“You tore a whole living room apart?” she asked, barely concealing a smile, even given the circumstances. In her mind, it further proved her mom’s ferociousness. Her mom thought she was strong. She couldn’t hide the smile now. Not even if she’d wanted to. “Well. I had a good teacher. A few of them, actually.” she nodded, thinking of her Aunts, as well. Of the younger woman, Davina, too. Her life had been filled with strong women. If she hadn’t grown to be one of them herself; Hope would consider herself disappointed. Having one of the women, the most important of them, her inspiration, tell her she was doing exactly that?
Growing up without her mom would have been impossible. It didn’t bear thinking about what she could have become without her. Without Hayley’s lead and without her inspiration and the guidance and influence she’d always provided. Hope might have been very different without her. In fact, she might not have even made it. When everybody, at first, had conspired against her. Been terrified of her and what she could do, what she may well do. The tribrid chose not to speak again for now. Instead, she let everything her mom had said wash over her. She wanted it to sink in. To remember it. On days she wondered what she was fighting for; she’d come back here to this moment, and remember Hayley telling her she was proud of her. Of who and what she was becoming.
“It’s not just that,” she told the other woman honestly, “I know, – I know about everyone in our family. You don’t get to be over a thousand years old.. Have the stories they have. The enemies. Without the pain and death that goes with being what we are.” She shrugged. “But you’re my mom. That’s it. You loved me through everything I’ve ever done. Every stupid, immature mistake I’ve ever made.” Hope continued, after a breath. “Why wouldn’t I do the same for you? When all you’ve ever taught me is to be myself. Every part of it. Whatever you tell me.. Whatever it is that happened, how could it change who you are now? Who you’ve always been to me.”
“What happened?” she asked, swallowing past the sadness she felt threatening to make its way into her soul. She could already feel her mother’s loss.
Hayley’s heart swelled with love and gratitude hearing Hope’s words of unconditional love. The problem with most parents, she thought, was that they wrongfully assumed that their children owed them anything, that they were somehow due their child’s love by simple virtue of being their parents. Not so. It was the other way around. Parents should keep in mind that they chose to create a new life and bring it into the world - a world that as beautiful and wonderous as it could be, was also dark and filled with pain. Hayley never took her daughter’s love for granted because of her own experiences. Instead she did everything possible to earn it, beyond the early stages of bonding. And she also had tried earning her daughter’s respect, whilst never pretending she was perfect.
She did not like to dwell on her past when she didn’t have to. How many times had she replayed that incident over and over and how many times she had cringed trying to ‘pause’ the film in her head before the moment of realization struck?
“I was piloting the boat. Didn’t notice right away when my friend fell off doing silly, reckless drunk antics. Which was enhanced by me looking to hit waves to make it more ‘fun’ at their request. By the time I noticed I couldn’t see them on the dark water and I turned around rushing back to where I thought they’d fallen. I felt a hard ‘thud’ against the boat and stopped the engine. I waited... but heard nothing. Grabbed a flashlight and dove into the water. Was too late by the time I got them back to the surface. They must have hit their head against the boat on the way back up which knocked them out cold and they drowned, in spite of my panicked, drunken attempts at CPR.”
She went quiet before glancing at Hope but not long enough to hold eye contact. “There’s a reason why I’m a maniac about impaired driving,” she added more lightly.
“Now... why don’t you tell me about the boy whose scent has been all over you lately?”
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