Girlish Read online

  She wanted to run away from home. By third grade she had learned to read and write cursive, and could multiply three-digit numbers and do long division. She figured that she had all the skills she needed to make her way in the world. She tried to save her allowance in a plastic sandwich bag hidden in the backyard shed, but she always gave in and unburied the bag of nickels and quarters hidden under the straw. She walked two blocks to the corner store to buy candy, which she ate quickly, as was the house rule: all candy must be consumed on the walk home and the wrapper thrown away outside. She looked at the empty wrapper in her hand and wished she could remember tasting the second Twix bar.

  When she opened the side door to the house, she didn’t notice the smell of dog and dirty litter boxes. When the family got the second cat Girl promised to clean the cat box every week, but her resolve lasted only a few days. Stepmother always complained that the smell came up through the heat register and kept her from sleeping. This gave Girl a secret schadenfreude, though of course she didn’t know that word yet, only the feel of evil pleasure. She “pretended” to forget to change the litter as long as possible, just as she rubbed her dirty-socked feet on Stepmother’s pillow whenever she watched TV in her parents’ bedroom.

  Girl vacillated between fear, longing, and rage, but she learned to suppress the rage as long as possible, so the fear and longing flowed into the space that rage used to occupy. She wanted to be good. She did not want to be anything like Stepmother. When Girl was small, she had a waffle-knit blue blanket with a satin edge. She brought it everywhere she went, dragging it behind her until it turned gray and the original baby blue was only visible deep in the weft. The waffle-knit devolved into mostly strings in a vague blanket shape, and the satin edge was frayed. “When are you going to get rid of that rag?” the teenaged girls who lived down the hill asked her. It was the same thing Stepmother was always asking. When Girl was four she summoned all her resolve and gave the blanket to Mother and told her to throw it away. Girl ran to her bedroom and threw herself on the bottom of the bunk bed she shared with Brother and cried facedown into her pillow so Mother wouldn’t know that she had changed her mind. Mother had been so proud of her for giving up bankie. Girl missed bankie for weeks, months, years. She thought it was gone forever, so there was no point in saying anything to Mother. Besides, then Mother would no longer be proud of what a big girl she was. That was the start of the longing.

  Years later, Girl learned that Mother kept the blanket in a paper bag in the closet until Girl graduated high school. She was surprised that Mother was so sentimental—it wasn’t a side she had ever seen. And Girl was also secretly enraged to learn that her bankie was right there all along and she could have had that hole filled up inside her, if only she had asked.

  The fear was as large as the longing. If Girl’s closet door was open, she had nightmares. If she knocked on her parents’ door, Stepmother would scream at her to go back to bed. She spent a lot of time awake in the dark.

  At Father’s house, she had the same nightmare every year. It was a parade of people wearing white dust masks and floating by on a river of smoke. She didn’t know why it scared her so much, or why she dreamed it every summer. At Mother’s house her dreams were all different. She didn’t remember the plot lines when she woke up, but the feel of them would stay wrapped around her for days. Lingering terror lived in the tension of her small muscles, seeped into the marrow of her bones, and combined with all the real-world issues she worried about: bullies at school, nuclear war, getting lost in the grocery store, disappointing her mother, and of course Stepmother’s erratic rage.

  mother

  Mother met Father when he was still married to Sharon, his second wife, although Mother thought Sharon was his first. She didn’t know about Jackie until she and Father applied for their own marriage license. Father said his first was a marriage of convenience and barely counted. “She couldn’t get into medical school unless she was married, I couldn’t move out of my mother’s house until I was married. That’s all it was,” Father told her. At that point, it was too late for second thoughts. Mother was eight years younger than Father, with long black hair down to her waist, an hourglass figure that she wished was a little less padded, and clear hazel eyes. “Your father told me he had an open marriage with Sharon, but I refused to date him until he was separated,” Mother told Girl years later.

