It’s a mild February day on the Gulf Coast, so I sit beside the pool, sip my umbrella-garnished drink, and bask. From behind my sunglasses, I read with one eye and people-watch with the other. Today, I’m soaking up Anne Lamott’s witty wisdom on how we wordsmiths are prone to seeing connections everywhere. As if on cue, I scan the set and let my imagination take me away.

At this resort-slash-conference center, there are singles, couples, and so many families, each with narratives I can’t possibly know. But I can create worlds that don’t exist with the stroke of a pen—or with no pen at all.

A mom shouts to her preschooler, “I think I see your other flip flop, over there!” I spy it tipped on its side, and I’m tumbled thirty years into the past, when I searched frantically near our dock at the lake for the match to the pricey extra-wide Stride Rite sandal we’d driven an hour to buy and couldn’t afford to lose.

I unearth the wayward sandal from beneath the pile of towels, stash it into the beach bag, then help Eric wade into the shallow water on his sturdy little-boy legs. I alternately encourage and caution: “C’mon, you can do it! Come closer...now, be careful. Don’t step on that rock. Look here! Do you want this sand pail? Wave hi to Mrs. Jackson. There, you’re doing great!”

The past evaporates into the Florida heat as a young woman strolls silently to the in-ground kiddie pool. She seems quiet, yet sure. Just behind her, a little girl, two years old, maybe three. They’re mother/daughter, for the sake of my story. How would I describe the little one, I wonder?

To me—the decades-ago mom of three roly-poly toddlers with baby-fat bracelets—she seems ethereal. Her sparkly pink swimsuit hangs off her small frame, bagging at the legs. The curly blond locks, secured in miniature rubber bands, escape in wisps to frame her petite features. Sunglasses—pink, of course— perched on her tiny nose, she carries a ball, ever-so-gingerly balancing it between her delicate hands. I can almost see the faint clouds of fairy dust she leaves in her wake.

Mom sets her on the edge of the splash pool, where the broad arcing steps lead gently into the water below. I expect her mother to drop down on the ledge beside her or lower herself into the shallow water, poised to catch her daughter. Instead, Mom circles the perimeter to sit facing her. She’s within a safe distance for rescue purposes, but far enough—out of arm’s length. Mom observes as Tinker Bell watches the older boys and girls splashing, shrieking with laughter.

Before long, she tosses her ball into the water, and it’s snatched up by a boy from a boisterous clan. Dark-haired and solid, he’s nearly the perfect opposite of Tink. I tense, fretting she’s seen the last of her toy, wondering how Mom will negotiate this turn of events, but the ball comes right back to her. She tosses it away, again and again.

It’s only a ball, and Mom is right there, but our little girl is not at all concerned. She already trusts that what she sends out will return to her, trusts that who she is will be enough. I suspect her parents have taught her this confidence, standing in for the world as they take what she sends them and return it, predictably, reassuringly. Mom looks on, but I see no dispassion here. She knows Tink will be fine; the little one knows she’ll be fine, too. This letting her discover who she is, free from unnecessary intervention—it mesmerizes me.

Frankly, it makes me uncomfortable.

Is this the mistake I made? I cuddled and snuggled, declaring my love and his lovability, while teaching Eric to survive in a world where not everyone loved him. I cheered him on and gently warned, a continual game of warmer and colder designed to keep him within the safety zone. It seemed a reasonable approach, this shaping him into someone who stays between the lines, someone easy for others to accept. It’s all about common sense, I thought. It’s all about balance.

Yet I felt a subtle urgency then, a quality so completely missing from this mother-daughter pair it takes my breath away.

Stop this, I scold myself. Maybe I’ve attributed great wisdom where there is only passivity. Maybe I’ve witnessed this mother’s self-centeredness masquerading as self-confidence.

Or maybe it’s genetic, this sense of being entitled to a place in the world. Perhaps some—the lucky ones—inherit the secret password and hand it down to their children, never knowing what it’s like to worry about being accepted. I wonder how that would be, even now, waking up in the world like you already know you belong there.

Tink has it easy. Others try too hard, hoping you’ll notice they have the privilege of membership. They’re not hard to spot. Then there are the rebels, who stare not belonging right in the face, daring us to make them care. They work so hard at not caring that we see right through them, too.

It strikes me that it’s those who walk both of these paths—juggling the endless trying and the not trying at all—yet are so skilled at hiding their struggle who must suffer most.

I’ll never know exactly how Eric saw himself at the end, when his recklessness led to his death in a single-car crash at twenty. No one can know the true depth and breadth of his pain. But I do know one thing: This was not the balancing act I had hoped for.

Wails from the wading pool catch my attention, and I’m shocked to see Tinker Bell kicking and crying. Little Miss Calm has lost her cool. She’s confident, all right—confident she’s not ready to leave. Mom’s anything but hands off now. She wraps Tink in her arms and whisks her away, beads of perspiration gathering on her upper lip, tension in her brow. The fairy dust has vaporized.

Perfect parenting is, perhaps, as ephemeral as fairy dust, here one moment, gone the next. What a relief.

I turn back to my book and hide a tiny smile.

Share

Leave a comment

Read our essay archives

Upcoming Open Secrets events

Listen to podcast Finders and Keepers

Casey Mulligan Walsh is a retired speech-language pathologist who has written for The New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, Barren Magazine, and numerous other literary magazines. Her essay, “Still,” published in Split Lip, was nominated for Best of the Net. Her memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, was released from Motina Books in February 2025. Casey also serves as an ambassador and Board member for the Family Heart Foundation. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, Kevin, and too many books to count. Learn more at caseymulliganwalsh.com.

In the winter of 1999, at age 22, I sat across from my father in his rented condo in Sarasota, Florida, pressed the button of a tape recorder and said, “Start at the beginning,” and he told me of a warplane descending upon him when he was ten years old. That first night of our work together, I considered a little boy, running from a firing plane, then coming home from summer camp to discover his family gone.

How must either of those disasters feel to a child? I asked myself that night as I drifted into a broken sleep. We’d captured the actions of those moments, but not the feelings.

The next day we met again, the recorder between us, and I clicked the button. My father was ready to move forward and tell me what events happened next.

“Hold on,” I said and he looked at me. “How did it feel,” I asked him, to find his family gone? “How did it feel,” I went on, to see their apartment burned down and to be ten and alone, in a city freshly crawling with war? “How did it feel?”

I leaned back, waiting.

