So when I receive the invitation to the pajama party, I’m scared all my clothes are wrong: for school, for dances, for pajama parties—wrong for Christopher. I take the bus to Ridgewood and wander the aisles at Sealfons, where my friends shop, usually not where my mother and I buy clothes. Blue, pink, and white Oxford shirts with button-down collars. Plaid sweater-and-skirt sets, loose fitting, with matching kneesocks. Well, yes, I have clothes like these, too, but Sealfons sells no ruby-red dresses or tight knit sweaters. I know I am wrong, wrong, wrong. The clothes here are teenage clothes, while my mother takes me to stores for adults. And I know I cannot bring a nightgown to Elizabeth’s party.
I wander to the sleepware section and study exotic flannel pajamas. Pink. Yellow. Blue. I take a blue pair with white flowers into the dressing room, slip off my skirt and sweater, and try them on. Perfect. They fit loosely, showing no contours of my body. I smooth my hands over the fabric. I believe if I owned these I would be able to curl inside them and sleep undisturbed for years, smelling and feeling their warm comfort. I have no money, but I must own these pajamas. I must steal them—I must. I cannot leave without them. I roll the cuffs to my knees, put my skirt on, pull my sweater over the top, and zip up my jacket. Slowly, I leave the store.
Since I want the pajamas to remain new and clean and pretty, the way I know the other girls’ pajamas will be, I wait for the night of the party to wear them. Once I shed my school clothes, button the top of the pajamas, and slip my legs into the bottoms, I safely blend into the group of girls. Camouflaged in my flannel uniform, I smile, pleased I made the right choice, all by myself, on what to wear for the party.
Our sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows are spread across the carpeted living room floor. Our overnight cases spill scarves, underwear, socks. We roll each other’s hair in plastic rollers. We paint each other’s fingernails with pink and white pearly polish. We paint our toenails, too, stuffing cotton between our toes as described in Seventeen. We play rock ’n’ roll records and dance—alone and with each other. We eat bags of chips and drink bottles of pop. At midnight, Elizabeth’s mother brings us boxes of doughnuts: jelly, cinnamon, cream. We laugh. We gossip about boys and tell secrets. “You think Christopher’ll ask you to go steady?” Robin asks me.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. I hope so.”
“My mom says I’m too young to ’get involved,’” Elizabeth says.
Quickly I glance down at my pink nails, worried I might have given the wrong answer. “Oh, of course,” I say. “My mom tells me the same thing.”
“It’s not like you gotta do everything your mother tells you,” Robin says. She tells us her mom allows her to kiss her boyfriend only if she keeps her feet on the floor. Except she demonstrates how it’s possible to lie on a couch and still keep at least one foot on the floor. We all practice. I am slow to learn this; I am, I must be, the most innocent of all.
Late at night I go to the bathroom. I drift down the hall away from the girls still playing records, still talking. The door to the bathroom is closed, so I wait, admiring my new pajamas. I press the crook of my arm to my face, breathing the material. It smells good and new. And suddenly I am afraid to sleep in them, afraid when I wake in the morning they will no longer smell clean or good or new. Perhaps I should slip them off while everyone is sleeping and change into my clothes.
The door opens and I pull back, surprised. I’d assumed one of the girls was inside, but it’s Elizabeth’s father in his robe. He holds the door open, but I can’t move—I don’t understand—I’m confused by his sudden presence in this nighttime hall. He smiles and jokes—I barely hear him—something about girls and noise and fun. I mean, what he says is nice. His smile is nice. That’s all it is, but I can’t respond. I fear my new pajamas will be criticized. He will tell me to change them. No, he will unbutton them. He will… but he doesn’t do any of this. He walks down the hall to a bedroom. He opens a door. As he does I hear a woman, his wife, say something to him. From the tone, what she says doesn’t seem to be significant, probably: “Please, turn off the light.” She is not angry. Nor is she silent. The door closes. For a moment there is a rim of light beneath the door, but then it disappears. The room he shares with his wife is dark. Still I can’t move. I lean against the wall and close my eyes. I think I am waiting for something. I wait for that door to open again. He will return, come back down the hall, silently. No one will hear. Except everyone hears. But he does it anyway because he can’t stop.
