All We Are
It’s seven p.m. All I can think about is the smell of my daughter’s hair. She’s not here. I know she’s not physically here. Still—she’s all I can think about. The smell of her hair.
It goes a little something like this: Where you from? What’s your name? You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. It’s a shame you’re wearing that ring.
My hair used to smell that way: like a song. I don’t remember when the smell disappeared…when it deserted me. But it did and now it belongs to my daughter. That’s what we do, right? Pass our possessions on to our daughters?
I see a flash of her nonexistence—the shape of her hair caressing her left shoulder—in my periphery. I think about how Virginia Woolf freed herself from her own phantom…enticing. But that smell, it remains. Like water in our bodies, it remains.
It’s at this moment when I realize my destiny. I open my laptop: water molecules; blood; the human body. I strike a match against the zipper of my jeans; use its flame to light a scented candle—to hide my nonexistent daughter’s scent.
I braid my hair back, spritz a cloud of my favorite perfume before walking into the scent. That’s the best I can do now. Back to my computer. Back to destiny, I think.
I’m not sure if it’s the lingering scent of the perfume or simply exhaustion, but consciousness evaporates into dreams, laced with the scent of my daughter’s hair. Now I can see chestnut curls undulating in golden blue currents: I reach out. She’s far away.
“Mi hija?” I mumble.
She does not reply.
“Can you see me too, daughter mine?”
Still, like water. No reply.
I cry as her hair oscillates around me, never within reach. A choreographed performance I’ve not rehearsed. I’m porcelain. Hairline fissures creep their way from my shoulders to my fingertips: reaching. They widen into gaping clefts, unyoking me. Blood unfurls from my lips, from my scream.
---
In the morning I decide it’s time. I wrap my warmest parka around my shoulders and walk to the nearest grocery store, searching for the manager, Jim. When I spot him, I push my arms into the sleeves of my parka, fasten the buttons closed.
“Jim.”
He looks up, smiles. “Rose.”
“I’m looking for some boxes. Have any to spare?”
“You moving?”
“No. No, nothing like that. More like decluttering. Getting ahead on spring cleaning.”
Jim nods and motions for me to follow him with his chin. I follow him through the doors that take me to the back of the store. Jim walks quickly and I’m feeling out of breath.
“Have these banana boxes here. They’re sturdy.” His hand rests on an empty box. “They work?”
I think of my hands on his naked waist. I nod. “They’ll work.”
“Then Rose? They’re all yours.” He pauses, narrows his eyes. “How will you get them home?”
“I’ll carry them. I can take a few at a time.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll drop them off after work. Want ‘em all?”
“Thanks, Jim.” My skin burns. “I’ll take some now to get started.”
I reach for the boxes. “Oh, and, yes. All of them.”
I turn and he’s standing there, eyes shining, and the corners of his lips turned upward.
“Whatever’s left,” I whisper.
“You got it.” Jim winks and before he can say more, I turn around and make my way back to the doors—back to the part of the store meant for customers. I keep walking until I’m at my doorstep, two banana boxes in my arms and sweat burning my eyes.
I can feel my nonexistent daughter’s presence before I even touch the knob. The banana boxes collapse to the ground, my feet carrying me far from my house and far from my phantom daughter and her hair that smells like mine used to. Far, far away.
---
In my dream, I can smell my daughter, but I can’t see her. Her clothes are strewn across the floor. My foot gets caught in a bright red tutu. My knee aches as it crashes against the wooden floor. When I call out to her, she doesn’t respond.
I start to panic. The pain. I don’t know how far I can go with my knee like this. It hurts.
I call out for her again: Help me!
Still, nothing. Not even a giggle that I know she’s hidden in my throat. My dream-self can’t even muster that.
I sit still on the floor as water courses towards me. I’m like a magnet—the heart of a maze—attracting and beguiling billows of blue, silver, and gold. I’m paralyzed, so still. I witness as the water crashes into pools, each wave converging with another until I know that I must hold my breath. It’s all I have left.
---
“How’d those boxes work out for you?”
It’s Jim, recording some type of information on his tablet in the produce section. The woman standing next to him smiles at me and starts sorting through apples, placing the old or damaged ones in a crate next to her.
My hands tighten on the handles of my cart.
The boxes. I can see them now, sitting to the right of my front door. Right where he placed them. I haven’t moved them. Every time I try, I smell my daughter’s hair. I imagine the willows of her scarlet, frantic heartbeat and my legs liquify.
Yesterday I saw her wearing the red tutu. A quick flash of red as I sipped my morning tea. I knew better than to call to her. She was clearly in a hurry. And then I remembered her favorite cookies, so here I am—buying sugar and eggs; oatmeal and butterscotch; apples and pears because they go so well with my morning tea.
“Hi, Jim. Just fine.”
“Well, Rose. I was thinkin’. If you need help moving those boxes, I’d be happy to help. Drive you anywhere you need to go. If you want.”
Thorns stab at me, right under my skin where Jim can’t see. I nod, trying not to glare at him. But I hate him. Suddenly. Strongly. I want to tear at his skin, show him how these thorns feel.
