Yarn

For Dahae

Put your finger there,” you told her. She was around six at the time and she listened to everything you said. She picked up a habit of giving a thumbs up for confirmation. It was her favorite digit.

She stamped her thumb on the piece of yarn you had laid on the dining table. You proceeded to tie a knot around her thumb and looped a little ribbon on her thumb like a ring.

“Do you like it?” you asked her, hopefully. She stared at the knot on her thumb for a moment and furrowed her brow. Her expression changed along with your expectation.

“It’s a bow tie!” she exclaimed. For a month, she’d tie bow ties around anything and everything in the apartment. Dining chairs, refrigerator handles, TV remotes, and the zipper on your gym bag wore red yarn bow ties. It was better than her leaving toys and books everywhere, so you left the ties alone as long as her mother let you let her.

Soon, the bows began to disappear as her mother began to unravel. Her time at work overtook time at home, but she demanded responsibility and control from you in her absence.

Your daughter stopped tying the bows around the house, but continued to tie bows on herself. Her legs and her waist and her neck. She’d come to you and ask you to tie a bow on her wrists. She’d tie a bow on her friends at school, but the teacher told her to stop when a girl yelled out that it was too tight.

“I hurt her,” she told you in tears.

You just let her cry. You thought it was ok to let her feel guilty for something she did wrong, intentionally or not. It was a lesson you had to teach her, the responsible thing to do, something you wished to have a better grasp on. You told her not to do it again and she didn’t.

A red yarn bow was tied around an old fountain pen you had recently found digging through an old bag. You hadn’t seen or used the pen since you signed the divorce papers with this pen, since she won custody, since you packed up and moved down south where it was more affordable.

You had seen her at graduation and she seemed happy. You knew she was funny. A white sign with the words, “Will Work 4 LOAN PAYMENTS” was lifted up in the air as she walked up to receive her diploma. You chuckled and made a mental note to help out with her loans. You never did. Her mother bought everyone dinner after the ceremony.

“I can cover the tip,” you offered weakly.

“It’s fine,” her mother said. She left soon after paying and you were alone with your daughter for the first time as an adult.

“Thanks for coming,” she said cordially. That bothered you. Not being cordial, but the pretense of it. The pretense that was needed to fill the gap in your relationship. She chewed on her straw, unsure of what else to say, and you remained silent for a moment.

“Did you always chew on your straw?” you asked, and immediately cringed at your own question.

You weren’t ready to face the fact that you hadn’t visited like you said you would after the divorce. How you would write letters to her with a five dollar bill enclosed in the envelope. How all those years of silence and neglect had created this veil in the conversation and your love.

You did now.

You missed her and couldn’t wait to see her again. You’d flown in on a red eye and stopped by an arts and craft store to pick up red yarn. You tossed the plastic bag and held the yarn, tossed it up and down to feel its weight. How many red ribbons could come from this one ball? How many more ribbons would she have tied if you had let her?

“I don’t know, maybe? I don’t remember you ever telling me not to,” she said.

“I don’t think you could’ve chewed a straw unless your mom let you.” You chuckled, but she was right.

“You were a fun girl, you were always running around. I don’t know where you got all that spunk.” She laughed when you said spunk.

“Definitely mom,” she said.

“So you…” “What…” you both started simultaneously.

“Oh, sorry. Go ahead,” she said, but you zipped your lips with your fingers and threw away the key. She giggled and you couldn’t help but feel like you did on your first date with her mother.

Nervous, excited, anxious, but comforted by a familiar look your daughter gave you across the table.

She wanted to be with you, so you smiled and listened.

“I get my ‘spunk’ from mom I guess,” she said, “But I… what do I get or have from you? I’m sorry, that came out mean…”

You understood what she was asking and the answer was in the way she asked you.

The uncertainty, naiveté, and the fear of not belonging anywhere that you had harbored for so long, even still, was in her just as much as it was in you. As she struggled to find the right words, you reached out and covered her hands with yours.

You squeezed them and stared down at her chipped nail polish and her stubby fingers and waited for her to squeeze back. You needed her to, you wanted to belong there with her.

“Where is she?” you asked her mother.

You squeezed the yarn in your hand and stared at her mother, who sat at the kitchen island, sipping green juice like everything was fine, like she was doing better. She pointed to her living room and you saw her on the coffee table.

“You have scissors?”

Her mother pulled open a drawer and laid a pair out on the counter. You took them and unraveled a long piece of red yarn and snipped.

You approached the coffee table and knelt down. Your eyes welled up and your nostrils flared. Your forehead hit the table and you sobbed.

Her mother stayed back, unable to enter grief again, as if it wasn’t a part of her anymore. You finished weeping and wiped your face. You wrapped the urn around with the yarn and looped and pulled until it was right.

Her mother said something to you as you left, but you didn’t hear. She had no more control over you. All you could do was think about how she didn’t have to die.

How she looked at you when you let go of her hands. As if she had missed her only chance of belonging.

You got in a rental car and started driving. The airline wouldn’t let you hold the urn during the flight, so you chose to drive back home. You cradled the urn in one arm as you drove, keeping the ribbon in place,

and you’ll never let her go.