Tell Me Why ((Closed))

[Raelee Gray]

Rae took a deep breath as she stood outside the door to the Three Broomsticks. People pushed past her to get inside, but she didn’t move from her spot as she stared up at the swinging wooden sign above the windows beside the door. She hadn’t the foggiest idea what came over her to agree to meet with Nette, she just knew that she wouldn’t feel better about anything if she left Nette’s letter unreplied. Did that mean she had to completely agree to meeting with her biological mother and listen to what her reasoning was for putting Rae up for adoption? No, but somehow that’s where Rae landed herself. Now, the task was to get inside the Three Broomsticks where her mother was inevitably waiting and to sit down across from her and brace herself for whatever horror story or lie Nette unleashed. She just wished that Adam were with her, although she had told him that she had to do this on her own… it would be nice to have him there as support. She regretted telling him she’d meet up with him later, because what if Nette told her something that completely tore her world out from underneath her? Would she be able to hold up until she met up with Adam later? Adam had become something of a support for her, whether he realized it or not, and Rae was now wondering how well she could hold up without him there to support her? She breathed in deeply again, and was about to take a step forward and into the pub when there was a voice behind her.

“Rae?” The voice was familiar to Rae, unfortunately, and she didn’t have to turn around to see who it was to know. She had spent ten minutes outside a pub that she thought held her biological mother when she could have been sitting in a booth and preparing herself, because apparently Nette hadn’t arrived yet, “Hi,” Nette continued in greeting as Rae turned around slowly and plastered a fake smile on her face. It was always so odd to see her birth mother standing in front of her. Rae couldn’t get over how alike they looked. They both had blonde hair that was easily managed and green piercing eyes that could make anyone waver if they stared at them for too long. They shared the same smile, and the same build. It was uncanny, and Rae didn’t like it, but what could she do? This was the woman who gave birth to her, they were going to look alike whether or not Rae approved of it. “Hi,” Rae replied after a moment of drinking in the similarities between her mother and herself, “shall we go inside?” Nette smiled, a sincere but perhaps timid smile, and nodded before reaching past her daughter and pulling the door open for the both of them. Rae entered the Three Broomsticks, and immediately scanned the busy pub for an empty table.

They settled at a table near a window and immediately the silence set in. Rae fiddled with some sugar packets that seemed rather out of place in a wizarding pub, but at least it was a distraction from the current situation she found herself in. Nette was tapping her fingers on the top of the table and looking around the pub, also finding a way to distract herself for awhile longer. A witch stumbled over and took their orders for two butterbeers and two garden salads with balsamic vinaigrette dressing, no tomatoes; and that’s what broke the ice. The fact that they both hated tomatoes, the fact that balsamic vinaigrette was the only dressing they’d eat on their salads, it was all too much to not talk about. After a couple of minutes talking about other food do’s and don’ts, Nette sighed and leaned back in her chair, “I should probably start to explain why I put you up for adoption…” Rae nodded as their food magically appeared in front of them, not hesitating to start on her salad. At the same time, Rae and Nette mixed their salad so the dressing wouldn’t just be on the top and then took a sip of their butterbeers.

“Can I ask a question, first?” Rae asked as she swallowed a bite of her salad. Nette nodded and took another sip of her butterbeer, her eyes on Rae still, “Ok… who’s my father?” Nette’s eyes darkened at the question, and she adverted her gaze to her salad. “He’s dead, long gone by now, it makes no difference.” Rae froze in mid bite and looked at her biological mother, “Oh, ok, well… I’m ready to hear the story.” Was she really ready to hear it though? Was that the complete truth? Nette sighed again and took a swig from her butterbeer, “I just don’t know if I’m completely ready to tell it. Where should I start?” Rae swallowed the bite she had taken and looked across the table into the mirror image of her eyes, “My birth. Start at my birth.”

[Raelee Gray]

((This is in Nette’s point of view.))

