An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

by Elizabeth McCracken

Every day as I love this baby in my lap, I think of my other baby. Poor older brother, poor missing one. I see the infant before me, the glory of the soles of the feet, the lips fattened and glossy with nursing, the nose whose future Edward and I try to predict daily. The love for the first magnifies the love for the second, and vice versa.

Your friends may say, Time heals all wounds. No, it doesn’t, but eventually you’ll feel better. You’ll be yourself again. Your child will still be dead. The frivolous parts of your personality, stubborner than you’d imagined, will grow up through the cracks in your soul.