“Why do you keep asking me about the first day?” he bit back, with the same domineering staccato he would use to tell me I’d overloaded the dishwasher or failed to take the trash to the curb. The voice felt like a warning. His tone had often frozen me solid, as my protection from an anger that always seemed one infinitesimal mistake away from erupting. He could turn his voice thunderous; use it to put me in the place he wanted me.

I crossed my arms and looked over the table at him. He clicked his tongue and scowled. He stood and went to the kitchen and fixed a cup of coffee his usual way: a splash of cream and two level teaspoons of sugar. I watched a snowy egret drift across the pond behind the condo and waited. My mother passed through the room with a pile of laundry in her arms. The tapes rolled, capturing stretches of silence interrupted by the clink of his pipe against an ashtray, the striking of a match.

He sat again. He shifted in his chair a few more times. “As soon as you see your city almost gone, there is a knot in your stomach. You have that sinking feeling. This just gets worse as you approach your burned-out building. You are hopeful, you are hopeful, you are hopeful and little by little that last hope is gone, too.”

I began recording his stories the winter after I’d enrolled at Oberlin College. My first semester, I signed up for Russian language and history courses, curious about the land my father came from but hardly mentioned.

During a Russian politics course, we watched the 1985 Russian film Come and See, about the 1941 German invasion of Belarus. When the film’s protagonist Flyora returns to his village after the Nazis arrive and finds it abandoned, buzzing with flies, it reminded me of a story my father had told my family, one I’d never focused on. I remembered sitting in our living room, my father relaying the tale of finding his family’s apartment in Minsk scorched, walls collapsed, surrounded by piles of dust that were once other buildings.

I found myself pulled like a magnet to my professor’s office, to tell him the film felt familiar, like something my father described. He asked a question I couldn’t answer: What had happened to my father’s family?

My father had never offered the information and I’d never asked.

Why had neither of these things occurred? I knew only that one day he had a family and on the next he didn’t. His family of origin—my family—felt like characters in a Dostoevsky novel: a grandma, Valentina: an aunt, Rema; and peasant great-grandparents from a primitive village.

I used Oberlin’s month-long winter semester, meant to encourage independent study, as a reason to visit my father in Florida and ask about these people he had lost. My parents were snowbirds by then, spending winters down south. My father reluctantly agreed to the interviews but wondered aloud why any professor would offer academic credit for having him talk about his past.

Our early recordings were slow, a mixture of my relentless refrain of “how did that feel” and his hesitation to connect feeling to the actions. He rolled his eyes at me again and again, indicating I was ridiculous to want to know how his experiences of war felt. The best I could do was not budge, wait him out, ask the question again. I wanted to know from his point of view, because I couldn’t imagine what he had endured, because I had not experienced war myself.

He eventually detailed the hunger he felt waking each morning, unhoused and orphaned, on the streets of Minsk, Belarus, with German tanks now roving the roads of his home city.

“How does hunger feel?” I asked, because he’d made certain I never knew hunger and I didn’t know how hunger borne from food scarcity felt. There was always food available in our home. My father described an all-consuming ache in his belly. Before the war, he always had access to food and never had to think about finding it himself and now suddenly, with his apartment gone and his family disappeared, his waking hours were dedicated to begging for or stealing it. It was the foremost consideration of every moment and the work of every single day

After I shut off the tape recorder at the end of the day he described this hunger to me. I sat on the condo’s salmon-colored couch staring at the local news blaring through their television, exhausted by what he had shared. My father sat behind my mother and me at the dining table and tapped his pipe against the ashtray.

“Don’t you feel bad for me? Don’t you?” he asked.

I turned to him, saw his face scrunched up, his eyes pinched nearly closed and moist. I walked behind him, hugged his neck and kissed his nearly bald head. “Of course I do, Papa, of course I do.”

What else to say? I did feel bad for him.

“How come you’re not telling me about people?” I asked, when we spoke about a time in 1945, after he had escaped a newly unfolding conflict in Belarus and found refuge in Germany and was running again—this time from the BMW plant where he worked, to bomb shelters. This time it was Allied planes that dropped death from the sky.

“I know about the workers in the factory, that they existed, but none of their details. It seems like it’s just you,” I said.

“I told you about Zigmund and Luda,” he protested, naming two people he had met at a Displaced Persons camp in Germany who would eventually become his godparents.

“Fair enough,” I answered. “But that’s it. Where are all the other people?”

He cradled the black plastic pipe tip between his teeth and paused. He exhaled. “Once you make a friend and that person dies from the bombs and it keeps happening, you stop making friends,” he said, strumming his fingertips on the table where we sat, as he looked at me to understand.

At dusk I sat outside by our pool. Alone by the bubbling water, the filter humming, I looked up at a sky devoid of aircraft, but I kept imagining a plane breaking through the walls of our house. My father joined me, filling his pipe as he sat. I told him my fear. He had known that fear, he said. He had seen empty skies too. This hush, he said, was good. Precautionary. He wasn’t afraid of this sky and America now was not Russia then.

The fall months of 2001 passed, and we closed in on the end of recording his stories. He recounted his immigration to the United States on the USS Sturgis in 1949 when he was eighteen. He had heard of the United States as a land of promise for immigrants, where he could have any life that he wanted if he worked for it. He told me about falling for my mother at a St. Patrick’s Day dance in Chicago in 1950, when all he could say in English was, Would you like to dance? and how she abandoned the boy she had come to the party with to swing with my father to Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.”

He detailed their eventual move to Boston so that he could attend MIT, how he wanted to go to the best possible engineering school, because he felt that was the best way to land the best job that made him the most money, so that he could support the family that he and my mother wanted to create. He told of raising a family, sharing with me anecdotes about each of his thirteen children, as I steered clear of what he wasn’t saying about his drinking, his violence, the pervasive tautness of my childhood home, where we all stepped around him as if he were a human landmine. At the time I didn’t have words to ask him about the atmosphere of our home, where his children loved him but feared his brutality most of all.

Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say about it, or I was afraid to push, worried he would stop talking if I did. If there are omissions in the tapes that feel like wasted opportunity, this is one.

After we finished our interviews in January 2002, I continued living with my parents while I looked for my first post-college job. One day, I was in my bedroom practicing a song I had no business attempting, “Reflection,” a ballad off the Mulan soundtrack recorded by Christina Aguilera. In the song, Mulan’s character wants to be seen by her father as a warrior who is brave and capable, in a time and place where girls weren’t supposed to be either of those things. I sang it an octave down and it sounded silly coming from a baritone’s mouth, but I related to the message of wanting to be seen as I was, in a world that didn’t want to see me. I finished singing and heard little noises—light footsteps, the scuffle of slippers—outside my door.

