181 Days of Madeline Jesty

Chapter 27: Self-Care

I woke up early the next day, hoping to run around the perimeter of our land. Around five in the morning of a Sunday had always been the perfect time since our employees weren't required to work earlier than nine. I peeked at my window and felt the crispness of the weather, so I thought I'd give it a jog.

My mind was a ramble of thoughts anyway. Somehow, I was still stuck with my first official date with Mickey and then Mom going to the PTA conference. Although I wasn't bothered a bit my Michael's arrogance, the fact that all those happened yesterday was surreal.

Unanswered questions filled my head—about Amielle's whereabouts, about Mom's plans, about Mickey's feelings toward me—as if my nearing demise wasn't enough to make me go insane. If I were someone else, I would applaud myself not only for surviving the family drama but also for welcoming the fate that awaited me with open arms and not acting like a madwoman.

This made me think, Am I being too unconcerned about it? Is this normal? It was as if I had accepted it—no, maybe I did have. It came to me as a shock at first . . . then fear. Then acceptance came quicker than I expected, only because I knew how I would live the remaining days of my life.

It didn't necessarily mean that I wanted to die per se. I just didn't like to exist further and be a slave of my fate and had accepted that the life that had only been shared to me was now being taken back. Besides, life had no reset button, and one couldn't consider death as one because nobody knew what came after. So there's that.

People told me how lucky I was to be born with silver shoes, but never did they acknowledge the emptiness I felt along with the life I was destined to have, along with the curse bestowed upon me. With all these inner demons, only Mickey was able to tell me to seek light somehow. But the light was nowhere to be found.

I was having these thoughts when I heard a woman whimpering, so I stopped in my tracks and slowly, quietly followed the sound to find out where it was coming from. It led me to one of the huge trees planted on our land, but I didn't dare come nearer to avoid scaring this person away. It might be Suzie . . . or one of female workers. If it was, I had to make a way to know the source of their grief and somehow tell it to my mother. We had to ensure their well-being in our grounds.

When the woman stood up and turned around, I was surprised to see my mother.

"I'm tired . . . I'm tired, Daniel . . ." she mumbled. But somehow, her words managed to reach my ears.

Frozen from shock, I didn't utter a word; to be more correct, I wasn't able to. She was still wearing her sleeping wardrobe, a silk magenta Victorian nightgown and a pair of bedroom slippers, her hair messily tied up in a bun. She walked aimlessly forward, bumping onto another tree. This woke her up, I guess, because she looked from left to right, as if checking for any onlookers, and then slapped her cheeks with her palms before she hastily treaded the path back to our house.

What is she tired of? I asked myself. Does she miss Dad? Is it about me? Is she tired of me? Does she plan to replace Dad and she's asking his permission in spirit? It was the first time I saw and hear her cry since the night Dad went missing.

Now my mind was more baffled than ever.

I ran back to my room and hurriedly got my phone, thinking to send a message to Steph and tell her what I saw. But for some reason, I backed out from my plan. I felt that it was not just some gossip I could talk about with Steph but a secret I wasn't just prepared to tell anybody. Even I myself could not believe what I saw.

I jogged to clear my mind, but it's more amorphous than it was yesterday, I thought to myself. Hence, I decided to carry out my favorite self-care activity, which I only did during special occasions to embrace and enjoy its rarity—lighting candles, opening a fragrance bottle, and submerging myself into the bathtub filled with warm water and rose petals.