Sketchbook

Chapter 19

The next morning arrived. I woke up before everyone else did. At least I thought I did. I went over to Damien's crib to find him wide awake. He didn't cry though. He was a very easy baby throughout the time he's been home. He never really cried when he was hungry or had a full diaper. He only cried when he was tired. I get it too. When I don't get enough sleep, I'm at my most cranky as well.
I picked him up from his crib and carried him back to my bed. Shortly after sitting down, I felt Charles behind me as he gets up. He kisses me on my shoulder before looking at Damien. He caresses his beautiful chubby face. Then, he takes him out of my arms and cradles him while giving him soft kisses.
     I looked across the room to where Gabby was sleeping, except she didn't look like it. Her eyes were closed, but she was moving a lot. Moving too much. Was she having a bad dream? I walked over to her until I was standing over her. I could see she was breathing a bit heavy. I slowly reach out for her and touch her. I try to stir her awake, and she lets out this blood curdling scream. I start yelling her name out of fear that something was wrong with her.
     "Gabby! GABBY!!" I yelled.
     Her eyes popped open as she sat straight up. She was breathing very heavily, and I could tell her heart was pounding when she placed her hand over it.
     "Gabby, hey, are you okay?" I said calmly.
     Charles took Damien out of the room since he started crying. Gabby watched them leave and started apologizing.
     "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare him," she said with tears in her eyes.
     "Gabby, what happened?" I asked.
     She calmed down her breathing a bit before looking at me, "I dream about that night, every single night." She said.
     "That night with Brady?" I asked.
     She nodded. "Ever since it happened, I've dreamt about it every night. Every single night."
     "Gosh, Gabby, it's been over a month now. You still dream about it?"
     She begins to cry more, unable to say anything else.
     Out of nowhere, my parents run through the door, "What on earth is going on?" Dad asked. Mother noticed Gabby crying and came towards her. She ran to her the same way she ran to me the first time I fell off my bike when I was 5. She caressed her face and wiped her tears.
     "Everything is alright now, Gabrielle, Brady is gone, and you are free. And Jayda is free, we're all free from the danger. You don't have to cry anymore."
     I could tell that nothing of what Mother said sank into Gabby one bit, but she's trying. She's showing Gabby that she cares, and that she wants to help. She then takes Gabby's hands and prays with her, and Father joins in. He kneels down next to both of them. He puts one hand on Mother's shoulder and the other on Gabby's shoulder.
     "Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you continue to watch over Gabrielle as she continues to go on everyday after going through something that we don't understand,"
     I understand...
     "And Father, please continue to give us the strength and give Gabby the strength to move on from this traumatizing experience. May she be able to sleep better knowing that you watch over her, and that you will keep her in your hands. We thank you, Lord, for all you do for us, in Jesus' name, Amen." Father then continues to reassure Gabby that everything will be ok before exiting the room. Mother follows.
     Charles comes back into the room shortly after but alone.
     "Where's Damien?" I asked.
     "Your mom took him." He said.
     Gabby gets up wiping away her tears.
     "You ok, Gabby?" Charles asked.
     "Yea, I'm fine." She said in a low whisper, "I just don't get a lot of sleep."
     "Clearly," he said, "especially when you spend a whole month in a prison."

A couple hours go by, and we've all eaten our breakfast that Mother made for us. We all hung out in the living room and watched a movie. Gabby recommended watching a romance or a sci-fi cause everything else we had was horror and action, and Gabby didn't want to watch any of that.
Suddenly, we all hear someone ringing the doorbell. Father went to get the door since he was closest to it. When he went to go open the door, we could hear him greeting someone who sounded like a woman, but no one recognizable, at least not to me. Charles and Gabby both looked at each other in disbelief before both running to the door to which I followed behind because I didn't understand what was going on.
Once we all reached the front door we saw a woman standing there. A beautiful woman. She wasn't too tall or too short. She had on a gray blouse with a pair of black pants. She was wearing short pumps that matched her dark brunette hair. She also had the most stunning pair of earrings. They were small hoops but with a flower in the middle of them. I looked at this woman completely unsure of who she was. I knew that I had never seen this woman a day in my life.
