I tried screaming for her but my breath was muffled by the smoke. Nothing but blackness was surrounding me. I attempted to let out screams in between my coughing. Suddenly I was being shaken by someone.
“Luna wake up, you’re having another nightmare,” groaned a male's voice.
Sitting up quickly, I tried catching my breath. I looked around the dark room, took a deep breath and rested my head on Jason’s shoulder.
“This is the third night in a row that I have woken you up from the same nightmare,” he complained.
“I tried saving her but I couldn’t. Every day I wake up and hear her voice telling me I didn’t try hard enough to get her out before the house collapsed,” I explained.
Jason snapped back, “I think it is time to let your mother go. She has been gone for over ten years and now she is still controlling your life. We moved in four months ago and these boxes are not even unpacked.”
I nodded my head in agreement but did not reply. I could not let go of my mother. She is like a guardian angel to me. I pulled my unkempt brown hair into a bun and climbed out of bed to wake up Emily so she could prepare for school. The boxes at the bottom of the stairs were a barrier that I could barely get through. I was beginning to see what Jason was talking about, my own mother was holding me back from living the life I wanted.
“Have a great day at school Em,” I shouted from the car.
I rummaged through my worn out tote in means of finding my ringing phone. Finally I found it towards the bottom of the large bag.
“Hello,” I spoke firmly into the phone.
“It is your fault. You could have saved me before the house burned down. You killed me and now you’re going to let Jason tear us apart,” the raspy voice on the other line said. It was my mother.
“Mom?” I asked quietly.
“Luns,” she commented using the nickname she had given to me years ago.
“What do I do? I want to make up for my horrific behavior when I was ten.”
“Do not let Jason control our relationship,” she demanded.
I hung up the phone and started a long day at the office. I sat down at my corner office space and looked at the bare walls. The only decoration I have is a Christmas picture that my mother and I had taken a year before the fire. I saddened as I looked at the right side of my face where there was no sign of the scars that now controlled half of my face. My face is now dried plastic, as others call it.
I picked up Emily from school and began driving home. The ride was quiet, as it normally was. Emily and I did not have much of a relationship which Jason blamed my mother for. I pulled into the driveway and hoisted myself out of my large SUV and followed Emily inside.
After dinner, Jason and I cleaned the kitchen and put Emily to bed. He came up behind me and gave me a bear hug. My head was not able to reach any higher than his neck due to our height difference. We went upstairs and headed straight to bed.
The smoke became unbearable. A man with a mask and a firefighter uniform picked me up and brought me outside. I sat in the cold grass, coughing. Turning to my right to see my home collapse ash by ash, I began looking around for my mother. I could not see her. I began to choke on my own tears.
“Luna get up. You are having another one of those nightmares,” Jason moaned while swinging my body like a pendulum of a clock to wake me up. I jumped up quickly and took a sigh of relief as I noticed it was just another bad dream of my childhood.
“I talked to her earlier today on the phone. She thinks you are trying to tear me away from her,” I mumbled.
“Listen Luna,” he said while putting his soft hand on my scarred cheek, “you have had a hard time ever since the house fire when you were little, but it has been almost fifteen years and she is gone but you have not had the strength to let go of her. There is no way that was her on the phone today. She is taking over your life which is why we moved, we came here to start a new chapter and move on with our lives. These nightmares are becoming a bad routine and I think you need to choose.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means that if you cannot let go of your mother and forget about her, you are going to have to forget about me and Emily,” concluded Jason.
I could not believe what I was hearing. My own husband wanted me to disregard my mother after what I had done to her. I had a big decision to make.
I pushed myself out of bed and went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror but all I could see was my mother. She looked the same as she did before she passed away except she looked angry as if I had just taken a snack from the fridge without asking for permission first.
“I think you need to tell Jason your choice so he can move forward in his life without you,” she spoke firmly.
I splashed my face with water and looked into the mirror again and she was not there. She is all in my head.
The day went by slower than normal. Thankfully, though. I was scared to arrive home where I would have to reveal my life decision to Jason. I owe unbelievable justice to my mother, but I wonder if that is really worth my current life.
I pulled into the driveway even slower than usual and walked like a zombie towards the front door. We ate dinner in complete silence, enough for me to hear the trees cracking from the brutal wind. I washed the dishes alone tonight. I looked up at the window and was startled by the reflection which was not mine.
“Stop putting it off Luns. It is time to tell your family. Go say goodbye,” she irritably said.
“Goodbye mother. You have controlled my life since the day you died and I have let it go on for too long. That was not you on the phone, that was not you in the mirror this morning, and this is not your reflection right now. You need to be at rest and that means me saying our final goodbyes. I did not have the strength to scream over the smoke to get help and when I could, it was too late. You need to understand that,” I fired back at her.
“I will never rest in peace knowing that you are the cause of my death and you cannot even serve justice, goodbye daughter,” she concluded. And just like that, she was gone.
I went up to see Jason. As soon as I opened the door, he looked up at me with tears in his eyes.
“I choose you,” I said softly.