My Mom's not my Mom

  A persistent droning bled from the car console. Its front door had been left open, and the lonely vehicle was parked on the side of a highway, its headlights illuminating the weathered tarmac. Cool, crisp air left the back, where I was nestled in a blanket with my baby brother, out of the car and into the night. What was taking Mom so long?

  The drive coming back from visiting my cousins was never too pleasant. Drained and terrorised by little children, I had little energy for much talking in the car. The drive was long, and most of it was always spent in silence or sleeping.

  Little Terry shifted his weight around my legs; soft cooing before a gentle silence once more. I smiled. He sure was keen on following tradition.

  Keys jingled from outside just before I heard the door click shut again; that incessant door-ajar alarm was turned off now. And as she turned the keys, sputtering the car engines into a low, steady hum, I asked, “Was the deer okay, Mom?”

  “A little battered. A lot frightened, but… it’ll be fine, Lydia sweetie.”

  She adjusted the car windows so we could look at each other – straight black hair we shared, pointed facial features, and an olive complexion we did not.

  Then the car was moving, and the radio tuned in to whatever the top hits of the week were. She must have noticed me peering over to stare, taking out my earphones, asked, “Anything wrong? If you wanted to use the toilet, it’s gonna be a while, I’m afraid.”

  I shook my head. I was about to return to sleep again, but…

  “Mom, you usually like the classics on the radio, don’t you?”

  “I do. Thought I’d try something different today.” She paused, a clicking coming from the turn signal as she turned a bend in the road. “Would you like it if I switched back to it?”

  I shook my head, “Uh-uh.”

  The car’s air-conditioning was blasting loudly, and I tucked myself deep under the blankets down the back seats. Not once, in the past five years, had she ever listened to the radio.

  The car rocked over bumps in the road, each jerk I felt in my core.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  And driving off, I realised that the twisting knot in my gut and pounding in my chest were no symptom of the drive at all. Fingers clenched clammy over the woolen blanket, I eyed the view outside the car, dark treeline racing by without end. 

  It was all fine. I was being ridiculous. I was a whole twelve years of age now. Certainly old enough to pay no heed to the little horrors that keep only small children awake; old enough to not delude myself that something had happened to my mother in the time she left the car. It was all fine. And it would have all been fine if it weren’t for the fact that we were barreling down a stretch of road I’d never seen before in my life.

  I’d never felt as scared in my life as I was then. Hairs raised on end like hot pinpricks down the back of my neck. Was she… it… staring at me from the rearview mirror? I shook my head quickly, as if willing these thoughts to leave me. There was always a simple way to find out. I slowly inched out of my blanket. The cold and worn fabric of the wool tickled my fingers as my eyes started towards the driver's seat. What would I find there? 

  ‘Mom’s’ dark hair covered her ears and the back of her neck from where I was sitting, though the mirror revealed that she was, at the very least, still keeping her eyes on the road. I was so sure that I was being so silly, yet so sure I had to ask, “I think I wanna text my cousins when we get back. Tell ‘em it was fun. I know the boy was Dylan. What was the girl’s name again, mommy?”

  “Carla, sweetheart. Carla.”

  Correct name.

  A few seconds had passed before there was almost a change in the air. ‘Mom’ raised her hands, turning the old knob on the radio, switching it off. No more music in the car. 

  We rode in silence for a good while. I don’t know when, but the rain started in that limbo when I was hiding under the covers, eyeing the back of her head. There was a flash of light outside that traced the inner contours of the vehicle, and I suddenly remembered the heavy warmth that slept snugly still against the side of my leg. I quickly cupped my hands over Terry’s ears just before thunder rang low in the distance. A sigh of relief escaped my mouth. He hated thunder more than anything. A smile tugged at the edges of my lips here. I still remember the night we had a really bad thunderstorm, not long after Little Terry had joined us.

  I was maybe ten… eleven, then. Mom was tending to the baby. His cries so loud I wondered how he hadn’t lost his voice after ten minutes. I could hear Dad in the kitchen. He was supposed to be asleep, but who could even blame him? Heard him stirring a drink, spoon clinking away against a cup. A shadow moved past the slice of light under my door from out in the hallway. Mom said something about it being Dad’s turn, before I soon heard nothing at all but the baby’s crying again.

  The door didn’t creak any softer just because I tried to open it more slowly. Water droplets and strands of hair lay on the floor here and there. Thinking about it, even now, I’m not sure why I decided to go to my parents’ room where Terry was crying. I’m glad I did, though.

  The wind was buffeting the roof of the house that night, making it groan and rattle in apt displeasure. There was a flash of light outside, followed by a deafening crackle. I remember I’d jumped; thought the hallway had never looked as long as it had been then, half-bounding and half-tiptoeing down its length. 

  A coarse voice came, caked with phlegm, “Couldn’t sleep, honey?”

