Mother - Part 3

A week before the ritual my mother did something that I promised myself I would never forgive her for. I am not one for keeping promises. It was pouring so hard you could hear the rainfall onto our thick roof, the way each drop clattered above. My mother had made cookies. I accidentally knocked the tray of cookies onto my leg. I just wanted a cookie, I didn’t have time to wait for them to cool down. My mother was absolutely exasperated by the situation I had caused.

“This will teach you a lesson in patience and suffering, two values every woman must be well acquainted with to be a good wife.” My mother spoke with a deadly calmness coating her throat. It matched the death grip she had on my arm as she dragged me to the backyard. “I want you to patiently wait out here and suffer,” She said with a huff as she threw me into the rain. 

“You can’t leave me out here!” I rasped, I meant to yell, but my lungs couldn’t get enough air.

My mother didn’t respond. She simply walked back inside and dead-bolted the door behind her. She stood behind the locked door and looked into my eyes. I could not tell you what she was hoping she would find. I myself searched every inch of her body for some sort of compassion or motherly love, something to give me a reason to still love her. She walked away before I could find what I wanted. 

The rain felt more sharp than cold really. I could have sworn it was tearing through my clothes and cutting into my skin. Yet every time I checked to see what the pool of liquid at my feet was, it was never blood, just rain. My mother eventually let me back in. She let me in after everyone had finished supper. The kitchen had smelled more enticing than anything I had ever smelled before. When I passed the dining table with its empty scraps and food-less plates, I almost lost my shit. I was so angry and hungry and cold. I knew I wasn’t dead but I was sure I wasn’t alive either. I figured I had fallen into an in-between category. All I knew was that my thoughts were that of a dog with rabies and not a human. The absence of food on the dining table made me want to bite my fingers off and pull at my hair until my scalp was bleeding. I wanted to pull each tooth out one by one because that would have been less painful. I almost picked off my own skin when my mother sent me upstairs without dinner. 

Sometimes I lie in bed and fantasize about Death. I know Death must be a woman, her loving caress is much too gentle and controlled to be the heavy hand of a man. If I close my eyes and lay still enough, I can see Death. I wonder when she will come for me, and why it has not been sooner. Like all beautiful things, Death is cruel. Death plays with patience and toys with sorrow. Once I stole my mother's garden shears, and I considered forcing Death's hand. I should have known Death would not be a compassionate lover, but rather a heart breaker. 

My mother called me into her office late. Always 6:05 on the dot. That's when lessons had always been. I used to hate waking up so early. Mornings were always so hot and sticky. I always woke up with my blankets thrown off and sweat running down my nightshirt. I could never seem to pull myself out of bed quickly enough for my mother either. Mornings made me slow and made my mother's patience run low, it was a bad combination. 

That said she didn't call me in for lessons till 9:07. What a peculiar thing. I didn't know what to expect when I walked through the treacherous doors of her office. I only got two steps into the door before my gaze found my mother. Her office was different than normal. Two red cushions sat opposite each other with a dagger lying in between. That hadn't bothered me as much as the sight of the dark purple bags under my mother's eye, Along with the general lack of makeup that was completely unlike her. I wanted to turn and run away then, but I didn't know what I was running from. My mother sat on one of the red cushions and she gestured for me to cross the room and sit on the other. I sat down crossing my legs as thoughts scattered across my brain and tried to run out through my ears. Before any part of me could escape, she spoke.

“It’s time for your final lesson. Death.” She looked me right in the eyes as she breathed out the words. However, there was a subtlety to her breath and her voice that had never been there before. My mother's gaze dropped towards the dagger and gave it an envious look. A look like the dagger and my mother had a secret I wasn't in on. A terrible awful secret. She picked up the dagger and placed it on my lap. 

“This is the ritual, the ritual is the way the lesson of Death is taught, and to complete the ritual..” my mother took a pause as if the words were painful to get out, she wrung her hands out, and then continued, “you must kill me or I must kill you.” My mother seemed to run out of words at this point. I awaited some sort of further explanation but nothing came out of her mouth. She just looked at me, her eyes were so exhausted I wondered when she had slept last. She seemed to be waiting for me to do it. To carry out with the ritual. To end her exhaustion. 

“Are you serious?” As I said it I knew the answer, I grabbed the dagger and held it with both hands. I had been afraid of dropping it. “Do I have too?” My voice was shaky just like the dagger in my hands. My mother matched my shakiness with a wobbly nod. We sat there for a moment, in complete deafening silence. I wanted to cry or scream or just do something to fill up the silence, but I was too paralyzed with fear to open my mouth. 

 My mother wrapped her hands around mine, which were wrapped around the dagger. She led my hands to her, till the blade of the dagger was pointed at her chest. I began to sob at that point. I'm not sure why I was crying. I hated her. She had been an awful mother and an awful person. I had every reason to not care about stabbing her. But the way she guided my hands to dig the dagger into her chest. The way she had me twist the knife into her heart. It made me sob. It filled me with regret and sorrow and everything that could have been. As my mother's hands fell off of my own, I could feel myself falling apart. How could Death be such a trickster.? How could such a cruel lesson exist? Why do we learn things the way we do? The questions poured out of me just as my mother's blood did when I yanked the knife out of her body.

I took her blood and I smeared some on her lips and cheeks to make it look like lipstick and blush. I wanted to be able to pretend that something about the last time I saw my mother was normal. I stared at her bloody cheeks and lips, and they reflected back my very own future.

By Lilo Hayes (she/her)

Edited: Halima Jibril (@h.alimaa)

Graphics: Alexa Marie (@aleexamarie)