Shivering from bloodloss and fasting, she lies on white sheets—the monster, razor-tongued, cold-eyed, who darkened my childhood, who binds me still. How can you escape someone till you’ve beaten them? She’s shivering, bleached and shrunken after surgery. Soon she’ll be awake and soup-warmed. Now I can desert her, as, every time, she deserted me. But Ma has never seemed able to choose how to behave to me. I touch Ma’s hands. She’s ice-cold. I’m able to choose, so I must make the right choice, so I’ve got no choice at all. I massage Ma’s hands, weeping, with resentment, mostly.
Amita Basu is a Pushcart-nominated writer whose fiction has appeared in 60+ magazines and anthologies including The Penn Review, Bamboo Ridge, Jelly Bucket, and Phoebe.