Bad Parent: The Baby Between Us
I'm jealous of my daughter – and she's not even born yet.
by Rachel Sherman
April 2, 2009
I worry our baby is coming between us before she is even born. She is here, in our touches, in our sleep. On our last vacation, on our final night, I sit on the couch of the house we are renting and weep, imagining that this is the last time I will be alone and able watch my husband swim in the lake outside the window with only the sound of the splash from his dive. Soon she will come out, and come between us, and we will no longer be reaching for each other's hands.
I watch my husband swim and wonder if our daughter will make me feel left out just by existing. Will she want to swim with him when I will not, like now? Will I feel more alone watching, when there are two of them?
My fears are grounded in reality. Both my husband and I come from father/daughter families: families in which the father and the daughter have a secret, a bond, that leaves the mother out. I am guilty because I am part of it. In college I hung a black and white picture of my father when he was young above my bed. For years I thought I would never meet a man as good as my dad.
My father and I had jokes my mother would not understand. We both liked spicy foods. Worst of all, I sided with him, always. I made us a force.
I lay awake and imagine my husband and daughter in the waves while I wait on the shore.
Now that my daughter is about to be born, I think of the ways in which my mother has been left out and I want to swim back through the years and wash those moments away.
Meantime, while she grows, her father swims and I watch the sun set behind him. I feel her kick inside me, and touch where I am sure her tiny cheeks are. I am secretly glad I cannot hear her crying yet, even though I often wish that my belly skin was see-through. Sleep, everyone tells me, while you can.
But I cannot sleep. At night I lay awake and imagine my husband and daughter in the waves while I wait on the shore. They splash each other, then eat scallops (which I hate).
I have seen fathers and daughters like this all over. For so long I thought that secretly my father liked me better than my mother. I was a better version: bigger, stronger, with longer hair, and none of the nagging. Of course there was no sex, but there was a certain humor my mother could only laugh at, and never join in on. My mother laughed and had sex with my father; I sparred with him, and let him kiss my forehead when he came home from work.
©2009 Rachel Sherman and Babble
About the Author
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Rachel Sherman's novel LIVING ROOM is being released by Open City Books in October 2009. www.rachelsherman.net |
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