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Chapter 3 – And it was pitch dark.
‘This is where we’ll live, dear,’ my mother mumbled with a weak, strained smile.
I looked at her incredulously. She was pale, broken, and unsure of herself, doubting she did the right thing by leaving my father. She was not sure that this battered two-room apartment in a two-story old house that slanted slightly to the left would be better for her and her daughter than at home, there, at home.
‘I can’t believe it’s true.’ The silence jarred on my ears. I was not used to this. I was sixteen, and this was my last year of school. And I would spend it in this blissful silence? I did not believe it.
‘And yet it’s true, my dear.’ My mother put her arm around my shoulders and added, ‘No one else will hurt you anymore. You’re perfectly safe here.’
‘I’m so tired….’ I muttered, putting a million meanings into the phrase.
‘I know.’ My mother’s eyes filled with tears. ‘But everything will be all right now! We’ll live like queens, right?’
I smiled, more out of solidarity.
‘Yes! Yes,’ said she. ‘I’m going to go find some stores, buy us something… delicious to… celebrate… that we’re… alone now… without your father… .’
‘Mom.’
‘Alone now… ’
‘Mom.’
‘Okay, Bi
‘Delicious to celebrate. Yes, mom, you already said that.’ It hurt to look at her.
‘Yes, that’s it. I will find us some goodies. And you stay in the house. At home, that is. I’ll be right back.’ And she ran out of the house as fast as she could so as not to cry in my presence.
I entered the sparsely furnished room that was meant to be my home and, for the first time in years…
It was pitch dark…