  I shook my head as I peered in from the open doorway. Dad beckoned me in with one hand through all the loud crying. And when I finally got to Terry’s cradle, I moved my finger to his face. Another flash of lightning broke through the world outside, but all that mattered to me then was just this helpless thing – snotty, whiny, and so incredibly small that he needed his entire hand to wrap around my one finger. 

  Thunder boomed outside the car, stirring me from what sleep I could find. 

  I rubbed the dirt out of my eyes, feeling the ache in my bones. I didn’t think I’d been asleep for long, had I? My hands instinctively reached for Terry, feeling him nestled gently against me. All good there. The thought occurred to me that the car wasn’t moving at all. Then the thought occurred to me to check what time it was on the car console. I propped myself up, yawning, and expecting to feel the strong brush of cold air to be met by warm… stagnant air. The car had stopped in the middle of a road I’d never seen before in my life. Its headlights were off. My hands traced the roof of the car for the lights, and they found them. A dim orange light washed over ‘Mom’ in the driver’s seat, hands still on the wheel, eyes ever focused on the road.

  “M-Mom? Why aren’t we moving?” I asked.

  At that moment, her left hand slowly left the wheel, hovering over the gas meter.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “Must be empty.”

  I clutched Terry a little tighter, bringing him closer to my chest. Somehow, I didn’t remember the long, long scar along her left forearm. ‘Mom’ was still staring in front, and I was trying now, moving my head to try and steal a look at her face, just to make sure – to be sure of something I wasn’t quite aware of. I got as far as a look at her neck. It was pale, and cool even under the warm lighting. Purple veins wormed up it at odd angles under thin skin that shone with an almost plastic quality. Then, clear as day, I saw the outline of something with legs crawling up one of her veins. Squinting my eyes, I was made more sure that more of those things skittering up the purple ropes that coiled up her neck were not only there but under her skin. 

  The rearview mirror whined as it was turned. Both my hands went up to cover my mouth, trying to stifle a gasp. 

  “Guess I must have forgotten to fill up on gas, huh?”

  On her left, her face and eyes looked fine enough, but drawn on some invisible partition down its centre, her right face drooped, skin nearly sloughing off her muscles. Her eye there stared back at me, so dark and sunken into its socket. I didn’t want to look at it any more, but a deep compulsion pushed me to see that the void that filled the whites of her eye wasn’t black at all, but a deep crimson, the same as blood.

  She decided that it was her turn to ask me questions, “Is it wrong that I forgot to? Would… Would I have ever forgotten to?”

  I was so scared. What could she have wanted me to say? Did she want me to tell her she was right? 

  “It’s fine… Mom. Happens to everybody.”

  I was too acutely aware of my own sharp breathing, or rather the fact that besides me and Terry, I didn’t think ‘Mom’ was breathing at all. 

  She continues, “I think you are scared, Lydia. Do I look okay?”

  “Yes, y-you look fine, Mom. Can we call somebody to come pick us up? Maybe Dad. The police o-o-”

  “NO POLICE!” She slammed her hands into the wheel again, and again, and, “NO POLICE! I DON’T LIKE POLICE! I DON’T LIKE POLICE! I-”

 She was crying. It was a rage-filled tantrum I’d never seen before. Tears welled up in my own eyes. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t Mom. My hands rattled the door handle, but the blasted thing wouldn’t budge. It wouldn’t budge. 

  Then Terry started crying as well, about to join in on the mad cacophony of noise. I quickly covered his mouth. Would ‘Mom’ like it if Terry cried? I didn’t want to find out.

  “No police! No- No police, Mom. I don’t even have my phone,” I chuckled, sobbing, tears running down my cheeks, “Left it at home, alright. You’re good. Let’s just… just flag someone down for gas.”

  The change was immediate, “Good. I lied about the gas.”

  The engine hummed back to life. And so too could I breathe, though I felt Terry’s wet drool under my hand still clasped over his mouth.

  ‘Mom’ was staring at me through the mirror again and asked, “Adults lie sometimes for your own good. So you understand, right?”

  I nodded fiercely.

  “Good.”

  The drive back lasted a few more hours. The lights of the distant suburb came. 

  As soon as Mom parked the car in the driveway. She told me to wait inside as she went to talk to Dad inside. Some part of me hoped that it’d be the end of the nightmare; that Dad would fix Mom, but that was four hours ago. And I’m still in the car with Terry. The first rays of morning are beginning to peek over the buildings down the street, and I don’t think either Mom or Dad is coming to save me and Terry when they did come. I don’t think the neighbours would think twice, too, before assuming this was all just some product of a child’s keen imagination, handing me back to whatever it was that lives in my house now. 

  I think I’m going to make a run for the police station. I’m taking Terry with me, of course. No way I was leaving him in the car. I’m still trying to figure out what to tell them. Maybe they'd believe I ran away from abusive parents. That sounded more believable than whatever had happened to me.