Love Child

38- Do Not Go Gentle

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

She has the same hair color as me, and the same pouty lips. She's tall and very thin, her wide eyes are showcased in a respectful amount of mascara, those lips that look like mine are covered in a matte red lipstick. She looks older than the woman that I remember from my childhood. That's not surprising considering it's been fourteen years.

The last time that I saw this woman, I had found her lying still in a pool of her own blood with her arms cut from her wrist to her elbow crease. Her stomach was swollen with an eight month old fetus, her wide eyes were shut and her face was wet with tears.

"Eleanor," She says my name in a familiar and gentle voice. "It's really you."

I stand paralyzed beside Micah, not sure about what to do in this situation. I've never imagined seeing her again after she didn't come back for us at the foster home. Just when I thought that I was getting my life together, this happens. That's just great.

"It's really good to see you," She adds when I don't say anything, glancing over at Micah and then back at me. "I hope that this isn't a bad time."

"This actually is a bad time," I clear my throat and find some words to say instead of just standing here like an idiot. "Any time is a bad time, I don't want to talk to you. I have things to do."

"El-"

"No," I stop Micah from saying my name, maybe trying to reason with me to hear her out. "I have to go."

I'm beginning to tolerate my father's existence in my life only because he didn't know that Casey and I were in foster care. He thought that our mother would have taken us after she got out of the mental hospital for trying to kill herself. But she knew where we were, and that we'd stay there if she didn't come get us. She let me rot in that place just so that she could start a new life.

You shouldn't be able to start a new life once you have children. And if you do, then those children should start with you, not be left behind.

I try to walk around her to get to my car, but my mind is buzzing and I can't see very well. I can't think. I can barely even move.

I feel like I'm eight years old again, finding my mother in the kitchen, on the floor. There was so much blood and I thought that she was dead. I thought that the baby was dead too. Even before Casey was born, I was so excited for him to be here. I felt so alone when it was just me and my mother that when she told me another baby was coming, I was so excited to not be alone anymore.

But when I walked into the kitchen that day, and I saw her lying there unconscious, I couldn't breathe. I had never felt more alone in the world than I did in that moment. Nobody ever paid much attention to me, I only had my mother. Who, granted, didn't pay much attention to me either, but she sometimes brushed my hair and made me dinner. Only on her good days.

She was dead, I thought. I was only eight, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't reach the phones, so I had to run to a neighbors house covered in my mother's blood.

Covered in blood and tears, I looked just like my dying mother.

"I know that you don't want to see me," She walks with me to my car. "But I need to explain something to you. Chelsea called me and told me that you have been misinformed about your childhood."

"I have to get my boyfriend to campus, I don't have time for this," I decide as I go to open my car door.

Micah stops me, putting his hand over mine. "Hey, I can call and cancel. I think that you should hear her out."