Motherhood too was filled with an unbearable sense of calculation—of waiting, of pushing my body to the brink of what it could take, of counting down the minutes, of doing what I did not want to do, trying to get to the end of the day, just to do it all over again. It all stirred memories of sidelining my own desires, and of waiting for others to finish taking what they wanted from me. The first year we spent in California I gave my body over at the daycare, and when I went home, sitting to nurse or play or talk with Hannah, I let her too have her way with me, wondering whether life, for some
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