Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me

by Adrienne Brodeur

“Let everything happen to you / Beauty and terror / Just keep going / No feeling is final.”

“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.”

Why is it that an insult stays with you forever, whereas love and praise passes through you like water through a sieve?

Technically, I still had a mother, but in every way, I felt motherless.

Malabar was the only mother I had, but she was not the mother I wanted to be.

All I ever wanted was right here. As I embraced my husband and children, I realized that I’d broken the chain.