CHAPTER 50

5 years earlier…

It was Christmas Eve, and Marcos was quite possibly the happiest he had ever been in his entire life. Christmas was always his favorite part of the entire year. In Rio, they always did Christmas absolutely massively in their community. Many of the people in their favela were religious, which meant that every single one of them celebrated Christmas. There wasn't a single person that didn't get involved, both in the religious parts of the holiday and in the more celebratory parts. As a 12 year old, the celebratory part was obviously what Marcos was more into. He absolutely adored everything. Unfortunately, his father often had to work right through the Christmas holiday, apart from Christmas day, but given that Marcos' mom was a teacher, she was able to do everything with him.

And when they said that they did everything, they meant it. They put up a small tree in the center of their house, decorated to perfection with baubles, tinsel, and topped with a star that Marcos had made himself in Art class. They prepared and cooked together a delicious Christmas meal, as well as baked many divine desserts and treats. And then there was Marcos' favorite part… the caroling. It was a tradition that Marcos and his mom had established that every Christmas eve, the pair of them would go all around the neighborhood, singing and serenading Christmas carols. They had done this for hours, until they finally lost their voices and were forced to stop.

Something felt different though this time, as opposed to the other times they had gone caroling in past years. Marcos had always been a perceptive child, even at a young age, and he noticed that today, his mom seemed kind of sad. He didn't know why, and he didn't know how sad, as the woman made a point to hide her sadness from him, although it was evident that something was clearly weighing on her. Marcos' wouldn't have even noticed this if he hadn't been talking to his mom about what songs he wanted to sing with her next year. At this point, the sadness flashed across her face, and it took her a few moments too long to hide it.

At this point, it was 9 pm and they finally went home, about to get Marcos ready for bed. However, there was one thing left to do beforehand, another tradition that Marcos and his mother had established together during all of the Christmas Eves that his dad was forced to miss for work. What Marcos and his mom would do is that on Christmas Eve, they would exchange a single gift, almost like a teaser for what was to come the day after. Of course, as a young child, the gifts that Marcos would manage to give to his mom would never be much, however this year he was confident that he had come up with his best gift idea yet.

"Alright, are you ready?!" Marcos' mom exclaimed cheerfully as she walked into the living room, where Marcos was waiting, with a small box in her hands. He was going to be receiving his gift, and to say that he was ready was a bit of an understatement. He was practically hopping up and down in anticipation and delight. He absolutely adored his mom, adored this holiday… everything was just perfect.

That feeling was only emphasized when Marcos opened the small black box that his mother had given him, and pulled out a gorgeous silver watch. It definitely wasn't something that a child would wear, particularly in his neighborhood. The smooth, dark watch face glinted against the light above them, although it didn't glow as much as Marcos' face at that moment. This gift was better than he could've ever dreamed of! He was shocked though… this watch looked incredibly expensive. Like something the rich people of Brazil wear, not something the people around him would, as they didn't have much money at all.

"Wow… mom! Thank you! This is amazing!" Marcos exclaimed, quickly putting it on his wrist.

"You really like it?!" His mom asked, unable to keep a bit of the desperation out of her voice. Marcos was too ecstatic however to notice. He grinned widely.

"Yeah, this is incredible!" Marcos said, admiring the gorgeous item on his wrist. Tears sprung to his mother's eyes, but as she didn't allow them to fall, Marcos didn't notice them.

"That's good. I wanted something that I could give you that, when I'm gone, you can look at every day and remember me by."

Marcos furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"Gone? Are you going on a trip or something?" He asked, confused. His mom shook her head.

"No. But nobody lives forever, Marcos. Remember that." She replied, almost forcefully with her firmness. Marcos slowly nodded, before running out of the room to go and fetch the gift that he had made for his mom. He returned moments later, a heavy book in his hands, and he handed it over to his mom.

"Here. Merry Christmas, mom. I love you." Marcos said to his mom, a beaming grin on his face as he handed her the gift. He was extremely excited to hear what she thought of the gift, as although it had been relatively inexpensive, it had been a lot of effort to make. His mom slowly picked up the gift and opened it.

Marcos' mom gasped when she saw what it was. It was a scrapbook, each page containing a picture of a few pictures of the two of them during every Christmas since his birth, with a loving message hand-written underneath. He had made it at school, with the help of his teacher, who had been more than happy to help as she was a colleague and friend of his mom. The gift had taken a lot of effort, but he was overjoyed with the end product. It was quite possibly the best thing he had ever made, and it was almost fitting to give it to the person he loved most in the world.

