Mom’s Regret After I Died

Someone gasped.

I looked down. Blood had soaked through my white socks.

A dull, late wave of pain twisted up under my ribs, and my stomach lurched. My teeth started chattering. The room spun, and I slid down onto the floor.

I told Mama there was a nail in my shoe. The second I said it, the red light flickered on my wrist again, and Mama's face went stiff and disgusted. She said if I lied one more time, she'd send me back to the holler.

Every step I took, my foot felt like it was being drilled into, but being sent away from Mama would be worse, so I kept quiet.

"So now you're hurting yourself for attention. Fine. Go act out somewhere else where I can't see you."

Outside, the wind was wild and the rain came down hard.

I hurt everywhere. My hand hurt. My foot hurt.

Through the bay window I could see Mama in the warm light, holding Charlotte, smiling, braiding her hair.

This time even the place inside my chest that didn't have a cut was hurting.

Mommy, am I not your kid?

How can you hold her and braid her hair, and turn your face away the second you see me?

I started shivering so hard I couldn't stop. My eyelids got heavy and slow, and my stomach felt like something had split open inside.

I bit down on my arm and curled up around the stuffed bunny, holding him tight.

I can't let him get wet.

He's the only thing she ever made for me.

She had sewn him out of one of her old dresses when I was little. One of his ears had fallen off, and I had stitched it back on myself, crooked.

Holding the bunny, I started thinking about Daddy.

A cramp ripped through me, sharp and fine, like a hundred tiny needles going in at once.

The hole in my chest was getting bigger. I hugged my knees and dug the little bottle out of my pocket with shaking fingers, and I ate another of the pink candies.

It went down my throat. There was a little sweetness to it.

It didn't hurt so much now.

The next morning, my eyes opened. My arm was wrapped in bandages.

Mrs. Hayes told me an important visitor was coming over, and I shouldn't say anything weird.

My stomach growled. I remembered that today was Mama's birthday.

Before we came here, I'd had my own seventh birthday.

But Mama always said I was going to be three forever.

I didn't really understand what "forever" meant. But three was a good age.

When you're three, you can sleep with your bunny, and eat all the sugar you want, and tug on Mama's skirt when she's sad.

I patted my dizzy head and tried hard to remember.

But my legs felt lighter and lighter underneath me. I bit my lip, concentrated, and baked her a birthday cupcake. Just one. I burned the bottom because I couldn't tell when it was done, and I stuck a single candle in the top.

Down in the main room, everyone was gathered around the long table, looking through Charlotte's photo album.

"Mommy. Happy birthday."

Then I went down.

My vision blacked out and I hit the floor. The cupcake rolled across the rug, the candle smashed, and frosting got all over the open album.

Charlotte's eyes welled up like she'd been hit. Mama's face went stone-cold.

"You did this on purpose. You ruined her photos. You're that jealous? Just because I never took pictures of you?"

"I swear, I owe you something. You were born to ruin my life."

I was scared, but I didn't know how to explain. I didn't know what to do, and a drop of blood slid down off my nose and hit the floor.

Then she stopped.