Marcia

You merge into Your Mother’s words, her thoughts, what she hears, what she smells, how she separates blooms from weeds. Her name is Marcia.

You are a weed in Marcia’s Garden – a long, scraggly weed. Not the beautiful bloom she expected.

Will she find value in this weed, find beauty in its resilience?

Or will she dig at the roots to weaken you – wincing at your imperfections, training you to do the same.

Your Mother calls you a homely baby. Long and bald. According to Grandma, Your Mother won’t hold you.

You want to believe Your Mother had days when she cradled you, but you can’t remember her arms surrounding you with safety or warmth or pride unless it was credit she took for your accomplishments.

You need her to show you how to be proud of yourself.

***

Your Mother’s love comes with you tickling her back with the tips of your fingers. You cringe at the way she pulls at your touch.

She says – Now draw letters on my back with your finger. Let me try to guess.

You need her to love you without your working for it.

***

Your Mother is the book of rules and etiquette. She teaches you the proper way to set a table, to clean a house, to keep everything neat. She wraps her teaching in chores for you. Every Saturday morning, she says –

Rise and shine.

Time for your chores.

Wash the loads.

Then load the dryer.

Clean the kitchen first in case company comes.

Then clean the house.

Iron the king size sheets. Iron your stepdad’s boxer shorts.

The back-and-forth rhythm of your ironing arm sends you drifting into Cinderella fantasies as Your Mother trains you in the art of servitude.

You need her to teach you independence.

***

Your Mother is particular about body cleanliness. Your stepdad calls her Mrs. Clean.

She cleans you with baths and enemas.

She places a towel on the white tile floor of the green-tiled bathroom and has you lie on your side curled up. You grimace at the shiny red rubber bag swollen with fluid and its long red tube ending in a black hard plastic finger with ridges and holes and a flared-out tip.

Your Mother shoves the tip into your tiny butt. Cold rushes into your tiny belly. Spasms clench your tiny gut.

You rush to the toilet before it’s time.

Your Mother scolds you for not holding it in.

Whenever you sit on the toilet to pee, you stare at the deflated bag hanging over the shower head and you feel it inflate your tiny bottom punishing you for your dirty insides.

You need her to show you appropriate hygiene.

***

Your Mother tries teaching you how to pluck the dead petals of your eyebrows, how to apply makeup, how to help you look less like a tall thin weed.

You’re twelve when she dyes your hair.

You’re sixteen when she shapes your flowering – even weeds bloom at some point.

She tells the doctor you need birth control pills. She’s afraid of pregnancy.

You need her to teach you about sex and beauty.

***

You swear to yourself that you will never be like Your Mother.

But her voice – that voice lives loud in your head.

That voice – It’s too bad you didn’t get my eyebrows – those thick arched brunette brows that frame her deep-set hazel green eyes and need no filling in with an eyebrow pencil.

That voice – It’s too bad you didn’t get my narrow feet. You could have borrowed my shoes – the shoes Grandpa sends her because he is a well-known shoe designer and keeps her in the latest styles.

That voice – It’s too bad you didn’t get my hair – her glossy thick brunette hair with loads of body and natural wave – the hair that hairdressers love and use Your Mother in hair shows to show off their skill.

Her voice – It’s too bad you didn’t get my legs – shapely and in perfect proportion to her 5’2” frame.

Your eyebrows are thick and triangular with no natural arch. Your feet are wide – Bs to Your Mother’s triple As. You have a lot of hair, but it’s fine hair, dark brown, sun-bleached gold at the ends and stick-straight – the kind of straight hair even perms don’t curl. Your legs are long in the thigh, short in the calf, and your feet splay out when your knees point forward.

You wish you had Your Mother’s hair. Her feet. Your Mother’s eyebrows. Her legs.

You wish she had seen you as pretty. Not a weed that needs yanking and tossing.

You need her to show you how to appreciate yourself.

***

In Your Mother’s first house, she plants blooming shrubs – Dwarf gardenias. Single and double pink hibiscus. Red geraniums. She plants one tree – a four-foot magnolia for the front yard. She rips out grass runners from other people’s yards and plants them in yours. She buys an edger, an electric lawn mower. Yet it’s you who pulls weeds from her garden to manage her love of blooms and beauty.

***

You’re a woman now and people tell you you’re beautiful, stunning, striking. How beautiful your eyes, how radiant your smile.

And you say – Really? You think so?

You can’t believe it might be true. You’re a weed after all. Who ever heard of a beautiful weed?

***

Marcia is older now – the narcissus of her soul fading with her image. She’s grown to hate blooms.

She says – Don’t bring me flowers. I hate it when people bring me flowers.

You say – Why?

She says – Flowers die.

-WOW-Women On Writing 3^rd Place Contest Winner 1^st Qtr 2022