Goodbye Forever, Mom

I was crushed into a pulp by a speeding semi-truck while my mother was at a baking class with my cousin. When I called her, desperate, she only snapped at me. "What's all the racket? Kyle burned his hand because your call distracted him. Did you do that on purpose?" The next day, in her capacity as one of the city's most celebrated morticians, she was assigned to restore the face of a body mangled beyond recognition. She worked on it for a full day and night and still couldn't bring back the dead woman's face. Mom, can you really not recognize her? That's the face of the daughter you hated most. Chapter 1 After the truck sped past, all that was left on the ground was a pulp of flesh that used to be me. An old woman out for her morning walk nearly had a heart attack at the sight, and the police finally rushed over a few minutes later. Looking down at what was left of me, no longer recognizable as human, one of the officers sighed. "Looks like this one's going to be a tough job for Ms. Sullivan." Ms. Sullivan was my mother, Diane Sullivan, the finest mortician in the city. People said her hands could work miracles, turning ruin into something whole again. No matter how gruesome the death, she could restore the victim's face to exactly how they'd looked in life. I just didn't know, this time, whether she'd manage it with me. While I waited anxiously, my mother finally arrived at the scene, out of breath. She'd seen more gore than most people could stomach in a lifetime, but one glance at my body was enough to make her frown. She grabbed a water bottle from an officer nearby and took a sip, just barely keeping herself from throwing up. "How did this happen? Look at the state of this." The officer beside her nodded in sympathy. "Judging by the clothes, it's a young one. Can you imagine how devastated the parents must be? Nothing worse than burying your own child. Makes anyone with kids of their own sick just looking at it." My mother didn't answer. She simply opened her toolbox and pulled on her gloves, same as always. She knelt beside me, wiped the blood from my face, and tried to set my features back into place. But after only a few passes, her hands, the ones people called infallible, trembled. Her fingers had found the bridge of my nose, and the scar running across it. I'd gotten that scar as a kid, after Kyle Bennett deliberately shoved me out of a tree. I'd cried to my mother about it more than once, and every time, all I ever got back was a slap. "What are you crying about? Your cousin didn't do it on purpose! Are you really going to make a big deal out of kids roughhousing? And so what if you've got a scar now? You're already so plain, it's not like it'll make a difference." From that day on, the scar had stayed with me, a permanent mark on my body, just like the gloom that had shadowed the rest of my life. My soul watched a flicker of doubt cross my mother's eyes. She kept working to smooth out my features, but a phone call cut her off mid-motion. She glanced at the screen, saw Kyle's name, and her eyes instantly softened. "Hey there, Kyle. I'm coming right home. What's wrong?" On the other end, Kyle's voice came through choked with tears. "Aunt Diane... I'm scared. Every time I close my eyes, I see Sophie coming to hurt me. Can you come home and stay with me?" My mother was already pulling off her gloves, snatching up her toolbox, and heading for the door. "Don't be scared! I'm coming right now! I'll tuck you into bed. Nobody's going to lay a hand on you while I'm around." I watched her back grow smaller as she walked away, and looked down at my own body lying there on the ground. A single tear slid down my cheek. "Mom, why is it always me who gets left behind whenever it comes down to him or me? "See? You've gone and left me alone again." Chapter 2 The moment my mother got home, she rushed straight into Kyle's room and pulled him into a tight hug. "Kyle, sweetheart, Aunt's home. Don't be scared, don't be scared." The sheer opulence of the room said everything about how much she doted on her nephew. Expensive fruit sat on the desk alongside imported building blocks that must have cost a fortune. Kyle's eyes were already swollen and red as peaches from crying. He looked up at my mother, his eyes still wet. "Aunt Diane, Sophie hasn't come home in days. Does she really hate me that much?" My mother's brow furrowed, and she was quick to comfort him. "Of course not, sweetheart. It's my fault for spoiling her too much. That's how she turned into someone so willful and out of line. When she gets home, I'm going to give her a good talking-to." Standing off to the side, I heard those words and felt something in my chest crack. No matter how hard I tried, in my mother's