The Palm Frond Nightie

by Shayna Cristy-Mendez

Don tells me the discomfort is natural —

And when all his empty platitudes dissolve into little snores, like bees buzzing in my ears, I still think about taking a knife to the discomfort and slicing it out of me.

The violence is the only place where I can breathe these days. I find the most peace in fantasies of shucking the skin from fat, and the fat from muscle, layer by layer. Until I’m deep enough in flayed meat to root around the body cavity and tear all my innards out.

When Don is asleep, dreaming of us, I slip out from under our white sheets, in cotton panties and the matching nightgown he bought me. I pad down the carpeted stairs, my toes curling against the edge, until I am past the threshold of our living room and our kitchen. The carpet ends where bare feet meet faux linoleum. 

I do not flick on any of the lights when I shuffle through. I just dig around the cluttered drawers overflowing with sharp objects that clatter against my urgent grasping.

The breath does not leave my lungs until my fingers wrap around the largest knife I can find. I sink to the floor with relief, puddling onto my back as my nightgown rides up and bunches around my plush thighs.

The nightgown was a gift from Don. He gave it to me for Christmas.

“Hawaii must be so beautiful this time of year,” I had said, wrestling the bunny ears atop the T.V as snow whited-out the screen.

“Hm, bet it is.” He flicked his newspaper, so it wouldn’t go limp in his hands again.

The fuzz on the screen disappeared and all that was left was beautiful people scattered on a beach, with their skin glowing all healthy-like, palm trees green-as-envy, and native dancers in grass skirts who gyrated their hips in ways I had never seen before, and a man who looked like Elvis staring into my eyes, toasting, “I’ll be seeing you in Hawaii.” 

“That would make such a nice gift, wouldn’t it, Don?”

He settled deeper into his recliner. “Mh. If you’ve got the time and the money, I suppose.”

“Well, you did get a nice bonus this year.” I took a seat on his knee and draped my arms over his shoulders, threading my fingers through his hair. “What’dya say, Daddy — just you, me, and Hawaii for Christmas?”

He huffed out a laugh, palming my hip and gripping it tight. “How ‘bout a new vacuum, Mare? Maybe — finally — a little Don Jr. too?”

I don’t remember responding yes or no. We already had a vacuum and, truth be told, I wasn’t much interested in a second Don. Yet, by Christmas, I had a new vacuum, a new Don, and a new nightgown with palm fronds on it.

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still see those green palm trees swaying in the wind and that man with the slicked-back hair smiling and toasting me. When he whispers, I’ll be seeing you in Hawaii, I am always standing right across from him. My toes curl in the sand, instead of gripping the edge of worn carpeted steps. Wearing one of those grass skirts, my head nodding like a bobble, with my arms all wave-like and languid, and my belly is never rounded like a coconut.

I’ve tried to find that advertisement more times than I can recall. Clicking through channel after channel, surfing the void of buy this and buy that, and be this not that. Early in the morning. Late in the night. Cruising where these things tend to materialize like heat shimmers on hot pavement, but I’ve not glimpsed that paradise since. 

I lift the fabric of my nightgown just a bit higher and expose my bare body to the darkness. I press the steel of that butcher to my stomach, feeling the soft flesh give way to pressure. 

I am no stranger to pain, but I cannot yet bring myself to draw blood. Even when the blood is cherry flavored jello that wobbles, and slices away easy, in gelatinous heaps of me shaped molding.

Outside, the hydrangeas are all wilting and our peonies are all dying. The weeds are growing wild through the picket; in hard times I will pluck those same young tender leaves and we will eat them in a salad. The clothes on the line, of course, have turned black as berries under dawn. House dresses, and little pinafores, and starched collared shirts flap against the early morning like little birds which will fall from the tree and break their necks before ever taking flight.

Don says the discomfort is natural — just another part of life. Like little piglets ripped limb from limb by their mum and the plum-sweet-sour scent that wrinkles my nose when the squealing cries begin.

The skin draws tight beneath the blade, and there is a flutter that ripples outwards with the kick to my ribs. It bubbles beneath the surface of taut overstretched belly button and erupts as a tiny footprint through flesh.

