The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(83)

“Louis thought you were running around, seeing someone else. But endangering your own daughter is far worse than some passing fancy. Please don’t take this personally, dear. Don’t make it harder than it already is. We’re doing this for you and for her. It’s the best thing for everyone. I’m not saying this needs to be permanent. If and when you can pass a basic test for mental fitness and competency, and with the proper parenting classes, I’m sure you could be given visitation rights.”

Dorothy could not believe the audacity of what she was hearing. She turned to Louis. “You actually agree with this?” As he opened his mouth, struggling to find the words, she already knew the answer. With Annabel in another city, being taken care of by someone else, he’d be free again. He could go out with clients late into the evening, he could sleep in on weekends, he could become a parent in name only, not that he was the most attentive parent to begin with. She listened to him vacillate between excuses and explanations. He might as well have been a weathervane spinning in the wind.

“I honestly think it’s better for Annabel right now. Safer, especially with the bad weather and all, the typhoon,” he said. “And it would even give you and me the opportunity to work on us. If that’s what we decide to do, together.”

Now you care about me, now you care about the weather?

Dorothy stood up, shaking.

“Where are you going?” Louise asked. “You can’t run from this, Dorothy.”

Dorothy walked away. “I’m not running from anything. I’m going to read my daughter a story, one with a happy ending.”



* * *



Hours later Dorothy sat in the dark, in the chair where she’d spent countless hours nursing Annabel, long nights gently rocking her beautiful girl to sleep. Dorothy had kept watch until Louise finally left, but not before she made a great, noisy show of her departure, making sure that Dorothy could hear her promising to return for Annabel in the morning. Afterward, Louis bumbled about the living room for a while, turning the television on and off before finally going to their bedroom.

Dorothy tried to wrap her head around the idea of Annabel going off to Spokane. She knew that it was a practical thing to do, the same way it was practical for an army to surrender. Waving a white flag was a guaranteed way to bring a swift end to hostilities, which was fine as long as you didn’t care who wins or loses, or what happens after.

She tried to think of calmer things.

“What’s the most peaceful, relaxing, centering thing you can imagine?” Dr. Shedhorn asked after Dorothy’s last treatment. The answer came tumbling out as Dorothy pictured Annabel in her favorite green pajamas, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, long dark hair splayed across her pillow. Her little arms and legs akimbo as though she’d been dropped from a great height and crash-landed atop her downy comforter, protected by a menagerie of stuffed animals. Dorothy could hear Annabel’s soft, gentle breathing when the furnace shut off and the room was so still it felt as though time had stopped.

“It has to be the look on my little girl’s face when she’s sleeping. I would give anything to be able to sleep like that again,” Dorothy had said. “A close second would be the exact opposite of that, whenever she puts music on in her bedroom and dances around. She’s so perfectly wild and happy—she seems so free.”

“What does she dance to?” Dr. Shedhorn began taking notes. “You could add those songs to a playlist and take that slice of happiness with you. Enjoy those songs whenever you’re having a bad day, or feeling a bit low, or just need a boost.”

“I have those songs already,” Dorothy said. She knew the encouragement was a suggestion to help tide her over until her next treatment, which would have to wait until the storm had passed to be rescheduled.

“So you’re way ahead of me, then,” Dr. Shedhorn said.

“I guess so.”

Dorothy had assumed that Annabel’s similar musical taste was a coincidence. She reasoned that her daughter played a few songs on the lesson computer in her bedroom—whatever sounded good to her little ears—and an algorithm created a playlist that mirrored what Dorothy listened to, classic bands like Queen, or the Vaccines, or Origami Button, or vintage performers like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. Now as she watched her daughter, twitching while dreaming as though touched by something unseen, Dorothy contemplated something else. I never played any of those songs for her. Not in the car. Or at home. I don’t even remember playing them for her when I was pregnant. She furrowed her brow. Those songs are on an old workout playlist.

Dorothy remembered what Dr. Shedhorn had said about scorecards and echoes. How each generation is built upon the genetic ruins of the past. That our lives are merely biological waypoints. We’re not individual flowers, annuals that bloom and then die. We’re perennials. A part of us comes back each new season, carrying a bit of the genus of the previous floret. If true, then Dorothy feared for what Annabel’s life might become without her, but also—as hard as it was to admit—with her.

Like most parents, Dorothy hoped that Annabel would feel more love in her life, more security, have greater opportunities. But what if her mother was born encumbered with the weight of past generations? What if that was Annabel’s epigenetic inheritance?

Dorothy imagined herself as a copy of a copy of a copy. Each version less sharp, less clear, more muddy, blurry around the edges of happiness and contentment. If so, then what did that make her daughter? What chances would Annabel have for a life better than her own? Dorothy grew up feeling disconnected and anxious. She still felt out of place. Out of sorts. Out of her mind half the time. Her modicum of success as a poet only made her feel more isolated. Words of praise from her peers made her feel more unworthy, left her searching. Feeling dread in the happiest moments, because when the door was open to let in joy something else came in and took up residence. Meanwhile, Louis would say, “Why can’t you just be happy?”