Heart Berries: A Memoir

by Terese Marie Mailhot

My mindlessness became a gift.

I wanted to know what I looked like to you. A sin committed and a prayer answered, you said.

That’s how perfect love is at first. Solutions are simple, and problems are laid out simply.

I guess heartbreak is simple. Problems seem to unfurl themselves like crumpled bills on a nightstand.

I want to be polite and present myself as decent.

You were angry with me for wanting to die—more than that, you were upset that I was weak minded.

You should have thought before you made a crazy Indian woman your lover.

Lovers want to undo their partners.

I feel unveiled and more work than you had bargained for.

A teacher’s assistant in grade one asked me to draw a spoon. I took my time and drew an elaborate rainbow in its silhouette. I gave it a mouth and legs. She told me that passing relied on my ability to just draw a spoon, then she handed me another paper.

In white culture, forgiveness is synonymous with letting go. In my culture, I believe we carry pain until we can reconcile with it through ceremony.

The strange thing about poverty is that maintaining a level of desperation and lack of integrity keeps the checks rolling in.

My aunt says at every funeral, there are some cultures where women are paid to wail—are revered for wailing better than others. There is a culture that makes crying a virtue and a gift.

Mother didn’t like the Bible, but I appreciate it for how suffering is related to profundity.

God couldn’t watch it; he sent us his boy, but I doubt he watched his son die. I think he just waited for him on the other side.

Sometimes suicidality doesn’t seem dark; it seems fair.