But that door—the door behind which Elizabeth’s father sleeps with his wife—does not open. He does not walk back down the hall. How do I know he sleeps in that room all night? How do I know he doesn’t leave it? Maybe from the definite way the door tapped shut. Maybe from the sound of his wife’s voice. Maybe from the still air here in the hall, air that will not be disturbed again until morning. Or maybe because I believe Elizabeth’s mother knows how to teach her daughter, knows how to guide her.
For the briefest of moments—more a sense than one clear thought—I understand that what I do every night is not repeated in every other girl’s bedroom, down every street and block, in every neighborhood, all across town. Had I believed that what I do with my father is usual? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. But then, as definitively as Elizabeth’s father shut the door to the bedroom he shares with his wife, that thought—the thought that I might be alone, that what I do is not repeated, is not normal—is slammed from my mind.
All night I’m awake. I’m afraid someone will see me if I change into my clothes, so I lie awake in my pajamas, not moving, not wanting to wrinkle them. I spread my arms to the sides so I won’t sweat on the clean material. I think I know my love for these pajamas is irrational—at least I know the other girls don’t seem concerned about theirs—but I want these pajamas to last the rest of my life. They have to. But I’m scared they will be taken from me. They will be ripped; they will be ruined. That place between my legs feels safe behind the tightly sewn seam. But I have this small dread the seam might split. So I don’t move my legs. I lie perfectly still until morning.
On Monday I neatly refold the pajamas along the creases, smooth the material, and return the pajamas to the store, leaving them in a paper bag in the dressing room. I must. I would not be able to bear seeing the pajamas wrinkled.
Next week is Posture Week in junior high and each grade will award medals for Posture King and Queen. So badly do I need this medal, I can’t even think of a reason why. Maybe because I’ve never before won an award. Maybe I imagine myself proudly announcing my award to my parents one night at dinner. Maybe because I know I’ll never win an award for academics. But the reason doesn’t matter. I simply must win, must be Posture Queen for Ninth Grade. Over the weekend I practice walking with a book on my head. I stand with my back flat against the wall until my shoulders hurt. I sit on the edge of my bed ramrod straight until the muscles in my back ache. Then I force myself to sit like that even longer. My image of good posture has little to do with grace. It has to do with rigidity, inflexibility, stiffness. It has to do with a body immobilized and mute.
During each class period the teacher observes the students and hands out a wood chip to the one displaying the best posture. At the end of the day each student turns in his or her chips to the homeroom teacher, and at the end of the week the chips are tallied and the student with the most wins. I do little during class except sit rigid. I can’t take notes because I’d have to bend over the desk to write. My hands are neatly folded on top of the desk. My feet are flat on the floor. My neck is stiff, my gaze forward, my shoulders back. I can control my body. At the end of the first day, I have four chips.
By Thursday my back is so sore it hurts to walk, but I would never consider abandoning my goal. At the end of English, the teacher forgets to hand out chips and I know I can’t depart without one. I linger, hover by her desk, ask a question about the homework assignment—while watching the wood chips stacked next to her box of pencils. I must
have one. If she turns her head I might steal one—or all of them. After she answers my question, I continue to stand rigidly by her desk. I’m not leaving. I try to will her to remember the chips, will her to give one to me, but she doesn’t understand why I linger.
“Those chips—” I nod toward them but am afraid to actually ask for one.
She glances at them. “Oh—I forgot to hand them out,” she says.
“I’ve been practicing my posture,” I say.
She glances at my empty desk as if I still sit there and she can see me. “Yes,” she says. “I think I remember your posture.” She picks up a wood chip. “Would you like one?”
I grab it from her hand before it’s fully offered. “Can I have two?” I say. “I know I’ll have just as good posture tomorrow.”
