16. WAS I MADE FROM LOVE?
WAS I MADE FROM LOVE?
“Mama, was I made from love?”
My mother ruffled my hair and told me what she always did, “You were made from mine.”
I felt her truth in that statement, and it was always warm like a hundred suns in my chest.
The sky was the color of fire as my mother and I sat on a blanket in the meadow beside Mr. Ledger’s field. The air around us was golden and my mother was smiling as we both watched Love chase fireflies.
She was bigger, she turned one a week ago. The only trick she knew was ‘sit,’ and that was only when a piece of bacon was involved. Every other command just got me a big slobbery kiss on the cheek.
“She’s such a goofball,” my mother said, laughing at Love who pounced, shaking her butt in the air.
Mama was happy today, and that made me happy.
She wore a pretty yellow sundress and most of her bruises were faded.
She had more scars than I did, but she could only see mine.
Sometimes I’d catch her staring at them with a faraway look in her eyes, pain etched on every crevice of her face.
She never told me to cover them up when I went to school, but I did it anyway.
Something told me that if anyone found out what happened behind our closed door, I would be taken from her.
A part of me wondered if she was always waiting for it—maybe even hoped.
I watched as she plucked a weird-looking flower from the ground and twirled it with the tips of her fingers. Closing her eyes, I saw her lips move silently over the flower before opening them. She blew the feathery wisps and watched them get carried away in the wind.
“What are you doing?” I asked, reaching over to drag my hand over a group of them, watching as the wisps floated into the air. “What are those?”
“They’re dandelions,” she said softly, gently moving my hand, and whispered, “You’re wasting wishes.” She laughed at my confused look and then picked one from the ground and handed it to me. “Here, close your eyes, whisper a wish, and then blow until the wind carries all the wisps to the sky.”
Even though I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to be the reason the smile on her face disappeared, so I went with it. “What do I wish for?”
“Anything you want.”
I stared at the ugly flower and wondered why the world had given it so much power. “And it’ll come true?”
She traced her finger down the bridge of my scrunched nose. “Someday.”
With a thoughtful hum, I closed my eyes.
I focused on the warm setting sun on my skin.
“I wish. . .” My whisper trailed off as I thought.
If things could be as this exact moment forever, then I wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore.
I wouldn’t have to worry about being left alone.
Deciding, I swallowed before making my final wish. “I wish that love could stay.”
WHEN I WOKE a few days later to an empty bed, I found my parents in the kitchen. My best friend was missing.
At least that’s what my father told me, but my mother’s splotchy red face told me a different story; one I didn’t want to think about.
He returned a few nights ago, and I’d purposely avoided him until now.
I’d gone to bed with Love beside me and I was so angry with myself for not paying better attention.
I should have felt her get up. The worst part is that I woke up to my bedroom door being open and I couldn’t remember if I’d closed it before falling asleep.
I worried that my father found her, and I thought she’d be outside in her pen, but she wasn’t. Fear clawed at me so brutally that my heart pounded throughout my entire body.
“How are we going to find her?” I asked, she was somewhere out there alone. She must’ve been so scared.
My father sat at the other side of the kitchen table and looked to be sober for the first time since I could remember. “She’s gone, boy. What don’t you understand about that?” His tone was a harsh bite, but I was used to it. It hit my skin and bounced right back off. I eyed the bandage on his hand.
“Dax, please,” my mother said softly from my right and sniffled as she tried hard to hold in her tears.
I stood, the legs of the chair skidding across the floor with a screech.
“She wouldn’t just leave!” I yelled, feeling my eyes burn.
They had no plan to look for her, which could only mean one thing.
She was gone in a way that she couldn’t come back.
I turned to my father and charged for him, but my mother wrapped her arms around me.
“What did you do to her?” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “What did you do?”
Mama said nothing, but I could hear sobs crack through her as her arms shook to keep me in her grasp.
My father had a sick smile on his face as he watched me struggle to free myself and at the proof of my pain spilling down my face.
I wanted my best friend back. I wanted Love, and he took her from me.
“Mama,” I cried, crumbling to the floor in a ball as I held my head in a cradle. “Mama, I want Love!” It hurt too much. My heart was being torn to shreds. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t control it. I could only let the pain carry me where it wanted.
I’d known every brand of pain in my life, but this one. I had never met this nature of grief. Love knew this family’s secret; she died with it—because of it.
And I didn’t get to say thank you.
After my father had left with his buddies to get drunk at the local bar, my mother came into my room. She brushed my hair away from my face and kissed my temple.
“You want to know a secret, sweet boy?”
I nodded against my tear-soaked pillow, sniffling.
“All of my wishes are for you.”
Wiping my tears, I turned over onto my back. “Why don’t you use them for yourself?”
She brushed her fingers over my cheeks and then grasped my hand in both of hers. “Because you’re getting out of this place one day and I’m going to need the world on your side when you do. ”
“I won’t need the world,” I told her, pressing my hand to her cheek. “I’ll have you.”
She held my hand to her face, a tear slipping free and dropping onto my comforter. “Always.”