As She Grows (22 page)

“Yes,” I reply.

“It would have changed who you are.”

“Yes.”

“For the worse.” Elsie leans back and breathes out, the creases around her eyes and mouth relax, like loosened fishing lines. I think of how weightless she must feel. The burden now transferred from her to me by words, tiny combined vibrations. How heavy sound can be.

“Yes,” I reply into the quiet.

It should be a shocking event. I should be shaking. I should be yelling and accusing, but instead I feel a numb overcast of grey. I imagine it will take time. That I will slowly start to distort, as if I’m dripping from the inside.

For the moment it’s a simple sum of numbers.

I now have three mothers. This new one forcing its way between my two definitions. I line my birth mother up on my mind’s shelf, in between Elsie and the image-mother I created all these years. I sense the others looking her up and down, jealous of her right to be there, angry that my birth mother can just step in like that, without doing the legwork, without putting in the time.

Look at her, so young. What does she know about being a mother?
I imagine Elsie and my image-mother saying to each other. They worry that I will be swept away by the newness of her, that I’ll discard them like worn shoes. They straighten their backs, wave arms to capture my attention, and remind me of all the times they’ve been there for me.

I gave you a place to live and food to eat,
Elsie says.

I was there every time you needed me. I never left you once,
my image-mother adds.

And then a small voice, from the corner of my mind, ghostly and sour,
I’m not sure I want to be here.

Now that Mark’s gone, I get all depressed. I don’t care about my body or what happens to me. Whatever was meant to happen will happen. I can’t change that. I never could.

On weekdays, I go to class, I return to the group home, I lie in bed. I go to class, I return to the group home, I lie in bed. I live inside my head, seek safety from my body and its crazy possession over me. I can’t shit, I can’t sleep, I can’t sit, I can’t stand, I have cravings for food but then can’t bear to swallow. And it’s like my thoughts are scratching the walls of my skull, desperate for air. Desperate for release.

I dart nasty looks at girls on the street, wishing someone would just try it, try to piss me off. I stand close to the edge of the subway platform, thinking it would just take a slight careless nudge to tip me over. I want to kill something. I want to make something hurt. I want someone to hurt me.

I fuck anyone who wants to. Mostly guys I already know, but some are friends of friends, faces I recognize from the park or from the mall. They get all sweet on me, say things they think I want to hear. Tell me how great I am, or how beautiful I am, or that I’ve got
magic hands,
overlooking my swollen belly. And I just tell them to shut up ‘cause I don’t need it, that I’ll do it anyway. And then I push their bodies down onto the bed and ride their skinny pale torsos, trying to ram feeling, any feeling, into me. And they lie there, dead weight, eyes closed, and gasp things like
you’re wild, man, fuckin’ great!
as I rock back and forth, underlining my self-fulfilling prophecy with my hips: I am a slut. I am what my mother made me.

When it hurts so bad that I can’t keep going, I dismount as if from a horse, push off their stomachs, and plant feet firmly on the ground beside the bed. Some ask me to come lie back down, pat their hairless, sweaty chests as if tapping the shiny vinyl of a vacant chair.

“You got any smokes?” I say instead and extend an expecting hand, quickly slipping the pack into my bag where I’ll hide them from Staff.

“I’ll call you,” they say as I leave. Then I walk home, their cum seeping out from between my legs like snot from a runny nose.

I think of the bridge. The one people always jump off. I think of how I would get to it, by subway I guess. Then I consider if there’d be a ledge to stand on or would I have to sort of just vault right over? I wonder how long it would take to fall; would I have time to think or would my mind go blank? And what if while in midair I decided I didn’t want to do this anymore? I think of hitting the ground and whether I would flatten like the Coyote cartoon or just kind of explode like a water balloon. And whether my legs would hit first, or my head, and if, while in the air, I could somersault or sort of fly. And then I
think,
What if I land on something, kill it, like a squirrel or an
unsuspecting pigeon?

“Don’t you dare tell anyone,” I say to Jasmyn, who stands before me, eyes bulging from her head.

“I won’t,” she says, but then adds, “but you wouldn’t do it, would you?” Without waiting for an answer she starts to say all the things people say when admissions like these are made. She explains how
everything will get better
and
in a year’s time this will
all seem like nothing
and then I feel sort of guilty because here Jasmyn is saying this to me, and look at her life.

The next day she comes back and sits on the edge of my bed and says, “Maybe you should tell Staff.” She repeats this a few times, acting all concerned, but I know the real reason why she’s returned. These thoughts of mine are a burden to her. They impede her stride, like a heavy head wind.

