****
Mrs. Beasley’s Lessons
I.
Mrs. Beasley: my mother presents her as a hand-me-down. I instantly dislike the doll for the stain, suspiciously pooh-colored, on her blue polka-dot outfit. So I toss Mrs. Beasley in my bedroom’s extra closet—the one that contains my mother’s evening gowns and dress shoes,
which hang in floor-length shoe bags. Mrs. Beasley, my only doll, lives under the shoe bags—where no sunlight reaches.
II.
Like a schoolteacher lining up her class every morning, I arrange my 14 stuffed animals from largest (Leo the Lion) to smallest (baby Snoopy) across my Formica blue dresser. I shepherd them to my carpet in groups where I read to them, teach them cartwheels, and try to love them alive in the spirit of The Velveteen Rabbit. At bedtime, I cannot bear to select just one, to reject any. So I gather them all in bed with me. We spill out of my twin bed. Throughout the night, I pull them back into the folds of my covers.
III.
When it comes to Mrs. Beasley, I let her out of the closet only when I am furious. I grab her by the ankle, drag her out of the closet, and smash her on the floor, again and again, until my arms tire. Her rag doll arms and legs only enrage me further—no resistance. The fuzz of my yellow carpet silently absorbs the smashing. I hold Mrs. Beasley by her plump yellow shoes and smash her plastic cheek and head on the side of my blue dresser. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. She looks at me with the same smile. No hint of protest. Her unblinking blue eyes and silly smile in response to my blows enrage me further. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
IV.
The first time: my mother wants to spank me—for what, I don’t know. She chases me around my yellow bedroom’s twin beds. Growing tired of the chase, I think, “How bad can it be?” I let her catch me, yank down my pants, and have her way. I gasp as she digs her fingernails into the soft skin of my butt. From across my shoulder, I catch the black flash of her eyes, which are all pupil. She kneads my doughy butt. Cuts through my skin with her nails. And pounds me for longer than I expected.
V.
In fourth grade, my teacher promises our class a yellow-gold star, taped to the wall with our name on it, for every book we read. I am an eager reader, self-taught to read before kindergarten. My favorite genres: orphans, abused children and animals. Adventures of Pippi Longstocking. Old Yeller. Anne of Green Gables. Oliver Twist – Jr. Classics. But my teacher, Ms. Harvey, grows concerned that I am lying or exaggerating all the books I read. “Stupid bitch!” my mother says, dismissing the concern. Plus, a reference to Ms. Harvey as the only black teacher in the elementary school. My mother is ready to call the principal and take Ms. Harvey down. So I quietly broker a truce with Ms. Harvey: I stop reporting books I read, and I let her take down some of my yellow stars, which are taking up too much space on her classroom walls.
VI.
When we line up by size for class pictures, every year I land in the front row: one of the smallest. By fourth grade, I can do 38 chin-ups on the metal bar my father mounted in a doorframe in our basement. I show off in front of my family. My parents count aloud and clap: 36…37… 38! One Sunday, in our family room, my father struggles to lug a large TV—its back too boxy and its top too long for even his large arms to hold. Moving it is a two-person job. My mother, her arms crossed, just watches. “I can do it!” I volunteer. I imagine myself strong like Pippi Longstocking and Mighty Mouse as I heave my end of the TV while my father hoists the other side. Huffing and sweating after the job, my father says, “You are a very strong little girl!”
VII.
Still nine when my mother swings at me—but this time, I belt back: “If you hit me again, I will hit you back twice as hard! And-you-know-I-am-strong-and-it-will-hurt!” The air pauses. Air pinned back by my bravado. These words arrest the flash in her black eyes. We both imagine: my TV-lifting arms punch back. Full force. Her arms stop. She stops. She never hits me again.
Afterward, I let Mrs. Beasley be in the shadows of my closet.
****
Selected Heirlooms
I.
“But what about me?” my mother moans. I grimace at the antique-y poster bed she wants for the guest room in my house, 3,000 miles away from the East Coast and the home where I grew up. The platform bed I favor, with its sleek black lacquer, sitting low to the ground, will not be comfortable for her, she says. I wonder whether I owe her the bed she wants in my own home.
II.
“Oh, you would be so proud,” my mother tells me, spitting out the word “proud” like a pebble found unexpectedly in a bite of food. “When Grant was misbehaving, I warned him, if he didn’t stop, his DeeDee would potch him. He didn’t know what potch was!” Grant, at age five, only recently has re-emerged from the fog of autism with words. “After I explained, he stared at me and asked, ‘DeeDee, why would you ever do that?’”
III.
My eyes, already prone to dryness, grow extra bleary to the point that they reject contact lenses with tears of protest. “You are so ugly in glasses, I will pay for you to have Lasik!” my mother announces. Do I have to agree with the premise to accept the gift?
IV.
It started when he was a toddler after bath time. I would lift him above the edge of the porcelain sink in the bathroom, pointing to his face in the overhanging mirror. “Look, look how beautiful you are. Do you see what I see?” One day, while walking to 3rd grade, he asks me if he will have a statue made of him and if he will be famous one day. I ask him if he wants to be. “Well, I’m different. So that’s a good sign I might be famous.”
****
The Final Piece
I wonder if heaven has assigned seating, like the white-clothed dinner tables at a fancy wedding. If so, I wonder if I will be forced to sit next to my mother (because we are family) and make nice, talking about the napkin-rings, the salad nicoise, and everything but anything that matters. Or maybe heaven is like open seating on a Southwest flight—after you secure your ticket, you get to pick your seat. Will I have more choices without a body? In this world, choices seem to exist in the spaces between boundaries. When it comes to family, my boundaries run stretchy. Before I die, I hope to fashion mine into sturdy borders. Polish them to shiny brass. I want them to gleam like heaven’s harp.
KM KRAMER is a writer, previously a First Amendment attorney, who feels most at home in California. She earned her undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford. Her creative works can be found in Action Spectacle, Rogue Agent, Free the Verse, and many other places. Her writing awards include the Letter Review Prize for Poetry and first place in the 2025 Micro Nonfiction Contest by Dreamers Magazine.
