Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

I finally found the courage to write this letter to you. Even though you will never read this, I finally have the strength to put this unforgotten memory into words.

I know why you did what you did. I know very certainly now. I know you did it for me, because of me.

I never got to eat one of your famous pies again because of what I did. I never got to see you smile again because the system took you from me and from all that we knew. And I never knew how life treated you until recently, when I got the call fifteen years later.

I took fifteen years from you.

The fire ruined your life, but your confession made it so that I could live out mine, but here’s what I need you to know. Here’s what I remembered from that day.

I started the fire.

I wanted him gone, Mom. That monster you brought home. I wanted him gone.

To this day, I still don’t know what you saw in him. What was so good about a man who took what wasn’t his and gave what wasn’t wanted? Even at fifteen years of age, when you said I was just a girl and too young to know better, I knew that you could do so much better than that lazy, walking chimney who left ash everywhere except in an ash tray.

I never told you that he put his hands on me, like he did you. Only to hurt, only to strike. The day that he tried to touch me as if he had every right in the world to do so was the day that I decided to do what you wouldn’t, what you couldn’t. My innocence was not his to take! It was time for him to go and to never return! But, even after he was gone, you still suffered because of him, because of what I did to him. He was no more, but it was too late to rid the mark that he placed on you, that he left on us. When I took his life, he took my innocence after all.

For the longest time, I wondered how you convinced the police that you did it. Sure, I had an alibi. I was at dad’s house until right after he fell asleep and before he woke up. He never even knew that I took his car. But Mom…

Oh, Mom, you weren’t supposed to be there! Why were you there? Did you know? Did you somehow see my intentions? Did I somehow give away my plan once you told me that you wouldn’t be there that night? How much did you know? You know what I did, but did you know how I did it?

Did you know that I waited until almost midnight, when he was passed out from drinking that cold drink that he loved more than you? Did you know that I tied him up with the rope, the one that you had outside of the bare shed, to his old gaming chair that he said brought him so much luck? I took out all his cigarettes that were hidden and forgotten, throwing them on the floor where he beat you, spreading them on the table around the untouched ash tray, tossing them on the stairs where he pushed you. I poured all the cans of the paint thinner that you had outside inside the house, coating the walls, the floor, the furniture.

I grabbed the leftover rope, soaking it with the rest of the paint thinner. I trailed it outside of the house, then I set it on fire.

I did it quickly, and it was chaos, but it was done.

I set the house that I used to call home on fire, using the lighter that you gave him for his birthday. You weren’t supposed to see the blaze, the glorious inferno. I didn’t know that it would burn you. You didn’t deserve to see the flames, the cost of your love for him.

I hope that you didn’t worry about how I would feel about destroying my childhood home. Once he made that place a house of horrors, it was no longer home to me. No, that den was no longer fit to be our home.

How did the police believe that you were the one who did all this? I thought that you must’ve known that it was I who did it and knew what I wanted to do. Then I realized something.

Mom, I now know that you had a secret of your own. I know what your greatest desire was. I know what you wanted to do. I know you were the one that hid his cigarettes. I know that you were the one who bought the paint thinner. I know you were the one who bought the rope for the storage shed. And I know you couldn’t do it. You still loved him too much, even though he burned you with his cigarettes to put them out. Maybe if you knew how he treated me, you would’ve done what you had set out to do. So I did it for you.

I thought, for a long time, that knowing I had done what you couldn’t was why you took the blame for me. I know better now.

Now I know the true reason why you told me that you wouldn’t be there that night. You knew my greatest desire as well.

Still, I don’t regret what I did. I only wish that you didn’t take the blame.

If only I was brave enough to ask you what you knew when you still lived. Maybe you would tell me that you don’t regret a thing and that I should do the same. Maybe I would’ve thanked you for all you’ve given up for me.

No one will ever know what you’ve done for me. And I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, all to protect me, but as I hold my own bundle of joy in my arms, I understand why you took the blame for me. I would do the same for my little girl.

I would do anything for my little girl to have a happy life.

Happy Mother’s Day, and good-bye, Mom.

P.S. This letter will burn with you so no one will ever use it to take my little girl away from me like they took you away from me.