An experiment of sorts...

I was reading a work by Julia Alvarez where she exposes this kind of awful thing she did as a child, a long held secret and cites that memory as a source of inspiration and pain for her writing. I think everyone has different ways of going about this but I as an experiment wanted to translate my "deep dark secret" into writing. (Don't think I'm awful, please!) This is a part of my larger collection, which is a series of stories that relate to a larger narrative, but I don't think you have to have read the collection to understand the story.

Mama # 2

When she was five, my little golden haired warrior girl took in a stray cat and there was no telling her that she couldn’t, even though it was enough of a time putting food in our mouths. She named the cat Buster and cried and cried when I told her Buster was a girl. 

Buster and her slept together in her little bed every night, though I told her that that cat was filthy. She spent that whole summer in the backyard together, just two wild animals rolling in the dirt. “I hate that thing,” I told her at dinner one night, but she pretended not to hear me whiled she snuck chicken under the table to a waiting Buster. 

“Mama,” she said to me one morning, hair tinged green with chlorine and nose sunburnt. “I think Buster’s getting fat.” I looked down at that dirty cat and began to laugh. “No, honey, Buster is pregnant.” My little Roman soldier looked at her lion companion wide-eyed, as if it was contagious. “Buster must be popular with the boy cats,” I laughed. “She’s going to have kittens!” 

The summer went by and she watched after Buster like a midwife. “Mama, look how big she’s getting!” I knew one day soon that cat would give birth and silently hoped it wouldn't be in a hamper of my clean clothes. The day came and my little vet-to-be dragged me by my arm into the house, not letting me change out of my work uniform. In the corner of the basement Buster laid, still swollen, exposing her nipples to five little furry kittens in all different colors. Five precious little lives. Buster and I had more in common that I thought. 

“Mama, why aren’t there eyes open?” “Little kittens keep their eyes closed for the first week. They’ll keep getting big and strong with their mama and one day they won’t need her anymore.” I elbowed her playfully, but she wouldn’t take her eyes off Buster and the kittens. “Come on, honey, lets eat dinner.” She babbled about the kittens all through dinner, about who would be named what and who would be her favorite. I didn’t want to ruin her night by telling her we couldn’t possibly have six cats in the house.  

The next day I got home from work, ready to hear the kitten filled events of the day. I went down to the basement thinking I’d find my little one, watching over Buster’s litter, but she wasn’t down their. I knelt down to get a closer look at the kittens and Buster bristled at my closeness. She was protecting a kitten, my little love’s favorite, a tiny little orange kitten that was barely the size of a palm she wanted to name Garfield. White film streamed from it’s tiny blinking eyes, eyes not ready to be exposed to the elements. Buster guarded it with a low growl. I pressed my knuckles into my eyes until I saw stars. My little one. She was ruled by an impulsivity and and never considered what cost. She never learned to wait. 

Author’s Note: I liked writing for the Mother character and wanted to give it another try. I was kind of also inspired by Bowles’ style of writing where it was a normal story and then bam, something kind of awful happens. Also, I was reading about writers using a deep dark secret as a place for their writing and to try to expose that place. Well… this is mine. I’ve never actually told anyone about this before and wondered what power it would have in it if I wrote about it.