Whispers in the Dark
The nights were different from the days.
During the day, my mother walked. She talked to herself, to the air, to things I could not see. But at night, she sat still. Her eyes stayed open long after the fire died, staring into the dark as if waiting for something.
I did not have words for fear yet, but I felt it.
I felt it in the way she held me too tightly. In the way her breath came fast and shaky against my skin.
One night, she rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped around me, her lips moving without sound.
Then, suddenly, she stiffened.
Her grip on me tightened. Her body shook.
"They are coming," she whispered.
I did not know what coming meant. I did not know who they were. But I felt her fear, and it made my small body tremble too.
I reached for her face with clumsy fingers, touching her cheek the way she sometimes touched mine.
She looked down at me.
For a moment, she was still.
Then she pulled me closer, pressing my face into her chest, rocking me harder.
"You are mine," she murmured, her voice thick and strange.
I did not understand her words. But I understood the way she held me—the way her body curled around mine as if she could keep the whole world away.
I pressed my tiny fingers into the rough fabric of her wrapper, holding on.
Because even though I could not understand—I knew.
She was all I had.
And I was all she had too.