Hilary Harper ~ Three Micro Memoirs

The Stream

I am four years old, walk­ing bare­foot in a cold, clear, flow­ing stream. My mom holds my hand as we step around rocks, our feet sink­ing into the soft silt of the streambed. It’s a hap­py adven­ture, until we get out and my mom dis­cov­ers a cut on her foot. She is bleed­ing. A shock­ing thing. She must have stepped on some­thing sharp in the water but didn’t feel it. And my dad gets mad at her about this. How could she cut her foot and not know it? My dad says she is too god­damned drunk to feel any­thing. He is mad at her for being hurt. And this fright­ens me. Which is maybe why this mem­o­ry has always been unset­tling to recall. Not only because of the change in mood, the blood, or the words my dad used, but the ground-shift­ing real­iza­tion that some­thing bad could hap­pen to my mom. Something could be wrong with her. The source of all my com­fort and secu­ri­ty at risk.

~

Heartbeats

I took a nap with my mom in her big bed one after­noon. The win­dow shades were pulled down, light peek­ing in around the edges, and the only sound was her deep, steady breath­ing. Cuddled close, I put my hand on her chest to feel her heart and won­dered if our hearts were beat­ing at the same time. Since I had come from her, I believed this would be true. It seemed to me that if our hearts beat at the exact same time, it would prove she was real­ly my moth­er. I didn’t know my mom was not my bio­log­i­cal moth­er, but this mem­o­ry reveals some inkling, and it seems odd to have had this sus­pi­cion at such a young age. It’s as if I instinc­tive­ly knew. Just as I have known, but not known, so many things in my lifetime.

~

Spoiled

There is noth­ing to do at the beau­ty shop in the base­ment of my cousin’s house. I hold my nose against the ammo­nia scent of per­ma­nent-wave solu­tion while wait­ing for my mom to pick me up. I sit in the chair under the dry­er, look at old hair­do mag­a­zines, and lis­ten. Dorothy switch­es from English to Polish when she doesn’t want me to know what she’s say­ing, but I know when she talks about me, the cus­tomers glance my way and go tsk-tsk.

Sometimes she wash­es my hair in her hor­ri­ble sink with the too hot hose. Smacks my head if I don’t sit still when she combs out the knots. What’s a mat­ter with you? What are you gonna do when you bleed? Let it run down your leg? Big girl like you. Look at your fin­ger­nails. Filthy!

“I hate her, I hate her,” I com­plain to my mom, and she begs me to be a good girl. We stop at the store and she buys me a can­dy bar. She buys pota­to chips, Ding Dongs, jel­ly dough­nuts, and Nestle’s Quik. She lets me watch TV as late as I want. Then rubs my back a long, long time, while singing me to sleep.

~

Hilary Harper’s writ­ing has appeared in Connecticut River Review, Dime Show Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Five Minutes, and Minerva Rising among oth­er jour­nals. Born in the mid­dle of the Baby Boom, she lives half-way between Detroit and Chicago.