I was in my drawing room living a life of the happily ever after, when my phone buzzed- it was a message from the hospital. Could this be it? The message I’d been waiting for for over 20 years ? I was only a newborn when my mom slipped into a coma. Unlike me, my sister had seen her truly alive. For me, she had always been a motionless figure lying on the bed, eyes closed with machines beeping steadily and her presence lingering more in silence than in life. Despite this missing piece, my sister and I had always thrived. People called us ‘prodigy sisters’. We could sing, act, dance, paint, and write stories. We could do everything we tried! No matter how happy our life seemed, there was always this silent absence. A void that only our mother could fill.
30 YEARS LATER
Dringggg……..
The phone rang with the news that changed our lives.
My mom was up from her coma - alive, awake, and conscious! I was speechless! I kissed my dog in pure joy and spun him around, tears running down my cheeks.
I bolted in my car and almost overspeed to the hospital. My heart was racing faster than the car engine.
Yo
u see, mom’s coma did not treat my father well. His loneliness started eating him and Lisa, our stepmom filled that void in him. Lisa was a sweet one, she treated us like her own. For a while she believed that our dad had divorced my mother but the truth is he never could.
When Lisa found out the truth,she did not lash out, instead she left for her sister’s place to gather herself. I knew she was grieving the life she thought she knew.
Meanwhile our mother moved in with us. I didn't know what to expect but I knew I was in for a surprise. I didn't know how a mother who knew her daughter was stillborn would act when the daughter comes for her, not as a newborn, but as an adult. Her mind was clouded, not with fog and haze, but with a veil. In between the fog of the coma and the clear skies of the present, it was a veil of the past and a world that was only imagined, the world before she went under. I had always believed that we would never talk to her again if she were to recover, but her brain was damaged in the coma. My stepmother didn't get mad but rather she was betrayed. I comforted her. I needed to do it because she needed to get her mind off of the situation.
At the time, I was at my dad's place. My mom, after getting out of her coma, had moved in with my dad. Emma, my sister, helped her out with everyday activities. And I cooked and helped with the chores.
On one beautiful day I noticed a peculiar behaviour in my mom . She had turned on the stove, left the tap running, the refrigerator remained wide open.was on the porch . This continued for a few days , but one day I decided to confront her. She lifted her head and started pulling my hair and saying that I wasn't her real daughter and tried to hurt me . Dad and my sister came at the scene and pried us apart. I always felt her eyes glowing red . When I slept I could feel she was watching me but when I turned on the lights she was nowhere to be seen. I slept with dad that day I was just too scared of mom. I was waiting to see her for so long but she turned out to be my worst nightmare. There was a tingly feeling that whenever no one was looking my moms eyes glowed red. and one day I really saw it her eyes glowed bright , her eyes towards me staring, and eerie silence and suddenly she snapped and her eyes were bright blue. But I never went near her, I maintained my distance from my own mom.
One night we heard a shrilling scream , and mom was nowhere to be seen . I searched in the garage and I felt a hand pull my leg , it was mom! I screamed, dad came rushing,he pried mom apart from me. I couldn't sleep all night . I tossed and turned all night. The next day our stepmom Lisa came and I hugged and told her everything. Turns out my mom has a personality disorder and this time dad divorced mom for real.
Now as I tell this to you in a hospital, with my mother getting mental therapy , but still whenever I am at the hospital bench ,about to sleep,I always feel my mom staring at me and her eyes glowing red.
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