True Love

Trigger warning: domestic abuse

“ELIZABETH ISABELLA MEYERS,” is the scream I woke up to. A person would've thought I’d committed some heinous crime. I was cross with my mother and wished the old hag would just go to work already. By the time I begrudgingly rolled out of bed my presence was belated.

My mother had already left and I would come to regret my decision because that would be my last chance to see her alive. I had developed a false sense of security since we had escaped my father. The man was an overbearing bastard that was negligent in both his duties as a father and as a husband. 

He was an easy man to solicit and he was steadfast in his habit of picking up common whores. Excuse my profanity but that beast is worthy of curses more profound than those I’ve used to describe him. He had no respect for my mother and he showed no remorse even when he was caught sullying their bed of matrimony by committing wanton acts upon it. He was an abusive man and though I never encountered his blows my mother could not hide all of the bruises from me.

I understood not why she stayed. Even if she left me I would understand for I could not bear to see all of the pain she was enduring.

Whenever I asked her why she chose to stay she said she did it for love. It enraged me whenever I heard that answer and it corrupted my views of love but little did I know I had perceived wrongly. I mistook her statement to mean that she stayed for the love she had for my father.

The only time my mother ever decided to stand up for me is when he offered my hand in marriage to some old geezer that already had 3 wives. When I heard of the news I new that I had to leave that house with or without my mother.

I had learned too much and come too far to become a trophy wife. A few days before I was to take my leave I invited my mother to come with me and her compliance is one of the greatest shocks of my life till this day.

A woman that I had underestimated for years had enough skill to provide for us. My mother’s skill offered me as much comfort as we could have without drawing attention. I became compliant and allowed myself to relax. I foolishly forgot that till the day my father died we would always have to look behind our backs.

We moved from place to place and no matter how much we had grown to love a place we left at the first sign of danger. This went on for months before it seemed like my father had stopped chasing after us.

This fated day that I chose not bid my mother goodbye is the day she died. It is the day my father murdered her. It is the day I began to regret my decision not to say goodbye. Normally my mother was back by five o’clock but it was three hours past that time and she had yet to return. I had grown worried and was about to go off in search of her when I heard frantic knocking at the door. I rushed to open it and my mother stumbled in, blood coating her abdomen. A shocked gasp escaped my lips as I took in her state.

“MOTHER!” I screamed. I knelt down and pressed my hand to her wound to try to stop the flow of blood. In a low rasp my mother said “Elizabeth I need you to calm down and listen to me. I am too far gone and..” I quickly interrupted her. There was no way I could let her finish that sentence.

“ No mother, you cannot die yet. We have so much more to experience together. You cannot leave me. I know not what I am to do without you.”

I was rambling but my mother didn’t let me continue.

“ Elizabeth we’re running out of time. There’s a safe under the bed and the code is ‘8345’. I need you to go there and take everything. That’s all I can give to you ask your inheritance.”

She was running out of breath and she began wheezing before she continued.

“ You can do this Elizabeth. Pack your bags and run. Your father has found us and you cannot afford to waste time.”

“No,” I sobbed.

“ I cannot afford to lose you. You have to come with me.”

To which she responded “ Elizabeth time is running out. Know that I love you.”

Just like that she was gone. Everything that happened afterwards is a blur. It was almost as if my body was moving on its own accord. I managed to escape that day. The night my cove, and the rain beating down on my back a reflection of how I was feeling.

My mind flashed back to my current location. My father sat tied to a chair while I stood looking at him. This entire time he had not said a word as he gazed at me. Then he spoke “ We really do share the same blood don’t we. You have betrayed your father just as I betrayed mine.” I bashed him with the but of my gun and yelled “ Shut up you bastard.”

All he did was laugh in response as he spit out the blood that had pooled in his mouth as a result of the blow I dealt him.

“ She loved you with all her heart and all you did was betray her time and time again. You even killed her.”

He began laughing uncontrollably before he said “ That woman never loved me. She only stayed because she couldn’t protect you from me if she was gone could she. I would have sold you off a long time ago if it wasn’t for her.”

“ She stayed because she loved you and she knew I wasn’t going to let go of a child with my blood pumping through it’s veins. I had little use for a female but I could make do,” he then said.

As he finished that statement a new wave of grief washed over me. My feelings were so overwhelming I was choking. I spent a good portion of my childhood loathing my mother for allowing him to beat her and control her. But all that time she had been enduring for me. I realized then that was the purest love I would ever experience. My mother gave me love I was undeserving of and she did it selflessly.

My father‘s only saving grace that day was the love I had for my mother. She would not have wanted me to throw away my future like that. I wanted to live the life that her sacrifice had afforded me to the fullest rather than rot in jail.

Despite my decision not to kill him I couldn’t let him go unpunished. With all the evidence I had acquired against him he would be the one rotting in jail for the rest of his life. Leaving that abandoned building I decided it was best to let the past stay in the past. I would love my life to the fullest and be as happy as possible. I would make my mother proud.