I don’t know what to say to you mom except that I see I’m becoming more and more like you.

And you keep sending letters addressed to some woman named Vitski.

Stop it mom. I can.

Don’t you worry about me. If anyone has to worry then let it be I!

I love you.

I may seem far away and hell sometimes that’s true, but I’ll never ever stop loving you.

Mom, you were mean and fractious almost all of the time and I grew up feeling scared and ugly. But all along I watched you struggle too. I stuffed my pain inside because I could see your job was harder.

Always growing up with a loathing eye upon myself; I failed to recognize the magnanimous woman I am. I forgive you Mom and I hope that you can too.

I know you weren’t ready for children but you had them anyway. Oh Mom, I love you for showing me how to dry bathtubs to a perfect shine, thank you for holding my hair up in your fist while I puked my incestuous guts out into the toilet.

Thank you for trying to be there during my deepest despair (you were too late) and realizing 20 years later that your methods may have been too harsh.

I’m sorry you felt so miserable and tired, so bored and trapped, so unable to come into yourself. I’m sorry Dad beat you up and he hurt me too but you wouldn’t listen. We could have been allies and left a lot sooner but you were scared.

I tried to show you that I could tie my shoes but you pushed me away and said you were tired. And you were – you’d sleep on the living room floor every afternoon after he left for work. The sunlight streamed through the glass doors, spotlighting your worried face resting on the spotless carpeting. Your time to close down.

What a perfect little house we lived in, right Mom? One of the best on the block.

Then years later came that Christmas tree pushed and squeezed through our door and that strange, dark-haired man standing plump and breathless behind it.