Kaleidotrope, January 2026
Two sisters, the narrator and Marieke, are clearing out their recently deceased mother’s cottage when she begins appearing as a restless ghost. The mother, who died painfully from throat and bowel cancer at only 35 kilos, returns each night to Marieke’s room, pointing wordlessly at her stomach. The sisters initially try traditional methods to keep her away—scattering rice across doorways—but nothing works.
The narrator reflects on their mother’s life through the lens of emptiness and hunger. Raised in an abusive household after her father tried to kill the family, the mother spent her childhood sitting silently on a kitchen stool while her grandmother cleaned obsessively. She taught herself to read from product labels and eventually escaped into English-language books, abandoning her Afrikaans roots. As an adult, she tried to fill her internal void first with children, then was consumed by cancer that grew like the babies she once hoped would complete her.
The two sisters are physically and temperamentally different—the narrator describes herself as “squat, square-shouldered,” while Marieke is “luminous” with red hair. They aren’t close, having scattered like their other siblings after childhood, maintaining minimal contact. Only they remain to handle the aftermath of the funeral while their brothers return overseas.
One night, sharing their mother’s bed, both sisters encounter the ghost directly. The mother appears emaciated, hot to the touch like a fever, her skin mushroom-soft. She’s smaller than in life, naked and skeletal, yet retains a small pregnant-looking belly. She continues gesturing at her stomach and mouth, unable to speak, tears running down her ravaged face.
After clearing the house completely, the sisters visit the grave in Plumstead Cemetery, finding no signs of disturbance. They realize their mother needs something unfinished resolved. The narrator catalogs everything her mother wanted but never received: a house in the Karoo, perfect children, the unfulfilled dream of becoming a nun—an escape from the patriarchal world that offered only kitchens, babies, and abuse.
They decide to give her childhood pleasures she was denied. That evening, they create an offering on a yellow baby blanket: vetkoek (fried dough), cheap plastic baby dolls, cream liqueur, and a soft blanket patterned with bees. Under candlelight, the mother appears and they feed her piece by piece, giving her small indulgences.
Finally, they wrap her in the baby blanket like swaddling an infant, pressing the dolls against her chest. Marieke sings hymns while they rock her. The mother grows smaller in their arms until she disappears, leaving only the blanket and plastic babies behind.
The story ends with the narrator returning to Edinburgh, Scotland, where she discovers a crushed pink baby doll—“pink as a tumor”—in her coat pocket, which she discards before catching the bus home. This haunting tale explores intergenerational trauma, the hunger that poverty and abuse creates, and the small acts of tenderness that might finally lay grief to rest.
