It Grows In Me Part I

It was at 4 am in the morning on my tenth birthday when my life changed forever. That was the day when I realized how naive and childish I had been for all my life. How ignorant. I had always known my mom was not like other mothers, I had always known she was special. But never had I understood that she was more mentally sick than just quirky. I never saw the tragedy coming.

She never left home. My dad kept her secluded from the world, ‘to keep her safe,’ he always said. And mom never complained about that. She loved being a stay-at-home mom. She cooked and tended to her garden all day long, she loved cleaning and especially ironing. She never left the home apart from going to the market once or twice a month with dad to get groceries. During winter, she would get restless because of the snow and the cold. She would start a new hobby, making model airplanes, playing a new instrument, knitting, whatever. She would stay occupied with that for a few weeks, then get bored and move on to something else. But she never asked to leave the house and she never longed to see other people except her family.

And her imaginary friends, of course. She had many odd habits that I found quite attractive, actually. She was sweet and naive, very empathetic. She used to talk to household appliances. I found that a cute quality. She would ask the oven what she should prepare for a meal and she would thank the radiator on cold mornings. She would ask the radio politely to help her find the right frequency and she would feel bad for the stopped wooden grand-father clock in the living-room.

“You’re feeling a little slow today, my friend? Let me help you, dear. Here you go. Now you’re happy again,” she would tell the clock as she was winding it.

Then there were the imaginary friends no one else could see. There was Mr. Peterson, the old gardener, Mrs. Donald who was a librarian and young Bobby, a little orphan boy. There were others as well. When I was very little, I never thought that there was anything weird about my mom having some imaginary friends. It was not until I started going to school, when I was seven years old, that I realized not everyone’s mom talked to invisible people. That was when I felt embarrassed for my mom the first time in my life. I never invited any of my school friends to our house, just because I was afraid, they would laugh at my mom, make fun of her and think she was crazy.

And she was, to be honest. My dad used to tell me, that mom was sick and that was why we had to take good care of her and protect her. He always kept telling that. But I never thought mom was actually crazy, just a little different, just a little sick but not much. She was like a child in a way that she always spoke what was on her mind, uncensored. She could be brutally honest and when she got mad, her tongue was sharp like a shard of hard, cold ice. And she was sensitive as well. Sometimes, she would get offended by the littlest things. For example, if I did not finish my meal, she would feel sad that her food was not good enough. And once she felt that way, it was no use telling her that the food was good, I just felt full. She would get sad and then mad. I hated that. But she would get over it as fast as she got mad and a few minutes later she would had already forgotten the incident completely.

I stayed home many times, skipping school because my dad asked me to take care of mom. You see, she had bad days, when she got really depressed and stayed in bed almost the whole day. Dad was worried about her and asked me to stay at home, cook for my little brother and watch over mom. My brother Jacob had started school at six and needed no babysitter anymore but Danny was just four-years old and disabled. He was able to move by himself, although his legs were a little twisted. He spoke in an broken language, making up own words and it was sometimes really hard to understand what he tried to say. He needed a lot of care and help. He had tantrums and he constantly made me lose my temper by acting purposely difficult but when he was playing nice, he was the sweetest little boy. I loved him dearly. And mom did too, she usually took extremely good care of Danny, to the extent Jacob and I felt just a tiny bit less loved. But that was okay since Danny had special needs.

All the quirky features my mom had were explained by dad by telling she was just sick. Dad never told us much but he said that mom had been sick from birth, like Danny, and that her parents never understood her sickness. She had been treated badly and something really dramatic had happened when mom was little. Dad never told me what exactly and I did not care to know. I did not want to hear about anything bad that had happened to my beloved mom as I kept seeing her as my hero, a survivor. I was very protective of her. I never met mom’s parents, my grandparents, but that was alright. I had gotten the impression that they were not nice people. My dad’s parents lived in another country, I had met them only once in my life. My dad’s sister, my aunt Regina, however, lived close-by and I saw her once a month. She was nice and polite but I knew she did not like my mom. And the feeling was mutual.

During that winter, mom had been unusually restless and depressed. When the spring came and my tenth birthday got closer, I started talking to her and dad that I would like to have a birthday party since it was a really important age to reach. My dad immediately turned down the idea and mom said nothing. Dad had the last say in our family. I begged him for days, weeks.