Don says the discomfort is natural. Mary, it’s natural. All women go through it — what makes you so different that you can’t handle something so simple?

I never know what to expect other than fear, and all my fear has turned to rage, even as I smile graciously in return. When our neighbors, and friends, and family, and strangers ask, the answer is always: Oh yes, of course. We are so happy. We are so blessed. It is all very natural.

There is the usual cooing response, and congratulations, and well-meaning threats of just you wait until — where the joke is knowing glances and everyone being in on it, except you.

The lights flicker on above me.

I blink against the flood of blinding white, and as my eyes adjust, I cannot see anything beyond the backsplash. A whole world of Pepto Bismol colored kitchen tiles wash out my vision as Don’s voice consumes me.

“Mary — Jesus — what are you doing down there with a knife?”

He hurries over and crouches in front of me. Checks us over. Belly first, then me. Smoothes my hair and the disheveled nightgown laying over the protrusion. 

“The wrinkles won’t come out like that,” I say. “You’ll need a steamer, Don.”

I don’t think he hears me because he doesn’t reply. “Don, did you hear me?” I ask.

“Of course I heard you,” he says. 

“Why didn’t you reply then?”

“I just didn’t know what to say.”

I rest my hand on my stomach, still gripping the knife, and blink at the popcorn in the ceiling. “Oh,” is all I can manage.

“Tell me how I can help,” He says. “I’m worried about you, my little Mare.”

His fingers peel the knife from my hand and tuck it somewhere far away, out of sight.  

The more he touches me, and talks, and touches, and talks, and tries to smooth away the wrinkles that will not smooth out, the more I want to scream until my larynx becomes engorged with blood. I imagine the seam of my throat ripping open and rupturing like a cork bursting from a champagne bottle. The little remnants of Mary shoot out all over the house and spatter the walls, until every sound is drowned out by it. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” I say. “I can never seem to sleep these days. There’s always a crick in my neck, and I can’t stop thinking about — ”

A laugh erupts from him. “Well, that doesn't surprise me. Who the hell could possibly sleep with those damn things on their head?” He points to the coke cans tressed by my hair. The black strands wrap around the aluminum like ivy. “That can’t possibly be good for you, your neck, or the —”

“The cans aren’t the problem, Don,” I say. “A woman’s got to look presentable in the morning. Or-or—”

He frowns. “It just ain’t natural, Mare.”

“A woman looking presentable in the morning ain’t natural?”

He gathers me up by the arms and pulls me into his lap, sighing loudly.  “The cans stain… and all that sugar’s not good for you, did you know that?” 

“Well, a lotta things stain,” I say, “and a lotta things aren’t good for you but that don’t stop people from—”

“Mare,” he says, rubbing the tender-stretched skin beneath the nightie. “You're exhausted, and the sugar ain’t helping. You need proper nutrition and proper sleep, not perfectly curled hair.”

I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out, so I just nod along;

Sometimes, I am so tired and so eager to get some rest, that I forget to wash the cans before I roll my hair with them. The more I try to find a comfortable position to sleep in, the more it shakes loose what’s left over. The residue trickles down the length of my forehead, and the sides of my cheeks, and the hollows beneath my eyes, leaving a trail of sticky brown mucus, as if all that caramelized Aspartame were flowing from me and my every pore. 

It’s not sugar, Don, I want to say. It’s aspartame. But I do not think, in earnest, that he can tell the difference anyway.

Tomorrow, when Don is asleep, dreaming of us, I will slip out from under our sheets and fumble through the dark hallway. My feet will inch towards the staircase that leads down to the kitchen, and my hands will cradle the front of that Palm frond nightie.

Early morning is a perfectly natural time for a glass of water, and we are very thirsty.

My foot will miss the top step because it’s really quite hard to see over such a big belly, and my arms will windmill like a little bird before taking flight —

BIO: Shayna Cristy-Mendez is a New York native, poet, film lover, and Riot Grrrl enthusiast. Her work has been featured in Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Luna Literary Journal, Superlative Literary Journal, as well as other places. Never one to shy away from the darker aspects of life, her writing offers readers an unfiltered and unapologetic glimpse into the deeply personal.