“But the only difference between her and a mother who leaves, if there’s much of a difference at all, is that Whitney already knows there’s no relief in having left. Not if her son is in the world, existing without her. He will never not be wrapped around her conscience, infiltrating her dreams, an endless feed of shame. Instead, she’s learned to be absent when she is near. She has the ability to stare through the children, see their lips move while she nods her head, she can be elsewhere and she can be there. She is an illusion. But she has never left.
She should tell him she didn’t mean it, she thinks, she should go back in to comfort him before he falls asleep. She is tired of failing him. The cruelest part of motherhood is that she has made him the way he is, every frustrating part of him. She is the source of everything that troubles him, she is the reason he’s lonely even when she’s there. She presses her hands to her cheeks. She doesn’t want to be crying.
Ashley Audrain, The Whispers
GhoulieJoe 