An Unknown Need

I wake up to a woman laughing. It was just last year when my mother passed away, not even enough time for the grass to grow over her grave and my dad is already dating another woman. I hear a song playing, it’s my mother’s favorite song, and I hear the woman laugh again– she sounds so familiar. I get out of bed and I open the door, the music is louder, the scent of my mother’s favorite recipe wafts through the air. I pass by the coat rack and see her favorite scarf, pink silk, still fresh with her perfume. I see her sitting, her famous thick blonde hair, her petite frame. How is she here? I must be dreaming. I hear the sound of my father talking, and I reach out and touch my mother’s hair, she turns around my heart sinks. I feel as if I’ve been knocked on my ass, out of my warm and comfortable dream, the idea that my mother could still be alive. The woman is an imposter, she smiles, she is beautiful, but she is not my mother. But there is something about her, she’s so similar to my mother, I can’t hate her. There’s something that keeps me lingering by her door, something that beckons me to be so bold as to open it. I want to be by her. I want her to hold me. I want her to kiss me. I want to feel comforted. I want her to be mine.