Like Mother, Like Daughter

We got the go ahead to share our submitted stories for the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. I posted it on the NYC Midnight forums for feedback. I’m curious as to what others think of it. The judging is currently taking place and we will be informed of the winners of the first round on March 31. What a long wait.

However, we were informed that we could share our stories in any way we chose, so I’m throwing it up here on my blog as well as the forums. Thank you for reading – and please give me an honest opinion!

As a reminder, I had eight days to write less than 2500 words that utilize the following:
Genre: Ghost Story
Character: New Mother
Subject: Reenactment

Here’s hoping that I make it to round two!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

There’s a pull.

I feel it every moment, like an annoying sound just beyond your range of hearing.  If you listen close, you should hear it, but you never do.  I feel as if something isn’t right and I’m not where I’m supposed to be, or I misplaced something, but can’t remember what or where to look.

I can’t find the answer in my daughter.  She goes about her day-to-day business, watched over lovingly by me.  I never take my attention from her for very long.  Not that she needs it.  I gave birth to a strong one.  She has grown from an independent toddler to an amazing young woman, who learned everything she needed to know with a determination I never possessed.

She didn’t have the answer as she learned to walk, learned to say ‘daddy’, went to school the first time, played her first softball game, excelled at school, suffered through her first crush.

She didn’t have the answer as she questioned herself, experimented with boys and mild drugs, went to college, fell in love, fell out of love, fell in love again (repeat ad nauseam).  I kept looking for her to let me know, but she didn’t.

She is a beautiful young woman now.  I’m proud of her in a way I can’t describe.  I celebrated every victory by her side, cheering her on as only a mother can cheer – from the moment she was born when I felt the thrill of motherhood the first time.  A new mother – overwhelmed with the knowledge of how to raise a child.  Knowledge I immediately knew didn’t apply to this little girl.  

That delicious chill that went through me the first time her hand touched my cheek, the little fingers points against my skin, sharp nails delivering a pain/pleasure I didn’t mind.  I’d give up many things to feel her scratchy touch again.  

She’s not perfect.  I’m not mother enough to claim that.  She’s stubborn and outspoken, quick to anger and slow to forgive.  She gets it from me.  She’s done bad things – things she doesn’t know I know.  The marijuana she’s smoked, the cigarettes she snuck from her father’s pack, the couple of times she lifted things from store shelves and put in her pocket, sex when she was fourteen.  Those kind of things.  Yet, even with those things, she was an (almost) straight-A student and a ‘model citizen’.  

She had a tough early life.  Partially my fault, of course.  I failed as a mother in many ways.  She had to rely on her father, and he did a great job.  As hard as it was for her, my absence was equally as hard for him.  I should have been there, participating.  Watching did nothing for her self-esteem, her confidence, her character, her happiness.  Watching meant I was only watching.  Not helping.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to.  In spite of the pull I felt in one direction, the pull to orbit her was stronger.  I couldn’t look away and regretted my weakness.  It was the one time I was selfish and I will never forgive myself for it.

I hope she forgives me.

I think she does.  I think she understands.  I’ve watched her enough, hovering on the edge of her vision and awareness for years.  Over two decades.  Close and never touching, but there.  I think she knows I’m there, too, though I’m so distant.  I think she feels when I caress her face or pat her hair.  She reacts, at least, and it gives me a certain satisfaction.

She even talks to me.  Those are my favorite times, when I know she hasn’t forgotten me.  I listen and hope she knows.  It was precious when she did it as a child, babbling to me about her stuffed animals and the adventures they had.  She had such a vivid imagination.  As a teen, she would talk to me about boys and the mean girls at school.  I would stroke her hair as she sobbed out the newest cruel gossip circulated around the school about her.  She’d tell me about college and the professor that threatened to fail her if she didn’t sleep with him.  I somehow gave her the courage to turn him in, causing a huge scandal.

She changed her major that year to law, determined to help other young women fight against their predators.  I hope she knows how proud I am.  How much I love her.  It’s hard to let her know, but I do my best.

