True to My Heart
Page 9
It looks like she’s crying because when she takes them away it’s red and I watch her blink. I don’t know how hard it was to stay away from her daughter. I didn’t have a mother that I missed. That I cried for, not that I can remember at least.
“Growing up, your mother knew the rules. She knew that if she had something, she needed to tell me it was just best to come out with it. I have my morals too and it’s not that hard to follow the rules that I set. No lying no matter what you’ve done, you fess up to it.” She points a finger at the screen.
“I have. I have fessed up to every lie…well, almost every lie,” I whisper, biting down on my lip as if she’s the one lecturing me instead of explaining why she wasn’t here.
“There are things like baby pictures of your mother that I’m sure you’d want. A nice bracelet that used to be mine. Jewelry that I bought you for your birthdays always hoping that I could get over this and just go to one. Even just to hold you on your sixteenth birthday. Because I couldn’t get over it, I missed out on a lot of you in person. Hell, I missed out of all that you did in person.” She shrugs her shoulders.
“It’s okay Grandmother. I am sure that I would have love you. I just don’t like your tea habits,” I whisper to her.
I find myself crying, wiping my tears I don’t understand why my mother thought that she could just hide it.
By the end of the video I knew that she loved me. It wasn’t hard to tell that she cared about me and that she wished that she could’ve been there. It wasn’t because she was ashamed of me at all. She was a strong woman and I can see that I take after her now. Not my mother, not my father, but her and the stubborn streak that she had. She had the courage to tell it how it was, just not the courage to leave it all behind over a lie and come to see me.
By the time that she wanted to see me, she knew that it would be too late. It was never too late. That’s what I wanted her to know.
I sigh heavily and look up at the ceiling. If I want to know the answer from the person who lied to Grandmother, she was right upstairs and that’s where I headed when the video shut off and began rewinding itself.
I walk down the hallway slowly, checking in my room and seeing that Eliza’s back is to me. I’m not going to wake her up tonight. I’m not even sure if I’m going to go to sleep.
I see that my mother’s bedroom door is closed all the way down at the end. I can hear the television playing and I knock on the door.
“Yes,” she tells me softly.
I open the door and my eyes are red.
“You watched the tape.” She grinned at me and sat up on the bed. She has a pile of things on the bed.
“What’s all that?” I ask her.
“Pictures of my mother and me. While you watched the video, I decided that I was finally going to open the box that she left me.” She grabs a tissue from the box on her nightstand and blows her nose.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I close the bedroom door. Sitting on the edge of the bed she hands me a few binders. I slowly begin to open them and see that they are photos. A woman who looks like my mother is my grandmother.
“Why did you lie to her? She sounds like such a nice woman. I’m sure that she would’ve understood,” I tell her.
I’m not even mad, I just want to know the truth.
“Are you really going to make me talk about it?” she asks me, running a hand through her hair.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I do have to say that I lied to you. When you said that Betty told me, and I said no that was a lie. I didn’t go down to city hall. I didn’t go looking for anything.” I tell her.
“I know you did. I’m not like my mother. I understand needing to tell little white lies.” She laughs at me and hugs me to her.
I think that hugging her downstairs was contagious because she’s never just reached out to hug me.
“We were scared. I was young, just starting out with my career and I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to stop doing what I loved to take care of a child. I knew that she would’ve thought that was selfish. And, on top of that knowing that we were having a baby out of wedlock on top of everything else.” She shakes her head.
“So, you lied because you were scared, not because you were ashamed.” I roll my eyes at her.
My mother laughs at me and it’s the first legit laugh that I’ve heard come out of her mouth in a long time, if ever.
“I would like to say that she’s forgiven you, but I don’t know. According to the video she just couldn’t.” I want her to know that.
I can’t look at her though because I don’t want to see the sadness that crosses her face, I don’t want to see the pain in her eyes.
“You don’t have to worry about that Stephanie. I know that she has.” She puts her hand over mine.
I see the hope in her eyes before she lets go of my hands. She reaches into the box for something at the very bottom.
There’s an old envelope. It stained from dust of years gone by and she hands it to me. I don’t want to take it I don’t want to read it because it’s not addressed to me.
“Go ahead. I want you to.” She nods her head and urges me to get the letter out of the envelope.
I sit crossed leg on the bed and open it. Seeing that my mother’s eyes are full of happiness. It’s not staged, I know that it’s not. I don’t know this look on her face. I wish that I had seen it more growing up as I stare at her.
“What?” she asks me.
“Nothing.” I clear my throat and open the fragile notebook paper that looks like it’s going to crumble in my hand.
To My Daughter:
I’m writing to you now because I’m on my deathbed. I don’t want you coming when I’m dead and gone but you know where you can find me if you want to talk about anything that we didn’t have a chance to, as long as you speak the truth. I’m upset with you. I always have been. Though I can’t get over the fact that you lied to me, I do love you. I want you to know that I wish you well in your life. I pray that you tell your daughter the truth before it’s too late for the two of you.
