When This Is All Over

This is it. This is the moment our lives crack wide open like a pomegranate and all its bloody bits spread long and wide. Right now, a month before my daughter turns 16, I stand by the hospital bed, look her in the eye, and ask her why. She stares blankly at the ceiling while the social worker questions me about our family life. Where is her father? Is there violence at home? Have we had any arguments lately? How long has she been depressed? Any history of drug or alcohol use? Where did she get a hundred ibuprofen?

I ask her again. Why is life with me so unbearable? She rolls her eyes. Her apathy confuses me. I can’t remember the beginnings of things: was there always this dithering definition of home, this wondering what a family is, this murky face of love, this perverse alchemy of rebellion into hatred, this inexplicably blinding moment?

She turns her back, her hands curled into tight fists, and faces the wall. I wish I could do the same: turn my back, face the wall, and wake up when this is over. Instead, I remain in the same spot watching her torso rise up with each breath she takes, afraid of touching her, of driving her an inch closer to the wall. I focus on a strand of her hair and conjure up the moments that led us here.

Back then, once she stopped spitting her food and kicking her legs in the air, when her shrills subsided and she slept soundly through the night so that I could do the dishes, wash her diapers, put her basin away, and pick up her toys, I took my calculus book out of my backpack, sat by her crib, turned on the little plastic lamp, and studied for tomorrow’s final. I struggled most of the night to keep my eyes open and make sense of the equations; I fell asleep before the crack of dawn, slumbered through my alarm clock, through her morning hunger cries, through the peddlers outside chanting their goods, through the cacophony of a new day in Colombia. I woke up groggy and confused, changed her diaper in a hurry, ran out the door without taking a shower, without having breakfast, with her laughing in my arms because mommy makes the funniest faces before she has a nervous breakdown. I took a bus, she found that little perfect nook in my neck where she fell peacefully asleep, and 30 minutes later, with her arms still wrapped around my neck, with a backpack full of books and a cloth bag with diapers and a bottle I forgot to fill up, I ran the five blocks between the bus stop and the nursery. Her teacher told me that I needed to slow down or I would have a heart attack. I kissed my baby once, no, twice. I took a good look at her, gave her a long hug, tickled her nose, and ran the 15 blocks between the nursery and the university.

The professor handed me the test and my mind went blank. I tried to compartmentalize my brain—baby, husband, bills, school—and strive for academic achievement so that baby, husband, and bills were taken care of. To no avail. I was hungry, sleep-deprived, and on the brink of divorce. My mind was a sludge of worries and fears. I cried looking at the blank page, wrote down my name, and handed the test to the teacher. He looked at the page, at me, at the page, stood behind me, gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, and then he told me, Oh darling, you are biting off more than you can chew.

Then, when she stopped dragging down the tablecloths and pulling on curtains, when she no longer fell every time she tried to stand upright, when she learned to walk and run and sit, we made it to the new church around the corner from our apartment and had her baptized. I named her Paula but years later will regret not having named her Hail or...