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When I awoke the next morning, I was in my old bed at the loft, the one that I had loved so dearly, and even sort of missed when I had lived with Joanne. Despite the fact that the loft rarely if ever had heat when I had lived here before, and it was a despicable mess at all times, I had loved it. I thought it was far more reflective of my personality than Joanne's rich, stuffy apartment. I looked at my little girl, or the top of her head, rather, being that she had snuggled into me, which was something that she had definitely gotten from me. After lingering in the bed for a few moments, relishing the contact between her small body and my own, I slid out of the bed, careful not to wake her. I glanced at my watch—it was only five in the morning. I couldn't imagine why on Earth I would be awake so early, but then I remembered my early bedtime the night before. I hadn't thought that I had ever been tired when I had retired to my room the previous night, but I just hadn't been in the mood to be social, which was highly unusual for me, however, I had fallen asleep almost immediately. I guess going back home just brought back a lot of memories, opened up a lot of old wounds, especially talking to Benj again…I wish that I could do something for him…my parents will never understand him, never love him the way that I do…but I am not prepared to be responsible for him, at least not yet. I wish Aunt Suz would take care of him, but she's so busy…and he is sixteen years old and by now capable of taking care of himself, I suppose…but that doesn't make it any better. At least in a couple of years he will be free from them. I wish that I could make him understand why I am the way that I am. I should invite him out here for a couple of days…like a weekend or something. After everything settles down, that is. I still can't believe all of the things that he said to me…I had expected him to be angry with me—certainly he has every right to be—but I hadn't expected him to speak to foully, using such horrendous vocabulary. It was just weird to see him so grown up, I suppose. It still feels like he is my child, whom I abandoned, though certainly he is not literally. But I spent more time with him than anybody else, I spent so much time looking out for him. It must have been so hard on him when I moved away, or even before that when I was distraught over Roger to pay attention to anything.
"Mommy?" The little girl was sitting on the bed. I looked up at her from my spot beside the grime-covered window, where I was curled up tightly in a ball, looking wistfully out of the window, completely lost in thought. I turned to face her and opened my arms towards her.
"Come here, sweetie." The little girl scurried over to me, and I pulled her into my arms, hugging her tightly, taking in the moment, committing its seeming perfection to memory—the scent of her hair, the feel of her warm, small body pressed against mine, the feeling of pure trust and admiration that radiated from her tiny frame.
"What were you thinking about? You looked really sad." I set her down next to me on the ledge beside the window, were I was perched, and looked into her eyes, slightly shocked by her observant nature.
"Oh, honey…it was just hard for me to go home and see my brother. He's very mad at me because I made a lot of mistakes when I was younger."
"Was I a mistake?" I blinked, astonished.
"No, Els, you were not a mistake. Having you was the only thing in my life that I have never regretted, not for a minute. I shouldn't made you live with Aunt Suzy, though. That was a mistake. But before you were even around, I did some very bad things that put your Uncle Ben in danger. Grandma and Grandpa were never around, you see…so I had to do things all by myself…well, I mean, your daddy and I were always best friends, so he would help me out, but my point is…I was too young to be responsible. And then your daddy broke my heart because he went away, and I was very sad for a very long time."
"Why did he go away? That's dumb."
"He was scared."
"What was he scared of?"
"He was afraid that I was going to hurt him. I was very sad a lot of the time, and I didn't know how to make myself feel better again. He was worried that…"
"That you were going to do something bad…commit suicide?" My jaw dropped, and my throat tightened.
"Sweetie…do you know what that means? Where did you hear that?" She looked completely petrified that she had said something wrong, so I pulled her onto my lap. "Elsie, it's okay. Did you learn that from Uncle Ben?" She nodded meekly. "Do you know what it means?" She shook her head. I was conflicted, not wanting to tell her, but at the same time, not wanting her to find out from someone else. It was probably better if I just told her everything that I had been through. That seemed a much better way, to me, of protecting her than leaving her in the dark to hear speculations from everyone else. I sighed deeply and put her back down so that I could see her face when I told her. "Okay. This is probably not going to be easy to hear for you, but I feel like you should know. It's better if I just tell you. Your daddy was afraid that I was going to kill myself." She looked confused and uneasy.
