The Stories

In so many ways, 2022 feels like the year of “almost, but not yet.” We are, we are told, in a new phase of the pandemic, even as new threats emerge. So many of us who took part in the Great Resignation are caught between new possibilities and the same old challenges. These stories, too, reflect a kind of straining towards something hopeful but uncertain: a woman whose discoveries lead her to trying on new lives after a breakup, a man pulled between two loves, a medic whose own wounds impede his ability to bind a broken society. Wherever this year of in-between finds you, may these stories provide a vision of what lies ahead and inspiration for the journey.

—Jonathan Freeman-Coppadge
Fiction Editor

Reading this year’s stories, one is struck by the ways each author presents stasis, loss and change. As you read them, you will notice how each story considers these perennial, broad themes, while making sure to step outside their shadow. Some characters face their mortality, repress their fears, and even endure violent intrusions upon their lives. Yet some grow, whether that means learning to forgive yourself or the overcoming of an obstacle once thought impossible. Finally, I hope you appreciate each story as much as I appreciated the chance to help publish them.

— Nicholas Dharmadi
Fiction Editorial Intern

When I read fiction, I search for the truth in it. I search for stories that settle in and stay with me, move me. This year, the selected Emerging Voices pieces organically came together to explore loss and shame. Shame is an emotion often felt but not often expressed, these stories give voice to it. When we see reflections of ourselves in fiction — we feel connection. Stories unite us. It is a privilege to read emerging writers’ work, to be part of their writing journey, and I hope as a reader you feel inspired by their words, too.  

— Stephanie Fluckey
Guest Editor, Emerging Voices in Fiction 

Suture

Scott Pomfret

The medic wanted to ask the yodeling protester whether protests were always like this, but he didn’t want to betray he was a rookie or be perceived as casting negative judgment on the chaos. His roommate had advised him not to ask too many questions. Instead, the medic offered her one of the few bottles of water he’d rescued from the cops who’d gutted his supply with their bowie knives.

Unreasonable

Jordan Hagedon

It happened suddenly one week that their apartment became flanked on either side by new neighbors. Until then, Marina had not realized that the two apartments were available. Only last week, the Bellaires had smiled at her as they took out the garbage. Only a week before that, Mr. Aswad, who lived in the other apartment, had shown them cigars in a curiously carved wooden box on the elevator.

This Is Not a Confession

GEORGE Bandy

Anyway back at the orange plant, a few of the boys and me would listen in the break room to Mr. Conroy’s radio show. We’d catch snippets of his nightly Art-Bellian weirdness: alien aliens, alternate universes, free energy devices built in somebody’s garage gone rogue ... Once he even interviewed the messiah. Well, a couple of times— different ones.

Mama in the Clouds

Beth Meko

Mama says watching me grow up is ripping her heart right out. Says I’m shooting up like a weed, nearly thirteen years old, while she sits there locked up. She twists a fist into her chest, into the stiff material of her navy-blue prison-issue uniform. Then squeezes her eyes shut and pleads, “Just give me my little girl back.”

THE PAPER FILES

JEFFREY GRIMYSER

Rich came in for the all-staff meeting first, as always. He sat on one side of the conference table. He lurched over a chair, wrapping his long fingers around the headrest and glaring down with beady eyes, like a perched vulture.

REDHEAD 

WOLFGANG WRIGHT

Finally, Darcy looked at him, in much the same way a disgusted child looks at a freshly crushed squirrel in the street. It was a look he’d already seen on the faces of numerous girls at school, including her own, the few times that she had acknowledged his existence, and yet to see it from her now stung a whole lot deeper, perhaps because none of her peers were here, expecting her to regard him with such disdain; this was a look that she had chosen all on her own.

THE WOMAN WITH THE DOG

BRIAN SUTTON

It was the last time she could recall them laughing together. Moments later, the conversation had turned brittle when she pointed out that she had gone along with getting a dog to please him and the kids, and they had never taken care of him. “Yeah, and you never let us forget it, Helen,” he had snapped.

Duck Feeder

Philip Brunetti

That one likes to feed the ducks. She creeps down the wooden back stairway of her house and crouches near the edge of the dock. She carries a cellophane bag of old bread bits. She opens the bag and tosses bread into the channel. The ducks come swimming up with bobbing heads and excited quacking — semi-excited quacking. They skim the surface and dip their bills for sinking scraps and morsels, eagerly gobbling it all up.

What More Could They Want?

Amy Savage

The laboratory was immaculate and orderly, lit by fluorescent bulbs and computer screens. Humane but not human. A plate glass window separated the primatologists from their subjects. When the bonobos were not grooming each other, the so-called Love-Not-War apes ate ginger leaves, solved problems with genital rubbing, and studied fashion photographs of women. Brunettes and blondes.

THE QUILT

 MADELINE FOWLER

My mother said that my grandmother bled over this quilt in every way a woman can. Her fingers met pins over it, she discovered her first drop into womanhood under it, her daughter bled her way out of her body beside it, and she died wrapped within it, her mouth dripping blood on its seams.

Good Things

Katie Lynn Johnston

She’d been a child… But when the men came for her, it was not as a girl, but as a woman and, standing before her now, with their heads like paperweights and their eyes hidden behind the shade of their spectacles, not glittering like gold but rather that rotten sheen hidden in the cavities of her brother’s teeth, Eve thought there was nothing more horrible and couldn’t stop crying.

WHEN MADDIE TELLS ME SHE’S PREGNANT

SAGE TYRTLE

I eat her. I take the fork out of my mac and cheese and spear her arm and pop her into my mouth. I have to drink some of my Pepsi to wash her down but I manage it. I mean. Jesus. I can't be a, a, teen dad or whatever. Maddie’s not even my girlfriend and I have an Algebra test on Monday. And me and Helen are going to the Prom tonight.

 In the Line

Nur Turkmani

I somehow managed to avoid Beirut’s fuel lines for a couple of weeks. Took my bike around the city instead, watched the cars queue outside gas stations with an air of ascendancy, pity even. But this afternoon I am resigned to our collective fate, my calendar a distasteful reminder of tomorrow’s meeting all the way in Kaslik. The nearest gas station from my office is on Hamra’s outskirts. On the way there I listen to Hadi ramble about the new trick he discovered to keep our washing machine on even though our generator only allows seven amperes. Alright, Amar, he concludes after two minutes and twenty-seven seconds. See you home soon?

The heat outside my car is oppressive, like being forced to drink soup under the sun, but I cannot risk turning the air conditioning on with the little fuel I have. Ahead of me two taxi drivers obnoxiously honk at each other and I roll the window down to catch one of them shout something incoherent about the fuel crisis. Fuel, the banter of our summer: How much is the price of gas today? Have the subsidies been officially lifted? Can you access black market fuel? We tilt our eyebrows upwards, shake our heads in disgust whenever we catch each other’s eyes, bodies in perpetual shrug. Collapse creates new social mannerisms, Jad suggested last week. His breath smelled of cold beer and caramel toffee, and I nodded, intimately, as though we’d arrived at the thought together.

I slow down where the traffic swells, my fingers drumming on the steering wheel. The line for Sanayeh’s station drags on like a decade; this one will take me over three hours. I drive along in hopes of finding a shorter one in Achrafieh, somewhere closer to home. Past the Ring Bridge and the glass buildings glittering under the sun, downhill to the left. I settle at the MedCo close to Gemmayze, promise myself an iced coffee from a cafe in Gouraud’s Street after I conquer the line.

And then the bee lands on my windshield.

With its crooked wing, the dorky look to its eyes. God, that same bee. The one that tried to reach me, almost a year ago, in the Chouf’s Barouk mountain.

It was in the middle of September, I remember well — over a month after the port blast, around the time Hadi and I had first moved in together. We’d hiked for hours through the pine trees, the yellow spring-like flowers clustered around them. I allowed myself to think of mama a lot that day. Where she was, if she could feel any of this from above. It might have been because of the month itself, which was her favorite, or the mountain’s stillness after a sleepless month of glass shards and apartment hunting and doomscrolling.

Hadi had wanted to sit by the shade of an oak tree, so we found one and stretched underneath. There was a delicate breeze, the sort that wants to put you to sleep, and he said something about doing this more often, leaving Beirut and the language that surrounds it, the heat and dread and politics. I was only half listening though, busy trailing a bee as it sniffed over a bunch of wildflowers close to us. Something about the way it moved — clumsily, self-assuredly — was intoxicating. It felt familiar in a way that nothing seemed to anymore.

As though it could trace my eyes from behind, the bee flew toward me before docking on my chest.

“Not now,” I mouthed so Hadi would not notice, and it fluttered away almost immediately. I watched until its wings looked like a particle of dust in sunlight.

The car behind me honks but I ignore the driver and inch closer to the windshield to take the bee in. Its delicate copper stripes, the papery wings and sticky-looking antennas. I had known, with a certainty in my bones — a certainty that did not belong to me — that the bee would come back.

Twelve years ago, when I was fourteen, I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and found my mother uncharacteristically smoking on the balcony. She was in her pink wool pajamas, the one with dancing bunnies. I loved those pajamas, how soft they felt on my hands, the way they made her look embarrassingly childish.

“Mama?”

“Nothing, nothing. A bad dream. Go back to sleep.”

The next morning, before heading off to school, I heard her on the phone with her sister Noura, relaying the details of the dream. (It would torment me years later, after trying shrooms for the first time, that she had shared the dream with my aunt and not me). A swarm of bees was trapped inside her throat and she tried to cough them out but she could not move her jaw or feel her tongue. A month later, she was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, and a couple of years after, around the time I was graduating from high school, she died.

The car honks again. I open the window before driving forward and the bee flies in dutifully, lands on my shoulder. It nods and I laugh with relief. Thank you, God, I think. Thank you.

“What song shall we put on?” I ask the bee almost immediately. It moves from my shoulder and I watch it stop on the steering wheel before it hovers over the center console’s different buttons. I cannot stop smiling. The bee doesn’t respond, settles on the edge of the glove compartment as though familiar with the internal decor of cars. Without realizing I’ve been pressing the car accelerator, I am suddenly in the MedCo gas queue behind the other drivers.

I navigate a list of my mother’s favorite musicians in my head. Iggy Pop, David Bowie. The Cranberries, Joni Mitchell. Towards the end of her life, she listened to a lot of Asmahan. See, she’d tell baba in her hoarse voice, eyes twinkling as she mimed her songs from their bed or the living room’s armchair, you’ve finally converted me. They always argued about music, my parents. Baba only listened to tarab — Farid el Atrash and Mohamad Abdel Wahab and Warda — and he ridiculed mama’s westernized taste to no end. Growing up I’d watch them squabble about whose turn it was with the car radio and the living room stereo.

I type Bowie’s name into Spotify and settle on a remaster of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.

“There you go,” I tell the bee. “This one’s for you.” The giggle that comes out its mouth surprises me. Slightly girlish, unfamiliar, nothing like mama’s deep chortle. We sit in silence. I prefer not to look at the bee too much, as if memorizing its details will make it disappear, so I stare outside the window and identify a beautiful lyric from one of Bowie’s songs — Look out over the town / Think about / All of the strange things / Circulating round — and it murmurs “that’s nice” or “ah, a powerful line!” Its voice is soft and squeaky and there is a slight fuzz to its consonants.

I cannot tell whether the bee even knows Bowie and I don’t ask, but it seems — from the bob of its head, the verve in its eyes — that it enjoys the album. Though I hated Bowie in my childhood, finding his voice lazy and his music difficult to connect with, I took it as a duty over the years to learn the intricacies of his personas and performances, until he eventually grew on me.

A lot of time must have passed because the playlist has already replayed twice when I reach my turn. I signal to the pump attendant that I want only 30,000 liras worth of gas. He gestures back that they can completely fill it up, but I shake my head. I am being stupid. Very few stations are filling tanks, but I have a feeling the bee is routinic, that it will only show up when I wait in the line.

Before I drive off, I open the window to my right and the bee flies out, fluttering slightly close to my window. I picture mama in the doorway of my childhood bedroom, tall and gawky in her tennis shoes, asking me to get out of bed.

“Thank you,” I whisper and it nods, almost professionally, before disappearing.

The traffic in Gouraud is not terrible but I park my car at the street’s entrance to walk all the way home. The sun has gone down, the air is cool, and my body burns like a fever. I count at least six familiar shops — boarded up, with signs for sale, or simply left alone. Last week Hadi told me that his aunt’s salon in Bourj Hammoud grew legs overnight, fucked off somewhere unknown. His aunt was still trying to find her shop. I laughed at the story. His aunt has cropped orange-ish hair and stout legs and speaks in a pompous nasal voice, but now I think of what it means to live in a city where a shop leaves its owner in the middle of the night. It annoys me, it really does. What does my mother know of what our city has seen since she left it?

My phone vibrates. A call from Hadi.

He’d love to hear about my interaction with the bee, would ask me to recount word by word the little we discussed, how it laughed, its mannerisms and etiquette. I can see it, how his green eyes would widen if I told him my theory about it being a reincarnation of mama. How many times over the past six years we’ve known each other, even before we started dating or living together, had Hadi wanted me to talk about my mother? During my birthdays, on graduation, after long nights out. You repress too much, Amar, he would say. I’m here if you need to talk about your loss, and I’d feel a terrifying urge to slam a door in his face.

Last week we had come back early from a house gathering, a forced night of exhausting talk about how exhausting Beirut had become and how exhausted our parents’ parents were and how exhaustible our energies always felt. Jad wasn’t there and it annoyed me how often I scanned the room for his oval head or gray sandals only to feel the disappointment ooze like egg yolk.

Hadi and I took our masks and bags off at the doorway, rushed to our apartment’s two bathrooms. I watched him double-lock the doors when we got out, a new habit over the past couple of months after two of our friends had gotten mugged. In the dim light of our doorway, his green eyes looked so gentle, and I felt a sudden, not unfamiliar, surge of appreciation for this man, our curated homeliness during a year of collapse. 

“Hashish?”

“But you’re rolling.”

Later on, after we’d shared a joint, he pecked my nose and I relented, kissing him back.

“Amar,” he whispered. He gripped my rib cage and sloped forward on our uncomfortably cushioned palette. His knees pressed on my thighs like shiny doorknobs. The hash made my mouth so dry the kiss was like eating ghazel-el-banet — itchy, strained.

“You’re not feeling it,” he said ten minutes in. His tone was scratchy, a mixture of anger and understanding. I slipped backwards, shoulders grazing the wooden edge like rubber.

“It’s the hash,” I said.

“Since when was hash a problem?”

“It’s just,” I tried to swallow, “it’s been tough.”

“What has?”

“Living. Living here,” I mumbled pathetically.

“In this house, you mean, with me?”

“No, I mean this sense of constantly waiting.”

“Waiting for?” His voice grew restless and I shrugged, felt my face take on a coldness. He continued, “I know your mother’s death anniversary was this week, Amar.”

When I didn’t say anything, he slid his legs under the coffee table and took the bag of weed out of the Etel Adnan book, Of Cities & Women (Letters to Fawaz), where we hid it from the cleaner, to roll another joint. All the while glancing at me, cautiously, he placed the weed in the grinder and opened the blue metallic case to take out one of the papers. Folded the edges of the roach into an M-shape. With his left hand, he drizzled the weed and tobacco into a little boat, pinching the paper with his thumb and left index until he reached the sticky part of the cigarette. The silence stood between us like a culprit. How many times had I watched Hadi do this? Lick the edge of the joint with his tongue, tap the roach on the table like a button.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

After he went to bed I opened the window of our balcony to gaze out. The city was so dark, a landscape of endless darkness, and I envied it, envied anything that could just be.

“Ah,” I welcome the bee with a wink. 

It enters the car and closes its wings, looks out the window while I shuffle through a new Bowie playlist. I mention I recently watched the 1996 film Basquiat, with Bowie acting as Andy Warhol. I notice the bee’s smile through the rearview mirror, detached and kind.

“He wore an original Andy Warhol wig,” I carry on. “Not necessarily the best acting, actually quite terrible — he was more Bowie than Warhol, but it was still a fun watch. You would’ve enjoyed it a lot.” The bee looks out the window and I bite the skin underneath my index nail.

“How old are you now?” I ask as Bowie purrs, Can't take my eyes from the great salvation of bullshit faith. That same giggle — slightly annoying, refreshingly alive.

“It depends. A hundred million years old if you trace my lineage from wasps. Or a couple of years, if you take things as they are.”

“You’re a queen bee, aren’t you?”

“I am, yes.”

“Head of the colony, mother of all in the beehive!”

“Mhm.”

“You live the longest, right? Ah, I have so many questions.” I feel like a child, cannot recognize the voice skipping outside of me. “Like, what does royal jelly taste like? How many eggs do you lay per day?”

“What do these questions matter?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, taken aback. “I just wanted to know more about you.”

The bee is unperturbed. It jumps up and down in the car’s cup-holder, its feet stained with leftover coffee from yesterday. After some time, it flies closer to me, hovering above my nose and says, lightly, “I understand.”

There is a chilling weight to the words. They settle like common sense, the word understand becoming an ecosystem I am a part of. The bee understands. Outside I can vaguely make sense of the cars moving. A motorcyclist swerves between the cars and hands out bottles of water. Volunteers have been doing that across the country, some restaurants even delivering food to drivers and passengers stuck in line. An inadequate attempt at normalizing our daily humility. How I crave a lesson, something to uproot me. I open the window to accept a bottle, my smile forced but intentional. I take a gulp and think of Jad’s teeth — a sloping row, oddly charming in the way big noses are. The water is lukewarm. Last week, I ran into him at a cafe near his house. He was reading a biography on Carl Jung but had put it away swiftly when he saw me. Our conversation was brief. I made fun of him for reading biographies. Do people still do that? I asked. Then we laughed at the absurdity of something the prime minister-designate had recently said, and discussed a friend’s desperate decision to move to Saudi Arabia for a consultancy position. He didn’t ask about Hadi. Right before I left, something in his eyes beckoned. An awareness: I can tell you find me attractive. I let him have that moment. On the way back home to Hadi, I tried to swallow my guilt.

“I’m sorry,” I say to the bee.

“For what?”

The water dribbles down my chin and onto the car seat. I wipe it off with the back of my hands and turn toward the bee then realize I do not know what I am apologizing for.

“Don’t be,” it says. “I am happy to be here, Amar.” This is the first time the bee says my name.

“Mama,” I said. “My name sucks. Couldn’t you have chosen a different one?” My parents had recently moved me to an international school in Ras Beirut and the coolest girls in class all seemed to have short stylish names: Kris, Carine, Michelle. My closest friend in class, Fatima, and I had agreed during break-time that once we could, we’d transform our names. Mine to Emma, and hers to Tima.

I was sitting on the bar stool in the kitchen, picking at the loubye b’zeit Khalto Noura had left over. Even before the sickness, Mama hated to cook. Her sisters had looked down on her for feeding baba and me jambon sandwiches for lunch. They often passed by in the afternoons with Tupperware filled with kousa, mjadra, djej w batata. But I loved her sandwiches, how she layered the jambon with mustard and paprika and pickles.

Her back was turned to me, but I could see her reflection in the mirror. She was washing the dishes and her pale hands moved wearily. I worried that her thin fingers were going to fall off, that they’d be washed down the sink with the foam. At this point, the sickness had started to show. She stayed in bed into the afternoon on her bad days, and every time I came home from school, she would call me in and ask me to recount what we’d learnt in class. But that day, she had been feeling better and sat with me in the kitchen while I did my homework.

“Don’t think I named you Amar only after your grandmother,” she responded, looking at me through the mirror. “I named you Amar because the moon is the biggest teacher. It dances around the earth throughout the month, it plays with the sun’s light. And from below, we, I mean me and you, we observe it in phases: when it is new, when it is a crescent, when it is full. The same way all of this is changing.” For some reason, then, she pointed to the plates on the drying rack. “And you, what are you even talking about? We could have named you after your father’s mother instead. And I can’t be as creative with Samira.”

We both laughed. That was my mama. Funny and poetic, edgy and goofy. Never did I believe, in those hours, even when all her hair had fallen out, even when I watched her throwing up in the bathroom, even after her voice had become inaudible, that she could die. She was meant to live forever, to point out the sight of the moon in the sky. When it was sliced like a frown, full as a face.

“Amar is a soft name,” she continued. “Like you.”

I rolled my eyes and took another bite of the green beans. But something about what she’d said sunk in the way the bee’s “I understand” did. As though I knew this moment, here in the kitchen, would always come back to me, like my memory would have it imprinted for as long as I needed it to.

In the weeks that pass — June making way for July — Beirut descends into semi-darkness. The government only provides a couple of hours of electricity per day, the generators are running out of fuel, the prices triple. I try to see the bee as much as possible. When I am with it, time suspends and our back-and-forth becomes a little secret I hold on to like a pocket watch. We try out the city’s different stations for fun. We explore the ones with the longest lines and angriest owners, where it is most likely for fistfights to erupt, those with a view of the sea or mountains. We watch cars and motorcycles and people whizz by, laugh hysterically at a pair of boys frantically pushing what we’d imagined was a stolen car to the station right before it ran out of fuel. The less the bee talks, the more breathless I become. The bee’s assured silence sits right next to Hadi’s relentlessness, his constant need to search through my pockets.

On Monday, I wake up to find him sitting on the white tiles of our bedroom. “Is it someone else?” he asks for the third time in twenty-four hours. My laughter bounces in the dark of our bedroom before it plops. I know Hadi is probably picturing something with Jad, but I think of how the bee sat on my right collarbone dutifully last week, how we waited for hours like school friends on the bus. It annoys me, it really does, Hadi’s stubborn refusal to leave things unaddressed. Our relationship since we moved in together feels robbed of mystery.

“It’s not funny, Amar.”

His expression is painful. It makes me think of that evening in fall, four years ago now. After our graduate sociology seminar, while the other students were piling up to leave the classroom. He stood right by my desk, in his white Obama sweater, waiting for me to close the laptop bag and straighten my papers. I took more time than usual. And then he spoke for thirty minutes, until the campus had turned pitch black, about when he’d started to have feelings for me; the different ways I’d led him on over the years; and how, if I felt the same, we could try this out slowly, step by step. I stopped showing up to the seminar, avoided him like a pothole. His openness terrified me, made me want to crawl into bed, become the duvet. A man so fluent in emotions put me off, made me feel small and masculine. A year later I wrote him a long email about Ibn Kindi and my experience with shrooms and asked for forgiveness in a P.S. underneath my name. We met for coffee in Hamra and kissed for hours afterwards in the garage where he’d parked. I wonder where that woman is, the one who held him furiously.

I walk over Hadi’s legs to boil water in the kitchen. I look at the bubbles in the water, want to dip my finger into the burn. I miss waking up to electricity, the privilege of a kettle. It is unrealistic — tremendously unjust — to walk away from my best friend in the middle of all this. And where will I go. Who can find a studio in this real estate market. Who will be waiting for me at the top of the stairs during electricity cuts with an ice bucket as a joke.

Later in the afternoon, while in the line with a nearly full tank, I spill these thoughts out to the bee. I tell it that I feel trapped in one scene with Hadi, that the audience has long left. I discuss how every time I’ve thought of leaving, my throat constricts.

“Surely the fear is some sort of indication of why I should stay, no?” I ask. When it doesn’t respond, I snap, “Aren’t you supposed to give me words of wisdom?”

“Why would I?” it asks, genuinely curious. I sigh angrily and the mood sours; I taste it in my tongue like underripe fruit. We drive toward the Tarik Jdideh Station and I pause Iggy Pop’s song “Candy.” It is out of place. Beirut isn’t a big city, there is no rain.

“Humans make me laugh,” the bee finally says after the pump attendant fills the car. I turn to look at its face. “What a deep fear you have of death.” Its hair is wispy and golden and I want to pull them out.

“What does this have to do with death?”

“It has everything to do with death. You and your friend are scared to die, and so you want to somehow hold onto this idea that you’ll make the relationship work against all odds. Instead of letting go of something that has become sick, you’ll stay.”

“Why didn’t you stay?” My heart is inflating, the car a box I am suddenly too big for.

“Stay where?”

I drum on the steering wheel to block her voice out, I look out the window, the cars around us are shoes I want to throw into the sea.

“In the bee colony, you mean?” it continues. “We become worthless when we can no longer mate. I wanted to explore new habitats.”

I know this fact, I do. That when there is a new queen in the colony, worker bees cluster around the older one until it overheats and dies. So I respond sharply, “That means you are scared of death too. You left your colony because you didn’t want to be killed.”

“Let it go.”

“Not if you don’t admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“That you’re scared of death too.”

It giggles as though we are in the middle of a silly conversation, and I shudder, roll the window down and mutter, “I think you should leave.”

Right before flying out, it looks at me and sighs, “You know, they warned me this would happen.”

Hadi moves out of our apartment in the middle of August. The first two nights I am alone, I tremble in bed. Feverish, always a step away from puking. I dream of oxygen machines and wonder how cancer patients in the country are faring without electricity. I dream that Jad comes over and we climb up to the rooftop so I can show him the moon. He laughs, sings obnoxiously the Melhem Barakat song about the two moons: one in the sky and another as a lover, and I tell him over and again: Jad, no, this isn’t it, you’re not getting the point.

After the tenth night, I wake up, shower, and get into my car. I haven’t gone out since he left. Before starting the car, I try to breathe slowly, calm the clatter in my chest. The smell of my shampoo, a mixture of olive oil and pears, drifts in the car. Focus on your senses, I think, the lessons of a corporate mindfulness webinar Hadi and I once attended as a joke returning to me. Count the number of dangling wires in your street. Notice the birds perched on them. Look at your neighbor’s tired faces. Listen to the sound of the generators, the anthem of this fucking city.

I start the engine and drive off. It is nearing the end of September and my car has very little fuel. Mama’s favorite month. One year since Barouk, since locking eyes with the bee. In an old journal of hers, mama wrote clumsily:

September always feels so forgiving to me. Is it simply because of the seasonal transition, or is there a particular childhood memory from September stuck in my unconscious mind? If there is one, I must’ve forgotten it. Ah, how I wish I could remember all the details to my life!

From Achrafieh to Jnah, I pass by at least twelve gas stations without stopping at any. MOBIL, MEDCO, TOTAL, HYPCO, CORAL, WARDIEH. They feel like friends, I almost want to wave at them in recognition. For some reason, stations are either closed or fuel lines are relatively short. I wonder if something happened during my hermit phase. Whether ships have offloaded fuel or it is just a good day to be a driver in Beirut. My tank blinks rapidly, a warning that I need to fill it as soon as possible, and I wonder if the bee is somewhere, waiting for me to get behind a queue. There is a TOTAL station with a considerable queue ahead of me, but I bypass it. I take a sudden left without much thinking, as though someone decided on my behalf that I should get back on the seaside road to head east. The roads are emptier than usual. I speed through them like a truth. 

I stop by the sea and park my car right outside the American University, where Hadi and I met years ago. I lean on one of the palm trees for a minute and imagine what would happen if I ran out of gas here in Manara. The thought thrills me. I imagine running into Hadi here. His piercing green eyes. The way he looks when angry, how his nose scrunches and fingers twitch. I imagine kissing Jad on the mouth: full and eager and hopeless.

The candy and corn sellers trudge through the corniche. In all my years walking the corniche, I never once bought cotton candy from the sellers. So I stop the cart and pay the old man for a stick, move towards one of the tiled benches to sit. My mouth welcomes the sweet. The cotton candy is the first thing I’ve eaten all day.

It all appears in front of me. The sky, the palm trees dash-dotting the street, the sticky feel of the candy in my fingers. Maybe corporate mindfulness is onto something. I watch the groups of men by the water, swimming and fishing and climbing the rocks. I look up at the sky again and it is slightly gray, buzzing with static. The sky must be full of bees fleeing like us. It crosses my mind that I never once asked the bee for its name.

The bee is not my mother. My mother died six years ago and I love her and I will never be able to ask her questions again and right now that is fine.

I want to laugh. I want it to rain.

When Maddie Tells Me She’s Pregnant

Sage Tyrtle

 I eat her. I take the fork out of my mac and cheese and spear her arm and pop her into my mouth. I have to drink some of my Pepsi to wash her down but I manage it. I mean. Jesus. I can't be a, a, teen dad or whatever. Maddie’s not even my girlfriend and I have an Algebra test on Monday. And me and Helen are going to the Prom tonight.

By the time I hear Mom coming down the hall I have my feet up on the coffee table and The Krofft Supershow is almost over. Mom picks up my bowl and fork. I chug the rest of my Pepsi and hand her the glass. "Did your friend head home?" she asks.

I burp the word, "Yuuup," and on TV Dr. Shrinker titters and rubs his hands together.

"Zach," she says, and tsks her way out of the room.

I'm not thinking about Maddie. Or I am a goldfish swimming in everything Maddie and even the kid drinking Dr. Pepper on TV looks like her. One or the other.

In the bathroom I take off my T-shirt and stand sideways in front of the mirror. You can't tell Maddie's in there at all, my stomach looks exactly the same. "Uh, hello?" I whisper.

Maddie is pissed. I know because when she realizes I can hear her she just starts screaming, and then I find out what a migraine feels like. It’s like my head’s a wasp’s nest on fire. I turn around and try to get to the toilet but I throw up all over the floor and my T-shirt instead. "Mooom," I croak, on all fours heaving again, and she bustles in with a bunch of paper towels. For a second I'm afraid I thew Maddie up but when I open my eyes it's just regular old puke.

"Oh Zach," she says, "Honey." She turns on the shower and says something, but my head hurts too bad to hear. Maddie won't stop screaming and no wonder Mom’s freaked out, she can’t hear it.

I try to stand up but I slip in my puke instead and now I'm lying on the tile floor and if one of those French Revolution guys Mrs. Barton is always talking about came by all, "Veux-tu que je te décapite​?" I would be like "Oui, OUI!" but then Maddie stops screaming and starts laughing. I guess me all curled up in a fetal ball while Mom is asking me questions I can't hear is funny. My head stops hurting all at once.

When I can hear Mom again she's saying, "— talk to me, Zach, are you okay, oh god, wait here, I'm going to call an ambulance —" the shower's still running and the bathroom smells like macaroni and cheese and Pepsi and if the ambulance comes they'll do an X-Ray and find Maddie and that can't happen.

"Mom. Mom. I'm okay." I manage to sit up. I pat her on the arm and she bursts into tears. "Geez, Mom. Seriously I'm fine. For real." She takes a big breath and I can tell she's gonna ask me about ten thousand questions and I'm like, "Mom. I think maybe the milk in the macaroni and cheese was too old. C'mon. Let me have a shower, okay? I feel fine now."

She finishes cleaning up the floor and grabs my gross T-shirt and leaves. I get in the shower and take off the rest of my clothes. "Please don't scream," I whisper. "Please. Can we just talk?"

There's a long silence and I sit down real fast, just in case there's more hell-brain coming. The hot water feels good on my back.

"I'm curious," Maddie says after forever, but she doesn't sound curious, she sounds like she's imagining how she's gonna to cut off my balls and make me eat them, too. "I'm curious," she says again, "About your plans."

I stand back up and squeeze Prell into my hand, then work it into my wet hair. When she says plans, all I can think of is I forgot to call the rental place to reserve a tux and Helen's gonna be pissed. "I'm sorry! I just... I didn't know what to do, you know? We can't, like, have a... you know..."

"Lucky for you, I'd rather tell the baby its dad is a fucking rattlesnake," Maddie says. "So let me go, and you can get back to your perfect life."

I rinse my hair, thinking. Because that's the thing. I mean, I just threw up and Maddie's still in there. Even if I was willing to be a, you know, teen father, I'm not some expert on how to get someone you ate out of you. I didn't even know I could eat anybody. We were in the den and Maddie was like, "Zach, I missed my period," and there was this commercial for Welcome Back, Kotter and I was like, "Do you think I look a little like Vinnie Barbarino? I think I look a little like Vinnie Barbarino," and Maddie was like, "Are you listening to me?" and I was all, "Sure, babe," and she straddled me and touched her forehead to mine and was like, "The rabbit died, Zach," and I didn't even think about it, I just ate her.

"ZACH," says Maddie, and I hurry up and finish my shower.

"Sorry! Sorry. I'm just thinking. Give me a second." I wrap a towel around my waist and go into my bedroom. I lie on my bed and look up at my Ferrari poster. I try to think of what to do but it's so nice lying there on my bed not thinking about Maddie or the, you know, I just sort of start drifting, and I'm pushing my foot on the accelerator to get my Ferrari up this steep hill when Maddie takes this big breath like she's gonna scream again and I jerk awake and say, "Wait! Wait wait wait! Wait."

"There are so many things I want to explain to you right now," says Maddie, like she's talking to a little kid, "mostly how I have learned that screwing a boy because he looks kind of like Vinnie Barbarino —"

"I knew it!" I say, and pump the air.

"—  is a terrible idea, but this is really simple. Try and understand. Let. Me. Go. And your problems are over."

I mean, my problems wouldn't be over, they'd just be different, also Helen would stuff me in her trunk and drive me out to the forest and bury me alive, but I'm scared to say that to Maddie. "I don't know how, though."

"What?" says Maddie, and her voice shakes a little. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

And it's like time slows down, kinda, and I'm thinking about when I met Maddie. Susie Orcutt was giving this Halloween party but she didn't invite me because I guess Dana and Tracy were saying I made "weird passes at them" which, okay, maybe a pass, not a weird one, but so what? I mean, Gary Wagner wrote an epic poem on the wall of the boy's room about having a threesome with Dana and Callie, which I know for a fact never happened because Gary's never even talked to a girl, and he got invited to the party. So I decided to go to the party anyway. I was gonna wear a Michael Myers mask but in the end I put it off so long that when I went to K-Mart all they had left in my size was this eagle costume.

Helen was at her Grandma's so I hitched a ride with some of the guys on the football team. When we got to Susie's, Gary was lying on his back on the lawn, dressed like Squiggy, hollering the words to Dancing Queen along with the blaring music coming from the house. Threesome my ass. I put on the eagle head and went inside. Dana and Tracy both came as Cher and were dancing in the living room so I went into the kitchen. This tall guy was trying to eat a piece of orange cake using a spatula as a fork. He was dressed like a soldier, with camouflage pants and a helmet. The guy turned around and I realized it was a girl. Her cheeks were all covered in icing and she laughed. "Hey eagle," she said, "Want some cake?"

Maddie wasn't exactly the first girl I, you know, dated, behind Helen's back. C'mon! Me and Helen were twelve when we started going together. I didn't even know what it meant when she told me we were going out. I was like, okay, sure, can I have the rest of your Hershey bar? By the time I understood we were boyfriend-girlfriend I didn't know how to get out of it. 

And, I mean, at first I didn't want to. Helen got boobs before any of the other girls for one thing, but also she just... has it together, you know? She's got her whole life planned out already. She's gonna have a big wedding and be a marriage counsellor and have five girls and two boys. She's even got the house she's gonna buy picked out, up in the foothills. 

She's so sure of everything, all the time and I just did whatever she said. It was easy. But then she got really sure about how I'm not allowed to to hang out with other girls. Or talk to other girls in class. Or look at other girls in the hallway. Or have a look on my face that seemed like maybe I was thinking about other girls. And then I’d spend three hours after school on the phone in the kitchen because Helen called me sobbing her head off.

Meanwhile I got pretty tall and some girl in my French class was like, "You should grow your hair long," and boom, the phone in the kitchen never stopped ringing. And it just seemed, you know, easier. To not tell Helen. 'Cause the one time I was like hey, it's been five years, maybe we could cool it on the going steady thing Helen was like, sure, we could do that, and then she brought me a heart-shaped cookie at lunch the next day and after I ate it I spent the whole afternoon in the nurse's office shitting and throwing up at the same time and the next day when she came over and told me I was loaning her my varsity jacket I was like yes. Yes, that is a great idea, and yes, since you asked, here is my class ring, and yes, let's go to Hilltop Steak House for Valentine's Day and now we're going to the Prom and all I actually wanted was a Hershey bar, you know?

"My belly looks like I swallowed a cantaloupe," Megan says.

I sit up. “What? You didn’t look like that before, did you?” I try to picture her body when she was sitting next to me on the couch and all I can think of is how there was a happy face on her big toe that Maddie said her little sister drew.

"Yeah. Time is — is — I don't know. Different here, I guess." Her breath hitches.

Oh fuck. Is she gonna get bigger and bigger until the baby gets born inside me? I have to go to the Prom tonight! I don't know what to say so I blurt out, "What's it like? In... where you are?"

After a long pause she says, "It looks just like your den. The couch with the flowers on it, the TV, the fireplace. Except if I pull back the curtains there's just wall behind them. And there's no door. But hey! On TV there's this great show, it's called What Zach Sees And Hears and it's on all the time! They don't even play the national anthem or anything, it just never ends!" Her voice is shaking a lot now.

The phone starts ringing in the kitchen and I talk fast and low. "Maddie, I didn't mean to. Honest. I didn't. You scared me so bad and I just — I'm seventeen! What would we do, get married? You think USC would let me on their football team? It would ruin my —"

There's a knock on my bedroom door and Mom says, "Helen's on the phone, sweetie."

"I'll be there in a sec," I say and my voice breaks. Mom walks away and I wait but Maddie doesn't say anything.

In the kitchen I pick up the receiver and say hi and Helen launches into this thing about the Prom Queen election, that she's been calling her friends all morning to remind them to vote for her and even though technically we're running separately of course people elect couples and I'm saying uh-huh a lot and Helen's telling me to call all the guys on the football team and tell them to vote for me and I'm pretending like that will ever happen and Helen's like did you make sure to reserve the sky blue tux, not the ocean blue but the sky blue so it matches my dress and I remember again that I forgot to call the tux store but I just say uh-huh and she says when is the limo coming, and I did remember to reserve the limo because, duh, it's a limo and I say at seven and she says see you then.

I hang up muttering, "Damn damn damn," and grab the yellow pages. 

Maddie's like, "Wow. So that's what True Love looks like. I guess I can stop being jealous of her."

Ignoring her I flip quick to the suit section and I'm dialing the number but Maddie's saying, "Sorry, are you going to the Prom?" and I have to start dialing all over again.

If I concentrate really hard I can tune out Maddie's pissed off questions and listen to the tux guy who is saying that they're out of sky blue and ocean blue and for that matter, raspberry and mint, and maybe my girl would like me in the peach because it would be like sunset clouds on her sky blue and I'm trying to pay attention and Maddie stops talking and says, "Oh!" really loud and without thinking I say, "Are you okay?" and the tux guy is like, son, listen, do you want the peach or not because the only other option is the yellow plaid and I have customers waiting and I'm like yes, yes, the peach and give him my name and promise I'll be by to pick it up.

I hang up and run back to my room. I look down at my stomach but it looks just the same. "Maddie? What happened?"

"I think... I think the baby kicked. I remember it from when Mom was pregnant with my little sister. It's like it's, I don't know, bumping me from the inside." Her voice is soft. 

I don't want to ask but I'm pretty sure I know the answer anyway. "Are you bigger? Than you were?"

"Yeah. It's like a basketball now." She's quiet for a little while. "I'm scared," she says.

Fuck. I feel like I just got tackled by the biggest quarterback at school. "I swear to God, Maddie, I'd let you out right now if I knew how. I swear."

"Well, if only you had time to try to figure it out instead of going to the Prom," she says through her teeth.

"You don't understand, if I don't go Helen will, like, set me on fire —"

"You think Helen's scary? Wait until I'm out and watch what I do," Maddie says. Then she stops talking to me. 

I think about trying to get her to climb out herself, if there’s no doors maybe break the wall in the den somehow? But I'm gonna be late to the tux place. Mom says I can take the station wagon and in the car I'm thinking, what the hell does Maddie expect me to do? Just be, like, totally smarter than God or whatever, and figure out how to fix a thing that should have been impossible in the first place? I turn the radio dial and the O'Jays are singing about how she used to be my girl so I turn it again but it's about an imaginary lover and then on the third try it's George Benson singing about Broadway and I don't even like George Benson but at least there aren't any girls in his song.

There's this part of me that doesn't actually want to figure out how to free Maddie. There's this part of me that's saying in this slimy whisper that if Maddie never gets out then there's no baby and if there's no baby then I could just go to USC and —

"You missed the turn for the tux store," says Maddie. Her voice goes thin and high, like Helen's. "Oh my god, the Prom King of Mount Olmstead High can't show up in a T-shirt and Levis! The student body is, like, depending on you. How will the girls know who to throw their underwear at?"

I make a u-turn on Kepler, thinking about this time Maddie and I went to Des Moines for the day. We were on the bus on the way home. Maddie had her head on my shoulder and I liked it. I liked the weight of her. And I was ignoring the part of me that was wondering why I didn't just break up with Helen. Because we never did stuff like this.

 Me and Maddie were touching our fingertips together, one-two-three-four, and I was explaining how after I hopefully got scouted from USC I'd play for the NFL and then come back home, maybe coach at the high school, and she sat up. She said, "God, that's so boring."

I laughed. "Yeah, totally boring, playing for the NFL and making, like, twenty thousand dollars a month."

Maddie said, "I mean it. Do you actually want to play football until you break your knee or whatever and then coach teenagers for the rest of your life?"

I didn't say anything. No one ever asked me that before.

"And why would you come back to Mount Olmstead to live? When I'm eighteen I'm gonna go see the world. Just hitch my way west. And never ever know what tomorrow will be like. Maybe I'll be a, a, nuclear physicist! Or a forest ranger! Or an extra on Happy Days! Once I get out of here I can do anything." I felt so bad I wanted her to stop talking so I tickled her and she tickled me back and we ended up playing I Spy for the rest of the bus ride.

I park at the tux store and get out. Maddie says, "You're like a fucking wind-up robot. Wind Zach up and watch him rent a tux! Watch Zach make a touchdown! Watch Zach win Prom King!"

"You're so funny I forgot to laugh," I whisper, and go into the tux store. 

Aaron Booth, the fullback, is standing by the counter paying for a plaid yellow tux. He sees me and holds it up. He says, "Should I wear this to Prom tonight, or fake my own death?"

"Just start driving," I say, "You can make Arkansas by tomorrow."

Aaron mutters, "I'm considering it," and heads out.

I pay for the pink tux and when I get home Mom says that Helen called to remind me to pick up the corsage and make sure it's got "blue elements" whatever that means and Jesus Christ. I go into my room and slam the door and sit on my bed. "Um... how are you?"

"The baby got hiccups," says Maddie. Her voice is flat.

"What? Babies can get hiccups? No way."

Maddie’s quiet for awhile and then says, "Yeah. I was lying on the couch watching The Endless Zach Show and my belly just started jumping a little every few seconds. My little sister used to have hiccups when Mom was pregnant with her."

"You sound so sad," I say, then wish so bad that I could take it back. Of course Maddie's sad, how the hell do I expect her to feel?

"Well, I'm in this windowless, doorless room, and I'm pretty sure I'm, like, eight months pregnant now, and what happens when the baby is born, Zach, what happens then? DO ME AND THE BABY LIVE HERE FOREVER, YOU FUCKING USELESS PRICK?"

My head feels like it's on fire again, like it did the last time she was screaming. I can't even ask her to stop because I can't talk. I'm rolling around and I fall off the bed. There are tears streaming down my face from the pain and when she stops yelling I just lie on the floor trying to catch my breath.

Maddie starts to cry in big whooping sobs and I don't know what to do. Maddie doesn't cry. She made me go to Kramer vs. Kramer and who was crying so hard they had to wait until the theatre was empty to leave? Yeah. Not her. She says, "You — you have it so easy. Me and my sister share the sofa bed and Mom sleeps on the floor, but your house has so many bedrooms one of them belongs to the TV set and you want — you want to, to, just strut through your life! Like there's no consequences!" She takes a shuddering breath that turns into a wail. "Except I'm a consequence, Zach, and what's going to happen to me?"

I throw up my hands. "You have all the answers? Great. You tell me how to fix this."

She shouts, "Check the yellow pages for a lumberjack! It worked for Little Red Riding Hood!"

If I'm going to make it to the corsage place before picking Helen up I have to start getting ready now. So... I do. I do start getting ready. Maddie says I'm a wind-up robot? Fine. I'll be a fucking wind-up robot. Watch Zach put on a pink tux. Watch Zach pose for photos at Helen's house. Watch Zach dance with Helen to Le Freak.

There are sparkly streamers everywhere in the gym. Chaperones are running around with rulers to make sure no one’s dancing too close and I'm swinging my hips and Helen's running her hands over her hair and Maddie's been quiet for so long, for so very long that I start to think that I made it all up. Maybe I did. Maybe Maddie really did leave during The Krofft Supershow. And I... I fell asleep. Maybe. And dreamed it, all of it. I pull Helen close to me for a quick second while Mr. Garrido is looking the other way and whisper in her ear that she looks —

That's when Maddie yells and it's so unexpected that I holler too, right in Helen's ear, and then I fall over. Le Freak keeps playing but everyone around us stops dancing. Helen's holding her ear and saying that it really hurts, and Mr. Garrido comes running over and asks if I'm okay. Everybody’s whispering to each other.

Now that Maddie's stopped yelling I can think. Mr. Garrido helps me stand up. "I gotta... go outside for a minute. It's too hot, that’s all." Aaron in his plaid yellow tux starts to walk with me but I wave him away. Dana and Tracy are huddled around Helen who’s pointing at her ear and I make it out of the gym alone and stumble down the hall, making sure I'm right up against the lockers because if Maddie yells again I don't know if I can stand up on my own. I push open the restroom door and stand over the sink, breathing in cigarette smoke and bleach. I look at myself in the mirror. My face is really pale. I'm scared to say anything but I make myself ask because that sounded like... that was not a good sound. "Are you... is the baby... uh, are you having the baby?"

Maddie yells again. And again. About every minute. I thought it was bad before, when I threw up, but now my head hurts so much the only thing I’m sure of is my own name. I'm gripping the edges of the sink to stand up and praying no one comes into the bathroom. And her yells are turning into howls. Into screams. She won't talk to me. Or — can't talk to me. Waves of agony move through my head like the ocean and I try to think of what I would be doing if this were happening in real life, I mean it is happening in real life but, you know, and that slimy whisper says I'd probably be playing football with my buddies and Maddie keeps screaming, and screaming, and her screams are so close together now that they’re almost one never-ending scream and I want so bad for her to stop but she won't and I try to say something nice so she knows she's not going through this by herself but I can't make my voice work and then she makes a sound so loud the pain pushes me over and I don’t understand how the football team made it in here to tackle me and my head hits the sink on my way down, it hurts, it hurts, and then I can't hear anything at all.

The old Mount Olmstead High School sits at the end of a dead-end road. Two metal poles hold a glossy sign that reads, “Mount Olmstead Townhouses, Coming Soon!” The parking lot that was once home to Dusters and Pintos is now full of young elms and oaks. The pavement rises above new roots. The cement stairs leading to the main door are crumbling. In the distance the new high school gleams, an edifice of stone and glass.

A Subaru station wagon pulls up. Two women get out. The taller one stretches her arms into the air and grins. “Welcome to Haunted High, Nikki.”

Nikki frowns at the boarded-up windows. “I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“But I am Prom Baby! And you must do as Prom Baby commands!”

“I hate when you call yourself Prom Baby.”

“Miracle Newborn! Beloved Teen Father Succumbs to Injuries! Mystery Mother! News at Six!” she laughs, and disappears around the back of the school.

“Athena, for crying out loud,” Nikki calls. But she follows.

Behind the school, Athena is squatting next to a piece of plywood with a ragged hole in it. “Here’s how we get in,” she points.

“Here’s how we die horribly,” says Nikki, then puts her hands over her mouth. “Oh hell. Sorry.”

Athena looks up. “You dork.”

“Isn’t this close enough, though? I mean, why go inside?”

“Because,” Athena starts pulling at the hole to make it bigger. “This is my last chance to see my, you know, birthplace.” Her voice goes spooky.

Nikki shivers.

Athena pulls away a piece of rotting plywood and the two women step through the hole. On the other side they find a hallway filled with lockers. Athena walks along the hall, running her fingers over the lockers. “One of these was his,” she says. “And one of them was my Mystery Mother’s.” She stops and fingers a combination padlock. “Can you imagine?” she twirls the lock left and right. “Just open it up and it’s hers? ‘Dear Diary, I’m soooo totally like preggers, and I’m going to the Prom just like a normal about-to-give-birth girl! And no one will ever know who I am! Even though I must be the size of a cruise ship!’”

“Oh, babe.” Nikki squeezes Athena’s shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s find the bathroom before the roof collapses.”

Athena nods, her forehead pressed against the locker. “Yeah. Okay.” As they walk Athena says, “I never told anybody this. But I met Helen once.”

“Your dad’s girlfriend?” Nikki’s eyes are wide.

“Yeah. I was with Gran in the Hy-Vee. I was about seven. I’d wandered off into the cereal aisle and this woman came swooping up to me. She looked like Alexis Carrington from Dynasty, all red lipstick and black eyeliner. She was like, ‘You’re Athena, aren’t you.’”

Nikki says, “Oh my god.”

“I know, right? And I was just so happy that she wasn’t calling me Prom Baby that I said hi back, and she goes, ‘I was your father’s true love, you know.’”

“She did not.”

“Swear to God. And I’m seven, right, I have no idea what to say, and Helen gets up close and whispers, ‘You want to know who your mother was?’ And I’m nodding my head like crazy, of course I want to know, and Helen says, ‘She was nobody.’”

Nikki says, “Jesus.”

“Yeah.” Athena stops by a door with BOYS painted on it. “Yeah. It was pretty bad.”

Nikki says, “Want me to come in with you?”

“Nah,” says Athena. “I’m okay.” She pushes the door open. The few remaining green tiles on the walls are dusty. Athena looks in the mirror. After a long time she says, “It’s me. Prom Baby.” She reaches out and touches the mirror, runs her fingertips along the line of her cheek in her reflection. She leans on the sink, touches her nose to the mirror. Closes her eyes. “Hi Dad,” she says. “You won, by the way. You would have been crowned Prom King if you weren’t in here busy being dead.” She clears her throat. “And Mom... I just wanted to say... I think about you. All the time.” Athena opens her eyes and watches the blur of her reflection. “All the time.”

 What More Could They Want?

Amy Savage

The laboratory was immaculate and orderly, lit by fluorescent bulbs and computer screens. Humane but not human. A plate glass window separated the primatologists from their subjects. When the bonobos were not grooming each other, the so-called Love-Not-War apes ate ginger leaves, solved problems with genital rubbing, and studied fashion photographs of women. Brunettes and blondes. Women in shiny leather boots, women in furs. The blondes in furs seemed to arouse them more than the rest. With touched-up spreads of beautiful women, Margot stimulated the apes.

Dr. Donna P—, Margot’s immediate boss, insisted on being called Doctor by everyone but her own boss, Dr. Herman Z—. She let him call her Donna. Among bonobos, females dominate. Margot found it funny and sad that Dr. P—, a woman who studied a matriarchal species, would allow this pattern of subservience to continue. To herself, Margot called her superiors “Doctor Donna and Her Man,” as if a little internal mockery could equalize the hierarchy. She would have mentioned the irony of it all, but she was just out of college, eager for discovery, and needed to keep her job. Underlings are shed easily.

On Margot’s first day, Dr. Z— informed her, “In a female-dominated society, females turn each other on.” His smirk rose into his right cheek. “Everyone wants the one in charge.” He neglected to mention that the males were also aroused, as if he and his ape counterparts were immune to seduction. Over lunch, Margot asked Doctor Donna about Dr. Z—. The older woman paused. “He’s harmless,” she said. Margot understood then that Dr. Donna would never confront the big boss to help a fellow female.

Meanwhile, Margot was still attracted to men, despite the poor specimens she’d encountered and barely dated. Though her small eyes and bushy brows meant she looked nothing like the models she showed at the laboratory, Margot still hoped to find love. It wouldn’t be easy, working long hours with primates.

On her lunch break at the lab, she decided to set up an online dating profile. Just as an experiment. If she could prove some level of her attractiveness with securing a date, phase one of her experiment would be a success.

As an adolescent, Margot had tried to prove, with the use of the family dog, that she could be desirable. Her hypothesis had been that, if she displayed her affections on animals, the opposite sex would see how loving she could be; it might arouse their interest. Margot would man the roadside peach stand at her family’s small orchard. When the boys who lived in her town stopped by for fruit, she’d select the best baskets for them, but also keep her bloodhound by her side. Instead of making small talk, she would slap the hound’s behind, fondle his long tawny ears, and kiss his muzzle, hoping the boys would imagine themselves in his place. They told her she had a handsome dog.

Now, she typed into the profile field:

Animal lover and aspiring researcher. Shows monkeys sexy photos for a living. Don’t bother applying if you fear dominant females. Favorite drink? Scotch, neat.

She’d have to explain on the first date that bonobos were apes, not monkeys. But monkeys sounded better for a first impression — less intimidating, maybe even cute. She also didn’t really consider herself dominant, nor did she want a man who wanted a dominatrix, but the opposite was definitely not an option. She chose a photo of herself in enormous sunglasses to hide her eyes and brows and hoped her pithy ad would draw in a few males.

Regardless of Dr. Z—’s crass comments, Margot had mixed feelings about showing this hairy clan their equivalent of monkey porn, in part because there were three babies in captivity, this paltry excuse for jungle. Spread to form leaves and sky, acrylic paint colored the apes’ enclosure. Three long broken logs, triangulated for aerial stimulation, gave the space its geometry.

The baby bonobos sucked their crinkly black leather thumbs and rolled in the straw. They played airplane on their supine parents’ upstretched limbs. Touching their mothers’ mouths with their hands, they signaled their hunger. The babies’ inquisitive brown eyes and tucked-in pink lips gave them the look of pondering something serious. Margot knew the babies would have witnessed adult arousal in the wild, but it would not have been prompted by her. Her discomfort arose, too, from the apes’ clear preference for blondes — Margot herself was as blonde as when she was a child, though she took no pride in it. Just because you’re blonde, she told herself, doesn’t make you pretty.

When Margot was born, she was as ugly as all ape babies, squished and wet, rashy and swollen. Margot’s mother had stretched sequined elastic headbands around Margot’s infant skull, snapped her up in puff-sleeved dresses; but by three, Margot’s bushy eyebrows and small eyes had not improved. Despite Margot’s easy nature, advanced mental development, and delight in outdoor play, her mother was still disappointed.

On a Monday morning at the lab, Margot selected a photograph of a blonde woman in a purple fur with a gold collar. She was surprised to notice the woman in the photograph looked just like her mother, who had modeled lingerie for catalogs for few years before Margot was born. There was the same pouting upper lip with sharp peaks and large, deep-set eyes. The same wasting thinness. Margot assumed this model’s beauty also was enhanced by a self-imposed sickness, denying her own hunger to please the lens.

Margot’s mother had greeted her every morning with her “face on,” thick foundation and penciled brows. Most days, her mother would smoke a cigarette and drink black coffee with a splash of scotch while she watched Margot eat breakfast. On Sundays, she would join her husband and daughter for the morning meal, gorging herself on white toast and thick-cut bacon. Most Sundays, she would disappear into the bathroom after breakfast. Margot wondered why it took so long for her to brush her teeth.

Margot wanted to hug her mother, to climb into bed with her, but her mother’s body frightened her. The thin fuzz on her skin like an aura was beautiful to Margot, but her mother’s forearms shrunk to the circumference of her daughter’s grip. Her cheeks receded, and when she leaned down, Margot could see, through her mother’s thin knit pants, a tailbone. Margot’s father tried to offer his wife nourishment, a clear soup he had prepared. “Just give me some color,” she’d said weakly. She then flung her hand clumsily toward the nightstand, reaching for her beside blush, the small compact clattering to the floor. A week later, her starved heart finally failed.

Margot studied the photograph of the model so like her mother. Slightly parted lips. Long yellow hair in waves that blended into the lapels of the golden collar. Skin airbrushed smooth of pores, her thin shoulders a glorified coat hanger under the purple sleeves. Her eyelids were laden with charcoal shadow. Her expression of torpor implied intoxication with the pleasure of fur hanging from her frame. Margot looked at the image a bit too long.

 “You like looking at them too?” said Dr. Z—. He gave Dr. Donna a look as if to confirm that a woman’s gaze could only contain one form of desire.

“Hurry up and show it,” Dr. Donna said to Margot, clearly embarrassed by the whole situation.

Margot held the image of her mother’s proxy up to the glass. One of the males was interested and became aroused. His pointy pink penis swelled and stood erect. He paced, excited, from the leafy mural to the staged tree trunks and back again. From a plastic basin of fruits, he grabbed an apple and offered it, and himself, to one of the females.

At home in her battered studio apartment, Margot poured herself two fingers of scotch in an old jelly jar. She checked her dating app. No responses. Margot set down her scotch on the bathroom vanity and opened the window. The scrawny tree on the curb readied itself to bloom. She checked her profile again and is pleased to find someone has “smiled” at her. A perfectly round and generic yellow smile from Carl247. She looked at the man’s profile picture. A pleasantly plain, slightly overweight, dark-haired realtor. His eyes were a bit too eager and his lips a bit dehydrated. Satisfied to have achieved phase one, she sent back a generic yellow wink.

Margot drew a bath. The cool white tiles and chrome faucet clean and civilized. She imagined she was a child again and her hands were someone else’s to bathe her. Margot envied the apes their group grooming, eager eating, freedom from necessary achievements.

By the sink, Margot’s phone beeped with an alert, a brief message from Carl247. “Monkeys? Interesting! I’d call myself a puppy in a man suit.” Puppy. Not dog. Margot wondered at his choice of words. Was it a hint at subservience, immaturity, adorability, or worse, incontinence? She typed, “Apes, not monkeys,” then deleted it. Not much to go on verbally, but he was employed with smooth cheeks and a tie. Too rigid? Or just the best picture he had? Certainly not the type she had expected to respond to her ad. The photo didn’t look altered, and the extra weight was a good sign.

Rather than prolonged messaging, Margot suggested meeting that coming Friday. She could freshen up and get changed after work when everyone had left, thus sparing Dr. Z— the pleasure of mocking her. “How’s 8PM?” she asked Carl247.

Margot turned the hot water on again, her naked legs reddening with the scalding water. Several minutes later Margot looked at her profile. There was another yellow smile. Maybe Carl247 is too eager after all. But it was a different smile. Or, rather, the same smile, but from a different man. Beginner’s luck. A classic alpha male: square-jawed, broad smile, even teeth except for an upper incisor that protruded slightly. Smallish eyes under sturdy peaked — but not too pointy — brows. Rob_Royce. No profession listed. He wrote, “Dominant male seeks dominant female. Goofy guy who can monkey around. Favorite drink? Bourbon, any style. Compatible?”

Margot sighed. Rob_Royce was handsome enough to lure, bland enough to prevent too much disappointment. For the sake of her experiment, she knew to standardize her responses, but she was only human. She looked back and forth at the profile pictures of the two respondents. She responded to Rob_Royce. “Perhaps… Meet next Friday at 8:30? Don’t forget your (mon)keys.” Leave your own desires ambiguous, match his bad jokes to placate. She suggested the same bar where she planned to meet Carl247. She’d experiment on herself a little, testing at the last minute who she would choose. Too excited to soak in her bath, she pulled the plug, toweled off, and reached for her faded green bathrobe.

Her robe reminded her of the olive coat she wore as a child, frayed at the hems. After her mother had died, her father offered to find her a new coat on end-of-season clearance. His last effort to have her play dress up, to prove she could pass for pretty. Spring’s damp earthy wind filled the air, that scent that reminds people they are animals. They drove to New York City.

At Macy’s, Margot and her father followed the signs for coats up the escalators to the fifth floor. Furs. By the time Margot’s father realized his error, two young men in white gloves had ushered them through the heavy vault doors into a bank of coats, stoles, and muffs. Glossy black sleeves, gold spotted collars, downy beige trim.

The guards in white gloves explained how the furs were made, from tanning to patterns to seams. They asked Margot what she would like to try on. She had no answer so they suggested a mink. Looking back at this moment, Margot remembered the shame she felt as she saw the young men’s gaze linger on the cheapness of her coat as they put it aside. Out of a vault, they brought a thick glossy purple mink. The men held the garment for her as she slid her arms into the sleeves. Two men attended to her and her father admired her, in a way she had thought she longed for. The coat hung down to her knees and past the tips of her fingers. She stretched out her right arm and saw how the sleeve caught light and shadow in ripples and mounds. She touched the left sleeve, a pocket. Then the breast. She slipped her hands under the armpits, losing them in the dense fur.

“You look just like your mother,” her father said with a mixture of bewilderment and praise. Margot knew her father expected a smile, but she couldn’t manage it. The two attendants’ gloved hands quickly drew the mink off her shoulders and placed it back in the vault where it belonged.

Now Margot stood in her old green bathrobe, finishing her scotch. She thought of the models, their airbrushed veins and apparent pleasure to be seen in another’s skin. She, too, wanted to feel enveloped and admired. Neither Carl247 nor Rob_Royce would be impressed by a ratty robe. Time to buy something sexy.

On Friday, Margot looked in the mirror before going to work. She decided to pluck her eyebrows, the first time since high school. A little shape to something that’s already there wasn’t false advertising. She yanked at the follicles. A bead of blood rose to fill the hole where a hair had been. With enough money, Margot could be almost any kind of woman. She could pay a surgeon to carve her cheeks and eyelids and remold them for the appearance of larger eyes. She could buy contact lenses to simulate larger irises. Large eyes like a baby’s, what men have been taught to want.

At the lab, Dr. Donna said, “You look different.” Reluctant, but not unpleasant, with that lingering ring that expects explanation. Dr. Z— squinted at her for a moment, like he’d mistaken one thing for another.

That evening, when the others had left, the laboratory lights on their timer suddenly dimmed to save power. The building was as quiet and unsettling as a vault. The apes’ enclosure was dark and the animals were already asleep. Margot looked through the window down to the parking lot and saw the two familiar security guards chatting near the building’s entrance.

Margot took her bag and went to the bathroom. In the mirror she arranged her hair loosely about her shoulders. She put on lipstick and smelled the waxy red paste on her mouth. She reached into her bag and pulled out the fur, found a few days earlier in a bargain bin uptown. An eggplant purple cloak complete with hood and gold clasp to secure it at the neck. The fur was fake, synthetic, man-made. Unnatural. But it was thick and warm, the color of royalty, of honored family lines.

Little Purple Riding Hood, going to meet the wolves. As trustworthy as they try to be, men were always a threat. Carl247 and Rob_Royce competed for the same mate, unaware. Margot figured she could just tell them to take a hint from the bonobos and rub their scrota together in a conciliatory gesture. She chuckled as she stripped.

Margot stood nude under the fluorescent light. Her skin looked sickly with the reflection of the blue wall tiles. Her ribs stuck out under her small breasts. Her shoulders and torso were too narrow for her hips, but at least she had hips. She turned and looked over her shoulder at her backside in the mirror. Little brown moles on her back, squarish buttocks dimpled with cellulite above thin pale legs. Under the ill blue light, she saw her mother’s body, the one she preferred to remember, the one that, at one point, had invited touch.

She fondled the purple fur, then draped it over her bare shoulders. She felt its itchy backing, cheap and coarse. She pulled on the hood, shadowing her eyes. She didn’t want to get her hopes up too much about the men, but there they were, rising. Her heart raced a little, her stomach jittery. She needed this to work.

Margot pulled the fur around her and walked in bare feet back down the corridor. The little black dress stayed crumpled in her bag. In the laboratory, she approached the glass window and turned on the lights. The apes squinted in the sudden brightness. The timing was wrong, but they expected a certain routine with the lights. The alpha female turned her head toward Margot and stared.

Margot was blonde. She was a woman in fur. She felt the thrill of sentient eyes upon her. Why show them a picture when they could have something real? They recognized her, the woman behind the glass. But the apes were not aroused by her synthetic purple cloak and blonde hair. Margot opened her fur.

Unchanged, the bonobos simply stared, waiting. They soon turned away from her to groom each other.

What more could they want? Margot thought desperately. She stepped out into the corridor and faced the locked door to the bonobos’ enclosure. A fire extinguisher and ax hung on the wall. She grabbed the handle of the ax and swung the blade at the door handle, breaking it with a loud clang and crack. She could hear the apes’ frightened hoots and shrieks. The security alarm, synced to the laboratory’s outer entrance door codes, began to blare. Margot shook the broken handle loose and quickly stepped inside. The apes were pacing, agitated. Margot shut the door behind her, trespassing into the last space the apes had to themselves. She turned to face them.

Suddenly, the alpha female lunged for her. Terrified, Margot covered her face and head. The ape tackled her, embraced her in powerful bristly arms. With leathery hands, the bonobo pressed Margot to her chest. As shock turned to awareness, Margot’s fear changed to surrender. Her naked skin tingled against the coarse hair and warm bosom of the ape.

The alarm still piercing, Margot turned her head and saw, through the glass, the security guards entering the door on the far side of the dim laboratory. Soon they would tear her from the bonobo’s arms. If offered a phone call, Margot could try to reach her father or a lawyer. Out of an ingrained sense of duty, she could call Carl247 and Rob_Royce, to inform them she’d changed her mind.

Margot saw the guards rush through the laboratory. But, reflected in the glass, she also saw her own small pale face surrounded by dark fur, under the bonobo’s face and shining dark eyes. She tried to meet those reflected eyes with her own, but the ape turned her head. Margot closed her eyes and turned her cheek against the ape’s flat elongated breasts. She inhaled deeply a sweet musky scent. Whether the bonobo was offering protection or restraint, Margot might never know. But she was relieved. She had discovered something, a pleasure more primal than success or seduction. It felt so good to trust being held, no matter the benefit or burden of her body on the one who held her. Margot relaxed into the bonobo’s embrace. The ape kept her close, touching her hair as any mother would.

 Suture

Scott Pomfret

The medic wanted to ask the yodeling protester whether protests were always like this, but he didn’t want to betray he was a rookie or be perceived as casting negative judgment on the chaos. His roommate had advised him not to ask too many questions. Instead, the medic offered her one of the few bottles of water he’d rescued from the cops who’d gutted his supply with their bowie knives.

He said, “I don’t really get what’s happening.”

“Me neither, man. No fucking idea.” She seemed overjoyed by her own ignorance.

