*
I come to myself. I am in the shower, the water tepid, running to cold. He is banging a fist on the door, shouting. I turn off the water with trembling, wrinkled fingers. How long has it been? Where did I leave her? I grab a towel and open the door and he is there, huge and blocking the light, his hair in lifted tufts as if he has raked his fingers through it. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Where is she?”
“In her room. How long did you leave her?”
“Not long.” My voice like something coming from far underground.
He leans close, grabs my upper arms, his eyes slitted, glacial blue. “I don’t believe you. I think you left her for a long, long time. Her diaper was filthy.” He pushes me from him so I smash into the basin with my hip, sink to the floor sobbing, the towel fallen around my feet.
He says, “Just don’t infect her with your disease. Whatever that is.” He turns away and his footsteps are loud as drumbeats.
I nod into my hands. Yes, it is a disease. Yes, I am infected. Yes, I need to keep it away from her. She is too fragile to hold the weight. Even on perfect days, there is something under my skin. Some beast that moves below the surface. I can keep it at bay, mostly. But every now and then, it awakes and unfurls in jerky movements. It is the minotaur in the maze of my body. It wakes up and howls and wants to be seen, wants to show its broken face that is also mine. It asks for sympathy or perhaps for love. It screams that it too was a child once and it was hurt. It asks why it cannot have these things: love, belonging, ease. When it emerges, it has no pity, no mercy. His presence is the antidote. It keeps the beast away.
He’s gone into her room, holding her to his chest, the one place I want to be. The place she has taken. I reach for the sink and pull myself up slowly. My hip feels disjointed, already a bruise rising like paint swirled on my skin from the inside. I limp into the bedroom, pull aside the covers, and sink into the bed. I’m still wet, so the sheets stick to me, sucking away moisture, my hair on the pillow like a mermaid’s.
I remember that time before she came. I remember rolling around in Golden Gate Park, his body over mine, breathless for each other. I remember that a group of bicyclists had yelled and hollered, cheering on our passion. And we, shy but also ecstatic, had risen to look and wave at them. I remember when he wanted me so badly he ground his teeth at me in desire and groaned when he touched me. I remember when I wanted him so badly it felt like hunger, like thirst.
I burn alone until morning.
Twenty
My little girl never darkens. She is milk with the slightest splash of tea, golden headed as if birthed from him and a much paler woman. On the streets they stare at us, this dark woman and this fair little girl. They say, “Look at her. So pretty. So cute.” South Asian mothers come up to me and say, “My goodness, she’s so fair. Your husband must be American, no?” Their eyes are covetous, appraising. They like these gifts of whiteness. Where am I in her blood? I had read somewhere that young children most often look like their fathers. It’s a way to ensure that a man knows who his children are, that he will not kill them because he suspects they are not his. Here is biology in action, her pale skin and yellow curls. Only her staring, watchful eyes, darkening to chocolate, are like mine.
*
I take her to the city, a park in Noe Valley where her father used to live in those other fairy-tale days. I sit on a bench and watch her toddle around, drag her blanket behind her to the sandbox, stumble over the edge, sit down. She runs her fingers though the sand, holds her hands out to see the sand fall through her tiny fingers. I watch her like a hawk, always. You never know what could happen to a girl. A woman comes and sits next to me. There is a sort of peace. The day is bright and airy. Clouds speed high overhead so that we are in light, then shadow, and then bright sunlight again.
The woman next to me makes a gesture, her hand rising to shade her eyes. I can tell she wants to chat. I straighten my back, curve away from her so that she will know my solitude must not be breached. But she cannot abide this turning away. We are one tribe, after all, the community of mommy. She leans toward me, says, “Hola. Cómo estas?” I realize that we are not in fact one tribe. Instead, she has confused me with one of the Latina nannies that run around after white charges in this wealthy neighborhood. She has read me as one of those women who have abandoned their own children in some faraway place to look after these American offspring. It is an old role she has found for me, the children of this country for so long brought up by women with dark skin, black skin.