Lucky to be Alive

 The children watched their mother with wide, expectant eyes. Mallory looked down at the twins, who were sitting cross-legged in front of her, with a dull and tired gaze. “I s’pose you’re expecting a story,” she started.

“Yes!” The children exclaimed in unison. Mallory laughed. The corners of her mouth turned upwards and she smiled, but only slightly.

“Did I ever tell you about the time your father and I raised the dead?”

Her children knew it was all make-believe, of course, but they made-believe as children their age often did. The boy especially let himself be enveloped by his mother's imaginary world. He hung onto her every word, as if he were dangling off the edge of a cliff and they were the only things he could hold on to. As if Mallory’s words were the only things keeping him from tumbling into the bottomless abyss below. The mischievous glint in his eyes reminded Mallory too much of herself. Perhaps it was why she was so hard on the boy.

Meanwhile the girl, with blonde hair and blue eyes like her father’s, listened to Mallory’s stories with a sombre expression, drinking in every word and evaluating every sentence. She’s much too analytical for her age, Mallory often thought. Still, she was grateful that the girl was able to keep her brother grounded.

“What happened next?!” The boy exclaimed as Mallory detailed a long, drawn-out brawl with the living dead.

“She’s getting to that,” his sister scolded. “Let her finish.”

Mallory chuckled and continued her story. What the children didn’t know was that Mallory always told the exact same story; she simply mixed up a few details each time. Last time it was a fight with werewolves, before that it was a vacation gone wrong. The details changed, yes, but the story always remained the same, and the root of the story was one-hundred percent true.

Maybe, one day, she would tell them the entire, unedited truth. One day she might tell them exactly how they were conceived, how lucky they were to still be alive. Mallory might tell them how lucky she herself was to be alive. One day she might tell them why they didn’t have a father, why their mother was away from home most of the week. Perhaps, one day, when they were older and the word “rape” meant something to them, she would tell them.

Until then, however, Mallory would continue her fictional tales, and when her children asked how she managed to survive her countless hardships, she would say:

“With a little bit of luck, of course. That's all you need, really. Just a little bit of luck and the will to live. Always remember that.”