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“Keep your aim steady, Simon. That’s it. There’s no need for unnecessary suffering.”
Simon’s grip on the knife was only kept steady by the Father’s hand wrapped around his own, the rest of his body shaking even with the Father’s secondary grasp on his shoulder. How could he possibly keep still with the tip of the blade hovering over his mother’s heart?
There was meant to be a crowd for these things, a ceremony to send off the soul into the Grove as their body nourished the Last Tree’s soil. But there was no such crowd for the woman who had raised Simon, for the person who’d been convinced safety had lain in the presence of the man who had ended up deeming her illness not worth the treatment in a world of ever-diminishing resources. No, this was a private event, this eradication of the one person who had ever loved Simon unconditionally.
“All it takes is one clean strike, Simon, and she will forever be at peace,” the Father whispered into Simon’s ear, grip firm on his shoulder and hand but not guiding the knife any lower himself. “No more waking up with a coughing fit she can’t catch her breath from. No more fainting from just a few minutes of work. No more uncontrollable sobs from a pain no one can take from her. Remember she wanted this too, Simon. She wanted to be useful to Eden, to you, one last time.”
Simon’s mother slept soundly on her mound of dirt, deaf to her son’s snotty battle between weeping and full-fledged sobs due to whatever the Elders had given her. Maybe Simon could yet convince the Father to just let her sleep for a while before she woke up and died on her body’s own natural time.
As if sensing Simon’s desperate aversion, the Father’s hold tightened, and his nose squished against the side of Simon’s face as he hissed, into his ear, “Would you be so selfish as to deny your mother her final wish? To let down all the people counting on us? Do you not owe it to her to not leave this task to another man?”
And that was the straw that broke him, for there was no way to avoid the ending of this situation. Even if Simon managed to talk his way out of murdering his mother himself, the Father could and would easily get someone else to take his place.
Shrieking out his preemptive grief, Simon raised the knife his mother had gifted him and brought it down between her third and fourth ribs.
He’d thought the drugs in her system and the destruction of such a vital organ would leave no room for a reaction before her death, but his mother gave a full-bodied flinch as the knife penetrated her heart, eyelids fluttering. “Sssss…” she hissed for a single second, as if making one final bid to say her son’s name before her head tilted to the side and she was gone.
At once, Simon unhanded the knife, wailing for his mother and making a lunge to embrace her.
“Simon. Simon!” the Father said, spinning Simon around and gripping his shoulders before he could touch his mother. “You did it, my son, you did good. I can get Brother Martin to take care of the rest, but you did the most important part. I know it hurts, and you may never lose that hurt, but that doesn’t stop the fact that you are a provider, Simon. People like us, we make the tough decisions, do the hard deeds for the sake of what's best. It’s never easy, but with time you’ll see it gets easier. Do you understand?”
Unable to fight through his tears, not understanding anything at all, Simon nodded.
Smiling down at him, the Father clapped Simon on the back, rose to his feet, and began to guide Simon out of the room. “Good man. Let’s go have dinner with the flock.”
“W-wait!” Simon cried, the shock of such a sudden exit letting him find his voice as he reached back towards his mother. “D-don’t I get to say goodbye?”
The Father continued to tug him away. “You already did, Simon. There’s nothing left to say goodbye to now.”