𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐉. 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐡 wasn't actually born in Tennessee. He grew up forty miles south of the border, in a Mississippi river-town. He lived with his mother in a one-bedroom house that flooded every time the river swelled.
I lived two door...
I tried to dye my hair red, but my hair was already too dark so it didn't show up. I poked a needle through my nose, instead. Mom didn't notice. Jimmy said it made me look cheap.
There weren't many interesting things that happened that year. I no longer liked to read. I didn't like many things, in general. People didn't like me.
I'm sitting with Emily inside her humid, pine-scented office.
My friends are at the Union, probably playing table tennis and drinking lemonade. I told them I was meeting with my aunt. That's what I always tell them—me and my aunt, we have weekly meetings on Wednesdays at two o'clock.
Wow, she drives an hour just to see you every week? Frankie asked, once. I shrugged and said we were just really close like that. Dalton wanted to come with me to see her, more than once. It's our personal time, I told him. No outsiders, allowed.
I'm not sure they ever believed my story. I'm not sure if I really care.
"Have you thought any more about visiting your mother?"
"Not really," I say. My mother is at an assisted living facility, outside of Louisville, Kentucky. She is only forty-two years old. But life choices, they catch up with you fast. I pull at a string on my denim shorts.
"What do you think you would say to her, if you saw her?"
"It wouldn't matter what I said, she wouldn't hear me, anyway."
When I was a kid, people used to tell me I looked just like my mother. We had the same pale skin, dark hair and light eyes. We were skinny and tall, had narrow faces and upturned noses. But her hair was dyed, she was pale because she never saw sunlight, and she was skinny because she was sick.
The only reason people said I looked like my mother was because I didn't have a father they could compare me to.
"I didn't ask if she could hear you," Emily says. "I asked what you would say."
I rip the string out from my shorts, watch as it frays the rest of the hem. "I don't know," I say. "I guess I'd ask why she did it. Why she moved us there, to Kentucky. Why she made us live in that house, with him. How she could do that to her own daughter. I guess I'd ask if she cared about me, at all, even just a little bit."
"Those are all good things to ask...do you think that she cared about you?"
"Clearly not."
"Why do you say that?"
"Do you really have to ask?"
Emily folds her hands into her lap. Her dark eyes go squinty, and I know she's about to ask me something I won't want to answer. She's good at that. "Have you ever mistreated someone you cared about?" she asks.
There are too many times to count. The first person that comes to mind is Tenny, but I don't want to talk about that. I straighten my jaw and look Emily in the eyes. "None of those people were ever my daughter."
I told her I was tired of her acting like she couldn't see me. I stood in front of her face and I screamed, "I'm real, you know! Just because you act like I'm not, it doesn't change the fact that I am." She just kind of shrugged her shoulders and then Jimmy grabbed me by my hair and told me I better watch my mouth.
"You see this?" I screamed. "You just gonna let him do this to me?"
Her silence was louder than any words she could have spoken.
It told me everything I needed to know.
She was going to let Jimmy do anything that he wanted.
...
Author's Note:
A short chapter, but it made the most sense this way. What are our thoughts on Violet's mom?
Family can be hard sometimes. My heart goes out to those who can relate.
Thanks again for reading. Xx
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