Duckling, By Miriam Arick

Content Warning: Abuse, injuries, neglect, fire, destruction, thoughts of death.

Duckling

By Miriam Arick

My mother’s eyes once shone with mischief. They were green with slit pupils, cat-like. I thought they were the most beautiful eyes in the world. I was her ‘Duckling,’ because I’d refuse to bathe without my cowboy-hat-clad rubber duckie. She’d carried dried lavender in her pockets because ‘the smell travels better than perfume.’ We managed fine on our own in our little fifth-floor apartment. I’d look out at San Francisco on nights my mother worked late, too afraid to sleep alone. When my mother returned, she would comb the hair out of my eyes and hum a lullaby, then whisper: “Sleep now, my little Duckling.”

I would grow to understand that her lavender disguised the stench of cigarettes and vodka: my mother, the bartender.

She smells of Chanel #5 now, dresses to hide her curves in a Prada trench coat, and looks through me with glass eyes. She has been rebranded by my stepfather, just another object in his repertoire.

I was there when she had no one. I am here still, yet I have become a ghost in his rural house of jagged edges. I was eleven when he found her working late at the bar. He charmed her, promised to rescue us. She faked naive submission until it wasn’t an act.

He’s made sure I don’t forget my place. I am not his daughter.

‘Stay away from me and my wife.’

-

8/13/23

Something has been in the air since I turned seventeen. I’ve been angrier, to the point where I can’t think straight. Then I smell smoke, and my fingers go hot. It’s like I’m burning from the inside.

I also think about death a lot more. Most days, it feels like my mother is already dead, her fire’s gone out, her body will be next. I wish my mother would look at me again, leave with me.

I can’t tell what’s real anymore. I really hope I’m not losing my mind.

-

I drop my journal when I hear his footsteps, loud and unapologetic. In an instant, my pencil is raised like a weapon. I go dead silent. He doesn’t knock. He just stands there. His shadow waits under the door. He starts on a low taunting whistle, knowing the familiar sound drives me mad. It gets louder, and louder, and…

I smell smoke. My fingers burn. Flames erupt from my fingertips, the pencil I clutch ignites. The fire races up my blouse, scorching my neck. I bite back a cry. I’m on the floor in seconds, a feral animal crawling towards my nightstand to grab my glass of water and drench myself.

I check the damage. My neck and fingers are raw and blistered. I will need to glove my hands and wear turtlenecks for a while. My blouse is ruined; it was my mother’s. I am relieved to find that my stepfather’s shadow has retreated. He can’t know what I’ve unearthed. He stole the melody my mother hummed to me as a child and weaponized it, twisting the notes darker, lower. It became his melody, not mine.

I don't think I can control this—not if my anger is the fuel.

-

8/20/23

My stepfather is gone, my mother is too, two weeks on a lavish vacation without me. The house is silent. No whistling, no shadows.

Last night I almost asked my mother to leave with me while he took his evening bath. I entered their bedroom without knocking. I wanted to ask her to run away, but she couldn’t even look at me. I stood at the door like a coward and asked if she still loved me instead. Her eyes glazed over, and she sighed and told me she was too tired for this.

I was about to leave when she said, ‘I do love you, Duckling.’ So I asked, ‘More than him?’

‘He’s my husband.’ She’d chosen.

-

I’ve spent years forbidden to touch his precious things. Now, I invade my stepfather’s territory, starting with his expansive closet, mostly filled with dull, black suits. I spot a rare spark of color, his prized purple robe. I stroke the fabric with burning fingertips; he doesn’t get to have this. Fire catches. I slowly move my hands, watching the fabric wilt in a controlled burn.

I retreat to his bathroom after and douse my hands in water. The skin is blistered, cracking raw at my fingertips. Delayed nausea hits, and I double over, throwing up bile into his bathtub.

I don’t clean the tub, though I do shower after. The water hits me; cold, biting. The strength of the flow, controlled by the faucet, reminds me of my controlled fire. I can destroy him.

A house for a mother.

-

8/23/23

Last night I created a shrine of everything left of my mother and me. Her lavender I kept, my rubber duckie, the ticket I saved from the last movie we saw together, a throwback screening of ‘Thelma and Louise.’ The poem she wrote for my seventh birthday, beginning with the line: ‘watching you grow has been the highlight of my life.’ The journal she kept during pregnancy and the photo of her ultrasound, the first sign of life.

Tomorrow I will burn all of it to start the fire.

When my stepfather returns from his lavish vacation, he will find ashes in place of his home, with every last prized possession destroyed, leaving my mother as his only consolation. I can only hope that she chooses freedom someday.

-

The shrine is all laid out. At dawn, I place my journal in the pile with shaky hands. I raise my hands, palms up, fingers curled inward, stirring heat from within. I imagine my stepfather whistling, breathing in my ear, laughing as I recoil. My fingers burn hot.

I graze the lavender; fire catches, spreading. Black smoke unfurls. I control the burn. The rubber duckie goes last, corrupting the air I breathe. It’s time to leave.

The fire spreads, chasing me through his house. I am not fast enough. The fire catches me, and I fall to my knees, wide-eyed. I’m not ready to die now. No. I raise my hands, trembling, pleading. The fire, breathing inches from my neck, halts in answer.

Only after I’ve made it outside do I release the fire once more—my fire, my rage—and as I watch his world burn, I hum her lullaby.

I knew her once. Goodbye mother.