Chapters (13)
We sat on the bed together. Across from us was a mirror. I looked over. It was me and my mother, sitting on the bed, holding hands, twinned. Her lips were brilliant red. I turned to double-check this. Yes, the lipstick was fresh, glistening. Her lips parted, and I saw her white teeth. I saw her sludge-green eyes, large and glassy. She took my face between her small hands, drew my head down, and kissed me on the forehead, sealing the loop of our complicity. She had deployed me; I had released her. As I drew my head away, repulsed, I felt an ache where her lips had been. I walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. My mother’s kiss had left a tattoo of scarlet lips in the middle of my forehead. I took a washcloth and wet it, then rubbed at the mark. The lipstick came off, but the kiss remained, crawling on my skin.
Years later, living in a house on a canal in a foreign city, I became pregnant.
I was plagued with dreams of giving birth to a Total, even though I knew that was impossible; I had never used a Total Phone and they had been banned for years. My fear got so bad that I had to see a specialist every day after work. He helped me meditate on the image of a healthy child.
Each day, I would leave his office and walk along the canal back to my home. I would buy an apple and chomp into it as I walked. Despite the hour spent in the specialist’s office, conjuring up images of chubby knees and fragrant hair, I would gratify my self-hatred by imagining a baby who was monstrous, with a ballooning head. Monstrous, or dead, rotted already, swimming in its own rot.
But when I gave birth, she was perfect.
I named her Hedda. Every hour, I nursed her and she stared at me, locking me into her gaze. Her eyes were nearly violet. The feeling I had when she sucked the milk from my breast was druglike, stupefying. Her breath came in regular, churning rounds as she suckled. How I loved these animal encounters. They were the one respite from my memories.
One day, Hedda stood by herself and walked for the first time. She weaved away from me and turned. Something about the way she raised her slender hand for balance, the quiet, listening gaze, made me stand, not wanting to believe it. I approached her. She stood stock-still, so separate, swaying slightly with the effort of standing up. She had an elfin frame. I came close to her and knelt before her, feeling her milky breath on my face. I bowed to her mystery. What was awaiting me inside that child was unknown to me then, but I was no longer my own. I belonged to her.