The stench of diesel, burning rubber, piss, and motorcycle exhaust weighed on the day’s lingering heat. Counter-protestors riding the sideboards of jeeps and SUVs brandished automatic weapons, but the protestors jeered as fearlessly as if the counter-protestors had been carrying only kindling.

The medic dove into the scrum.

“You ok? You’re fine? You need water? I have water.” He used the Cuban Spanish his abuelita had taught him. Speaking Spanish typically tended to darken his skin in the eyes of others, but in this crowd, it was a bonus. Some saluted him or bumped fists in brotherhood.

Like the rest of them, he, too, was riding a kind of high. He was a wilderness emergency medical technician. His day job was to teach hikers, campers, and backcountry skiers to survive against nature up in the mountains three hours plus from the city. It was his first protest. Neither principle nor injustice had compelled him to come down from the mountains. Logic alone had pointed the way. As he saw it, the forecast was hot in the city, and therefore people were going to become dehydrated and suffer sunstroke. Projectiles were likely to fly and therefore people were going to bleed. He had a couple days off and the necessary skill set to address these particular problems. Simple logic. 2 + 2 = 4. Basic math. He felt himself part of an elementary and ancient equation.

He thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t listened to his roommate, a self-described veteran of many protests, a lanky limping survivalist with ringlets of gray hair and coal-dark, red-rimmed eyes. His roommate had asked whether the medic was sure he really wanted to get involved in other people’s fights.

The medic had looked at his roommate as if he were speaking Khmer. He had literally no idea what his point was. 

“It’s not a race thing, is it?” his roommate has asked.          

It wasn’t, and never had been, but it had been easier to let his roommate think so. He said, “I’m a quarter Cuban.” 

“I knew it!” His roommate had slapped his knee triumphantly, as if he’d just figured out the secret to eternal life. “I wasn’t going to say anything. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Logically, if his roommate had to say it didn’t matter, it probably did matter. But the medic had confidence that the lies his roommate told himself were likely safer than the truth. He suspected there was still some cop in his roommate’s heart. Some redneck. The medic couldn’t be sure. They never talked politics or sex lives. Though drawn to each other and unable to understand or resist the attraction that had kept them shacked up the last seven months, they sometimes tried hanging with other dudes up in the mountains, but it never worked out. What was certain was that neither he nor his roommate was a jamonero.

Up ahead, police massed around the federal courthouse and the police precinct building adjacent. Both had become the object of much community ire, because the protestors saw the buildings as the locus of so much destruction of Black and brown families through overpolicing, overincarceration, and targeting people of color and the poor of all colors and creeds. As a result, the ring of police was in turn ringed in by a throng of protestors. Young men in masks yanked at some mesh fencing around the courthouse. Others smashed windows. A burst of color tagged the courthouse wall and then another.

A water bottle traced an arc through the dusk and landed on a helmet. The crowd cheered. The cop shuddered. Too late, he lashed at the air around him and hit no one.

Dismayed, the medic resorted to the comfort of logic and math. He calculated the velocity of the bottle and the force of gravity. His abuelita had insisted on his studying math and science and had been disappointed he hadn’t become an engineer. “Not yet,” he’d assured her on her deathbed, and this falsehood still counted as one of the most shameful episodes of his life.

Data was more reliable. Data never lied.

A column of horseback cops charged through the crowd, seeking to open a corridor to the police precinct building. Their assault was a lifeline, sort of like clearing a breathing passage for a choking victim, which was something the medic could appreciate.

“Sit down, sit down, sit down,” yelled protestors, because the common wisdom was that horses wouldn’t trample seated people.

Still mesmerized and slow on the uptake, the medic didn’t sit. Protestors escaping the horses’ path surged and elbowed and trampled him. A horse’s flank passed before his face. Horse sweat and fear filled his nostrils.

That hurt, he thought. He inspected the bruises and abrasions on his body with a mixture of outrage and pride. For the first time, he processed the idea that he himself might be injured. His roommate had told him that the number one rule for medics in a protest — or really any setting — was Look out for number one. You can’t help anyone if you’re bleeding. This logic made perfect sense. The medic had no qualms about a certain benevolent selfishness. In all his life, he’d never once contemplated that today — any of his todays — might be his last on earth. It was, he supposed, a rare privilege not to have to think of such things. 

Protestors nearby rammed a flaming dumpster up against the courthouse like a battering ram in the days of ancient Troy. The flames licked and climbed. Masked young people muttered among themselves, glanced at the courthouse, and then conferred again. A flock of birds exploded from a nearby tree. A gas canister screamed overhead. Some unconventional armament — beanbags? — were shot the medic’s way: pock-pock-pock. Everything was airborne. He, too, had lost touch with terra firma and only hovered over the sidewalk. 

The crowd seemed to have its own hive mind. It was a single organism. Messages passed from one end to the other like nerve impulses and synapses. The crowd swarmed the courthouse. The medic surrendered to the current, which carried him through the busted-open doors once the police gave way. 

Inside, protestors tore paintings of old white guys from the walls. Fire extinguishers were used as hammers. Trash cans sailed through interior windows scattering a gravel of opaque glass. One rioter rushed past with a prize: a judge’s gavel in each hand. He beat on a desktop computer as if it were an anvil. A raided closet yielded a trove of judicial robes, which the protestors pulled over themselves until it seemed a murder of giant crows had joined their ranks. The electricity flickered and went out. Giddily, the medic heard his abuelita reading from Genesis: End of the first day, and God saw that it was good.

People surrounded him, but still he felt as if he had the privacy he enjoyed in the mountains, because no one paid any attention to him, and they were happy and excited. The courthouse was a cameo, containing its own little wilderness, like a fishbowl or a glass terrarium teeming with life, that captured in miniature those great expansive feelings the medic experienced out in the mountains, the deep lungfuls of frosty breath at dawn, his loud exultant yawps as he bounded down the scree.

He roamed the halls like he owned them. Under the light of his headlamp, the medic wrapped a rioter’s finger that had been cut by glass. He splinted a sprained thumb. He rinsed eyes ruined by pepper spray or tear gas. He listened to what could only be the yodeler in a distant section of the building. He worked efficiently, methodically. Mobile phone flashlights were a swarm of fireflies around his head. The dark walls seemed mossy.

Little governments formed. Kings rose and fell. Trivial slights, reports of things said and not said, glances misinterpreted, shortsighted people blamed for not seeing the distance, apparent abuses and rudeness were exchanged and grudgingly borne. People hugged and high-fived and helped each other pile furniture against the exterior doors. Questions arose of what to do with the courthouse. The rioters betrayed varying levels of ambition. Torch the place. Occupy. Housing for the poor. Establish a more just and equitable legal system. 

Race and class and economic theory weren’t the medic’s thing. What his roommate and the other protestors said about capitalism or racism or patriarchy seemed reasonable, but beside the point. The medic wasn’t the type of guy to philosophize and strategize. What he had to offer was just some modest skill with a needle and thread, gauze and bandages. Nothing more complicated. He reminded himself of the four things most important to wilderness survival: Warmth. Hydration. Sustenance. Shelter. This was what he loved about the wilderness. So elemental. Stripped of distractions. Governments he could take or leave.

Warmth? It was hot as hell in the courthouse. Warmth wasn’t a problem.

Hydration? The medic raided fridges and vending machines.

Sustenance? He distributed Snickers and a few energy bars from his pack.

The question of shelter took primary importance just a moment later, when an ominous silence descended over the crowd. It reminded the medic of that moment before a storm when the birds and critters fled for cover, when the profundity and awesomeness of nature’s silence could stupefy a man with satisfactory thoughts of his own puniness. But from personal experience, the medic knew such a mesmerizing lull had the capacity to kill, by delaying preparations that ought to be taken immediately, like pitching a tent, preparing for a flood, or starting a fire. He looked around for something to do. He reminded himself, Don’t be a hero. Look out for number one. You’re no good to anyone if you’re bleeding.

The medic locked himself into a bathroom for the disabled. He felt prepared. Bear attacks, pulverized bodies at the base of cliff faces, burns where melted tent fabric makes a new skin, abrasions, contusions — it was no picnic in the mountains. No retreat from the world. He’d like to have told someone this, if anyone had been around to ask. He was no jamonero. He had balls.

The cops returned through an underground passage from the precinct that was typically used to transport prisoners. Their jackboots boomed, their officers barked, and a scuffle-shout-yelp-smothering followed each time they seized an unfortunate protestor. 

The medic heard sweat run down his forehead. He heard his joint pop. A trickle in the toilet tank threatened to give him away. He sensed a breathing and listening on the other side of the door. It reminded the medic of the forest — how it was always breathing, listening, scurrying, and never completely still.

Eventually, the presence receded. The medic breathed. He’d gotten lucky. He couldn’t hide forever. He clambered up on the toilet seat, popped a ceiling tile, and hauled himself up into the plenum space, which was jammed with vents and electrical wires. Keeping his weight on the frame and avoiding the ceiling tiles, the medic crawled in the direction of the staircase. It was like crossing thin ice.

After a couple of minutes, to judge his progress, the medic raised a ceiling tile. Below him was a small hearing room with a couple of rows of seats, two counsel tables, and a raised dais for the judge. He leaned over to see whether the chamber’s hallway door was closed. In a flash, he lost his balance. He attempted to brace himself on a ceiling tile, but it gave way. He fell.

The white-hot pain at first made the medic think he had broken his back, but in fact the jagged shaft of a flagpole on the dais had pierced his thigh near the groin. Instinctively, he wrenched the shaft from the wound. Arterial blood spurts shot from the wound in time with his racing heart.

From his training, the medic knew the average human body contained about ten pints of blood. It was possible to bleed to death in fewer than five minutes. The medic checked his watch. He judged it had been maybe two minutes since he fell. He ran through the symptoms of blood loss in his head: pale, cold or clammy skin, rapid heart rate, weak pulse, rapid, shallow breathing, lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion, and finally unconsciousness. How much blood had he already lost? He felt around the slick floor for his headlamp or his phone, so he could better assess the situation, but he’d lost both in the fall. How stupid to have ripped out the shaft. He should have left it in the wound, where it might have served as its own tourniquet, putting pressure on the wound and keeping the bleeding in check.

Focus. Tearing open his medical kit, the medic dumped out sheets of gauze. He stuffed them in the wound. He tore off his shirt, tied it around the leg, and thrust the broken shaft of the flagpole into the knot and twisted. The spurts slowed to a trickle. Amen.

Should he shout for help? The cops would be obligated to help, right? Then he remembered the cop shouting Fuck you, faggot, in his face as he plunged a knife into the medic’s water bottles and spilled them on the ground. God helps those who help themselves, his abuelita used to say. He located his phone. He balanced it against his medical bag so that the flashlight shone on the wound. He checked his watch. Five minutes since he fell.

The lighting was poor. Or maybe his eyesight had already begun to dim. The medic again recited the symptoms: pale, cold or clammy skin, rapid heart rate, weak pulse, rapid, shallow breathing, lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion and unconsciousness. Of all these, he dreaded confusion. He was a logical person. Confusion meant that shit had gotten muy serious. 

He inventoried his suture kit. Needle driver. Tissue forceps. Scissors. Sterilized needle and thread. He doused the wound with bottled water to clean it. Biting his tongue to keep from crying out, he probed the jagged cut with his fingers to ensure no debris from the flagpole remained in the skin. He nearly puked from the pain. 

The medic lined up the edges of the wound as best he could. Using the driver, he pushed the needle through the skin just above the fat in the middle of the wound. He left a small amount of thread on the side he started, looped back through it and pulled tight until the knot lay flat against the skin. He clipped the excess suture and moved a quarter inch to the right and began again. 

Easy does it. Panic kills. Haste makes waste. Gracias, abuelita, gracias. The medic began to think it was likely he’d yet make it to the rendezvous point with the other volunteer medics. He’d have a story to tell. A story he’d repeat to his roommate when he got back to the mountains while they were lying in bed. He’d try to tell it in a way that made fun of himself.

What were the odds? he’d ask. A few inches difference and it could have been his throat that was pierced or just a bruised ego, no more. But he’d also play up his coolness under fire. Amaze them with it, in fact.

Then he remembered his hasty incompetence pulling the shard from the wound. He blushed without heat. The needle slipped out of his grasp and fell to the floor. 

Coño! Maybe he wouldn’t tell them at all.

A group of cops passed by the door. The medic was tempted to call out to them, but instead he wasted another full minute re-sterilizing the needle in the flame of a lighter. He had to squint to see properly. He had certainly lost a lot of blood.

I could die here, he thought for the first time. This was the actual logical progression. He had omitted the final step: pale, cold or clammy skin, rapid heart rate, weak pulse, rapid, shallow breathing, lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion and unconsciousness. And then death. He imagined his new medic volunteer friends wondering why he wasn’t at the rendezvous point. His spirit would show up, but his new friends — atheists and agnostics all — wouldn’t recognize it for what it was. To them, he would be just an eddy of steam or smoke, which they’d try to disperse. 

The medic’s speculations puzzled him. Unlike his abuelita, he had never been a religious person. Concern with God or spirits or life after death was for old ladies and priests and bishops. He was too logical. Too science-based. He had seen too much shit out in the wilderness. There was no such thing as ghosts.

The medic held the needle up in front of him. His fingers were cold and bloodless. His body swayed. He tried to force the thread through the eye, but his thread hand shook wildly, and he couldn’t quite make out his target. It was pure guesswork. He’d been a fool to think he could close the wound himself. It only proved he’d been confused before he’d even started.

The medic slid his hands beneath his rump so his own bodyweight would stop the tremors. He took a deep breath. He counted to ten. He tried again to thread the needle. Miraculously, purely by accident, it worked. His luck made the medic optimistic that fate herself had his back. 

Again he pushed the needle through his skin. Then he froze. The door of the hearing room had swung open. A robotic dog with a police department logo pasted on its side nosed through. The beast was backlit, and some engine or current driving it hummed quietly. 

Was he imagining this space-age creature? Was he hallucinating? Was the robot-dog just another sign of bloodloss-induced confusion?

It eased into the room. The medic imagined it wagged its tail, but it had no tail. Terrified the robot would alert the police to his presence, the medic stitched faster. The dog’s head angled toward the movement of his hands. It blinded him with a flash of blue light. The medic’s hand jerked, and he tore the skin around the wound. He sweat into the wound. By that time, he had drunk all the irrigation water and had nothing to clean it out.

Most people die of infections, he thought. That was how people lost limbs. Gangrene. Sepsis. The medic imagined himself limbless. Helpless. What good was a wilderness EMT in a wheelchair? But then he remembered the impressive paralympic sprinters with blades for legs. Bionic men. A job worth doing was worth doing right.

Stay calm, chico, he told himself. Stay calm.

The robot dog clacked away down the hall. Had it just been sniffing for bombs? Water bombs? Water balloons? What was it the cops had said about water bottles? That they were bombs. Hard plastic. Dangerous. One cop had taken a Poland Springs bottle, knocked it against the top of his helmet, punctured it with his knife, and then tossed it aside. Which was a complete waste. The medic was thirsty. The wound was bleeding. The air was hot. He stabbed himself with the needle to drive the drowsiness away. He stabbed himself again and again. Little mosquito bites. Somewhere a radio played Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

“Why hold back?” the medic asked the mosquito. “Why don’t you do what God made you for?”

“You should get a medic, man,” the mosquito said. “You should see a doctor.”

His roommate’s chiding voice said, “You’re no good to anyone if you’re bleeding, chump.”

Somewhat confused by the ignorance of his roommate and his mosquito, the medic confessed to the latter about his lack of involvement in past protests, about how he wanted to help but was far in the mountains, how he wasn’t a man of theory but a man of action. But, above all, a man.

The mosquito’s thousand eyes glazed over — or was that houseflies with the thousand eyes? — but the medic couldn’t stop talking, even though his tongue was parched and sandblasted. He felt as if there was some important point at the end of all these words that he must convey. He willed the mosquito to appreciate him, to understand, to affirm. 

“You don’t even understand your own needs,” thundered a familiar voice from the mosquito’s mouth with a force that was strong enough to draw blood. It was the voice of his abuelita, a woman of infinite sagacity, stubbornness, wisdom, and faith, whom the medic had loved more than life itself. Abuelita had come to the United States on the Muriel boatlift. She’d made a life for herself. She’d never ceased praying to an unmoved God. She’d never been discouraged or ever complained.

“Fuck off, faggot,” snarled the voice of his roommate. Or maybe it was the robotic dog that snarled. Or the cop driving his bowie knife into an unoffending bottle of water that was also an airborne bomb. Gravity. Velocity. 2 + 2 = 4. It was hard to say, but it was all a matter of mathematics. 

The cold moved from the medic’s limbs to his core. He shook a pouch containing a mylar space blanket from his kit. He held the packet in his teeth, but his fingers were so cold and lifeless, they got no purchase. He jabbed the needle through the plastic pouch in hopes of rending it open. He knew there was something else he was supposed to be doing with the needle, but he couldn’t remember what.

The medic now heard Cuban festival music and saw multicolored water balloons swelling overhead. He pricked them with the needle. Water cascaded into his mouth and down over his bare chest, as if he was waist-deep under a waterfall high in a frigid mountain stream.

The medic leveraged himself to standing, but dizziness threw him down. The wound tore open. The blood gushed, but more slowly now.

I need to get out of here, he thought.

He squirmed over to counsel’s table and hauled himself up by its leg. He tottered. He fell. He thought: I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have moved. He was too weak now to cry out. He felt neither regret nor terror, but only an odd, flat, desiccated joy. He was going to die here in the courthouse. He’d be found eventually, though hopefully not by the robotic dog. He pictured it sniffing at his corpse. He heard a mechanical bark. He imagined the dog raising its hind leg and peeing on his body, which reminded the medic how thirsty he was. How damned thirsty. He rolled over and lapped at his own blood. In ecstasy, he closed his eyes, and his abuelita hummed the hymns of his childhood, whose words he could not forget.

 Purses

Alice Kinerk

He leaves you, and your apartment that always felt too small now feels even smaller, but how can that be when he took the TV and speaker system and guitar and all his clothes and stuff?

You never really dreamt before, but you do now, the same claustrophobic dream over and over, in which you do an Alice-in-Wonderland, expanding until your arms and legs squeeze out the windows and your head goes up the chimney. Except there is no chimney in your apartment, so it's off with your head!

In the dream they are reluctant. “We don’t want to cut off your head, but there’s simply nowhere for it to go.”

“Do what you have to,” you say. You are always agreeable, even in dreams.

You have lost the ability to entertain yourself. You have lost your rhythms, your go-tos. You have become as indecisive as your cat. You walk in and out of rooms, trying to remember what you went in for, trying to remember how you fill your time.

One day you purchase a pair of sneakers. At home you run your fingers over their clean soles, admire their sharp rubber edges. You lace them up to go for a walk. Why not? It is a beautiful day and you can’t sit around with your arms and legs hanging out the windows forever.

On this day you aren’t enticed by cute coffee shops. You walk toward the port. There is nothing cute about the port. There is no chance you will round a corner and come upon him. Or the two of them. Thinking about it makes you queasy.

You walk past warehouses. Empty lots. Tent city. The food bank. A pile of lumber as wide as a city block, reeking of creosote. A parking lot. Another parking lot. A third.

It is under a bush, behind a chain link fence, alongside another forgettable parking lot where you spot it. A bit of blue, just visible alongside windblown trash underneath a pricker bush. It is baby blue, the color of a robin’s egg.

Once, as a child playing in your backyard, you’d found a robin’s egg lying on the ground. There had been a weight to it, and no hole chipped out. A baby bird was dead inside. So you’d held a funeral for the poor creature, buried it in the backyard under a shovelful of dirt, something you’d seen on an afterschool special. You tried to feel sad, but you couldn't. Sadness, once upon a time, had been foreign to you.

Now your eye lingers on the little blue thing. You have always wanted to find another robin’s egg, one with a hole in it signifying success. You step closer, off the sidewalk onto the yellowed grass. You squat down and touch the thing.

It is not a robin’s egg. It is a woman’s purse. It seems to be what they call a clutch. Small and very soft leather. Inside is a wallet and tissues. In the wallet is a library card and an insurance card, that is all.

You take the purse to the police station a few blocks away.

“Thank you for bringing it in,” the woman at the front desk says, getting out a form and a ballpoint pen. “Where did you say it was found?”

Back at the apartment, you unlace your new sneakers, turn them over and look again at the soles. They look new, but not perfectly new. There is dirt. Some of the sharp edges have become oh-so-slightly curved. This feels like an accomplishment.

The next day you are waitressing, and again the day after that, but then you’re off, so that morning you put on the sneakers and walk by the port again. You find a purse again! This one is on a different street, under a different bush. Made of green canvas, a lovely shade, the color of moss. It isn’t as nice as the blue leather one from the other day, but also it isn't as easy to see. Inside is a worn-down lipstick, a school photo labeled Jenna, and a wallet with absolutely nothing in it.

You bring the green purse to the police.

“You found another one?” The front desk woman has the ability to raise her eyebrows very high. You know she has to write down where you found it, so this time you wait until she’s got the form out before you say.

In the following days, you take more walks without finding any purses, but then, a week later, you find a third. This one is black and shiny, with a hardshell clasp that snaps together with a click.

You are lucky to have found this one at all. It was in an alley, behind a garbage can, all but invisible. Inside there is a customer appreciation card for the bagel place in town with seven holes punched out of eight. Also a gym membership card with the name Amanda Meyer on it.

You yourself do not use a purse. Never have. Just a thin wallet in your jeans pocket. You prefer to keep important stuff close. Carrying the black purse down the street feels weird.

At home, you set the purse on the windowsill where your cat sometimes sits. He hops up, sniffs the purse, and then purrs and rubs against it, as if he is just that desperate for a friend.

Then, for days afterward, you find no more purses. You are walking every day now. The same ugly, empty streets. And it’s not like you aren’t looking. You are actively looking. Kicking over plastic bags, peering behind dumpsters, wandering parking lots, squatting to peek under shrubs.

As for your cat, he’s lost interest in the purse. You consider keeping it, for that formalwear occasion that might come one day, but no, the thing to do is return the purse to Amanda Meyer.

Google is no help. It can’t find a local Amanda Meyer.

You go to the bagel place, order a bagel, and give the boy the card. “Free bagel,” he says, and drops one in the slicer.  

You eat with the purse on the table. Even as you do you wonder why. What are you expecting, that Amanda Meyer will walk in and recognize her own purse? And understand that it was not you that stole it, but that you are simply carrying it around, hoping to meet up with her? And you’ll hand it over, and she will be grateful, even though all her money is gone, and everything will be happily ever after? 

Yes, that is exactly what you are expecting.

After the bagel, you walk to Amanda's gym. It is a hot day. It is a long walk, made even longer because you have to reroute to avoid The Restaurant, and by the time you arrive you are weary.

“Hi! Welcome!" The guy at the desk is aggressively cheerful. He sees you looking around. "First time?”

You shake your head. You open the empty purse, pluck the gym membership card from where it’s wedged itself in a seam, and wave it at him.

“Don’t you recognize me?” Your voice has a hard tone that it never had before. “I’m here all the time.”

He glances at the card, then tilts his head, as if you are some inscrutable work of art. “Okay. Yes. We have a lot of members.”

You return the card to your purse and walk into the gym. The air conditioner feels right, then too cold. There is the wheeze of machines, the clang of weights. Did you really think you’d see Amanda here?

You have to do something, so you duck into the women’s locker room, strip naked, and shower. You don't have shampoo of course, but the soap dispenser in the shower stall is foamy and smells like plums.

Now you’re clean, and putting your dirty clothes on again feels wrong. There is a stack of white towels with the name of the gym embroidered in script. No one else is in that part of the locker room, so you wander over stark naked and dripping. You stick your face in a towel and inhale bleach. You have always loved the smell of bleach. It reminds you of that all-cleaned-out feeling after crying. You wrap yourself in a bleachy towel and tuck the corner under to secure it.

It is a fact that when a woman is wearing a towel in a locker room, every other woman will avoid looking at her. You don’t have to look at the other women in the locker room to know they’ve pointed their faces away. This provides freedom.

The walls are lined with lockers. You stick your finger under a silvery clasp, try to open it. It's locked. Doesn't matter. You try the whole row. All open and empty, or else locked. Still, no one is looking, so it doesn't matter. You try the next row.

It isn’t until row five that you try a clasp and it pops open. Inside are clothes and a purse!

You rifle through wallet and keys for a second, heart racing. You still, even now, don't know what it is exactly that you want to do.

Then you do know. You put on some other woman’s jeans, her clean but too-big Lycra top. Your own sneakers with their lightly worn soles. The new purse hangs from your arm. You feel hopeful and up.

But then, back on the gym floor, your purse strap slips off your Lycra shoulder, and when you reach down and stand up again panic blares briefly, but nothing happens. The front desk guy is engaged in a telephone conversation. The gym pulses on.

So you walk. First to the stationary bikes. Eyes look at you and then away, as if what’s of interest is forever distant. Same at the elliptical trainers. Stairmasters. Treadmills. The rowers sit knee-high, so no one even notices.

You look out the tall wall of windows, up at the looks-like-rain sky, and wonder if the clouds obscure an ocean view. They do, you feel certain. And that upsets you; it’s stupid, but it does.

Traffic has stopped. You think about those anonymous drivers alone in their cars, together at the intersection, all wanting to be somewhere else. You think of the last time the two of you fucked. Back then you had suspected maybe, but not known for sure. You remember the empty reps. The false way it felt with the love all drained away.

Then the traffic light changes, the drivers move on predictably, and you think, Why couldn’t he have done that, just moved on? Why did he have to go smashing, literally smashing, into that harlot of a hostess, that bitch Beth, then lie about it and expect you would not know?

You turn back to the gym, but in your mind you are in that night, in the underwater light of early dawn. You stoned on sorrow and sleeplessness. Him unable to explain why. “One thing led to another,” he said. As if infidelity was a law of physics. Inevitable and blameless.

How you flew at him then. How he cowered. How he looked back when he walked out the last time. When you had expelled him. 

You smell of plums. Everything, for a moment, feels right. You leave.

 Animal Caller

Sidney Stevens

Arta wheels her mother into the musty house. Lena’s body slumps as though bones and tissue have given way in a mudslide. Her stick-figure shoulders are even gaunter than a year ago when Arta last visited. To be expected — after all, Lena is eighty-seven and has just undergone surgery for a hip fracture. But Arta finds her mother’s aging no less distasteful, a bodily function like vomiting or passing gas that’s best carried out in private.

The dogs bark in the distance — probably in the cottage with Dale. How she loved to play there as a child in the quiet coziness of the old stone springhouse, a smaller version of the main farmhouse, once used to keep milk and butter cool. How she adored exploring the rambling property, then a ramshackle farm that Lena and husband No. 3 bought dog cheap when Arta was five. Before she began to feel trapped in Lena’s messy realm.

“Doctor said to take your meds first thing… I’ll get water.” Arta parks Lena in her bedroom and heads to the kitchen. Cockroaches dart across the worn soapstone counters as she flicks on the light. It all looks the same; exposed wood beams and a walk-in stone fireplace that she and Lena used to pretend was a magic portal to far-off lands filled with magnificent beasts while they cooked. Until Arta began to suspect around age eight that her mother maybe wasn’t pretending and actually believed it was true.

 “How do you stand it?” she hollers, marching back to Lena’s room. “Damn roaches everywhere.”

“I don’t seem to mind,” Lena says weakly. Arta pushes a pill into her mouth and presses the glass to her lips. Water dribbles down Lena’s chin.

“I think you should come home with me.” She dabs at Lena’s mouth with a tissue and releases it by a corner into the trash can. “Just while you recover. Jack’s all for it.”

Lena stares into her lap, strands of long white hair falling around her face. She reveals nothing. Arta has never fully infiltrated her mother’s baffling and mysterious silences.

“I’ll hire a day nurse while Jack and I are at work. We’ll have dinners together and go for walks in Central Park on weekends.”

“I … I’d just be in the way.”

“Mom, I can’t keep running to Pennsylvania every time you need help. I have a company to run.”

 “Dale’s here with me.”

 “God, you’ve been divorced twenty years.”

“He’s still my best friend.”

Arta rolls her head from side to side, uncoiling tension. An old trick. Time to start a to-do list. Goal number one: Provide Lena the best care available during her recovery and thereafter. It’s what you do.

 Arta’s phone buzzes; she presses it to her ear. “Yes, I promised a list of CEO recruits to Alcon by Thursday.” She paces, trying to keep her voice calm: there’s just so much going on, almost more than she can handle. Across the yard dogs stampede toward the house, banging against the front door in thunderous unison. “Yes, new blood — we need to wow them. Leo, you’re a lifesaver.”

Arta slides her phone into her blazer pocket. “God, the wolf pack’s arrived.”

“They’re just excited.”

Arta hurries out to open the front door, phone buzzing again. “Yes, I’ll be back Tuesday.” Dogs burst in, flattening her against the wall. “Damn it,” she groans, shoving them, one by one, toward Lena’s room. “No, not you, Leo. Sorry.” She follows, batting away the stink of warm dog breath like cobwebs. “I’ve gotta run, but thank you, Leo.”

The dogs have absorbed Lena, a single, ravenous organism, multiple tongues licking her face, hands, neck, anything they can reach, every muscle, every tail, in motion. The two smallest dogs — Arta forgets their names — leap into Lena’s lap.

“My god, five dogs now.”

“Branson brought home the new one.”

“Didn’t some bum give you Branson?”

“My plumber was dumping him at a shelter. I couldn’t allow it.”

“Right,” Arta says, squashing away the sudden sense that she’s the one being devoured by dogs, ancient and decaying like Lena. No time for nonsense. She brushes pet hair from the bedspread to sit. She’ll never be like her mother, that’s for damn sure.

“You and I’ll head to New York on Tuesday, and then we’ll talk about whether you can come back here.”

Lena’s form recedes, slow but unmistakable shrinkage like the tide ebbing from shore.

Arta types a quick note to herself: “Call realtor. Marketing idea: Perfect Poconos vacation home for sale. Charming fieldstone farmhouse with fifteen acres of private gardens and meadowland surrounded by pristine state forest land.”

My mouse sits with me on the patio this morning just like before surgery. Her miniature whiskers quiver in the July sunshine. I’m reminded of the line from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: “And a mouse is a miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.”

On my lap, Mimo, my ginger-colored tabby named for my favorite cocktail, a mimosa, opens a drowsy green eye and closes it again, unstirred by the creature's presence. I, on the other hand, am oddly moved, as always, by her intelligent gaze taking me in. One creature beholding another in awe.

Arta pushes open the side door, bearing a loaded tray of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. My mouse retreats into the shadows.

“Eat up,” Arta says, depositing it onto the patio table and wheeling me over, organized as always. It’s far more than my poor appetite will allow, but I don’t say so. The presentation is perfect, as always, complete with a single yellow rose from my garden and faded linen napkin she unearthed from the back of some drawer.

She gives a perfunctory pat on my arm. Her long fingers, manicured nails painted icy mauve, remain lightly and impartially there, attempting to convey compassion as if I’m a stranger she’s obliged to care for. We watch silently as my silkie hens scour the yard for breakfast, strutting their profusion of ornamental feathers over every inch of ground like a fluffy search-and-rescue squad. Beyond is my wildflower garden of native zinnias, black-eyed Susans, and purple coneflower sloping down to the meadow.

“Please eat something, Mom.” Arta pushes the tray closer and glances at her phone.

I imagine us talking as we did before she boarded up her soul.

The dogs charge off after a squirrel, barking up a ruckus. Squawking hens scatter. Arta nearly loses hold of her phone.

“Never a dull moment,” she mumbles. Frown lines deepen around her mouth. I hear what she means.

I've been alone for twenty years now, since Dale and I split. Without a man maybe, but never lonely. Until recently.

Dale was the steadiest of my four husbands, rock solid despite our age disparity. He was the one who insisted we renovate this eighteenth-century farmhouse and nourish its quiet rooms, that we try to bring life back to this land. He put in more windows to give me sunlight and trained sweet blue morning glories to twine through my trellises. He converted the barn into my print-making studio. I loved him for his care, and still do, but my twenty years on him eventually resulted in divergent needs. Such glorious release from his ever-hovering ownership of my time.

I've never longed for close company again. Until now. This is a new kind of loneliness; not like nearly fifty years ago when Arta was six and Thom — my husband after Lorik — left for Vietnam. Lorik was Arta’s dad. We stayed together for four years before his scent, once so enthralling, stagnated and I knew love had passed. Still, we lasted two years longer than Ennis, my first husband, who couldn’t abide my lack of domesticity, which never burgeoned into sumptuous dinners, clean shirts, and babies as he hoped.

The point is loneliness was temporary then, easily relieved in other beds, dissipated in other arms. There was time back then for loneliness to run its natural course, for new beginnings.  Which is how I found my way to Dale when he answered my ad for a handyman just as Thom’s letters from Vietnam were drying up.

This time, loneliness seems as permanent as the pain in my bones that no amount of warmth or ointment can soothe. What time is left at my age for new beginnings, for an unhurried dance with a new soul? I need something different now, some cache of tender comfort, as yet unknown, to fill my remaining days with meaning.

“Ugh,” Arta sighs as a text arrives. “They’re lost without me at work.” She types furiously. Mimo leaps from my lap and slinks away. Arta’s phone buzzes. “Hi, Sweetie….Can I call you back? Perfect!” She smiles and continues typing. “That was Jack … probably on his way to Chicago.”

 “Never a dull moment,” I say before I can stifle the words. Two butterflies — one ivory and one buttery yellow — swirl before me in a dance that I recognize as pure beauty, just for me.

“Jack and I like to stay focused, accomplish things,” Arta says, lips tight. She rises. “Well, I’m off to clean — maybe get your kitchen properly scrubbed.”

Perhaps I should live with her. Even with Dale nearby, my thoughts often bend sideways now, unable to focus on what needs tending. The winters go on too long, blanched, frigid moonscapes that make me forget there are colors. In summer my spirit no longer lifts to the light in rhythm with the plants. Even time in my studio no longer assuages isolation. Some days my hands ache too much to turn the handle of my etching press. I fear the thoughts I have there, whispers from a place I don't want to know yet.

My mouse inches closer again. Black, shining eyes search mine with empathy. For just a moment I feel blessed to exist together in this magical realm called life. I remember I am loved, even in loneliness.

Arta picks her way through tall, wet grass toward Dale working by the cottage. “It’s been awhile,” she says. His arms open, but she remains just out of reach, offering a hand instead.

“What a morning,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck underneath long, gray hair. “Mama snake and her babies — fifteen of them — set up shop under my bed… Finally got them released in the woods.”

“My god,” Arta gasps. She steps back, scanning the forest for signs of life, then gradually returns to the disrepair around them, which has escalated since she was last here: an untidy pile of mud-crusted stones beside the cottage, a dilapidated row of empty wooden bird feeders along the far garden, rotting logs strewn alongside Lena’s studio, flower beds choked with vines.

“This is Lena’s world, don’t forget.” Dale smiles a rare smile, barely perceptible if you don’t know him. “Sure not the same without her here.”

You had to hand it to Dale: His marriage to Lena might be over, but he never abandoned her or fell out of favor like the others. That includes, of course, Arta’s father, whom she hasn’t seen enough to assess either his merits or failings, and is happy to keep it that way.

“We have to talk,” she says, hesitating. Best to just say it and get this done. “I’m taking Mom to New York — she needs full-time care. Can you fix up the place to sell? You can stay until then.”

 He studies her without a discernible reaction. Is he upset? Offended? She’s never been able to read Dale. “Your mom’s about the best person I know,” he says finally. “Has a kind of magic — a wild heart. Never seen anything like it.”

Typical Dale non sequitur. Never quite on mark with the situation at hand. Arta refrains from saying what never seems to get said: Lena has magic alright: the magic of attracting strays and misfits into her life — animals and humans alike. That includes him, a man who dropped out of college to “follow his bliss” as an “artisan” carpenter. He and Lena barely scraped together enough to keep Arta and themselves in food and clothing.

“Does Lena agree to this?”

“She doesn’t have a choice.”

“I know you mean well…”

“Dale, can you resuscitate this place in a month?” Arta checks her phone. “By August 7?” She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. So many people depending on her, so many responsibilities, back home and here. Where will Dale go after this? Is she right to take Lena away? Should she slow down? Thank god for Jack, his willingness to accommodate her family burden. Her good sense in choosing him.

“Of course we’ll pay you.”

“Sure Artie.”

 She clenches against the nickname. “I’ll print a list of tasks in order of priority.” She makes a mental note to ask later if he’ll take the dogs and cat, too. “I’m sorry, Dale,” she adds, struggling against the tug of old melancholy she thought was long exterminated. A day at a time, that’s how it’s done. Organization and willpower. After that, it’s no longer her problem. 

I study Arta wandering through my studio taking inventory of my prints — a commander inspecting her troops. She runs a hand through perfectly bobbed hair, shining darkly as it was thirty years ago, impeccably dressed, as always, in a plum-colored silk blouse and slim-fit white jeans. Her slender hips still swing with the toying indifference of a pretty girl. But at fifty-four, the old sauciness has recast itself as imperiousness. Only her earrings, made of large silver beads and hunks of lapis, belie the fact that she is my daughter, that vibrant child who loved to dance in the snow and daydreamed of gypsies.

Prints are everywhere. Hung on every inch of wall space, piled on chairs and benches, stacked in barn stalls. Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. All sizes. Framed. Unframed. I see it suddenly through her eyes — this giant mess.

She forces a smile. "Have you considered an art sale?”

“I still sell prints at the gallery in town.”

She observes me, arms crossed. I struggle to imagine myself in one of her five bedrooms, each white-carpeted, dustless and airless like unvisited mausoleums, adorned with tasteful, generic art, living without plants, without asymmetry.

“I remember that gallery,” she says. “Still hanging on…amazing.” Without much joy I realize I'm lucky to have her, this woman for whom colors and time are no longer spun with infinite possibilities but instead are unrelenting reminders that everything fades and hours waste away without something to show for the moments spent living.

 “Remember how we used to make up songs about the animals in my prints?”

“Of course,” she says.

So many slow afternoons spent in this studio, her child-warm body pressed against me, intense, dark eyes watching me work, handing me tools, lost in creation. Sunshine still slants through the high windows as it did then. Cicada song fills this space with slow summer joy. Exactly the same. I can still catch the aroma of honeysuckle and pine drifting in on warm breezes.

Arta and I had fun. I’m certain we did. She adored my prints, helped me concoct fanciful rabbits dancing at midnight, silvery toads leaping into star-filled heavens, wolves with golden eyes running through forests of luminous trees. That was back when we raised alpacas and peacocks, and made yogurt and bread together… when we were still in love. Before Arta decided we sprang from separate human species, precluding fellowship.

“I still have that print of the bear and cubs you made me,” she says, as kindly as she’s able. A love offering. “It’s on my office wall… I always get compliments.”

“A good omen — bears.”

“So you’ve said.”

I can hear her impatience. How will she manage me in her world? There was a time when she saw things as I do. I’m certain she did.

“My god!” she exclaims, eyes trained on a skunk in the open doorway, unblinking, unforgiving.

“That’s just Coco.”

“Of course it is.”

“Named for Coco Chanel.”

“I get it. Perfume. Black and white. Skunk. Clever, as always.”

Arta hovers behind me as Coco sidles in and disappears behind an old trunk. “Too bad your luck with men was never as good as with animals."

My reaction surprises me. I want to thrash her until what she’s become bleeds away. How can I explain? My men. Deep, profound loves. Some brief, some lengthy. They were — and are — mine. Full and successful loves. To me. All of them pieces of my soul.

“We’ll pack tomorrow,” Arta says. She recites a rundown of necessary tasks, like a prayer, clearly energized and nourished by the shot of order and direction.

Does life finally come to this, young taking back their old, dismantling their lives, discounting and discarding what displeased them, preparing them to die?

I know. Why do we pretend?

Rage slips into the afternoon sunlight. Peace fills the shadows. I want to lose myself there forever, where comfort flows.

Surely Arta will understand I can't leave. Already, I miss her terribly, my Arta.

Lena’s moans jolt Arta as she steps into the shower. She throws on her floral silk robe — the one Jack gave her last Christmas with matching nightgown — and rushes to the sunporch.

Tears stream down Lena’s crumpled face. “It’s dead,” she cries, her voice barely a whisper.

“What’s dead?”

“The baby wren drowned in my table fountain trying to drink.” Lena’s eyes are holes of grief. “Its mom and dad couldn’t get in to help.”

Arta stares at the tiny clump of soggy feathers cradled in Lena’s hand.

“They built a nest up there.” Lena points a bony finger at the porch rafter. “Came in through a hole in the screen.” Her blue eyes, once so crystalline, are milky in mourning. She looks prehistoric.

“I patched the hole,” Arta says. “I didn’t know.”

Lena presses the dead wren against her heart.

She’s crazy, right? Joey Taglia’s awful whisper floats back from fourth grade. He’d seen it too, Lena in her queenly cape on the school steps wrapping Arta in her arms. She’d insisted on driving Arta to school that day. But instead of staying in her car like other parents she’d jumped out for a better view of geese heading south across the morning sky, dragging Arta with her as she raced to keep them in sight. And before Arta could slip into school, Lena had squeezed her tight and exclaimed: “Keep hold of that goose energy, Sweetie, and soar today.” Loud enough for everyone to hear. Then Lena had fluffed her long auburn hair with a throaty chuckle and sauntered back down the windy street to her car, trailing leaves and dust. Arta never found words to fend off shame. Never in all these years. Shame became habit.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” She means it. “They’ll have more babies outside — I promise.” She smooths Lena’s hair. “Let me finish showering, and I’ll make breakfast.”

Lena’s moans follow Arta into the house, finally subsiding with no one there to listen.  

Arta’s gone to the store before I find words to explain myself. It’s as if I feel what the mama bird must feel, engulfed by desperate loss, as if I couldn’t save my own baby from drowning.

My mouse is here again on the patio, still and calm as a monk in meditation. So is my doe. I recognize her from last summer. Lovely girl. She and her new fawn move toward me.

I feel like that old farmer Daddy used to know, the "animal caller." Mesmerized creatures — stray pets, wild critters, even insects. Everyone warned Daddy to stand clear of craziness. They were unsettled by the farmer, his special magnetism that had no place in everyday existence. But Daddy got a close look in the old man's eyes one day. “The light of pure grace," is how he put it, so overwhelming he almost wept. After that he suspected the farmer was the happiest person he knew.

 How I always loved that story. Daddy swore I had the gift, too. No denying creatures gravitate my way more than normal, as if my energy calls to them by some method beyond words.

But what if the light of grace Daddy saw in the old farmer wasn't grace at all? What if there’s nothing special about me — no enchanting vibration I exude or spell I cast? What if it’s a misreading of animal intentions — perhaps they come because I feed them or smell earthy or something equally explainable?

Or maybe my gift is born of the abyss? Arta once said I’d’ve been burned as a witch centuries ago. The notion made me snort. I know what I know, trusting my deeper awareness wholeheartedly, certain that animals and I arise from the same glorious source. Divine communion. Beautiful and comforting. Beyond doubt.

But certainty has slipped now with the droop of my spine. My perceptions feel less reliable. I dwell nearer the surface, seeing as others must see, where a mouse is maybe just a simple mouse after all. Sometimes cute, sometimes a nuisance, not really very much at all.

So few humans have chosen to accompany me through life. I grasp this now in ways I failed to comprehend before.

What if creatures only come to the damaged ones — those who don’t navigate well among their own kind? What if that’s really why they arrive — to comfort and protect, full of pity, angels drawn by the woeful force of aberrant souls?

Arta glances out the kitchen window at Lena as she unloads groceries. The grass is mowed and the weeds are mostly gone. Dale has worked hard.

A squirrel sits on its haunches at Lena’s feet. Arta must remind her about rabies. A deer moves cautiously toward her. Arta is unable to pull her eyes away. Why has Lena always been so odd, so different — living alone, in the forest, relentlessly seeking wild and untidy things? So much unexplained, unsaid.

A second deer is there when Arta looks again. The dogs lie at Lena’s feet, encircling her wheelchair like sentries around a throne.

Arta’s phone buzzes. “Hi, Sweetie. Yeah, Jeanne said Mom’s room is ready. Great.” She folds the plastic grocery bags and peers out again. “Hey, Jack, let me call you back.”

She opens the window. “Everything okay, Mom?”

Lena’s head is bowed. A dragonfly perches on her knee. The dogs look up but remain in place.

The deer retreat as Arta approaches. “Mom, almost lunch time.” She gently shakes Lena. Silence.

Arta stands motionless — an unfamiliar sensation. Mesmerized like one of Lena’s creatures, marveling at the gossamer whiteness of her hair. Delicate blue veins snaking across her temples. Skeletal, creative hands clasped in her lap, embraced by the wild.

Lena — gone. It’s unimaginable. A stream of incongruent emotions unfurl through Arta’s mind. Relief that the end was quick — no long months or years of decline. Revulsion at her mother’s withered body, now merely a shell. A sense of buoyant liberation, but also remorse that she and Lena let time run out on re-bonding like she always assumed they would. The unexpected ache of being left behind. The weight of her mother’s mystifying DNA and tangled influence now hers to carry alone. And finally awe. Surprising awe at the gorgeous pure life force that was Lena, the dearness of her. How little she’s really noticed since her heart split away years ago.

The dragonfly lifts on iridescent wings, beating against loss.

This wasn’t the ending Arta planned.

A wind gust sways branches and moves gray clouds overhead, like something with shape and form. Arta feels its push, power against power, pushing hers away.

She drapes Lena’s sweater over thin, lifeless shoulders and wheels her toward the house. The dogs rise together and follow. Arrangements must be made, but Arta lingers a while longer in the moment, hollow and still. Lena has chosen to leave in her own way and time. As always. Beyond Arta’s control.

 Found

Kathie Giorgio

Madeline set her cell phone on her desk. Years ago, when her first breast cancer diagnosis came over the phone, she’d dropped the receiver and the cord caught it before it hit the floor. It dangled there, strung up like an animal in a rope trap, and her doctor’s disembodied voice called out, “Maddie? Are you there? Maddie? Did you hear me?”

She did. A month later, she had what was called a partial mastectomy, and she lost an ice cream scoop-sized portion of her right breast.

The next time the bad news came, Madeline was on a cordless phone. She slammed it into the cradle, and then, for good measure, she picked it up again and threw it against a wall. There was no cord to rescue it and it fell to the floor, its battery case cracking open and batteries rolling across the floor like severed organs.

Like her breasts. She lost the rest of her right and all of her left that time, and many of her lymph nodes as well.

And now, the cell phone.

Her doctor said the cancer spread to Madeline’s bones. Breast cancer in her bones. She talked about treatment options. More surgery. Radiation. Chemo, lots of chemo. And then she said, “I’m so, so sorry, Maddie.”

Madeline didn’t answer, but she hit the red circle on her phone’s screen. It was remarkably unsatisfactory. She thought about throwing the phone like she had the last one, but this was an expensive device and financial respect caused her to set it gently down.

How in the world did breast cancer get into bones? It belonged in breasts. She didn’t have breasts anymore. She hadn’t had them in years. So how could it be in her bones?

Her doctor said that a single cancer cell could have drifted during the double mastectomy or even the first partial mastectomy, wandered down her body, and settled at the base of her spine. And then sat there, dormant, sleeping, all this time. All this time that she felt good. That she felt she was cured. That she thought cancer was gone out of her life forever and she’d never again see a surgeon smiling at her before she was put under, she’d never again lie strapped and still under the radiation machine as everyone else ran from the room to avoid what was being done to her, she’d never again be hitched up to IVs and watch as poison flowed into her veins through a special port that stayed in her chest for months and flooded her body and nobody stopped it. That’s what she thought.

But the cancer was sleeping. Peacefully tucked way down deep at the base of her spine. She carried it with her all these years. Her doctor said it woke up and it began to run, producing more cells behind it like the dust behind sneakers pounding on a gravel road.

Madeline thought she just had a backache. Arthritis, maybe. Caused by her getting older, which she was able to do because she’d beaten breast cancer. Twice.

What was that phrase? That cliché? Third time’s the charm.

She looked at her phone, the screen black, as it slept, just like the cancer, waiting to be awakened.

Financial respect be damned. She picked up the phone and threw it against the wall. It shattered.

When her husband walked in that night, home from work, he immediately looked at her face, wet with steam and tears she thought were hidden, as she stirred a pot boiling with spaghetti. He set down his briefcase. “You heard, didn’t you,” he said. “And you didn’t call me.”

She kept her eyes on the rolling noodles. “I thought it was better if we were all together when we talked about it. Emma will be home from practice in about fifteen minutes. We’ll eat, then we’ll talk. Okay? Please?”

Her husband took off his coat and carefully hung it on the row of hooks by the garage door. Then he came behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist as he had for twenty years of marriage and four years of dating, and two cancer treatments and the removal of her breasts and innumerable cancer scares, and he rested his head on her shoulder. Then he sobbed.

Madeline allowed her tears to mix more obviously with the steam. She thought about telling her husband that there was still a treatment option, this third time, this charmed time, this time when it wasn’t in her breasts, but her bones.

But she didn’t say a word. She just kept stirring the noodles. Eventually, he went to change into everyday clothes and she prepared the sauce. By the time their daughter came home, Madeline’s face was dry. She told Emma to wash up and then she put dinner on the table.

As they ate, Madeline avoided looking at her husband. She kept the conversation light, talking about Emma’s day at school, her classes, what her friends were up to, how basketball practice went. She marveled with her husband over their daughter’s height, her leanness, the mean strength of her body. She had next to no breasts, due to her athleticism. And her bones were strong.

Madeline took a couple bites to hide the fact that she was praying for the continued health of her daughter’s tiny breasts and solid bones. Please, God, please. Don’t let her be like me.

They were finishing up their dessert, a surprise treat of ice cream with chocolate syrup, when Madeline set down her spoon. “So, we do have something we need to talk about.”

Her husband and daughter put down their spoons too. Emma, sounding eerily like her father, said, “You heard, didn’t you.”

Madeline nodded. “It’s back. And this time it’s in my bones. It started at the base of my spine, apparently, and then spread up and out. That’s why I’ve been having the backaches. But it’s likely other places too. The MRI showed that it’s pretty widespread.”

“So what exactly did the doctor say?” her husband asked. He’d reached out and held their daughter’s hand. Emma’s free hand was fisted.

Madeline looked at them both. “She said she’s so, so sorry.”

Emma pulled herself free from her father and wrapped herself around Madeline’s shoulders. Madeline felt the shudders she’d known for fifteen years, her daughter’s body growing in mass and strength, the shudders that used to only shake Madeline’s arms where she cradled her baby, and now they made her whole body tremble in sync. Her husband put his face in his hands.

Madeline stared straight ahead. It’s not lying, she thought. I’m not lying. That is what my doctor said. It’s just not all that she said.

She didn’t want to say anything more just then. Not yet. She needed time to think.

After the sound of pacing from her daughter’s room faded away, and when her husband finally fell asleep after sad and careful lovemaking, Madeline slid out of bed. There was a bay window seat in their living room, and Madeline loved it and often sat there on nights when chemo left her too sick to sleep or the surgeries left her in too much pain or if she was simply too scared or worried to shut her eyes. She sat there on good nights too, admiring the moon, the new snow, the budding daffodils, the every-now-and-then deer. On the bad nights, she would look at all this and whisper, “Please, please, please,” over and over. On the good nights, she whispered, “Thank you.”

Tonight, she said nothing. She looked and she considered.

She wasn’t sure if she could take any more of this. The pain of illness followed by the pain of treatment followed by the pain of recovery followed by the pain of failure when cancer just came back again, like her whispers of gratitude and her whispers for mercy. She didn’t know if she could do this again.

She thought about her options. It seemed like there were only two.

Treatment. Again. At the hands of surgeons and radiation oncologists and medical oncologists.

Or end it now. On her own. Under her own terms and under her own hands.

And she wondered, if she chose that second option, would God even listen to her anymore? Would He listen to her “Please, please, please” or her “Thank you”?

Did God put the cancer in her? Again?  Did He send it on its way quietly down her body, allow it to nestle in peace in its cradle, rocking for years on the curve of her hips? Did He wake it, put it in motion? Is that how breast cancer ended up in bones, of all places?

Getting up, she first went to the medicine cabinet and cataloged the many bottles. She wandered to the kitchen and studied the knife block. Glancing at her wrists, she doubted that it would take much. The garage was her next stop and she sat in her car, wondering how airtight the windows were, wondering if air escaped where the big door touched the driveway, and she thought about turning the key in the ignition.

And then she thought about who would find her. How they would find her. Her fifteen-year-old daughter whose shudders vibrated Madeline’s whole body, whose pacing shuffled through the shared wall of their bedrooms. Her husband, who put his face on Madeline’s shoulder and cried.

Emma was four when cancer struck the first time and removed part of Madeline’s breast. She and her husband decided then that there would be no more children. Madeline was disconcerted by the fact that she’d fed her daughter for the first year of her life from a place in her body which would become so, so sick. She couldn’t knowingly feed another child from a breast that held disease. And quietly, she whispered to her husband, “What if I’m pregnant and it comes back?” So no more children.

For that matter, six years later, there were no more breasts.

Six years later, Madeline saw the way ten-year-old Emma snuck sideways glances at her mother’s newly flat chest, as flat as Emma’s own. She never cried in front of Madeline, but Madeline heard the sobs through their shared wall in the bedrooms. One night, Madeline went into her daughter’s room and she held Emma on her lap, despite her ten years, and they rocked for an hour or more. Emma was already tall; in her mother’s lap, her bare feet touched the floor.

She thought of Emma finding her now, if she chose to dig into the medicine cabinet or climb in the bathtub with a knife from the kitchen or turn the ignition on her car. And she thought of Emma watching her again, if she chose to go through treatment. What would Madeline lose this time? Her hair again, for sure. But what else? How could bones be carved out of her body? If random cells wandered then, where would they go now? How long would they sleep?

She returned to the bay window and watched the moonshine slide across her yard. She would buy a new cell phone tomorrow and she would call her doctor back. She would make an appointment and they could talk.

Then she would consider her options again. She needed to know more, even if she didn’t want to hear it.

The first number Madeline called as she stepped out of the cell phone store was her doctor’s office. When she asked for the next available appointment, the receptionist said, “Actually, we have an opening in an hour. Dr. Franklin was hoping you’d call back today and she saved a spot for you, in case you did.”

Madeline was both flattered and worried by this. She loved that her doctor thought enough of her and cared enough for her that she saved an appointment. She also worried that the doctor thought it was so necessary for her to come in right away. But then, on the phone yesterday, Dr. Franklin said she was so, so sorry. Just what did Madeline expect?

Madeline stopped for lunch even though she wasn’t hungry and then she went into the clinic. The nurse patted Madeline’s shoulder and skipped all of the preliminaries, the weight, the blood pressure, the questions, instead leading her into an office. Madeline settled in a chair and only had to wait a few minutes before Dr. Franklin walked in.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I tried calling you back yesterday, but—”

Madeline held up her new phone. “I threw my phone across the room. It broke. I’m sorry.” She tried to smile, at least just a bit. “This little side effect of the new diagnosis cost me a bundle.”

Dr. Franklin stretched across her desk, offering her hands. Madeline took them. “Maddie, this is bad. I won’t sugarcoat it. But it’s not hopeless. We can treat this.”

Madeline nodded and then sat and listened as, first, Dr. Franklin talked about surgery — more than one, actually, surgeries. The cancer weakened several places in her spine; already, there were fractures that needed to be repaired or Madeline would soon be unable to walk. Dr. Franklin talked about something called spinal cement and suddenly, Madeline pictured her back looking like a concrete driveway. More surgeries than expected could occur, depending on if more weakened spots showed up. Second, there was round after round of radiation, of course, that would be pinpointed to all of the spots where the cancer was already known to be. They would have to map a route over her body, as the spots were too widespread to cover all at once. And third, there was extensive chemo, using a variety of drugs. Madeline would be sick, yes, she would lose her hair, yes, she would get burned, yes, she would be in pain, yes, and ultimately, it might not work, yes, but —

“How long?” Madeline interrupted.

Dr. Franklin sat back. “How long for what?”

“How long would the treatment last?”

“Well…” Dr. Franklin looked on her computer and jotted notes on a notepad. “Probably at least a year,” she said, sounding unsure. “Maybe a little over. A lot depends on how it goes, how quickly you recover from the surgeries, how you handle the chemo. We have to balance when each treatment should come in.”

A year.

“And if I don’t have treatment, how long will I live, with the rate that this cancer is growing?” Madeline wanted to feel calm, she wanted to feel stoic. Logical. Reasonable. She sat still, trying to paint herself as that picture, even as everything in her wanted to run away. Maybe in front of a bus. Over a cliff. Somewhere that wasn’t a year. Maybe backwards in time, before she had her first backache that didn’t seem to go away.

Dr. Franklin took her hands again. “Two, maybe three months? It’s been growing for a while, Maddie.”

Madeline thought of the massages, the chiropractor, the ibuprofen, the heating pad. All things she reached for to treat a backache, refusing to think the unthinkable. But how could she think it? Why would breast cancer be in her back? She had no breasts!

And now she wondered how she couldn’t have known. The pain was already pervasive. She just didn’t feel well.

“All right,” she said, knowing the veneer of reasonableness was fast wearing thin and she needed to get out of there. “I have to think about this.” She stood up and wondered for how long she’d be able to. “And…you can’t talk to my family about this, right? Because of confidentiality?”

“That’s right,” Dr. Franklin said. “But Maddie—”

“It’s okay. I just need to think. I’ll call you next week with my decision.” And Madeline left.

At home, Emma noticed her new phone. “It’s really cool, Mom,” she said, sliding out the mini-keyboard and sending her fingers flying over the buttons, finding things to do that Madeline would never do. “Why’d you get it? What happened to your old one?”

“I dropped it.” Madeline wondered if Emma saw longevity in that phone. New phone, long life.

One year.

Two to three months.

Madeline wanted to throw the phone all over again. Even though this one was more expensive than the last.

Madeline returned to the bay window that night. She looked out and considered. Then she held her hands out in front of her, palms up, and she lifted one, then the other, as if they were scales and she was trying to decide which was heavier. But in this case, heavier wasn’t necessarily the better thing.

One year.

Two to three months.

Or immediately, if she decided to take her life right now. The pills. The knife. The car.

She rested her hands on her knees. There was no movement outside. There was no movement inside of her. She thought, I am so done. I am just so done. I know this. I know this in my bones.

She allowed herself to smile, just a little bit, just like in the doctor’s office. Of course she knew this in her bones. That’s where the cancer was, wasn’t it.

But her daughter. But her husband. Who would find her?

How would she do it? How could she do it that would bring the least bit of trauma to them?

And that’s when she realized it. She already held her weapon. Her body held her weapon. The knowledge slid into her veins like the poison she’d already taken in, suffered through, and survived. Cancer had her. She would grasp it in her own hands, under her own skin, deep within her own bones, and she would use it to kill herself. It was her decision, not cancer’s.

It wouldn’t be easy. It wouldn’t be fast. Two to three months. Her husband and daughter would witness it, but they would witness what they were expecting and not see it as their wife and mother giving up and taking her own life. They would think that cancer took her life.

They wouldn’t know that she swallowed cancer, sliced her wrists with cancer, breathed it in as deep as she could in lungs that were likely already afflicted.

Madeline felt cancer’s ache, starting at the top of her hips and branching upwards. She rested her hands in that hollow at the base of her spine before her body swelled out into the cradle that once carried her daughter. She pressed down, felt the ache spread.

Then she went upstairs and finally fell asleep.

Two months later, Madeline was bedridden and her husband was calling in hospice. A hospital bed was in the living room, next to the bay window so that Madeline could look outside when she was capable of turning her head.

Emma sat down next to her mother and held her hand. Madeline treasured the warmth. She breathed shallowly; every movement, even the raising and lowering of her chest hurt. There would be no ventilator, no oxygen, nothing but morphine. Madeline signed the Do Not Resuscitate order; her husband witnessed it. Dr. Franklin watched, her lips in such a tight line, Madeline wondered how the doctor could breathe herself.

Madeline didn’t wonder much anymore. She just waited.

“Mom,” Emma said. “In school today, I was doing some research for a paper for my social studies unit on social justice. Mom, in Oregon, if you move there, they allow assisted suicide.”

Madeline searched, found capability, and turned her head, not to see outside, but to see her daughter. She widened her eyes. It hurt.

“Mom,” Emma whispered, leaning forward, resting her head beside Madeline’s on the pillow. “Do you want to go there? Do you want me to take you? Dad and I could take you.”

Tears rose, rolled down Madeline’s cheeks, soaking her daughter’s hair. “You’d be okay,” she said and then drew breath, let it out, “with that?”

“I just want you to not be in pain anymore!” Emma wept.

Madeline breathed in her daughter’s scent, the feel of her skin against her cheek, the shudders, the so familiar shudders, that rocked her frail, fractured body. Then she closed her eyes and breathed out, letting her daughter be the one to find her.

The Inner Circle 

Arielle Prose

To air out the house and let in as much light as possible, Clarissa’s kitchen window is wide open and her shade pulled all the way up. God, why do they have to see me painting this damn chimney! The chimney that runs right through the middle of her Cape Cod-style house, from the ancient, stone-built basement, up through the small living room and kitchen, through the two bedrooms, and on up through the attic, where the standing room is no more than about nine to ten square feet. Talk about tiny houses—more like a bungalow, if you ask me. She and her husband bought it from her brother a year ago when he bought and moved to the much larger house next door. That’s another reason to be jealous of them, you fool. She pauses before lifting the paint roller from the pan perched on the ladder’s tray. Okay. Stop chiding yourself. You really have nothing to complain about. At least her house is a single-family, unattached house with space all around it, and comes with a huge garden. Situated on a Queens, New York corner lot, it is twenty-five feet by a hundred feet and her garden is about three times the size of her house. Her brother’s house, on the other hand, is a big two-family house on a  fifty-foot by one-hundred-foot lot that is right up against the neighbors’ adjacent building on the other side. Facing her brother’s backyard, or patio, is a wall of four garages. A crab apple tree and some patchy lawn constitute her brother’s side yard and garden. Between his house and side yard, which butts up against Clarissa’s house, is her brother’s driveway. The only use of the side yard, as far as Clarissa can tell, is for the kids to climb the tree and throw apples at passers-by, and for her sister-in-law to pick dandelions for a salad. Ha! Hardly anything compared to the bounty I get from my garden.

Through the kitchen window she can see her brother's family and in-laws sitting on lounge chairs around the patio. They must think I work to death. It’s as if they have nothing better to do than to watch me work. And of course they’d be horrified if they knew I was four months pregnant and climbing a ladder. She gathers up some more mauve-colored paint onto her brush and carefully edges the top of the chimney wall. There! Thank God that’s finished. Now I can get out of here and out of their view! She climbs down the ladder and surveys her work, mumbling, “Mmm, hairline cracks. Oh well, nothing is perfect.” Stepping back, she appraises the darker color of her chimney against the lighter mauve shade in her living room and decides she likes the effect.

“Mom! Louie said he’s getting a remote-control car!” It’s her five-year-old son, Joey, back from playing with his cousin next door. “Nice job on the chimney,” he says as he passes her and opens the freezer, then turns his curly tousled head to ask, “Can I have some ice cream?”

“Joey, you know you’re going to have ice cream at Louie’s birthday party. How come you’re not over there? Did you get into a fight with him?”

“No! But they're taking forever for the party to start. No other kids are there yet. Anyway, Aunt Filomena said to tell you to come over around six thirty. You’re going, right, Mom? I’m not going if you’re not.” He finds the ice cream and puts it on the counter, then opens the cupboard. Clarissa watches him as she rinses the paint brush in the sink. He can reach the bowls now! It seems like just last week he had to use the step stool to reach them.

“I don’t know, Joey. It depends on what time Daddy gets home. We’ll see.” She looks at her son dreamily eating his ice cream and feels a pang of guilt. She thinks she should be more sociable for his sake.

“How come you don't want to go if I don’t?” she asks him.

“Cuz…” Joey answers evasively. “It’s better if you and Daddy are there.”

She recalls last year's Christmas holiday at her brother’s, the first big family get-together after moving into her new house, how twenty-six people sat at a long table with all the kids down at one end — except for Joey who was seated with his parents. None of the other kids had said “Come on Joey, sit with us.” She can understand Joey's reluctance. Of course, her brother and his in-laws have always treated her and her family cordially enough, there is no question about that. But she could always sense a reserve, an estrangement, so to speak, simply because she had married outside her own Italian culture — outside her own race, in fact. Someone who is considered anathema to most of her family and milieu. She had married a Black man.

“All right, honey. I’ll be along as soon as Daddy comes home and has his dinner. Are you okay? You seem to be lost in space.”

Joey blinks his eyes and shifts in his seat. “Oh, I was just thinking of all the presents Louie got for his birthday. But he can’t even open them until everybody’s there. He said he was getting a remote-control car that cost two hundred dollars!”

“My goodness! At seven years old? That’s ridiculous! He’ll just break it right away. You have to know how to handle those things.”

“Yeah, I know,” Joey says, then suddenly straightens up in his seat. “Can I get one when I’m ten years old? Huh, Mom?”

Clarissa laughs, “Honey, if you can wait that long, you’ll surely deserve one — maybe even sooner. I’m gonna go work in the garden now. You want to come and help me pick tomatoes?”    

They step outside onto their patio, and Margie, their cat, scoots out too. Clarissa looks up and notices the sun, now behind the house. She glances at the small window on the second floor at the stairwell landing, where she never fails to pause and gaze at her garden and the surrounding neighborhood, watching the light of the day unfold from the east, from pale early light, to golden afternoon, to shadowy dusk or gleaming twilight, and at night to a changing moon. That spot is where her thoughts are best reflected, she thinks. Like an inner sanctum.

“Wow! Look at how big this tomato is, Mom!”

“Hold it right there!” Clarissa cries, running into the house and coming back quickly with her camera. She snaps a picture of Joey, head bent to one side, squinting at the sun, one hand holding a huge tomato, the other hand on his hip.

