I know the chapters in this story have been on the short side. I've been doing that on purpose because after all, Cosette is supposedly writing all this out by hand in this journal! But as a thank-you to my awesome readers, here's a longer chapter, just for you! :)

April 20, 1829
Easter Monday

I wonder all the time about my mother. I wonder what her name was, for Papa won't even tell me that, nor how she died. Was she beautiful? Was she happy when she realized that she was with child? Did she weep with joy when she held me in her arms for the first time? Or was she frightened by having a baby, worried that she couldn't provide for me, or that she was too young to be a good mother? Did she love me or hate me or pity me?

Sometimes, I stand in front of my mirror and search my face, thinking there must be a trace of my mother in me somewhere. But I suppose that's foolish of me. Even if I did see a trace of my mother there, how would I ever recognize it, when I don't know what she looked like, or the first thing about her?

I do wish I knew how and why I came to live with those terrible inn-keepers. My mother must've arranged it somehow, since she sent them money to help pay for me. I can only imagine she didn't know what kind of people they really were.

I've considered a number of possible scenarios about my mother. One is that she was quite young, perhaps only a few years older than I am now, and fell madly in love with a boy and gave herself to him. She kept their relationship a secret from her parents, who would disapprove and forbid her to see him. But she couldn't keep it a secret from them that she was with child, and when she told them, they were so furious that they refused to let her keep the baby.

Or perhaps my mother was married to my father, and they had been married for years and loved each other, but they were so poor and already had several other children and couldn't afford one more mouth to feed. Or yet again, perhaps they were married, but my father died before I was born, and my mother — whether she already had other children or not — simply couldn't raise me herself.

But I couldn't have lived with the inn-keepers when I was just a baby. Taking care of a baby is a lot of work, I think, and those people would never have gone to any trouble for me. They were so horrible that if anyone left a baby in their care, they would probably let it die before they looked after it. So someone else must've had me when I was a baby. Could I have been with my mother for my earliest years? Perhaps I was, but then when I was a toddler, something happened. Her circumstances changed, somehow, and she had to give me up. But I like to think that we were together for at least a little while. It's so sweet to imagine myself as a baby in my own mother's arms.

Oh, there are just so many possibilities. It's frustrating to think that I was inside this woman, right beneath her heart, for nine months, and yet I know nothing about her.

I love Papa dearly, but the older I get, the more I wish for a mother, too. I wanted one most on that day last fall, when I started my monthly bleedings for the first time. It started in the afternoon, just as I was coming home from school, but I was going to bed that night before I finally found the courage to tell Papa. Oh, it was so mortifying. What I wouldn't have given for a mother to talk to then.

I'm thirteen now, and I think I'll soon be of the age when most young ladies wear their first corsets. Actually, to be honest, I could probably make use of a corset now, for support — I don't have large breasts, but I do have them — but I'm still doing without one, because how on earth am I supposed to tell Papa that I need a corset? It'll be even more embarrassing than when I had to tell him I'd started my bleedings. But now I'm digressing.

I used to think about my mother whenever I saw images of the Virgin Mary. I used to imagine that she had the same sad, beautiful face that Mary always seems to have in statues of her. I still think about her often, but the Book of Exodus has always been my favorite in the Bible (for reasons that I'll talk about later) and now, I think she had more common with Moses's mother — the woman who lived in such dire circumstances that she was forced to give up her own baby, setting him adrift on a basket in a river, and then to watch from a distance as strangers raised her child.

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April 23, 1829
Feast Day of St. George, patron saint of chivalry

I wrote before that I'm keeping this journal to try to fill in the empty spaces. One of those spaces, one that I've always wondered about, is between Papa and my mother. You see, I still know nothing — nothing — of Papa's life before that winter day when he appeared, out of nowhere, in the woods outside the inn. Where did he come from? What sort of life did he have before then? Why has he never mentioned his parents, or any siblings? Are they dead, or could he have grown up in an orphanage? Who was he, before he was my Papa?

But most of all, I wonder, how did he know my mother? What was he to her, and she to him? I know Papa isn't my father by blood. I've always known that, deep down, but I feel guilty writing it. It makes it seem as if I love him less for it, when of course I don't. He's the only father I've ever known, and I love him dearly. It makes no difference to me that he isn't my blood father.

All Papa has ever told me is that my mother loved me, and before she died, she asked him to take care of me. But that tells me nothing about how they knew each other. I wonder if Papa was in love with her... but if he was, wouldn't he be at least a bit more inclined to talk about her? He won't even tell me her name.

I asked Papa this question once. It was years ago, back when we still lived in one large room at the boarding house. We were returning there from some errand I've forgotten, and as we crossed over the Pont d'Austerlitz, I noticed a lovely young mother seated on a bench near the railing, rocking a tiny baby in her arms.

My legs seemed to walk more slowly of their own accord, and my eyes lingered on that mother and her baby. I smiled at the sweet sight of them, and yet my heart ached. Even though I could never remember my mother, it made me miss her.

I knew that my mother was dead because Papa told me, the very first time we met. Even now, I can remember his exact words. He crouched down to my level and said gently, Cosette, your mother is with God now. Her suffering is over. I nodded as if I understood, but I didn't really. I've never had any memories of my mother. To me, she had always been somewhere far away; dead, she was just in a different far-away place, with God.

We were walking hand-in-hand, and I asked him, "Papa, how did you know my mother?"

I know he heard me because he stopped walking and looked down at me, taken aback. But he said only, "Are you tired of walking, Cosette? Come, Papa will carry you," and he picked me up and carried me home on his hip. I leaned my head on his shoulder, puzzled. Papa had never been unkind, but it made me feel strange that he wouldn't answer my question, like I was nosing about in something that was none of my business.

Perhaps writing about this was a mistake. Now I feel so angry. It was my business. It's my life. What right does he have to keep secrets about it from me?

Not to give anything away, but Cosette will revisit the subject of her mother when she develops some new theories about her later on in the story.