“Were you dumb, fat, or ugly?”
An aching silence sucked the air out of her, making it impossible to breathe.
“Which is it? Were you dumb, fat, or ugly?”
Challenge rode in, on words spoken matter-of-factly, without malice.
“For some reason you felt you had to settle. For some reason you felt like you weren’t good enough. Which was it?”
Unspoken words sparked the air, clenching her teeth, as she fought an overwhelming compulsion to cover her ears. She knew what was coming, and wasn’t sure she could hear it again.
“Were you dumb, fat, or ugly?”
She whimpered, softly.
“Who was it? Who was the bad guy?” Kindness and compassionate appreciation tinted words spoken barely above a whisper. “Was it your mother? Your father?”
Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, closest to her nose, as she felt, at once, relieved to have been given permission, and desperate to maintain composure. And, even as she battled, she recognized that the fight, too, was a problem.
Feelings rushed in on the image of her mother’s face; a scowl, a smirk, a sneer. She tried, for years, to find a smile, one smile; a smile of doting adoration, a smile of gentle understanding, a smile of quiet gratitude, a smile of genuine enjoyment. There were no smiles; not for her.
And, the words came; sharp words, strong words, words children shouldn’t speak, and can’t understand; “Idiot”, “Stupid”, “Imbecile”. And, even as they repeated, in her mother’s voice, inside her head, she wondered if, in some bizarre way, she should thank her. Did epitaphs flung at her school-aged head, in some warped way, spark an interest in vocabulary, a love of words, a need to understand? Did the constant state of confusion, mixed with a certainty of her valuelessness, spur, in her, compassion?
The vision she conjured was one of abject submission, as the picture of her mother, hate-filled sneer firmly in place, loomed down at her, hands on hips. She never understood what she did, or how she did it. She never understood the hate, the sadness, the feeling that her mother would rather be anywhere else.
With time, the feelings became memories she only had to feel on the drive down at Christmas, or Easter, or some other holiday. Placing one hand on a doorknob she’d turned thousands of times before, she held her breath, allowing her features time to compose a practiced mask of confidence, strength, and composure. She stood tall, holding her mother’s jade-infused eyes with hers, brown, and snapping, until a slumping of her mother’s shoulders, or a look of proud dismissal, gave her permission to move into the next room, where, at last, she exhaled.
The vision comes again, and, this time, she sees her own childish face; open, innocent, and needy. Questions fly around, inside her head, as she gazes down upon her own countenance.
“Why couldn’t she love me?”
“What could I have done?”
She feels the pain she felt then. She recognizes it. She honors it. She validates it.
It’s not that she hadn’t realized that she’d never had a mother.
But, it doesn’t help to be reminded.
She wonders if the scars will ever heal, as an image of her own daughter flashes across her mind.
And, she smiles through tears that never fall, secure in the knowledge that the cycle ended, with her.
© Copyright 2007-2009 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved
Are We There Yet? 