eyes, I would always be the disappointment. To her, only Kyle was worthy of being called her child. She always said that since Kyle's mother had died giving birth to him, she owed him double the love to make up for it. And me? Was I just supposed to be the sacrifice? A flash of satisfaction crossed Kyle's face, so quick it was almost invisible. Underneath that harmless, gentle exterior of his, only I knew what kind of twisted, monstrous face was really hiding there. In a dim warehouse, I'd watched in despair as Kyle suddenly appeared, and I'd screamed with everything I had left, begging him to save me. I still didn't understand why I'd been snatched off the street by a group of strangers in broad daylight, but I knew that this cousin who'd always had it out for me might be my only hope of getting out alive. Instead, I was met with a slap across the face, delivered with all his strength. I stared at him, stunned. Kyle looked down at me, ice in his eyes. "Sophie, I really do hate you, you know. Only once you're dead can Aunt Diane pour all her love and every resource she has into me. Your death is worth it. I'll never forget you for that." Struggling did nothing. The men around me swarmed in and threw me onto the road. I watched, helpless, as they gunned the truck straight at me, and then the pain swallowed me whole. With the last of my strength, I called my mother, begging her to save me. All I got back was one icy line. "Would you quit bothering me? Kyle's at his baking class. Don't interrupt us." The call ended. So did my life. Now, watching the killer put on his innocent little act, I wanted nothing more than to tear the mask right off his face. But I was already dead. There was nothing I could do. It had always been like this, in that house. I'd spent my whole life walking on eggshells. Curled up in my mother's arms, Kyle looked up at her with an expression of pure, childlike innocence. "Aunt Diane, Sophie called earlier and said she was in some kind of danger. Do you want to check on her?" My mother picked up a book that had fallen to the floor and pursed her lips. "Don't bother believing her. Who knows how many times she's told that lie already. Not once has it ever been true. I don't know who taught that girl to be such a liar. If only she were even half as good as you." Kyle broke into a smile, but I caught the cruelty hiding just beneath it. In the middle of all that warmth and comfort, a phone rang. My mother, who'd promised to spend the whole day with Kyle, hung up on it without a second thought. But the phone kept ringing, over and over, like it was calling her to her doom. The caller was her apprentice, the one she'd left in charge of restoring my body. For him to be calling this insistently, something must have gone badly wrong at work. She had no choice. After a few words to soothe Kyle and coax him off to sleep, she finally grabbed her things and hurried out. Chapter 3 The funeral home was in complete chaos. The damage to my body was so severe that her apprentice, who'd only started the job a few months earlier, had no hope of restoring my face on his own. My mother's brow creased in irritation. "You can't even handle something this simple. What good are any of you? I could've been home tucking my kid into bed by now." The apprentice forced out a placating smile. "Not everyone has your gift, Ms. Sullivan. I'm sorry Sophie didn't get to fall asleep in your arms tonight." The instant my name left her lips, my mother snapped back at her. "It's not her. That wretched girl's off running wild somewhere again, hasn't been home in days. I never should have had her in the first place." The apprentice's expression froze for a second, and he gave an awkward little laugh. Already dressed and gloved, my mother asked briskly, "What's the status on the body?" The apprentice pointed to show her. "I've got the skeletal structure mostly reconstructed, but the facial damage is so extensive that most of the bones are shattered. I really don't know what else to do. "But we have made progress. Judging by the build, it's a young woman in her twenties. Honestly, she looks a bit like Sophie." My mother shot her a sharp look, clearly displeased at the comparison. "Since when do we compare a body to a living person? Don't you know that's the biggest taboo in this line of work?" Realizing his mistake, the apprentice shrank back and said nothing more. The instant my mother lifted the white sheet covering me, the cold detachment in her eyes cracked, just slightly. My face was still a mess of blood, but the height and build were an almost exact match to my own. It made her think of how many days it had been since I'd left the house, without so much as a phone call or a text. Even at my most