Daughter by Claudia Dey

Author:Claudia Dey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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Ani was on the phone. I was reading again. I had my back against the bedroom wall, a pillow propped behind me. On this day, it was raining, Ani was saying, I love this Biblical weather, it was raining so hard that our walls were wet, I could hear the rain outside surging into the storm gutters, I had to speak loudly to Ani, I had to speak over the rain. I was telling Ani that Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary that behind her characters lay beautiful caves, and that the caves held her characters’ humanity and their humour, and that one day the caves would connect. One day the caves would connect—I quoted Virginia Woolf to Ani. The tragic thing, I said to Ani, the tragic thing is that she believed this for her characters, but she couldn’t believe this for herself. She couldn’t extend this faith in things to herself. Writing could sustain her for only so long before the world rushed in. Writing could fix her life until it couldn’t. Then I told Ani that what happened to me sounded more like a gothic poem than like my life, that after my baby’s stillbirth my body would fill itself with new blood. Then I told Ani, Ophelia autocorrects to hemophilia. Ophelia. Hemophilia. Blood just giving of itself, refusing to clot. Hard to ignore. Ophelia and Virginia Woolf both ended their lives in water. Hard to ignore. Guess how many times Ophelia is spoken about after her funeral scene? And at that, Ani blew a hot zero into the receiver, and then she said, You sound strong, my girl, you sound strong for the first time in four months.

One day the caves would connect.

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