I remember it like it was yesterday, which is strange because a lot of the memories I have of my mother are foggy, broken into chunks, or outright gone, and I only know they happened because I remember the aftermath, or I wrote it down before my brain could paint over it so I could go to school the next day without falling apart.
But I guess that's because this one is good. Whereas most that remain are fairly neutral, overlaid with that familiar harsh tension but otherwise normal, for her.
This one is good.
"There's a cabin she had," I tell Paul. "Inherited it from her grandfather. Been in the family for generations, she talked about it a lot and always said that it was basically where she grew up. We went there. One time, in all my childhood, she took me with her. Before any of my siblings were born, so it was just us."
I remember arriving in the dark, in the middle of the night. Painfully tired, half-asleep in the backseat.
She was... She was in a good mood. Excited, happy. Despite me. It was positively the strangest thing that she'd ever done; she shut off the car, got out, and came to open my door before I had the chance to get out. I didn't know what I had done wrong, but I was too tired to react in time.
But she didn't hit me. She didn't yell at me, she didn't say anything.
She unbuckled my seatbelt and slid her arms underneath me, and carefully lifted me out of the car and against her chest. I pretended to be asleep as she walked up the porch steps and unlocked the door, stepping into the cabin and flicking on the light.
She sighed, this sweet, sentimental, relieved sigh, a sound I'd never heard her make before. Soft. And as young as I was, I knew that place and that moment was significant. I knew that I'd never forget the feeling of being that close to her, hearing her breathe, feeling her heartbeat with my ear against her neck. I knew that this was somehow normal, as alien and frightening as it was to me coming from her.
She walked down the hall and put me into bed, drawing the blanket up to my chin and brushing my hair from my forehead, kissing it.
I forced my body to remain still. I was certain she could see me shaking.
She spoke, and her voice wasn't her own. It wasn't the one I had always known.
"You look just like your great grandfather," she said wistfully. "He would have adored you."
I stop.
The cigarette in my fingers has gone out, and I'm back in Paul's office, on the couch. My hands are shaking and I set the cigarette down so I can press them against my face.
He stops writing and I know he's looking at me, but I don't care. I know he's waiting for me to keep going, but that's it. She left, I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning and she was still in a good mood but she mostly went back to ignoring me or ordering me to do things.
"'He would have adored you,'" I echo again into my hands. My voice breaks and I can't handle the weight of it all anymore.
I fall into myself, and start to sob into my hands.
It wasn't fair, what she did to me. I was a child. It wasn't fair that she showed me that gentleness just once, proved that she /could/ love me, that she could be kind, and then... never again. Never again.
It's a good memory, but it might have been the cruelest trick she ever pulled. Because it's so hard to think of it and to try to fit it into the vision I have of her, that monstrous, hateful woman. That couldn't have been her, only one of them can be real but I know that both of them existed in her.
A hand rests against my shoulder and I jump up from the couch, sure that it's her. I can't breathe, it can't be her, and it's not. It's Paul.
"Woah, hey," he says, trying to sound comforting. "It's just me. It's okay."
I can't get myself under control. My breath is getting away from me, my hands won't stop shaking, my mind is racing and I don't know what to do. I'm useless, I can't do anything.
Paul stands up and closes the distance between us again, carefully grabbing my hands.
"Come on back to me, buddy. Listen to my voice, okay?" I want to trust him. I've trusted him with my life before. He's never let me down. "Listen to my breathing, breathe with me. Try your best, everything's gonna be okay. Feel my hands, I'm with you."
He starts to breathe, inhaling deeply through his nose and letting it all out in a sigh through his mouth. I try to follow him, but it's hard, and I can't stop crying, but I squeeze his hands and feel the shape of bones through the thin layer of skin and flesh, and I know that he's real and he's here and he's my friend and I can trust him.
He breathes again, and I do it, too, a little better this time. He carefully pulls on my hands and I lean into the hug, nodding when he tells me it's okay to cry.
"You're doing so well," he says, almost a note to himself, like I wasn't meant to hear it, and it somehow makes it sound more genuine and kind.
"Thank you."
"I'm so proud of you," he continues. "You've been through a lot and I know it can be really hard."
"It's so hard."
"I know. It's hard for everyone. With time and effort, it gets easier. Like when you started lifting weights."
"This is a million times harder than lifting weights," I tell him, laughing slightly through the tears.
He chuckles, too. "But you're a million times stronger than you think," he says, and squeezes me a little. Then he lets go, and I feel a box of tissues press against my chest lightly.
"Thank you," I say again, and start to clean myself up, sitting back down on the couch.
He sits beside me, instead of at his desk. He's a therapist, yes. That's his work. But he's also just a guy, who's known me for nearly 10 years, and it's hard to know someone for 10 years and not care about them at all.
"Let's talk about something else for a minute," he offers.
"Like what?"
"What about..." He stops himself. "What about your siblings?"
I start laughing, and the tears start flowing again, easier this time. Through them, I tell him, "If you're trying to find something to talk about that won't make me cry, you have failed, sir."
He snickers, anxious and apologetic. "How about you pick, then?"
"Sure. Let's talk about Arthur."