Mothers Don't by Katixa Agirre

Author:Katixa Agirre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 3TimesRebel Press

I WANTED TO KNOW MORE, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I DIDN’T want to know more. It seemed that instead of shedding light on the mystery of Jade/Alice, Léa’s words simply added fuel to the fire. And I couldn’t do anything with the ashes. I had a clearer picture of Jade though; Léa is bright and knows how to get to the heart of the matter, but what lies in that heart? Not much, it seems. A troubled teenager, a girl raised in difficult circumstances, suffering from one or two undiagnosed mental illnesses. The portrait is hardly unique, bordering on cliché. But no matter how well defined, the portrait does not explain what she did, the act, the truth.

Perhaps I needed to take a step back from reality. Move into the realm of fiction, in the hopes that at least a piece of the truth might shine through.

Or maybe we just needed to go to a different bar.

The answer to that question is always ‘yes’, but we were in Avignon and it was late, so nightclubs were our only option.

Léa suggested we walk along the Rhône to see the famous bridge. It would remind her of her student days, when she used to come here with a book to study in the sun. She had never come to the city centre since she had moved to the suburbs, and had almost forgotten the walls, the murmur of the water, the broken bridge.

‘How do you picture it?’ I asked her after we had walked in silence for a few minutes. ‘What was her state of mind that day, by the tub? Rage? Alienation? Indifference?’

‘It’s something I’ve thought about a lot.’ She had paused a long while before responding, but of course she knew exactly what I was talking about. ‘Which hypothesis is the most horrifying? Rage, we can understand, the moment when someone loses control, is pushed a little too far and explodes. Were they crying? Would they not calm down? Did she just lose it? Maybe it was an irrational impulse that made her do something that can’t be undone. It might have been. But what if she did it calmly, determinedly? What if she undressed the babies, put one in the bath, and then gently pushed its head under the water? And when the baby clung to life and waved its arms and legs, eyes wide open, aware of what its mother was doing even as its little face turned blue … What if, even with all this, she kept going until the end?’

‘And then did the same thing with the second baby as well.’

‘Who was first? Definitely the boy.’

‘I think it was the girl.’

I don’t know why I said that. It seemed terribly flippant. I felt my stomach clench, my throat tighten. I moved as far away from Léa as I could and threw up by the river. My anxiety floated away towards the Mediterranean.

‘Classic. Your Avignon ritual,’ Léa laughed.

‘I bet it was the oysters,’ I answered in the same tone.

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