I STOOD NUDE in front of a stranger. I pressed my palms into my fleshy breasts, separating and flattening them, making them almost non-existent in the mirror. I tried to imagine my flattened chest without my hands there. A vague image of someone I could be. My chest was an unwelcome addition alongside the petulant acne and endless period. I was grotesque. If I repeat the same word over and over, what’s familiar becomes foreign. Maybe if I kept staring into the mirror, my body would finally become my own.
In the midst of my stretching, pulling, and tugging, I noticed a flash in the mirror. A glimpse of a ruby-colored frown and black hair twisted into a bun. The sharp lines of her face sunk into my memory before she disappeared, but the horror of her apparition stayed. As briefly she was there, my recollection of her face dissipated. Names are easier to remember than faces. Faces never stay the same, they sharpen and molt. Names are definitive, unchanging without force.
My mother called me downstairs for supper, breaking my hypnosis. The woman’s familiar face wasn’t there after all, it was only the fluorescent lights altering my appearance. I put on my father’s old clothes and headed for the kitchen, reassuring myself that she was never there.
My parents never liked that I wore shapeless men’s clothes. My mother told me it hid my “womanly figure.” My father said it was “unbecoming.” They were ashamed of me, stripped of the parental right to parade me around as their only child. They were disappointed in me, I wasn’t what they wanted. It’s why they tried again for a chance to get it right.
My father and mother sat at the table, waiting for me. I saw the disappointment in my father’s face, saw the conversation unfold: why do you wear men’s clothes, because I like them, boys won’t like you if you dress like that, I don’t care. Only I saw him as he was, a foolish man with barely a grasp on reality. He didn’t understand anything.
Instead he let the conversation float away, and we linked hands and said grace: “Bless us, O Lord, for these thy gifts, which we are about to receive through thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
The tips of our fingers brushed our forehead, our chest, our right and left shoulders.
My mother waited with her fork poised until my father slurped some of the noodles, the sauce staining his thin lips. Seeing the satisfaction on his face, she stabbed her meatball. She asked my father, “Oh, I forgot to ask about your sister, how is she doing? She must be close to her due date! It’s so exciting having your first child.”
My father stiffened, spoke robotically, “Actually, I have some news. She passed away three days ago.”
My mother dropped her fork. The sauce from the spaghetti splattered onto her sweater. She left it there, the red staining her immaculate white sweater. I wondered if he would’ve told us if she hadn’t asked. My father had been known to leave tough conversations for later.
“You each get one question,” he said, “before we talk about something else. Best not to dwell.”
My mother’s stiff face broke when she asked, “What about her son?”
“He’s fine. He’s in the NICU for now.”
My mother stood and excused herself. She was probably going to cry. My father hates when she cries—“it’s pointless.” He doesn’t say that he thinks my mother is weak when she cries, but everyone can tell when the boiling water breaks the seal of his lid.
“When is—are we going to the funeral?” I asked.
“We leave for Charlotte next Saturday, time to settle for the wake on Sunday. ”
I opened my mouth and felt it crack open, the air seeping into my lungs. I’d wasted my question on something so trivial. I watched my father’s eyes squint, probably trying to blink away the image of his stillborn son—forever frozen in time.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
He looked at me sharply. For what?
I DIDN’T KNOW my aunt all that well, despite the fact she lived three hours away from us. Everything I knew about her was things overheard and the collaged image in my head. It was strange, I felt sorrow. A loss for something I never had. She was twenty years younger than my father, not sharing the same mother. Their relationship amounted to happy birthday phone calls and family get-togethers during Easter and Christmas. My father never liked her husband anyway—he thought Tom was useless—and it was his excuse to not visit more. So her absence, I thought, was never felt.
My father didn’t want to stay with Tom, the useless widower, so we stayed in a hotel in the next town over. Close enough to offer support but far enough to let him know that the offer was only a courtesy. I took a morbid joy in the small vacation. We hardly ever took any trips, so staying in a hotel was a treat. I liked that I could keep the AC on low without someone telling me that I was wasting electricity; I liked that I didn’t have to make my bed; I liked the key cards they have that make entering a room special, even if it was in an underwhelming city three hours away from home. Maybe it was far away enough that I could forget that home even existed. I could stay permanently and carve out any memories of Raleigh. I could fill the absence with the floral scent of hotel shampoo and overly-chlorinated pools.
I stepped out of the warm shower, fog coating the mirror, a cream-colored towel wrapped around me. My only pair of black slacks and a collared shirt I adopted from Goodwill lay before me, my nicest clothes for her wake. As I was buttoning my shirt, my father barged into the room, tie in hand. “Oops,” he said, then looked at my outfit, “That’s not what you’re wearing.”
