GUILT

By Rhayna Tera, copyright 2020

Warning: Depressing.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

RT

She closed the door. They had delivered the parcel on time, as they had compassionately undertaken to do. She had given the courier a small tip from the left pocket of the apron she had been wearing. The courier had wished her all the best and had walked back to his van. It left the very humble townhouse neighborhood.

She, once, had been younger and had known so much more about life.

She was older now. Her hair was salt and pepper and hung lifelessly. Her forehead was wrinkled: age and worry. Her eyes were tired. Cheeks that had once burst with colour were now splotched and pallid. There was no smile on her lined face. The corners of her mouth were turned down.

She cradled the parcel as a mother would cradle a child. She remembered the very first time he had tried to latch on, searching, struggling, crying. Her nipple had comforted him then. Her breasts were useless now.

She slowly moved into the modest living room. She remembered that, in this room, he had first crawled, first stood, and first said "ma-ma". She could still hear it: that sound of pure living joy. Silently, it resonated even now through the room.

She made her way into the kitchen. She remembered his daily efforts to set the table, help her prepare meals, do the dishes, and make tea. The same fluorescent light lit the table today as it had when he had done his elementary school homework. His grades had been excellent; he tried so hard. Her usual apron hung next to the broom closet. The hanger next to hers was empty.

She went upstairs. The staircase creaked now as it had years ago. How often had she chased him up the stairs --- or down them --- for the purpose of instilling in him appropriate behaviour, expected behaviour, required behaviour? The stairs were still slippery. She had never pushed him; she knew that; she had never pushed him. She moved carefully today.

She looked into the bathroom. Standing at the same spot whence she monitored him when he was in it. What day had it been when she had first noticed her toiletries askew? A Sunday, yes, a Sunday. The smell of rose-scented oil. The embarrassment on the little boy's face in the bathtub was still vivid in her mind.

She walked into her bedroom. His wail still filled her ears. His tears still dampened the carpet. The nightlamp still fell in slow motion. The image of her young son, her pride, her treasure, still dominated the room: her blue dress, her pantyhose, her jewelry, her lipstick, her...everything! On him, a thirteen-year-old boy. On his face, shame --- and fear.

She wavered, briefly, before she walked into his bedroom. The arguments in this room had been heated and strenuous. Each had always risen to the challenge of the other, each defiant, each resolute. Could she have been more ordinarily tender-hearted? Could her words have not been so hideous, loathing, venomous? 'Compromise' had not been in their lexicon; but could not 'compassion' have been in hers?

She gently placed the parcel on her son's bed and carefully unwrapped it.

She softly put her son's urn on his pillow. She delicately tied a pretty bright pink bow around it. She bent over and, holding the sides of the urn as a mother would hold her child's cheeks, kissed it.

She said, "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

She then stood up and looked out the window toward the front walkway. He had been missing for two years. The police had said that he had died a few days ago. He was seventeen. They had approached her house on that very walkway. The circumstances of his death were simple: on the streets, abused, vulnerable, exploited. His had been a brutal death by perpetrators unknown.

She, two years ago, had delayed filing the missing person's report. The importance she had attached to winning their arguments, to imposing her will, and to all sorts of other nonsense that would never have kept her son safe 'out there': these had wasted precious hours, days, and weeks. Her pride had prevailed over his protection.

She took a small revolver from the right pocket of her son's apron and killed herself.

END

By Rhayna Tera, copyright 2020