The view of the sea was obscured by the fine mist of my breath on the car’s cold windows. Muted colours and indistinct shapes reared up in front of me, hemming me in. I filled my lungs slowly, hoping the oxygen would go straight to my brain and clear my thoughts. Pushing the car seat back to its furthest position, I pulled my feet up and placed my chin on my knees, then tried to make sense of my recent conversation.
None of my mental discussions with my mother had included her actual reaction. Now the vision of her straining neck and bulging eyes was painted on the car windows’ fog. Her rage had been terrible, and I was beginning to doubt if it was the act of a guilty person. Should I have expected her to confess straight away? Surely a guilty person couldn’t have met my eyes with such a stare.
Had I imagined the whole thing? Was she right? Was I having false memories?
Absolutely not! I pounded on the steering wheel. False memories wouldn’t appear with such clarity. All of my senses were involved in those memories; surely that wouldn’t be the case if this was all a result of an overactive imagination.
Doubt seeped through my mind, making it a swamp, the silt of uncertainty smothering all my convictions. Screwing up my eyes, I tried to force all doubt from my mind. There was no doubt, I told myself; my mother was guilty and her performance had been borne from the panic of discovery. She had been rehearsing that scene for decades.
When the #MeToo movement kicked off, she must have been worried it would encourage me to face my memories and I’d tell someone I’d been abused. She must have thought a day of reckoning would come. Or perhaps she had been reassured by the number of articles and comments online that said this was the time at long last for men to shut up and listen to women? Even though my memory of my own abuse had been locked away, this was a notion I’d rejected as soon as I heard it. If female abuse victims hadn’t been listened to before now, neither had men. This was the time for everyone to be heard.
Or perhaps the lag in time since that phenomenon broke had her reassured that she was safe, that her manipulation of my mind as a boy had been successful – my silence was guaranteed.
I tried to examine my feelings for my mother. Did I hate her? Did I love her? Could I ever forgive her?
The answer to these questions was a limp: I don’t know.