The Lamb

by Lucy Rose

Their eyes were locked. That was when I knew Mama was hungry.

I wondered if it was worth the fuss of making them feel loved if we were only going to pull them apart in the end.

That’s when I realised that, as adults look at children, they don’t really see them. They see a body without a mind. Something that does what it’s told. Something that will only understand when it’s older.

Men are stupid when they feel powerful, Little One. They become complacent.

When the sun would surface, Mama would wake me, tapping my forehead with her dirty fingernail. She sometimes liked to leave a groove on the crest of my brow, before pressing a kiss on top of it to make it all better.

Every intrusive thought felt like a desire unfulfilled.

Mama explained to me that a house didn’t mean bricks, four walls and a roof. A house meant something in our hearts and people without them were called strays. They were the lost ones.

This is what it looked like to dream when awake.

I wanted to know her inside out. Her story had to be mine. I wanted to plant those eyes of hers like the pit of a fruit tree in my stomach.

I ate as much of her as I could manage, feeding on all those things she felt as she drifted in and out.

sometimes think it was the first time I properly ate. I was full.’

Vibrations travelled down my spine like whispers.

Mama hated Papa, though, because he hadn’t given her what she wanted: a love that burnt like fire and left the world around them charred.

But something made her hesitate.

Her fingers were cold when they finally coiled around my palm. These were hands that didn’t trust mine.

‘I’ve never understood why mamas are expected to be perfect,’ she said. ‘Men are forever thought of as boys. But girls? Once we’re mamas or once we’re ripe, we can never be girls again. Not in their eyes. But we are always girls and daughters, underneath. Always.’

She’d just been a mind woven in skin. Our tendons all tore the same way.

Nature was beautiful. But we did such a good job of making it ugly.

‘The things that happen to us change us, Little One,’

‘What people don’t know, Little One, is that the most dreadful things happen out in the open while the sun shines bright up in the sky and no one can do a thing about it. Those who watch don’t care and pretend they don’t see. They burrow and forget.’

I hadn’t realised something was missing until the missing piece came along in the snow.

‘I know you weren’t a good man,’ I said to the boots, ‘but I don’t think you were a bad man either.’

‘But I don’t feel anything like she does. She feels big and she puts her feelings everywhere. I feel small and I keep them inside.’

My memories of Papa were fragments, but still, I caught slips of him in my reflection.

The strays all bunched in together like sardines, acting like people and not food.

I’d wanted to look exactly like Mama and now I did, but all I saw was ugliness.

but falling felt like floating around her and pain was overwhelmed by the feeling of being held.

as if all the big feelings I kept inside could somehow move mountains.

‘I know you’re right here with me, but I’m trying to hold on to every detail because I’m scared you might disappear. So, I hold on. To the lines by your eyes. The corners of your mouth. Your eyelashes. Your freckles. I want to remember everything.’

They gazed into one another’s eyes, flitting across one another’s features, taking in every detail. I held my breath. And did not trespass.

The absence of love had spoilt something in their souls and mine. Our love was rotten, but still looking for the burning it craved; for anything to revive the embers that had gone out long ago.

I made a quiet wish that she’d forget about her papa, that he would evaporate, along with his memories, but somewhere inside I knew she would always remember him and wonder where he was. And I would always remember how delicious he’d tasted.

She looked the way I’d always imagined women were supposed to look. At peace. Relaxed. A part of nature, like a stone or a stream.

Mama had nothing but memories left to make, but his were already made.

‘Men love the idea of women. They love the question about a woman. The mystery yet to be solved.

Children received adults’ words in the smallest portions. The adults left pieces out in the fray; the pieces they thought we didn’t handle well. But those left-out pieces were the ones we needed the most.

I’d always loved rain. It could be vicious or light on its own whim and there was no saying, at the beginning of a storm, which way it would go.

It was easier to think about her than it was to be near her.

It was dark and cold within the embrace of the forest.

Before Eden, Mama had been fraying at the edges like a rug coming apart, but something told me Eden wanted to tug at the threads until she wholly unravelled.

‘Years feel longer when you aren’t loved the way you want to be. Or the way you’re supposed to be.’

Mama was right. Men always believe lies.

It’s strange what you pick up about people while you’re driving. You notice things a little bit more.’

I missed her even when no time had passed. Even when I knew I’d see her the very next day.

Take those feelings and hide them. Push them down. Keep them in the dark. Keep them where no one can see them.’

Boys and men always lied about the silliest things instead of saying what they really thought.

‘I’d tell you if something was wrong,’ I said, holding his stare. ‘I promise.’ But I wouldn’t.

‘Do the boys know about this?’ I asked. ‘Do they know it hurts this much?’ ‘Of course they know, but it’s not real pain to them. Pretend-pain. Not as painful as their pain.’

‘You have to try to put good into the world, otherwise everyone’s putting bad into the world. Someone has to swallow their pride and make things okay.’

‘I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. You can have too much nice food and too much good music. Sometimes you just need nothing.’