As the taxi stopped in front of a Chicago high-rise, I could feel the ease and joy of our new relationship retreat like an illicit lover. I was old for starting over, and on this visit to my new mother-in-law, also divorced and widowed. Counting my new husband, all three of us were widowed. I yearned for the dogs and wooded yard of our real home as we stepped under her portico to begin this familial diplomacy. I didn’t understand that the tactical maneuvers starting would secure the power in our triad.

My husband paid the driver, and I saw her waiting for us outside the lobby. She hurried over and began asking why we’d taken a taxi from the airport instead of the subway. This was my first crime, and we hadn’t even stepped inside. My husband placed the blame for it on me as he knew better than to take responsibility himself. The taxi had been my only request on this trip, and his betrayal stung. It was clear at the entrance that, in her presence, I was on my own.

Once the doors to the crowded elevator closed us in, she turned and began her inquisition. “Do you have a phobia about being underground? Is that the reason you didn’t want to take the subway?” she asked. I nodded because the lie allowed me to remain silent in front of the elevator strangers who had also turned to assess my mental state.

It was a long ride to the eighteenth floor in my new persona. Many implications settled onto me, all of them foreign, but right by her assessment. Flawed woman, gold digger, elitist, cold. You’re probably thinking I’m all these things now too simply because I’ve repeated them. Labeling becomes a stain that’s hard to remove even when it’s falsely imposed. But it gave her a tool to bond with him against me, securing her continued place in his life.

That’s how I’ve reckoned with it now anyway.

Back then I still thought of my new mother-in-law as a retired psychologist. Later I understood she was a social worker who had counseled patients privately. She displayed her degrees and experience with authority. As someone whose young life had been dominated by criticism, she now had the documentation to scrutinize the rest of us into deference.

Here are the numbers: We stayed in her apartment three nights (he could never last longer than that). It was my second and final visit there. She was in her early eighties. We had been married two years. It was a one-bedroom apartment, so we slept in her bed. I imagined an escape plan 214 times.

We were like schoolchildren on that trip, following her instructions around the city. In the subway station, she directed us away from the escalators and into a urine-scented elevator. I’ve forgotten now why she preferred it but when I complained about the smell, she shamed me for it in front of the only other passenger.

“She doesn’t want to be in the elevator because it smells like urine,” my mother-in-law said to the woman on my other side.

“I don’t either,” the woman replied.

I’m grateful to that stranger who reminded me for a moment that this wasn’t normal behavior, no matter how many degrees or levels of control were employed.

I unfolded once we returned to the green forest of our Virginia home. Together we walked to the pool and toward each other again. Then I took a deep breath and made my practiced announcement.

“I’m never going to Chicago again.”

As I braced for the backlash, he just said, “Okay.”

My relationship with her deteriorated even from afar until we’d stopped all contact. The breaking point came around the time an ancestry test discovered my husband’s half-sister by a different mother. His mother initially took to the news of a newly-found descendent of her husband’s with enthusiasm. But it expanded our triad, and she used the discovery as yet another tool to wield her power over us. She started by inviting the unmet woman and her husband directly to our Virginia home for an overnight visit without first consulting us. Even though she didn’t include herself in this invitation, it was a bit too bold to be seen as anything other than manipulation. Clearly, she intended to direct this new relationship.

I saw some of my mother-in-law’s ugly descriptions of me in an email she sent him. My husband said, “If it makes you feel any better, she’s never liked anyone.” Mostly her criticism pinned me as an outsider (and maybe that was the point) but I’m not sure how that’s possible when the two of us were the insiders, especially in her absence. There was no problem without her involvement in our lives.

Having been widowed and left without children, I knew what it felt like to face a long uncertain future alone. Now that history is another kind of stain I’m afraid will mark me again. I’ve developed a fascination with older women who live alone. I want to prepare myself for what’s to come in case I’m left again. Watching her age through her eighties with such bitterness, anger, and judgment of the people close to her has added a surprising to my vision of the future. I hadn’t expected it to be possible to drag the worst of your younger self into old age.

But now things are starting to look a little different. As 90 approached, she started making an effort with me. I relented after a few months. I’m not ashamed to admit I carry a grudge and don’t forget cruelties. But I understood her fear and the gravity of her remaining years. Maybe I was afraid of my own bad karma too. I responded to her emails. Delicately, nicely, we started again.

Some things were understood between us without discussion: I would never return to Chicago. The nice-old-lady routine she employed was just a front for her fear of needing me. She was “nurturing” our relationship so that, should her son die before either of us, I might feel more kindly toward her predicament.

She no longer takes her beloved subway and rarely uses the bus as she’s witnessed a new intensity of violence on both. Now she’s the one waiting for a taxi at her building’s portico. She’s stopped telling us how great city condo life is as an old person and instead shares the frightening crime warnings she receives from her building’s management. She lives with signs up on her walls that say Do Not Resuscitate. She uses a walker to go to the grocery store once a week even though it’s by a gang-run drug market near a hotel that’s used for prostitution. Her neighborhood has become unsafe, especially for an elderly woman.

In the middle of our move out of Virginia, she made a surprise announcement. “I’m moving too. There’s an independent-living building in our old neighborhood and I’m touring it next week. Then you’ll need to come here and move me.”

Her timing was curious. Until now, she had always refused any suggestion of moving. My husband was suffering from a shingles infection, and we were already overwhelmed with our own complicated out-of-state move, but he agreed to fly out and help when she was ready. While a move for her was wise, the place she’d chosen wouldn’t help should she become ill or disabled. It was just a building for old folks with dining on site and a bus to groceries. Unless her plan to die suddenly at home came to fruition, she’d have to move again.

But she hated the tour. The apartment was tiny. The residents all looked dead. She wasn’t going to be presented with a coloring book and crayons for some imaginary activity hour. We returned to our move, and she remains clinging to the life she knows even as it robs her of options.

When I think about the early days of coming to know her, my resentment rallies. But I can’t look away. I know that if she had been able to be a kinder person, her life today would be better. I wonder if this is a kind of karma.

For now, she sends me an email every morning to check in. My husband emails her every evening with an update. She’s alone in the world, in her family, even on the floor of her apartment building now that the other residents have left. Her greatest fear is that she will lie dead alone for a week before anyone finds her, the way her own mother had in a New York City apartment. She’d planned carefully to avoid her current fate, but the circumstances kept changing around her.

Somehow, I’m in awe of her. That she’s managing on her own. That she’s capable. That she’s tolerating the silence and loneliness without cracking. She says that’s because of me and her son. That knowing we’re here at the other end of an email is just like having people in the next room. Maybe this is putting her psychological skills to good use.

How needy we are for each other, even as we struggle against that presence. I’m making mental note, just in case I’ll need to employ her skills someday too.

At our new house, an eighty-something woman lives alone across the street in a huge and beautiful old house. On our first two encounters, she walked right into our home unannounced. On the third occasion, I’d engaged the locks while unpacking boxes and found her rattling a door to gain entry. When I unlocked it to see what she wanted, her eyes went to the box-cutting knife still in my hand and she never tried that again. She works in a little garden in her backyard and talks to my husband when he’s out there but, since the knife incident, pretends I do ’t exist. She, like my mother-in-law, doesn’t know that I watch from a distance, wondering how she manages her life old and alone with no one to visit. Both of them have cleaning crews who come every couple of weeks. But beyond that, there are no visitors. Not even pets. That part will be different for me.

Lately, our neighbor has been offering cucumbers from her garden. My husband doesn’t eat them, but I do. They’re pickling cucumbers so they’re small enough to enjoy whole as a snack. I make note of her early bicycle rides, big sun hat, and knowledge of every person’s name and occupation in the neighborhood. Maybe we are her long-term plan and that’s why the cucumbers started arriving, as an offering.

Sometimes aging looks like becoming a baby again only without a caretaker. We are born needy, we peak to independence, then start a slow return to where we began. Our shoes are bigger, our minds retain a chunk of the rich life we’ve lived, but unlike our newborn self, we know now what we’re missing. When I look toward aging in this way, it seems unnecessarily cruel.

While I’m still here in this strip of independence, my brain tries to protect the future old lady I will become. I learn by peeking at the processes of these women far ahead of me. I see what’s working and what’s not. But I’m reminded by my past of an obvious and frightening truth. I could never have predicted the events of my own history that brought me to these women’s lives, and there’s little I can do to alter what might come next. That doesn’t stop me from trying.

We’ve been discussing whether an elevator to the second floor of our house might be possible. I’m an old-lady life prepper, though whether or not that will protect me remains to be seen.

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Trevy Thomas is the author of the book Companion in Grief, with essays and short stories published in literary magazines. She writes the weekly Substack column titled “Mortal Beings” at trevythomas.substack.com. She lives on the East Coast with her husband and five pets and has a virtual home at trevythomas.com.

I can’t find the list.

I swear I had it this morning, maybe yesterday. I was in the kitchen, the coffee cooling but not yet cold, staring at a scrap of paper, the copy of the back of some medical form I sent in for her therapy or her meds or that specialist we can’t afford if the insurance won’t cover it and the secondary doesn’t kick in. I wrote it down, I know I did, with that red pen, the one that leaks and stains my fingers. I meant to stick it on the fridge, but the fridge is a mess of magnets, hospital appointment cards, and a blurry photo of us from another life and the list isn’t there and I don’t know what I was supposed to do today.

Where’s the dog? Haven’t walked her, I don’t think. Or maybe I did. The leash is coiled on the floor, which means something, but I can’t remember. Wait, we don’t have a dog. Whose leash is this? Oh,, it’s a belt, never mind. The cracker box is open. Oat milk, because I’m trying to not have so much dairy, is sweating beside it, so someone ate and had coffee. Did I pour it in my coffee? Did I eat? I don’t remember doing that. I should check the calendar, but that just feels like another thing I don’t want to see, plus it’s buried under bills and reminders. Physical therapy, speech therapy, that meeting with the school about her IEP. That’s another thing I forgot, some appointment that came and went and no one called to remind me. Or they did, but I didn’t pick up, or I did pick up and forgot.

It’s gone now, whatever it was.

The house smells faintly like burnt toast, but I haven’t made toast in days. I think I turned the oven on earlier, meant to warm something up, but it’s cold now, or maybe I never turned it on. The microwave clock blinks at me. Or maybe it’s more of a flicker. Or maybe it’s my eyes doing the flickering. I don’t trust time anymore. It tells me the hour but not how long it’s been since I was him, since I was the guy who had plans, who laughed easily, who didn’t wake up mixing meds or checking bedsores.

There’s no clock for that kind of gone.

I sit at the table. A form is in front of me. Something for her therapy clinic, or the insurance company, or another doctor. A black pen this time, not red. I read the first line: “Child’s Name.” I write hers. Then it asks for an emergency contact. I freeze. Do I write his name? The man I used to be? Does he still count? Can I call him when the alarms go off in the night, when her breathing gets shallow, when I don’t know how to keep going? There’s no box for that.

I put my wife’s.

There’s a sock on the floor by her ramp. Just one, small, hers. It’s been there for days, maybe a week. I keep meaning to pick it up, but I walk past it, see it, don’t see it. Same with the mail piling up on the piano I used to play. Bills, medical statements, flyers for things we’ll never do, coupons for restaurants we’ll never go to. I tried sorting it once, meant to pay something, file something, throw something out. Now it’s just a heap on the piano, next to a broken nebulizer I don’t know how to fix and charging cables I can’t match to anything.

Why does the phone always need charging?

She’s here, my girl. She’s always here. In her chair, in her bed, in the gasp of the vent when it kicks on. She doesn’t ask for much. Can’t. Or won’t. Her eyes follow me sometimes, or I think they do. I talk to her, tell her about the day, about nothing, about the weather. I don’t know if she hears me. I mean I know she hears me, she has excellent hearing, always able to hear me just as I lay down to bed to start coughing, but doesn’t hear me. The doctors say she might, but they say a lot of things. I almost forgot her second breathing treatment yesterday. Or maybe it was the day before. I was about to do it, but then the pharmacy called about a refill, and I lost the thread.

You could weave a blanket from the amount of threads I’ve lost.

There was a dream last night. Or maybe it was last year. I was in a hospital, but it wasn’t hers. It was a maze of hallways, lights buzzing, doors that wouldn’t open. I was looking for him, for me, the old me, the one who knew how to fix things, who wasn’t afraid of the next phone call. A voice kept saying, “You’re late,” but I couldn’t move, my legs heavy, sinking into the floor. I woke up gasping, my hands shaking. I checked her monitor before I checked my own pulse.

I miss him.

That other me. The guy who could carry a conversation, who planned camping trips we never took, who thought he’d have more time. His voice in my head, saying, “It’s gonna be okay,” loud and sure, like he believed it. I hear it sometimes, when the house is too quiet, when her machines are the only sound. I check the front door, half-expecting him to walk through, but he never does. He would be annoyed I changed the locks. He used to do that, forget his keys, laugh it off. Now I lock the door and wait for no one. Or everyone? But probably no one.

People are like the doctors; they say a lot of things. “You’re doing so well.” “She’s lucky to have you.” “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” I want to scream. I’m not doing well, I don’t even know anyone who is doing well; I’m just here, fumbling through like the rest of us. Maybe more visibly fumbling than some. She’s not lucky—she’s trapped in a body that won’t move, and I’m the one who’s supposed to make it better, but I can’t. Lucky to have me? Anyone who thinks that obviously hasn’t asked her how she feels about me. I keep moving, one step, then another, because stopping feels like falling, and I can’t fall.

Not yet.

I went to the store last week, last decade, maybe. Loaded the cart with her formula, her diapers, the soft fruits I blend for her. Forgot the stuff I eat. Stood in line, realized I didn’t have my wallet. Found a crumpled receipt in my pocket, from a coffee shop I went to with him. Paid with my phone, hands shaking. Left the bags in the car for hours, forgot to bring them in until the ice cream melted. Had to go back to the store. I sit in the car longer than I need to sometimes, after picking up her meds or dropping off hope. Just sit, keys in my lap, engine off, listening to the silence. Watching people move like they know where they’re going. I used to be one of them. Now I’m always halfway to the next appointment, halfway to breaking, halfway to remembering who I was. The world keeps going, but I’m stuck in this fog.

I forgot to call the therapist. Forgot to sign the new care plan. Forgot the name of the insurance rep I talked to last week, the one who told me not to adjust her chair. I meant to write it down, meant to keep track. I forgot the name of the mom I sat next to at the clinic, the one who said it’s so nice to have a community like ours for kiddos like ours. I forgot coffee in the car. I boil water and forget to pour it. I pour it and forget the tea. I stand at the sink, watching the steam, thinking of her breath, how it catches sometimes, how I hold mine until the machine beeps and she’s okay again. I’m always waiting for the next beep. I hate the beeping but it means she’s still here.

Machines don’t beep for dead people.

I snapped at my wife yesterday. Something small and stupid like she moved her stuffed animals, or didn’t clamp the feeding tube. I don’t remember. I hated myself. Tried to apologize, but it came out wrong, too sharp, too tired. She said it’s fine, but it’s not. I’m not fine. I’m not him anymore, the guy who was patient, who could smile through a long day. I don’t know where he went. Can you believe that? He just up and left when I needed him most.

The dishes are piling up. Always piling up. I don’t remember the last time the sink was clear from my own washing. I don’t remember the last time I ate something that wasn’t a handful from a box that’s been open too long. I used to cook steaks, pasta, things she loved, things I was proud of. I can’t start. Don’t know how. I can’t seem to remember if I have the right pan. Opened the cabinet and stared at the stack of pots like they belonged to someone else. Now I open the fridge and stare at her formula cans, her meds. There’s an expired antibiotics bottle in there. She’s been on so many antibiotics, but she’s not now, I would have an alarm telling me when to give it to her if she was. Why is my phone beeping? Oh, right, not all of the bottles are expired, I guess.

Don’t forget to close the fridge.

I don’t cry much now. Not because it’s better or because it doesn’t fix anything. Instead, I get an ache in my jaw. Or this weight in my chest. Or that numb buzzing in my hands, like I’m holding something I can’t drop but also can’t feel. Who am I kidding? I’m crying right now, probably, somewhere. But it’s different now somehow. I walk through the day like I’m dragging a shadow, one that looks like him, taller, steadier, unafraid. I keep waiting for him to step back into me, but he doesn’t.

Got a text, people want to come over. Why? I don’t want them over. What would they even do here? Actually, I probably asked them to. I probably need them to. I don’t want them to see I’ve been crying though. The quiet way they’ll stand there looking at me. The soft touches on my shoulder. Rubbing my arm. Asking me what I need, asking how are you. How are you. How are you. How are you. I try to stop crying. Think of something else. I can’t think of anything that doesn’t make me cry. Everything tastes sad. When are they coming over? What day? I stopped looking at the calendar. Her birthday, our anniversary, they all sneak up, and I’m caught off guard, nodding like I knew. There’s a card on the table from her last therapy session, a smiley face drawn by someone I don’t know. I meant to keep it, pin it up. It’s buried under junk now, like everything else.

I used to write stuff like notes, ideas, things I wanted to tell her someday. Found one in a drawer, from before, when I thought she’d walk, talk, run. It was about him, how he’d teach her to ride a bike, how he’d be there. I read it, laughed. Tore it up and tossed it. Probably going to regret that.

The house creaks at night. Pipes, probably. Or the wind. But sometimes I let myself think it’s him, just for a second, coming back to fix this, to take the wheel. Then the BiPAP hiccups, and I’m back in the room, checking her, counting her breaths. The weight settles again.

The doctor said walks might help. I try. I pushed her chair down the block the other day when things got too gauzy inside, past trees and mailboxes and neighbors who wave but don’t stop. It’s all too bright, too normal. I’m playing the part of father, caregiver, someone who’s got this. But I don’t. I’m just pushing, hoping I don’t tip her, hoping I don’t lose her. Pretending.

Everyone’s pretending something.

I don’t want to be here, in this life where every day is a checklist of her needs and a tally of my failures. But even more than that I don’t want to be anywhere else. I want the me I used to have in this life now, the one where he was in charge, where I wasn’t afraid of the phone ringing. That guy would be so helpful these days. He’s gone, burned away like mist in the sun, no warning.

I tuck her in at night. Adjust her pillows, check her tubes, kiss her forehead. I say, “I love you,” and mean it with everything I’ve got left. She doesn’t answer, but her eyes flicker sometimes, and I hold onto that. She doesn’t ask where he is, doesn’t ask why I’m different. But I feel it, the question hanging there. I don’t have answers, just my hand on her cheek, just me humming a song because my voice would crack if I tried to sing it. She doesn’t like when my voice cracks.

I don’t know how to be this father. This man who forgets prescriptions and trips over ramps and talks to a version of himself that’s gone. But I’m still here, under the mess. I think he’s still here too, somewhere, waiting for me to find him. Or maybe he’s not. Maybe that’s the joke. It’s not a dad joke, but maybe I’m a joke dad.

I’ve always been bad at telling jokes.

The mist isn’t lifting. That’s the part I’ve stopped fighting. It’s not a phase, not a season to wait out, not a corner to turn. It’s a place. And I’m in it. It’s where I live now with my leaky pen, my endless forms, my maybe dog who might need a walk. With them, my girls, who need me even when I’m falling apart. With the dishes and the dreams and the lists I’ll never find.

That gives me an idea. Maybe I’ll make a new list. Just one line. I’ve got the perfect thing for it.

Wait—what was it again?

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Bud Hager decided that he wasn’t a fan of having money so he became an academic, earning a graduate degree in clinical psychology and a licensure as a psychotherapist. After working at a hospital for the criminally insane, managing a community mental health clinic and training new therapists, he felt ready to become a father. He was woefully unprepared. Now, he teaches psychology, has a private practice, advocates for his disabled daughter, and is devoted to his wife. Sometimes he writes things.

