Scar of Oblivion

When my mother gave birth to me, she fell into a crushing postpartum depression.

More than once, she stood on our high-rise balcony, staring at the ground far below, ready to jump. Each time, my father rushed out, wrapping his arms tightly around her trembling body, pulling her back against his chest.

"Im here, Jenny," he would whisper again and again, kissing her hair. "The baby and I are right here. Dont be afraid."

For our sake, she fought against the silent scream inside her to end it all.

But the fragile peace broke the night I burned with fever. As I cried in my crib, something in her snapped. Instead of soothing me, she grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills and locked herself in the bathroom.

That was when my fathers own sanity shattered. He kicked the door open, eyes wild and bloodshot. "Do you want to drive us both mad?" he roared, his voice raw from months of exhaustion. "Nothing I do is ever enough! If you want to die so badly, then go aheadI wont stop you!"

Blind with rage, he twisted off the cap and forced the blue tablets into her mouth.

My mother didnt cry. She didnt even struggle.

She had already seen the secret messages on my fathers phonefrom My Sunshine. The woman in those photos looked bright, alive, perfect. My mother believed she could be a better wife to my father, a better mother to me.

She had already decided to give up.

The pills scattered across the cold tile floor like plastic beads.

My father continued to shove them into her mouth, his face twisted in a mask of desperation. But my mother only looked up at him with a faint, tragic smile.

"It's okay," she whispered around the dry tablets.

Suddenly, my loud, agonizing cry cut through the bathroom from the nursery. The sound seemed to pierce through my father's madness. His eyes cleared, and the plastic bottle slipped from his hand, clattering against the floor.

Shaking violently, he shoved his fingers down her throat to force her to throw up.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, his voice trembling as he held her limp body. "Jenny, I'm so sorry. I don't know what's happening to me lately."

My mother retched, coughing up the pills, weeping as she lay collapsed on the floor like a crushed flower.

Since her illness began, my father had taken over everything. He changed my diapers, prepared my bottles, and ran his company during the day, only to rush home by six to cook and watch over my mother.

Slowly, the people around us began to whisper, their sympathy shifting away from her.

"She's dragging him down," his employees muttered. "Does she think Christian is a machine who doesn't need sleep? He works all day and plays nurse all night."

"He does everything for that baby while she just looks for new ways to kill herself. Thank goodness Scarlett is there to help him at the office, or he would have lost his mind by now."

Scarlett was the secretary. She was "My Sunshine."

A sharp ring of the doorbell broke the silence of our apartment.

Scarlett stood at the entrance, dressed in a sharp, tailored office suit. When she saw the pills scattered across the floor and my mothers disheveled state, her eyes welled with tears.

"Mrs. Shaw, are you torturing Christian again?" Scarlett asked, her voice trembling with indignation. "It's just a baby. If you didn't want to go through with it, you shouldn't have had her. But don't use your illness as an excuse to destroy him."

My mother froze, her limbs starting to shake uncontrollably. It was the onset of another panic attack.

Seeing this, my father quickly retrieved her prescription bottle and a glass of water, gently coaxing her to swallow the calming medication.

"Scarlett, that's enough!" he barked, pulling her back.

But Scarlett wouldn't stop. "He almost fainted at his desk yesterday, Christian! And then he has to come home to this. Please, just let him go. I beg you."

Before she could walk away, I let out another sharp wail from my crib.

Without a word, my father and Scarlett sprang into action. One wrapped me in a warm blanket while the other expertly prepared a fresh bottle. Their movements were so synchronized, so effortlessly harmonious, that they looked like a real family.

My mother instinctively reached her pale, thin hand toward me.

But my father gently, silently pushed her hand aside.

In that moment, a quiet realization seemed to settle over her. She couldn't even take care of herself. How could she ever take care of me?

Slowly, she pulled her hand back, tucking it into her sleeve.

When my father carried me out the door to take me to the clinic, he looked back at her one last time. His eyes held nothing but profound weariness and disappointment.

The heavy front door clicked shut.

My mother dragged her weak limbs into the bedroom. The cabinet where the sleeping pills were kept was locked tight, but she managed to pry it open with a heavy brass paperweight. She unscrewed the lid, tipped her head back, and swallowed the pills, one after the other.

In those quiet seconds as the chemicals began to invade her system, fragments of the past flashed through her mind.

She remembered my grandmother's harsh demands, insisting on an heir despite my mother's fertility struggles. She remembered the endless, painful rounds of IVF that left her body bruised and swollen. She remembered the smell of copper and rust in the delivery room when she began to hemorrhage, and my father's frantic voice echoing from the corridor.

"Jenny, I only want you! I don't care about the baby, just stay with me!"

But after thirteen agonizing hours of labor, I was born. And with my birth came the shadow that never left her.

