Page 112 of Dirty Ink

To hold such a perfect little thing in my arms, to stare into those bright green eyes, so full of life and joy and potential, to feel your tiny fingers wrapped around my thumb with such ferocity, oh, my dear, dear Mason, I didn’t know how I was going to do it. To one day explain to you that the woman who was supposed to love you more than anything, the woman who brought you into this world, something you never once asked for, the mother who was yours, your one and only, had left. Something so sweet, so tender, so precious and I was the one who had to break his little wings before he’d even taken flight?

It was almost too much for me to bear. The anger I felt. The indignation. The overwhelming, crushing, inescapable feeling of injustice. Unfairness. Meanness. Ugliness. I was angry at the world. Angry at humanity. Angry, above all, at my daughter. My own daughter!

I suppose it’s ironic that the fuel for my anger and the dousing waters for my rage were one and the same: you.

If you hadn’t been in my life there would be nothing to be angry about, and yet, if you hadn’t been in my life there would be nothing to keep me from burning the whole damn place to the ground. Please forgive me such language. You know I never allowed it. Nor condoned it. But we’re both adults now. And we’re being honest. Or at least, trying to.

Okay, okay, here is the start, the real start: one day I received a letter from your mother. From my daughter. I’m not even sure I remember how many months (or was it years) later that it arrived in the mail. I can’t check because that first letter didn’t survive. The rest barely did. I flipped through junk mail, some bills, a postcard from my sister on a vacation in France, and there it was.

It was addressed to you. But I didn’t even need to open it to know who it was from. What it said. Why it was sent. It must have been winter when your mother sent that first letter because I remember I threw it in the fire. Though, maybe we don’t even know that for sure. Maybe I built up a fire in the middle of summer, on the hottest day, just to make sure not a trace of that damned thing survived.

I didn’t even think twice about it. Didn’t pause to consider whether I should give it to you, let alone even open it myself. The answer was so clear and obvious to me that burning it, destroying it seemed the simplest thing in the world: your mother had made her decision. She had left. She had abandoned you. And she could live with that decision. That sin. That pain.

The letters kept coming and I’m really not all that sure why I didn’t do the same thing with those that I did with the first. It’s possible I caught a glimpse of her in you from time to time. Heard a bit of her laughter in yours. Noticed that you crinkled your nose the way she did when she was just a baby, just a teeny, tiny precious baby in my arms. It’s possible that I searched out those links, those links between you and her, those links between me and her, mother and daughter. It’s possible those letters became a link as they piled up in a shoebox in my closet. I probably scorned this softness in me. I probably cursed myself for not being stronger, for not just tearing them up, ripping them up, burning the whole goddamn lot of them.

Would you look at me, dear, cursing like a sailor? Your grandfather would be proud, I suppose. Smiling up at me from Hell.

I started reading through them one day. Your mother’s letters. She wanted back in your life. Wanted a second chance. Wanted forgiveness and mercy and grace. Ha! Let me tell you, I felt quite good reading those letters. I’m not proud of it now, but I revelled in it. Rolled around in her grovelling like a pig in the fucking mud. Excuse me. I wanted her to feel pain. To suffer. Like she’d made you suffer. Like she’d made me suffer.

The years went by and the letters kept coming. You grew and the letters kept coming. Your childhood come and gone and the letters kept coming. I told myself I was doing the right thing. You were fine without her. Better without her. It would be too much to ask you to forgive her. To put that burden on your young shoulders.

I thought I knew that weight, because I couldn’t forgive her. Just couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Didn’t want to. Didn’t ever want to.

Ah, I see we’ve at last come to the real start, my dear. The start that we can put off no longer. The real beginning of this letter:

I was wrong.

Perhaps that’s always the start. Admitting we were wrong.

You’re a grown man, now, Mason. I see it. And a part of me is sad. Sad that I can give you nothing more, but these three words: I was wrong.

Mason, I see you and I see the way you keep love at a distance. I see the way you never hold onto anyone too tightly. I see the way you move through people like water through rapids, just passing through.

You’re a grown man and I’m an old woman. You’re at the start of your life and I’m at my end. But one day you too will be old, you too will be at your end. And I pray you take this advice before it’s too late:

Forgive yourself, my dear.

For so long, I withheld my forgiveness toward your mother. But it was never her who needed the forgiveness: it was me. For so long, I concealed in anger what I was really feeling: guilt.

Guilt at not being a good enough mother to convince my daughter to stay. Guilt at not loving her enough that she knew what love was. Guilt at not being there enough for her that she knew she had to do the same for her child. Guilt at just not being enough. Because a good mother raises a good daughter and a good daughter doesn’t leave her baby. So guilt at not being a good enough mother myself.

Forgiveness for myself has been hard. And I’m not sure I’ve fully reached that point. Maybe that’s why I’ve put off giving you this letter, these letters, for so long. I’ve promised myself to give them to you when you return from Vegas with the boys. I’ve promised a few times before, but I mean it this time. It’s that important, Mason. It is.

If you can’t forgive yourself, you can’t ever forgive anyone else. If you can’t forgive yourself, you can’t ever love anyone else.

So this is me loving you, Mason, or trying very hard to, at least. This is me forgiving myself. Forgiving my daughter in turn. And praying that when the time comes, you forgive yourself as well, for whatever it is.

If I’ve kept my promise and you’re reading this after your trip to Vegas, I’ve put two aspirin and a glass of water for your hangover on the bedside table. (You always do drink too much.) The bottle of whiskey is for when you read your mother’s letters, knowing she is gone now. (I do see the irony of chastising you for your liquor consumption and then supplying it, but I’ll make this exception. Because it’s hard. But it’s necessary, my dear.)

I love you. I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but I’ve always tried my best to love you.

Let’s make that the start, shall we? I love you, Mason.

- Nan

I tried to remember what happened to that bottle of whiskey. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I downed it in one night after her death. If I shattered it against the wall. If I poured it out over her grave as I cursed myself. Hated myself. Vowed to never fucking forgive myself.

Whatever its fate, it was gone now. That was for sure. So when the tears dried well enough to drive, I went to the liquor store and bought another. Then I went home and cracked it open, not even bothering with a glass. I kept my nan’s letter beside me, there against my thigh like a comforting hand as I opened my mother’s first letter.

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