Jonathan Cohen

From 2005.

When She Was

When she was a little girl, her daddy hit her every time she cried. So Alice learned not to cry, not when her porcelain doll, Mrs. Smith, broke an arm; not when mommy left on a trip and didn’t come back; and not even when daddy hit her for no reason at all, smelling all sour and bad like the bottom of the garbage.

When she could get away, Alice would take Mrs. Smith with her broken arm to the park and hide under her favorite willow tree. She scolded Mrs. Smith for having a broken arm. “Bad Mrs. Smith! Look what you did! Making daddy angry with you!” And she hit Mrs. Smith over and over again, and somehow Mrs. Smith ended up with two broken arms. But Alice didn’t tell daddy, because he’d only be twice as angry.

When she was a teenager, Alice returned her father’s beer bottles for the deposits to buy food. She ignored the taunts of her fellow schoolmates when they saw her in the supermarket uniform after school, brittle mask on her face.

When she was a young woman, Alice dated a string of men who saw her looks as a challenge and veneer. They’re all alike, she thought, crumpling telephone numbers from men who’d never call again, men who promised they’d change, men who promised they were different. None were.

When she was thirty, Alice’s belly gently swelled, and she cursed the man who’d tricked her. What kind of mother would she be? She didn’t love herself; how could she love a child?

When Alice’s daughter knocked over a vase, Alice clasped her own hands until she thought they would break. Then she took her daughter to the park. There, under the willow, they tried to glue the pieces back together.