I looked over at Charles and Gabby, and I could see that they knew this woman.
"Oh my gosh," Charles said.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were dead somewhere," Gabby said with tears filling her eyes.
I continued to grow suspicious so I asked, "Who are you?"
She looked at me and said, "I'm Brady's mother."
My eyes widened. She continues.
"I'm here because I heard what happened to him. I was even there at the trial." She said.
Gabby interrupts, "You were there?!" There was silence for a moment. "And you didn't come see me once?!"
"Gabrielle, baby, I wanted to, I-" she stopped when she noticed Charles had tears going down his face. "Oh, Charles, honey.."
She began to walk towards him but he backed away. He backed up until he hit a wall accidentally knocking down a picture frame. He then left for the living room again. Gabby followed him also with tears in her eyes.
Only Father and I were standing at the door with this woman. The woman. The woman who abandoned her only family, who left her child to be assaulted in many different ways for years. This is the woman that raised a monster.
Gabby said she was always on drugs though. This woman definitely doesn't look like she's been on anything anytime lately though.
"I do apologize, ma'am, but it seems that your presence isn't welcome," Father says before beginning to shut the door, but before he could, she stops him.
"Wait, please, I came all this way." She said desperately.
"All the way from where exactly?" I asked.
She said, "Please, let me explain myself. I promise I am not the woman I used to be."
I wanted to send this woman away just from the sight of how she affects Gabby and Charles. However, I was desperate to know why the hell she did the things she did. So, I asked Father to let her in.
We went to the living room where Gabby and Charles were. They were sitting right next to each other just talking quietly to each other. They saw me walking in with Brady's mother. Father went upstairs saying he would give us privacy.
Charles instantly got up and started yelling. "What makes you think you can just show up out of the blue after everything you caused Brady and Gabrielle. You left them, so what makes you think you can come back now. Why the fuck are you even here?!!"
"I'm not here to fix anything. I'm not even going to apologize for what I've done because I know that nothing I say is going to change that. I am here to tell you what really happened when I left." She said.
"When you left?" Gabby said, "if I remember correctly, there wasn't really a time when you were even there."
"I know that, but please listen to me. I came and left so much to go party and do all kinds of things that I shouldn't have been doing, but that last time I left, when I didn't come back, I left to heal myself."
She walked over to the couch where they were and sat down, only they both scooted away from her. I stayed standing right where I was and listened.
"The last time I left is when I went to a bar. I was crying my eyes out because I knew I failed you and Brady as a mother. I went to drink something strong, but the bartender noticed I was crying. He offered to help me through my problems, so I vented to him my whole life basically."
"Get to the point," Charles said.
"Long story short, he knew someone who worked at a rehab facility not far from where we lived at the time. He gave me an offer, if I went there for a year, without trying to leave, and with good behavior the entire time, I wouldn't have to pay a cent. So, I took his offer, and I stayed in rehab an entire year. And I got better, Gabrielle. It was one of the hardest things I ever did."
"But when your little cleansing was over with, you still didn't come back so where'd you go then?" Gabby asked.
"Gabrielle, please understand, I couldn't go back to the woman that I was. You were better off without me." She said.
"HE PUT HIS HANDS ON ME!!! HE HURT ME!!!" Gabby screamed at the top of her lungs. "I would've been better off sleeping under a fucking bridge on the coldest night of the year! Why did you leave me?! WHY??!"
"I left because I failed you!"
"No, you failed me when you left!"

There was silence. Gabby no longer had tears in her eyes, only anger and disappointment. Her mother was the one wiping tears from her eyes now. Then, Charles finally stepped into the conversation.