My son Kai has always had a fearless streak. He’d run in the door from kindergarten, toss his backpack on the floor, and sprint outside to play. He was the first of his friends to skateboard down a six-foot half-pipe and to backflip off a diving board. But at the age of ten, doctors said he was losing his sight to a degenerative retinal disease with no known treatment or cure. His world had become shadowy, shimmery, and scary. Now, he clung to me, anxious and afraid.

I didn’t know anyone who was blind and imagined a sedentary life of darkness and isolation. I worried myself into exhaustion, but at night I’d toss and turn, eventually slipping out of bed to Google “childhood progressive blindness.” In chat groups I learned that other parents facing this news dropped everything to fundraise, then hit the road to fill their child’s visual memory bank with epic sights and adventures. I felt too sad to plan a trip.

It’s said that grief takes many forms and moves through stages, spiraling and circling back, but mine took two distinct shapes: Breasts. My subconscious couldn’t let go of them and the obsession flowed into my hobby of watercolor art. I painted topless mermaids and nude women sunbathing. When I noticed my teenage son, Cash, casually perusing the paintings, I realized that my obsession centered on a fear that blindness would cause his little brother to miss out on typical coming-of-age milestones. Would Kai ever reach second base? Would he experience the passion and turmoil of first love?

I decided to purchase an illustrated book about puberty. Kai couldn’t read regular-sized print so at bedtime we’d snuggle up together and I’d read aloud and describe the images. After a few nights, he said, “Mom, this book is weeeird!”

That sparked a different, more lifelike idea. Santa could bring the boys the latest Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue! I discussed the gift with their dad, whom I’d met after he caught my eye across a crowded bar. How would Kai meet women if he couldn’t make eye contact?

As a massage therapist, feminist, and liberal, gifting magazines of bikini-clad models felt unhinged. I didn’t even know if Kai was straight. But these were strange, deeply confusing, and emotional times. To ease the sense of loss that weighed heavily on my chest, I was willing to try almost anything.

In the wee early hours of Christmas morning, I rolled each magazine tightly, bound them with bright red ribbons, and stuffed them into the boys’ stockings. Later, I watched as Cash unfurled his, did a double take, and with wide eyes said, “I got a swimsuit issue!”

Next, Kai, who still wanted to believe in Santa, unrolled his magazine, brought it up within one inch of his eyes, and squealed, “I got one, too!”

I sipped coffee and picked at an iced cinnamon roll as the boys flipped the pages and giggled self-consciously. Kai quickly lost interest and moved on to unwrapping Legos and Beyblades. Cash lingered on the images longer before opening his new rock-climbing gear. Forgotten, the magazines migrated to the back of the toilet with a couple of old word searches and crossword puzzles, but my obsession with breasts didn’t wane.

A family in our community gifted us a trip to Disney World so that Kai could experience the Festival of Lights at Hollywood Studios theme park. It was a generous offer, and we were thrilled to spend the New Year’s holiday away. During the day, we spent hours at the Magic Kingdom helping Buzz Lightyear defeat Zurg, and at night we gawked at the dazzling, sparkling holiday lights while sipping hot chocolates piled high with sticky marshmallow crème.

While driving home, I thought, Wow! That was the perfect getaway. I could die happy today. Then, my brain served up a visual of me swerving our car into a big rig, causing us to ricochet into the guard rail, killing us instantly—no suffering.

Horrified by these shocking thoughts, I scheduled an emergency session with my therapist. She explained that suicidal ideation is a common occurrence among grieving people. My belief that the trip was as good as it gets, combined with my fear of the unknown, triggered this scary thought process. I could no longer envision Kai’s future, and that terrified me, so she suggested I connect with blind adults.

Gathering my courage, I reached out to a man who had lost his sight during college. He chuckled awkwardly as I confessed the nude paintings, the graphic puberty book, and the swimsuit magazines. “I’m afraid Kai will miss out on typical teenage milestones/never fall in love/that his peers will stop including him/that he will become lonely/sedentary/isolated/this is going to sound strange/I can’t stop thinking of breasts/breasts he will never see—”

Interrupting my frantic, breathless monologue, he said, “No worries, breasts feel better than they look anyway!”

The answer was so obvious that my chest heaved with relief. Of course! Kai’s Teacher of the Visually Impaired had recently explained that as he lost sight, he’d read braille and navigate with a white cane. He’d access the world primarily through his other senses. In the case of breasts, like braille, his sense of touch would suffice. I felt stronger knowing that sight loss would not limit his ability to experience intimacy and pleasure.

Kai’s fearlessness and zest for life returned as he leaned into the blindness skills he learned at school. He started skateboarding again. He made adaptations that allowed him to surf, skimboard, and snowboard, too.

I shifted my focus from worrying to developing friendships with blind adults and mentors. The more I immersed myself in the blindness community, the more I understood that my fears and grief were based on ignorant and ableist views. I’d believed my typically-sighted experience of life was superior, but now I envisioned a happy, fulfilled life for Kai. His experience would be different than mine, but not less.

Acceptance created space for joy to return, and I began to plan trips that engaged all the senses. We hiked trails through Muir Woods. We felt the fibrous bark of the trees and linked hands with outstretched arms to gauge the expanse of several enormous redwoods. We visited the Grand Canyon, where Kai gasped at the immense size as he explored a scale model located in the observation station. The brothers body-boarded the powerful, crashing waves at The Wedge on Newport Beach in California. I was nervous about the force of the Pacific Ocean’s waves, but Kai had played in the Atlantic Ocean since he was a small child and he was a strong swimmer. During breaks to catch his breath, he explained that he could sense the rhythm of the waves as they sucked out and rushed in. I drove the Road to Hana in Maui, and the boys screamed with glee through open windows as I maneuvered the 65 hairpin switchbacks as wind whipped through our hair. We ate fresh, sweet pineapple from roadside stands and swam in a cold waterfall. We hiked through a bamboo forest that sounded like wind chimes in the breeze. As adults, Cash and Kai take brothers-only trips together. They’ve explored Vancouver, British Columbia on a tandem bike, hiked along the Oregon coast, and attended jazz concerts in New York City.

Kai is now a 23-year-old jazz drummer, and while he can’t make eye contact across a crowded bar, he has no problem meeting women. I’m no longer obsessed with breasts, but my sons won’t let me forget. They still laugh. My early, awkward attempts to populate Kai’s visual memory bank will make a great Christmas story for years to come.

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Kim Owens is a tiny house dweller, dog mom, blindness advocate, writer, and keynote speaker. Her adult son, Kai, unexpectedly lost his sight at the age of 10. Together, they founded a social media platform and blog that provides clarity for families navigating blindness. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Prevent Blindness, FamilyConnect, and Beyond Sight Magazine. She has Kai’s consent to publish this essay.

I’ve been watching Christmas movies since October, and I’m not ashamed. So far, in my Hallmark and Hallmark-lite marathons, I’ve seen very competitive brothers, will-they-wont-they divorce middle-aged parents, control freak mothers, a long (but ultimately temporary) estrangement between father and daughter, and the ubiquitous trope of a teen blaming mom for dad leaving.

But what I haven’t seen is my own situation, and what a quick Google search or trip through Reddit will show is more common than we are led to believe: estrangement from a sibling, a sister to be precise.

My sister is only nine months older than me, so in theory and on paper we should have been good company for each other, but while that age gap is great from 24 onward, there’s actually a world of difference between ages 4 and 8, and especially the treacherous teen years of 14 and 18. Everyone always says we were so close [annoying!], but that isn’t actually true, it just seemed that way. We had a difficult childhood, so like two animals of the same species in a zoo, we were thrust together because we had a) no choice and b) no one else.

The reality is evident in photos of us in the garden, me crying because she’s pinching me, while she smiles innocently. The reality is the fact that she used to shake me and make me repeat everything she told me! For some reason she has always been the favorite so she could get away with bad behaviour, while I was invisible to everyone. She always made friends more easily than me and charmed the customers at the shop where she worked (while behind the scenes making her colleagues cry!). The reality is that I had no one else, so for too long I let her get away with bad behaviour. She only ever used me as a placeholder, like so many others in my life; I was good enough until something better came along. Emotional incest is usually talked about concerning a parent and child, but it was definitely a part of our dynamic.

I’m not saying I have zero good memories of my time growing up with her, but to be honest they mostly revolve around the loves of my life, acting and writing. We didn’t have a car and we didn’t get a landline phone until I was 13, so we watched a lot of TV and films as kids, and I used to write my own stories based on them for us to act out. So I don’t really remember us just “being” together. I played by myself in the garden a lot, I would ask her questions sometimes and she disappointingly didn’t know the answers, I did my hair up once and instead of seeing it as an opportunity for a bonding experience by telling me she liked it and asking how I did it, she said nothing and just copied the style the next day.

We have quietly floated along for years, in a mostly frictionless way—to the outside world, at least. We’ve lived our whole lives in a small town so people know we’re sisters, and got used to seeing us together. For years I was a devoted auntie so was with her almost every day. In hindsight, if she hadn’t had children our relationship would have ruptured much sooner, but it truly started falling apart at her wedding four years ago.

There are some moments in life that can’t be undone, unseen, unremembered: the drop that spills over the cup, the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. She made me the maid of honor, not because she cares deeply about me, but because she told me she knew I’d be good at organizing her hen night. Then, when a friend of hers decided at the last minute that she wanted to attend the hen night but there wasn’t room for an extra person, I ended up giving up my space so her friend could go.

At the wedding, I dropped off her little one’s bridal shoes, hoping and expecting to have some time with her before the ceremony. But she had a load of her friends there and I didn’t know any of them. It was super awkward, and she didn’t ask them to leave so she could have sister time. We ended up not speaking for the whole day and I left early. That day, she took something from me that day that I can never get back—the experience of being part of my big sister’s wedding—and I don’t forget, and deep down where our hurts fester, behind the locked rooms in our hearts, and inside the boxes in our minds, I don’t forgive either.

Family is important to me, so I used to drop everything when she needed help. I’ve done so much for her and offered her so many second chances. I’ve given so much that now I have nothing left. I wish this could all play out from different parts of the world, but the worst thing is that we live on the same street with only one house in between us! Yet she never visits, and I have to email her to remind her to come in and see our mother (whom I live with and take care of with no help). Anyone who didn’t know us would think we were strangers based on the way we interact (or rather, don’t)..

I hate it when people shrug and say, “You’re family,” as if that’s a magic wand or a Monopoly get-out-of-jail free card. So what? Blood may be thicker than water, but any liquid can be diluted. This is where people usually get it wrong. They seem to think some relationships are a given and take them for granted, but every relationship is a two-way street and requires nurturing to flourish and grow. Love is in communication and the small things, so this holiday season I encourage you to have a proper conversation with your siblings and think of how you can show you care, lest you wind up like me.

Last Christmas Eve, as I caved in yet again and gave my sister a nutcracker, in a Christmas Eve tradition I started for her (naturally she has no such ritual or tradition for me), I told her that if she continued to not put in any effort to fixing us, then our relationship was over. Well, in that almost year she has made even less effort, so this Christmas as I learn to love myself more, I’m finally closing the door on my sister for good. Unless it’s to exchange vital information about my nieces or nephews or mum, I don’t even wish to talk to her anymore. I’m not showing love and respect to me if I can’t uphold my own boundaries or stay true to my words and intentions.

We all make choices, and she has never chosen me, but now, finally, I am. I’m choosing to pay attention to actions, not words, and to not waste time and energy on people who don’t spend time and energy on me. Being a blood relative doesn’t make you exempt from these rules! Toxic and unhealthy people come in all shapes and sizes; we accept and can believe that people, especially, unfairly, men, can be bad parents, so why do we not think that some people are just bad brothers and sisters, instead of the automatic friend-for-life mentality most us seem to have regarding siblings.

This, Christmas I will drop off the kids’ presents at her house sometime before the 25th, and will no doubt be in the kitchen cooking lunch when she finally rolls in to see mum on the big day. I’ll smile into my Buck’s Fizz and enjoy the peace and inner strength that comes from putting yourself first. I love myself indeed.

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Megan Romaine is the sole carer to an elderly mother and cat. She has so far been very unlucky in life, but is hoping to finally make 2026 her year. She has had writing published in Hey Young Writer, TYPE!, a bookmark magazine, and recently received an honourable mention from The Dark Poets Club.

Content warning: Domestic Violence

I am scared. Clutching tightly to my mom. We make ourselves as small as possible in the laundry room that doubles as a pantry. My mom’s arms are wrapped around my red, zip-up hoodie, a Christmas gift from an aunt. It’s one of my favorite sweaters as it was Ralph Lauren, a bougie white brand that any of my high school classmates would’ve wanted back then. Truly a shame that I was wearing that hoodie that night.

My mom and I are trembling in fear.

There is a bulk-size bottle of olive oil from Costco that sits outside the storage closet door. The door doesn’t fully shut; the closet is stuffed to the brim with groceries and household supplies. My immigrant parents bulk buy from a warehouse as if an apocalypse is looming at any second. The contents of the cabinet could feed a hungry family for months.

My dad’s face is full of rage. There is spittle flying everywhere from his screams. He is angry and wants us to know it.

A few moments before, I was running frantically around the first floor of our house. Slipping and sliding on the hardwood because I was wearing socks to warm my cold feet. Also, because terror compromised my coordination, and I wasn’t the same girl who used to do gymnastics, swim laps, or play tennis. I was a wounded animal being hunted. I may not have had physical injuries, but my body was broken, nonetheless. Behind me, I saw my dad stalking after me, all in slow motion. He was my own personal Freddy Krueger. His eyes bulged out from their sockets, and there was a part of me pretending that this was just a nightmare. I would wake up eventually. Drenched in sweat, tears tickling my itchy neck, but alive.

But this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a night terror. I wasn’t hallucinating. It was my reality, and I was running for my life. I was running away from my own father who was chasing after me while gripping a kitchen knife in his right hand. It was a big knife. The knife my mom used to cut hard food like watermelon or unyielding kabocha squash. My dad didn’t need to tell me that he was about to slice me open. I knew what his intentions were because I could feel his wrath in the air, and that knowledge permeated me to the bone.

As a desperate attempt to save myself, I tried to quickly open up the windows on the first floor. I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t sprint up the stairs and get myself trapped on the second floor. I’d seen enough horror movies. Instead, I ran around in circles, as I tried to pry open the windows with my shaky hands. The windows that lead to the backyard, the windows of our family room, the windows next to the front door that were supposed to welcome in friendly neighbors, not imprison me inside the home. I screamed, “Help! Help!” as I ran. There was a part of me that felt this was performative. I was play-acting. I wasn’t actually in danger. This was just my life, and I should have gotten used to it. Come on girl, this is your reality. Has been for years now. Accept it, accept it because nothing will change. It’ll make things easier for you. But I continued to scream for help as I clumsily tore open as many of the windows as possible.

My mom ran after me, both to protect me from my dad, but also to close any windows I had managed to slide open. Choose a side, mom. You can’t be both protector of your hunted daughter and enabler of said hunter.

Maybe she begged and pleaded with my father to stop. Did she grab the knife from him? Or did my dad’s last remaining ounce of sanity lead him to throw away the weapon as a show of mercy? Either way, he was no longer holding the knife, but his face was still contorted like the devil’s. Despite my cries for help, there were no neighbors nor cops banging at our front door. But I was temporarily safe as my dad’s hand was no longer accessorized by the knife. I breathed a sigh of pathetic relief knowing that I wouldn’t be chopped to pieces that night.

But the relief was short-lived as he made use of his empty hands. He was yelling unintelligible threats as he lunged at me and gathered his clawed hands around my neck, making wringing motions while his nostrils flared up in hatred. I couldn’t tell if he was actually choking me or pretending to. He was play-acting, too. He was frustrated, but I didn’t know why. Maybe he was frustrated at his animalistic anger. Maybe he was frustrated because he couldn’t get himself to kill me. Maybe he was frustrated because I’d been painting him to be some kind of monster. I didn’t know. I still don’t know now. I just know he was frustrated. His frustration, seeping through his tightly clenched jaw. So much tension in his mouth that it was curious how he hadn’t managed to crack open any of his teeth.

His arms dropped, and my neck was released free. I guess he hadn’t choked me after all because my neck wasn’t sore, and I could still swallow my saliva down without feeling any pain. I had survived again. Tonight, I will not die of suffocation. Whew.

This is my chance to run away. I open the door to the laundry room. All I have to do is get past the washing machine, open the door to the garage, click open the garage door and run. But I don’t. Or I can’t. Instead, I’m scared. Clutching tightly to my mom as she follows me inside, and we make ourselves as small as possible in the laundry room that doubles as a pantry. My mom’s arms are wrapped around my red, zip-up hoodie. My mom and I are trembling in fear.

My dad continues to shout, and his screams are rapid, tumbling out from his larynx into my ears. He’s moving wildly, with accelerating speed, while I’m stuck and my legs are frozen. My mom’s gripping my arms with whatever strength she has left, but I don’t feel consoled. I feel trapped. I need to run. I need to get out of this house so I can survive another night.

“I’m gonna kill you!” he screams. “I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna burn you alive, you bitches!” His red, bloodshot eyes foreshadowing the fire he’s about to start.

He twitches as he scans the room. He looks so deranged that if I wasn’t scared for my life, I’d call 911 to get him help. He needs help. We need help. But instead of getting help, he sees the bottle of olive oil and snatches it off the floor. The lid of the bottle flies off, and my dad starts maniacally spilling oil around me and my mom. I’m shivering. I might be wailing. I think I’m crying. My mom is screaming. He then shakes the bottle toward me and my mom, and our bodies are marinated with cooking oil. My dad is hungry, and my red hoodie is drenched in grease. No one told me I’d be served for dinner tonight. I didn’t expect to die like this: cooked alive.

“You bitches are gonna die!”

I’m little red riding hood, and my dad is the Big Bad Wolf. My mom the useless character who urged her daughter to go deep into the woods to feed the wolf, gifting him with a generous basket of goodies. I’m about to be swallowed whole.

Thank god he didn’t have matches on him.

I didn’t die that night. Obviously.

But my dad did. I lost my father that night.

Funny thing, estrangement. We assume estrangement means that someone, one day, decides to never talk to someone else again. We assume that it was a singular, firm decision made, and that’s that. That once someone decides to be estranged, the other person has absolutely no power over them, and the separation is complete. But that’s not true. Estrangement is a process. Estrangement isn’t linear. Estrangement can take time. There are different kinds of estrangement: physical, emotional, spiritual…etc. Sometimes estrangement isn’t even an active, conscious choice.

I lost my dad multiple times in my life. I lost him when he told me I should become a prostitute because I was too stupid. I lost him when I saw him flip over the dining table because he hated my mom’s choice of banchan one evening. I lost him when I saw my mom crying at the top of the basement stairs, begging my dad to tell her who this mysterious number belonged to—Was he cheating on her? Why did this number keep popping up on our family plan’s Verizon bill? Did he think she wouldn’t find out? She’s the one who pays the bills!

Each time I lost him, my estrangement with him progressed. But this night, when he threatened my and my mother’s life, when he waved a knife at me, when he mimicked strangling me, when he threatened to burn me and my mother alive, my emotional estrangement from him was sealed. The nail on the father-daughter coffin? Sealed. Any emotional tie I had to him was flash fried in olive oil, and I lost my will to attempt to have a relationship with this monster.

I’d have to still live in the house with him because I was a minor, and I had no means to provide for myself. I’d have to “play nice” and act as if everything was okay, as if he were still my dad. I’d have to pass by him in the same living room where he wielded a knife in front of my face. I’d have to help my mom serve him his dinner while he relaxed in his basement. I’d have to celebrate my parents’ marriage anniversaries, buying them flowers, cards, chocolates. But I’d be play-acting, because I was estranged from this man, having watched him die right in front of my eyes.