She looks exactly like I did when I was her age. Nette drew circles with her fingers on the dark mahogany table that she and Rae sat at as she tried to figure out how to begin the story of Raelee Gray’s life. She tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear and stared into her daughter’s green eyes that were the spitting image of hers. Finally, she drew in a breath and finished her salad before leaning back in her chair and lacing her fingers, ready to begin. “Sixteen hours of labor and you came into this world, a bundle of joy. You know, babies are born with blue eyes and it takes a week or so for the colour to change to that of what they will be forever. But yours were immediately green. And not like a green you usually see, they were a feisty and fiery green; almost dark. They were my eyes, and that’s how I came to second guess my idea to put you up for adoption.” At this, Rae looked up from the salad she had been staring at as Nette spoke. The question didn’t need to be asked, it was riddled across her face. “Yes, I almost didn’t give you up. I almost kept you and raised you as I would have if I had been prepared for you. But then… I remembered what I would be returning to once I left the hospital. I remembered what I would be bringing you home to, and well, I was afraid of raising you in that type of environment.” Nette and Rae both tucked a strand of hair behind their ears without realizing they were doing it at the same time, before Nette continued. She could tell Rae was soaking up every word and committing it to memory, the way Nette did when she was being told something important.

“The moment I met the Gray’s, I knew they could give you everything I couldn’t. I’d been to their house once before you were born, just so I could see how you would live. It’s needless to say that the day I met them at their grand mansion I knew that you’d live luxuriously. They had a room set up as a nursery already, toys in the back yard for you, and even though I knew you’d never be bored… I couldn’t help but feel that as you grew older you would resent them, because that’s how I was with my parents. I came from the same background as the Gray’s. My life was fancy, balls, dinner parties, money. But I always made it a point to disobey my parents and then I got pregnant and they kicked me out. That was how I came to live in the small dinky apartment I was living in during my pregnancy. That was the world I wanted to keep you from. I had a feeling inside of me that by taking you out of one hell, I was just going to drop you into another.” Rae snorted here, as if to say ‘you’ve no idea.’ But Nette didn’t take a break for that, she took a break to take a drink from her butterbeer. The warm fluid flowed through her and she pushed it away, making a mental note to order lemonade. She needed to cool off and the butterbeer wasn’t going to help with that. “So, the day you were born, I pushed aside all second thoughts, and I gave you to them. They saw how I looked at you when I handed you over to Kendra, and that led Sedgewick to pull out a binding contract. One that said I could have no further contact with you and that I was to stay out of your life for the rest of it. I agreed, and then later that night… I regretted it.”

Nette met Rae’s eyes and they sat in silence a moment before the waitress came back and asked if they wanted anything else. They both ordered lemonade and a bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. The food appeared in front of them once more, replacing the empty dishes that had just disappeared, and they were left alone again. Nette scooped some ice cream out with her spoon and placed it on her tongue upside down so the ice cream hit her tongue, letting it melt there before taking a sip of her lemonade. “Okay, so, you didn’t really want to give me up, but you wanted a better life for me? I can understand that, but what I don’t get is why you decided to appear in my life now.” Nette breathed in deeply, closing her eyes, at this statement from Rae. She knew it would come to this. She knew she would have to tell Rae the reason why she had decided to make an appearance in her life when she hadn’t made a peep for sixteen years. She just didn’t think it come this soon. There was a large silence between the two, an uneasiness silence. Nette knew that Rae could feel her reason for being there wasn’t a good one. The ice cream was starting to melt and the glass of lemonade was sweating, but still Nette made no move to tell her why she was trying to be a part of Rae’s life now instead of then.

“I’m dying,” the words came out of their own accord. She said them with a hollow voice, one that wasn’t her own. Rae dropped her spoon into her bowl of ice cream, and Nette went further to explain, “I’ve got cancer, breast cancer. I was diagnosed when you were three and I was nineteen. I’ve been battling it ever since and I thought I had it beat, but it came back and the doctor’s… they give me false hopes, but I know I’m not going to make it. I just, as selfish as this sounds, I wanted to know my daughter before I… I died.” Her voice had grown quiet as she spoke more and more. Rae stared at her, and Nette took all her strength to look into her daughter’s eyes. She was surprised to see they were filling up with tears.

