By Sophie Dalton, Mount Holyoke College
When you came into this world, I knew I was meant to be a mother. Covered in our
mother’s guts, white vernix struck your smooth baby skin as they lifted you out of her gaping
belly. You were tiny, always looking, always trying to find mine, or maybe something related to
me. Like Mom, I would breastfeed my dolls, imagining the smooth milk pouring out of me into
the little sewn-on lips of my doll. You apparently would gobble down, suck Mom dry. My dolls
never did that, but I imagined they did. Crying out for me, I would bring my nipple to their lips
letting down warm sweet milk. I wanted to be like her so badly, I wanted to have the large
masses on her chest, the power she carried in the room. I wanted to be able to dress myself and
eat pretzels with you while watching TV. I wanted to comfort you as only a mother could.
Friends have asked me if this is a role I have always known. The ideas of domesticity and
motherhood have always drawn me. They forget that I often care for them, listening to their trials
about boyfriends over hot tea, or rubbing backs during drunken escapades. I am everything and
everyone to them. No one can replace me, no one can be me. As I swing up and down on the
playground, as I sniffle and crawl on all fours across city streets, trying [so desperately] to numb
myself with bad sex, no one knows except for you. Only you sister, know what I am capable of.
***
I remember the night, in a dream-like state where I gave birth. You were with me, in that
city alley, a deer and foe creeping by into oncoming traffic. You were too focused on me to see
them, but I did. They were so thin, so malnourished. I imagined the deer and the foe in the forest,
the deer’s back arching and curling as she gave birth, as I was supposed to be doing. Her cries
were guttural, mine were quiet. I wanted to taste what she was tasting, the anticipation of
motherhood, the saliva curling from my tongue, the silent arousal of becoming someone’s
mother. I want the connection, the loud cries of the babe reverberating as with one push, the
deer’s doe was here. The alley was cold, dark, and unfamiliar. There is no longer a deer and its
doe in sight, or you, just me quietly pushing out something unknown. Here I don’t feel
excruciating period pains, or make guttural cries. I am just squatting and praying for my dream
baby to come. The deer might pass, might lick the dream sweat from my cheek but I don’t notice.
For once, I am on fire– here in this San Francisco alley. When I pulled her out of me, I
recognized you instantly. The long lashes, the vernix from our mother’s womb, the long fingers
only known to our father’s family. For once, you are mine, and as I feed you, you’re safe.
Oftentimes, I try to remember what our lives were like before him. I only remember pretzels and
Dora, the sound of our mother’s pump, and you. Only sometimes, he is there holding you,
playing with you. I try to think of these sober memories as a part of a larger context of an
individual, but lately, I cannot. Memories haunt me like the deer; like me giving birth to you in
San Francisco. I remember some things, the grabbing of cheeks, the slapping of our little brother,
the smell of beer radiating through his lips, up towards our little noses. I remember mom, locking
us, all three of us, in a room, cartoons blasting as he ripped the house apart. I try to recall your
face, or the face of our brother’s, even our mother’s. But all I see is him. The drunken anger
crowding his eyes, the pouring of glasses upon glasses, TV radiating through the bathroom. He,
walking into the liquor store, us quietly holding his hand as he scanned the aisle.
I want you to know that it wasn’t always this way. There was a time before. He would
play with us, hold our hands on ferries, take us to the movies, tediously blow dry our long hair.
When we were little, there was a time when everything was quiet. But when I was five and you
were two, I bore another baby, our brother.
Now too preoccupied with kindergarten and daily tasks, I did not feed him. Instead we played,
him silently sucking his thumb, I am sure you remember. We loved the horses, and he loved the
little matchbox cars. I was scared of when he would come of age – what could be done of him?
A while later, at a family gathering, I would claim that you and our brother were mine. I would
believe that our parents were too preoccupied with their problems, and I wasn’t. After all, it was
I who comforted you and him in the middle of the night, who tucked you in when our parents
couldn’t, who warmed up dinner and did the dishes, who convinced our mother when it was time
for therapeutic intervention. Sure, they would buy us things, but it was my labor, my capability,
my ability to fix that made you. Our grandparents didn’t know any of this, and told me I was
speaking out of turn. I silently shut my mouth, slid my tongue to the back of my throat, and never
spoke of it again. I watched him beat our brother, us horrid and scared, as our mother looked on
silent. I don’t know if you also watched, if the silence of our mother choked you too. I try to have
empathy, try to find a place within myself that usually sympathizes with her. All I see is
complacency, all I see is them both hitting our brother, all I see is the painted blue walls shifting
shape and body, closing in on the two of us, until it all fades to black.
**
When we finally left him, it was Father’s Day. The early summer air was coming down from the
mountains, when we escaped. The tiger lillies were blooming, being born, and our masks
fascinated our faces so tightly we couldn’t breath. The once summer destination spot was
completely empty, no tourists in sight venturing out from the city, or camp counselors going out
for a night off. No, it was just us, the renaments of our family zipping across the mountains in
mom’s minivan, holding onto each other so tight.
Later on at a Pittsifeld friendlys, a day into our trip, our mother told us that he would be
gone when we came home in a few days. I remember you and our brother begging for him to
stay, that it would be okay, this time was different, but my mother was steadfast in her choice.
Secretly, I smiled to myself, it would finally be just us. Maybe you could tell, but I had never felt
more joy about our father than at the prospect of him being gone forever.
**
Things I am still scared of:
1. The countertop where our brother got a cut so deep, he needed stitches
a. The bathroom, where he also got stitches, and where I always slip and fall when
it’s wet.
2. Our basement, I know I go down there, but to me it’s haunted
a. Our room, its haunted too
3. Him getting too close to you, or mom, or our brother in a way that is not loving
4. When someone slams, or grips, or holds me a little too tight.
a. Are you scared of that too?
5. The smell of beer: I hope you never have to try it, it tastes like piss
6. Him, even though his anger is no longer as prevent, always him
**
I want you to know that doctors and psychiatrists have tried to explain this to me. They use
words like parentification and codependency; they reference support groups for a myriad of
traumas we have accumulated. I do not speak. I just sit and listen and picture us with the deer,
you coming out of me; becoming your mother and your sister all at once.