“It is?”
“Can’t you put on something nicer? This is my sister’s wake. I don’t want you representing our family in some second-hand boys’ clothes.”
“But this is what I want to wear,” I said.
“Your mom has another dress you can wear.”
“Dad, I’m not wearing that. Don’t make me wear a dress.”
“What’s so bad about wearing a dress? You’ll look nice for once,” he said.
“If it’s not that bad why don’t you wear one?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll get your mom, see what she has.”
“No, I’m not changing,” I insisted, tears forcing their way into my eyes.
“Why must you be a pain constantly?” he asked, leaving the room.
I stared at myself in the mirror that was foggy from the steam. It became clear my outfit did little to hide the post-pubescent curves, but I couldn’t help but feel drawn to it. I wondered if I wanted to wear masculine clothes to get my father to notice me. If I was drawn to it to punish him just like he punished me.
I DIDN’T KNOW anyone else at the wake. Anyone I could have possibly known was my grandfather, and he died before I was born. My father ignored me as soon as we walked in, unwilling to meet my eyes. I overheard him talking to my mother earlier, saying he missed when I was younger. When I did whatever he said. My mother tried to make me talk to some of the family, but I preferred the company of wintergreen-flavored Icebreakers. She managed to loop me into a conversation with Uncle Mike, who was not related to us by blood. I offered my hand, but he pulled me into a hug like we knew each other well. I played along because I saw him do the same to my mother, and the look on his and my mother’s face told me that was the right thing to do, despite how icky his lingering made me feel.
We had seen Uncle Mike the day before in the hotel parking lot, dressed in a pair of overalls and flannel shirt. He was packing his truck, hunting rifles and fishing rods still in the bed. I complimented his collection of poles, and he asked me if I fished. “No,” I said, “but my dad used to take me when I was younger.”
“Why’d you stop?”
My old, pink fishing rod came to mind, collecting dust in the back of my closet. My father replied for me, “I thought it was best for A—— to have more appropriate hobbies.”
Uncle Mike did a double take, reevaluating the body hidden under a brown hoodie and jeans. “Well I’d say so,” he said. “Father knows best.”
Soon after we arrived, the Father led us in prayer for my aunt. My lips moved but didn’t make a sound to the prayers I knew by heart. I was six years old when I first memorized Our Father; I didn’t even know the pledge of allegiance yet. It was easy then. I thought the prayer was for my father, my idol. When I asked my mother what “hallow” meant, she told me it was to honor something or someone. I told her I hallowed my father. Who else was strong like him, to lead others, to not shed a tear when he was suffering? My mother laughed and whispered a secret in my ear: your daddy hides under the covers and lets his emotions get the best of him every night. She would rub his back, and in the morning he pretended like it didn’t happen, like his son never died.
After the prayer, those who hadn’t seen my aunt stood in line in front of her mahogany casket. I was last in the line. When I finally got close enough, I saw her deep red dress before I saw her face. She looked young, based on her red-lacquered lips and lustrous face. She had none of the wrinkles my father accrued. It was a shame she never got to see those lines, see how her face would change with time. I couldn’t believe she was related to my father. She was much darker than him—her hair, her eyes, her skin—nothing like my pallid father. Even in death she looked more alive, maybe a part of her was still in there, unreconciled.
I wondered how old she was; if she was excited that she was pregnant; if she liked being married to Tom. I figured she probably secretly hated Tom; she was just as disappointed as my father was. She probably hated that he was a musician and that it was unsustainable. She never let him know, just had little moments where the boiling water leaked out the edges, but she kept it together for years. When she found out she was pregnant, she prayed for a little girl so she wouldn’t turn out like him—the opposite of my father. But it was a boy. She broke. She thought of all the food and money he would consume even in the womb, all the diapers and clothes and then phones and school supplies he would need. He was a vacuum inside of her, sucking her dry.
According to my aunt’s mother, she didn’t tell anyone in her last check-in that her blood pressure was extremely high or that she developed gestational diabetes. The doctors told her the best move for her was to abort him. She wouldn’t. She knew exactly what an abortion meant, what it would do to her. How God would look at her. What Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church would think when she walked into her confessional the next Sunday, hollow.
Without telling Tom, she wrote up her will, he mentioned bitterly to my father. She didn’t care who it went to, as long as it wasn’t her husband. She finally told her husband how she felt without saying a word. When her lawyer said that it would be a tricky situation, she decided to leave what little she made for herself to Our Lady of Sorrows. She thought God might forgive her if her final goodbye was for him. Should her son survive, Tom could take care of him. In her last days, she knew she was dying and told useless Tom. She drove herself to the hospital after he told her to “wait a few days, it might be cramps.” He regrets it now. She would have told the receptionist she was going into labor, a month early. She nodded, red lips pressed into a firm line, when the nurses told her how exciting it was to give birth to her first child, not having read her chart. She knew she would die feeling hollow. Her death was almost like a pause, so sudden, she was unable to receive her last rites. Her baby boy was five pounds, three ounces.
