feminism
Mother discovered feminism in college. It was like discovering the atom bomb. Long conversations about inequality and overcoming society’s mores kept her up late at night. She wasn’t afraid to work for justice, carrying picket signs for the Equal Rights Amendment, taking the children along on protest marches and shushing them during the speeches at consciousness-raising rallies. She never burned a bra, because that would be completely impractical and uncomfortable, but she cheered while other women did. She threw out her makeup, high heels, and razor blade and became a natural woman. She had already cut her hair short as soon as the babies were old enough to pull it, but the style showed off her strong cheekbones. Her hair went gray early, but she liked how the white streaks at her temples contrasted with her nearly-black hair.
Mother went with a friend to a lesbian party and stood at the edge of the dance floor, not at all sure how she felt about this. All she knew was that every time she got into a relationship with men, she lost her voice and fell back into the same sex-stereotyped role she hated. And besides, none of the men she met wanted anything beyond sex from a woman with children. Her friend Marty convinced her to dance with a woman named Bonnie, and before the season changed Mother and Bonnie moved in together—just like the joke said: “What do lesbians do on the third date? Rent a U-Haul.”
Girl wanted a baby doll, but Mother refused. She was not raising her daughter to be a housewife who wasted her life taking care of children. No dolls. None. No babies, no sex-symbol Barbies with their unrealistic proportions. That worked until Mother came home from class one day when Girl was three. Girl had taken a five-pound bag of kitty litter and wrapped it in her blankie. She was rocking her “baby” and singing it songs. After that, Mother gave up and bought Girl a baby doll. She even bought Barbies for her every Christmas. But she did not let the children watch Hee Haw or Archie Bunker. There was only so far she was willing to go.
Mother wanted the children to be sex-positive—no shame, no negative labels, no sexist expectations. She wanted Girl to phone boys she liked, not wait for them to call her. Nothing was more pathetic than a girl wasting her weekend waiting for the phone to ring. She told both kids the basic facts of reproduction when they were in preschool, before they asked too many embarrassing questions. She taught them the medical terms for their bodies—no dingle-dangle or boobs or titties. She gave Girl a book when she was in fourth grade. It said, “sex is for love, sex is for baby-making, and sex is for fun, and any of those reasons are okay, as long as both people are on the same page.” She made sure Girl knew where her copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves was on the bookshelf, and encouraged her to look between her legs with a mirror so she would know what was down there.
Girl squeezed the back of her calf. Was that what her breasts would feel like? She wondered how the woman breathed when the man lay on top of her. She called boys, but they did not call her back. This whole free love thing, it was like Girl was doing the Macarena and everyone else was dancing the Electric Slide. She didn’t know the choreography, and everyone knew she was that kind of girl long before she did. But she wasn’t intentionally flouting the rules; she never knew they existed.
yearning
Mother divorced Father when Girl was eighteen months old, Brother three years, Mother thirty-one. Mother cried a lot that year—facedown on her bed, pillow muffling her sobs, the same way Girl cried. One day Girl toddled into her mother’s bedroom and found Mother crying. Girl left wordlessly, then returned with her beloved blue bankie and handed it to Mother. It was the best thing she had to offer. Right then, Girl decided that it was her job to take care of her mother above all else, even above herself.
When Girl forgot and was pouty because she didn’t get her way, or was lazy with her chores, or didn’t work hard enough at school, later it would stab inside her chest, like a stick that was sharpened at both ends. Mother’s disappointment spun an invisible line of remorse, connecting Girl’s forehead to her navel, contracting her skinny, flat-chested torso into the letter C, Girl’s insides filled with something that burned like acid. Shame. She wanted to die.
Mother stood in front of the white stove with electric burners, only some of which worked. There was always a shiny silver percolator on the counter. Under her feet was a cracked green asbestos tile floor. Masculine—and ugly—brown paneling went halfway up the walls. Limp, fly-specked, yellow-and-white-checked curtains with daisies on them framed the window. The white countertop was veined in gold like marble, but made out of a thin sheet of some smooth plastic-y stuff with a gray metal ribbed edge holding it down. Girl wrapped her six-year-old body around Mother’s leg, and Mother dragged Girl around the kitchen as she cooked dinner. Girl was too needy, but somehow Mother tolerated it. Girl knew that she had to let Mother breathe, to step back, to stop hugging her mother as hard as she could, to just get enough Mommy to get by for a little while, even if it was not enough to feel full. She forced herself to let go when Mother said, “Girl, you’re smothering me.” Girl knew she needed to love Mother less, so she didn’t devour both of them. And her inability to