“No, it was just a thought. It sounds stupid now.” And I smile, because it does sound stupid. And I think to myself that I’m not crazy, that I wouldn’t really do this. I’m not like Mute Mary or the other girls I’ve seen in the house, who take a bottle of pills and then check themselves into psychiatric wards. Who return five days later with mixed recollections of shoeless lives filled with movie nights and crafts, and of corridors that smell of piss, and food seasoned with cellophane and cardboard. And besides, even if I were to do it, I would get it right the first time.

My own body disgusts me. My skin aches. I can feel the sides of my belly stretching, tired and tight. Some days are worse than others. I will not look in the mirror. I cover my reflection with my towel. I don’t want to see my fat stomach. I don’t want to see my bulging veiny breasts and stretch-marked skin. I don’t want to see my ugly, puffy face or my oily hair. I don’t want to see my mother.

I know she’s there. She and Elsie. I feel them rising up within me, surfacing. I don’t need to see my reflection to tell. I know it in the way I bend my fingers around a cigarette, the way I snap at Jasmyn when she just wants to talk, or the way my throat craves the burn of vodka.

“We either blame our mothers for who we’ve become or we blame them for who we haven’t become. Heads or tails,” says Eric.

“But I tried so hard not to be like her.”

“Like who?”

“Elsie,” I say, but as the word dangles awkwardly in the air in front of me, I realize it’s not quite right.“My mother,” I add hesitantly. “I don’t know. I guess they’re the same thing.”

Eric’s brow lifts thoughtfully, as if he’d just noticed a slight change in wind direction. He has never before heard me compare my mother to Elsie. He opens his mouth to speak, but then closes it quickly. He puts his hand up to his chin and strokes his straggly beard. Then he opens his mouth once more and words come out. “You know, I find many people end up replicating their parents’ faults. Probably because they focus so much on avoiding them. It’s like the difference between walking along a tightrope and saying, ‘I will not fall,’ or, ‘I’ll make it to the other end’.”

I put my hand above my head and motion that his idea just flew over it. “I’m tired of all this mother talk,” I say.

“You need to sit properly,” Ms. Dally says firmly, her nostrils flaring. She is telling me to take my feet off the desk. She has picked the wrong day to do this. I don’t even acknowledge that she has spoken. I have learned this new skill in this class. I have learned the power of staring straight through a person.

“Get your feet off the desk and take out your homework.” Her tone is harsher but I still I ignore her. Funny thing is, I’m not even comfortable. She moves in closer to me, silently fluttering her silly little lips before she formulates a sentence. In my mind I egg her on, her weakness feeding me. “You need to leave the room,” she finally spits out. Backup arrives and I see Sheila appear at the front of the room, chest puffed out, hands clasped firmly in front of her as if she were a bouncer outside a nightclub.

“For what?” I stare both of them down.

Ms. Dally answers but I don’t hear anything. Blood surges through my ears and I grit my teeth, squeeze so hard I feel like the roof of my mouth is splitting. An invisible drawstring pinches my brows tight. I imagine squeezing her tiny head and bursting it like a grape. Then I see myself calling her a fuckin’ whore, see my mouth telling her these cocksucking rules are bullshit. I see myself hork two times on the door before I slam it behind me. I see myself doing these things, but I play no part. It’s like another person I’m watching. It’s like another body.

There is a meeting the next day, before I’m allowed back in class. I sit at the round table, shredding a paper into tiny strips while Ms. Dally recounts my outburst. She says how surprised she is that this inappropriate behaviour is coming from me, because I show so much promise and I could really get my high school education if I just stay committed to my goals. I fixate on her hands, soft and fleshy, with short efficient nails. I feel bad for this woman, in her brown skirt and thick fleshcoloured nylons with reinforced toes. I feel embarrassed for the words that came out of my foul mouth. I imagine her puttering around in her small apartment, expelling an explosive
fuck
after stubbing a toe; a reflexive apologetic hand immediately covering her mouth as if trying to push the blasphemy back in.

When she’s done her lecture she waits for me to speak. Waits for an explanation or an apology or an acknowledgement that I was wrong. But I can’t bring myself to speak because all I’m thinking about is how I wish I was anyone else but me. I wish I didn’t exist. I wish my mother didn’t exist. I wish Elsie didn’t exist. I sit, lips pressed tight, strips of paper piled in front of me like curled pencil shavings. I lean down and blow them off the table and they drift like feathers down to the floor.