Joey complains, “Aw, Mom, you always do that. Stop being so corny.” But Clarissa knows that he says it more to tease her than from feeling embarrassed. She knows that he’s fascinated by the garden just as much as she is, both anticipating the discovery of something new each time they step into it. Of course, after pulling weeds and seeing that tending it is hard work, he sometimes scorns it. But Clarissa feels that the scorn is pretended — that deep down, he has inherited from her the same love of the earth that she in turn has inherited from her mother. She thinks herself lucky that she has this patch of earth to till. It’s worth the time and labor for the small miracles it produces. She repeats to herself a snatch of a poem she wrote: It never fails to please me / As I check out every spot / The newly formed hibiscus / The poppies, the forget-me-nots. / From early spring to way past frost / The flowers bloom and spend / Birds, bees and butterflies woo / It’s always on the mend.

Even the derision of her neighbors doesn't touch her when it comes to her working in the garden. And besides, who are they kidding? They always quickly accept anything I’ve given them from it. They might even be envious. She surveys her garden proudly. There is the rose arbor, her pièce de résistance, there a grape arbor covering the patio, there the tall hedges that run along the property, forming a huge arch over the gate so that Matt, her husband, has to climb a ladder to clip them. And unlike any other garden in the neighborhood — at least that she is aware of — it is unique in that it has a gooseberry bush, a cherry tree, and a quince tree — besides the usual fig tree. However, while all this makes a picturesque and cozy haven, the garden is too much work. In fact, she’s sure it’s more work than her housework, and it is often a bone of contention between her and her husband because of all the time they put into it. Yet, it’s also true that they both enjoy sitting under the grape arbor, relaxing in each other’s company. Somehow any leftover arguments from the day dissipate under its canopy. She’ll say things like, “Next year we’ll have enough money to build the extension.”

“You mean I’ll have enough money to take a trip down to Rio. By myself. Tee, hee, hee,” he’ll fake laugh.

“Oh really! And just what do you think you’ll do there without me?” she’ll ask in a menacing tone.

And they’ll go on like that, mocking each other and dreaming their dreams.

At eight o’clock, while Matt and Joey are still at the party, Clarissa goes back to her house to use the bathroom, saying she’ll be right back. From the bathroom window she sees the one floodlight from her brother’s back door and the lantern lights hung around the back yard. The balloons have long ago been popped, and pieces of streamers are limply stirring in the warm summer air. The table with birthday cake spoils is pushed to a corner. Most of the adults are inside the house now, while the kids in the yard have put on some hip-hop music and are starting to break-dance. It’s the latest fad and all the kids eagerly take turns showing off. They drop onto the concrete floor, breaking their fall to different moves, twists, and complicated turns of arms and legs, flip-flopping every which way. The older kids laugh at the younger ones going willy-nilly, encouraging them to go even further. One after another they jump into the crowd’s circle and dance to laughs, shouts, and cheers. Louie has just finished taking his turn. Clarissa looks to see where Joey is. Then she sees him off to one side and feels a knife stab deep into her heart. She has no way of knowing how long he’s been standing there with no one paying him any attention. She guesses at least since she’s been watching them, a good five minutes. Her throat constricts and a wave rises inside her, threatening to flood over. She wishes he would just jump in the circle and show off with the rest of them. Oh God! Why is he just watching, just standing there by himself?

She has always known this would happen, this feeling of being ostracized. Ever since she and Matt, very much in love with each other, began holding hands, or kissing in public. She remembers one scene in particular on a bus. An Italian-looking elderly man sitting across from them sneered at her when she looked his way. Matt himself had told her of some of the discrimination he faced growing up — even when he was in the army. When their relationship turned serious and they announced their intention to marry, both sets of parents were initially resistant to the idea, especially Clarissa’s mother, but eventually her family and extended family all accepted the fact of their love for each other, except for one cousin who refused to attend their wedding. Clarissa knows that she’s become something of a pariah to some in her family and her brother’s own extended family. And now her son is experiencing this feeling of being an outcast, she is sure of it. The only consolation, she thinks, is that he’ll soon have a brother or a sister to shore him up. Thank God!

Later, after reading The Cat in the Hat together, Clarissa asks Joey, “How did you like Louie’s party, honey? Did you have a good time?”

“Mm hmm,” Joey replies.

“I saw you from the bathroom window when the kids were break-dancing. How come you didn’t jump in? You’re not shy to show off your moves at home,” she adds.

“Aw, I just wanted to watch the bigger kids,” Joey says, smiling. “Mario was the best.”

“Well, okay. Just as long as you’re not afraid of them,” Clarissa responds, as she nuzzles her nose against his. “Now let’s say our prayers.”

At the end of the litany of each family member’s name, Joey adds, “And God bless the baby that’s growing in Mommy’s tummy.”

Clarissa, a little surprised and heartened by his thoughtfulness, says a soulful “Amen.” She gets up from the bed and tucks him in, kissing him on the lips. “G’night, sweetie.”

An hour later, Clarissa, lying in bed and still smarting from the sting of her heartache, turns on her side to face Matt, and brings up her concerns by describing the scene to him. “He looked so… I don’t know — forlorn… I think he feels left out whenever he’s with my side of the family, like an outsider looking in. He seems much more playful whenever he’s with his cousins from your side of the family.”

Matt responds, “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter, does it? Besides, it’ll toughen him up for the battles he’s gonna fight later on.” He looks at her doubtful face and says, “Don’t worry. Joey’s strong enough to handle it. It’s more likely you feel the rejection more than he does.”

Clarissa lets out a sigh. “Possibly. He certainly brushed it off when I asked him about it. You know, when we were praying, he asked God to bless the baby. He’s so sweet. But that family… They act all friendly toward us and keep telling me all the time how much they like you and all that, but I think they feel superior to us. Remember that time they invited us to dinner at that restaurant and their whole family showed up an hour late. All that time we were waiting for them and not even the courtesy of a call to tell us they’d be late.”

Matt says, “Yeah, what can I say? They’ve got no class. Except for your brother, that whole family is very insular. You know, when it comes down to it, Joey will learn that their opinion of him ain’t worth—”

“Ain’t worth a rat's patootie,” Clarissa finishes for him and smiles, feeling sure that what he was about to say would have been much cruder.

“Exactly.” Matt gathers Clarissa in his arms. “But we’re happy, aren’t we? That’s all Joey needs to know. That’s what’ll give him confidence.”

Clarissa ponders this. “I know. It’s just that I don’t want him to feel that he has to prove himself to them all the time, or that he feels jealous because of all their possessions.”

Matt gently swipes Clarissa’s hair out of her brow, and says, “They have nothing to brag about when Joey compares our values to theirs.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right—”

“Suppose? You know I'm right.” Leaning in close to her face, he continues, “We just have to set an example by showing him what’s really important.”

“And that is?” Clarissa smiles and falls into his kiss.

 Duck Feeder

Philip Brunetti

That one likes to feed the ducks. She creeps down the wooden back stairway of her house and crouches near the edge of the dock. She carries a cellophane bag of old bread bits. She opens the bag and tosses bread into the channel. The ducks come swimming up with bobbing heads and excited quacking — semi-excited quacking. They skim the surface and dip their bills for sinking scraps and morsels, eagerly gobbling it all up.

After she finishes feeding the ducks, the girl stands up on the dock and glances at me. She sees that I’m about twenty feet away and behind glass. I'm standing in the window of my den, looking out at the small dock and channel, and the girl is looking in at me. She seems ready to bounce back up the wooden stairs barefoot but instead she stands still and then starts talking:

“I’m the girl that likes to feed the ducks,” she says. “I don’t do it all the time. I do it once or twice a week and only when I have bread bits or other usable duck food. I don’t buy food specifically for the ducks. I use leftover food that’s available and not wasteful. Anyway I’m a girl. I’m thirteen years old. I’m standing on this dock wearing a green T-shirt and jeans shorts. I’m barefoot. It’s almost too cold to be barefoot. Next week it might be too cold.”

She pauses. She knows I haven’t heard all of this or at least not completely clearly. It’s true that the bottom of the window is pushed open and her voice does come into that crack of space. I hear it — I do hear it. I don’t know what else to do but hear it…

“That one likes to feed the ducks,” I say. “That’s what I thought about you when I saw you. When I caught sight of you prancing down your stairs and getting ready to feed the ducks. That’s what I’d say to myself.”

The girl nods knowingly. She appears to nod knowingly. In truth there may be nothing knowing about it — but at least it’s a nod. Two or three nods even, but the last one was ever so slightly less nod-like than the proceeding one. And the second one less than the first.

“Your nods diminish,” I say.

“Nods diminish eventually,” she says.

“I think you’re very far way,” I say. “I think you’re so much farther than twenty feet.”

“It might be twenty-five feet,” she says.

“Maybe,” I say. “But it’s like you’re on some other coast completely. Maybe it’s an old black-and-white movie. Maybe you’re on the same beach with that baffling sea creature. Such an odd, amorphous creature…”

“I know that beach,” she says. “My uncle’s name is Federico.”

“Does he have a flat nose?” I ask.

“Not yet,” she says. “That comes later.”

Ah, later.

It wouldn’t be too much later. It might be months later, or years later, or just a few pages later. I can’t remember. I can’t remember everything — I’m an old man. But this one, this one likes to feed the ducks. I guess she likes it. I’m trying to understand everything else about her without looking at her and without thinking about her. In fact I never think about her except when she appears on her backstairs and descends with a small bag of food bits. Broken-up pieces of bread or crushed crackers. Popcorn once. This hasn’t been going on too long. Maybe two or three months. She comes down the stairway and feeds the ducks. I drink a cup of tea at the window. It’s just where I stand — where I live. She’s where she lives. The ducks are there too. Swimming in the inlet, snacking. The ducks have tiny brains but beautiful iridescent feathers, mainly in the neck area. But the males only, I think. Or maybe it’s the females. Whichever, the ducks have empty bellies. Maybe they’re not completely empty. Maybe there are worms and insects in their digestive tracts. The girl and I don’t think about this or talk about it. But then I wonder about it sometimes — like right now. And I wonder if she wonders about it too…

Anyway, the ducks took it back. They took it back to something that wasn’t me and wasn’t the girl and was just ducks swimming in the channel eating bread. There was nothing else to figure except that everything had fallen like a deadweight. Still, no one would have noticed as I sipped my tea from a graying blue teacup. But maybe that was the clue — the thing to notice.

The girl bounded back up the stairs. She opened and closed the backdoor and was gone. The ducks were done feeding and had swum off. Eventually they’d grow hungry again and come quacking back around. I might go feed them. I might do something too. But it could cause a ruckus. A kind of awkward rivalry. But that was all I wanted anyway. Somebody’d told me that was all I really wanted.

Mowgli from Queens

Nuha Fariha

It was four o’clock on a very warm fall afternoon in the Seeonee Apartments when Baloo woke up from his day’s rest, scratched under his belly, yawned, and reached for his blunt. The tip had cooled and blackened, leaving ashy marks on the mahogany coffee table.

“What it do, Baloo?” he mumbled as he searched nearby for a lighter. Had it fallen between the folds of the broken-down blue couch? Or was it resting on the end of the tabletop, crowded with Taco Bell boxes and sticky Baja Blast? Perhaps it was hidden just behind the collection of old Dazed and Confused DVDs collecting dust on the bottom of the TV stand.

“Looking for something, Baloo?” Bagheera eyed the situation from the kitchen with an air of resigned bemusement before walking over with a fresh plate of baked cookies. “Maybe try just under your feet.”

“Ah ha! Thank you, old friend.” Baloo picked up the green lighter from the Mughal rug, relit the blunt, and, after a long drag, proffered the orange tip towards Bagheera.

“No problem. Just woke up from your hibernation?”

“Not a full hibernation. I just nap a lot. You know this.”

“Of course. How could I forget?”

“Forget your worries and your strife. That’s a song about the good life!” Baloo made his way around the table and down the cluttered hallway to the bathroom. “By the way, where is Mowgli?”

Without warning, the door to Apartment 313 swung open. Mowgli trooped in, lanky arms and gangly legs, his ruffled maroon uniform sweater wrapped around his hips. By now, he knew the layout of the apartment well, and he made himself at home on the couch after giving Bagheera a hug. Ever since Raksha had taken on that extra shift at the hospital, ever since Akeela disappeared, Apartment 313 had become home of sorts.

“How’s it going, man?” Baloo turned to offer Mowgli the still-lit joint. Wincing from Bagheera’s steely gaze, the thirteen-year-old solemnly shook his head.

“Is this your teaching, Baloo?” Bagheera sternly addressed. “I’d like to have a word with you. There’s no room in the apartment for these tricks.”

“Tricks?” Baloo scoffed. “Remember, Bagheera, he is very little. We have to show him the jungle ways.” He winked at Mowgli who was holding two cookies between his hands with a third in his mouth.

“The jungle?” the thirteen-year-old asked as he swallowed another bite of the still warm chocolate chip cookie. He had heard rumors of this jungle, just beyond the outskirts of Corona Flushing Park. It was rumored to be the home of the notorious Bander-logs gang, though everyone seemed to hush whenever he brought up the topic.

“Of course, Seeonee Apartments, the finest in the concrete jungle!” Baloo retorted. “I swear I say this to you every year and you never seem to remember. Come on, stop eating for a minute and recite it with me: This is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky. The Wolf that keeps it may prosper, but the Wolf that breaks it will die.”

“For the strength of the pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the pack.” Mowgli joined in. “Akeela used to say that a lot, but he never explained. Can you tell me?”

“Stop filling this boy’s head with nonsense, Baloo,” Bagheera chided, taking the now-empty cookie platter back to the kitchen. “And you, Mowgli, will not get involved in any of this nonsense. Now, did this so-called school of yours give you any kind of homework today?”

For the last two years, Mowgli had felt an itch on the back of his hand. For the last two years, Mowgli had been waiting for Akeela to come home. The two weren’t connected. He couldn’t quite explain it to any physician. Though his frazzled mother, Raksha, had tried all the herbal remedies from the Chinese pharmacy down the block, the itch persisted. Mowgli kind of liked it; the itch kept him company and gave the mother and son a ritual every weekend.

Every Saturday morning, Raksha would wake him up at exactly nine o’clock in the morning, still dressed in her baby blue scrubs from the night before. “Come on, we’re going to miss the train.”

The two would sidestep past sleeping bodies on the dimly lit staircase leading out of the concrete building, still adjusting to the brisk October morning. Outside, the brightly colored fall leaves painted a colorful mural for their harried jog down three blocks before climbing onto the F27.

“It’s just no use m’am. Oils, topicals, essences, we’ve tried them all,” Mr. Li shrugged as Raksha dragged Mowgli between cramped aisles. “Maybe it’s a family curse. After all, Akeela had a similar issue before he—” He quickly stopped talking when he noticed Raksha’s fierce glare.

“Thank you, Mr. Li. We’ll be heading home now.”

“Mama, are we cursed?” Mowgli asked Raksha during dinner that night. He continued to poke his wavy fries into the ketchup, not expecting Raksha to respond. The pile of fried halal chicken covered in its greasy paper casing sat between mother and son.

“Stop playing with your food. And no, you’re not cursed.” Raksha’s pointed teeth glowed in the dim lighting as she bit into the fleshy chicken blubber. It had been like this since Akeela’s disappearance; someone had replaced his cheerful mother with this silent, resentful, strict other.

“When will Akeela come home then? Is he lost in the jungle?” Mowgli tipped pulpy, dried ketchup back into the container. He asked, knowing the response would not be any different tonight.

“I don’t know, Mowgli!” Raksha’s exasperated tone softened as she took in the boy’s long serious face. “Hey, maybe we can watch a movie together tonight, something just for the two of us.”

“Okay. We can watch The Jungle Book!”

Raksha groaned but acquiesced. It was the eighth time this week, but for some reason Mowgli found comfort in the music, the colorful outfits, the characters’ quirks. He was obsessed with the jungle. She gathered up the leftovers and mentally took stock — more than enough to reheat for the following day’s dinner.

That night, under the glow of the TV, Raksha stroked Mowgli’s sleeping head. “Never forget this, Mowgli. You’re mine. Mine to me. No matter where you go, or what they may call you, you will always be my son.”

As he drifted off to sleep, Mowgli remembered his last day with Akeela. It was the perfect day, the perfect Eid. Raksha prepared the apartment the night before, cleaning and cooking all night, leaving the delicious scents of cardamom, cinnamon, and clove still hovering in the air. She took out the carrot halwa from the fridge to warm over the stove for Mowgli and Akeela’s breakfast, fresh parathas already on the tal on the stove.

“Hurry up or you’ll miss him!” she scolded Mowgli as he stumbled out, feeling excited to finally wear his new pyjamas and yellow kurta.

Next to the door, broad-shouldered Akeela laughed as he watched his son run around.

“Hey man, what happened to the morning greeting?”

It was an Eid tradition, to be blessed at the feet of both of his parents, one Mowgli secretly loved to do. He scampered to the doorway where his parents gathered side by side.

“May Allah bless you, my child.”

The rest of the day passed in a blur — they prayed in the community garden with all the other uncles and brothers from the Seeonee Apartments, visited Rikki Tikki and his cousins, challenged Baloo to a fujka eating contest, sang ghazals late into the night with Bagheera and Raksha. Mowgli hardly even noticed when Akeela went to answer the door.

“Excuse me, you’ll have to come with us for some more questioning,” a deep voice purred from behind the door. A flash of dyed red beard, a worried exchange between Akeela and Raksha, Akeela’s resigned shoulders as he steps out. He never returned.

In the dream, Mowgli stands paralyzed in the spot. He wants to scream, he wants to stop Akeela from opening the door, but all he can do is watch.

Outside of the dull red metal trailers of Richmond Hill High School, Mowgli chewed on the last warm bite of his pakora. Though he had grown up with these kids, he still kept his distance. With the disappearance of his father, he became even more withdrawn, choosing to spend lunch time in this little corner where he could count the cars and observe the playground shenanigans. Suddenly, he was pushed up against the surrounding chain link fence.

“Wha—” with flecks of spiced pea and potato mixture falling out of his mouth, the young boy looked straight into the hypnotizing green eyes of Shere Khan. The badge on his right shoulder caught the slim glint of the noontime October sun. Nausea crept up Mowgli’s throat as he recognized the exact shade of orange-red of the policeman’s hair.

“Stop asking about the jungle. You don’t want to know more. I can easily do much worse.” Specks of spit from Shere Khan’s mouth collected on Mowgli’s fragile collar. The boy felt paralyzed again. 

“What do you want from him? Haven’t you had enough? He’s already gone.” Raksha appeared next to Mowgli in her blue school nurse scrubs. Shere Khan backed off, leaving Mowgli to readjust his hoodie and backpack.

“You cannot protect him forever. The day you miss, your cub’s blood will run down my chin.” With that ominous warning, Shere Khan stalked off leaving Raksha to pull her boy close to her.

“You come straight home, okay Mowgli?” Raksha scanned Mowgli's inscrutable expression and noticed the red scratches lining his right hand. She feared the worst might happen tonight.

Later that afternoon, Mowgli urgently knocked on the door of Apartment 313, opened by a sleepy Bagheera in a black velvet tracksuit.

“Mowgli? You’re here early today—”

Mowgli rushed in, leaving muddy sneaker marks on the polished floors.

“How old is the jungle, Bagheera?”

Bagheera straightened up. “Mowgli, I thought we had put this nonsense conversation behind us.”

“I want to know.” He crossed his arms.

Bagheera sighed and took out two chipped mugs from a clapboard cabinet, placing two sticks of cinnamon into a pot of water.

“The jungle has been here since before you were born and it will be here after you die. The jungle is eternal.” She handed a mug of warm cinnamon tea to Mowgli. “You know, when I first met you all those seasons ago, Mowgli, I saw something in you.”

“That I’m weird? Why am I different from the other kids?” Mowgli took a seat on the blue couch, careful not to jostle the snoring Baloo.

“You are different. You are special. You are a thinker, just like Akeela.” Taking a sip from her mug, Bagheera held Mowgli’s gaze. “Listen to me, Mowgli. The jungle is a dangerous place. Yesterday, I was another panther in that cage. I bit, I scratched, I spent my life fighting. Until one day, I just stopped. Don’t fight, little brother.”

“Is that what happened to Akeela? Did he fight too hard?” Mowgli drank the hot liquid in one quick, biting swallow. “I want to know, Bagheera. This is my chance. I have to go to the jungle. I have to see it for myself.”

Bagheera sighed again and looked for answers at the bottom of her teacup.

With a vengeance, Shere Khan started to knock again on the door of Apartment 313.

“Yes, can I help you? I’m more likely to give help than to ask for it, you know.” Bagheera put down her Whole Foods bags to search for the keys in her black hoodie.

“Have you seen Mowgli?” growled the policeman, his mane of hair a menacing red in the hallways’ dim glow.

“Not since last night. And this is where I bid you adieu, dear friend.” Bagheera tipped open the door to the apartment to reveal a nonchalant Baloo laughing along with Matthew McConaughey, a blunt in his hand.

“Oh, hi there. Care to join me?” Baloo said.

Shere Khan glared before turning around. “Ok, give me a call if you do. Word on the street is that Mowgli is heading to the jungle, to the Ancient Ruins.”

Putting the grocery bags onto the table, Bagheera sighed. “The Jungle. Oh I hate to think about what will happen when he meets the King of theirs.”

“The Jungle?” Baloo paused the TV. “What’s he doing there? And why did Shere Khan want anyway?”

“They’re searching for Mowgli. You know that Shere Khan won’t wait. He’ll get Mowgli while he’s young and helpless. Just one swipe.” Bagheera shuddered, putting the Lactaid onto the empty fridge shelf.

“This is not good, Bagheera. This is very not good.” Baloo scrambled around the apartment, knocking over even more clutter onto the floor as he gathered his jacket and shoes.

“Ah, it was inevitable, Baloo. The boy couldn’t help himself. It was bound to happen. Mowgli is where he belongs now.” Bagheera dumped the sticky sweet brown remains of her tea into the sink. “We tried our best.”

“I have to go and rescue him. You stay here and keep watch with Raksha. With any luck, we’ll get to him before… well, before.” Baloo’s uncertain silhouette filled the wide door frame.

Bagheera nodded. “Godspeed, old friend.”

It was just past midnight when Mowgli stepped into the abandoned tire yard tucked away in a corner of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. “He-hello?” His meek voice reverberated off the tin shed in the middle as a light flickered on. A mixture of cold rain created a net of wet leaves on the ground. In the distance, he heard the howls of hungry dogs, though he couldn’t locate the exact source.

“Sometimes, fear is the only intelligent response,” a voice whispered from the far corner of the yard, coming steadily closer.

“Who— who are you?” Mowgli shivered and tugged on his hoodie strings. He was beginning to understand just how terrible his idea might have been.

“It’s me, Kaa.” His slit-like yellow eyes glowered under the moonlight. “Are you afraid of me?” Mowgli didn’t respond. “Say something or I shall get bored. And when I get bored, I get hungry.”

“What do you want? Why are you here?” Mowgli tried to keep his composure as Kaa slid closer and closer still.

“I am the jungle’s eyes. I can see the past and future. I saw chaos and darkness come onto our lands. I saw Shere Khan killing a man and breaking jungle law one fateful night. I saw the jungle place its hopes into the hands of a small creature the likes of which it had never seen before.”

“Wait, what? Shere Khan killed someone?” Mowgli gulped. He remembered Raksha’s tenseness around the orange-haired policeman earlier that day. He remembered Akeela’s sudden disappearance from his life, the quiet days that followed. His right hand began to itch again. “Was it my father? Was it Akeela?”

“WHO DARES DISTURB MY PEACE?” King Louie’s roar made the windchimes quake. Unbeknownst to Mowgli, the enormous monstrous figure had appeared before him with a small army behind him. “WHO ARE YOU?”

“It’s me, Mowgli! I have come to find the truth.” Mowgli squared his shoulders and stood taller. He would not be paralyzed today.

“Ah, man cub. We’ve been waiting for you to come. Took you long enough.” King Louie signaled for his henchman to circle the lanky boy. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”

Mowgli ducked as a lead pipe came for his head. Behind him, another nameless henchman kicked him, toppling the boy onto the slick ground. A bright spurt of blood colored the yellowing leaves. King Louie came up over Mowgli’s hunched frame, lifting his head between his hands. Mowgli’s soft brown eyes flickered open.

“Not very prepared today, are we?” He shook his head. “Let the dogs take out this trash in the morning.” He signaled to the henchmen to open the cages that surrounded the yard. From behind their cages, hungry canines continued to howl, shaking the rain droplets from their mangy flea-bitten coats. 

Mowgli began to lose consciousness. A blur of black and yellow drew closer. Unable to even raise his voice, he slumped over. Kaa lit a cigarette and, blowing out a puff, whispered over Mowgli’s face. “One day you will speak and the jungle will listen. What will you say then?”

As dawn broke out over the Bander-log’s yard, Baloo burst through the chain-link, the reverberations from his imitation Gucci sandals causing the rats to scatter amid the moldy stack of tires.

“Excuse me! Anybody here? Excuse me!” He bumbled towards the shed in the middle.

“WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY PEACE AGAIN?” King Louie re-emerged from behind the rusted tin shack, regal in his purple fur coat.

“Oh my gosh, is that you, King Louie? This is so exciting. The legends do you no justice sir. You are...truly...ENORMOUS. Look at all that fur. How...how majestic!” Louie’s henchmen, squalid and red-eyed, drew closer.

“Now, hang on,” Baloo continued as he held out his empty hands. “I’ve climbed a mountain to see you — taken the R25 train too — just to be in your presence. For me this is a dream come true.”

He spied Mowgli’s battered frame on the ground. “And I see that you have my little friend too. Whew, what a night you seem to have had. If you don’t mind, maybe we can resume this meeting at a later date.”

“Fine, you may take the man-cub this time. He’s not as amusing as others seem to say anyway.” King Louie held up a hand to stop his henchman.

As he lifted Mowgli’s limp body and carried him away, Baloo whispered, “You have never been a more endangered species than you are at this minute.”

“Baloo? Is that you?” Mowgli raised his head from the overly starched sheets. The hospital lights made his already gaunt face look paler still, casting a sickly glow over him.

“Hello, little brother,” Baloo took Mowgli’s slender hand into his own.

“How... how did I get here? What happened? Am I dying, Baloo? What happened in the jungle?” The boy began to take in the details of the room, Baloo’s concerned face, and the stack of unopened cookies on the bedside counter.

“Oh, that? Yeah, I saved your life. No biggie, I snatched you from the jaws of death — the COILS of death, if you will. Luckily they said it wasn’t too late for you.” Baloo’s bravado began to slip. “But Mowgli, you have to stop doing this, man. I can’t even sneak a blunt in here.”

“I just wanted to know Baloo. I wanted to know the truth. About Akeela, about Shere Khan, about everything.” Mowgli’s head began to pulsate again. “I... I found out some things from Kaa. Is it true, Baloo? Did...did Shere Khan really kill a man?”

Baloo sighed. “It’s true that Akeela did disappear the same time that the rumor about Shere Khan started. But no one, and I mean no one, has ever been able to figure out what exactly happened. And sometimes, Mowgli, it’s better to not know. It’s safer.”

Nodding, Mowgli opened up the roll of cookies. “Sometimes. It’s funny though, my hand no longer itches. Isn’t that funny?”

And he grew and grew strong as a boy who must grow and who does not know that he is learning any lessons and who has nothing in the world to think of except things to eat.

 Plant-Based Pain and the Privilege of Suffering

Patricia McCrystal

We didn’t know how to cope with the cactus man’s death. The mayor — a loyal Advocate, like most of us in town—proclaimed a day of grief as soon as we heard the news, just after sunrise. He shouted himself hoarse from the defunct church’s bell tower, the peeling once-white clapboard licked down to its tawny marrow from relentless sun and wind. The bank and school were to remain closed. The funeral would be tomorrow, at the top of Weeping Woman mesa. The mayor rubbed his bloodshot eyes, sunken and perpetually inflamed from dust and drink and now, despair. The saloon would stay open.

Children from first through twelfth grade sped off on their bikes and rode all the way out to the cactus man’s property to circle his compound under the torrid cockcrow sun. As heat and dehydration began knocking them off their bikes, they collapsed onto the wall of cacti that knifed through the crimson dirt surrounding his home, their wails of sorrow mixing with cries of pain. It was exactly what he would have wanted.

It was Rayna who had first announced the cactus man’s passing. She led a one-person funeral dirge down the main drag at sunrise looking like a spitting image of a Phainopepla, her favorite desert bird: long black skirt dragging in the copper dust behind her, eyes griefed in scarlet. She gripped the cactus man’s heavy Chinese gong in one trembling hand, mallet in the other. Three penance bands bit into each calf, the bands nearest her knees newly fortified with a searing layer of cholla cactus spines, fat driblets of fresh blood juicing out beneath.

The loss of the cactus man meant the loss of what made us who we were as a community. We weren’t a town that outsiders visited to get a taste of early-colonial charm as they passed through from California or New Mexico. We were off the beaten path, way off, and we weren’t quaint in the way of mining museums and cafes; pottery stores and antique shops. We were a people with our own way of doing things, a collection of Advocates from all over the country called to a practice that worked to push back against injustice.

The cactus man made this so. 

In the windswept downtown strip that morning, between body-wracking wails, Rayna lifted the cactus man’s gong and pounded it over and over, the deep tone palpitating in our chests and pulling us onto the boardwalk. I had just finished delivering the mail to the drug store when I saw her. As I fell to my knees in the dirt, the fist around my heart clenched tighter with the realization that the only other person in the world who could help me shoulder this grief was unreachable, her red eyes shrouded behind a veil of black lace, sparing no passing glance as she staggered past, bare feet kicking up dust.

That afternoon, I went to the saloon to find respite the only way I knew how since Rayna left me. Truth be told, I’d been doing it since before she left, too. The inside of the dim bar was cramped with mourning Advocates. We raised our scarred hands for whiskey and tequila, wiping our fingers beneath our eyes between shots. I tightened my penance bracelets to their highest setting, the two-inch barbed cholla cactus spines pressing deep into my wrists and sending sickening waves of heat to my shoulders. I ran a finger over the outside of the band I had made last week, after Rayna left. The supple leather felt like the smooth skin of her lower back. I closed my eyes and took another shot. All the Advocates decided we wouldn’t leave the bar until the sum of us had taken down 101 shots—the spiritual age of the cactus man in his passing—even if it meant we had to crawl home.

It should be said that not everyone in town recognized the cactus man. Andy and Rick and a few other Tohono O’odham tribal members, for instance, shook their heads and scooted over to the next barstool whenever we came in. Miguel, the barkeep from Oaxaca, liked to say the cactus man was just a defunct actor from LA, an old hippie playing Indian with his braids and jewelry and pseudo-Native plant worship. As more mourners filed in, I overheard Miguel telling One-Eyed Sal that half the cacti on the man’s compound didn’t even grow in the Sonoran Desert, that he had a bunch of old world plants trucked in when he was building the place. The man must be loaded, Miguel whistled. Sal smiled, tiny brown teeth aglint, single bloodshot eye twinkling with ridicule. 

I was immune to their scorn. They would never understand our purpose or means of pursuit. The cactus man had been cultivating a community of followers for almost a decade. His teachings gave those of us born with pedigrees of privilege a way to repent, to milk some good out of the guilt of being born with silver spoons in our mouths. We toiled under penance bracelets, pushing cactus spines deep into our skin to alchemize our pain into a cosmic energy pure and potent enough to overturn unjust systems of power across the world. Our spiritual conductivity traveled through plant-based pheromones, the earth’s oldest form of communication. 

Hearing all that talk from Miguel made me shoot my whiskey faster, but I didn’t realize Carl had sidled up next to me and heard it, too. Carl had been Harvey Weinstein’s executive assistant for ten years. Since becoming an Advocate, he’d been swallowing microdoses of the poisonous Candelabra cactus every morning, and would continue doing so until he matched the number of years he had turned a blind eye to his boss’s crimes. His lips had all but disintegrated, blood often dripping from one corner of his mouth and onto his starched collar. Deranged with grief, poor Carl picked up his beer bottle and slammed it over his head. He fell sideways off his stool and dropped to the floor in an ungraceful calamity, a fresh gash above his brow grinning up at us wetly. The rest of us got off our stools and picked up the shards of glass with our hands, squeezing them hard into our palms until blood filtered through our fingers. “Thank you,” we murmured to the clay floor, our reflections murky in the oily pools of liquor and blood. 

Three days before the cactus man’s death, Rayna’s friend Sarah had disappeared. Rayna packed up and said she wanted to stay at the cactus man’s compound for a while, just until they figured out what happened to Sarah. When there was no talking her out of leaving, I offered to drive her there myself. 

Rayna sat silent in the passenger seat, backpack gripped to her chest, hot air blowing in through the window and lifting her dark hair up around her face. She packed everything she brought when we moved from San Francisco—some clothes, a notebook, and the knife her mother had given her for protection, back during her city-wandering days. Every few minutes she’d clench her jaw and cover her mouth with her hand and I’d nurse the brakes. She’d been sick for weeks but waved off my concern, saying it was an expected part of a new cactus supplement regimen, a particularly potent plant that cleared out toxins. 

About a mile out from the cactus man’s compound, I cleared my throat. 

“Did Sarah say anything to you before she left?” 

Rayna stared forward, unblinking. Up ahead, a crow lay on the side of the road, face to the sky. Two other crows were hopping around it, pecking at its carcass.

“Yes.” 

She itched her opposite wrist with the back of her thumb. There was a raw pink ring where her penance bracelet used to be.

It was Sarah who had introduced Rainey and me to the cactus man. The girls had been on the dance team together back in high school, but drifted away in college. When Sarah mailed us a copy of The Book, the timing of its arrival couldn’t have been more prophetic. Rayna had been in her dark place for months. Something about losing her job as the front desk clerk at a hot yoga studio had unraveled her, despite the security of a trust fund that could carry her past the grave. A sex abuse scandal between the owner—some world-renowned yogi—and a dozen female yoga teachers hit the news circuit overnight. The guy fled, the place went under. Rayna started sleeping in every day until noon. She stopped showering. She wouldn’t let me touch her, beside the occasional back rub or terse kiss before work. Then the roaming started.

Rayna walked the city for hours alone while I was at work, a development I’d been ignorant of until her mother mailed her the knife: a Spyderco Matriarch 2, a close-combat weapon that looked fresh from a tacky truck stop display in some flyover state, replete with samurai swords and grenade paperweights and corned nuts.

I asked Rayna what the knife was for. When she didn’t reply, I called her mother on the way to work. There was something strange in her voice, a restraint that was unlike her; a woman usually eager to reveal all the gory details of others’ lives with a grim pleasure.

“It’s a bit of a...you know, dear...a woman’s issue,” she had said. “She just…she needs some time.”

“What are we talking about here?” I pressed. “Early menopause?” 

“I knew that place was no good. I tried to warn her,” her mother hissed. I pictured her ducking out of earshot of Rayna’s father, perhaps into her ludicrously sized closet furnished with a luxuriating bench, presumably in case one grew tired while walking from one end to the other. “Believe me, Oscar, I did. Imagine a girl with her degree working behind the desk at a yoga studio, for Christ’s sake. We tried to tell her: better to not work at all than have something like that on her resume.” I gripped the wheel, irritated and relieved to hear her mother veer back into her old self. “But it’s like she’s got this endless need to rebel. Excuse us for giving her absolutely everything in the world.”

Then The Book arrived. The next morning, I woke up to find Rayna reading on the balcony like she used to before work, fully dressed, hair wet from the shower. I came up behind her and kissed the top of her head, drinking in the smell of shampoo and fresh coffee steaming from her mug. She tilted her head back and smiled. Rainey was back, with even more intensity in her quick, dark eyes, her sly smile that had made me dizzy with longing on the first night I met her at our college bar in Berkeley. 

“Listen to this,” she said, and began to read aloud from chapter four, The Ceremony By Which Teenagers Become Actualized Adults. As we sipped our coffee and rolled our fingers together, dashing off buttery flakes of croissant between bites, she read me her favorite parts of the chapter, highlighter in hand, knee bouncing beneath the table. 

When children turned six years old, they went to the cactus man’s compound to pick a small cutting from an Old Man Plant, waxy knobs covered in a downy white fur that they could wrap their hands around. At sixteen, they were to return and cut a clipping from the hundreds of brutal species surrounding the compound. They were to pull away a clipping without gloves or shears, as this was how children became adults: by giving back the blood and pain it took to bring them into the world. By honoring the original mother beneath their feet with beads of crimson gratitude. 

The teens were to take the clipping home and replant it, making sure it took root and propagated. At twenty, they were to return to the cactus man for their first penance anklet: a leather band with cactus spines sewed to the inside that punctured their delicate skin with every step.

“It’s a training,” Rayna said, setting The Book on the table and picking up her mug. “To embrace pain. To choose it before it chooses you. To wield it as power instead of being powerless.” 

She shook her head and laughed. “Can you imagine how much better off us girls would be if we learned that lesson earlier?”

Two months later, we arrived in Arizona. We had donated everything we couldn’t sell or fit in the vintage pink and white trailer I found on Craigslist. The previous owners had named it “The Pearl De Vere,” an ode to an infamous brothel-owning madam of the American West. Aka, the shaggin’ wagon, the crustaceous old man had winked coquettishly, one gibbous eye still bulging from his neckless head, nose hairs quivering. I frowned. Rainey adored it.

It was Sarah who first greeted us—sweaty and sore-eyed after the long drive from San Francisco—with an ice-cold pitcher of prickly pear margaritas laced with the faintest trace of Candelabra cactus milk to take the edge off. She’d been living with the cactus man in his compound for almost a year, tending to his plants in exchange for room and board. I asked her about the layers of penance bracelets stacked to her forearms, the lacework of dried blood stretching between them. She smiled and touched her fingers to one of them.

“Working with him is an intense job. Most of the girls don’t last long,” she said, voice dark with pride. “There’s a lot of things we do out here you won’t find in The Book.” 

She reached her hand across the table and took Rayna’s. “But considering how we grew up, we’ve got a lot to balance out.” 

Rayna and I had been Advocates for three months and some change when Sarah disappeared. By then, the distance between the two of us had grown wider than the miles of highway we’d devoured to get here. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and find the bed cold, the door to the trailer wide open. Some nights I’d find Rayna picking her way back through the sagebrush in her nightgown, barefoot and feet bloodied. 

She spent her days helping Sarah tend to the plants at the cactus man’s compound. The girls helped with other things too—cooking, cleaning, shipping out copies of The Book. They wore multiple penance anklets and bracelets so their forearms and calves were perpetually inflamed, stoking the admiration and jealousy of other Advocates in town. 

Meanwhile, I delivered the mail. I walked the daily route under the punishing Sonoran sun, dreaming endlessly of numbers. I was a bear market investor back in the city, the kind who surfed through down markets like a pro and barely kept my head above water when the bull market reared its head. The rush I felt from remembering the eerie sense of calm that fell over me just before my stocks hit target price sent me jogging in the unbearable heat, zig-zagging between storefronts and frisbeeing letters and packages at dust-caked doors. I found pride in the steady optimism I could maintain during a storm; in my expertise for spinning gold out of gloom. I can now admit it was this exact point of pride that compounded the sense of failure I had felt in my inability to deliver Rayna from her dark place back in the city. 

The cactus man’s teachings weren’t just a salve for the ills of the world; a clap back against human rights violations and the school-to-prison pipeline. His doctrines were the remedy that revived Rayna. While I missed our old life from time to time, I knew there was purity in the pain you couldn’t get out from under your skin, in the endless tiny burrs that burrowed in the webbing between your fingers and beneath your nails.

In our community, if someone wanted a breakup or divorce, they went to the cactus man’s compound and picked a clipping from a Red-Headed Irishman to give to their once-loved. It’s a cactus with blossoms beautiful enough and bristles sharp enough to underscore the pain of loving something you couldn’t touch. 

The day after I dropped Rayna off at the cactus man’s compound, I opened the door of our trailer to find not a lethal beauty sitting on the rusted step but a potted pencil cactus, its skin smooth and spineless, rail-thin body gawky, one skinny appendage broken and oozing thick white sap.

After Rayna left me the pencil cactus, I drove my truck up and down the highway looking for Sarah. She didn’t have a car, and I figured she hadn’t gotten far hitchhiking. The closest town—if you could call it that—was 40 minutes northeast. I stopped to fill up the truck then stepped inside the dim diner to grab a cup of coffee. Faded maroon shades were drawn tight over all the windows in a weak attempt to rebuff the sweltering high-noon heat. Squinting in the gloom, I spotted a crown of bleach-blonde hair and the top of a red backpack huddled together in the farthest booth. 

I slid down into the cracked vinyl seat opposite of Sarah. She sat up, eyes wide, and twisted around to see if anyone else was with me. 

“It’s just me,” I said. She wore a thick flannel over a dirty tank top pitted with dark sweat. I cleared my throat. 

“Rainey misses you –” 

Sarah lunged forward and grabbed my wrists, fingers digging in just above my penance bands. 

“It’s not real,” she hissed.

I tried to pull away. Ropy tendons in her wrists pulsed beneath rings of white scar tissue, the thin skin beneath her eyes a sickly green in the fluorescent light. 

“What isn’t?” 

“Plant-Based Pain and the Privilege of Suffering. It’s a fucking lie.” She leaned closer. I winced at the ripeness of her sweat, her stale breath. “The only power that comes from our pain is his own,” she growled. “How long have we been bleeding out here in the desert? Have rainforests stopped getting slashed and burned for livestock? Have oil spills stopped contaminating our drinking water?” She was so close I could see my reflection in her bloodshot eyes, two warped twin shadows in her dilated pupils. “From Canada to Nigeria, have girls stopped going missing? Have we stopped getting kidnapped, raped, murdered?” 

She let go of my wrists and sat back. “Adding blood to chaos doesn’t change shit. We should have learned that from Jesus.”

She pushed herself to her feet. Her stomach rose from beneath the table, belly button protruding fiercely. Her dirty tank top strained over the swell of it. I stared. 

“The plants are laughing at us, and he knows it.” She shimmied her flannel off her shoulders and twisted around. 

Her back was raked with scars. Long white welts ringed in halos of pink skin twitched between her shoulder blades. Some of the gashes were still fresh, clotted with tendrils of scabs that curled at the edges. 

My stomach twisted. I felt sick with dismay and something else, dread shot through with a forked lightning bolt of admiration and envy. My fingers twitched as if to caress the lacerations, to press a cracked scab and watch it pucker under pressure.

“I’m going home.” She pulled her flannel around her shoulders and sank back down into the booth. “I’m hitching a ride to the bus station and not stopping ‘til I reach San Francisco. And the second I get there, I’m telling The Chronicle everything.” She opened her backpack and pulled out a worn notebook. “My mom works for the paper. She’s running the story as soon as I’m home. This will all burn.” She laughed and shook her head, slid both hands over her stomach. “And I’m taking care of this little monster the second I step off the bus.” 

She hooked a finger beneath the blind and pulled it up a few inches, squinting out the window. She waved at someone. 

“My ride’s ready.” She shuffled out of the booth and stood. 

“It’s Rayna’s decision. What she does,” she said quietly. I stared, dazed. Her eyes hovered over my hand on the table, as though she was considering reaching for it. Then she yanked her backpack off the seat, threw it over her shoulder, and turned away.

I hightailed it to the cactus man’s compound. I pressed the Kokapelli-shaped doorbell and pounded on the steel door until the skin of my knuckles split. Shadows moved behind the opaque curtains shrouding the vast south-facing windows. Finally, the door opened.

The cactus man stepped outside. He held a steaming cup of tea in each hand, long gray hair parted into two braids that fell behind his back. 

“I want to talk to Rainey,” I demanded. He smiled, eyebrows titled with concern. 

“She’s resting now,” he whispered. “Why don’t we take a walk?” He pressed a clay mug into my hand. “From my special reserve.” 

I looked down at the tea, my shadow rippling across the dark surface. “Sip it slow,” he warned. “The mescaline is strong in this batch.” 

I hesitated, looking over his shoulder at the windows. Nothing moved. 

We walked slow, our pace languid to accommodate sips of tea. “Did you know the saguaro doesn’t blossom until it’s nearly thirty years old?” He glanced over at me. “You’re still a young man yet. Twenty-five, is it?” 

I brought the tea to my lips. It was bitter and acidic. I thought of swallowing a rattlesnake. I exhaled hard through pursed lips and shook my head. The cactus man smiled.

“I understand you’re having trouble providing for Rayna.” He gently touched my forearm, just above the penance bracelet. “It is rare to find a man of your age who’s ready to offer the emotional nurturing that women need. My younger self included,” he chuckled. My cheeks burned. I tipped back my head and swallowed what was left in the mug. I wretched, stomach jerking, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

“Sometimes I think it’s impossible to make her happy,” I heard myself say. My tongue tingled. “Coming here was supposed to help. Back in San Francisco...before she read your book, I mean, Rayna was in this bad funk.” I surprised myself. I had come to find out what happened to Sarah, to protect Rayna. But the cactus man’s tender expression, his slow gait and stooped shoulders were a trampoline, a place I could fall into and be raised up again.

“It started after she lost her job, which didn’t make senssse,” I slurred. “She doesn’t need a paycheck. She’s got a trust the size of...” I stretched my arms as wide as I could and puffed out my cheeks. “But the way she was...you’d think her parents, like, died. She wouldn’t let me touch her. For monthsss.” 

The cactus man squinted into the sun. I stared at his profile, at his hawkish nose and calm, unflinching mouth. I blinked. How hadn’t I seen it before? He looked just like my father, or what I remembered of my father from the summer before he left my mother, just before my freshman year of college. 

“Your book was the only thing that made her happy,” I said, looking at my feet. Had my toes always looked like that? Curled like the corkscrewed tendrils of a frizzle sizzle succulent?

“I heard about her old job.” The cactus man looked at me strangely, sympathy mixed with a question. 

I pointed my right foot to straighten out the tendrils. “Yeah, the owner was a creep. But...I don’t know,” I glanced over my shoulder as if to see if Rayna was standing behind us, dark eyes pressed to my back. “The girls she worked with...they were the type to go sit on some rando’s lap at the bar after two martinis. But I mean, they were single, so more power to them, I guess,” I shrugged. “I’m just glad he never touched Rainey.”

The cactus man turned to me, the whites of his eyes pink and lending the blue of his irises an alarming vibrancy. 

“Did she say that?” 

I blinked and leaned forward. I didn’t see his mouth move. His chapped lips twisted and multiplied like a Spiral Aloe above his chin. I laughed.

A few feet away was the hand-painted sign for the Trail of Tears, a path the cactus man had designed for only the fiercest Advocates: a harrowing patchwork of Golden Balls and Latispinus and Red Thorns and Teddy Bear Chollas. The cactus man slipped out of his worn huaraches. He lifted his left foot and hovered it over a vicious throng of thimble cacti. Slowly, he set his foot down. 

He shuddered, sweat curling the gray hair at the nape of his neck. I bent and peeled off my hemp Sanuks. I stood next to him, zeroing in on a Pima Pineapple cactus, clusters of inch-long spines constellating over the squat green dome in a razor-sharp star spread. I lowered my foot.

My body was made of bees. Every cell had been replaced with a buzzing, ear-splitting intensity. Fire ants circumscribed glittering currents around the cactus with zealous fervor. I was the sun, purveying my tinsel kingdom below and all its tiny subjects with a searing, seam-splitting pride. 

“It will be hard for a woman like Rayna to be patient,” the cactus man breathed. Sweat dripped from his temple, saturating his linen kurta. “You can’t expect anything different from a woman with beauty like that, like a cool rain after five months of high desert heat.” 

I laughed. Rain. Rainey. I had never put it together. 

“She needs to stay with me for a while.” He lifted his other foot and lowered it onto a barbed Powder Puff. He wheezed, breath rattling. “She needs to distract herself from the ego-driven pain that consumes her. It’s blocking the plant pheromones from carrying out our purpose here. Our sacrifices are going to waste.” 

I gritted my teeth and hovered my foot over a cluster of hedgehog cacti, each spine the length of my forefinger. I stepped down. The flesh of my heel parted happily. 

“But there is hope for her,” the cactus man exhaled. “Even more than I saw in Sarah.” He nestled his foot onto a barbed tangle of Teddy Bear Cholla, face sagging in relief. 

“Sarah was weak,” I asserted. My voice sounded young, like my fifteen-year-old self performing for my father at breakfast, parroting his thoughts about football and the attractive news anchor who shouldn’t have cut her hair so short. 

“Weakness isn’t the problem,” the cactus man sighed. “I fear it is Rayna’s strength that holds her back.”

The path ended. We turned around. The cactus man bent to collect his shoes, and as he did I saw a pale face peering out from behind the window curtain. Rayna’s mouth was still, eyes blank. I blinked twice, three times. The curtain fell back into place, bloody fingerprints lingering on the hem.

The door of the cactus man’s compound was locked, lights off. I hollered for Rayna until I was lightheaded, voice feeble against the fortress of concrete and adobe. I had only successfully rammed a door once, after staggering home late from pledge night and discovering my freshman roommate had locked me out of the dorm. I hadn’t thought it would work, and after my shoulder forced open the door I was stunned by the sensation of free-falling through the darkness when there should have been a solid barrier holding me back, keeping me on my feet. It only took one ram of the cactus man’s steel door to nearly splinter my shoulder. I swayed, knees buckling, and sank sideways into a rancorous bed of Golden Orbs. Whiskey and bile splashed in the dirt. I rolled on my back, gasping, tuxedo jacket twisted beneath me.

I had gone to the cactus man’s funeral alone. I hadn’t been to a funeral since I was thirteen, a lurid affair for an aunt whom I never much cared for; the organ player in the wings of the dingy church woefully unskilled, the priest fumbling for kind and generic suppositions of my aunt’s character, the stale egg salad sandwiches afterward cementing the entire experience as a two-dimensional pantomime, something akin to a scene on television for which I felt nothing. All the Advocates had ascended the mesa barefoot, the hems of our black tuxedos and mourning gowns scarleted with clay made from tears folded into dust. I stayed with the cactus man’s body after all the other Advocates had left, nursing my flask and gazing into the open casket at his unusually pale face, perpetual sunburn finally drained from his cheeks. Though rigor mortis had framed an uncharacteristically troubled snapshot of our leader, my father was clearly there, in the furrowed brow and turned-down corners of the cactus man’s mouth. I spread my arms and rested my head on his chest, careful to avoid the massive squash blossom necklace like a hot poker in the sun, his yellow burial dashiki warm against my cheek. I closed my eyes. Beneath the coffin, something snapped.

The coffin slid and pitched forward. The cactus man’s body lay in the dirt, face down, shirt wedged up around his ribs, lower back exposed. There, in the cactus man’s back, were three knife wounds, the skin around them purple and shriveled as pursed lips. 

Lying in the dirt outside the cactus man’s compound, stars glaring, I knew Rayna was gone. Maybe she’d followed Sarah back to the city. Maybe like Sarah, she was planning to leak everything about our community, about our ceremonies and sacrifices. 

Had the cactus man’s medicine meant nothing to her? Moving here, giving up our life in San Francisco…did she feel any appreciation for how he saved her? Any remorse for what she’d done to him—to us? Was she even capable of appreciation, or remorse? 

My stomach lurched. Had she meant to block our blood from healing the world with her stubbornness, her refusal to repair? 

How was the world not enough?

After the cactus man’s death, the Advocates were to pay homage by visiting the ancient saguaro behind his compound. He had seen the cactus in a dream decades ago, a floral citadel that had called him to the desert to realize his teachings. I had seen the thirty-foot saguaro from the road, had read the story about the blood the cactus man shed when he carved his own face into the plant’s flesh with his fingernails.

The saguaro loomed at the end of a stone path, underlit in a warm light. We were supposed to stay on the path and show our devotion from afar. I leaned in, nose to nose with the cactus man’s whittled face, roughly hewn eyes oversized and haunting. The surrounding needles were stained a deep brown, slaked with decades-old remnants of the cactus man’s blood. 

I closed my eyes and pressed my right hand to the spines, willing electric waves of heat to singe my shoulders and stratify behind my navel. I felt nothing—no pain, no suffering. I brought both hands to the cactus and pushed harder. The needles bowed rubbery beneath my palm. I opened my eyes. Foamy green skin puckered beneath my fingertips. Then the saguaro began to tip backward. 

I jumped back as the cactus wheeled away in the darkness. It fell noiselessly into the dirt, massive arms outstretched. Three iron rods extended from the base, and three holes punctured the ground where the rods had been threaded deep into the earth to keep the mannequin upright. From where I stood, half-crouched in horror, I could see straight into the base of the cactus, into the black void of its interior.

It weighed next to nothing, this towering botanic effigy that drew in the eye for miles, a pointed interruption to the endless sunbaked vistas and windswept valleys. I pulled it to my chest and shuffled it back into place, sliding the iron rods back into the dirt. I pinched a rubber needle between my fingers, ran my hand along the painted foam exterior. The cactus man’s graven stare implored my attention, my reciprocity. I returned his gaze. 

Each gash of foam had been delicately coated with reddish-brown paint that now flaked and curled at the edges, revealing a layer of spongy yellow foam beneath like a blanket of fat over a rib cage, a frail husk holding a hollow cavity, protecting everything inside that is dark and fragile and vital.

 LIKE GRASSHOPPERS IN THE SKY

Richie Swanson

As told by Master Jonathan Prior,
Mississippi River fur trader, 1827

Oak Woman landed in a hooded blanket in a canoe, and I mistook her for my Dakota wife Spirit Moon, thinking she’d finally seen that a white doctor had to follow white ways, and she’d come home, not fussing anymore that I’d amputated her uncle’s arm. Stunning Cloud been shot in the elbow, his bone shattered. I’d left a stub at his shoulder, and afterward Spirit Moon had arched her swollen womb in the doorway, rearing like a big mean buck with a powerful rack, and she’d gone off, my amputation knife secreted in her burden basket.

But Oak Woman stepped ashore all-sleek and lithe, not pregnant-looking. She carried her own newborn on her back, and I’d guessed at once she was the sister of Spirit Moon married to a Winnebago war chief of the La Crosse band ten leagues downriver. She raised her face deliberate, her cheeks royal and eyes stubborn-strong like Spirit Moon’s, and she spoke Dakota, on account Spirit Moon had told her I could understand some. “A white farmer cuts into the earth, he spoils it. A white doctor cuts into a man, he makes the insides rot.”

I answered Indian fashion, told her that Spirit Moon’s uncle Stunning Cloud did not pray `nough to the Great Mysterious before he went a-hunting furs in Ojibwa country.

“Spirit Moon wants her things,” said Oak Woman. “The trader-doctor will have them paddled to sugar camp.”

“An American husband will not send his wife’s things to the maple camp. He is the lord and owner of all things in his family.”

Oak Woman gave me a lilting glance, a kind of jesting common between Dakota sisters-in-laws and brothers-in-laws. “The trader does not know the Dakota people yet? That the wife owns her home and all the things in it?”

She walked off content with herself, and I didn’t see her again `til a fall buffalo hunt, after William been born, and Spirit Moon and I were fixed up friendly again. We scouted a herd down in Sac country, and we left Oak Woman and other squaws hidden on a ledge `neath the prairie, in a narrow crack of a creek valley that her husband—Raises-red-dust— said had been pounded open when the Thunders swung war clubs against the earth, all-angry at some ancient chief who’d killed a man without cause. Do tell. 

We took cows quiet, just with ponies and bows, no guns. And I come back to the ledge, and Stunning Cloud and another sentinel lay scalped, and cradleboards hung empty in cedars. Leaves were scuffed where squaws had been dragged between trees, and I seen Sac braves running down in the creek-bottom, hunched like wolves after prey. I fired a signal shot, charged down and leapt over a Sac brave with a tanning knife stuck in his jugular-vein. Raises-red-dust and Rattling Wind caught up, and we knelt at the edge of a beaver dam, studying a bend in the creek, a steep woods, nobody nowhere.

Riffles tinkled eerie-quiet against a beaver lodge, and Oak Woman stood through the top, branches toppling from the crown. She pulled her boy from the lodge. “Ha’ga is here!” Her eyes boiled dark-boiling heat, looking down the creek-bottom, making sure the scoundrel who’d tried to carry her off wasn’t creeping up behind us. And then Spirit Moon scuttled out, tucking William `neath her. “He-sees-the-flood is here!” My boy’s Dakota name.

We buried our dead deep `neath boulders, `way from hungry beasts. We dried the buffalo meat round fires, loaded our ponies, walked north, and Spirit Moon and Oak Woman hacked their hair, blacked their faces with soot, scarified their shins and wailed like the devil held their feet in his evil flames. I abided their grieving in front of Rattling Wind, the band’s chief, Spirit Moon’s father: two year’ ago he’d allowed me to open my post on his shore, claiming a dream had showed him he should.

I worried for William’s soul. We got to the Mississippi, and a hoard of Oak Woman’s Winnebago relations met us, dressed for ceremony. A Winnebago warrior with a scarlet-painted chin planted an engraved stick on the bank of a creek-mouth, and Oak Woman talked dead-solemn, like the `tire world depended upon my listening. “Medicine Trader and Spirit Moon shall not go past the namaxinixini, the bear stick. No Sioux shall.” She looked up at a river-cliff washed red and yellow, and she cast a holy air, reminding me of my ma a-gazing at clouds with golden edges. “My relations shall have vapor baths on Paint Rock,” said Oak Woman. “They shall send prayers and gifts to Earth-maker.”

My Sioux encamped only on the south side of Paint Creek, on a high bench in the tallest grove of the finest maples I’d seen since Allegheny country. I lay restless in our traveling lodge: scents of burning cedar and tobacco and boiling venison floated down from Paint Rock Ridge, and sudden bursts of flutes jumped all round the giant grove. Warrior-whoops, high-cracking songs, deep-throbbing drumming come down--near as I could reckon, the Winnebago had painted Paint Rock with spirit colors for eons. They had graves old as Jerusalem up there—mounds made by animal spirits--shaped like bears, hawks, thunderbirds, water spirits, pigeons, wolves, lizards--they were calling on animal spirits and clan medicine that their god had sent down during their Bible times.

William suckled on Spirit Moon `neath our robes. Oak Woman cooed from the other side, and in her voice I heard Ma cluck to our team so many years ago on the old Allegheny farm. A Sunday morning, and she and Gabriel took the carriage to hold testimony with Reverend Sims, the hickory-stick of a preacher whose enormous eyes towered a rich glittering blue whenever he’d spoke of visions and visits from God, how folks like Ma had surrendered and been saved.

Pa had sighed sharp in candlelight in the kitchen, his face granite-hard, furious. He listened to the horses’ trot off, and he and I walked out into cold-blue dawn and smelled sap running out our maples `fore we even crossed the pasture. “`Tain’t miracles open the gates,” said Pa. “`Tain’t visits. `Tis `tending the Lord’s gifts.” He seethed, doing woman’s work, `fusing to lose the sap we used for syrup and sugar. He took no drink on the Sabbath, neither bought nor sold nothing, and reasoned with me constant. “No matter the light anyone thinks they got inside themselves, we got to reap the Lord’s fruit. We got to throw our crowns down at Ma’s feet and deny her.”

He and Ma argued the covenant of works against the covenant of grace every day, never letting up. But I didn’t leave on that account. Gabriel was the oldest son--he’d inherit all the farm, you see. So, I come out here to the old French town of Prairie du Chien and give Debanné Trading Company a letter said I’d learned doctoring from an uncle, and Master Debanné seen I was quick at Indian words, and he outfitted me to open a post at Rattling Wind’s prairie. Debanné was a chum to General William Clark in St. Louis, and three-four year’ after the Sac near took Oak Woman, he got us a contract to supply the biggest Indian council ever on the upper river. Clark himself hosted the council, and Indians come from far as Sac country in Missouri to Ojibwa country in the north. Troops come from forts all around, and as I checked cargo coming off keelboats, they lined up marvelous behind me, feathered pompons on their tar-bucket hats, white chin-straps and breast-belts blazing white in hot-August sun.

Once I was a-counting cattle, and Oak Woman stepped out a Winnebago canoe and stood so forcible they stopped in their tracks, dumbly turning their heads, not knowing they should stampede or what. She shot every soldier her dark-boiling glare, looking sidewise and slow, willing each of them dead, and she glanced a trifle coy at me, daring me to object.

And then she and Spirit Moon sat on a blanket at the council grounds and `mired Raises-red-dust like they never `mired me. He stood in regalia before General Clark and Governor Cass, and the squaws looked `bout to jump up and holler with him. Raises-red-dust arched his pretty eyebrows with delicate disdain, his face as thoughtful-looking as a white dandy studying a chess board. “The White Father says his red children shall have lines--the Winnebago shall be here, the Sac there, the Dakota here, the Ojibwa there, the Potawatomie here, the Fox and Iowa there. The White Father says his red children shall stay inside their lines and never make war upon another again. But the White Father does not know the Indian! We use the rivers, game, prairie and woods in common! Earth-maker gave the Winnebago our land, we share it with every Indian here! We do not hold it like the White Father’s people, as if it ours only to fence!”

“The Winnebago shall have every village they now occupy.” Clark read from foolscap, high on a dais. “Every Indian here agrees the Winnebago shall not move.”

“The White Father shall put tribes inside lines and take the places one after another!” said Raises-red-dust. 

“The White Father does not want an inch of your land!” said Clark.

“The White Father said long ago that his people would not dig lead on Indian land! Now Indians cannot turn around without seeing whites digging into his earth!”

“No, a white miner must have a lease! A smelter, a license! A digger, a permit!”

Every chief of every band had his say, and the army feasted the Indians more’n a fortnight. Debanné Trade `vided mountains of fixings and precious gifts of powder, guns, French blue beads, steel awls etc. Near every chief signed Clark’s treaty, and I received all my consideration in Spanish dollars—four over-stuffed sacks, my debt to Debanné dissolved by thousands.

I locked the bags in Fort Crawford, saved out a dollar for William, set out to see him. I walked along the edge of Indian camps and smelled diarrhea everywhere. My heart plummeted to the ground. The Indians were not celebrating, not drinking the whiskey Clark gave them at the council’s close, not dancing neither. Moans of pain come from wigwams. Bushes rustled, sent up new whiffs of feces, of blood. Indians raced serious-silent between lodges in the dark, and a soldier sat sprawled beside the path, gawked at me hollow-eyed, his face pouring sweat.

I come upon Spirit Moon kneeling outside our lodge, William crying on the ground. I lifted him, he squirted out a reddish, snotty leakage. We hastened to the bank, dipped William in the river, and I looked in his mouth for a whitened tongue, typhoid, saw only a dark cavern, felt his burning cheeks. Raises-red-dust called to us. Oak Woman was rinsing Ha’ga in the water too, and Standing Turtle writhed on the bank, the oldest chief of the La Crosse band, his skin on fire, suddenly gaunt on bone, eyes glazed.

The Indians brewed potions, I flew to the fort. General Clark and his surgeon bought all the quinine Debanné and I offered, agreeing with me that the reaper a-wielded dysentery. All the Indians left instant, were `tirely gone by morning. But I helped Clark with the long ordeal of quarantining troops in hospital tents, and I couldn’t start after my Sioux and Winnebago `til late afternoon.

My boatmen paddled me up to the Paint Creek camp in the gloaming, and Rattling Wind and Raises-red-dust fumed as I landed. “Poison in the Grandfather’s milk, poison in his beef! Poison in the Grandfather’s chowder, poison in his pork, poison on his papers!”

William sat up from a blanket, his eyes clear and bright among mosquito smudges. “Spirit Moon gave He-sees-the-flood sweet flag, and the medicine stopped the white poison,” said Spirit Moon. But Ha’ga moaned helpless, sweating and shivering, and Oak Woman glared from her knees. Go on!

I made my way through the granddaddy maples and into the fire-glow inside a wigwam, Standing Turtle lying sidewise, squaws keeping him from falling. Raises-red-dust gazed lonely, asking my help, and I `jected laudanum into Standing Turtle. His eyes roamed aimless, looking huge, skeletal. He threw back his head, rattled his last breath.

“The White Father called Indians to council to poison them,” said Raises-red-dust.

“No, Debanné supplied the food,” I said.

“Humph, the army cooked it,” said Raises-red-dust.

I begged myself out, my heart aching, searching the impossible. Raises-red-dust escorted me through the maples, and Rattling Wind waited at creek-side, his demeanor agonized. He led us up into a hollow and grunted at a cabin, square of blackness `top a grazed meadow. “A Frenchman. Cree wife. Three children. We smelled their hogs and cow and smoke when we got out of our canoes this morning.”

I called out halfway across the meadow, “I’m white, Master Jonathan Prior, Debanné Trading Company! Come out, show yourself! By order of the United States Army, the Department of Indian Affairs! Please, sir!”

A hound barked inside the cabin, was muffled. I rapped at the door, “You’re on Indian land, ceremony ground! You’re safe to come out and parley!” I leaned to the only window, shuttered from the inside, “My Indians and I just signed a treaty with the United States Army, the Department of Indian Affairs! I have a treaty map, this is not public land open to entry or settlement!”

The shutter opened, a musket itched my nose, “Don’t hogwash Monsieur Chapeau, he is no cow to couple.” An eye squinted above the gun’s sight, the hammer clicking. “This is America, not the King’s land down here. It is America, n’ I know God do not give le sauvage all this terres to run wild on. It is America, n’ God give Monsieur Chapeau the right to live here. Your chancellor say so to his House a’ Commons. I see it plain on a pamphlet in Canada. Chancellor Monroe say les Grande Plaines is so big he can put all the sauvage out there, not here. That is the map Monsieur Chapeau see, America for settlement!”

“I will not guarantee your safety, sir.”

“And Monsieur Chapeau, not yours. He make sugar, see. The most white, most sucrée God ever know. Tell Monsieur Chapeau! You see maples like here anywhere other? No, nowhere! Monsieur Chapeau see these maple, he know le sauvage do not own them, they are his! Au revoir, monsieur!”

The shutter slammed shut, and Rattling Wind and Raises-red-dust nodded us back to camp and launched their bands before dawn the next morning, each hurrying hot young warriors away from the temptation of the fool in his cabin. My Dakota paddled hard for home, and we last seen Oak Woman picking cardinal flowers on an island just short of Prairie La Crosse, steeping leaves in a simmering kettle--a new potion for Ha’ga—prone and blacked-out in their canoe, guarded by Raises-red-dust in a tree, two Sharp rifles loaded.

