Happy Little Horrors by David Reuben

Author:David Reuben
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Monique Happy
Published: 2014-10-03T21:00:00+00:00

THROUGH A MIRROR, DARKLY

By Eila Oakes

I don’t remember much about the day the ambulance took my mom away, and I was too young to understand what was going on. I do remember the neighbors looking at me in pity as they whispered to each other, shaking their heads. I sat on my hands on the porch bench and swung my feet as I waited with my brother. When the silent ambulance pulled away with my mom inside, my brother cried. I didn’t. As the younger sister, I was always trying to prove I was as tough as my brother and his friends.

“Only babies cry,” I remember saying to him. I instantly regretted the words when I saw the hurt, the loss on his face.

I knew I should be crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. Finding my mom lying on the floor of her bedroom weakly calling for help scared me more than it made me sad. Even after the ambulance was out of sight, the fear remained… although I would never admit it to my brother. Mostly, though, I was angry. Angry at the neighbors who stood by and fussed over us. I was angry at my mom for putting me in the position of having to find her that way. I was angry at myself because I had made her cry the day before when I kept begging her to let me go to the park with my friends.

“Your dad is on his way,” Patrick’s mom said, interrupting my thoughts. Patrick lived across the street from us and at six years old, he was the love of my life.

I looked up at her briefly from where I sat and went back to the business of swinging my feet. I felt small as I sat there staring at my bare toes casting their rhythmic shadows on the cement.

The next few months were a blur. My brother and I went to live with my dad and his girlfriend. I was enrolled in a new school to finish first grade. My brother and I were pulled from class a couple times a week to talk to someone in a special room at the school. There, I learned about “warm fuzzies” and “cold pricklies” but had no idea what the hell it all was supposed to mean. I didn’t know it then but realized later my brother and I had been labeled.

We were the kids whose mom killed herself.

***

Six months after we moved in with them, my dad and his girlfriend married. We moved almost every year, allowing our history to fade a little with each new school and neighborhood. We lost all contact with my mom’s side of the family. My dad rarely talked about her and I hardly ever asked questions. All I learned over the years was that she had a near genius IQ and suffered from depression.

Except for special days like Christmas, Mother’s Day, and my birthday, I didn’t think of her often. There were some good memories, but they were from when I was very young.

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