Betty has told me about the relationship that you have, and I know that it’s not good. Don’t let it get as far as it did with us.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you. That I don’t think of my granddaughter, but it’s too late for me now. Even if it weren’t, I don’t think that I would come. Too much time has gone by for us. But not for you and Stephanie. What a beautiful name that you picked out for her. Your father told me all the time that he’d wish that I would get over this, you know how I am though.
I can’t let the past be the past. I want you to grow. You are a wonderful actress but don’t let it run your life. Don’t let it ruin it.
Love always,
Mom.
I close the letter back up. I have to say that I’m proud of my grandmother for doing what was best for the two of them. That in the end she did the right thing, even then it wasn’t too late.
I put it back into the envelope. When my mother takes it, I can see that she misses her mother dearly and there’s nothing that she can do about it.
“I’m glad that you came by tonight. I really am,” I tell her, glad that we didn’t lose all the time that we have left with each other.
“Me too, this isn’t going to be easy for me, you know that, right?” she whispers.
She can’t stop the tears from coming and neither can I. I know damn well that it’s not going to be easy, but we can at least say that we tried. That’s the most important part of all this. We tried.
Mother talked to me about her childhood. Not much of my own because I don’t think she wants to admit that her acting career took over more than she had as a mother. I can’t call out all of her flaws. I know that there are some things I need to take it easy on her about.
Chapter Thirty
I find out more about my mother than I ever knew. How she swore behind her mother’s back or got caught skipping school smokin
g with the other kids in the private school.
I always thought that she was after one thing, money. Come to find out she worked hard for her money. She worked hard to become the actress that she is. When one door closed, she forced another one open.
I didn’t realize until I was getting ready for bed how proud of her I was. Maybe she failed as a mother, but she did what she had to in order to survive
Looking at the clock as I go to bed it’s three in the morning and I have to be up for seven. The lack of sleep is going to kill me. At the same time if I never went to my mother, I wouldn’t know all the good memories she had. The hard life that she had when she didn’t have her mother.
“I told you to wake me when you woke up.” I hear Eliza telling me in a groggy voice.
“I just came to bed,” I tell her, yawning and getting ready to close my eyes.
“What took you so long?” she asks and I can see that she’s fully awake.
I’m not going to get any sleep tonight even if I tried my hardest.
“I hung out with my mother for the first time ever. We talked about how her childhood was. We talked about how she became the amazing woman she is today,” I sigh, not with stress but with relief tonight.
“That’s amazing. Things are going to work out after all. I’m glad that you had that time with her,” Eliza whispers to me, wrapping an arm around me and resting her head on my shoulder.
I see that her eyes are closed, and I smile down at her. She’s not ready to wake up for the day like I had first thought.
Looking down into her face I know that I wouldn’t be able to do this without her. I never would’ve opened up if it wasn’t for Eliza pushing me to do so I never would’ve done what I wanted.
I gained in all sorts of ways since I’ve come out. I wish that I had done it sooner. If I had then maybe, just maybe I would have a better time with my mother and understand why she is or was so mean.
There’s a lot of changes coming and I’m not ready for most of them. But, like Eliza told me, I’m going to try and take it in stride. To go with the flow.
I miss not knowing my grandmother, the one I saw on the video. I know that I’m going to watch it at least a hundred more times.
There is so much going on in my life now that’s better than before. I don’t feel trapped anymore, there are no rules of who I can and can’t be.
“You should get some sleep,” Eliza murmurs and that’s when I realize she’s been staring into my eyes for a little while now.
“I would love to, but I am too excited. I want to see what comes for tomorrow. There are so many things.” I shake my head back and forth.
The smile on my face won’t leave. It’s so big that it’s hurting my face.
“You’re finally happy. It looks good on you.” She wraps her arm tighter around me and that’s when I realize she’s right. I never really knew what happiness meant. Not until I freed myself.
Looking up at the ceiling I know that my grandmother is happy. She’s looking down on me and my mother happy that we are finally getting along with each other.
That may not be a big deal for a lot of people, but it’s a big deal to me and no one’s going to take that away from me. I make a silent promise to myself that I’ll do anything it takes to make this work with my mother.
Not only her but my father as well. If she has a story, I know that he does too. Not that he will ever tell me about it. We aren’t that close, but that doesn’t mean I can’t learn more about him. It’s not going to be easy for me to do. It’s even harder now than what I thought it would be for Mother and me.
I close my eyes and feel the tiredness taking over from the day. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for the last few weeks and it’s finally coming to an end.
I put my hand over Eliza’s and am thankful that I was there the night that her and Kevin split up. The one who helped her out. The reason we are together now is funny. I’m sure that we’ll never tell anyone how we got together and she came to the understanding, that I liked her more than just my friend.
Liza thought that I had no issues in the beginning of all this. I did, I always have. Just they had never come to light not until I let my anger get the best of me.
I feel my body relaxing and for once I am truly happy. Never had I thought I could be happier in my life because of the past.
I can make my own future. I can make it so that my days are happier. The only one who can make that happen is me and I’m going to do my best to make each day count.
My grandmother will be proud of me throughout my life.
*THE END*
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