I wintered uneasy at my post. My Sioux hunters went out surly and brought in few pelts, and Spirit Moon took William days on end to Rattling Wind’s camp in the frozen bottoms. Now William answered only to his Dakota name and recited stories in Sioux, tales of Blood Clot Boy and the like. Yet one night he spoke English from his bunk, making sure I heard. “Bells!”

Oak Woman arrived with five toboggans of provisions pulled by dogs, wrapped `neath buffalo furs in a sleigh’s cargo bed, holding Ha’ga in a red bundle, his face ochre, burial moccasins on his feet. “Ha’ga’s father is away,” she said. “He hunts for furs on the Chippewa River. Oak Woman brings Ha’ga to the Dakota to send his spirit to the Glittering Track.”

I looked up, I concede it. The Milky Way `peared so close I thought I could reach up and feel a soul on my palm like a warm cloud of breath on a frozen night. I took William into my cabin, planted hands firm on his shoulders, “Indian ghosts and Indian Heaven ain’t real just because Indians think them so.” William looked at me stubborn-strong, his face all brown, all Indian, his cheeks already tall, royal-looking. “Eagle Bone will put a hair of Ha’ga’s in a ghost bundle,” he said. “A spirit will find it.”

“You set your rudder against your father, Satan blinds you,” I said. “Remember, `A. In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. B. Heaven to find, the Bible mind. C. Christ crucified, for sinners died.’” He listened close through the `tire alphabet poem, but at daybreak the medicine man Eagle Bone put up a “ghost lodge” right outside my cabin, and William blacked his face and wailed the devil’s grief with his Indian relations.

I left to check on furs at hunting camps, and I knew he’d enter the little tepee every day and put offerings in a ceremony bowl to Ha’ga’s hair and to the Indian pipes and shells inside a beaded bag that hung heathenish from a forked stick. I got home, I waited and caught William’s arm as he come out. I raised a hand, and then Oak Woman rose bleary-eyed from the ghost lodge, a-holding Ha’ga `gainst her waist. He’d been put on a burial platform, I was there. But now he gazed goo-goo eyed from his red bundle and a-shimmered inside a gold mist that sparkled with shiny motes. Then—gone--only an old arrow sash at Oak Woman’s waist, woven of blue and red trader’s cloth. I let William go, struck a little asunder. I spared him his licking and learned him nothing.

Snow fell so terrible-bad that year that drifts near buried the post’s stockade. The early spring-melt raced waist-deep over the river-ice, carrying herds of antelope and buffalo been killed crossing in blizzards, and the ice itself thundered apart in jagged and giant-sized floes that swept downriver, scraping `way whole islands, `tire forests. In April Captain Keane from Fort St. Anthony landed a keelboat on a rising-screaming current, and I boarded with my pelts for Prairie du Chien. The flood hurried us to the Paint Creek camp `fore evening, and a foul-meaty taste swamped our throats—Keane and I disembarked with troops, and Chapeau’s hound whelped from a rise of dry land, arrows in its flanks—its master dead and prone a few steps beyond, his hair lifted clean, his skull shot point-blank—the heads of his wife and kids still simmered in sugar kettles on hot coals, their bodies charred and tossed against granddaddy maples.

“That Winnebago war chief that spoke so mean at the council, Raises-red-dust,” said Captain Keane.

I pulled shreds of leggings from the dying hound’s teeth. “Look,” I said, “it ain’t got any Winnebago beads.”

“Raises-red-dust and the Winnebago think they got spirits and gods here, and that Uncle Sam steals lead from Indians even when it’s on the army’s mineral reserve,” said Keane.

“Ask me, some trader sold Sac too much whiskey, and they came up here,” I said.

“You told me Raises-red-dust lost his boy and chief, and he blames dysentery and every other disease on the whites.”

We found no horse tracks, only a confusion of boot and moccasin prints, just cinders at the cabin. We hastened to Fort Crawford, and Keane showed the colonel there an arrow he claimed he’d pulled from the hound. Colonel Bedford narrowed his eyes at the turtle-claw point used common by Winnebago, and he crowed with Keane, “Yes, Raises-red-dust did it! He was mad for revenge! He wouldn’t hide north where we’d expect! He’d go south to gather braves from lead camps!” He laid out plans to hunt Raises-red-dust and looked hard at me, and I said yes, he could deputize me as a surgeon and translator into a company of mounted riflemen.

Captain Keane drove south us for days in downpours, searching Winnebago villages and lead-digging camps. The rain ceased in Illinois, but we rode through fog, and a war chief galloped sudden beside us, armed braves flanking us left and right, white rags on their muskets. Keane kept us at a trot, and we pulled up at the rim of a crevasse mine as the sun burned away at the day’s gray veil—shovels, picks and pack-straps were strewn all about a deep green bowl that glistened gray-black with galena at the bottom—old braves and squaws had abandoned the tools when our approach had been detected.

Keane ordered me to parley with the chief, blood-red streaks painted down the chief’s rippling brown chest, the devil’s black hand of death there too, and a bald-headed club slung over his shoulder, looking like it’d been passed down from the Thunders who Raises-red-dust had said had smote cracks in the prairie.

Warriors still flanked us, and more emerged from the fog on an eminence forty rods away.

“You are dressed for war,” I said.

“Our warriors carry white cloths,” said the chief. “They ride about and keep white miners away from our diggings.”

Keane bugged his eyes at me, and I barked the same order I’d translated to every other chief we’d met. “Raises-red-dust must turn himself in, or the White Father will send troops like grasshoppers in the sky and wipe the Winnebago from the face of the Earth!”

The chief give me Oak Woman’s hot-boiling glare, said nothing that pointed us nowhere, the same as every other chief we’d parleyed. I fished in my mind for the Winnebago word for grasshopper, tried for the hundredth time to remember Raises-red-dust saying it. I drew grasshoppers from my pocket. Waved at the sky. Said, “White Father! Soldiers!” Waved at every Indian in sight. “All of you! Wiped from the face of the Earth!”

The chief didn’t change his glare none, I knew he understood. Keane pivoted his mount, I done the same. Our company rode our white mares between the two lines of braves, and they grunted and whooped, shaking guns and bows at us.

I’d done my job, I dare say. We retreated and seen no sign that Indians followed us, that they doubted the will and might the president and the U.S. Army. Keane pushed us east, and I steamed at him as I rode, at the way his little dark eyes and snaky lips and his lean and limber posture in his uniform dictated his rank constant: he could accuse Raises-red-dust false or not, and if I refused his orders, he could jail or hang me.

I reckoned with God, spoke to Him at night, told Him it wasn’t me who would pull the trigger and thrust the bayonet. I would not do the killing, was instead the Lord’s True Servant. Ma and Gabriel could throw themselves down before Reverend Sims, twitch like locust burning in kerosene if they wanted. They could sob and scream and testify. But I was opening the Lord’s bounty, was the best hope for Raises-red-dust, the Lord’s best bet to keep the sky clean of swarming adders. I spoke the Lord’s law to chiefs beguiled by Satan, and I harbored it against Keane too, a-waiting to see him fall and weep.

And then one afternoon we pushed through a soupy prairie toward the Mississippi, and we heard muskets pop ahead. We crept along a river cliff, and I got out my spy-glass and spotted a little flatboat moored in flooded bottoms below, grizzly-bearded white men wearing mining clothes, having a spree onboard. They passed jugs on deck, placing bets as they took turns shooting at the tiny eyes of a hundred-pound catfish stranded on drift timber. A fellow sighted his musket, wearing a blue-and-red arrow sash like a skullcap on his head, and another stepped out the cabin, buttoning his trousers, working his tongue like a cat licked cream.

I glassed the blue-and-red sash again and again.

“Cease fire!” Keane shouted from a ledge. “I’m Captain Charles Keane, Fifth Infantry! United States Army! Do you have Indians onboard?”

“No!” Mister Skullcap give a gentlemanly salute. “I’m Stephen Reginald Burns delivering goods from General Clark, requisitioned for Fort St. Anthony!”

“Captain Stephen Burns from St. Louis?” said Keane. “You’re impostors! Smuggling whiskey!”

A musket popped, raising sandstone at our feet, and the trouser man dashed to untie a line. Our troops fired, his hand sprayed blood, and Mister Skullcap fell, killed for his lies even before the riflemen reloaded. The other miners threw down arms, we boarded. I ducked into the cabin, and a squaw groped her way through a stench of blood and semen and `long the cabin’s floor. She bunched herself against a wall behind jugs of brandy, and Keane’s steps thudded behind me. “Stay out!” I cried. “You’ll scare her to death `fore we talk to her!”

“Know her?”

“No!

“She Winnebago?”

“No, wait outside!”

He turned around, and Oak Woman shook uncontrollable, blood slick on her thighs. I spoke Dakota, telling her it was over. She kept shaking. I went out again, hollered at Keane. “The blue sash!” A soldier delivered it, Keane watched close. “You’ve seen it before?”

“No, I need it!” I hastened back to Oak Woman, she guarded her face with her arms. I spoke her name low, put the sash in a hand, closed her fingers on it. She bolted and bit at my nose. “Sister of Spirit Moon.” She gawked mute at the words, lowered the sash on her own, stanched herself feeble.

I hung a blanket in front of the narrow passage that led to her, and Keane poked his face in, showing me an Indian par fleche, “They say this is hers, and she sold herself willingly.” I flew back inside, pulled a crane feather from the par fleche, cut off both tips and sucked laudanum from a vial into it. I put the feather in Oak Woman’s mouth, blew through it like I’d seen Eagle Bone do. Her eyelids fluttered in the dark, she swallowed the opium un-watered. I grabbed the sash from the floor and inched it back up against her bleeding, and she slung her head sidewise, so silent I thought she’d died of shame.

She went torpid, and I spread her open, mopped her, put a candle lantern close. Uncle Jacob never had me look into no woman, but Oak Woman’s privates hung torn and swollen, leaking as if chewed by starving beasts. I considered tying off shreds of bleeding tissues with hair, `cided I couldn’t. I folded her Indian dress `neath her head, laid a blanket over bruises and welts, held the sash snug against her while she slept.

Rifles clapped, I hastened out. Troops were heralding a churn a-clattering downriver, flames and cinders spitting high, black chimney-stacks invisible in the night. Here was the genius of American invention conquering the Mississippi at her angriest, a white steamboat creeping tortoise-slow against the immense black flow, the Potomac with Clark’s goods and the genuine Captain Burns headed to Fort St. Anthony.

The riflemen poled the flatboat out of the bottoms, tied it to the steamboat’s bow, and the Good Lord kept Keane busy the whole next day. Burns’ men shackled the miners, Keane questioned them. Burns’ men cut boiler wood, Keane posted guard, and he led a reconnaissance party, still looking for Indians.

We launched upriver, and Oak Woman bled less, a-lying languid. The cabin throbbed, cargo crashed. A derelict tree thumped and banged, rolling `neath our hull, and she roused, a-mumbling for Ha’ga and the Old Woman who guarded Indian Heaven. I readied the last of my opium, put the feather in her mouth. She blew the laudanum out, done with it. She peered through the shadow, knew me definite.

“Oak Woman heard Ha’ga in the sky,” she said.

Ducks and geese cackling, flying above the ghost lodge?

“She stepped out and looked.”

At the Glittering Track.

“She saw the flood rising, went to the bank. Whites came from nowhere.”

She’d been wailing in the lodge, Mister Skullcap heard her from the water.

“They shoved wood into Oak Woman’s mouth. Threw her in a canoe, sat on her. Paddled downriver. Pulled her out at the One Apart.”

Trempealeau Mountain, a river cliff that stood out in the river apart from other bluffs, a few leagues from my post. 

“They poured whiskey down Oak Woman’s throat. Told her she must show them lead.”

An old rumor of a rich vein.

“They held a shovel in fire. Made to burn Oak Woman. Pulled her down.”

Mister Skullcap had tried digging at Trempealeau Mountain and had struck nothing. He had left his crew there while he and a couple others paddled to my post. They’d seized Oak Woman when they’d seen the chance.

We turned out of the river’s hell-roar `bout midnight and landed at Prairie du Chien in a glide of water that hissed over the tops of Debanné’s buildings and all of Fort Crawford but the blockhouse. A soldier rowed Keane away in a skiff, and I got word at dawn that Colonel Bedford had a proper military translator and doctor, and reports of Raises-red-dust to the east. I found the Potomac’s clerk, bought a berth to my post, Rattling Wind's prairie. I returned to Oak Woman, and she was waiting on her feet, a blanket hooded over her face like the day I’d met her. She pulled herself up a ladder by her hands to the Potomac’s bow, and I accompanied her up to our berth on the boiler deck. I helped her into a wooden bunk, drew our curtain closed, and Captain Burns flung it open. “Indians are forbidden up here.”

“Those miners!” I said.

“I don’t care they sliced her up and ate her. She Winnebago?”

“Dakota, sir.”

“All hostiles get off. All other Indians ride below.”

Oak Woman and I settled ourselves down on the main deck, sitting against a wall behind the boiler room while other deck passengers slumped against barrels and cargo sacks. The Potomac steamed up, and our deck mates flew to rails, hurrahed, fired shots of joy, and after we launched, Captain Burns leaned high-handed above me. “Hear the commotion? Bedford did you a favor, didn’t hang anyone just because a squaw sold herself. He took the spirits off that flatboat and sent the miners down to the Fever River diggings.”

Burns waved us farther out of sight to a pile of hay behind a huddle of livestock, we went immediate. I sank into the hay, guns loaded, and Oak Woman lay dreary-eyed, swatting flies that swarmed her dress. The Potomac tied to an island that night, and troops walked deck patrols, ogling her. A private approached all-eager, holding out a few bits of a picayune, his bulge stinking at my nose. “Ain’t nobody here,” I said.

Rain slashed down cold and raw, we nestled as brother and sister. More passengers moved under roof, chickens flurried across us. A sow plopped on my leg, nursed piglets. A goat chewed the toe of a boot, I kicked it off. Cows munched the hay, slobbering, and excrements smelled rich as the floor of the ark. A rooster crowed at dawn, and Oak Woman raised the cock by his neck and threw the fluttering bastard away.

She stiffened all the way to Rattling Wind’s prairie. My `tire post was gone, washed away. Burns run the Potomac right through the current that swept over the old site. He pulled up to shore, and Oak Woman moved peg-leg-like across the landing stage and sat squaw-style in the edge of the water. She folded her legs ginger, numbing her soreness, her color pale as an old gray wasp-nest. Burns steamed away, and I was sorry I hadn’t asked him for calomel for the syphilis that would afflict her.

Oak Woman gawked up into the shadow of the coulee, and I wondered if Rattling Wind’s village wasn’t up there no more, if the band had fled or been rounded up. A paddle lapped. Raises-red-dust stepped out a canoe, knelt to Oak Woman, stroked her face and hair. He wept, and she commenced too, no keening or nothing, just their misery pouring out silent like Reverend Sims a-swaying on his knees, crying for Christ.

Raises-red-dust cradled her head in his lap, and I wanted to rile him, afraid the water was too cold for her condition, she’d shiver, faint, wouldn’t recover. She didn’t deserve to die--thousands of God’s creatures told me so, diving through the gloaming above the river. Nighthawks. Spirit Moon called them Crooked Wings. Multitudes buzzed toothy screams, singeing the air everywhere, dipping and turning light as moths, snapping wings like thunderclaps. Nighthawks dove, I drove a knife into a red-bearded lout on the flatboat. Nighthawks swooped sharp, I broke the neck of the eager-eyed private, yanked nooses of every lout who took Oak Woman. Nighthawks flew cockeyed, I dodged a guard with Raises-red-dust. I’d seen them who’d done the raping, and I knew Raises-red-dust and I’d sneak down to Fever River and snatch up the sinners swift as nighthawks did bugs.

Duke nickered, my piebald, the strongest pony I’d ever kept at the post. Spirit Moon still had him. She led him out the coulee with Eagle Bone and two medicine squaws, pulling a travois.  Spirit Moon and Eagle Moon eased Oak Woman out the water, slid her on the travois, covered her with a duck-down blanket, and a squaw held steaming tea to her lips, the Indians’ voices sounding hushed and heavy as in deep cold in January.

Rattling Wind spoke before me, “Medicine Trader’s boy is a trader boss already. Raises-red-dust brought three bales of furs from the Chippewa, and He-sees-the-flood said the pelts must be combed and beat and treated with turpentine.”

I stared near-senseless at Rattling Wind. Two hundred seventy pounds of pelts meant a full winter’s work, not murder. I near shouted.  If Raises-red-dust doesn’t turn himself in, they’ll kill everyone here! Come like grasshoppers in the sky! Wipe your people from the face of the earth! 

Spirit Moon give me a probing gaze, was about to start walking Duke back to the coulee. Her belly looked to be a melon, a new child of mine. I threw myself down, pounded mud at the chief’s feet. “I am nothing!” I cried. “I am to be despised! I am Adam, my wife is Eve! We have sinned! Turned from God!” I groveled and clawed at mud. “I am a worm, vermin! I renounce myself!”

Nighthawks a-swarmed from the heavens, buzzing hot in the dark like grasshoppers. Behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh! Wings popped like shots, I fired. They cut the air, I slit throats.

Richie’s lived in a Mississippi River boathouse 35 years, earning two Pushcart nominations for river fictions. His novel First Territory (Sunstone Press) depicts the U.S. invasion of Yakama homelands 1855-1856. He explored North America by bicycle 1977-2006, advocates for habitat conservation around Winona, Minnesota. His latest creation story, Owl’s Myth, will appear in Weber: the contemporary west Spring/Summer 2023. Visit him at RichieSwanson.com.

 This Is Not a Confession

George Bandy

Late at night I tagged in red paint across the width of Mr. Conroy’s dirty white garage door: We Are Watching.  It was mostly a joke.  I knew that old man was a bit off, but I did it anyway. 

I hadn’t done anything like that since I was a kid.

He’d paid me two hours short of what we agreed.  He didn’t need the money.  I counted the hours on my fingers and told him again and again. 

Mr. Conroy said, “I wrote it down.”  Like that was the end of it.

And it was.

Shit, this was all the work I’d had, since being laid off at the orange plant.  Doing whatever needed doing on his properties, mostly carpentry and painting. Sometimes for the whole day, sometimes a couple of hours.

“Okay,” I said and felt sick.  That was the problem with being off-book—nowhere to go.  I needed the hours.  It wasn’t fair, but that’s life ever since I lost my high steel work.  Lots of guys lose their job.

But I know what time I started.

The next day at work he told me to paint over the red.  He didn’t say anything more.  And I didn’t ask.  He made a point of coming out every few minutes.  “Let me know when you’re done.”

Yeah, I’ll let you know.

I took my time.

About noon, he poked his head around the garage corner to see how far I’d got.  I told him it’d take a couple more coats.  When I was sure he’d gone away, I dry brushed some of the paint off.  I planned to get my two hours back.

Fair’s fair.

After a couple of hours, I started thinking about Irellas’ fancy burgers with fries washed down with a Moretti or two.  There’s only so much puttering you can do watching paint dry.

The next time he came out, he startled me.  But I didn’t jump or anything—that’s how high steel workers are, nothing fazes you, or you’d be on the ground.  I just sat back in that folding chair and wiped my brow with a do-rag.  “Yes, sir, Mr. Conroy, just catching my breath and cooling.”  Then he saw that red bleeding through, again, like I’d planned.  I pointed and said, “It’s that damn Floridian humidity.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I was thinking,” I said and left him hanging like there was no god damn hurry in him.  Let him wait.  “Break for lunch … let that get good and dry …  then knock it out by two or three.”

“Looks like shit.  Paint the whole goddamn door.”

“I’ll just go get lunch.”

He gave me a look, walked away, and then stopped and turned to me.  “Don’t worry about coming back.  I’ll take care of it.”

And I wondered, Did I just get fired …  again?

He started off, but I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I get paid for working.

“Mr. Conroy,” I said.  He heard the grit in my voice and I might’ve sounded louder than I meant.  He spun around faster than you’d think an old man could.

He said, “Come along, I want to show you something.”

We went through what he called his “reception.” It was nothing like a doctor’s office.  He led me to a tiny room where his desk sat, his twinky-dink office.  Anybody else would call it a walk-in closet.

In six months I’d never saw nobody there, but he did overnight radio and stuff from his house.  I’d listened to him before, once or twice, on the AM, when I’d just started working at the orange plant.  Goddamn that was a step down, a leap into hell.  But it had cheap insurance.  And the work unimportant.  And the pay shit.

They called me “night security” but I was a glorified janitor riding around in a golf cart emptying trash cans when not securing the facility.  When they let me go, I was glad, but not the wife.  She wanted to know what I was going to do for money.

“There’s unemployment.”  She gave me a disgusted look, so I said, “There ain’t a lot of jobs out there.”

She said they’re hiring at Crawler Rail and Roller out on 301—they want a full-time master diesel mechanic to work on the big earthmoving machines.  Never did that—but could if I wanted—it’s just mechanicing.  Told her, if I was recovered enough to do that, I’d be working high steel.

If she had her way I’d kill myself or finish breaking my back or neck climbing some rig.  Damn, I fell.

She knows I ain’t ascared.

Nothing ever scares me.  You don’t work high steel for fifteen years … if it wasn’t for my back.  But I am better and better in every way.

Anyway back at the orange plant, a few of the boys and me would listen in the break room to Mr. Conroy’s radio show.  We’d catch snippets of his nightly Art-Bellian-weirdness:  alien aliens, alternate universes, free energy devices built in somebody’s garage gone rogue ...  Once he even interviewed the messiah.  Well, a couple of times—different ones.

It must’ve been a ratings game.

I ’member the night he got this dope on, another messiah.  He got them pretty regularly.  He asked this one to help out on a commercial.  The guy said sure Don I am here to help.  Mr. Conroy gave him the script and he read:  “Raise the dead with Dade City’s number one microbrew Bright Lights, Dead City.  Go into the light.”  We hear the beer pour.  The messiah smacks his lips and says, “I love it, who wouldn‘t?”

We all laughed.  That was our kind of messiah.  We all had a little something, beer or wine.  Nobody cared.  ‘Cept the big boss who told me not to let nobody drink on the line: “H-R ain’t paying for no more canned fingers.”

And he had a point.

“Take a chair,” Mr. Conroy said, but there was only the one.  I’d been here before and knew that low rider, all shiny brown leather, tufted and plumped, which you’d think would be comfortable, but was hell on the spine and a bitch to climb out of.

He plopped in his swivel and rocked back and forth looking through a pile of papers and junk on his desk.  He found what he was looking for and said, “Here.”

I struggled to climb out of that damn chair to get the legal-sized envelope he held.  All I could think: Where’s my check?  And he better pay for the time he’s wasting here.

When I scooted to the edge of the chair, he pulled the envelope back and dumped a bunch of black and white pictures printed on typing paper.  He spread them around on the desk.  He tapped a dark, pixelated print out.  “Who is that?”

The picture showed a man about my size with his back to the camera with a spray can in hand and what might’ve been the beginning of a big “W” on the garage door.

I sat numbed.  I grabbed the rest of the printouts, sorted through, and then saw a fuzzy view of my face—it could’ve been me.

“That’s the best one.  Got it all on VHS.”   He saw my sick look and said, “Is that you?”

“Sure looks like me.”

“Is it?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s what I thought.  You need to be careful.”  He gave me a pamphlet entitled:

DOPPELGÄNGERS
What You Can Do.

 At the bottom of the page was the publishing imprint for his hand-cranked letterpress which I knew he kept under a tarp in the garage.  I’d seen him cranking hard and paper flip-flopping.  He never wanted my help, not there, though I’d offered several different times.

PENURY PRESS
1234 Foxglove Road
Dade City, Florida 33525

 “For some reason they targeted you.  It’s sure as hell ain’t for money, or quality of life, though your wife is a looker—but that’s nothing to them.

“Why you?

“You need to start thinking like you’d need an alibi for everything you do for a while.  Or next time … who knows, it might not be somebody as reasonable as me.”

I tried to give back the pamphlet.  I’d heard enough shit already.  

“Read it.  These damn things will steal the world from you.  I knew a guy that lost his entire family.  When his wife and kids realized the new guy was a better father and provider, they stuck with him. 

“The real father and husband was a fucking bastard.  He killed himself.

“Maybe.

“Do these things to stay safe.  Warn your wife.  You need a code word, so you both know where you are.  Just like you and me—” 

He stopped and stared at me.

He was pondering, just like me, if I was really the me he knew.  I sure as hell didn’t act like it defacing his property.  That was just low-down mean.  And stupid.

He had cameras everywhere. 

I knew that.  I’d helped install them.

But I’d been drinking and pissed.

“Tussock.”

“What?” I said, not sure of what I’d heard, but didn’t like it.

“That’s code.”

I didn’t want to hear about no code.  “Code?”  Here I’d been working for him almost six months, sometimes six days a week.  And now?  I was this close to losing it.  Him … using code … didn’t want to hear any more.

“If I ask, ‘Who are you?’  You say?”  He waited jacking the air with his hand paddling before him.

“Come on,” he said. 

“YOU-SUCK.”

“I ain’t playing.  This be something your double don’t know.”

I frowned.  At my side, I opened and closed my clenched fist.  “How can I be sure who you are?”

“I write your check.  That’s all you need to know.”  Then he confirmed himself by giving me today’s check.

I hated lying, but I needed the money.  ‘Sides he owed it, and then some.

I sat in my Olds 88 with a nip in a Styrofoam cup and jumped about in the reading of the pamphlet.

Doppelgängers
17 Varieties of Bastard
All for You

…  They’re a son of a bitch to deal with.  Look like you, act superficially like you—but they get close to your loved ones.  They want to steal your life.  And when they do—well, you’re person non gracias.

…

   They get into your memories, but only up to a point.  They don’t own them the way you do.  I mean, you love your wife, right?

   The one that would take your place will too; but he’d love her with the same intensity that you love your dog or car or that little girl you fell for in first grade:  A kind of affection or infection that, eventually, they get over with and then move on according to their need. 

   Main thing to remember is that they're not human no matter how much they look and act it.

   They’re parasites.[1]

   I can’t prove it, not yet, but I think they live on negative psychic energy—they go for the node, the focus of it.  Or why else would they stir up all these emotions: bad-feelings and anger?

…

If you catch up with one of these arrogant types, don’t listen or you’ll find yourself thinking they (your family, wife, and friends) deserve better than you.  Life isn’t about deserving, but about what you got.

   Don’t give in.

   Do what’s necessary.

   Don’t get caught.

   Authorities have been highly infiltrated from your local police department to the highest offices of state.  Nobody knows the extent of infiltration. 

   Don’t risk what is yours.

   The life YOU SAVE is yours!

When I got back to the trailer park late that night Betty-Jean was waiting.  The boys were asleep.  She knew I’d been drinking, she always knew, no matter how straight I acted. 

She brought me cold chicken and biscuits for supper and sat and watched me eat at the kitchen table, while giving me the most hateful stare.

“Well?” she says.

I know she wants to talk about our supposed problems.  She’d been going on about them for weeks.  Every little thing like it was all me.

So I lost a job.  It happens.

And the drink?

I’m a grown man.  Man alive, what does she think I’m doing?  I’m here.  Every day I’m here.  She should thank God, most men would break.

She says again, “Well?”

“I heard you.”  I stuff my face.  God, just a little peace.  Ain’t it enough I got to put up with everything else?  “This is good.”

At the end of a long day, just before bedtime, I’m not going to stir myself up and have her tell me again and again what I ought to be doing.  I’ve heard it all.  None of it changed, and wouldn’t until I got back to my real work.

I put Mr. Conroy’s check on the table for her to see.  That should’ve been the end of it.

“You make the best chicken.”  So I led her into my work day:  Told her how somebody graffiti-fied Mr. Conroy’s garage.  And how I spent the morning fixing somebody else’s mess, and how that crazy old man worried for me.

“What for?”  She puckers and rolls her lips like she might spit.  “He could give you a raise and regular hours.”

“He would, if I asked.  But I’m going back to high steel, when I’m recovered.  You know that.”

“You say that.”  And she just sits there with that stupid smile like she knew everything.  “When?” 

“Look at that.  It’s for his new book.”  I drop the pamphlet on the table and push it across to her. 

“Why give you this?”

“He just did, he’s a funny old man.”

She picks it up and flips a few pages to get the gist.  Then she laughs at something she’s reading and says, “Hunh!  You believe in this?”

“Not me.”  I edge Mr. Conroy’s check in front of her, and didn’t say anything about that.  “He gave me a code word though.” 

“He’s an idiot.”

“Gave me a secret word so he knows it’s me.”  She turns the check over and taps the back for me to sign, but I’m talking.  “It’s in there somewhere.”  I grab the pamphlet.  I explain it to her and make myself sound a fool.  “That’s him and his crazy books.  But he pays.”

She sits there with her mouth open like she can’t breathe or just bit into something awful.

“Tussock,” I say.

“What the fuck?”

“It’s code!”  She slaps a Bic pen in front of me.  “I looked it up in his unabridged.  It’s a bunch of matted and rotting leaves and stuff from the bottom of a lake or swamp that floats to the surface.”

“Just sign the goddamn check.”

She never used to say her mind so easily.  She taps the check, again, and then glides it to me with just the tip of her middle finger.  I sign.

“But get this,” I say.  “This is real interesting.  Decay gases—get caught up under there … SO IT FLOATS.  Sometimes it grows trees and shit like an island and it gets so big people and animals walk on it.”

“And,” she says, “don’t know, until it’s too late.  I know how they feel.”  I laugh; she snatches the check and is on her feet.  “I’ll see to this.” 

I laugh some more and say to her back, “We should have a code word so you know it’s me.”

“Asshole.”

I felt for Betty-Jean but she wasn’t in bed.

It was way early for her to be up, though once in a while, when she got worried about the boys, me or something, I’d find her in my bark-o-lounger reading one of her Girl Friday Romances or watching late night reruns of JC.  I heard some low whispering, but couldn’t make out who was talking.  Figured it was Johnny.

I tried to go back to sleep and did for a bit.

I woke when she said something, not real loud, but with a nasty tone to it.  She’d often talk back at the TV and tell some goof what they got wrong.  It didn’t make no difference if they listened or not, she always had something to say.  She said, “Not again.”

Then I heard the croak of a man’s voice trying to keep it low. 

I peeked through the partly open bedroom door, a man stood with his back to me.  Then clear as day he says, “You know you want him gone.”   The voice was very familiar.  It wasn’t no jokey JC or laugh-machine McMan.  It was somebody I knew, sneaking around before sunrise, whispering nothings to a man’s wife, a recipe for disaster.  “He’s asleep?”

“Passed out.  Might as well be a rock, he’s asleep even when he's awake.” 

I looked for my .38 Police Special.  It wasn’t in the nightstand.   Then I remembered it was in the closet on the top shelf … inside the steel box she’d insisted upon.  A box with a combo.  I grabbed the folding chair from the back of the closet.  Squeaked it open.  Held the closet doors, while I stepped up and leant in banging my head against boxes and shit.  She’d told me what the combo was.  Make it easy, she said.

It was a birthday.   Mine?  Or one of the boys?

There was the box—all the way in back.

What was the point of having guns if you couldn’t grab and shoot?

I heard the bedroom door open.  He stood backlit.  Light flooded in, spotlighting my tightey-whitey ass—not even a full moon for him.  I said fuck you and fell.

Fell hard with the wind knocked out of me.

He stood over me, reached down and rocked my head from side to side.  I had murder in my heart, but nothing moved.  He said, “You suck,” and then laughed.

Then I heard my boys in the living room.  Betty-Jean said, “Go back to bed, babies.  Daddy tripped but he’s fine.”

The guy threw a bedspread over me.  From the bedroom door, he said, “That’s right boys.  Now go to bed.  But first, give your old man a hug.”  They ran to him.  He gave a grunt.  “That’s my boys.” 

[1] The Mind Parasites, by Colin Wilson, Arkham House, 1967.  This is a real book, independently researched in Great Britain at great personal risk by the author, Colin Wilson.  Corrupt governmental powers managed to block its initial publication as a serious exposé of the truth.  Wilson cleverly resubmitted his manuscript to the above mentioned press, as a work of fiction.  But those in the know, know it for what it is:  The Truth Incarnated.  Don Conroy, author.

George Bandy's publications include War, Literature & the Arts (USAF), New Millennium Writings, Blue Unicorn, The Saturday Evening Post, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Neologism Poetry Journal, Broad River Review and forthcoming in The Southern Poetry Anthology: Vol. IX, Virginia. His poem 'Return from War' won the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award and was published in Icon.

 Mama in the clouds

beth meko

Mama says watching me grow up is ripping her heart right out. Says I’m shooting up like a weed, nearly thirteen years old, while she sits there locked up. She twists a fist into her chest, into the stiff material of her navy-blue prison-issue uniform. Then squeezes her eyes shut and pleads, “Just give me my little girl back.” She even waves her hands in my direction as if putting a spell on me to stop my bones cold in the process of expanding. Mama always did have a flair for the dramatic. 

I roll my eyes and Mama leans her elbows on the cold metal table, covering her face with her hands, veins jumping out blue. Since she’s been in, Mama’s shoulders have sharpened. Her cheekbones are two slashes on the sides of her face, and not in a supermodel way, just in a way that makes you think her face must hurt. 

I know I could say something nice to make Mama feel better, but I can’t think of anything nice. I look at the clock behind her head. The glass is scratched and covered with metal mesh. The minute hand drags, so that it sits still for four beats and then sweeps up four notches all at once, then repeats, forever and ever. Doing time. The high windows lining the room let in peeps of bright leaves blazing against a dream-blue sky. 

We make the trip up the mountain every first Saturday of the month. Sally picks me up in her old Chevy Malibu with the taped-on rearview mirror and the dented passenger side door that won’t open from the inside. Her car creaks and revs over hairpin curves in a part of the state I had never seen before Mama ended up doing time. 

Sally’s lips twist when I ask her, on the way back down the mountain, if we can switch the visits to every other month. She puts on her turn signal and pulls onto an overlook, tires crunching on gravel, and digs around in her purse for a cigarette. She always smokes half of a Kool Super Long at the overlook halfway up the mountain, and the other half on our walk down the gravel lot from the car to the prison. She always does the same, but reversed, on the trip back.

At first my social worker had been a woman with blond hair piled on top of her head, who always looked worried and offered me Kleenexes I never needed. Sally – close-cropped black hair; voice like rattling ice cubes – had shown up in her place one day. I like Sally better anyway. She’s not really that old, maybe even not much older than Mama, but she has some wrinkles on her face that most people don’t get until they’re old. She has a big cross swinging from her cracked rear-view mirror, but when she’s mad she curses worse than the high school kids at the back of the bus I ride to school. I climb across the driver's seat and stand outside with her, standing close to her to breathe in the smoke. 

“This is the one mama you’ve got, Sammy Girl,” Sally finally says, leaning to stab the Kool out on the gravel and slipping it into the empty pack she uses for butts. “I know she’s done wrong, but it’s killing her being away from you in there.” I just kick at the fire-colored leaves swirling around the tires. Finally, Sally holds the door open for me to get back in the car.

I’ve been staying with Aunt B since Mama’s been in, but Sally’s been looking for a new place for me to stay. Aunt B lives in a little mud-colored trailer off Route 19, so close to the highway that the passing log trucks rattle the windows. Aunt B tries to be nice, but I know there isn’t room for me there. I have to share a bedroom with my cousin, who once bit me when I tried to play her toy piano, and a pair of droopy-diapered twins. Aunt B is forever yelling at them or threatening to beat the older one with a strap, despite the Bless Our Children embroidery piece displayed in the living room.

Sally shows up one day with news: the Judge’s family is going to take me in. “They live just over by the lake, so you’ll get to stay in the same school, Sammy. Isn’t that great? And oh my, that family. Such examples of leadership,” Sally raves, raising her voice to be heard over a passing truck engine. “They have six kids of their own, but take in foster kids all the time. I mean, can you imagine? They’ve done ministry all over the world. The father’s a judge in circuit court. And that Ann. A real Proverbs 31 woman, I tell you. Simply wonderful.” 

“What’s that?” I ask, thinking of immaculate conception and virginal miracles. Sally tells me with an impatient edge in her voice to look it up in the Bible she had given me.

“God knows it’ll be good for Sammy to have that kind of woman as an influence,” says Aunt B, sounding relieved. She leaves the image of a strung-out Mama driving the getaway car, a kidnapped cashier in the backseat, unsaid.

Mama hadn’t forgotten my twelfth birthday the day she helped her boyfriend and his friend rob the Quick-Liq. Somewhere along the way, they stopped at Food Lion and bought me a cake. It was on the table when I got home from school that afternoon, a plastic sheet container with part of the lid dented, smushing the cartoon-sky icing. The apartment had been dark when I came in. Mama and Jed were in the back bedroom of the apartment, oddly quiet. Some guy with a blond ponytail, who Mama and Jed called Spider but who the newspaper would call Richard Livingston, had been sleeping on the couch.  

Spider-Richard ended up being put away the longest, since the cashier they kidnapped was his girlfriend. Mama got off the best, and it wasn’t because she was a woman, as her boyfriend Jed had said. “A judge ain’t different from any other man. Just wear something low cut and flash them that pretty smile and you’re gold. And all you done anyway was drive the car,” Jed had said in the living room of the apartment, air thick with smoke, one afternoon after they had made bail before the trial. 

The judge had turned out to be a boxy-looking woman with a steel face. She had smiled a lot at each person who came to the stand, but it hadn’t been a nice smile. Jed ended up with ten years and Mama five. It’s a good thing the cashier had lived, Mama’s lawyer said, because otherwise they’d be looking at Murder One. I always picture Murder One as a door on a stage, behind which there was a bloody guillotine. 

Slap on the wrist, I would overhear my new foster father, the Judge, saying, weeks later, in his study one night. Should have locked her away and thrown away the key. Then maybe that girl would have a chance.  

That night at Aunt B’s I look up the Proverbs 31 verse in the Bible Sally had given me. A woman worth more than rubies, who could plant a vineyard with her own two hands, a woman of dignity. A woman who girds her loins. I’m not sure what that part means, but it sounds kind of sexual and pure all at the same time. 

I picture my new foster mother as a fairy godmother with a tinkling laugh, running her hands over lush fabric. I had never known a woman like that. Mama sure isn’t a Proverbs 31 woman, and Aunt B isn’t either, not the way she hollers and hits the kids all the time. Looking at my own big-cheeked face in the bathroom mirror and baring my teeth in a smile, I see no hint that I’m shaping up as a good candidate for one either. I can’t see such a woman having buck teeth the way mine are headed, or sneaking cigarettes from Sally’s pack and smoking them under the bleachers with Mel the way I do. 

The next day I tell Mel about the new foster home. We’re squatting beneath the bleachers, inhaling on a cigarette, digging our sneakers around in the dirt. Mel passes the cigarette back to me between her grubby thumb and pointer finger, squinting at me. The filter’s always wet with spit by the time she’s done with it.  “Fucking weirdos. They have a big van and go to church, like, every five minutes. Watch they don’t come in your bedroom and try to fondle you. People like that always do.” 

Mel spent last spring suspended for setting fire to a girl’s straight-A report card in the locker room. She came back this year taller and meaner, with a big roll of belly that sticks out over the elastic of the gym shorts she wears every day. Mel has hair the color of watery tomato soup that she pulls back with a rubber band, and a big brown birthmark on one side of her face. She likes to threaten to slap younger girls across the face unless they kiss the birthmark. 

Mel picks her victims and friends at random, like a tornado that just takes the houses on one side of the street. This year she’d slapped her dirty bookbag down next to mine in the gymnasium the first day of school. She thinks it’s cool that my mom is in prison. “Mama’s doin’ time!” she sings out as we walk down the halls. She has endless questions about life on the inside. “Is her cellmate bigger than her? What’s the food like? Hey, does she get to wear her own underwear or are there like prison-issued panties or whatever? Do women fuck each other in prison the way men do?” I just make up answers to most of the questions. I tell her they run a lottery to see who gets underwear that week. I tell her Mama’s the toughest woman on the prison block and she made her roommate drink from the toilet to show her who was boss. I don’t say anything about the sex thing since it’s something I don’t want to think about.

Sometimes she shows up behind me at my locker, hot breath close to my ear. “How do they fuck each other, do you think? You know they’ve got to. They probably have all kinds of ways. Oh man, you should bake your mama a cake. And put a file in it. Bust Mama out!” And she takes off running down the hallway. “Bust Mama out!” 

Mel might smell like B.O. and be crazy as a bat but having her as a friend is better than having no friend. And I kind of like that she seems to think highly of Mama. 

In a pile of old photos in the cabinet at Aunt B’s, I find one that I’d never seen before, a school photo of Mama labeled on the back “10th grade” in Mama’s loopy scrawl.  I realize that Mama and I don’t really look much different. We both have chubby cheeks and stubby eyelashes, and I can see that then, as now, her smile is all closed up to hide her gnarled top teeth. Her hair is the same rusty brown as ever. In the prison she pulls it into a skinny braid that’s always unraveling because she’s not allowed to use hair ties. But in this picture, it’s almost long but not quite, flipped up to form a playful plume around her neck, like water splashing up.

I can’t stop looking at it. It’s like someone took all the rough edges and shadows and lines out of Mama, fluffed her up, and put her up against a pale blue background. This version of Mama gives nothing away about the rest of her body below her pointy yellow collar. In the picture her eyes don’t have that beaten look like in the prison; they’re not glassy and jumpy, like when she was taking pills. There’s an expression in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before, but I can’t tell what it is. I can’t get to this version of Mama, this young Mama hovering in the clouds.  

The Judge’s house peers down at the lake from a hill, yard mowed into perfect lines rolling up forever. Sally’s Malibu revs to make it up the steep driveway lined by spruce trees. “Well, shit on me,” she says under her breath. I can’t tell if she’s cursing her car or the immensity of the house. 

I struggle to unbuckle my seatbelt, which has what Sally calls “a trick” to it. Sally fluffs her hair in the rearview mirror. “Don’t be nervous about meeting the judge,” Sally tells me, not for the first time. “He’s not the kind of judge who decided on your Mama’s case. He’s a family court judge. A good one, I’ve heard.” 

My new foster mother meets us at the door. She turns out to be on the dumpy side, with wide kind eyes peering out from glasses too large for her face. Behind her the house hums with activity. Children are shouting in the next room, and a toddler runs past in a pair of pull-up diapers. My foster mother says to call her Ann, which I do, but I call her Proverbs in my mind. 

Proverbs gives us a tour of the house, with Sally oohing and aahing, then clearing her throat like she thinks I should say something too. The house has three stories--two above, and a carpeted basement that they call the “movie room.” There are six kids in the family, and all of them appear to have a different type of shoe and uniform for each activity. Skis line the walls of the movie room, and piles of shoes crowd every entrance. 

The house is like a maze with all its hallways. In this house you don’t have to leave the rooms the same way you come in. Kids chase each other throughout, never once having to turn in a tight spot and try to battle through the advances of their pursuer. They simply run out the other door, winding through the house free and easy. That first evening I get lost and end up wandering back and forth on the second floor hallway, confused about which room is which. “The Temp got lost upstairs!” I hear the ten-year-old, Maddie, say, giggling, and Proverbs shushes her.

There are no kids my age. The oldest are two boys in high school who I never see. Then there’s Maddie, and then a string of little ones: a sturdy kindergartner in Velcro shoes, a shaggy-haired toddler, the diapered baby kicking his feet in the highchair as Proverbs cooks dinner. None of them act very interested in me. I’m just one in a long string of Temps who stay in the foster kid’s room, just off the back stairwell upstairs. 

The bedroom is bigger than any of my rooms in the apartments Mama and I have shared. Part of the ceiling slopes downward over the twin bed, which Proverbs had made up with a pink comforter and sheets. I wondered if they have a set just like it but in blue for boy Temps. A brown bunny with a bow tie smiles at me from the pillow. I’m too old for stuffed animals, so I set it down on the dresser, stitched face turned toward the mirror. On the bedside is a smushed New International Version Bible, and in the corner is a three-shelf bookcase full of horse stories and Christian adventure books, all below my reading level. 

The Judge shows up for dinner that first evening looking perturbed and exhausted. Seated at the end of the table, he places his skinny wrists by either side of his plate. I have no problem picturing him in a judge’s robe, although he now wears a simple gray button-down shirt and black pants. He gives a sharp intake of air that sucks in his nostrils like a vacuum, bringing his nose to a thin blade for the briefest second, exhales, and then says “Let’s pray.”

He prays for what seems like a long time, but when I peer out from narrowed eyes everyone has their eyes shut, except for the baby who is blowing spit bubbles and looking at the ceiling. The Judge prays for the people he’d seen in courtroom that day, that they would find their way from their “seemingly hopeless entanglements” to God’s grace. He prays for success for all the kids in the new school year. And he prays for me, that I’ll feel welcome in their home, that I will “thrive.” He calls me Samantha and no one corrects him. 

The only person who’s ever called me Samantha was my grandmother, who died when I was five. To everyone else I’ve been Sammy since I was born.

In November Mama’s in a good mood. She says my yearbook picture is the prettiest thing she’s ever seen, and that she displays it nice and proud on her wall right by her bed. I don’t say anything. The thought of her sticking my picture up in her cell with that gummy blue stuff depresses me. She talks about the pastor in the prison chapel, who had spent time in this very prison and whom God had rescued from the snake pit of addiction and sin. She actually says that, “the snake pit of addiction and sin.” I’ve never heard Mama talk like that before. 

All the noise makes it difficult to talk to Mama. Around us the guards pace, their pants fabric brushing up against the backs of our chairs, calling out to each other and to the prisoners. Their shouts (“Hands above table where we can see them! Hands above table!”) and the static of the intercom when it bursts on keeps drowning out our voices. Out the windows, the sky looks like cement and rain batters the few brown leaves left on the tree branches.

I could say more to Mama. When she asks me how I like eighth grade, I could tell her about the girls who shout curse words in the bathroom and leave lipstick stains on the mirror, or the boy in pre-algebra who looks off my paper and rubs ear wax under his desk. But I can’t make myself tell Mama any of that. I just tell her I’ve got a new friend named Mel who I walk to class with. But I’m curious about the underwear question, so I ask Mama how that’s handled in the prison. 

Mama seems happy and surprised that I’m asking her a question. “They have pairs here for us to wear,” she says. “This is a woman’s prison, after all. They’ve thought about all that.” She smiles big at me. “And by the way.” She’s pinching an M&M, which I’ve gotten for her from the snack machine in the corner, between two fingers and she points with it at me, close to my chest. “Girl, your boobies are getting bigger than mine.”

All the blood drains from my face. 

“Time!” yells a guard. “Say your goodbyes and single file toward exit! Single file!” 

“I am not visiting her again,” I say on the way back down the mountain, over the squeak of the windshield wipers.

Sally’s teeth click together but she doesn’t say anything. When she stops for her overlook cigarette, I stay in the car but sneak one of the Kool Longs out of the wrinkled pack on the seat while her back is turned. When she gets back in the car, she keeps clucking and sighing, and as we turn down the last curve of the mountain, she finally speaks. “Time has pretty much stopped for your mama, you know,” she says.  “And then seeing you…develop...just through visits and pictures, and some other woman playing mother to you while she’s in there. It’s just hard on her, Sammy. Try to understand.” 

“Whatever. Who cares.” Why hadn’t she just stayed out of prison then? It’s not like that’s hard for most people. These people wouldn’t know personal responsibility if it came up and karate kicked them in the face, I had overheard the Judge saying to Proverbs one evening about the people in his courtroom. 

Proverbs takes me to the mall one day, just me and her, one Saturday in December. We have sandwiches and fries in the food court and she smiles down at me as we walk through the mall, festive lights from the Christmas decorations glinting off her glasses. She calls it our “girls’ outing” and says we should have done this before now. She buys a couple Christmas presents for the little ones and then we go clothes shopping for me. 

We leave the Juniors section at JCPenney with three pairs of jeans to replace the ones that have become highwaters, a couple of sweaters and a new puffy coat.  As we walk through the store with the bags Proverbs touches my elbow. “Now,” she says, gesturing toward the rows of cool cotton and smooth, rounded silk that made up the bra section, “Let’s see if there’s anything here that we like.” 

I realize that this is the reason for the whole outing; it’s why Proverbs had taken me to the mall alone. My face hot, I think of Mama pointing with the M&M, and a boy in English class whispering that my headlights were on. Sally had probably pulled Proverbs aside and asked her to do this. It’s past time, I imagine Sally whispering to Proverbs in that raspy voice. Or maybe Proverbs read she should do this in some manual for Christian foster mothers. Who knows? In any case, Proverbs is flagging down a saleswoman to give me a fitting in the dressing room. 

It isn’t all that bad, really. Proverbs sits outside the dressing room and waits until I come out with a couple bras that fit, and she takes me to the register. I know Proverbs and the Judge get money each month to do things like this. As we walk out of the mall, the cold air with its sharp smell of coming snow hits us. Proverbs shivers, smiles down at me and says that new coat is going to come in handy this winter. A woman walks by with a teenage girl and smiles at us. She must think we’re mother and daughter, shopping together at the mall, like them.

Mother and daughter, I think back at the house, the door of the Temp bedroom shut, as I try on the bras and the clothes in front of the mirror. The house vibrates around me, footsteps clattering, the sound of laughter ringing out from some shared joke. Family, I think. All my life it’s always just been me and Mama, and you can’t really call just two people a family. I wonder if I could pass for one of Proverbs’ and the Judge’s kids. A close look into the mirror confirms that I look nothing like any of them. I think of Mama’s big eyes, so much like mine, staring back at me from that school photograph.

Mel thinks I’m stupid for missing the opportunity to steal money from Proverbs. “Doesn’t she ever just leave her purse open on the counter or something?” She taps the cigarette and takes a noisy drag, staring at me hard. “She wouldn’t even notice. Her husband’s rolling in money.” 

She won’t leave me alone about it. “I don’t want to,” I finally say. 

“Idiot,” Mel says. “What’s the matter with you?”

I don’t say anything; I just look out at the snow-dusted football field. I want to get away from Mel and go in from the cold, but there’s still a lot of the cigarette left.

“Whatever. That mama of yours would be so disappointed,” says Mel. Then she looks back at me with renewed interest. “Hey, those freaks tried to fondle you yet?” 

Sometimes I think of the bloody woman in the ditch and Mama getting high with her boyfriend and Spider-Richard and I can’t help it--I think, Fuck you, Mama. Fuck you all to hell. You had this coming to you. But I don’t think I really mean it. 

Almost every night I dream about Mama. In one of them I come into the visiting room and there’s young Mama in the yellow dress with pillowy hair and smooth skin. I want to touch her but the guards hover, not letting me get close. Sometimes I’m bringing her something: sweet treats, a homemade Valentine like the ones I made when I was little. In one I climb over the prison fence and force my way through impossible vent openings and tunnels to Mama’s cell. When I get to her, she’s different every time. Sometimes she’s Mama in the clouds, sometimes she’s real-life Mama, and once she’s even a slinky cat that I chase from corner to corner. I never catch her.

Mel and I get caught smoking and I have to do a week of after school suspension. Proverbs picks me up in the van, a grim look on her face. Later I find out she’s looked through my dresser drawers and found things I had taken from around the house--a few cat-eyed marbles from Maddie’s collection, a photo frame with a younger, grinning Judge holding one of the kids as a generic-looking toothless baby, a pack of playing cards, a figurine of an angel playing the harp. Nothing valuable. I don’t even know why I took them. But she takes all of it, plus the few wrinkled Kools I’ve been storing in my sock drawer. In the nightstand drawer she leaves only the red Bible Sally had given me and the picture of Mama in the clouds. 

One night, creeping downstairs for some water after all the kids were asleep, I hear her and the Judge talking about me. “We can’t have her being a bad influence on the little ones,” Proverbs is saying. “I’m thinking some counsel at the church might clear it up.” 

Ice clinks in his glass and I picture him sniffing, nose tapering to a narrow ridge.  “What do you expect? Look at the influences she’s had.” I think they’re talking about something else for a minute, voices muffled. But then, loud and clear, “Really, there’s no excuse for it. They nearly killed that woman. Standing by just watching, driving the car…” His voice disappears for a minute and then comes back. “It’s probably better that she’s in prison. That girl’s better off with no mother at all than one who’s capable of that.” 

I don’t hear Proverbs reply, but somehow I know she’s nodding her agreement. 

I’m looking at Mama’s picture a lot more lately. I think that she could have been growing me already as she paused to pose for this picture, in between 4th period and lunch, maybe, feeling me in there like a stomachache. 

She sends me letters every week and I never write her back, although I tell Sally that I do. Her letters are stamped with the Correctional Facility mark and I’m embarrassed that the family sees them in the mail. Proverbs leaves them propped up on my dresser. Mama tells me in her latest letter that she’s going to get baptized next Sunday in a pool they’re setting up in the chapel. I think of Mama getting dunked into a flimsy pool inside a prison and I feel depressed. 

In December, they have a Christmas tree set up in the corner of the visiting room, just an artificial one with drooping branches and a single string of lights. There are no gifts underneath it, not even the fake presents with nothing in them like in department stores. But it still feels kind of nice to have a tree there. A man with a Polaroid camera is walking from table to table, and Mama tells me she’s secured us a spot to get our pictures taken in front of the tree. 

Mama can’t give me anything during visits, but she says she made a gift for me, a bright-colored hummingbird from a plastic suncatcher kit. She says she’ll see about sending it to me. It’s a complicated process for her to send anything but letters. I can’t bring Mama anything either, but Sally had helped me pick out a care package from the prison-approved catalog, which has chocolate candy, a book of inspirational sayings and a pair of socks. I think nice socks mean a lot in prison. Mama will get it sometime at the end of December, but she hasn’t gotten it yet. I feel bad that Mama won’t have any presents for Christmas, so I line up early at the snack machine to make sure I can get a honey bun. Those are her favorite and they’re usually out by the time I make it through the line. 

When it’s time for our pictures, we pose together by the tree. Just for this occasion, visitors and prisoners are allowed to hug each other for the camera. I’m surprised by the strength of Mama’s hand gripping my shoulder. We get two Polaroids, one for each of us, that we lay on the long table at the end of the room to dry.

Visitation lasts for fifteen extra minutes in honor of Christmas. “Time,” calls the tall guard with thick hips that sway back and forth when she walks and a braid parted down the middle with the front half gone white. I’ve seen her each time I’ve visited and I’ve nicknamed her Skunk. “Ten til. Start wrapping it up, folks.” Skunk snaps her gum like her mouth’s made of elastic and always shouts across the room even if it drowns out the conversations at the tables around her. Once as I was leaving, she’d looked at me and laughed. “Girl, you better hope you don’t end up like that mother of yours,” she had said to me. 

As we hug at the end of the visit Mama claws at my back with her fingers and leaves a wet spot on the top of my head. I feel it dripping down my scalp as I walk away, not sure if it’s snot or tears or both. Skunk’s eyes glance over me as I pass by, uninterested. 

I look back at Mama and her back looks very small, disappearing back into the prison in the line led by the guards. 

When I get back to the Judge’s house, I take out the Polaroid of me and Mama. I gaze over my own face--hair freshly cut straight across my forehead, lips turned upward in a reluctant smile--and settle on Mama’s. I look at her for a long time and I swear that there’s something of young Mama I can see in her eyes. I didn’t see it in person, but I see it here.

Sally says the mountain roads get icy in the winter and it might be a while until I see Mama again. I should be happy about that, I know, but I’m not. I sense the winter break stretched out, with me rattling like a lost piece in this house where I’m trying to fit in but never really do. I think of the Christian counselor at the church, who nods and smiles at everything I say and then starts talking about Jesus, and about the presents addressed to Samantha among the heap of gifts underneath the family’s massive Christmas tree in the front room.

I was going to put the picture in one of the dresser drawers or maybe tucked into one of the books on the bookcase, but I don’t. I know that soon, weeks or months from now or maybe even tomorrow, I might change my mind, but for now I tuck it into the mirror frame above the dresser, where anyone can see it. I think about it for a minute, and then I put young Mama on the other side. I can’t look at myself now without seeing Mama. There they are, both versions of Mama, with eyes that lock into mine, trying to tell me something that feels important. Trying to tell me something I’m going to need to know. 

Beth Meko lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she is a grant writer and university lecturer. Her short fiction has appeared in the 2021 Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Wilderness House Literary Review, Longleaf Review, Still: The Journal, and Valparaiso Fiction Review, and is forthcoming in Blue Lake Review.

 Ostrocaphoria

Jacob Wrich

Think of every decision you make as a vote. A ballot cast one way or another. You ignore the phone calls from your spouse, you’re voting against your relationship. You take time off work to care for your dying father, you’re voting for family. You lie about how your sister died, you’re voting to still be loved. You ignore the doctors and leave the hospital with your twelve-year-old son, Leo, gaunt and pale, blue gown flashing bare skin in the winter wind, well, then you’re voting for his safety.  

Mostly we’re aware of the ballots we cast in our own lives. We’re aware of their consequences. We know a vote for that extra slice of pizza is also a vote against our own health. But like a poor man casting his ballot for the billionaire politician, we often vote against our own self-interest. We feed ourselves a big bowl of reassurances and dispel any argument, no matter how logical, that flies in the face of our convictions.

Yet even the most mindful of us forget that the world is constantly casting ballots as well, and that many of those votes are cast against us.  

The ancient Greeks held ostrocaphorias. Think of the opposite of any political election you’ve ever known. Citizens of Athens would gather and cast ballots in the city center. The “winner” of the election would then be ostracized from Greece for ten years. An ostrocaphoria is basically an anti-popularity contest. The Greeks would vote for the worst person, the most dangerous to their republic. And if that was you, pack your bags.

We like to think of ourselves as civilized, and for the most part we are. But it’s at least worth questioning. Especially if you could see my son’s teeth chattering in the backseat while my car’s heater blows lukewarm air and the temperature outside is making even the most resolute winter birds tuck themselves into the snowy pines.

Today, you won’t find an official ostrocaphoria anywhere on earth. We’re simply not that honest anymore. But they’re still happening, just without all the formality.

People have been voting for my ostracization for a while now.

My son’s doctor voted.

“Leo’s blood shows traces of radiation. He needs to be admitted for further testing.”

Ballot cast.

My HR department voted.

“Kari, you’ve used up all your FMLA. We need to rehire for your position. Oh, and we still need to talk with you about some missing medications.”

Ballot cast.

The hospital social worker voted.

“Ms. Sullivan, can I speak to you alone? Have you ever heard of Munchausen by proxy?”

Ballot cast.

Even I know that it’s not called Munchausen by proxy anymore. The DSM now refers to it as Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another.

My phone rings almost constantly. People casting their ballots. I fight through the seatbelt to get my jacket off and hand it back to Leo. He covers himself. I turn the ringer off and tell him to sleep.

We arrive at the old farmhouse, the house I grew up in. How many times have I bowed my head in supplication in this old pile of boards? How many times did my mother cast her ballot with a yardstick across my knuckles? And how many times did my agnostic father sip his whiskey and shrug back into his recliner. Many will argue that abstaining is a vote in and of itself.

I tuck Leo into my childhood bed upstairs. He’s fast asleep when I drag the rocker from the other bedroom and angle it toward the window. Through the naked branches of the white ash tree, the silo, rusty and stained, slumps up from the snowy ground, and still manages to stand taller than my childhood.  

My phone tells me that I have fourteen missed calls. Tells me that my voicemail box is full. Tells me that they’re moving in. That I don’t have a lot of time.

Every time you force someone into a corner, you’re casting a vote.

Have you ever seen desperation? Like really seen it up close? Have you ever been so near to it that you could hear its heartbeat under the soft blankets in an empty farmhouse in the middle of NoWhere, Minnesota?

Leo crawls open his eyes. I rock forward and place my face on his cheek. Twelve-year-old Leo, suffering under the weight of some unknown disease, some virulent strain that doctors can’t comprehend, or perhaps some as-of-yet unidentified cancer that hides in his body and kills his willpower, dissolves his strength, chews away at his organs day by day.

“Take this,” I tell him and slide an orange and blue capsule between his teeth.

He turns away, but I slide my palm behind his head and lift. He’s too weak to fight.

“Drink,” I tell him, pressing a bottle of water to his lips. “Drink,” I say again, and I hold him until he swallows the pill.

He’s so delicate. The arches of his eyebrows like the flight patterns of songbirds. How amazing to be this close. To watch the slow breaths that make the blankets rise and fall almost imperceptibly over his chest. How astonishing to feel the coolness of his skin as his antibodies flee the surface to fight the invisible demons invading his body.

With Leo sunk deep into sleep, I listen to the voicemails. More ballots cast in the ostrocaphoria of my life.

“Kari, this is Susan at the Department of Human Services, please call me back at your earlies…” I know the rest. I’ve been identified as a suspect in an abuse allegation.

Ballot cast.

“Hi Kari, it’s Beth. Look, I know you’ve been separated from the company, but I really need to talk with you about some missing medication for Martha’s cancer treatment…”

Ballot cast.

“This is officer McGuire from the St. Paul PD. Please contact our department…”

Ballot cast.

“This message is for Ms. Sullivan regarding the lab work for your son Leo. We have found some abnormalities. His white blood cell and platelet counts are exceedingly low. Furthermore, he has tested positive for Procarbazine, an oral chemotherapy medication. Please contact us immediately at…”

Ballot cast.

Leo sleeps so frozen that he doesn’t even flinch when I throw my phone and all the little broken parts skate across the hardwood floor. Giant tea-saucer snowflakes tear down from the sky as if the world has begun to spin so fast that gravity has doubled. A wind whirls the snow and blurs the silo, and for a moment, a surge of nostalgia sweeps through me.

As if on cue, a cardinal lands near the window and stares into the bedroom. “Oh, hello father,” I say, but these are not my words. These are my mother’s words. My mother, believing that cardinals were visitors from heaven, repeated these words anytime she saw a cardinal perched near the house. On anyone else, this little idiosyncrasy would have been endearing.

But I hated it.  

And now here I am, her words coming out of my mouth, speaking directly to this bird that sits like a flame on the matchstick bough of the white ash tree.

Leo gasps awake. “I need to go to the bathroom,” he rattles.

The water has been turned off at the farmhouse since my dad died last year, so I go downstairs and find my mother’s favorite vase, an extra wide decorative piece that she used to put hydrangeas in every summer. I set it in the corner of the bedroom as a makeshift chamber pot.

Leo leans his lower back into the corner and props his elbows on his knees. Squatting above the vase, the balls of his feet pressed into the floor, his arches curve like gothic architecture. His skinny body buttressed in perfect symmetry. Utterly beautiful, my son. Even when he explodes watery waste into the vase and falls forward to his hands and knees. Even when he pivots around to vomit into the vase.

I dump the waste behind the shed and rinse it with snow. Leo will sleep for a while now, so I push through the ever-deepening snow and hike out to the silo. I stare up the rusty yellow ladder that’s bolted to the side of the silo, heave a deep breath, and climb. The cold metal stings my hands and the wet snow makes each slippery step a negotiation, but I persist until I’ve climbed to the top. The gray expanse of falling and drifting snow furls out for miles. At the top, a small metal platform leans over the bowels of the silo. Inside is empty but for the sweep auger, covered in moldy grain and small clumps of corn tamped to the sides. I think about Kelly.

I was ten when she died. She was eight. Mom used to tell her, “Kelly, you were worth the wait.”

She used to tell me, “Kari, if you keep bullying your sister, I’m going to bully you!” And she would eyeball the yardstick.

For Christmas, Kelly got whatever she asked for. When I complained that Kelly got more than me, Mom would say, “And were you a good girl this year, Kari?” At least Kelly shared her presents with me when Mom wasn’t watching. I suppose I appreciated that.

Every time you give one daughter a Sparkle Princess Posey doll and a beautiful dress for Christmas and you give the other daughter a pair of winter boots, you’re casting a vote. 

I look back down the shaft and wonder what it must have been like for her, drowning in all that grain. Her face twisted in fear as she flailed, the outline of her body disappearing until it was replaced by a calm surface of corn.

I remember the rush of guilt when I wondered if I would still get candy on Halloween. It was so quiet climbing down that ladder. Much like it is now, with giant snowflakes soundlessly slapping against my cheeks and melting in my eyelashes.

Leo is still fast asleep. I rest the back of my hand against his cheek, lean down and kiss his forehead. If my mother and father could see me now, they would know what a caring mother I have become. They would know that when my mother said that I am “all blood and no heart,” she was dead wrong.

I sit back in the rocker and cover myself with a patchwork quilt. I’m sure the police have already been to my apartment, and it’s just a matter of time before they send someone to my childhood home. My car is hidden, and the lights are off in the house, but it’s just a matter of time.

I can barely keep my eyes open. I prop a pillow behind my head and close my eyes.

It’s a dark world when I open my eyes. Mom sleeps sitting up in a rocking chair. She’s drooling on an old quilt. The vase I pooped in (how embarrassing) rests on its side in the corner. The window is covered in snow. I open it, but the snow just stays there. Like a wall. Like we’re buried. But I know we’re upstairs, so I dig. It’s deep. Like there’s no end. I keep digging until I’m out of the room. Then I’m tunneling upward through the snow. Up, up, up, thirty, forty feet, until I push through the surface and the sun blinds me. It bounces electric off the snow. The world I know has been buried. I’m in a new land. A vast tundra of white drifts and frozen sunshine. 

The cold is not unbearable. Even in the hospital gown and my undies and bare feet. The air is cool like the feeling when you jump into a swimming pool. 

I walk for a long time. Miles maybe. Then footprints? If they are footprints, they’re huge. And round. The size of manhole covers. Hundreds of these giant potholes form a trail that stretches off toward the horizon.

“Hey! You there!”

I turn and three kids about my age, dressed in furs, point spears at my chest.

“Who are you?” 

The cold catches up with me all at once. My lips turn blue and frozen and blubber around my clattering teeth. I muster out a puff of air: “Leo.” And I collapse into the snow.

I wake in a dark cave with icy walls and the glow of a warm fire. I’m wrapped in a blanket made from the coarse hair of some giant beast. A boy, younger than me, with sunken cheeks and long black hair, hands me a steaming mug with a broken handle that says “I Hate Mondays.”

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Bone broth,” the boy says and sits among a group of eight other boys. All are close to my age. Some slightly younger, some older. All with oily, uncombed hair. All wearing a variation of brown and orange furs.

The tallest boy, his fur clattering with dangling bones, stands with a spear across his chest and says, “I am Odin. You are Leo?”

