Letters to my Daughter: July 2, 2018
I buy our clothes from thrift stores, eyes lowered with you balanced on my right hip. Every Thursday there's a 25 percent military discount. I push through clusters of clear plastic hangers, an endless quilt dulled under fluorescent lighting, you point at strangers behind us.
When I was pregnant with you and living under the charitable care of a friend's twice-divorced mother, she told me about the benefits of Goodwill, Salvation Army, and the WIC program as if I had resigned myself to a life of hardship. She was pro-life and single motherhood made her uncomfortable as I imagined the word moist did. She paraded me through low-end department stores, forced me to sit through non-denominational services and warned me how most people would feel about my situation. She was humorless and authoritative, wore cheap faux leather shoes that strained under her rapid steps. She hid the evidence of her two failed marriages in cardboard boxes stacked to the ceiling in the basement along with her sociopathic son. I watched her shred them in small batches, hair pulled back and glasses balanced on the tip of her nose. Her tacit resentment of me, her son, and a former Marine held us together for a time.
I had a list of what I've done over the years that became the foundation of my resume. The first time I showed her it was met with disdain. It wasn't long enough. It was a thin facsimile of what should have been a young career. Each time this exchange happened I applied myself even more. My success was the cornerstone of your comfort. It kept me up late at night in bed, supported by pillows underneath a weak orange light in my friend's childhood bedroom. It was like this for days. She took it from me, scrawled over my changes in red ink, and walked away leaving me feeling fat and helpless. Her indolent son chimped her callousness and I withdrew into myself. If that was all I could manage, what did it mean for you?
Our home is modest. No dishwasher, no central air, no washing machine or dryer, I take you to the laundromat a block away on the beach. As our clothes spin, we wait on the balcony facing the water. You pace and stand on the railing. I might fold our clothes later or they’ll stay in the bag until the next time we do laundry. I’ve reached a point in motherhood where small gestures like that are meaningless. A clean home is relative. I walk over scattered toys, crushed goldfish crackers, our clothes are rumpled and sweet smelling. A box fan points into your room and is an octave higher than the portable A/C unit in the living room. I like to imagine the accordion tube attached to the window is breathing in good air, you poke the power button and I use the remote to turn it back on. The ceiling fan circulates hot air in waves down onto us.
I don’t know what will make our situation better. There are days when I’m beaten down from work, lack of sleep, your father’s selfishness, the overall uncertainty of our day-to-day life a weighted blanket on my shoulders. On those days her words are prophetic. I can hear her cheap shoes beating time against the pressed wood floors in her large house, her imperious tone, her disingenuous sense of Christian charity that she wielded like a club. Through everything she kept us safe from your maternal grandmother’s inconsistent love and was generous in her own way. She valued things over relationships and the emptiness of her home and her very person made me incredibly sad. What’s the point of grit if it turns you into a pillar of salt?
