Chapter 32 #2
Jan 6: didn’t sleep. Don’t think I ever will. The girls deserve more, but I am so tired. Amelia is too smart for her own good; she’ll run away first (I wouldn’t blame her). Lillian still loves me. Thank God for small things.
Jan 9: drank again. Hate myself. Promise to stop tomorrow. (I won’t.)
Jan 19: Saw myself in the mirror today and didn’t know who it was. Thought about walking into Lake Winona and just dissolving. Maybe the cold would clear my head.
Feb 2: Called Brian a bastard at the store. He is. But so am I. Amelia hid in her room crying today. I could hear her breathing on the other side of the door. She thinks I don’t know, but I do. I always do.
March 1: Lillian’s birthday soon. Need money for a cake. Should ask Kaylee, but I don’t want to owe her anything. Maybe pawning those old earrings will do. Amelia says Lillian doesn’t want a party. I think she doesn’t want me to ruin it.
There were dozens of entries like these, each one ringing with the same cracked bell of regret. There were multiple journals, some half-finished, some barely written in.
The one on the bottom was more recent, and I opened it, despite my pounding heart and tears that were slowly unraveling.
The entries skipped weeks at a stretch, then would appear in desperate clusters, as if Mom only wrote when she was about to vanish under the weight of herself.
April 4: Cleaned the whole house or tried to. Nothing stayed clean. I miss when Amelia would play music loud and fill the kitchen, even if she rolled her eyes at me. Don’t remember ever hearing silence before. Now it’s everywhere, like mold. Missed a call from Dr. Finn. Don’t want to call back.
April 19: Spilled coffee on the couch, tried to scrub it out, only made it worse.
Called Kaylee and hung up before she answered.
I want someone to yell at me, tell me to get my act together, but there’s nobody left.
Lillian is gone, and Amelia too, even if she’s still alive somewhere.
All I ever wanted was for them to know I loved them, and all I ever did was prove I didn’t.
May 9: Dreamed about him last night. He was the age he was when we married, and I was old, ugly, teeth falling out. He told me it was my fault he left. Maybe it was. I hate myself for missing him, but I do, I do, I do.
June 17: Amelia’s birthday is soon. I always get the date wrong. She was so little when I ruined that first cake. I have the photo somewhere. I hope she’s found someone better than me. I hope she hates me a little less with each year that passes.
July 20: Woke up on the floor. Smell of mold, carpet burns on my knees. I yelled at Lillian in a dream, but when I opened my eyes, it was just me. If I called Amelia, she wouldn’t answer. I wouldn’t answer me either.
July 28: Lost track of days again. Stared at the ceiling so long that I started to see faces in the paint. Thought about calling Amelia, but didn’t want to ruin another day for her. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe tomorrow I won’t be me.
August 7: Passed the old school on the way home. Remembered Amelia screaming at me on the sidewalk, telling me to go fuck myself. She was right, she was always right. I can still hear it. Some words never leave.
August 15: The TV is too loud. The silence is worse.
The entries went to August, and then the handwriting changed.
Shaky, barely legible, as if she were writing with her left hand underwater.
My hands trembled as I thumbed the edge, searching for the end, for any sign that she’d softened toward herself before she’d gone.
I found, instead, a cluster of entries, every sentence more jagged than the last.
August 18: Drank. Forgot how to feel anything. Tried pills and wine together. Only felt heavy. Not enough to stop thinking.
August 22: Called him after I tracked him down. He picked up. I asked if he’d ever loved me, and he said, “Not in the way you wanted.” Laughed like it was nothing. I hung up. He texted later to say sorry if he hurt my feelings. If. If.
Why did I ever marry him? Why did I let him ruin me?
There was only one other entry. It was dated days before she ended her life in this sad house.
September 22: There is a sharpness to wanting, like bone against bone.
My girls are better without me. I see that now.
I wish I could have been different for them, but the world is full of wishes.
I am tired of being the reason nothing gets better.
I hope they forget my smell, my voice, my name.
I hope all this pain is water and they float to shore.
Underneath, scrawled in a frantic tilt, almost an afterthought:
Maybe tomorrow it will be easier for everyone.
