Mother #3 (freewrite fiction)

Disclaimer: This is a really long story, which I have split up into three posts, for convenience. You may read them one after the other in one sitting, or come back to them, as you feel. It is based around @mariannewest's 3 freewrite prompts. Read part one here. and part two here.

_{Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash}

I still hear him screaming sometimes, in the dead of night, even after all these years and I wish I could tell him that there was nothing to be made better. Oh Mother, how I wish I could've been strong like you. There's something distinctly horrible about being trapped in a bed, in the darkness, utterly helpless while your father beats your mother to death. And there is nothing to do but listen, wish you were someone strong who could go down there and pry him off her. You know, for the longest of time, I thought that if only I'd been able to go down there, I could've saved you. He wouldn't have done that, not in front of me, I just know it.
But I couldn't, Mother, I couldn't. I tried, I pulled myself out of bed and I thought maybe you'd heard me, that maybe he'd stopped and would stomp up there, furious, yelling at me for getting out of bed, for hurting my leg again, but he never came. I screamed, but it was as if I was alone, because nobody came up for me and I couldn't break the spell. I tried to open the door, but I couldn't, I pulled and pulled and the door just didn't work, but I couldn't believe that my father had locked me in, so I kept pulling, begging the door to open. And crying. So much crying as I beat my fists into the floor, yelling for my father to stop hitting you.

'Hush, stay in there, child. Don't you come out here.'

'I have to. Please,' I begged the tall man on the staircase to open the door, but all he would say was 'It's not safe now.'

But there's no use in telling you all this now, is there? It happened many years ago and you've probably forgotten by now, you shouldn't have to be reminded of that horrible night. You know, mother, for years after that I thought I'd screwed up so bad and I felt so alone. Dad took us away after that night and I didn't even have the old woman in the garden, or the man on the staircase. The new house we moved in didn't have any spirits and I wondered if it had all been in my imagination, a child's fancy perhaps. But no, that came when I was a bit older. When we first got there, I went from room to room and I would sit on the floor, waiting. Because maybe someone would come out of the dark, someone resembling your face and I wouldn't be so alone anymore. But nobody came and I worried I'd lost it. I thought that maybe I'd betrayed you and the spirits and now, they wouldn't show themselves to me anymore. I thought I'd never be able to see them anymore because it seemed impossible that the new house was without ghosts. Oh Mother, I thought I'd be doomed forever, that I would be alone and the spirits would see me, but I wouldn't see them. That I'd never see you and I knew I deserved it, because you'd told me not to tell Dad and I did anyway.
I gave up, I stopped believing in ghosts altogether because it seemed too painful to keep on believing, waiting for you to come back somehow. I never told Dad and I was so glad to get away from him. I never thought that maybe you were keeping away because of him because I couldn't fathom – not even then, not even after all that had happened – that he could ever be dangerous for me.

And then you came back to me, in the first week I was at college. On the clock, you could say. I saw you in the alley and I knew it was you. It was then I realized that you never give up believing. It's like a door, that once opened can't ever be closed again. You were so small, Mother, and I was so lost. I'd stopped waiting to see you around the corner.
And besides, it seemed logical that you'd be at home, you know, at our old home, our real home, where I fell as a child and destroyed everything. But then, when I was old enough to go back, I couldn't. Because I couldn't bear the thought that you might not be there, in the end.
And you weren't. You were in the alleyway, tiny and pitch-black, all but for a white star on your forehead, trying so hard to make your way out of a cardboard box.

_{Photo by Ariel on Unsplash}

And I knew it was you, from the first second. For years, I'd begged for you to come haunt me, even to blame me for betraying you, just not to leave me and you did. You came back for me when you could, when it was safe, when Dad was far away and he wouldn't take you from me again. And I realize I've never really told you all of this. It's been building up though, hasn't it? I know you never wanted to hear sad words, but I spent so many years in sadness for what I did to you, or rather for what Dad did that for so long, I thought was my fault. And now you've gone again. I suppose it made sense, you were old, older than most cats, anyway.
It felt so good, Mother, to be able to hold you again, to feel your heartbeat. And it's funny, but it was that same heartbeat, the first thing I heard, the soundtrack to the first nine months of my life. It was your heartbeat, even though it wasn't your heart.

Farewell, dear Mother, until we find each other again.

Thank you for reading,