Mommy ✓

I ALWAYS KNEW (ANNA + PAITEN ENDGAME CHAPTER)

I ALWAYS KNEW

in which Paiten Hearth realises that there's no one else she'd rather be with than Anna Carson.

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Timeline •  May 2020 (One month after the breakup from "if i could fly - PART IV)

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PRETORIA, 2020

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There was a cold chill in the air that Saturday morning. Paiten Hearth had heard the wind howling a forlorn tune outside her window as she wrapped her cardigan tighter around herself.

Perhaps it was the sweet loneliness of browned leaves swaying without any direction, or dew drops dissolving in cold, indifferent air that pushed her outside. She wasn’t surprised to find her mother swaying on the porch swing, bundled up in warm clothing and nursing a cup of coffee. This had become their new ritual -- mother and daughter out in the garden, unburdening themselves of the loads that made their relationship acidic.

As glad as Paiten had been for her mother’s return back in 2016, their bond had not grown overnight. There were still questions that needed answers and resentments that needed to be laid to rest. The first time they’d ever sat out in the garden together was the day after Paiten had come home in hysterics after she and Anna had broken up.

“Do you want to talk about it?” her mother had asked her.

She’d heard her anguished cries from her bedroom all night long, after everyone had retired to bed. Paiten had shaken her head no and replied, “But I have something else I want to talk about.”

“What is it?”

“Did you ever entertain the idea of taking me with you when you left?”

And without warning, both mother and daughter’s eyes pricked with warm tears. Paiten’s tear ducts had been swollen and coloured black from her long night, and the onset of fresh tears physically hurt.

“Yes,” came her strangled reply, “I regretted leaving you. But I just knew that if I had taken you with me, I would’ve destroyed you.”

She’d heard versions of this answer before and on an objective level, she understood her mother’s point of view. But her grief knew nothing of objectivity. It still pulled the nerves in her belly into a taught knot, and filled her throat with bitterness.

“I want to forgive you,” Paiten replied, “But I am so angry at you. I never had any of it… I just spent my entire childhood drifting all on my own wondering why my own mother didn’t want me I -”

And somehow, there was enough grace to accommodate them both as the daughter cried from anger and the mother from guilt and they embraced one another. From then on, Saturdays became an opportunity for healing.

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“Good morning,” Ntombi said.

“Morning,” she replied and sat down next to her.

Ntombi didn’t need to comment on the bags she saw under Paiten’s eyes, because she’d heard her crying in her room again last night. She and her husband had decided to practise self-restraint by respecting Paiten’s privacy enough to allow her to process her emotions her own way. It didn’t mean that her motherly instincts didn’t sucker punch her everytime she heard her child crying so bitterly and felt the urge to barge into her room and hold her tight in her arms.

Paiten had watched The Notebook again with an embarrassing amount of wine beside her the night before, and as always, it had triggered her and made her cry for Anna.