Acid vapors and a metallic copper taste wash over my face making me gag. Tears violently flow down my cheeks as my hand stifles a shrill scream that escapes from my trembling lips. The smell of my burnt flesh deteriorates my nostrils.
“Almost done …” I whisper.
My right hand immediately abandons the lighter to the linoleum bathroom floor beneath my quivering knees. The silky smooth skin that once belonged to my left forearm drops dead and drizzles a steady stream of blood onto my white dress. That God-forsaken mark is dissolved from my appearance. For the first time in forever, I breathe deeply, I am finally free.
***
Sweet, soft lips tickle my skin as my 6-year-old voice pleads my mommy to stop in between my laughs on the family room couch. She pulls away and I can see my mommy’s brilliant bright blue eyes.
“You tickle me mommy!” I giggle in her warm embrace.
“What, how am I? Oh, like this?” She grins and the tickling returns along with my amusement. When she moves, I notice the black triangles adorning her left forearm, I pause.
“Mommy, why do you and Daddy have the same drawing?” I examine as my chubby little index finger points. Then, I observe her face drop. Narrowing my eyes to scrutinize the intricate design, my mother pulls me into her lap.
“One day you will be a full-grown woman,” my eyes widen in disbelief. A chuckle escapes my mother’s lovely lips at my expression. “On your 18th birthday, you will receive your Attachment Token,” her words are slow, concise. I trace her Attachment Token on her arm.
“But will it hurt?” fear drips from my words. Her eyes crinkle at the corners.
“A bit darling, but it is worth every little needle prick of pain,” her long, delicate fingers comb my dark curls from my curious eyes. “Without my Attachment Token, I would have never met your father.”
My thoughts flash to my father. He is loud at times. He would yell at mommy when the dishwasher is full or when his business suits were not ironed. I do not get to see daddy very much. He comes home late; I am already in my pink bed and mommy has already read me the picture book with yucky green eggs and ham with a fox by a doctor man I can never remember. I do not think he is a doctor though.
“But daddy is never home mommy,” my harsh childhood honesty makes her tense; she swallows and regains her composure.
“Because daddy is so busy helping so many people sweetheart, your daddy is a good person and you should love him very much,” she smiles her usual smile at me.
***
“My mommy’s and daddy’s Attachment Token is a bunch of circles squished-ed together, like this,” Kyra smashes her fingers together in inconceivable intertwined loops as she almost falls off her swing. My 7-year-old curiosity for the Attachment Tokens mommies and daddies have is insatiable.
“And your mommy and daddy are happy? Your daddy doesn’t yell at your mommy?” I tentatively inquire as I stare at my red Mary Jane shoes skimming the autumn grass beneath my perch on a swing.
“Oh yes, my mommy and daddy kiss all of the time, they love each other big bunches,” she affirms. “I can’t wait until I have a nice boy like daddy to make money for me and my daddy even tells my mommy that she’s pretty every day, even when she’s not. But I want a boy to lie like that to me so I can always be pretty, even when I’m not.”
“I don’t want anyone to lie to me, and I like making money too, I don’t want to be a mommy with a boy to be the daddy,” I retort. She stops swinging and her big chocolate brown eyes gape at me like I have a giant purple head like Barney.
“But you have to be a mommy, don’t you know that’s why we are girls, to be mommies, you are stupid for thinking that way Saoirse.”
Her harsh guileless candor shakes me to the core like the twisted dragon roller coaster at the county fair. Driven by the popular desire to be liked and accepted by the elementary school world, I decide right then and there, to ever speak of my true opinions again.
A startling realization grips my brain like a stress ball. Wait, that means that I will be like my mommy … my mommy. What is my mommy like when she is with my daddy? When she talks about my daddy? These questions bombard my mind for the rest of recess, and for the next 11 years of my life.
***
It would not be until I am 13 when I would see beyond my mother’s usual smile to the permanent fear in her eyes she holds when she talks about my father. It would not be until I am 15 that I spot the mascara tear stains on my mother’s apron or the purple blotches on her stomach. It would not be until I am 17 when I realize the only purpose of my father’s black leather belts are to “discipline” my mother when I am perceived to be “asleep.” And it would not be until the piercing dawn of my 18 birthday that I ultimately realized, I am next.
***
The rhythmic rattling of my mother’s knuckles on my bedroom door jostles me out of my reverie.
“Happy Birthday my sweet Saoirse,” my mother sings. Her wrinkled face is beaming. “Today is a big day, you will be matched with your mate today.”
