Mother

I wrote this story for the girls. If he has hurt you, you know this feeling.

• Fiction

								
Perdita sat cross-legged on a rotten log, her elbow propped on a knee. She leaned into her palm, relieved by the pressure against her jaw. Sweat sat like threaded beads across her hairline as the sun's rays shone mercilessly over the riverbank where five-year-old Nadia splashed about in search of river clams.

“I found one, Mama! Look! Mama, look! Mama!” Nadia held up a shell about the size of a nickel as she continued to call for her mother's attention.

“Yes, I see it. Good job, Didi.” Perdita’s eyes never open. She stayed where she sat, pressing her fingers hard against her jaw.

“You didn’t look! Your eyes are closed! Are you eepy?”
“I’m not eepy,” Perdita sighed. Finally, she opened her eyes and saw that Nadia had left the water and was waddling her way.

	‘Eepy’ became a part of their regular vocabulary last summer after Perdita suffered a two-night insomnia spell. She was so exhausted that her words were choppy and slurred, leading to her saying that she was “eepy” when Nadia questioned her.
    Nadia found it so funny that she would use it every day from then on. Once, while following the river, they found a bluegill that had washed ashore and died. It had soured in the sun, creating a pungent odor that twisted Perdita’s nose hairs.

“Is the fish eepy, mama?”
“No, Didi. It’s died.”
“Why did it die?”
“Everything dies eventually.”
“Everything?” 
“Yes.”
“Even you, mama?”
“Yes, even me.”
“And me?”

	The memory faded away when Nadia touched Perdita’s arm. Her little hand lifted up and down in an exaggerated consoling manner. Perdita couldn’t help but smile. She brushed strands of hair from Nadia’s eyes. Nadia was almost an exact copy of her mother. 

They shared the same chestnut hair and eyes, the same freckles covering their cheekbones, and even the same mole on their right shoulder. The only difference between them is the scar above Perdita’s left eyebrow.

“Is it toof?” Nadia poked herself on the lips.
“Tooth.” Perdita corrected, sounding out the word slowly. Nadia repeated and asked again.
“Yes. My tooth hurts. I’ll chew on some garlic when we get home.” Perdita stood from the log and lifted Nadia onto her hip.
“Let's head back. We can look for more clams later.”


Later that night, when Perdita was sure her daughter was fully asleep, she lit a candle made of animal fat and quietly left the hut. Their home was roughly six feet tall and four feet wide on all sides. It comprised pine trees, sticks, mud, and rocks stacked, tied, and pushed together. Pine branches covered the shelter from top to bottom, helping it maintain heat during the winter. 
While it wasn’t a pretty home, Perdita had spent meticulous hours over the last five years building and improving it as she learned how to make tools from the bones of animal skeletons she’d managed to kill or find already dead. She had spent three months weaving a front door made from sticks and tree fibers before giving it up for tinder and using more pine branches as a sort of curtain to crawl through.
The night air was humid and sticky against Perdita’s skin. She swatted at hungry mosquitos as she followed the familiar path towards the river. All was quiet, save for the gradual increase of the rushing river as she made her way along the trees. Pushing the candle into the sandbar, Perdita began to undress from head to toe. 
 Her first step into the river was like stepping into a bucket of needles. Chills tickled up her slender legs as she continued further in. Perdita knew that the undercurrents of this river were dangerous. She’d once seen a fawn who’d been pulled too far out get sucked into the dark stream, never to resurface. The mother stayed nearby for a few days, walking along the mud, calling for her baby. Perdita had just given birth to her own daughter and felt the doe’s grief deep in her heart. 
It wasn’t until Nadia was two that she found the courage to bring her to the river and teach her to swim.
Perdita stopped once she was waist-deep and allowed her body to acclimate to the temperature before fully submerging herself. She resurfaced with a gasp and ran her hands over her head. She remembered when her hair was long. She’d brush it over and pin it up into the latest style before leaving her uncle’s estate to go to town and browse dress shops or beauty parlors. Back then, she thought that if she pretended to be okay, her uncle might stop coming into her room at night; that if she started to read the Bible and stopped asking questions like women were supposed to, then he’d stop “teaching” her how to be a proper lady. 
She traced the scar above her eyebrow with a finger.
“No. He would’ve never stopped.”

	Perdita was young when she was placed under the care of her uncle Solomon. Her mother, Arabella, died during childbirth after they cut her open because Perdita wasn’t positioned properly and couldn’t be pushed out. Her father was so distraught with grief that he took up the bottle and spent the next seven years drowning himself in cheap whiskey. Perdita’s memories of her father are few and far between. The one thing she remembered for certain was the odor of his unwashed denim overalls. Later, she learned that her mother had made them for him, and after her death, that’s all he wore. When he died, there was no question that he’d be buried in them as well. She didn’t cry at his funeral. Instead, she felt relief when she couldn’t smell him anymore.

	With both parents deceased, Perdita was placed with Solomon, her mother's older brother. He had no family of his own, as he spent most of his time managing various diamond mines he owned scattered across the South. She hadn’t known about his vast wealth until then. Her father never spoke of his brother-in-law's fortune despite their own poverty due to his excessive drinking. In fact, Perdita quickly learned that her father and uncle were never on friendly terms. Whispers around the estate were that Solomon hated her father for taking Arabella away from him and that he was “too close” with his sister before she. 
	At the time, Perdita didn’t know what that meant. Wasn’t it normal for an older brother to want to protect his sister? Then again, she didn’t have an older brother, so she had nothing to compare them to. She simply shrugged off the whispers and became content with her new life of luxury. From scraps to silks, Perdita’s wardrobe became one of envy for women in the community. She had dresses adorned with gemstones, lace, silks, satins, and all luxury materials from the finest boudoirs worldwide.  She went from eating stale bread to caviar on buttery crackers that melt in your mouth. At one point, Perdita caught herself feeling glad her father died. She recalled feeling the briefest sense of shame at the thought. Weren’t children supposed to mourn the death of their parents? 
“No” She decided.
You mourn the people you love and not once did that man show her an ounce of decency, let alone anything close to love. While others her age received support and comfort from their parents, Perdita had glass-covered floors, broken door hinges, and irate neighbors who regularly confronted her father about his senseless shouts and slurs at all hours of the night. 

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