Because I didn’t have a present mother either.  She killed herself when I was a baby.  A bottle of pills and she was gone.  Postpartum depression, they called it.  I called it selfish.  I hated her then, as I grew up, with a stepmother who couldn’t care less about me.  A father who wouldn’t talk about her.  

It wasn’t until I was older when I finally understood.  I understood as I stood there next to the cradle, holding my beautiful first child.  I understood the hurt, the hopelessness, the pain, the rapture, the outright fear that this was my life now.  I was responsible for a human being and the pressure of it was unbearable.  The monotony of caring for her draped over me like a soggy blanket, complete with a mildew smell.  I felt weighted down and desperate.  She wouldn’t stop crying.

I’d done everything I could think of.  Accessed every vague memory of parental advice given to me from the moment I announced I was pregnant.  Searched online for any idea, any way to get her to just stop.  Nothing worked.  She was teething and feverish.  Medicine didn’t help, cold washcloths, a swipe of whisky over her gums, nothing.  Her father was at work and I’d had no sleep for days.  I felt unclean, frumpy, and miserable.  How could I raise a child when I couldn’t even quiet her crying?  This should be a simple problem to solve!  What happens when the big problems come if I can’t fix the simple?

When I was old enough, they told me what my mother did.  All the details.  My father’s sister, an aunt I always hated, seemed giddy as she related everything they pieced together.  She was home alone with a crying baby.  She found prescription pills (Auntie didn’t remember which ones), stood next to my crib, and drank them all down with a fifth of whisky.  They think she didn’t suffer, just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.  Next to my crib.

As I stood next to my own daughter’s crib, I thought about this scene again, as I had every day for this sleepless week.  And I understood.  

I reenacted it.  Let it play out a second time.

I went into the medicine cabinet for my husband’s pills.  I’d done a little research and knew these should do the trick.  There was whisky in the kitchen, too.  A gift from my husband’s boss last Christmas. 

I returned to my daughter’s crib, listened to her continued crying.  I thought about my own mother and how right she had been.  She had the answer.  

I opened the bottle of whisky.  She continued to cry.  I screamed at her to shut up, but she didn’t listen.  

The pills didn’t go down as easily as I hoped.  They weren’t large, but to swallow a mouthful almost made me choke.  Ironic, I thought, if I should choke to death instead of letting the poison do it’s job.  I didn’t want to choke, it sounded undignified.  Falling asleep sounded better.  I ended up spitting a sticky mass back into the pill bottle – half of what I first attempted.  I wasn’t sure how long it would take, so I bolted back four half-mouthfuls of pills with the whisky.  Then tried to drink the rest.

I didn’t make it to the end of the bottle.

It wasn’t painful.  I felt a rush through my body, but that was all.  Like the light-headed feeling one gets when one stands up too fast, only more pronounced.  I felt lethargic, and my limbs wouldn’t respond to commands.  I remember slumping over, falling asleep, and not long after I stood to the side to watch.

My husband found me and I felt a slight pang in my heart for his distraught sobbing.  He truly loved me, unlike my father, who tolerated my mother and her depressive episodes.  My husband was supportive and did his best to help.  Sent me to therapy and always encouraged me to take my depression meds.  I felt sorry for doing this to him.

I moved to the side of the crib, stepping over my lifeless body and sobbing husband, to look at my daughter.  She wasn’t crying now.  She blinked up at me with a startled look, the tears standing in her eyes.  Did she see me?  I reached to touch her, brushing non-existent fingers over her cheek and realized what a mistake I made.  I couldn’t feel her.

Would I never luxuriate in the texture of her hair as I ran my fingers through those curly locks?  The velvety skin?  That scratchy feeling from her nails as she reached for me?  The yank of her fingers when she grabbed at my clothes?  

I leaned down and kissed her cheek, but couldn’t taste the tears.  I took a deep breath, but couldn’t smell her.  The only sense working was my hearing.  She gurgled in the adorable way babies do when something catches their attention.  She stared at me, reached up to touch my cheek, but there was no contact and she looked confused.

