[ Dear Debbie 1 ] personal

well my mother ignored all of my invitations
and my father was never around from my birth
I explained that I was tired with all of my creations
they told me that one day they'd be of some worth

Night has long fallen, that much is obvious. The stars are barely visible through the ink clouds, but the moonlight forces its way through, even if it never reaches the ground. There are children laughing somewhere in the street, dancing with firework jack-in-the-boxes. Shouldn't they be sleeping? It's alright. It's a different time. Mothers aren't as paranoid.

Leading up to the apartment is a set of stone stairs, metal railings there to stop one from toppling over the edge and onto the cold cement below. The grass in the miniscule fenced gardens is overgrown and wild. The shed needs repairing; wood clings to its brethren by the tip of rusty nails. The door of the apartment is smeared with dirt, once-white paint flaking beneath the greyish brown flecks.

We never lived here in reality, but we could have. It's small and cheap like the other apartments, so it might be plausable if I didn't know for certain that it was a lie. I know who used to live here, though. A childhood friend. Two years younger or so, she moved away when I was roughly eight years old. Perhaps younger. She was the only child I ever tried to push around, just to see what it was like, because I knew she would take it. I pushed her over a fence that came up to her knees and she burst into tears and ran home to tell her mother.

I think that was the moment where the possibility of me becoming an aggressive, cruel person in later life was erased. The guilt I felt was overwhelming; I followed Sarah to that door - it was bright white in reality, clean - and I knocked until somebody answered. Her mother. I can't remember her name now. A large woman, with a stern face. Wicked eyes and sharp eyebrows. She frightened the life from me. Sarah had told her what I'd done, and said I swore at her too. Her mother shouted at me right there on the stairs and I tried very hard to get an apology out past my stuttering tears. I don't know what happened after that; I don't remember. But I know they forgave me eventually.

So I'm there, in my subconscious, staring at this grimy door. Eventually I grab the golden handle and push down, then forwards. It opens and at my immediate left is the bathroom. Strange place for it. Just up on my right is the bedroom door, and then further up on my right the kitchen door. The livingroom is to the left. There's a door straight ahead at the end of the hall, but I don't trust it. It's a furnished brown and too clean for this place, so I don't touch it.

Time passes, somehow. I'm in the kitchen with my grandmother and my older sister. Something's off, though. Gran looks the way she did before she had cancer. Her jaw and her mouth aren't odd. Her neck doesn't have the scars. Her hair is naturally blonde and I can't see her feeding tube poking against her shirt. She looks...happy. Happier than I can ever remember seeing her. Nikki, too, looks different. She's still overweight. Her hair is a lot longer. She wears the same clothes. But she's...bubbly again. Like she used to be. Before she split up with him.

Gran and Nikki look up and I realise the wind's blowing into the room. The front door must be open. I want to go and investigate but I hesitate at the doorway. Suddenly there's a voice. A child's voice, from the hall. From the door. It sounds strikingly familiar. I hear a man's murmer and then another familiar, woman's voice. Something in my chest stirs painfully.

"Leave Mummy alone!"

I stare at my child-self and feel a sudden surge of pride as Danielle glares up at this hulk of a man, standing in the way of him and our mother as if she's ready to fight him should he take one step closer. Mum looks nervous. Worried. She glances over her shoulder and looks right at me with the eyes I inherited. She looks healthier than she ever did in real life. No alcoholic stench. No tired eyes. No haunted fear held within hazelnut irises. This isn't real. This isn't even a shadow of how it really was. Perhaps this is what it might have been.

Danielle steps forwards as if she's about to push this boyfriend of Mum's, whoever he is, right down the stairs - but a pale hand grabs her back and then Mum pushes the man for her. He cries out 'Debbie!' as he staggers and falls, and when he hits the bottom of the steps he gets up and runs off into the night, disappearing for good. A lump rises in my throat when the two turn to look at me.

Suddenly I'm aware of a sound. It's not part of the dream; it comes from outside, the real world trying to seep into my brain and wake me up. It's the wind, the wind that's been waking me up all night. Every time I hear it I still think it's thunder, that there's a storm outside threatening my life. I ignore the sound. The dream blurs and returns to me.

I step forwards on unsteady legs and wrap my arms around the younger me, the Danielle that tried so very bravely to protect her mother. She clings to me and says something. Something important, but I don't understand the words. Simple English, but I don't understand it. I let go and turn to my mother. She looks at me. I'm only slightly smaller than her. She's only slightly taller than me. I remember what she looks like all of a sudden; her image is burned into my memory from where I lost it aside from the photograph on my bedside cabinet, the faded remnants.

I hug her tightly and she returns the embrace. She's smiling. I hear another voice from my memory; Gran's. Something she said to me only days ago.

"Your mum loved you, I think more than I can honestly say I ever loved any of my own kids. She would have done anything for you. She would have died for you."