I smile. After all of these years, she taught me how to fake happiness.
Your attachment token is a blessing, the history teachers have repeated to us year after year in grade school. From kindergarten to senior year, I was reminded again and again how the sanctified All-Knowing ruler of our country chooses our mate for life. I am told that since She is all-knowing, our sovereign can seep into our minds and souls to select the right soul mate for us. The Attachment Token Ceremony is supposed to be the most significant moment in our lives, well, at least not in mine … Today my skin will be punctured with thousands of tiny needles to ink an original design, one of which has only one identical match, that of my destined mate.
A few hours of brushing and blushing of grooming later, I stare at my petrified reflection. My unruly curls are pinned tight against my cranium; my face is pallid knowing what is in store on this “special day” for me. My mother radiates pride, her only child, now presentable for the most important day of my mother’s parenthood.
The shrill ear-splitting scream of the train’s whistle echoes off the station walls as my parents and I step off the platform into the city. After a taxi and train ride, we arrived in the capital city, Boston.
My parents stride into the main square as I trudge behind holding my breath. I turn into the city’s square gawking at the thousands of eighteen-year-olds. I am led to the right of the gathered audience joining the other identical, prim and proper rouge-cheeked girls with their families. I see Kyra’s big chocolate brown eyes beaming at me.
With my heart in my throat, I could not help but observe how they shine and how their eyes twinkle with excitement. I gasp when a cold, yet familiar grip latches onto my shoulder and turns me around rigidly.
“You better make us proud,” my father affirms, his dark eyes hard as marbles. Those eyes, the eyes that haunt my mother every living moment, scorch me. Shaking, I nod in understanding.
Our national anthem begins to play as I separate from my parents into a tight single-file line with my female peers by the Attachment Token Ceremony officials. We all shake. The others are giddy with enthusiasm as I harbor uneasy horror.
Dizzy in pure panic, I could not focus my gaze or my ears to the All-Knowing on the stage. Time dribbles and drips out of my hands like wet sand on a beach, when I realize an Attachment Token Ceremony official is guiding me to the stage. My feet are anchors in my nude heels with every step towards the empress’ out-stretched wrinkled hands. Making the mistake of looking up, the malevolent green of our ruler’s irises capture my soul. My heart freezes.
“Miss Saoirse O’Malley,” she announces. “You are quite free-spirited indeed,” she remarks quietly. “Just make sure you do not forget your place,” she murmurs with a threatening undertone. I could not peel my eyes away from her chilling complexion. Reclaiming her poise, she declares: “I bestow a bird to the stars for this precious dove.”
The crowd rejoices and my eyes search for my parents, but it is too late.
Waves of syringes strike my left arm in a fury of seething pain; instinctively I throw my head back in agony. Once I am escorted back to my parents’ grinning faces, I bite my tongue tasting blood to force my mother’s usual, but fake smile. All eyes peer at the new black dove and stars that tarnish my skin.
***
Cradling my left arm the entire train ride home, my mind is abuzz with torment of what comes next: meeting my mate. Images of my mother’s apron, the bags under her eyes, the bruises on her body, and her squelched screams ricocheting throughout the nights of my childhood rapidly flicker through my mind. I need an escape, a glimmer of hope, anything.
A flicker, a glimmer, a flash, an escape … yes.
After the extensive journey back to my dark gray home, I bolt through the front door reaching the lower kitchen sink cabinet before my parents can finish paying the taxi driver.
Rushing into the bathroom and hearing the lock of the tumblers, I strip away my white cardigan to expose my freshly inked wound. Gripping the counter to even out my rocky breathing, I ignite the lighter in my grasp.
My burning human flesh makes my stomach roll as I incinerate the Attachment Token. I will be the only one who has the right to brand myself. My abdomen heaves and I spew my breakfast into the porcelain toilet bowl. Wiping my face with my pristine sleeve, I whisper, “almost done …” as encouragement to continue on.
My right hand immediately abandons the lighter to the linoleum bathroom floor beneath my quivering knees. The silky smooth skin that once belonged to my left forearm drops dead and drizzles a steady stream of blood onto my white dress.
Overhearing my father’s dense footfalls approaching, I quickly bandage my arm and whip my leg around to kick out the screen of the open bathroom window. I leap onto the firm ground and run before I can look back, before I can hear my father’s menaces, before I have my own mascara tear-stained apron, before purple blotches decorate my body — before I become my mother.
