"My self- esteem was so low by all these negative talks of my mother that for a long time I thought I was the reason that my father left her. Yes, I blamed myself , my coming to this world for the unfortunate life of my mother.
"I used to look in the mirror and tried to compare myself with other girls my age. I found myself ugly. My friends used to tell me that I looked like boys, that my chest was flat, that...
"As I decided not to have any friends, for they gave me only pain, I found myself more and more the subject of my mother's misery and isolation. I saw her to go from man to man. I heard them in bedroom. I tried to cover my ears, to close my eyes, but by doing that, I could hear and see more. Sometimes I wondered if she thought all men are users, why she needed them.
"When I was fifteen, in one of our everyday fight I asked her that question. She told me that she didn't need one, she was just using them because if she didn't, they would. I was puzzled; but slowly I understood her sex drive, even my own sex drive. Soon I had an experience of my own, but I tried very hard not to connect with any boy. I let them to fall in love with me and then I threw them out like a dirty handkerchief
"The intensity of out relation was such that when I was eighteen, I couldn't stand another day living with my mother or living in the same city as she did. Despite all the turmoil I was going through, my grades were excellent. I finished high school as an honor student. Somehow learning from books was my only scape from reality and my life. I read books like I've never be able to see them again. Sometimes I would stay up all night to finish a book that I started only the evening before.
"As I said after finishing high school, in fact only a week after, I told my mother that I was leaving her, She didn't seem upset. Indeed I saw a sign of relief in her eyes. She asked me what my plans were, and where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do. I honestly answered that I didn't know, that I just wanted to get away. She thought for a moment. Then I saw a twitch in her eyes. She said: 'Why don't you go to Dallas?' There was a mysterious glow in her eyes. 'Why Dallas?' I asked her. 'Your father lives in Dallas.' She said.
"I was confused. All these times she knew where my father was and never once she told me about it. She hated my father. She wanted me to hate him. Now she was suggesting me to go to Dallas, to my father. Nevertheless, what I understood from her idea of me going to Dallas was that I could find him, and then I could destroy him for his cowardliness. She knew everything about Jacob. She knew Diana, she knew that they had a daughter, two years younger than me, she knew where he worked, and she told me all those while trying to keep her innocent, victimized expression. 'So you've followed him all these years and never told me anything!' I said. 'Yes, I did. Because he left me for another woman. I was jealous like most women.' She said things to me in such a normal way, that even then I believed her and I even felt sorry for her. My poor mom, what a horrible life! She even told me that they were married and they never had a divorce. Therefore his second marriage was illegitimate.
"She told me she would help me financially only for six months if I go to Dallas, no where else; and after six months, I would be on my own. The temptation that she planted in me, interfered with my sleep for many nights. When I thought that I would finally face a man that forsook me and my mother, I found myself packing and getting ready for my great revenge in Dallas...
To Be Continued
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