Mother and I

By Madeline Weih-Wadman

One morning the girl wakes and it is not today. It is fifty-three years ago, and the girl is in a looming house on Willow Street, and the velvet drapes are too weighty to tell the girl whether it is morning or night. Her hands are sparse and clear and move through her surroundings as though she is a figment. The girl’s mother is a tot on the rug, and the girl recognizes her mother, for she has seen the photos hung in the upstairs hallway. Mother is crying and mother’s mother is washing up and mother’s father is chain smoking on the back porch and mother is still crying. The girl finds that mother is stronger than the rest of her surroundings. She can be lifted, and the girl is no longer a figment, and mother is looking into the girl’s eyes and remembering when she will hold the girl in her belly. The girl tells mother: you’re going to think that you’ve done something wrong and you haven’t. You’re going to feel too small, too large, not quite right. But then you will have me and you will love me the way I wish I could stay here and love you now. And mother doesn’t respond, because she is a baby, but she stops crying. And she smiles. 

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Madeline is a born and raised Vancouverite who has been writing since she was a child. After high school she attended Vancouver Film School’s screenwriting diploma program with a focus on writing for television. She is currently pursuing a BFA in creative writing from UBC. Her genres of choice are coming-of-age, drama, and body horror, and she focuses on the subjects of girlhood and motherhood, queerness, and death.