Daughter You Never Had
There’s a spot on your scalp, right at the crown, where your grays give way and the tender skin sings pink. As if God Himself hovered above you, like I now do, sticky candle in hand, flame caressing your head. If you knew about this thin patch, Jo Ann, we’d never hear the end of it. But you’re oblivious. In another life, I’d inform you in that gentle but honest way we once shared. More like fast friends than the in-laws we actually were. You’re so lucky, a friend once tittered to me, I’d kill my mother-in-law if I could.
Instead, I practice using the small power I have. A shitty consolation prize for getting stuck following you around. I can transmit heat into living objects, equivalent to microwaving a slice of pizza for twenty seconds. Stupid, practically useless.
Except that you hate being hot.
I send a real zinger to your core, causing you to push up from your rocking chair in the living room. On its backward swing, the chair runs right through me; I prickle at the lack of sensation. I’m not one of those types who gets off on passing through walls, defying physics. I’m the kind to yearn for the simple human pleasures, to float beside the Christmas tree in the corner and imagine the tickle of its plastic needles along my fingers.
You shed your fuzzy snowman robe onto the arm of the couch—it’s gotten a bit big on you—and flick on the switch to the overhead fan. Paul sighs as you wave one of his hunting magazines over your face. Sweat’s already gathered in the lines around your mouth—the wrinkles of someone who’s spent a lifetime with lips pursed around a cigarette and also, her son’s asshole.
“Jo Ann, you can’t seriously—” Paul starts.
“Yes, I seriously can,” you say.
“It’s goddamn eleven degrees outside.” He burrows further under his blanket.
“I’m flashing, Paul. I can’t help it. The day a man has to experience women’s troubles is the day the world ends.”
Paul huffs. “I thought you were over that stuff a long time ago.”
You’ve decorated the Christmas tree with the usual homemade ornaments and gnarled string of popcorn. On a top branch hangs PJ’s preschool photo pasted on doily paper. A pipe cleaner halo adorns his head. He beams, baring baby teeth like neat candy squares. I wonder if they celebrate Christmas at the state prison.
You move into the tiny kitchen, and I follow because I must. Linoleum, chipped cupboards, tired appliances. You’re baking those sugar cookies whose sweetness used to itch my gums. PJ’s favorites. You transfer trays in and out of the oven with speed, snapping the door closed and stuffing a paper towel down your shirt.
Being in the kitchen with you like this makes me remember. This exact day last year, the two of us devouring butter cookies, giggling like schoolgirls atop monkey bars, while Paul and PJ watched football in the living room.
“You want some wine?” you asked, already pouring a glass from the box.
I never turned down wine. Except for that night.
You gave me a look. Brows raised, staring daggers at my stomach.
“Have you told PJ?” you mouthed.
“I’m planning to this weekend,” I whispered.
He and I were going on a hiking trip. The getaway was his idea. To reconnect. As if I shouldered some blame for his recent odd behavior—coming home late from work, taking calls in the garage. This little surprise, this new life, might fix him. Fix us.
I didn’t mean to spill the beans to you first. That’s just the way it was with you and me.
“You’ll make such a good mom,” you said, wrapping me in your sure arms. “I won’t say a word.”
But you did. You never could keep your mouth shut. I went on that hiking trip and never came back, thanks to you. Turned out PJ wanted his new girlfriend, not the shackle of a pregnant wife.
I can’t forgive you, but I’m starting to accept my fate. After all, God spared me the burden of a child born of a last ditch effort. Those ones don’t turn out so nice, a bit flaky and spoiled, you admitted to me once after too much wine. And I nodded because I understood, I agreed. PJ would always be too much, yet never enough.
You pull the damp paper towel from your shirt and head toward the bathroom. I drift along, a reluctant bobber. You discard your soggy clothes, rip back the shower curtain, and welcome the water with your full chest.
I hide in the shower’s back ceiling corner. Typically, I tune out your private moments for the sake of us both, but today is different. Today, with its memories of you and me, is difficult, and so I watch as you tear away the hair at the back of your scalp, your sobs swallowed under the showerhead. The strands bind your fingers, cover your wrists. You cry until you can’t. Until the water licks your hands clean.
Marissa Dechant’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, Flash Frog, Stanchion, and BULL Lit Mag. She works in nonprofit communications and lives with her husband in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Find her @marissadechant on Substack and @marissadujour on Bluesky and Instagram.
