As long as I can remember I've always loved to sing. Often times it would be songs I have heard from my mother. Echoing the words she sang, not knowing the meaning. As I got older I have withdrawn with my singing abilities. No longer wanting the spotlight at family gatherings, my voice was a secret locked away, only saved for humming and singing in the shower. My mother's voice was haunting, she sang to herself to escape the life we have, or she had. She would sing while she cooked, in our cottage-styled kitchen with white wood cabinets and yellow walls. She always had jars filled with candles on the windowsill, but when it was night time and the window would open the wind would blow on them creating a melody to go with the lyrics.
My mother wasn't just a good singer, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She had dark hair that would curl at the ends, and bright hazel eyes that could be seen in the pitch dark. She was beautiful in the accidental kind of way. Every single man that had met her had fallen in love immediately. The only man she had ever truly loved was my father, and he was mad for her too. The last time I had ever seen my mother was the summer I was fourteen. We had been fighting, I wanted to go to the movies with a boy, she swore up and down I was too young and I would get a reputation. We lived in a small town. My mother gets worried very easily, she was very sensitive. I had told her I hated her, the biggest lie I had ever told. She got into her car and drove to the grocery store. The closest grocery store was in another town, she was very upset. There was a crash and my beautiful mother was gone.
Everyone in town loved Lily, I was so proud to have her as a mom. She was quiet but friends with everyone, she was so mysterious that no one could get enough of her. My mother was from a rich, classy family. The kind of family that held elegant dinner parties and attended the country club religiously. My mother was so sick of the New York social structure that the minute my dad asked her to join us in his small Florida town she said yes. My mother was never close to her parents, she dodged their calls saying they would pay her to "drop the old man and bring your Felicity back to where you belong." My mother was a firm believer that money cannot buy happiness.
Presently, I am fifteen and a mute. Ever since my mother left us I lost my voice. She died because of me, I can feel it in my gut. My father is always pleading me to come to church and talk to someone but I can't. I try talking, but my voice isn't there. I can't go to church, I'm a murderer, I am why my mother died. If I hadn't had that stupid crush on Ricky James she would still be here, singing in the kitchen. She would still be here being the prettiest woman in Naomi, Florida. My father tries to act like it doesn't bother him, but I can tell how he barely looks at me. I look similar to my mom, but plainer, and not as pretty. I learned at school if you cover a burning candle the light burns out due to the lack of oxygen. In my house my mother was the oxygen, and we're burning out because she's gone.
At school everyone is fragile around me, as if with one word I would break. I have virtually no real friends, I have the girls who are too nice to tell me not to sit at their tables, I have the girls who treat me as if I'm special needs, talking slowly to make sure I comprehend every word that comes out of their mouth, and I have the teachers who whisper about me in the lounges, and give me special tests afraid that I am academically scarred from the loss. In our small town a death is considered a plague on everyone in town.
