Dearest

by Jacquie Walters

Belinda looks to them both, sad. “I know on some level it probably feels like a betrayal. But this thing is clearly not your mother. It is only the worst parts of her. It’s like this broken part of Jodi was awakened when you had a baby, and that broken part of her—that’s the part that wants to hurt Iris.” “She couldn’t have her daughter, so she doesn’t want me to have mine,” Flora says, realizing the truth of the words as she says them. Belinda nods. “I think so. The worst parts of her want you to suffer as badly as she did. But again: that thing is not her. It’s not Jodi.” Her dad agrees from the back seat. “You’re right. Jodi wouldn’t want this. Never.” Flora’s eyes remain fixed on the road but glaze over in a glassy stare as she thinks. The spirit of her mother is hurting, and it only knows how to exist by hurting others the same way. It’s a childish motivation: something a toddler would do. Flora thinks of all the times she had to parent her own mother in life. Perhaps she should not be shocked that she will need to parent her mother in death, too.