She had tried to hang herself, tried to swallow poison, tried to slit her wrists in the bathtub. Each time, my father had arrived just in time, catching the blade with his bare hands.

"It's okay, I've got you," he would say.

He had been her savior, the perfect husband, and the ultimate father in everyone's eyes. But he had also started smoking heavily, and the dark circles under his eyes had turned into permanent bruises.

That night, my fathers driver brought me back to the apartment, but my father didn't return.

I lay quietly in my stroller. My mother leaned over, her fingers tracing my cheek with a desperate, tragic tenderness. Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

With her vision blurring from the slow-acting pills, she opened Scarletts social media page.

There was a live photo posted just minutes ago. Through the shifting frame, she saw my father, shirtless, laughing as he leaned over Scarlett.

The caption read: Only with you can I finally breathe.

In the brief flash of the image, the tattoo on my fathers lower back was clearly visible. It was a small, radiant sun.

The exact same icon he used for Scarlett's contact name.

And then my mother saw her own name in his contact list. He had saved her under a simple emoji: a dark, heavy raincloud.

Tears silently spilled over her cheeks, soaking into the fabric of her collar. She shook so violently that she had to choke down several of her calming pills just to keep from collapsing on the spot.

Then, the landline rang. It was the hospital.

"Is this Genevieve Shaw? I am so sorry to inform you, but your mother suffered a massive cardiac arrest. She passed away ten minutes ago."

My mother gasped, clutching me to her chest as she ran out into the pouring rain. She fell several times on the wet pavement, scraping her knees, but she kept going until she reached the hospital.

When she saw the white sheet draped over her mother's face, she fell to her knees, her voice raw.

"How could this happen? Her heart had been fine for years..."

Lost and terrified, her first instinct was to call my father.

The first call rang out. No answer.

The second call was instantly rejected.

By the third try, his phone was switched off.

The cold, robotic operator's voice repeated in her ear, matching the icy rain that dripped from her hair. He had promised her, sworn on his life, that he would always answer her calls on the first ring.

Huddled on the freezing hospital floor with me in her arms, she felt the last piece of her world slip away.

She walked into her mothers empty hospital room to gather her belongings. On the floor by the bedside table, she found her mothers phone. The screen was still active, displaying a video that had been sent earlier that afternoon.

In the video, Scarlett was holding my father, a positive pregnancy test clutched in her hand.

"Christian, I'll get rid of the baby," Scarlett sobbed in the recording. "I just want to be by your side, to take care of you and Genevieve. But please, give me some kind of status. Give me a reason to stay."

The camera panned slightly, catching my fathers conflicted face against the window. After a long, agonizing pause, he spoke.

"Okay."

My mother felt as though a lightning bolt had pierced her chest. Clutching her marriage certificate, which she always kept in her purse, she ran through the rain to the local registry office.

The clerk behind the desk looked at the database, then shook her head with a look of pity.

"Mrs. Shaw, Christian Shaws legal spouse is not you. It is a woman named Scarlett Vance."

The words echoed in her ears, dragging her back to three months ago. My father had taken her marriage certificate, claiming he needed it to register a new downtown property under her name.

"You're the hero of our family, Jenny," he had said, kissing her forehead. "You gave me our beautiful baby."

He hadn't been buying a house. He had been quietly dissolving their marriage.

My grandmothers only wish had been for her daughter to have a happy, stable family. Seeing that video had literally stopped her heart.

Under the gray, pouring sky, my mother's vision went black, and she collapsed onto the wet concrete.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in a hospital bed. My father was sitting beside her, the dark circles under his eyes deeper than ever. But when he saw her wake up, his face hardened with anger.

"Did you really call me a dozen times and fake an illness just to get attention?" he snapped. "Do you have any idea that our daughter was running a high fever? Scarlett and I had to stay up all night at the clinic. Can't you be sensible, just for once?"

He hadn't even looked at the death certificate resting on her bedside table.

My mother swallowed the dry lump of grief in her throat. She lowered her head and remained silent.

"I left the baby with Scarlett," my father said, standing up to adjust his coat. "The company gala is tomorrow night. Make sure you wear something decent. Don't embarrass me again."

At the gala, my mother wore a beautiful crimson gown, but no amount of silk could hide the ghostly paleness of her skin.

On stage, Scarlett stood in a brilliant gold dress, receiving the "Employee of the Year" award directly from my father's hands.

The whispers from the crowd drifted over to where my mother stood.

"If it weren't for Scarlett, Christian's company would have gone under by now."

"She thinks having a baby makes her royalty. Always throwing tantrums."

"Honestly, Christian and Scarlett look like the real couple here."

My mother watched them, realizing the crowd was right. They looked perfect together.

Her eyes drifted to Scarletts wrist. Resting there was the heirloom emerald bracelet, a piece of jewelry traditionally passed down to the rightful matriarch of the Shaw family. My mother had almost broken it during one of her manic episodes, and my father had locked it away, promising to keep it safe.

