Rising From The Ashes

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

My mom smiled at me happily as we walked into the movie theatre. I smiled back, but the smile was as much of a lie as any words ever could’ve been. I was not happy. And I also could not let my mother know that I was not happy. So, here I stood in a movie theatre, pretending. The ironic thing was that the movie was my idea. Well, I suppose Catherine was the one who really came up with the whole thing.

It all started this morning when Catherine had approached me. She looked almost anxious, an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on her. As much as I asked she refused to tell me what it was that was bothering here. She did, however, ask for me to get our mother out of the house for the day. The only reasoning she gave was that she had reason to believe our mom was lying about something and that she was going to do some digging around to find out for sure. Of course I wanted more details than this, but she only asked that I trust her for now and surprisingly enough I did, so I agreed.

And so there I was. At the movies with my mom while Catherine was at home, searching for some sort of evidence to incriminate our mother. So, yes I wasn’t exactly happy to be there. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to know whatever it was Catherine was looking for, but again I think I’d proven to myself by this point that it was better to know than to not know. But God how I was sick of secrets!

Time crawled by the way it does when you want something desperately to be over. The movie was actually something I probably would’ve enjoyed on any normal day, but right then it could hardly hold my attention for more then a few seconds at a time. My mother didn’t seem to notice my lack of attention, though, and still was under the impression that we were on some lovely mother-daughter bonding day. I wished so badly that it were true. Nothing could ever be that simple any more, though, not for me. And that was the difference between me and her. While my mother did fight for change in her own way, all she really wanted was normal and easy. She would help because she knew it was the right thing, but she would never commit wholeheartedly because in all honesty if the wall never came down she would be okay. She would live. She would be happy. I wasn‘t sure I could say the same for myself.

This knowledge wedged an uncrossable pit between us, whether she was aware of it yet or not. I felt separate from her because of it in the way she had feared the knowledge that she wasn’t my birth mother would make me feel. Maybe in time she’d be able to understand my desperation and maybe I’d be able to understand her lack thereof. Or maybe not.

Whatever it was I expected Catherine to tell me when I got home wasn’t even close to what she actually had to say. It was safe to say that I honestly never saw it coming, most likely because I hadn’t wanted to and not due to lack of signs. If I’d paid more attention maybe I would’ve seen it the way Catherine had, but I’d been so painfully oblivious in the way only a desperate person can be.

You see, as soon as my mom and I arrived home I knew something was wrong. The smile that Catherine wore was much too forced. I knew immediately that she had found whatever it was she had been looking for and by the look in her eyes, it was bad. I didn’t see any choice but to smile along with her and to wait for a chance to be alone.

It came shortly after when Catherine announced she was going to take a shower and I muttered something about needing a nap before disappearing up the stairs after her. She actually went into the bathroom and turned the shower on before shutting and locking the door behind me.

“The water will drown out our conversation,” she muttered and I nodded mutely. She was good at sneaking around in a way I’d never be and for the first time in my life I was jealous of this.

“What’s going on, Catherine?” I asked. She gave me a pitying look then, the kind that makes you know it’s so much worse than what you thought.