Waking Up: Katherine – Part 6
**Content Warning:** This story contains depictions of and allusions to the abuse of vulnerable populations, such as those with disabilities, LGBTQA+, and children of abusive parents, and may contain content that some may find disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.
“Michael.”
Gasping awake against the dim light and my heart gallops. My muscles clench through a medication-blurred reality as I roll my eyes through the haze toward my mother’s voice. “M-mom?” I stutter. Salt and pepper curls emerge through the haze of dim lights, but shadows obscure her face.
At the top of the wall, three lines move inside a circular object with illegible numbers around the edge. What the hell time is it? Outside, the dark skies conflict against the hospital and parking lot lights. Visiting hours… When are visiting hours?
“Michael,” She grabs my jaw and jerks my neck to the right. For a moment, her blue eyes capture me. “They told me about your visitor.” Her thin lips stretch taught into a thin line. Each corner’s edge turns down with crinkling years of judgment glaring back at me. “You’ll never see her again.” Trying to look away, she shakes my head and neck back to eye contact. “Never.”
An intestinal crater opens as I smell cedar and strawberries, but taste stomach acid. She’s going to hurt me again. Closing my eyes, I let the images of purple orchids, eucalyptus, and peony bouquets wash over me. A once silent neuron joins the chorus with the smells of the Atlantic Ocean. A lighthouse towers over us as we join hands. Madison…
“Open your eyes!” Her hand tightens its vice grip around my jaw and upper neck. Leaning out of her chair, she seizes my shoulder and shakes until I relinquish eye contact. “What will it take? You are my son! Nothing you say or do will ever change that!” Without loosening her grip, she softens her face. “I love you so much, and you’ve hurt me for so long…”
“You’re hurting me,” I whisper against the pressure on my trachea and hyoid bone. The nails of both her hands dig into the skin of my neck, jaw, and shoulder.
“Not as much as you’ve hurt me.” A silvery tear cascades down her cheek. With a final push, she releases me, falling back into her chair. “I carried and gave birth to a perfect, healthy little boy.”
Staring down at my chest, I pull the blanket up over me as memories begin to trickle in. Four years of weekly high school counselor visits, the faces and names lost to time blink by. Four years of therapy in college, a full psychological evaluation, medical evaluations, hormone replacement therapy, meetings with academic advisors, surgeries – the deluge rushes forth. “I was… Never that.”
“Bullshit!” Her hand slaps my head toward the window. Skin burns against the rising impression as my whole body implodes. But my past and my future block that implosion. They build inside me from the silence until I hear a crescendo.
“Why am I not allowed to be happy, Mom?” My amygdala explodes chemical signals traveling along a neural network of childhood trauma. I didn’t recognize you for a reason. I scoot my hips back in the bed. “Madison loves me! She loved me when Diedre was just a suggestion, and she loves me now that it’s my name.” A warm, burning sensation fills my body. With narrowed eyes, I meet her blue eyes darting to avoid my own. “Why do you hate that?” This heat lifts my head as I sit up, my height towering over her. “Tell me,” I pause, remembering a delicious, sickening detail as our eyes meet, “Katherine.”
“Michael, I – “ she refuses eye contact, her eyes searching the floor for her lost control.
“You will address me as Diedre.” I interrupt, grabbing her hand and applying light pressure. Our eyes meet as we sit in silence, unblinking. A memory hits me. I taste ginger-vanilla cake with raspberry filling. My shoulders remembering the warm embrace of a father-daughter dance. “Dad did.”
“You will not mention that man!” Her hand flies from my grasp as she stands from the chair. “We’ll continue this discussion later.” She slings her purse over her shoulder, looking away from me. Then, she strides out the door, slamming it so hard it fails to latch, and it bounces out of the frame.
“There is no discussion,” I whisper into the darkness, turning to look out the window. Struck by the darkness outside, I rummage through the blankets for the call bell. Where is it? Across the room, on the sink counter, the unplugged call bell’s red button laughs at me. Is this a nightmare? Why can’t I wake up? Shaking my head fails to disperse these moments – the raised red skin on my face remains.
Outside the door, the hall lights glow at half intensity. Collapsing into the bed, I focus on the landslide of memories until the darkness of sleep retakes me.