rebellious, I'd never once gone this far. Her breathing quickened. She grabbed the body's arm and inspected it closely. There was nothing there, just streaks and streaks of dried blood. She finally let out a breath of relief. She hadn't found my birthmark. It had all just been her imagination running away with her. Mom, of course you wouldn't find my birthmark. Kyle's biggest fear was that someone would recognize who I was. Before he pushed me into the road, he'd taken a knife to my skin and cut the birthmark clean off. It hurt so much, Mom. Maybe her apprentice words had planted the thought of me in her mind, because she threw herself into the work with unusual intensity after that. Sweat rolled down her forehead in fat drops, and she didn't even pause to wipe it away. As my jaw slowly took shape beneath her hands, her expression grew grimmer by the minute. Even though she'd already convinced herself that it wasn't me, the resemblance was too strong to shake, an eerie, inexplicable familiarity clinging to the body from head to toe. Feeling like she'd simply worn herself out for the day, my mother finally set down her tools and rubbed at her aching lower back. That was when the door burst open, and someone from the police department came rushing in, phone held up in triumph. Chapter 4 "Ms. Sullivan! The victim's phone was smashed to pieces in the crash, but the memory card survived. We spent all day on it, and we finally recovered the last number she called before she died." My mother sat down in her chair, picked up her coffee, and nodded, satisfied. "Good. Whether it leads anywhere or not, call it and try. Who knows, maybe it'll help us confirm who she is." Her colleague fiddled with the phone excitedly, then shook his head, a little wistful. "I've got a feeling this girl didn't come from much. Her phone's an old model, years out of date, and buffers if you try to watch a video on it. Usually, it's girls like that who come to the city to work. God only knows how her family's going to take the news once they find out." I turned my hopeful eyes on my mother. Right, Mom? Knowing I died like this, so horribly, would you feel even a little bit sad? Would you finally feel something for me? Even just a little? In the end, I was bound to be disappointed. My mother let out a sigh. "Any child is the center of their parents' world. If something like this happened to my Kyle, I don't think I'd even want to keep living. He's everything to me." Whatever amusement I'd felt froze solid. Kyle. Why was it always Kyle? I was the one my mother carried for nine months and gave birth to. Just because his mother had died young, did that mean he got to claim everything of mine as his by right? I wanted so badly to march up and ask her: if she didn't love me, why had she even had me in the first place? But it was far too late for that now. Her colleague had already entered the number, and everyone crowded around, curious. My mother's apprentice looked at the number on the screen and muttered something, confused. "That's strange... this number looks like..." Before he could finish the sentence, a phone started ringing loudly, cutting through the quiet room. It was my mother's phone. Every eye in the room went wide at once. My mother, oblivious, answered the call. When she saw it was me calling, she immediately snapped, annoyed. "You've finally decided to call me? Where the hell have you been all this time? Do you even care about this family anymore? Do you even care about me, your own mother? Say something!" No one answered her. Then her voice started playing back through my phone's speaker. Everyone's faces turned even paler. When my mother looked up and saw their expressions, understanding finally began to dawn. "Why... why does this phone have my daughter's number... then who is this, lying here?" The room fell into an eerie silence. The truth was practically staring everyone in the face. But not a single person dared to say it out loud, that the girl who'd been alive and laughing just days ago was now nothing but a heap of mangled flesh. A few seconds later, my mother suddenly started shaking her head violently. "It's not true! There's no birthmark on the body's arm! It has to be a coincidence! Maybe... maybe someone just happened to find my daughter's phone! Nothing's happened to Sophie, nothing could have happened to her! "The body... that's it! If I just finish restoring the face, we'll be able to see exactly who this is! Then we'll know the truth! It won't be her!" With that, she stumbled and staggered back to where my body lay. Her hands, always so steady, trembled uncontrollably now as she worked, bit by bit, to bring my face back. The truth was about to come out, whether she was ready for it or not.