“Yes,” I say.

“How did you get here?” Odin asks.

“I don’t know. I was standing there talking to you and I must have…”

“NO!” Odin yells. “How did you get here? To this world?”

“I don’t understand.”

Odin sighs and bangs the heel of his spear on the ice. “Where were you before we found you?”

“I was sleeping in the farmhouse where my grandparents used to live. When I woke up, it was dark, so I opened the window and tunneled up to the surface. Then I just walked for a long time. And you found me.”

The boys nod as I sip the hot bone broth, leaving the cup near my face to let the steam warm my nose.

“Are you sick?” said a boy with a bubbling scar on his chest.  

I stare blankly through the broth steam.

“Yeah, us too. Ryan’s got pneumonia,” he says, pointing to a kid who keeps coughing. “Chris’s got leukemia. Odin was in a car accident. We think he’s in a coma. Ash over there, he’s got something called Reye’s Syndrome. None of us even know what the hell that is,” the boy laughs. “Me, I’ve got a bad heart. What’d you got?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Oh, you’re one of the unknowns, huh?” A few of the boys nod and brush their thick hair from their eyes.

“Quiet,” Odin says. “It’s time to sleep now. Tomorrow we hunt.” 

The fire has burned through the night leaving a smoldering glow in the orange dawn. The boys and I rise and drape our furs over our backs. We sweep the baby hair from our eyes and shake away the last wisps of our dreams. Guarding our eyes from the brilliant sun, we trek out into the blue tundra, a pack of wild animals ready to kill for survival.

Soon we’re perched on a snow cliff above a trail littered with footprints, a byway for wooly mammoth. We laugh and make snow angels and piss our names into the snow. We wrestle one another, our sinewy muscles taut under our atavistic robes. Ryan builds a snowman and shoves his spear through its chest, then karate chops its head off. We halt when Odin shushes us.

We crawl on our elbows to the edge of the cliff. Three wooly mammoths shrug around the corner and lumber through the chasm. They nod their huge heads and grunt and snuffle clouds of white breath. Odin holds his left fist above his head and we inch nearer, peering thirty feet down over the edge. We wait as the first two mammoths go by, and when the third is directly below us, Odin lets out a savage scream and we all leap down onto the back of the giant beast. The other two mammoths run away. We stab our prey and tumble to the ground. We drive our spears into its ribcage and stomach, being careful to stay behind it and elude the wrath of its tusks. Ash gets too close to its crushing hind leg and screams out in pain.

With the brute finally on its side and the last of its feeble attempts to defend itself slowing to a halt, we breathe proud, frozen breaths. We wipe blood like warpaint under our eyes and climb on the back of the dead beast. We jab our spears at the blue sky. But our victory celebration doesn’t last long as a sabertoothed tiger leaps toward us, trying to take the kill that is rightfully ours. We surround it, except Ash, who cowers near the mammoth’s head, holding his stepped-on ankle.

The tiger swipes at us with its immense claws, catching Chris on the upper arm and chest. Chris falls away, holding a tight hand over his cut. Then the tiger turns its attention directly to me. He rises on his hindlegs, tall enough to eclipse the sun, and leaps high overhead, arching into the sky and coming down toward me with his razor claws and teeth trained on my throat. I fall to my back and anchor the base of my spear into the icy ground and let the giant cat come down directly on it. The spear sinks through its chest and into its heart. Blood shoots out in rapid spurts as the sabertoothed tiger collapses on top of me.

The boys cheer me on and rub their hands through the tiger blood that soaks my face and hair. We walk back reliving the kills over and over, laughing and shoving one another and sucking the frozen blood from our hands, letting our bodies absorb the iron.

And with Odin clapping me on my back and rubbing my bloody hair, I disappear. I fall through a hole in the snow and slide down a tunnel that shoots me back into the bedroom where my mom still sleeps, propped up in the rocker, covered in a patchwork quilt in the frozen farmhouse.

Cleisthenes, widely considered the Father of Democracy, is credited with creating the ostrocaphoria. He wanted to protect his cherished democracy from potentially corrupt or tyrannical politicians. His theory is sound. What could be more democratic than a jury of peers? But as with any logical theory, the flaws of human nature quickly contaminated its rationality and bastardized the original intent of the ostrocaphoria.

Ultimately Athenians began voting for people they held grudges against. A statesman named Megakles was ostracized for his extravagant lifestyle. Kimon Miltiadou, a war hero, was falsely accused of having an incestuous relationship with his sister. And when there was no one else to vilify, the Athenians would form a campaign against a slave and accuse him of heinous acts of rape and murder. Or they would blame him for a famine, just to have a scapegoat. If people are voting for someone else, then they’re not voting for you.  

More cardinals have gathered in the branches outside the window. Maybe two dozen. They flit and twirl around, but mostly they just stare into the bedroom where Leo sleeps. I rest the back of my hand on his forehead. It’s ice cold and wet. I peel the covers back. His gaunt body shivers and breathes shallow breaths. I tuck him back in. Cover him with the patchwork quilt I have been using.

If only my mother could see me now, she would know how much I care. If she could just see me sacrificing my own warmth for my son, or the way I dab his face dry and rest my lips on his forehead.  If she could see the way I took him from the hospital because mother knows best. She would know that I’m not a monster. I’m not the kind of girl who would push her sister into a silo.

I’m not the girl who, seeing her sister bent over to get a better look at the grain sweep would, on impulse, put both hands in the middle of her back and shove. I’m not the type of girl who would wait until her sister’s outline dissolved below a layer of corn before climbing back down the silo and telling her parent that she slipped. I’m not the type of little girl who would play with her dead sister’s dolls after the silo was drained and her sister’s body slid out the chute coated in grain dust, jaw askew, eyes bulged. That’s not the type of girl I am.

If my mother could see me waking my son, holding his head and telling him, “Leo, love, take this,” and pressing the orange and blue pill between his lips, holding the water bottle tight to his mouth until he relents and swallows. Then she would know that I could not possibly be responsible for my sister’s death. How could someone so compassionate ever be responsible for such a monstrous act?

Hundreds, maybe thousands of cardinals have flocked to the ash tree. They flutter in the branches so thick that if you saw it from a distance, they must look like autumn leaves. Beyond the tree, down the road, two police cars speed toward the farmhouse, leaving little eddies of snow swirling in their wake. More votes against me.

The cardinals, generations of relatives descending from heaven (if you believe my mother), whistle in chorus outside the window. Each tweet directed at me. They chirp their disdain. They screech for my ostracization.

The police pull into the driveway and two officers get out. They knock quietly the first time but more and more urgently each time after. If I’m quiet, maybe they will go away.

But the goddamn cardinals are so loud that I have to open the window and yell, “Shut up!” The birds flitter about but go on whistling their disapproval.

“Ms. Sullivan, we know you’re in there!” the police yell toward the door.

“Leave me alone!” I scream out the window. “He needs me!”

“Ms. Sullivan, open the door.”

“You’re not taking my son. He needs me. He’s dying!”

A hand grips my wrist.

“Leo, my love, your hand is so cold.”

“Mom,” Leo says, his breath forming icy clouds. “Mom, let them in.”

And there it is, the final vote. The one that seals my fate. I’ve been ostracized by my mother, my sister, and my father. And now my son looks up at me, his eyes like glacial ice, and he casts the deciding ballot.

Vincent calls this afternoon. He’s talking fast, bouncing from word to word. I can hardly keep up. 

“Took a walk yesterday. Up by Sumner. This cat, Elle? Left on the sidewalk. Pretty thing. Stretched out. Owned the place. Purring. I used to have a cat like that, a tabby, when I was a kid. Bet you didn’t know that. My father ran her over, backing out of the garage. Comes running in the house, swearing. Fuck me, he says. My mom? You idiot, she says. But she’s calm about it. Anyway, so, this cat. This cat on Sumner.”

He pauses. I imagine he’s sitting in his easy chair in the low-ceilinged, boxy living room of his one bedroom apartment. He’s got sweats on and a hoodie, even though it’s summertime. The television is on mute but he’s gripping the remote control tightly in one hand, flipping rapidly through channels.

“I took it. Brought her home.” 

“Someone may be missing that cat now. The owners –”

“Fuck ‘em.”

He’s on disability now but he was on the Springfield PD for seventeen years. His partner, Rodney, would raid the evidence room, swipe pills from criminal cases, snort stuff off of his desk, right next to his Officer-of-the-Year crystal trophy. No matter who I’ll be? I’ll never be as bad as Rod, Vincent joked with me once.

“Bought food for her,” he’s saying. “Cans and cans of it. Got toys too. Little bird on a string. She likes that the best. Nothing’s too good for her.”

“You can’t just take someone’s pet, Vin. Make it your own.”

He lowers his voice, as if there’s someone else in the apartment with him even though I know that can’t be true. No one comes to visit Vincent anymore. 

“You’re turning on me. Like all the rest.”

“I’m just trying to explain. It’s not too late. You can bring it back.”

“Well, not now I can’t. She slipped out today. Here I am, just trying to get the morning paper. Open the door and out she goes. Fast, little thing. Couldn’t stop her. Runaway. Dammit but I tried. Almost slipped and fell, trying to chase her. Runaway, that’s what she is. Like that song. Remember that old song? That’s what she’s like.”

He keeps asking if I know that song about runaways. Then he starts singing it even though most of the lyrics are missing. As I walk along, I hum, hum, hum/What went wrong with la-la-la/A love that was so mmmmmm. His voice isn’t half bad, considering all the meds he’s on. 

First thing I do is pick up the cat. It’s still hanging around his apartment building, rubbing against the outside brick wall, swishing its skinny tail. Its pink collar doesn’t have any tags. When I try to pick it up, it scratches but I hold on tight. I take it to the pound, a few blocks away, walking in with it squirming and hissing and blood still dripping from my arm where it scratched me. The receptionist stands up from her seat but doesn’t come around from behind the counter, frozen in place by the very sight of me. A woman in the waiting room shrieks. She’s holding her small dog to her chest like she’s clutching pearls. Some other woman in a lab coat rushes out from the back room. She’s got lines on her forehead and a small mouth and she’s holding a carrying case and a long, white towel. I assume the towel is for me but she throws the towel over the cat, plucks it out of my arms, swaddles it like it’s a baby, and drops it in the case. All the while, the cat’s making this really strange noise, a whirring sound that reminds me of something bad. When I ask the woman if we’re hurting the cat, she looks directly at me for the first time, points to my arm, and says, “Looks like you’re the one who’s hurting.” 

The cat must’ve been chipped because an hour later the owners come in. I’m still around, sitting in the waiting area, because I can’t think of anything else to do. The woman with the small dog is long gone. The owners are young, around the same age as I was when I first met Vincent. The man has red cheeks and freckles on his nose. He’s wearing biker shorts. The woman is hugging him around his waist. She’s crying but she’s smiling. It’s all I can do not to jump out of my seat, slap her across the face, call her a negligent bitch for letting the cat out in the first place, ready for the taking. Instead, I go home before the receptionist can point me out. “Here’s the lady who found your cat,” she’ll say and then they’ll look at me like I’m a hero. 

A realtor comes to the house for a preliminary meeting. “Our first get-together,” she says to me over the phone, as if we’re real friends. She gets a lot of good reviews online; that’s how I picked her. Her name is Jolly. Actually, she explains, her real name is Jolanda but everyone has always called her Jolly, ever since she was a little girl. She has pitch-black hair cut in a bob and she wears big black-framed glasses. There’s something so ugly about her that she’s actually very pretty. 

She wants a tour. I start with the living room and dining room and then the little study where Vincent used to read the paper and then the kitchen and the pantry and the laundry room and the half bath. We’re not even upstairs before she starts talking about money. 

“If you could just make more space, clear things out—there’s way too much furniture in the living room, for one—I can probably sell your house in a week for about fifty thousand more than what it was worth last year.”

“What was it worth last year?”

“People are going nuts these days. Paying way more than asking,” she says, rolling her eyes. 

I laugh. She looks surprised for a second and then she laughs with me. She must think that the thought of all that extra money is making me happy, but that’s not quite it. 

I rent a storage unit and move a lot there. I also go through my closets and drawers because Jolly says I’d be surprised at how nosy some buyers can be. There’s a lot to throw out. Mostly junk that has crept into our lives over the years. A porcelain bowl with a cardinal painted on the bottom of it. A cloth coin purse shaped to look like a dog’s head. A shot glass from Las Vegas even though neither Vincent or I have ever stepped foot in Nevada. A small wooden basket with a matching wooden nutcracker. Three bells running down a rope. Some loose glass beads. Vincent’s vinyl records: Frampton Comes Alive, Cheap Trick, REO Speedwagon’s You Can Tune A Piano But You Can’t Tuna Fish. I toss his baseball card collection too. When he moved out, he said he didn’t want any of it. He told me I could keep the cards or throw them away. It didn’t make any difference to him. So I kept them. I was so sure he’d change his mind. 

Vincent calls me about the cat. He’s named it even though he hasn’t seen it in a week. He calls it Tabitha because it’s a tabby. He says that he’s ordered some more cat toys for Tabitha. Cats need to play, he says. I don’t tell him that she’s already been returned to her rightful owner, that he should stop staring out the window, putting out bowls of wet food, waiting for her to come back. 

Right before the house goes on the market, I hire a kid down the street to come and mow the lawn and weed the flower garden. His name is Tommy and—this is years ago now—Vincent caught him once sitting in the middle of the high school football field late at night, too stoned to move. He took the pipe out of Tommy’s hands, sat with him until he could see straight again, and then told him to get the hell home before he changed his mind and charged him for something. Now Tommy’s graduated from U Mass and living back home again because he can’t find a job on account of the pandemic. 

“Everyone says that everyone is hiring now but that’s a lie. Not true at all. It’s rough as hell out there,” Tommy says when I pay him for his services. 

He’s done a crap job. There are patches of the lawn that he didn’t even touch. He seems to have pulled out my flowers instead of the weeds. I’m left with something worse than what I started with. 

“You’ll find something eventually,” I say, staring down at my ruined garden.

“First thing I’m going to do? Move out.”

Tommy’s black hair is too long and it’s almost covering his eyes. I keep waiting for him to shake his head, brush his fingers through his hair so that he can see better. But he keeps pretty still.

“I’m putting the house on the market in a few days.”

“Vincent know about that?”

“Haven’t told him yet. I will.”

“I think about him sometimes.” 

Apparently, Tommy cried when Vincent caught him on the football field. He begged Vin not to bust him, to spare him from his father’s wrath.

“He wasn’t all bad, is what I’m trying to get at,” Tommy says now. 

Someone wants to see the house a day after it goes on the market. Not even twenty-four hours. Jolly says I need to leave, make myself invisible. It will feel awkward if I’m around. But I don’t go too far. I park my car down the street and wait for a while before getting out and walking down the sidewalk like I’m just another neighbor, taking an afternoon stroll. There’s a strange car parked in front of the house, a sedan with dirty windows and a crumpled fender. I sneak up the driveway and go around to the back yard so that I can peek into one of the windows. Recon, that’s what it’s called. Vincent used to do that a lot when he was a detective. “Getting the lay of the land,” he told me once. “It’s important to know exactly what you’re getting yourself into before the shit starts up.” 

I squeeze past a rose bush to get a better view. I planted that bush when we first moved in but now it’s more tangled, thorny branches than blooms. Inside, I see a woman and a man standing in the living room with their realtor who resembles Jolly in so much as she’s a certain age and her clothes are very tailored and she’s wearing a lot of lipstick. A little girl is there too, dancing in between her parents. She’s holding their hands, trying to get them to swing around with her. The man has his head tilted back. He’s looking up at the ceiling and I’m reminded of the time—a few months before he moved out—when Vincent turned on the water for a bath and then forgot about it. He just drifted downstairs and went outside, naked except for his striped boxers. I rushed out behind him, tried to cajole him back inside, convince him to cover up, put a t-shirt on, something. I didn’t want anyone to see the scars on his back, the dazed look on his face. But by the time we came back inside, the water damage was done. 

Now I’ve got my nose pressed against the windowpane in an effort to hear what they’re saying. All I see are mouths moving. But the little girl stops swinging and starts screaming instead, pointing at me. In my hurry, I fall back into the rose bush, stinging the palms of my hands as I scramble up. I run as fast as I can. My throat feels sore and my lungs are full and my ankle hurts but I keep going anyway. Crashing through backyards. Skirting fences. Dodging the cars parked in the driveways. 

Jolly calls me later that night. I’m sitting on the couch with my leg up because my ankle is swollen. I’ve got bandaids on my hands, where the thorns ripped into them. I’m watching television. Someone is reporting that Kim Kardashian has finally left Kanye West. The reporter makes reference to Kanye’s mental illness. She refers to it so easily, so calmly, like she’s reporting on the weather. Cloudy with a chance of passing rain. 

“You can’t do that again,” Jolly says. 

“I’ve been in this house a long time. I deserve to know who’s looking at it.”

“Do you want this or not?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need to listen to me.”

“I am.”

“The truth is no one wants to know who came before. They want to see themselves in this house, and they can’t do that if you’re around.” 

I go to the pound to pick up a cat. I ask for a tabby. The girl at the counter, who is not the same girl who was here when I brought Tabitha in, looks at her nails and says that there’s not much inventory these days on account of COVID. Everyone wants to adopt something while they’re still at home. She leads me to a cage that has a cat at the very back of it. It’s all black and one of its ears is missing. It takes a lot of coaxing for it to leave its cage but once it’s in my arms, it curls itself into a ball, its tail wrapped around itself. 

Vincent doesn’t want it. 

“Please,” I say to him. “Here’s something for you.”

“No.”

I made a makeshift carrying case out of a cardboard box. I try to hand the box to Vincent but he crosses his arms and shakes his head, as if he’s a kid who’s refusing his medicine. The cat is moving around, and it’s hard for me to keep the box level.

“I’ve already got Tabitha. I’m just waiting for her to come back.”

“She won’t though.”

“How do you know?”

“She must be back home already, Vin.” 

He rocks back on his heels. The meds he’s on makes him bloated and tired-looking but he looks even worse today. 

“She wouldn’t leave me,” he says.  

Jolly’s not happy about the cat. She says that buyers don’t want any animals around. It’ll bring down the value of the house if they see kitty litter. I ask Tommy to take care of the cat and he agrees, even though his mom is allergic. I say that it’s just temporary, until Vincent comes around. I put a red collar on it with my name on the tag. Just in case.  

Another couple makes an appointment to see the house. The wife is pregnant. Jolly tells me that they are interested in the house because of the number of bedrooms it has. They plan on having a big family, she says. For a second, I feel mean and bitter because Vincent and I used to talk about having a lot of kids when we first got married. Before their appointment, I park down the street, the front of my car pointed towards the house so that I can see everything clearly. They’re inside for a long time. When they come back outside, the husband walks around the perimeter of the house, pointing at something on the roof. He’s very solicitous towards his wife when they finally leave, opening the car door for her, cupping her elbow with his hand to help her in, waiting until her legs are tucked in before carefully closing the door. 

I follow them at a discrete distance. They turn to the right, onto Route 5, and don’t stop until they get to the County Line package store. The husband is the one who goes into the store, coming out a few minutes later holding a small paper bag. He doesn’t look like a young man, a soon-to-be new father. He’s losing the hair on top of his head, and he’s got a little paunch in his stomach that ripples as he moves. He doesn’t even wait to get back into the car before he’s unscrewing the top of whatever’s inside the bag. 

When Jolly calls me later that day to tell me they’re interested in the house but have concerns about the roof, I tell her that I don’t care. I wouldn’t take an offer from them anyway. 

“I have my reasons,” I say when she asks.

Vincent is out at the Cardinal Tavern tonight, making a scene. He likes that bar the best because it’s where he used to go, at the end of his shifts. Everyone still knows Vin there and, usually, someone calls me if things get out of hand. Just like tonight. Vin’s weeping about Tabitha and throwing punches at anyone who dares to approach him. When I get there, he calms down. 

“She knows,” he says, pointing at me. 

The crowd parts to give me room at the bar. Someone touches my shoulder, squeezes. 

“It’s OK, Vin,” I say. 

“You know the truth, don’t you? And now you’re here and it’s perfect and you can drink with me. Won’t you, Ellie?”  

Chuck is behind the bar tonight. He’s been working at the Cardinal for twenty years or more. He used to be a drunk and then he stopped cold turkey the night of his 40th birthday. He told me once that he must’ve done harder things in his life but he couldn’t name them if he tried. Now I nod at him and he nods back. This is our routine. Vincent orders two shots—one for him, one for me—and Chuck pours whiskey in Vin’s glass and then turns his back to fill up mine. When it’s time, I throw it back like it hurts, even though it’s only water.

This other woman stops by the house without a realtor. She stands on my front stoop and explains that she’s been passing by my house for days now, staring at the For Sale sign in the front yard, trying to get up the nerve to stop. She says that she’s got a husband who works long hours and two kids who are in elementary school and right now they live in a cramped apartment across the river in Agawam with a registered sex offender not two doors down so she can’t even let her kids play unattended in the courtyard. It’s their dream to move into this town, for the schools of course, and if they could just find a house that they could afford, they’d be all set. She knows that it’s silly to even attempt to ask about something like this but would I consider lowering the price of the house a bit so that regular folks like her and her husband could afford it? One way to do this, she explains, is to cut out the realtor fees. She talks very quickly without moving her lips too much. She hugs herself as she talks. I have a glimpse of a tattoo on the inside of her arm. It looks like a spider or maybe a dragon and I wish she’d just hold her arms out straight so that I could see. 

I invite this woman in. I show her around the house. I point out some of the finer details. The built-in cabinets in the dining room. The wooden shutters in the half bath. The double wall oven in the kitchen. I think I’m quite good at this. She pulls out her phone and takes photos. I tell her how Vincent’s Captain lent us a down payment to buy this house, how it took us years and years to pay him back but we did. Every last cent. When I usher her to the front door, she shakes my hand and thanks me for my time. She says she’ll be in touch. I never ask her name and she never gives it to me. It takes me a few days before I realize I won’t hear from her. 

When I tell Jolly about it, she’s furious. She says that I should never let strangers inside my house. No matter what they say. 

“And you signed a contract,” she warns. “So you can’t cut me out anyway.”

Vincent calls late at night, crying for the cat. He says that if he was a better owner, she never would’ve left. He seems to have forgotten that he stole the cat in the first place. It reminds me of a story he told me, the last year he was on the force. He busted someone for something and the guy threw money at him to make him go away. He took the cash but cuffed the guy anyway. 

Jolly comes to the house with a serious look on her face. Tommy has just left, pushing his mower down the street, back to his parent’s house. He’s left clippings everywhere, little green mounds all over the lawn. 

Jolly says that it’s highly unusual—in this hot of a market—for a house to be for sale for weeks on end like this, without any real interest. She says that we may need to rethink our marketing strategy. She asks me if there’s anything she should know about this house. 

“Like what?” I ask. 

We’re sitting at my dining room table. She removes a clipboard and ballpoint pen from her briefcase and puts them down on the table. 

“Well,” she says. She clicks the top of her pen to extend the tip, clicks it again to retract. 

“What is it that you want to know?”

There’s something tight in my chest, something that I need to cough out. 

“This might sound like a strange question but you’d be surprised. People want to know. Has anyone died in this house?”

“That? No.”

Jolly smiles and I feel like I’ve passed a test. 

Tommy says that the cat got into his mother’s knitting and she’s furious about it. Ruined yarn everywhere. She was making a sweater for Tommy’s father for Christmas and now what is she going to do? He says that his mother is no better than his father, really, and that as soon as he can get a full time job, he’ll move out the next day.

“But until then,” he says sadly. “The cat’s gotta go.”

I take the cat back to Vincent’s. He’s sitting on his couch, drinking a beer. He doesn’t have a shirt on and it’s hard to look at the bulges of fat on his stomach. He used to be rail thin, too skinny. He could eat anything—three desserts a day—and never gain a pound. The cat must’ve thrown up on the ride over because there’s a bad smell coming from the cardboard box. 

“Thought I heard Tabitha last night. By the door.”

“She went back home, Vin. Animals are like that. They know how to find their way back.”

“Jesus but that’s heartless.”

“But, look, I got another cat for you. Remember? Will you reconsider? Will you please just take a look? I need to find a place for her. I can’t keep her.”

“Why not?”

I draw in my breath. I stand up straighter too.

“I need to tell you.”

“What?”

“I’m selling the house. Trying to at least. No one’s interested yet. But, still, it’s what I’m doing.”

Vincent puts his beer can on the floor, next to his feet. He’ll forget about it, I’m sure, and knock it over when he gets up. 

“Moving out of the house? Where to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Gotta figure that out.”

“I will. When it’s time.”

He stares at me. There are some moments—and they don’t come often—when he’s able to shake everything else off and really concentrate. 

“You loved that house,” he says. 

“Still do.”

We used to be able to tell each other anything, no matter how dark or secret or shameful. Now I wish I could describe how I sobbed when I had to strip the house of our personal touches, take down our photos from the walls. Of all things to cry about, I could say and he’d understand.

“Jolly, she’s the realtor, I’m just doing what she says. And she says we can get a lot for it. You get half, of course. Whatever I get for it? Half of it is yours. I know that.” 

He starts messing with the remote again. I’ve lost whatever small chance I had with him.

“You don’t owe me anything.” 

“Please, Vin.”

“I don’t want anything from you,” he says. “Including that cat.”

He turns on the television and then gets up to grab a bag of chips from the kitchen. Sure enough, the beer gets knocked over in the process. I clean up the mess and then leave, taking the cat with me.  

Tommy gets a second interview with an engineering firm in Springfield. He’s so excited and nervous about the whole thing that he drinks too much the night before and ends up at my house, throwing up in my powder room. All I can hope, as I stand in the front hallway, listening to him retch, is that he doesn’t make a mess. I may have a showing tomorrow, a last minute appointment. 

“This is the real thing. I’m ready for it,” Tommy says when he finally comes out of the bathroom. He’s a little wobbly so I guide him into the living room and make him sit him down on the couch.

“Means I won’t be able to help you with your lawn anymore.”

Tommy has very small eyes. They’re hidden a lot by his hair but when he tips his head back, the way he’s doing now, I can see them clearly.

“I’ll make do.” 

“This interview? It’ll make or break me.”

“You want to practice?”

“Nah. It’s better if I wing it. I get all tied up with my words when I overthink things.”

He sits up suddenly, tilts his head to the side. 

“Where’s the cat?”

For a second, I think he’s referring to Tabitha. 

“She still around? That black kitty? Oh, I liked her. I really did.”

“I had to take her back to the pound. Vincent didn’t want her.”

“Aw, that’s too bad.”

“She got adopted though,” I say even though it’s a lie. “I checked the next day and someone told me she was already gone.” 

“It’s strange though. I thought I heard her just now.” 

We are very quiet for a while. But I can’t hear a thing.

Jolly wants me to paint the rooms downstairs. She says that fresh paint will signal something important to buyers. New beginnings. I get a whole bunch of sample cans from Ace Hardware and paint stripes on the walls and she points at the ones she likes. “But it’s your choice,” she says. They are all very neutral. I pick a gray color because it looks like the color of a stormy sky that’s about to turn. The next day, she comes over to my house dressed in overalls. She says that she’s here to help me. It’s as if she knows the truth: I lack the appropriate amount of motivation to get started myself. Vincent always handled the painting and handiwork in the house. Since he left, things have been left undone. Sometimes it takes me weeks just to replace a lightbulb. 

Jolly and I work together. We’re on ladders, on opposite sides of the dining room. I’m being careful not to get any paint on the trim. I don’t want her to tell me that I have to redo all the trim in the house too. 

“So, your ex-husband…”

I turn to look at Jolly. It’s hard to twist on the ladder and for a second I think I’ll fall. The paint brush will go with me. Gray everywhere. But she’s still facing the wall, working hard, up and down with her roller. Steady strokes. 

“What about him?”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t connect the two of you until just recently.” 

“Vincent. Yes, that’s him.”

The story was all over the news for a week straight after it first happened. Vincent with Rodney, walking up the outside stairwell of an apartment building in Hungry Hill. They were responding to a domestic disturbance call. The shooting started before they even got to the top of the stairs. Rodney got it in the face. The man with the gun dragged Vincent into his apartment and beat him before shooting him too. His wife stood just a few feet away and watched the whole thing. Vincent said she had her fingers knit together like she was praying but she didn’t try to help, not even at the end, when it was all over and she could’ve tried to stop the bleeding. 

“Houses,” Jolly says, “are like people in a way. They get reputations.”

Rodney had a wife and three boys who liked hockey so much that he built a rink for them in his backyard. That was what everyone kept talking about at his funeral. The damn hockey rink.

Vincent was quiet when he first came home from the hospital. He didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to talk about anything. Didn’t even want to testify against the guy in court. He just stared at me all day. Followed me from room to room. When he wasn’t doing that, he was on the internet, all night long, scrolling up and down. One night, I woke up and he was crouched above me, straddling me on his hands and knees, a faraway look in his eyes. He pulled me out of bed, by my hair. He was babbling about world peace and doomsday and there were good people on both sides but not Radical Islamic Terrorists, they weren’t good, but every single system in this entire world was rigged and it was time—thump, I fell out of bed; thump, my head knocked on the floor; thump, he stomped me in the ribs—I fully understood that. A neighbor called the cops because I was screaming. The police officer who came over was a friend of Vin’s. Jimmy Malloy. I’d had him and his wife over for a cookout not even a year before.   

“He’s not well,” I say to Jolly now. 

“You’ve been through a lot.”

I feel a kinship with her at that moment. I wish we could step down from our ladders, meet together in the center of the room. I could lean up against her, put my head on her shoulder. 

“Our best bet – and it’s not impossible — is to get an out of towner,” she says.

Tommy interviews with three different people for two hours straight but never hears back from any of them. He sends follow up thank you emails to the HR representative and to each person he interviewed with. No replies. No acknowledgement. Not even a polite form letter. He calls it ghosting. He says that’s normal these days. People used to do it to people they were dating but now it’s done professionally too. 

“Things will get better,” I say. “You’ll get a job.”

We’re talking to each other on the phone. We’ve started doing that lately. He’ll call late at night, right before he goes to bed. 

“When?”

“I don’t know that,” I say and I feel good about myself for a moment. “But it’s bound to happen someday.”

Jolly’s got the perfect buyers. They’re moving here from the Midwest. I think of corn fields and little pink houses by the highway. I want to play the John Mellencamp album with that song on it—Ain’t that America, something to see—but then I remember that I threw out Vin’s records and gave away his stereo equipment too. 

Apparently, the buyers have already seen pictures of the house and think it’s charming.

“They plan on making a lot of changes, before they even move in. Like painting the exterior, tearing down the garage, building a new one, that kind of thing,” Jolly says. 

I make a face and Jolly wags her finger at me. 

“That’s a good sign. It means they’ve got a lot of money.” 

Tommy decides to move to Colorado. He says that he’s always loved to ski and he’s heard it’s pretty out there. Plus his parents are still giving him a hard time and he can always work remotely if some company wants to hire him. He’s got some money from graduation that will tide him over until he can get on his feet. He stops by the house to say goodbye. He says that it’s been nice knowing me. He asks me to give Vincent his best. His hair looks even worse than usual. It’s so long now that he needs to put it up. I don’t invite him in. I’ve got boxes everywhere. There’s nowhere to sit anymore. 

“You driving there?”

“It’ll take me a few days.”

I think of him on the road. The dark highways. The bright high beams coming from cars going the other direction, momentarily blinding him.

“Yeah? Well, I’m moving too. Someone wants the house and I have to move out soon.”

“Where you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ever think of Colorado?”

This makes me laugh. I wish I could tell Vincent about it. This young kid asking me to move west with him. Or maybe he’s not asking. Maybe he’s just curious. Have I ever thought of Colorado? 

“No,” I say. “Not really.”

“You call me if you ever get there.”

“I will.”

We don’t have a lot to say to each other after that. 

The movers come the day before closing. They aren’t very careful with the furniture but I don’t say anything to them. It takes only a few hours for them to store everything in their truck. Jolly comes by to stand with me, watch them work. She says she knows this may be hard for me but I really should be happy with the price that I got. It wasn’t quite what she was hoping for but it’s good enough. She’s waiting for me to thank her but I don’t. I just can’t. 

After everything is inside the truck and the straps and wraps and dollies and carts have been stowed away too, the movers pull down the back, lock it, and wave to me before they hop into the cab and pull away. They’ll keep everything secure until I find a new place. I like the thought of all my things—what is left—just waiting for me somewhere. 

I drive over to Vincent’s but start coughing on the way over. I open the car door just before I throw up. I’m stopped in front of an OTB and there’s a guy at the window, watching me. I think he’s laughing. When I’m done, I wipe my mouth with my hand. Whatever was scratching my throat is gone. 

To get to Vincent’s, I take Sumner Avenue even though it’s out of the way. I don’t really understand what I’m looking for until I see her. Tabitha. Sitting in the middle of the sidewalk again. When I park my car at the curb, she turns her head to watch me but, otherwise, she doesn’t move. She’s not scared at all, here on Sumner. I get out of the car, crouch down, duck waddle over to her, rest on my knees when I get close enough. I notice things about her that I didn’t before. Like her fluffy white belly. She lifts one paw, licks it slowly. Like she has all the time in the world. Like there’s nowhere else in the world she’d rather be.

Catherine Uroff is a writer living in Baltimore, MD. Her short fiction has been published in a variety of literary magazines, including Beloit Fiction Journal, Santa Ana Review, Sou'wester, Moon City Review, Hobart, Valparaiso Fiction Review, Prairie Schooner, Bellevue Literary Review, and Roanoke Review. her Twitter is @KatyaUroff, visit her at www.curoff.com

The Silent Evangelist

David Denny

My father was famous. And now he’s not. He was once a sober, religious, and happy individual. Now, not. Among other things, famous people are targets. My father was one. The religious ranks attract the lunatic fringe. Often deeply religious people are mentally disturbed. It’s also true to say that mentally disturbed people are often deeply religious. I don’t know why this is, but it’s enough to keep me away from the whole business.

But not my grandmother. She’s a hymn-singer. And a hymn-hummer. Once upon a time a church organist, she knows over three hundred classic hymns by heart. Near as I can tell, this is her only fault. Or should I say it’s her only annoying trait. Aside from that, my grandmother is my favorite person in the world. Not that I know a lot of people. And not that I’ve seen much of the world.

Sixteen years ago my father was an evangelist on the mega-church circuit. He would “tour” (grandmother’s word) for about nine months of the year, going from church to church, preaching revival. One night he was somewhere near Chicago. He had just finished his sermon and his altar call under a big tent. He was backstage with my mother and older brother. I was still a baby, too young to be on tour. I was home with my grandmother. 

That’s when the lunatic approached him. The gun was tucked into the lunatic’s belt, just under his jacket. First the lunatic wanted to yell at my father, and then the lunatic wanted to shoot his gun. He called my father a false prophet. He said other things, too. But that was the gist. And then he pulled out the gun. At first he pointed it at my father. He quoted a scripture about the sure and certain punishment for a false prophet And then the man turned the gun on my mother. And he shot her. And then he turned the gun on my brother. And fired again. And then the man put the gun inside his mouth. And he squeezed the trigger a third time. 

At about that point my father stopped preaching and began drinking. He came home to me and grandmother. He stopped talking. He became who he is today: the silent drunk who lives in the back bedroom of grandmother’s house. And now this is how we live: father drinks, grandmother cooks and cleans and sings hymns, I go to school.  

One night I discovered our neighbor Clayton sitting on our backyard fence, spying on us. Clayton fancies himself a writer. He carries a small notebook in his pocket. He goes around spying on people, looking in their windows, listening to their conversations. He jots down his observations in the pages of his notebooks, like an old school TV detective. 

So this one night I happened to look out the window and see him sitting out there. He didn’t run away when I came outside. I asked him what he wanted. “I may write a book about you,” he said. “That’s what I do. I’m a writer.” But Clayton is not a real writer. He has never actually written any books. Unless you count his small pencil-scratched notebooks.

My father is a writer. Sort of. As he drinks, he writes into his journals. There are stacks and stacks of journals in his room. He has been doing this for years. My father has gray teeth and pale skin. He has very short salt and pepper hair because he buzzes it with a pair of clippers he keeps in his bathroom. And he wears the same thing every day. From bottom to top: navy blue slip-on sneakers, navy blue sweatpants, a navy-blue t-shirt topped by a navy-blue sweatshirt. He doesn’t shop, my father. He doesn’t leave the house at all during daylight hours. He wears the clothes my grandmother buys him at Walmart.  

My grandmother has photos of my father in better clothes. His hair is long and wavy in those photos. His skin is tan, his teeth are white. He waves a bible in one hand. His mouth is wide open because in those days he talked and talked and talked. And people listened. If my father ever spoke to me, I would listen. I would listen as intently as he used to listen to me when I was younger and I used to stand in the doorway of his room and tell him everything I knew. Everything I had learned in school. All the things I had observed. All the thoughts that bounced around in my head.

I don’t do that anymore. What’s the point?

People often remark about how great it is to be heard. What a gift a good listener is in your life. But not always. If all somebody does is listen, really, what good is that? 

Here’s an interesting thing about Clayton: he wears only black clothing. I asked him was that because of all the sneaking around in backyards. Black like the night. Camo. No. He wears black, he says, as a protest against the fashion industry, which is dependent upon sweatshops and advertising campaigns. Both, he says, are forms of slavery. The sweat shop part is obvious. But he believes that most people don’t have any critical distance when it comes to advertising. We fall for it even when we say we don’t fall for it. We’re hooked on it in the worst way, like a drug, he says. It’s basically an opioid, he says. 

Clayton is somewhat unique. I like that about him. Here’s what I don’t like: he has horrible body odor. And I’m not wild about the way he slinks around the neighborhood, looking in on people’s private lives. I want to tell him how creepy that is, but I need to get to know him better first.

My father goes out walking at night. It’s the only time he leaves the house. At first it was to avoid the press. So says my grandmother. They used to ambush him and stick microphones and cameras in his face. They wanted to put him on the news as another sad victim of gun violence. As a fallen saint. As yet another religious wacko. 

Clayton says he has followed my father on his nightly walks: three different routes to the park and back again. He rotates routes. But it’s always one of the three. He keeps his head down, Clayton says, and he has earbuds in. I know what he’s listening to. He’s obsessed with the music of Bob Dylan. He follows all pedestrian laws. Even when there is no traffic, he waits for the lights to change. For the little green walking man icon to flash. 

Clayton has done research on my father. Which is also on the creepy side. But somehow I am not afraid of him, because I don’t sense danger in his presence. Confusion maybe. Morbid fascination maybe. But on the subject of Clayton my danger signal is silent. 

Seeing him sitting there, atop the cinderblock wall, I felt sorry for him. So I invited him inside. The first thing to draw his eye was my father’s bible on the coffee table, where my grandmother keeps it. “Your father was famous,” he said, as if I didn’t know. “There are videos on YouTube. This is the very bible he waves in those videos.”

“Are you religious?” I asked Clayton.

“I am not,” he answered.

“Are you?” he asked.

“I am not,” I answered.

My grandmother hummed “Amazing Grace” from the kitchen. She emerged to ask, “Who’s your friend?” 

Clayton spoke for himself: “I’m nobody, who are you?”

“Ah,” I said. “Emily Dickinson.” 

“You’re the first person to catch that,” he said.

My grandmother was not impressed by Emily Dickinson. “Who would crack wise with somebody’s grandmother like that?” she asked later. “Only a boy who thought he was very clever. The serpent was the most clever animal in the garden.”

Next night, as grandmother and I were playing gin rummy at the kitchen table, she asked, “What do you see in him?” 

“He’s unique,” I said.

“He is that,” she said. “Where does he live?” 

“In this neighborhood.” I had indeed seen Clayton around for years, off and on. I was never sure which house he lived in. He was just one of the neighborhood kids. Two, maybe three years older than me.

“Don’t let him in the house when I’m not home.”

“Grandmother, I think you’re misinterpreting him.” 

“Possibly. But for now he only comes inside when I’m here.” She hummed “His Eye is on the Sparrow.”

About four years ago, I snuck into my father’s room and stole one of his journals. I did this when he was out on one of his nightly walks. I read the journal under my covers with a flashlight. Kids in movies do that, so it must be a thing. 

In the journal he had written a story about himself and my mother and my brother and me. We were at Disneyland. It was like reading a movie. Lots of dialogue. In the story we had a wonderful time. We rode all the best rides together. We ate lunch at one of the theme restaurants. At the end of the story, my father kissed my mother. He kissed my brother. He kissed me. We shared a group hug. Which is an unusual detail. Because there is no kissing and hugging in our house.

Next night when he went out again, I put that journal back and took another. In this journal it was Christmastime. Our four-cornered family visited Santa Claus. We exchanged gifts. We shared a feast. We sang carols that grandmother played on the piano. All in glorious detail.

And then I understood. In his journals, my father was writing the story of his life as he needed to imagine it, with all of us alive and well and happy. As if he had never been an evangelist. As if the lunatic had no occasion to stalk him. No reason to kill my mother, my brother. Therefore no survivor’s guilt. No booze. No obsessive listening to Bob Dylan and walking to the park under cover of night.

Turns out Clayton has been sleeping in our garage. Up in the rafters. Up where I once built a playhouse and decorated it as an alternate bedroom. I discovered this when I went into the garage to do some laundry. I put a load into the washer. And I heard a gentle snoring. I climbed the little ladder up into the loft. And there slept Clayton, atop my old mermaid sleeping bag.

I left him a mildly sarcastic note written in gel marker: 

Hey Goldilocks, you’ve eaten my porridge, broken my chair, and now you’re sleeping in my bed. Not cool. Baby Bear.

Later I asked him, “What do you do for food?” 

“That’s the easy part. I hang out around the alley doors of local restaurants where the dumpsters are. They all throw food away. Perfectly good food. You yourself threw away a half loaf of bread yesterday.”

“It was moldy.”

“Perfectly edible. Just eat around the mold. Easy”.

“What’s the hard part?”

“Showers and laundry. I had to sneak into the YMCA, which worked for a while. And then the early morning swimmers ratted me out. Lately I’ve been breaking into the houses of people on vacation. I’ll have to find another tactic come winter.” 

“You’re very resourceful.” 

“You do what you need to do. Everyone is equipped for survival. People can endure all kinds of hardship. Your dad, for instance. He has found a way to continue even though he’s lost his life’s purpose.” 

“Survival is the right word for it, too.” 

“Don’t knock it,” he said.

“I’m not knocking it.” 

“And the story of your family is going to make a very interesting book. It’s already half written. I have three full notebooks already.”

It was at that point that my inner danger alarm may have begun to chime. And at that point that I first considered that Clayton, very like my father, lurked at night, scribbled into notebooks, and wore generic monochrome clothing. In my mind, I exchanged the word fascination to describe Clayton’s interest in my father to obsession.

One night I decided to snoop. About which I definitely felt conflicted. It was wrong, I was certain. But the danger signal was still chiming. There was that and my grandmother’s instinctive mistrust. 

So when Clayton was out spying on neighbors, I climbed up into the loft. The smell was atrocious. I looked through his duffle. Mostly dirty clothes. A few bags of partially eaten food. Half a dozen small notebooks. And three (count ‘em three) very large, very heavy handguns. A big box of bullets. The chime turned to full-on alarm.

Next morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table. Grandmother was singing “Nearer My God to Thee” while she assembled my lunch box. A turkey and cheese sandwich. Celery sticks with peanut butter. A fat free pudding cup. A spoon wrapped in a paper napkin. A bottle of cranberry-flavored water. 

There are moments during her hymn-singing when I close my eyes and allow myself to listen deeply. Listening, it’s like I am nowhere. Like I am not in a house with a silent drunk and a hymn-singing caretaker and an armed freeloader in the rafters. Like I am floating in some kind of cosmic isolation tank. It’s a crazy thing. I am not religious. I could give a hang about the bible or the koran or anything like that. I actually think all this Zen chatter is nonsense, I don’t care how popular it is. In those moments with eyes closed, I am beyond caring and beyond thinking. 

They don’t last long. There is always school to go to. Homework to do. Chores to perform. The internet. 

On this one morning grandmother finished packing my lunch, realized the state I was in, and came to stand behind me. She put both her hands on my shoulders as I came back into myself. “It’s possible,” she said, “that you have the touch.”

By which she means that I may have inherited the religious genes from her through my father. “Not a chance,” I said. 

“I remember your father when he was about your age. He was a bit of a wild child. Had trouble focusing in school. Snuck out his bedroom window at night. Talked back. Somewhere he learned to swear like a sailor and spit like a hobo. More than once your grandfather and I pulled him out of the pool hall by his ears. But then one summer he sprouted, grew four inches. He began taking long walks. Alone. We found a bible on his pillow. What happened that summer is he opened his inner eyes. That’s what I call it. We all of us got eyes in our heads and eyes in our hearts. Paul writes to the Ephesians about how they should open the eyes of the heart.”

“No offense, but I have no allegiance to Paul.”

“You’ve got an odd way about you, sister-girl. It’s not a matter of allegiance. Once those eyes are opened, they don’t close. You know why your father drinks the way he does? Because it’s a painful thing to see the world through those eyes. You feel the pain of living in a way that most folks don’t. And you feel the love that’s vibrating through every living thing. It’s a gift, I’ll say that. It’s a blessing. But on certain days it can look and feel like a curse. If you can’t put it to use, then you got to numb it, like a tender spot that won’t heal. I keep praying for this darkness to be lifted from your father. I’d take it on myself, if I could. But these things are beyond our choosing.”

“Grandmother, you know I love you more than anyone. But what you’re talking about now has nothing to do with me. I was just sitting here resting my eyes.” 

“All right, sister-girl. I won’t say anymore. What’s happening at school today? Have you chosen your senior project yet?”

“I submitted my proposal. They are going to call us in, one by one, for conferences next week to finalize it. Then we begin our research.”

“Did you propose your French artist? Emile What’s-his-name?”

“I did not.”

“You were so passionate about him. What happened?”

“They made it clear that our topic must be controversial, so that we could argue for a certain side against the other. ‘Bernard, Gaugin, and Van Gogh: The Art of the Selfie’ was not going to fly with the faculty committee.”

“Why not?” 

“It’s not socially relevant.”

“Says who?”

“Grandmother, everybody knows what kinds of topics they accept and what they reject. There’s no point in submitting a proposal that will only be rejected.”

“But you’re giving up before you try. You’re censoring yourself.”

“I’m trying to get through high school.”

“All right, sister-girl. Maybe you know best. But I say let them reject you, don’t reject yourself.” 

“Things have changed since you were in high school.”

“That they have. The whole world has changed in some ways, I grant you that. But in other ways, not at all. People still got to make choices about what’s best for themselves. People still got to stand up for what they believe. Martin Luther said ‘to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other.’”

“Martin Luther didn’t need to pass his senior thesis in order to graduate.”

“All right, my girl. You’ve been calling your own shots for some time now. You’re the smartest child I’ve ever seen. What did you propose to research?”

“Shooters.”

“As in . . . folks that shoot people?”

“The psychology of shooters. It’s the kind of thing they want. And it’s a topic I may have something to say about.”

Grandmother stood frozen. I knew my topic would hit a nerve. I was sorry to just blurt it out like that. I might’ve made up some topic. She’d have never checked. But I have this habit of telling the truth no matter what. Or trying to. There’s so much deception in the world already. Why add to it?

That afternoon while grandmother was grocery shopping, Clayton sat atop our cinder block wall again. “Hey,” he said, “can I use your shower while your grandma is gone?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “She told me not to let you inside when she wasn’t here.”

“OK,” he said.

“I would,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “She’s not the first grandma to forbid me entry.”

“Those people three houses down have a swimming pool with an outdoor showerhead,” I said. “I believe they’re on vacation.”

“They have security cameras under the eaves.”

“I know it’s not my business. Is there a reason you can’t go home?”

“My mother would be that reason. She’s an alcoholic. Actually, she’s an alcoholic’s alcoholic. If there were an alcoholic’s Olympics, she would be a gold medalist. The social worker removed me because it was ‘not a safe place’ for a child. Then I turned eighteen. The social worker said I was emancipated. I tried moving back inside. Thinking maybe I could stake out a small corner of the house to live in peace. I had conveniently forgotten what ‘not a safe place’ means. Believe me, things are better for me outside. Be glad your father is not that kind of alcoholic.”

I have never used that word to describe my father. Neither has grandmother. Ever since I’ve known him, he has been a silent drunk. But a ‘safe’ drunk. What would I do if he spoke sober words to me? And I think grandmother has always assumed that when he was finished grieving, he would stop. He would recover his life. In health class, I learned that grandmother is an enabler. I guess I am too. The thing to do, said my health teacher, is to have an intervention. I looked it up. And it’s a thing. There are even directions on how to do it.

I decided to practice on Clayton.

“Can I ask you please to remove your guns from our house?”

“You went through my stuff?”

“You mean the stuff you put in there without our knowledge or permission?”

“Are you going to get bossy with me?”

“What do you need with those?”

He shrugged. “A dude on his own needs protection.”

“One. Maybe you need one gun for protection. Which is debatable.”

“Depends. Sometimes it’s the best way to settle scores.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re twenty years old. What scores need settling?”

“People have done dirt to me. People who are supposed to look out for kids. Wouldn’t you like to see the dude who shot your family pay for his crime?”

“He offed himself. If there’s a hell, he’s roasting in it.”

“Yeah, OK, but if he had lived. Come on, you never heard of an eye for an eye?”

“Who are you, Hammurabi? It’s the 21st century.”

“People like us—we need to strike back.”

“Just what kind of strike are you planning?”

“You’ll see.”

“Here’s the deal. I need you to get those guns out by morning.”

“Maggie, I thought we were friends.”

“Clayton, I want you to know I’m certain about this. I want to be your friend. But I can’t be your friend if you store guns in my house.”

Sometime during the night he moved his stuff out of the garage rafters. When I poked my head up there the next morning, he had cleaned up the space and rolled up my old mermaid sleeping bag. On the other side of the note I had left him, he wrote in the same gel pen: 

Baby Bear, today is the day the world pays for its dirty deeds. Take a sick day. Whatever you do, don’t show at school. Goldilocks. 

I called the cops. I told them what I know. I showed them the note. They went to his mother’s house. Then they closed the high school, sent everybody home. Then they searched yard by yard through the neighborhood. You’ve never seen such a swarm of cops. And helicopters. It was Hectic City.

They pulled him from another garage about three houses down. I was standing out front when they brought him out to the cruiser in handcuffs. He did not look in my direction. They ducked him into the back seat. One of the cops had his duffel. He put it in the trunk. A news truck pulled up behind the cop car.

How did I feel? Sick. Not like I was going to puke. But how you feel when you’ve been down with something awful and in bed for a week. Exhausted. Frail. Thirsty.

Grandmother wanted to talk. I walked past her. I walked past my bedroom. I walked to the end of the hall and opened my father’s door. He was lying in bed watching television. 

I went inside his room. Which I never do. I turned off his television. Which I’ve never done. I spoke to him: “Here’s the deal. I need a parent. I’ve been doing pretty good with a grandparent. I’m not ungrateful. Grandmother says I’m smart and resilient. It’s true. But I’m still a kid. I can’t tackle the world without some help. First, I want you to get help. I want you to quit drinking. I want you to get a life. Then, I want to share in that life. I’m using the word ‘want.’ But it’s a need. It’s a deep-down desperate need. I’m about to face a crazy level of media attention. I understand you have some experience with that.” My father was frozen, but I saw a light flicker in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before. “Here I stand,” I said, “I can do no other.”

He lay there with his arm cocked behind his head. I wasn’t expecting a miracle. I had said my piece. He sat up and put his feet on the floor. He went into his bathroom. I heard him splashing water onto his face.

I went to the garage and got a big plastic garbage bag. I came back into his room and began loading his journals into the bag. Suddenly grandmother stood in his doorway with more garbage bags in her fist. 

Father helped me. Helped us. We loaded all of his journals, his entire imaginary life, into three big bags. We stored them up above the washer and dryer, in the newly available loft space. We covered them with my old mermaid sleeping bag.

Next morning the network satellite vans would roll up to the curb. Television reporters would set up their gear. They would expect me to speak into the mics, to look into the camera. This night would be our last chance at peace and quiet. At least for a while.

As father prepared for his walk, I also prepared. I put on my sneakers and a sweatshirt. I inserted my earbuds into my phone and clicked on my favorite playlist. Not Bob Dylan. I waited for him on the front porch. The moon was hiding in the big oak tree in our front yard. As its light peered through the leaves, I may have said my first prayer.

David Denny’s fiction has appeared in New Ohio Review, Narrative, and Catamaran. His books include Sometimes Only the Sad Songs Will Do, The Gill Man in Purgatory, and Some Divine Commotion. More information: www.daviddenny.net.

 The Quilt

 Madeline Fowler

My mother said that my grandmother bled over this quilt in every way a woman can. Her fingers met pins over it, she discovered her first drop into womanhood under it, her daughter bled her way out of her body beside it, and she died wrapped within it, her mouth dripping blood on its seams.

Then, after grandmother smothered the quilt with her touch and her life, Mom touched it only twice.

The first time was right after grandmother died, when it smelled of blood and death, and Mom washed it with water so hot it hissed. Bleach powder and vinegar, till the oranges spilled, the blues faded. She hand–washed it too, afraid the machine would rip grandmother’s careful stitches out. Her skin turned pink then red under the water, and she scrubbed until her hands split, seared. For years after, she insisted there was a burning in her fingertips that the doctors called phantasmic, brought on by nerve death. The nerve death wasn’t necessarily from the scrubbing and the burning water, but Mom acted as if it was. As if the quilt conspired against her, punishing her for trying to remove its blood, and haunted her hands for the rest of her years. 

After my grandmother died, after Mom scrubbed the quilt till her fingertips died, after; Mom didn’t dare touch the quilt, but she didn’t dare part with it either. She had my father hang it above their bed, and it stayed there, staring, for another forty years. Mom didn’t touch it again until the day she died. 

As death wrenched the breath from her body, her hand, I saw, pointed inexplicably to the quilt above her head. Her fingertip traced the seam once and then, like snapping from a trance, she screamed and threw herself to the opposite side of the bed. I held her shoulders as she screamed and coughed until blood from her mouth splattered on the seam she had caressed, and she went limp.

Died. Just as the quilt absorbed her death’s blood, exactly as it had her life.

The quilt was mine then.

I am a rational, scientific woman. My mother was haunted by superstitions and dreams of witches, by salt thrown over her shoulder, by sage and quartz and shadows she imagined just out of sight. I am not – I am not my mother.

I studied sciences in college, all sorts. Biology, physics, chemistry, and neuroscience, which is what I found myself most drawn to in the end. I was invested in how we truly work inside, how we are driven to action, how the brain creates shadows within it and projects them onto a world that is blank until our brains tell our eyes what we think we are seeing. 

My mother was terrified of the quilt, and enamored by her terror. I am not. My mother saw shadows in the seams and faces in its squares. I do not. My mother’s brain shook with fear at every shadowed corner, edged on by cocktails of Xanax and Ritalin (Ritalin for the Xanax, Xanax for theg Ritalin, and so on). Mine is not.

I know that if I were more like her, I would believe that the quilt killed her. But the quilt did not kill her. The shadows in her mind did, along with the tumors in her lungs. The tumors weakened her, but when she touched the quilt, her mind cast so many shadows that her heart couldn’t take it and just stopped. The blood that she coughed up –  was from the tumors. She was screaming so hard that her lungs couldn’t take it.

Why did she touch the quilt that scared her so much then? The same morbid curiosity that led her to want it above her bed, I think. That infatuation with terror. 

And if I were more like her, I would insist, as she did so many times, that it was the phantom fingertips, haunted hands, that moved by some force beyond her control –  

I am not like her. I am not my mother. My mother secretly loved the fear and that is why she indulged in it to the point where she killed herself with it. I do not, and I will not.

My father died shortly after my mother, and my husband and I hired a crew to help us pack up their home. Most of the stuff that my mother had accumulated –  old magazines, dusty glassware, boxes of children’s clothes, good china for the good guests, and bad china for the bad –  could be donated. If I could have, I would have donated the entire contents of the house –  most everything smelled like mold or dust or burnt sage or a combination of all three. But I couldn’t, because of my sister.

My sister had always been easily swayed by my mother’s phantoms. She was the youngest, and, I think, had never grown past that attached stage that mothers and their youngest daughters get. What my mother thought, she thought; what my mother believed, she believed; what my mother was terrified of, she was terrified of as well.

The one difference between my sister and my mother, as far as I could tell because I was never flexible enough to squeeze myself into their tight bond, was that whereas my mother secretly adored the fear, my sister could barely stand it. As children we would sometimes play in my mother’s room, jumping on her bed because ours were much too small. One day – we couldn’t have been older than eight –  my sister stopped jumping to sit beside the pillows and stare at the quilt that loomed above us. Something about it must have fascinated her –  the stitching or the colors maybe –  and she reached for it.

Mom came from nowhere as if summoned just by the intention to touch the quilt, and grabbed my sister’s wrist, dragging her away from the quilt. She was screaming, don’t you ever touch that, don’t you ever, don’t you know evil when you see it? 

My mother had never spoken to us so harshly before and I don’t think she ever did again.

My sister had red marks on her wrist where Mom had grabbed her. My mother carefully rubbed salve into the marks while my sister cried and I sat beside her, silent and shocked by a display of violence I had never, and would never again, see from my mother. As she rubbed, she explained how the quilt stole her mother, and then it stole her fingertips, that it was trying to steal her completely and steal us too, her daughters. She said that our grandmother had bled into the quilt in every way a woman could, and now as much as the quilt had belonged to her, she belonged to the quilt just as much. 

My sister latched onto this speech, ate up every word like she was starved. From then on, she and my mother were so intangibly and supernaturally connected by this imaginary monster –  and since they were bound so tight by a delusion I could never, and never wanted to, suspend my rationality to accept, I was never able to find my way inside their bindings. 

That evening, while my mother and sister watched TV together and my father sat nearby listening but not watching, I snuck into my mother’s bedroom again. I stared at the quilt, trying to see what my sister saw, trying to understand what scared my mother so much. I almost touched it. There was no enchantment or anything like that, but a desire to disobey my mother and a knowledge that I could get away with it. But I didn’t  –  because I feared whatever rage flew from my mother that day and how wild and uncontrollable it could be.

My mother was now dead and I wanted to donate the quilt and get rid of her beloved fear once and for all. As we packed up my mother’s bedroom, the quilt kept pulling my eye towards it. It was unnerving, the sight of it, the history of it. The blood that my mother had coughed on it was still there. I’m sure, somewhere, maybe in the batting between the front and back panels, my grandmother’s blood was still there as well. Traces or something. It was unsanitary, not to mention disturbing.

I asked my husband to take it down. He glanced at it, saw the blood, and, though he was probably disgusted since he had such a weak disposition, he went to take down the quilt. He had been so discomforted by my grief that he resigned himself to doing most things I asked.

He was reaching for the quilt when my sister screamed, flying into the room like she’d been called just by the thought of touching the quilt. “Don’t touch it!” She screamed at him. “Don’t touch it!” She grabbed his arm nearest to the quilt and clawed like a cat. She liked to keep her nails long and red, plastic, inconvenient for almost everything except to claw someone’s eyes out, which she seemed intent on doing to my husband. 

I grabbed my sister by her waist and pulled her backwards. “It’s just a quilt!” I yelled at her. She flung herself into the corner, wide eyed, like a caged animal. My husband’s arm bled where she grabbed him, and he seemed sickened by the sight of it. “It’s just a fucking quilt,” I told her.

“It’s evil,” she said. Her eyes trailed after my husband who stumbled out of the room to care for his arm. Her chest heaved when he left. “It killed our mother.” “Cancer killed her! And the pills!”

“The quilt– ”

“The only way the quilt could have killed her is if she made herself so afraid of it that her heart stopped.” I stepped closer to the quilt. The orange hexagons bled into the blues. The red stained the white. The colors were muddied now. A mess. Tangled. “It’s a ghost story. Grow up. I’m not going to let her fear control me. If you’re smart, you won’t either.” I took the matter, finally, into my own hands. I grabbed the quilt, feeling the fabric beneath my fingertips for the first time, and ripped it from its place of honor on my mother’s wall, once and for all. I rolled it into a ball and tucked it under my arm. My fingertips did not die like my mother’s did. If anything, they tingled with more life than ever. 

My sister’s face was shadowed with horror unimaginable and in that moment, I saw more of my mother in her than ever before.

I had the quilt professionally dry cleaned. I hoped that they would be able to clean it up enough so that I could donate it. The dry cleaners wore heavy, thick rubber gloves that reached up to their elbows, and they moved stiffly, mechanically as they took the quilt from me. When it came back, though, a dark brown stain stood where my mother’s blood had been.

“Couldn’t get it out,” they said. “Stubborn. Every time we thought we got it out, it came back darker. Clung onto the fabric. Dyed the threads. We can offer you a discount.”

I threw the quilt over my shoulder and carried it out of the dry cleaners. My mother had managed to get my grandmother’s blood out of the thing years and years ago –  why her own blood clung desperately to the fabric I did not know. Why my mother’s vinegar and bleach mixture did what the dry cleaners’ chemicals could not, I did not know. Whatever the dry cleaners had done had muddied the quilt’s colors even more. The blues were more faded, the oranges spilled further. And, strangely, the quilt itself felt heavier on my shoulder than it had when I pulled it off the wall or carried it inside the dry cleaners. Now, as I walked three city blocks back to our townhouse, I felt as if the quilt was weighing me down, forcing me to slow down. People sped up around me, moving faster to try to dodge me. 

When I finally made it home, I threw the quilt down on the back of the couch, and, exhausted by the heaviness in my bones and the affliction of my mind, I collapsed on the couch beside it and fell, almost immediately, to sleep.

It was, perhaps, the deepest sleep of my life. I did not dream, or if I did, it was just of blackness, nothingness. It was as if I was aware of myself sinking deeper and deeper to the farthest reaches of my brain, as if there was a dark, hidden, silent place hidden in my brain that called for me, somewhere that had always been and will always be, that I was sinking into –  like I was weighed down with an anchor and the only natural place for me to fall was into this preordained neural space of complete and utter darkness.

And I fit, like a puzzle piece snapping into place.

When I awoke, I found my grandmother’s quilt draped over me. It had fallen, it must have, though it seemed like it had been lovingly tucked around my body. Encasing me.

Later on, my husband would tell me that he had found me asleep on the couch and placed the quilt over me. Hadn’t you seen the bloodstain, I would ask. There was no bloodstain, he would say. I didn’t see a bloodstain.

Underneath the weight of the blanket, curled into the couch, I drifted in and out of sleep for what may have been minutes, though it felt like hours. It may have been hours.

I slept.

When I was next able to pull myself to my feet, I was shocked to discover an aching pain in every one of my joints, down to the sinew, the muscle, the bone. The ache was deep and comfortable, as if it had always been there and I had only just noticed.

And as I walked away from the couch, I watched my husband moving faster around me. I watched him dress and brush his teeth and make his coffee and take his briefcase in a matter of minutes, seconds even. It was as if he moved faster with every step. I moved slowly as he and the world spun quickly around me, only making it to the kitchen, not a hundred feet away from the couch, after he had left the apartment altogether. He had left dishes from his breakfast, I noticed, and they needed washing.

It occurs to me that I haven’t fully described the quilt that my grandmother and mother had left behind. My grandmother had made it as a little girl out of blue and orange hexagons. Hexagons make sense as she liked to do things in sixes, I remember. She baked in sixes: six loaves of bread, six cookies on each pan, six tablespoons of butter divided by a sharp kitchen knife for biscuits. So she sewed in sixes too. The quilt itself is made up of dozens of hexagons, meant to look like bunches of flowers –  orange center, blue petals, or blue center, white petals, or so on, so on, and so on. When I was young –  very, very young, so young that I may not be remembering it correctly –  my grandmother, not dead yet but getting there, told me that the quilt was to be passed, mother to daughter. Eventually, she told me, I would have to give it to my future daughter.

When my husband married me, he made it very clear that he wanted children. I had always been unsure of my feelings towards children. The concept of it, the image, by my husband’s dreamy, idealized standards seemed to be picturesque and very old–fashioned in a 50s housewife kind of way. Sometimes it would seem comforting like it might give me a purpose, a nice role to snap into. Yet, of course, it’s too easy. The expectation, the ease of falling into this role is unnerving. The idea of becoming like my mother, of having someone so dependent on you that you become just as dependent on them –  that dependence and that fragility. It’s unnerving. But then again what could be more perfect than that image of a mother with her husband and child? 

Of course, it was settled when we found out I couldn’t have children a year after our marriage. My husband was severely disappointed and spent his time pretending to comfort me when he was really comforting himself. 

When I found out I was pregnant the day after I brought my grandmother’s quilt home, I couldn’t believe how far my body had betrayed me. 

My husband was thrilled. A miracle.

That night, despite myself, I caught my gaze drifting to the quilt, still draped on the couch, always back to the quilt. My husband tried to speak to me about doctors, names, blues and pinks. But the quilt called me.

I had never known what about the quilt fascinated and terrified the women in my family so much. Objectively, rationally, I knew that it could not be the killer they imagined. But something else in me, something more like my mother, could see –  could imagine, I suppose –  all the life that it had sucked into its seams and the batting and the stitching, and it pulsed with all the life it had taken, my grandmother, and then my mother’s fingertips, then my mother herself, it pulsed with this life, and I touched my stomach, and felt –  imagined I could feel –  the fetus’s pulse in time with the quilt’s. Synched. Doubled. Twinned. All that life –  had it taken mine too? My child’s? Somewhere within me, my mother screamed her last death rattle, and somewhere inside the quilt, though surely it was just my imagination, she longed desperately to be free.

Very quickly, quicker than my doctor told me to expect, I could put my hand on my belly and feel its heart beat beneath my palm. As the months passed and the fetus took shape from a misshapen oval on the ultrasound into a tiny human within me, the heartbeat grew stronger and stronger. Soon, I didn’t need to press my hand against my stomach to feel it. And with each heartbeat, my fingertips buzzed with life more and more. 

I would find myself thinking often of my mother and her haunted hands –  her obsession with death that spread to her life, her family, and her fingertips. My fingers buzzed with life, intoxicated with life. They never rested.

