"L.R.N." by Julia Amber
My mother died 53 days before my tenth birthday. It was unexpected.
An accident.
On Thursday, I left hand-in-hand with my grandmother. Off to see her sister, one state and hundreds of miles away. We were meant to stay until Sunday. A vacation. A special occasion. Great-Aunt Ann’s ‘90s nostalgia home-phone had been malfunctioning for weeks now, doomed after a particularly hungry thunderstorm. So when my grandmother went to answer the incoming call that Saturday morning, my father’s voice crackled across the kitchen over the speaker.
I stood stiff in the dark hallway. Nine-years-old.
Four feet and eight inches.
News intended for her ears only wrapping around my neck. My breath caught somewhere in my throat.
The ceiling caved, collapsing upon my shoulders, cracking open my skull, tearing my heart from my chest, and driving it down through the ground below. Dread. Tumbling down my spine, spilling like blood from my eyes.
I ran into the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind me. In the car once more.
She, in the rearview, stealing glances. Me, in the backseat. Silent.
Scared.
No one knew what I heard. No one knew that I knew.
Back home. The entire family was there, or enough of them to make my skin itch. All seven grandparents, my uncle, a cousin or two, my father, my brother.
My brother. Three years old, two weeks earlier.
Her absence loomed like a swarm of hornets above my head.
I do not know how to describe the way it felt to walk into a room of people who you, a child, know are about to tell you that your mother is dying. Dead.
I could tell you how their eyes turned down to the floor when I asked if I could see her, if I could speak to her.
I could tell you how my shoulders shook, how the earth broke open beneath my feet, how my cries filled the room like thunder.
I could tell you how, eight years later, my grandmother told me my mother’s final words to her. Patricia, take care of my girl. An ugly prophecy.
I could tell you how, ten years later, I cannot remember the last thing I said to my mother. I hope it was that I love her.
It probably wasn't.
Hot cheek pressed to the window, left hand waving eagerly like a fish out of water, this was the last time I ever saw her.
I was not allowed to visit her dying body in the hospital. That was not her, anyway.
No, that was not the mother who ate an entire bag of Lifesaver mints as we wasted daylight watching episodes of Charmed in a hotel room by the ocean.
No, that was not the mother who blasted ‘80s rock jams on the early morning drive to my elementary school.
No, that was not the mother who filled book after book of Sudoku puzzles.
No, that was not the mother who covered our kitchen in red batter and cream cheese frosting as we baked cupcakes for my seventh birthday.
No, that was not the mother who wore two gold hoops in each ear, for luck. That was a corpse kept warm by machines and tubes.
The casket was closed at her funeral.
An image on a tombstone. A photograph from Christmas 2007. Brown curls. Burgundy lipstick.
Lifeless eyes. Stupid imitation.
I have not visited her grave in nine years.
My mother is unknown to me.
My father speaks about her twice a year. My brother did not know her.
Of her, she left little behind. Nothing that could ever fill the hole she put through my ribcage.
I would like to think she beats through my veins. I would like to think she walks beside me.
I would like to think she is proud of who I have become in her wake. But I do not believe there is any god watching down on us.
My mother is dead.
And that is that.
Julia Amber is an honors student at Hunter College in New York City, set to graduate over the summer. She is majoring in English, with a concentration in creative writing. She hopes to work as a librarian and archivist, one day fluent in English, French, Italian, and Spanish.