At assembly on Friday my name is announced: Posture Queen of the Ninth Grade. I’m called to the stage while everyone applauds. I am enormously proud as I receive a small silver medal. Walking home, I hold it in my palm. I realize the possibility that no one else even tried to win this, but I don’t care. I decide I’ll wait till dinner to announce my award to my parents. At home I lie on my bed and try to relax my muscles, the first time all week. Over and over I read the inscription: “Posture Queen—Ninth Grade.” I’m sorry my name’s not on it, but of course there wasn’t time to engrave it. I place the medal on my forehead as if it’s a gem for an exotic religious ritual—that Egyptian princess. Then I place it first over my left eye, then the right. With my eyes closed I concentrate on the cool weighted circle over my eye. It feels like a mark. Like the cross drawn on my forehead on Good Friday at the Anglican school in St. Thomas. My body is special. My body, my posture, have been selected, elected, anointed.
All through dinner the medal remains on my lap as I wait for a good time for my announcement. But then I can’t. I can’t say it. Why? Certainly my father will praise it. My mother will wave its smallness aside. My sister will refuse to look at it. I already know their responses—but, really, this isn’t why I can’t tell them. Now I realize I must keep it secret. While my body is special, no one can know this secret. This is why I had to win the medal. My body needed to receive its special mark. But as I leave the table and return to my room, the glory is fading. I need to be able to win it all over again next week as well.
I graduate from junior high school. The previous summer I saw none of my friends. This summer I am included in the promise we ’11 all meet at the swimming pool. At home I try on the bathing suit I bought last summer but never wore. Immediately I see it’s too small and ask my mother if I can buy a new one. She refuses, since this one is “just like new.” Besides, we see the suit differently.
My mother says it fits, and that’s that. But my breasts, I think, are not sufficiently hidden behind the material. Before my first trip to the pool I stand before the bathroom mirror, trying to arrange the top of the suit. I loosen the straps. I tighten them. I put on a shirt and tie the shirttails together across my stomach. I roll the sleeves up. Maybe I’ll just take the shirt off at the last moment, before I enter the water.
I grab a towel. As I head toward the door my father comes in from the yard where he’s building a brick patio. His hands are dirty, and he calls to me from the kitchen to pour him a glass of ice water. I give it to him, but he sets it down and holds onto my hand instead. I’m not wearing shorts over the suit, only the shirt, and I lower the towel to cover my thighs. He tugs it away and asks where I’m going, dressed like that. To the pool, I say. I’m supposed to meet my friends. I’m already late, I add. He says he needs my help with the patio. Can I help later? I ask. I’ll work on it all day tomorrow, Sunday. He reminds me he and my mother have an engagement tomorrow. He won’t be working on it then. He needs me now. He needs me today. But I’m already in my bathing suit, I say …
I should stop this. I know it. I feel his anger; he wears it tight on the skin round his mouth. He tells me to change, unbuttons my shirt and—there is the bathing suit, too small, yes. Now I see it clearly. I see I could not possibly go to the pool anyway. Not in this suit. The shirt is on the floor and his anger, rising: You will never go to the pool in that suit, he says, and I nod, yes, yes, of course, this is all a mistake. I had planned not to swim, not to remove the shirt anyway, I whisper. One of the straps is in his hand and he jerks it so hard it snaps. The top of the suit slips, and my breast—there. I don’t know where my mother is. I think I hear her in the living room, just past the door of the kitchen. He speaks to me, but I have trouble concentrating, trouble connecting words to their meaning. He asks if I’d expected to go to the pool like this? No, I shake my head, no. Really, this is a mistake, I say. I don’t know what I’d been thinking. I wasn’t going. I wasn’t. I won’t. I’ll help you with the patio, Father. I try to cover my breast with my hand, but he hits it.
With the sound, my mother is there in the kitchen and I’m afraid to try to cover my breast again, cover its overwhelming embarrassment. They are yelling at each other. I don’t understand what I have done. What they have done. What any of us have done. She says I’m his slutdaughter, and that’s how I’ll always dress. And he says, what, like her? Didn’t she dress like a slut before they married?