"Why would you want to do that?" I looked at her with sad eyes.
"You see, honey, I was…having a really hard time. It was hard for me to manage all of my schoolwork and taking care of your uncle…and I didn't have any friend except for your daddy…and these two men did something really bad to me. I didn't know how to deal with it. Someday, baby, you will understand what I mean. I pray to God that you won't have to go through the same things that I had to, I hope that nothing that awful ever happens to you, but someday something really bad will happen—maybe somebody you love will die, or something…but it will feel like everything is wrong. I hope that you never, ever want to die, I hope that you will know how to feel sad and move on with your life, and deal with your pain. But sometimes…nothing feels right. I kept hurting myself…and your daddy always had to be there to take care of me, and make sure that I was okay, but he was having problems too. I was too upset to pay attention to him, and he was scared that one day he wouldn't be there to save me. He didn't know what else to do, and his parents were always fighting…so he left." I looked at her cautiously, trying to sense how she was taking this, and whether or not she was understanding what I was trying to say. It was evident that she was thinking very hard about this, trying to understand. I could tell that she was trying to formulate her next question, and I could also see that she was trying to hold back tears. "Elsie, baby…I don't want you ever to be afraid to cry. It's a good thing. If you don't feel sad or bad or confused sometimes, it will all build up until one day, everything sad and bad that you kept inside of you will just…come out and you won't be able to deal with it." She nodded, allowing her tears to flow freely. I held her tightly.
"Mommy did you make those cuts yourself?" I forgot that she saw those…I couldn't bring myself to speak, so instead I merely nodded. "You really love daddy, don't you?"
"Of course I do. I couldn't understand why he left me for a very long time, and I couldn't forgive him. That's why we weren't together." She nodded. I hugged her once again before telling her to go brush her teeth. She obeyed, hopping off of the ledge and scurrying off towards the bathroom, leaving the door open. I dropped my head into my hands. What did I do that for? She probably doesn't understand. She's so young…but she's so perceptive, too. I hope that I haven't traumatized her or scarred her for life of something…that would be the last thing that I would ever want to do. I can't believe that I was such a mess…that I still am. Telling her all of this has only served to make me more ashamed of what I have done. I suppose motherhood is like that…not feeling like you are good enough for your child. But what if I'm really not? What if I can't do this? What if I just mess up my kid? I mean, I used to think that as long as you loved your child, that would be enough…but I am starting to doubt the power of love. I don't believe that all parents of fucked up children didn't love them…or maybe that's just my naïveté. I hope we'll be okay…we have to be. Roger knocked lightly on my door, and I looked up to see him standing in my doorway.
"Hey. How are you feeling?" He spoke softly as he crossed the room, sitting down where Elsie had been a few minutes before. I shrugged and addressed my chipped nail polish, picking at it. "Maureen…what's wrong? It's not like you to be like this. I know something's bothering you." I really didn't want to talk to him, though I couldn't put my finger on exactly why. I looked out the window at the gloomy city, which was shrouded in a heavy fog. He reached out a hand and cupped the side of my face, tilting it upward so that I had no choice but to look into his eyes.
"I don't know, Rog. I just feel…inadequate, I guess."
"I don't think that's it. You've been like this ever since we left your parents' house. Does it have something to do with your brother?" I sighed.
"I…feel like I'm letting him down. It's not right that I abandoned him. Everything that he said about me was more or less accurate, and that hurts. I just…I feel so guilty for everything that has happened to him…that if I had been more I could have…"
"You have got to stop beating yourself up! Not everything that happens is a result of your negligence. There is no way to prove that if you hadn't have left that his life would have been any better. He didn't appreciate your presence."
