But my heart cried out

I have never been to California.

My mother had always told me about it, bedtime stories filled with tales of sunshine that could peel the skin right off your back, boys with eyes bluer than the ocean, men with wallets filled with crisp dollar notes that smelled of the press they had just come off of.

She was invariably drunk when she tucked me in and climbed in next to me, the alcohol escaping her pores like multiple slow punctures in a tyre. I would be trapped in the small space between her too hot body and the cool wall while she slurred into the night, eventually falling asleep with her head on my shoulder, her saliva slowly flowing down her cheek and pooling in the hollow under my collar bone.

I had never believed the stories. Why would she have returned to cold and lonely England and left that life behind? I had dismissed them as wild tales, just as I came to dismiss her from my life entirely.

Then she died, and everything changed.

His name, he said, was André.

We were standing over the open pit where my mother’s body had been lowered, and we were the only ones left. The smell of wet soil was making me nauseous as I thought of my mother’s haggard face slowly being reclaimed by the earth and all its creatures. Rain began to fall again softly, the drops pattering onto the ground through the leaves above us.  

André spoke. “Your mother, she was the love of my life y’know.” He said it as a statement, his deep American accent too loud and too full of colour for this damp place.

“No,” I replied. “I didn’t. I didn’t realise anyone loved her, the way she told it.”

We were silent for a time, listening to the wind rustle the leaves. A bird called solemnly somewhere deeper in the cemetery.

“How did you know her?”

“She taught me. In California.”

My head snapped up. I studied his face, looking for the lie in his orange toned skin, in the deep lines around his eyes and mouth. He shifted, put his hands deep into his suit trousers and turned to gaze into the open grave.

“The only thing my mother knew how to teach was misery.” Bitterness and bile soured my throat. “She was a liar and she destroyed my life. It’s taken me years, years, to pull it together. How dare you come here and…” I stopped short. I had never felt so compelled to share so much information, never mind with a stranger. It had taken months with my therapist before I had even begun to show this much emotion, and here I was shouting in a cemetery at someone I didn’t know.

“Don’t be hard on yourself kid,” he said, still without looking at me. “You can’t help yourself, it’s what we do. It’s what your mother taught me to do. And it’s what she was trying to stop you having to learn and why she ran away from us. From California.”

He looked up at me now and the force of his stare winded me. I could not tear my eyes from him, and my feet moved in forced steps toward him. I tried to cry out but my voice was barely above a whisper. My jaw wouldn’t respond. I was a foot away from him and I stopped, as rigid as a statue. He put a soft, sweaty palm against my cheek.

“It’s what we do sweetheart. We make people do the things we want them to do.” The depth of the sadness in his eyes and his voice surprised me. It calmed me too and like a flow of electricity, movement returned to my body, starting at my head and working its way down into my toes and fingers.

André smiled. “You are so strong sweet child. We’ve been looking for you – everything has been converging since the moment you were born.” He dropped his hand and chuckled. “Your mother would be so angry right now. She was strong too – the fights that we had, a real battle of wills.” He laughed again and shook his head like he was looking at an old video. “I searched for you both, for years.”

I still felt calm and flooded with something like power. No, not power. Strength.

My mother had moved us every year, sometimes even twice a year. Small, dark apartments with cigarette stained walls and threadbare carpets. Mould running up corners and spreading across the ceiling.

“Why?”

He looked at me in surprise. A shadow of fear crossed his face. “You’ve managed to talk.” He drew in a deep breath, exhaled forcefully and muttered, “Really strong.”

“Why were you searching for us? Why was my mother running from you?”

André just shook his head and then looked at me again. He nodded then, as if giving his permission. A force moved through my body and from my skin, as natural as the blood flowing through me, collecting in front of me. It shimmered in the air between us and I cocked my head to one side. With a thought, it shot like an arrow at André and he flinched. Suddenly, I could feel his body as if it were my own, the roughness of his collar against his neck, hear his heart beating in my ears. I thought about what I wanted to know.

“Speak,” I said.

“Because I’m your father,” he whispered. “And I’ve been sent to kill you.”

Later, as I sat at the café and drank my too sweet tea as it went cold, I picked the dirt from under my nails. The window had misted up from the rain and I could only make out occasional shapes as they passed on the pavement outside. The café was crowded and the din of conversation and laughter sat like smoke in the air. I mulled over what André had told me. Silent tears rolled down my cheeks and dropped from my chin onto my lap. The waitress looked at me sympathetically, used to distraught mourners this close to the cemetery. My father had found me, just as I had always dreamed, except not to rescue me. It was mother who had been doing that, time and time again. And she had died alone, not knowing where I was or if I was safe. White hot rage threatened to overwhelm me. The air seemed to thicken around me. People stopped talking, staring vacantly ahead. The suddenness of it quelled the anger and I looked around in wonder. The conversations picked up again and I spotted an occasional glance my way, like they could feel something coming from my direction but not sure what it was.

I continued picking at my nails.

André hadn’t begged. He hadn’t said anything at all. He just sat on the edge of the grave and lowered himself in.

“Lie down,” I had told him. “Lie down and cover yourself in dirt.” I hadn’t allowed him to feel fear. Not then. He had managed to cover his legs before I realised I was going to have to do the rest myself. I took the spade that the grave diggers had left, the worn wood smooth in my grip. The soil landed with a hollow thud on the top of the coffin André lay on and I thought again of my mother. I remembered her stroking my hair and my cheek while I cried when we had to move again, telling me it was for my own good. I had never believed her. I shovelled and cried, and by the time the hole was three quarters full, my shirt was stuck with sweat against my back. I let go of André’s control then but allowed myself to taste the soil as it filled his mouth as he choked, his arms pinned against his sides.

And now, I am on my way to California.

I will find them and I will find my destiny.

I will avenge my mother.