My mom always said I was born a dummy. By the age of three, I still couldn’t say Mom.
She dragged me to the clinic for an evaluation. The specialists in white coats asked endless questions, handing me little blocks to stack.
I was actually doing pretty well, but then mom pinched my upper thigh so hard under the table that my vision swam. I screamed and burst into tears.
I shoved the stacked blocks over, drooling everywhere.
The certificate was approved quickly. an intellectual disability.
My mom clutched that document, looking happier than if she’d won the lottery.
She pinched my cheek, smiling.
“Mommy’s little fool, from now on, I’m counting on you!”
I nodded eagerly, my face stretched in a vacant grin.
I didn’t really know what that piece of paper meant.
But I knew that the meager $350 a month in disability benefits would be enough for Mom and me to eat meat. And that was enough.
……
When I was six, my neighbor, Leo, went to school with a brand-new backpack.
The colorful backpack seemed to shimmer, making my eyes ache with longing.
I clung to the door frame, drooling onto the floor, a desperate ache scratching at my heart.
I whispered to Mom, “Mom, can I go to school?”
She was counting the month’s benefits money.
She snapped her head up, her gaze cutting through me like a knife.
“What for? You’re a dummy. Going to school would be a waste of money, wouldn’t it?”
I wiped my drool, my voice even softer, a barely audible whisper.
“I’m not a dummy…”
She sprang to her feet, yanking my ear until tears welled in my eyes. Her breath was hot against my face as she hissed.
“Shut up! Say you’re not a dummy one more time, and you’ll go to bed without dinner!”
She rummaged through Daniel’s old, smelly clothes, pulling some out for me to wear. Then she smeared mud all over my face and hands, black dirt under my fingernails, and finally sighed in relief.
“Remember,” she said, her voice low and sharp. “Outside these walls, you’re a fool. Fools don’t get to be clean. They don’t get to be smart. They don’t get to go to school.”
From that day on, I, Daisy, became the undisputed ‘little dummy’ of our small town.
The other kids in town saw me like I was the plague, scattering whenever they spotted me.
“Run! Dummy Daisy is coming! Stupidity is contagious!”
Sometimes they couldn’t get away fast enough, and rocks would come flying.
My forehead bled, warm and sticky, blurring my vision. Everything was red.
I cried my way home. Mom was cooking by the stove, she didn’t even turn her head.
“What’s there to cry about? So what if a dummy gets hit a couple of times? It won’t kill you.”
She pulled up her apron and roughly wiped my face. Blood and mud mixed, forming scabs that caked my face, making me even dirtier.
She looked at my face, a flicker of satisfaction in her eyes.
“That’s good. Now you really look like a dummy.”
From then on, I couldn’t have friends, couldn’t wear clean clothes, and couldn’t look at anything with words.
I secretly peeled off discarded newspapers and magazines she used to patch holes in the walls, hiding them in the woodpile to read.
By the faint glow from the fireplace, I’d slowly decipher one word after another.
When she found out, she burned them all. Sparks flew onto my hand, blistering my skin with thumb-sized burns.
“What are you looking at? Can you even understand? Remember, you’re a dummy! Have you ever seen a dummy read?”
Her eyes were wide, cold, filled only with stark terror.
She was terrified of me becoming normal, terrified of losing that meager income.
Days turned into years. The disability benefits rose from $350 to $500, then to $800.
My perceived disability became Mom’s and my most stable source of income, and her lifeline, clutched tightly in her hand.
When I was twelve, a Social Worker, Mr. Hayes, came to our town, visiting house by house.
When he arrived at our place, he frowned, looking at me cowering in the corner, dirty and smelly.
He offered me an apple, asking gently, “Little one, how old are you?”
The apple was red and shiny, emitting a sweet, fresh scent—something I’d never tasted before.
I looked at him, almost blurting out. twelve years old.
But Mom stood right behind him, staring intently at me, her lips silently forming a word.
I knew the word. Dummy.
I immediately understood. I took the apple, giggling stupidly.
I bit into it, skin and core, chewing loudly. Drool ran down my chin, dripping onto my dirty clothes.
Mr. Hayes sighed, shook his head, and left.
That night, Mom cooked me an egg as a reward.
She peeled the shell, saying,
“Daisy, you did well today. Mom knew you weren’t completely dumb, you still knew how to pretend.”
