By Molly Gustafson
We shouldn’t have earthquakes in
Chicago. But my mother carries
me down to the basement, because
that’s what you do in an emergency.
Ships are freed from their bottles as
shelves crash around us, and she
covers her head, as if she were
under the waves that the ships
sailed. I remember hearing a story
of a woman who died protecting
her child from a hurricane; the
roof was wrenched from their
cookie-cutter suburban dwelling,
but she held her baby to her breast
and kissed him on the head. My
heart always broke for that mother;
what choice does she have but to
die for her baby? What insults do
they hurl at a mother who lives when
her baby dies?
I’m watching my mother; she doesn’t
weep, and she doesn’t reach for me. She
sees me sitting on the paper chair covering
that keeps the place sanitary for the next
girl who goes under. She doesn’t weep,
I don’t either. On the way in to the
clinic, the word “mother” was hurled
at me like a throwing knife;
like calling me “mother” would
slice me in two, brain in one half
and womb in the other.
I’m sitting in this freezing room
and I haven’t made eye contact
with my mother in thirty-three
minutes, but she sits in the
room until they make her go.
I can’t imagine a mother dying
for her baby, but I think my
mother learned how today.
About the Author:
Molly Gustafson is an alumni of Lewis University; earning her B.A. in English and minor in Theatre in May of 2025. Her work has previously been published by Middle West Press, Moonstone Arts Center, River and South Review, and many others.