To Love and Forget

            “Just tell me what happened, Judy. You know I will love you no matter what you did. Sweetheart, why are you crying?”

Judy’s mouth fails to form words that are even slightly indicative of a reply to her mother’s concerned request. She makes a puddle of her misery in the center of the marble kitchen floor, wailing in a way that could be confused with an epileptic fit. Her mother hastily grabs some paper towels near the microwave and attempts to lift her teenage daughter off the floor, but now Judy is severely locked in fetal position. She then kneels beside her daughter and looks around the four-cornered kitchen. She begins to admire the color she chose for the walls, an effervescent orange. She loves how the color went well with the ocean-blue marble floor, almost mimicking a sunset over a body of water. She makes a silent wish that her daughter should cry enough to drown the floors to make it more ocean-like, no longer paying attention to her daughter’s high-pitched sounds of grief.

Judy’s mother turns her thoughtfulness towards the refrigerator beside her. On the door lies a picture held by fruit-shaped magnets. The photo is of Judy in her senior prom dress. It is blue, just like the ocean. She faces her daughter and taps her back.

“Judy, look at you in this picture!” she points to the photo. “Do you remember how beautiful you were with your prom date? What was his name? Judy, please stop crying!”

Judy ceases from her groans, slowly and remorsefully lifting her head from the ground to face her mother. Her mother reaches arm-length for the picture, and places it an inch to Judy’s face.

“Remember that night, Judy? You were so beautiful.”

Judy snatches the picture, and tears the image of her head from it. Her mother, extremely surprised, places the torn piece with the blue dress back on the refrigerator. Judy opens her mouth as if to yawn, but a shriek of pain follows the action. Her mother is kneeling sideways toward the photo, oblivious to the sound. Judy now feels compelled to speak.

“Mom, I am sorry. I feel as if I am the most horrible and ungrateful person in the world. I shouldn’t have been so stupid.”

Her mother turns her head to smile, and holds out her warm hand to caress Judy’s face.

“Sweetie, I don’t know what you’re talking about. All I know is that you are the most beautiful 16 year-old I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m 18! Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry! I should not have been drunk that night! I didn’t know what I was thinking-I wasn’t thinking!”

“Sweetie, everybody thinks. You think really well. Drunk people think too.”

“Oh, my goodness! You don’t remember? You never remember. You don’t want to remember prom.”

“What are you talking about, honey? I remember how beautiful you were. Steven was an amazing date too.”

“Steven was a jerk! It was his idea to drink beers at the after-party, and then he drove me home. Then you were yelling in the driveway because we came home around 4am. I was so embarrassed! Mother, I’m so sorry!”

“Judy, that’s alright. Look at the floor honey! It’s like the ocean. Let’s cry together, and maybe we can add some fishes!”

“No! I want to die!”

“But if we die, who will get the fishes?”

“Don’t you get it? I smacked you with a beer bottle! I wanted you to stop embarrassing me! And now I can never forget it. Just hate me!

Judy scans her mother’s face for any signs of anger. Her mother does not seem to remember that night.

“You did nothing wrong, sweetie. I still love you.”

“But I hurt you. Mom, don’t you get it? The hospital? You have to hate me!”

“Sweetheart, stop crying. Just look at this photo! Your blue dress matches the floor!”

Reviews

[Sarah]

This piece is super super powerful. The imagery at the beginning sucked me in SO quickly, and definitely pulled me emotionally. I loved the imagery of the girl crying and making an ocean and the mom just trying to distract herself with things in the room.
I was a little confused with the part when the mom said the floor is 'like the ocean. Let's cry together' I thought it was AWESOME imagery, and I knew what you were trying to do by illustrating the mom's avoiding behavior, but it almost seemed out of the blue (funny because blue is such a motif in your story :). I guess that just seemed like an odd comment, it may have helped to add more dialogue between the characters before that quote about the floor looking like an ocean, more than narrator description.
Overall, that is something SO tiny to nitpick, but the story is SO strong, I would love to read the rest of the story. You definitely have a strong characters and imagery!

[rottenharvest]

I thought it was a little hard to chew with the descriptiveness at the beginning. I did like the correlation to her tears and the ocean through. Also, the ending is a little confusing I feel like there could have been more of a plot. Good work!

[Lizzy]

It's meant to be a short story, and I tried to allude to the incident being the cause of the mother's forgetfulness. Thanks for the review! This was my first real attempt at short stories. More of a poet lol