When I Look At You

Upani Perera

I look like you. Your first daughter is your husband’s, and your son is your father’s, but I look like you. It always makes me wonder what you think of when you look at me.

One of my first memories is of when we first moved to Australia. It was before you started working, and I started kinder, so our days were spent together at home. I have a few faded memories of that time—hanging up the laundry together, you yelling at me while I cried because I didn’t want to drink the milk in my cereal, watching something inane on TV while I lay on your chest. The one that I remember the clearest though, is of you braiding my hair. My hair barely reached my chin at the time, so it was much too short to braid—but I asked, so you did. I sat on the floor while you sat on the couch and wrestled my hair into a messy plait. I remember you talking about your childhood cat, an orange and white short-haired without a tail. You told me about how you found her on the street, tail mangled after it had gotten run over. About how you took it to a clinic where they amputated its tail, and then you took the poor thing home, and nursed it back to health. You told me about your childhood dreams of becoming a vet.

I remember I dreamt of becoming a vet as well, but I’m not sure if it was because of you. Either way, neither of our dreams would come true.

***

A girl walks through a gallery and comes across a painting.

Mother and Child. An unnamed woman sits for a portrait, her child standing at her knee. Their hands touch, not holding each other rather, the mother’s hand is gently—protectively—placed over her child’s. They glow in their wealth—a shimmer of a gem, a glint of a pearl, a gleam of gold thread, a delicate lace. Far richer, however, is the love between the subjects, in their gentle smiles, their bright eyes, their hands: giving, receiving and reassuring. It transcends the wood panel of the painting. This woman, whose name has been lost to time has been immortalised with her child, and their love for each other is so strong it survives centuries. It makes something warm bloom in the girl’s chest, right between her lungs.

***

You’re in your room, unpacking your suitcase while I’m lying on your bed because it’s the warmest place in the house. You’re sorting through your mother-in-law’s saris—you brought them back with you so that they’d stay in use after her passing a sky-blue floral set, a black one with gold sequins sewn along the edges, a grey one with elephants embroidered along the bottom. Beneath all of that, you pull out one that is more ornate than the rest. It is white, with flowers embroidered all along it with a fine silver thread. It’s your wedding sari. Your sister bought it for you.

You tell me to get up and try on the blouse. I slip my arms through the sleeves, they’re a bit snug around my biceps and reach just above my elbows. I try to button it up, but my chest is too big. You laugh as you pull it off me and go to try it on yourself. ‘I want to be buried in this,’ you tell me, ‘That’s why I brought it with me.’ It fits on you the same it does me, too small at the chest. ‘Look what you children have done to me,’ you say.

***

A girl sees a drawing, a mother with her infant balanced on her knee. The girl becomes taken with the subject of the portrait – her cool gaze, her quiet confidence—she can’t help but want to know more about her. Her name was Rosa Meli but is now only referred to as Madame Alexandra Lethiere—an extension of her husband. Her daughter is named Letizia. She breathes an air of serenity that surrounds her, and is heightened by the soft graphite of the portrait. She is poised and self-assured. The elegant modern mother—the picture of contentment. She is only sixteen. How content could she be?

***

I think about your sister often. Was she like mine? Did she become a parent to make up for your own parents’ shortcomings? Did she teach you things your mother couldn’t, like how to talk to boys? Did she tell you that it’s okay to not like boys at all? Did she teach you to straighten your hair while burning your ears? Did you ever steal her clothes? Did you cut each other’s hair?

I have recently become aware of just how much I talk about my sister. Most of my personality, until I was twelve, was a hand-me-down from her, and it’s hard not to be constantly thinking about her when she constitutes at least half of my existence.

I realised that you don’t talk about your sister very often, at all really. You talk to your sister-in-law almost every day—your husband’s family love you dearly, everyone does—but I only hear you talking to your actual sister once a month, if that. You had to have been close at one point—she loved you enough to buy your wedding sari. You care for her daughter like you care for us. What happened along the way that you don’t talk often anymore? Will it happen to me?

