Not every parent is a good parent.
Chapter 9.
After breakfast, Milo went and laid down; he looked exhausted, but what did he expect having a sister like Dixie? Dixie went outside to play, and Nora helped his mother clean up the house; the house was much quieter than usual. Nora wasn’t used to that. Even though everything to her sounded underwater, she still enjoyed the occasional ruckus, from late-night talks Milo shared with his mother to morning fights he had with his sister. It made Nora miss her mother. She hadn’t been to visit her in over a year, and this year marked the 16 anniversary of her death. Nora finished helping with the chores and then hurried to get dressed. She decided on a Casual look. The look included ripped jeans, a long-sleeved sweater with a gold bracelet, and her hair in a bun. She then went into Milo’s room, where he lay sleeping, and took the keys off his dresser. She had used Milo’s car before, and he never minded, but this time was different; she wasn’t running errands. She would visit her mother, a tiny part of her past she kept private.
As she went to leave, she heard movement. She turned around, and Milo had now turned over, lying on his back.
“Be safe,” he signed, and she also saw his mouth move. He wasn’t talking to anyone directly, but Nora knew it was directed towards her. She smiled and walked over to where he was; his arm lay over his eyes; she moved his arm just enough to kiss his
forehead. As she did, he opened his eyes; their beauty always took her breath away. She tilted her head a little, smiling. Milo touched the glittering tear in her eye, wiping it away.
“I won’t pry, but know when you’re ready to talk, I’ll listen he said so slowly that Nora was able to understand each word. She nodded, then turned around, leaving the door open; she grabbed her coat and walked out the front door. The weather was freezing, and it nipped at her face along with her hands; as she got into the car, she blasted the heat, turning right down the street; her mother's grave was about thirty minutes away; she prayed she would make it before the storm hit. As she reaches a red light, a memory hits her hard.
“Remember, Nora, you are my pride and joy, and you always will be,” the woman with light brown hair said. Her skin was the same light color as Nora’s. She wore a beautiful sun dress, and her hair was French braided into a ponytail; she was lovely and adored by Nora.
Nora heard honking and realized that the light had turned green. She turned left, heading to the little cemetery that few knew about, and parked. She found her mother’s grave; now the grass was gone, yet she still sat down in the snow, putting her hands together to pray. “Hi, Mom. Sorry it’s been a while, but I thought it would be good to come see you. I miss you, Mom, a lot; dad is….” She stopped just then when she heard footsteps; looking up, she saw him, her father; his eyes were blackened from lack of sleep and a hangover she knew he probably still had from the night before; his clothes smelled of sex and booze, his dark hair was shuffled and messy, and his clothes smelled like he hadn’t taken a shower in a few weeks or longer, as soon as he saw her he grabbed her up forcefully she breaks free from his grasp with a mark around her wrist
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“You don’t deserve to be here. You don’t miss her like I do; you don’t mourn her like I do. You didn’t care for her like I did,” he signed with so much hate behind his words. Nora pushed back her icy cold tears from falling down her already frosty cold face.
“You bastard, how dare you? You don’t know what I feel; you don’t know how I'm achy. You don’t know anything because you are too numb and dumb to see the pain I feel. All you care about are the sluts you sleep with every night, knowing they have STDs and not caring that you want one to take your life. How mature you are, I lost one parent, so why not lose another? Not like it matters, right Harlem?” Nora signed, looking outraged by the assumptions he had of her grief.
He now snatched her up by the wrist so hard that Nora could feel the bruising forming under her skin. She swung at him, but he blocked her, and before she could react, he hit her from the side of her head, knocking her to the ground. She saw spit by her now in the snow; as she looked up at his face, she saw the rage in it. She became frozen; she was petrified of what was to come next. He now beats on her as she covers her face, feeling her body bruise with each blow. He was yelling, but she couldn’t make out his words, which were slurred and broken. What seemed like hours later, he stopped, and her whole body felt battered and bruised. As the tears flowed so much, the wind nipped at her cheeks. She looked up at him, worried about what he would do next. He dusted himself off, looking at her with those hateful brown eyes.
“Know your place, you little bitch. You are nothing. You don’t get to grieve her, you don’t get to miss her, and you certainly don’t get to cry for losing her, for you are the reason she died. You killed her.”
Nora gets up with every strength in her body and, without thinking, knocks him down to the ground, punching him over and over again; how could he blame her for her mother's death when he was the one who killed her? He is the reason that she took her life; he is the reason she gave up. As she hit him over and over again, tears kept flowing down her face, and she couldn’t control them. He lost a wife, but she lost a mother, a beautiful, carefree, loving mother, all because he didn’t care for her or take care of her as a husband should have, and for that, she gave up on life, on health, and on Nora. She now shakily gets off of him, seeing the damage she had done. She looked down at her own hands. Her knuckles were broken open and bleeding, but for the first time, she wasn’t suffocating.
“She died because you stopped caring for her; she died because she gave up.” Nora signed, walking away and heading towards the car. Once there, she shook to get the keys into the car ignition. Once in, she closed the door, locked in, and went back to Milo’s house; once there, she parked the car; when she opened the door, Nora bumped into Milo’s mother and fell as his mother caught her.
Nora could feel Milo’s mother hugging her tightly, and she was worried Nora felt that, but Nora could not talk or hear what Milo’s mother was saying. All Nora could feel was how her body hurt, and all she wanted to do was sleep; she was begging for sleep, and with that, her body did just that: shut down to heal.
Authors note.
This is edited to the best of my abilities. Please don't leave negative comments; if you don't like my story, move along. If you have advice, you are always welcome to advise.