“Take it to your grave”.
Those were the last words Mama said to me before she died. That was almost five years ago but the reason why was still fresh in my mind. It was like a play-by-play in my head, I couldn’t get it out no matter how hard I shook myself, it was embedded in my mind. I blamed Mama for my troubles after, the doctors called it depression but I called it guilt. I did nothing to rescue my sister from the horror she went through at night. A horror my mother caused, a horror my mother insisted was the best thing for our family. But she wasn’t the one that wiped the tears every night from Lacey’s eyes; she wasn’t the one that had to cradle Lacey like a baby just so she could fall asleep. I was.

Lacey was twelve and I, fourteen. Even though we had different fathers, my mother still couldn’t figure out who our daddies were. She lived a reckless and promiscuous life ever since she was fifteen. That’s how she met Mr. Charles. That’s how Mama introduced him to us. I never cared to learn his first name. Life was great at first when Mr. Charles took us in; we had food everyday on the table, a stable place to call home, money in our pockets. My sister Lacey and I even went to a new school. Mr. Charles even bought a car for Mama so she could take us places when he couldn’t.

It was a great change from where we lived before with Mama; bills were never paid on time, so for many months we didn’t have electricity or water. We walked to school and never really got money to spend on snacks and our lunches were usually bread and whatever else Mama could find to put between it. Plus we were happy that Mama wouldn’t have to lock us out of the house whenever she was doing “business” inside. It used to be so cold, waiting on the verandah for the men to leave.

So when Mr. Charles took us in to live with him, Lacey and I couldn’t be happier. Mama knew Mr. Charles because she was his “regular girl” for two months and one night he asked her to live with him. I often heard him tell Mama he loved her but I don’t think Mama knew what love meant.

She couldn’t have known what love meant, because Lacey and I sure didn’t get it from her. Grandma thought us what love meant when we lived with her but Mama took us from there because she said Grandma was turning us against her. Apart from when we first lived with Mr. Charles, living with Grandma was the happiest days of our lives.

But then one night, Mr. Charles told Mama that he didn’t love her no more but that he loved Lacey and wanted her or else we would have to find a new place to live. Lacey was asleep and it brought tears to my eyes when Mama told Mr. Charles that he could have Lacey.

Mama slapped me for questioning her decision. She said, “Little girl, why are you so ungrateful?”.

With that she walked away. I looked at Mr. Charles in disbelief but what I thought was a dream, was really happening; Mama was trading her own daughter just to stay in a fancy house and have nice things.

I went to Lacey’s room to stop Mama, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Mama woke Lacey up, bathed her and told her whenever it hurt, think of a happy place and it wouldn’t hurt anymore. Lacey hadn’t a clue what Mama meant and she stared at me for an answer but Mama wouldn’t allow me to say anything. Mama took me out of the house screaming; she left Lacey there for Mr. Charles to have her.

When we got back home, Lacey was in the bedroom crying. I hugged her and she said softly, “Lana, I thought of me and you swinging in the backyard and eating ice-cream. That was my happy place”. I couldn’t believe she thought of me. Those words, etched in my memory, haunted my thoughts and I cried myself to sleep, still hugging Lacey.

Mama couldn’t even look at her the next day, she didn’t even talk to her. Anything she wanted to know, she sent me. Mr. Charles went to work like a normal day. School was closed for the holidays and so it was just Lacey and I home when Mama left to go out. When I went back to the bedroom to give Lacey some water, she just stared at me. And though Lacey didn’t have a big voice and a word didn’t utter from her mouth, that silent stare was the loudest she had ever talked to me. I knew exactly what she was asking me with her eyes and the shame in which I bowed my head answered her.

Lacey became afraid of the nights because she knew what it meant. She would tremble every time she would hear Mama call for me to take me somewhere. I stopped fighting Mama to leave the house, I just went. And when I return home, Lacey would tell me of the happy places she would think of. She didn’t cry much any more; instead she looked forward to me coming home so that she could tell me of all the things we did together in her imaginary journeys. It was the only way she could cope about what was happening to her almost every night. I thought it was sad that she accepted her fate.

One night I complained to Mama and instead of slapping me, she took me to the house we used to live in before Mr. Charles came into our lives. It was even worse; the house was more broken up and drug-addicts and cheap prostitutes occupied the old shack right next door.

Mama asked me if I wanted to live there again because that would be where we would end up if Lacey wasn’t being “a good girl” to Mr. Charles. I didn’t want to live in our old house again; so by never complaining again, I silently consented  to Lacey’s abuse.

That guilt ate away at me every time Lacey told me about her happy places. I had given up and I felt more than ever that I was letting her down. I should have loved her like Grandma thought us to love but I loved her now like Mama loved us. One night Lacey asked me how much longer she would have to think of happy places and I couldn’t answer her because I thought of that night that Mama took me to our old house. All I could think was that I didn’t want to go back there to live.

I just walked away from her and I think she understood but after that night she never asked me again about what was happening to her. She even stopped telling me about her happy places.

Lacey’s silence towards me hurt me more than ever. I blamed myself for it. I was her last hope, the only joy she had left in her life and I walked away from her.

But I felt her silence was her new way of talking to me. When Lacey was fifteen, her silence towards me ended; Lacey killed herself.

I found her hanging by a rope in our room when I returned from school one day. She had asked Mama to stay home because she wasn’t feeling well. Lacey died and I never got a chance to tell her how sorry I was for letting her down.

The stare on her face, as she swung lifelessly on the rope, was the same as the one she gave to me the day I went to give her some water. I bowed my head again. This time not because I didn’t know what to say, but because I was ashamed and felt guilty.

Mr. Charles gave Lacey a grand funeral and every one at the funeral spoke of how lucky she was but they didn’t know what really happened to her behind close doors. Mama didn’t even tell anyone that Lacey committed suicide, she told them it was food poisoning and I was instructed to repeat the same.

Mr. Charles allowed us to stay at his house but Mama had to sleep in my room, because Mr. Charles had a new girlfriend living there. He told her, that Mama was his maid and I her daughter. Mama didn’t mind but I am sure that it was grief that killed her two years after.

When I went to see her in the hospital, she grabbed my hands and told me “Take it to your grave”. Even on her dying bed, she still wanted the truth about Lacey’s death to remain a secret.

After
Mama died, I went to go live with Grandma, never telling her what really happened in that “fancy” house we lived in and Grandma never really asked.

But I couldn’t get Lacey’s stare out of my head. That’s why I visited Lacey’s grave everyday until Grandma had me committed in a mental hospital. She said I needed to grieve but every night that I would close my eyes to sleep, I saw Lacey’s stare and soon I stopped talking at all.

Grandma said the hospital would help me but it really couldn’t.

I was released from the hospital but still I didn’t say much. Silence was how Lacey and I communicated. Lacey was loudest when she said nothing at all and I felt close to her whenever I was silent.

I told Grandma I heard Lacey talking to me every time I closed my eyes and saw her stare. She didn’t understand and I am sure to this day she still thinks I am crazy. But I knew Lacey would have understood.

I still visit Lacey’s grave everyday…just to stare.