Even though estrangement was the right thing for me, it continues to haunt me every day. Because every day, I have a funeral for this man. And mourning, grieving on a daily basis is agonizing work. It’s unbearable. No one is grieving with me because they don’t understand why I chose estrangement. They don’t understand why I consider him to be a dead man. I should just be the “better person,” be a “good” daughter, understand that it’s a part of his han—that he himself is a traumatized being and deserves grace.

It’s unbearable grieving for this man. This man who could’ve been a father. This man who could’ve been a protector. This man who could’ve made his family feel safe. This man who had infinite chances to do the right thing but never chose to.

So I chose estrangement.

I chose to lose my father that night.

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Parker Jin (a pseudonym) is a Korean American mental health therapist living somewhere in the netherworld of the United States. She’s passionate about spreading awareness about Complex trauma/PTSD, learning more about humble and decolonized approaches to therapy, and helping others in their healing journey. She’s currently writing a memoir to share her own experiences with Complex PTSD. In her spare time, she likes to take naps where dreams blend between her unconscious and reality, reading, and cuddling with her menace of a rescue pup, who is the love of her life.

Dad’s unexpected announcement got my attention. “I’ll be late for breakfast tomorrow. I’ve enrolled in a yoga class,” he informed Mom, his voice carrying a hint of excitement.

Mom’s curry stirring slowed momentarily as she processed his words, her response a distracted “Okay” before she remembered to ask, “How are you feeling today?”

“So far, so good,” Dad replied.

Meanwhile, I sat at the kitchen table, textbooks open before me, but my attention diverted by yoga—a word I hadn’t heard in my twelve years of existence.

As Dad retreated to the living room, the soft creak of his chair signaled his retreat into the world of books.

After completing my homework, I approached him. With a gentle gesture, he lowered his book, welcoming my intrusion.

“What is yoga? What will you do there?” I queried.

In response, he offered a shrug, “I’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Why are you going? Is this because you coughed out blood?”

With a sigh, he confessed, “Yes, I haven’t been feeling well. Hopefully, it will help,” before retreating once more into the comforting embrace of his book.

The following morning dawned with the usual hustle and bustle of the household. The notion of yoga slipped from my mind. I remembered as I noticed Dad’s absence at the breakfast table, his bowl of fruit untouched.

Upon my return from school, I saw Dad in quiet contemplation, cradling his cup of tea. With a rush of eagerness, I approached him, asking, “What is yoga? What did you do in yoga?”

Setting his cup back onto the saucer with deliberate care, Dad’s eyes met mine, his gaze reflecting the wisdom gleaned from his newfound practice. “Yoga means to connect. I endeavored to connect with myself through the ancient postures and rhythmic breaths of yoga,” he explained.

“What postures?”

“The trainer first taught me Surya Namaskar, a salutation to the sun. It’s supposed to have endless health benefits. It also stretches every part of the body,” he said, rubbing his calf muscles.

“Hmm. And then?”

“There were a few more. I realized that there are many types of yoga too. We ended the session with laughter yoga.”

“What is laughter yoga?” I inquired.

He hesitated, uncertain about his reply, “The group looks at each other and laughs out loud.”

It didn’t sound as fascinating as I thought it would, and I lost interest.

In the years that followed, our lives underwent numerous transformations. I completed my schooling and ventured into the realm of college education. Meanwhile, Dad transitioned into retirement, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. Amidst these changes, one constant remained steadfast: Dad’s unwavering dedication to yoga and his absence from our breakfast table. I felt jealous. It was unfair that the little time we got together as a family was taken away by yoga.

As the dawn of the new millennium ushered in a renewed interest in holistic wellness, yoga also experienced a resurgence, captivating the hearts and minds of people seeking balance and rejuvenation. Within our social circle, Dad emerged as an unofficial ambassador for yoga, his unwavering devotion serving as a testament to its transformative power.

At gatherings and social events, Dad would regale acquaintances with a familiar narrative, a tale I’d heard countless times before. He’d recount how a moment of fear, marked by the ominous sight of blood, propelled him toward the path of yoga.

Unknown people walked up to me and told me that my dad inspired them to do yoga. It had changed their lives, and they were grateful. These strangers proudly regaled me with their medical histories and conditions and, now, recoveries.

Because this kept on happening, and these people were so exuberant in their praise for a practice I’d dismissed as an activity that took Dad away from us, I resolved to follow in my dad’s footsteps, to embrace the ancient practice of yoga as a means of navigating life. If it had worked for him, and all these others who’d been influenced by him, maybe it was worth a shot.

However, as I entered the room, Dad sat with his brow furrowed in anguish as he gingerly massaged his temples. My heart constricted with worry. Though Dad had spoken of occasional headaches in the past, I’d never witnessed him in such a state of distress.

My voice trembled with concern. “What’s wrong? Do you have a headache?”

He nodded. “I have a doctor’s appointment for an MRI.”

This probably wasn’t the right time to ask him about yoga. I decided to wait a few days.

I thought I could ask him later, but the devastating news of Dad’s diagnosis shattered the fragile illusion of normalcy that had enveloped our lives. An MRI detected a stage 4 tumor in his brain.

In the blink of an eye, our world was upended, consumed by a whirlwind of medical procedures—surgery, radiation, and the chaotic dance with uncertainty. Slowly, Dad slipped into the abyss of coma and then slipped away entirely.

A gaping void engulfed our lives. Amidst the wreckage of our shattered dreams, questions lingered: What of yoga, that ancient practice to which Dad had pledged his allegiance? It seemed as though yoga had failed us, its promises of healing and renewal nothing more than hollow echoes in the wind. All it really did was take him away from us at breakfast time.

For years, he had been the staunchest advocate of yoga, never missing a morning session. Yet, as his daughter, I turned my back on the practice that had defined his existence, dissuading others from following in his footsteps. “Yogaismoga,” I would say. And as I got cheekier, I started saying, “Na Ma staying in bed.”

This helped me settle into the rhythm of my new normal life, the wounds of my loss slowly began to heal. A year later, I met my husband and settled down and had a baby.

It shocked me when he told me he was thinking of experimenting with yoga. I was chopping veggies for dinner. With a knife in my hand, I protested, “Please don’t waste your time.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like it, but I want to test it out,” he confessed, his voice tinged with sincerity. “Staying up at night for the baby has increased my weight, too. Maybe yoga will help. Will it be okay if I try it for a few days? Just to see what it’s all about.”

“Yoga doesn’t do anythi—”

“No harm in trying.” He cut me before I could say “Yogaismoga.”

“Sure,” I lied.

As my husband delved deeper into his newfound pursuit of yoga, I couldn’t help but harbor a twinge of familiar resentment. Every Tuesday, he faithfully attended his yoga classes, and every morning he would practice at home as I made curry in the kitchen. With each passing week, I watched his body transform with weight loss and newfound muscles. He exuded a quiet confidence and cheerful acceptance that spoke volumes of the inner transformation taking place. He also embraced fatherhood with renewed vigor, his laughter ringing through the halls like a melody of joy.

As my son reached the milestone of weaning himself at 15 months old, a wave of bittersweet relief washed over me, granting me a moment of respite amid the whirlwind of motherhood. Sensing an opportunity for self-care, my husband gently urged me to finally explore yoga, inspired by the transformative journey he himself had undertaken.

Reluctantly, I agreed, my skepticism giving way to a tentative curiosity as I embarked upon my first session. As the trainer guided us through the ancient practice of Surya Namaskar, I found myself immersed in the rhythmic flow of movement, my body awakening to the dormant energies within. Or maybe it just quivered.

I felt a little sore the first day but surprisingly, I didn’t realize the time at well past nine in the evening. If it weren’t for yoga, I would have been in bed or even asleep.

Next morning, as the soreness of my first day of yoga faded, I found myself inexplicably drawn to the practice, a realization that both surprised and unsettled me.

My husband rolled out two mats as a gentle reminder. As I moved through the familiar motions of Surya Namaskar alongside him, unsought tears welled within me. I found clarity after years of doubt and uncertainty.

Dad was bedridden for the last few weeks of his life. Patients with brain cancer can be in a coma or bedridden for longer than that. Yoga had kept him alive and thriving for so long that we didn’t even realize he had cancer.

As tears flowed freely, I offered a silent apology to yoga, recognizing the folly of my misplaced blame.

And so, with a heart filled with gratitude and hope, I embraced the practice of yoga, its gentle wisdom guiding me toward a path my dad had trod before me.

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Sunayna Pal was born and raised in Mumbai, India, now calls Maryland home. She has made her literary mark with her debut poetry book, Refugees in Their Own Country (B&W Fountain), which explores the Partition of India. Her evocative poetry graces the pages of numerous international journals and anthologies, museums, poetry festivals, and libraries, resonating with readers across the globe. Beyond her writing, Sunayna serves as the Director of The Poetry Academy and is dedicated to the practice of Heartfulness meditation. For a deeper insight into her work and journey, please visit sunaynapal.com.

Dear Maa,

For four years I have remained silent. Not as a way to punish you, as much as you want to believe that. For four years I kept my distance so I could get closer to myself. Find my own voice. Build my life brick by brick without your approval or dissatisfaction. In that time, I gave myself permission to heal, to venture into the unknown, to confront the cage I shaped myself into for so long, so I could prioritize your needs.

I traveled alone, something I never imagined I could do because of your incessant fearmongering any time I mentioned exploring the world on my own. And yet—I did. Through the cool and quiet aisles of a dusty bookstore in Chicago. Along the dimly lit streets of Rome, gelato dripped down my hand, past sunset. Across the rolling hills of Tuscany where I ate my weight in pasta. Into Oaxaca, where mezcal, ghost stories, and cool waters awaited me.

Toward the end of my time in Oaxaca, I visited a mezcal distillery and saw rows and rows of agave plants. Some stood taller than me, their pointed ends sharp as little swords. Hours later, as I walked back to my hotel, tipsy, I felt a prick in my shoe. I assumed it was a pebble, shook the shoe out again and again, but the pain only deepened. Finally, I thought to look beneath the sole and there it was: a small thorn from the agave, lodged so firmly it pierced through to my foot.

I pulled it out and held it like a prize, a symbol of victory. I carried it in my palm even as it began to hurt. I wanted to show someone—to prove what I had endured and overcome. My stubborn need for the wound to be witnessed outweighed the sting of holding on.

And then, with a sudden gust of wind, the thorn slipped from my sweaty hand. I searched the street in vain. The thorn was gone.

In that moment, it was as if an angelic voice split through the haze of my mind: the wound you insist on holding onto for validation is the very thing keeping you stuck.

So, why do I hold on?

Children of narcissist parents understand how challenging it is to have a narcissist parent. For me, one of the hardest aspects may be the fact that no one else sees their truest self but the child. How our publicly charismatic and charming parents unmask at home. How they make us feel small in private, and yet flaunt our victories in public, as if they were their own.

Like how you stonewalled me for almost two months while I was in college. Why? I wanted to teach English in India, my birth country.

You told me it was too dangerous, but I think the real reason was because you felt you were losing control. But once I came back from my trip, having planted trees and helped graduating students secure jobs, you didn’t hesitate to flaunt those achievements to others.

Your love was always conditional, and your support wasn’t guaranteed. After a while, this type of love started to wear on me. It dimmed my light and made me unsure of myself. You sowed so much doubt and insecurity into a kid who was otherwise so bright and bubbly.

The painful truth, though, is even as I write this letter to you, I gaslight myself. I struggle to name exactly how you harmed me. You only beat me when I was too small to defend myself. I remember the first time I grabbed your hand at 14 years old. I saw the flash of fear in your eyes. You never raised your hand against me after that.

You didn’t starve me. From the age of 8, you only reminded me that I need to lose weight and not eat too much.

You never cast me out of your home. You just reminded me that if tomorrow I were to end up on the streets, none of my friends would care for me. Not the way you did.

So why go no contact with my own mother—the woman who gave me life? It wasn’t that bad . . . was it?

You just convinced me that no one else would ever care for me the way you did. That I would be nothing if I were not in service to you.

I imagine it’s like being buried alive, or birthed into a cult. The Cult of Mom. I felt suffocated. Every part of my being felt watched—as you normalized reading my diaries out loud in front of me as I sat on my bed, frozen and confused, down to my dreams, my innermost thoughts. I was being suffocated and there was no escape.

There was no glinting three-foot sword that you wielded against me. Instead, you used a million little thorns to tear me down. That’s what they call “complex trauma.” Not one event, but countless small cruelties that accumulate over years. Their weight carves pathways in the mind, leaves scars that don’t show, alters the trajectory of a life.

When I first started writing this letter four years ago, I wanted it to be a list of every hurt you caused me over nearly three decades. I wanted to wear the letter as a badge of honor, a testament to surviving the parent who stayed but never nurtured. I wanted someone—anyone—to see the thorn I carried, lift me by my shoulders, and wipe the tears from my eyes.

I wanted the mother I was always meant to have to appear from a sparkling gust of wind so I could lay my head in her hands. But no matter how many times I showed you my wounds, you never transformed into the mother I needed. Because that is not how narcissists operate.

It was always an excuse or an insistence.

“I did the best I could.”

“You don’t get a guidebook on how to be a parent.”

“When you have a child, you’ll understand.”

While all those things may be true, when I gave you opportunities time and time again to do better, you chose not to take them. I see now that no matter how much I undress my hurt, it will never be enough. It will only be an opportunity for the wound to be salted again.

Trying to love and reason with a narcissist leaves invisible scars. And now, as I write, I understand: Holding the thorns, having them dig deep into my palm, is my way of feeling vindicated in the struggle between us. It has been my proof for so long. But how long will it serve me?

I see now that I have clung to these wounds like evidence, proof that I wasn’t losing my mind through the years of gaslighting. Proof that the parent who stayed also caused me harm.

But shouldering the burden of being abused doesn’t spur healing. What I’m learning now is how to memorialize what happened without glorifying it. How to let go of the thorn, and walk away, even if the pain ebbs and flows.

For four years, distance gave me room to breathe, to continue the slow work of healing. I still feel the pain sometimes, buried deep beneath my skin. But now, it’s only one part of me.

You know what has helped? Somatic therapy, which addressed the pain my body carries. Dialectical behavioral therapy, which encouraged mindfulness and emotional regulation. Crying, a lot. Finally feeling my feelings and not bottling them up, which is known to happen when the body finally feels safe enough to come out of a flight-or-fight response.

After nearly four years of silence, I am reconnecting with you through scheduled calls, because, eventually, shutting you out for the rest of my life felt like I was only running away from my healing, and not towards it. You don’t get access to my inner world, but I don’t pretend you don’t exist either.

This is a slow journey, but one that requires courage, all the same.

At almost 30 years old, I’m building my life for me, which is one of the best things I can do for myself.

Yes, I’m a child of a narcissist, but I’m not a victim. I have power and agency, and with those things I walk my path of healing and self-discovery. So I will keep walking, one step at a time, for the rest of my life.

A life fully my own, Maa.

Join Open Secrets Magazine, ena gangula, and writer Shanetta McDonald on Tuesday, November 18 at 7 pm ET for a Substack Live Q&A on the reality of family estrangement. Watch via this link or in the Substack app.

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ena ganguly is a soft-spirited Bengali femme, born in Bihar and raised in Texas. Their work focuses on collective memory, grief, surveillance, and sensuality and has been featured in USA Today, Palette Poetry, BBC, BuzzFeed, amongst others, and won Breakwater Review’s 2024 Peseroff Poetry Prize. ena has facilitated countless writing workshops for survivors, queer people of color, students, and healing practitioners and edited anthologies for marginalized writers. To follow ena’s work, please visit her website at: enaganguly.com and follow her on social media @enaganguly.

The day I lost my shit it was unavoidable. I zoomed throughout my house for most of the day, rapid-fire responding to work emails, scrambling to find a quiet and slightly less toy-cluttered corner for client video calls, keeping an eye on my daughter who moved locations in the blink of an eye, while trying not to trip over our antsy goldendoodle who craved attention as much as he craved treats. By dark, my body still buzzed like an electrical discharge from the dozens of tasks I had completed in less than ten hours.

Brown rice and chicken would send me over the edge. A surprise to both me and my daughter, who, while not totally innocent in my breakdown, was the most naive participant. “GENEVIEVE,” I shrieked, my blood boiling as I took in the mess. The dinner I had spent thirty minutes preparing was now splattered across the kitchen floor as our dog licked up scraps. My daughter giggled, unaware that my high-pitched tone and bulging eyes weren’t part of a game. She was simply being a toddler, rejecting food she didn’t want. A situation my younger self knew far too well.

I dropped to my knees to pick up the sticky rice, creating space between my rational self, the version that knew this was my daughter exercising autonomy, and my rageful self, the version pissed that I was cleaning up her mess while being laughed at. There’s no way I would’ve gotten away with this as a kid, I thought.

Dinner was just the beginning. Bathtime was worse. My daughter protested, then pushed and fought her way out of the tub, a calming ritual for us on any other day. With exasperation, I whisked my daughter out of the tub as her screams trailed us to her bedroom. The sooner she went to bed, the sooner I could breathe. And maybe self-soothe with a glass of wine.

Mid-scream, my partner walked in from work, wide-eyed with concern. “She’s fine!” I barked at him. It was rare for our daughter to have meltdowns. And seeing his fiancé put a diaper and onesie on with such speed must’ve shocked him.

As my fingers dragged the zipper up to her face, I stopped. Tears poured down her soft, fluffy cheeks. I broke into sobs. “I’m so sorry, baby,” I sobbed, cradling her. Empty apologies had been plentiful in my household growing up, but I’d vowed to be different. I snuggled her tight before bed, guilt swarming me for not having more patience, more compassion for such a helpless little human. Then fear took over. Was I becoming the woman I had worked so hard to leave behind?

The last time I heard my mother’s voice was the day my OB-GYN confirmed my pregnancy. Filled with joy, I bounced out of the doctor’s office, only to click play on a voicemail from my mother going off. The “space” I had asked for months prior wasn’t honored. And in turn, I blocked her on every possible online channel where she could reach me. This infuriated her.

Even in my mid-thirties, her piercing tone and cutthroat anger still sent shockwaves through me. I tried to untangle my mother’s intention in the last two minutes of our dying connection. I fast forwarded the message, hoping her tone would soften, searching for a glimmer of compassion from the woman who physically and emotionally harmed me. I went from blissfully imagining my daughter growing inside of me, to feeling dysregulated, stuck in fight or flight from the woman who created me. If I were to maintain any peace during my pregnancy, I had to cut her off.

Instead of baby proofing while pregnant, I angry-mommy-proofed. I went into overdrive to rid myself of every toxic parenting tool my mother had used on me. I would never yell at my child. I would never force her to eat her food or hug anyone she didn’t want to. I would never apologize for my behavior and then repeat the same mistake. I would never make her responsible for my feelings and I would never invalidate her feelings, even during a meltdown. And I would never, under any circumstances, hit her. That I would stand by until the day I died.

Looking back, fragments of my mother—both good and bad—lived inside of me long before I removed her imprint from every fiber of my being. Her Sagittarius sun energy showed up in my adventurous personality, feeding off of my airy Gemini rising. As a kid, I’d roll my eyes when people called my mom “fun,” until I realized I was fun too. Like her.

I got her gift of gab and ability to charm anyone in arm’s reach. But I fought off her tendency toward negativity and gossip. I loved those close to me and protected them fiercely. Talking bad about anyone who I loved was low vibrational. And yet, I ignored that I was repeating how my mother showed up in relationships: control, control, and control some more.

When I hear people discuss nature vs. nurture, I strain to separate the two. What part is nature and what part is nurture if they both came from the same woman? And how do I reclaim my identity when so much of me is biologically and environmentally shaped by her words, moods, and the world she built around me, attached to someone who I do not want to be?

The morning after the meltdown my daughter and I had, I lay in bed waiting to hear her cry, ready to jump into action. I fantasized about marching into therapy that week to confess how terrible of a mother I was because I’d yelled at my toddler. My therapist would validate my negative self-talk and hand me my punishment, whatever that would be.

