And Then She Left

My back rested against cool porcelain as my eyes shifted from her blush-covered cheeks to the quick flick of the wand in her hand. She leaned into the mirror, tilted her head and pursed her lips seeing the beckoning teen vixen of not so many years ago.

I envied her. Her easy beauty contrasted the awkward angles of my face, the thickness of my limbs. The golden locks of hair that curled around her ears and traveled down her back were unlike the dark and heavy stands that hung like a Gothic drape over my eyes. My gap-toothed smile was nothing like hers. She could freeze a man in place with her seductive curling lip. Broken as she was, her beauty gave her refuge. Her beauty, warm and welcoming to him, left us cold. Empty. Lost.

As a little girl I would sit on the fuzzy-covered toilet seat and watch her spread colors on her cheeks, her lips, her eyes. I would mimic the faces she made in the mirror, wishing that one day our reflections would match. She would glance at me, arching a brow while pulling heated rollers from her hair. Was she wishing the same?

"I'm leaving." Her words banged in my ears. I should try to understand. I'm not a child anymore. I should be supportive. I should . . . I should . . .

But instead I was the awkward little girl made of sharp edges clashing with soft parts, wishing for a spread of pink across my cheeks, the turn of a wand before my eyes, the easy beauty that made life seem so . . . perfect.

But perfect never was. Looking in the mirror the reflection stares back. Broken.

And then she left.

My mother left.

*I had to leave this post as it was in the early morning hours when I spit it upon the page. I couldn't believe I posted a stinging memory such as this so close to Mother's Day--a day of celebration. But earlier in the week I was left standing, shuffling through cards with tin foiled and glittered exclamations of a mother's greatness and it left me with a furrowed brow and a heavy gut. Here's the rest of the story . . .

Her mother left her in the scattered dust of four spinning old whitewall tires. Her mother left her staring into a future that held no sweetly sung lullabies, no tea parties with flowered pots and pretend guests. Her mother left the tiny girl with soft curls and barefoot feet with promises that she never intended to fulfill.

Tiny, broken and lost she clung to scattered memories of the woman who birthed her, the woman who said she loved her, the woman who found something better. She clung to the empty words that her mother, clutching a beaten suitcase in one hand and keys in the other, whispered in her ear. The little girl knew no truth existed there. She knew this woman would never draw her into her arms, bury her face into the sweaty curls that wrapped around her neck and tell her she would never leave her.

My mother, so little, so lost, yet so full of hope, watched as her own mother stumbled into an old Chevy, slammed the door behind her and pulled away.

The once abandoned little girl was now a woman with children of her own. And there I was, her nearly grown daughter who watched her as she covered imperfections and made silent promises to the reflection in the mirror. My mother would find her happiness. She would not be lost anymore.

Even if meant she had to let us go.

And she did. For a time. We were never the same, the young woman tripping into adulthood, the barely teenage boy full of angst, the little girl with scribbled dreams, the baby with a lifetime ahead of her. We were never the same when she kissed us with rose-stained lips, the heady scent of her perfume trailing behind her.

She's not really leaving, is she? My little sister's eyes questioned me as the tears began to form, blurring the blue of her eyes.

"Yes. She is." I said loudly, with no words. I knew she had to go. I knew she felt she had to go. And I knew that one day she'd realize what she left behind.

Broken as she was, as she is . . . the love I have for her finds a way to fill the gaps.

I often think of her, that little girl left alone in a trail of dust, her hands reaching to her eyes to push aside the dirty tears she didn't understand. I want so much to hold her . . . tell her that one day she'll have all the love she'll ever need.

Tiny. Broken. Mine. Mama.