 The first time I saw the quilt beat with life, I thought it was my imagination. That night, I had been overwhelmed with my unexpected pregnancy, and, though we had never been close, I was grieving my parents, and so my imagination had run wild. I even thought it was some sort of wild fantasy inherited from my mother. Something in the wiring of my brain, and the brains of all the women in my family, just waiting for this moment. I tried to forget the image of the quilt beating and thumping like it had that first night.

But it started again.

I began seeing the quilt move out of the corner of my eye, beating once or twice, like a trick of the light. Then, slowly but surely, as the days and weeks passed, it grew stronger and louder and once again, just like the night I found out I was pregnant, the quilt beat heavily, rhythmically, with all the gravity of a human heart.

And as the baby’s heartbeat grew, it became clearer and clearer that somehow, by some principle I could not understand, the baby’s heart and the quilt beat in sync, always in sync. Stronger and louder with every passing day until the beating together was insufferable. Soon, I could feel the baby’s heartbeat throughout my entire body, starting like a shock wave and radiating outwards, through my chest, throat, shoulders, hands, pooling in my fingertips. And with each shock, slowly then gradually faster and faster, the quilt beat in sync.

A few times, I tried to walk outside to clear my mind. I thought if I could breathe in enough fresh air, I might be able to purge this fantasy that, at the time, I thought I must have inherited from my mother. Outside, in the fresh air, the baby’s heartbeat would calm and I would tell myself: It is just a quilt. It has to be just a quilt. It can only be just a quilt. And each time I ventured outside, now in the fresh air and away from the quilt, I would think: I am going crazy, just like my mother. I would only last a few stray moments more after that thought before the baby’s heartbeat grew louder again and I would be overcome with waves of nausea and dizziness that would only, and could only, pass when I returned to our home, where the quilt lay beating.

And so as the weeks of my pregnancy passed, I couldn’t justify it any longer. The quilt was beating. My husband denied it when I said so, but I knew it was real.Each beat consumed nearly all my senses. Was this what my mother had seen and heard, always? 

I tried to ignore it. I tried to focus on anything else. For the days and weeks and months  I listened to fast, heavy rock music at full blast. I kept the television on at all times, game shows and reality shows and infomercials with bright flashing graphics designed to keep my attention. I flipped through novels and textbooks and any other book I could find, but I was never able to comprehend what I read. My mind was too full, too distracted.

But the beating quickly became insufferable. The nonstop beating, beating, beating, filling my belly and lungs and brain, and the beating, beating, beating from the quilt louder and louder until I couldn’t think or focus on anything other than beating, beating, beating.

It came to a peak when I was six, nearly seven, months pregnant. The music, the television, the books, were not helping. I couldn’t block it out anymore. I knew I couldn’t get rid of the quilt –  nobody in their right mind would take it and something prevented me from throwing it out. I had to keep the quilt, of course, but I couldn’t take another day of it beating in our living room, driving me insane and obsessive and terrified. 

There was a plastic bin filled with baby toys my husband had left out in the living room. I emptied it out on the floor and, stepping over pacifiers and teddy bears, I gathered what strength I could and grabbed the quilt. 

It was still heavy, heavier than I could rationalize. It dragged on the floor as I tried to pile it into the toy bin. I had avoided touching the quilt again until now. With my hands on it, I could feel for the first time –  the beating. It seemed to come from deep inside the quilt. Grandmother had stitched the two exterior pieces carefully by hand and filled the interior with a thick cotton batting. It was the cotton batting that beat. I could feel it strain at the seams, then grow slack in between beats. My hands shook. My speaker was playing rock music and my television was tuned into a reality show, but all I could hear was rushing blood in my ears, my heart, my baby’s heart, and the quilt.

Quickly, I gathered it in the toy bin and shut the lid on tight. One hand on my belly and the other on the bin, I pushed it towards the closet. It resisted. It pushed back. It took all I had, back, knees, arms straining, but I shoved it into the back of the linen closet, covered it with beach towels and spare sheets, and shut and locked the door.

For the first time in months: peace. 

The quilt was muffled.

The baby settled inside of me.

Relief, fuzzy like static, ran through me as a shudder.

I breathed. 

It did get better for a time. 

The baby’s heartbeat didn’t fill my entire body; it settled into slight kicks, hiccups, and a soft heartbeat that I could only feel if I pressed my hand against my belly and concentrated on it. I could leave the house without getting sick, and even when I was in the house, I could relax. I couldn’t hear the quilt beat anymore. I thought that my mother’s madness had officially left me.

When I was eight months pregnant and wobbly on my feet, though, I fainted for the first time. I remembered getting out of bed after my husband left for work, reaching for a glass of water, then a ringing in my ears, a wildfire heat crawling through my body, my heart growing feral, and then –  blank space. Just nothing.

I woke up on the floor, hands rested on my stomach. I panicked in the moments after waking, trying to feel for the baby’s movement while rolling onto my hands and knees to get up. I still felt the heat that had consumed me all over, though it was fading, slowly. When I managed to stand, I breathed deeply, feeling the baby stir alongside my movement. The heat started to dissipate away entirely –  but –  

But– 

I clenched my fingers, once, twice, three times. I pinched the tips of my pinkies, dug my nails into my thumbs, shook my hands back and forth, but the fire didn’t leave my fingertips. They burned. Not a sharp burn, but a mild, tingling one, like staying in the sun for too long or grazing your knuckle against a hot pan. The kind of burn that, if you tried to, you could just barely ignore it, even though it was always there. 

I did try to rationalize, despite all that had happened over the course of my pregnancy. Maybe I pinched a nerve in my shoulder as I had fallen to the floor, and the pain was radiating outwards. Maybe as I was out, the baby laid on my spine wrong and some nerve had gone numb and was burning as it awoke. Maybe it would pass. Maybe it was in my head. Maybe I wasn’t turning into my mother. 

But it didn’t pass. The fire grew stronger, burning constantly inside the tips of my fingers. And worse, though certainly my burning fingers would have been more than enough to terrify me, the fainting kept happening. When my husband, for the health of his unborn child, brought me to the doctor’s, the nurses and doctor spoke of ‘blacking out.’ They described blackness around the edges of my vision until I couldn’t see anything. They spoke as if it was certain, as if there was no doubt that this was my experience.

But, when I fainted, it wasn’t blackness. It was fuzzy, staticy white, like a television turned to the wrong channel. And the more I fainted, the more I felt that, somehow, even though I was unconscious, I was still awake, just staring at white static as my body burned from the inside out. 

The doctor didn’t believe me and said something vague about hallucinations just before losing consciousness. “Very common,” he said, “hallucinations. Very common.” He wrote the symptoms off as high blood pressure. He said, “hearing your heartbeat in your ears, the confusion, the black outs. Some women experience changes in their vision –  shakiness, blurring.” 

Before I could respond, my husband said that I had been very anxious. The pregnancy had made me very anxious. The doctor told him, “that’s common too with high blood pressure.” High blood pressure was very concerning in a woman as far along as I was, and very concerning for my baby, he said. Problems with my kidneys and liver and lungs and brain, he said. Seizures were possible, and perhaps even death to the baby and the mother both, he said.

It was all very serious, and part of me knew that. It was very, very serious. And even though what the doctor said was logical, yes, very logical and even rational, I didn’t believe him. I knew what was happening. I knew it was the quilt.

It was going to kill me. Just like my mother. Just like my grandmother. There was some inherited evil held between the fabric. It was muffled under beach towels and old bed sheets in the linen closet, but it was beating away, waiting. 

My husband and the doctor both wanted me to go to the hospital, or at the very least, lay in bed until my “blood pressure” went down or the baby came. But it’s not natural for a person to lay in bed, as if I was a computer that could be shut off and turned back on to get rid of the hiccups in my program. But my husband and doctor insisted on bed rest, and I never trusted my doctor. It was because of this that I realized I couldn’t trust my husband anymore. He didn’t understand the evil that had invaded our lives. He just pretended it didn’t exist even though it was right in front of his face, just as I stupidly had my entire life. 

I didn’t speak to him as he brought me home. My husband probably thought I was scared or angry or dejected, but I was not. I knew what I had to do. I knew it just as completely as my mother had known why her fingertips had died, as my sister had known why she lived in terror, and as I knew that there was some deep, inherited evil sewn into the quilt.

At home, after the doctor, my husband hovered over me, holding onto my arm and waist. He guided me to the couch in the living room, wanting me to just rest, just wait. It was cold in our old townhouse with its thin walls, and I watched as he lit the fire in the fireplace. I broke my silence: “Bring me my grandmother’s quilt?” 

He seemed to notice that the quilt was not in the living room for the first time in months. “Where is it?” He asked, putting the fire poker down.

“The linen closet, in the toy box. In the back,” I said.

He opened his mouth as if to question me, but, meek from all his fear and denial, he said nothing and walked out of the living room, towards the linen closet.

I heard him jiggle the lock, maybe surprised that it was fastened for the first time since we moved in, then unfasten it. As soon as the lock disengaged and the door creaked open, I could hear the beating again, muffled slightly by the layers of fabric and plastic. Panic rose in my throat. My baby’s heartbeat was suddenly fast and loud and stronger than ever, and as I heard the toy box lid click open, as the quilt’s beating grew thick and insufferably loud, the baby’s heartbeat synched. I held my hand to my belly. I was going to end this. I had to end this.

My husband carried the quilt as if it was nothing, as if there wasn’t a crushing, swallowing weight to it, as if it wasn’t beating like a living breathing thing in his arms. He was oblivious, and I grew more and more panicked, angrier and angrier.

He draped the quilt over my legs. The dark brown bloodstain from my mother consumed the fabric, yet my husband still did not see it. And the quilt beat excitedly as it touched my legs, and still, still, my husband acted as if he did not see it. His obliviousness to something so real, so tangibly evil right in front of our eyes, could only be purposeful. He must have been purposefully ignoring it, too scared of it, hoping that I alone would handle it. And, I knew, I was the only one who could do what needed to be done.

My husband left the room quickly after that and, though I struggled against the suffocating weight of the quilt on my legs, I kicked it away and shoved it to the floor, sliding down to the carpet beside it. The quilt beat faster and faster, excited to be close to me again, and the baby inside of me followed suit.

I gripped the edges of the quilt and pulled, but I found myself too weak to move it in this state. I saw in its hexagons and careful seams the haunted lives of my grandmother, my mother, my sister, and myself. I saw how it had consumed each of us, drained us, leaving nothing but panic and anger and terror. And I saw it already consuming the life of the poor baby girl inside of me, before she had even been born, and I knew, since the very beginning, I knew that the quilt had always been trying to consume her. I could not let her face the same terrible fate as the rest of us.

Frantically, I found a weak spot between an orange hexagon and a blue hexagon and pulled, pulled, so fast and so hard that my shoulders cracked. I kept pulling at the seams, working to the sound of fabric ripping, moving so fast that it seemed as if my arms had taken a life of their own, moving of their own accord, as they destroyed the quilt and its legacy of death and blood and life. 

Finally, my hands found an opening between the front and the back of the quilt. I ripped them apart once and for all, and to my horror, I found not a white batting, but a stiff, red mess of cotton, clinging to itself and beating with life. It was not human, not even flesh. I could feel, deep in my heart, the life of my mother within it, and the life of my grandmother, and the never ending fear of my sister, and my own sanity. It was the quilt itself, its cotton insides, that had soaked up all of our blood, all of our lives, all of our deaths, and was now throbbing with it, beating with it. 

It was clear what I had to do. My body knew before my mind did. Muscles aching, I dragged what was left of the pulsing quilt and all of its shreds to the fireplace. It was heavy, it resisted,  but I pushed and pulled with all my force, until, determined, I held the quilt in the fire until it smoldered and burned. My fingertips stung and sizzled, licked by fire, but I feared if I let go, the quilt would continue to live, and continue to suck the life from my unborn child. Eventually, I couldn’t even feel my fingertips anymore, I couldn’t feel any burning. Instead, as I watched the quilt burn in the fire, piece my piece, hexagon by hexagon, sixes by sixes, I felt my mother’s arms around me, proud for the first time, and I felt her breath on my neck, and I heard her voice, you’ve done it, you’ve done it, you’ve done it.

When my husband found me, he forced me away from my work. He shook me, clutching my hands and shouting frantically. I screamed back, “Don’t you know evil when you see it?”

I sit here now in my hospital room with my hands wrapped in gauze. The nurses come in to change my bandages twice a day, but I can't feel my fingertips, and so I do not look at them. They give me pain medicine too, even though I have insisted that there is no pain in my fingers, there’s just nothing, like white space. There is no pain anymore.

Instead, twice a day, I ask if I can see my baby, whom I gave birth to some time ago, though I cannot rightly remember through all of the drugs the nurses give me. The nurses don’t respond, or they murmur that they will ask the doctor, but I have not seen her yet.

My husband doesn’t visit me, and I haven’t asked the nurses for him. I have not forgiven him for leaving me to handle the evil all by myself while it sucked the life out of myself and our unborn daughter. I have not forgiven him for ignoring what was right in front of his eyes. I don’t think I ever will.

My sister has been my one lifeline to the outside world since I’ve been here, though. She calls often and we speak in circles around what happened. But, today, she visits in person with a small bundle of blankets in her arms. She sits beside me and shows me my daughter.

Her lips are bluish and her skin is thin so that you can see her veins around her forehead and eyes. Her eyes are closed. She’s sleeping.

Without saying anything, my sister places her in my arms, and since I cannot with my bandaged hands, she cradles the baby’s head. Her red, plastic nails are stark against the baby’s blue veins.

“It was going to take her, like Mom,” I say. “It wanted her too.”

My sister is, again, quiet for another moment. “It’s over now,” she repeats. “It’s done.”

Madeline Fowler is studying English and Secondary Education at Western New England University. She will be completing her degree in May 2022 and is interested in teaching literature as a way to foster empathy and communication.

The White Line

Chris Huff

Riding up the path toward the trail, I pedaled with force and stood up. I'd heard of people using special bikes at similar suicide rides – they were lighter with more traction. I looked down at my mountain bike with its big clumsy wheels and winced at the image of myself barreling over the side, limbs flailing, and envisioned my poor mother getting the news that her one remaining son had gone to join the first. The White Line, I can see it, calm and present and menacing. A white stripe of fine-grained sandstone painted high across a red rock cliff — it looked like one large flatline above all the beauty in Sedona, Arizona. My brother always talked about this place. He had said, "You can die at the White Line. It's the scariest bike trail in the world…one small mistake and you'll tumble all the way down." My eyes darted to the floor…I had that same image of clawing and shrieking through the air. All at once I shuddered and the image turned off. 

Simon smirked and nudged me backward. "You're afraid of everything, Jo-Jo."

I pushed him with both arms, but he didn't budge. "My name's Jonah! Take me with you, Si…I can do it, I'll show you." 

He ruffled my hair and patted my head. "You're only twelve, Jo-Jo…hey I'll get you something cool while I'm out in Sedona. Something from the trail."

"I'm gonna ride it someday, by the time I'm eighteen, just like you are," I said. I made the vow to him back then, and I remember him looking at me, and me looking back at him, and both of us trying to figure out if I meant it, if I would actually do it.  

"You're always trying to prove yourself, lil bro. You don't have anything to prove, Jonah, you've already made it, just by being who you are. You're the musician, I'm the dumb jock and daredevil," he said with a laugh. Si had a deep, hearty laugh that made it seem like everything in the world would be okay, as if it were up to him. I admired him so much and even wanted the sound of my laughter to be like his. He was my father figure for as long as I can remember because my real dad left us when I was only a baby. 

Simon set out toward the White Line, but he never made it home. He died in a wreck when a trucker fell asleep and crossed over the center line. That morning, Si, his girlfriend Alyssa, and his best friend Dane got in his old black truck, and they all headed north to Sedona on the I-17. Skipping class and they were gonna make a day of it. The White Line was intended to be the first stop, and afterward they wanted to spend time in town, doing whatever they pleased, but it wasn't to be.

When I turned eighteen, I knew I had to ride the White Line. Not just for me, but Si also. But I'd had a severe fear of heights for as long as I can remember. That meant no roller coasters, and I'd sit in the middle or front rows on the bleachers when we'd watch Si’s games. Just looking at pictures of the White Line made my legs go weak. As the day closed in, I was close to backing out, even though I'd planned it for months with my best friends Travis and Greg. They eventually agreed to go because they knew what it meant to me, but I went into a full-on panic attack the night before and didn't sleep much. 

I snapped-to just in time to pull on my handlebar brakes, sending the back wheel up and slamming one leg down for balance. I nearly steered into a large prickly pear cactus, drifting off in thought as I'm known to do. I shook my head, then looked up at the dirt cloud created from my hard braking, and it made me think of Simon stealing bases. He gave pitchers fits. They’d hurl the ball across the plate, to the catcher – who would also be on edge – knowing they had to contend with one of the leading base-stealers in the state. 

In grade school, I'd hear from my teachers, "Hey, are you Simon Adler's brother?" when they'd read my name during roll call on those perennial first days of school – their eyes glowing as if I knew someone famous. He still holds high school records for the most passing yards and touchdowns – even though his senior season was cut short by his death. But baseball was his love, and you could feel the shift whenever spring rolled around. 

During the season I played baseball as a child, the coaches would toss me into right field, and I'd tremble under the lights, praying urgently to God, asking that he wouldn't let the ball be sent my way. That signal must've been received by the batter, and I imagine he got a whiff of my fear before sending a high pop fly out in my direction. I'd usually succumb to the pressure, my glove raised high and slack, trying to figure out the trajectory of the baseball's descent, and where it might end up. I'd hear the "Sssssssssssssss" sound as it whirred above me, then running toward the fence, while I scrambled through my shame to avoid an even worse one. And worse would happen. Sometimes I'd scurry to the ball and would go to pick the damn thing up and I'd kick it, or I'd try to scoop it with my glove, but it'd slide back to the ground. Some of the lucky ones earned in-the-park home runs by hitting it out my way. Simon tried his best to help me – we'd spent hours at the park – him popping the balls way up, and me catching them while under the glow of his confidence – but during the actual game something else took over, and anything that could go wrong usually did.

This was a new day though. I wasn't going to buckle beneath the pressure or the fear. Still a distance out, I pedaled. The ground was smooth and the pathway free from the many loose stones and rock ladders we’d hurdled through on the lower trails. The incline continued to get steeper, so eventually I jumped off the bike and pushed it. I felt a presence calling from up there, and I wondered out loud if it was Simon. Until that point, I fended off the idea of what I was doing, but it was so close now. I gripped the handlebars – my hands sweating, and I looked straight ahead. Squinting, I tried to steel myself against the fright that seized me anytime I looked to the line. I worked to gain control of myself by remembering what I was there for. 

"Hey fucker…are you trying to leave us behind?" 

I looked back and saw Travis grinning up at me, walking beside the expensive bike his dad just purchased for him. Greg came into view a few seconds later, his head tilted downward, and his lips tightly wound. 

Travis was the only one who had his life all planned out. From the time I'd known him, which was grade school, he knew he wanted to go into the Marine Corps like his dad. Greg didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, but seemed okay with that, and was going up to Flagstaff to attend NAU because he was tired of the hot, endless summer of Phoenix. Early in the year, Travis and his dad went in on me about how I should join the Corps also. I relented, and soon after, I was in front of a recruiter whom I verbally committed to join with but had yet to sign the paperwork. I thought about what Si would say about me joining the Marines. I knew he'd think I was just trying to prove myself again. I'd never shot a gun in my life and didn't want to know how to. My dream was to play my guitar and mix it up with songwriters and producers in Nashville.

Crazy as it is, I was trying to lose them – Travis and Greg. I felt the need to be alone the closer we got to the line. I wanted some silence to talk with Simon – to tap into his voice if I could. My fears of him slipping away were strangely sedated in the times I was afraid, like I was when riding toward the White Line, because those were the moments when he was always there for me. A collage of his advice and encouragement welled up within. You don't have to be anyone else…be Jonah. It's not that serious, Jo-Jo. It's just sports. Sports don't make you a man. I'd give you my throwing arm for your music talent. Use the fear to help you focus. 

"I would've caught up sooner if I didn't have to drag that one along," Travis nodded over to Greg. "Greg says he's not gonna make the ride. I'll bet he wishes his mommy was here to take him home." 

Greg looked up. "This is insane. All it would take is running over a loose rock, having a malfunction or a tire slippage, and we’re goners. It's a crazy, death-defying thing to play around with. Stupid really. I'm just not feeling it."

I thought of my own mother. She had to work that day – the day we went to Sedona – at a local Italian food spot, Dominic's, where she picked up a waitressing job part-time. I couldn't tell her about the White Line, or she'd have tried to stop me. I did let her know I was going to Sedona to honor Si. She said she wished she could take the trip too, and that we would celebrate my birthday together as soon as possible. She held onto both sides of my face right there in the living room, the morning I headed out. Her hands were always cold, but they were delicate. She said, "I know what this means to you…what he means to you, Jonah." A few tears slipped down my face as she spoke, and I held onto my mother. As we embraced, I thought of our quiet house the months after Si left, a silence that never left us. Her doors were shut some days and so much time would pass that I'd go check on her, kneeling by the bed while she sobbed. It doesn't seem like we ate anything at all in those months. When we did, it was pizza delivery.

I wanted to tell her I needed to go to Sedona because I felt like he was disappearing, that after six years it seemed like Simon was almost forgotten. Every day at school, at least once, I'd peer into the trophy cases, to the plaques, and try to bring him back, even if for a moment. Sometimes I would have to concentrate hard to remember what his voice sounded like. I'd look for interviews and news articles of him online, and we had some videos of his games. He was fading away, and I needed to let him know, somehow tell him I wouldn't let that happen – or I needed his permission to move forward and to ask his advice on how.

Travis pushed his bike up to where I was, and we stood in silence. I wasn't feeling it today either. I was close to resignation, like Greg, already preparing myself for Travis's teasing all the way home, and for him and his dad to have a good laugh about it over dinner. How a mama's boy like me couldn't face my fears, like they knew I wouldn't be able to all along. How I'd never make it in the Marine Corps. 

We pushed our bikes in silence, and I fumbled around in my pocket to bring out my headphones, then plugged them in. Turning up the volume on my phone, I focused on the music to distract me from the near future.

Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I'm right
Maybe it's just too late but this is keeping me awake all night

The sound stopped in my right ear as the earbud went falling. Travis was in my close periphery…he let go of the wire and it fell back to me. 

"I said what are you listening to?" he asked. 

"Kodaline." 

"Greg's in a panic – I don't think he's gonna make it," he said. His voice was an urgent whisper, and he looked at me like I might have the answer, which struck me as odd because that's usually how Greg and I looked at Travis when we were undecided. I wondered if Travis was having second thoughts too. 

"Make it, like make it to the top?" I asked.

"He's not gonna ride the White Line," Travis said. 

I shrugged. "He’ll sort it out.” 

"When ain't he scared, that little bitch," Travis said with a smirk. But for the first time, I felt like his smirk was hiding something. Like we were all experiencing the same fear together. 

I looked up at Travis, who had a glint in his eyes – the same glint as when he looked at his father three weeks earlier – and I worried for him. I wanted to ask about that day and see how he was holding up. All three of us were there, playing basketball in Travis's backyard as we'd done for years. Dribbling, jumping, shooting, shoving. Same as we'd always done. Mr. Magnuson was doing work in his garage and at one point we asked if he'd join us, to help even up the teams for some two-on-two. 

It was overcast, a seesaw of cold-warm contrast throughout the afternoon. Mr. Mag walked out to the backyard. He was a towering presence, even though he was my same height. He lifted weights religiously and hit the heavy bag. Ran every morning. 

"If you ever hear me talking about yesterday's news and how in-shape I was way back when…I'll give you my rifle and you can put me down," Mr. Mag once said to me. "I'm forty-seven, but people tell me I look like I'm twenty-seven, and I'm in better shape now than I've ever been."

He didn't look like he was twenty-seven, but none of us had the guts to mention it. I never wanted to guard him. Mr. Mag was still a force to be reckoned with, whether it was basketball, tennis, darts, football – if I ever did get stuck guarding him, or playing against him in anything, I tended to take my foot off the gas a little, secretly wanting the game to stop as soon as possible. He had this competitive streak in him where he seemed like he was still out to prove something to someone, somewhere. I felt like there was something wrong with me because I didn't have much of that spirit at all when it came to playing sports. I just didn't want to mess up, make a fool of myself. I didn't need to hit the winning shot…I just didn't want to miss the one that lost us the game. 

Travis never held back, and on that day, he matched Mr. Magnuson's fervor. They had a cement half-court with a painted free throw line and three-point arc. Travis was hitting threes without mercy. Right in Mr. Mag's face. His dad wouldn't let him drive in to take a close shot, forcing Travis outside by holding his ground and shoving Travis back. Mr. Magnuson stuck to him and threw his hands up in front of his eyes, but Travis just couldn't be stopped. I don't remember him missing a single shot. Travis had the look of someone fighting. Fighting hard to prove something to his father that I couldn't quite understand. I never had to prove anything to Simon. 

I put my earphones back in and looked toward the red sandstone formations. We were close. I put the song on speakerphone, and let it play out loud to break up the tension. No one was talking. I looked over at Travis, whose face was emotionless, unreadable. The music blared.

We go out on our own…it's a big, bad world outside…carrying our dreams and all that they mean…try to make it all worthwhile

"That's a good song man…who'd you say that is, Codine?" Greg asked. His head was bowed toward the ground, and he didn't look over.

"No, it's Kodaline. Just discovered 'em a few days back…this is the only one of theirs I know. It’s a new song," I said.  

"It's good," he said, his voice robotic and distant as if he was considering for the first time the danger that waited up ahead. I knew because I had to remind myself to breathe. 

I drifted back to that day, on the basketball court. All three of us watched Mr. Magnuson get increasingly agitated as the game went on. There was a palpable tension climbing between Travis and his dad. Greg and I looked on like we were watching someone who was out of our reach and starting to fall. 

Travis was the only one who didn't get the memo. I'd watched his dad get competitive, and fight hard, but had never seen him play so rough. The fouls became blatant. I stood paralyzed when he elbowed Travis hard while dribbling with the other arm. Travis made a noise and held his stomach, catching his wind. 

"That was…a foul," Travis said. His breaths were rapid, and he tightened his face against the pain.

"You want to call a foul, little sissy, call a foul then!" Mr. Magnuson threw the ball, but Travis ducked it. My eyes fixed on Travis, captivated by his resilience in the face of his father. He was stoic – even more than he normally portrayed – and it occurred to me that this was something Travis must have seen before. 

"All right, I'm a sissy calling a foul then. You can use your elbows in Muay Thai, dad, not basketball," Travis laughed. 

The rest seems like it is slowed down, timeless. Mr. Magnuson wound his right arm back and smacked Travis with a good amount of force. Then Mr. Mag pushed him with both arms, but he didn't need to – Travis was already falling. Travis didn't try to avoid the hit and absorbed it flush, but it didn't seem to have enough velocity to knock him to the ground. Now I realize he fell to avoid getting hit again. Travis held a hand over his face and winced a little in a pathetic attempt to shield himself, but there were no further attacks. I didn't look up until I heard Mr. Magnuson's footsteps moving away and the back door to their house slam. Greg and I went over to Travis, but he refused our attempts to help. Travis pushed the ground and stood up straight. His left cheek was bright red, with eyes that radiated a mixture of shame and cold hate, but there were no tears. He never showed fear, just like today. 

We made it there, to a large red rock; we were going to need to climb it to get to the White Line. I turned and started to ask Travis to hold my bike and pass it up, but I caught eyes with him. I didn't see a future Marine – I saw a boy who was held down by the love and hate he had for his own father. I wanted to tell him right there that I didn't want to join the military, that I was just trying to escape from my own painful life. And that even though I didn't understand what it was like to be the son of his father, I understood pain. I understood how pain could drive you to do crazy things and convince you to rise to occasions that didn't even have to exist. 

"Hey, I know this is our last trail, our last ride." I put my hand on Travis's shoulder and one on Greg's. "But I've got to do this last part on my own," I said. 

Travis pretended to object, but I could see the relief in his eyes and feel the pressure released from his voice. 

"Oh, thank God," Greg said. "I was getting ready to puke my guts out." 

I climbed the rock to get up to the White Line trail.

"I'll pass your bike up," Greg said, reaching.

I paused for a moment. "No, I don't need it," I said, and my smile opened, like a slow parachute. It felt like the end of something just to make it there, and I relaxed for a moment. 

"We'll meet you back at Chicken Point," Travis said. "Don't take all fucking day."

I remained, again looking through Travis's tough exterior.

"Aye, aye, cap'n."  Before I turned to face the White Line, the fear caught up to me again. Buying myself time, I thought of what we would do afterward. 

"My mom's working tonight. We can pick up some beers at Travis's. Crack 'em over at my place." They nodded, their faces ghostly and taut.

I gave them time to make it back down, then I started on the line. I felt unsteady right away – it was difficult to walk straight. The path was off-camber and extremely sketchy. Not man-made. On the bike, I wouldn't have made it a quarter of the way through the slanted slickrock path before quitting. My heart kicked and thumped as I hiked, and I forced my eyes to focus on the line to distract myself from the steep drop-off. My breaths were short and rapid, I tried to soak in each moment, the way people do when they want to memorize something. Amidst all the brilliant shades of rock, The White Line told my story somehow. It was telling me something, leading me somewhere.

I made it to the end of the high trail and looked down toward the lower shelf, then into the ravine below. This was the hardest part for bikers. Si called it the moment of truth – he said people who rode it would slide down the twenty-foot hill, going slow, using only their front brakes, then had to make a 180-degree turn to get on the lower trail. "This is the part where nothing can go wrong. If a rider overcooks it, he'll die," Si told me. Standing there, I looked out at the majestic rock formations in the distance and the canopy of trees below and became newly aware of how high up I was. My body seized, and my heartbeat throbbed so hard that I could see it beating through my shirt. It was a mistake to stop. Everything around me swirled and spun. I pressed my hand back into the sedimentary rock behind me, leaned over and vomited. 

I brought out the stone Simon gave me so long ago. "Yours, lil' bro," he said. "It's called an Apache Tear. I found it on a trail near the mines out in Superior."

I lifted my head slowly, captivated by the black, bright stone. It had the color and shine of Simon's old black truck. 

There was a crowd of spectators in the distance, at Chicken Point, where Travis and Greg were waiting. A guide driving a pink jeep led a group of tourists, probably telling them historical facts about the spectacular red rock formations. It was a rarity for them to see someone riding or even walking the White Line. A group of them hooted and whistled. I pulled in a deep breath, then cocked my arm back and threw the stone up as high as I could. The crowd yelled some more, and as their voices bounced from one end of the sky to the other, I felt his presence grow stronger. A great weight lifted off as the tears poured out. Years of sadness fell to the dirt. My sight seemed to amplify, and I had never experienced such a moment of clarity. I thought of Si and knew he could see and feel all the beauty that I had. He was here, out there, and everywhere. 

The lower shelf was even closer to the drop-off, but it was mostly flat. The adrenaline still kicked, and a primal instinct took over. That part of the hike seemed automatic, inevitable. It felt like I was controlling myself from another location.

The end of the lower shelf came into view, and that's when dizziness set in again. My legs were rubbery, but I kept moving. Only steps away, a feeling of euphoric elation washed through me, and I was overwhelmed by the realization I was going to make it. I stood there for a long time, trying to catch my breath and take it all in. 

I made it back to my friends. Travis yelled "HEY" and just as I looked up, I reacted and caught the can of beer flying toward me. Greg and Travis had already started on their cans. I felt otherworldly, still in shock at what I'd done, and was still catching up to the moment.

"Where'd you get these?" I asked. 

"I brought one for each, to celebrate after the ride. Didn't want to see 'em go to waste," he said. 

"I'll wait until we get back," I said. "I've got to drive home."

"It's only one, you pussy," Travis said.

"I know, I know. I'll have some when we get back."

I could've drunk the beer. We were a good distance from my truck, and it would take a while for us to make it to the parking lot. But I was soaking in the good feeling I had. Something close to invincibility. We laughed and shot the shit all the way back. Loose and full of life. Lifting our bikes on the truck I looked at Travis, then over at Greg. 

"We made it," I said. 

Back home, sluggin' beers by my swimming pool, I felt the electric surge still flowing. It wasn't the alcohol. It's as if I had become someone else. Standing up I felt a swagger as I walked to the pool and jumped in. 

"Pass me my beer," I said to Travis.

"Say pleeease."

"Hand it over," I said grinning, motioning with my fingers. Travis held the can behind him, pretended he was going to take a sip, and then gave me the beer.

We grilled up some food and ate together – silently knowing there wouldn't be many more nights like this, and we drank through the rest of the cans while playing darts in the garage. I turned the music up, and we didn't even keep score during the dart game.

Maybe live long
Or maybe die young
Or maybe live every day like it's your last day under the sun

It was that same song from earlier. The chorus came on and we were arm-in-arm, drunkenly yelling out the lyrics. The words echoed and shook as we held on in a world that was big and loud and bright.

Chris Huff was born and grew up in South Bend, Indiana. In both his fiction and nonfiction works, his bighearted characters are looking for a place and a way to stand in a world that seems to blur and blend into sameness. He lives in Arizona and writes about its incredible, flawed beauty.

 The Woman with the Dog

Brian Sutton

I. Introduction and Ending

She hadn’t wanted the dog in the first place.

Getting a dog had been the kids’ idea. “It’ll be something we’ll care for as a family,” they had said, ignoring the fact that they would both be gone soon, being almost college age. Max had sided with them, as usual. 

She had reluctantly gone along. This had been near the end, when she would have agreed to almost anything to hold the marriage together. Or to be able to tell herself, “Hey, I tried,” after it fell apart.

If they had to get a dog, she would’ve preferred a big one, a German shepherd maybe. But Max and the kids chose a little Bichon-poodle mix, with a fluffy grayish-white coat, floppy ears and a curly tail. Annoyingly cute.

And of course she got stuck with taking care of the dog. The kids lost interest almost right away, when he peed on the carpet within thirty seconds of first entering the house. Their involvement after that consisted mainly of sneaking him table scraps, so that he learned that sad-eyed look dogs use for begging. She was the one who fed him dog food, cleaned up after him, and above all walked him. The electric fence they installed never worked right, nobody in the neighborhood had regular fences, and the dog stubbornly refused to just go outside, do his business, and come back in. So she walked him almost hourly when he wasn’t yet house-trained, then later four times a day, regular as clockwork. She once told a man who lived nearby that she was probably known around the neighborhood as the lady with the dog. She had smiled as she said it, but the man just nodded his head blankly. As she had expected.

They never bothered to change the dog’s name from the mundane one the shelter had assigned him. But they got him right after returning from a vacation in France—another desperate attempt at relationship rescue, as if the Champs Élysées could somehow cut through the anger and rekindle whatever flame they’d once had—so they nicknamed him Paris.

Later, when they were divvying up items too unimportant to be covered in the divorce settlement, they had both agreed that despite the dog’s obvious preference for Max, she was the caretaker and should retain custody. “You’ll always have Paris,” he had said. The joke seemed hilarious at the time, a temporary respite from their immediate misery, and they had laughed uproariously.

It was the last time she could recall them laughing together. Moments later, the conversation had turned brittle when she pointed out that she had gone along with getting a dog to please him and the kids, and they had never taken care of him. “Yeah, and you never let us forget it, Helen,” he had snapped. “Always criticizing us, always complaining about all you have to do for us. But when it’s crunch time, you can’t be relied on for help. So now we’ll see if anyone’s left for you to rely on when it’s crunch time for you.” Then he added “Take good care of the dog” as he walked out, closing the door behind him. 

II. The Hero’s Journey: Departure

So now here she is, a decade later, still taking care of the dog. More specifically, leashing him for his after-dinner walk. And thinking about how it was just like Max to have the nerve to say she couldn’t be relied on just as he was deserting her. And also just like him to make it worse by using a cliché like “crunch time.”

They cut through the garage, edging between the car and the boxes lining the walls, full of novels and literature textbooks she still hasn’t gotten around to unpacking after she retired and cleared out her office at the university over a year ago. She had begun cutting through last February, after she stopped bothering to shovel the snow off the front porch, and now she continues simply out of habit. In a corner are a few haphazardly placed towels, left there months ago for reasons she no longer remembers.

The dog looks back over his shoulder every few seconds, checking in. The woman ignores him, but his mouth stays open in that goofy doggie version of a grin, and his tail wags like a windshield wiper on amphetamines. He strains at the leash, and as a result almost immediately starts panting. He’s old now and has begun putting on weight.

The woman doesn’t care which route they take, so she lets the dog choose. At the end of the driveway he pees and, after a moment’s hesitation, turns right. This means they’ll walk past the older houses and duplexes, rather than the more upscale new development on the left, where until a few years ago the woods had been. The woman can fondly remember jogging through those woods when she was younger and ran 10Ks. But she hasn’t run a single step in years, partly because of arthritis, partly because she can no longer think of anything worth running for. Besides, the dog isn’t the only one who has put on a few pounds. But this doesn’t bother her. True, her face is still attractive—capable of launching, if not a thousand ships, then at least a leaky rowboat or two, as she likes to put it. But even the thought of going out and trying to meet someone, starting all over again at her age, makes her weary. So she doesn’t worry about the added weight and avoids looking in mirrors.

Across the street, the last few red and yellow leaves cling to the branches of the neighbors’ maple trees. “Bare ruined choirs,” the woman murmurs. The dog glances at her inquiringly, not unlike her students, especially in the later years, whenever she mentioned any literary work other than the one assigned for that day—and sometimes even when she mentioned the assigned one. Most of them had been unfamiliar with any literature beyond warhorses like “The Road Not Taken,” which she assumed they knew from hearing it quoted at high school graduation.

But the woman had relished her literary allusions, deriving sardonic pleasure from her students’ incomprehension. She loves allusions so much that although the dog was named, or rather nicknamed, after the city, in her mind “Paris” always evokes the clueless minor character from Romeo and Juliet, dying pointlessly in defense of someone who had never even wanted him.

There’s a chill in the late-October air, and the woman is glad she remembered to wear a jacket. This far north, the first snowfall might arrive any day now. She’ll need to be careful walking the dog this winter. During one walk the previous March she had slipped on the ice and torn the rotator cuff in her right shoulder. After the operation, about seven months ago, the doctor had emphasized that the injury would take a full year to heal completely and that if she tore it again, the pain would be excruciating, the injury irreparable.

She also remembered to wear her luminous yellow vest.  The neighborhood lacks sidewalks and its tranquility encourages some people, mainly those from outside the neighborhood who don’t know better, to drive too fast for a residential area, especially coming around that corner from Mahon onto Birchwood. It’s still light out now, but the sun is dipping toward the horizon. The woman imagines the darkness speeding westward like an audiovisual aid for a lesson on carpe diem poetry.

Where the street dead-ends onto Birchwood, the woman and the dog stop and look left toward the front lawn of a nearby duplex. After confirming that the lawn is empty, they turn left.

III. Chekhov’s Gun

They always check first. As they had passed the duplex one night the previous December, a pit bull had hurtled out of the darkness, eerily silent, and attacked the dog. Shocked, the woman had shouted but hadn’t moved—“As indecisive as Prufrock,” she later told herself. She hadn’t even released the leash at first, leaving the dog trapped, unable to run away or even to move freely in self-defense. 

After a few seconds the pit bull’s owner had appeared and managed to drag the animal off. “I’m awful sorry, lady! He usually behaves real good!” he had shouted over his shoulder before turning and saying, “Sit, Captain!” But instead of giving the pit bull a chance to sit, he had immediately kicked it in the ribs. 

Once out of danger, the woman had unleashed a stream of invective against the pit bull and its owner, one for its unprovoked attack and the other for his abuse of both his dog and the English language. Both dog and owner turned and gave her a hard stare before disappearing into the duplex.

Although the woman’s dog suffered only minor scratches, he had scuttled back to the house, jumped onto the sofa, trembling, and burrowed his head into a crevice between cushions. Later he had crept into his kennel and refused to come out until the next day. All this reminded the woman of yet another Paris: the character in The Iliad who is spirited home in disgrace after defeat in single combat, then refuses to leave his bedroom until Hector coaxes him out. Of course that same Paris, according to the myth, later kills the fierce Achilles. But the woman couldn’t imagine that the dog had anything like that in him, any more than she did.

For a week or so after the attack, the dog had taken all his walks in the other direction, avoiding the duplex. But gradually he returned to his routine of alternating between routes. Still, he always stops at the corner to look and scurries the other way if the pit bull is out. And even when the pit bull isn’t there, the dog always pulls away from the duplex as they pass it, speeding up and stealing glances toward the empty yard. The woman sometimes laughs and calls him things like “Brave warrior” and “Fearless protector.”

They’ve seen the pit bull only a few times since that night, always chained to a tree in the yard. Invariably on those occasions, the animal at first growls and barks, lunging to the end of the chain. Then, still staring at them, it settles back as if waiting, certain its time will come.

IV. Freytag’s Pyramid: Exposition

Once the woman is past the duplex, she reaches into her pocket. During their daytime walks she habitually reads paperback editions of works from what she still unapologetically refers to as the canon. But she has never warmed to audiobooks, so when the light fades she’s reduced to staring at her phone like everyone else.

She begins by checking Facebook, where she’s mostly a lurker, having nothing to post and nobody to “like” it if she did. Her older daughter, Jane, has posted an album captioned “Weekend with Grandma and Grandpa.” There’s Max, short-sleeved, smiling as he gestures toward a tourist attraction in the Sun Belt city where he now lives. Max, cradling their new grandson while Jane and her husband beam approvingly. Max and his much-younger second wife, incongruously called “Grandma” here, nuzzling affectionately over dinner and wine.

The woman only glances before scrolling past, but a glance suffices. As always at such times, she wonders if there’s some way to avoid seeing images like this, short of blocking her daughters.

The picture of Max holding their baby grandson is especially galling. When the girls were small he hadn’t even known how to change a diaper, any more than how to operate the washing machine or vacuum cleaner. She had been responsible for the bedtime readings and the 3 a.m. feedings and, years later, for getting the girls ready for school in the morning and then taxiing them to and from lessons or practice or rehearsals or club meetings after school as well as playdates and eventually sleepovers on weekends.

“Sorry, Hon,” Max had said. “It’s just, your work hours are way more flexible than mine.” Meaning she could slip away from campus during the day as long as she paid the price by working until past midnight at home. She graded papers and did course prep while sitting in a car waiting for the girls; her scholarly agenda narrowed to short articles for minor journals, and she gave up on trying to make full professor. A little of the frustration occasionally seeped out, leaving her daughters wary of her.

Max had been the fun parent, the one who could make the girls laugh, listened sympathetically when a clique or a boy had reduced them to tears, kicked a soccer ball around the yard with them, drove them to Dairy Queen for treats. They had grown up daddy’s girls.

It had been the same with the dog. Max never touched a leash or a poop bag, but he occasionally gave the dog belly rubs and got down on the floor and wrestled with him, and when the mood struck him he’d take the dog out and toss a tennis ball or a Frisbee. And the dog loved him. Each weekday evening he had stared out the living room window until Max’s car came around the corner. Then he’d run in circles and bark, his whole body wiggling with joy when Max came through the door. When the woman had returned from work on campus, the dog had usually glanced up and wagged his tail slightly, then retreated into his kennel. Which was, the woman recalls, not all that different from how Max and the kids had responded.

Then Max began coming home later and later, sometimes disappearing on weekends as well. “Special project at work,” he said when she asked about his absences. “Just for now, I’ll be gone a lot. Help me out, okay? Take care of things around the house for a little while.”

Looking back, she figures it was the “for a little while” that finally set her off. “I was consumed by rage,” she told a colleague at work when describing what happened next. She hadn’t meant to take it as far as she did, but everything had been bottled in for so long. Afterward she felt more regretful than cathartic. But the marriage was broken, and no trip to Paris or an adopted shelter dog could fix it. 

Soon after the divorce, Max moved in with and then married his assistant from work, who was one year over half his age. Although appalled, the woman had hoped her daughters would bond with her in their indignation. But they had seemed delighted, as if gaining a big sister. 

A few years later, around the time the younger daughter was graduating from college, Max relocated after being promoted to chief executive of the company’s Southern division. The woman had again hoped this would bring her closer to her daughters, if only through mere proximity. But instead both daughters moved South, with Max helping them find jobs near him. Now, judging from social media, Max and his child-bride, as the woman thinks of her, get together with one or both daughters, along with sons-in-law and now a grandson, almost every weekend. The woman’s unstated portion is an annual visit with her daughters, usually for a few days just before or after Christmas, for an awkward exchange of gifts. She has gradually become callused to the situation; it no longer hurts to just go through the motions.

V. Argos

The woman and the dog reach the cul-de-sac marking the furthest extent of their usual walk. The dog has done his business, and the woman grips a poop bag in the same hand that holds the leash. A block away, a car’s headlights blink on.

The dog pulls, straining toward a discarded hamburger wrapper—the sort of thing he’s apt to vomit onto the carpet later. Exasperated, the woman shortens the leash and jerks hard. The dog’s head snaps up, his front legs rise off the ground, and he gags. Then he turns for home, occasionally stopping for a hacking fit.

Now the woman feels guilty. “Sorry, little guy,” she says. She reaches out to pet the dog, but he cringes and shies away. Still, moments later he licks her hand when she lowers it to scratch him under the chin, and he wags his tail when she bends closer. But her lower back tightens up, so she straightens as best she can and they resume their homeward journey.

She shakes her head: still taking out her frustrations on the dog after all these years. It hadn’t been fair to him even in the early years, on those cold evenings when she needed to get home to do the dishes and finish the laundry and then spend half the night grading papers and trying to write a journal article, and he was meandering off to sniff where some other dog had peed and then circling endlessly before peeing himself. But now she no longer has the excuse that pressing tasks await her at home—not even writing. During her years teaching literature she had dreamed that once she retired and had the time, she would create literature of her own, sprinkling elegant allusions into her works to situate them within the great tradition. But retirement had quickly taught her about the huge gulf between an idea in one’s head and a fully achieved manuscript. During her first months of retirement she had gone from waking in anticipation, knowing she had the time to write that day, to waking in dread, knowing she had the self-imposed obligation to try to write, to waking in indifference, knowing she just wasn’t a writer and there was no use in trying to pretend otherwise. Now she measures out her life with coffee spoons, her days a series of trivial errands punctuated by rehab exercises to strengthen the rotator cuff and by the four-a-day dog walks, with no reason to get home quickly, no excuse for her impatient outbursts.

Besides, she knows that the dog probably suffered as much as she did from the divorce. For weeks after Max left, the dog spent hours at the window each evening, waiting. Only after the weeks turned into months did he begin to act excited when the woman herself returned from work. Eventually he began following her from room to room in the silent house as if leashed even indoors, curling on the empty side of the bed at night, staring solemnly and creepily up at her while she sat on the toilet, giving her that sad-eyed look at the dinner table to beg for scraps. It took a while, the woman told herself, but the dog finally realized that she was all he had left.

It had taken her even longer to realize that the reverse was also true.

VI. Katabasis: The Descent into the Underworld

Turning the corner from Mahon back onto Birchwood, the woman minimizes Facebook and checks her email. She still uses her university account, an emeritus perk. Other than a promo stating, “A lot has happened on Facebook since you last logged in,” there’s nothing.

When she retired the stream of work-related messages had dried up as suddenly as a faucet shuts off. A few messages intended for former colleagues still reached her by mistake, and she had forwarded these, appending a sentence or two stating that she hoped all was well with the colleague and the university. She never received a response. And when she attended the occasional play or concert on campus and saw former colleagues, they usually turned away, feigning interest in something in the opposite direction. If she saw any of her former students—even the good ones, the ones who had formerly sought her out during office hours—they walked past as though nobody was there.

It wasn’t surprising. For most of her career she had been respected by all and liked by many—admittedly tough, but fair, and good at her work. But after things fell apart at home, they unraveled at work as well. She became the type of professor who replies sarcastically when a student asks a question betraying unfamiliarity with information she had provided in detail just a few minutes earlier, or who fires off belligerent emails to colleagues about campus politics, cc’d to far too many people. Eventually nobody sat in the front row of her classes or on either side of her at faculty meetings. When she finally retired, nobody appeared to be sad to see her go. Only natural that she had been “ghosted,” as her former students would’ve put it. 

But there was an alternative explanation, even more discouraging: maybe she wasn’t ostracized because she was angry and abrasive, but simply forgotten because she was archaic and irrelevant. Even before her classroom demeanor had turned so antagonistic, her students had been growing increasingly disengaged, indifferent not only toward the literary works she cherished but toward her outmoded analytical approach, heavy on traditional concepts like the quest narrative and on old-school terms like point of attack, rising and falling action, and deus ex machina. The weaker students complained that her allusions made them feel dumb; the brighter ones pointed out that those allusions, like her syllabi, seemed limited to works by dead white men. Her course-evaluation scores dropped, and the phrase “out of touch” began appearing in the comments portion of the evaluation forms. No wonder nobody seemed to miss her when she left.

Besides, in her younger days whenever she had seen a former colleague, now retired, wandering the halls or squinting at a book in the library, she had tried to detour before being seen, and if seen had adopted a transparently hearty tone designed to keep the encounter cheerful, superficial, and short. The university was a closed world, and once you retired you  were no longer part of it. Her time was past, like those insubstantial spirits from the afterlife that Odysseus, Aeneas, and Dante the Pilgrim all try to embrace, only to have their hands pass right through them. Maybe she had been ghosted because she was, for all practical purposes, a ghost.    

VII. Point of Attack

The woman is awakened from her troubled dreams by an unearthly sound from the dog—half growl, half whimper, all panic. Looking up, she sees that they’re across the street from the duplex, its windows darkened, no sign of life inside. Out front the pit bull, its hour come round at last, shoots out of the yard, aiming straight toward them.

With no time to dial for help, the woman jams her cell phone into her pocket with one hand and drops the leash and poop bag with the other. Even though she knows the dog can’t even make it to the corner before being caught, she whispers, “Run home, little buddy.” Immediately she feels mortified: she has just unintentionally alluded to Gilligan’s Island.

Then she feels the shock of impact and realizes that this time the pit bull isn’t coming for the dog. It’s coming for her.

VIII. Falling Action

The woman staggers but keeps her footing, aware that her survival might depend on her ability to remain standing and remain calm. She knows enough to ball her hands into fists to protect her fingers from being bitten off. Then she pulls her arms in front of her body, fists guarding her face like a boxer on the ropes. She can feel the pit bull, again eerily silent, tearing at her clothes as if this were a different kind of assault.

Something is constricting her legs, about calf-high. Looking down she realizes that the dog, rather than heading home, must have run around her legs in tight circles, more than once. The leash, hopelessly tangled, is now wrapped firmly around her legs.

As far as the woman is concerned, this isn’t a problem. She couldn’t outrun the pit bull anyway and unless its concentration were somehow diverted, her running would only arouse its prey instinct, leading her to get knocked over and probably killed. And although her legs are bound by the leash, her feet are planted well apart, giving her a stable base. She doesn’t know for sure, but she assumes that the leash, by binding her legs in this position, increases her chances of staying upright and, thus, alive.

Then she hears the shrill yips, metallic with fear, and sees the dog straining at the end of the leash. The two of them are bound together, both equally immobile. And once the pit bull has enjoyed its fill of her, the dog will be next.

With a scream, the woman kicks out her left leg as hard as she can—not at the pit bull but against the constraining leash. The pressure against her calves disappears and she sees the dog scurrying away, the leash trailing behind. “Run home, dammit!” she shouts.

Before her left foot can return to the ground, the pit bull slams into the outside part of her right leg, cutting it out from under her. She falls hard on her right shoulder. Waves of pain, worse even than during childbirth, pulse through her like an electric current. She smells shit and momentarily thinks that just like during childbirth, she has lost control of her bowels. Then she realizes she has fallen on the poop bag and her right pants leg is smeared. “Story of my life,” she mutters.

 She sees the pit bull’s face, giant-sized, a few inches in front of her eyes. Then she sees only the top of its head and feels something wet on her left cheek. She raises her left hand, still clenched into a fist for protection, up to her cheek and finds a cavity there, without even any loose flesh. The pit bull has simply chomped off a piece of her. Consumed by rage.

The animal is about to attack her again, and she cannot defend herself. The woman thinks about all that she could have done better. It occurs to her that given the choice, this is not how she would have preferred to die. 

Then she hears a growl, small but intense, up against the silence of the pit bull, and sees something grayish-white flash past the pit bull’s legs, with something ropelike trailing behind. The pit bull yelps and turns to snap at the foe that has just bitten it.

IX. Rising Action, with Conflicts

The woman knows that her life depends on her getting up, and doing it within the next second or two, before the pit bull is on her again. Lying on her right side, she has no choice but to push off with her right arm, torn rotator cuff or not. She screams in pain, her head spins, and she hears a whirring noise that she knows isn’t really there. But she’s back on her feet.

The pit bull tears into her again and she staggers. Her legs shake and the street beneath her seems to be tilting at crazy, ever-shifting angles. She knows she can’t stay on her feet for long at this rate. But the dog keeps coming back, nipping at the pit bull’s heels and then scurrying away. The dog’s panting has become wheezing gasps and he leaves a trickle of blood as he runs, but he returns again and again. He’s a light-hitting boxer taking on a massive slugger, an elusive guerilla squadron up against a well-armed regiment. Except in this case the opponent is not only powerful and fierce, but also a great runner.

X. Two Roads Diverged, or, Crunch Time

Now the pit bull turns toward the dog, seemingly forgetting the woman for the moment. If she’s ever going to run, this is her chance. The dog will surely put up enough resistance that she can be around the corner, almost home, before the pit bull finishes with him and turns back for her. 

The dog crouches, chin tucked in, teeth bared, midriff bloodied, defiance but also despair in his growl. He looks toward the pit bull, which is now speeding toward him. Then he seems to look past the pit bull, and for a moment he and the woman make eye contact. He has that sad-eyed look he uses at the dinner table when he’s begging. 

The woman runs—away from her home and toward the pit bull, which has just reached the dog. She comes up from behind, stifling a scream, hoping to catch the animal by surprise. She kicks as hard as she can. But the pit bull is moving rapidly and unpredictably, so she misses her target, the animal’s head. Still, she kicks it in the side, hard enough to lift it off the ground. If the pit bull had fallen, she would have come down on it with all her weight, using her knee to break any bones she could.

Instead the pit bull turns on her once more, attacking with what seems like the final fury of battle. The dog keeps running past and nipping at the pit bull’s legs, but the pit bull ignores him. 

The woman is feeling weaker. It’s hard to hold her arms up in self-defense, especially with her shoulder throbbing whenever she raises her right arm. The energy expended in kicking the pit bull has taken a lot out of her. And she’s weary. She wants to fight no more forever.

She’s about to lower her arms in surrender when the dog bites hard on the pit bull’s right rear leg, near the ankle. The pit bull emits a surprisingly high-pitched yelp, then turns to face its tormentor. The dog runs toward the same corner he and the woman had rounded a few minutes earlier—away from their house, but directly in the pit bull’s line of sight. Occasionally he slows down and glances back over his shoulder, and whenever he does, the woman could swear he manages to flash that goofy doggie grin. It’s as if he’s teasing his bigger, stronger, faster antagonist, daring it to pursue.

XI. Climax, or, Deus ex Machina

The pit bull springs. Almost instantly it devours the distance between itself and the dog, moving too fast for the woman’s eyes to follow. Everything happens too quickly for her to notice the machine coming in the opposite direction, out of the gathering darkness. Then she hears the squeal of brakes, followed by a yelp and a muffled thud.

The headlights come on only after the car has stopped. The woman can just make out the words “Tony’s Pizza” on the driver’s side door.

The pit bull lies on its back, illuminated by the car’s right headlight. A little farther away from the car, the dog lies in almost the fetal position, illuminated by the left headlight. Neither animal moves.

A long, cylindrical mass, white except for the blood oozing down, descends from the dog’s midsection. The woman hopes it’s only fatty tissue, not organs or bowels. She rushes across the street and kneels over the dog. He’s still breathing, in rapid, shallow, irregular gasps.

The car door opens, delivering the smells of pizza and marijuana and the thump of drums and bass. The pizza-delivery guy, red-haired and scraggly-bearded, gets out and closes the door, simultaneously tucking a cell phone into his pocket.

“Jesus, I’m awful sorry, lady, but they just—” he begins, but then he looks at the woman and stops. “Professor?” he says.

She recognizes him—an intermittent presence in the back row of an intro course from her final semester.

“My God, Professor, your face! You need to get to the hospital.”

“I’ll be okay,” she says, knowing it’s true as soon as she hears herself say it. “Did you hit them both?”

“I dunno. It happened so fast, and it was hard to see, so I—”

“Can you give us a ride to my house?” she interrupts. She scoops the dog into her arms, ignoring the searing pain from her right shoulder, and now from her lower back as well.

“Oh man, I dunno. I mean, it’s the company’s car—all that blood—and sorry, but I think your pants have, like—”

With a wordless scream the woman turns and begins running home, the dog still cradled in her arms. She hears the delivery guy’s voice behind her, shouting, “Okay Professor, what the hell, get in,” but she keeps running. She feels awkward, unable to swing her arms because of the burden she carries. Her knees and hips and back are stiff, and her shoulder hurts so much that she’s scarcely conscious of the throbbing from the dog bites, which will surely turn out to be numerous when she has the time to take inventory. But she runs.

XII. Conclusion and (Possibly) New Beginning

Even though it takes only a minute or two, she’s lightheaded and gasping for breath by the time she reaches the house. The dog’s breathing has evened out. Occasionally he makes a low-pitched sound unlike anything she’s ever heard before.

She lays the dog on the lawn as gently as possible, unhooks the leash and jams it into her pocket, then rushes into the garage and overturns one of the boxes, sending books sliding across the concrete floor. Then she places the dog in the box and puts the box in the foot space before the passenger-side front seat of the car. The dog is shivering, but the woman isn’t sure there’s time to run inside for a blanket. She grabs a towel from the corner of the garage and spreads it over the dog’s torso and legs.

The cover to her cell phone is cracked from the fall, but the phone still works. She Googles “pet emergency.” It turns out there’s one 24-hour pet emergency service in the city. It’s in a neighborhood she’s familiar with—no need to wait for GPS directions. The drive will take maybe fifteen minutes.

The stench from her pants leg fills the car immediately, but she leaves the windows closed because the dog is shivering. She drives fast but not so fast as to run the risk of being pulled over for speeding. She tries to avoid potholes and she slows for bumps. From time to time she reaches over to caress the dog, careful to avoid visibly injured areas, touching him only lightly for fear of worsening any internal damage. 

When she stops for a red light she reattaches the leash to the dog’s collar, even though she knows he’ll be carried, not walked, into the emergency center. As the light changes she feels the dog’s tongue against her hand. She doesn’t know whether he’s licking her or his tongue is simply lolling out in his extreme condition, but she whispers, “Good boy.”

As she drives, the woman tries to prepare for the night ahead. She hasn’t dared to look at her face in the rearview mirror, but she knows that the people at the animal emergency center will tell her to leave the dog with them and go to the nearest hospital’s emergency room right away. But she’s determined to stay until they’ve done whatever can be done for the dog, even if it takes all night and she has to wait outside in the cold. While she’s waiting she’ll text her daughters to tell them what has happened, then perhaps post something on Facebook in case anyone else might care to know. 

Once she knows for sure about the dog, she’ll go to the emergency room. And after that, there will be plenty of time—“And indeed there will be time” she says to herself with a weary smile—time to look in the mirror, accept her scars, tally up her losses, assess the fragments shored against her ruins, and try to figure out what, if anything, she has left, what she might still count on if she were somehow, against all odds, to try again.

Brian Sutton’s work has appeared in The Journal, Crack the Spine, Seventeen, and elsewhere. Four of his plays have been produced, including a musical comedy which won the Stage Rights / NYMF Publishing Award after a successful run on 42nd Street in New York. As a student at The University of Michigan he won three Hopwood Awards for Creative Writing.

Redhead 

Wolfgang Wright

Eric’s eighteenth birthday was right around the corner and his mother was getting on his case again about throwing him a party, even though he’d already told her a thousand times he didn’t want one.  And why would he?  By his own account he had exactly zero friends that lived in town and he could just imagine what his gaming buddies would say if he got down on his hands and knees and begged them to drop their controllers for a minute and cross state lines—or, in the case of Oddvar, an ocean—just for cake and ice cream.  So what was the point of having a party if no one was going to be there?  But his mother, as always, had her own “special” answer for that.

“We’ll invite my friends.  They like you.  They think you’re sweet.”

“But can’t you see how embarrassing that’ll be?  Everyone’s gonna be asking me why none of my friends are there.”

“We’ll tell them you already had that party.  This one’s just for grownups.  Plus, you’ll get lots of presents, and we’ll sing happy birthday, and play games—it’ll be fun!”

“No.  For the last time, I don’t want a party.”

“Well too bad, bucko, ’cause you’re getting one.”

The guests began arriving at noon.  Tom and Alice, the next-door neighbors whose lawn he mowed and driveway he shoveled, were the first to come sliding through the door, Alice carrying the present because Tom’s walker took both hands.  From the size and shape of the box, never mind the pastel blue wrapping paper, the present was most likely a sweater, something that Alice had knitted herself while watching Ellen or The Wheel.  Soon after Barbara appeared, his mother’s closest friend since high school, what his friends, had he any, would have called her BFF, though he generally thought of her as an aunt.  She’d brought with her the cake for the party, because the burnt odor of the one his mother had tried to make the day before still haunted the whole house. She’d left his present in the car, hoping that he wouldn’t mind being a doll and getting it for her.  He didn’t mind, thinking it could be the big surprise he’d overheard his mother discussing with her over the phone, though the heft of it, once he had it in his hands, suggested a book.  Then the other guests, all women, began filing in one-by-one, only two of which he’d ever met before.  They all said hello and wished him a happy birthday and then set their presents, mostly cards, on the coffee table in the living room, after which they moved into the dining room and began chatting with each other and laughing all while drinking wine from plastic cups.  Where were the men?  Who knew?  Maybe his mother had told her friends not to bring their husbands or boyfriends as a means of keeping her own boyfriends apart, since she couldn’t have invited the one without upsetting the other. Or maybe, like Barbara, they’d all had it up to here with men and were content to remain single for the rest of their lives.  As far as his father went, well, he was busy as usual, and couldn’t make the trip, though his presence was felt when his antique clock—the one Eric’s mother had fought so hard for in the divorce, purely out of spite, because she knew how much it meant to his father—cuckooed one o'clock.  At last, it was time to blow out the candles.

The guests sang happy birthday and jolly good fellow, and while they devoured the cake, they complimented Eric on how handsome he looked in the gray suit and maroon tie that his mother had forced him to wear. Compliments which sounded sincere, though because his neck and waist were literally stuffed inside this getup he felt fatter than usual, like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day.  Then came the questions, about how it felt to be an adult now and what his plans for the future were.  The first he answered with a shrug, because he didn’t know how else to respond.  Adultness, as far as he knew, wasn’t something you felt, but something arbitrarily assigned to you by the law.  And the second he answered with a joke, saying that he wanted to be a horse jockey, it garnered a good laugh, though when he told them the truth, that he was hoping to become a professional food critic, they laughed just as hard. It seemed to confirm his growing suspicion that the whole reason his mother had wanted to throw this party wasn’t to celebrate his birthday but to give her an excuse to entertain her friends, making him less the guest of honor and more the main attraction.  Doubt was cast, however, when the doorbell rang again and his mother, with a scheming grin, asked him to answer it, even though his face was stuffed with food and the guests were still showering him with questions.  He knew then that something else was up, something that was sure to be far more humiliating than having to perform like a dancing bear.

His first thought when he opened the door and saw a woman standing there in a low-cut skin-tight dress was that his mother had ordered him a hooker, though why she would have gone with someone her own age rather than his did as much to dispel the thought as the fact that his mother’s shamelessness was almost never to his benefit.  And in truth, the neckline wasn’t all that low, not even to the bottom of the breastbone, but in comparison to the mock turtles and sweater cuts her other friends had worn, to see any skin at all in that area was a shock to the system.  Not to mention the size of her breasts, which were huge, like something out of a porno or one of his video games rather than anything he’d ever seen in real life.  On top of that she had an attractive face, with soft brown eyes, a dimpled chin, and lightly-freckled cheeks, features he could have sworn he’d on a single face before but was unable to recall exactly whose it was with this other face so vividly before him, glowing like honey in the sun.  It was she, however, this woman, who started in with the compliments.

“Damn, look at you,” she said, covering her cleavage with her hand.  “Your mother needs to update her photos, because they do not serve you well.  And just look at that suit on you.  Darcy, are you seeing this?”  She turned her head, searching for Darcy, who was not standing next to her, as she seemed to have assumed.  “Darcy?”

Darcy, as in Darcy Dupriez, as in the girl he’d had a crush on since freshman year, was just coming up the walk, indifferently shaking a package wrapped in polka-dotted paper, no bigger than her hand.  She was wearing a T-shirt that read “HANDS OFF” in big, bold letters and a pair of sexless gray sweatpants, in case words were not enough.  If she had heard her mother’s question—for the resemblance was apparent now, despite the difference in cup size—she chose to ignore it, preferring whatever she was doing on her phone to anything in her more immediate environment.

“You forgot the present, Valerie,” she snarled without looking up.

As if ashamed by it, her mother swiped the present away from her and buried it behind her back.  Then she laughed, a bit forcedly, and said, “Answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Why didn’t you tell me he was so handsome?”

“Who?”

“Eric.”

Finally, Darcy looked at him, in much the same way a disgusted child looks at a freshly crushed squirrel in the street.  It was a look he’d already seen on the faces of numerous girls at school, including her own, the few times that she had acknowledged his existence, and yet to see it from her now stung a whole lot deeper, perhaps because none of her peers were here, expecting her to regard him with such disdain; this was a look that she had chosen all on her own.

“He’s not,” she said.  “He’s not handsome, like, at all.”

Her mother frowned, and hunched forward a bit, negating the difference in their heights brought on by her heels.  “Show a little respect.  It’s his birthday for Chrissakes.  And besides, you’re wrong.  He’s very handsome.  And I just love your hair.  It’s so…so red.”  

Darcy snickered, her eyes already back on her phone.  “Yeah, that’s what they call him in school.  Redhead.”

