Each Past

Each Terrible Nightmare

Chapter Three- Each Terrible Nightmare

Brooke was wandering through the countless pieces of art in the museum. Her mother had 'wasted' her time to take Brooke to the public museum for her eleventh birthday.

As a young girl, Brooke was fascinated with art. Anything and everything came from art. She believed God made art for people like her. People who had too much imagination to hold on to. Art, like math and science, is a basic unit of life according to Brooke. People make millions off of their own empowering mind.

Brooke wanted to be one of those people.

Someone who has the ability to use old textbook pages to create a masterpiece like no other. Someone who sketch anything from a single piece of inspiration. It amazed Brooke how people are able to do that.

She knew she had the potential to be famous one day. To have her own work on museum walls just like The Starry Night or Mona Lisa. Brooke knew she obtained the ability to change the world based on her art.

When they returned, everything changed.

Brooke could see the distaste her mother -  Angela - had for her father when they both took a quick look at their wedding photo placed above the fireplace mantle as they entered their humble home. Who wouldn't feel the same way if their husband left to marry a woman half his age the day before the mother had a daughter due the next day?

It only hurt Angela more knowing she lived with the exact replica of the man who left her. Brooke as basically a young female copy of her father, and she despised that too. Even if she never saw her father. Brooke gained the hatred from the stories told from her mother.

After everything the two did to help themselves live, they could never be truly happy again they forgave him for what he did.

When Brooke said she'd pass for the night, her mother stopped her and told her to take a seat.

Maybe she got me a gift, Brooke wondered, an excited squeal involuntarily left her lips.

Her mother returned after a few moments of Brooke waiting in a pool of utter excitement. Angela stood before Brooke with something behind her back. Brooke's mother stood with the happiest grin alive.

Will she finally accept me as a daughter? Brooke asked herself, hoping the answer was the one she has been waiting for ever since she found out her mother absolutely hated her. Actually, more towards who she looked like.

As always, Brooke was wrong. There in front of her was two signatures. One from her mother. The name placed so delicately on the paper. The other was from another woman by the name of Mrs. Delilah Evans. Her name also done in such a neat, orderly fashion.

"What is it mother?" Brooke asked.

"It's the best gift you'll ever have from me. Why, it is the gift of your freedom from me, your father, this whole town. You'll be given to a foster family that shares the same artistic talent you do. They'll make you happy." Angela spoke so quickly, so happily, it made Brooke's eyes start to tear.

"Do you even love me? Do you have any feelings towards me? Or is it all towards the man I look alike? I'm my own person, I'm not dad. Are you even aware that I take care of the house while you mope around in your room, watching your idiotic television show?" Brooke knew she never should have said those words since her mother had a strictness that no parent should ever have. But Brooke couldn't hold it in any longer, she had to say something. To cover the despair, the hatred she was harboring towards her mother.

"You do not talk to me like that young lady for I have given you the best birthday present you could ever have," her mother seethed, holding her hand up and slapping Brooke across her cheek. Brooke fell to the floor and cried, covering her stinging cheek as her mother carelessly dropped the legal document in front of Brooke.