Caesar Mott [District 6] (fin)

August 12th,

I lock my son in his room because I am afraid. I'm afraid of what he'll do to himself, to me, to his brother and sisters. The doctors say he has skich skitch skitsofrenia. They tell me he hears things that aren't there, and that his brain doesn't connect things the same way mine does. When I told them that he mutters rhyming words to himself they simply nodded and told me that was normal. Normal, how can my son be normal? He talks to himself all the time, screams for no reason, thrashes in his bed during the night. My son is not normal. He scares me.

I had had so many hopes for him, my eldest boy. He reminds me of his father, or he did until the muttering and shaking started. Nelson had been a very important doctor when I met him, always performing complex surgeries and taking care of the high level patients. When I look at Caesar, even now, I can still see Nelson very clearly in his face. It's the same eyes, the hazel that could almost be green, that I watched go from cheerful and curious and loving to something so much darker. I miss the way Nelson used to look at me, I miss the way Caesar used to look at me. The last look on Nelson's face before he walked out the door for the last time is the same one Caesar gives me when I walk out the door. They both looked utterly betrayed.

They have the same hair, too. It's always messy, though Nelson styled it like that and Caesar just never lets anyone comb it for him. Their hair is a dark brown, though not too dark. In the light you can see almost a caramel color in it. I used to love running my hand through Nelson's hair, or brushing Caesar's locks. They had both had it long at one point, but Nelson had gotten his cut short once tying it back wasn't enough, and I had to hack Caesar's off after he had chewed on it enough to make himself sick. He had only been eight at the time.

Caesar is taller than his dad, though. Nelson was only 5 foot 10, but Caesar reaches 6 feet. I think Eric will be tall, too. Caesar's thinner than Nelson, and all of us in truth, mostly because he doesn't eat as much as he should. He doesn't trust the food I give him. He doesn't trust me. It hurts when he stares at me with accusing eyes, and the fear I see in them. My heart just breaks every time I see him. What happened to my sweet baby boy who loved me so much? Why do I now have a son, almost fully grown and supposed to be becoming a man, who doesn't trust his own mother. I don't think he knows who I am anymore.

To him I am simply the one who gives him poisoned food or stabs him with pointy things. I would never harm him, not even now, not even after all the pain and embarrassment he has caused me, but he doesn't trust me. When he screams and cries at shadows I am there for him, shooting him up with the tranquilizer the doctors gave me for those moments. I will never forget that one time. He was screaming at his wall, his voice so high pitched I couldn't understand it. When I entered the room he turned on me. "You're not mom, you're not mom, you're an impostor!" He screamed at me, pressing himself back against the wall. "Impostor impostor impostor!" This went on for a full minute as I tried to get close enough to jab the needle into his arm. The doctors had shown me just where to get him, though they said that nearly any place would do.

All of a sudden he stopped, though, and quietly went to sit on the bed. I was so stunned that it took me a moment to turn and face him. The look he wore chilled me to the bone and tore my heart out through my throat. "You're going to stab me again, aren't you?" The calmness in his voice, and the drastic difference from the screaming he had just been doing, made my spine crawl. "I have to, sweetheart." I took a careful step forward, but that made him spring up and race away to the far end of the room. "NO!" he screamed "no, I won't let you! You're not my mother, my mother wouldn't hurt me like this." He kicked the wall again and again, turned away from me like he was trying to escape through the wall.

I caught him as he slumped, the drug I had injected into him taking quick effect. "Caesar, I'm sorry. Baby, I'm sorry." It took all of my strength to carry him to the bed and lay him down, but I tucked him in and left the room. I felt like the most horrible person to exist. President Snow was one of his white roses compared to me.

I was the mother who wished I didn't have to deal with my son. I love my Caesar, the boy who would always tell me his favorite thing during the day, or read me his latest poem. He had loved rhymes, even when he was just learning to talk. I do not love this strange boy who I have locked up in my son's room. I can't love him. All of the energy I put into caring for him is draining me of the love I should have for him. The guilt I feel, that maybe I was the cause of this, makes me want to push him away. Sometimes I just want to turn him out into the street and leave him to fend for himself. Then I see Nelson's eyes looking at me from his face, wide and filled with betrayal, and I can't.

I'm a terrible person. I'm a terrible mother.