“You sound beautiful, son,” my father said when I opened the door and found him there.

He would use that word to describe me. “How’s my beautiful son?” was his greeting for me most of the time now.

Lodged in my memory were the other words he called me in earlier versions of both our lives. Fat. Ugly. Stupid. The monster of my childhood was now calling me beautiful on a daily basis. I tried to hear it, tried to make room for new ways of being with my father. I couldn’t help having a childlike reaction to his new sweetness and feeling resistance. I actually rolled my eyes, waiting for the monster to reveal himself, to upend the pleasantness.

“I want to talk to you, son,” he said to me one day, early in 2002, as I was heading out for a run.

“What?” I asked with a jerk of my head, wanting to get out the door.

“I am going to die soon,” he continued. “And I want you to know what you should do for your mother when I am gone.”

“Why do you think you’re going to die?” I asked. “I just know,” he said. “Just write this down.”

I wrote his instructions on a piece of torn-out notebook paper. He directed me to all his bank accounts, what I should do with each and how I should make sure my mother had everything she needed. He gave me a hug when he was done, his tears wetting my running shirt at one shoulder.

As I jogged out of the driveway, I looked back at the house, thinking that what had just happened was a little bizarre, but not unsurprising. He’d been sick for a while, with no answers from the medical establishment and no plan provided for recovery, despite countless referrals and meetings with specialists. “Not dementia.” “Something else.” “Don’t know what,” they said. He’d gotten worse, unable now to drive himself a few miles without forgetting the way home. He was 73, still spry, still walking around the yard and the neighborhood with my mother, but after all the medical dead ends, he was realistic enough to think he might not escape whatever this was and it frustrated him.

Throughout his life he had relied on his body and mind and his ability to adapt, to escape what was meant to kill him. He’d excelled at it. This time, despite a team of physicians, despite tracking the course of his illness, his body and mind seemed to be conspiring against his will to survive.

Because of our work together, I knew that the man crying on my shoulder in 2002, the one certain he would die soon, was his most recent incarnation. And like his previous incarnations, his current condition was driven by necessity. Because of what the world demanded, even his name had changed. He had been Volodya, the child separated from his family by a Nazi invasion, then Wolfgang, the pre-teen taken in and raised by the very Nazis who engineered his abandonment. From there he became Władysław, the young, displaced person delivered from the Germans by the United Nations to the shores of the U.S., where he learned to be Walter.

Walter. My father. My tormenter. My interview subject. A force that drove my own life’s changes and incarnations. Over 50 hours of recordings, we sat with one another, each of us asking same question: Who, exactly, are you?

It’s been nearly a quarter century since his death in early 2002 and still I must ask myself, Who exactly was my father?

From War Boys: A Father and Son Memoir by Jason Prokowiew. Reprinted by permission of Trio House Press.

War Boys is our November 2026 Open Secrets Book Club selection.

Share

Leave a comment

Read our essay archives

Upcoming Open Secrets events

Listen to podcast Finders and Keepers

Jason Prokowiew won the 2023 PEN America/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History, a Fulbright Scholar Award, and the Aurora Polaris Prize for Nonfiction for War Boys, his braided memoir about his Russian father’s adoption by Nazis during World War II and the trauma his father carried into parenthood. His writing has appeared in The North American Review, Under the Sun, The Guardian, Salon, Roxane Gay’s Emerging Writer Series, “The Audacity,” WBUR’s Cognoscenti, Brevity, Business Insider, and on PBS/WORLD Channel’s Stories from the Stage. His Stories from the Stage piece, “Sing,” has over 2.6 million views on Facebook and is the most viewed in the show’s history. His essay “The Demulcent of Shame,” originally published by Roxane Gay, won the 2023 Lascaux Prize for Creative Nonfiction. He’s received additional support from Bread Loaf, Ucross, Tin House, Ragdale, and the Mass Cultural Council. A recovering disability attorney, he lives on a lake in Massachusetts with his husband Dave and their greyhound Champ.

Find out more at warboysbook.com

My stepfather Arthur* loves fresh fruit.

He and my mom spent their 30 years together in Florida, and for all the Sunshine State’s flaws, the produce is amazing. Citrus, melons, stone fruits, berries, even plain ‘ole apples—that man could demolish a fruit plate. When he’d come visit us in Seattle in springtime, he’d marvel at the Bing and Rainier cherries, devouring bag after bag.

My mother would chastise him. “Your triglycerides are high,” she’d say, telling him what he already knew.

My mom was right, but so was Arthur.

She knew too much sugar had consequences. He knew how to relish what he loved. But he also lacked the sense to know when something was a bad idea. Or perhaps he knew, and chose to indulge anyways, without regard for what might happen next.

In life, as in peaches.

This is my stepfather.

In 2019—about five years after he and my mother divorced—my stepfather and his business partners were convicted of scamming over a dozen people out of $3.6 million in investments. He was sentenced to 42 months in prison and to pay restitution to his victims. I have no personal knowledge of how or when these crimes were committed. I found out about it in the news, like everyone else.

I’m sure the courts went after his bank accounts and other assets. I hope it was enough to compensate all the victims for what he stole from them.

As Father’s Day approaches, I’m contemplating my own restitution. I also had something lost or stolen, but nothing a court of law could replace.

I lost my trust in a parent—and in my own memory of him.

Because this is also my stepfather.

I first met Arthur in 1987, when I was in high school and he and my mother began dating. My parents had recently separated. I’d just started to appreciate my home without my dad in it, the sense of levity I felt in the absence of his imposing presence. And then there appeared this new man, one who physically wasn’t unlike my dad: tall, Jewish, brown hair, hazel eyes. But the resemblance ended there. Where my dad was mercurial, tipping toward explosive, Arthur was chill, thoughtful, and kind in ways my troubled, angry father never was.

As an adult looking back, I have an even greater appreciation for Arthur; it’s not every 40-something man who wants to take on a girlfriend with two teenage children. But he did that and more. He quickly became a father figure for me—a relationship I sorely needed, and one that continued for decades.

Arthur listened, and he heard me. I can recall a conversation we had sometime in my twenties, even as I don’t remember what blowup with my dad had preceded it. “If your father can’t see what an amazing person his daughter is, then fuck him,” he told me.

It was so much easier to do that, knowing Arthur had my back.

