henry and ended with Take care of Oliver.
I knew everything.
A child learning all the things that were supposed to stay buried behind the closed doors of his parents.
My father saw it in my eyes. He came rushing toward me. He knew, in that moment, the look I gave him would never be erased, not even by years of therapy. He knew he had driven my mother to it.
He knew.
And I knew.
I didn’t move an inch. I handed him the letter, then pushed him away. A tear welled in his eye as his lips parted. His eyes moved over every word.
That Sunday changed everything.
Soon people came and left. Gabby came too.
She didn’t know. She came running toward me, a blue hydrangea clutched in her hand.
“Where is Sarah?” she asked. “I’m going to paint this flower with her today.”
She handed it to me, then looked around at the black veils before sitting beside me.
“My mother can’t paint today, Gabby,” I said, turning toward her. My eyes met hers, but I felt nothing.
“I can come back tomorrow,” she said, taking my hand.
“She won’t be able to paint tomorrow either.”
“Then I’ll come the day after tomorrow.” She smiled. “Or the day after that.”
“She will never paint again!” I shouted, shoving her away as I stood.
Her eyes dropped to the floor. Tears gathered beneath her lashes.
A moment later, she stood again. This time, I let her take my hand.
“She died, Gabby,” I whispered, staring down at my feet. “She left.”
A few tears splashed onto the marble floor.
They were hers.
She had lost her too.
“My dad used to say people who die become dreams,” she sniffed. “They come to visit us when we sleep. She’s just sleeping.”
“No, Gabby.” I wiped my eyes. “She’s dead.”
“Come.” She squeezed my hand. “Come to my house. I have a mom. We can share her.”
She lifted her pinky into the air.
I wrapped mine around it.
“Promise you won’t leave me.”
“I could never.” She pressed her thumb against mine.
“Promise,” I said again, my voice breaking.
“I promise.”
She took me home that night. Her mother was nothing like mine. She lived in a small apartment, nothing like our house, but I felt at peace because Gabby was there.
I met Gianni there too. We were the same age, and he understood what it meant to lose someone.
I was never the same.
Growing up, I learned more about how dangerous thoughts can be. I began to understand what could have been going through her mind that night. But no matter how much I tried to understand, I could never forgive.
Some children are lucky enough to have both parents and a happy childhood, while others grow up scared, carrying scars that follow them for the rest of their lives.
Scars that can turn them into monsters that no one knows how to heal.
Monsters who are never born, but, in my case, a monster that was created from pain.
From that day on, losing, to me, meant only one thing: people leaving by their own choice, choosing not to come back. And I was simply too cold to care.
1. Fuck