Fifteen Years of Last Words

Fifteen Years of Last Words


"The last time I saw my mother was fifteen years ago Sarah! What would I say to her?"
"Tell her the truth. Tell her how you feel," came the soft reply from my bed. Sarah lay there, dressed in a t-shirt of mine that didn't quite cover her backside, with the sheets drawn up to her slender hips. Her fair skin rosy and her long blonde hair mussed from sleep, she looked more beautiful than ever. It seemed she was gentle and understanding in everything she did. Leaning up onto one elbow now, the high smooth curve of her breasts tightening against the shirt to emphasize her beauty, Sarah gave me one of her killer smiles. Her misty blue eyes were full of compassion as she watched the change of expressions on my face. I love this woman, more than anything.
"But it's been so long! What if nothing's changed?"
"And what if it has?"
I couldn't help but see that she was right. A lot can happen in fifteen years. Sarah, in her soft-spoken and gentle way, was telling me what an idiot I was being. I had to go see my mother.


It wasn't until I slid behind the steering wheel of my zippy little red BMW that I realized how badly I was trembling. I could barely turn the key in the ignition, and more than anything I wished it was Sarah sitting beside me, the smooth tan of her thighs sticking ever so slightly to the warm leather of the car seats. Soon, I was on the interstate, the hood down and my auburn hair tossing in the warm breeze of Southeastern Florida, taking no notice to the high level of humidity and the hot air that seemed to cling to my slim body. The trip went faster than I thought.
Imagine you are standing outside of your mother's house. Fifteen years had passed, and the last words you spoke still stabbed at your heart with their cruelty. Would you be in a hurry to go inside? I doubt it. Well, as you can imagine, I wasn't either. But I wasn't going to run this time. Worst case scenario I could turn around and get right back into the car. (Am I trying to convince you here, or myself?)
Gathering up my nerve, I parked the car, shut off the engine, and stepped out. That damned picket fence was still standing, pristine in its whiteness. The shrubbery along the property line was growing wild, but it was still there, just as it had been more than a decade ago. I saw that a window was broken on the front of the low cement-built house, and was now covered over with plastic. Someone had mowed the lawn recently...all in all, it still seemed much too tidy for my liking. I noticed now, however, that the gate creaked loudly as I swung it open. The sound was deafening (or was I just nervous?).
That walk up the front path seemed to take much longer than the dozen-or-so steps from the gate to the porch should, but soon I heard rather than felt myself knocking upon the old front door. My stomach was twisting in knots as I quickly adjusted the simply black button-up shirt I'd slid on over my best jeans. Mother was always very strict about how we dressed. When she opened the door, I thought my heart had stopped before it received a jump start at the realization that I couldn't speak to my mother if I was dead on her front porch. After all...this couldn't be so bad. ...right?
She was beautiful still, my mother. Her rich brunette hair had lines of gray streaking through its waves, and little crows-feet and laugh lines were forming on her angular face, but she still held onto her beauty. Angella was her name, and she turned fifty today.
"Annie!" she said, her hand flying to her bony chest to cover the place where her heart rested. Her doe-brown eyes widened in shock, and she seemed to clutch to the cracked doorframe for support as she stared at me in wide-eyed awe. Was I such a sight to see? I loved her petite little form, so like my own, and mustered a shaky smile for her benefit.
"Mother," I choked out, feeling my cheeks redden at her reception. "Happy birthday."
Angella smiled at me, a fleeting ghost of a smile upon her thin lips. Something was very wrong, and my heart pounded in fear and apprehension. "What are you doing here, Annie?" she asked me softly, caution laced into the soft gray-brown of her big eyes.
"I came to see..." I began, taking a breath and starting again, "I came to see if anything has changed."
She said nothing, but in her expression were more than enough words. Nothing had changed, and nothing ever would. Absentmindedly she began fingering the tarnished silver cross she wore around her neck- I had never seen her without it, but had grown to loath it; that and all signs of Christianity.
"Is this is, then?" I asked softly, all spirit sucked from my body at her lack of a response. Again, for a long moment, there came no words. Then, to my disbelief and my disgust, I heard her thin voice murmur,
"I still pray for you."
"I don't want your prayers!" I spat. "There's nothing wrong with me!"
"Repent your sins, child, and God will be merciful. Repent and you will be saved from the fires of Hell!"
I coiled back from her then, slithering down those front steps like the snake she saw me as. "Your God is not merciful, mother. A merciful God wouldn't punish souls for love."
"Annie-"
I looked up at her, meeting that cold and pained gaze. No...nothing had changed at all. As I turned away from her, my steps leaden with disappointment, I heard that once-loved voice call after me,
"I only wish you weren't gay."


[[ Word Count: 1000 Beautiful Words ]]