I come from a loving family, though perhaps one where success is valued so highly that vulnerability gets swallowed. Arthur got it. Countless times, he reached out and asked if I needed anything, financially or otherwise, making clear it was between just us. He always made me feel like I could come to him for anything. Even better, I rarely had to—he’d ask before I found the words.

When I told Arthur and my mom I was engaged, he was as happy for me as if I’d been his own daughter. He met my future in-laws as my parent, and financed a good deal of the ceremony, expecting nothing in return but that I enjoy the day as I wanted to plan it.

At the time, I had only one living grandparent, my mom’s dad, who opted not to fly across the country for our wedding. That stung. But Arthur’s mom and her partner showed up; they flew out and danced the night away and rejoiced with our family. I don’t think I ever let them know how much that meant to me, and I wish I had, before they were gone.

Once I became a parent, Arthur stepped up effortlessly as a grandfather, spoiling my daughters with his attention and affection. He always remembered holidays and our birthdays, and would send cards or messages.

He still does, even now.

The only years when I didn’t receive them? The ones when he was incarcerated.

My stepdad contains multitudes, and so do I.

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

So says Whitman in “Song of Myself,” and so do I, as I try to reconcile a 30-year nurturing paternal relationship with the criminal I know Arthur to be. My heart and brain keep circling the same questions: how, and why? How did the same man who loved, raised, and healed me then go on to commit such crimes? Who was the real Arthur? And what was I supposed to do, as a stepdaughter and mother, in continuing a relationship with him? Does he deserve a place in my life, with my family? Do I owe him that after 30 years? Can we both hold that many multitudes?

It’s been nearly seven years since his conviction, and he’s served his time. I still can’t answer these questions. All I have is what I’ve gleaned from the past, and the steps I’ve taken—or chosen not to take—in the years since his arrest.

First and foremost, I know Arthur loves his family unconditionally. More than anyone else, Arthur demonstrated to me how to love without judgment.

In the kindest reading of his circumstances, this may have been his undoing.

It all began years earlier, when Arthur’s daughter started dating a man who was in prison, had been there for years, for some sort of white collar fraud crimes. He was innocent, of course, and he was loaded, naturally, so when he got out of prison, he and Arthur’s daughter were going to get married, or so he said.

So Arthur started visiting the prison with his daughter, to get to know this man whom she intended to marry one day.

My mother was horrified.

I understood why. I’m certain my mom gave Arthur an earful. Once again, my mom was right, but so was Arthur.

She knew validating this relationship and investing time to get to know a criminal could have negative consequences. He knew how to cherish what he loved. And if his daughter loved this man, then he wanted to support her by getting to know him. I’d never known anyone in my family who would’ve supported me without judgment like that.

I was awed by his unconditional love.

But also, I’m my mother’s daughter. I shared her misgivings. I understood Arthur lacked the sense to know when something was a bad idea—or perhaps he knew, and chose to indulge his daughter anyway, without regard for what might happen next.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself.

My mother faced no such contradictions. Arthur’s support of his daughter became the final straw. They divorced in 2014.

I continued to receive texts and Facebook updates from my stepfather. His daughter’s boyfriend did get out of prison, and they did get engaged. Then they formed an investment company together. My mom and I wondered at the feasibility of it all, but now from a distance.

And that was it, for years. I can’t say what part Arthur played in the financial scam, how much he knew, or why he did what he did. My knowledge ends here, but the story continues.

On February 19, 2019—my wedding anniversary, incidentally—the news came: 16 charges of wire fraud. Then the fiancé died of a heart attack in prison. Arthur’s daughter was never charged. I have to think he protected her, though I have no proof.

Arthur reached out to me ahead of his sentencing and asked if I’d be willing to write a letter to the judge on his behalf, hoping to lessen his sentence. I wrote that letter. I told the truth, that knowing Arthur had made my life better through his kindness and support over the past 30 years.

“It made me cry,” Arthur replied when I emailed it over.

He got 42 months. I’m not sure if that was good or bad for his crimes, but I’d like to think my little words made an impact. At Arthur’s request, I provided my email as a point of contact for the prison. When I got the message that he’d officially been incarcerated, my heart sank as my mind’s eye filled with a past vision of my stepfather, grinning with his giant nightly plate of fruit. The immensity of his actions knocked the wind out of me, and I teared up as I thought, He’s 72 years old, and he’s in prison, and I don’t think he’ll have fresh fruit there, or possibly ever again.

He loved fruit so much. I cried for his loss, and for mine. How is this our shared reality, I lamented.

I’ll never know.

He’s out now. He texts me on holidays, and for the kids’ birthdays. Sometimes I reply, but I keep it brief. I know he’s still in Florida because when I posted photos on Facebook while visiting my mom, he messaged me, asking to get together. I can’t. Or at least, I don’t.

I know I can’t recover what I lost. I had a father figure knocked out from under me. Someone I loved without question betrayed that trust, all his multitudes notwithstanding. Unlike his victims, I won’t get restitution from him. What’s lost is lost. Instead, I look for it in myself. I hold onto the good I had with him, and I choose to believe it was real.

I’m certain it was.

I’m happy he’s out now.

I hope he’s relishing a too-large portion of melon, peaches, and berries, ripe and in-season.

I may even send him a text to wish him a happy Father’s Day.

*Name changed for privacy.

Share

Leave a comment

Read our essay archives

Upcoming Open Secrets events

Listen to podcast Finders and Keepers

My relationship with my dad was a fraught one throughout my life. He was a recovering alcoholic, sober for 19 years, until he wasn’t. After an accident at work that dislocated his shoulder, he became addicted to prescription pills, which ultimately led him back to alcohol. My mom gave him many chances to get sober before she divorced him.

Dad was a bit of a rebel. Fully tattooed, down to his knuckles, leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding. Despite butting heads, we bonded over horror movies, a shared interest of ours. I got my taste in everything from him, and as a School of Visual Arts dropout, he had good taste. I wish he would’ve stayed in art school; he was really good, and selfishly I think I would’ve made a good nepo baby. But alcohol got in the way. He ruined his connections and ended his art career before it started. However, that didn’t stop him from turning our house into his personal art project, with walls decked out in murals, abundant collections, walls painted orange. It was maximalism before it was trendy, and it was how I grew up.

After my mom served him divorce papers, my dad took off on a cross-country road trip on his Harley Davidson, going from our home in San Diego to where I was in New York City. I talked to him on the phone every night of his journey, where he would drunkenly atone for his sins and regale me with tales of barfights along Route 66. He begged me to join him on his journey; he’d pay for the plane ticket and everything. I couldn’t. I was only 21 and still in college; it was the middle of the semester. I didn’t really want to be there while he got drunk by himself anyway.

