I could feel my face flush, because I didn’t want her to know I thought I might be in love. I was only thirteen and these feelings were new to me, but I was sure Brynn Fellows was going to be my first real girlfriend.
My mother looked back at the road and I saw a smile spread across her face. “When I say you just know, it’s because you will. You won’t question it. You don’t wonder if what you feel is actually love, because when it is, you’ll be absolutely terrified that you’re in it. And when that happens, your priorities will change. You won’t think about yourself and your own happiness. You’ll only think about that person, and how you would do anything to see them happy. Even if it meant walking away from them and sacrificing your own happiness for theirs.”
She gave me a sidelong glance. “That’s what love is, Ben. Love is sacrifice.” She tapped her finger against the tattoo on her left wrist—the tattoo that had been there since before I was born. “I got this tattoo the day I felt that kind of love for your father. And I chose it because if I had to describe love that day, I would say it felt like my two favorite things, amplified and thrown together. Like my favorite poetic line mixed into the lyrics of my favorite song.” She looked at me again, very seriously. “You’ll know, Ben. When you’re willing to give up the things that mean the most to you just to see someone else happy, that’s real love.”
I stared at her tattoo for a bit, wondering if I could ever love anyone like that. I wasn’t sure I would want to give up the things I loved the most if it meant I wouldn’t get anything out of it in return. I thought Brynn Fellows was beautiful, but I wasn’t even sure I’d give her my lunch if I were hungry enough. I certainly wouldn’t get a tattoo because of her.
“Why did you get the tattoo, though?” I asked her. “So my father would know you loved him?”
She shakes her head. “I didn’t get it for your father, or even because of your father. I got it mostly for myself, because I knew with one hundred percent certainty I had learned how to love selflessly. It was the first time I wanted more happiness for the person I was with than I wanted for myself. And a mixture of my two favorite things was the only way I could think to describe the way that kind of love feels. I wanted to remember it forever, in case I never felt it again.”
I didn’t get to read the suicide letter she left, but I was curious if she had changed her mind about selfless love. Or if maybe she only loved my father selflessly, but never her own children. Because suicide is the most selfish thing a person can do.
After I found her, I checked to make sure she really was gone and then I called 911. I had to stay on the phone with the operator until the police arrived, so I didn’t have a chance to case her bedroom for a suicide note. The police found it and picked it up with a pair of tweezers and put it in a Ziploc bag. Once they sealed it up as evidence, I just didn’t have the balls to ask them if I could read it.
One of my neighbors, Mr. Mitchell, was here when they left. He told the officer that he would watch over me until my brothers arrived, so I was left in his care. But as soon as they drove away, I told him I would be okay and that I needed to make some phone calls to family members. He told me he needed to run to the post office anyway and that he’d be back to check on me later today.
It was like my puppy had died and he was wanting to tell me it would be okay, that I could get a new one.
I’d get a Yorkie, because that’s exactly what the bloodstain looks like if I cover my right eye and squint.
I wonder if I’m in shock. Is that why I’m not crying?
My mother would be pissed that I’m not crying right now. I’m sure attention played at least a small role in her decision. She loved attention, and not in a bad way. It’s just a fact. And I’m not sure that I’m giving her death enough attention if I’m not even crying yet.
I think I’m mostly just confused. She seemed happy most of my life. Sure, there were days she was sad. Relationships that went south. My mother loved to love, and up until the moment she blew her face off, she was an attractive woman. Lots of men thought so.
But my mother was also smart. And even though a relationship she thought had promise ended a few days ago, she just didn’t seem like the type who would take her life to prove to a man that he should have stuck with her. And she’s never loved a man enough to feel as though she couldn’t live without him. That kind of love isn’t real, anyway. If parents have been able to survive the loss of children, then men and women can easily live with the loss of a relationship.