dead mom and daddy issues

"Mom... please don't die."

Hospital in Iowa - December 31, 2015

Christa Amory didn't exactly think that New Year's day was supposed to be the way it was. Who expects their mom to die just minutes after the ball is dropped, after all?

People kissing, jumping around, blowing party blowers, cracking poppers, drinking fancy liquids in fancy glasses.

Yeah... that wasn't what Christa was doing.

So her mom hadn't been doing that well. Well... that was an understatement. She had been diagnosed with brain cancer almost exactly one year ago, and that in itself was horrid. Christa thought her world was going to end when the doctors told them. But then it had gotten worse, and the treatments had made her mother sick, and the brain cancer had affected some part of her that had messed with her mom's whole thinking process, and Christa had slowly been losing her over an entire agonizing year, and that in itself was even worse than everything else.

Her world was going up in flames far fiercer than she'd ever thought they would be.

"Mom... please don't die."

She'd sat at her chair right beside her mother's bed at the drearily gray hospital--alone for now. She had absolutely no relatives to sit with her, but that wouldn't have mattered right now; at the moment, all she needed was to be alone with her mother. Her right hand was wrapped in her mother's left one, and it was cold--not freezing, not like a body, but like the blade of a knife that had been left next to a fan too long. The hair on her mother's head--it used to be such a lovely color, a shade of rich dark chocolate that almost perfectly matched Christa's--was now gone. And her face... it was so pale. Like all the life had been sucked out of her already.

Eventually, time passed. Her mother woke up just in time for the new year to ring in. People were exclaiming all across the hospital, despite the fact that Christa doubted it was allowed. She gave a small smile to her mother. Maybe it would get better. But then, a few minutes later, things had gone... bad. Her mother's eyes went blank, and her heart monitor went into a flat line. While people were still cheering, drinking champagne or fizzing drinks, kissing, Christa's mother's heart wasn't beating. Christa yelled for doctors to come in, screamed at them with hot, angry tears running down her face, and they ran in and did the best that they could, and tried over and over again to stop it, to fix it, to make Christa's mother stop dying, but it was never enough, never enough.

So Christa had gone home with the social workers that night.

It had all been so long--it felt like decades, all that had happened. Decades and centuries and millenniums and then eons, and it felt like it was never going to stop.

The gravestone read what Christa would later discover to be a lie:

Esther Amory

Loving Mother

Born April 5, 1972

Died January 1, 2016

Now, everything was changing. Christa's mom was gone. There had never been any other relatives in their lives. She didn't have anywhere to go.

Even figuratively; she had, in fact, hit rock bottom.

| | |

Christa had never really known anything about her dad.

There was one thing, though. Years ago, Esther had mentioned something about Christa's father. A small thing: "Everything about you is like your dad...." And then she'd sighed, and Christa had asked for more, but Esther had waved her off and changed the subject, though Christa had always remembered those words. "Everything about you is like your dad...."

Not that it was exactly a good thing. Christa sometimes wondered how those around her could stomach her--cold, smart-ass, unable to say a word without offending someone.Accuracy to the statement or not, it was odd to find him mentioned in her mother's old belongings.

It was in the attic of her tiny family's tiny house. She'd been cleaning out her mother's more private things--old files, diaries, etc.--when she'd come across an old, worn-out notebook. It looked like some of the things were in code, but there was something there that she could decipher. There was something familiar there, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. She squinted at it.

Then she felt a jolt in her stomach.

Di-ionic Ella Codex.

She stared at it for several seconds, eyes unseeing, a cold rush of joy and pride and pain rushing up her body, a sudden flux of emotions that caused her whole body to convulse.

It was written in the language--or code, if you will--Christa had made with her mother as a child.

She curled back into a ball, hands shaking, having dropped the book onto the floor. She wasn't ready for this. She shouldn't have had to see that. She didn't want to feel like this, she didn't want to feel numb and as though she were drowning in her tears all at the same time, she didn't want to be reminded of her past, she didn't want to think, she didn't want to move, she didn't want to breathe.

A drum roll, a familiar seven notes played on a keyboard, the notes twice more,

"Don't worry about a thing

"'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."

No.

"Singing don't worry about a thing

"'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."

Why'd she let him change her ringtone to this song again?

"Rise up this mornin'

"Smiled with the risin' sun

"Three little birds

"Pitch by my doorstep

"Singin' sweet songs

"Of melodies pure and true

"Saying, 'this is my message to--"

"What is it, Angus?"