  Juli, Sharon’s daughter and Girl’s half-sister, had a different story. “I remember when your mother first came around. ‘Dad’s got a new girlfriend,’ my mom said. And that woman was your mother,” Juli told Girl. Juli was eight years older than Girl, practically a grown-up.

  There was a handmade kitchen table in Girl’s basement, stained a pale blue, and on the bottom was carved, MADE BY CLINT LILLIBRIDGE AND HIS TWO WIVES, SHARON AND CARRIE, so at least the open marriage part of the story could be verified.

  “Your father’s marriage did not survive the death of Sebrina, Juli’s older sister,” Mother explained to Girl. “Most marriages fall apart when a child dies. It’s sad, but it happens.”

  Mother and Father had a whirlwind romance, marrying at the courthouse. Mother wore a leopard-print minidress, and Father wore jeans. They brought Millie, Mother’s mother, flowers on the way to the ceremony. No one could imagine a wedding with Mother’s father so recently deceased. Mother thought she and Father had a good marriage, even though she thought it was a little unnatural that they never fought. Father was studying for his boards in pediatrics, and she got pregnant with Brother, and then Girl. Millie died before Brother was born, but Mother was close to her brother and cousins. She was not yet without family. Then one day she opened the glove box in her VW Bug and found a pair of women’s panties that were not her own. There was a one-year anniversary card as well. Mother was six months pregnant with Girl at the time.

  “I thought we had an open marriage,” Father had said, although clearly this was wishful thinking on his part. Mother dragged him to counseling, where he wrote down only her name under “name of patient” on the intake form. By the time Girl was crawling, Mother asked Father to move out. As soon as Mother sorted out a place to live and had packed their things, she and the children left. It had been his house, after all, and it didn’t seem right to keep it.

  Mother stood at the top of the mountain, skis pointed downhill. She had buried her father, then spent two years watching her mother slowly die. She thought her happiness had ended with her marriage, but here she was. She looked down the slope at the white-frosted pines, the diamond snow, not just watching life out the window anymore, but being a part of it. She pushed off with her poles, the wind flowing across her cheeks, listening to the shhh-shhh of her skis as she pushed with one leg, then the other. She bent over in a crouch and let gravity do the rest. The universe was pulling her along, buoying her up, giving her what she needed.

  Although Mother could provide adequately for the children, she wanted to do better than always living paycheck to paycheck. She wanted to raise them up to a higher standard of living, so she enrolled at the University of Rochester to finish her bachelor’s. It meant signing up for food stamps and taking the last of her savings and buying a single-wide trailer. The day she walked into the government office and admitted that she needed help—there weren’t words to describe the humiliation she felt. Afterward she took the last fifty bucks out of her checking account and bought a red sweater. It was dumb and frivolous and irresponsible, but somehow, it had felt necessary to do something that was for just her, not the children—something impractical that said she was still important, still visible, still deserving of nice things. She was flying on hope, flying down the ski slope and out of poverty and into a rich life filled with books and politics and new ideas. And she was carrying the children along with her.

  It was hard being poor. She wanted to give the kids everything, but she had so little. Sometimes, at the end of the month, she pulled out the beige flannel bag that held her father’s coin collection and cashed in a fe
w to make ends meet. She made a sandbox out of uncooked oatmeal for her toddlers to play in at one end of the living room. She stapled blankets over the thin trailer walls in the winter to keep out the wind. But she could feel her mind expanding with every class: psychology, literature, the composition classes she was so good at, and the math her brother, Lewis, had to help her understand. Plenty of guys asked her out, and she dated a few of them, but she was protective of her time, her new life. And let’s be honest, men didn’t want to settle down with a woman who already had children.

  Their first Christmas alone, Girl asked Mother, “What are you going to ask Santa for?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. A ski rack for the car,” Mother said. She thought that would be the end of it, but Girl and Brother kept bringing it up, kept saying how they were sure Santa would bring her a ski rack. Eventually, Mother found one on clearance and wrapped it for herself, so they wouldn’t lose their faith in Mr. Claus. Mother had a band saw and a jigsaw inherited from her father, and after the kids were asleep, or when they were at Father’s, she made them wooden elephants on wheels, with a handle on top to roll them back and forth.

