I could already feel her scent fading … I held my breathe enough and exhaled. “Why?” in her silence I watched the tears fall down her downturned eyes as she packed her bags, and I could not help but cry. I hoped I didn’t ask it the wrong way as I watched her ignore my question and pace around the room looking for her belongings. Emptiness .My heart sank and for the first time in my life, I had never had my chest hurt so badly. It was worse than the times I’d come home acting like everything was okay yet I was pushed around and beaten up with words at school and I’d just cry alone in my bed and the only entity who knew my pain was my wet pillow case. I could not do anything now, she was leaving and no one was going to stop her, not even me, her daughter. My feet sank into the floor and I reached for a seat, and fell into the earth. Deeper and deeper as I sank, I exhaled and like a retard I asked again , “wh-why?” and it seemed liked I was weak as I was told by everyone because after I muttered those words ..I bursted into tears, tears that she saw this time. “Stop it!” I heard her hoarse voice pierce the air and shout back at me in anger, I was ashamed but if my tears were enough to let her stay then maybe it was worth a try. It seemed at that moment I realized her importance in my life, she was my life, she was everything...i was only 13. I was only a kid. I held my breath and closed my eyes hoping this was not real that I’d wake up in the middle of the night on my bed from this nightmare and run to her bedroom and lye beside her and interchange the words, “I love you”. But now this all seemed impossible. Her bedroom walls started closing in, and emptiness diluted the air. Was I the reason for this? As I much as I knew this was not true, I had no other reason in mind and every time I wanted to ask her I would catch a glimpse of her and swallow my words diluting in saliva and bite my tongue. How would I coax her to stay when I could not even speak? Now paralyzed fully...i gave in to fate. Suddenly as I stared into the ground hiding my shame, the shuffling and movement had stopped signaling the departure. What was going to happen next was up to her now, as for me I had long given up. I pledged not to speak and not to even look up at her one last time because anger had paralyzed me. The anger of her leaving, the anger of her not telling me why, the anger that I couldn’t even ask her why, most of all the anger that I could not stand up and tell anyone the way I felt. It was the anger of always hiding my feelings and bottling them up. The anger of holding my tongue when all I wanted to do was scream and accepting the fact that I will forever remain misunderstood and taken for granted. And I yet sit and disappoint myself once again by watching her leave without telling her the way I felt and yes, I knew it would affect me in future but for me like tears it seemed like words were never enough., it was not worth making a fool of myself. At that point I had gone from not wanting her to leave to wanting her gone and out of my life forever. Off coarse I was not thinking rationally I was not thinking of the bitter consequences and she knew that. I heard her footsteps and the rolling wheels of the suitcase follow on the soft carpet. Her footsteps continued as she past me, but they didn’t stop .She couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, and even though I didn’t want to hear it, I needed to. Like a scripted scene from a book the footsteps stopped and so did the wheels of her suitcase, abandoning the suitcase the footstep came closer to me and before I knew it she was sitting right next to me. I didn’t dare to look up at her keeping to my pledge, as she looked for my eyes. Soya beans and peanuts, that’s all that could describe the moment. Like me she wasn’t a woman of too many words, more action. I felt her arm cover my opposite shoulder and she pulled me into her warm arms and this in words said darling, I love you. I did not dare to lie on her shoulder instead I stayed in my position looking to the floor counting the carpet stains but deep down in my soul I hugged her back and told her I loved her. And even when she didn’t see me do it or utter it...She knew it. I felt her unwind her arms and pat my back, and kiss my forehead. One meaning be strong the other I will miss you, both which I will cherish. And yes I wanted to look up into her eyes again but I didn’t, instead I sat there staring at the carpet stagnant as she stood up with a sigh. At that moment when I saw her shadow disappear from the door step, in a place I never thought I had- I had forgiven her. And without a doubt as I wiped my tears she was out of my life forever, and the last memory is not of joy but of a glooming conjunctiva not only in my eyes but my mothers.
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