Forgiveness

Once there lived a normal girl with a normal mother, or so it seemed to outsiders, who were neither the girl nor the mother. To an outsider, they simply seemed like the typical average family that sometimes have occasional problems like every other family but this was only an illusion.

Within the house where there were no other people, the mother was a menace with rules; very strict rules. You would think that every family would have certain rules that were strict, but none could compare with this family.

In this family of two, if you were caught with refusing to eat vegetables or caught wasting any food; you were cut. If you were caught not saying words of proper and basic manners or not saying words of courtesy; you were whipped. If you were caught going home late, not doing homework, failing grades, insulting others; well, the consequences were worse, much worse.

The girl in this family of two was always injured horribly by her mother, because she couldn’t quite keep up with the rule book since new ones were added almost every day. The girl so wanted to be free of this, to be free of her mother, that she personally hoped that one day her mother would go to jail for child abuse or anything of the sort.

She was always so close to calling the police or a hotline for abused children, but then the girl pondered what if they thought she was crazy, what if they thought she was a liar, what if they believed her mother instead of her? Or even what would happen to her if everyone had believed her mother and not her.

The girl sat uncomfortably on one of the seats of the couch in her perfectly untouched living room. She stared down at her plaid skirt. The logo on her shirt clearly stated that the girl went to an all girls private school in Toronto.

Although the girl wore the uniform at school just as all the others, it didn’t mean that she fit in. While all the others had iPhones and all the latest electronics that had come out in stores and practically everywhere, the girl didn’t even dare to ask her mother to get her any. She was too afraid of the outcome to even try. Her life was at risk everyday, and how were devices such as Nintendos supposed to help?

The girl continued to stare down at the plaid patterning when her mother started her speech in a well and orderly manner.

“Sally,” she said, “how long has it been since your father died, placing you in my care? Hmm? It has been five long difficult years since I have been trying so hard to turn you into the lady that I never once had the chance to become!”

Sally held her breath when her mother finally finished that sentence. She knew that her punishment wasn’t too far now. This was the sentence that began before all the violence started. Before punishment was taken. Before her blood would spill. Then it would end with the same sentence that Sally had been hearing for so long. ‘I’m only doing what’s best for you, Sally.’

“Sally!” Her mother screamed. “Look at me when I am talking to you!”

Her mother grabbed her by her ear and threw her hard onto the floor. Sally cried, letting out a high pitched scream which only caused her mother to become even more furious.

“Since when did my nine-year old daughter become such a crybaby?” Her mother shouted at her when she grabbed Sally by the collar of her school uniform and threw her again, only this time across the room and into the wall.

Sally’s clear blue eyes were now on the verge of tears and her sandy hair was all askew. Usually, Sally’s hair didn’t have a single strand of hair out of place but now it was covering almost her entire face.

By the time, Sally’s mother had arrived to where her daughter was thrown; Sally had already crawled desperately into the kitchen to where the telephone was. Sally now knew what was at stake here when her mother had thrown her into the wall. She now knew very clearly that her life was on the line.

Sally dialed 911, fumbling with the phone and accidently causing a small sharp fruit knife to fall to the floor causing it to make a clanging noise. Her mother saw what she was doing and randomly threw the first thing she grabbed from the kitchen counter; a meat cleaver.

Luckily, her mother had missed completely but her aim had hurled the knife into the cord, causing it to snap, and got the cleaver stuck onto the middle of Sally’s back door. Sally fell onto the ground trembling with fear. Her mother looked at her with a disappointed face.

“All I ever wanted for you was for you to be a gracious lady, Sally. Was that really so horrible? Now that you tried to disobey me just as your father, I’m afraid you will have to suffer the same consequences as well. I'm only doing what’s best for you, Sally.” Her mother said sadly as if reliving a memory.

“Y-you m-murdered F-f-father?!” Sally managed to squeak through her fear.

“Now, now, Sally, I wouldn’t say ‘murdered’. I mean it is such an unladylike word. I prefer to say ‘I sent him to a better place’. As I will do to you.” Her mother said, suddenly smiling and admiring her knife.

Sally tried to grasp the floor for support, only to find the fruit knife right beside her. As if on cue, her mother cut down with the knife in her hand but Sally dodged quickly making her mother’s speed no match for a nine-year old child with a will to live.

Her mother fell crashing to the floor from the hard momentum and the knife in her hand slid under the stove.

At the moment of impulse, Sally brought the knife down into the back of her mother and into the spot of her body where her mother’s black heart should have been if she ever had one. Blood slowly came pouring out of her mother like a small stream.

Sally trembled and shivered as she knelt beside her mother where Eleanor St. Rose spoke her final words.

“No one understands me. I wanted the best for your father and the best for you but no one understands my methods of filling your minds of my infinite knowledge. No one understands.” Her mother’s words came out in a fumble of mixed words but her daughter knew what she had said.

“I understand now, mother. I believe I’ve gone mad as well, mother.”

With that, her mother smiled that grotesque smile of hers, and the light in her eyes blew out.