At first, “Mothers” was a mildly puzzling read. Who was Bad, who was our narrator, and, most importantly, who in the world is named Bad of all things? The name was a bit of a hint, which I only realized upon reaching the end. Our narrator, a woman living alone since her separation with Bad, is given a child by Bad. There is a detachment when Bad delivers the baby to her, as if this child was never Bad’s and was always the narrator’s. In a sense, the baby has never been Bad’s. Later the narrator describes her desire for a life with Bad, and in that life is a child- a little girl named Mara. Throughout the story there is a sense that our narrator is deeply lonely after her split with Bad despite the explicit abuse. There is a moment when the narrator fears her baby, Mara, will disappear and she says “and once again, I will be just me: undeserving, alone.” (59) It is so obvious that she means to talk about how it always was with Bad after an argument.
It only becomes stranger, and in a way more tragic, when the narrator goes to the house she dreamed for herself and Bad. It is exactly as she imagined, in the exact place she imagined, but in it are people who do not recognize her. She knows the dog and the children, but the adults are strange to her. They are not her and Bad. When the narrator says “There was nothing tying you to her and you made it anyway, you made them anyway” it feel as if these people are a way to show her that Bad is no longer a part of her life. As violent as the end of their relationship was, and as deep as the narrator’s loneliness runs, there is nothing to pull her back to Bad. She does not have Mara or this house and she never will. This manifestation of her desire, her detailed and intricate design of what her life would look like with Bad in it, is no longer hers by the end.
I was also confused by the lack of information, or explanation, in the beginning. I felt as though the baby was a symbol of the life she wanted with Bad, but could never have. Her name, Bad, was definitely a give away to who and what her character stands for. Only when I reached the end of the story did the story actually make sense too.
I was also confused, but I felt that the mystery helped to make the story and the characters more intriguing. It reminded me a little of Eraserhead, in which a lonely man named Henry discovers he is the father of an inhuman baby that he has no idea how to care for. For both Henry and the narrator of “Mothers,” their children are hardly able to change them for the better, but without them, they would be much worse off.