Mother Knows BestA Story by Cathair CathmoreMaybe she was right. But maybe she wasn’t? I brushed it off. Nah. Mother knows best.I always believe
that my memories are not to be believed. There are
multiple occasions when my mother says, “You are so forgetful,” “That never
happened,” “You are imagining things,” and I believe that. I do, actually,
forget a lot of things. I can pass a door and suddenly forget what I was about
to do. I can daydream about something and suddenly it can totally vanish to
thin air. I don’t have any memories until I was about ten. All the memories of
the past are told to me, and I have never questioned it. Not even once. At least until
that night. I was out with
my father to go to eat some food. My brother had to go to his psychologist that
night, and so I was alone with my father, eating out in a regular restaurant
and talked. It was normal talk, like how was I doing with school and stuff.
Though, of course, being a normal
teenager, I lied a lot. I lied about having friends that understand me and help
me a lot during projects. I lied about having okay scores. I lied about being
treated kindly by my classmates. I didn’t mention anything about the mockeries
of my looks, the bucket that was splashed over my head, the silent treatment
from most of my other classmates. It was a happy night- I don’t want to ruin
it. They are rare, after all. Life is so hard, isn’t it? Everyone’s life is,
including mine, I guess. Then we were
talking about what happened at home. This time, I wasn’t able to lie. My father
knew what my mother was like. Besides, it was kind of satisfying to talk about
my mother to my father. And he deserved to know, too. So I talked. And talked.
About various things, mostly events when I actually met my mother in the house,
since not much happened in the house, except when we meet- though it always
ended with her shouting at me, calling me bad words. It was okay; my other
friends said that their parents were a bit of a nag as well. Not without the
bad words though, but I guess some people just express themselves differently.
And then his face contorted uncomfortably, like he just saw a kitten crushed
under car’s wheels. I said sorry, and he said it was okay. Then I decided that
it was enough, that I didn’t need to talk about how my mother told me to go
die the other day. It was just a spur of the moment thing, I convinced myself. And then my
father sent me home, I walked in, I walked to my room, and then I cried. I
wasn’t sure why, but I cried myself to sleep. The next morning
I prepared for school and saw myself in the mirror. I saw the scar that I
thought was made when my mother was mad at me and slashed me with a cutter that
she normally used for work. I remembered when she told me no, told me that my
imagination was getting a bit out of control, told me that I was a lying b***h.
It was a vivid memory for me, and I didn’t even know why, but it was when I
brought it up during a conversation with my classmate’s mother who asked about
the scar, that she glared at me like the times that she’d slap me at home, but
she didn’t. She smiled, laughed, and said, “You are just imagining things. You
got that when you were working on your group project.” I didn’t have
group projects because no one wanted to pair up with me. But my mother
had better memories, so I said sorry and smiled too. Maybe she was
right. But maybe she wasn’t? I brushed it
off. Nah. Mother knows best. © 2016 Cathair CathmoreAuthor's Note
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Added on May 20, 2016Last Updated on May 21, 2016 Tags: gaslighting AuthorCathair CathmoreJakarta, DKI Jakarta, IndonesiaAboutI write to tell a story, about what I have gone through, about what I have known and learned, about the fears that eat me up at night, and to understand that everything is not for nothing. more..Writing
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