Still I envied her. From the plucked conversations I overheard, my aunt was a lady. She always knew what to wear and how to hold herself in front of people. She was adored by my grandfather who never showed affection and her mother who lived two doors down just so she could be close to her and her future grandson. Her cooking was always the star of family gatherings and congregations. Despite her inner turmoil, she was beloved.
Uncle Mike startled me when he placed his hand on mine. Without a moment’s thought, I ripped it away. His face reflected anger at the rejection. “You’re crying.”
When I touched my face, it was damp. I could feel anger leaking out the edges of my lid, my chest expanding with steam, “You’re not doing me a favor.”
I ran away.
The bathroom was the nearest escape, but there were too many women coming and going. I walked briskly to the parking lot, near the dumpster where I could be left alone. I wanted to disappear, I wanted to take off the costume I thought I wanted to wear. Behind the dumpster, there was a broken mirror, laying pathetically on its back. I stood over the mirror, my cracked reflection peering back at me. One long crack hid my chest. Another split my face in two. For once, I recognized my reflection.
In the light of the setting sun, my complexion and hair darkened, my brown hair traded for a deep black. The soft angles in my face sharpened, aging me at least fifteen years. With ruby lips, I could’ve easily been mistaken for my dead aunt. Unlike the horror I felt before when I saw a different face in my bathroom mirror, I felt a strange sense of potential. If only I had her dress, we could’ve been the same person, and maybe I could’ve been the one laid in that casket, admired and beloved. Maybe she could have more success in my body too; she could start over. I would be laid to rest.
THE FUNERAL was lovely. Father Clark led us in prayer and told little stories he remembered about her from attending church together. Her mother, Donna, read a eulogy for her but choked up halfway through. My dad stepped in to finish, reading the rest of the speech from the crumpled paper: “… I never thought there would be a time when there wasn’t an ‘us’. I thought I was going to die first. I was supposed to die first. But you’re in a better place now. Away from the pain of this world, finally resting in peace among the angels. I remember when you were a little girl, playing chef with me in the kitchen. You never complained when it was time to clean or to fold the laundry. You never left my side then. I never told you this, but you were my best friend. When you were older, I asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. You told me you wanted to be me. You wanted to be a mom. I think I cried when you said that. I wish you could’ve lived, at least one more day, to see your son. He’s beautiful—he takes after you. I can’t wait to see what he accomplishes, how he dreams. I love you, my beautiful daughter. May you rest in peace.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. No one needed to tell me I was crying. Even my dad’s eyes seemed to sparkle when he read about her son; I hugged him afterwards, under the guise that I needed one. He allowed it. Although they were Donna’s words, I couldn’t quite forget my dad calling himself a mom.
I approached Donna after the funeral, she sat with Tom, a small infant tucked in his arms. I gave them my deepest condolences. “What a lovely funeral, Ms. Donna and Uncle Tom. I know she would’ve loved it.”
Donna smiled, “Thank you, honey. It’s so nice to see you again. And what a beautiful dress, red is very becoming on you.”
I thanked her. “Uncle Tom, is this your son?”
“Yes, this is little Jacob. He just got out of the NICU a couple days ago. I hired a nurse to attend just in case,” Tom said, nodding towards a woman in black scrubs, “We were supposed to take it easy, but I thought it was important for him to be here.”
“He’s adorable—he’s got your eyes,” I said.
“Yes, well,” Tom said, “I hope he looks more like her.”
“Only God knows.”
THE CAR RIDE home was mostly silent, other than the Josh Groban CD anointing our ears. We were an hour outside Raleigh when my dad peaked into the rearview mirror to look at me. I met his eyes, but he looked away and spoke to my mom instead. “Abigail was awesome at the funeral yesterday. We didn’t even have to force her to talk to anyone.”
My mom agreed, “Donna came up to your mom and me afterwards and told me what a nice young lady we’ve got.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Dad, Mom.”
My grandpa used to act the same as my dad did, never directly complimenting me. I recalled a time when he patted my head after I helped him load his truck; I knew what it meant—he liked that I didn’t complain about the task like other kids would have. I was almost proud of myself for being able to read him, that I knew him so well. My grandpa bought me a strawberry ice cream cone afterward. Maybe I could ask my dad to stop on the way home.