     "You know, my birth father used to beat the shit out of my mom. He destroyed everything that belonged to her, mentally abused her, and he even beat me for no reason. He did this because he was an alcoholic and drug addict. I knew my mom was in a defenseless situation, and she knew it too. But you know what she did. She waited to find the right moment to not only leave, but take me with her because she would never have even fathomed abandoning her own child. Even if she thought I'd be better off. She waited for the right moment, and we ran like hell. We struggled for months before she met my step dad, who just happens to be wealthy. It's why I lived in a nice house and had a nice car. I started playing soccer afterwards as well. But I couldn't have gotten any of that without my parents. Even now, she still calls me. Almost every single day she calls me and tells me that she loves me and misses me."
     I had learned something knew about Charles that day. Something he had never told me about.
"You have a loving mother, Charles," she said.
"Yea, he said, "and you know what that means? It means you have no excuse," he said in a cold tone before getting up and walking back upstairs.
There was more silence. Nobody said anything for a moment, but then her mother spoke up.
"He's right, I have no excuse, and like I said before, I didn't come here to apologize. I only came to tell you what happened."
"So what happens now?" Gabby asked.
"I have a home to get back too."
"You have a fucking home," Gabby said, "you know we don't even live in that other house anymore right? Brady got his own place and tortured me in it. I bet you didn't know that."
     Her mother said, "Actually, I knew he moved out. I ended up going back to that other house eventually after rehab, and I found it completely abandoned, and all the money was gone. I returned back home only to see what was on the news channel. I saw the new house that my son moved into... and that he'd been murdered in it." The look on her face was cold. She looked vengeful. "So, I went to the trial. I heard everything that had happened. I thought to myself, 'What would've been different had I just been there the whole time? Would my son still be alive? Would poor Gabrielle not have gone through everything she went through?'"
     "I guess you'll never know," Gabby said.
     She nodded. "You're right, I'll never know... on second thought, I think I do want to apologize. I wanna apologize for raising Brady. For even existing." Me and Gabby both look at her strangely. "If only I was never even born, then Brady would've never been born and you all would've had so much easier lives." A tear rolls down her cheek as she turns and walks out the door. All of us are silent as she walks out, but when I looked over to Gabby, I noticed she had a concerned look on her face.
     "Gabby, what is it?" I asked.
     She said, "The last time she talked like that she tried to hang herself from the ceiling fan."
     I ended up with a concerned look on my face as well, so Gabby and I followed her to the front door.
As she walks outside, we watch her get in her car. She doesn't drive off though. She sits there for awhile. Gabby and I just stand there waiting for her to do something. Eventually, she starts going through stuff in her glove box. She pulls something out holding it in her lap. We can't tell what it is though. She rested her head on the steering wheel, and for a long time she stayed like that.
Charles came to the window after some time. "Is she seriously still here?"He asks in disgust.
I nod my head. "She's been sitting like that for a while now," I said.
We all then just look at her.
She then finally sat straight up again. Her face was completely numb. She had no expression on her face. Instantly, she holds up what was in her lap. Before we could realize that it was a gun, she shoots herself.
Gabby screams so loud, you could hear her heart shatter. She immediately ran out the door for her mother, and I ran after her. Charles was behind me. Gabby instantly opens the car door and watches her mother's lifeless body fall out of it. Gabby catches her as she's falling down preventing her from hitting the ground too hard. I was in complete shock and fear. I didn't know what to do. I never in my life witnessed someone dying in front of my eyes. Gabby was crying so bad she could barely breathe. Charles hasn't said a word. He was completely speechless. Gabby turned to us begging us to call an ambulance. Charles immediately did so.
When the ambulance arrived, they took Gabby's mother pronouncing her dead at the scene. Mother and father had Gabby in their embrace. She wasn't crying anymore, but she had no expression on her face either. I walked over to Charles who had Damien in his arms. The police were done asking him questions, which took a long ass time, so I went over to comfort him. He had tears in his eyes.
"Charles.." I said softly trying to get him to open up to me.
He replied, "Why is this life so fucked up? What did we do to deserve this life?" He cries even harder. I hug him.
As tears build up in my eyes, I say, "I don't know... I don't know."