Motherlode - Part 5

 

The guilt started to creep in, all while her emotions continued to grab a hold of me.

I didn’t know how long I could keep this up. I woke every day as her, breathed her in like oxygen. But when I thought too hard about what I was doing—when my own thoughts managed to surface at all—I felt ashamed.

As soon as I let myself think about it, as soon as I stopped losing myself so thoroughly in her—when I let any tiny fragment of my true thoughts bubble to the surface—I would feel guilty.

After all, this was my mother’s body.

When Dad came home, when he kissed me and pulled me into him, I could forget for a while. When we were together, it was easy to let her emotions wash over me until I drowned in them. Until I forgot who I was.

But when he left for work in the mornings, there was nothing to distract me from the truth.

At the same time, I knew I couldn’t leave her body yet without raising suspicion. Not until they expected me back from my trip.

The time I spent in her was different without Dad around. The rush of feelings wasn’t any less intense, but there was more room for my own thoughts. There was more of a balance between us. The longer I stayed inside her on my own, the less it felt like being consumed and the more it felt like sharing—no matter how much I tried to ignore that fact.

I watched my reflection in the mirror. My hands shook a little as I touched my cheek, touched her cheek. That’s when I experienced my first flicker of a memory.

My mother’s memory of me as a little kid, sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by pots and pans. I was banging a wooden spoon against a saucepan, grinning up at her. At me.

I stared into the mirror, her eyes wide with confusion. I didn’t know what it meant, didn’t want to think about it.

The memory startled me almost as much as it thrilled me. Panic rose in me as I tried to push it away.

But I couldn’t shake it.

What was it I was feeling? The memory triggered some feelings in me. I struggled to place it at first. What was this new emotion unfolding inside me? It was nothing like I’d experienced. Was it possible? But then I realized it was maternal love. Could I really be feeling it?

As powerful as her love for Dad was, nothing had made me feel like that memory did. That flicker of maternal love made me feel more than anything I’d ever felt before.

I sat down on the bed, dizzy and overwhelmed. I pressed her hands to her chest and breathed in deeply.

Why did this memory make me cry? It was just a stupid image of me as a kid. So why couldn’t I stop crying?

Then there was a flash of a sensation. Another memory. A baby. Sucking on my chest.

I pressed my hands to my temples and tried to make it stop. But it didn’t.

Emotions flooded over me, through me.

Unconditional love. My mother’s love. But it felt like mine now.

When Dad came home that night, he found me on the couch, hugging myself tight and smiling softly.

“I missed you today,” he said, bending down to kiss me.

He held my face in his hands and looked at me with his penetrating gaze.

The familiar rush of love washed over me as soon as he touched me, but this time it didn’t bury everything else.

There was room for both now. Room for all of it.