You Be Mother

by Meg Mason

She had never felt so alone. Even though, she thought as she turned back to Student Services, she’d been alone most of her life.

But for three days already, something had been forming in the deepest, most hidden part of her that would one day mean she’d never be alone again.

Brigitta had longed to be alone, allowed to grieve like a grown-up, instead of the sulky middle child she unavoidably became after prolonged exposure to her family.

Her tiny human anchor;

No one had said such a nice thing about her as a mother.

Babies are never accidents. They’re born when they jolly well feel like it and we mothers simply make a fist of whatever circumstances they find us in.’

‘Frederick used to say if you don’t keep a bottle of fizz cold, it says a great deal about your outlook. You can’t be expecting good news, do you see?

‘In life, dear, when one wants something, one simply does it and waits for the practicalities to arrange themselves.

She understood now that Rae loved her as much as she could love anything from inside her windowless grief.

She was a child entirely able to defy biology.