The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus (14 page)

Heaving the cutting board

into the bin,

suddenly thinking

how like it I am—

useless and warped,

shredded and old,

scarred from too many

dull thwops of the blade,

scuffed and stained,

coming unglued—

thinking of all

the mistakes I've made.

My daughter

will no longer

be living under

my roof.

The thin neck of life's hourglass

used to seem so mercifully clogged.

But now the sand races through it

like a rabbit late for a date.

No time left to impart motherly wisdom.

No time left to tell her all those deep things,

those profound things that I
should
have been

telling her all these years.

The weight of my failure

nearly flattens all four of my tires

as I drive around town doing errands

while listening to
Little Women
on CD.

Now
those
girls had a
mother.

My own impoverished daughter

had to snatch at the random bits

I tossed her way:

“If you pick your zits they'll leave scars.”

“Never wash reds with whites.”

“Don't pat strange dogs

till you let them sniff your fingers.”

What was I thinking,

frittering away all those years?

Now—

there's no time left.

How can Samantha

be getting ready to leave home already,

when she's only just arrived?

How can seventeen years have passed

since Michael and I carried our nestling

across the threshold?

The memory of that day,

the trembling splendor of it,

seems never to fade…

We tucked Samantha into the basket

we'd feathered with fleece, then hovered

like a pair of wonder-struck doves,

spellbound by each smile, each grimace,

each frown that flickered like candlelight

across her luminous face.

Bewitched by every blink of her eyes,

beguiled by every yawn,

charmed by each luxurious stretch,

we laced our fingers together,

marveling at our little bird's

tiny chest—

the way it kept

rising and falling,

rising and falling,

each

breath

a masterpiece.

Fabulous

from the moment

she was conceived!

And such a thoughtful little embryo…

While all the other mothers-to-be leaned over

the rolling ship's rails of their pregnancies

retching up their saltines,

Sam took me sailing on a glassy sea.

She polished me

from the inside out

till people said I glowed

like a crystal ball;

cast some kind of

spell over my scalp

so, for the first time in my life,

I actually had a mane.

She inhabited my body

like a perfect roommate—

happy to have

whatever I served up for dinner,

content to let me

hold the remote

when we sat together

surfing the channels.

I felt her surging within me,

felt her head nudging

the taut bowstrings of my rotunda,

and felt so grateful that she'd chosen

me.

In fact,

you might even say

he was a little

obsessed…

After my first trimester,

he bought a video camera

so that he could record the weekly progress

of my mushrooming midsection.

I'd stand sideways,

pulling my nightgown

tight across my stomach,

while he filmed my burgeoning bump.

When I was further along,

I'd lay back on the bed

with my belly exposed

so that he could videotape the baby kicking.

He marveled

at each undulation

as it quivered across the surface

of the Jell-O mold that I had become.

He interviewed me on camera,

asking how I felt about

my imminent motherhood.

“Thrilled…excited…terrified,” I told him.

And when

I turned the camera on Michael

and asked how he felt

about becoming a father,

he reached forward

to pat the bun in my off-screen oven,

and said, “I just hope the baby's healthy.

And that she appreciates fine art.”

One day

your daughter's

cooing, gurgling, wordless.

The next, you're asking her how old she is

and she's holding up two pudgy fingers,

crying out, “Awmos twoooo!”

Not long after that,

she's blowing your mind

with her ability to count to ten.

And soon she can count

all the way up to a hundred.

And then to a thousand.

Then one day,

when you sit down to help her

with her math homework

you realize that you have no idea

what
equals.

You must have forgotten.

Or maybe

you
never
knew.

But your daughter does.

“That's easy,” she says. “It's
x.
”

“Of course it is!” you bluff.

“Of course…”

Anything to avoid writing.

I clear away

the forest of forgotten T-shirts

sighing on the floor.

I wrestle

with the maddening mess

of fallen hangers.

I toss out

the moldy pairs

of lonely outgrown sneakers.

Then,

way in the back,

I find a box.

Here's Samantha's mobile—

the one that hung above her crib

when she was a baby.

I run my fingers over it,

then wind it up and listen to its melody

one more time…

Sam used to love this mobile.

