death, the migration | delia, post 7th

[hesper hart 🐺 d9f]

It takes another year before I can visit Mom's grave- only when I am certain enough time has passed that the grass has grown back over the upturned dirt and the fresh flowers are traded for artificial ones that don't need to be changed. I also wait until the dead of night, when no one will see me. I pull up my hood and keep my chin down for good measure. It isn't like me to hide myself away like this, to go quietly, and I am not sure why it feels important for me to do so now, but it does.

I don't want anyone to know that I miss her, I think.

"They're putting me on meds, calling me unstable." Like you were, I cannot bring myself to say, because somehow the thought of me becoming anything like my mother is more damaging than the fact that I've killed six people on national television. My mother- how was I meant to grieve her if she'd only been returned to me in a reflection? I refused to make the same mistakes, that's why I never lied to myself about whether I could take care of my brother and sister when she was gone. I knew I couldn't. I know I can't. Even if my mother had realized that, she still would've-

Some of it wasn't her choice.

So much of it was, though. The time she let her boyfriend lock Lucky in a closet because he was having a meltdown, or when she left Molly at the grocery store and didn't notice until someone brought her home- my list of grievances was too long to list. My fingers reached out to trace the letters, one by one. I used to be an honor student, back before her and the world broke me.

"Remember when I used to say I was going to become a therapist some day?" Don't ask me why that was what I wanted, because I don't know. I hate dealing with my own problems so much that I usually don't, so why I was convinced I wanted to take on everyone else's at any point in my life is beyond me. But the dream was short-lived and Mom was pretty deep in her bottle that night so she'd just snarked a laugh. "And who do you think is going to pay for all of that extra school?" she'd asked. At the time, my pride mattered more, so I'd just leaned back in my chair across the table and pursed my lips and said, "I won't need you to. I'm going to start saving as soon as I'm old enough and my grades are going to be so good that I'll get scholarships."

"Could you imagine? Me dealing with all those uppity rich couples trying to make their boring marriages work?" In her own way, Mom had been right all along about me. I think that is what made me hate her so much before she was gone. And now, too, I guess. I sigh, wishing I could still hate her to her face instead of like this.

"I dunno. I might've been good at it. I might've been good at a lot of things if you would've let me."

I lay down the stuffed dog she brought home from the hospital after giving birth to me, right there in the middle between two cheap clay vases of plastic petals. And then I pop the top off a can of paint in my other hand, and spray the word NARC in bold red lettering right over the part of the headstone that says 'Rest in Peace'. I stand and dust off my palms, eyeing the area to make sure no one else has randomly decided to hang out at a cemetery in the middle of the night.

"I probably won't be back, so-" I say once I confirm no one is around, because this feels like the goodbye I didn't get to have before. I open my mouth to say more and cannot find the words, so I choose that moment to turn and leave.