MOLLY
The Present
Grief was a word I had heard throughout my early teens, but understanding the weight of its meaning came later. On the same day as my birthday. The second of August, and the day I turned sixteen—a day that was anythingbutsweet. On the evening of that day, my mother died.
Rachel Miller’s existence had been mercilesslyrippedaway, and why? Because one of our neighbours, Jack Robinson, had decided to drive home one night, back to his dysfunctional family, drunk.
The forty-something takeaway owner had been five times over the legal limit. Had Robinsonnotploughed his car into my mother’s Prius, he would have faced a fine and the possibility of six months in prison. Now, he would rot behind bars for well over a decade. Taking a life whilst inebriated behind the wheel was manslaughter, a sentence which would force him to serve fourteen years in prison.
Fourteen years in prisonfor taking my mother from me? I still couldn’t process such a meagre punishment. It wasn’t enough; the man had taken that one person who meant the world to me.
And now I felt like the orphan I wasn’t. I had a father who lived overseas, but my parents were separated, so we didn’t see each other much; hence that terrifying feeling of being parentless.
When the news of her death struck, I was shocked to my core. Initially, I had been told my mother died in a caraccident. The police couldn’t give out the details until the investigation had been carried out, and it had taken over a week for them to conclude. That had been thelongestweek of my life; the not knowing had eaten me up, and I hadn’t slept for days. Once it became clear that the incident was due to a case of drink-driving, I felt waves of nausea, followed by an immense blood-churning anger. A drunk driver hadsmashedhis car into my mother's, killing her almost instantly.
Another human being wasresponsibleformymother's death. I had also felt a strange,perversesatisfaction of having someone to blame. And as it turned out, it was a person known to my family; the owner of our local chip shop. Somewhere I would go often with my friends on our way home from school.
During the weeks that followed Mum’s death, I struggled to walk past that shop. It remained closed now that its owner was in prison, and the boarding had malicious graffiti written all over it.
Murdering scum! Alco bastard! Rot in hell!
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t added to that.
Did I want Jack Robinson to serve more time,suffer, and maybe face the death sentence like hardened killers did on the Row in parts of America? No. Ijustwanted my mum back.
Drawing my thoughts away from Robinson, I shuffled back into my seat. The noise of the plane’s jet engines was strangely hypnotic.
I wasn’t involved in identifying my mother’s body. I wanted my memory of her to stay the same, with her beautiful face and sweet, warm smile. Not laid there pale and cold, looking bruised and battered. My mother’s best friend, Patricia, had taken on that responsibility. Patricia, aka Pat, was like the aunt I never had, and I was thankful for her support. Did I regret that now?Notseeing Mum’s body?Sometimes. It almost felt like I hadn’t said goodbye.
After the initial shock of her death had set in, I’d felt various emotions, allcrashingtogether in one chaotic mess, intense sadness at the top of that pile. It was closely followed by a yearning to have my mother hold me, as fear of a future without her had kicked in. And then the feelings of guilt started.
I remember trying to recall the last thing I said to her that morning before school. Had we parted on good terms? Was I a brat? My mother and I occasionally bickered when I was getting ready for school. She would usually nag me about why I hadn’t packed my bag the night before.
Thankfully, that morning before her untimely death, we had parted with a hug and a discussion about a shopping trip to buy stuff for our holiday.
Life as I had known it was over.
Grief.There it was, that word again. I’d googled it, reading how it was aprofound, multifaceted experience. In layman’s terms, it was shit. There had been no pattern tothe emotions I’d experienced. You can’t explain it, not to someone who hasn’t been through it. In a nutshell, it was the most painful thing I hadeverhad to deal with, and I still wasn’t out of the woods.
But life goes on. Doesn’t it?
America, what was it that Alicia Keys sang about?That concrete jungle where dreams are made of? I took a deep breath and glanced around the plane’s cabin. That was where I was heading: to America, to the big old U S of A, and to live with my only other living relative, Richard Miller, thatestrangedfather I mentioned.
Aunt Pat called him the Sperm Donor, which wasn’t totally fair. It’s not like he had run off after knocking my mother up. At least he’d put a ring on it, and for a few years, things had been fine. Their relationship had worked.
As the plane hit an air pocket and the old lady beside me apologisedagainfor grabbing my leg, I thought about my parents.
Rachel and Richard met in England during their teacher training at Middlesex University. My father was from Rhode Island in the US and had decided to train abroad in London.
From what my mother said, it had been a whirlwind relationship; two students throwing caution to the wind and having a great time together until Mum got pregnant, which, as unplanned pregnancies do, complicated things.
And then, using mymother’swords, they made an evenbiggermistake by getting married.
From what I had been told, things had worked out fine until my father’s mother (who had still lived in the States at the time) got diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It forced Richard to travel abroad several times during the year. As you can expect, this added pressure to their finances and relationship.
Eventually, my father got an amazing opportunity to step up as the Head of a school in his hometown. It would allow him to climb the career ladderandlook after his mother. So, he took the job and left his wife and child in the UK.
Brutal right?
