Essays, nonfiction, and short fiction.
Letters to my Daughter: September 2, 2019
Being your mummy is nuanced: I pay bills, mete out my time prudently throughout the day, and ensure you have what you need. Days blend into each other. I avoid cheap coffee with an electric espresso machine under my desk. I should feel fortunate, but my heart is a black star folding into itself.
Your father bought a small house with an in-ground pool in the backyard and invited us to live with him for a while. The water is a deep emerald and your toys are kept in a broken bucket by the steps. You have a queen size bed in a room twice the size of your old room with a window facing the tepid green water in the backyard. What's left of our modest life before your father's house is stacked in boxes in the attic. I imagine taping them closed and shipping them back to Washington state. I don't understand why he wanted us here or even why I agreed.
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.
Letters to my Daughter: October 24, 2017
I measure the passing of time by your illnesses, small victories in my day, the presence of new teeth pushing through your tender gums, the way we both sleep through the night. All of it adds up to our life together. Mundane and beautiful.
I have plans for us. I imagine us with passports visiting Canada. You'll have a small backpack and carefully assembled outfits, I'll have a medium case on wheels for the bulk of our things. We'll be explorers, experiencing the world from two different points of our shared life. I'll be slowly encroaching middle-age as you grow into yourself, I'll hold your hand and anything will be possible.
Letters to my Daughter: September 13, 2017
You crawl around scattered toys on the floor, tottering on wobbly knees with outstretched hands as if you're gauging the distance between yourself and larger objects the way I watch the leaves on the tree flutter outside. Chewing on your bottom lip you advance, your small fingers dig into the carpet for traction. I watch you tumble, lying flat with your small toes spread out toward the ceiling, and we both wait. It’s been like this for a while. I chase after you and you smile and we do it all over again. Grownup life will be much the same, tumbling and waiting for something bigger to happen, your face pressed against something hard with little strength left to manage. I won’t always be there to help you work through it.
Letters to my Daughter: May 12, 2017
Your father left us twice and I was never the same. The first time was when I told him I was pregnant with you. The second time was after two weeks of living together and he told me he didn't love me. We were a burden to him — he lost sleep and his blood pressure was high. I vacillated between numbness and feeling sick with grief.
Letters to my Daughter: May 2, 2017
I'm sat cross-legged next to you and you're swimming. Small creases encircle your wrists and ankles and I'm mesmerized by them. You hold them in the air and groan, body tense with your head above the quilt I placed on the floor for us. I want to remember you like this always. A little person struggling to make headway across a seemingly insurmountable square of fabric. Your gusto. The way you rest by clutching Bunny under your chin and nibble on his ear.
Letters to my Daughter: February 4, 2017
No one taught me how to be a mother. Your small cries tore me in half and I'll never be the same again. You smelled like sweet cream against my chest the first time I held you. Numb from the waist down, doctors and nurses calmly cleared the pool of blood you left behind. An older friend cut the cord and I was exhausted. It took me over 30 hours, two epidurals and a kind of pain I can't describe. Other women have told me they've forgotten labor pains. I don't believe them — I remember everything.