The egg white was tender, but the yolk choked me, making me stretch my neck.
My heart ached with a bitter, sour feeling, like something was stuck in my throat.
So Mom knew I was pretending.
She knew everything.
This whole act, from beginning to end, wasn’t just me performing.
Pretending to be a dummy became an unspoken secret between Mom and me, our most cruel tug-of-war.
She needed me to be a dummy to maintain that money she was becoming increasingly dependent on.
I needed to pretend to be a dummy to earn occasional rewards and a moment of peace.
Like an egg, a pear, or a piece of clothing that wasn’t quite so tattered, and her brief, gentle demeanor.
But she was also constantly on guard, afraid I’d become too smart, afraid I’d slip from her control.
If I showed even a hint of curiosity about books, she’d violently destroy anything with writing, as if those words were poison.
I secretly used a stick to write letters on the ground. When she found out, she’d grab a broom and chase me half through the town, shouting for everyone to hear.
“A dummy trying to read? Don’t get ahead of yourself!”
I’d be covered in bruises. But at night, she’d come in with some pain relief balm.
She’d roughly rub my bruises, her eyes red, her voice hoarse, saying.
“Daisy, don’t blame Mom. Mom has no choice, we’re poor. Without that money, we’d starve. Just help Mom out…”
Sometimes, she’d look at my clear, intelligent eyes, so unlike a dummy’s, and suddenly panic, shaking my shoulders hard.
“Did you remember? You’re a dummy! You were born a dummy! You’ll be a dummy your whole life!”
She sounded like she was trying to convince me, but more so, like she was trying to convince herself, trying to drown out the doubt and unease in her heart.
On my eighteenth birthday, the disability benefits rose to 0-0,200.
At the same time, the Community Director Ms. Jenkins brought news. The policy had changed, and adult individuals with disabilities might require reassessment.
Mom completely panicked.
That 0-0,200 was no longer just welfare; it was her mental anchor for eighteen years, her shield against all her misfortunes.
She looked at me, her expression unreadable.
At eighteen, even in my tattered clothes, my face deliberately smudged, I couldn’t hide the delicate features and overly serene gaze that didn’t belong to a dummy.
“Daisy,” she called me for the first time in such a soft tone, with a trembling voice that was almost a plea,
“One last time, help Mom one more time. Just get through this assessment, and Mom will never force you again.”
She dressed me in the most ragged, dirtiest clothes, smeared some old chicken feed in my hair, and repeatedly coached me.
“If they ask your name, just drool and grin stupidly. If they ask what one plus one equals, just say it equals apple…”
On the day of the assessment, it wasn’t just Ms. Jenkins, but also professional-looking doctors in white coats.
My heart pounded, my palms were slick with sweat.
I knew this might be my only chance to escape the identity of a dummy.
Mom stood behind the doctor, her hands tightly twisting the hem of her shirt, her eyes filled with a humble plea and an undeniable threat.
The doctor took out a picture book, pointing at a cat and asking, “What’s this?”
I looked at the lazy cat in the picture, then at Mom.
Mom’s lips were trembling slightly, her face pale.
I opened my mouth, and every single day of the past eighteen years flashed through my mind.
The rocks hitting my head, the burned newspapers, the smelly clothes, the occasional eggs she gave me, her back as she secretly cried at night, and that 0-0200.
These images intertwined into a giant net, binding me tightly.
I took a deep breath, as if summoning all my strength, and facing the picture, I spread my lips into a horribly twisted grin.
Then I made a sound that shocked everyone present…
“Woof! Woof woof!”
I barked like a puppy, stuck out my tongue like a puppy, and finally pointed at the cat in the picture, looking at the doctor with a face full of innocence.
The doctor froze, his pen hovering over the assessment form.
Ms. Jenkins turned her face away, unable to watch.
My mom, however, let out a heavy sigh of relief, almost collapsing, bracing herself against the wall.
The assessment passed without a hitch.
The certificate was saved, and so was the money.
That night, Mom cooked a table full of dishes, fish and meat, more lavish than ever before.
She placed the largest piece of braised pork on my plate, but she didn’t eat any herself.
She just watched me, her eyes holding a strange, empty sense of relief, as if she had won something, yet lost so much more.
“Eat, Daisy,” she said. “Everything will be fine now.”
I ate the meat, but it tasted like ash.
Because I knew, it was far from over.
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