Hester (Strawberry, Mall, Sunder, Brick, Waterfall)

I pull into a parking space as close to the mall entrance as possible. I sit in my car, breathing slowly, trying to get the courage to open the door, step out, and walk the short distance to the door. I hear a roaring like a waterfall in my head and it feels as if a brick is sitting low in my stomach, anchoring me to my seat. I think I'm going to be sick.

This is the first time I have been back since the day I lost Sophie. She was there playing in the racks of clothes, bright red and green Christmas sweaters, and then she wasn’t. She was gone. Flyers with her little elfin face, clear blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair are still plastered all over the city. Bob and I are keeping up our weekly rounds, checking to make sure the flyers remain posted, asking questions of the store clerks, putting up more if they have become ragged or torn. Every Tuesday, we visit the police detective assigned to our case, Jeff Rayner, just to check in.

Lost, stolen, kidnapped, taken: All words describing what happed. But lately, I’ve been thinking that none of these particular words really describe the truth of that day. I came across the word sunder last night while rereading The Scarlet Letter in preparation for the freshman English class I'm supposed to start teaching next month. I'm somewhat doubtful that I will be able to keep that commitment. Mid-way in the book, there is a scene in which the leaders of the town are interviewing little Pearl, trying to determine if it would be in the best interest of her young soul to be taken from her fallen mother, Hester, and given to someone else, someone more godly, to raise. The men decide to put the matter aside for later consideration and, as Hester scoops Pearl up in her arms and leaves, she encounters a woman who invites her to the woods for a satanic ritual later that night. Hester declines, but says if they had taken little Pearl from her, she would have willingly gone and signed her name to the Devil’s book. The last lines of the chapter keeps playing through my mind:

But here -- if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable -- was already an illustration of the young minister's argument against sundering the relation of a fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. Even thus early had the child saved her from Satan's snare.

After reading that chapter, I went to the dictionary on the swivel stand in the front living room and looked up sunder. The primary definition is “to break or wrench apart, sever.”

Sunder. Yes. That's the word. That’s what has happened to Sophie and me. We have been sundered. We had been wrenched apart. We, mother and daughter, have been severed. And now, fallen like Hester, if I could have the offspring of my frailty back for even a moment, I would gladly sign my name to the Devil’s book. I would lay myself before Satan's snare if only I knew my little girl was safe. God help me and forgive me.

~Belinda is enjoying the challenge of these weekly monologues. Among other things, she posts them on her blog at Upside Down Bee.