Page 35 of Guilty Mothers
‘And speed up. I’m not going to start counting until you’re moving faster than that.’
I feel my bottom lip begin to tremble, but I bite down to force the tears away. They have no effect on my mom and normally just enrage her more.
I speed up and before I’ve completed two lengths, the book has fallen. Every step is agony on my heels, and now I have to start all over again. All those steps wasted. The extra rubbing on my flesh for nothing.
I start again – four lengths.
And again – seven lengths.
And again – five lengths.
As I walk, I know I’m wincing with the pain. I can’t stop myself. Every time the new leather moves against it, it feels like it’s rubbing straight through to the bone.
‘Come on – try again,’ my mom says. ‘No pain no gain.’
I feel sick. My legs ache, and I can feel blood running from the back of my heels into my new shoes.
I reach down to pick up the book to start again, and the motion of bending brings flashes of light darting across my eyes. The room starts to spin around me. The sickness rises up to my throat. The world tilts and then turns black.
My eyes open.
What happened?
Why am I on the floor?
Why is she standing above me?
‘Mommy?’ I ask.
‘Do you have any idea how useless you are? All you have to do is walk nicely and throw a few oranges in the air. You can’t even do that. You have no skill, no talent and now you’re a little porker as well. Look, you’re bursting out of your dress.’
My eyes are stinging, but I try not to cry.
‘Get out of my sight. You’re so disgusting I can’t even look at you.’
I hobble to the bathroom and wipe the blood from my feet.
However hard I try to stop them, now that I’m alone, the tears roll over my cheeks.
TWENTY-FIVE
No matter how many flower beds were planted to soften the buildings that made up Bushey Fields, your mind knew that no amount of marigolds were going to help the people inside.
Mental illness didn’t respond to well-cut borders or manicured lawns, and all efforts to the contrary were designed to assure onlookers and visitors that care was taken both inside and out.
A nurse buzzed them through the first set of doors into what Kim always termed a decontamination chamber. He checked both of their IDs and then tapped a few keys.
‘Who referred her?’ he asked.
‘I did,’ she answered.
‘Date and time?’
She understood the need for security. They had never met before and a decent-looking fake ID wasn’t that hard to come by.
These were basic questions that only the genuine officers would know.
‘Yesterday afternoon around fivep.m.’