The Way the Water Moves by Krista S

I can remember that day. Like a clean cut view into the past. It’s not like I want to remember it, but it doesn’t matter now. I can’t stop what I’m thinking and I can’t think what my mind won’t remember. The day my heart was broken and healed at the same time.

My story might remind you of how the water moves, you know that feeling. The feeling when your toes reach the crystal blue stream and you just can’t get enough. The way you float on the water and it seems as in an instant all the problems of the now, the past, and the future are drifting away on the on ocean’s breeze.

My story is kind of like this. It has the ups and the downs with the water in between. As perfect as my memory serves, it was July. July 28th to be exact. The morning sun just broke into the pink sky without any warning. I’m not used to waking up early, but some kind of movement, some sort of force, pushed me out from underneath the covers and into the world that I never called my own. My mom was making breakfast downstairs as always. The smells from the kitchen crept up the stairs to my bedroom. It smelt like she burnt the food though. It was Saturday, so just put on some comfortable clothes and went downstairs.

"Hi mom," I said in a hurried voice. I'm not much of a big talker, well, at least back then I wasn't. I didn't enjoy talking to my mom when she was in one of her "bad state of mind" moods swings. Don't get me wrong, we spent time together and I took joy in her barely-there company, but I wish she wasn't like she was. I guess in general I didn't accept her the way she was. I was selfish, maybe.

"Hello honey," said my dazed mother, "you want to go to the café for breakfest Because I just burnt what was supposed to be bacon and toast,” she said with a half smile. I gladly took her offer. It wasn't like her to take me anywhere. I usually went with my best friend Nick. So I stayed in my comfy clothes and took my mom's jacket out of the hall closet. I knew that even if it was 90 degrees out, she still needed her jacket. Some kind of protection, I guess. My mother always thought that the world was after her. Surely this aided to her severe depression and her drinking problem. Her drinking got in the way of everything, including our mother daughter friendship. But I have to say, I loved my mother. I know the words she couldn't ever really speak after my father’s death were that she really loved me too.

I opened the front door as the sun peered into our lonely home. The young kids across the way were running through a sprinkler and singing some crazy rhyme. I smiled at our next door neighbor that was getting his mail. He knew of my mother's condition because he could hear the nights when she screamed out names. Names of people I never heard of. My mom's situation was my murder. Fellow students at school laughed at me and my mom when she would come to pick me up from school. I just looked on. I couldn't change my mother, couldn't change that she was mine. But like I said, I loved her. My mom's weary hand grasped on to mine as we walked out the door. Every step she took was an achievement in itself.

We choose to go to our favorite café, The Burlington Town café, where the people there could somewhat relate to me mom. They didn’t mind her strange ways, which was unusual because most outsiders were quick to judge. “Hello Ellen,” the waitress said to my mother in such a warm and welcoming voice. “And hello to you Carrie.” She said to me. “Now what will it be for you guys?” I knew my mother would say that she would just have some coffee, black that is. Because it helped her with her hangovers. And no doubt that is what she ordered.

“Hi Liz, I would really like a hot cup of coffee, black of course.” My mom said slowly and loud, as if she thought that the waitress was deaf. Liz wrote down my mom’s order because she knew my mother would go frantic if she didn’t see her write it down. Liz, the waitress then looked at me and I said that I would like some tea and a muffin. My usual order too. By this time it was noon of July, 28th. My mom and I finished our breakfast and left the café. We were starting to walk home when all of a sudden my mom started crying. She knelt down on her knees and I then went down beside her.

“What is it mama? Are you okay?” I looked at my bawling mother and said. I wanted to cry too, because it hurt to see her in a pain that is not curable or preventable. Everybody says that my mom’s condition got worse after my dad died in a car crash. But it was all the same to me, at least at that time it was.

“I’m so, so sorry Carrie, for all that I’ve put you through. This past couple of years have been so difficult for me and I know you too. I haven’t been there, like a mother should. I…..”

“But mom, you are ill and are the one who is going through the most. I will never blame you or wish you were different.” I said this but half of it was a lie. I wish there was some magical medicine or pill to take away what she feels.

“Don’t ever think that I resent you. Mama this isn’t your fault! Stop crying Mom! Please!” I then realized about half the town was out on the streets watching my mom’s and my life unfold into pieces. I then knew our whole conversation was being put out there for all to see. What kind of freak will I be called tomorrow? I took my mother’s teary hand and helped her to her feet. I never said a word the whole walk home. Neither did my mother.

Together we walked into our house. My mom ran upstairs and I went over and laid on the couch. My thoughts were racing and I couldn’t keep straight which ones were real. I soon fell asleep with the TV still on. I didn’t really care what the night would bring and I sure wasn’t in the mood to do any work of any sort. I suddenly woke up and the moon was high I the sky. I couldn’t believe that I slept through the whole afternoon. I’m sure that Nick has at least tried to call me a few hundred times. I wanted to talk to him and tell him about my horrible day. Because I knew that he was the only one who really cared.

Distant family members were never here for my mom and me. They kept us out of the picture because we weren’t “normal”. What ever the heck normal is. I got up and went to the front door. Usually when I was asleep during the day or at school my mom would wait on the porch steps counting the minutes until I come and bring her inside. But when I looked outside, she wasn’t there. I wasn’t totally scared, but I knew that something was wrong. I walked briskly to the back of our house and still there was no trace of my mom. I heard the telephone ring and part of me thought it was Nick, and the other part was shaken in fear.

“Hello,” I said in an out of breath voice. “Hello is this Carrie. Are you Ellen’s daughter?” said the voice trying to be caring. But I wasn’t consoled. “Yes, I’m Carrie. Who is this?” I said. “I’m the Chief of the Burlington Town Police Department. And I’m sending a police car to your house. When you’re here, then we can talk. Goodbye Carrie.” The man said in a cold rattled voice. I hung up the phone and hurried to get on some new clothes. I knew my mother must have done something, but I was in fear for the worst.

The police car came in my driveway and the police man raced out to me. He said to me, “Come with me, and maybe we’ll make it in time to see her.” “I’m not a child, don’t candy coat what happened. Tell me now!” I screamed. I started crying. I didn’t want to hear the man’s reply, but knew I would have to hear it sooner or later. Cold tears ran down my reddened face and I was screaming as I it seemed my heart was bleeding. The police man lightly grasped my hands and told me my mother had jumped off a bridge on Highway 72. He said she landed in a river and was still conscience. But I saw the movement in his face as to say it was almost over for her. “Carrie, your mother is in the face of death, and her words to me when I left were to bring you to her. So, Carrie will you come with me?” the officer said. I took a hold of his warm hand and got into the police car.

The trip to the hospital was the longest ten minute ride I’ve ever had or ever will take. No words were exchanged on the way. But the silence was enough. Then, we got there. The officer and I ran into the emergency room and into the Critical Care Unit. That’s when I saw her, dead and cold. But yet a smile on my mother’s face. One that I had never seen her express to me. I went to her side and grasped her hand. I then saw that she had a note by her side that said, “I love you. And I knew the only way to make it better was give myself to the way the water moves.”