Me Without You (6 page)

"No, it has not been locked for days
now. Judith had been—Oh, just go get it!" Rebecca ordered
annoyingly.

Jane stared at Rebecca for a moment
with a mixture of loathing and triumph in her eyes before she
entered the door to the laboratory. When she got out, she
carelessly threw the belly chain on Rebecca's bed, just a couple of
feet away from her mother.

"Hand it over!" Rebecca screamed at
Jane. She was able to move her eyes as they grew ominously large
and her palm as it opened tensely.

Jane hesitated for a brief
period. But then, she obliged. She put the
habak
in her mother's hand before she
turned and left in haste.

Rebecca was still in the
middle of deciding what to do with the
habak
when the knob turned again and
another door opened. Rebecca perfectly knew who it was. By just the
scent, Rebecca knew it was an unwanted guest.

"Oh, it’s you! So, you've left your
fortress to check if I am dead," Rebecca said weakly and swallowed
hard. Her throat had felt constricted and she was feeling a
metallic taste in her mouth. She took a deep breath and smirked
despite her pain. "But you will never have it." Averting her
guest's eyes for a moment, Rebecca heard another door closed
softly.

Rebecca’s unwanted guest followed
Rebecca's gaze and looked in the same direction of the door leading
to an adjacent room.

"There, there…Gilda—" Rebecca
hissed."You might as well find out who that was…or our little
secret will be out in the open in no time. But I’d be damned if you
do not find her quickly. She will be as strong as me…perhaps even
stronger. You will know the signs as you always do. The signs you
have always yearned to manifest but failed."

"I will see you in the next
lifetime, I guess," Gilda said. "Perhaps, by then you have simmered
down a bit. Where is the
habak
? Hand it over to Judith like you
always had."

"Judith?" Rebecca replied
sarcastically. "The little traitor—you must have fed her from your
palms to turn against me."

Gilda sneered with absolute contempt,
"Had you known you are not coming back, would you still be this
way?"

"I am not coming back—" Rebecca said
seriously. "Yet, I'm still me. You? When are you going to change
skin?"

"God, you've lost your
soul—"

"You took a piece of it," Rebecca
simply stated. "I will never—"

Rebecca took a lungful of air until she
felt every inch of her body ached before turning numb. Then she
appeared like she was going to cry and panic all of a sudden while
still not being able to move. After a split of a second, with her
eyes wide open, a smirk on her lips and a cut-off sentence, all of
her vitality ceased.

Chapter
6

The Death and Birth of a
Healer

"So that's her?" Jonah
thought.

Jonah tiptoed towards the door
adjoining Rebecca’s room and listened. From the day the older woman
got sick, Jonah had secretly monitored what went on from the little
crack on the door jamb.

She had seen people come and go. The
activities inside her mother’s room had been non-stop the past few
days with people pouring in to pay the older woman a visit. Except
for Jane and their helicopter parent, Aunt Judith, not one of the
children attempted to pay their mother a visit.

Jonah couldn't blame her siblings for
not showing their concern. "Nobody cares in the first place!" Jonah
chuckled sarcastically.

Jonah, on the other hand, had peeked in
a few times when Rebecca was asleep. However, she never really
lingered longer.

The other guests were all coming from
the side of her father’s family. The others were her mother’s
so-called friends from the church and the community where Rebecca
was revered almost like a goddess because of her wealth and her
clout.

"I can't believe Gilda Byrne went out
of her house to visit. I mean—she has never been seen outside of
her place," Jonah was talking to herself, occasionally shaking her
head. Almost all of Rebecca’s visitors were familiar to Jonah
except for Gilda Byrne.

Gilda was an older woman with the
purest white hair Jonah had ever seen that it almost shone like a
bright halo over her head. The woman had a distinctive menthol
scent that had wafted throughout the adjacent room even before
stepping inside Rebecca’s room. It did not look like her intention
was to see a sick woman. She looked more like preparing herself for
the battle of her life.

Gilda hadn’t also been greeted fairly
well by the Blood matriarch. In fact, Rebecca had shown a manner of
distaste for her. It was very evident that the two women showed a
certain connection that could have been rooted for a very long
time. With the way they sneered at each other and whispered their
words, Rebecca and her guest had just confirmed that they shared
bad blood for the longest time.

Jonah put her ear a little closer to
the door. She could not hear a thing.

"What's going on? Can't even hear
anybody breathing!" Jonah shook her head unbelievably. Even when
there was nobody around, Jonah could still hear Rebecca’s
unintelligible chanting.

With the unwanted guest, it was strange
not to hear a single sound. From where Jonah was standing, she
could have an uninterrupted view of her mother and what went on
inside Rebecca’s room.

"Silence?" Jonah asked herself. "That’s
weird." She wanted to take a peek and see what was going on. But
the last time she did, she almost got caught. And it bothered her
to no end to feel so sneaky towards her mother.

"It was not as if she made us feel
welcomed in her chambers," Jonah argued with herself. "She had
always something weird going on…like some kind of a top secret or
something. It invited people spying on her often. Even Jane spied
on her. And Aunt Judith eavesdropped on her conversations." She
snickered almost choking on her own breath as she tried to lessen
the sound. "This is so weird. I am talking to myself like
her."

Earlier that day, it sounded busier. It
was weird how it almost felt like some kind of a festivity with a
somber mood. It had the eerie feeling that people were gathering
around and celebrating but could not because it had to do with
something as grave as death.

Even the air had gone humid, making
Jonah feeling so inconvenient. It was even more inconvenient to
move with a bandaged hand. She felt like being restricted. There
was really a big difference when she can feel and touch with her
bare hands.

