Issue 22

Margherita Arco

Just as we were finishing breakfast downstairs, a loud bang resonated through the clapboard house; our father had let the door of the master bedroom fall to a close, announcing his advance on the breakfast table. Our eager faces brightening, cleaned shiny with lanolin oil, ribbons in our brushed hair, plaid uniforms spick and span, we wanted nothing but to please him. Our mother meticulously folded the newspaper to hide any evidence that it had been touched. We passed the crisp package carefully from hand to hand until it landed on our father’s plate. Razor-sharp eyes patrolled the table. Nothing could be out of line: no teacup off its saucer, no cereal escaped from our bowls, no napkin left in its ring, no elbow resting on the table.

As he shuffled heavily down the stairs toward the breakfast table, our mother examined her face in the silver cutlery and lightly brushed the sides of her head with the palms of her hands, patting down imaginary loose ends. A final check, we looked at each other, helpful and competitive, searching for stains on our collars. Imitating our mother, we smoothed our immaculately brushed hair. As his footsteps grew louder, our backs arched to sit upright, our faces turned to the door, ready, excited as if we were going to a fair. Three, two, one, we counted in our heads.

“Good morning,” we said almost in unison, but each fighting for her own voice, hopeful that it would shine out of the crowd. “Me, me, me,” our keen faces beamed as our mouths sang in harmony.

Shiny teeth—at least 188 of them—emerged in our hopeful smiles punctuated by dimples. We looked to our father.

He stopped abruptly and stood still, regarding us with surprise and dismay as though, for a few short hours in the night, he had been spared the reality of his six daughters. Disillusionment shone as brightly in his eyes as the diamond on my mother’s fourth finger. Six daughters and not a single son. Just one son to fulfill his dream of an heir to give him a place in the course of history.

Not understanding his gaze, we solemnly accepted his vision of ourselves. For a moment, invisible to our parents, we looked at each other, letting down our guard, our smiles vanishing, before returning our attention to him. One of the younger sisters put her spoon into her teacup and stirred clumsily. Her brash movement made the milk rock from side to side, and the clanging became louder. With a swift movement, our mother put her hand on the sister’s arm, forcing her to relinquish her grip of the silver spoon.

He picked up the New York Times as he sunk into his golden ballroom chair, which emitted a sound at his weight. He glanced at the paper and let it fall with a thud on the table.

“What is the only thing I want?” he muttered, looking at us individually, his voice pregnant with disdain, the same disdain my mother had for her six pregnancies. There was a seventh—that one pregnancy—that hopeful one pregnancy, heralded and celebrated. But then our brother was stillborn.

Stillborn. We remembered being ushered into the hospital room. The gray blinds were pulled down halfway. Gray winter light cast long shadows but could not hide our mother, pale and sad. Unable to bear seeing her that way, we were soon herded out. We spoke in whispers—the younger ones unable to understand—because it seemed the only thing to do for the dead. Stealing glances at each other, each wondered if she was the only one feeling a tiny sense of relief. No son to take their place. Our father spent the night at the hospital.

“What is the only thing I want?” resonated in the room.

Eager eyes, bodies balanced so close to the edges of our seats that if we had moved just a slither more, we would have fallen to the floor, we waited as my father finished his most pressing question, the urgency we felt.

But it ended with silence. He looked at us, from sister to sister, waiting for a response. But we all feared the answer; we had heard it before.

When no one responded, my mother looked at us, individually, nodding her head, encouraging us to respond. Perhaps this time, it would be different.

Looking from my mother, now filled with resolve, I turned to my father.

“A kiss,” I finally chirped. Hopeful that I had averted the tension. Hopeful that he would see me for myself, not just a failure of his masculinity. Hopeful that I was somehow special, different, better, more courageous than my other sisters.

“No,” he said, deliberately, the contempt in his voice turning my soggy cornflakes into a mound of paste that seemed to grow larger and larger no matter how I masticated. From one side of my mouth to the other, I pushed the growing lump, unable to swallow, saliva dry. The remaining cornflakes in my bowl floated like lifesavers, but they wouldn’t save me. I inspected each cornflake, not looking at him, not looking at my sisters, and least of all at my mother.

My mother was halfway across the room with the silver teapot, aiming for my father’s cup. Look, look her swift stride said, I am the perfect wife.

“The only thing I want is to have a son.” Silence. I looked up. Our little faces masking our disappointment, hoping somehow we could fulfill his request. But all of us knowing we were fundamentally flawed. I knew that my genetic coding—my XX chromosomes—did not deserve my father’s love.

Shame spreads like wildfire in drought. Not only had I said the wrong thing, but I was also ashamed that I could not be his desired son.

I stared into my bowl at the little bubbles of air forming on top of the milk around the silver spoon that seemed to have lost its structure and drooped irresolutely in the bowl.

My mother filled my father’s cup with the hot brown liquid and then passed him the breadbasket. She reached for the butter. Perhaps this would fill his void and alleviate her guilt in failing to produce his name-bearer. My father smeared a thick layer of butter on his toasted English muffin, crumbs falling off the edge of the bread onto his plate and onto the white tablecloth.

Until it was time to leave for school, we sisters sat in silence, watching my father stuff his mouth with bread and butter, while my mother made agreeable conversation. I took the glass of water in front of me and swallowed down the hard ball of cornflakes. When our watches finally reached 6:45 a.m., we bounced up from our chairs, escaping the weight of disappointment.

As routine demanded of all the sisters, we piled into the downstairs bathroom to brush our teeth, the older helping the younger ones. I was the last. After they all had left, I remained, brushing and brushing my teeth, rounding the rear molars first from the inside, then from the outside. At first, I was trying to brush the shame away, invisible in my reflection in the antique mirror with stained glass above the sink. Then I pressed the brush harder against my teeth to punish myself for having said something so stupid, to erase the stain of my words. The skin on my gums ripped, but I didn’t stop. I dug the brush deeper into the wound and the pain felt good.

“Hurry,” my mother called from the other side of the bathroom door. I took the brush out of my mouth, the bristles pink with blood, and turned on the tap.

“Yes,” I responded.

I rinsed my mouth and watched the water dilute and wash away the red, thick spit. And I relished it.

I grazed my tongue over the raw skin in my mouth. It stung. I did it again. Automatically my eyes flinched, but I resisted the impulse to bring my hand up to my mouth.

I opened the door and swung my backpack over my shoulder. “You look very nice,” my mother said, and gave me a kiss on my forehead. “Now go and say goodbye to your father. The others are in the car.”

When I softly opened the door to the dining room, my father didn’t look up. He was alone with his newspaper. I walked up to him and waited for him to speak. I did not know how long to wait. Perhaps I would go. Since he didn’t notice me, I thought I might skip this and just see him again in the evening. I turned my head and saw my mother, standing tall inside the door I had left open behind me. Reluctantly, I leaned forward, closer and closer to my father’s smooth, bald head. My lips touched his scalp, and I pressed them until my open gums bled again. I smiled. My father grunted as I murmured goodbye.

Rushing past my mother with my lips firmly closed, avoiding her eyes, I joined my waiting sisters, who had already piled into our family van.

The rest of the day—on the way to school listening to the artist Puff Daddy and Faith Evans’ “I’ll Be Missing You” on the radio, in math class, in English, by the lockers, in the cafeteria, at field hockey practice—whenever I let my tongue stroke my sensitive gums, I felt a jab of pain pound through my head. I felt proud, and I smiled with this secret.

My father couldn’t take this away from me. Shame couldn’t take it away. No one could. I was strong. I was stronger than any boy I knew. I could endure pain. I was in power. And I was the opposite of shameful, I was strong and proud.