The ink had pooled and bled there, as if Mom’s hand had hovered, uncertain and heavy, before she set the pen down for the last time. The rest of the page was blank.
I pressed my forehead to the page and let the ache tunnel through me, not even trying to blink it back.
Here I was, reading the last words of a person reduced to decaying bones. I flipped through the blank pages that followed, as if she might have left a secret note tucked between, a coded message: ‘Never mind, I didn’t mean it.’
There was nothing.
I closed the notebook and stacked it with the others, then pulled out my phone. I sent a text to Caiden, telling him I was almost ready, but that was a lie.
I didn’t want to leave yet, not until I’d wrung every drop from this attic.
It didn’t occur to me until then that I had been waiting for this, for her to say it, to make it plain that she knew what she’d done, to know that the weight I’d carried all these years wasn’t just my own invention. That she saw me, even through her fog.
A gust of wind rattled the attic window, and for a moment, I imagined my mother’s fingers tapping on the glass, as if to say, I’m still here, Amelia.
In that moment, I decided to read the letter that she wrote, addressed to me, before she died. I grabbed the albums, journals, and a few other memorable things and threw them all into one box.
Once back down the stairs, box in hand, I nearly ran to where I had tossed my bag.
The letter still sat in my bag, unopened.
With trembling hands, I tore the envelope open and began to read.
Amelia,
If you’re reading this, then I did it. I’m sorry. I’ve tried to write this letter a hundred times, and none of the versions sounded right, so I’m just going to say what I can and let you sort it out. You always were better at that than me.
I’m not going to ask for forgiveness. I know better.
I don’t think you owe me anything, least of all understanding.
But I want you to know that everything I ever did, I did because I didn’t know how to keep you safe from me.
I tried, I swear I did. Some people aren’t made for this life.
I wanted to believe I was, but wanting isn’t enough.
You and Lillian were the only good things I ever managed.
I hate that I barely remember the days before Lillian died. I was so fucked up and buried in drugs, everything became a blur.
I hate myself for how it ended with her. My mind was not right for a long time, but right now I feel the clearest I ever felt.
I look forward to seeing her again once I’m gone.
I hope you remember at least a few days when I got it right. I remember them all. The day you won the spelling bee. The time we made cupcakes and ate half the batter before it went in the oven. These are the things I keep, even when I was too wrecked to say so.
I know it doesn’t make up for anything. But I want you to know that I loved you, even when I was the worst version of myself. Especially then. You always deserved a better mother. You deserved a mother who wasn’t always sorry.
I don’t expect you to ever understand why I stayed so sad.
I hope you won’t waste your life trying to solve that puzzle.
There had always been a deep sadness inside of me.
I tried to mend it with your father, but the sadness only rotted into something darker and uglier, consuming me too much after he left.
There are things your father did that you don’t know about, things that shattered me.
I remember when he hit me for the first time.
I remember when I caught him flirting with the cashier at the store.
I remember when he called me the nastiest names and told me he would like me better if I were different.
If I dressed differently or had been more outgoing.
I remember when he touched Lillian in a way that made my skin crawl.
A touch too long, too intimate. I remember when he would hold me on top of the world, just to let me fall, bleeding at his feet, wondering what I did wrong for him to cast me aside.
There were breadcrumbs of his love, and he would yank them away, just to give themt back bit by bit. Enough to satisfy me, but to also leave me starved. After he left, I spent the rest of my life trying to fill that void in me, and unfortunately, that meant forgetting about my daughters.
Your father was my savior at a time. I put him on the highest pedestal. But he was also my ruin, and I was too young and na?ve to see that for a while.
I know you don’t want to read this. I wouldn’t want to either, but it’s the only way I can think to make amends, even if it’s a stupid, selfish excuse. Even if I know you might never forgive me for it. This is my confession, my apology, my everything that is left.
By the time you read this, I will be gone.
I waited too long to try to get it right, I know that.
If I could have given you less of my sadness and more of my strength, maybe you wouldn’t have to carry so much.
Maybe you could have been the version of yourself that smiled for real in those pictures.
I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from me.
I’m sorry I made you the kind of person who has to protect herself all the time.