  The night before Christmas, Girl woke up and had to go to the bathroom. Girl’s bedroom in the trailer had a tiny half-bath, but for some reason, she refused to use it.

  “I wanna use your bathroom, Mommy,” Girl said.

  “But you have a nice little bathroom all of your own right here!” Oh Lord, if Girl walked through the living room and saw the presents under the tree, it would be all over. Mother did not want to do Christmas at 2 a.m.

  “Please, Mommy,” Girl asked, her lower lip sticking out.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. Mother picked up Girl and carried her through the living room. Girl’s big brown eyes looked at all the presents, but she didn’t say a word. She used the bathroom, then Mother carried her back through the living room, and Girl looked and looked, but still didn’t speak. Thankfully, she went back to sleep as soon as Mother tucked her in.

  feminism

  Mother discovered feminism in college. It was like discovering the atom bomb. Long conversations about inequality and overcoming society’s mores kept her up late at night. She wasn’t afraid to work for justice, carrying picket signs for the Equal Rights Amendment, taking the children along on protest marches and shushing them during the speeches at consciousness-raising rallies. She never burned a bra, because that would be completely impractical and uncomfortable, but she cheered while other women did. She threw out her makeup, high heels, and razor blade and became a natural woman. She had already cut her hair short as soon as the babies were old enough to pull it, but the style showed off her strong cheekbones. Her hair went gray early, but she liked how the white streaks at her temples contrasted with her nearly-black hair.

  Mother went with a friend to a lesbian party and stood at the edge of the dance floor, not at all sure how she felt about this. All she knew was that every time she got into a relationship with men, she lost her voice and fell back into the same sex-stereotyped role she hated. And besides, none of the men she met wanted anything beyond sex from a woman with children. Her friend Marty convinced her to dance with a woman named Bonnie, and before the season changed Mother and Bonnie moved in together—just like the joke said: “What do lesbians do on the third date? Rent a U-Haul.”

  Girl wanted a baby doll, but Mother refused. She was not raising her daughter to be a housewife who wasted her life taking care of children. No dolls. None. No babies, no sex-symbol Barbies with their unrealistic proportions. That worked until Mother came home from class one day when Girl was three. Girl had taken a five-pound bag of kitty litter and wrapped it in her blankie. She was rocking her “baby” and singing it songs. After that, Mother gave up and bought Girl a baby doll. She even bought Barbies for her every Christmas. But she did not let the children watch Hee Haw or Archie Bunker. There was only so far she was willing to go.

  Mother wanted the children to be sex-positive—no shame, no negative labels, no sexist expectations. She wanted Girl to phone boys she liked, not wait for them to call her. Nothing was more pathetic than a girl wasting her weekend waiting for the phone to ring. She told both kids the basic facts of reproduction when they were in preschool, before they asked too many embarrassing questions. She taught them the medical terms for their bodies—no dingle-dangle or boobs or titties. She gave Girl a book when she was in fourth grade. It said, “sex is for love, sex is for baby-making, and sex is for fun, and any of those reasons are okay, as long as both people are on the same page.” She made sure Girl knew where her copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves was on the bookshelf, and encouraged her to look between her legs with a mirror so she would know what was down there.

  Girl squeezed the back of her calf. Was that what her breasts would feel like? She wondered how the woman breathed when the man lay on top of her. She called boys, but they did not call her back. This whole free love thing, it was like Girl was doing the Macarena and everyone else was dancing the Electric Slide. She didn’t know the choreography, and everyone knew she was that kind of girl long before she did. But she wasn’t intentionally flouting the rules; she never knew they existed.

  yearning

  Mother divorced Father when Girl was eighteen months old, Brother three years, Mother thirty-one. Mother cried a lot that year—facedown on her bed, pillow muffling her sobs, the same way Girl cried. One day Girl toddled into her mother’s bedroom and found Mother crying. Girl left wordlessly, then returned with her beloved blue bankie and handed it to Mother. It was the best thing she had to offer. Right then, Girl decided that it was her job to take care of her mother above all else, even above herself.