Then, I heard the soft, gentle words, “You are not your mother.” I turned to my left, looking at my partner who was still dead asleep. The words echoed again in my head. They weren’t his. They weren’t mine. They were from an old therapist I saw during my pregnancy, when I failed the mental health questionnaire my doctor gave me. “It’s better that we get you some help now, before the baby comes,” he’d told me.

Anxiety ran circles around me back then, making me ruminate on every possible way to perfect the world before my baby girl arrived. I found a random therapist who listened to me rant about breaking generational curses, healing my trauma, not controlling my partner, staying positive, never wanting to hit my kid, building wealth and on, and on and on. “I’m afraid I’ll be like my mother,” I finally admitted, sobbing.

“But you are not your mother,” she said. From the first few minutes of our first and last session, I knew this Black therapist with a straightforward, firm demeanor said what she meant and meant what she said. I trusted her immediately. And I believed her. I was not my mother. I never would be.

Lying in bed, waiting for my daughter to summon me, I felt that same clarity, confidence, and permission to be imperfect. I would mother with intention and allow myself to fumble. That meant letting my kid watch too much TV when I was exhausted, accidentally raising my voice when my fuse was short, bribing her with dessert to eat dinner, or waiting two weeks to wash her hair, just to avoid the inevitable screams. A better mother wasn’t one who never made mistakes. It was one who acknowledged them and worked to be better.

Mothering as a recovering perfectionist isn’t easy. At first I thought distance alone, and doing everything differently, would be enough to break the cycle. But perfectionism is just another kind of fear. Therapy helps. Grace helps. They keep me focused on who I am instead of who I fear becoming. It’s a dizzying dance I do every day.

After all, who says breaking cycles means never stepping in the same footprints?

Join Open Secrets Magazine, Shanetta McDonald and writer ena ganguly on Tuesday, November 18 at 7 pm ET for a Substack Live Q&A on the reality of family estrangement. Watch via this link or in the Substack app.

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Shanetta McDonald is a writer, publicist, and somatic life coach. Her essays have been featured in Allure, InStyle, Essence, Refinery29, and Well+Good. Through her agency and coaching practice, she helps women, BIPOC, and queer leaders share their stories and take up space with confidence.

I ought to start this by saying that I absolutely adored my grandmother. I lived with her for a good portion of my childhood and teens, and she has shaped the person I am today. She was hilarious, glamorous, the life of every party, and partial to some emotional manipulation to ensure we remembered her. She used to love telling me that when she died, I could have her jewelry, and would even go so far as to force me to pick out a piece that would remind me of her the most while I sobbed into my pajama top, beside myself with the knowledge that she would one day die. I was 11.

But when she got sick, especially toward the end, when she was really sick, when I was in my late twenties, her death couldn’t have come quickly enough for me. It’s taken me a long time to confront that reality and to understand that feeling that way wasn’t evil or heartless; in fact, it was perhaps the most compassionate response I could have had.

I don’t know why Alzheimer’s has been gifted the aphorism of “The Long Goodbye;” it really ought to be rebranded as “The Perpetual Hello.” It starts with the annoying phase: repeated sentences, forgotten or misplaced items, constantly re-explaining plans, or having to endure the fake laugh at the punch line of a joke because you can see they just haven’t understood. The annoying phase is that scary cliffhanger feeling when you know something isn’t right, but you’d like to continue pretending it’s because they weren’t listening properly or hadn’t been paying attention. That’s perhaps the time when you, the unafflicted, are the cruelest. Desperate to blame them, before you can acknowledge the truth staring you both in the face.

Then comes the hilarious phase: calling everyone by the wrong names, telling bizarre stories to the baffled waitress, sitting down in the dog’s bed at Christmas. This is the point where you, the unafflicted, are perhaps your most naïve. Okay, this is manageable, it’s not so bad, and we all seem okay. Until, of course, you understand how horribly misguided and in denial you were. Because it eventually ends in the I really want you to die, and for all this suffering to end phase.

Looking back now, the sheer mental exhaustion of trying to care for someone with Alzheimer’s seems like some sort of chaotic-good fever dream. But at the time, it was unbearably difficult to live through, and anyone who has cared for someone with such an illness will understand the near impossibility of it.

I’ll give you an example of a typical day caring for someone with a degenerative brain disease. It was a bright day nearing the chill of autumn when my mum just needed to get out of the house. She couldn’t face another day of shepherding my grandma away from the perilous stairs, or distracting her from the delusion that her parents (who were long dead) were waiting for her to return home to the farm.

My mum, I should mention, had also had a year of shit health. She’d had two partial foot amputations due to complications with diabetes, had lost her father to diabetes-related illness in the same year, and had been told that cataracts would likely take her eyesight given time. It’s no surprise really that she wasn’t feeling tip top as one of my grandmother’s primary carers, so I tried to help out as much as I could. I guess that’s why when she asked if we could all just go out in the car, I stupidly agreed.

As you can imagine, with only two half feet, my mum wasn’t the steadiest. To help address this, she had purchased the world’s heaviest mobility scooter from Facebook Marketplace. It took three (able-bodied) people to get into the boot of my car, earning it the unaffectionate nickname of the “immobility scooter.”

Also not hot on mobility was my grandmother, who would occasionally deign to be pushed along in her wheelchair. However, the wheelchair, which was generously gifted by the NHS, didn’t fold properly and had to be balanced precariously on top of the scooter.

With absolutely top-notch mobility was our rescue ex-police dog, Luna, who somehow guilt-tripped us into coming. Luna, who failed her police academy training because she wasn’t aggressive enough, had been with us for about a year at the time. Having now been Luna’s family for nearly five years, I can safely tell you that “not being aggressive enough” was the least of the police’s worries.

Having finally wrestled everyone and their spare parts into the car, we set off. Grandma was always happy in transit; I think it’s because she felt like she was going to wherever it was she needed to be. But when we arrived anywhere, she grew anxious again. Where was her husband? Were the children waiting for her at the school gates?

But this time, grandma wasn’t happy, Luna leapt from the front to the back, toppling the wheelchair and screaming with uncontained dog frustration at being in transit, for unlike grandma, Luna was anxious to get somewhere, anywhere, and absolutely delighted when she arrived.

When we finally did arrive at the park, it was a disaster. I couldn’t get my grandma to stay in the wheelchair long enough for me to heave the mobility scooter out of the boot, and when I accidentally dropped the scooter battery on my mum’s remaining sliver of foot, she let go of the dog, who promptly attacked a Cavalier King Charles.

When we finally got going, my grandma frantically told passersby, twisting round in her wheelchair, that I had killed her children. Only I laughed. Nervous. Awkward. Bordering on hysterical. The dog kept frantically trying to rip the wheels off my mum’s mobility scooter, and finally, my grandmother, having had enough of the debacle, got up, and walked off into the trees. I really couldn’t blame her.

When we finally made it back to the house, my mum, who was now beyond stressed, barked orders at me till I ran away to the loo. I remember sitting there staring at my phone, slowly disassociating, my mum still ceaselessly giving orders, when something in me just snapped.

“CAN I JUST HAVE A PISS IN PEACE?”

I could hear distant laughter from my sister as my mum ascended the stairs on all fours and told me I must resolve to sort my anger issues out.

This memory is funny to me now, but at the time, I remember feeling on the brink of madness, hopelessness, and rage.

There were better times, bittersweet ones, where something, often music, would bring my grandma back to herself, if only for a few precious minutes.

To this day, I can’t listen to “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley without crying. My grandma, who always used to tell me I “belonged on the stage,” was a performer herself. She had a beautiful voice and such incredible presence. I would only have to start singing “Wise Men Say,” and she would sing the rest, remembering each word, each note, each delicate pause for breath.

Likewise, to this day I can’t listen to Edith Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” without smiling. Whenever I tried to sing this in an overly French way, singing each word in the back of the throat, grandma would laugh until she was breathless.

But eventually, she could no longer sing, and she could no longer laugh. She slowly forgot how to walk, how to cough, how to swallow, how to tell us in any means possible that she needed something. She forgot our faces and our voices, and she never felt safe. No matter where she was.

Finally, her illness took everything from her but her capacity to inhale, exhale, repeat, and it was during this time, looking down at her tiny frame, barely raising the bed sheets, that I wished for her to die.

This powerhouse of a woman, who had once been the life, the soul, the party, the center of everyone’s captivated attention, this person who had made strangers laugh and turned heads with her glamour, this essence of song and joy and vibrancy, had been reduced to a terrified shell of a human. I could see that the sun had long since set on the “hilarious phase.”

I don’t blame people who shy away from the suffering phase; it’s horrendous to look upon someone you love turned into someone you don’t recognize. I also have the most enormous respect for healthcare workers who know how to treat such people with dignity and care.

I could no longer see a person when I looked at my grandma. I say now without shame for myself or judgment for others who have thought the same, that I wanted her to die. Because what I really wanted, and what I believe the majority of people who have had similar thoughts really want, is to wish them peace.

When death did come, it wasn’t really a relief, though I was suddenly free to remember her as she was without being confronted by who she had become.

The experience of death itself wasn’t all bad. I went round one final time to visit my grandma before heading back to London. It was one of those still winter nights, where the darkness seems to go on forever, shushing the world in its velvet caress. I breathed that night in good and deep before I went inside.

I was only in my late twenties; I didn’t know how to approach the inevitability of death with the pragmatism of my mother or the heartfelt, unabashed emotion of my step-grandfather. It seems strange, but in that moment of panicked hesitation, an understanding rose up into my being and guided me through. I rubbed moisturizer into her cheeks and drew her eyebrows back on. I brushed her hair, and filed her nails, and tried in vain to get her to have some water. I held her hand and spoke softly to her. I told her of all that I had achieved, that her illness had sadly made her miss. I read her a few passages from her favorite childhood book, The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley, and of course, I sang Elvis. Then, feeling it was time, I leaned in close and said to her, “Hilary Morgan, the stars are waiting for you.” I knew that the afterlife would have bored her to tears, so I tried to make it sound more like an after-party, which I was sure would have tempted her. Then I kissed her on her forehead and tried to leave without anyone seeing me cry.

A few days later, she had the absolutely fabulous timing of dying on New Year’s Day, which I think was genius of her. Each New Year’s Eve, I will raise a glass to my grandma and the person she was.

Lately, the older, more fonder memories have been coming back to me, the ones of my grandmother before she was sick. I can recall singing with her in the bathtub, making her laugh until she cried while my little sister and I did performances of Crocodile Dundee (my little sister was the crocodile), and walking across the sand dunes with her and her two beautiful Irish Red Setters. I remember her voice and the dulcet tones of her singing. I can recall sneaking into her dressing room and spraying her perfume onto the sleeves of my clothes so I could smell her when we were apart. I remember my friends, all a little tipsy before a night out, standing around her kitchen island and asking her for advice, my grandmother among them like some kind of oracle, clinking her ice in her gin and lemonade. Mostly, I remember laughing with her, for she really was quite wicked.

In the almost two years since she left us, the feeling of shame and guilt for wishing death upon her has slowly melted in the warmth of these memories. I’ve been able to finally see the compassion that was there all along.

I also think my grandmother picked New Year’s Day to die because January 2 is my mum’s birthday. My mum, who has always complained she has the worst birthday, clearly thought it couldn’t get any worse, and grandma knew just how to add to it.

But that was my grandma for you: hilarious, glamorous, the life of every party, and partial to some emotional manipulation to ensure we remembered her.

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Born in the South Island of New Zealand, Oliviah Rix-Taylor spent her childhood mostly shoeless and surrounded by outrageous scenery. When she was seven, she emigrated with her Welsh mother to a stunning coastal region of Wales. She studied Geography at Leeds university and went on to undertake a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and later a Ph.D. on the exploration of truth in dystopian literature. That insight, coupled with a lifelong love of physics and the nature of reality, inspired her to write her first novel, The Midnight Castle.

“I don’t know if this is going to work, Mom,” I said.

We were at the US Open in New York City in September 2023, waiting in line to get into Arthur Ashe stadium. We had tickets for Louis Armstrong, not Ashe, but my mom was convinced that we’d be able to get in. “I promise, I did this with Dad a few years ago,” she said.

The person scanning tickets was having a lengthy conversation with the group in front of us, and I became increasingly skeptical that her plan would work. Even my mom was losing certainty. “Well, if we don’t get in, they’ll just think we’re a couple of brazen hussies for trying!” she said. My mom has always had a way with words.

In the end, the brazen hussies did get into Ashe, pleased that pushing our luck had gotten us a peek at the main stage. We oohed and aahed as rising young star Carlos Alcaraz played the veteran Brit Dan Evans, admiring Alcaraz’s signature drop shots and blazing speed on the court.

My mom grew up watching tennis with her mom in Ireland on a grainy black-and-white TV, and I grew up watching tennis with her in the 90s and 2000s on the Connecticut shoreline, cheering on Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf to Roger Federer and the Williams sisters.

When I was away at college and Federer, my all-time favorite, lost the 2008 Wimbledon final to his rival Rafael Nadal, my mom called me once the match was over. “Are you okay?” she asked. Only she could understand my heartbreak, as a fellow fan who’d spent countless hours with me watching Federer glide across the court. Our shared obsession with tennis put us on the same wavelength, whether we were together or apart.

Since I’d moved back to the East coast in 2018, my mom and I had gone to the US Open together several times, an end-of-summer ritual that I always looked forward to.

But I didn’t know if we’d be going back in 2024.

In October 2023, my mom had brain surgery. A recent MRI scan had revealed that she had a meningioma in the frontal lobe of her brain, a visible bump on the front of her head that had sat there for many years. It was a benign tumor that, if it grew large enough, could start pressing on parts of her brain and cause serious problems.

She decided that she wanted surgery to remove it. We knew the procedure entailed some risk—it was brain surgery, after all—but that in all likelihood, things would be fine, and she could be fully recovered in six to eight weeks.

I was at work the day of her surgery while my dad and brother were with her at the hospital. I texted her first thing in the morning: Thinking of you, sending lots of love. I checked my phone for updates all day, the only thing I could do to feel like I had any illusion of control over the situation while telling myself that everything was going to be fine.

Later in the morning, my brother sent an update. The doctors said the surgery had been successful. They had removed the entire tumor. Everything had gone smoothly.

I FaceTimed my family as soon as I could. My mom looked weak, her head heavily bandaged, tubes snaking across the hospital bed. She barely seemed to register my face on the screen and could only respond with one-word answers. Despite the reports of success from the doctors, my mom wasn’t my mom.

Worried and eager to do something to help, I drove to Connecticut that weekend. Normally, my mom would be the first one to greet me at the door, giving me a kiss and a hug before peppering me with questions and filling me in on the goings-on in our small town. Now, she stayed seated on the couch and only gave me a muted “Hello” when I walked into the living room and leaned down to embrace her. I was alarmed by how quiet she was, how little she had to say.

The stark change was hard to see. I was grateful that she was alive and walking around, but her doctors couldn’t give us any real answers on when she would recover from the effects of the surgery. This wasn’t the brazen hussy I’d gone to the US Open with only the summer before, and I was terrified that she’d never come back.

For the next several months, progress felt slow. She started talking more, but still only a sentence or two at a time. I couldn’t tell what was going on inside of her. At Christmas, her favorite holiday, a time when she typically would have been baking something delicious every day and corralling us all for freezing walks on the beach, I asked her how she was feeling. She replied, almost as a matter of fact, “Well, I’m not jumping for joy.”

Finally, things started to take a positive turn in March 2024. Watching the UConn basketball teams carries my mom through the winter every year, and she texted me paw print and basketball emojis after each of the teams’ wins through the NCAA tournament. She smiled more often on our weekly family video chats. We traded updates on the tennis tournaments leading up to the French Open, both of us rooting for the new stars Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner as well as the return of our beloved Nadal (I’d forgiven him for his Wimbledon win by then).

In July, I visited Connecticut for a few days to see in person that she was doing better, to make sure that she was truly back to herself. It also happened to be the first week of Wimbledon, so we binge-watched tennis matches together, sweating through a heat wave while the players in England dealt with chilly rain delays.

“Alcaraz is off his oats!” my mom said as we watched him battle American Frances Tiafoe in a tight five-set match, his level dipping from his usual superhuman abilities.

“Like a horse?” I asked. She still manages to pull out colorful expressions I’ve never heard before, even after 35 years of my existence. We laughed. The brazen hussy was back.

A couple months later over Labor Day weekend, we returned to the US Open once again. Just like the previous year, we buzzed from court to court, spotting the new hotshot Jack Draper on Grandstand and lining up to see American Tommy Paul keep a talented young Canadian, Gabriel Diallo, at bay.

As we walked back to our car on the warm summer night, I thanked my mom for taking me again this year. I didn’t have to say how much more precious it felt, how much of a relief and a joy it was to spend the day with her after not knowing if we’d be able to do this again. She waved me off, replying, “It’s a pleasure to go with someone who loves it as much as I do.”

She should know. After all, I learned to love it from her.

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Akemi Ueda is a writer and high school English teacher living in the Boston area. She completed the year-long Essay Incubator course in 2024 at Grub Street in Boston and has a Master’s in English Literature from Stanford University. Her work has been published in Mochi Magazine.

In elementary school, my family lived in an idyllic apartment complex I still remember clearly. It was in southern, sunny California. The buildings were clay brown, and the neighborhood had ample grassy areas, hills to tumble down on like roly-polies, while cackling at the hilarity of it all. Huge olive trees grew yearly, erupting many neighbors’ (and my family’s) seasonal allergies.

It was a lovely community, family-friendly, with people from all backgrounds and immigration histories: a ton of Korean Americans, which probably attracted my parents there in the first place. Pools, hot tubs, and recreational areas were constantly bustling with excited children playing outside, while their parents were chattering amongst themselves, but also vigilantly keeping one eye on their children at all times. This neighborhood was one of the few things I enjoyed about my childhood.

It was a reprieve from my dad’s temper, where he would often yell and threaten to hit me for normal child behaviors, like when I imagined the walls of our apartment were a canvas for my crayon-induced coloring fantasy. I thought I was an artiste; turns out I was the bane of my dad’s existence. I could see the swelling rage in his eyes as I heard him mumbling about how I’d just cost him the rental deposit. I didn’t even know what a rental deposit was. Did I just make my family homeless or something? If he wasn’t upset with me, he would pick fights with my mom, flipping over our dining table because she wouldn’t leave him in peace while he ate like the king he was.

I was able to briefly forget my tumultuous excuse of a home, as there was some semblance of safety when I actually played outside. Like a normal millennial kid. Jump roping, skip-it-ing, tumbling, hide-and-seeking!

One of our community neighbors had befriended me, making me feel special as she was the all-American girl whose life seemed as idyllic as our neighborhood. She looked like one of the models in the Limited Too catalogues, wearing clothes that my parents couldn’t afford, except for that one “special” striped, creamsicle colored t-shirt they bought for me from the sales rack. My parents made a big deal about them having bought me a name-brand shirt from the mall. I felt indebted to them, concerned that I wasn’t worthy of a $9.99 shirt, that I must become the best and most well-behaved daughter there ever was. Every time I wore the shirt, it was a reminder to be on my best behavior. It was my favorite shirt for years before it ultimately got torn to shreds in the washer.

My friend had the prettiest White face with blonde hair and large, twinkling eyes. I can’t remember the color of them, but they twinkled, nonetheless. They made my small brown Asian eyes (eyes I've grown to love as an adult but struggled with as a child) feel muddy and murky as hers reflected the bright outdoor sun. She was a couple years older than I was, and I don’t believe we ever hung out with each other at school. To be honest, I can’t remember if we went to the same school. That’s how bad my memory is. I can’t even remember her name. For the sake of this story, though, I’ll name her Prue, after one of the most powerful eldest sister characters on the TV show Charmed.