Marcos' mom flipped through every page of the scrapbook, smiling faintly as she reminisced all of the incredible Christmases she had spent with her son, before she arrived at the final page, which had been left empty.

"It's for next year's Christmas' photo." Marcos explained as she reached that page.

He didn't know what it was that he said, but it was those words that had set his mom off. Before he knew it, there were tears rolling down her cheeks, dripping down onto the pages of the scrapbook.

"What is it? You don't like the gift?" Marcos asked, worriedly. Marcos' mom quickly shook her head.

"No. No, I just love the gift so much, sweetie. Thank you…"

Back to the present…

"Almost exactly a year later, the following December 23rd, she was gone. Killed herself." Marcos finished his story quietly.

Sarah tightened her grip on Marcos slightly, holding him comfortingly. She processed the bombshell that Marcos had just dropped on her, and she honestly had no idea what to say. She couldn't believe what someone she loved so much had had to go through, and the fact that he never spoke a word about it… it must've weighed on him so heavily, she had no clue how he was able to keep standing.

"Marcos, I'm so sorry…" She whispered. Marcos shook his head as he looked down, a tear splashing down from his face onto the framed photo of him and his mom. The photo had been taken the week before she died, and Marcos had intended to put it in the scrapbook. But after her death, Marcos had instead decided to frame the photo so he could keep it in his sight in their house.

"I swear, she knew that day." Marcos murmured quietly. "I swear, in that moment, when I was giving her the gift, she knew, and she was trying to send me a message. I should've caught on. Maybe I could've done something more. Talked her out of it. If only I wasn't so fucking oblivious, maybe she wouldn't be…"

Marcos couldn't bring himself to say the word 'dead'. It made it sound so permanent, whereas Marcos wanted to, at all costs, avoid that truth.

"Marcos, it's not your fault. There's nothing you could've done." Sarah told him. Marcos shook his head. He knew that that wasn't true. He knew that if he had done some things differently, his mom would probably still be alive.

Sarah didn't know the details, but she could feel this immense weight that was weighing on Marcos' shoulders about his mom's death, and she wished nothing more than if that weight could be lightened on him, even if that meant shifting it onto her instead.

"You know, it could be helpful if you talked about it. Talked about what happened." Sarah murmured. Marcos shrugged.

"What's there to talk about?" Marcos asked quietly. "She's gone. She's not coming back. End of story."

"How about talking about what happened the day you found out she had passed on? Only if you're comfortable. Maybe if you talk about that, it might not weigh so heavily on you anymore."

Marcos chuckled mirthlessly and shook his head.

"Don't see that happening anytime soon, but sure. You want to know what happened the day she died?" He asked. "It was a normal day. December 23rd, 2015. I remember the date vividly because it was the last day of school before the Christmas holiday, and my mom and I had planned to decorate the house and tree after I got home from school. Her and I went to school together - she worked there, I went there - and as she kissed me goodbye for the day, that's when she said her final words she'd ever say to me face to face."

"What did she say?" Sarah asked gently.

"Goodbye." Marcos replied, allowing the word to slowly roll off his tongue. "I should've realized right then that something wasn't right. She NEVER said goodbye to me. Or to anyone really. In her opinion, it was bad luck. So it was always 'see you later alligator', or 'in a while crocodile', or 'see you soon.' Never goodbye. But I was so excited for the last day of school before the break that I didn't even notice. I should've noticed but I didn't."

"You were only 12. Why would you have noticed?" She asked gently. Marcos sighed and threw his arms up in the air.

"I don't know, okay?! Because it was my mom! It was the person I was supposed to know better than anyone in the world! I should've been able to tell that something was going on! I had a whole fucking year from last Christmas to that Christmas to do so!" Marcos exclaimed, before taking a deep, shaky breath to steady herself. "Anyways, little did I know that my mom never actually entered the school that day. After saying goodbye to me, she called in sick and went right home."

"And that's when she… did it?" Sarah asked. Marcos slowly shook his head as another tear trickled down his cheek. If Sarah held him any tighter, she would quite possibly be suffocating him, but that didn't stop her from wrapping Marcos deeper into the embrace, trying to show as much support as she possibly could as he opened up to her.

