The little black book.

I never understood what it was about her that got me so irritated. As a child growing up, I didn’t have many friends, although whether it was due to my nature or how I was nurtured, philosophers and psychologists would debate endlessly I’m sure. I do know that our relationship drove me to where I am today, a world away, both physically and emotionally. Too many people tried to convince me that I would regret the decision to leave for the rest of my life, but I would never believe them because it wasn’t something they could ever understand. I could never reconcile the damage she did to me with the person I had heard about in the few years before her death. To me, she died long ago which is what made it ever more surprising to receive a package from her on the one-year anniversary of her death.

Was it what I was waiting for, what I needed so desperately - closure?

I had left it on the counter for weeks, not daring to open it, or even acknowledge it at times. Of course, that drove my wife mad; why couldn’t I deal with the anxiety and just open it, get it out of the way and close that chapter of my life?

I don’t know if I regret never speaking to her again, never sharing a few, final, precious moments or giving her the chance to reconcile. To me, the damage had been done so long ago that nothing but resent was left, it felt like there would never be room for regret. Yet, I would never want to be treated that way by my own children, if I ever have any. I try to sympathise, to feel what it would be like if my own children cut me out like I did my own mother. But I can’t. All I can think is how manipulative she was, how she utterly believed herself to always be the victim in every situation.

Or is that just my own bias, my perception coloured over the years?

I wasn’t the first to realise what kind of person she was, but I blame myself as the architect of the separation that proved to finally send my own mother down a dark path. I did this, me. If I had ignored the shortcomings, that I perceived she had, maybe our lives would have been different but for better or worse who knows. Maybe she would have sought the professional help so desperately needed. Maybe my younger siblings would have been spared the anguish of the mother we abandoned to her fate alone. Maybe the little girl I called a stepdaughter wouldn’t have been used against us and threatened. Maybe I would have resigned to the same fate with a former partner, in an abuse cycle that would have repeated through my own, alternate, children.

Maybe if I had let her die, instead of saving her life, I could have saved us all the pain. The thought, as unforgivable as it is, “if they just died, my life would be much simpler”, has likely crossed many minds, and I hope for my humanity isn’t unique to me alone.

Too much of my life has been focussed on the what ifs and maybes. It took me a long time to understand, to comprehend wholly, a lesson I was taught a decade earlier. Sometimes, a head-on approach is ineffective in dealing with problems, yet other times it is. This is one of those times that it would see the best outcomes, although not in a way I could ever have predicted. I needed to live in the moment. To enjoy what I have while I have it.

But it was that way of thinking that triggered my consciousness to her true personality as I saw it, the same way of thinking that caused so much pain to the people I claim to love dearly.

It is done.

The decision has been made.

I must open the package, and no matter what it contains, I must face it.

But I won’t do it alone, I need to vulnerable if I ever hope to be an example to any son I may have, of how to be a modern man and express emotion. I can only hope to make an important life lesson of this for us both.

Do I even deserve to have children?

It was hard to understand these things from my own father, although I know he did the best he ever could. No one could ever fault him on that. Contrary to the stereotype I know, it was my father that was the loving figure. I just never understood that until I saw the sacrifices, he made to give me the world. Something I will carry into family tradition to honour him; personal sacrifice, so that they may have more than I ever did.

I wish he was here with me to do this, but I dare not ever ask, pray nor beg for a better life partner to journey through life with, even the downs like this damn package is causing me.

It’s small and light, although the feeling to me is like Atlas with the world on his shoulder, maybe it’s a framed photo of her on her deathbed to haunt me forevermore. Maybe it is a copy of her will, her final testament to acknowledge that I am not her son. Maybe it’s a letter, telling me how bad of a person I am and always was, dare I hope for an apology.

Again, with the maybes.

I tore open the package quickly and dumped the contents on the counter that held it for so long. It’s lighter than I expected, not physically of course. It was a small, black, notebook. Embossed in gold with my name on the cover and an elastic band to keep it shut. Such foreboding, for a small, yet elegant little thing.

I tug at the elastic mindlessly, even though my mind is racing, finally opening it. The notebook flies open, releasing so much of the pent-up emotion I’ve felt since it first arrived. Something shoots out of it, landing in front of my wife. My angel, who has sat quietly next to me with such resolute support this entire time, the one I am so grateful for.

I flick through the pages. Blank. All of them blank, except the front page.

My name, and two delicately written words.

I’m sorry.

I know that isn’t her handwriting. It could never have been. In the few short years before her death, the dementia took over her mind. She only would have remembered a younger me, not the one that destroyed her life for self-preservation.

Through the fogginess, could she have remembered long enough to tell whoever wrote this that she wanted to say that to me? Or was it perhaps someone on her behalf, interpreting the ramblings of old demented woman?

I felt a gentle nudge on my arm, so wrapped in my own thoughts I almost didn’t notice it. Almost.

My wife was looking at me with the eyes of a roo caught in headlights. In her hand, a small slip of paper. The one that I forgot about. It’s a cheque, I realise.

I look back at her, tears welling in her eyes. It was a cheque from my mum, for twenty thousand dollars. On there, a small scrawled note, definitely her handwriting this time.

House Deposit.

Where could this have come from? How? Why? My mind almost tore itself apart in that second of realisation.

She hadn’t had a job for as long as I could remember. No income of any kind, especially since the spousal maintenance she received had finished years ago, there was no way it could have come from that. It was in my name as well, no one else’s.

It wasn’t a mistake then, surely it would have gone to my other siblings before me.

For years, I had said to myself I wouldn’t feel anything when she died. So, what was this feeling then? A tightness in my chest. A stinging in my eyes. A fathomless pit in my gut. Pure physical and emotional weakness, I couldn’t stand.

Grief.

Maybe even regret, dare I admit it.

For the record, she was right. She always is right, my wife.

I couldn’t believe what I had in my hands. So much so, that I immediately thought the cheque would bounce if we tried to cash it in. That it was all an elaborate and manipulative ploy of hers to get some sort of sympathy from me. To make me feel regret for leaving her behind all those years ago, to gaslight me from beyond the grave.

But I had to have hope. That it was a genuine gesture, that in the final moments or some time before she had an epiphany. For the sake of my sanity and humanity, I had to believe she came to realise what was truly important in life and wanted me to realise the same.

It was too late in that case, I missed my chance. I fucked up.

Now, it was my turn.

Do I try to cash in the cheque and finally prove what kind of person, or monster, she was?

Or do I leave it in that notebook and just believe, finally getting closure. Finally learning that lesson on what is truly important in life.