[Raelee Gray]

((Rae’s point of view.))

“I’m dying.” Rae found herself wondering just how it was possible to say those two words and say them without breaking, without crying as you said it. She didn’t think it was… yet, here was Nette – telling her that she was dying and no tears escaped her eyes. Rae’s eyes, however, were struggling to keep the tears in. She didn’t want to let Nette see her cry because Rae had tried so hard to make it seem like she couldn’t care less if her biological mother lived or not. In reality, the thought of losing her mother so soon after finding her killed Rae. And this simple fact is the reason why she couldn’t hold in the tears. Nette looked up into her eyes, and Rae stared into the green of them as the plump tears rolled down her cheek. Immediately something softened inside Nette, and she was getting up from her chair to kneel down beside Rae. Rae followed her mother as she stood and then knelt beside her, and then she said what she was thinking, “How… how long?” Her voice was hoarse, but it came out which was more than what Rae was expecting. The moment she said it, she knew there could be quite a few answers to that question, and she was about to clarify but it appeared that Nette had some mother ESP because she answered, “Three months, maybe four. They said I’d have about six months if I continued to the treatment, but…”

“Wha- what?” Rae stammered out, turning in her seat so she was facing Nette, “You have the choice to live a little bit longer than what you would and you aren’t taking it? Why the hell not?” Nette blanched noticeably at Rae’s question. She opened her mouth to say more, but it was Rae’s turn to cut her off, “You… you come into my life, my life, and you present yourself to me and tell me you want to be a part of my life, and then you tell me that you’re dying. No, that’s not all though, is it? No, of course not. You tell me you’re dying, and then you proceed to tell me that you have four months tops to live without treatment, and that you don’t want to continue said treatment so that maybe you could live an extra two months. Why, pre tell, did you insist on appearing in my life if you’re just going to disappear again?” Rae stared into Nette’s eyes that were identical to hers, and shed her last tear. Her eyes were now filled with more anger than sorrow, which gave her a mixed emotion. She didn’t know if she should be this angry with her biological mother, but she knew she had to figure out how to feel something other than the sadness she had felt the moment Nette told her that she was dying.

Nette reached up to smooth back Rae’s curly hair as best as she would be able to, but Rae pulled away and sent her a deadly glare. “Rae, honey… I…” Rae shook her head and pushed her chair further away from Nette before standing and grabbing her purse. “You know what, Nette? This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have replied to your letter. I knew, deep down I knew, that this wouldn’t end well. I’m sorry that I’ve wasted your time, after all, you only have four months of it left.” Rae took one last look at her biological mother and then moved past her to the entrance that would serve as her exit from this stuffy pub. She didn’t expect Nette to follow her, although half of her hoped that she would. So, when Nette chased after her out into the sunshine and grabbed her arm to whirl her around – Rae was genuinely surprised. “That was my big exit, Nette, you should have recognized it – you’ve walked away plenty of times in your life.” Nette, instead of blanching like she had before, glared that motherly glare that most mothers seemed to have no matter if they gave up their child for adoption.

“You listen to me Raelee Janette Gray, I might be dying and you might hate me, but I am still your mother and you will treat me with the respect I deserve.” Rae snorted at this, and yanked her arm away. “You want respect, Nette? How about you go back in time and don’t give me up, maybe then I’ll respect you – maybe.” She was glaring daggers now, but she wondered if they were from anger or from pain. Maybe they were from both. They probably were from both. Rae hoped Nette only saw the anger, not the pain. Nette didn’t say anything, she just stared at Rae, and then after another long moment – Rae rolled her eyes and turned on her heel, fully intending to leave for real this time. She should have known better. “It’s hard, Rae, living day after day wondering if that day will be the last. It’s hard knowing that you’re going through all this treatment, and it’s not doing any good. You’ve no idea how tough it is, and I hope you never have to figure it out. I’m not… asking you to let me be this huge part of your life, but please… let me let you be a huge part of my life… what little of it I have left, that is.”

Rae froze as the words flew from her mother’s mouth, and then she slowly turned around. She sized Nette up a moment, and then nodded slowly, “Okay…”