Gobsmacked

Jun 13, 2012 17:13

Mary paused in the bedroom door. Her mother was sitting on her bed, staring out the window and holding something in her lap. It was strange to see her so still, so quiet. She felt a tremor of unease in her stomach. “Mom? Are you ok?”

The old woman looked over, and Mary saw that her eyes were red. Had she been crying? “What? Yes, I’m…” she stopped, shook her head and patted the bed beside her. “No, I’m not ok. Come here. Are the kids out?”

“Yes, they’re with Jacob in town. What’s going on, mom?” She sat down on the bed beside her, worried.

“I’ve told you a lot of stories over the years, darling. But I’m afraid there was one I held back, one I never told you. And now… well, I never expected it to matter, but all of a sudden it does.” She lifted her hands from her lap and Mary saw that she was holding a letter, tight enough to crumple the paper on one side. “I got something today, and I’m going to have to take a trip.”

“What?! No. Just no. Your traveling days are over! You promised me, mom, after Lisey was born.”

“I know what I promised. But I’ve made other promises, older promises, and they matter too.” She looked at her daughter sidelong. “Besides, I promised to come help you with the baby. I’d hardly say she’s still a baby now. Hell, even your youngest is well on his way to being a fine young man. A bit headstrong for a boy, but…”

“Mom! Be serious now! You can’t just leave us.”

The older woman laughed a little and looked up at the ceiling. “You are used to getting your way, aren’t you? Well. Just… just listen, all right? I at least need you to understand why this is important.”

Mary crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. But don’t expect it to change my mind.”

“I don’t expect anything. Stubborn blood runs in this family.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “You know I traveled in my youth -“

“Yes, yes. I’ve heard all about your grand adventures.”

The sound of the slap was loud, louder than anything else in the house in this quiet hour. Mary’s hand moved automatically to her cheek, in shock. Her mother hadn’t struck her in more than twenty years. She realized her mouth was open and closed it, as she ran her fingertips over the stinging heat on her face. The silence stretched out between them, and then she said “I’m sorry. I said I’ll listen. So I’ll shut up and listen.” Her mother’s hand had fallen back to her lap, and looked so small and fragile. She reached out and held it. “Go on, mom. Tell me.”

“I’ve raised you with Yatchka values, Mary. Tried to, anyway. I’ve taught you about the traveling life, taught you about the cost of secrets, taught you all the things I learned growing up. And you went your own way and made your own decisions. I’m proud of you for that. You’ve lived a good life, built a family here.” Mary squeezed her hand and smiled, as much as she could manage. “But I haven’t told you enough, I fear. I told you how I was raised, and I told you I left my people. I told you it was my choice - and that there’d come a time when you would make your own choice, to go with custom or go against it. To marry for love or to let me find you a mate. To keep to the old ways and travel, or to settle down. All those things. But I never told you why I left. And I never told you about my first husband.”

Mary’s eyes were wide now. “You were married before dad? I never…”

“Of course you never knew. I never told you. It was too hard for me, too painful. And I didn’t want you getting any ridiculous notions in your head about your parentage - your father was your father. There’s no question of that. My first marriage was years and years before I met Aaron. It was when I was still traveling with my family that I married my first husband, and I was so young.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and smiled. “I seem to have a thing for foreign men. Just like your father, Daniel wasn’t Yatchka, either. He traveled with us for a season, and we fell in love. I begged my grandmother’s permission to marry him, and she gave it. She said he was a kindred spirit to us, that he was close enough to our family to be adopted, to be taken in and made part of the family. He took my name, and I took him as my very own. My Daniel. My love.” She wiped a tear from her face with the back of her hand, the pages of the letter still in her grasp catching at her white hair.

“We camped for a time outside a city, and he went in, with some other people. To buy things, to barter, to see what it was like. There was nothing unusual about it, nothing special about that day. I didn’t want him to go, but he was so eager to prove that he was pulling his weight, doing what everyone asked of him. He went into that city, and he never came out.”

“What happened?” Mary whispered.

“I don’t know, not really. The group separated when they got inside the walls, and agreed to meet back up at the south gate by dusk. Daniel never arrived. They spent hours asking after him, searching around, but couldn’t even find anyone who’d seen him. We stayed there two weeks - a week longer than anyone else wanted - camped outside the walls, trying to find any sign of him. Finally, we left. Well, they left. I went a different way.”

“That’s why you parted ways with your family and traveled on your own? Did you go to the city to find him?”

She sighed, and her voice was tinged with regret. “No, I didn’t. The Crone did a seeing for me, told me she saw Daniel fall into a shadow - literally. In dark places the shadows can sometimes become passages to an evil place. The Crone said it was a horrible place he wouldn’t - couldn’t - survive. We argued for most of the night, but at the end of it, he was gone and she had convinced me that there was nothing I could do for him.” She stared down at the pages clutched in her hand. “Finally, she made me promise not to go looking for the shadow he fell into, said it might have shifted around to anywhere, and that it would just be the death of me too.” Her voice was almost a whisper now. “So I gave him up, in my heart.”

Then the fire Mary recognized so well was back in her mother’s voice. “But I was so angry. With her for taking us to that place, with my people for saying he’d run off and left me - he would never! Their whispers and stares and accusations were too much. I couldn’t stand to see them anymore, to be with them. I just couldn’t do it. So I left. I abandoned them all.”

“Mom. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what they did and that you lost him.”

Her mother smiled and shook her head. “You don’t understand, not yet. I got a letter, you see. A letter from Daniel.” She lifted the paper in her lap a few inches and then let it fall again. “A Seeker from the temple of ways found me, brought this to me. It was sent only last month, from the city where he was lost. He’s there, Mary. He’s there, and he doesn’t understand why I didn’t wait for him. It’s only been a few days for him - that evil place doesn’t line up quite right with ours, it seems. He fought his way out of the shadow, past the darkness and back into the light. He came back for me. I was his hope, what kept him going when he was in that terrible place. His wife. I have to go to him. He has to see, for himself, how long it’s been. How it was. It won’t make it any easier, but I owe him that. I have to go.”

She squeezed her daughter’s hand again, and stood. “I can make this one last trip, Mary. Or I’ll be lost to a different kind of shadow, a darkness of the heart, and that’s not the way I want to go.” She picked up the bag sitting beside the dresser. “Tell the children I love them, and give your Jacob an extra squeeze. And try not to worry, darling. I’m tougher than I look. I don’t know what will happen, but I’ll be back, if I can.”

elushae, fiction, ljidol

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