We became fast friends and would often visit each other’s apartments, as we were only a two-minute walk, or a one-minute hop-skip-and-jump-away from each other. I distinctly remember one afternoon, when she visited me. We were in my room playing some derivative of Pictionary and the category was “TV show.” Prue drew on my white board multiple pictures that looked like either a baby bottle or a hat. (To be honest, it looked like a nipple, which made me realize just how much cooler and mature my friend was compared to me. What kind of shows was she watching?!). It turned out to be a bell. The answer was Saved by the Bell, which I barely knew.

As an Asian child of immigrants, I wasn’t hip to most American TV as a youngster, and shows about those “crazy, rebellious” White teenagers were quietly frowned upon in my family. My parents didn’t have to explicitly tell me not to watch “those shows.” I just knew not to, except on occasion when I would sneak a peek at taboo channels while my parents were distracted by other things. To this day, I think parental controls are still on for the FX channel whenever I go to my parents’ house. God forbid I want to watch some American Horror Story, not live it. Prue laughed at my not knowing much about American pop culture, as I sheepishly giggled with her. While I was aware she was teasing me, I didn’t feel bad because I also knew she wasn’t actively meaning me harm. She was my friend, and she was truly kind.

While my parents both identify as some version of Christian, they never actively practiced religion and didn’t take it upon themselves to drag me to church. (Gasp! I know! I don’t have religious trauma like many of my peers. I feel quite fortunate in that regard). So, while I went to church to spend time with my friends, I didn’t suffer much of the Christian guilt, nor did I celebrate most Christian holidays as a child.

But one year, on an Easter Sunday, I visited Prue’s apartment and was welcomed by her and her parents. Her parents smiled brightly at me. Her dad’s bald head shimmering with sweat. Her mom, the perfect Barbie doll, next to her Mr. Clean. The way they were standing there together, beaming at me, made for a pretty picture. They looked like the beautiful White families framed in stock photos that I would see in Walmart, always fantasizing about how perfect their lives must be. My parents could never.

But this wasn’t just a photograph; it was better. It was real. And somehow, I had been invited into their intimate family as one of their own. I had once asked my mom if she would drop me off at a local orphanage so I could find another family who could love me. She was obviously upset at my request, but maybe with Prue and her parents, she’d understand and let me live with the family I was meant to be with? I could see the excitement on Prue’s and her parents’ warm faces, thrilled to have me over because they had planned an Easter egg hunt for me. For me! The ultimate prize would be a big chocolate bunny! Oh boy, was I excited!

I didn’t realize until later in my adulthood just how strange it was that Prue didn’t join me in the egg hunt. Was she ordered to remain on the sidelines, acting like my cheerleader? My hope is that she had her own egg hunt earlier, but the realistic part of my brain knows that most likely wasn’t the case. Perhaps it was part of her father’s plan to portray their family as the perfect, safe refuge in our neighborhood. Or maybe he was playing out his version of the white savior complex.

I giggled and squealed in delight as I completely trashed their front lawn and small excuse of a backyard, hungrily searching for those tie-dye eggs. RIP flowers and, wow, so sorry for kicking dirt everywhere and completely ruining their home. Yet despite my destruction, they continued to encourage me, smiles radiating on their faces as I went on a rampage-fueled egg-hide-and-seek.

Though it was my first (and last) Easter egg hunt ever, I fucking killed it! I found all the eggs peeking out from floral beds, half-assedly placed in the dirt. They couldn’t hide from me and my chocolate rage. I would win that Easter bunny; I would be triumphant! And I was. I was victorious.

Since then, I’ve had a funny affection for candy bunnies. One of my favorite memes is a picture of two chocolate bunnies, facing each other, with dialogue bubbles. One bunny says, “My butt hurts,” while the other bunny replies with, “What?” Turns out the former bunny’s chocolate rump was bitten off, while the latter bunny’s confectionary ears were chomped away. Hilarious.

To this day, every Easter season, I can’t buy myself a chocolate bunny. Not because I don’t want one, not because I can’t afford one, but because the idea of eating one, consuming its sugary flesh seems so cruel, so wrong.

A few weeks after my very first Easter egg hunt, when I’d fully considered Prue’s place my second home, I found myself sauntering over to their apartment again on another average, whatever, not-so-special day. The weather was calm, the sky was blue, and I was excited at the thought of being able to have more fun with Prue.

But when I got to her apartment, she seemed preoccupied. Nervous. I saw her mom quickly walk out from one room into the next. And while I could tell something was off, I still asked, “Hey, wanna play?”

I can’t remember who said it, but either Prue or her mom responded, “Not now. We can’t.”

“Why not?” I whined. I felt rejected, and it activated my brattiness. I didn’t like being silenced, nor did I appreciate the lack of attention that was usually so abundantly given by this family.

“Shh! Be quiet please! We’re running away!” Desperation filled the air.

That was when I noticed the suitcases on the floor. Half-filled luggage with clothes hastily strewn about. I just thought they hadn’t had time to clean up. I didn’t realize that the mess was because they were running for their lives. I looked up and saw Prue’s mother had a black eye. Those same sparkly eyes my friend had inherited, except one of her mother’s was framed by dark bruises. At first glance, I thought it was 90s makeup gone wrong or a recent fad I wasn’t aware of. Too much purple eyeshadow. I was mistaken.

“Please be quiet! We don’t want him to hear us!” one of them attempted to shush me.

At that point, I still didn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation. But I had enough tact and had probably learned from my own trauma when to stay silent to be safe. I left, but I can’t recall when or how.

Did I say goodbye? Did I run home? Did I hug my friend one last time? Did I say that I’d call her later? Did I realize that would be the last time I’d see her?

Did I make too much noise that my friend’s father found out, and she and her mother couldn’t get away? Did my dumb childishness put them in even more danger? Was he even in the house while they were frantically packing their belongings? Or were they packing because he wasn’t there, and they knew this would be their best chance at freedom? How dangerous was he? Who was he? Was he even Prue’s father? Did my friend and her mom escape? Safely? Where did they go? Where are they now?

Are they alive?

My little self knew it was a scary, dangerous situation. Yet there was a part of me that somehow didn’t find it surprising at all. This was just another example that confirmed to me that men are supposed to be feared. That men are dangerous. That men are not safe. That men are monsters you eventually need to escape from. I knew that feeling. Because I had packed up a suitcase before, too.

My mom had mentioned something once about leaving my dad. I’m not even sure she meant for me to hear. Maybe it was an off comment she thought she had whispered to herself. Regardless, she didn’t need to say more. I immediately got my little pastel pink and blue Lambchop suitcase out from my closet and prepared for our getaway. But all I could think of to pack were a doll and a pair of pajamas. Those were my prized possessions.

I never got to use my suitcase because my mom stayed. And since she stayed, I had no choice but to stay, too.

What did my friend pack? I don’t remember seeing any toys in her suitcase. I guess she truly understood how much danger she and her mother were in. I hope she’s okay. I hope she’s safe somewhere. I hope she’s thriving. Her family life was also frightening, life-threatening, and yet she was always intentional about making me feel loved, like I belonged, that I deserved to feel safe. She was the older sister I never had but always wanted. I hope she knows how safe she made me feel when my dad made me want to run away, ready at any second to pick up my pastel suitcase and head off to nowhere.

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Parker Jin (a pseudonym) is a Korean American mental health therapist living somewhere in the netherworld of the United States. She’s passionate about spreading awareness about Complex trauma/PTSD, learning more about humble and decolonized approaches to therapy, and helping others in their healing journey. She’s currently writing a memoir to share her own experiences with Complex PTSD. In her spare time, she likes to take naps where dreams blend between her unconscious and reality, reading, and cuddling with her menace of a rescue pup, who is the love of her life.

My Father Was Never a Dad

My father doesn’t deserve to hear the kindness in the word dad because he never acted like one

My elementary school lied to me.

We had these Arabic lessons on the importance of family. They would teach us stories and poems about why we should love our fathers and then why we should love our mothers. Again and again, they would repeat these two orders. Only briefly would they mention what matters to my older self: your father should love you. This was mentioned once or twice, but I think that even if they said it a hundred times, it still wouldn’t become my truth.

“What exactly is my truth?” I would ask myself whenever I looked in a mirror; despite never getting an answer, I would still ask. Delusion could take you so far, but not far enough.

I must have a truth. We all should have one, but mine is hard to admit. I’m not the best at writing novels because I’m not good at solving conflicts; I’m only good at creating them. I would give the reader a sample of my life where I let my legs lead me toward conflicts and I would enlarge them and then I would do nothing. Does staring count? Because sometimes I would stare at my father, but that doesn’t make me stop hating him.

Yes, I just betrayed what my Arabic lessons taught me, but my father betrayed them too. Love should come from both sides and my instinct to love him was stolen from me by his hate. He is an angry man. Someone you should fear, and you can’t imagine how much I feared him. (I try to tell twenty-four-year-old me that I don’t fear him anymore, but that’s a lie).

He would scare young and old alike and he never minded that kids would cry when he looked at them. I believe that a new wrinkle gets added to his face every time he makes someone cry. I gave him most of his wrinkles, just like he had given me all the mental illnesses that my therapist told me I had. At least I don’t have daddy issues. I have what I like to call man issues. This is when you hate all men, even the ones who aren’t scary. You hate them all because you’re waiting for the yelling or trying to guess where the next punch will land or trying to know how many times will they make you cry during the week.

I always skip any TikTok video with the sound “I hate all men.” I skip before the “but” part comes because my hate has no buts, just like my father’s hate has no reason. This was also hard to come to terms with. It took me years to convince myself that I didn’t do anything bad enough to make him hate me. He is just an angry man who ruined the 1+1=2 equation.

I made up my own version: you know someone + you hurt him = he starts hating you. The only part that exists in this equation is the result because I never knew my father. I only know that he is an angry man who made me an angry woman with man issues. An angry woman who still has a young girl inside of her crying and begging someone to tell her why her father hates her. Or why he isn’t kind? Or why he doesn’t look or sound like the other kids’ dads?

Or why he is an angry man.

My elementary school lied to me again.

The teachers would ignore the curriculum to give us a life lesson every single class and a recurring lesson was that your parents are allowed to be mad at you. They are allowed to be angry. They are allowed to hit you. They are allowed to commit all these crimes because you must have done something bad. So we should sit there and let them take out their anger on us and then they would be our loving parents once again.

I’m now twenty-four years old and I’m still sitting here letting my father take out his anger on me. He was never a loving father, so my elementary teachers did lie. Perhaps my father was a version that never came with the curriculum. Or perhaps I was never the kid who would make their dad a loving father.

In fact, I don’t think I ever was a kid because kids don’t have to learn about hate before they get to know love. Kids don’t have to grow up crying in the streets because crying in their house equaled being given more reasons to cry about.

In my country, Egypt, we only celebrate Mother’s Day. We don’t even know anything about Father’s Day. It is like heresy to us, but recently people started celebrating it, while I had one more reason to cry. It was already hard enough to hear my friends talking about their dads while I thought of going home to find my father with his usual frown, yelling at me for something neither of us knew, since he would sometimes do it for no discernible reason. Now I have to see millions of Egyptians posting photos with their dads and saying kind words and getting kind words in return. The only time I heard kind words coming from my father was in my dreams and these have been rare. Nightmares are more frequent.

Since I will never get the chance to honestly write, “Dad, I’m thankful for having you in my life,” I would like to write “Father, I’m thankful for you because you taught me how to hate and how to be angry. You taught me to be you, although this was a lesson I didn’t ask for.”

Of course, I won’t tell him that just like I would never tell myself that I still fear him.

What else could I be thankful for? Maybe the fact that whenever I apply to any job I have to answer a question about whether I’m disabled or not. My answer has always been “Yes.” My eyes would scan the list of illnesses that they provided and I would count what I have just like I did when my therapist first told me that I’m broken; that is what I heard.

Depression. Anxiety. Borderline Personality Disorder. PTSD. Maybe there are more that my therapist didn’t realize existed, and maybe she will never notice. How could she when her patient sees her every couple of months because I have to lie about going to therapy? So thank you father for teaching me how to lie.

Thank you for breaking me. Or ruining me. Or both.

He ruined many things just like he did with my memories of elementary school One time a teacher was asking us the usual classist question “What is your father’s job?” My answer was a “beggar” because of how many times my father told us that he didn’t have money to spend on us. He always had money for himself. This was the first time my mom was called to school. What an amazing childhood.

When Jennette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died came out, I said, “Cool, I can write something similar.” I only have to wait until my father dies. I’m counting. I’m also praying, despite not being a religious person; when your abuser passes seventy years old and he doesn’t seem to be near death, you try any option available. I tried to die first, but that was a failure.

I also failed at teaching myself to speak kind words, but that’s because I was never introduced to them. I was never introduced to a good reason to call my father “Dad.” It’s too kind of a word and he’s too angry of a man. I’m too broken to try to be shaped into whatever form he wants to see me in.

I spent years searching for an explanation about the hate and anger inside him. Then he passed them down to me. I became the female version of him when it comes to being filled with hate and anger. Now I have to pretend that I’m surprised whenever someone says that we’re similar. But I know we are. We’re similar despite my attempts to be nothing like him. My mom once told me that I have the same loud sneeze as him. So sometimes I practice holding my sneeze so I won’t think of myself as his daughter.

I tried to search for answers in therapy. In the last four years, I’ve seen three therapists. The first two told me that he was a psychopath. My new therapist told me he has some kind of paranoia. Even in therapy I carry reminders of him inside me, so many that my therapists have to give two diagnoses: one for me and one for him. But I appreciate that. I hold these explanations close to my heart. I reassure my mom when she is at her weakest that he isn’t a normal person. That we didn’t do anything wrong that made him turn out the way he is.

My family members still have a glimmer of hope that things might turn around. They have hope that one day he will be a dad who provides and protects, not harms and rejects. I don’t share their hope, but I don’t blame them for theirs. He always presents himself as an angel, and sometimes as God, who has never done anything wrong. So it can be easy to believe him when he says that everyone is wrong and he is right. He says it with such authority that you can’t help but doubt yourself.

But I finally stopped doubting myself and my hate for him. Maybe I stopped doubting my hate when he was diagnosed by my therapists. Or maybe I stopped when my step-brother, who had schizophrenia, committed suicide and my father used that event to manipulate us.

I remember the day my step-brother died and how my father’s main concern was how much does meat now cost. His next concern was asking me how to save a Facebook post so he can post it later. I remember staring at him with disbelief as he asked me to make a collage of pictures of my dead step-brother to go along with what he wrote. That day, the doubt stopped because I was looking at someone who looked for attention even when his son has just died.

I feared him on that day. Recently, I admitted to my new therapist how terrified I am of him. She looked at me and joked that she’s also terrified of him. But it wasn’t a joke. I saw in her eyes the fear and I remembered elementary school. I remembered when he visited my class one time while there was no teacher in the room. Chaos was everywhere. The moment my classmates saw him, they stopped playing out of fear of the menacing-seeming man in front of them. When any other dad came to the class, they never stopped playing. My father was the one who brought death to a lively place. Years later, the same classmates tell me they remember how terrifying my father was.

So while my family keeps searching for answers after years of suffering and abuse, I hold the truth I know close to my chest.

I know my truth. It’s one where my father was never a dad.

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Salma Ahmed is a 24-year-old Egyptian writer. You can find her here.

It began with a phone call. A Friday afternoon, mid-January. The sky outside: the color of wet wool. The man’s voice on the line asked if I was the mother of X, and something in the way he said it told me this wasn’t a question. It was an initiation. I knew the cadence. The flattened warmth. I’d worked alongside this system. But this time, the script had my name in it. And it landed like a rupture.

He told me a referral had been made earlier that week.

The air thickened. Sound dropped out. My stomach lifted like it was leaving my body behind. This was the kind of silence that doesn’t mean peace.
It means: you are now under suspicion.

Sam, the social worker, said he’d visit Monday. Each child would be spoken to. Individually. As info-keepers. He said it plainly, like reading out the forecast for a sky that never clears. Then the line went dead.

I just sat there. Mute. My body—a cathedral with no choir. My motherhood had just become a case file.

I’ve always known families get reported. That referrals happen. That safeguarding is essential. But knowing the system and becoming the object of it are different things. Knowing doesn’t make it less violating. It only makes the terms more precise.

This isn't a story of what was said. It's a story about what it does. It doesn't take a finding to fracture you. This is what it means to mother while being watched. Because that’s what it is.

Motherhood isn’t private.

It never was. It is performance under scrutiny—co-directed by state institutions, school staff, GPs, your ex, your mother, your own children, strangers in supermarket aisles, and that quiet judge in your own head who’s absorbed every headline, every whisper, every myth of the “good mother.”

That weekend, I moved through my house like an intruder.

The rooms didn’t need scrubbing. We’re not unkempt; we’re tidy, calm, together. Beds made. Food in cupboards. Laundry folded. Kitchen tops wiped clean.

But now every corner held an imagined tabloid headline, every book cover title a possible implication.^[1] The question wasn’t what needed to change. It was: how will this be read?

I didn’t coach the children. Not because I was brave, but because I was afraid. I didn’t want to influence what they said—even if what they might say, in their naivete, could swing the entire case. I played it neutral. I hosted purgatory.

Monday arrived. Sam turned up wearing a shit-brown puffer coat, slightly too short in the arms. One sleeve bore a crusty stain—snot, yogurt, something viscous and unspoken. He took it off in the hall, looked around, and said, “You couldn’t put this together in a weekend, now could you?”

I wanted to say: Correct. I couldn’t. Not because I’m incapable of staging a house, but because this is my real life. And still—were his words meant to be a compliment? An accusation? A test? Every sentence was a trapdoor. Because this was the man who would determine the shape of our survival. This was who I had to make tea for.

He sat in the playroom. Milky tea. Two sugars. One by one. Oldest to youngest. Interviews conducted alone, while I paced like a stagehand between acts.

I wasn’t allowed in. I understood. But understanding isn’t comfort. It’s just the name we give to powerlessness.

I smiled. I stayed calm. I kept the house humming. Inside, I was screaming.

Consider: How should mothers dress for an inspection with the state? Pale and sleep-deprived? Brisk and ironed? If I appeared too polished, I might be seen as self-involved. If I appeared disheveled, I might be seen as unfit. If I wore makeup, was I vain? If I didn’t, was I depressed?

This wasn’t about vanity. It was about self-regard—the kind mothers are punished for. A mother “wrapped up in herself” or “full of herself” is still one of the worst things a mother can be called. We’re expected to be selfless, spotless, devoted. Any deviation—any expression of self—is suspicious.

The performance of motherhood is brutal like that; every move has an opposite interpretation. There is no safe aesthetic for a mother under scrutiny.

Then, it was my turn. I suggested we move to the dining room. He switched to coffee: black, one sugar. I sipped my Lady Grey tea: black, no milk, no sugar. We spoke for hours. He asked about my childhood, how each child was conceived, raised, supported, my relationships. He asked about structure, discipline, love. He asked, and asked, and asked.

There were moments when I couldn’t tell if he was being gentle or manipulative. “Yours is a large family,” he said, letting it hang. I nodded. As if I hadn’t noticed.

And then he said:

“This home would be more steady if there was a man at the head of it.”

I said, “I see.” Because I did. I saw exactly what he meant.

That steadiness—as he defined it—was male-shaped. Masculine. Legitimiszd by a penis in the home. His script read: woman alone = unstable. Man = anchor. This was misogyny in practice.

Sam looked through his notes. Crossed something out. Added a line. Then said, “Children need to be given what they want, don’t you agree?”

I didn’t. But I didn’t say that. What I did say was, “I hear you.”

He finished his cold dregs. Made a last note. Said he’d be in touch.

Weeks passed. Investigations continued. My ex was interviewed. Nursery submitted statements. The GP weighed in. We lived in limbo. Schools notified. Children speculated. Life still had to be lived: work whirred, bins went out, laundry spun, school fees paid, nursery bags packed. But everything pulsed with radioactivity.

Somewhere among all this, one child muttered under their breath the sentence that carved itself into my bones: “If you don’t do everything I want, I’ll make sure you lose the triplets.”

