"You are not my ma," she said.
"Ah..." this was something I had to expect. Children were clever in their own right. I could never hope to imitate a person to perfection regardless of how excellent an actor I was. I thought to comfort her. I held out my arm wrapping it around her shoulder drawing her close to me. "You are right, I am not your mother." I could hardly begin to imagine what pain she must be going through having confirmed this. I thought if it were me, well I would have been enveloped in the stinging memory for much of the future life. Everything I experienced would have been tainted with grief. "Anette, I am sorry for your loss. Sorry... sorry that your mother could not have accompanied you through your growth."
Anette shook her head.
"No! No. I don't miss my mother. She's awful." Anette began to count on her fingers. "There was once when she brought home a chocolate cake and she forbade me from having any of it. I watched the cake rot on the top of the cabinets for a solid week. She ate some of it before it went bad but she was only one person; she should have let me have some."
The corners of her eyes were dry. Anette seemed neither stressed nor upset at the confirmation. On the contrary, Anette was eating ravenously and slept like a dog at night. I wondered whether to feel pity for the previous mother of Anette. She had no one to mourn for her loss.
...
Rian
Mama is gone. She's gone in spirit and left nothing save for her own suit of flesh. Mama, where are you?
Nowadays a strange creature dons the body mama left.
...
"We're so used to focusing on abuses that spring from interventions. We forget those that can equally painfully flow from absence. There was no physical violence. There was no taunting or shouting."
She was an indifferent mother. Now a stranger has replaced her. She's no longer my mother. Perhaps it is that she's hit her head whilst drinking, or something equally usual had befallen her. Everyday I used to squat posterior to our home's door. There I'd be silent in the darkness because if I was not seen nor heard I would not have gotten into any trouble. There was no trouble to get into either and there were no candles or fire to light the interior of the house. During the day I would be shrouded in light from a bottle of glowing liquid. A one litre bottle containing water and a bit of bleach was a tool which would refract light from the sun and light the entire room in incandescent magical colours. It was placed on the roof.
There I would sit in the room and I would look at the patterns of light which were refracted from the bleach water. White light, angelic, it split itself into faintest patterns of rainbow at the far sides.
My mother gave me a cookie. Suddenly and unprompted. I hold the powdery pastry feeling weak. No matter how gently I tried to make my grasp the pastry would crumble still when I moved. My hands sweat. My head was light from both elation and fear. I ate the pastry in small bites. Each nibble would be followed by a lick of my outer mouth area. It caught every crumb which escaped from my mouth.
...
"Sweetie, your mother feels awful," she said. Mother placed her hand over my own even stroking it gently. Despite the warmth my stomach was stirring with unease. Beside her I was only a weak child that sweat and cowered in her presence. "I promise I will never treat you that way again."
I neither moved nor responded. I sweat.
...
However my mother was before she changed I still knew of her. She cried and screamed in predictable patterns. Her behaviour never changed and I could live a delicate life of symbiosis along her side. Why was it so different now? As if a stranger has donned the skin of my familiar old ma.
