Sami watched her daughter play, and realized she had made the same mistake as her mother.
By: Lisa Martens
Tags: Short Story, Childhood, Fiction, Women, Feminism

Sami watched her daughter play, and realized she had made the same mistake as her mother. Lisa Martens Follow Dec 23 · 4 min read

Photo by Patricia Prudente on Unsplash

Her daughter Jennifer had maybe two years left before she would have to stop playing in fields and streams. She would have to close her legs. She would have those days where all she would want is to eat blood and chocolate. And then, her life would be over. She would have to get married, and have to have sex, and have to have children.

Sami shook her head. Was that really how she thought about her own life? She shouldn’t. She knew she shouldn’t. But it was like a snake wrapped around her soul. Yes. That’s what she thought. No matter what magazines said, sex was just something women did for men. A service to have children, to have a life of sacrifice.

Sami’s sons believed she had the perfect marriage. She remembered looking up at her own mother, sweating in the kitchen, talking about how much she wanted to be separated. She never said divorce. She always talked about removing herself from marriage as though it was a surgical procedure.

Sami was not surprised when her parents broke up. It happened the moment Sami got her first period. Her mother had decided that she had done enough, sacrificed enough. Her kids were grown.

“This is a lie. I pretend everything is fine. But I do everything. I even make the money, and you get all the credit.”

This was the first Sami’s brothers had heard of it. They blamed Sami. They insisted their parents had the perfect marriage until she had been born. They saw a period as a kind of doomsday, like the blood between her legs had cursed a holy union.

And that is how Sami’s sons would see it. But that’s not what it was.

Now she knew what it was like to have a daughter and see only a path of misery for her. How it stirred something inside — reminded her of her own dreams.

Sami didn’t want Jennifer to have the same future. The bittersweet, beautiful moments where she would be a princess, only to spend her life a servant…pining, remembering those beautiful moments.

That was what they gave you for swallowing your hopes, fears, and dreams. They gave you Princess for a Day.

It was awful that she felt that way about her husband, her children. She wished she knew another way. Were there women who were married who could express their sexual dissatisfaction, their grievances? Could they have their own careers?

Sami felt guilty. Her husband had never beaten her. He provided. He cheated, but it was to be expected, and he never rubbed it in her face the way some other husbands did…just to further grind their women into dust and ensure they would stay forever.

Still, the idea that Jennifer would go from free and playing to becoming a creature like her — That hurt too much.

There was some bitterness. As it turned out, she hadn’t done anyone any favors. She had just taught her sons that a woman should pretend, should fake it, should fake anything. She had given them the idea that she was happy at home, and now they would think any woman who wasn’t was actually broken.

That was what her older brothers thought, and no matter how many times she told them—No, mom wasn’t happy; I saw her crying in the kitchen when you left, I saw her crying as she washed sheets; I hugged her when she wanted to swallow all the leftover pills—they never believed her.

She had no path to give Jennifer. She could only tell her what not to do. She had no wisdom. She could only warn her against the black hole, the frustration, and the fact that time passed so, so slowly, and then so, so quickly.

Sami felt lied to. Kids these days could do whatever they wanted. They looked at her like she was crazy to do what she did. But she never felt like she had a choice. She would never have dreamed of cutting her hair short and wearing baggy jeans. It was so important people thought she was a virgin. It couldn’t be ignored back then. Any woman who cut her hair or came out as gay — They were spoken about as though they were dead. People talked about how beautiful and full of potential they used to be.

She never wanted anyone talking about her like that, like she was dead when she was very much alive.

Now, there were so many people to tell the bad news to: She wasn’t happy, and never had been. Being Princess for a Day hadn’t been enough. She loved her children, but she never stopped wanting, not like she was supposed to. The path to happiness had been just a trap, just like she had always feared.

Sami was afraid for Jennifer. What path was there for her?

She could only hope she would never, ever fake it.