Now, it gleamed against Scarletts pale skin.

Seeing my mother, Scarlett smiled, naturally linking her arm through my father's as they walked over.

"Mrs. Shaw," Scarlett said, her eyes flashing with quiet triumph. "Please don't play the sick card next time. Christian and I were genuinely worried about you."

My mother clenched her fists, trying to stop her body from shaking.

Scarlett stepped closer, leaning in until her lips were inches from my mother's ear. "I didn't have time to visit your mother yesterday," she whispered, her voice low and venomous. "So I sent her a little surprise instead. I wonder if she liked it?"

The wicked, mocking grin on Scarletts face seemed to expand, filling my mother's vision.

Before she could think, my mother lunged forward, her fingers wrapping tightly around Scarletts throat.

"Why did you do it?" my mother screamed, her voice cracking. "You killed her! Aren't you afraid of hell?"

Scarlett choked, struggling in her grip, but she didn't look afraid. She smiled.

The next second, my father slammed his hand into my mother's shoulder, shoving her away so hard she hit the floor. He stepped in front of Scarlett, shielding her.

"Genevieve, I told you to stop this madness!" he roared, his eyes filled with pure disgust.

He didn't see the malicious smirk playing on Scarletts lips behind his back.

Just as my mother gathered the strength to stand, the smart tracker on her wrist began to beep frantically. It was the emergency alert linked to my baby monitor.

My mothers heart stopped. She looked up, meeting Scarlett's cold, mocking gaze.

"What did you do to my baby?" my mother shrieked. "If you touch her, I'll tear you apart!"

Scarlett shrank back, putting on a face of pure innocence. "Christian, I don't know what she's talking about. I placed the baby in the best private nursery in the city. I paid for the highest level of security. How is that a crime?"

Without a moment of hesitation, my father turned and shoved my mother back down onto the floor.

"Scarlett is trying to help you care for our daughter, and you accuse her of this?" he spat. "Are you ever going to stop?"

The alarm on the watch was ringing louder, a high-pitched scream that tore at my mother's soul. She crawled forward, clawing at his trousers. "The baby is in danger! I can feel it! She's"

"Shut up!" he interrupted, kicking his leg free. "Scarlett has sacrificed her own time for our child, and you humiliate her in front of my entire company? Is this depression excuse ever going to run out?"

My mother froze, her tears dripping onto the polished wooden floor.

Scarlett stepped forward, her eyes red, looking like the victim of a terrible injustice. "Christian, it's my fault. I shouldn't have argued with her. Since she's sick, she can say whatever she wants."

With a theatrical sigh, Scarlett began to lower herself to her knees to apologize.

My father caught her immediately, pulling her up before looking down at my mother with absolute coldness.

"Apologize to her," he commanded.

Those two words crushed the last bit of life left in my mother's chest.

Suddenly, she coughed, and a spray of dark, clotted blood splattered across the floor.

The guests gasped, drawing back in horror. My father took a step back, his face flashing with sudden alarm. "Jenny, what... what is that?"

Only my mother knew that the massive dose of sleeping pills had finally begun to destroy her organs from the inside out.

Without saying a word, she wiped the blood from her chin, dragged her body forward, and knelt before Scarlett. She bowed, pressing her forehead to the floor three times.

"I am sorry, Miss Vance," she whispered.

She stood up, her eyes vacant as she looked at my father's stunned face. "Can I go now?"

Without waiting for an answer, she tapped the tracker on her watch. The signal wasn't coming from the luxury nursery.

It was coming from the top-floor warehouse of my father's company building.

Scarlett quietly raised her phone, showing my mother the screen. On the live security feed, I was tied to a small wooden chair in the corner of a locked storage room. Dark, thick smoke was already billowing under the door.

My mother opened her mouth to scream, to beg, but before she could move, my father's security guards pinned her arms behind her back.

My father looked at her with cold indifference. "I am signing the custody of our daughter over to Scarlett. You need to be locked away until you can clear your head."

He turned and walked away, his arm wrapped protectively around Scarlett, who flashed a final, victorious smile over her shoulder.

My mother screamed, thrashing against the guards, but her body was failing.

As the connection between us slowly faded into nothingness, she collapsed onto the floor, her eyes staring blankly into the light.

When my father finally returned to the quiet apartment late that night, the rooms were dark.

He walked out onto the balcony, lighting a cigarette. He checked his phone, but there was no reply to the messages he had sent her. A strange, heavy weight settled in his chest.

He walked into the master bedroom. As he opened the door, his shoe hit a plastic object.

He looked down. It was an empty bottle of sleeping pills.

A sudden, terrible dread gripped his throat as he picked it up. In that exact moment, his phone began to ring furiously in his pocket. It was the emergency room.