A sea-change had come over my parents’ house. The walls were still the same ice-blue. The kitchen where my father had assaulted me still had its polished parquet floor and the same Formica countertops. But once, there had been alliances. Once, my brother and I had commiserated in our rooms long into the night, plottingContinue reading “The Return”
Category Archives: Memoir
The Decision
There are so many ways that society monitors and controls women’s bodies. PiMam’s family had determined how she could and could not use her body in relationships. Now, economic necessity was undoing my own bid for freedom. Every morning I woke to the sound of the kitchen hood rumbling to life. My mugs rattled onContinue reading “The Decision”
PiMam
About five months after I moved in, another woman joined us upstairs. PiMam*. She was another relative of the owner, and she too hoped to make a name for herself and earn a profit. The family voted to grant her an equal share in the restaurant’s ownership, and she was given a room towards theContinue reading “PiMam”
The Thai Women
I was crap at waiting tables. I was even crap at bussing them. I spilled water on cell phones and purses. I stumbled into my coworkers. Eddie, one of Top’s cousins, shouted at me regularly. Look where you’re going, girl. I could not, for the life of me, memorize the menu, even though I ate fluffyContinue reading “The Thai Women”
And Then, Poverty
In 2016, one out of eight women age 18 and older lived in poverty. Currently, millions of women in the United States live below the poverty line, and nearly 50% of women on government aid give domestic violence as a reason they require financial assistance. In 2002, I was just another statistic. Another woman tryingContinue reading “And Then, Poverty”
After a Father Sexually Assaults His Daughter
The next thing I remember is shaking out black garbage bags. I bagged up the clothes from my closet, taking armfuls of sweaters and blouses and skirts with the hangers still attached. I wadded up my sheets and pillows. I stuffed everything into the bags and knotted them closed. I don’t know if this wasContinue reading “After a Father Sexually Assaults His Daughter”
The Sixth Assault
The summer I am 21 years old, I stand in my parents’ kitchen with the lights down. My mother is running errands. My brother is out with friends. I envy him. Our parents never give him the shakedown when he gets home. They never tell him he was gone too long. They never tell himContinue reading “The Sixth Assault”
My Other Grandfather
My father’s father was made of different stuff. I never knew him as Grandpa because he died the year I was born. There is only one picture of us together, and in it, he sits stiff and unsmiling, his wire-rim glasses glinting at the camera. He has my father’s long solemn face and the sameContinue reading “My Other Grandfather”
Grandpa
That autumn I was 20, my grandfather died. A few months earlier, he had been diagnosed with cancer. He avoided doctors for most of his life, and in the end, it cost all of us. A routine colonoscopy could have nipped the cancer in the bud. But by the time his pain forced him toContinue reading “Grandpa”
Aquaphobia in the Aftermath
The British and Americans have been drowning women for centuries. Officially, the method for this punishment was the ducking stool, and one of its first documented uses was in 1597. The ducking stool was a medieval apparatus derived from the older cucking stool, a means akin to stocks, used to publicly humiliate women who defiedContinue reading “Aquaphobia in the Aftermath”
The Trailer Park MFA 