“I’m so sorry. Hold on. Dr. Bartlet is here.”
“No,” I growled, the word ripping through me.
“Sophie?” Dr. Bartlet’s voice crossed the line to my ears. “I’m sorry to tell you that your mother went into cardiac arrest and passed away en route to the hospital. I made the call when she arrived.”
Chapter Six
My mother’s funeral was small and lackluster, a sad reflection of her life. She’d hidden in her little house, behind walls of unnecessary things, lost to an alcohol-induced haze. She’d broken ties with everyone. Stopped working. Stopped leaving home unless absolutely necessary. She didn’t even know the neighbors anymore, save for one: Ilona Urban, who’d lived next door all my life.
Ilona was among the handful of mourners. A pair of funeral home employees sat in on the service as well, probably trying to make the room seem fuller.
Everyone wore black. I’d nearly worn athleisure; I was so accustomed to pretending I had Pilates on days I saw Mom.
Alicia, Camilla, and I sat in the front row, with me in the center. Jeff held Camilla’s hand on my right. Cameron wrapped an arm around Alicia on my left.
Robert had to work.
Her funeral was preplanned, a small blessing in a time of chaos. My mom had set it all up after my father died, and she’d scrambled to make arrangements through the fog of loss and bereavement.
I appreciated her forethought but couldn’t find the grief I should feel at a funeral. My heart and head were too full of unanswered questions and all the things left unsaid. Instead of sad, I felt hollow.
I dug my nails into the skin of my clasped hands as I imagined rising, walking to her body as the minister droned on about everlastingpeace, and demanding she get up and fight! Make friends. Heal. Don’t let Dad win! He took so many happy years from her life. It wasn’t fair she’d hidden away for the rest of it.
My gaze rose to a slideshow of photos displayed on a screen behind the little podium. Images of Mom through the years. Some included me. Others had Dad. A few were taken with Camilla when she was young. Holidays. Barbecues. Days at the lake.
We looked so normal in photos. Like every other family.
The slides froze on an image of my mother in a chair, a young Camilla on her lap, and me at her side. We looked nearly identical there. Three versions of the same woman captured at different ages.
And a deep, icy chill slid through my bones.
My parents were consumed by their madness in my formative years. They completely neglected my needs more often than not, and I learned I was invisible before I learned to drive.
Then I married a man who continued that pattern. My fall from the pedestal that Robert put me on was slow, but steady. In the beginning, he’d convinced me I could do no wrong, and he worshipped me, so the first time he seemed unhappy with something I’d said or done, I worked hard to fix the problem. The adoration returned, and everything was great. For a while. Until I did something else to make him sulk, go silent, or rant. The cycle continued for years with shorter and shorter times of happiness in between, until soon there was only criticism alternating with silence.
The loud and clear message: I was a disappointment and a burden.
I easily believed I didn’t matter, because that was all I knew.
I poured everything I had into Camilla so she’d never doubt her importance to me or this world, but she’d also seen my invisibility. I’d modeled it for her when we waited for Robert at dinnertime, then ate a cold meal without him after he didn’t show. When I cheered alone from the sidelines at school events. When my Christmas stocking was empty. When no gifts waited for me under the tree. When I made my own birthday cake, and when Robert spoke to the air, asking thingslike, “Where’s the remote?” or “Are there any snacks?” And every time, I stopped what I was doing to meet his needs, without even receiving eye contact for the effort.
It wasn’t alcohol that poisoned my mother. It was a belief that she didn’t deserve better.
I’d modeled my life on that example. Though I’d tried not to, I’d exposed my daughter to a dangerously toxic relationship as well.
Chairs shifted as people rose. Alicia squeezed my hand. “Come on,” she said softly. “It’s time to go.”
And I knew no words had ever been truer.
In lieu of a proper wake, Alicia, Camilla, and I went to Mom’s house after the cemetery. The men went home. I needed to figure out what to do with my childhood home and the myriad of things nearly lifting its rafters. She’d left it all to me in her will.
We picked up paper plates, plastic cups, pizza, and wine on our way there.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” I said, unlocking the front door and letting myself inside. “I never dreamed I’d actually use this key again.”
Alicia carried the bags over the threshold. “I’m surprised she never made you give it back.”
Camilla stepped past me, eyes wide. “Wow. This is worse than I imagined, and it was pretty bad the last time I was here.”
