Young and Beautiful

“Mom!” I remembered the sound of my voice calling her. “Yes!” She would reply curtly. “I’m going outside!” I could remember walking outside with my mother’s hand in mine. I loved her fine fingers. She had the finest hands in Italy. Smooth and slender. The whole town had loved her. Everyone envied her and she was known as the most beautiful in the family. Even I eventually came to think that I envied her. I envied her so much that sometimes it hurt to go outside because everyone had stared at her. I remembered something my grandfather once said to me. “One day you’ll be just like your mother. Beautiful just like her and mostly, feared.” His words resounding in my head had still gotten a way to my heart. I missed him especially since my mother had killed him for saying that to me. Ever since he had said that, she kept eyeing him. When he’d touch my face and kiss me on the cheek, she’d get up and pound the table. Ever since she had shot him six times in the back his voice had been echoing in my head over and over. At my grandfather’s funeral, I didn’t cry. It’s funny that I didn’t because he had loved me so much. No one understood me like my grandfather. But somehow as I smiled a brightly lit smile, my mother and I had made up. “Mom! Is there something wrong?” I asked staring at her long fingers. “No darling. Nothing’s wrong.” I took her hand. “Mama, you’re rotting.” Her hand was the only thing I kept in her bedroom. I carried it as though it was something special and terrific because I had avenged my grandfather and I had eventually, finally became feared and beautiful. I was wild and free. Free from my mother’s rottenness and cold hearted features. I loved my grandfather and yet no one gave him credit for keeping my chin up, I endlessly kept killing people and for me it was a never ending story.