A Battle That Cannot Be Won
March 2025
“You’re not still giving him money are you?” Linda said, taking out a bag of carrots and placing them in the fridge. Every Saturday morning, Linda came to Sothy’s apartment with groceries so Sothy would not have to carry them herself.
“No,” Sothy lied.
“Mom, please don’t. He won’t ever pay it back.” Linda opened a bag of chips. Sothy bet she would get grease stains on her new stainless steel refrigerator. Linda had always licked her fingers ever since she was a child.
Through the open window, the sound of car horns drifted up to her third-floor walk-up and spring rain dotted the glass.
“I know.” Sothy stared at her hands. Her wedding ring still shone on her fourth finger, fat and bright. Her husband, Leo, had once been fascinated with her beauty. In marriage, he was proud Sothy took care of all home matters, while he went out and took care of the family the way a man was supposed to. In her memories, they were tender with one another, he a cardiologist and she a homemaker. Sothy was glad her husband died at forty before he could see her full transformation into an old woman. Now, the highest joint of her middle finger looked like a gnarled tree root with its tight twist inward. “But he’s still your husband,” Sothy said.
“By all means, it’s your life. But you’re throwing money in the garbage.” Did Linda relish these weekly moments of power over her? Her daughter’s memories seemed suspended in her pre-existing narrative that Sothy was a horrible mother. Was everything Linda remembered right after all? Had she really smacked Linda for missing one question on her math homework?
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I wish you would make it work with William. There’s therapy for this sort of thing.” Sothy fumbled for the television remote.
“We’re not going to ‘make it work.’ Please don’t get involved.”
“But who will you meet now?” Linda was already thirty-eight. Sothy did not want Linda to be alone like she was. Linda was beyond the age of youth, and this was a scary place for a woman to be.
Linda rolled her eyes. She went to get her jacket from the closet.
“Gambling is an addiction. He’s trying to get better. Won’t you at least give him that?” Sothy said.
Linda checked her makeup in the mirror near the front door, running her finger beneath her eye to remove a smudge of old mascara. “Stay out of my marriage.”
“Won’t you stay? And watch TV with me? I’m watching Melania’s trip to England soon. They have it on YouTube.”
“Don’t watch that garbage.”
“Then something else. There are movies starting at eleven.”
“I’m busy.” Linda left and closed the door.
When had Linda first decided Sothy was “toxic”? Sothy was sure Linda used the same words with William–“gaslighter,” “abuser,” “toxic,” so of course she naturally pushed him away. She knew that with her daughter once one small thing was bad, the entire thing would soon spin out of control.
Sothy had covered Linda’s rent for two years when Linda had worked as a publishing intern after college. Unpaid the entire time. So everything had been up to Sothy to figure out. Linda spent so much time wondering how much William had stolen from Sothy—poor, pathetic Sothy—that she did not wonder how much she had stolen from Sothy as well. If Sothy was going to give money to somebody, then she might as well give it to somebody who acted like they loved her.
Even now, Sothy still paid Linda's phone bill. The money Leo had worked so hard to earn would one day go to a daughter who had never really worked outside of her “passion.” Hah! Where had all those writing lessons gotten her now? All Sothy ever wanted was for Linda to be happy.
In the afternoon, William visited her. He always came with beautiful gifts. Nothing too decadent. Because as he liked to say, decadence was wealth without substance and he wanted everything he gave her to have substance. William used to work IT at a bulge bracket bank but had lost his job and was struggling to get back on his feet. He bought beautiful trinkets, like a necklace with a jade stone or crystal earrings that sparkled in the light. Today, he brought her a silver bracelet with a monkey clasp. Even though she wanted the money she gave him to be used for necessities like rent, she cherished that he still thought of her or at least pretended to. And what was so wrong with pretending if the resulting feeling was the same?
Sothy wore lipstick and a pearl choker that hid the loose skin of her neck. She hated how she could no longer keep her urine in her bladder, how each muscle groaned, how her hair and skin had thinned so that anything could penetrate her.
In the past year, Sothy had lent William twenty thousand dollars. It was a considerable sum, but she did not regret it at all. She believed it would contribute to the reunification of William and Linda. One day, when Sothy was bouncing a grandchild on her lap, they would all look back on this as a rough patch. She wished nobody had ever found out about William’s terrible habit and everything could return to how it was.
