Lost Property by Megan Choritz

~This is the part of the story where we pretended to be a family…~

~I am filled with a terrible and hideous secret. A secret that makes my heart pound in my chest and ears. A secret that will never be shared or spoken out loud but thought about every single day, from this moment on. The wrong parent has died. The wrong parent had died and left me with an imposter parent, a big adult child who needs looking after even though I am its child.~

~Why are we so slow to come round to the reality of the person we are with?~

~A raven is in the road, in the late summer’s dusk light. I watch it trying to break off a chunk of what looks like pita bread. It manages to smash off a piece and moves to the gutter with the piece in its beak. A rat slides off the pavement and takes the bread. The raven has shared its meal. I am in tears.~

~I don’t want the full, messy version of my whole self to be seen. But if I don’t say it, then I am writing a fairy story. I am looking for a happy ending. I am lying and believing my own lie even as I do it.~

~This is the part of the story where no one knows how to feel. Where blame, always unspoken, likes at the root of how the rest of us, the living, feel about each other…[we] spread the blame around and cradle our resentment and twisted sadness like our own misshapen babies. Forever.~

@meganshed