She'd lie on her back gazing up at it,

mesmerized by its spinning pastel birds,

listening so intently to its song,

her plump lips parted as if she wanted

to drink in its sugared notes,

her hands

clasping Monkey

to her chest,

her legs moving

through a memory of water

as though she was still womb-swimming…

Then,

I shove it back into

the dusty depths of the closet,

wipe the tears from my eyes,

and hoist up

the overflowing wastebasket

to carry it outside

and empty it into the trash bin.

But on my way there

I hear Pinkie yapping.

I glance into the neighbor's yard

and see Madison playing hide-and-seek.

She's scrunched down on her haunches,

hiding from her mother

behind the thin stem

of their mailbox,

her face tucked into the crook

of her chubby little elbow,

apparently convinced

that this makes her invisible.

Jane taps her foot,

checks her watch, shades her eyes.

She sees her daughter (obviously)

but feels obliged to pretend she doesn't.

In a voice tighter than the jeans she's wearing,

she calls her daughter's name—

“Madison…Madison…

Where are you Madison?”

Jane stares at the sky, heaves a leaden sigh,

as if she longs for the company of adults;

for life as it was before the invasion

of this tangle-haired energy-zapper…

Poor woman.

She doesn't know

that someday she'll long

for this late August afternoon

when she could have held

each instant

like a jewel

in the palm of her still smooth hand.

Yesterday, Roxie called to tell me

that if I don't finish my book by October,

I'll lose my spot on next fall's list.

So, today, I was planning

on spending the whole day

writing dozens of brilliant poems.

I was going to pop in some ear plugs,

put on my Bose headset,

and make some real progress—

in spite of Madison's screaming,

Pinkie's yapping, Jane's trumpeting,

and Duncan's thundering drums.

But then Samantha

invited me to help her bake

some butterscotch brownies.

She said she wanted

to fill the freezer with them

before she leaves for college.

“That way,” she explained, “When I'm away

at school, you can defrost a batch every week

and mail them to Grandma for me.”

I was planning

on spending the whole day

writing dozens of brilliant poems.

But I spent the day

with my daughter, instead,

baking dozens of brilliant brownies.

The kitchen's

a sugary,

floury,

butterscotchy mess.

But just as we begin to scour it,

Wendy, Tess, and Laura arrive

to whisk Sam away

for one last girls' night out.

“Can you give me a few minutes?” she says.

“I've got to help my mom clean up.”

“We'll help, too!” Tess says.

“We will?” Wendy says.

Laura gives Wendy

a swift kick in the shin.

“We
will!”
Wendy says,

and everyone cracks up.

Then, the four of them set to work

like whirling kitchen dervishes,

refusing to let me

lift a finger.

I clutch Secret to my chest,

as I listen to their familiar chatter

filling up my kitchen like sunlight

one last time…

And when the room is spotless,

the girls wolf down some brownies,

hug me good-bye, and zip out of the house,

leaving in their wake

a terrible silence.

Then I turn and lean against it,

stroking Secret's fuzzy head.

I glance out the window

at our pepper tree

and see a handful of ashen leaves

plummet to their deaths.

I look past our roses

and see Madison riding her tricycle.

My nose

begins to sting—

the way it always does

right before I start to cry.

But I force back

the flood,

afraid that if I let

a single tear fall

it will unleash

a storm

bigger

than Katrina.

My suddenly six-year-old daughter

hopped onto her brand-new popsicle-pink bicycle

with an I-can-
do
-this-thing gleam in her eyes

and began peddling across the empty school yard.

I trotted along next to her

like an out-of-breath sidecar,

one hand gripping

the back of her seat,

the other hand

holding fast to the handlebar,

making sure she didn't tip too far

in either direction.

“That's it…

You're doing great…Keep it up…

Don't worry…I've got you…

I've got you…”

Her fingers

white-knuckling the handle grips,

her jaw set,

she wobbled, wavered, swerved, swayed

and then, without warning,

broke free of my grasp and shoved off,

picking up speed faster

than a jet roaring down a runway.

I stood there, stunned, watching my daughter

blaze away from me like a meteor,

her white helmet glinting in the sun,

her back tense and proud.

And a moment later, when she cast

a quick glance back over her shoulder at me,

I saw that her grin was even wider

than the gulf that was opening up

between us…