"Ugh! What the hell!" Jonah silently
cursed as she brushed back the bangs of her short pixie-styled, jet
black hair away from her forehead. She had it cut really short
before she will be starting for college, to heed a friendly
advice.

Her mother’s illness had nailed Jonah
home instead of going to her university and check the place. She
was grateful for it. At eighteen and with how her first romantic
relationship turned out to be, she reckoned she had breezed through
high school and university seemed too early for a head start. If
Jane had not forced her to enroll for a degree by giving her an
unacceptable option to stay in a mental asylum, she should have
gone backpacking with her friends to Asia or camp outside of
Xavier's doorstep. Actually, Jane had only suggested she submitted
herself to a shrink.

So, after Xavier had his last
chemotherapy session and Hugh decided to join a special medical
program in his school, she will become clueless again with what was
going on with Xavier. Going away for college seemed like a good
idea.

"Good thing the woman got
sick," Jonah whispered feeling awfully guilty.
Good God, whip my thoughts
. She
reflected shamefully. Rebecca was after all her mother even if the
older woman had not been living up to the role all of Jonah’s
life.

Jonah had that kind of relationship
with Rebecca. There were numerous times when she wanted her mother
to feel proud of her. However, when the opportunity was presented
to hurt the older woman, it was so difficult not to take advantage.
In fact, it was just so tempting to earn the ire of the older
woman. It felt like a big accomplishment of some sort. For Jonah,
anger or any emotion, may it be positive or negative meant Rebecca
cared just the tiniest bit.

I doubt it she cared about
us…
The painful thought entered Jonah’s
mind. All her seven children were unanimous in the way they felt
about Rebecca. Jonah had heard tales from her older siblings about
their own childhood and how Rebecca had treated them.

Even if Rebecca was more relaxed where
Jonah was concerned being the youngest among the seven, still Jonah
could feel no genuine love.

"Genuine interest, perhaps," Jonah
whispered sarcastically. It was plain and simple…their mother did
not love them the way a mother should.

"She was only protecting her own
interests," Jonah mused. "She wanted us to follow her lead even if
we did not want to. And she was so stubborn not to get
it."

For the life of her, Jonah could never
imagine leading a life the way Rebecca did. And she could never
understand why her mother wanted some of her children to follow in
her footsteps when it was so evident Rebecca never really looked
happy all these years. Not even when her life had been abundantly
blessed.

Yes, Rebecca was never
happy. And never was I proud to be her daughter
. Jonah thought to herself.

Some of Jonah’s siblings had wanted to
be like Rebecca. Just like Jane… Jonah knew how much Jane desired
her mother’s approval and her favor, only to Jane’s own detriment.
The old woman ignored Jane the way she did the other children she
was not interested with.

Jonah loved Jane so much. She was more
like a mother to her than Rebecca could ever be. Jane had filled in
Rebecca’s shoes taking care of the rest of the younger Bloods.
Being the eldest among seven, she was at their beck and call,
always ready to take care of their needs even when each of them had
nannies. Jane had sacrificed herself a lot. It was probably her way
of showing Rebecca she was capable of being the matriarch’s
clone.

However, Rebecca was only interested in
a few of them. She had shown an odd interest in Jemmah once. But
Rebecca could not just tame Jemmah. They always ended up fighting
until Jemmah had to pack her things and married the first man who
asked her to get as far away as possible from their mother. Jemmah
eventually ended up miserable with a philandering husband and she
never ceased blaming Rebecca for the way her life turned out to
be.

"No wonder Jemmah is still very pissed
with Rebecca until now," Jonah shook her head remembering the day
her sister left the mansion. It was very sad.

Then, there was Jonah… All
Rebecca did was to mold her into someone she was not and will never
become…
a version of
Rebecca
.

The task was not that hard at all. If
Jonah or Jemmah for that matter only gave in to their mother, all
they really needed to do was to be with Rebecca all the time and
practice what she had to do. Although, her meditation and her diet
were a little bit too much, a day in Rebecca Blood’s life would
have been easy.

"But a day with Rebecca Blood was
hell…almost," Jonah suppressed her laughter. Although, Jane seemed
to understand Rebecca better than the rest in the household,
Rebecca was just the kind of person one just cannot deal with
easily.

"Because she is annoyingly right….and
always. And she wants people to see the world the way she sees it,"
Jonah reflected loudly. As if on cue, her fingers started to
itch.

Jonah tried to clasp her fingers
together to put some pressure and prevent the itchiness, but to no
avail. She had to start bandaging her fingers all the way to her
wrist at night as her skin asthma had gone worse ever since her
mother had gotten ill. She scratches her hands in her sleep and
makes them bleed. She had tried lots of stuff. She did not like
using steroid creams so the bandaging was good. Some people say it
was due to the weather mostly. It goes away in summer and comes
back in the colder weather. So winter was when she was at her
worst. However, it was way too early before winter and she was
already itching, almost convincing herself she will itch to her
death. Jonah had observed that knowing Rebecca was ill made the
itching worse.

Perhaps, she was indeed
dying
… The realization hit Jonah hard. It
felt like it was Rebecca’s last day. There was something wrong in
the air. It was something she could not understand. And yet she
potently felt deep inside her that something was
different…definitely different and wrong.

Jonah dismissed the thought
immediately. She felt chills all over her body. Nobody said
anything about Rebecca’s condition. Not even Jane mentioned about
their mother being gravely ill.

It was Jane who looked after Rebecca
from the very first day the older woman complained something was
wrong with her. Jane had only insisted Rebecca needed to take a
rest even if her Aunt Judith had insisted Rebecca take the
concoction. Jonah found her Aunt Judith brewing the concoction
herself which would have made Rebecca feel better.