“How are you doing, Auntie Sothy?” William said, his hands clasped together. They sat at her kitchen table.
“Not bad. I got the best peaches from the supermarket. I cut some up for you.” She pushed the platter of fruit towards William. He ate a few slices. His fingernails were clean, his lips plump, his eyes wide. He had a cherub face that she found pleasant and unassuming.
“It’s good. Thank you.” A little bit of peach juice ran down his chin, so transparent she could only see it if she squinted.
“Aren’t they just wonderful?”
“Just wonderful.”
“How are you? Eating well? Sleeping enough?” She cupped her face in her hands and leaned forward, smelling his familiar pine cologne.
“I just need a little more money.”
“Oh, William.”
Sothy knew her relationship with William was transactional. But she did not mind. Most relationships were like this and denying it only made them all the harder. Love did not exist without compromises. Melania knew that best. Sothy recently rewatched one of her interviews, all of which were recorded on her television. The host asked her would she be with Donald if he was not rich, and she said, “If I weren’t beautiful, do you think he’d be with me?”
“When did it all go wrong?” William said, sniffling a few times.
“It’s not unsalvageable.” Sothy shuffled in her chair, trying to get her face at a good angle for him.
“Things were really good for a long time.”
Sothy remembered their wedding. William’s family was generous and paid for it, even though Sothy had money and this was not tradition. William took special care to ensure Sothy wore a beautiful off-white suit with rubies attached to the pockets. At the ceremony, he wore a felt tie that Sothy had gifted him and that Linda once called “tacky.” How handsome they looked at the altar together. They would have beautiful children.
“I don’t mean to do it. I still love your daughter.” Sothy’s breath quickened.
“I know, William.”
“When I go there, I can’t control myself. The money just falls right out of my hands.” He ate another peach slice. “Linda spent lots of money, too. She kept buying those purses. Expensive purses.”
William and Linda had, at one point, more than enough money to spend. When William was working in IT, he had made six figures. They purchased a house in Westchester and got a small, brown Pomeranian named Falafel. Linda took an interest in learning how to cook.
He looked at her with his terrible, sad eyes, the part of his face that made him childish even with his light beard and wrinkled forehead. “You look very lovely today. The bracelet flatters you.”
A tenderness came over Sothy. She got up, her joints rusty and unsteady, and kissed William’s cheek. His body felt insubstantial in her arms. He seemed closer to childhood than adulthood, and this made her glad. To be needed was a gift. It was as Melania said, “Sometimes I say that I have two boys--I have my young son and I have my husband.”
The imprint of Sothy’s red lipstick was still on his face when he left her apartment.
At 4pm, she received a phone call from an unknown number. A woman was crying on the other end. When Sothy tried to speak, the woman would not respond. Her sobbing only intensified. Sothy hung up after a few minutes. She had received a similar call earlier that week. Dust danced in the air and she saw a little bit of white mold on an old orange peel trapped behind her dishrack.
Sothy took a shower until her skin was red and raw. Her husband had passed away when Linda was a teenager, coming into beauty, tight and luscious, just as Sothy was losing hers. For years, Sothy watched Linda go on dates with young men on the cusp of manhood, never worrying about who she was going to marry or how to make money. When you were young, life felt open and eternal, but it always thinned to a single, red thread.
The dim evening light depressed her. Clean and cozy, she crawled into bed and accidentally fell asleep for two hours. When she woke up, her bedroom was sunk in a disturbing darkness.
“Someone has been calling me,” Sothy said. Linda was here for her weekly visit.
“What do you mean?” Linda was throwing out all of Sothy’s uneaten produce, wilted spinach, moldy oranges, a soft crumpled pech. The air had the odor of decay.
“Somebody’s been calling me. Is it you?” The rain returned with a vengeance, the raindrops battering the window with the determination and force of kamikaze soldiers. A head of lettuce landed into the garbage can with a thump.
“Wouldn’t you know if it was me?”
“It’s a woman crying the entire time. Are you making fun of me?” Even as Sothy said this, she knew it was false, but did not know who else might be calling Linda kept things from her. She once saw a text message on Linda’s phone from a man about their “Moroccan dinner reservations.”