He made it as far as Missouri before turning back. He never made it to New York, instead staying holed up in a haunted hotel in Gallup, New Mexico. The hotel was a spot in the desert, straight out of an old Western, and was frequently used for various film shoots. In addition to that, it had a reputation for being haunted. It seemed like the kind of spot my dad would thrive in.

Two weeks into his stay at the hotel, I got a FaceTime call from my mom early in the morning. It was exactly what I expected; my dad had died. He drank himself to death in that haunted hotel, another ghost for the collection. I didn’t cry, I was the one talking to him every night, so I knew exactly how bad his drinking had gotten. It was only a matter of time.

My mom and sister visited the hotel years later. The people working at the hotel remembered my dad. How could they not? It must’ve been entirely traumatizing for them to find his body. Apparently on his last night, my dad ordered a steak to his room. When room service delivered the steak, he handed them a tip with tears in his eyes. “Pray for me,” he told them. He was gone by the morning. Hearing this story was what made me realize that perhaps his death was more intentional than a random night of alcohol poisoning.

Years later, my mom is watching the Discovery Channel when she sees an ad for Ghost Adventures. Apparently, an episode was airing that night about the hotel where my dad died. They’d be hunting for ghosts in that Gallup hotel. Maybe they’ll meet my dad, I thought. I watched the episode that night. It was mostly fabricated stories, but my dad’s death was mentioned as “the suicide in room 214.”

The reenactment actor looked nothing like my dad; he didn’t have a single tattoo. And there wasn’t a drop of alcohol in the room, just bottles of pills. They not only didn’t ask his family for permission, they also got the facts wrong. I was a little offended, but mostly I was weirdly proud. My dad loved ghosts and anything spooky, so I’m sure he would’ve been thrilled to be featured as a ghost in a haunted cowboy hotel.

After I watched the episode, I made the very Gen-Z decision to make a TikTok video about it. “I don’t know if you guys watch Ghost Adventures,” I told my audience. “But the hotel where my dad died was on the latest episode.” I then talked a little bit about who my dad was, and why he was at the hotel. It blew up on the app, getting about 100,000 views before I deleted the app a few months later. I’m not a big fan of social media and the sheer amount of people listening to my story was overwhelming. It was a niche audience, but it was nice while it lasted.

I reached out to the Ghost Adventures guys. They never got back to me. I think they were worried I would sue them or something. For the record, I was never planning on doing that, or chastising them in any way, I mostly just wanted to collaborate and maybe talk to my dad’s ghost. But I digress. As surreal as it was seeing that episode, I think it’s best to let my dad be. He had a difficult life, and if his final resting place is a haunted hotel, well, I think that’s what he might’ve wanted.

Shortly after my dad’s death, I went on my own cross-country road trip. With a childhood friend driving, we went along Route 66, me scattering my dad’s ashes at every gas station we stopped at along the way. My friend was already making the journey for school, so I tagged along to try to make some sense of my father’s headspace when he went on his own journey. Eventually we stopped at the hotel in Gallup, where we planned to stop for just one morning at the tail end of our trip. It was a gorgeous spot, truly. The lobby was adorned in furs and looked even more like it had been transported from a Western.

I didn’t stay long, and I didn’t talk to anybody, but I took it all in. I didn’t plan on going to the room where he died. I didn’t want to talk to him. I just wanted to see the place for myself, the same place that my dad texted me pictures of mere days before he died. I didn’t want to bother the staff for any kind of grand tour or séance. I figured it was probably traumatic for them to find a dead body in their room. So I numbly walked through the lobby, feeling a sense of peace.

This was the last place my dad ever stayed. This was the spot where he finally succumbed to his demons. And this was where his ghost was now, hopefully, resting. I truly hope that wherever he is in the afterlife, if he is a ghost at this haunted hotel, or if he’s finally at peace, he’s happy where he is. At least happier than he was in his lifetime. Regardless of how he treated us, he deserves at least that.

Share

Leave a comment

Read our essay archives

Upcoming Open Secrets events

Listen to podcast Finders and Keepers

Rachel Meghan is a mother, book critic, and writer based in Providence, RI. They have been featured in Poynter, Vulture, Rue Morgue, and Books by Page, among others. They love horror movies, musicals, weird books, and their family.

“Come on, kids!” I chirped, eyeing the container’s faded baby blue paint, “who wants to climb up with me?”

I placed my foot in a divot and pulled myself to the top.

Before that moment, I had no idea what this fraught experience would feel like. This wasn’t real dumpster diving, into a trash dumpster. There wouldn’t be rotting food scraps, poopy diapers, and other pungent items. This was only a recycling dumpster for paper products. But would it be full to the brim and we could just position ourselves on top of the papers to dig through? Or would it be partially empty, and we’d have to jump inside? If we did jump inside, how would we get back out? I was pretty sure Ethan and Benji, ages 7 and 5, would be up for searching in the dumpster with me, but I wasn’t sure what Fiona, age 2 and a half, would do. Lucy, a month old, would hopefully sleep in her car seat, which I’d move under a shady spot.

But none of these unknowns stopped me from attempting this mission. I was going to dumpster dive, and I was going to Save. Our. Family. Money. It’s hard to explain the thrill I get when I save money on a purchase. Instead of bragging about how much I paid for something, or showing off a Gucci bag or designer shoe, I enjoy bragging about how little I paid. “This? Oh, I got it from Craigslist for $15.”

It’s like a contest I’m always having with sellers to see how cheaply I can acquire things. And I love to win.

There wasn’t one simple thousand-dollar answer to my family’s current problems. My husband Reid was already working his ass off as a college philosophy instructor at Auburn University in Alabama. He taught four classes per semester and tried to research and write in between. This new money-saving venture, in addition to my part-time job two mornings a week at a children’s drop-off program, was one thing I could do. I could dumpster dive at the paper recycling center, find thrown-away newspapers, salvage the coupons from inside them, and start paying less for groceries.

At the couponing 101 class I’d taken last month for $20, which we’d easily make back once I got the hang of couponing, the teacher, Jackie, explained how it worked. She taught us how to follow sale cycles and use coupons on top of the sales. Our town had a local paper, but it didn’t include many coupons, if any. But Atlanta, Georgia, the closest big city to Auburn, distributed its papers to smaller cities in the area, and the Atlanta Sunday paper included a whole coupon booklet. It was 2013, and Atlanta’s paper would cost you about $3 from the coin-operated newspaper dispenser at the gas station.