I never left her side after that.  Something pulled at me, but I felt I wasn’t ready.  Even when I turned to it, it eluded me.  I wasn’t sure which way to go, though the voice sang through my heart and left me yearning for something else.  

Did I regret it?  Yes.  Every moment of triumph or hurt, when I wanted to hug her close, I couldn’t.  It was a continuous ache, but there were good things, too.  Her father never remarried, but devoted himself to her care, worked hard for a promotion to make it easy for him to work from home so he could raise her.  

I watched her grow, turn into a woman, get married.  I stood at her side as she said her vows, patted her hair, and brushed fingers against her cheek.  I think she felt it, the muscle twitched and she shivered.  I took it as a sign.

I watched as the baby grew inside her and her excitement for it.  The preparations they made – painting the nursery, attending the three baby showers thrown for her, organizing the baby things, picking out names, reading the books, singing to the baby in her stomach.  They were so excited.

I was anxious, though.  I knew she was strong, but her mother was weak.  Her grandmother was weak.  I was afraid those genes would manifest during a hopeless night when the baby wouldn’t stop crying and the pressure became too much.  My daughter knew what happened to her grandmother and me.  I feared for her.

A boy arrived, a bundle of perfection, and I hovered over him as I used to hover over her.  He blinked at me as well, as if he could see me.  He was happy and smiled all the time as I made faces at him over my daughter’s shoulder.  Anything to keep him happy and not crying.  My daughter needed to live for him and not be weak like me.

All my efforts were in vain.  I could see the cracks in my daughter’s shell.  The small bursts of anger, the way her mouth set into a thin line as she changed a diaper for the third time in an hour, the wrinkling of her nose as she swiped up vomit from the couch.  It was the little things, ones her doting husband likely didn’t notice, but he didn’t watch her as much as I watched her.  I dreaded the approach of teething, when babies are at their worst.

When the time came, I saw her descend.  Her inner strength couldn’t fight her inner demons.  My weakness and her grandmother’s weakness proved strong.  It enveloped her like a soggy blanket and, in spite of the fact I couldn’t smell anything, I could sense the mildew smell that made her face scrunch as the baby cried on and on.

What could I do, however?  I couldn’t interfere.  I couldn’t touch anything and the baby wasn’t responding to me.  

“Mom.  I understand.”

She sounded so hopeless and I felt desperate.  I thought about my helplessness, the things I couldn’t do as I watched her sink.  She glanced to the door and I could read her thoughts.  I screamed at her, but she hardly reacted.  She glanced in my direction, but it was like a sound out of her range of hearing, something she couldn’t quite grasp.  

She looked at the door again.  I knew there were drugs in the cabinet and whisky in the kitchen.  I read her intentions on her face.  This nightmare again, but now I knew the consequences of a second reenactment.  Saw an empty future for my grandson.  I couldn’t let it happen.

I drew strength I never had before.  From where, I don’t know.  It flowed in me as I remembered times I’d touched her.  The small indications she could sense it.  I reached for her.  That cheek I couldn’t feel myself.  I let all my love and sorrow and guilt and shame flow through my fingers to her.  Please let this work.  Please break this chain.

This baby boy needs her.

She gasped, her hand touching her cheek through my ghostly fingers.  “Mom?”  Her voice was broken and muffled through her sobs.  My heart ached and I wished I could do more.

“You’re always with me.  Thank you,” she cried.

With that, she drew her phone from her pocket and called her husband.  I knew he couldn’t understand what she said, but he arrived soon after, comforting her as I wished I could.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  She was okay.  She would be okay.  To know she reached out at her lowest instead of giving in to despair made my heart soar and the pull at my soul increased.

I turned toward the pull and saw my path, clear for the first time.  My answer.  My daughter would be okay.  Her son would grow up with a mother.  I could move on to what came next.  

It felt good to answer the pull.