Linda sighed. She examined a container of spinach, picked out the wet pieces, and tossed them in the garbage. A few pieces of limp spinach stuck to her fingers so that she had to wipe them on the plastic garbage bag.
“Of course not. I don’t have time for that. It’s probably just in your head.”
“It’s not in my head!” Sothy slammed her fist on the couch. The pain reverberated up her arm; it would bruise later.
Linda rolled her eyes.
“Why do you treat me like I’m some stupid, old woman? You act like I have Alzheimer’s. I’m perfectly aware.”
“Mom. Please don’t be so dramatic.”
Of course this was the attitude Linda took toward Sothy. Whenever Linda said terrible things to Sothy, that she never listened to her, that she had been too controlling, Sothy would cry and admit she was a terrible mother. Linda would always say “that’s not what I meant,” even though Sothy bet she was just thinking of her next zinger.
“You don’t take me seriously.”
Linda suddenly loomed over Sothy. “You don’t take me seriously. What about when you smacked the shit out of me when you thought I stole your pearl earrings? But you found them in the car the next day.”
It was with a quiet calmness that Sothy realized Linda would love, but never like her. So much of life was tempering bitterness. Reframing it so that you could shield yourself from cruelty. If she had known this was where they would be today, would she still have decided to have Linda? She should have tried for a second child, maybe a son.
Sothy felt the worn cotton of the couch. Her voice came out quiet and low. “You love bringing that up. Besides that, what have I ever done to you? I was a good mother.”
Linda shook her head and returned to the kitchen. She ate a bag of chips and left with the garbage bag of rotting fruit. Spoiled, spoiled child.
On Wednesday, Sothy wanted ice cream. The rain from the past week had cleared up and the city was damp and warm. If she were younger, she might have found the humidity stifling, but in her old age, she liked how safe and comforting the air felt pressed against her. The flowers bloomed and pollen clung to her jacket like confetti. Sothy was walking down 1st Avenue when she saw a tall man with a blue collared shirt watching her and knew that yes, yes, she was still attractive in her own way.
Someone smacked her on the shoulder and shoved her. The ground approached her with astonishing speed. Sothy covered her head with her arms and hit the ground. Darkness.
When she opened her eyes and looked up, she saw only the outline of the thief with her purse, the blue collar turning the corner, pushing past a group of young people. Her mouth tasted of blood and her hands were coated with the dusty dirt of the sidewalk.
Sothy stayed on the ground, disoriented, fearful. Where was William? Nobody helped her—why would they? Foolish, stupid Sothy to think that a man would find her desirable. All the beauty had leaked out of her years ago and now she was a deflated balloon punctured by the ugliness of age.
After the thief ran away and she got back up, her chin only slightly bloody and her arms scuffed and bruised, she saw that the thief had not stolen the bracelet with the monkey clasp when it fell off her wrist, this pathetic souvenir of love.
On Friday, William came to Sothy’s apartment at midnight with a gemstone ring. The gemstone was not for Sothy’s birth month, October, but she loved it anyway. She was not feeling well, so she lay in bed while he sat in an armchair at her side.
“How are you doing, Auntie Sothy? I can’t believe you were mugged.”
“Not so bad. I’m feeling a little tired.”
“Well, rest please,” he said, placing his hand over hers. He had a callous beneath his index finger and the rough nub against her skin reminded her of Leo’s warm hands. Before Linda was born, he had loved to hold her tiny fingers against his in bed. She crawled into his arms and he, fascinated by her thinness, her eyelashes, her perfectly painted nails, had given into her every wish.
William’s eyes glanced out the dark window and then back to her. “Have you seen Linda recently?”
“Not since the last time you visited. She’s been busy working at that new editorial job all the way over in Brooklyn. I wish she would get a job closer to here, somewhere in midtown.”
“I didn’t know she got a new job.” He looked at the ceiling and Sothy worried he was going to cry. William was a sensitive sort of man, a man who was easily distracted by desire.
“Can you get me some chamomile tea from the kitchen?” she said.
“Sure.” Shortly after he got up, Sothy heard the water heater boiling. She was comforted by the sharp clink of plates moving, the dull squeak of the sink handles, the dispassionate clatter of cups. It was raining and she liked being tucked into her bed with the heater on and William over for company.
