I don’t remember her having any so I figured I wouldn’t have them either. When I was twelve she looked at me and pointed to wall, “Do you see those hats?” That’s how she told her story. “My right one went first, then my left to cancer. And all you need to know is I’m not a victim. I’m not a hero. I’m a mother. I’m your mother and I would have gone through a lot worse for you.”

I guess the grieving was just, but the woman had a duty. A duty to marry for money, not love. A duty to no longer burden the family with her expenses. For they were poor. The mother a maid, the father a fisherman. Unfortunate they were for they had not only Clarisse, but five daughters. No son to carry on the name, only five to give away. They had done their duty. Raised a mannered woman, pretty, well-rounded. Now it was her turn. But she couldn’t, and as she sat at the harbor, surrounded by fog, inhaling salt, she tightened the rope around her ankle, then knotted it around a stone cylinder, and jumped.