Four Versions

23.

The moment we stepped into our house, I let myself fall down on the couch and let out a breath. ‘That surely was a productive night, wasn’t it?’ I looked at my mom who had lit a cigarette and was absently staring at the wall. The newly arranged room really lifted my spirits whenever I came home and I could be proud of myself for creating a place which I could call home again.

‘Mom?’ I silently asked her. ‘Are you okay?’

She stood up from her chair and walked over to me. She then sat next to me and blew out some smoke in the air. The suffocating smell intoxicated me and I coughed loudly.

‘Sorry,’ my mother apologized. She didn’t look at me. ‘Can you move out of the living room?’

I opened my mouth to protest, but then decided I should do whatever she tells me to. ‘Sure, goodnight mom.’ I pressed my lips in a thin line and stood up. She still didn’t look at me and I was concerned about her wellbeing. Before I walked the stairs I looked back and stared at her.

‘Did you take your medicines? I know the doctor prescribed you heavier ones.’

She slowly turned her head to me and caught my eye. The dead look in her eyes made me take a step back, further away from her and closer to the stairs. There were red lines around her eyes and the bags under them were suddenly so much more noticeable than before. She dropped the cigarette on the ground and stamped on it, dimming its fire in the process.

‘I don’t need medicines anymore,’ she said, her voice a bit slurred. ‘I am going to die soon either way. Life isn’t worth living anymore.’ I sat down on the stairs and got thrown back into a train of flashbacks as my mind remembers some of the words my sister had written down in her diary.

The words that were forever imprinted in my mind and those same words my mother just said again.

My sister had commit suicide at only nineteen years of age. I was seventeen and found her hanging in the middle of the room with a purple line around her neck. Her eyes were still open and as I walked into the room I stared deep into her dead eyes. It was a sight that I will never remove from my retina. And now that I looked into my mothers eyes, I saw the same stare that my sister had when she was already dead. She was depressed and pulled down by the pressure of her environment until it all became too much.

And the worst thing was that I never saw a thing. I never was able to tell her how much I loved her before she died. I never even saw that she had been feeling this way, because I was blind. And days before she ended her life, she had told me to take over her place as a model, but only if I knew how to be strong like she never did. Only if I was washed up against the criticism of the harsh outside world.
But I could help my mother. Right now in this moment, I saw how bad she was doing. I saw that she needed help and soon. And I saw that I could make the change this time. And while I couldn’t prevent death before, I sure as hell could know.

I stood up from the stairs and walked right up to my mother. I sat down next to her and threw my arms around her shoulders. Her body started shaking and eventually all the tension in her body left as she cried with long hauls and silent screams into my chest. My mother was no longer the harsh, unbreakable woman she pretended to be. Now, she was the open and vulnerable mother, whom I had lost the same day I lost my sister.

‘Mom, I think you need to get permanent help.’

She nodded by hearing those words and let go of me to look me in the eyes. ‘That’s why I have been calling mental health institutions for a while now.’ She sniffled and blinked a couple of times to get the tears out of her eyes. ‘Recently, I got a mail saying I was being admitted. I am going to get help for beating depression and other mental issues we’re not yet sure of.’

I nodded my head as a feeling of happiness spread through my stomach.

‘This means you’re going to be alone for a while.’

I stopped smiling and seriously looked into my mother’s eyes. ‘What?’
She sighed. ‘Not all alone though. I know how fond you are of that girl Ari, so I looked up her contact number and called her parents to see if it was okay if you could stay there for the time being. I will be gone for six months max.’

A strange, anxious feeling spread through my body and I clamped my hands together to prevent them from shaking again. This was the first time in ages that I had actually experienced the shaking again. I thought it had disappeared, but apparently not.

‘I will miss you mom,’ I said, my voice strained and weird. ‘But I think this is seriously good for both of us. We get some time to breathe and think, while you can focus on getting well.’

She smiled and nodded her head. ‘Though I will be missing your shoots and progresses as a model.’ She sadly looked down. ‘But maybe it’s for the best if I keep my distance from that. You know how it hurt our family before.’

I nodded again and took her hand in mine. No words were said anymore, but the remaining of the night we spend in each others arms, hugging and eventually falling asleep with the thought in the back of our minds that it would be all okay. Only if we put our effort into it.