So mother dear knew what was happening. There’s no way she didn’t know. Father dear coming creeping in the night silently tampering and torturing and drunkenly tearing apart.

She heard the terrified cries. She heard stifled the sobs. She heard the muffled pleading no. Please no.

Please.

No.

And I know.

She saw the blood.

Yes. She knew. And I knew it. Hell, we all knew. We all knew all about it.

And mother dear, she spoke not a whisper even though.

But I can hardly blame her, hardly hate her for it. Its hard to speak up with your jaw busted and all wired up. Hard to stand up for it with your bones all broke.

So no. I can hardly blame her. And I’m all done with hate. Just done.

Years later when it was all done and dusted, she asked me outright. Dear? Did your father dear? Did he ever? Did he? You know.

And I could see the pleading in her eyes. I could hear the torment in her voice. I knew full well the horror in her soul.

We all knew full well. We all knew suffering enough.

So I gave her what her heart so pleaded for. I gave her the gift for which she ached so painfully.

No mother dear. Not even once. No. It never did happen.

And she smiled her gratitude and she cried her guilt and grief and she thank you dear’d for that relief. And we kept her denial and her lie and her blindness and deafness safe and sound. After all, what good would it do. Now that it was all done and dusted to say yes.

I do not know the horror of a mother who could not speak out or stand up. I do no know the torture of a mother compelled to deaf sightlessness. I do not know her pain.

But I know much of cruelty and torment. And I chose not to visit those things upon her.

I let her have her blindness and her deafness. I let her have the lie which kept her alive still.

And others may challenge the rightness of my decision. But it is I who walks in my shoes. And I am glad and at peace that I did what I did and said what I said.

I have not been able to speak to her since. My mother dear no more. And she will go to her grave with those the last words she will ever hear spoken by me. For that is what I require to survive. And thus we each have what we need.

It was not her fault. She did her level best. She did not do what was done. Only one of us is guilty for what was done. And he is now dead.

And that’s the way it is.

I am glad that I did not hold her to the horror of her own guilt. I am glad that I told my lie. And I am glad that I let her keep hers.

For I believe it to be the kindest thing I ever did.

Perhaps the kindest thing I will ever do.

And I sincerely hope never to discover that it was in truth the cruelest.

 

Whippoorwill XO