I Love You Whoever You Would've Been

Mum
Life has become nothing more than a vicious ball of passing time filled with disjointed thoughts and sounds and I can no longer tell if they come from around or inside me. The paint is peeling and the furniture is falling apart but as I watch the house fall apart around me I am reminded that what is most beyond repair lives inside. I am broken. All I want to do is turn off the lights, turn of the clamour and turn off my heart.

Jenny
Every night I watch mum whisper to the spindly frost on the window. She looks intently upon the stars as if her gaze will be enough to make them rearrange themselves and spell out the answers to her problems. She closes her eyes and her mouth moves fast and urgently. Sometimes her makeup flakes off and become little black stars on her face. ‘I love you whoever you would’ve been’ she murmurs.

Today’s my birthday. Last year I had a jumping castle and balloons. I doubt I will have anything today, but that’s okay; I have gone without anything for so long. When mum wakes up she rolls over. There is no one sleeping beside her. She would’ve already known this but today I can see the pain fill her eyes as she returns to the refuge of sleep. Mum’s always told me it was rude to stare so I go downstairs and think about everything she has ever told me. She said to never yell at dad and always put my seatbelt on whenever I’m in a car, but words never change anything. I think about last year and how it will never be the same.

I want to talk to her, to tell her that I’m okay but whenever I try the only sound I can make is a flat whisper. They don’t even form words. More like sharp hisses, the noises scare even me. How am I making them? I wish mum could see me but she doesn’t. Nobody sees me anymore.

Mum
It is a broken family that descends the staircase. My little boy cradled against my chest as if my thin, tanned arms will protect him from the world. How will I ever tell him? As I walk not once does my gaze waver from the pictures of Jenny hanging on the wall. The pictures, so perfect that we could have been one of those cliché cheesy smiled families that you find when you buy the picture frame.

One day I bought that frame from a quaint antique store and brought it home to my two sweet children and hardworking, loyal husband. One day he went to drop Jenny at school because we had been fighting and I was irritable. I didn’t say a word to either of you that morning and you never came back. One day I became a widow and lost a child. But they’re all just memories now.


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