“You know,” her mother went on, “I used to have a boyfriend who looked just like you.  A little taller maybe.  How tall are you?”

“Mother!  What are you doing?”

“Nothing.  I’m complimenting the birthday boy on his appearance.”

“Can we just go in already?  I have to pee.”

“Yes, Eric,” his mother said, coming up from behind.  She put a hand on his shoulder, clearly pleased with herself for having gotten the Dupriezes to come to the party, and acting as if he should be pleased with her as well.  “Why don’t you show your cute friend where the bathroom is, and I’ll take care of her mother.”

Someone was already using the bathroom on the main floor, so he led Darcy to the one upstairs.  Right away she turned and wrinkled her nose at him.  

“Phew, were you just in here?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?  Because it smells like ass.”

“It must have been someone else.”

“You mean one of your mom’s friends,” she said, and with a cruel grin, shut the door.

He glanced down the hallway at his own room and saw that his mother had closed the door on it.  He tried to think of what was behind the door, whether he had ever left anything out that would have tipped his mother off about his crush on Darcy, because he was certain that he’d never told her about it, had never even mentioned Darcy’s name to her.  In fact, he couldn’t remember repeating her name to anyone, not even Oddvar, who was always asking him whom he wanted to screw in his class, and if he could send pictures of her, or of any of his female classmates, because he had a thing for Americans.  Once, in one of his notebooks, he’d absentmindedly written her name down and put a heart next to it while listening to one of his teachers drone on about differentials or the imperfect subjunctive or some other pointless thing, but the second he realized what he’d done he erased it and then scribbled over it, hard, like he was trying to scratch it out rather than cover it up.  So how the hell had his mother figured it out?  Or had she? Maybe it was just dumb luck?  Maybe she just happened to meet Darcy’s mother at the grocery store, or the hair salon, and after finding out that “Val” had a daughter the same age as her son she’d whipped up a plan to get them together, wholly ignorant of his actual feelings for Darcy—because why should his feelings ever factor into anything his mother did?  After all, they hadn’t stopped her from throwing a party he didn’t want.

Suddenly, the bathroom door flung open.  

“Uh, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Were you listening to me go to the bathroom?”

“No.  I swear, I didn’t hear anything.”

Darcy closed in on him, allowing little room to breathe.  “Let’s get something straight, okay?  I only came to your stupid party because Val made me.  So if you even think of telling anyone at school I was here, I swear to God I’ll tell everyone I walked in on you while you were jerking off to kiddie porn.  Got it?”

By then the guests had crowded into the living room and were waiting for them to return.  Their mothers were seated on the couch, Eric’s hugging tightly to one arm cushion while Darcy’s was pressed up against the other, leaving the middle wide open for their children to nestle in between.  Eric paled at how brazen they were being, especially his own mother, who had obviously orchestrated the seating arrangements, but Darcy appeared to be indifferent to it all.  Tapping at her phone again, she plopped down right where she was, right on the bottom step of the stairs, kicked her legs out in front of her, and crossed them at the ankles.  And if this weren’t proof enough of just how little she cared about what was going on around her, she twirled one of her feet around in a circle, brushing with her big toe the tennis ball on the leg of Tom’s walker.  Wanting to avoid a scene, Eric rushed over to the couch and planted himself smack dab in the middle of the open cushion, equidistant from either mother, making it look as if everyone were in their proper places, then reached forward for one of the cards, and began to open it; but before he could even get the corner torn, his mother seized him by the forearm and urged him to slide over, all the while shooting a look across the couch at Darcy’s mother.

“Darce,” her mother said.

“What?”

“Put that thing away and come sit over here.”

“No thank you.”

“Don’t you want to sit with me?”

“Not really.”

“Well, do you want to drive your car next week?  Because I’d be happy to drive you and your friends around instead, especially that Jake friend of yours.”

“Fine,” Darcy said, and got up.  “God, what’s the big deal?” and after rounding the coffee table and squeezing herself into the open space, she looked up and down the entire right side of her body, making sure that nothing of hers was touching anything of Eric’s, even tugging on the baggy leg of her sweatpants so as to create a clear divide between them.

“Kids these days,” her mother said, apologizing to the others.  “The only thing they respond to are threats.”  

“In my day we used a belt,” Tom muttered, examining his walker for damage.  “That got them to think twice before disobeying their elders.”

“Well,” Eric’s mother said, clasping her hands together, “now that we’re all situated, why don’t we get started?  Eric?”

For the next several minutes Eric tore open wrapping paper, read aloud cards and passed them around, and thanked everyone individually for their present—and he was thankful, because almost everything he got was something that he actually wanted or could use.  Yes, there was that sweater from his neighbors, orange with a picture of a lion’s head embroidered into it, and a giant dictionary from Aunt Barbara, which he joked he could use to kill bugs, but he also received a wireless gaming headset, a vintage Return of the Jedi poster, a leather wallet with his initials engraved into it, a food subscription box from his father, and a high-end drone from his mother, which she told everyone she hoped would get him out of the house more often.  And just as he had hoped, most of the cards were filled with cash, more than he was expecting, and those that weren’t contained gift cards to his favorite restaurants, which was just as good.  All told, it was the most lucrative birthday he’d ever had, and if it weren’t for how stilted and uncomfortable the party itself was, he might have actually turned to his mother and thanked her for having bullied him into it.

“Only I don’t think I’ve opened your present yet, Mrs. Dupriez.”

“Yeah, Val,” Darcy said, suddenly perking up, “where’d it go?”

“You know what?” her mother replied, looking around as if not entirely sure where she’d put it.  “Silly me, I…I think I brought the wrong present.”

But her daughter was suspicious.  “Whose did you bring?”

“Cli—Uncle Clifford’s.”

“Uncle Cliff’s birthday isn’t for another six months.”

“Yes, but I bought his present ahead of time.”

“And wrapped it?”

“Yes.”

“So you bought him something in advance, which you never do, and wrapped it in paper with polka dots of different colors on it, even though he’s color blind?”

“I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“You’re lying.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Dupriez,” Eric interjected, hoping to put an end to the badgering; but Darcy was on to something, and she wasn’t about to let up.

“No,” she barked at him.  “If I have to participate, then she has to participate,” and she swung her head around in the other direction.  “Give him his present, mother, or I swear to God I’ll—”

“Alright,” her mother said, reaching for the present, which she’d stuffed into the corner of the couch.  “It’s not a big deal, really.”  

Still, she laughed nervously when she handed it over, this small, fist-sized box that was partly mashed now, with its paper all crinkly and torn on one corner.  And right away Eric ripped into it, wanting to move on as quickly as possible to whatever the next torture was that his mother had in store for him, thinking the whole time that the present was just going to be something he didn’t want, that “Val” was just trying to protect him from having to make a phony thank you to her, because in spite of having conspired with his own mother, she didn’t seem quite as awful.  It never occurred to him that the present might be something inappropriate.

“What is it?” Barbara asked.  She was seated in a foldout chair next to his mother, and had to lean forward in order to make out what everyone else had already grown silent because of—not out of horror perhaps, but certainly because they didn’t know quite how to respond to a box of extra-large condoms, ribbed for her pleasure.  And neither did Eric, which was why he said nothing at first, opening the way for someone else to speak.

“Valerie,” his mother whispered, “I think you misunderstood.  When I said we should try and set them up, I didn’t mean—”

“Wait.  What?”

“No, it’s, it’s a joke,” Valerie pleaded, ignoring her daughter’s biting glare, which wasn’t something she’d be able to quell with words anyway.  More pressing were the looks of the others, including the confused look on the birthday boy himself.  “You know, a gag gift.”

“You wanted me to go out with him?  Him?”

“Anyway, it’s just the box,” and she swiped it back from Eric, who made no effort to stop her.  She then opened the lid and flashed everyone the cash that was inside before reclosing the lid and handing it back.  “Obviously I wasn’t going to give a kid a box of condoms.”

But Eric knew better.  He knew from the weight of the box that the money was just something that she had slipped on top, unless there was a lot of cash in it.  And he figured Darcy must know it, too, from having held the box herself, and if she were given a second to think about it, she might remember how it had felt in her hand and say something to make her mother feel even worse.  And so, seeing as it was his birthday, he decided to throw himself on the grenade instead.

“Actually, I’m not a kid anymore,” he said.  “So if you’ve got any.  Anyone?  You’d really be helping me out here.  I can’t wait to start having some sex.”

Tom was the first to laugh, and then shortly after his wife, whose  seniority seemed to allow the other women to let loose as well.  Soon, the whole room was in stitches, even his own mother was laughing, though it wasn’t entirely clear she got the joke—so that, by the end, only Darcy refused to join in, preferring instead to sit back, roll her eyes, and mope.

The condoms went with him to his room.  So did Darcy, oddly without objecting, perhaps because it was his mother, and not hers, who had asked her to help carry the presents, though Eric suspected some other, more sinister reason for her sudden willingness to comply.  And in fact, as soon as she dropped the cards, wallet, and dictionary onto his desk, she began looking around his room, as if probing for something she could use to make fun of him, either now or sometime down the road.  Luckily, there wasn’t much for her to work with, because other than his action figures, posed upon every flat surface available, his room was fairly ordinary, not unlike any other teenage boy’s, and even they—the action figures—were clearly being used as decoration, and not for regular play.  But that hardly deterred her, because somebody had to suffer for her having to be here, didn’t they?  And who better than him?

“So, you’ve never had sex,” she said.

“What?”

“You heard me.  You’re a virgin.”

He ignored her, or tried to.  He laid out everything he was carrying onto the bed, then grabbed the new headset and took it over to the TV.  He got down on his knees and unhooked the old headset from the game console, and after wrapping the cord around the earcups, set it aside and hooked up the new one.

“I bet no one’s even kissed you before, huh?”

Again, he didn’t answer her.  He put the new headset over his ears and adjusted the headband until it felt comfortable and then fiddled with the microphone in order to get it the right distance away from his mouth.  Then he turned on the TV and sat Indian-style against the bed, thinking that maybe if he began to play a game that might encourage her to leave.  Instead, she came around and stood in front of him, so close that her feet were underneath his uplifted legs.  He saw that she had one of the condoms in her hand, still in its wrapper.  She leaned over and began flicking his nose with it.

“Eric the Redhead sitting in a tree, j-e-r-k-i-n-g.”

He tried to turn away from her, but she persisted.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Stop doing that.” 

He snatched the condom from her and flung it across the room.

“Geez, Redhead,” she laughed.  “I’m just having a little fun.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?  Redhead?  But that’s your nickname.”

“No, it’s not.  People only call me that when they’re making fun of me.”

“And you think I’m making fun of you?”

“Why don’t you just leave?”

“Am I making you uncomfortable, Redhead?”

“I told you you can go, so go.  That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

She placed her hands on her knees and leaned over, face-to-face.  “Maybe.  Or maybe what I want is to strip off all my clothes, get down on my hands and knees, crawl over to that condom, and bring it back to you between my teeth.  Is that what you want, too, Eric?”

He tried not to but he began to cry.  He closed his eyes and brought his hand up and wiped away the tears as they began to trickle onto his cheeks.  Darcy laughed.  She flicked his forehead and stood up.  When he reopened his eyes, she was already by the door.

“See you at school, Redhead.”

Oddvar was online, exploring the mountains of Bagu for warlocks and hidden treasure, and so Eric joined him, crossing the Lunga River to get there.  Oddvar’s avatar, a muscular mutant penguin, waved at him, then went back to slaying a magical boar.

“Ah, it’s E-man to the rescue!” he exclaimed as orange blood oozed out around his sword.  “Happy birthday!  How was the party?”

“Well, nobody’s died yet,” Eric said, and after examining their surroundings for further danger, he caught his friend up to speed, being careful to leave Darcy’s name out of it, because though the odds that anything he said to his Scandinavian friend would make it back to the states were pretty slim, having seen how malicious Darcy could be if the mood were to strike her, he wasn’t about to take any chances.  Instead, he skipped over her completely and went straight to the part about the condoms.

“I do not understand,” Oddvar replied.  “A friend of your mother gave you condoms?  Is this custom in America?”

Eric laughed.  “No, it’s like a gag gift.  Like a joke.  Like funny ha-ha.”

“People laughed?”

“No, we were all freaked out about it.  At least I was.”

“And this made people laugh?”

“No.  Nobody laughed, dude, at least not till I said something funny, and then that made everything cool again.”

“What did you say?”

“That I could use some condoms right now.”

“But you said she gave you some.”

Eric shook his head to no one.  “Look, just forget it, okay?  I obviously didn’t tell it right.”

“Obviously not,” Oddvar said, and laughed.  “What will you do with them?”

“The condoms?  I don’t know.  Why, you got any bright ideas?”

“Mail them to me.”

“Yeah, right.  Like they’d fit you.  Based on the size of that sword you’re wielding, you’re clearly overcompensating for something.”

“Or displaying my wares.  Displaying wares?  Is that a phrase?”

“Not from this millennium.  Actually, I kind of want to try one on just to see.”

“Do it.”

“What?  You mean like now?”

“What can it hurt?”

“My ego, that’s what.  Also, everyone’s still here.  What if someone walks in on me?”

“Put your back on the door.”  

Eric’s avatar, a giant lizard-like creature, paused on the mountain they were climbing together.  “You really think I should?”

“I shall wait here and enjoy the view.”

“I’m not sending you pictures.”

“The view of Bagu.”

“Oh, right.  Alright, hold on.”

He set down his controller and retrieved the condom he’d thrown across the room, then got up and walked over to the door.  It wasn’t completely latched from when Darcy had strutted out, so he quietly closed it the rest of the way and then leaned his back against it.  Cautiously, he tore open the wrapper and extracted the condom, holding it close to his eye like a monocle.

“How is it going?” Oddvar asked.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“It’s for your own good.”

Laughing, Eric tossed the wrapper into his wastebasket.  He began by unrolling the condom by working at the rolled-up part itself, but when that felt like it was taking forever, he stuck his middle and index finger inside of the condom and then rolled it over them like he’d seen kids in health classes on TV roll condoms down bananas, although once he reached his knuckles, he took the condom off and reverted back to the way he’d been doing it before.

“It’s actually not as round as I thought it was going to be,” he said, holding it up by the reservoir tip.  “Although the length is a mouthful.”

“Don’t put it in your mouth.”

“Gee, thanks.  I’ll bear that in mind.”

He undid his jeans, then pulled them and his underwear down to just below his crotch and slipped the condom on.

“Does it fit?”

“Like a glove, what do you think?  I don’t even have a boner.”

“We should travel to the Waker Inn.”

“Yeah, because those blue-skinned chicks that work there really do it for me.”

They both laughed—though Eric’s laughter was quickly cut off by a knock at the door.

“What was that?” Oddvar asked, but Eric didn’t answer him.  Instead, while rapidly doing up his pants, he spoke to the door, pressing his back even harder against it.

“Who, who is it?”

“Val.  Darcy’s mom.”

He thought she’d say something else, like why the hell she was knocking on his door, but when she didn’t, he rushed back to the floor, picked up his controller, and pretended like he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“Come in.”

She opened the door just far enough to stick her head in.  “Your mother wanted me to tell you we’re getting ready to play murder mystery now.”

“All right, tell her I’ll be down in a minute, thanks.”

She turned her head, like she was going to leave, then stuck it back in again, lowering her voice.  “She’s a real piece of work, isn’t she?”

“Who?  My mom?”  He tried not to smile.  “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Would ‘bitch’ be another?”

Now he couldn’t help himself.  “You said it, not me.”

“Yeah well, I have my own handful to deal with.”  

She paused now, as if not sure what next to do or say.  She seemed to spot something, and came into the room.  Leaning over, she reached into the wastebasket and pulled out the condom wrapper.  She looked around the room, as if for the condom itself, and when she didn’t see it, looked directly at him.  As soon as their eyes made contact, he looked away from her, his face suddenly redder than his hair.  

“You know,” she said, “I wasn’t lying about that boyfriend.”

He glanced in her direction, at her feet.  “What?”

She sat on the edge of his desk and rubbed the wrapper between her fingers.  “I really did have a boyfriend who looked like you.  Treated me like a princess, too, which is why I broke up with him.  I wouldn’t expect you to understand.  Some girls, they think all they deserve is to be treated like dirt.  And luckily for us, there’s plenty of guys out there happy to do so.  What about you?  Is that how you’d treat Darcy if you were dating her?  Like dirt?”

He waited for as long as he could, until the silence became too much to bear.  “No.”

“Not like she’d ever let you have the chance.”

He shook his head.  “No.”

“You’re better off anyway.  She’d just make you miserable.”

“She already does that.”

She laughed.  “That’s because she’s like me.  She doesn’t know a good thing when she sees it.”

Finally, Eric raised his eyes to her.  They stared at each other, searchingly, until his mother came to the open door.

“Eric?”  She looked at them, suspicious.  “What’s going on?”

Darcy’s mother stood up, and without drawing attention to it, curled her fingers around the condom wrapper, concealing it entirely.  “Eric was just showing me his video game.”

“He can play that later,” his mother said, frowning.  “C’mon, Eric, everyone’s downstairs waiting on you.  Except for Darcy—I don’t know where she’s gone.”

Darcy’s mother groaned.  “Ugh, I’ll find her,” and she whisked out of the room like someone was chasing her out.

“C’mon, Eric.  Chop, chop.”

“Fine, just let me say goodbye to Odd.”

“And do me a favor.”

“That’s what I was born for.”

“Put that sweater on.  Alice thinks you don’t like it.”

“Gee, I wonder what gave her that impression.”

Oddvar, who’d heard everything, was certain that Darcy’s mother—or, as he called her, “that woman with the sexy voice”—wanted Eric’s bones, and that if his own mother hadn’t interrupted them, “you’d have your winky inside of her as we speak.”  Eric laughed, but denied his friend’s take on things, saying that it hadn’t felt like that in the room.  Afterward, however, when he had signed off and was changing into the sweater, the possibility continued to linger in his mind.  He started to get nervous about seeing her again, and wondered what he should say to her when he did.  But it was all in vain, because when he got downstairs, into the basement, she wasn’t there.

“Where are they?” he asked his mother, because Darcy was missing, too.

“Beats me,” his mother shrugged.  She seemed frustrated, and was pulling at her dress.

“I’ll go look,” Eric said to her, and ran off before she could object.  

As he reached the main floor, he heard voices coming from outside.  He pushed the curtain back and peered out the living room window.  Darcy was seated on the passenger side of a car parked across the end of the driveway, while her mother was standing right beside her, on the other side of the door, yanking at the handle.  She was yelling at Darcy to get her ass back in the house, but Darcy was refusing, and was holding on tight from the inside.  He could hear her repeating what he had said to her, about her being free to leave, and he was astonished by how immature, how childish she seemed, and couldn’t believe that he had ever had a crush on her.  Her mother, on the other hand, just looked like a beautiful mess.  He wanted to go out and help her in some way but didn’t know how, wasn’t sure that there was a way to help; not all problems can be solved.  Finally, she gave up, walked around the car, hopped in the driver’s seat, and drove away.  

“Did you find them?” his mother asked, just coming up the stairs.

“They left,” he said, letting the curtains go.

“Now why would they do that?”  She came to the window to have her own look, then glared askance at him.  “What did you say to them?”

“What?  Nothing.”

“Eric.”

“I didn’t say anything, I swear.”

She frowned, clearly dubious, but what could she do?  “Well, c’mon then.  We still have other guests to entertain.”

It was only then, as he was making his way back into the basement, that he remembered he was still wearing the condom.  He could feel the latex against his penis, wriggling loosely around in his underwear, and as his mother went about explaining the rules to everyone, and handing out assignments, a sense of calm washed over him.  He smiled to himself, knowing that he held this secret, and that none of the others in the room, not even his mother, could take it away.

Wolfgang Wright is the author of the carnivalesque Me and Gepe and the forthcoming science fiction novel Being. His short fiction has appeared (or will shortly be appearing) in Waccamaw, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and Fleas on the Dog, among others. Recently, he underwent an Eastern-style awakening, putting him on the path to full enlightenment. He lives in North Dakota.

 TUG

Ben Harris

It is Monday and the sun’s been up for two hours. The Monday magic that ever inspires me is in its shimmering glory. I got much pep in my step approaching the tiny Greyhound bus depot; my visit here this time I chalk up a sweet success. I had walked the streets of my old haunts and stood before the boarding house I roomed in, still standing but vacant now, with overgrown weeds. But sweetest of all is that I made cursory contact with my lover from that former time. I’d met her on day one, then. We’d become fast friends, she took me on daily tours of the neighborhoods, and sang to me at night. Though I had not seen her during this two-day visit, I did encounter two people who gave me pleasant updates, and promised to pass my phone number to her.

My bus is scheduled to depart in less than one hour, and it hasn’t arrived yet. I turn from the sidewalk and go inside the depot for a casual look-around and to catch a cool draft of AC. I already have my return ticket to leave this university town I hadn’t set eyes on in nearly twenty years. I used to be a student here and I’d missed the collegiate atmosphere, still palpable now. I ache with remembrance.

I exit the depot and this time I pay attention to the few fellow travelers huddled about and those seated in cars awaiting arrivals. There are no conversations, we’re all strangers. I am anxious to board, get seated and lean back for some needed rest, and meditate on this venture. Then I see someone I feel I need to know.

She sits atop the newspaper vending cage right at the corner of the lot, a carry-on bag lies against her perch. It’s hard to not pay attention to her, all alone where she is. She seems to be acting a role. I try to eye her secretly. But after a while she has my undivided attention. Large sunglasses accessorize a blue sweatsuit and her midriff is uncovered, revealing a silver ring in her navel. Her movements are fluid, and I am impressed that she’s quite satisfied in her aloneness. She’s at play with the aura that envelops her lean body. Right now, she radiates tranquility as she examines her manicured fingernails and sandalled feet. I determine then that her body is her currency.

I feel drawn. I walk with military precision right up to the vending cage. I stand facing her and I can barely make out the amused pupils behind the gray-tinted glasses.

You know, I feel a tug coming from you. Like I am in your orbit—or, maybe you’re in my orbit, like the moon to the earth.

She smiles. You’re the moon.

Perhaps, I say. Where are you headed?

She takes a moment. Then, Alabama.

Where in Alabama?

Montgomery. I live there. I am on my way back. Been here a week.

The city of Rosa Parks.

And others, she interjects.

What brings you to this town?

She tosses her tresses like I’ve crossed a line. A little, um, recreation. With friends, okay?

I tell her about my visit here, that I was a university student. I gush about the good times I had here. I mention my old lover and how she helped me to navigate the terrain, and how I had wanted to reconnect.

Don’t talk about her.

I am stopped cold at her insistence. But I recover quickly. My eyes sweep over her. I look at her face, her midriff, then her feet. When I am looking at her feet, she stretches out her legs, likely to give me better vantage. You’re supple.

She squeals with delight. Supple! What a word.

You represent womankind so well, you’re on the menu.

Oooh, her mouth makes an oh. She pulls her glasses down over her nose. The whites of her eyes bespeak good health. You got any money?

I don’t feel put upon, and her bluntness puts me at ease. I am sure she’s simply needing to measure my worthiness, as women are wont to do. I deftly extract my wallet. Right here, I point at the slit behind the plastic cards, is where I keep my big bills. I show her the edges of three C-notes. And in the main compartment Is where the other bills are. See?

She only glances at the bills. Give me some money.

I don’t even know your name.

You do. You’ve forgotten already? It’s Earth. She laughs uproariously. She has strong teeth. Now I see linear indentations at her mouth’s corners. I stare.

Whaat? she pleads.

You’ve got dimples there. You are interesting. And arresting.

You, too. Then she puts up her hand like a traffic cop. Don’t come so close.

I suddenly realize that I am indeed two feet from her face. I take three steps back.

Not that far, she chides. She’s more relaxed now. What do you do?

Adult literacy. You know, help people who got reading problems.

Hmm.

I help people, too. And I enjoy life.

By the way, I write stories about interesting people.

She perks up, almost at attention. You write books?

No, stories. You can google an online magazine and see. I tell her the name of the magazine.  It’s the Black Lives Matter issue, I tell her, placing one hand behind her on the vending cage for balance.

Don’t touch me.

I’m not.

You were going to. I can be cold, and I can be hot, she says without rancor.

A Greyhound bus pulls into the lot. It’s my bus. My bus is here, I tell her, with some regret.

Give me some money, Mister Moon, she says again, and puts her dimples on display.

I again extract my wallet. I’ll give you ten dollars, I say, holding the bill in my hand.

Ten dollars! She is beside herself.

Yes, and I stuff the ten-dollar bill into her purse that’s straddling her shoulder. I tell her to punch my number into her cell phone. She does. Then I take my notebook from my backpack and ask her to jot down her name and address.

She looks nosily into my belongings. What’s that? she asks.

That’s the cap I had on yesterday. See, I spilled wine on it. I take the cap and show her the name of my city and the city’s logo stitched on.

I want it.

It’s discolored with red wine.

I want it. She snatches it, and I’m fine with that.

The announcement for me to board is heard. Kiss me here, I offer my right cheek. She gives me a light peck. I poke her midriff, then turn to board my bus. I take a seat that gives me a view of her. She is examining the cap she snatched and placing it atop her head.  I am glad she has the cap. The bus is slowly moving onto the highway, and I can still see her, at play with the aura that envelops her.

Internalization

Marquita Hockaday

There was more than just one thing that caused the tension to overflow between Tiffany and Noel that night. Weeks, possibly months, of small encounters swelled into fists, hair pulling, and broken shot glasses. But none of them knew it would end with one of them in handcuffs.

The evening started off like any of their other planned “girls’ nights out.” Every other Saturday, they would meet up and pre-game at one of their houses. This weekend, it was Noel’s.  They spent the first part of the night on the balcony of Noel’s apartment, taking shots of Fireball, joking about (some of) their nonexistent relationships, and wallowing over the jobs that each one of them hated. It’s what bonded them. The mundane days (and sometimes evenings) they spent logging hours at Henry Clay Community College. The terrible dates they went on to try and find someone decent to spend some time with — all of them but Tiffany. She was newly married and had just had a baby, but every one of them knew she wasn’t happy about her new life.

“Did you ever figure out who did it?” Angie asked, sitting her shot glass on Noel’s small plastic picnic table. The dark black paint had started to chip and there was bird shit all over the thing, but Noel refused to upgrade her outdoor decor. Even when Tiffany offered to give her an old patio set she was about to get rid of a few months ago when her and the hubby upgraded their patio furniture.

That was one of the many arguments Noel and Tiffany had. Noel felt Tiffany was “talking down to her” and “trying to show off.” Tiffany thought Noel was “being ungrateful” and “always trying to pretend she was better than everyone.”

Tiffany shook her head, her gold hoop earrings hitting her cheeks. “Not like it matters. What can I do about it? I mean, like one of the lame-ass bosses is gonna care that someone ate my leftover sub? And anyway, I hope whoever did eat it gets dysentery or something. That tuna had been in there for a good three days.” Tiffany laughed before throwing back the rest of her shot.

Angie couldn’t help but laugh, too. Tiffany was always hoping something bad would happen to someone, including her own husband of two years. Angie didn’t get why Tiffany wasn’t appreciative of her new marriage. Angie would’ve given anything to find a match, someone who understood her, someone to come home and cuddle with every night like Tiffany had. Instead, Angie spent her nights swiping left and right on different dating apps.

“Well, if it were me, I would’ve demanded that everyone open up and say mother fucking ‘ah’,” Noel shouted, pouring more Fireball in each girl’s shot glass.

Roni, who had been silent as she sat in one of the plastic chairs, glanced over the balcony and finally chuckled before saying, “How long are we gonna talk about this?” She held up her Fitbit. “Can we get going? I think Angie said the place opened over an hour ago. I want to get good seats.”

Tiffany turned to Roni, rolling her eyes. Roni was always getting on Tiffany’s nerves. She was the buzzkill in the group. Keeping dibs on how much someone was drinking, pointing out when her friends should reign it in — just in case someone from work might be around, calling out when someone shouldn’t be flirting because they just got married... And anyway, Tiffany wasn’t particularly excited about karaoke. She hated whenever Angie got to pick the activities. She was always picking corny shit. Tiffany would rather stay at Noel’s all night and drink. That way she could get stupid drunk and have an excuse not to go home.

“One more drink,” Tiffany said.

Noel frowned after pulling her braids into a bun on the top of her head. “Think you’ve had enough, mama.” She laughed to herself.

Tiffany didn’t join in.

“Oh, shit,” Angie muttered.

That was how the arguments always started between Tiffany and Noel. One of them said something that was supposed to be a passive-aggressive joke and the other took it literally.

Angie didn’t know when things changed between Tiffany and Noel. Was it when Tiffany got married and had her baby, or was it when Noel got the promotion to the Dean’s office?

“Excuse me?” Tiffany asked, turning to Noel. There was barely any space between them on Noel’s small balcony. Tiffany was close enough to Noel to smell the knockoff  Kim Kardashian perfume that Noel dabbed behind her ears and on her neck. “Are you judging me? I left my baby at home, okay? And she’s doing just fine.”

“Jesus,” Roni said as she stood. She knew that once Tiffany got on her soapbox she could stay up there for hours and if they waited any longer, she would be forced to stay out much later than she intended. All Roni wanted to do was go home, put on her pajamas, and watch the Lifetime movie of the week. But this tradition they’d started four years ago was something they’d locked themselves into and all found it hard to unravel.

“Girl, please,” Noel said, smirking. “No one is judging you.” She laughed a bit. “If you thought I was talking about your parenting, that's your own demons.” She tried to turn around; her finger almost reached the handle of the balcony door. “Can someone go ahead and get an Uber?”

Tiffany grabbed Noel’s shoulder. “What’d you say?”

Angie winced. “Tiff, come on. You told me you’ve been dying to sing that new H.E.R song. They probably got it. And you know people say you look like her... especially with that curly ass wig.” Angie was the only one who laughed at that point.

“You’ve been coming for me for weeks now.” Tiffany ignored Angie, not letting go of Noel. “Say what you gotta say.”

Noel looked down at her shoulder, rolled her eyes, and shrugged Tiffany off. “I know you better stop acting like a ghetto-ass hood rat in my house.”

Roni sucked in a breath and then tried her best to squeeze past Angie and get between the girls. She cursed herself for not starting Atkins like she intended this past year. She also couldn’t help but wonder if this argument was punishment for eating Tiffany’s tuna sub. Despite her original goal of stopping the girls from getting in each other’s faces, Roni found herself staring at her reflection in Noel’s balcony glass doors. She wished she hadn’t decided to wear the burgundy sweater dress and leggings. She could see the extra pound cake slice she indulged in the night before in her thighs.

In the flash of a few seconds while Roni scrutinized her waist and legs, Tiffany had grabbed Noel’s braids and yanked her head back. “What the hell you call me?”

“Oh my God!” Angie cried and stepped back.

Roni was frozen, still looking at her thighs. She blinked and then tried reaching for the girls. But the fight was already in motion. Tiffany had Noel’s hair in both hands and pulled her down on the plastic picnic table, pummeling her face with her fist. Noel cried out, reaching for whatever she could, knocking down the shot glasses that sat on top of the table.

Angie cowered in a corner, covering her hand with her mouth. Roni finally snapped out of it and grabbed Tiffany around the waist, pulling her away from Noel. Tiffany came away from Noel with braids gripped in her fists. Angie rushed to Noel, helping her up from the table as she tried to avoid the broken shot glasses. Noel’s face was bloody, bright red, and tear-stained. They all stood still for a few seconds.

And then they heard the sirens.

Noel’s neighbor had called the cops after hearing the disturbance. The girls tried to say they were fine, everything was good, but after Noel started crying again, Tiffany lost it.

“You high-yellow heffa! What the hell are you crying about? You got it all! Good job, no man to cook for, no baby that took over your body and made you look like this!” Tiffany grabbed at her loose stomach. “And now you’re crying? Why because this dark-skinned hood rat kicked your ass?”

Roni tried calming Tiffany, but Tiffany wouldn’t stop. Tiffany hurled insults at Noel about her lifestyle, about her job in the Dean’s office, about her skin tone, about her fit body, all the things that Tiffany hated about her own life. Angie tried to stop Tiffany, too, but Tiffany was out of control. Everything she’d held in for the last six months and wanted to say to Noel, to everyone, to life, came out at that moment.

And Tiffany continued as the cop handcuffed her and walked her to the patrol car.

The Paper Files

Jeffrey Grimyser

Rich came in for the all-staff meeting first, as always. He sat on one side of the conference table. He lurched over a chair, wrapping his long fingers around the headrest and glaring down with beady eyes, like a perched vulture. 

Upon arriving, Gretchen crossed her arms, Gina checked her phone, and Pete pretended as if he wasn’t late. All three sat on the other side of the table. Anthony took the chair in the corner, beside the trash and recycling baskets. Detective Taylor stood behind Mr. Lee, at the center of the table.

“You’re all here, people,” Mr. Lee said, “because someone stole files from my office last night after I left.” 

Rich clapped his hand over his mouth. The others stayed silent, except for Anthony, who gasped.

“I want them back, now,” Mr. Lee said. “Anyone know who did it?”

No one answered.

“So be it,” Mr. Lee said and turned around. “That’s why I hired her, Private Detective Taylor. You’re all going to sit with her and answer questions. Understood?” 

Everyone mumbled “Yeah,” except for Rich who answered “Yes.” But they all inspected Detective Taylor, either with a direct frown or a side-eyed glance.

“Detective,” Mr. Lee said, “need anything before you start?”

“No,” Detective Taylor said.

“Good. Who goes first?”

“How about the order they came to this meeting?”

“Fine. And people, let me say this.” Mr. Lee pointed at everyone. “If I find out one of you is hiding something from me, even if you didn’t do anything, you’re getting fired too.”

Detective Taylor found Rich in his office with his back to the door. He was reclining in a leather chair, sipping carbonated mineral water, and reading a business management book. 

“Mr. Rogers,” Detective Taylor said. “Please come with me.”

Rich scratched his neck, a nervous habit he’d developed as an unpopular teen, then followed her into the conference room. 

Before sitting, Rich checked his watch and sighed. He was thin and big-nosed, with an Italian suit and curly wet hair and designer vintage glasses.

“How come you’re not upset by all this?” Detective Taylor said.

“I am upset,” Rich said, “that I am being interviewed by you, Miss.”

“It’s Detective Taylor. And from what Mr. Lee tells me, only you two have keys to the front door. That true?”

Rich smiled when he felt the keys in his pocket. “Would you like some of my homemade oatmeal cookies?” he said. “I must lose weight.”

Detective Taylor wiped her clammy forehead. Rich kept the room hot.

“Answer my question,” Detective Taylor said. 

“No one to my knowledge,” Rich replied. 

“Not the three associates or the assistant?”

“Again, no one to my knowledge.”

“Any other way inside the firm besides the front door?”

Rich rolled his eyes. “Perhaps someone teleported through the walls.”

“Mr. Rogers,” Detective Taylor said, “the theft occurred after the firm was closed, there’s one door, and only you and Mr. Lee had keys. Maybe you should start cooperating.”

Rich began to sweat. “Is there a question?”

“How could someone have gotten inside?”

“I am unsure, but then again, I lack the deductive reasoning training of a police detective. Are you not one?”

“Let’s back up,” Detective Taylor said. “Walk me through your day yesterday.”

“I opened the firm at 6 am and left at 5 pm.”

“And last night?”

“I was rehearsing for a play. I am Hamlet, the lead, if you are unaware.”

“And after?” 

“My wife and I went out for white truffle pasta.” Rich rubbed his forehead. “Would you like her number to confirm my whereabouts?”

“No. So the next time you came back to the office was 6 am this morning?”

“Correct. The associates might require extra time to complete their work, but I do not.”

Detective Taylor examined her notes. “What would happen if Mr. Lee’s files were never found?”

“He may have trouble retaining his clients. Mr. Lee preferred to keep paper documents, despite my advice.”

“What if he loses too many clients?”

“Perhaps he might retire. He is of that age. But that would be a worst-case scenario.”

“Okay. Let’s say that happens. What happens to the firm’s profits?”

“They would be divested to any remaining partners.”

“How many are there besides him?”

“Only me,” Rich said.

“So that’s pretty good for you, isn’t it?”

“No. Your scenario implies a loss for the firm, of which I own 25 percent.”

“Is it true Mr. Lee is the founding partner and you’re just the junior?”

“I believe you know the answer to that question.”

“You two ever disagree over how to run the firm?”

“No. He and I may have discussions about how to increase our profits, but a discussion is not a disagreement.” 

Detective Taylor nodded. Rich smirked as if saying, nice try. 

“Detective, my current possession of the keys is circumstantial evidence.” Rich steepled his fingers. “Do you have anything else to support what is obviously an allegation of my guilt?”

“Hm. That sounds like deductive reasoning. I don’t think I have the training for that.”

“I did not take Mr. Lee’s files. He is like a father to me. That will become abundantly clear to you once you begin your investigation.”

“What should I investigate then?”

“Gretchen. She has always carried a vendetta against me. Interrogate her.”

Gretchen was by far the oldest associate and looked it, with a wrinkled face that only seemed to grimace and dyed black hair that didn’t hide white roots. In her black jacket, shirt, pants, and boots, she sat in the conference room without saying hello or making eye contact.

“I heard Rich stole the files,” Gretchen said. 

“There’s a rumor about it?” Detective Taylor said.

“I don’t like rumors.”

“Okay. Why don’t you tell me where you were last night?” 

“Not here.”

“Where then?”

“I don’t have to answer that,” Gretchen said. “You’re not a cop. You can’t file criminal charges.”

“Well, Mr. Lee hired me to investigate.”

“If Mr. Lee wants to know about my personal life, then he can ask me himself. All you need to know is that I was with two friends who can verify, if necessary.”

Detective Taylor sat down. “Why would Rich steal the files? He’s a partner, so wouldn’t that hurt him too?”

Gretchen snickered. “Rich gets more control.”

“Care to explain?”

“Losing the files makes Mr. Lee look incompetent. His clients will likely get new representation. Rich then has more of the firm’s clients. Hence, more control.”

“But there’s a huge risk if Mr. Lee finds out.”

“Which is why I bet Rich is pissed you’re here.”

The corner of Gretchen’s mouth raised slightly.

“What do you think of Mr. Lee?” Detective Taylor said.

“He stays out of my way.”

“And Rich?”

“The opposite. Everything is about him. He thinks clients love his charm. It’s actually because we’re the only firm in town.”

“Could you see someone else stealing the files?”

“Maybe Gina. She argues with Rich about the firm’s expenses. We’ve all heard it.”

“Would you benefit if Rich were gone?”

“No,” Gretchen said. “I’m 64. I’ll never make partner.”

“Maybe there’s no financial reason, but what about personally if you knew Rich would get blamed for it?”

“Says the younger woman.” Gretchen looked at Detective Taylor for the first time. “You know how much harder I’ve had to work than the average man? How often I’ve been talked down to because of my gender? How many times they’ve been promoted over me for no reason? Every step of my career. But you know what’s not happening? Me losing my damn retirement benefits.”

After a moment, Gretchen said, “Are we done? You and I both have work to do.”

The firm had no cameras but an alarm system for the front door. The unusual thing Detective Taylor noticed was the only person who ever logged into the system was Gina, an associate, not Mr. Lee. 

Detective Taylor pulled out a chair but Gina refused to sit. She was a short woman with a layered bob, a crimson suit, white heels, and a beautiful yet fake smile. She was a pleasure to look at, at least.

“Have you contacted the authorities?” Gina said. “Our firm will be damaged if you do.”

“That’s your primary concern?” Detective Taylor said.

“Money? Yes. It’s why I assume someone would do your job.”

“What time did you finish working yesterday and what were—”

“My activities after?” Gina said. “I left at 5 pm and then I went rollerblading with my family.”

“Tell me about them.”

“I have four kids, a stay-at-home husband, and his two elder parents living with us. I also have a dog if you’re interested.”

“Seems like quite a household to support.”

Gina tapped her nails on the table. “It is,” she said.

“You’re in charge of the firm’s security?”

“Yes. And I’ve told Rich many times to spend more on it, instead of gifts for clients, but that’s all he cares about.” 

“And the alarm never went off last night?”

“Yes. I checked it this morning.”

“Anyone else understand IT around here besides you?”

“Pete. He somehow logs in remotely to make it look like he’s working from home when he’s not. He’s fishy like that.”

“What do you think of Mr. Lee?” Detective Taylor said.

“He’s a smart businessman, building this firm from the ground up. It’s more than I can say for others.”

“That a reference to Rich?”

“No, I was just speaking generally. But Rich does act like he owns the place, even though he became partner only six months ago.”

“Is he good at his job?”

“He works hard, but he spends all the firm’s capital on gobbling up local clients, sometimes even Mr. Lee’s. I want to expand.”

“Sounds like you and Rich have a—”

Gina stopped tapping. Her face turned bright red. “Detective,” she said with a frown. “I want to become a partner, not piss one off.”

“Okay, Gina. You can go.”

“I hope this was as pleasurable for you as it was for me.”

“Why were you at the firm after hours yesterday?” Detective Taylor said.

“Whoa, whoa,” Pete said. “I was finishing up a case.”

“And then what’d you do next?”

“I’d rather not say.” Pete’s eyes shifted around. He didn’t look like much with floppy gray hair, a polo covering a belly, jeans, brown tennis shoes, and sleepy eyes. But the firm’s timesheets showed that he, an associate, was the last to clock out yesterday. 

“Look,” Detective Taylor leaned closer and said, “whoever stole the files might get arrested. If you were somewhere else, it’s in your best interest to tell me.”

“All right, man, relax. I went to a dispensary. That’s it.”

“Can anyone validate that for you?”

“Not really, I guess,” Pete said. “But I for sure wasn’t here when the files were stolen.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because I love Mr. Lee. He tell you about all the times him and me got beers?”

“Listen, Pete, you seem like a nice guy, but you were the last one in the building. So, and think clearly before answering this, did you notice anything unusual at the office yesterday?”

“Sorry, I just did my job and went home, you know?” 

Detective Taylor dropped her notepad on the table, which startled Pete.

“So who could’ve stolen the files?” Detective Taylor said.

“I don’t know.”

“Take a guess.” 

“All right, if I had to pick someone, I’d say Rich. Probably.”

“Why?” 

“He was the only one with keys and he’s like always trying to steal clients.”

“Is Rich too demanding?” 

“I guess a bit, but he’s not too bad. May I ask, why you ask?”

Detective Taylor narrowed her eyes. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Yeah, I didn’t do it. If you think I did, you must be missing something, no offense.”

“And what might that be?”

Pete shrugged. “Isn’t that like your job?”

In his cubicle, Anthony, the office assistant, was stapling papers and humming to an old radio. He was a small, shy, patchy bearded young man who had on what looked like hand-me-down clothing. Minutes ago, Rich had told Anthony to call in his lunch order.

“Simple question to start,” Detective Taylor said. “Where were you last night?”

“I’ll tell you, ma’am,” Anthony said, “but please don’t repeat this to anyone.”

Detective Taylor nodded.

“I was at a boy bar. I’m gay,” Anthony said while slouching. “But no one here knows that, and I’m afraid Rich might say something . . . He’s made comments before.”

“Understood. Tell me about the associates.”

Anthony gave his thoughts. About Gretchen: “She knows everyone’s secrets.” About Gina: “She’ll tell off anyone.” About Pete: “He does only the minimum.”

“You think any of them stole the files?” Detective Taylor said.

“Possibly. But, and I’m just a secretary, but I don’t think they become partners if that happens, right?”

“What about if one of them wanted to frame Rich?”

“Uh, I’d say no.”

“Why?”

“If Rich gets fired, the firm loses money. Then Gretchen’s retirement benefits would get delayed, no way Gina would make partner anymore, and Pete would have to take on some of Rich’s workload.” 

“So you must think Rich stole the files?”

Anthony checked the door.

“You can be honest with me,” Detective Taylor said. 

After a moment, Anthony said with a lowered voice, “Yes.”

“Because it only helps him?”

“Yes. Either Mr. Lee quits because he loses his clients and Rich is the only partner, or Mr. Lee stays and fires Rich but then he’s got the files to steal Mr. Lee’s clients.”

“That’s a bold accusation.”

“Rich always thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, trust me . . . Heck, he even calls me stupid to my face. And I know he feels that way about Mr. Lee too.” 

“Interesting. Rich referred to Mr. Lee as a father figure. That’s not how you see their relationship?”

Anthony sniggered. “Not exactly.” He pointed at the firm’s ‘Lee & Associates’ logo on the conference table. “Rich might like Mr. Lee as a person, but he’ll stop at nothing to get his name here.”

“What happens to you if Rich gets fired?”

“My goodness. I can’t even imagine. There’d be so much extra work to do, like start a hiring search, answer questions from clients, advertise to stop any bad press. I’m begging you, please find Mr. Lee’s files.”

Suddenly the conference door burst open. Rich was standing there. “Printer is jammed again,” he said.

“Yes, Mr. Rogers,” Anthony said and rushed out of the conference room.

Rich walked over to Detective Taylor. “The investigation is coming to a close soon, I hope,” he said.

“It’s ongoing,” she said and hid her notebook.

“Indeed. Though I must tell you, as the associates’ boss, I could be quite the judge of character for you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Now if you please.” 

Anthony returned, and Rich left without thanking him.

“A few more questions,” Detective Taylor said. “You notice anything unusual this morning?”

“Mr. Lee’s door was open when I arrived,” Anthony said. 

“Okay. Last one. Is there another way inside besides the front door? Maybe a back door? Or an opening to the roof?”

“Sorry, but that’s the only entrance.” 

Mr. Lee entered the conference room with Rich, looking sullen and nervous. Mr. Lee told Detective Taylor he wanted to ask a few questions himself. 

“Rich,” Mr. Lee said, “what did you do yesterday, moment by moment, from the start of your day until the end?”

For fifteen minutes, Mr. Lee grilled Rich. His answers were essentially the same as those given to Detective Taylor, except for one detail: after leaving the office last night for rehearsal, Rich had returned because he’d forgotten his cell phone. 

“Do you have anything against how I run this firm?” Mr. Lee said.

“What?” Rich said. “No, of course not.”

“Do you agree with how I spend our money?”

“Yes, Mr. Lee.”

“Even the golfing with my clients?”

“The goal is to keep them happy,” Rich said while scratching his neck. “You taught me that.”

“Answer my question.”

“I would say our resources could be better spent elsewhere. However, you cannot possibly think that this would lead me to steal your files. Your loss would be mine. You must see that.”

Detective Taylor stood and asked, “How come you didn’t notice the door to Mr. Lee’s office was open this morning?” 

Rich glared at her.

“Good point,” Mr. Lee said. “It might not have a lock, but I make sure to close it every night.”

“I don’t know,” Rich said. “But honestly, why would I ever notice that? My job is to manage clients, not doors.”

“Maybe,” Mr. Lee said, “but someone’s at fault for this, and that someone will pay.” 

Rich stepped forward, so Detective Taylor was behind him. “Mr. Lee,” Rich whispered, “are you truly alleging I did this? There’s no tape, no witnesses, no fingerprints. Not to mention, if I had wanted to steal from you, I could have done it hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Why now?”

“Richard,” Mr. Lee said, “sit.”

Mr. Lee waited until Rich sat.

“Now,” Mr. Lee said, “do you have any evidence to show you’re innocent?” 

“How can I prove something I was not involved with?” Rich said.

“Others seem to think you did it.” 

“That’s because the associates want me fired. It’s a conspiracy.”

“A what?”

“Think about it,” Rich said. “Gretchen is half my age, I will not let Gina diversify us, and I actually hold Pete accountable. They all have a reason to do this because I am a partner and they are not.”

Mr. Lee leaned back in his chair. “I guess then the only thing left to do is to ask the expert.” 

“But no evidence has been brought against me. Where is the due process?”

“I don’t need due process,” Mr. Lee said. “I hired her instead of calling the police so I could figure out who did this and immediately fix the problem myself.”

“But this is my livelihood you’re talking about,” Rich said.

Mr. Lee slapped his desk. “No, these are my case files I’m talking about!”

Rich looked away but shook his head.

“Now then,” Mr. Lee said. “Detective Taylor, what is your final conclusion?”

Detective Taylor reviewed her notes. In theory, the files could have been stolen by Gretchen out of revenge, Gina out of greed, or Pete out of fear, but these were just theories. The strongest evidence was still who had keys to get into the firm. And now, with Rich lying about returning to the office, she was convinced.

“Well,” Detective Taylor said, “my best educated guess is—”

“See?” Rich said. “This is not a jury deciding guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is merely a best educated guess.”

“Dammit, Richard, shut it.” Mr. Lee took a deep breath. “Detective Taylor, your best educated guess?”

“The evidence points towards only one person,” Detective Taylor said. “Richard Rogers.”

“No,” Rich screamed.

“Then it’s settled,” Mr. Lee said.

“Who the hell is this woman?” Rich shouted. “Look at her. She has a coffee stain on her blouse. She has shown me no credentials, no expertise in anything. But yet she decides the entire fate of my career?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Mr. Lee said coldly. “I just wanted to confirm.”

For several seconds, Mr. Lee stared at Rich and Rich stared at Mr. Lee. 

“I didn’t fricking do it!” Rich yelled and stormed out of Mr. Lee’s office, slamming the door shut.

“Get back here!” Mr. Lee yelled and rushed after him, throwing the door into the doorstop. 

Anthony peaked into the conference room. “Is it over?” he said.

“As far as I know,” Detective Taylor replied. “All I do is I give my opinion.”

“Do you enjoy doing this?”

“Only when I get it right.”

Rich was besmirching everything as he packed up his belongings. Everyone eavesdropped from their offices, except for Anthony, who offered to carry documents for Rich. 

When Rich entered the hallway, Mr. Lee was waiting. 

“I cannot believe you are doing this to me,” Rich said with watery eyes. “After all the profit I generated, all the meetings I covered for you, to get labeled a thief?”

Mr. Lee motioned towards the front door. Rich threw his keys at Mr. Lee’s feet. Mr. Lee puffed out his chest and rested his hands on his hips. Rich stomped ahead and ripped the door open, setting off the alarm.

“Now it works?” Rich said, with tears falling. “This piece of crap goes off now?”

“Get out,” Mr. Lee said. “I never want to see you again, unless you’re in a jail cell.”

Rich slowly turned around.

“You undeserving, lazy half-wit,” Rich said. “You will see me in court as I take all this firm is worth, which, by the way, is mostly because of me!”

Rich shouted obscenities until he was inside his SUV. He skidded out of the parking lot.

As Anthony picked up the keys and handed them to Mr. Lee, Detective Taylor noticed a hop to Anthony’s step. But then again, Gretchen was smirking, Gina was smiling, and Pete was giggling. 

Eventually the associates finished their work and left for the day. Anthony and Mr. Lee were cleaning up Rich’s office when Detective Taylor knocked.

“Do you think I did the right thing?” Mr. Lee said. 

“Morality is beyond my pay grade,” Detective Taylor said.

“Fair enough. Say, before I get my checkbook, you mind if I recycle some stationery? I can’t stand seeing Rich’s name on our letterhead.”

Detective Taylor followed Mr. Lee into the mechanical closet. He slid the stationery into the slot of the locked bin. 

“How often does that get emptied?” Detective Taylor said.

“Every Wednesday morning,” Mr. Lee said.

It was Wednesday.

“So,” she said, “someone takes the bin outside, unlocks it, and gives the confidential papers to a waste management company?”

“Pretty much.”

“And who has a key to do that?”

“Just me and Anthony,” Mr. Lee said. “Why?”

Detective Taylor couldn’t believe it. She’d let her disdain for Rich deceive her. The files hadn’t been stolen. They’d been destroyed.

The closet door creaked open. A sneering head poked in. It was Anthony.

Jeffrey Grimyser is a father, husband, attorney, and originally a “Sconnie” who now lives in rival Chicago. His work has appeared in Bright Flash Literary Review, Free Radicals Magazine, CommuterLit, and The Chamber Magazine, and Little Old Lady Comedy.

 Oklahoma!

Edward M. Cohen

Saturday started badly with Whitney Houston belting him awake on a golden oldies station. Once her sunny song had slithered to a conclusion, the forecast was for rain, fog, dangerous driving. If possible, stay home. If not, wear your rubbers. 

He had left on the alarm clock because the schedule called for him to take the subway to Grand Central, hop the train to Glen Cove, grab a cab to Claire's, and from there they would drive to Southampton with her daughter, Betsy; hours of pressured travel when he needed a break after a week of teaching.

Claire had promised to have the minivan loaded upon his arrival in Glen Cove and, with luck and bribery, Betsy would also be ready so they could arrive at Southampton in time for a scrumptious lunch on the beach. The plan had sounded fine at firs,t but he hated being forced awake at the same dark hour on a Saturday as he was every weekday; not even the prospect of adoring students before him, but that of damp limp hot dogs.

The three of them would drive out together in the van because Ben, Claire’s husband, had a busy Saturday periodontal practice, but he would follow on Sunday in the BMW. That way, Ethan and Claire could have one glorious night together and it would all seem kosher because Ethan was scheduled to direct the school production of Oklahoma!, so, as far as Ben was concerned, Claire was doing a little nudging to get her daughter the lead. Besides, this way, Ethan could drive Betsy back on Sunday in the BMW for her tennis lesson, leaving Claire and Ben out there alone, but the joke would be on Ben who would be grateful to Ethan for getting Betsy out of their hair, while all the time Ben was fucking Claire, she would be thinking of Ethan.

He and Madeleine had had a BMW in their glory days: she, an up and coming designer; he, an up and coming actor, invited everywhere because they looked so good (they had even made the pages of W), laughing at their overdrafts. Although they had never been in the Southampton league, they had often rented on Fire Island, where the rest of the up-and-comers schmoozed. This was before she took him to the cleaners in their divorce and he had been forced to start teaching.

He wore his poncho, work boots, backpack, as if he were off to mount a hilltop, not a mistress, and took a moment to compliment himself — beard trimmed, hair styled. His gorgeous eyes sparkled in the morning; every girl he had ever slept with had said it. As had every boy. His lover, Daniel, said they were deeply set, sad but shining. Daniel, a hip young director, tended toward the dramatic. He also tended to condescension because he was currently working in the theatre and Ethan was not.

Ethan raced from the apartment onto the subway, through dismal corridors to the Long Island Railroad, onto the express and off at Glen Cove. On the other platform, suburban dads who had to work on a Saturday stared, as if he were arriving to tend their gardens and fuck their wives. He could have called Claire to cancel. He could have called Daniel to confess. He could have joined the real men on the opposite side of the platform and, instead of fucking Claire, returned to the city, allowing Daniel to fuck him.

There was a cab waiting so he took it, wishing he hadn't thought of Daniel — waking, phoning, getting the message. He hadn’t told Daniel he was going away for the weekend. He had wanted Daniel to worry. He was so goddamned smug, constantly coming up with brilliant ideas for Oklahoma! which Ethan stole because, they both agreed, in order to be good, it had to be new.   

Arriving at Claire's door, he saw that the BMW was gone. So Ben had already left. She appeared in cut-off jeans and a T-shirt, manicured toes in thongs; her curls were so wired they could have transmitted top ten hits from the local radio station.

"You look adorable," he whispered.

"She's not ready!  She's been on the phone all morning!  From seven-thirty!  Who can she be talking to at seven-thirty?  She says she doesn't want to go!"

“You could say 'good morning,'" he mumbled.

"The weather is so awful it'll be hours before we get there."

"Take it easy..."

"I'm such a wreck, I'll smash the car."

"I'll drive."

"Have you ever driven a minivan? It takes some getting used to, you know."

"Whatever's going on, don't take it out on me. I just got here. Remember?"

"BETSY!  MR. GRAYSON IS HERE!"

"I'm the good guy, remember?" He grazed her cheek with his fingertips.

She glared at him in disbelief. "I don't know where she is!" she whispered, then: "BETSY! ARE YOU READY?"

Betsy appeared at the top of the stairs, a clone of her mother, only her shorts were shorter, her thighs firmer, her nipples pointier. "Hi," she cooed to him. "Everything's cool, Ma. Tracey Goldsmith is going out also. So I'll have someplace to hang while you old folks take your naps. Why don't you offer Ethan a cup of coffee?  I'll be ready in a sec."

And she was gone.

"Are you going to let her call you ‘Ethan?’" Claire whispered. "I won't have it."

"Claire, honey. Calm down."

"And you can't call me ‘honey’ in front of her. Has everybody lost their mind?"

"Maybe I'd better wait in the van. Is there anything you need me to carry?"

"Sit in the front passenger seat. I want you up front with me. Go and do it now."

"Don't order me around, Claire. I’m not feeling so well, myself."

"BETSY, I'M COMING. WE HAVE SOMETHING TO DISCUSS!"

When mother and daughter re-appeared, dragging suitcases and shopping bags, he raced in the rain to help them. Betsy gladly turned over her burdens and returned to the house for her Walkman, but Claire paraded to the van, soaking wet.

"Didn't I tell you to stay in the front?  If you give up your seat, she'll claim it. I don't want her sitting next to me!"

"Claire, please..."

"She knows, you see. She may not know what's going on, but she knows this weekend is important to me and she’s intent on screwing it up."

Now she was leaning against the fender, crying. The shopping bags in her arms were shredding.

"Let me have some of those."

"I can do it!"

Alternately dominating and helpless, she had him reeling. Dampness brought out his allergies. Claire got behind the wheel, revved up the motor, honked the horn for Betsy, who, eventually, tumbled into the back seat. "I usually sit up front when Daddy drives because I got carsick when I was little. So Mom always sat in the back and hated me for it. Am I right, Mom?  But, I’m a big girl now, so, if she wants you up front, Ethan, that's the way we'll do it."  

"Let's get one thing straight. I don't think its right for you to call him 'Ethan.' Come Monday morning, you're going to have to call him ‘Mr. Grayson.’"

"Don't you think I can handle that, Mom?"

"The fact that he's my friend doesn't make him your friend. He's still your teacher!"

"Well, not actually her teacher, Claire. She's not in any of my classes."

"But you’re going to be her director," Claire corrected, “in Oklahoma!”

"Mom's not aware that things have changed since the olden days, Ethan. In Glen Cove High, Ma, some of the teachers are dealing drugs. Some of the girls are having affairs with their teachers, present company excluded, of course!"

"What do you think, Ethan?"  Claire pleaded. "It's obvious we parents have no authority over our children any more. I had hoped that their teachers still did."

Mother and daughter awaited a response. He wanted to announce that this weekend had been a mistake. Instead he smiled. "I don't care what the students call me. So long as the respect is there."

A reasonable answer, he thought, but Claire turned to the road, nerves in her neck twitching.   

Betsy vanished as soon as they arrived; off on her bike in the rain, head in her earphones.

"Can you get electrocuted with a Walkman in the wet?" Claire mused.

"Oh, Ma!"

And she was off, her T-shirt hiking up in the back, a flash of flesh at the waist.

“Kids,” Claire sighed.

"Kids..."

They smiled at each other. But she didn't come close for a kiss. He did not reach for her. They had been lovers since the beginning of the term. At first, he had rushed over to her house on every break, every lunch hour, every time Ben worked late and it also happened that Betsy was invited to a friend's and Claire could dismiss the housekeeper early — a miraculous confluence of events that had everybody's beepers ringing so, by the time he got there, the fucking was frantic. But now, the semester was drawing to a close and he was tired, yet he still had Oklahoma! ahead of him. If he were with Daniel now, they could have talked about the show. Ethan couldn’t wait to tell the kids about his radical take on the script — of course, he couldn’t credit Daniel — and see all their adoring eyes light up. He should have told Betsy in the car. She would have been agog.

Claire sat in an overstuffed easy chair, he on the sofa, rain shimmering against the picture window. Though still early in the day, there were so many shadows that Claire turned on a crook-necked lamp. "That'll do until the power goes. Then we'll light candles," she said.

"I'd like that."

She had brought out a half gallon of California Red and plunked it down on the floor between them. But she did have exquisite goblets, light to the touch, iridescent and romantic. Cheap wine in expensive glasses was very Claire, he thought.

At Parent-Teacher Night when they had met, she seemed so easy to talk to. Signals transmitted, signals received, they slid into sex as into a bath, a brushing of bodies in the parking lot as he helped her into the car. Their brains, their voices, their bodies were in sync from the very first.

Nowadays signals were constantly clashing. The more he withdrew, the more she demanded. He was never available when she needed him, she claimed. He countered that she expected him to be at her beck and call in between her other appointments. What neither could say was what they both knew. They had concocted this crazy weekend plan as a way to stall the inevitable.

She was babbling on about the house, how she and Ben had bought it as young parents, before the Hamptons got to be the playground of the Spielbergs and Martha Stewart. It had just been a summer cottage, and, over the years, they had winterized, expanded, furnished, planted. She stopped short, her eyes glazed over. She fell into silence. It gave him his chance.

"Claire, I have something to say and it's going to be hard."

"Oh, God, no. Nothing else. This weekend was supposed to be a treat. It's been nothing but misery from the minute I got up..."

"I won't go on if you don't want me to."

"Don't be an idiot. Now, that you've started. Hit me with everything you've got.”

"I've met someone, Claire, a man. I never told you, but I've always been bi..."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this." 

"For the first time anyway, I think that this is real love."

"You must be out of your mind."

"I was never in love with Madeleine, you know that. I married her to impress my parents. Whatever was between you and me was... well... a matter of mutual comfort. Let's be honest. We always swore we'd be honest with each other."

"I don't remember swearing that."

He wanted to go back to the city, he went on, as she, jaw agape, was finally silenced. He had deceived his male lover by coming here and now he regretted it. What Claire had planned was not going to happen because Ethan had Daniel on his mind and wanted to be in his arms, not hers. Surely, she could understand.

"I don't understand anything anymore. As the day goes on, I understand less. Maybe it's me who’s crazy."

It wasn't that he hadn’t looked forward to this weekend; he had been thinking about it all week. But he had underrated his attachment to Daniel. The last time he and Daniel had been together, he had thought of telling him about Claire, but Daniel had been helping him prepare for Oklahoma!  and Ethan had thought it would be wiser not to bring her up. Now he felt differently. When he was with a man, it seemed, he thought of being with a woman. When he was with a woman, he thought of being with a man.

"I'm going to take a nap," she said.

He had expected her to be sympathetic, to comfort him; maybe even to kiss him on the cheek and commend him for his daring. On the other hand, he would have been pleased had she been shocked, upset, tearful, angry. What he wanted was a reaction.

Instead, she emptied her glass in one gulp, got up in silence, turned off the lamp and left him alone. He did not know what that meant. Nor what to do next. He couldn't get to the train station without her. Unless he called a cab. He didn't know where the phone books were kept. Now that he thought of it, returning to the city after the long trek out did not seem appealing. Daniel would certainly be sullen and angry.

The only thing he could do was sit and wait in the dark until adorable Betsy returned.

Los Imperiales

Jonathan B. Ferrini

The agricultural region known as “Imperial Valley” is visually stunning. The farmland resembles a giant green carpet.

I’m a real estate appraiser sent to determine the “Fair Market Value” of the “Heroes Hall” located in a small town called “La Esperanza” within “Imperial County”, bordering San Diego and the Arizona desert.

I checked into the “The Incan” hotel, a Spanish style architectural relic. Upon entering the lobby, I’m greeted by a fountain, a parlor with antique, leather upholstered chairs, and a stone fireplace. The elderly hotel clerk checks me in by having me write my name into a register as there is no computer and I see a telephone “switchboard” still in use. Adjacent to the lobby, there’s a dimly lit cocktail bar surrounded by bar stools adorned with well-worn red leather cushions. 

My room is small, including a bed with squeaky springs, a bathroom lined with colorful Mexican ceramic tiles, and original plumbing fixtures. The antique telephone has no dial, ringing only to the front desk switchboard. The hotel and room are throwbacks to simpler times. 

My stay will be 24 hours. I’ll use the time to explore a small town in California of a bygone era.

I was awoken early in the morning by the din of a crowd assembling outside the Heroes Hall across the street. The old alarm clock on the nightstand read 5:00. I hurriedly dressed, washed my face, combed my hair, and headed over to see what was going on.

As I entered the crowd waiting to enter the Heroes Hall, a child approached me with a restaurant order book.

“What you want, Senor?”

I waved him off. I noticed many children roaming throughout the crowd taking orders. Most of them were wearing tattered clothing, and some were barefoot. 

The doors to the Heroes Hall opened revealing an auditorium. An old priest walking slowly with a cane was permitted entry first, and sat at the back of the hall. Once the last of the crowd sat, the hall became silent. The priest said a prayer before the business of the day began.

The children walked throughout the hall taking orders and, soon thereafter, returned, delivering drinks and food. I was curious about the place and events to unravel. I spied a young man wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, revealing muscled arms with tattoos extending to his neckline. I sat beside him.

“Excuse me, Sir.

Can you tell me what’s going on here?”

“I’m suspicious of strangers, especially dudes wearing a business suit!”

“I’m a businessman staying at the Incan Hotel. I was awoken by the commotion outside the hall and came to check it out. My name is Jason.”

He remained silent.

“I’ll buy you whatever these kids are selling if you’ll tell me what’s going on here.”

“I’ll take you at your word. 

Watch.”

He held up his hand and was approached by a child to take his order.

“Give me one large black coffee, one breakfast burrito, one pack of cigs with a pack of matches, one airplane bottle size vodka and one airplane size whisky.”

 What do you want, Jason?”

“One large black coffee and a toasted bagel with cream cheese.”

“Vente Cinco dollars, Senor.”

“He’s telling you twenty-five dollars.”

I gave the kid thirty dollars, and was handed a receipt.

“How can a kid take an order for booze and cigarettes?”

“They have a system between them so everything is legal.”

“What's going on inside here?”

“All these people are day laborers waiting for the ‘Round Up’ when the foreman from the growers arrive and hire labor for the day.”

“Why would people pack themselves into a hall just for a day’s pay?”

“They’re paid by how much they pick, and paid cash at the end of the day. 

They have hungry mouths to feed at home and bills to pay!”

They gather here every day except Sunday.”

A man arrived with our order. He handed me five dollars change, and I refused it. Inside a brown paper bag, I retrieved the coffee, pack of cigarettes, a yellow matchbook inscribed “Imperial Liquor Store” including the “fleur-de-lis”, and the food.

“These kids make money with tips. 

