CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE:
March 22, 1986
Dear Melissa,
Arranging Mother's song, Danced Yesterday, was like meeting her for the first time as an adult. There were many moments during the singing sessions that I felt that she was with me inside the booth: taking my hand with her own and as if she was making my decisions for me. I believe that during that short duration of time I spent reviving Mother's memory with music, I was able to reenter her head and I became her for a fleeting second.
I have been worried about my apparent obsession with our Mother for a long time now. You know this, Missy. I was seven years old, strumming the guitar, singing this song with my levelheaded off-key notes and you told me to snap out of it. No one wanted to be reminded of our Mother there in Wales. Maybe that's the reason why I needed to escape; maybe that's the real reason why I needed to leave.
Mulder told me that it was normal; he also lost his Father for an unreasonable cause … and I know that, unconsciously, he feels responsible for this lost. He does not understand this for he hasn't yet grasped his own guilt. But whenever he talks about his Father, his sister, and their issues as a family, I could see it in his eyes. He wants to avenge his Father's death, yet he can't, because he still believes in the concept of family. He still loves his sister. So instead, he takes it out on himself.
I feel responsible for Mother's lost too, Missy. Even if I was only two-years-old when she died, I knew that I had a part in it. If I wasn't born, then maybe Mother could still be with you today. Maybe this family could be perfect and maybe, just maybe, it could work.
It never worked, you see.
On April, we'll have the funeral for Emily's son. Emily is Mulder's only daughter. Her baby was a stillborn. At first, while recovering in the hospital, Emily didn't want anything to do with her son, let alone look at him. She constantly cried and in some instances, was gazing out the windows for hours on end. I couldn't blame her though: who would want to look at your supposed son inside a glass jar, as a specimen? The staff had asked if Emily and Jeff could donate the body of their son to their medical school.
It was only then that Emily responded, telling them off by shouting at them, and finally giving in to the motherly urge to see her dead son. Once the dead fetus was wheeled into her room, she started crying. And I started to cry myself, too. You just can't get everything you want, can you, Melissa?
They named the boy Don March Spenders. What a beautiful name. Sometimes, you just never know what God was thinking when He designed our life. I have asked myself that question so many times before. And for the first time since moving to Los Angeles, I found myself asking that again as I gazed at Emily and Jeffrey, shedding silent tears while watching the nurse wheel the baby away.
Duw rhaid cael well ei rheswm rhy pan ef mynd ag Mother gan ni.
Signed,
Dana
Guilty A/N: Excuses, excuses (to quote Gillian Anderson on Twitter), I know - RL caught me by the chokehold and didn't let go for a couple of months. I moved to a new "place" nearer my university and I guess tinkering around my new room got the best of me. Anyway, the next chapter is coming up within the next few hours. I hope to hear from you all soon - meaning, I hope I still have readers here! (Oh, and I do have plans of posting Spunk simultaneously on AO3. What do you think about that?)