When we peeled back the layers of the soul, the parts were not so imperceptible. If you looked closely enough, you could see that everything had structure and function, purpose and place, and even a soul. Melissa's sister, Annette, kept their mother's in a mason jar in her bedroom closet on the top shelf, said I'll never do that. let the female dog free. You could say Annette had a sore spot when it came to their mother, and it must have throbbed like a nailed thumb the day the doctors handed them their mother's soul in a white plastic box with a flip-top lid . Annette didn't want it and turned her back on him, arms crossed. From the doctors' expressions alone, it was obvious that no pretty soul lay in that box, and that neither sister expected anything else. Still, the disappointment stung once again, but I hope that for Annette and Melissa, it was the last of Prudence Jacobson. “You should move in with me,” Annette had told him that evening. “Basically, I raised you myself. » Melissa was 17 years old and Annette was 24 years old. Their father died years ago of cancer. Despite her weight and hair loss and all the agonizing days filled with fetal pain, nausea and long appointments, it never bled her spirit, never darkened her striking, vibrant soul. “As long as I can bring Fido?” » " Said Melissa. " Okay, but keep it in your room. "Fido was Melissa's tarantula. She won him at the Canby County Fair last year. Her mother hated him, threatened to trample him several times, so eventually Melissa became one. fond. All those eyes seemed to catch something remarkable, at least more than her mother could ever see. It wasn't that Prudence was a terrible person, ugly or not. It's just that when. t was about castles in the middle of a paper, Melissa liked to think he had found one where he called home “So can I at least put her in Fido’s cage? she asked Annette. “He is alone. » Annette pursed her lips in thought, then conceded. "Okay. Don't forget to close the lid." Melissa picked up the unsightly thing from their mother's soul and placed it in the cage with Fido. Fido leaned against the opposite wall, one furry paw extended towards the glass. Its pedipalp appendages contracted in the air as if sensing something. Six black eyes shone with light and rested on their mother's soul Fido crawled towards her and wrapped his two front paws on the. back of her rough shell. Their mother's soul creaked and gears rattled in her belly. Everything had a purpose and a place, a structure and a function, she thought again. Even good old Fido.