“Daaaad! Please. I’ve never had a birthday party, I’ve never had friends over, please let me have this. I will buy us chips and candy with my own money and we will watch a movie and that’s it. We will not bother mom. Please!”

“I said no. That is my final answer”, he said calmly. I got mad.

“I hate you! Everyone else gets to have a party, I can never have anything nice because of mom!”

“Young Ms. Bethany Joselyn Richmond! You will not talk about your mother like that. And I don’t care about everyone else. You are my daughter and I forbid it, that’s that, end of discussion.” Tears ran to my cheeks.

“I hate you! You and mom both!” I yelled and ran upstairs to my room and kicked the door shut.

I was mad at my parents and it did not help that mom was feeling worse day after day. I was not able to attend school for a week and I felt lonely. Mom was upset more than ever before, having migraines and spending most of the time sleeping. I heard her talking to her imaginary friends.

“I don’t know who he is, but he’s bad, very bad. My family isn’t safe. He comes at night. I need to protect my family”, she whispered into the corner of the kitchen while cooking. She did not notice me standing in the doorway, she did not know I heard everything. I got increasingly worried and tried to talk to my dad.

“You know she has her special friends, don’t you worry about that. I will keep mom safe. You don’t have anything to worry”, he said stroking his chin. I saw through him and realized that something was wrong. He seemed troubled even though he tried to hide it. We did not talk again.

I woke up at nights as mom was screaming. She was having nightmares. Some nights, I heard noise from downstairs and when I went to see what was going on, I found my mom sleepwalking. It did not scare me as that had happened many times when I was younger. I just made sure, she did not hurt herself and waited until she went back to bed. ‘You are not supposed to wake a sleepwalker’, dad had taught me.

Thinking about it all now, I should have been more worried. Mom was really sick but we all kind of belittled her symptoms. I felt angry that dad had not taken mom to see a doctor. At the same time I knew, she would never had agreed to that as she was terrified of doctors.

It was the morning of my birthday. I woke up at 4 am as I thought I heard something. I had to go really bad and I started making my way to the bathroom, located in the very end of the long upstairs hallway. I went inside, did my business and washed my hands. I was just drying them up when I heard it. A gunshot. I jumped and dropped the woolen towel on the floor. I did not understand what had happened. My heart was pounding.

Then another shot. And a third one. I was shaking uncontrollably. I heard my mom shouting far away:

“Beth! Oh Bethany! Come here! Don’t be afraid, it’s mommy!” I froze to my place. I looked at the door and realized it was not locked. My legs were not moving.

“Bethany, where are you?” Mom yelled, now closer. I forced myself to take the two steps to the door and locked it. It clicked loudly. Silence followed. Then I heard her again:

“Beth, darling. Are you in the bathroom?” I started hearing footsteps closing in. I backed against the wall and dropped to my knees. I hold my hand in front of my mouth so she could not hear me breathing.

“Oh honey”, I heard her. She was right behind the door now. She tried the handle and I saw it moving up and down. I started wailing in horror. I had heard three shots. I counted in my head; dad, Jacob, Danny…

“Bethany. Don’t be afraid, dear. I’m saving you. I’m saving us all. Come here and we can be together. You have nothing to be afraid of”, mom lured me. Part of me wanted to believe that there was a misunderstanding and I should open the door. I would be safe with mom. But another part of me warned me, she was not mom... She was not my mom but she was something more sinister.

It went on what seemed like a forever. She was gently talking to me through the door, calming me down. I sat on the floor and cried. Then I got up, ready to opened the door to her as I heard someone breaking in downstairs and running up the stairs.

“Police!” I heard them yelling several times.

“Drop the gun, Mam! Drop the gun and put your hands up! Now!” I heard them shout right outside the bathroom door. Then a gunshot.

I heard a body tumble against the door.

“MOM!” I yelled in panic. I opened the lock and a policeman stepped inside in that instant.

“Don’t come. We don’t want you to see this. It’s alright, it’s alright”, he said quickly and kept me there by force. I tried to fight him fierce. I was crying and it took a minute to realize I was screaming too. My mouth was open and I was screaming in high-pitched voice. It was not my voice, I remember thinking. After that everything was blurry....