Sickness

I didn't know how sick my mother was that day. Being only a child at the time, my understanding of sickness was limited, but seeing the look on my father's face when he informed me of her sickness told me enough that I should be worried. He told me that her illness took her quickly, and that she most likely didn't have much time left. She was coughing all night and seemed delirious. I didn't really understand it at the time, but that was my mother's last day alive. The next morning when I woke up she was gone. My father had already called the coroner and asked that the body be taken away so I wouldn't have to see her in that state. I was heartbroken that I couldn't say goodbye, but was told my father was doing it to protect my fragile young mind. We rarely spoke of the incident. I wasn't allowed to ask any questions, but as I got older I had more and more questions. I tried and tried to ask my father about my mother, but he pushed me away until I finally grew too old to live at home.

After a few years, I got a call that my father got sick. I rushed back home to tend to him, the same feelings rising up as they did when my mother was sick. When I arrived, the entire house was in disarray, as if a hurricane swept through it recently. I found my father laying in his bed, his face pale and his body seeming smaller than I had remembered. When I spoke to him, he barely could speak above a whisper. I got him some medicine to help with his pain, and I got to work fixing up the house to the best of my ability.

As I was going through a box of papers that had scattered across the floor I found some documents with my mother's handwriting. As I skimmed through them, I felt my mother's fear and anxieties come to life. She had written that she was worried about my father. She was convinced that he was doing something to make her sick. She only had started feeling that way when she discovered him cheating and confronted him. The affairs had started after my sister was born and events continued to escalate.

Entering my father's room, I showed him the journal from my mother. I was not expecting him to become so enraged by the sight of the journal, but he snatched it from my hand and threw it across the room. It seemed to use up all his strength to do such a gesture, as he sunk back into the bed with a huff.

"Just clean the house, stop being nosy."

I left the room with the journal and quietly closed the door. Why was father so angry? Was it true then or was he just upset mother had accused him? I went back to the box of papers and continued sorting through it. There was a large amount of papers as well as decorative items. Reading some of the papers, I saw love letters from other women to my father, as well as what appeared to be stabbed marks through the papers. At the bottom of the box I found a large brooch, one that you would wear for only a special occasion. It was of a large rose with a smaller rose attached to it. The needle was exposed, and I rotated it carefully in my hand so as to not prick myself. I had never seen my mother wear this before, so I decided to bother my father again with a question.

I knocked softly on the door to his room and entered. He was staring out the window nearest to his bed with a vague, lost expression on his face. I sat at the edge of his bed, the movement causing him to slowly look towards me, his eyes unchanging.

"I had a question about something in mother's box..." I showed him the brooch, holding it up so the front was facing him. He smiled sadly.

"I bought that for your mother when we got married. She adored it. She would wear it everyday, even if we were just at home. Sadly, she stopped wearing it after the stopper for the needle fell off and got lost."

I looked at the face of the brooch, the next question lingering on the tip of my tongue.

"Father...did you poison mother? For finding out what you were doing?"

"Mmm..." his voice grew quieter, barely audible to the human ear. "I panicked. Things were not going well between us and...I wanted something that I didn't deserve. She found out. We fought constantly, and she didn't trust me anymore. I felt trapped with her, but now I realize I brought that upon myself. It was the only way I thought I could free myself. You and your sister were so young, it wouldn't have done you both any good to have separated parents."

"So you killed her instead?! I would have rather had separated parents than one dead one!"

"I'm sorry, son. I messed up. I should have never...this is my punishment now. I feel as sick as your mother was back then. Her spirit is angry. She's been angry since that day. She won't leave me alone. I need to pay for everything..."

I felt my blood boil. This whole time...this whole time he had killed her, she hadn't died due to natural causes or some strange illness. It all made sense now. The reason for the secrecy, I could never question him on what happened or even mention her name. He knew what happened. He caused it. I gripped the brooch tightly in my hand, the needle piercing my hand, causing blood to trickle down my wrist. I threw it onto the bed, getting up and leaving the room. The last thing I heard was my father pleading with me to come back.

____________________________________________________

A few weeks had passed, and I received a phone call from the coroner that lived in my childhood town. He informed me that my father had suddenly passed away. I asked how he died, assuming it was due to his strange illness, but the answer I received was unexpected. According to the coroner, he had bled to death, seemingly to have been stabbed with a small knife, but all that could be found in his room that would remotely be a weapon was a large brooch. Perhaps mother had found her revenge?

The house seemed brighter than the last time I was there. The sun was shining blindingly, and I felt a lifetime of questions fall off my shoulders as I unlocked the front door, opened it, and stepped through. My father had left the house in my name, and I was originally planning on selling it, but after recent events, I decided to move in myself and try to make it more liveable than it was before.

I placed my luggage at the bottom of the staircase, my eyes wandering about the room, deciding on what to work on first. A sound upstairs snapped me out of my thoughts, but I ignored it thinking it was just the old house making noise. I walked through the living room and kitchen, still making notes of renovations. The same noise I heard earlier was not louder. At the same time, I felt strange, as if someone else was there with me. I slowly turned around, expecting to see nothing and that my brain was just playing tricks on me, but in the doorway to the kitchen stood someone. It was a woman paler than snow, her hair up in a loose bun, the nightgown she was wearing looking like it was too big for her body, when reality her body was too skinny for it, her empty eyes somehow holding some amount of light still in them. A small smile graced her lips as she spoke to me.

"Welcome home, son. It's been far too long."

"Mother...it has. It truly has been too long."

For the first time in many years, this house felt like a home once more.