I put my head down. Push my cart. Buy my groceries and carry them home.
I shower until my skin turns red and raw. The thorns remain.
“Enough,” I whisper. “Please just let me go.”
My daughter’s hair smells strongly when I’m in the shower. I allow myself to inhale. To contemplate: spice or floral? A little of both, I think. With a strong dash of the old me.
---
Jim visits on Sunday. He’s holding fresh muffins and a bag of rooibos tea. I slam my computer shut; images of plasma plague me.
“Rose! Thought I’d stop by to bring you some muffins from the bakery. I know how much you like the cinnamon berry ones and Juana hasn’t made them in a while. She sent along some tea too. Says it’s your favorite.”
I stand at the door, staring at Jim and his muffins. I’m thinking about plasma—about iron and protein; bacteria and water. I’m afraid to let him in.
“Jim.”
“Shall I come in?”
“The boxes,” I mutter.
“What’s that?”
“I haven’t…haven’t had a chance to pack the boxes yet.” I don’t know what’s happening to me.
“Oh, that’s alright. We can do that after our muffins. Good thing I came over then!”
He steps toward me and my hands start shaking. I don’t know how to tell him about my phantom daughter. I don’t know how to invite him in.
“Unless…I’m so sorry, Rose. I didn’t think to call first. You’re busy.”
He sets down the muffins on the doorstep.
“I’ll just get outta your hair.”
He hesitates, waiting for me to ask him to stay.
“I’m sorry, Jim. Maybe another time?”
“Right,” he nods. “Right. Well, good luck with the packing.”
I watch as he makes his way to his truck, hesitating before opening the door.
“Rose?”
I still don’t speak.
“You alright out here all by yourself?”
“I’m…I’m fine, Jim. Sometimes it’s better to be lonely.”
His eyes widen; his jawline appears. He nods, getting in the truck hastily and driving away.
When I can no longer see the dust from his tires, I realize her scent is gone. All I can think is come back to me.
---
I don’t dream of my daughter, but of Jim. He watches as the water creeps its way up my limbs, swirling around me. Taunting me.
He nods and removes his cap, running his hand through his sweaty hair.
“You alright, Rose?”
The water bites at me. Globs of plasma lurch down my hair and chin. I want to tell him no.
I nod. “Yes.” And when I open my mouth, the water fills me, replacing the space for my breath with wet.
Perhaps I’ll die this time.
---
The next Sunday, Jim returns. This time, boxes filled with objects that never belonged to me overwhelm my living room. Two of the boxes are bulging, Him written in Sharpie across the top.
“I know you probably don’t want me botherin’ you again…”
“It’s good to see you, Jim.”
He smiles, purses his lips, and studies me. “Well, alright.”
“Cinnamon berry?”
“You got it. Juana sent me. Said she got in a shipment of this vanilla chai too.”
The thorns disappear. Coolness laps over my limbs, licking away the poisonous burn. She loves vanilla chai. I brewed a cup of it every day when I was pregnant with her.
“My daughter…” I catch myself before I finish. He can’t know. He can’t know. He won’t want anything to do with you if he knows.
“What’s that?” He pushes my door open, assuming he’s been invited in. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
I stare at my feet. Just leave. Just tell him to leave.
But it’s too late. Jim is already in my kitchen, placing the muffins and tea on the table and searching the cabinets for plates.
I watch as he fills the tea kettle with water, lights a match, and places it to the burner. The sound of the blue flame rips through me.
“So. What’s vanilla chai like? I’m not much of a tea guy myself, but Juana told me you would love it.”
I don’t know how it happened, but I’m standing next to him—measuring tea leaves and pulling two mugs out of a cabinet.
“How’s the packing going?”
“The…the what?”
I’m nervous. A small, sharp voice is screeching: tell him tell him tell him tell him! I can barely hear over it.
“Or the de-cluttering. Whatever it is you’re doing. How’s it going?”
“I had a daughter once.”
He pauses, butter still on his knife. “Rose. You don’t have to.”
“I imagine her hair might smell like chai tea sometimes. Like me.”
Jim puts down the knife gently, but the silence still makes the clatter of metal to granite ring through the room. He stares at his hands.
“The doctors,” I’m choking on sobs and hair, “said (choke) our bodies weren’t (choke) compatible. He compared it (choke) to drowning (choke) in (choke) my (choke) body’s (choke) amniotic fluid.”
“Rose! You okay, Rose?”
Jim is standing next to me, trying to calm me. He’s patting my back, shouting. “Rose! Rose!”
And just like that, the water fills my throat. It’s hot, scalding my tongue. My trachea. My chest.
I gasp only to ingest more fluid.
“Whathehell?” The last words I hear Jim say before everything becomes liquid and dark.
---
I’d never seen such darkness, and now, I’ve never seen such bright. It hurts.
“Ma’am?”
My head’s pounding. A poisonous burn invades my chest. I can’t remember if it was a dream or if Jim watched my daughter drown me just like my body drowned her.
“Ma’am? Can you hear me?”
Me? Is she talking to me?
“Ma’am?”
“Why so so bright?”
