Little Crosses

A daughter examines her complicated relationship with a charismatic, narcissistic mother who now lives with alcohol-related dementia.

When Cassie Wolfe brings her mother, Nina, to the Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital to be detoxed, the doctors ask her to write a profile of the patient. But how can she fit Nina into a Word document? The last two years have left Cassie stunned, unable to reconcile this shell of a woman lying in the hospital bed with the force of nature that was her mother. Nina was an iconoclast—a painter and architect who could wield a chainsaw as easily as discuss politics or play the Emperor’s Concerto on the piano. She was passionate and driven. As Cassie reflects on her life with Nina, she begins to wonder whether drive is simply another word for anxiety. Were Nina’s “dark moods” the sign of deeper depression? Cassie finds that she can look back on her mother’s life with a critical eye but when her gaze turns to her own and how she’s raising her own daughters, her grief changes shape as she sees how her choices and values are a direct reflection of Nina’s.