***

A girl finds another painting. A woman sitting on a chair in front of a fireplace, her black dress pooling beneath her. She supports her daughter, who is standing on the woman’s thighs. They are painted at a distance, in a way that makes the girl feel almost like a voyeur—like she is seeing a moment she is not meant to be seeing. The woman is leaning back and gazing at her daughter, her face is unclear but soft, fond. The daughter, oblivious to her mother’s affections, shakes her rattle. Her hair, a mirror of her mother’s blonde. The two are small in the painting, the house tall and vast around them, it is intimate. It is lonely.

***

I braid my friends’ hair because I am the only one that knows how. Lazy afternoons home alone and early mornings before school have all been coloured by you taming my hair into two neat French braids, telling me fairy tales and stories of your childhood to fill the silence. You taught me how to weave the three strands adding more hair to each section as you go along—I practised on my Bratz dolls.

It’s a labour of love, braiding someone’s hair. The joints in my fingers become sore from crooking them at odd angles, and my back starts to ache from hunching over, and you did this for me every day for years. You have early arthritis in your hands now and I am self-involved enough to question if it’s in any way my fault—at least partially. I asked you to braid my hair, so you did. Now, my friends ask me to braid their hair, so I do.

***

A collection of photos:

● You on your wedding day, draped in your silver-white sari. Sprigs of Forget-Me-Nots adorn your hair. You are sitting in front of a vanity, while your mum stands in front of you, fixing the lace veil that hangs over your face. She is smiling down at you.

● You and three other women. Girls. The four of you are sitting on the edge of a bed in an array of pyjamas. On the far left, the girl is wearing a floral nightgown, the girl next to her is sitting slightly behind, so her clothes are obscured but I can make out a red gingham print, next to her is you, in an oversized dark blue shirt that reaches your knees, a skirt or nightgown covers the rest of your legs, the last girl next to you on the far right wears a light pink pyjama set. Your arms are splayed out, hands in the laps of the girls on the far ends, while the girl in the gingham has an arm draped over your shoulder. You are all leaning into each other, a mess of heads on shoulders on heads. You all look tired with dark undereyes—laughing at something behind the camera. I don’t know who these girls are, but it’s obvious that you know each other well, and that you care for them.

● A photo of my dad; he is young enough to have a full head of hair and a thick moustache. He is just standing there, smiling smugly at the camera with his hands behind his back. There is a note on the back—I’d recognise your handwriting in any language but my Sinhalese isn’t good enough to understand most of it. All I can make out is ‘ආදරය’. Love. I never realised you loved him.

● You holding your first child—my sister. She can’t be more than a week old but she is chunky, thick rolls going down her thighs. She is laid down on a pillow, as she constantly was in her infancy—something you didn’t keep up with my brother and me. She’s wearing a dress that you made—a white cotton thing, and on the front, a hand-embroidered yellow bird sits atop a branch. You’re tilting her up to show her off to the camera while looking down at her. It is difficult to describe the expression—love doesn’t feel like enough.

***

One day I will be driven crazy thinking about what you mean to me. I want you to live the life you wanted when you were a girl; I want to live in your ribcage forever. I don’t get homesick; I just start missing you. I think all the time about your life before your children. You have a university degree that you don’t use anymore. You had a career that you gave up for your children—you were a cartographer. You dreamt of seeing the Grand Canyon, and the Taj Mahal. Instead, you became a mother. Now, when I ask about your wishes to travel you tell me that there’s no point. I believe you.

Maybe one day I can take you to all the places you wanted to see, and at least one of your childhood dreams will come true. Maybe that can be my way of thanking you. We’ve never said the words ‘I love you’ out loud to each other—that’s just not how you were raised, so it wasn’t how you raised me—but we’ve never had to. We say it in our own ways, and we both understand—at least I hope you understand.

We have a lot more in common than I first thought. Or, more accurately, I inherited a lot more from you than I first thought. Though you never allowed yourself to express it, we are both creatives. We are gentle to the point of weakness. I have your small hands and feet and your terrible vision. I look like you. When you look at me do you see all you could have been? When I look at you do I see all I might become?

Upani Perera (she/her) is a Sri Lankan-born, Naarm-based writer and editor. She studied an Associate's Degree in Professional Writing and Editing and is currently in her second year of studying a Bachelor of Creative Writing, both done at RMIT. Upani writes contemporary short stories about life, lesbians, and love. She has been published in What You Become: An Anthology. Upani enjoys crocheting, baking and hoarding tattoos.