"Not yet. I got home after school at like 4. Dad was still at work, and I figured mom was too - she normally finished her day a bit later than I did at school. So I walked into the house, walked into the living room, ready to start the best Christmas holiday of my life. That's when I heard it… BANG!"

Sarah clasped a hand over her mouth in horror. It had happened while he was in the house?!

"I'll never forget what happened next. Not for as long as I live." Marcos continued, unable to really stop now. "So I went to investigate. I lived in a pretty shitty neighborhood so I knew exactly what this was. It was the only thing it could possibly be. I ran over to my parents' room as fast as I possibly could, I charged into the room… and there she was."

A few stray tears began to trickle down Sarah's own cheeks, but she forced herself to remain strong. For Marcos, she needed to remain strong right now, despite this devastating tale that the love of her life was telling her about his childhood.

"Every time I close my eyes, I see her lying there." Marcos whispered. "It was like a pool! It was like a pool, Sarah! A crimson-fucking-red pool that I had to splash through to make it over to her. And when I made it and I looked at her face, do you know what I saw, Sarah?"

Sarah didn't respond, knowing this was a rhetorical question.

"Nothing! I saw nothing, Sarah! If I didn't know from the clothing and the rest of the body that that was my mother, there was no way I'd have been able to identify her by her head! And you know why? Because every inch of her face, every damn inch, was covered in blood, covered in her brains! It was like I was trapped in some kind of nightmare that I couldn't wake up from."

"Marcos, I'm so sorry." Sarah mumbled, still comforting him, although her tears had also increased rapidly upon hearing the gruesomeness of this story. She couldn't help but think about 13 year old Marcos… how terrified he must've been. How traumatizing it would've been for anyone, let alone someone who was barely a teenager yet.

"I almost passed out. I threw up all over the floor of that room." Marcos told her. "What happened next, it was like I had been pulled into some kind of trance. I barely remember it. What I can remember is that I screamed. Choked. Cried. Sobbed. I turned around and tried to run out of the room, but I couldn't for a second because I slipped on her blood. I slipped and fell face-first into my own mother's blood! I nearly threw up again, but I managed to make it out of the room this time. But as I did, I looked down and I could see that I was staining the entire house with her blood. My footprints dyed the white carpeting crimson. The blood that ended up getting in my hair when I fell dripped all over the place. It's a miracle I managed to do what I did next without having a heart attack and dying on the spot. I ran into the living room, grabbed the phone. Called 911. Told them that my mom had killed herself and they needed to bring an ambulance. Then I called my dad, crying and screaming into the line. Told him he needed to come home immediately. Then I went back into my mom's room…"

"You went back in?" Sarah asked, shocked to her core. Marcos nodded.

"Yeah, I, uh… I wanted to look for something. A note. I read that many people who committed suicide left notes. I hoped that she had at least left something for us to remember her by. I found one. Well, I don't know if you can really call it a note, but it was the last thing she wrote to me and my dad before she died. It was only 4 words… 'I am so sorry.' Just those 4 words. That's it. That's all I have to remember her by. Because no matter how much I want her to, no matter how much I'd give to have her back for even just one minute, I know that she's not coming back. She's never coming back."

Marcos' voice trailed off as he finished the story, and a long silence overtook them. Sarah was in shock. The fact that he lived with the horror show of a story every time he woke up… it was a miracle he was able to get out of bed every morning. He really was the strongest person Sarah knew, and the fact that he had been living with this for 5 years only proved that fact. During the silence, Sarah realized something. She thought back to the date that Marcos mentioned that his mother had passed away, and then she made a connection.

"Wait… Marcos, you said that she passed away on December 23rd? That's today's date." She said. Marcos nodded.

"Yup. Today marks exactly 5 years to the day." He mumbled in reply. Sarah wiped away some of her tears as she looked at him, and saw the sheer agony in his eyes. He hid it so well most of the time, but now that it had been exposed, it took over every inch of his face.

"Marcos, I'm really sorry. I didn't know." Sarah whispered.

"I know. And you have nothing to be sorry about. Thank you for being here today." Marcos replied, before sniffling back all of his tears and pulling himself up to his feet. "Do you have somewhere else to be right now?"

When Sarah shook her head, Marcos also helped her to her feet so the two were standing face to face.

"Can we go somewhere please? There's someplace I want to show you…"