A Mother's Final Portrait

Deign

I asked her the same question a long time ago. I was in Grade Nine, and studies were hard. My mother fell ill, and she needed thousands for her treatment. To lessen her burden, I traveled to a lot of cities and joined many competitions to win any cash prizes possible.

Then, I did nothing but go to school and the hospital to care for her. I lost so much weight back then. I nearly ran myself to the bone out of sheer exhaustion. My mother seemed to be moved, and she smiled at me for the first time in my life.

When we ran into our neighbors, she would praise me and call me a good girl. I would follow her around, carefully tugging on her sleeve. Still, I always had a smile on. It was a timid but blissful smile.

I thought I could touch my mother for the first time in my life. I thought my efforts could get her to love me, to be gentle to me. Everything seemed to be getting better, but then the afternoon came. Yvonne was holding her opened piggy bank.

She came up to me, crying like a hurt puppy. "I can understand that you're worried about Mom, Jessica. I don't mind giving you all my money, but you shouldn't have told Mom that you won them in your competitions!"

I jerked my head up and looked at my mother. Sunlight shone through the window and crept through the wrinkles on the edges of her eyes. A moment ago, there was warmth in her gaze, but it had changed. I was familiar with that gaze. It was the cold, cold look I'd gotten used to.

"No, Mom, I didn't take her money—"

I panicked and tried to defend myself, but the only answer I received was a loud, clear slap. My mother looked tense, and there it was again—the familiar distaste in her eyes.

"I knew you were a bad egg. I can't believe I have a daughter like you!" She stormed off, and I looked at Yvonne, tears in my eyes.

"Why'd you frame me?"

When Yvonne was certain that Mom had gotten into her room, she immediately dropped the act. Although the ten-year-old was smiling innocently, the words that came out of her mouth dripped with venom.

"You're nothing but a pitiful, unloved maggot. You think you can make Mom love you? In your dreams! Our brother died because of you. Our parents got a divorce because of you!" She looked at me, her teeth clenched.

"Jessica, you're nothing but an omen. You should never have existed!"

That night, I was swallowed whole by agony and helplessness. I grabbed my compass and stabbed my arm until it had holes in it. Not even the pain could relieve me of the despair and panic I felt.

Eventually, I went into my mother's bedroom and asked, "Mom, if you never loved me, why'd you give birth to me?"

Her eyes were closed, and she said nothing, but I knew she wasn't asleep. If she wouldn't deign to answer my question when she was alive, she had even less of a reason to do so now that I was dead. No one could hear the dead, not even my mother.