Blame Me

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Elise

Learning was a good thing and sometimes it wasn't. Or maybe it was always good, but it wasn't the best for some people in certain situations. And I didn't know where I was placed on this scale.

I sat in the middle of my tiny bedroom, surrounded by papers and boxes, all of which where my mother's.

"Are you going to sleep, Elise?" Grandpa asked me as he walked into the room, sitting on the edge of my bed.

"In a bit," I told him, rummaging through a box filled with pictures.

Grandpa sighed as he reached down and grabbed a photograph,"I hope you are not upset with me,"

"I'm not upset," I replied as he passed me the photo.

It was a picture of my mother when she was younger, her grey eyes piercing through the paper. She looked a lot like I did when I was that age.

"I just wish I knew that stuff before," I confessed, "It might have helped me,"

Grandpa looked down at me, his eyes filled with a love that I never really saw but I knew of.

"It might have," he agreed, "Looking back it might have been the wrong decision. But at the time it felt right to let you wait,"

I didn't say anything as he continued speaking, "I didn't want to loose you as well, Elise. Loosing a daughter was hard enough, I didn't want to loose my granddaughter from the same cause,"

"What was the cause?" I asked, looking back down at the photograph.

Grandpa was silent for a minute, "A lot of things, Elise, a lot of things. But grief took a great toll on her, and I feared that it would do the same to you. I wanted to wait until I knew that you were ready to read it,"

I nodded, not saying anything.

"You're a strong girl, Elise," Grandpa said softly, "And you will get through this, I promise,"

He got up from the bed and kissed my on the forehead before walking out of my room, slowly closing the door behind him.

Looking around at all of the open boxes that surrounded me, it was hard to wrap my head around the idea that everything that was around me now, was all that was left of my mother's life. That and all of the memories that were deep in the back of our minds, a bit hazy and disoriented, but there all the same.

And that made me sad and angry. There would have been more of her left behind if she stayed for a while longer, she could have done so much, been so much, if she stayed and gave herself the opportunity to allow the world to put her in a place of happiness. It made me angry because if she would have spent a few minutes thinking about something other than herself, like me or Grandpa, then she could see that maybe our love for her was enough. But then again, she said that she was suffering and people who are in pain do things things that they wouldn't normally do if they didn't have this sense of darkness casting over them at all times.