The non-girl...

Mother always looked beautiful in all the pictures in our house: her engagement picture in the dining room, in the photo album, the Maid of Honor picture from her sister's wedding, standing with my father, the precision of youth polished on their faces...I used to think they were breathtaking, those pictures. I could never be sure which one of them I most closely resembled. Neither of them seemed to me they could be responsible for what I was. The older I became, the larger I grew, the harder it was for Mother to look at me as she did her other daughters. My sisters and brothers sensed it as well, and whether it was more me or more them, I did not know or even wonder: I knew that this body would allow anyone, even my tribe, to look at me as their cross, their shame. I would wake for school, and head for the bathroom, only to see through eyes full of sleep Mother standing in her bedroom doorway, standing still, but looking like she was vibrating with fury, waiting for me to appear, waiting as if she had been there all night, standing and waiting and vibrating; my shoulders would slump and I would take the walk of shame to the bathroom as she followed, and pointed to the bathroom scale. I would step on, she would scream the number out loud, and this was the rest of the family's cue to whoop and roar over the expanding non-girl; at thirteen I remember one of these eary morning bombardments ending with her telling me that no boy would ever like me, and if he did he'd never admit it because he would be embarrassed in front of his friends to do so.