Rabbit Hole

by Kate Brody

I think of how you never realize your parents are young until they’re not anymore.

When someone is confessing, the best thing you can say is nothing. Let them fill the silence.

I read somewhere that most people die at twenty-five but are buried at seventy-five.

There is no accounting for the gulf between who we were and how we ended up.

After Wolf dies, after Mom dies, I will become invincible. I almost look forward to feeling that sadness, because that will be the bottom. And then I’ll be untouchable.

When we’re born, she told me, we can’t tell ourselves from our mothers. She said that when her son looked at her, he thought he was looking at himself. That when she held him, there was no distinction between them. Total unification. Mother as home. You have to learn that you’re alone. That comes later.