“She is here. Somewhere.”
Read Jace Erich Evans’ short story titled “ELLE N’EST PAS LÀ."
Set in Providence, Rhode Island, an alcoholic son navigates the heartbreak of his mother’s dementia, struggling to reconnect as her English fades, resorting to French lessons and song in an attempt to kindle his last moments with her.
“It was going to be a long winter, and I needed an even longer drink.”
“Elle N’est Pas Là” interrogates the fragility of memory and language. Dementia strips away the familiar and forces a son to confront absence in its most literal and emotional forms. French resurfaces as Alain’s French-American mother’s sole form of communication, transforming language into both barrier and bridge. Even amidst chaos, violence, and helplessness, Alain’s small rituals of song preserve an intimacy often lost with memory loss, offering fleeting yet profound connections between past and present between a mother and son.
— Jace Erich Evans
“I kissed the top of her head, then raised my chin to the ceiling, watching the steam press its lips upon its surface, then break away, falling apart and dissolving like time, like glass on tile, like a mother from a son.”
“Elle N’est Pas Là” is published on Jace’s Substack and in the 2025-2026 Edition of Expressionists Magazine