Short Stories II

Those Weeping Eyes

"Beatrice, I'm going to have to ask you to sit down."

I hovered along the door frame, matching Ms. Gonzalez's sharp vision. Slowly, I made my way to the little wooden chair in front of her desk. There was only one in the room, leaving me in her direct, puncturing surveillance. 

She was an older woman, with frosted black hair that swept over her ears and curled at the nape, much like my own. With my entirely Persian decent, my short curls resembled the counselor's. But unlike her, my black spotted eyes were wary in line with her stern auburn. 

"Yes, Ms. Gonzalez?" I breathed through my tooth gap as softly as a butterfly's landing. Silent, but carefully precise.

"Your mother... umm, yes, Miss Liz. She is your adoptive mom, yes?" Her voice held an aged rasp that intensified her energy, leaving me more anxious than I'd been seconds ago.

"Yes ma'am."

"And your adoptive father?" She leaned forward in her seat. She knew that he was out of the picture before asking the question, and made it plenty obvious to.

"Yes, er-no, he's not here anymore. He went off to California a while ago, so it's just my mom and I."

"...Yes, I see..." Her finger held steadily on her bottom lip as she pulled a confidential file from a folder indented with my name. Even more surprisingly, it was filled with paperwork at the least of my recognition.

"Ernest Beatrice Yuvon?"

"Yes ma'am," I slurred, peering my eyes at the headlines of the file contents. I couldn't read the little print, but I had a feeling that it wasn't normal to have paper on top of paper about me.

"Your mother has some concerns about your safety, and umm... I understand that you can tell from this file size,"

I nodded, my wide eyes extending in length as sweat beaded underneath my bangs. 

"But she says that you've been covered in unexplained wounds over the past couple of months? Yes, umm... and she says that you act much differently than before. You're more quiet and um, much more self-deprecating."

Shit. 

"She says that you arrive at home much later than you had previously, and she's very confused. She says umm... she says that you're becoming selfish much like your birth mother. She thinks that you aren't accepting her motherhood and you uh, you're going to great lengths to worry her on purpose."

"Miss Gonzalez, that's not it... I love my mom." I stuttered, feeling as though my words were failing my thoughts as they raced along each other.

"Than why did you start hurting yourself?"

"Miss Gonzalez..."

"Beatrice. If you really loved your mother than you'd have been in my office much sooner than this."

I wasn't sure what to say at that point. I often didn't say much about my sadness, so holding my lips together was easier than defending myself. I knew that it was selfish, especially with the aids epidemic raging since 83'. I mean, it's only been two years and lots have been lost to it, and I'm here making my mother feel like she isn't enough for me, when really that isn't the case at all.

"I understand ma'am."

"Beatrice,"

I glanced up at her after holding my gaze on the floor, noticing that her eyes were discolored in a faint pink, with glaze over her light irises. 

"Beatrice, I lost my son to what you have," She sniffled, rubbing at her small nose with the back of her hand before reaching for my knobby fingers.

"I don't want your mother to feel what I have felt in the last year without him. I umm... I didn't know back then that he needed me. He liked boys, uh, yes. I did not accept that because I am a dedicated catholic. But he took his own life and Beatrice, I can't let you do the same,"

"It started with this umm... self injury. This harm to himself, and then I found him...."

A single tears traced the faint wrinkled underneath her eyes, portraying a sadness that only traced the surface of what her life had been like for these sixty or so years.

"I found him... in my room, on the floor with my medications...."

She squeezed my hands then, ignoring the subtle streams pouring from her eyes in order to match my own, dark and wide eyes. Her auburn showed a feeling that I knew to well, which was something that I never thought I'd see from this women.

"I have all of these pictures in your file, trying to understand how somebody can be in so much pain to kill themselves... but I didn't understand until I saw your eyes Beatrice, that great sadness in your eyes is something that I saw in my son. I-I want to help you. I want to clip your nails and strip the razors in your room so you will never slice that beautiful white skin, do you hear me? I umm... I have to do something for you..."

"Miss Gonzalez..."

I tilted my head to the side as I began to tear up. She really wanted to understand what it felt like to feel this heaviness in your chest that just drags to your feet, or the tingling of lost feeling in your fingers as everything slips away. This old women, with such heavy disturbance clouding her eyes, wanted to hear me.

I took a deep breath then, sighing the weighted air with a stumbling effort. Leaning into the desk with my small forearms, I took this women's hands into my own. I held her gaze; this painful, ruminating gaze. Feeling a shared emotion was enough to make me want to cry of hope. I could be free from the thunderstorm that constantly followed my trail. My stage was opened for me as I took the microphone by it's throat, grasping the new tool as though it were manna. 

"It all began as early as my memory can go..."