  When Girl forgot and was pouty because she didn’t get her way, or was lazy with her chores, or didn’t work hard enough at school, later it would stab inside her chest, like a stick that was sharpened at both ends. Mother’s disappointment spun an invisible line of remorse, connecting Girl’s forehead to her navel, contracting her skinny, flat-chested torso into the letter C, Girl’s insides filled with something that burned like acid. Shame. She wanted to die.

  Mother stood in front of the white stove with electric burners, only some of which worked. There was always a shiny silver percolator on the counter. Under her feet was a cracked green asbestos tile floor. Masculine—and ugly—brown paneling went halfway up the walls. Limp, fly-specked, yellow-and-white-checked curtains with daisies on them framed the window. The white countertop was veined in gold like marble, but made out of a thin sheet of some smooth plastic-y stuff with a gray metal ribbed edge holding it down. Girl wrapped her six-year-old body around Mother’s leg, and Mother dragged Girl around the kitchen as she cooked dinner. Girl was too needy, but somehow Mother tolerated it. Girl knew that she had to let Mother breathe, to step back, to stop hugging her mother as hard as she could, to just get enough Mommy to get by for a little while, even if it was not enough to feel full. She forced herself to let go when Mother said, “Girl, you’re smothering me.” Girl knew she needed to love Mother less, so she didn’t devour both of them. And her inability to let go of Mother’s leg filled her with the shame of over-wanting.

  father

  When Girl was three, Father lived a few miles away with his new wife, #Four. The children visited him every other weekend. At Father’s house, Girl shared a room with Brother, which Father kept locked at night.

  One morning the sky through the curtainless window was starting to grow lighter, but it wasn’t bright enough to signal that the day had arrived. Girl knew that it wasn’t time to get up yet, but she had to go to the bathroom. She rattled the white metal doorknob, but it was locked.

  “Daddy? I have to tinkle!” she called through the closed door as she knocked. No answer came. Girl pounded the door with her fist. Pounding hurt less than knocking on the old wooden door. She shifted her weight back and forth in what Mother called “the pee-pee dance.”

  “Daddy! I have to tinkle! Bad!” Brother rolled over and faced the wall,
ignoring her, but there was nothing he could do to help, anyway.

  Girl held her hand between her legs, her fingers holding back the stream of urine. Father wasn’t coming. She would have to use the mayonnaise jar he left between the children’s beds when he locked them in last night. Her four-year-old brother could pee in the jar just fine, but it was harder for a girl. She pulled her nightie up around her waist and squatted over the jar, but she couldn’t see down there and missed the small glass opening. Warm urine ran down Girl’s leg and splashed over her feet, puddling on the wood floor as hot tears flooded her cheeks. Girl cried and called again for Father. It isn’t fair, she thought. I am a big girl, I know how to use the bathroom on my own, and little girls can’t pee in jars. She pulled her cotton nightgown over her head and tried to dry her legs off with it, then left it in the puddle of pee for Father to find when he finally woke up and unlocked the door.

  That Christmas Father gave Brother an anatomically correct boy-doll with blond curly hair. It peed if you gave it a bottle. Father was very excited for Brother to open this gift in particular—it was the first gift Father pulled out from the pile. Girl was very interested in the naked doll’s plastic molded penis, which was different from Brother’s. It looked like a pink elephant trunk. Not understanding the difference between circumcised and uncircumcised penises, Girl wanted to look closer to see what was wrong with it.

  “No, Girl! It’s not your doll! Get back and let Brother see it!” Father held the naked doll in the crook of his arm. “Look, Brother, this is how you feed your baby.” Father tilted the little white bottle up to the doll’s open mouth. The instant the baby started to “drink,” a stream of water arced out of the doll’s plastic penis.