Our Lady of Pain by Elena Forbes
8 min on the F train
B stopped and considered her mother. Today was the day she’d been holding her breath for, the other shoe had dropped. There wasn’t a sparkle of recognition in Ma’s gold flecked eyes, just a polite query.
“No ma, it’s B,” she repeated slowly and just a little louder than normal. “P isn’t here.” any more, she added silently. Ma had long forgotten P’s suicide which was even longer ago. But everyone wrote it off as trauma since she otherwise always knew what was going on around her. Until today. B wanted to take out her iPhone5 and check the date. She wanted to look at her watch but she wasn’t wearing it. She wanted to confirm today’s date. She needed to remember because later no one would remember the day Ma started to permanently forget.
She explained again where the cake and birthday cards had come from, as if the party hadn’t just ended, as if it were a long ago event and they were both reminiscing.
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