Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me

by Adrienne Brodeur

I wanted to make her happier. I always wanted to make my mother happier.

I took to be a judgment on my very DNA, all those chromosomes tethered to Malabar. “But you don’t have to act on those feelings.

I’d never had a wound—emotional or physical—that I didn’t probe repeatedly.

It was my childhood mother, the woman who used to comfort me and tuck me in at night. I had almost forgotten about her existence. I’d been the grownup in our relationship for so long—the one who advised and consoled and did the holding—that I didn’t remember what it was like to be held by her.

“You have to remember that your mother is unaware of what she’s done and always will be,” Margot continued. “If you’re waiting for an apology or gratitude, don’t. You have hard work ahead. You need to forgive her and move on. Happiness is a choice that you have to make for yourself.”

witnessed his soul wrest itself free of his body in three heaving breaths, leaving a corpse in its place.

The question of origins—of where one begins—determines so much. I