He left the cup of tea on her bedside table. “How much more do you need?” she asked. The way he held her hand made her think of the light brown birth mark on her Leo’s chin.
“Not much more. I just owe a few friends.” Sothy reached for William, any part of him, and her hand landed on his knee. She stroked it as if it was a small, furry bunny.
“Okay,” she said. “Just a little more,” and she opened the drawer she kept her spare cash. She thought she had put on her nightgown, but she was naked underneath the covers and her breasts slipped out. Shame flushed her cheeks. She tried to cover herself, but he leaned down and grasped her nipple between his thumb and index finger. His hands were cool, and goosebumps rose on her skin.
Did he want this or did he think it was required? They had touched many times, but did he expect the touch of romance from her or did he think she needed it? The money was still in her drawer, but he did not hesitate, his hands were on her, and she became wet, wetter than she had in years, and she reached down and felt herself.
William began taking off his clothes. First the jacket. Then the socks. The shirt. The pants. The boxers. Until he was above her and she realized he had a large stomach that gravity stretched downward and wrinkles along his forehead and hands that revealed his age. She acquiesced at first—maybe this is the attention she had wanted after all.
Rain slammed against the window so that Sothy could not tell if it was the sound of running feet in the house or water on the glass pane. A woman cried hysterical, grating sobs.
His grip tightened on her breasts. At first, she did not mind. But his hands were so hard that she cried out, “Please stop, please stop!” until she could not cry out any longer and the ceiling was falling in and she seemed to remember only the black darkness.
When Sothy woke up, she was wearing the nightgown she had thought she put on. She checked the money in her drawer. All of it was still there. Her breast was not purple and black. It was the thin, white, sallow color of her skin. She heard someone rustling in the house and walked slowly out of her bedroom. In the kitchen, her sink was on and the water was pouring down the drain.
The doorbell rang for a minute.
“I’m not letting you in,” Sothy said. Linda stood on the other side of the door. Sothy had not let Linda in for two weeks or responded to her phone calls. What did Linda care? She was too busy going on dates and flirting with new men.
“You need to see a doctor. What if you have an infection on your chin?”
“I’m fine. I don’t need you anymore.”
“Why were you even walking alone Mom?”
“See? You think I can’t do anything by myself.” Sothy’s armpits flooded with sweat and she noticed a yellow stain on her white, silk shirt. The mold on the orange slice behind the dish rack creeped forward.
“Please.” Linda’s voice became begging, almost sycophantic. When was the last time Linda had begged Sothy for anything? Poor, stupid, dumb Sothy.
“I won’t do it.”
“I just want to know if you were okay.”
“Why do you care?”
The other side of the door was quiet for a moment. “I’m still your daughter.” Would Linda still feel this way if Sothy hadn’t paid off Linda’s credit card debt three months ago?
“I might need to call the police soon. I don’t know what’s going on with you.” Sothy was glad she had never let Linda have a key—Linda was so nosey.
After a few minutes, the knocking stopped. Sothy opened her fridge. The bananas were brown. The milk had a sour smell. White dots coated the kale. A small spider skirted around the sink until Sothy splashed it with water and it fell, struggling, into the drain.
The phone rang, but Sothy did not pick it up. She could not bear to hear the woman crying again.
She sat on the couch and fingered the bracelet with the monkey clasp on her wrist. But as she held it, it fell apart and the string broke so that the beads hit the floor with a clatter. The gift had been cheap all along. Sothy bent on her knees and tried to find the beads, but they had already rolled beneath the sofa and across the floor and gotten mixed up in the furry, pink carpet. She was not quite sure where all of them had gone. The monkey clasp was nowhere in sight. When she stood back up, she cupped the few beads she had gotten in her palm and placed them in an empty mug on the table. Tears collected in the corners of her eyes.
Sothy turned on the television and played a recorded interview of Melania Trump. One she had seen many times before. “What’s the worst thing you’ve read about yourself?” the interviewer pressed.
“It’s all the things that people say. That I’m not happy...That I’m miserable...That I’m out of touch…”
Sothy closed her eyes. She bathed herself in Melania’s voice and told herself that there was no woman. There was no crying. She pressed her foot on the floor and the monkey pressed back.
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