Oceans Of Emma

My mother went missing when she was only 29 years old. She had me when she was 21, just after her own mother had passed. Yet, I never knew how my grandmother passed and no one ever bothered to tell me. I once asked my mother when I was only 7 if she was killed and her response shook me to the very core of who I am. “My love, I wish that that was all. If only life had been so forgiving to her, then she might still be alive.” I never knew what she meant but I figured that I would be able to find the answer in her diary. 

Recently, my curiosity has been spiked and for the past couple of days, I’ve been coming up to the attic to look for her diary. After my mom went missing, my dad moved all of her stuff up here saying, “I don’t want to see the shell of who my wife once was anymore.” My family had always acted weird and was often distant when the subject of my mother was discussed. I’ve been up here for the past two hours and I’m considering just giving up the whole search all together. 

I’m pushing boxes aside when my eyes land on a maroon red journal, her diary. I grab the diary and flip to the last entry, December 26, 2020 just three days before her death. My mother passed away 9 years ago when I was 12. I opened the journal and started looking through her diary, just to discover my mother’s handwriting was clean and neat, just as I remembered it. I shiver with the knowledge and hope that what I find in her last entry will answer my questions.

Dear Diary,

Today was different from the rest. The pouring rain soaked through my white shoes. My socks squished with every desperate step I took. Walking became a hardship and an obligation to my life if I wanted to go anywhere. If I could, I would lay in the wet grass. The cool touch of raindrops bathing my skin making goosebumps erupt across it. My black dress clings to my body much like my heart clings to the torment and personal hell my mind and now my body is going through. The thought becomes sweeter with every step that I take. How easy would it be to lay down and let the earth consume me, the same way my mother had let it consume her. She let the world’s pain engulf her in a whirl wind that even she couldn’t find where up was. Now, she’s spread out in the form of dust across the rapidly flowing river. She always loved nature. I wonder if she ever thought she would become a part of it. I came here for a purpose. After years of weaning into my grief, I thought that it would be easy to reunite my mother with the earth. However, my naivety would be one of the many things that would eat away at my heart. 

Since my mothers death, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that someone or something is after me. Something that wants me to know it’s there but just be out of reach. A cloud of worry relentlessly settles on my shoulders whenever I go into my own house. Like eyes watch me as soon as my foot passes the threshold of my home. A chilling cold slowly invades my veins, sending a shock through me. It feels as if death takes a slow step right through me. I’ve convinced myself that my mother’s ghost still inhabits this house, because everytime I try to convince myself of that, my shadow grows lighter and my bones colder. The glacial chill reverberates through my veins like ice flowing harshly down a river. 

I recently moved to this house with my mother and I had quickly learned to call it home. My mom was my home, it didn’t matter where we were, as long as we had each other. Now, my house just feels like the place where I eat and sleep. My own daughter, I’m ashamed to say, doesn’t fill the hole in my heart. She was my home, my church and my sanctuary. Without her, our house is cold, dark and only left with the echoing laughter that at a time resided within these walls. A place that I was able to call safe. 

I slam her diary down on the floor, my voice breaking into a sob, my weak knees breaking down under the pain, slamming them to the ground. 

My grandmother took her life…..

Is the reason my mom is dead tied to the person she talks about in this? My mind spins with this new knowledge of my life and my mothers life. My legs and arm shakes, my voice quivering. My life fading along with my vision, everything fades to black as the memories of my mother fade, replaced with the ones I now know to be true.