“Excuse me? Can you tell me your name, ma’am?”
I open my eyes to a young, impatient-looking woman with premature lines around her eyes and mouth.
“Do you know where you are?”
I shake my head: no.
“You’re in the hospital. Right outside of San Marina. Is that where you live?”
San Marina?
“Ma’am?”
“My name Rose.” My name falls. I can hear it crash against the linoleum floors.
“It’s nice to meet you, Rose. I’m Tammy.”
A red tutu rushes past my periphery. I turn.
“Is she?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Who? It was a man that brought you in.” She’s shuffling through papers. “Mister…Mister Caver. Does that sound right?”
So it wasn’t a dream. The red flashes behind the nurse. The tutu has sequins on it.
“Did you…did you see?”
“Rose? What did you see, hon? What is it?” She’s treating me like this timid, fragile thing.
“Jim?”
“Ah. Jim Caver. Yes, I did see him. He’s still in the waiting room. Would you like to see him?”
“Jim?”
She misunderstands my confusion, smile-nodding at me like I’m a child.
“I’ll go get him.”
“N…no.” But she already left the room.
“Where are you?” I offer the words to the brightness of the room, searching for my phantom daughter in her red rhinestone tutu. “Mija?”
The giggle that I hold in my chest erupts. It scares me. Goosebumps blossom upward from my limbs. I hear you.
“Didn’t know I walked so loudly!”
Jim.
“No…I…my daughter.”
“Oh. Rose, you don’t have to. Just…get some rest, okay? The doctor says you had a pretty bad panic attack. Mighta been triggered by talking ’bout your loss.”
“No. You don’t…”
“Rose, I’m so sorry.”
“…understand…”
“I know. I don’t. I didn’t know. You know how they gossip in town, but they only said that he abandoned you. Never said anything ’bout a daughter.”
“They…they…who? What did…or…or who? Who said?”
“I didn’t mean to upset you more. Look, Rose, I’m no good at this. I’ll go find your doctor.”
The red flashes again.
“Did you?”
And again.
“Did you see that?”
This time, she pauses just long enough for me to see her hair.
“What the hell?”
“You saw it?”
Silence.
“You saw her?”
Jim stands speechless before me, shuddering like he saw a ghost.
---
The ceiling is a mass of agitated water, tides swallowing one another whole. I look for the moon. I watch the blues and golds and silvers churn, wondering how the water escaped me. Wondering how I will ever manage to swallow it all back inside.
I think of Jim—his deep complexion turned colorless before me as he witnessed my phantom daughter traipsing around me in circles. I didn’t know anyone else could see her.
“How,” I ask her now, “how did he see you?”
But, like always, she doesn’t answer.
I can’t smell her anymore. Not since the water escaped me. I keep wondering if I drowned her all over again. If she suffocated in her red tutu, tiptoes splashing in the waters of our incompatibility.
Abandoned. That’s what Jim said at the hospital—that I was abandoned. What he doesn’t know is that we can’t abandon something that never belonged to us. I wasn’t his. I wasn’t my father’s or my mother’s, for that matter.
What he doesn’t get is that my daughter, the flesh of my flesh, was incompatible with me. My body abandoned her—abandoned me.
The water starts to drip. Large globs of wet flatten my hair to my ears and chest.
Drip.
I think about his fists striking against my abdomen, my ribs.
Drip.
I think about how I punched back, howling and begging him to stop.
Drip.
I think about my daughter’s nose. How much I always wanted to kiss the rise of her nose.
Drip.
I think about a doctor’s narrowed eyes and pursed lips: Maybe you’re just not meant to have kids.
Drip.
I think about a lover’s stubby fingers disturbing my long curls.
Drip.
I think about being called beautiful; thinking it was enough.
Drip.
I think about drowning. Drowning and never waking up.
I look around the room. I’m floating. The water deepens, the churning intensifies.
Her giggle escapes my throat—echoes through the water. I follow the echo with my eyes. I can see it pulsing and vibrating. I can see sound waves. As I lose control of my body, I follow the echoes, eyes straining. I can’t look away.
Then, I see her. Long, chestnut curls. Just like mine. The round curve of her nose: her profile so near. Small ears and prominent cheekbones. Short, straight lashes as she closes her eyes. She’s small, but not a baby. Six, maybe seven. Compact frame just like mine.
We’re both submerged. The water causes me to miss details. I want to ask her to open her eyes. I want to know the color of her eyes. I want to smell her hair.
And, just like that, her scent is all around us, whipping by me in the churning water. Growing. Winding itself around my wrists, my forearms.
I close my eyes. Stop holding my breath. Exhale.
Bubbles form. I let the water in. No longer incompatible, I think, as I submit to the churning. As I submit to the water—that’s what we’re made of, I’ve learned. Even our blood contains water. It’s all we are.
Adrianna Sanchez-Lopez writes in an oversized chair located in her San Luis Valley home. When she is not writing, one might find her eavesdropping, admiring trees, winning an argument, or dodging small talk. Learn more about Adrianna at adriannasanchezlopez.com or follow her on Instagram @a.drisl.