Jackie said to get the coupon booklet from inside the paper and hold onto it. It wouldn’t be worth it to cut the coupons out and use them right away. Items didn’t typically go on sale the same week that there was a coupon for the item in that week’s paper. But in a week or two, grocery stores would have sales on those items, the coupons could be used on top of the sale, and you’d pay less for the name-brand item than for the store-brand item.

But it still didn’t help a ton unless you had multiple sets of the coupons. Then, if an item was on sale, say two for $10, and you have two coupons for a dollar off each item, you pay even less.

This is where the dumpster came in. Jackie had talked about ways to get more newspapers cheaply. You could ask your neighbors for theirs, but none of my neighbors got the Atlanta paper. You could ask your co-workers to bring you theirs on Mondays, but none of Reid’s coworkers got the paper either. You could ask the guy at Starbucks reading the paper if he minded if you took the coupons, but I never went to Starbucks, nor could I count on finding an old guy reading the Atlanta newspaper at a Starbucks if I did go. Jackie said she even knew someone who went to her city’s recycling center and found tons of discarded coupons. That idea caught my ear. Yes, I could do that!

Auburn’s recycling center sat at the end of a gravel road and was just a set of dumpsters; if I remember correctly, one for paper and cardboard, one for aluminum, and one for glass.

So here I was standing in front of a blue dumpster for paper recycling, and I knew my life was about to change for the better. In fact, I was eager to show how badass and committed I was to my family.

As it turned out, the dumpster was nearly full to the top. My oldest boy and I climbed up into it. Benji and Fiona wandered around the empty parking area looking for rocks and sticks. Baby Lucy slept soundly in the shade of the August heat.

I picked up piles of cardboard. I filtered through stacks of paper. Ethan and I probably spent thirty minutes sifting through the items. I’m sure I climbed down once or twice to get Fiona her sippy cup or help hoist Benji up to the dumpster because he wanted to help too. I found a couple of newspapers from the Sunday before, but no coupons with them. In the end, I’d only found two coupon booklets, and one of them already had a couple of coupons cut out.

Where were the droves of coupon booklets Jackie’s friend had recovered? The average income of an Auburn University student’s family was $150,000 a year, so I couldn’t imagine those families were taking the coupons. Most of my friends were stay-at-home moms too and saved where they could, but they only occasionally couponed. And even though the neighborhood we lived in was mostly populated by lower-income families like ours, I didn’t know any neighbors who did much couponing. Auburn was half-populated by wealthy families; the other half were white-collar workers or were scraping by like us. But it still felt like most of the families we knew were rich compared to ours.

I sighed. Perhaps the explanation for the lack of coupons was as simple as the fact that people were not big on recycling and had tossed their papers in the trash.

I drove the 25 minutes home feeling defeated, my visions of coming home with a stack of 20 coupon booklets, dashed.

For me to work a full-time job wasn’t worth what we’d have to pay for childcare. Paying roughly three-quarters of my income and netting only one quarter of my pay after deducting childcare fees didn’t hold enough merit for either myself or Reid.

Years before, I’d tried and failed at a few multi-level marketing businesses: the pink one that sells makeup and skin care, one of the essential oil lines, and a costume jewelry business based in Utah.

Before Lucy was born, I’d had three part-time jobs, totaling seventeen hours. At about six weeks postpartum, I would only go back to one of those jobs working Wednesday and Friday mornings at a children’s drop-off program at a church where I could bring my own children for free.

That was all I could do for now work-wise. There wasn’t even a place in Auburn, or the neighboring town of Opelika, where I could donate plasma. I’d checked.

I would be broken-hearted to leave my children. In spite of the hard parts, I loved being a mother. It was more fulfilling as a life calling than anything I could dream up. It made more sense for me to find part-time work that I could do without having to leave the kids.

I could save money in other ways, but if going to the length of dumpster diving for coupons didn’t help, in addition to all the other money-saving things I was doing, in addition to my job, in addition to saying no to many things that we would have liked to do, I was at an absolute loss for how to make things better.

I would go home and I would tell Reid about my failed venture in the dumpster, and he would probably say, “You went dumpster diving? You’re already working hard enough taking care of our kids. You don’t need to stress about money so much.”

But I did worry about it. He wasn’t as worried as I thought he should be, so I needed to stress enough for both of us. Maybe I was just better at attention to detail and budgeting, so I noticed the finances more. Or perhaps he didn’t want me to worry because it made him feel like he wasn’t doing a good enough job being a provider. I’m not sure either of us recognized the irony that while we were both embracing traditional values and male and female roles, I was the one stressing about how to save our family. Or maybe Reid was stressing about how to save our family in his own way: working his job as best he could and going on the job market every fall to look for better-paying positions.

About a year and a half later, things were no different. In early March of 2015, Reid needed a new phone since his old one had broken. I checked our bank account and saw that we had $659 in checking.

How did that even happen? I wondered, near tears.

It was the fifth of the month, and we needed to pay the landlord $750 for rent by the end of the week. I moved the last $433 from the savings account into the checking account. But how would we make it till Reid’s next paycheck? What would we do the following month when rent was due?

That evening, after a grocery run without the kids, I sat in the parking lot, staring at a new Korean karaoke place that had just opened. A couple of friends and I had speculated that because the karaoke rooms were private with no windows, soundproof, and rented by the hour, it was actually an undercover brothel. I’m embarrassed to admit this now. If I had done any research, I would have discovered that private soundproof rooms are perfectly typical of Korean karaoke.

But with my prejudices and lack of knowledge, I sat in my car, in front of the supposed undercover prostitution ring, wondering if they might hire me as a sex worker. Even if I could somehow confirm that it was really a brothel, would I just sashay in and say, “Listen, I know what this establishment really is, but don’t worry; I’m not a cop. I was wondering if you’re hiring any more ‘servers’”? I only considered this for a few minutes before driving away. But I wondered if I could find paid sex work elsewhere. Back at home, after kids were in bed, a quick search on a website’s local group revealed that, while there were sex things I wouldn’t do even for money, there were plenty of women looking for “fuck buddies” who were willing to do those things, and much more, for free.

In the end, I abandoned the idea of sex work. Maybe because it seemed too difficult to get into the business. Maybe it was my purity culture background or my suspicion that no one would want to pay to have sex with my mom-bod anyway. Maybe it was my terror at the idea of getting caught doing something illegal and being thrown in jail. Or probably a combination of all of the above. Anyway, I decided it wasn’t for me.

