The Scarlet Knife

Hailey

Had I been wrong? Had my memories forsaken me? My mother, her tears, her cries. Had she not been upset at all. Had I imagined her giving me away as a sad event when in reality she couldn't have cared less?

My mother sat. Stared. Romeo stared back and I averted my gaze trying to make sense of this whole mess. She sighed. Once. Inhaled. Once. And then sighed again. 

"Is this boring you Mother? Cause I'm rather intrigued. Please, continue. Tell me what happened to your daughter." Romeo started off sarcastic but ended the sentence with gritted teeth. He was nearly shaking and I moved closer to try and comfort him. 

"My daughter... " she started. "My daughter was given along with my son. I was promised the same for her. A memory wipe, a clean start, and a return. But you see, she had never been as crucial as you my son. She had never been as compliant, as bright, she had never been as loving or as easily managed. So I told them to keep her. To give her a more deserving life than the one she had with us."

"More deserving? You think being locked up in a glass cell is what I deserved. You think that just because I wasn't your little angel I deserved to rot. In pain, in torment, in a puddle of my literal blood and tears. That is what you thought your daughter deserved?" My voice cracked after each syllable. My words broken and confused. She looked to me, finally. She squinted and tilted her head. She shook it. No. She shook her head no. 

"My daughter deserved a better parent than I could ever be. One that knew how to deal with a more difficult child than my dear Romeo. I couldn't raise her properly, so I said to give her to someone that could. I'm sorry for what happened to you my dear but that is not the fate that my daughter was given. She is somewhere happy, with other parents." She spoke gently, she spoke... as a mother should. 

But she was not a mother. Not to me. She didn't know. 

"I am your daughter. I am the one you gave away." 

"No sweetheart, my daughter is somewhere else. Her name was Hailey." She turned to Romeo, "Now who is this Aura you spoke of before?"

I was not wrong. I could not be wrong. These were my parents. How could she not remember me? She stood up. She walked to an old chest covered in dust and cobwebs in the far corner of the room. It creaked open as she pulled on the top. I watched as she pulled out a photo. It was framed in an old tarnished frame. The light bounced off of the smudged glass.

"This is Hailey." She tilted the frame to face me. And I stared and stared and stared. 

I stared back at my own eyes.

"I see..." I whispered so, so softly. "You had a daughter named Hailey. You gave her up so she  could have a better life. You do not know anyone named Aura." She nodded once and gave a small smile.  

"After a year or two Donovan returned to the house. I can't remember much of what had happened that day. He welcomed himself in and said things were going very well. He said my daughter was happy, my soon was improving. He said he wanted to show me something. Your father came along too. But I slipped on the way out the door and hit my head." She moved a strand of hair to show a scar with a rather odd shape to it. "When I woke up he was gone, I was in my bed, and I knew that everything was going to be okay with my children." 

I stared at the scar. It was bumpy. The skin itself was covering a small bump. And sure enough the other man in the room had a very similar scar in the same spot on his own head. I wondered if it was possible. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean. 

"He made her forget..." Romeo mused. His face, expressionless. 

So this was it. My mother was a good person. A genuine mother with only love. But she couldn't remember her own daughter. Her real daughter. Someone took me away from her physically and mentally and left me to suffer. 

But in that painful moment. That second of thinking I was almost an orphan again with no parents since they didn't have a clue who I was... I realized something.

I had a brother. I was sitting next to my brother.

I wasn't alone.