Christa stared into nothing, phone held up to her ear with a loose grip. She couldn't be bothered with holding it any tighter.

And then, a familiar, entirely unwanted voice.

"Christa! Finally! I've been banging on the door for, like, ten minutes now!"

Christa sucked in a deep, tired breath. "Sorry, that must be really painful for you," she snapped, unbrushed hair falling in front of her face as she jerked her head to the side in irritation.

There was a pause at the other end of the phone. "Oh. That's right. I'm... sorry. That was--"

"It's fine," Christa interrupted shortly. She wasn't in the mood for one of Angus's rambling sessions.

Another pause. Christa rolled her eyes, practically able to hear the words she'd cut off, now stuck in Angus's throat.

He cleared it awkwardly, before speaking again, hesitantly."I brought a new book you might like to read."

"Come on in. And be glad you didn't come home to someone else--I don't think the new move-ins would be very appreciative of your condolences."

"What? Oh yeah, they're going to be selling your house." There was another pause. "I guess you'll go to the foster system, then."

"No, I'll actually be going to my father, Thor's, house."

"What?!"

"That was what we call sarcasm, Ang." Christa could've sworn she could feel his embarrassment through the phone and put her head in her free hand for a moment. She could barely handle her friend's idiocy when she wasn't mourning her mother's death.

There was a pause. "Sorry, I only speak English and Elvish."

At that, Christa couldn't help but let the most minute of smiles grow on her face. This, she supposed, was why she had any friends left... even when she'd lost everyone else to the coldness she'd acquired as her mother grew worse, she still had Angus. Good old, impossibly loyal Angus. Though sometimes she couldn't stand his awkward, sheltered, and entirely nerdy nature... he was the only one who'd stayed.

And sometimes, because of that, he was able to make her smile.

"So you're not staying at Juniper High?" came the voice from Christa's phone.

Christa scoffed. "Unless I happen to find a family or an orphanage to stay with in this exact area, I'd hazard a guess at no."

"Damn."

There was silence for a moment. Christa was staring out of the window, wondering where she would end up going. She'd heard a lot about the foster system, and everything about it sounded like hell. But she supposed that if she did end up finding her father (ha!), she'd have to go to him. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Except for the fact that he hadn't bothered to come see her in the last fifteen years of her life.

That was kind of a deal breaker.

"Can I come into your house now?"

"Sure." Christa didn't really care at this point.

"I don't--I don't have a key or anything."

"The door's unlocked."

"That's not safe."

Christa sighed. "Does it sound like I care?"

An awkward pause, the boy seemingly uncertain as to how to tread around these waters. He mumbled a nervous,"See you in a minute," and then he hung up.

Christa's eyes held as though glued to the window in front of her. A small thing--just like the rest of this place. The sky was so, so blue outside.

Then she remembered the book on the floor in front of her.

A pause. She contemplated it for a moment.

Did she really want to keep reading it?

Her hands reached to grab the journal again, and the motion felt strange, as though she had no control over the movement. Her eyes scanned carefully over the page, and as she read, it felt as though she was on autopilot then, too.

I wish I could tell him, but everything must be kept hidden. I can't. Nobody can know. Everything must change to keep us alive.

I can't tell him he's a father.

Christa eyes widened, and suddenly, frustration rushed through her. Her father? Why wasn't his name actually in there?! She flipped through the rest of the book, searching for some kind of name, something, something to give her a clue. Being this close, seeing something, finding nothing....

She sighed, the frustration still evident on her face, and, groaning, buried her face in her hands. She was only fifteen. She wasn't supposed to be going through this. Her mom was dead. And she had incredible daddy issues on top of that. She wasn't prepared to go to an orphanage or some foster home that probably would only keep her for the reimbursement. She didn't have any relatives or anybody she knew remotely who would take her in. Not even Angus's parents, she was dead sure.

Christa heaved an enormous sigh and lifted her head to look up and out the window. She barely had time to blink before the bomb hit.

---

if any of you happen to be rereading, you may notice some changes! I went back and edited this one a little while ago but for reasons unknown to even myself I didn't decide to update the edited version here until now. not anything big but I personally like it a lot more haha.

again to those rereaders out there--thank you so much! I know it's been a while and there hasn't been much stuff going on here but hey maybe you saw the new cover?? I'm doing some revamping of this thing haha hope y'all like it!

maddie