That’s when I knew: nowhere was safe. Not even my own home.

Months later, Sam returned. Requested to speak again with some of the children. No rationale was given for which ones. Some kids were miffed. Others uninterested. He sipped fresh tea and talked to them in the playroom. I kept breathing.

He was looser this time. Warmer. Said I seemed reasonable. Said I had insight. Apparently, that’s rare. Apparently, my ability to admit “human imperfections” (his phrase) made me trustworthy. I said nothing. Because the stakes for single mothers don’t come with safety nets.

And then, many weeks after it all began, a plain unmarked letter arrived. A bureaucratic whisper. Inside: closure. Or so they said. No further action.

Recommendations: one child might benefit from a separate bedroom (we didn’t have one). A parenting course was available, but unnecessary given the strengths he said he observed.

I couldn’t conjure up a new room. So I did what mothers do: I adapted. I bought an IKEA daybed and turned the playroom into a shared space.

And just like that, the state withdrew. But the stain remained. When your motherhood has been put on trial, it never quite comes back the same.

Because once your mothering has been examined—even temporarily—you don’t go back to who you were before. You learn to live in a house with invisible walls. You carry your children like evidence. You hold your breath every time a school number flashes on your phone. You listen to their words with a new kind of terror: not just for what they say, but for how it might be heard. Interpreted. Misfiled.

You realize how quickly a family can be recast as a case. How swiftly love can be turned into suspicion. And you realize this: the gaze never lifts.

What would it mean to mother without it? I wouldn’t know. I never have.

But I do know the gaze doesn’t land equally. White, articulate, educated, living in a leafy postcode—these things bought me breathing room. They coated the situation in a layer of plausible respectability. Sam, the social worker, noted how articulate the children were. How calm the house felt. As if order and language were proof of good mothering.

For others, it goes differently. For Black mothers. Disabled mothers. Queer mothers. Mothers on benefits and low incomes. Mothers, like me, without partners. Mothers who speak in dialects or who grew up in care. For them, the gaze is heavier. Hungrier. But it watches us all.

Not just through social workers and case files, but through whispers. Comments. Concern masquerading as critique. The neighbor who narrows their eyes. The stranger in your inbox with thoughts about your “lifestyle choices.”

The gaze doesn’t even need to be real to do damage. It only needs to be imagined.

Feminist philospher Sandra Bartky called it the “panoptical male connoisseur”—not just a gaze, but a full-time inhabitant of our minds. A cultivated watcher we internalize and perform for, even when no one’s looking. But for mothers, it’s more than male. It’s maternal. It’s institutional. It’s everywhere. It’s other mothers, too.

And sometimes we become the gaze.

We say: I’d never do that. We say: That couldn’t be me. We say: I’d leave if he ever did that. We say: I don’t know how she lets that happen.

We measure each other against an invisible rubric. The Good Mother. The Real Mother. The Sacrificial Mother. The Steady Mother. The mother who knows her place and stays inside it.

And we do it because we’re afraid.

Because mothers aren’t just caregivers—we’re suspects-in-waiting. Human beings expected to meet inhuman standards. Held to ideals no one could withstand, then judged for the cracks. The confidence, the mess, the needs, the visibility—it all becomes evidence. And the verdict? Always pending.

This is the story of what came after.

How I lived with a body full of static. How I learned to perform ease while pacing through hell. How I began narrating my life in third person, assessing every move like a defense attorney building a case.

I can tell you what it costs to carry a family under surveillance. How it alters your tone, your posture, your sense of time. How it turns your voice into a liability. And I can tell you what happens when the case closes, but the scrutiny moves in and takes up residence.

Because motherhood is still a test you can fail—even when the test is impossible. Even when the standard is inhuman. Even when all you’ve done is be a human being.

You speak.

Not because it’s safe. But because silence is just another way of being watched.

This is not about shame. This is about rupture. This is about the systems that make mothers suspects. And the silence they count on to keep us that way.

It was only after the case closed—after I began to speak—that stories emerged. One friend had been reported by her mother-in-law. Vengeance disguised as concern. Another was investigated after a librarian took issue with the firm tone she used when her eldest misbehaved in the quiet reading area. A third, an online influencer, buried her investigation to protect her brand. She smiles for the feed. She sobs in the kitchen. The pills help. Sometimes.

It happens all the time. We just don’t talk about it.

That shit-brown coat still lives in me—creased into memory, stitched into my spine. The system left. The stain stayed. I don’t forgive the gaze.

I face it. Eyes open. I meet it. Every damn day.

^[1] I moved feminist and political book titles from plain sight. Which books on your bookshelf would you move if you had children’s services coming?

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Danusia Malina-Derben is a mother of ten. From teen mum to tenured academic to boardroom fixer, she’s an award-winning leadership expert trusted by the global brands you bank with and buy from.

She hosts the top 2% podcast Parents Who Think and produces the award-winning family show Seraphina Speaks. Her first book, NOISE: A Manifesto Modernising Motherhood, was praised by The Sunday Times, The Guardian, and Psychologies. Her follow-up, SPUNK: A Manifesto Modernising Fatherhood, was called ‘provocative and compelling’ by The Metro. Danusia lives in the UK with her family.

There’s a cold beer beside me. It’s just past noon. I’ve already smoked three bowls today. I’ve got another packed where a keyboard would usually go on my tiny rolling desk, just waiting.

Just waiting to cook and shrink my brain.

Mother’s Day was a disaster because I could barely stand to spend it with my mom. Dustin, my younger brother, is the same way. I don’t think she realizes that she’s very emotionally draining, and that guilt-tripping and other forms of emotional manipulation just give her less of the closeness she wants.

For example, it was the first conversation of the day by the time she reminded me of a terrible thing my father had done.

I don’t think I get to go a day or have gone a day my whole life without hearing one. I end up drained and retreating to my room or office, not coming out for hours and barely able to get anything done.

Then there’s the expectations.

I wish holidays could be more casual: us spending a few hours together saying our piece and spending our time.

But approaches like that leave her sad and empty. Every approach leaves her sad and empty in a way that takes a little bit from us. There’s literally no way to please her. Dad would make her breakfast and clean the kitchen and all she would focus on were the things he hadn’t done, like when he didn’t buy her a gift because he could only afford to cook, or didn’t take her out because he could only afford a gift. He could surprise her with antique wooden chests or a lizard with tank and full setup, and something sad would come of it.

There’s a fucking curse around every holiday, some suspended breath, brace for impact, especially with anything that revolves around her.

Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe we didn’t try at first and the hurt just reverberated?

No, this came from her family ignoring and abusing her.

I really wish she’d talk to a fucking therapist about it.

I really wish she wouldn’t instead talk to me. But if I don’t want to talk about it, she’ll make it clear that she considers that “silencing” and then won’t talk to anyone about it, and it will all be my fault.

I don’t think she realizes that she kills me with her sheer expectation of being loved the way she defines love.

I don’t know what to do. There are three beer bottles on my little writing desk. It’s twelve-thirty-ish. Luckily two are from last night, but I don’t want to bring them up despite the gnats that fly because then as soon as I walk in the kitchen, much less if I take a moment in it to make myself some food or do something I need, Oz, Mom’s Pomeranian, will come trotting in and my mother shortly behind, and she’ll draw me into a conversation about Dustin’s needs, or hers, or some terrible deed my father did, or something I could do to help them, or something we all have to figure out together…

How did I escape this by moving out and then find myself right back in the pit of it with her moving in after Dad died?

It’s like all the parts of home I ran away from have come to follow me at thirty-one. She’s nowhere near disabled enough to do this. She needs to get out of the house and not put her health on me as if she’s my pet and it’s my job to take her to the vet.

What is she doing to me?

(Did this dilemma kill dad?)

I remember seeing him drained by it. I remember being so grateful I got to run away. Now there’s nowhere to run and I feel undone.

Realistically, Dad smoking since he was a teenager probably killed Dad.

But I doubt being trapped like this helped.

Why the performance?

I did what I did, and it’s done. Can I just call it won now?

Can I just say it’s passed and start over again each moment, slowly pushing her to be herself instead of relying on me?

And what about Dustin? He has such a hard time communicating emotionally, and I know he’s frustrated, too. Do I give him more time when he doesn’t seem to even want it, or do I give it to Mom knowing it will accomplish nothing? Do I hog it to myself and watch them both fade away while I rise?

What the fuck do I do, Dad, and why did you have to ditch so soon? I love you. I miss you. We all do. I wanted to get through this with you, not without you.

What the fuck do I do?

I live in such comfort in my big log house that it’s hardly fair for me to despair, to complain at all, really. If there’s one thing I learned from losing you, it’s that one day I’ll pray to have this all back.

How could I have been so selfish? How can I be now?

How can I live with being continuously emotionally manipulated and not being able to trust that I’m not doing the same thing?

Why hasn’t someone pulled her aside and had a conversation with her about not treating her kids like her therapists?

Not kids. Kid. Me.

She dreamt me up as a kid and I came true, so now she’s convinced she has a best friend.

It would be a hell of a lot easier to be so now if she hadn’t treated me like one then. Or if she had least done so consistently, instead of switching and sometimes treating me like an enemy, or like a third parent that no child was meant to be.

Was a child supposed to be equipped to be an adult woman's best friend? Should I have listened to her critique her sex life with my two dads without squirming at twelve? Was I supposed to make some of the decisions, tell her how to straighten her life, at thirteen? Was I supposed to get anything but paranoia and guilt from the childhood trauma that has haunted me all of mine?

How am I going to move on and be a real adult if she won’t? Ironic that she felt like the adult once and then my child of a father grew up.

What the fuck am I supposed to do still stuck in this rut dug before I was born?

No say for me sometimes, it seems.

Putting up with putting down and being pulled around on a fucking leash.

I don’t want to be me sometimes.

But at the same time, I want to really be me.

I want to live my truth, but how do I do that when my mother, as my friend River put it, “uses the fuck out of you.”

“Yeah…yeah, she does,” was all I could answer.

But she gave a lot, too.

It would be a lot easier to remember and appreciate that if she didn’t remind me of the happiness she sacrificed for me every single day.

How do I unravel this mess, and can a stranger really show me the way?

Therapy—not denying I need it, just wondering how effective it is when I still have to be the one doing so much of the work to maintain it.

Like everyone around me doesn’t ask me to do so much for them already. When am I fucking going to have time to do anything for me?

When they’re all dead. When I feel like the worst asshole on the planet just for writing this, just for having feelings that it’s all too much to put on me.

In reality, the women were the heads of the households.

And I’m sick of it.

I don’t want to be stuck in a house and told to take care of it and the people in it. I don’t want to be told my responsibilities. I love this house, I love this family, not in that order, but they do not define me.

The house may stand longer than I do. My family may not. I don’t know what will happen to them, or me. I don’t know what our fate is to be. I just know that I need them, but I really need them to need less of me.

It’s night before I know it, another day having passed in mostly dissociation. In between the name game blame still going on in my head, I roll up my shame and pain to make my way up the steps, only to face the deep knife in my chest every time I pass the cherrywood box of ashes on the mantel place to say goodnight.

It gets better, and it gets worse.

Welcome to the neighborhood.

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Elizabeth Ann Devine’s poetry, creative non-fiction, and formal essays have been published in numerous online and print magazines and anthologies, including Breath and Shadow, Page & Spine Magazine, OC87 Recovery Diaries, and many more. They were one of ten authors chosen for the anthology You Are Not Alone: Stories from the Frontlines of Womanhood. Links to more of their work can be found on their website: eadevine.com.

I glide the bristles along the wall, leaving a flash of coral pink against the bare white background. The painted foxgloves are blossoming on my soon-to-be-born daughter’s nursery wall, alongside favorite characters from Beatrix Potter’s timeless story-tales: Jemima Puddle-Duck in her blue bonnet, Peter Rabbit among the radishes in Mr. McGregor’s garden, and pudgy Tom Kitten scrunched into his ill-fitting romper. I smile, the absurdity of cute animals in formalwear making these scenes from my own childhood reading endlessly endearing.

The stark contrast of these playful images in comparison to my serious role as a hospice doctor, caring for people at the end of their lives, isn’t lost on me— especially, while surrounded by death, I am simultaneously preparing, at nine months pregnant, to bring new life into the world.

My phone’s ringing startles me from my reverie. It’s the hospice nurse, calling to update me about our patient Dorothy*, a retired schoolteacher in her sixties with metastatic cancer. I had admitted Dorothy to hospice days earlier after she’d made the decision to stop chemotherapy and focus entirely on managing symptoms and feeling as comfortable as possible for the time she had remaining, knowing she would likely die within days to weeks.

Earlier that morning, Dorothy had been restless, thrashing around in bed, unable to get comfortable. So, with Dorothy’s consent and her family’s support, I adjusted her medications to ease her discomfort while accepting she would be slightly more sedated.

The first time I met with Dorothy, only forty-eight hours earlier, she had told me about her career as a high school English teacher and how she’d had a lifelong love of literature. We’d chatted about some of our favorite novels, and when I asked what the best part of her job had been, she’d said it was sharing her love of books with students, showing them how reading had the power to transport them to other worlds and make everything else fade away.

Looking around at my baby’s nursery, I’m reminded of how painting murals has given me this same gift Dorothy described: when I’m painting, all the noise, anxieties, and stresses of work and daily life fade into the background until they are imperceptible. I enter a state of flow while making my brushstrokes along the wall, and in playing with color I get in touch with a real sense of joy and lightheartedness I remember from childhood: from the days of running around outside, before the drudgery of bills, deadlines, and other realities of adulthood presented themselves. It’s not an exaggeration to say there’s a magic I find in painting that prevents me from focusing on the dark thoughts that can creep in after being exposed to death so repeatedly in my work.

The next day, Dorothy is much more comfortable, lying peacefully while her family, sitting around her bed, share stories and play her favorite music (classical piano) in the background, knowing her death is near. Seeing them engaging with music in her company and honoring her in this thoughtful way shows me they understand the power of the arts to comfort us in moments of pain and unite us in times of uncertainty.

As a hospice physician, I guide very sick people and their loved ones through the process of death. We talk about how it’s normal for a dying person to stop feeling hunger and thirst, and I acknowledge how difficult this can be for a family to accept, in our culture that often equates providing nourishment with expressing love. We talk about what death can physically look like, from the mottling hues on the skin to the gurgling sounds of breathing in the final stages. I ask patients and families what they are worried about; many people have never seen a person die, after all, and often have preconceived images in their minds based on what they’ve seen in the media. The question I’m asked most often is how much time I think someone has left (something that no doctor ever knows with absolute certainty, by the way), which tells me that we all get at least a little uncomfortable with the uncertainty of what lies ahead.

When I started working in a hospice, I never imagined being on the receiving end of so many hugs and thank-yous. People who have never set foot in a hospice often assume it’s thankless, depressing work, but those who have been close to death get a sense of the true privilege of it. There is no greater honor than supporting people in their most vulnerable moments. I’m continually amazed by how much gratitude is sent my way, often simply for being there for the patient and family in these challenging times, not even for my medical expertise, per se.

And yet, even amid all the expressions of gratitude, there’s a toll that comes from being so close to death. There’s no longer a day that goes by where I don’t think about my own death, or that of my loved ones, and feel all too aware that no day alive is guaranteed. As time has gone on, this has weighed on me more, especially after caring for patients who were dying far too young, and seeing the unimaginable grief enveloping their families. I started coming home and bringing with me remnants of the distress and grief I’d spent my day at work surrounded by, and began to feel it darken my thoughts and mental state, even though I loved seeing my young son when I got home, and was excited to welcome his baby sister into the world.

As my daughter’s due date neared, I knew I needed a shift in my mindset. I wanted to improve my spirits, to ensure her entry into the world would be safe and joyful, with a mother who was as healthy, happy, and grounded as I could manage to be. So, during my pregnancy with her, I began to paint. I painted murals for friends’ nurseries to begin, and then I joyously set out painting one for my own daughter’s room.

At work, when there were particularly hard moments, I noticed I felt comforted by the knowledge that I could spend some time by myself painting later that day. I knew this would help energize me after a heavy day’s work. Opening up the cans of paint and seeing the images come to life on the walls before me brought a lightness and delight back to my mood and my days. This lightness affected not only my mental state as I prepared for my baby’s arrival, it also positively impacted my interactions with patients. I still felt saddened to see people dying and suffering with grief—this will never change, nor would I want it to—but getting in touch with a creative outlet that helped me feel alive and joyful spurred my curiosity about my patients’ lives and joys, not just their illnesses and endings. Though my job is to guide patients through their deaths, connecting with this feeling of liveliness through painting has made me more curious about what has brought them joy, comfort, and meaning throughout their lives. This has deepened my interactions and connections with them as a result.

Painting helped heal my mind and restored me to a place of mental strength and resilience in my work and in my preparation for months of sleepless nights with a newborn, and the many joys and challenges this beautiful season of life entails.

Getting to know people at the end of their lives is the most powerful reminder that we all have a finite time to live. Learning about their passions and finding out what animates them has been a gift that’s helped me be better at my job. Reconnecting with my creative side through painting helped remind me of the things that matter most to me in my own life: my relationships with those closest to me, and doing what makes me feel alive and joyful, like spending time outdoors in nature, and painting. Each brushstroke brings with it a deeper mindfulness to my work as a physician, and a greater, more positive presence as a mother.

My daughter is now nearly a year old, and though it’s not easy to make the time, I continue to paint (often squeezed in during her naps, after bedtime, or if I can secure a babysitter for a few hours) as she navigates these early days of her life. Painting continues to brighten my mood and strengthen my resilience in navigating the challenges of motherhood, while preparing me for my return to work supporting patients in the final days of their beautiful, complicated lives.

*Note: The patient Dorothy is based on multiple patient stories. Name and identifying information have been changed to preserve patient confidentiality.

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Laura Schep’s writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Business Insider, The New York Times’ Tiny Love Stories, and the Canadian Family Physician. She lives in the beautiful Annapolis Valley region of Nova Scotia, Canada, where she works as a physician in acute care and hospice.

I grew up in a house of slammed doors, broken glass, and disagreement. My parents were always arguing. They argued about the long-distance bill. They argued about who was going to make dinner. They argued about who was going to wash the dishes. They argued about who caused the car’s broken transmission and how they were going to pay for it. They argued about the electric bill. They argued about each other’s relatives.

When my parents weren’t arguing, they were at the edge of starting an argument. There was no peace between them. It hadn’t always been that way. When I was about five or six, I remembered my parents hugging each other in the kitchen when my father came home from work. You’re back, my mother would say as she hugged my father, crooning in his ear. She was only a few inches shorter than he was, her mouth at the perfect height for him to hear her hushed words. I missed you. My day was so long. How was yours? I would sit in one of the ugly heavy wooden barstools in the kitchen, swishing back and forth, feeling awkward, because I knew I wasn’t supposed to be in that room. But I didn’t know where else I was supposed to be. No matter. As the years went on, those moments of affection between the two of them disappeared.

During the summers my mother would take long trips, which seemed to become even longer as I got older, to visit my grandparents in Connecticut. They were very sick and getting sicker. She would take me up there with her, to their big grey and white Victorian house with this massive screened-in porch, and I would spend the summers becoming increasingly bored out of my mind. There was little there for me to do.

My mother, meanwhile, would try to care for my grandparents, especially my grandmother, who was the sickest of them all. I remember the contrast between the two of them. My mother, round-faced, her dark brown hair always tousled, in her coordinated 1970s polyester blouse and stretch pants. My grandmother, hair cut short and turned iron-gray and white, in her cotton housedress, flesh-colored support stockings, and the white orthopedic shoes she always wore. When they were together, they were always standing next to each other, the daughter supporting the mother—or rather, the mother giving the daughter something to support.

I wondered why she made herself available in that house in the first place. She had a whole home of her own. My grandparents already had someone to take care of them—my mother’s older brother, my Uncle B, who still lived on the top floor of that house and slept in the same bed he had when he was a child. My father was absent from these visits. “He had to work,” my mother would always say, and left it at that.