"Even so…he was my responsibility." Why doesn't Roger understand? I let my brother down. It was my fault. It was also partly my fault for his contracting AIDS…if only I hadn't driven him away…
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I can't believe that she has so little faith in herself. I can't believe that she still continues to blame herself for everything that happens to everyone. I know that she was a little distracted when she was supposed to take care of Benji, and it certainly couldn't have been easy for him when she got all fucked up when I left, but that was more my fault than it was hers. I don't know how to get her out of her head. I need to make her loosen up a bit, and stop dwelling on the past and what could have been.
"He wasn't entirely your responsibility. He wasn't your son. You were too young and naïve to know any better. You did the best that you could. It isn't your fault that I was a jackass." She shrugged again, turning to face the window, tracing her finger through the grime that had been on the window for as long as I could remember…probably ever since we had moved in. None of us had ever been the type of people to clean, least of all Mo and I. I placed a hand on her shoulder, and she turned her face towards me briefly, a pained expression on her face. "That's not all, is it?"
"Oh…I don't know…it was just so painful to be back in that house…and remember what it was like to live there…and all the hatred and insults that Benj threw at me showed me what I failure I was. I vowed that I would protect him, that I would make things okay for him. But I didn't. I always said that I was going to make things better for him than they were for me. I failed."
"You can't remake the past. There's no point to dwelling on it." Elsie shuffled back into the room, and when she saw me, she started bawling, and ran into Maureen's arms. I looked at the two of them, completely puzzled. Maureen tried to mouth something to me, but I couldn't make out what she was trying to say, so I shrugged and walked out of the room, calling back to tell her that she should eat something, and Elsie should too. I wasn't so concerned about the little girl's eating habits as I was Maureen's. When I told her to eat something, she glared at me, and I shot her a pleading look, which was not something that I often did. She smiled, recognizing that I was attempting her signature pout, and whispered something to Elsie, who came running over to me and hugged my waist. The girl was remarkably small for an eight-year-old, looking more like she was five or six. It also struck me that her speech patterns when speaking to me were pretty mature, but when she spoke to Maureen she seemed much younger…like a four year old. Maybe she just remembers things being like that when they lived together…although the way that Maureen addresses her, you wouldn't expect her to be more than four…maybe they just need time to adjust to the differences. I picked her up and asked her what was wrong. She relayed to me everything that Maureen had told her, and I was a little shocked at this revelation. I poured her a bowl of Cap'n Crunch, and went back to Maureen, who hadn't moved from the window. "Mo…please eat something."
"I'm not hungry."
"Come on, Maureen." She seemed to ignore me and went into the bathroom. I heard the water start running, and though I was concerned, it was evident that she wanted to be alone, so I let it slide. I didn't know what else to say to her. I hadn't ever seen her like this before, and was quite frankly petrified, considering that I had seen her at her worst, and she had never reacted like this to anything before. I could only be left to wonder what was bothering her, and if something else had happened that she wasn't telling me about. I didn't know whether it was the past or the future haunting her, or maybe a combination of both, but I got the impression that something that Benji had said had really shaken her. I couldn't say that I didn't feel completely overwhelmed, but it seemed quite obvious to me that she needed me much more than I needed her. So this is what it is going to be like…just like old times. I need to communicate with her more clearly—this time we need to use each other for support. We need to be honest and trusting of one another. I should discuss this with her…we can't stand to repeat the past…I don't think either of us could handle going through it again, and we especially need to make it work this time for Elsie. We both want so badly for her to have what we were both deprived of—a childhood, free from adult concerns. Which would require that both of us work out our issues with one another so that she won't have to worry about us. It should be that we are worrying about her. I know that both Maureen and I are completely petrified that we are going to fuck up, but it can't get any worse than what we had to face as children. Out true and profound love for each other and our daughter is going to make this family work. I am going to make sure of that…it's what Angel wanted. Hell, it's what we have been longing for…maybe she just can't believe that dreams can really come true. Maybe she's just scared because she had dreamt about a Utopian version of this reality, fantasizing because she though that it would never come true…I have to make sure that she's okay…we have to get this out in the open. She needs to be open and honest so I can help her through this…