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They say that a mother’s love is the strongest force in the world.
Neil knows that; he understands it, but he is well aware that it doesn’t mean that it is gentle. The love his mother had for him was a twisted, skewed version of the word; a ghost of a promise, the thing that held him together during their countless days on the run, but stopped at that.
He doesn’t remember if it had always been like this; if a long time ago, his mother was a more kind-hearted version of herself – one that kissed his forehead instead of striking him across the face. Logically, he knows it is more than unlikely; after all, his mother came from the family she did, and maybe that was proof enough. He remembers when, long time ago, he had allowed himself to daydream about how it would feel to be held and cared for.
Although that wasn’t really fair. He was cared for – just not in the usual sense of the word. His mother's affection manifested in the firm way she kept him safe; the way she risked everything to get him out of that house, out of the reach of his father’s cruel hands, and the future he planned for his son. She kept him alive and taught him to survive, even if tossing him aside would be easier and keep her afloat for longer.
She did hit him, but it wasn’t vicious in any way his father had been – it was survival. Mary hadn’t taken pleasure in his pain; for her, it was simply a necessity, an unavoidable element of their life bathed in lies. She wasn’t a monster, Neil thinks; she was a person whose fear morphed into a violent streak and nerves of steel. Perhaps she was doomed from the beginning; her whole life spent on alert, danger hiding around every corner. Neil knows what that does to someone better than anyone else in the world.
And still, sometimes, he can’t help but hate her. Sometimes, he still feels the phantom hands tugging his hair, a voice in his ear, hissing to get his shit together and move. He feels her ghost every time he looks for every exit when entering a new building, every time his first urge is to flee. She left some wounds he doesn’t think anything can ever soothe, and that no amount of time spent belonging will heal.
And still, sometimes, he can’t help but love her. In his fuzzy memories, he sees his mother watching his little league Exy games and cheering for him; the fleeting moment of her smile burned into his brain. He remembers their first night after running, when he was so lost and afraid that Mary, after realizing no amount of reprimands or sharp words would work, hummed a soft tune. He remembers the pure fear in her eyes when he got shot; remembers being surprised that, after so many heart-numbing years, there was still concern hidden in her features. That their hard-earned survival hadn’t killed whatever softer feeling she had for him before.
Because he was well aware that there were times she hated him too; she saw his smile and barely contained a flinch; she heard the way his voice trembled, caught on a lie, and dug her fingers into his skin. When his hands shook around the gun she shoved into his arms, he knew that she was terrified he wouldn’t make it; that there were things she had no control over. He felt her contempt each time she slammed him into a wall for talking too much or slapped him for speaking to someone for too long.
As a result, Neil was never sure where her love started. It was all meddled; moments like his mother dyeing his hair, her unusually gentle fingers threading through it, were poisoned by the memories of his split lips and bruises. He isn’t sure if or when she started to think of him as a burden, a liability - but even so, she never left him. And back then, it truly was more than Neil could have asked for.
She kept him alive; she broke him so the world wouldn’t; she taught him that being anyone for too long was a death sentence; that running was the only thing that could save him. Neil spent the entirety of those eight years convinced that every day would be his last, with nothing to call his own - not even a name. With his mother as the only constant, their isolation steadily stretched into madness and paranoia. Sometimes, Neil stopped being a person, instead, morphing into whatever he needed to be.
Sometimes, she stopped being one too. Neil can’t help but feel guilty at times - in the blur of yet another danger after danger, she sacrificed her life and traded it for survival, long before her actual death. He supposes that’s why he can’t let go of her; because underneath all the harshness was something else. Neil likes to think it was something as tender as love, but maybe that’s just a naive hope. Perhaps it never was love; maybe it was something close enough - a sort of possessiveness feeding off the fact that Neil didn’t belong to his father or Moriyamas anymore; he was his mother’s child, as safe as he could be.
Neil likes to think Mary wouldn’t be disappointed or furious that he broke the rules she worked so hard to engrave into him if she saw him now. He likes to think that if the only thing she wanted was for him to be safe, then maybe, she wouldn’t care that he stopped running. After all, due to him staying, Death was no longer a threat he could only delay by a month or two; it was a far-away promise.
He wants to think that she would be relieved to see him happy and finally as a tangible person, but perhaps that’s just a way to console himself; feel better about everything he has done since he buried her bones on the beach.
The truth is this; all he has left of his mother are the scars marring his skin and the burning smell of smoke. He likes to think that it’s enough, but perhaps all those years spent being fine, made it impossible to tell when he’s lying – even to himself.