And there her rage is, all her rage, screaming at him. Her face is unbearable. She is almost laughing, too, I think, gleeful that somehow she has tricked him, but I don’t understand how, or what the trick has been. There is glee, too, that he will not be the only one to control my body, that, yes, he has been doubly tricked. And how about him, she says, doesn’t she know what he, my father, did with his own whore mother? And hasn’t she always known their secret?
At the mention of his mother I feel his rage darken, and he picks up a knife and for a moment just grips it. There is so much rage, hers and his, the soles of my feet feel the floorboards shudder. He walks toward her with the knife, but she is laughing at him now, just laughing, high and strained, and she takes her purse from the counter and heads to the garage. The sound of his breathing seems louder than the engine of the car starting. He steps toward me but I know it is not me, his daughter, he sees standing before him, but surely another, some ancient, ancient image. He slices the other strap of her suit, nicking her. He grabs her hair, the hair belonging to that other, pulling her to the floor. Pulls off her suit. The knife—he puts the knife there, between her legs there. But surely his slutdaughter deserves this. Yes, I see what he does to his slutdaughter, before her body turns to granite. I feel nothing. There is nothing to feel. Perhaps splinters of granite chip from her skin as I see him cut her there, moments before he fucks her.
We are on the kitchen floor. I don’t remember time, but long enough for his rage to chip, chip at the granite, yet barely leave a scar. The granite is hard enough, thick enough, to last his rage a lifetime. I will help you, Daddy, help you cauterize your rage. I know that I must. I know this is why I was born, this is why I am here. I know he feels better after, and only I can help him with this. He must love me more than he loves my mother, more than he loves my sister. I am the one to coax his rage from his body, urging it from his body deep into mine.
In the late afternoon the sky is still pale, flecked with silvery light of early summer. I follow my father outside, since he wants us to work on the patio together. From the mound of sand in the driveway we load smaller piles into the wheelbarrow and roll it to the back door where the patio is to be. The sand is the bed. With rakes, we smooth it across the sectioned-off earth before placing green and gray bricks on top. Four-inch strips of white pebbles will separate the rows. While we work we don’t speak, except when he tells me how to arrange pebbles, how to rake sand. By the time fireflies decorate the sky, we’re only half finished. He says we’ll finish on Monday.
Inside, he places cream cheese, pumpernickel bread, a bowl of cherries and grapes on the kitchen counter. He places two plates in front of us, where we stand side by side. He is ravenous, eating quickly, and I think if I watch his mouth chew I will vomit. I pick u
p a grape. Between my fingers it feels slick and pulpy, and I feel vomit begin to rise. The base of my throat is hot and tight. I must get out of the kitchen.
Without a word I go down the hall to the bathroom and stand over the sink, turning both faucets until water gushes. I don’t even touch the water, just watch it swirl into the pink bowl and down the drain. I am sweaty. My hair is matted. My whole body needs washing. I can’t take a shower. I’m afraid to feel water on my skin. I don’t want to feel this. I’m afraid the granite will dissolve—but it can’t, I tell myself. Granite can’t feel. Can’t. Never have I touched that one place on my body that’s never been identified by word—only identified by need, by what he needs. Sometimes I quickly slide a bar of soap over it, sometimes a washcloth. Never have I looked at myself. I don’t want to see, don’t want to know. But it needs washing. I need washing. I wet my hands and press them to my cheeks, but there it is, there, I must stop, for with the wetness against my cheeks the skin does feel. It feels softer. I can’t do this.
My father comes in the bathroom and asks what I’m doing. I can’t answer him; I don’t know what I’m doing. He turns off the faucets and stands behind me, stroking my hair. I want him to see it’s matted, that it needs to be washed and brushed. He doesn’t see this, would never notice this. I must tell him: “My hair is dirty, Daddy.”
He looks at me, surprised. “Your hair is beautiful. You have the most beautiful hair in the world.”
“It needs to be washed, Daddy.” My voice hits hard against the tiles in the bathroom.
“That’s okay, then,” he says. He touches my shoulder, trying to lower my voice. “It’s okay to wash it.”
Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You Page 13