24. Seven Years Ago — Christian
TWENTY-FOUR
SEVEN YEARS AGO — CHRISTIAN
I fell back against the door while my sternum expanded with the plumpness of an overgrown peach. Mold had begun to creep along the edges of this worthless heart, decaying before I even had the chance to taste its sweetness.
Pure, utter anguish erupted out my chest—blubbering in clumpy particles that no longer fit inside of me.
I covered my mouth to muffle the cries and the grief, and all of the fucking shit I dealt with today.
I grieved for my dead mother.
I grieved for Adelaide’s broken heart.
And I grieved for the boy who lost his childhood.
There was a knock.
I cleaned my nose with the bottom of my shirt and opened the door.
Osama stood on the other side; his face contorted in caring attentiveness.
“Allergies,” I tried to joke.
Osama pulled me in for a hug and patted my back. “You’re allowed to cry.”
“Fuck man,” I pulled away. Another tear fell down my face.
She was holding me yesterday morning, grabbing onto me and saying she lived enough and that she wanted me to live the rest of the way for her. She held Adelaide and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She spent the remaining time telling us her favourite story, which was of the day Adelaide first moved next door. She told us about how she had four miscarriages before she had me. She told us how much she loved my father, how much she loved me, how much she loved Adelaide. The moment was so precious it ached, because it was the last time, I ever held her. The last time I got to smell her. The last time I called her Eomma .
And Adelaide, fuck. I loved her. I’ll always love her. But there was no choice but to let her go. She deserved to shine, to be happy, not to be trapped with grief like mine. Love wasn’t in the cards for me, not with everything that’s happened today.
Losing loved ones was equivalent to losing a limb and today I lost two.
Dad told me he had something to do, and he’d be back. I thought he couldn’t handle it—losing his wife, the woman who loved him with everything she was.
Adelaide helped out by clearing mom’s hospital room and put it in my room. There were two boxes.
The first box was full of her activities, crochet, colouring books, and novels. When I took them out, they smelled like the remaining pieces she left behind.
The second box was full of her clothes, which I folded and placed on my bed. At the bottom, was a thick yellow envelope labelled as important .
My interest got the best of me. If she was there at that moment, she would have told me it’s not nice to look in other people’s personal items. But she wasn’t here, and she’d never be here again.
I opened the file.
Detailed Sexual Assault Evidence reports from the hospital.
A lawsuit with a letter attached.
A check.
And a pregnancy test.
After I finished reading, I dropped the papers and emptied my stomach in the toilet.
The letter was addressed to my father, which meant that she wanted him to see this.
Dad needed to see it, which is why I had put the files back in the envelope and ran into his room.
For the second time, the file fell and that’s when I found Dad and Eda in bed together.
That was also the moment my dad became my father.
Now the files were on my desk in the apartment I shared with Osama, face wet from crying for all the reasons I couldn’t put into words.
After telling Osama everything, he asked to read the file and patiently looked through it. I was so angry; my blood was boiling.
And so was my broken heart but not for the same reasons.
“Shit dude, this is…”
“I know.”
He put the evidence back in the envelope and put it on his lap. “Let’s not worry about this today.”
I shook my head. “I have to.”
“Christian,” he placed a hand on my shoulder. “How about you sleep on this? Today’s been a long day and your emotions?—”
“My emotions are fucking fine,” I snapped. I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. “Osama, I need this.”
I didn't know whether it was the desperation on my face or something else, but his chest rose and fell with a sudden intake of breath before he muttered an exasperated, “Fine, let’s do it.”
“I’ll do it myself.”
“No,” he pointed a finger at me. “We’re doing this together.”
Hasan started with the letter. I looked through the hospital reports, bile rising up my throat.
Who did this to Eomma?
“You might want to read this, Christian.”
Osama handed me the letter and I began to read.