***

It’s the summer between seventh and eighth grade, and I’m back in Connecticut. This time, my mother is helping Uncle B pack up the house. My grandparents are now both gone and my Uncle B decides to move to Maryland to be closer to my mother.

My uncle has already hired an estate company to go through the house. The kitchen and living room are set up like a store. Every closet is emptied, their contents all arranged on folding tables. There are already price tags on most of the items in the house. But they have forgotten to empty my mother’s bedroom closet. My mother and I are sorting through it.

I see something turquoise blue and shiny. “Mom, is this your prom dress?”

“Yes!” She pulls it out of the closet and holds it up. The material is brighter as she holds it in the sunlight. It is a 1950s-style dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt. As she holds it against her body, I see the disappointment on her face. The dress is meant for someone much thinner. She smiles again. “It’s made of Chromespun. That’s a special fabric they used back then. Your grandmother’s dressmaker made it just for me.”

I’ve never owned a dress like that. It looks like the same kind of dress that the tiny, wind-up ballerina wore in the jewelry box I’d owned since I was six. “It’s pretty. Can I have it?”

“Of course.”

We dig through some more. The closet is cedar-lined and packed with stuff. I look behind me and notice that her room is the largest bedroom in the house. I’d never noticed this before all the furniture and knick-knacks were packed away.

I see a yellowing garment bag and unzip it. A formal white dress. A wedding dress. On the other end of the closet, there’s another garment bag with another wedding dress.

I’m confused. Two wedding dresses? In my parents’ wedding photos, I only see one. I look at my mother.

She pauses. “I guess you’re old enough to hear the story. I was engaged to this other man, and we had the wedding all set up. But then I called it off. His mother had called in a private investigator to investigate your grandfather. I found out right before the wedding. Why she did that, I don’t know. Probably something to do with money.”

According to my mother, my grandfather was the wealthiest man in the world. When I was growing up, I never saw any reason to not believe her.

I finger an embroidered flower on a sleeve. The dress is made of heavy white satin with a scratchy lace overlay. It is very out of style for the 1980s. I will probably never wear it, I decide.

“She was too much into our wedding anyway,” my mother continues. “She insisted that we have a special song we would play for our first dance. What a trashy woman.”

“But you married Daddy after that, and it turned out all right?” I ask hopefully.

My mother is quiet. Finally, she says, “You can take this dress, and not the other one. The other one, I don’t care what happens to it.” She hands me the garment bag with the dress she wore at her and my father’s wedding.

A few years later, I sneak the wedding dress into my high school drama department’s costume closet, where it eventually disappears. The prom dress I hold onto until I mistakenly wash it in one of my college dorm’s washing machines. It comes out tattered and gray. I threw it into the trash.

***

It’s almost thirty years later. My mother collapses at home and the ambulance brings her to the hospital, the one nearest to her house, in the town she always thought she was too good for. The hospital admits her to the intensive care unit. For the next few days, she’s only barely conscious. Eventually, she can mumble a few words, but none make any sense. You can tell that something has snapped, that something is not quite right with her.

My mother’s younger brother, my Uncle M, and I communicate on what needs to be done next. We’re not sure if she can return to the house by herself. We hire a lawyer. In the process of working my mother’s case, the lawyer asks that all mail from my mother be forwarded to his law office. This is where we find out all the other problems. These are the once-hidden problems that now require uncomfortable conversation to sift through to resolve.

***

My mother shows signs of improvement about two weeks after being admitted to the hospital. The attending nurse tells me she can now sit up, walk those few steps to the bathroom, feed herself. Best yet, she can now speak coherently. She can now string together complex sentences instead of disjointed words.

The hospital transfers her from intensive care into a semi-private room.. I decide it’s time to speak to her on the phone and I find myself in the curious position of wishing she was well and needing to tell her the bad news. It occurs to me I’m now in my late thirties and have never had to tell my mother anything truly difficult before.

“Mom,” I say softly. “I’m looking through these papers the lawyer sent to me. I’m seeing paperwork for the bank for another mortgage?”

“I have to have a shunt put in my head,” my mother replies. “Operation, next week. They say it’s the only thing that will help.”

“It’s a big mortgage, Mom. It’s almost eighty thousand dollars. And these credit card bills...ten thousand dollars to Nordstrom?”

“They’re treating me like a queen here, Alissa. A queen! They come by and give me my lunch and say hi to me.”

“I thought the house was paid off after Daddy died. I thought that’s why you retired early.

I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“I’ll need that shunt for the rest of my life, they say. But maybe I can recover, thank goodness. They may have caught it just in time.”

***

The worst part of being a child of difficult parents is when you get to the end. When you’re a child or teenager, you can dream of escape. You can make up elaborate fantasies about one day getting the hell out of that house or that town and making something different of yourself.

You can go far away to where no one knows you. You can be different. You can be independent.

You can make your own life. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can do exactly that. Grow as an adult. Become your own person. But when those parents get old, their world is already becoming smaller. Then you need to decide if it’s worth it to become a part of it again.

***

My mother gives me power of attorney. My uncle and I decide the best course of action is to sell the house and set her up in a small senior living apartment. I decide to fly out from Colorado to Maryland to break the news to her in person.

“It can go,” she said, from her hospital bed. “That’s fine.”

That afternoon I go over to the lawyer’s office to sign the contract to sell the house on behalf of my mother. The paralegal hands me page after page of the legal document, some pages marked with a sticky note saying, “Sign here.” I sign her signature. I feel numb, like I’m on autopilot, signing away my childhood home.

After I sign all the pages, the paralegal stacks them into a neat pile and slides them into a file folder. Then the realization comes to me.

She never liked that house, I think. She hated it all.

And I wonder if she hated all of the things that came with it too.

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Alissa Bader Clark (she/her) is a former bookseller and publishing professional who later built a career in technology. She has attended fiction and non-fiction workshops at Hunter College CUNY, NYC’s 92nd Street Y, Catapult, Tin House, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She has an MFA in creative nonfiction from Regis University in Denver, Colorado. She lives south of Denver with her family. You can find her on Substack at alissabader.substack.com.

My daughter’s stuffed bunny was an indirect gift from my father. I was at the end of my pregnancy, and freshly out of a volatile relationship, trying to navigate life as a single mother with a bank balance of zero. My daughter’s entry into the world was less celebrated by my family than simply acknowledged, but a $50 Zelle had come in with a text instructing me to put it toward supplies for the baby.

I’d seen Jellycat bunnies heaped in wicker baskets in the window of the fancy baby store in town. I loved their signature round bellies, and as I swiped my card in the store’s machine, I imagined my daughter’s tiny hand wrapped around one of the bunny’s long sand-colored ears. It felt fitting to welcome her into the world this way. Stepping out of the store, the bunny wrapped in blue paper and tucked into a gift bag, I imagined I was one of the well-off mothers who milled around my affluent suburban town.

Carolyn became attached to the bunny. She named her Snuffle Bunny, and called her Snuffles for short. I don’t know where the name came from; I suspect stuffed animal names come from a secret, magical place that only the toys and their children know about.

In every photo I have of Carolyn, Snuffle Bunny is somewhere—at her side, in the background, stuffed under her arm. Her first day of kindergarten photo features a pair of long, fuzzy ears hanging out of the zipper’s gap in her ladybug backpack. When she had her first sleepover, Snuffle Bunny borrowed a nightgown from one of the American Girls, its beanbag feet crammed into fuzzy doll slippers.

When months of mysterious knee pain and a high fever sent us to the ER one Saturday night when Carolyn was eight, she held Snuffle Bunny against her chest as a nurse slipped an IV into the back of her hand. When the ER doctor looked into my face, her eyes like two small worlds, and said, I’m sending you down to the oncology center in the city. Do you know what that means, oncology? Snuffle Bunny came along for the ambulance ride.

An umbrella of dread stayed over us while we battled the lymphocytes that lived and bred in my daughter’s blood and marrow. I spent nights scrolling cancer mom Facebook groups laden with bereavement posts and thought, I’m in hell. This is hell. Each beautiful young face crashed over me like a wave, battering me, beating a rhythm: It’s just a matter of time; one day one of those posts will be yours; your daughter is going to die.

I tried to prepare myself for the worst by forcing myself into mental explorations of non-mom life. I wanted to make the possibility of losing her familiar, as if I could somehow keep it from surprising me by imagining her death before it happened.

Grief sat under my fingernails like splinters as I imagined a world without my daughter in it. My eyes moved over her toys scattered around the couch, puzzle pieces by the fireplace, stuffed animals beneath her bed. I imagined that all of her things were just as she’d left them, but she would never touch any of them again. How long would it be before I’d feel ready to box them up and give them away? And then, the big question, always hovering at the surface: What would I do with Snuffle Bunny? Which always led to the question, What would I do with Carolyn?

We were still in the beginning months of treatment, early enough to believe that this was a blip, that she’d eventually come through it and be just fine. Thinking about what she might want for her body if she died felt like a dark invitation. It terrified me, but when I looked at our home full of her things, full of her life, it crept into the base of my brain like rot.

I tried to imagine tucking Snuffles into a cardboard box beside a body that was once my daughter’s, knowing they’d both be incinerated. I imagined the bunny’s fur singeing, blackening, becoming dust. I looked into its sweet stuffie face peeking over Carolyn’s skinny arms and didn’t know how I’d be able to do that to either of them.

I tried to imagine burying the toy in a tomb six feet below in wet earth, tucked beneath Carolyn’s cold, moldering arms for eternity. I couldn’t leave my daughter alone under a strange dirt pile or send her into the fire on her own, but I worried that Snuffles wouldn’t understand. Would it be waiting for someone to come back and get it? Would it wonder why Carolyn was suddenly so still, why it was so chilly and damp? Would it miss the incandescent light of our home?

The thought that finally allowed me to sleep was the idea of cremating Carolyn and tucking some of her ashes inside Snuffle Bunny. Then I could press the bunny against my chest and it would be like holding both of them again. It seemed, in late, haunting hours in the hospital, a reasonable in-between solution to a problem I was desperate to never have.

__________________________________________________________________

Go fish.

We were in our second week of a 28-day hospital admission. Carolyn and I had been playing Go Fish with the Oliver Jeffers cards a friend has sent in a care package the week before. I drew a card, a small boat, and nodded for her to go.

Do you have….a sly fox? She grinned, knowing I did because she’d been peeking at my cards. I handed two over while she pulled a pair from her own hand and placed the pile face-up on the rolling tray table. I wondered again how many more hospital stays we might have, and what would put a stop to them.

As if pulling my thoughts from my mind like loose threads, she announced: I want to be buried. She kept her gaze on her cards, the muscles beneath her eyebrows bunching.

Huh?

I want to be buried if I die. She glanced up at me once, held my eyes for a moment, and looked down at her cards again.

I felt my chest tighten. My body prickled in resistance. I had been forcing myself to think about all the horrifying hypotheticals for months, but I hadn’t brought any of them up to her. She was nine. I hadn’t imagined her mortality would be on her mind.

My eyes drank in her face as she studied her cards. I saw shadows of all the past and future versions of her—the girl she had been and the woman she might become. She looked like an infant and a child and a teenager and a young adult all at once. It hit me again how desperate I was for her to survive.

Thoughts cascaded through my mind like a burst dam: Would she one day be off-treatment, alive and thriving, learning to drive, graduating from high school and checking in with the clinic once a year or so to address the long-ago treatment she’d once received for a cancer she would mostly have forgotten about?

Or would I, in ten years time, be looking at pictures of her that never progress beyond the age of nine? Would I be doing little things to comfort myself on a particular day of the year, honoring her memory for the rest of my life, missing her so wholly, spending my days just trying to get by? Was there a future ahead that I would have to endure without her, a whole part of her life she’d never get to live? Would I remember this moment, how I stared into her face, drinking in her wide, dark eyes, and would I one day give anything to get it back?

I don’t want to be burned up if I die. She was watching my face again, waiting for a response. I want to be buried with Snuffle Bunny.

Her delicate fist closed gently around one of Snuffle Bunny’s sand-colored legs.

Words bubbled behind my teeth. I ached to lie. I wanted to insist that no one was going to die, that this whole thing was baloney; she was going to get well and one day it would be as if her cancer had never happened. It would be in the rearview, as they say.

I rocked along my teetering intuition for a moment, wanting to follow some invented untruthful script, wanting to gently but firmly put an end to the conversation. I wondered wildly if I would somehow be opening a portal to the worst-case scenario by even discussing it. I didn’t want to talk to Carolyn about what I’d do if she died, but I knew she deserved better than a lie. I slanted left.

Why do you want to talk about this right now, bub?

A little shrug. I dunno. I just do.

We don’t have to worry about this right now. You’re doing fine. We can talk about it if the doctors say we need to, but there’s no reason to talk about it now.

But I want to decide what happens to me.

There it was. It hit me, how little control she’d had in this whole process, how few decisions she’d gotten to make about her own care.

The doctors said the best treatment for leukemia was chemotherapy, and so she was whisked into an operating room to install a line that hung from her arm beneath a thick plastic bandage that itched and pinched at her skin.

The doctors said she needed to gain weight so a sickly yellow tube was threaded up her nose and down her throat while she gagged and screamed. I filled plastic feeding bags with thick formula that smelled like cake batter and pressed the “start” button and pumped her full of gluey liquid calories and fed her steroids until her cheeks shone from the swelling and her eyes closed when she smiled.

She pulled hoods over her head when her hair fell out and refused to turn her camera on during FaceTimes with her friends and cried out when the doctors slipped needles between the vertebrae in her back because leukemia likes to hide in spinal fluid. She endured and endured with no option to say no while I steered this careening ship on through some horrible dark night.

I was so worried about losing her, I hadn’t bothered to consider the cost of trying to make her well.

You’re going to get better.

She paused, holding her cards fanned in one hand, the illustrations sketched loosely across the sea-green backgrounds. But if I don’t, she said, I want you to promise you won’t put me in a dress. You’ll bury me with Snuffles. And visit me every day if you can.

I could do this one thing for her, I thought. I could shelve my own sentimentalities and give her what she should never have to ask for.

Okay. I promise.

She looked down at her hand, satisfied. I got another match!

She placed a pair of curious whales on the rolling tray table. A nurse walked in to check her vitals, and I jumped on the segway to bedtime. I helped Carolyn change into pajamas and handed her the magic mouthwash she used to help numb her mouth sores.

As I stretched beside her leggy form, pulling the stiff hospital blanket up to our shoulders, I watched her eyes closing softly over and over until she fell into sleep. Snuffle Bunny’s soft face peeked out good-naturedly from its place against my daughter’s softly rising chest in the low light of the vital sign monitor.

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Elizabeth Austin's writing has appeared in HuffPost, Today, Thrillist, Reactor Mag, Business Insider, and others. She is currently querying her memoir about being a bad cancer mom. She holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with her two children and their many pets. Find her at writingelizabeth.com.

In the spring of 2020, when I was in my mid-twenties and quarantining quietly in my childhood bedroom as the pandemic raged on, I created an adoption-specific Instagram account for the first time.

Some context: I’m a Chinese American adoptee from Jiangxi province, adopted in 1995 to loving American parents. I’m an only child, and I never really had an adoption-focused identity crisis until I left the house at age 18. (Sure, there were some signs of adoption trauma, but I’m not going to delve into them here.) Flash forward to today: After nearly three decades since I was left in a cemetery, adopted abroad, and my life changed forever, I have never been back to China.

Creating this account was my little secret. I didn’t tell anyone. Not my friends, and definitely not my family. Of course, with technology being as invasive as it is, my account was still connected to my phone number, so those friends and acquaintances I never would have wanted to share it with ended up being recommended to follow me by the algorithm. I suppose if I’d really been trying to grow the account and become an InfluencerTM, that could have been a positive. But I wasn’t trying to do that. I didn’t even know what I was trying to do. Why would I subject myself to this public scrutiny? Posting my face for the world to see on such a public-facing account for anyone to comment on? (My personal account is private.) I didn’t feel exactly comfortable doing this, but at the same time, I was in desperate need of some outlet to a world outside of my own.

The internet is good at providing this outlet. The internet knows how to cater to a niche audience, and my audience was definitely niche.

In the United States, the Chinese adoptee population is estimated to be around eighty thousand. Divide that by the U.S. population of approximately three hundred and thirty-five million people, and that makes Chinese adoptees about 0.02% of the population! Talk about being a minority, and a very young minority at that. (Most of the adoptees I’ve met in real life are my age or younger.) The term “unprecedented” has been used many times over the past few years, and I’ll use it again here: Being a transnational adoptee is a historically unprecedented experience, since at no other time in history could an abandoned baby be flown halfway across the world. The resources simply wouldn’t have been available.

Each time I posted to my account, I saw more clicks, engagement, likes. Reactions about my speaking up and voicing what I had been silent about for so long—my lifelong, confusing grief over a family that lived somewhere across the globe whom I’d probably never find in my lifetime; a tirade against the White Savior mentality, even while I loved my parents, who are white; a deep sadness at the profound isolation that comes with being the only person in your family to look like you—were mostly positive.

Before creating this account, I had never seen any content that wasn’t the adoption-is-all-sunshine-and-rainbows narrative, and the plethora of other adoptee experiences suddenly at my fingertips wowed me. In short, I felt seen, and I wanted to help other adoptees feel seen too as they came out of the fog. I opened up about how the experience of being adopted is a complex, nuanced reality that few outside the experience can ever truly understand.

In the past I have jokingly referred to the one-hundred-sixty-thousand-strong of us Chinese adopted abroad as the “guinea pig generation.” Americans first opened their arms to Chinese adoptions in 1992, and my parents followed only three years after its inception. That’s pretty crazy to think about now!

China officially (and abruptly) ended their international adoption program last summer. In what appeared to be a nationalistic reversal of population restrictions via women’s bodies, it echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s decision in 2015 to end the One Child Policy, a policy which made it near-impossible for anyone but the rich or privileged to have more than one child. Going against the policy was virtually impossible. There were some exceptions, of course: Some poor families decided to keep their children, but they had to do so in secret. Those children have since grown up into “ghost” adults whose existence continues today without any valid government identification. Simply put: To the government, they don’t exist.

When this news broke in August of 2024, a flurry of activity stampeded through my newsfeeds. All the Chinese adoptee groups I was involved in—not just on Instagram but across Facebook, TikTok, in other social media circles and in group chats, too—were abuzz with the news. How is everyone doing? What does everyone think? Some adoptees expressed triumph over the news; others were horrified, saddened. Many responses were mixed; hearts went out to the families who were still in the process of adopting a child, who would suddenly be cut off. Over and over again, I saw a theme to these posts, an overall anxiety and existential malaise about how we, as Chinese paper orphans adopted abroad, were now this strange, solitary blip in history. We must preserve our stories, one poster pointed out. We have to write our stories down, to prove we existed. It reminded me of that quote from Zora Neale Hurston: “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

When I told all this to my boyfriend, he responded with the familiar phrase, “That means you’re special.” Others have told me some sentiment of this over the years, all in good nature. The problem with being put on this pedestal of difference? Oftentimes it means being alone. Turns out, being the “only” of anything can be pretty isolating.

After August passed, I felt that instant-gratification urge from social media, urging me to share my thoughts on this breaking news topic. I should say something, right? Yet at the same time, another part of me felt…exhausted. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer during Covid, and my outlook on our family began to change as our situation did. I began to post less and less. And of course, last fall saw a barrage of plenty of big non-adoption-related news stories. Scrolling through the conservative push for adoption over abortion left me staggering—but instead of harnessing this energy for good, change, something, I kept it inside, where it simmered and seethed.

I don’t believe the word adoption should ever be coupled with the word desperation, by anyone involved. Not by the birth mother or biological family, and not by the adoptive family. Adopting a child should come from a place of joy, and also from a deep capacity for grace, curiosity, and compassion as the adopted child grows. As I and countless other adoptee advocates have said, adoption isn’t over once the paperwork is signed, it’s just beginning. Raising an adopted child comes with its own set of unique challenges that adoptive parents must be ready for.

