Motherless Brooklyn Novels & Stories

Sofia knelt down in front of her, “Brooky you’re not a mistake, he’s the mistake, he’s a loser Brooklyn.” Brooklyn shook her head, “no he’s not,” she sobbed, “I’m the loser, I’m the mistake, I’m weak, I’m too young, I’m not experienced, “I’m not enough, I never have been and never will be enough for anyone,” she looked up and shook her head, “lock me up and through away the key, leave me in a room and forget me please Daddy.”

"I've had it with you! Do I look like a pushover, huh?" Unaccustomed to such humiliation, Mom struggled to her feet to teach the women a lesson. But her two fists were no match for so many opponents, and she was ultimately forced back to the floor. The women she had bullied over the years punched and kicked her while she lay there helpless, curled up on the floor, protecting her face as best as she could. She was acting just like I used to. For the first time, Mom was defeated by those women. The series of blows she had suffered left her on the brink of madness—more so than ever.

Facing my lifeless body on the floor, it let out a harsh buzzing sound, saying, "Failed! No effort detected. Failed!" Only when the phone's final trace of battery drained did it suddenly fall silent with a soft click. My head rolled and struck the corner of the desk. A workbook that had been lying on the table slipped off and landed at my mom's feet. She lowered her head. The pages were filled with writing. [Mom, I really did try my best. I told you so many times… If there is another life, will you forgive me?] "Erwin!" my mom screamed. She collapsed onto the floor, shaking her head desperately as tears streamed down her face.

"I believe she will take good care of you, treat her like your little sister and help her settle down there. She is one wonderful woman!" Lack of proper response from him made his mother continue talking again from the other side of the phone but this time her voice was filled full of concern and care. She expected her stubborn younger son to just listen but still not bothering much about his mother's blabbering, Christopher gave his whole attention to the woman who just now showed up in front of him out of nowhere, massaging his naked chest erotically. She was appealing him sexually. "Got it, bye!" That was when he hung up on his mother and threw the phone aside on the counter before grabbi

Like a hand on her shoulder. Her mother’s studio. Brooklyn. A place she hadn’t been since the funeral six years ago. She’d been twenty-two then, still believing love could fix anything. Her mother had died of a stroke or maybe just as the death certificate stated. No will. No inheritance. Just a stack of unsold canvases and a landlord who’d changed the locks.

“Man, that is some job then. Must be nice.” I don’t say anything more after that. What can I say? It’s better if I keep things casual anyways. Focusing back on the road, I make my way through the city until I’m driving through a pretty shady part of Brooklyn. Gang members are standing in the corner trying to look hard, and prostitutes are trolling the streets. Everyone stops to stares at the venom with awe as we make our way to Connor’s place. Thankfully, we make it to his building without incident. The building stands out in the moonlight with its solemn ragged appearance. It’s a large red brick building with graffiti-covered walls and garbage cluttered around the front yard. Junkies huddle

Crying wouldn’t pay the bills. The cab dropped me at my Brooklyn apartment, the street alive with late-night noise: car horns, a distant argument, the rattle of a bodega gate. I paid the driver with my last twenty, my bank account screaming in protest. The stairwell smelled like piss and desperation, each step heavier than the last. I unlocked the door, expecting Mamá’s cough or Marco’s snarky greeting, but the apartment was dark, quiet. Too quiet.

I gave her honest answers and found myself elaborating past what the conversation required because she made it easy, the particular gift of someone who listened without waiting for their turn. By the main course I understood why Adrian’s composure had a warmth in it that Victor’s didn’t. “You grew up in Queens,” she said. Not a question. She’d looked me up. “Astoria. Until I was fourteen, then we moved to Brooklyn.” “Your father?” “Left when I was nine.” I said it plainly because it was a plain fact. “My mother managed. Better than most people would have.” Clara looked at me with something that wasn’t pity and wasn’t performance. “Strong women make strong daughters,” she said. “In my experie

The breeze was cool, brushing against her cheeks like a soft memory, and though the streets hummed with the usual city life — mothers pushing strollers, teenagers laughing loudly, someone blasting old-school R&B from a corner bodega — she felt wrapped in a quiet of her own. It had been months since she moved out of the mansion — the place that once held all her dreams and then shattered them. Brooklyn wasn’t home anymore, not really, but it was the only place she could think to go when her world collapsed. Her childhood neighborhood had changed, but its soul was still there: the scent of fresh bagels from Bernstein’s Deli, the sound of the No. 4 train rattling overhead, the soft chatter of n

We sit like that for a while. At eight fifteen, I call a car service and put my mother in it, with instructions to take her to her sister’s place in Queens for two nights. She argues. I win, because I am her daughter and I learned stubbornness from the source. She kisses my forehead at the door and holds my face in her hands for one moment. “Don’t lose yourself in this,” she says. “I won’t.” She gets in the car. I stand on the Brooklyn sidewalk and watch it pull away, feel the cold air on my face, and feel the sharp clarity of a woman who has just remembered exactly who she is beneath everything the Thomas family tried to make her.