That night, after I’d stared at the karaoke bar, and after I learned the term fuck buddy from my online research, I lay in bed considering selling an organ. I’d have to be dead to sell a heart or liver, but…I had two working kidneys! Maybe there was someone out there who desperately needed a kidney and would pay top dollar for one of mine.

How does one even infiltrate the black market for organ selling? I wondered.

Then I had the horrifying thought that while I was under anesthesia, the illegal organ remover guy might just take both my kidneys, and my liver, and any other usable organ and leave me bleeding out on the gurney. The thought made me shiver under the covers.

In the dark, I glanced over at Reid, wondering if he was awake too with his mind spinning. But no, he was fast asleep.

Share

Leave a comment

Read our essay archives

Upcoming Open Secrets events

Hope Elizabeth Kidd lives in New York City with her husband and six children. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the City College of New York. She enjoys writing about motherhood, mental health, and her childhood in Zimbabwe, and is working on a memoir about living in NYC with a large family.

Publications include MUTHA magazine, Halfway Down the Stairs, and the Manifest Station. For two years, she worked as an editor on Promethean, City College’s literary journal, and she now co-hosts the monthly reading series Must Love Memoir. You can catch her on Instagram at @hopeelizabethwrites.

In the back of my kitchen cupboard sits a chipped mug. I can’t decide whether to get rid of it. For a time, this hefty blue cup was a favorite part of my morning ritual, its smooth red inside becoming submerged in steaming coffee and a splash of milk. Kurt Vonnegut quotes cover its surface, So it goes printed along the handle in wonky block letters. This mug, a Christmas gift plucked from my online wish list by my younger brother, who likely has never read a Vonnegut book, was beloved for years. Then it was knocked about and cracks appeared. An apt metaphor for my relationship with my brother.

I read once that, according to the practice of feng shui, you should remove items that are ripped, chipped, or cracked from your home because their energy also becomes broken, and this can be harmful to your wellbeing. Chip or not, the same recommendation should apply to gifts given by family members who have become estranged. No matter how much I might have loved the mug once upon a time, seeing it now only brings heartache, hence its relegation to the back of the cupboard. The mug oozes broken energy, but it’s not just its rim that’s chipped and raw-edged. My memories are too, the spot in my heart forever shaped like my estranged brother. That’s the reason I can’t seem to let go of the mug—it’s the last thing that connects me to him.

My brother stopped talking to me about eight years ago, my sister four years later. I haven’t had a relationship with our father in over twenty. My family of origin, in its disintegrated state, looks nothing like the potential I idealized for so long when I still believed their oft-repeated mantra, “Family is more important than anything.” But in my journey of estrangement, I’ve found a version of myself that is also different from what I might have imagined, more resilient, unwavering, and whole. If a mug existed with my own pithy quotes etched on its surface, they might say: No contact and intact! There is grief in my relief, and relief in my grief. Twenty years of estrangement, and all I got was this lousy mug. So it goes.

After I cut contact with my father two decades ago, fissures deepened in my relationships with my siblings. As the eldest, I’d always taken pride in my big sister role: bossy but enterprising, righteous but dependable, and (I thought) a good example. When we were children, I organized scavenger hunts, designed obstacle courses, and led games; later, I drove my siblings around and hosted them for sleepovers at my studio apartment; I shared music and clothes, jokes and hopes with them. Instinctively, I’d always done my best to provide stability to my younger siblings—my sister who hid under tables when visitors came to our home, my brother with a predilection for riding his bike down concrete steps. I mastered distraction tactics when our parents fought behind locked doors, our father’s angry voice booming through the walls, our mother’s whimpers haunting the space between.

Around the time our mother finally left our father, I too, in my early twenties by then, had reached the need for rupture. His relationship with me, once authoritarian but affectionate, had become unsustainable, fueled only by our conflicts and his contempt. I felt no love from him; worse, he seemed to want to destroy me. I moved away, to New York City, and told my father I needed a break from our toxic dynamic. This turned into a permanent severing of ties once I realized that my suicidal ideation had stopped and that his poor treatment of me never would.

I felt certain that my siblings, who claimed they agreed with my assessment of him, would follow in my estrangement footsteps. But my physical distance, for me an act of self-preservation, seemed to them an abandonment, spurring a parallel emotional distance. I understood this much later—the betrayal of my departure in their eyes. What I knew then was that, as I started fresh, untethered from the dysfunction, my siblings anchored in our father’s waters. As I insulated myself from his narrative, they became immersed in it. Its main plot point: I was to blame (along with my mother) for everything. Cracks began to ripple out between us, the fault deepening beneath our feet.

In my home, no special object reminds me of my father because he never gave me gifts—my mother was in charge of such things. There is, however, a stack of books he purchased for me. When I was eleven, he took me on a handful of trips to the bookstore where he bought whatever tomes I wanted. I vividly remember his warm nod, his matter-of-fact sliding of my chosen mystery titles toward the cashier, as I stood there baffled by my good fortune. This development was so out of character for him, so dramatically unlike anything that had ever unfolded between us, it felt downright magical. Not long before our bookstore adventures, I had discovered he was cheating on my mother with her best friend. I’d stayed quiet. The books still sit on my office shelves, a reminder of a murky quid pro quo that had flown way above my innocent head, a reminder of magic.

I still possess an assortment of gifts from my siblings. A neon-pink fountain pen my sister gave me. A hanging ceramic plant pot I received from my brother’s wife, hand-carved with geometric motifs. A canvas and leather tote purse from a favorite artisan that my siblings bought me together for my fortieth birthday. A hammered metal Eat sign that hung for a while over my stove. Earrings and a hoodie I no longer wear.

Like the Vonnegut mug, these objects have become tainted with memory and pain—and bitterness too. The fountain pen was another impersonal wish list purchase, a hint that my siblings in the last decade of our relationship no longer knew me at all. My sister opted for the default neon pink of the listing, rather than choosing a color I might actually like. I overlooked the garish hue for years, but now all I see is her indifference and its echo across many other instances. This fountain pen, previously my go-to writing utensil, now regularly dries up. The hanging ceramic pot was a well-chosen gift, nailing my taste and needs, but every time I water its philodendron, I remember my prim sister-in-law raising her palm in warning the only time I tried to share my story with her. “I know you and your father have your differences,” she said, “but he’s been nothing but nice to me.” As I wipe muddy water dripping from the drainage hole, shame still flushes my ears.

