Back to Issue Fifty-Eight

I know what to expect and it is not because of anything my mother has taught me. She has paid for my kente and looked over the menu and chosen the colors purple and pink and argued about the price of tents and chairs and why we don’t need a salad plate and a dinner plate and a bread plate when there’ll be no bread, no salad, just fried rice, banku and pepper and fish. Malt and tilapia for the elders. I wait for her to say it when we set the date, when I sit for hours at counseling, when they stretch a sewing tape across my bust, down my legs, around my stomach like a belt. When I try on my dress and suck in my breath as they pull the lace crisscrossed at the back, my arms sticking out like a bird, a corset so tight I can barely walk. When I take out my twists and wash my hair, when they call me in front of the church one two three times. When the day finally arrives and I am all alone but not for long because she is right next to me in my room. The room where she brought me ginger tea for my belly ache and chicken soup for my cold. The room of my teenage years where I slammed the door shut and buried my head in a pillow, muffling my screams. Unleash and gasp. The room that has swallowed up journals filled with my rebellion and lust and red rage and ugly secrets and the shattering of fragile things. When I see her walk through the door, I think this is it. She is going to tell me. She won’t look me in the eyes, but she will tell me what is coming. I know she’ll be embarrassed to say the word, my shy mother. Sex on her tongue is a wildfire burning. But not my mother with her headscarf and below-the-knee skirts, her hands raised at church, her hands sifting beans, dicing tomatoes, straining herbs, washing shirts and jeans, pegging them on the clothesline, thumbing through her Bible on the table, her eyes peering over the words under a lampshade. No Hollywood movies for my mother, no secular songs in her ears, no idleness, no daughter of hers running around the neighborhood playing with boys boys boys. All those high fences, finally coming down today. She is going to tell me. But first she tells a story of how she lost her ring the night before her wedding, and tells me to pray. When she asks to see my ring, I say it is with him. Shouldn’t it be with him when he presents it and places it on my finger? She paces and I wait. I know she is going to tell me, and I have decided I will say nothing when she starts. I will only listen. I do not want her to know that I already know. I have seen the movies. I have heard my friends talk about it, crave it with a pleasure I do not understand. I am not looking forward to it. I pray it ends quickly. I do not want to be asked to make any sounds. I do not want to be asked to do anything at all with a man. I almost want mother to say it because I know it would make her uncomfortable, break her into a sweat in the back of her dress, make her shake like a child. Then we can be afraid together. Is my dress too tight? Yes, I say. Are my nails not too long? Yes, I confess, longer than I would have liked. The mirror still has the cracks from banging my fists at myself. Hitting my reflection and watching the lines spread like ripples on the surface of water. Fragments of distortion. One sharp edge to cut the loathing in half. My face is heavy with makeup, and I know she thinks it but does not say it. On what I’m told is the most important day of my life, I look nothing like myself. I want it all to be over, the performance of it, the exaggeration and weariness of it all, but I keep my mouth shut. And so does my mother when they tell her that it is time and she is quick on her feet, gives me one last glance before walking away. I hide it well, the pleading in my eyes and my disappointment, too, when I meet her gaze. I want something from her although I do not know what. The day is a blurry dream, and I float through it dazed. A clueless ghost. That night, when I am touched in the dark and can sense the boyish thrill of his yearning, the dance of finally getting what he wants, I sink into myself and sense the fear of being taken away. It is as if someone has let go of my hand in a crowd, hoping I’ll find my way. After all the moving and stroking and the quiet weeping of flesh, my hands rest weakly at my sides. I feel the warmth of his breath against my chest and slowly unclench my fists.