Avalanche by Julia Leigh

Author:Julia Leigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

The Mother. I allowed myself some small leeway to identify as a mother, to peek through the door. Both my sisters had set an example. I am enchanted by my nieces and nephews. For many of my nephews’ early years I was living overseas and didn’t spend that much time with them. My nieces were born when I was 41 and 44. Their mother was intimately aware of my difficult circumstances. I had a choice: I could distance myself from her pregnancies in order to spare myself pain, or I could embrace them. Today I am so glad that I did not hide away, cut myself off, that I chose a path that at times was excruciating, bittersweet. There were nights when I was babysitting and would cry when checking on the sleeping child, there were days when I couldn’t stand another minute in the swarming playground. Birthday parties remain a bridge too far. In spending time with the baby girls a new kind of love was revealed to me, one that emanated directly from the chest, something uncomplicated and all-forgiving. It was different in tenor to the great love I’d had for my husband—which also emanated directly from the chest but which, I am not proud to say, proved more complicated, less forgiving. This new way of loving was something gentle and constant. A plain good thing.

PROSECUTOR: Why did you persist in wanting to be a mother?

DEFENSE: I refer you to Exhibit A. Conversation with Elsie, age 2.

—Let’s play doctors and mices! Doctors and mices!

—OK, what’s that?

—You say, “A mouse is coming!”

—A mouse is coming!

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