I cringe at acknowledging these resentments. They seem so petty. I like to think of myself as above such things; for so long I endeavored to be good, to show love, to prioritize others. But being the bigger person sometimes means you make the biggest sacrifice. Just like the chipped and cracked items of feng shui, these objects given by my siblings undeniably exude a damaged and deleterious energy. Worse, they remind me of how I lost myself. I haven’t yet had the will to give them away, but the more time passes, the less love and hope their presence conveys. Instead, they represent the lack of authenticity in my relationships with my siblings and their spouses, the repression I forced upon my needs, my demeanor, and my voice to fit in, the foolishness of my faith that I might then be seen.

Am I petty? Am I focused only on the negative? I suspect that’s what my siblings would say. How could I dismiss all the good that happened between us over time, our laughter and kinship through the years? Didn’t I also buy items from their wish lists for Christmas, what a hypocrite. Yes, I certainly had a part in our growing distance and a responsibility in our unraveling. There came a point where I too stopped knowing them. The difference in my view is that, for so long, while my siblings trucked along with enforced normalcy, I bent myself out of shape, desperate to be heard when no one wanted to hear me, folding myself smaller and smaller in some agonizing feat of origami until only my silence remained.

As the years advanced, my identity became for my siblings as it had been for my father, patchworked from untruths and conjecture rather than from facts and honest connection. I realized one day that, when disagreements occurred, no one talked to me, no one asked me how I felt or what I thought; instead, assumptions filled the gaps. The narrative was that I, the eldest sister, the estranged daughter, was the problem, and every phrase I uttered, every action I took then had to fit within the constraints of this narrative box, no matter how incongruous the interpretation. In the end, no amount of earnest effort or outrage on my part could combat the fantasy that felt convenient for them. Truth and accountability didn’t matter. I was the problem, and that was that.

To be fair, I made plenty of questionable choices. In big-sister fashion, I know I’ve pontificated and annoyed at times. I’ve argued points that were wrong. I definitely sent too many too-long emails. But I tried. In exchange, the most in-depth discussion my siblings and I had about our family’s dysfunction was, in summary, that they didn’t want to discuss it. Our physical distance didn’t help. I wasn’t around to hold my own in person, and the more I felt left out and purposely misunderstood, the less I called or visited. When I did, I no longer felt part of the family. The reason the hand-crafted tote purse they collectively gifted me sits in the back of my closet is that it reminds me of my siblings’ chummy whispers, side eyes, and stifled guffaws whenever I sat across a room from them, that dreadful sense of being ostracized, although perhaps they’d claim I imagined it.

After my father resurfaced to fuel some family drama four years ago, having constructed a house of cards too outlandish to explain here, I set some harsh boundaries. I urged my siblings to honor the truth and make things right. “I’m done,” I said, repeatedly. “I’m done offering my best to those who believe the worst.” It was, again, a too-long email. There was, again, zero discussion. My brother immediately blocked me on all social media. He no longer spoke to me by then, but cutting me off from seeing his adorable children grow up, even if only virtually, crushed me.

My sister and I stopped keeping in touch from that point on, but for a few years we still exchanged well-wishing texts on our birthdays. This kept a twinge of hope alive within me, that our relationship meant something to her, that an ember of sisterly affection still burned even if we didn’t talk, until about a year ago when I randomly realized she’d also blocked me on all social media, my silencing now complete. I don’t know what triggered her decision, perhaps the announcement of my forthcoming book about estrangement, perhaps another offense of which I remain unaware. Last year, for the first time, I didn’t hear from her on my birthday. Two months later, I sent a heartfelt text on hers, to which she responded only, “Thank you!” Those words—Thank you!—so polite and tone-less, the zing of the exclamation mark, float in the ether of our extinguished relationship.

Since then, with our rupture so palpable and, it seems, irreversible, I’ve finally begun the work of letting go—tangibly, with the items that still connect me to my siblings, and emotionally too. The removal began with the rusted iron Eat sign, once offered to our household by my brother, which I tossed in a donation box—a feasible first step, that décor going out of fashion. I can’t help but wonder if my siblings have undertaken a cleansing of their own, discarding my handmade gifts, reselling my purchases, giving away the objects that vibrate with my energy; but maybe I don’t hold that much weight.

This coming summer, my husband and I have agreed to tackle a big decluttering project to create a hang-out space for our teenagers, which will likely be an opportune time to separate myself from the objects that still connect me to my siblings and our difficult past. Perhaps one day soon the chipped Vonnegut mug will go out with the garbage. The thought feels equally painful and soothing. The tote purse may end up on Buy Nothing and the hanging pot at a yard sale—a makeshift scattering of ashes. Maybe I will tuck the neon-pink fountain pen in one of my archive boxes filled with old letters and journals in the basement—a burial. I remain reluctant to get rid of the mystery books my father bought me. The hours I spent with them and their reliable arc of justice provide their own sort of redemption, but I wonder if my reluctance is more elemental, a way to soften my strange orphaning, a last thread tugging at the possibility of my father’s love.

Estrangement is a form of grief, more complex than mourning a deceased loved one. Unlike the sentimental items that in death remind us of our departed beloveds, in estrangement an object can compound the difficulty of the rupture, forcing us to relive the relationship’s darkest moments anytime it’s in our field of vision yet simultaneously posing the question, What if?

Grieving the living is a mindfuck. Hope remains ceaselessly entwined with all the other stages—anger, denial, acceptance, and the rest. What if things could change? Truly letting go means giving up on that hope, and that can be a devastating proposition. But a broken relationship, like a damaged object, can be harmful to one’s wellbeing. Maybe, finally, I deserve better. The idea of letting go, of garnering relief one jettisoned object at a time, feels like a viable path toward healing, even if it means truly saying goodbye. So it goes.

Join us Wednesday, May 6 at 7 p.m. ET for a Substack Live Q&A in the Substack app or on desktop with Jenny Bartoy and our editor-in-chief Rachel Kramer Bussel all about family estrangement and the No Contact anthology. Click here for a reminder.

Share

Leave a comment

Read our essay archives

Upcoming Open Secrets events

Listen to podcast Finders and Keepers

Jenny Bartoy is a French American writer, developmental editor, and critic. She’s the editor of No Contact: Writers on Estrangement (Catapult, 2026). Her work appears in several anthologies, such as Sharp Notions: Essays from the Stitching Life, and in publications like The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Under the Gum Tree, Room, Chicago Review of Books, Hippocampus Magazine, and The Rumpus, among others. She holds a master’s degree from Columbia University and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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?

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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?

Share

Leave a comment

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.

Share

Leave a comment

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.