When our eyes meet, I realize she’s crying. Her hands are folded in her lap, shaking too. The pieces fall into place, and what was doubted now is certainty in my heart.
“I never wanted to leave you, Veda,” she tells me.
Something inside breaks when I ask in the smallest voice, “Mom?”
forty-two
Veda
The word feels foreign on my lips, yet it feels right as I take her in. She doesn’t make any sudden moves, doesn’t run for an embrace—nothing. Instead, she remains still, her hands over her lap as if she’s holding herself back.
“I know he told you I left,” she continues, tears streaming down her cheeks. “But I always wanted to let you know that’s a lie. I never wanted to let go.”
The explanations come out in a rushed whisper, as if she held those words in her heart for far too long. There’s something beyond evil to know the same lie haunted both of us for all these years. They weren’t just lies, but weapons of control.
My mother—oh god, my mother—shakes in a way I know too well. It’s not just tension, it’s repression. When something hurts so badly it takes over your whole body, but all you’ve known is to swallow your tears, and you can’t take it anymore.
I can see it written on the lines of her face, how she’s been swallowing that pain for twenty years.
Derrick kneels in front of me, and I don’t even notice until his warm palm is over my knees. “Can I hold her? And youcan—”
He nods at my mother. Does he mean to hug her? Yes, she definitely needs a hug, but I never hugged a mother before, and suddenly I feel that maybe I don’t know how. That somehow it’s scarier than holding this newborn baby I clutch to my chest.
Just as those thoughts come, I brush them away because the bitter twist behind them comes straight from Grandpa’s mouth.
Thefunnything about abuse is that there comes a point where they don’t even need to actively say anything. Your own mind betrays you and speaks for them. He never told me I didn’t know how to hug a mother, but he said so many things like that that my mind filled in the gaps just fine.
The baby in my arms starts moving, kicking her little legs as if she wants to move around, and I’m reminded of the promise I made myself. I’m going to fight the lies echoing inside me so Mirasol doesn’t ever hear them. With a nod, I hand the baby to Derrick. His eyes grow comically large, and I wonder if he thought this through when he offered to hold her.
He takes her against his chest and rises slowly on his feet like he's holding a bomb. I try not to laugh because I’m not far off. I’ve never held a baby before, and now I have to raise one.
Derrick steps away with her, cooing as he goes, and my heart melts with the image. He looks so good holding a baby like that. The smile is quickly washed off my face when my eyes return to my mother, still shaking, so small and fragile against the mountain of cushions. I take a seat beside her, and she turns my way, our knees brushing.
“Grandpa told many lies,” I say. “But thank you for telling me you didn’t want to leave me. It means a lot.”
My smile grows awkward, and right when I wish I knew how to deal with this, she takes my hands in hers, squeezing them for comfort.
“Ask me anything, and I’ll tell you.”
When I was a kid, I used to write in a diary. Most of the things were about my mother. I knew so little about her, I decided to make up information. I’d write things as if I were interviewing her. I loved the idea of her so much, and all I wanted to know was what her favorite food was and who her favorite teacher was. Silly child’s play that I pushed aside as I grew older, embarrassed that I wanted to know so much about a woman who never wanted me.
Now, look at us. She’s right here, holding my hand and telling me she always wanted me. It’s silly that all those questions come to mind now so quickly, and I can’t pick only one. Eventually, I decide what I want to know first.
“How do you pronounce Manuela?”
She smiles through her tears. “Ma-nu-el-ah.”
Similar to what I’ve been saying, I swallow and nod. She squeezes my hand again.
“I can teach you Portuguese if you like.”
Grandpa made me take French in school, and I wasn’t very good at it, but I don’t tell her that. I’m sure it’ll be different when I actually want to learn. When there’s a reason to do so.
“I’d like that very much.” I look down at our clasped hands.
She doesn’t say anything, but she won’t let me go. If anything, she grips my hands harder, impossibly so, as if she’s afraid I’ll disappear right in front of her eyes. I decide to ask more questions, and it’s not just to fill the silence, but I think if we know each other just a little more, it’ll help with the ache inside.
“Did you have a name for me? Before they named me Veda?”
