My mother accompanied us to the Capitol.
Of course she did.
District 12 had no other Victors. The one before Mother had died before my first Reaping. There had been none since Mother.
Districts 1 and 2, they trained children from birth to be their Victors. They won a lot. The other Districts, they start learning trades and skills early which could help in the Games.
Not District 12. Not that the Capitol would have seen anything wrong in sending children into the mines but that our population needed to grow. In the mines, death can be quick or slow but it is inevitable. Black lungs can't breathe. Send a child down; they'll die before their breeding days are over. Wait until they're older, you gain a more few years of breeding before they choke.
We were poor in all ways. In food, in fuel, in education.
For twenty-six years, every Tribute from District 12 had died in the Arena.
For twenty-six years, a slip of paper was their warrant of execution.
Sometimes...sometimes one of their family would blame Mother.
As if it was her fault her blindness crippled her ability to train and mentor our Tributes. As if it were her fault she couldn't judge if an outfit was just right to get a certain reaction. As if it was her fault she couldn't watch the screens on which the Games were projected, could only listen, and so couldn't take appropriate action as well as those with sight.
Mother never retaliated. She would stand like a statue while they screamed and flailed their fists against her. She would stand there until they collapsed, keening, and would then walk away.
She never told them she was sorry. Or that it wasn't her fault.
It was needless and useless to say either.
After the Games, those were the darkest times. I'd wake to yells or sobs or both, but know better than to try to comfort her. Not even Su could reach her, she'd shy away from any touch and disappear for hours. Su would cling to me, especially when she was little and couldn't understand why Mama went away.
Fifty-two Tributes.
Fifty-two children who hoped that, somehow, Mother could help save them.
Fifty-two children who had spent almost their last days with her.
Fifty-two children whose coffins she'd escorted home.
Me and Tenzin would be fifty-three and fifty-four, or fifty-four and fifty-three.
I didn't harbor any illusions about that.
Nor did she.
The first time my mother said "I love you" to me was in the Justice Building right as we boarded the train to the Capitol.
Words I'd craved for years, words I'd dreamed about hearing from her lips, words she'd given to Su but never to me.
She whispered it, not looking at me, one foot already on the steps into the train. I was behind her.
"I love you."
"Mom?"
"Don't call me that!"
I realized she'd been speaking to a ghost.
My ghost.