The years went by and mother’s sickness got worse. Father wouldn’t enter her room still nevertheless from time to time he’d ask the doctor to update him about her state.

Mother complained very much of being unable to go out, at been restrained, chained like an animal she would say. But she liked writing. So I assisted her to write until her fingers shook too much and it became impossible for her to write a single word.

“I can write now,” I said to her, quite pleased with myself, proposing to write whatever she needed me to.

Sometimes she’d agree and other times she wouldn’t want me to touch her things. When the pain was too much for her to handle and the medicine took time to act, the sole sound of another person in her room would annoy her. She would then cry in anger and then flung whatever was close to her to the person in the room, be it me or the maids. But with the passing months, she became unable to do even that. She would cry silently for it hurt too much when she was loud.

The doctor said to father, when I was spying by the door that she didn’t have long to live anymore. She was now extremely pale, her hair gone, her lips blue and she would sometimes release earth-shattering cries, crouching on the bed, like a fish searching to breathe.

Father, even though he himself refused to come closer to her room, ordered me to keep her company even when she was mad, mostly when she was mad he said.

The doctor, eventually, told her to be prepared. That’s why possibly she thought it was time to explain her actions, to shield them with her unhappy childhood, her unhappy wedding.

Maybe it was the stillness, that state of being bedridden for so many months, or maybe I was the only one near, so she started talking, afraid when she’d stopped, it would be the very end. For once she wasn’t complaining. Not by much anyway.

She apologized for the many things she did, for the cruel thoughts she had and sometimes while she was talking I wouldn’t even know what she meant at the time. One day she apologized to birthing me and the young I was quite conflicted about that. Should I have been joyous that she thought my birth was a kind of horrible punishment?

By the time when she was too thin and too frail to even take a step out of her bed, she talked about father, saying she never saw such an unreasonable man. In soft whispers, she would confide in me how much she tried. She repeated that a certain amount of times. She tried her hardest she said, to love that man but he wasn’t letting anyone in.

Once more she apologized. By that time, she was already delirious I believed, alternating between crying because of the pain and apologizing to me for numerous things, mostly, these days, for giving birth to me.

After some words she’d silently cried about the pain, asking to take a higher dosage of medicine, but since the doctor didn’t permit, no one gave her any.

To distract the pain maybe, she apologized to me about the punishments she used to give me and after a long list of what she was specifically expressing regret for, she asked me if I forgave her.

Riel was in the room, and gently, she nudged me with her elbow seemingly asking me to express myself. But was I really authorized to express what I really felt at that time? Could she really take that? Was the truth what she was asking for?

“Say I forgive you” mouthed Riel.

Mother was so thin that one could see her bones under her skin. Even to me they clearly said she was dying and father said I had to be courteous and not make things difficult.

I take my time to look at the tired state of mother.

She was dying so I just had to forget about her slapping me every time she verbally fought with father, was I to forget all the time when I stayed hungry all day long, was I to forget that actually all the time she was drunk she would say that I was the reason to her unhappiness?

I saw her pale white skin, red eyes and knew better than to utter words of displeasure. She wouldn’t listen anyway. My lips pursed shut as I swallowed the certainly hurtful words one shouldn’t listen in such a sorry state.

So I closed my eyes, not complaining about the years I spent reaching for both of my parents and only grabbing wind. Instead I said "I forgive you".