I started my Instagram account because I believed more adoptee stories needed to be told, and not just the heartwarming, positive ones. Especially given the tragic statistic that adoptees are four times as likely as non-adoptees to attempt suicide. Even when it’s painful, we must seek to learn. Otherwise, history will just repeat itself. I’m reminded of a quote from the documentary filmmaker Nanfu Wang, who directed the 2019 film One Child Nation: “I’m struck by the irony that I left a country where the government forced women to abort, and I moved to another country where governments restrict abortions…they seem like opposites, but both are about taking away women’s control of their own bodies.”

That’s why, as an adult, I have become committed to seeking joy as an act of self-preservation. Online, sure, but mostly offline these days. I must surround myself with the things and the people that bring me joy; otherwise, the world becomes an isolated, arduous, scary place. I carry a deep, childlike fear as I face my aging parents’ mortality. I secretly fear that after their deaths, I will never be known in quite the same way again.

In January 2025, I permanently paused my adoptee Instagram account and set it to private. Something about the clichés of the new year and my upcoming birthday made me think about the purpose of each social media account I run, and why I do it. For five years, my adoption account helped me connect with other adoptees, expanded my worldview, and let me know that I’m not alone. It was invaluable, and I’m so happy I created it when I did.

But now it’s five years later, and I’m not the same person anymore. None of us are. I don’t have the mental bandwidth to slog through issues that are complex but fit easily into a social graphic during my lunch breaks. More and more, I’m looking forward to joy as a necessity, not a privilege, for survival. This means prioritizing the people in my real, offline life, who have shown me miraculous love.

I’m still interested in visiting China and searching for my birth family, maybe even in the near future. In the meantime, I can enjoy connecting with other adoptees and allowing close family and friends to see glimpses into my thought processes. Talking about it helps. Writing does, too.

For now, all I can do is write some of my story down and continue writing as life happens. And maybe one day, my story can help others, too.

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L.A. Montana’s work has been previously published in various online magazines. She is based in Boston.

The tabletop was littered with an abandoned game of Uno as the television in the communal visitation room roared at full volume, some inoffensive TV movie on the screen. An angry resident started urinating on the floor beside the orderly, eliciting no apparent reaction from anyone in the room.

“Emily’s doing great,” I said to my father-in-law.

“Okay. You better get back.” His instructions were one part concern for his daughter, one part desire to be rid of me, perhaps embarrassed by his state and current environs. The nurse asked how Emily was doing as she buzzed open the lock on the massive doors to the psych ward.

“Great,” I said, as I pushed open the buzzing doors. “She’s doing great. A lot of pain but she’s tough.”

“Wonderful,” said the nurse. “We can’t wait to meet that baby.”

The buzzing doors led to a series of hallways, each with its own set of locked double doors, each guarded by a sentinel closed-circuit camera the nurses monitored from their station. I waved at each camera and the nurse unlocked each door remotely.

Eventually, I stood before the elevator bank pounding the down button, anxious that my wife was giving birth to our first child one ward over while I was there, advising her father on her progress as he rattled with the depression and anxiety that have plagued him for years.

****

Two years earlier, on the day Emily and I planned to make an offer on our first house, a small Chapel Hill starter home, everything fell apart. I was out for breakfast with my father, who was visiting from New York, encouraged by Emily to spend some time with my dad despite our needing to tie up a few loose ends concerning our mortgage approval.

As both she and I were self-employed, me as a writer and musician, Emily as a professional health coach, a co-signer would be a necessity despite our sufficient income.

Emily’s father, a recently-retired drug abuse counselor with the city of Charlotte, volunteered and assured us that his longtime tax attorney would have the requisite information our mortgage counselor would need.

After breakfast, my father and I returned to our slim townhome to find Emily on the couch, sobbing, her phone pressed to her face. She looked up at me with a mix of fear, rage, and sadness as tears poured down her bright red cheeks. She had been on the phone with the tax attorney who, shocked at her call, told her that he hadn’t heard from her father in years and presumed he’d hired new counsel. Upon this discovery, Emily dug deeper, and with the help of her sister, contacted her father’s neighbors, former coworkers and friends, the city of Charlotte, and the Department of Motor Vehicles.

With each passing call, the stacked layers of years of deception began to fold back. Emily and her sister soon discovered that their father’s lifelong battle with depression and anxiety, one he assured us he was winning, was far darker and more paralyzing than he had ever let on. Taxes were left unpaid, his cars sat in the driveway unregistered and uninsured, while bills piled high on every inch of his kitchen table. It was as if his life was frozen, stuck on the last day he was capable of handling everything.

We decided that Emily’s dad would move in with us immediately and our search for a home would start anew, our focus shifting from starter home to home-with-in-law-suite in which he could live.

Arduous months passed as we looked at what felt like hundreds of houses, all advertised with in-law suites or independent apartments that usually turned out to be windowless basements with dank bathrooms and shoddy kitchenettes.

Eventually, we found the perfect home, one with a beautiful basement apartment that flooded with natural light and had an actual kitchen. After some negotiation, we moved in, continuing to live by the routine we’d developed with Emily’s dad in the months spent in our townhome.

Every day, he was required to walk two miles before lunch, recreating his daily routine from Emily’s childhood. Every other night, he would come upstairs to our part of the house, where we would eat dinner together. Every weekend, he would fill us in on what he’d discussed in his various sessions with his team of therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and doctors.

Soon, however, he began to whittle away at the two miles and at the near-nightly dinners. His legs would hurt, he’d claim, or he would be too exhausted by six in the evening to wait for us to cook. Soon, he was once again spending the entirety of his days inside as Emily and I wondered how we had allowed this to happen on our watch. Soon, we heard screaming and banging emanating from the basement apartment. Soon, we saw the self-inflicted cuts and bruises on his hands. Soon, Emily and I sat across from her father at our kitchen table, telling him that he could either come with me and admit himself to the nearby hospital’s psychiatric lockdown ward or we’d be calling the police to take him there against his will.

Soon, our near-nightly dinners became near-nightly visits to the psych ward as Emily’s belly grew with our first child.

Soon, my wife’s water would break and we’d rush to the maternity ward of the very hospital where her father had lived as a resident the previous few months.

****

As I dashed through the winding hallways of the hospital, the psych ward’s harsh fluorescent-lit hallways gave way to the airy main atrium which then led to the warm pink halls of the maternity ward where life was beginning everywhere.

By design or otherwise, the air in the maternity ward felt warmer, the lights more dim, the halls more welcoming. Every few minutes, a gentle lullaby echoed quietly through the halls, signaling the birth of a new baby boy or baby girl, the start of a new life. The hushed repose of the maternity ward’s hallways stood in stark juxtaposition to the cold brightness and abrasive volume of the psych lockdown. 

By the time I made it back, the sun had set outside of the room-length window where Emily would be giving birth, the lights of our little university town flickering below us.

We could see the outer edges of the adjacent tower that held the psych ward from one of the window’s corners and I thought that Emily’s dad might be able to see us if the outer surfaces of all of the hospital’s windows weren’t reflective. 

“It’s better that he can’t,” I told myself.

I listened to Emily breathe and looked at her bulbous belly, wondering where our son might be at that very moment. 

“How can I help?” I asked. 

Emily assured me there wasn’t much I could do. Refill a few water bottles. Cue up our carefully curated birth playlist. Set up the Bluetooth speaker near her bedside, but make sure it was out of the doctors’ way.

She instructed me to get some sleep as she bounced on a big, grey yoga ball, breathing deep and wincing with each passing contraction.

“It’s going to be a while and I’m going to need you later,” she said.

I stretched out across the hard couch. Just as I shut my eyes, Emily asked, “Hey, how’s my dad?”

“He’s okay,” I said. “Nervous.”

****

I slept for a fitful hour or two, lulled by the rhythm of my son’s amplified heartbeat, when the nurse tapped my shoulder.

“You might wanna wake up, daddy,” she said in a North Carolina drawl. “You’re about to have this baby.”

I grabbed my phone, pressing play on the playlist. Vashti Bunyan’s “Winter Is Blue” was punctuated by my wife’s heavy breathing and the nurses’ instructions on how to push. 

“Curl your pelvis up,” one said, “and push toward the ceiling.”

Emily moved her hips and shimmied her lower back down toward the doctors whose heads disappeared between her thighs.

“That’s exactly right,” the other nurse commended. “Now when the contractions come, I want you to push.”

Emily grabbed my hand and squeezed with a power I had never witnessed in our decade together.  

She was pushing.

“You’re doing great,” I whispered in her ear as the first contraction subsided.

“Emily,” said the doctor, whose head was buried in my wife’s crotch, “you are doing great.”

The second contraction rose like a tide in Emily, my fingers crushed between hers. She curled into herself, her chin meeting her upper chest as she pushed.

“Deep breaths, girl,” said the nurse.

She pushed again. I looked over the top of her pelvis and asked anyone who might answer, “Is that his head?”

“That’s his head,” replied the doctor.

I had no idea it could go so fast.

“Em. His head is already there. I see the top of it. He’s almost here.”

“He’s almost here, mama,” replied the nurse. 

The doctor repeated the sentiment.

“He’s almost here.”

The third contraction. The push. Nothing.

“That’s good, Emily,” said the doctor. “Just keep breathing.”

The previous two contractions had moved our son along so fast and I had assumed that this meant Emily was settling into a long labor. No way it would be over so soon. 

“That’s good, Emily,” said the doctor. “Just keep breathing.”

Harry Nilsson’s version of “Everybody’s Talkin’” began lilting from the little speaker. 

The next contraction, the next set of pushes, the deep breaths, the tight grip, the nurses’ instructions, the doctors’ hands grabbing at the baby’s head, the bright lights, the sheets twisting beneath Emily, the darkness over Chapel Hill outside of our wall-length window. Everything repeated in cycle once more.

Emily breathed one last time, pushed again, squeezed my hand in hers, and just like that, she was done.

I saw the mass of blue-white flesh fall into the doctor’s arms. I saw the nurses rush to clean some of the birth off of him. I watched his little mouth open for the first time, his first breath of air rush through his tiny lungs, his first scream come back out to the world. I saw them bring him to Emily’s chest, to place him skin to skin on her, the residue from the birth canal intermingling with the sweat pooled on her sternum. I saw the elation in my wife’s face as her iron grip loosened between my fingers.

I took a deep breath and looked down at what had very suddenly become my family. 

I wondered if the gentle birth lullaby was playing in the halls outside of our comfortable room, the one with the wall-length window and the beautiful view of town, the birth lullaby that belonged to my son.

For the first five or ten minutes of my son’s new life, my mind was more clear than it had ever been before. Gone were happiness or sadness, fear, resentment, or excitement. I felt neither regret nor fulfillment. 

Awe was the only emotion I could recognize. To look at my son—his tiny creature, this amalgam of cells that came together to form a life whose safety and serenity Emily and I would now be charged with indefinitely—who we created out of nothing, was lucidity. 

I thought of Emily’s father and the clear was shattered. Like a freight train through a glass door, I began to think about him. Perhaps he was awake. Perhaps he hadn’t slept at all that night, pinching his forearms until they bled, as he was wont to in moments of extreme anxiety, worried about his daughter and his new grandson. 

I convinced myself that he had a good night, that the serenity of the maternity ward’s dim hallways had somehow extended to the cold psych lockdown, if only for that night. I convinced myself that he was calm and comfortable, sleeping without worry for the first time in months, maybe years.

It was four-twenty-eight in the morning and I thought that I could spend the rest of the night holding my new son, how I could just be here with my wife, how I could be with my family, all ten or fifteen minutes old as we were then, and how I didn’t have to rush back to the psych ward with an update as I had several times the night before. Emily’s father wouldn’t be awake for at least a few more hours.

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Michael Venutolo-Mantovani is a writer and musician living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, WIRED, GQ, Catapult, The Guardian, and elsewhere. He also publishes the Substack 'Being a Dad is Hard as F*ck,' which focuses on honest and earnest conversations about fatherhood.

Kintsugi – “A 500-year-old Japanese tradition that highlights imperfections rather than hiding them. This...teaches calm when a cherished piece of pottery breaks; it's a reminder of the beauty of human fragility as well.” BBC Travel

The Boy

The door clicks shut as my son leaves to live full-time with his dad. It’s like cutting the umbilical cord again but I’m not prepared to be an empty nester. He’s barely a teenager.

Putting his old electronics in the garage, I smile remembering how he put his first, short film together—writing, casting, shooting, editing, and staying up way past his bedtime, to push his first movie out into the world. He’s ten years old. Fate favors this pursuit, which comes simultaneously with everything that growing up puts him through—navigating his parents’ divorce, schoolwork, and first love, first heartbreak too.

I put a scrapbook of birth pictures in a drawer. Glancing at the images, I’m back in the bathtub where he was born. Spontaneously. My only child. I’m 41 and almost lose him once when he chokes in the bassinet and later when family disagreements threaten to take him away. PTSD haunts me. I flee if someone looks askew when I’m with the baby in public. I burst into tears and change the channel if an infant cries on TV. Dedicating myself to his survival, I create a comfortable home time and again as my husband’s work moves us from one California coastal town to the next. It’s part of our agreement to go with the money job. My acting gigs and voice-over work hardly pay the water bill.

When I realize my ten-year-old son is going on dates with his dad and “lady friends,” I end the gaslighting. This isn’t what I want my boy to think marriage is. I cobble together an escape. By the time he’s twelve, I agree to shared custody.

I’m determined to give him the only stability I can—a home in my little condo. He swings from his father’s house and new wife to my place every few weeks. He begins to thrive in classes. I sit beside him on the call that convinces USC to place him in film school. On the afternoon I find him emptying his closet, there’s no warning. Eventually, I find surrogates to admire—young men going through some of the same struggles my boy might be. They soften the blow.

The Band

A performance stuns me on late-night TV. I’m delighted as Half Alive slides and dances through their breakthrough hit, “Still Feel.” I start to watch replays, pushing my phone screen with their videos into friendly faces and cajoling others to join me at concerts. I track each release as they lumber toward success. One song, “Creature,” holds a certain tone, and I tear up every time I hear it. Within a few years of struggles, the band fades. New songs never reach the same pinnacles but may one day. The lead singer has my son's name. I deny that’s my connection, claiming they’re just fun to dance to.

The Actor

I’ve always found solace in dark movie theaters, escaping as bright screens open up new worlds. Call Me by Your Name chronicles a young man's journey through first love and my reaction surprises me. The angst of the parents, the emotional struggles, and sexual abandon all pull me back to an earlier time, my first crush— and my son’s.

I watch my teenage son circle his arm around his first girlfriend’s waist as I open the front door and immediately understand. I want to spare them the awkwardness of finding places to be intimate and offer my upstairs guest room, mentioning to my boy privately that he needs to treat her well. He does but within a few months, she leaves for college in another state.

In the movie’s final scene, the camera holds still, recording the anguished face of a young Timothée Chalamet. He stares into a living room fire, shaking in pain. His character has just learned that his beloved will never return. I watch in the shadows, quietly sobbing through those final minutes. It cuts so close.

There begins a new fandom, tracking Chalamet's remarkable career as he leaves teen roles behind and the man in him emerges. His loping frame and the wisp of a mustache remind me of seeing my boy with facial hair for the first time. They are the same age, but I don’t make much of the connection.

The Artist

When Bob Dylan is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, he stays silent for five days before publishing a statement. He tells a trusted journalist that getting the award is "Amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?" Then he waits a year before claiming the prize. That seems odd until I run into the young Dylan's past on a Minnesota road trip.

My mom used to joke, “Bob Dylan went to my high school.” When I visit Hibbing, their shared hometown, she proudly shows me where they both walked the same halls, although decades apart. With a bit of genealogical sleuthing, I find Minnesota cousins I've never met. They’re much younger than my mom and shared high school classes with Bobbie Zimmerman. “He was weird,” one comments over lunch. Turns out others there thought so too. When his band opened a high school concert, the principal closed the curtains on them. But Dylan was already enamored with the folk music he tracked on late-night radio and took that love with him as he moved to Minneapolis, adopted a new name, and courted creative mentors.

Arriving practically penniless in New York City, he flops on couches in friends’ apartments and discovers great literature on living room bookcases. They’re scattered collections. He picks up Melville, Kafka, and other great writers on a whim, opening a book and reading until he loses interest. In those hungry days, he doesn’t forget a word.

In a used bookstore near Lake Superior, I find a copy of his memoir, The Chronicles. The flow of words is unlike anything I've read before. Compelled to make sense of it, my interest grows as I turn each page, and I realize the flow mimics his performance style. I'd never been a big fan but avidly read about his creative drive as a wordsmith, the impulsive performer always reaching for connection, striving toward a storyline, and mesmerizing listeners.

As I learn more, the sensitive young man he once was strikes a chord. Watching a documentary about Dylan's rise to worldly status, I glimpse how much success demands. Clinging fans and idiotic interviewers, sycophants, and would-be lovers clamor for his attention. The Minnesota boy rides through waves of concert tours, strives to give audiences what they want, and, daring to change, goes electric. Complaining and booing, their reactions mystify him. “I want to go home,” he repeats to a promoter in one scene of Martin Scorsese’s early documentary, then Dylan bolts. I think about his mother. Hers wasn’t the home he ran to.

Kintsugi

The Japanese kintsugi technique reveals new beauty in fragile objects, but first, there must be a break. The mending takes a long while as each shard is set into place, revealing a new whole with the final piece. Similarly, it took years to heal my heart, create a new life, find a wonderful partner, and flourish.

My son is now almost thirty. I call him occasionally, tentatively navigating our silences, and try not to pummel him with all the questions I long to ask. We’re building something as conversations dig deeper.

Somehow, I stay calm during a call when he painfully shoots out: “Why did you have roommates, those weird roommates?”

I remember those difficult months when child support was challenged and attorney fees sapped my savings, but now I couldn’t criticize his father directly, or I’d risk losing my boy once again. Slowly, taking a breath, I objectively explain the circumstances and make sure that none of the women—girls, really—had hurt him.

He reveals a different wound. When the roommates materialized, my little condo no longer felt like home. I thought he had all he could need—his own room, homecooked meals, camera accessories, new clothes—while I slept on the downstairs couch. Who knows where the idea comes from, but at the time, he says that his father’s big house is more comfortable and his new, Swiss wife is nice.

Years pass and he returns to California after working across the country. Sometimes, I make excuses to visit Los Angeles from my San Diego home and let him know when I’ll be in town. I ask, 'Why don't we meet for lunch or dinner?" I drop a link into infrequent text messages, to something he might find interesting. I let him know that the house I now own is his also, anytime. He's a wonder, a successful creative, plotting dots and grids while building digital worlds for scientists and studios, but still unsatisfied. Somehow, I’m grateful for letting go and drawing back. Now there’s gold in the cracks.

“The time’s a changing,” echoes the Dylan anthem, but it’s also a lyric in Half Alive’s latest release, and a new movie, A Complete Unknown, about Bob Dylan's early days is opening soon. I spot a picture of the lead actor doing research in Hibbing.

He’s draped across seats inside my mom’s high school auditorium. Timothée Chalamet is playing the young Dylan. My son and I are talking about seeing the movie together. I don’t imagine tearing up during the film but if he asks, I would be hard-pressed to explain why an indie band opened my heart, an actor forced it to feel again, and a poet minstrel can pluck the strings.

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Elaine Masters is an essayist, travel, and food journalist with awards from Travelers’ Tales, Edible Magazine, Indie Excellence, Society of Professional Journalists, and American Women in Radio and TV. Her blog, Tripwellgal.com, focuses on humane, ethical journeys, and ocean adventures. While working on her memoir about travel serendipity, Elaine continues multi-media storytelling in @tripwellgal reels.