Like a Good Daughter, I Pretended Not to Care
when you said my pants were skintight and compared me to skinny friends, so I starved myself, took laxatives, hid oreo cookies under my bed and stuck a finger down my throat. I wanted to sashay in Guess Jeans so boys would like me, you would smile and tell me I looked beautiful, be proud to stand next to me.
when you said giving birth to me was the worst pain you ever felt, after we blew out the birthday candles on my cake, on “our birthday.” I understood you were alone and dad was in the army reserves. And then I remembered that you gave away my dog Baron while I was at school, you said he vomited too much. I listened as you laughed, retold the story of the 48 hours in labor, too big to push, I took your hand and squeezed.
when you asked if I was OK but did not wait for an answer, instead you told me dad is difficult to live with and your hair is falling out, your perfectly lined lips were moving but all I heard was static. I nodded and smiled, stared at the credenza covered with pictures, not one inch of shabby chic surface visible: grandparents, brothers, a family backyard photo shoot, you smiling on my sixteenth birthday at Benihana, you were always the prettiest and best dressed.
when you told me you could not come with me for the D&C after I miscarried, after months of fertility treatments, you told me to ask my father. But you were concerned with results, not the process, not the details: fifty visits to the clinic, twenty-five hours in the waiting room eating rubbery mini corn muffins, staring at women’s faces stained with tears and strained with worry. And fifty-sixty blood draws, thirty-forty ultrasounds, eight IUIs, thirty hours of fertility support group, fifty hours of private therapy, one adoption information session, four miscarriages, one heartbeat, one D&C without anesthesia, one book, The Unspoken Sorrow. You wanted to talk about baby names like Tiffany or Skylar (friends’ suggestions or soap opera heroines), I gave
you my list.
I pretended not to care when I sent you a poem about my daughters and you asked when I was
going to write a poem about you.
© Marisa Cimbal
Marisa Cimbal lives in Hoboken, NJ with her husband and dog, Elsa, and is the mother of twin daughters. She works in New York City in healthcare communications and is now fulfilling her dream of being a poet and writer of nonfiction. Most recently, her work has appeared in Little Old Lady Comedy, Down in the Dirt, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Children, Churches and Daddies, Rat’s Ass Review, Sad Girls Diaries, and Humans of the World.
The Loch Raven Review 