animal_house (animal_house) wrote in weddedto_sonora, @ 2015-05-31 11:11:00 |
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Current mood: | crushed |
Meeting of the Mother
She didn’t understand what was happening or really, understand how it had happened. It was like a bad dream, or more pointedly, a terrible nightmare. She kept going over and over again in her head everything that had led up to this very moment that left her sitting in the hospital waiting room. Chloe knew that she was rather dumb about things. Emery tells her that she needs to be more cautious instead of so trusting of people, but she had always just waved him off as a cynic. There was no reason to start out relationships with other people thinking the worst of them. She wanted to believe that people were good first and everything else later. She didn’t want to believe that people intentionally hurt others.
And yet, here she was.
Last summer Chloe had received correspondence from her mother. It was the first time in all of Chloe’s life that her birth mother had ever tried to reach out to her. Over the course of the school year, the two of them had written back and forth to one another against her father’s wishes and most of her family's too. But Chloe thought she had the right to know the woman who gave birth to her.
In the letters, her mother wrote about her road to recovery. She wrote on how it had taken years to realize she needed the help but that she never stopped thinking about Chloe. Her mother claimed that her sobriety came from her waiting to be someone in Chloe’s life and knowing that Chloe’s father would never allow it if she was still on drugs. When Chloe had asked about why it had taken so long for her mother, her response was that she had been afraid that Chloe would not have responded back.
When summer finally hit, Chloe had agreed to meet her mother face to face, but she had never told her parents about the meeting because she was afraid that they would refuse to allow her to go. It was a strange meeting. Both of them were nervous and uncertain about everything, but it had gone alright. If Chloe’s mother had never touched a drug or a drop of alcohol in her life, she would have been a beautiful woman, but looking at her, it was clear that she had lived a terrible life. Had she been healthy, Chloe probably would have looked just like her, but those possibilities were long gone.
They had met a few times after that. Each time, Chloe felt her mother’s behavior was only a false pretense of something else. She was always anxious and jumpy. She seemed distracted and scared. Chloe’s mother spoke about her family and how they had reached out to her and wanted to know about Chloe. She spoke about how the idea of them getting to Chloe worried her.
On their final meeting together had them making a pit stop at one of her mother’s friend’s places. It was in a part of town that Chloe didn’t recognize and never wanted to go. It was where most of the crimes happened. The ‘wrong side of the tracks’ so to speak. Chloe didn’t want to be here, but her mother had insisted it would only take a moment.
That moment led to where she was now.
Her mother’s ‘friend’ was her supplier. Her mother had relapsed at some point before she had met Chloe. While Chloe waited outside, her mother had taken too much of something or a combined amount of something that led to her overdosing. The others who had been in the apartment had run out the door, which had alerted her to something and when she went in to see, she found her mother unconscious on the bed.
Chloe had to run to a neighbor to get help. They were in a Muggle neighborhood and Chloe had never learned to use a telephone even though Kiva and Emery were both willing to teach Chloe and her father some things. She wished she had taken them up on it. The neighbor had called the police for her and now she was here at the hospital.
The police had to leave her to find her father since they did not have working telephone for them to call. That had felt like ages ago.
“Chloe?” A deep familiar voice called out. Her lifted her face to find her dad half running down the hospital corridor to where she sat. Chloe stood up to meet him. She knew he was upset with her and would want an explanation. He stopped just a few feet from her, trying to catch his breath but also to take a look at her. “Aw, Baby girl, I’m so sorry.” He opened his arms for her.
The small gesture was all that she needed. “Daddy!” She cried out and collapsed into his arms in tears. “I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry that I lied. I thought she was better.”
“Shhh, it’s ok, it’ll be ok.” Jeff said, holding his daughter tightly. They would talk about everything later. For the moment, he was just happy she hadn’t been harmed.
Chloe found out that her birth mother was stable and would be okay. Once they found that out, Chloe decided to leave. She left a note for her mother, saying her goodbye, and left with her dad. She had talked with her parents later that evening, once she had calmed down, and told them everything. Although they were disappointed that she hadn’t confided in them sooner, they both understood that meeting her mother was something she needed. If there came a time in her life that she felt okay to meet her again, or her family, they just wanted her to tell them first. Chloe thought that was reasonable, but she wasn’t likely going to meet any of them ever again.