A Mother’s Love

This story is by Jasmine LaMothe and won the Readers’ Choice Award in our 2025 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

Jasmine LaMothe is a Brooklyn-born writer whose passion began in her local library. A Brooklyn College creative writing graduate, she’s participated in numerous competitions. She spends her free time with her three Rottweilers and is working on her first book. Connect with her on Instagram: @ohyeahtotes_

Maya Angelou once said, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.”

A mother’s love is nothing to scoff at; I’ve read articles about mothers lifting thousand-pound cars to save their children. Fighting off attackers, scaring off bears in the forest, anything to protect their children. There is absolutely nothing stronger in this world than a mother’s love for her child.

My daughter is sixteen now, and I will do anything, give anything, to keep this little girl safe from harm. Social media is terrible for a young girl’s mind in her formative years. It forces unnecessary comparisons, causes body dysmorphia, and can destroy a woman psychologically until she doesn’t know who she is anymore when she looks in the mirror. This is exactly why she doesn’t have a phone.

The public school system is even worse. I’ve grown up seeing girls bullied mercilessly in the school hallways. Judged and ostracized by other girls, harassed by boys, as other teachers and students turn a blind eye and make excuses for their behavior. This is precisely why she’s homeschooled. So she can receive the best education possible without having to destroy her psyche in the meantime.

The outside world, though, that’s a whole different beast entirely. Growing up, I’ve seen things that make it hard to sleep at night, even decades later. Robbers, murderers, and rapists. There is no better safe haven for a young girl than in her mother’s arms in the safety of their home. This is exactly why my daughter doesn’t leave the house.

Don’t get me wrong, she doesn’t want for anything; without a TV, her mind is enriched by all the books she reads. We play board games and do puzzles. Our absolute favorite pastime is telling each other made-up stories. She always wants me to go first, even though she has the most active imagination. I’ve never met another sixteen year old with a mind as creative as my daughter’s.

My daughter is my everything. I’d give anything, do anything, be anything for her… but now that she’s older, she’s been more detached. When we sit down to do our puzzles together in the evening, I catch her looking at me like she’s trying to fit her own pieces together. Sometimes I catch her standing by my office door, even though she knows she’s not allowed inside.

I thought it was just your typical teenage rebellion, until she found something she shouldn’t have.

“Who is this little girl in the picture?”

“Where did you get that?” I choked out.

“From your office, at first I thought she was me, but she has a birthmark on her arm that I don’t, and I know you said we don’t have any other family, so I was just wondering who this girl is.”

We hadn’t been eating dinner for a full ten minutes yet, but I was already out of my seat, hands shaking as I discarded the rest of my food into the garbage.

“Don’t be silly, sweetie, of course that’s you. You probably don’t remember that trip to the beach; you were so young.” I moved over to the sink, turning the water on at the highest pressure to try and drown out the skepticism in her voice.

“Okay, but what about the birthmark? I don’t have one?”

“Sweetie, how many times have I told you to stay out of my office?”

“Mom, that is so not the pressing issue right now,” she responded with a roll of her eyes that I didn’t need to be facing her to know took place. She spoke louder over the pouring water and clattering of the dishes I was haphazardly moving around in the sink. “Birthmarks are things that you’re born with, hence the term ‘birth mark’, and she has it and I don’t so—“

“Enough!” I yelled, slamming the plate into the sink. It fractured into three separate pieces as I heard my daughter yelp in the background. I tried to laugh, but the anxiety was choking me. I turned around and snatched the picture off the table, flinging bubbles of soap and water onto my daughter’s dinner. “Now look what you’ve done! I’ve told you enough times to stay out of my office; now you’ve gone and ruined your dinner with these asinine questions. Of course, this is you, who else would it be? Now go to your room so I can clean up.”

I felt horrible the entire night. Absolutely gut-wrenched that I yelled at my sweet girl like that. I tossed and turned for hours in bed. I knew that if I didn’t apologize, I would never forgive myself. I padded across the hall to her room but found only pillows under her covers.

I paced the halls of our home in a panic.

When I found my office door closed with the hum of the computer behind it, I knew it was too late—the detritus of an old life, the secrets I didn’t want to tell. No apology could fix this.

Everything that I had built for us was ruined.

I was frozen, rooted to my spot. I could hear the quick clacking of keys and the muffled gasps and sniffles. I wanted so badly to reach for the doorknob, to explain, to help her understand that everything I’ve ever done for her was out of love. What is a mother’s love if not a shield to protect your child from harm’s way?

I fled. I went back to my room and shut the door quietly. It wasn’t my finest moment, but sometimes mothers need moments too. I needed time and space away from the situation so that I could help my daughter through this difficult period. It’s important as a mom to choose your words wisely; it’s a very delicate balance. Being a mom is both the hardest and most rewarding thing a person can do.

I don’t know when the exhaustion pulled me under, but when I woke, the sunlight was seeping through the blinds, and the smell of bacon was in the air.

My daughter was in the kitchen with breakfast made, her schoolwork on the dining room table as always.

“Morning, Mom.”

Two words I’ve never been more grateful to hear. For one miraculous moment, I thought it was all just a nightmare.

She placed our plates on the table, and we both grabbed a seat.

“I thought we could do story time while we ate today. It’s been a while since we’ve done our thing,” she said, reaching into her pocket and placing my cellphone on the table next to her plate.

My daughter was a picture of calm. Her homeschooled books on one side and my cellphone on the other. And she was right, story time was our thing.

I nodded imperceptibly.

“I think I’ll start this time,” she said, placing both of her hands on either side of her plate. “This is the story of a woman and a little girl she took from a dangerous world. She locked her away in a castle with bars on the windows and took away the TVs and phones and told the little girl that we couldn’t let the danger in,” she said, looking down at her breakfast, the fork moving in tandem with her words. “But one day the little girl got curious about this outside world and wanted to know more, so naturally she asked her mother. The only person that she could trust. The only person who could love her.”

She looked up at me then, her eyes so fierce it felt as if she were looking through me, and that’s when I knew that I would never be able to tell my daughter another story again.

“Her mother just kept telling her that she was better off inside, safer inside, loved inside, but the little girl just couldn’t let it go. So she began to wonder, what if the real danger was already inside after all?”

I opened my mouth to explain, to tell her that what happened to my first daughter wasn’t my fault. That when I found her, it had to be fate. That they looked just alike, and that I saved her just as much as she saved me. That I loved her, that I would do anything for her. That the woman she was with before wasn’t her mother, I was. I am.

When I looked up, one hand lifted off of her books, leaving the other lingering on my phone. She was still trying to sort the pieces of the puzzle, but from the look in her eyes, I already knew the outcome.

“Maya Angelou once said: ‘To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.’ She whispered, leaning forward slightly, “But do you know what hurricanes can do to a city, Mom?”

All I could do was nod, my city destroyed.