They’re also paid a commission on each order by the coffee shop and liquor store where all the stuff comes from.”

“Wouldn’t food trucks parked outside be more convenient?

These kids should be in school.”

“Small towns protect their own. Trucks would put the coffee shop and liquor store out of business. 

No time for school.”

These kids are earning rent and food money for their families to survive.”

At lunch time, they’ll head out into the fields, and deliver lunch orders to trucks who phone the orders into the coffee shop and liquor store. The trucks pick up the items and deliver the orders to the kids who run them out to the laborers in the fields.”

“Why is it so silent in here?”

“I call it ‘The Trance’. Everyone is silently praying they will be chosen to work today.

I’ve got to eat my breakfast, smoke a cig, and get into my ‘trance’. 

Stick around, and you’ll see the life of ‘Los Imperiales’.”

“Thanks for your information. I didn’t get your name.”

“I didn’t give it to you.”

I left to sit at the back of the hall and watch.  

Cycloptic ceiling fans made the room hotter, acting like blenders whipping up the anxiety of the impoverished, desperate workers who appear to be immigrants from Mexico.

A nest of sparrows was sequestered within the rafters, and the chirping creates a soothing chorus to the silent mediation of the laborers. Truck horns sound the arrival of the foremen. The large wooden doors secreting memories of weddings, confirmations, school dances, and USO events of decades pass are thrown open, the foremen enter, and bark their labor requirements, 

“Five lettuce pickers; two cabbage pickers; tractor driver; one sorter; and one bundler.”

Only ten laborers out of a hundred were chosen at random to toil under the blazing sun for pay, I suspect, is below minimum wage. The lucky jump on the back of flatbed trucks. The engines roar, ripping apart the morning calm. Those not chosen for work drag themselves home to await the following morning when they might be chosen. 

I file out with the others and return to my hotel room to begin work on my appraisal. Although I confirmed the old hotel has Wi-Fi, it’s spotty. 

Appraising an old building like the Heroes Hall is difficult, and my search for sales “comps” is tedious. An examination of property sales in town suggested property didn’t trade often, likely held for generations. The sole exception was a plot of land on the main street which had been sold to a partnership named, “Solve 4 y.” I traced the members of the partnership to lawyers of a San Francisco law firm known to represent land developers and “tech giant” billionaires. I suspect the lawyers were “fronts” for their clients who placed their fortunes into real estate development including office buildings, shopping centers, distribution centers, and housing. I made a note of the property address.

I found a newspaper article regarding a fire in town: “The new brew pub and restaurant fire was of suspicious origin.”

I glanced at my smartphone and was struck by the many app I had downloaded. I imagined an app created for the children permitting them to receive food and drink orders directly from the laborers and placing them with the coffee shop and liquor store. The app would also permit direct hire between the growers and laborer’s eliminating the need for trips to the Heroes Hall. It might be profitable if the children could charge the growers a fee to obtain labor through their app while collecting a user fee on each food and sundry order.

A horn blew outside my window.

The horn was blasted by a beat-up former school bus. The children who delivered food earlier in the morning began to board the bus which I suspect was taking them into the fields to begin taking lunch orders. It saddened me they were taken into the fields to “work” by a “school bus”. The old alarm clock read 11:00 am.

I spent the remainder of the day walking about the small town which hadn’t changed in over fifty years, including a gas station with original pumps, and the usual businesses found in a small town. I was struck by the vintage metal and neon signs which would fetch top dollar at auction given the creativity and craftsmanship of each sign.

I approached a property matching the address of the sale I noted earlier. It was a fenced off building which had burned to the ground. A charred sign reading “Brew Pub” remained, likely the building mentioned in the newspaper. Underneath the charred sign, I could make out the scorched cover of a yellow matchbook with the fleur-de-lis. I felt as if I had “eyes on me”, and a chill ran up my spine. I left immediately. 

I decided to end the day with a cold beer at the Incan Hotel bar. I sat at the original oak bar, atop an antique stool with a soft, red leather seat cushion. Like the town, the bar appeared to be “stuck in time”. There was an antique jukebox replete with “hits” peaking in the fifties which cost a dime to hear. I was the only customer.

The bartender approached,

“Buenos Dias, Senor. 

What would you like?”

“A Mexican beer, please.”

He returned with a tall bottle of cold Mexican beer, first placing down a thick red napkin inscribed in gold reading, “Incan Hotel”, and a sparkling clean, tall beer glass. 

“Enjoy, Senor.

 Salud!”

I felt a tap on my shoulder, and turned to find the old priest holding his cane. 

“May I join you, young man?”

“Certainly, Father”.

I held his hand as he struggled to climb atop the bar stool.

The bartender quickly approached.

“Hola, Padre.

El mismo?”

“Si, Renaldo.

Para mi y mi amigo.”

The bartender returned with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. Before pouring, the bartender wiped clean the dusty old bottle of premium tequila blended many decades ago.

The priest lifted his shot glass as I lifted mine saying “Salud” before downing his first shot, and pouring each of us a second.

“Occasionally, we’re visited by young people like yourself who are bankers, lawyers, and real estate people. Why are you here?”

“My name is Jason and I’m an appraiser sent to determine the value of the Heroes Hall”.

“I’m Father Hidalgo.”

“Why does the photograph of the soldier hang above the bar, Father?”

“Many, many, years ago, that young soldier was my best friend. He was killed in Iwo Jima. His name was ‘Ernesto Reynoso’ whose family owned this bar, and built the Heroes Hall in memory of Ernesto.”

“Are the photos hanging in the Heroes Hall of fallen Imperial Valley sons and daughters?”

“Yes. It disturbs me to remember officiating at their baptisms. Why are you appraising the Heroes Hall?”

“I wasn’t told, Father”.

“Who is your employer?”

“A very prestigious law firm in Los Angeles.”

“You’re the appraiser my lawyers sent to provide me an updated appraisal on the Heroes Hall.”

“I’m fortunate to meet you as I wasn’t provided any contact information for the owner. The lawyers prefer that I remain objective in my valuation.”

“I expect objectivity.”

“I’d welcome any background regarding the Heroes Hall, Father.”

“The Reynoso family owns this hotel, the Heroes Hall, many of the retail businesses up and down the street, including many thousand acres of prime agricultural land fronting Interstate 8 at the off ramps.”

“Does the Reynoso family still farm the land and do the hiring out of the Heroes Hall?”

“The Reynoso family has owned the land since the Spanish land grants. The many generations are independently wealthy and have no desire to dirty their hands and sweat picking crops, but some of the younger family members are aware of the land value, and I’m feeling pressure from them to consider offers to sell the estate, although the farm land is leased to corporate farmers paying handsome rent providing comfortable lifestyles for the Reynoso family.”

“Why would I be sent to appraise the Heroes Hall and not the other properties, Father?”

“As a young priest officiating at Ernesto’s funeral, I became a trusted advisor to Ernesto’s father, Ernesto Senior. Senior saw the future value of the real estate increasing as California grew after the war.

We drove to a ‘big shot’ law firm in Los Angeles where Senior had an ‘ironclad’ trust written, stipulating that no property could be sold by the Trustee unless the ‘fair market value’ of the Heroes Hall, as determined ‘solely by the Trustee’, was approved.”

“You’re telling me the fate of the entire estate worth tens of millions of dollars is determined by the ‘fair market value’ of the Heroes Hall?”

“Yes, Jason.

The Hero’s Hall was Senior’s connection to his fallen son, and wanted to ensure Ernesto would have the final say, even ‘beyond the grave’.”

“Who is the Trustee?”

“You’re looking at him, and with Senior’s wishes firmly in mind, there will never be a satisfactory fair market value.”

“The trust has frozen this place in time, Father.”

“I prefer to say, Senior has secured the opportunity for the poor to provide for their families. My colleagues up and down the coast have witnessed small towns like La Esperanza fall victim to California’s growth, and gentrification. I’m blessed with the opportunity to halt ‘progress’ and prevent the fields from becoming distribution centers, retail giants, and expensive housing tracts which will displace the field workers.

Ah, Renaldo is returning with my dinner of home-made tamales ‘to go’.”

Renaldo, please provide my friend Jason a plate of your lovely wife’s homemade tamales for his supper.”

“Si, Padre.” 

“What is the tab, Renaldo? I would like to pay.”

“Gratis, amigo.”

“He means ‘no charge’, Jason. 

It was a pleasure to speak with you. I suggest after dinner, you drive over to ‘Calexico’, cross into Mexico, and visit lovely ‘Mexicali’. Crossing back home across the border, you’ll witness something very special.”

I helped the old priest off the bar stool, and watched him slowly walk out of the bar. After eating the delicious tamales, I drove over to Calexico, and crossed the border into Mexicali to look about. 

Traffic was horrendous returning back across the border. Father Hidalgo said I would “witness something very special” and I saw the kids from the morning selling cold drinks and gallon bottles to the frustrated motorists inching forward in heavy traffic. 

The wait time for motorists crossing back into California can be hours in the heat. There are no restrooms, markets, or any opportunity to leave the crowded procession of cars.

The enterprising kids made up flavored drinks, filling plastic bottles, placed them within beat-up Styrofoam ice chests, and walked up and down the procession of cars hawking the cold drinks. 

The children also sold empty gallon size plastic containers marked “Urine Bottle” including a sturdy cardboard funnel and cap to desperate motorists stuck in traffic with no bathroom facilities for $5.00. 

I was impressed by their ingenuity. Recalling my idea for an app earlier in the day, I imagined the motorists waiting to cross the border placing a delivery order on an app with the convenience of having it delivered directly to their car!

Ahead of me was an expensive sports car with a license plate reading, “APPKING”. It pulled to the side of the road, and a hand emerged waiving the kids to come speak to the driver. It may have been coincidence, but I suspect the “APPKING”, like many opportunists before, would be disappointed by Father Hidalgo’s decision not to sell the Reynoso estate. 

I motioned to a teenage boy and girl who appeared to be supervising their younger cohorts. They approached my window. 

“Yes, Senor. 

Cold drink or urine bottle?”

“How did you get here from La Esperanza?”

“The school bus brings us to and from the border.”

I pulled out the business card of the lawyer who retained me to complete the appraisal.  

“Go to the man in the sportscar.  Tell him he is to speak with Father Hidalgo regarding any business with you.  Give this card to Father Hidalgo and say ‘Jason’ told him to contact this lawyer regarding your conversation with the man.”

“Yes, Senor. 

Who are you?”

“A friend of Father Hidalgo.”

“We go now to see man in sports car. 

Gracias, Senior Jason!”

As my car inched forward in traffic, I slowly passed the sportscar. The driver looked familiar, including the ‘tats’ of the tough guy I spoke with at the “Round Up”. Feeling my stare, he turned his head towards me, grinned, held up and waved a pack of cigarettes, and turned away, resuming his conversation with the kids.

I suspect the “APPKING” wouldn’t take advantage of the young entrepreneurs. How ironic would it be if a “tech giant” interested in purchasing the Reynoso trust for development would be enriching its poorest citizens by creating a profitable app inspired by their enterprise?

Father Hidalgo knew “the winds of change” were blowing towards La Esperanza, and large donations paid to politicians lusting after tax revenue, resulted in redevelopment proposals and eminent domain proceedings destroying small towns forever.

La Esperanza was paradoxical. In addition to providing me a glimpse of a bygone era, I met enterprising children whose business attracted the “APPKING” who found it necessary to masquerade as a day laborer in order to evaluate a future enterprise. The town also provided a lesson that one cannot make assumptions about those they meet.

I hoped Father Hidalgo had an ally in creating opportunity for the impoverished residents.

The Heroes Hall provided work to its citizens which a sale of the Reynoso Trust properties would destroy. To facilitate Father Hidalgo’s inevitable decision not to sell, I adjusted my “fair market value” below its true value. The Reynoso Family Trust may eventually prove no match against formidable buyers wanting their land, but my appraisal might help Father Hidalgo.

As I crossed the border and approached the onramp to the freeway taking me to my next assignment, the faces of “Los Imperiales” left me with indelible memories of a bygone era of a town named “La Esperanza” which, translated from Spanish into English means,

“Hope.”

Jonathan Ferrini is a published author who resides in San Diego. He received his MFA in motion picture and television production from UCLA.

Here Is My Only Elsewhere

Emily Quinn Black

The color of your eyes is a complete surprise to me. I’ve never considered it. 

You’re sitting across from me and you’re brooding, bellicose. I have no right to be shocked, but your attitude is not the one I expected. When I spoke to you Tuesday you insisted, even sounded enthusiastic. But settling on your stool, you move like Claymation, like a tangled marionette: all fits and starts and jerks and gasps. You’re no use to me like this.

The story surrounding you seems to have shrunk like a sweater in the wash. It has become a discomforting wardrobe—reading revisions feels like wearing wool with no undershirt. My fourth novel: It’s been so tempting to abandon the project. I doubt I could actually do it, though, and so it’s come to this. Lately, you’ve confounded and frustrated me at every turn; you’ve made every obstacle an absolute impasse. Some kind of rapport is essential for either one of us to survive, but still, though you must know this, you sit stoically. Beaming with intensity, even: veins flooded with the liquid sunshine of righteous victimhood. 

The bar is poorly lit for the early evening. Everything is a uniform shade of forty-watt and oak veneer: the walls, tables, and chairs are the color of cork (and almost as insubstantial). Every surface, even the air, is skin. The patrons are earnest and browbeaten, scattered surrounding us in a seemingly happenstance disarray. Their collective dejection informs you that they come here too often: this bar has myriad stories that run from start to finish without ever involving you. They are decorative, you realize, chattel: their lives inchoate. This maybe alarms you, maybe puts you at ease. That I don’t know unnerves me.

You remove a bag of sour apple Dum-Dums from a jacket pocket—you’ve quit smoking—and unwrap one. Popping it into your mouth, you turn to size me up. From you, I read only contempt, no contemplation. 

AGE 33 

Character’s life was a little one. He set an alarm for waking up and when he did he went to work; he kept a coat rack and key hook to the left of the front door in his apartment; his ass fit flush with a groove in the far cushion of his seafoam green sofa; he watched reruns of ’sixties sitcoms on TV. Character ran errands on Saturday mornings with the same irritated haste as everyone. This is my time, he’d think, I shouldn’t have to waste it on trivialities. 

Once, standing in line to cash his paycheck, Character found himself stationed behind two people of an age he wished he still found unfathomable. Fifty to sixty-five, the pair had identically simple squat physiques and matching untamed silver hair. They both wore royal blue shirts and off-white shorts. Dirty hiking boots hinted at time spent enjoying the day together: an eighty-degree anomaly in the midst of February. 

Character tried to insert himself within their periphery. He laughed when they laughed; smiled when they smiled; he moved close at an angle matching theirs. He felt buoyed by their complacency and laughed louder when they laughed again. Character watched their exchange: practiced wit passing back and forth in a lazy patter, truncations and half-phrases, the outcome of years together. A conversation in code: allusions impenetrable to outsiders; jokes not jokes to anyone but the gigglers. The two were called to a teller and Character saw them step past the cordon and away from him without a second glance. 

Later at a bar, Character played out possibilities. A dinner invitation and compliments over the wine he’d brought. Thirty minutes under the afternoon sun, eating fast-food ice cream on a park bench. The trio enjoying a hazy sunset and a vague sense of victory over something. I should have said “hello,” he thought. Regretting his cowardice, he paid the tab and returned home to watch the conclusion of a two-part Perry Mason.

We’re both nervous. We end up plowing through a first round of drinks and shots speechlessly, too fast. Somewhat lubricated, I notice your movements humanize. You shift on your stool with the grace of a skipping CD. I feel your scorn less acutely, so I turn and square my shoulders to face you. “I remember your first words,” I say. “They really did write themselves.” You remain fixated on your pint glass, reading your beer like the tarot.

Helpless, I begin to quote you. “‘For the first time in ten years, I got sick. It lasted two days, then I went back to work.’ Remember?” Without moving your head, you tilt your surprising eyes in my direction: unforgiving, severe. “So what is this?” I ask. “You’re dissatisfied? On strike?” Your life is a teeter-totter counterbalancing tragedy and ennui; it rests on the fulcrum of my will. I look into you and consider this. That’s no way to live, I think, ashamed. Then: That’s the only way to live; that’s how we all live. Indignant.

“My wife,” I say, “my ex-wife, she once told me that the goal of her life was to become Living Fiction. All the woman did was read, read, read. All she wanted was to be just like you.” When I say this, it sounds like a straining arm stretching out over a gap. It sounds like fingertips struggling to touch. The jukebox rattles its way through the cacophony of some neo-punk anthem that I barely know, but sincerely loathe. 

Finally, you speak. “That,” you say, “is the most naïve thing I’ve ever heard.” You remove the sucker from your mouth and point it at me—a chiding extra index finger. “It’s just offensive.” 

Everything has changed as the barroom shifts into its evening ambiance. Orange track lighting overhead lends the space an internal, medicinal feel. All that was oak appears pine and, as we sit inhaling the darkening air, you show me a knife blade smile. “If there is one thing I’ve learned in my miserable little life, it’s that this shit is only romantic when it happens on the page. When it happens to someone else.”

AGE 25

Character hadn’t announced his birthday to anyone—he had no real friends in the office—but he assumed that it was the sort of information an HR underling pulled off a W4 and filed in some shitty rolodex. He arrived at work to find his cubicle decorated. Dollar store crepe paper streamers. His desktop draped in a patterned tablecloth with a stock car border (obviously intended for children). Half a dozen balloons were stuck to the carpeted divider walls by way of static electricity.

Each coworker passing his cubby on his or her first trip to the coffee maker offered a clipped and obligatory, ‘happy birthday.’ Subsequent trips were silent, awkward. Conical party hat atop his computer, Character couldn’t help feeling made fun of.

By ten, the streamers had separated from the rolled tape supporting them. The tablecloth was ripped in two places and stained in one; the balloons, having lost their charge, lolled on the floor lamely, dancing in small concentric circles with the recirculated air. At lunch hour, a blank-faced store-bought cake lay unceremoniously on the break room table. “Chocolate,” a woman said, hands clasped in mock prayer. “Please let it be chocolate this time.” “Angel Food,” answered another. “But we’ve got Dennis from Receivable next week, and somehow he’s allergic to everything but fudge.” While Character sat by the sink, eating slowly with a white plastic fork, the employees divvied up dessert without making eye contact, without ever verbally acknowledging the occasion.

At six, Character arrived home. He ran his fingers repeatedly around the edges of his metal mailbox, not wanting to trust the disappointing sensory data they sent back to his brain. Sometimes, a single sheet could end up stuck in such a place. A coupon for an oil change, a flier for missing children. A long overdue postcard, maybe, from Celebration, Florida or Last Chance, Colorado. 

“And I remember when you were born too,” I say. A Zeppelin pan flute works quiet magic in the background. You protest, insisting I remember nothing of the sort. It seems like a challenge, so I tell you the story.

I tell you how your mother was a beautiful woman, enthusiastic about her shallow brand of Catholicism. I tell you how she was a sad and lonely parochial school graduate (no boys in the real world had much use for an eighteen-year-old virgin). Because of shame and a lack of imagination, she fucked her way through a generous portion of the freshman class at her community college. I tell you about her ensuing and persistent guilt, a sort of full-body heartburn only assuaged through more and more of the same, until she had a nickname (“The Loaner”). And for a while, overkill silenced, nailed shut, the spiritual casket for her soul: a parody of a parody. 

“You have a real talent for this,” you say. “What is it? Whimsy? Vengeance?”

I drive on with the story of your twin sister. “Your mother collapsed inwards. One baby was punishment and penance. Two was a complete impossibility.” I talk in some detail about the labor. “You came out fully formed: ten fingers, ten toes. Your sister wasn’t so lucky.

“It wasn’t stillbirth because there was no body. It wasn’t miscarriage either. It was a mystery—somehow it seemed the child had never existed. Still, your mother couldn’t help feeling like a murderer. Nobody could explain it. The poor woman ever really got over that. The loss became a conspicuous absence informing everything in her life.” 

By the end of the story, Zeppelin’s classic is nothing but obvious, biting irony. The bar has become a cave; bowels in which Plant’s wailing seems even more anguished. Shortly, Tom Waits takes over (something from Bone Machine), and the tune chugs along like the arrhythmic handle-cranking of some infernal Jack-In-the-Box. The extinguished sunset has left the room completely under control of the tinted lights. Everything pine seems a bloody shade of cherry. I blow the smoke of a cigarette in your face when you ask me what was the point of that. “I just bet you didn’t know,” I say.

“That’s because it isn’t true.” Your eyes glint like gunmetal in the gloom, piercing the cloud around me. Monster, they say.

“It is if I say it is,” I remind you and, having said it, I feel tyrannical, despotic. Desperate.

AGE 21

Once he was able to, Character went through a Drinking Phase. A Drinking Phase: he called it such, even while pretending it was something other than affectation. After work he would drop by the liquor store and buy airline-size bottles of the flavor du jour.

Monday: whiskey. Tuesday: rum. Wednesday: vodka.

Character was conscious of the fact that all his habits held a maximum shelf life of six months. After that time, they faded into a lingering black shadow of remorse over the broken promises they’d become. Still, he found it worth the effort to try on different lives.

Character worried that women saw him and got the impression that he ‘had it all together.’ He felt he understood the Fashionably Messy Haircut: Women want rumpled. They want to insinuate themselves into a life with room for them. So he worked to develop a drinking problem. He left his top button undone beneath his tie. He shaved only every other day. 

Thursday: gin. Friday: cognac. Saturday: wine.

Character allowed his studio apartment to deteriorate until it began to smell and then he tried to maintain it in this controlled chaotic state. He washed dishes only once a week. He took up smoking, left ashtrays brimming. He ate dinners in front of the TV and out of the pan, the box, the can.

Sundays were for beer.

That spring, Character forgot to buy drinks for an entire week. Sick, he literally forgot. Despite all his efforts, he had developed no need. When he remembered, he contemplated driving out. A Wednesday: Character could feel the isopropyl taste of vodka on his tongue, in his throat, and he recoiled instinctively. He was tired of marshaling the urge. I’m no alcoholic, he relented. So, Character entered into a dining out phase. Every night of the week he ate somewhere. Monday: Denny’s. Tuesday: Shoney’s. Wednesday: someplace independent. At the latter, he read calculated (albeit clichéd) books as a lure (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Reviving Ophelia, The Vagina Monologues). The habit lasted four months, until he left town. And he tried internet chatrooms, then phone sex, too.

Half in the bag and onto a fourth round, both your movements and complaints start to flow like pixelatedpixilated sap in a video game on a Commodore 64. With the drink, I’ve regained a feel for you. The way you breathe. The way you inhabit a story, expanding to fill all of its pockmarks and pimples. Your rage is a fireplace stoked by the bellows of booze. 

“You never let me do anything I want to do,” you say. Your complaints sound patently adolescent. You accuse me of intervention and interference. Your speech is planned: rehearsed rhetoric pointedly avoiding words like yearning and longing, even though they more accurately convey your tone. “I’m constantly frustrated and confounded,” you shout. “Blocked at every single turn because of you.”

It’s imbecilic, perhaps. But it sounds somehow familiar. 

“That’s not true. That’s not how it works.” On the defensive, I struggle for words you will hear, words you will understand. “You’ve created yourself: once a thing is conceived, it unfurls itself after that first kick in the pants.”

“Yeah, well you kicked me hard enough to leave a bruise.”

I try matching disgust as my tactic. “Look, kiddo: Nobody’s happy. Everyone suffers just the same and ends up doing something other than what they want to do. I wanted to play guitar. Instead, I do this. But that’s just how it goes. That’s the real world.”

“And I’d have a chance there if you typed one in.” You breathe deep and crunch on a sucked-down Dum-Dum. The sugary apple reek of your breath is simultaneously alluring and acrid. “Instead, I can’t do what I want to do because you’re too busy having me do what you’ve already done.”

The statement is sudden and smacks hard like the first gunshot in the Zapruder film. “I’m what?” you continue, “the experience of some aspect of yourself?” My head feels like a collapsing lung, expelling a deep draw of mentholated smoke into an Alaskan Saturday afternoon. “You’ve got me running around and rewriting you—it’s plain as fucking day.”

“Rearranging,” I mutter, but I don’t repeat the word when you ask me to. Meanwhile, the jukebox has forgotten to play; the bar staff has forgotten to breathe; the chattel have forgotten to be. As if the spacetime of the whole room hiccups and, for a moment, it’s just the two of us, black scribbled stick figures in empty white space. Something Hawking or Derrida could maybe explain. I wasn’t prepared for this. “What you have to understand,” I explain, “is that there’s an emotional palette but I’m a Synthesis Engine—I work in recombinants.”

You sever my speech like an umbilical cord. “I don’t expect perpetual bliss, I’m not a fool. I want a life you could call freewheeling, or unhinged, or maybe even blackly comedic. What I’ve got is this remaindered existence, an understated half-life where everything means something else and I’m just a literary device. 

“Right or wrong?” you ask, and leave me no time to answer.

“Am I just a conversation between concepts? An unanswered question meandering in the hope of solving itself? Am I your fifty-minute hour? Your personal incarnation, your avatar?”

Neck bent like the long stem of something drying, I think of all my favorite fiction and wonder whether I have succeeded or failed with you. Are all characters equally indignant, impudent, insightful? Was Godot supposed to end well until Beckett’s lead flipped him the bird? I know you’re waiting for answers but I let the silence stand. The quiet feels like someone dropped a hair dryer in the tub. 

AGE 18

Character stood at the den’s entrance and watched the water blasting forth from it. The stream was torrential, biblical. The concrete- and steel-framed maw is a sick mouth vomiting the detritus of Character’s life like half-digested food.

Plastic sheath containing a hard-won Ron Guidry rookie card. Threadbare, once loved wind-up teddy that used to sing “This Old Man.” One-thousand grey Lego bits from a moonscape playset, purchased on layaway. 

The water was knee-high and Character, ill-prepared, stood in the middle of the eruption, waterlogged feet chilled to the bone. A high-volume main, the caretaker explained, burst wide open right underneath the space, shattering the concrete flooring. “Only thing keeping it from freezing right now is how much goddamn water’s still coming,” said the man. “You can save anything, do it now, cause tomorrow you’re gonna be the proud owner of a goddamn glacier.”

Tiny shoes. Christening outfit. An empty bottle of Mr. Bubble with a cap shaped like Darth Vader. An empty black leatherette folio, gold-embossed with script letters spelling Precious Memories.

Character watched without moving. Behind him and down a steep hill, the storage lot merged with the grated reservoir of a sewage treatment plant. Convenient, thought Character when he saw, and he cursed under his breath. Everything on its way past him soon found oblivion. Character had kept this space for the six months since his mother left. He thought of it as the anchor mooring him. Character: constantly claiming a desperate need to get out, to get away. The chosen lot, his storage unit, sat one mile from the apartment in which he was raised. 

“They got insurance for this—don’t you worry,” said the caretaker, sidled up to Character in the midst of the mess. “I remember you dropping shit off. The look on your face, Ida figured you for one of those that’d just up and go. Take off the hell away from here.”

“Me too,” Character replied, averting his gaze, dropping his head to watch the water gushing between his legs. “Kinda feels like something was keeping me here.” The cardboard boxes soaked through, swelled at the sides and burst. They expelled their contents out into eddies created by the current. 

A vinyl bath book called A Child’s Garden of Prayers. A star-shaped plastic box containing a near-complete set of milk teeth. A top-heavy yellow duck floating on its side. Character turned to run after that last. 

The rush of the high water was more than a match for him, he had to dive after the duck as it neared the edge of the slope. He failed, floated on his belly down the hill, onto the outer edge of the treatment plant’s grate. The duck dropped through. Character offered a halfhearted ‘No,’ and when he sat up, he saw spectators. People had gathered to watch the exhibition, the exposition, the shit parade of his little life. Teenagers—old classmates, probably—drank Coors Light, smoked cigarettes, and laughed loudly, staring in his direction. 

I had always supposed that we would be friends. Quiet, yet communicative. Loyal, if occasionally argumentative. Familiar—maybe sometimes too much so—but because of it, possessed of the potential for those spontaneously transcendent moments unique to pairs of combat veterans, fraternal twins, fathers and sons. I was wrong. 

“How could you do this to me?” you ask. Again, I let the question hang. I remember the way you were in the opening chapters, so shy. A wobbly colt, unsure of both hoofs and the ground beneath them. I remember the way you grew, the way you grew on me. Now pride or greed has made you uncooperative. I don’t want to write this novel without you—I’m unsure it could be done.

“I know you heard me,” you say, working the stiffness from your neck and knuckles. “What gives you the right?”

“You’d rather be catching your dinner in the Big Two-Hearted River?”

“I hate you. I honestly believe I hate you.” And when you smile at the bartender refilling your glass, it’s sincere, and it stings because you have yet to smile like that for me. 

I remind you that I created you; ask if maybe that doesn’t count for something. You tell me no, it doesn’t; life is not necessarily a gift. “I mean, do you even remember the things you’ve done to me? The things you’ve put me through?”

I have to restrain myself from slapping you—from actually, literally slapping you. Reminding you that your novel—my novel—could just as easily have been a Holocaust story, the tale of some South African pogrom. I have to suck down an entire cigarette before I begin a proper response just to avoid reminding you that you don’t have any real problems. 

“You could have been crippled. The father of a dead son. Black in Macon, 1860. Seminole anywhere, in 1835.”

You sit twirling the gnawed stem of your last lollipop over and between your fingers. All happy families are alike, says Tolstoy. This, I think, justifies all my fiction’s grotesqueries. I number the days of your life, think back on all of your sadness, but see only beauty. I can’t communicate this. No character ever truly understands Authorship. All Author can do is offer condolences.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but—”

“See that’s the problem: I want the apology and not the ‘but.’ Whatever your motives, you are not excused. Do you understand that? You can never be excused.”

AGE 21 

There are things, Character discovered, that will reverberate in the mind forever, with no degeneration. I am going to see if broken hearts can be fixed by a smithy. In three years, Character had not acclimated to the negative space left behind. In a hidden fifth chamber of his heart, her last words were the perpetual ricochet of an everlasting echo.

Randall, her blacksmith boyfriend, owed money all over town and so questions asked went unanswered. The letter left behind was terse, cryptic. Pitseleh, it’s time to return to my life. I was your age when I gave birth to you: imagine that. If we meet again someday, tip your hat and I’ll curtsey. The effect of the text was the emotional equivalent of tearing butterflies in two.

Character still speculated, still thought on a daily basis of trying to find her. So, when a coworker asked him to help out on his band’s first national tour, Character couldn’t help agreeing even though it seemed unlike him. “Just stay out of the way—you’re quiet, that’s why I asked. I like you fine, but don’t embarrass me. And don’t cock block. But you can help yourself to strays.” 

The band called itself Profanity of the Truth. They had nothing to say to Character for the most part, and he had nothing to say to them. Staying out of the way was easy and preferable. At the first stop, Character scooted away from the group after loading the van and found a diner with a copy of the local white pages. He looked his mother’s name up, found a match and dialed. He did this in every city.

Most of the respondents were polite. Some were tiny geysers erupting with pity. Two panicked, hearing the desperation in his trembling treble-heavy voice and thinking him a pre-teen in trouble. Character tried to calm them, before panicking himself and hanging up before the call could be traced (too much TV). But usually, Character would just be turned away with “Wrong number, honey. Good luck finding mom.” 

In Solitude, Indiana, he drank too much and called a woman who confessed. “Oh, I knew this day would come. You know they wouldn’t tell me where you were, baby, don’t you?” The woman cried into the receiver, muffling her voice, and explained about the adoption. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said. Character had plenty of opportunities to correct her, but instead he cried too, said “momma,” and fed the payphone with quarters until his orange paper roll went flat. 

When he returned home four months later, Character discovered a series of postcards in his mailbox. Each had arrived from some exotically named place: What Cheer, Iowa; Dead Horse, Alaska. Each was inscribed with a hackneyed line from Wordsworth or Dickenson. Each was signed by his mother—both first and last name present, as if to clarify. The last card in the sequence contained an entire original paragraph. 

I followed the road signs and found happiness! On the way there, I saw this postcard and thought of you. Honey, my work is done: I consider my debt to you Paid In Full and I hope you remember me fondly. Good luck, pitseleh, the world is wide. 

The photo on the front featured a desert scene. A vacant road perforated by a dotted white crosswalk, itself obediently traversed by four sequentially smaller tumbleweeds. In big block letters it said “Why, Arizona” and Character soon used it to scrape mucus from the hallway floor, having cried until he threw up. 

“You’ve taken everything,” you tell me. “Shut my existence in a closet and starved it.” I think about calling Reader and asking her to join us—to clarify and obfuscate—but I realize that Reader will have been seduced by her memory of you. That is, her memory of your memories, as I penned them (it is, after all, a first-person novel). By this point, Reader will surely share your righteousness and rage without ever considering that she is the true catalyst for them. 

“You’ve marooned me. You’ve left me completely alone.”

“Your life is not entirely my fault. Think about Reader: I couldn’t possibly control everything. I’m not Flaubert. I’ve read Jauss and Iser. I’m a postmodernist: even the thought of trying for that control is inconceivable to me.”

I can tell by your face as you stir your whiskey with another apple sucker, that you’re trying to consider this Reader. But you can’t get far—the very idea bows the edges of your consciousness. I think of Abbot’s Flatland and do my best to move on.

“The best prose is a coloring book and an author provides the lines. But Reader is the one filling things in. Half the time she ignores the lines provided—sometimes overwrites them entirely. Usually, she superimposes her own life on you. Eradicates your will and experience.” 

“Whereas you would never dream of doing that,” you say.

The smoke in the room has become intolerable, sulfuric. What of the jukebox? If Reader has remembered it, it might be plugging away through the tenser sections of Skynyrd's Freebird. The track lights probably resemble heat lamps now and all the furniture—countertops, chair legs and high backs—have darkened to mahogany. Though now that she has hold of it, there’s always that chance Reader has tinted the setting far beyond any prediction or recognition of mine.

“Your eyes,” I say. “Reader gave you those. She knows the color and I’ve never once mentioned it. Your whole physique—the same goes for so much of your life.” I consider my statement. It is a compelling misrepresentation of truth, a clarifying obfuscation. It’s an exonerating, enthralling myth.

I add, “more or less,” in a half-whisper. 

You suck your sour apple. “Fine,” you say. “You’re just some jerk creating a coloring book and there’s this Reader with a box of crayons.” I nod my head frantically, thinking we’ve made a breakthrough. I’m excited for my own impending absolution. “And so this Reader whom you’ve indicated as the source and sponsor for all evil in my life: you expect me to believe that you’re not responsible for her doings, too?”

And perhaps here Reader will allow the song blaring from the speakers to explode into its coda movement: the unbridled, frenetic guitar noise serving as a clumsy symbol of something. I look around the bar. I see you, Character. What do I see? I see whatever Reader imagines, whatever jibes with the established mood. Which, I suppose, makes me her slave. So be it. But, if so, then I am her servant chauffeur, her carriage driver. And, the reins having never left my lap, I drive the piece on. 

AGE 25

Rembrandt Gold would be a gregarious and brilliant womanizer. Character knew he would have to grow a beard. He checked the mirror. He tilted his face, chin in hand, scrutinizing hypothetical results. Patchy, probably.

Character’s springtime obsession was identity and he was convinced that he needed to change his name. Establish ownership of Self, he thought, and he was determined to do it before the project lost its luster. 

“My last name is my father’s,” he said at every given chance, “and his involvement stopped after the orgasm.” Character told the story at every related stop: the county clerk’s office, the local newspaper, the social security administration. Even at the grocery store, where he collected forms to correct his bonus card and keytag. 

Character spent six weeks with spread open telephone directories and yearbooks salvaged from estate sales. He compiled lengthy lists; he matched first to last names in three syllable couplets. He purchased baby name books and broke each potential individual down to ethnic roots and etymology. He bought books on numerology and Kabbalah in order to decode the covert messages that might lurk within any given moniker. He brought home applications for everything, for jobs he didn’t want, just for the thrill in allowing each letter of his new name to be spelled, spilled into those perfect rectangular boxes.

Simon Grey would be a people watcher. Possessed of a certain acerbic wit that went largely unappreciated. Character explored the name, decided that he would need to read more often and perhaps lighten his hair. Neither were efforts to which he was sure he could commit.

By the end of the season the mood had passed. Realistically, Character knew, I can’t ask anyone to call me something else. Not with a straight face. He gave the idea up out of embarrassment. Like everything else, it faded into a heart stain visible only under the ultraviolet rays of his inner vision. 

Afterwards, when Character closed his eyes he still saw the soul of his final choice: the right and proper name of his secret self. Lids drawn, he no longer saw the slow parabola of his nose. He no longer saw the damp, effeminate gestures of a single mother’s only son, the mongrel shade of his hair. Instead, he saw a perfect body, like dark Grecian marble. He saw himself the way Christ might have looked: snake thick dreadlocks, heart-shaped face, skin the color of apple butter (maybe marked somewhere with a tattoo). 

Phoenix White, thought Character. Tempered by struggle instead of enfeebled. My name is Phoenix White. He would think this thought over and over, think it out into the fading noise of the city night, but every morning when he woke, it still wasn’t true. He was always still himself.

“Just tell me this much,” you ask. “Tell me why I’m here.” And I know that I can’t deny you this answer, but I can’t satisfy you either. The harsh crimson overheads wash out your features; they turn the setting ebony, intestinal, chthonian. I wince in the glow, trying to invent an explanation within your idiom. 

“You’re here because I need you,” I say. “You’re here because I love you.” As soon as I’ve said it, I regret it and your grimace reflects my mistake, reflects my utter failure to transcend epistemologies. You shake your head at me—disappointed—and I know what you’re thinking before you can say it. “I’m not going to get the chance to do this again and you’re going to make me keep on existing until you’ve finished with me. So tell me: what’s the purpose of my life?”

I breathe in and out deliberately, slowly. I answer you honestly. “The purpose of life is to be a single beautiful thing.” You flutter fingers at me asking for more. “Am I here to learn something? To teach? Is my life teleological? Allegorical?” Questions come rapid fire until I silence you.

“You can’t worry about that. Just stay beautiful.”

You look at me with those eyes and I hold your glance, return the stare. I’d like to think of this as a moment of communion, but I know better. It isn’t. “That’s it?” you ask. “That’s all?” Poor Character, you can’t understand. 

“I’m sorry,” I say. “There’s not much more to it. It’s a short novel.”

AGE 33 

Character had been on the road for the better part of three days when he saw it. Bribed with gas money and the price of the rental truck which a coworker couldn’t secure, he took an impromptu week of vacation from work to drive this coworker and his cargo out to Colorado. The man wanted to watch his daughter give birth. After twenty-six straight hours of driving, Character dropped the man off at his daughter’s apartment and drove to a Motel 6 for five hours of nervous sleep.

The whole trip out, Character remained surprised he’d accepted the offer. 

When he woke, Character felt frantic and ran to the car immediately, starting the trip back in a fugue state that ended only sometime around hour three of the journey. Becoming aware that he existed, that he was driving east, that was when he noticed the monstrosity crowning on the horizon. Having crossed this stretch at nighttime, he reasoned, he had missed it on the way out: the single remarkable thing between Colorado and Missouri.

The sign was colossal, maybe forty feet from base to top edge, and each letter had to be at least a man’s height. It stood in stark contrast to the typical plains landscape. Elsewhere, Kansas: a place where cardinal points of the compass seemed absurd because the earth bends visibly at every periphery. The sky was a turned-off television screen bent to form a dome above the uniformly marigold earth. But aside from these broad swaths of undifferentiated color, Character could see nothing else at all, because there was nothing to see.

Character allowed his car to roll gradually into a stop. He exited the vehicle, found the air thick with ozone, and he climbed atop the warm hood. Maybe it was the dangling suggestion of the sign. He felt peculiar. No. No, as he stared up reading, he felt unpeculiar. Anonymous. Maybe it was exhaustion. Highway hypnosis.

Happiness is a, the sign instructed.

The sign remained without its closing word(s) thanks to teenagers or tornadoes and no clue was left to either its original content or intent. Or maybe it had never been written, never finished to begin with. Nevertheless, Character smiled as he stared at it. He lit a cigarette and swallowed this—his most perfect moment—with his memory, with his mind. The distance, the space, whatever: Character was complacent. Reliving it later, the same words always occur to him: left alone.

With the ozone odor, he expected it to rain, Character. But it didn’t.

Flicking the butt of his cigarette into the road, another car blasted past. The spell broken, Character climbed down and into his automobile. His head already cluttered and hopelessly anchored back there, he keyed the ignition and drove straight through the twenty remaining hours back to his hometown: the tiny place he’d been taught to navigate, everything he had ever known, and what life he was given to remember. 

Emily Quinn Black’s fiction appeared last year in The Hopkins Review, South Carolina Review, and Post Road. She was included in the CLMP 2023 Trans and Non-Binary Reading List. Emily studied Magical Realism and Metafiction and, as is tradition, continued to tend bar for a decade upon dematriculation. She lives in upstate New York with her wife and 2 cats with rich interior lives. In years past, her work appeared in The Wisconsin Review, Natural Bridge, Redivider, and other excellent journals.

 Unreasonable

Jordan Hagedon

It happened suddenly one week that their apartment became flanked on either side by new neighbors. Until then, Marina had not realized that the two apartments were available. Only last week, the Bellaires had smiled at her as they took out the garbage. Only a week before that, Mr. Aswad, who lived in the other apartment, had shown them cigars in a curiously carved wooden box on the elevator. And now, it seemed that they had silently packed up their apartments and disappeared. Their building was downtown, so it was no surprise that the apartments were immediately snatched up. Still, it unnerved Marina to know that the transition occurred so quickly. She hadn’t seen a single box or moving van. They had just up and left.

Now, there were new neighbors. Perhaps, Marina reflected, this was a good thing, despite how quickly it had all happened. Marina had always appreciated neighbors in the past. When home alone at night or perhaps over a long weekend while Andrew was away, it was comforting to know that the bumps and muffled thumps she heard could be explained away as due to neighbors. It would be horrid, she thought, to be asleep at night with empty apartments gaping like holes on either side. Empty apartments invite trouble. Squatters, demons, rats, mold growing black and unchecked… Anything could happen in an empty apartment. The thing to do, Marina decided, was to embrace the new neighbors, and so she mentally waved a final farewell to the Bellaires and Mr. Aswad.

However, as the new neighbors settled into their apartments, it became clearer and clearer to Marina that theyweren’t the Bellaires and Mr. Aswad. It wasn’t simply the fact that they were new and unfamiliar. Even though she had liked the old man with his penchant for cigars (which he had never seemed to smoke, as the air from his walls and door had remained ever fresh), and the Bellaires had been at least a good chat if they bumped into each other at the mailboxes or the front door, she hadn’t felt too attached to them. They had kept to themselves, and she and Andrew had kept to themselves, and the three apartments had gotten along comfortably for nearly a year and a half.

No, it was more than them being new. Marina did not like the new neighbors because they were noisy. They were very unusually noisy. From the right side, where Mr. Aswad had lived, in the corner apartment wedged into a square-ish crescent, three college boys slammed doors and cheered whenever they played video games with such intensity that Marina was certain the pictures would fall from her walls. On the left side, in the apartment that had housed the quiet and dignified Bellaires, lived two girls and sometimes a baby. The two girls spoke to each other so loudly and so aggressively that it took nearly two weeks before Marina and Andrew realized that they weren’t fighting; that was just simply the level at which they talked.    

At first, the noise had seemed like it could be conquered. Yes, it was distracting, but Marina was determined to ignore it. She was writing her first book, a complete history of the ritualistic use of sheep, and was resolute that she be done with the first draft by fall. It was just like when she used to study at home amongst so many brothers and sisters, she thought. But the sounds weren’t the same. They were sudden and strange and amplified so peculiarly that they seemed to reverberate throughout the walls and floors.

When the girls were yelling on the left side, Marina would go into the office and shut the door tightly against them. She would remain there, writing furiously and feverishly reviewing every word as she placed it on paper. When Andrew came home and heard the two girls screaming, he would come into the office, and Marina would read aloud to him. “Who knew there was so much to sheep?” he would say, and would kiss her loudly so that the sounds of their lips and laughter would block everything else out.

But the office was not a constant source of solitude and relative focus. The walls of the office and the kitchen were shared with the boys on the right. When they were home, Marina found it nearly impossible to get much work done. She had tried to move her laptop to the bedroom or the living room or even the kitchen, but her books and research and notes were all in the office. She often found that, just as she was getting into some sort of groove, she had to double check a source or a note on draining blood, and she would have to dash off to the office to check.

Because of this, Marina felt forced to try to work in the office. She would plug in her headphones and listen to music as loud as she could. But it could not blot out the incessant chatter and yells of the boys. She felt as if she were drowning in sound.  Oftentimes, Andrew came home and found Marina teary-eyed and sitting with her hands over her headphones, as if smashing them into her ears helped. He would take her by the hands and pull her out into the living room, where he would have a glass of water waiting for her, fresh and cold, and they would take sips of it together, silently reminding each other that they were alive and living together, and this was their home, and nothing could be better than a home between lovers.

Before long, the noise began to seriously interrupt Marina and her work. She found herself typing out the words that the boys spoke to each other instead of thoughts on particular muscle groups. She tossed and turned at night, listening to the girls’ screeching, and awoke dead-eyed and battered. She spilled coffee on a freshly printed illustration. Her music grew louder and louder. Her ears began to ring constantly. She sighed deeply and often. It seemed, to her, unfair and unfathomably sad. She had just begun to hit her stride. 

As the weather grew warmer, the boys on the right seemed to always be home. Their door opened and closed with such regularity that Marina imagined them as being fixed on a great conveyer belt, cycling through the door one by one, then through the kitchen to slam all of the cupboard doors shut, then into the living room to scrape intermittently against the wall, then to the TV to turn the volume up and down, and then back into the kitchen to open all the cupboard doors for the next boy-on-the-belt to slam shut. She imagined herself taking a big stick and ramming it into the spokes of the conveyer belt so that, in a shower of painful sparks, the boys-on-the-belt would pile up and catch fire and die. 

“Boys are boys. Everyone is loud when playing video games,” said Andrew, laughing when she told him about her daydreams.  “God, I remember when I played at school,” he said. “There was a shooter game…” and he told her about different boys and different games and how they all had to retake a semester because they had spent so much time trying to beat a certain level that they had missed every single class.

Marina understood that he was trying to take her mind off of it. She understood that he was trying to make the boys relatable, to remind her to live and let live. But she was not sure that she appreciated it. In fact, during the midday hours when her productivity was usually at its peak, when she instead took a long, screaming hot shower because it was the only place where she could not hear them all, Marina found herself resenting his attempts to make the boys relatable. They were not relatable, Marina thought, shampooing her hair vigorously, her cheeks flushed red. They’re extraordinarily obnoxious. They’re unreasonable. She found herself coming back to this word repeatedly throughout the day. Unreasonable. Unreasonable. Unreasonable. 

The girls on the left side, too, seemed to follow an erratic schedule. At first, she thought the girls must be nurses who work the night shift, for they seemed to be their loudest anywhere from 9:30 to 11:30, at which time the door would open and shut, and suddenly their apartment would lapse into silence. But then she heard them laughing raucously at breakfast, or yelling things at the TV when she came back from her run at 3:30, and several times they woke her from sleep with a horrific argument or with a sudden and sharp cry from the sometimes baby. Does anyone in this building work? They can’t all claim to work from home, she thought. What could they be doing for money? How do they afford to live here? It’s extraordinary, she thought. It’s unreasonable.

Marina went down one day and complained to the manager. The office agreed that something needed to be done. Later, when she came back from her run, she saw little notes taped to each of their doors, and she felt a deep sense of satisfaction trickle down her spine and into her limbs.  Finally, she thought, and took a good, long, celebratory nap.  

Marina soon found, however, that she could hear them even when they weren’t loud. Once, in the office, when she was reading out loud to herself a series of sentences on an ewe that remembered the faces of thirty different women, Marina was interrupted by a sniffle followed by a low chuckle. Marina flushed immediately and shut her laptop and crept out of the room and closed the door firmly behind her.

Another time, when she was organizing tax documents in a drawer in the bedroom closet, she heard the distinct scrape of a spoon against a bowl and the soft crunch of chewing and realized that one of the girls on the left must be eating cereal. I can hear everything, she thought. Then a shudder ran down her spine. They can hear everything.

A relative quiet reigned for about a week or so. But, to Marina, this felt just as intrusive as the sound, perhaps even more so. Because the neighbors were being quiet (the baby still cried sometimes, and the boys still cheered, albeit cut short by a series of shushing sounds), Marina felt as if they could now hear everything she was doing. She shut cupboard doors softly. She stopped singing in the shower. The flush of the toilet shamed her. 

Once, during an unusually quiet spell, amid an exquisite sunset of reds and browns, Marina was awakened from a shallow nap by the sudden entrance of Andrew. Andrew got onto the bed and, bending down, began to kiss her all over, beginning from the base of her neck downwards. She was confused and sleepy, and the vermillion sun came in through the window, bathing Andrew in the blazing light until he seemed aflame. 

As Andrew kissed down her stomach, his fingers tapping secret messages along her thighs, someone in the left apartment began pawing through the closet. With every metallic scrape of a clothes hanger, Marina became stiffer and stiffer. “Stop,” she whispered, her legs and arms heavy as if they were filled with iron. “Stop, they can hear us.” 

Andrew kissed her hipbone deeply, his tongue swirling around its subtle point. “No one is listening,” he said. “They can’t hear any of this. We’re being so quiet.”

Marina willed her hands to move. She willed her heart to slow. “I know when they’re eating cereal,” she whispered. “I hear them talking on the phone. They can hear us. I can’t.” Andrew sighed and rolled away. The sun glowed a bright hole on the wall for a moment before slipping away entirely. A soft darkness filled the room. 

“You need to relax,” said Andrew as he left. Marina pulled the covers over her body and turned over. She closed her eyes. It was their apartment; they could do whatever they wanted in it. In fact, Marina thought, that’s precisely what she and Andrew had done before, whatever they wanted. There had never been any of these problems with the old neighbors.   

She was still and blank for a moment. Then, suddenly, a rush of shame washed over her. What if, Marina thought, and the shame of the thought caused her to wriggle, what if the old neighbors had been able to hear her and Andrew? What if it wasn’t just that the new neighbors were so loud, but that the walls are so thin? What if — and here Marina flushed so red she thought she might burst into a sweat — what if they had been the loud neighbors? She began to cry and, after a moment, forced herself asleep.

When she awoke, sometime later, the room was dark and silent. The bedroom door was open. The rooms beyond were dark, too, and the door figured itself a gaping tunnel. Andrew was gone. There was a cold glass of water on the nightstand. Marina drank from the glass and then went to the bathroom and vomited up every drop. 

When the noise from both apartments eventually resumed its usual decibel, Marina was almost relieved. Now she could go back about her routines, secure in the knowledge that they could not hear her. She could hum while folding laundry again. She could rearrange the pictures on the wall. She could read aloud. She could discuss hair removal with her cousin on the telephone. Marina was free from the burdensome quiet. But she was not free for long.

The boys bought a Wii and started bowling and stamping the floor in frustration and victory. The girls bought a parrot and taught it to sing. Someone spilled an entire bowl of what sounded like metal beads. Someone began hammering away at something, perhaps a new wardrobe, perhaps a coffin. The boys bought a dog. The girls had a dinner party that lapsed into a wine tasting that lapsed into drunken squeals of laugher. 

Research on hoof patterns lay abandoned on Marina’s desk. She hadn’t touched her laptop in days. Andrew went down to the office and complained. The office explained that they understood and that they would reach out to the offending parties ASAP. “They’re not gonna give them another warning immediately,” Andrew said. “If you get three warnings, you get kicked out, and they don’t want to pull that drastic of a move just for some noise. It’s not like they’re abusing children or cooking meth. We don’t want to get them kicked out, do we?”

But that was exactly what Marina wanted. When Andrew was away at work, Marina would lie in bed, dreaming up ways to get them kicked out. She imagined breaking into their apartments and planting guns, cocaine, cable ties, ice picks, soiled women’s underwear. She imagined calling the police and placing a 911 report that she heard them discussing bombs. She imagined chain-smoking fifty-seven cigarettes and scattering the used butts in the hallway outside of their apartment. She imagined calling Child Protective Services on the girls and telling them that they beat the baby that was sometimes there, that they pinched it and slapped it and poured boiling water on it. 

Once, when Marina was half-heartedly doing dishes, the girls began screaming with laughter so suddenly and so loudly that Marina flinched and dropped the plate she was holding. It smashed all over the floor and her bare feet, and she got cuts all along the underside of her feet as she walked to get the broom. This is unreasonable, Marina thought, tears running down her face, biting back sobs. This is extraordinary.

One night, the boys on the right had people over to drink, and the music got so loud that Marina and Andrew could feel it thumping through their mattress in their bedroom. Andrew finally had enough and banged on the door and told them all to shut the hell up or get the hell out. The boys apologized profusely and hushed up immediately, dragging their dizzy, giggling girlfriends out into the hallway and into the elevator. Andrew came back to bed, nuzzling up to Marina, victorious, and fell asleep immediately. But Marina couldn’t sleep and lay awake, waiting for the inevitable moment the boys would come back.

Somewhere in the darkness near the head of their bed, someone coughed, and the sound shot through Marina’s body. She thought her heart was going to burst. She rolled over and checked her phone. It was 3:00 in the morning. It’s all day, she thought, tears streaming out of the corners of her eyes, it’s all night.

Andrew moved in his sleep, flinging an arm over her body, where it lay heavily across her stomach. Her stomach gurgled. A dull ache settled in. He was sleeping so deeply and so peacefully that Marina didn’t want to wake him, and so she lay awake until dawn when the sudden flush of an upstairs toilet roused her from the beginnings of a doze.

“We will just have to move,” Marina said, later that evening, setting her book down for the third time, as the sometimes baby cried and cried. She said this to no one in particular, perhaps herself, as Andrew was at work, and she was alone with nothing but a dog-eared book. “There’s just no way anyone could be expected to work in this environment. This is noise pollution. This is sonic warfare.” Then she bit her tongue and realized that she was not speaking out loud, but had been mouthing these words soundlessly to herself.

 Mother/child

Argot Chen

 
 The yuesao had already been booked when Xinyi miscarried in the eighth month. Death could not be refunded. The check for the deposit had cleared, calendars had been blocked off months in advance, and now it was too late for Wang Ayi to find another client. So, she moved in as planned. 

With no baby to care for–Wang Ayi busied herself making healing soups for Xinyi–sheng hua tang, red date and ginger soup, chicken bone broth. After lunch, Wang Ayi would wipe Xinyi's limbs with a towel, wetted with cooled, boiled water, and gently massage her empty abdomen. Tradition dictated that the birthing mother lie in bed for an entire month, made possible because Wang Ayi tended to her every need. 

Truthfully, Xinyi enjoyed her regression to infanthood for more reasons than grief.  In her heart, she still felt the world owed her a childhood–her actual youth stolen by evenings of cramming for school and a mother prone to fits of rage. Sure, it had led to Stanford University and now her cushy tech job, too much pressure, Wang Ayi had said, not good for growing baby, but the job allowed her to pay Wang Ayi's salary, did it not? 

"I wish my mother were here," Xinyi said often, not thinking about the screaming matches of her youth, "the fifteen-hour flight from Beijing is too much for her." 

"Why?" said Wang Ayi, as if she had never wanted for her own mother. 

"Because you need family during a hard time. Don't you understand? Haven't you ever lost anyone?" 

"Of course," Wang Ayi replied, and left the room to do the laundry. 

At the end of the month, Wang Ayi's time was nearly up, leaving Xinyi distraught. Her eyes still recycled the soups she drank into salty tears all night. Though Xinyi had to return to her engineering role, she was able to work from home in her bed, her laptop propped up on her still-sore belly. Other than the weekly meetings where she kept her webcam turned off to hide her swollen eyes, Xinyi had no other human contact besides Wang Ayi. 

On the last day, as Wang Ayi toweled down her limbs for the final time, Xinyi asked, "Will you stay for another month?" her desperation leaking from her tear ducts. "There'll be no one without you. I have no parents, no child…"   

"My schedule is full," said Wang Ayi, not cruelly but not gently either. "I have other clients I am responsible for." 

I'll pay you double, Xinyi almost said, before stopping herself. What would be the point? A mother, a child, a cure for loss– these were things that could not be bought. 

 Risen

Elizabeth Hall Magill

 I call Brick the Wednesday before Easter to ask him what to bring to brunch. He knows I’m missing our mother something fierce because this is the first Easter without her. Not that she and I went to church with Brick, or even celebrated the way he did. But we always went to brunch after church with him, and Sue, and the twins, and she and I always walked in the meadow and picked wildflowers for the table. So, he knows — he knows — I am feeling low, and he says it anyway. His words go right to my core. Jezebels don’t prosper, he says. Repent, and be washed clean in the Blood of Christ. Come to church on Sunday. He thinks it is for my own good. Poison is poison, no matter how you serve it up.  

Funny how you can know somebody’s wrong and still half-believe every word they say.  Maybe I half-believe Brick because he’s my half-brother, or because he’s sixteen years older than me. More likely it’s because I love him. It’s not his fire and brimstone that I love, but his hands, which held mine when I was small and worked alongside mine as I grew older. He helped me weed and stack wood, fixed the engine in my first car, moved me out of Mama’s rural Kentucky house and into my own Lexington apartment. I love his wild promise of a laugh and his worn-out boots, which he always took off by the backdoor like our mother asked.  

When Brick calls me a Jezebel, I hear:  tramp, slut, whore. I am sitting in the small kitchen of my Hollow Creek Road apartment, staring at the chipped green Formica table that honest-to-God belonged to my grandmother, like it was an heirloom instead of a relic from the seventies that didn’t get the memo. I answer right quick, “What are you talking about?” 

“You know what I’m talking about,” he says, and then he waits. 

It’s Richard, of course. I had a fling with him — or maybe not a fling. It lasted one night, but I hate the term one-night stand, as if you are standing when you are definitely not standing. At least, not the whole time. But how the hell does Brick know about Richard? I play dumb. “No, I don’t,” I say. “And you still haven’t told me what to bring to brunch.” 

“That is Sue’s territory,” Brick says, like I knew he would. And then right back to it: “I heard from a friend that you spent the night with that man you met last October. The one from the hayride who followed you—” 

“That’s my business,” I say. 

“Not in the Lord’s eyes, Gracie. Not in the Lord’s eyes.” 

“Didn’t the Lord say to get the plank out of your own eye before looking—” 

“Don’t quote Scripture to me,” he says. 

I laugh, feeling the burn of Brick’s words in my gut, just below the iceberg that has been in my chest since the day Mama died. I keened like an animal that day, then drove to her house and rummaged through all her drawers looking for every picture I could find of her — young and middle-aged and older. I cried until I had no breath left, until there was no day left. I kept vigil for her on the floor of her house and that iceberg formed in my chest, heavy and absolute as iron. Now, I feel her absence like a presence, wanting her to tell me what to say to Brick, how to answer Jezebel. I know for a fact that our mother wasn’t a virgin when she met his father, and we both know she never married my father. But I don’t say that. All I say is, “I might have been with Richard five days ago, but the hayride was six months ago—the same month we lost Mama.” As if that explains anything. 

I went on the hayride with Brick, Sue, and the twins, Mavis and Lewis, who are freshmen at Eastern Kentucky University. At nineteen, they’re rangy and thin like their mother, red-haired like their father. Lewis had a girlfriend along, his arm draped around her shoulders. He and the girlfriend were dressed normally—like me and Brick and Sue—Lewis in jeans and flannel, his girlfriend in jeans and a black sweater. Mavis was dressed up for Halloween as some kind of queen, in a dark red velvet dress with a square neckline that dipped low. She had a friend with her, a girl her age who was wearing a black wig and a fairy costume. 

We sat on haybales in the back of a long red wagon until we arrived at a haunted forest. There were white tents set up, at least ten of them, and we walked through while zombies and witches reached out and touched us. There was cackling laughter from the trees, dry ice for fog, smashed pumpkins as the remains of headless horsemen. I was surprised Brick went along with it — I expected he’d call it Black Magic or the Devil’s Work, but he thought it was all in good fun. 

So did Richard, apparently. He sat next to my haybale in the back of a long red wagon on the way back from the tents. I smelled his breath, which was sweet, like mint and alcohol. I glanced at his sharp chin, dark glinting eyes, and buzz haircut, his thighs in tight denim, his hand resting on one of them like an invitation. I had a flash of winding my tongue into his mouth, tasting that sweet mint and guessing at the alcohol.  

You know how men can smell it on you, your desire for them, pretending like your need didn’t exist until they sauntered in. Like you’re a lady-in-waiting to be a slut, when in fact you never had any interest in being either one. You were born with a craving, same as them. Born with it waxing and waning until you find a man who pulls it like a blade across a whetstone, and you want him to know it was him that did the sharpening, not him that made the craving. But just try and tell a man that. They can’t hear it in words because of all the lies they tell each other, but some know it just the same. Those are the ones who make a game of it—what kind of game, good or bad, depends on the man.  

I know a game when I see one, and Richard started playing right away, leaning forward and dangling his hands between his knees as he talked to Mavis’ friend, the Goth Fairy, who was sitting across from him. I figured he was about forty. Great, I thought. I’m thirty-five and I’m too old for him. But the whole time I felt it from him too, desire radiating in my direction like a warm wind. He enjoyed sharpening that blade against my whetstone, and truth be told I enjoyed it too. If I had been younger, I might have vied for his attention, but instead I sat back and closed my eyes, wishing for a glass of wine.  

That’s when I felt his thumb tracing the line of my thigh, running along my black leggings from knee to hip. He had leaned back too, laughing at something the Goth Fairy said, offering the long pale swoop of his throat to the moonlight. He firmly ran that thumb along my thigh, so smooth and gentle I swear I could have come right then and there. The dark jostling of the wagon, the stranger tracing my lines, lines that hadn’t been traced but once or twice before, and not for a long time. I could have shivered and moaned and made like I was thrilled at the ghost sounds coming from the tents behind us. No one, not even Richard, would have known if I was fake-scared or real-satisfied. But I felt more than the yes-ness shimmying from my thigh to my lower spine. I also felt the burn of betrayal hitting my throat like a shot of whiskey. My craving, my body, were mine to offer, not his to claim. I opened my eyes, moved my thigh away quickly, and looked across the wagon at the Goth Fairy. Mavis, who was sitting next to her friend, glanced away from me when I looked up. The wagon rolled to a stop. I moved through the crowd and hopped off, staring straight ahead. 

Mavis followed me and touched my elbow. I stopped and turned around.  

“Hey,” Mavis said. “My friend. The one dressed like a fairy? She wouldn’t—” 

I glanced over Mavis’ shoulder. Her friend was walking toward us, talking to Lewis’ girlfriend. Brick, Sue, and Lewis were a step or two ahead of them. Before I could say anything, Brick caught up to us. He glanced at Mavis’ dress, then looked her in the eye. “Are you supposed to be a queen of some kind?” 

Mavis looked at me as she answered, “Yes. Anne Boleyn. She was falsely accused of adultery and incest, then beheaded.” 

Her father touched her arm. “You shouldn’t be showing your chest like that.” 

Mavis looked from me to him. “This was the style she wore. It’s not my fault my chest is bigger than hers. And anyway—” 

“Anyway, Mavis is nineteen,” I said. 

I heard a step behind me and turned around to see Richard standing there. He leaned in close to me and introduced himself. I turned toward him as he pressed a small piece of notebook paper into my hand. Call me, he said, and walked away. Brick shot me a look, but kept his mouth shut. By then we were all moving toward the parking lot. 

I held onto that paper for a couple of weeks, not calling him and not calling him. Finally, I threw it away. But then last Saturday night Richard walked into Joseph-Beth Booksellers, where I work. He was wearing tight jeans again, and his broad shoulders were packaged neatly in a black tee-shirt sporting a brewery’s logo.  The tide of my craving surged forward before I could rein it in. When he asked if I wanted to get a beer after work, I said I preferred wine. He said he’d pick me up when my shift ended at seven, and we’d find a place that served both.  

I took him home against my better judgment. He left in the morning -- didn’t stay for breakfast and wasn’t invited. It was the first thing of that kind I had done, and the release of being in a stranger’s arms was deeply satisfying. 

Brick tells me to go to church, and I go. But not because of Brick. Because I want something. Something that will spread through my gut with the warmth of wine, trace the lines of me all the way to my origin and bless it beyond all reason, beyond all poison. I want holy lips to part and whisper that Brick has it wrong:  Christ’s blood wasn’t poured out to purify me, but to unify me. I have no idea if that is even possible, much less true. But I want to find out.  

I decide at the last minute on the evening of Maundy Thursday to go to the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd. I choose the church based on the ad in the Lexington Herald Leader, which says the service is to begin at seven. I finish my tuna sandwich and bowl of vegetable soup eaten at my grandmother’s table. I brush my teeth and take a long look in the mirror, which is not something I do often. I don’t like the crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes, and I especially hate the long wrinkle between them, which proves I frown too much. Every time I think about it, I frown. I avoid the wrinkles, look myself in the eye, and see a need so raw and recent that it might as well be a wound.  

When I was a little girl, my mother told me God heals all wounds. Sometimes she said it when she brushed my hair at night—long and auburn like hers—as if it were a lullaby. But mostly she said it when I missed my daddy. She’d be reading to me or helping me sweep the porch, and I’d get distracted, looking out over the top of the book or holding the broom still in my hands, and she knew I was thinking about him.  

My father left when I was six. Mama said my father was a kind man, but he just couldn’t stay in one place. It was his curse. I thought she meant curse like a swear word. His curse wasn’t damn or hell (the only swear words I knew, because Mama used them when she scorched the bottom of a pot or found dry rot at the base of a tree) his curse was gone. When I got distracted or cried about missing him, Mama crooned to me God heals all wounds, and I believed her. Once, when we were scrubbing the dinner dishes clean, I replied well then why don’t we go to church. She answered that the outdoors was all the church she or God needed. 

I wanted to believe her and only her, but I had Brick’s notions to contend with. How is God supposed to heal the loss of my mother when Brick’s God locks me out of divine presence, and I’m afraid he might be right? Still, I’m determined to go. I put on a navy-blue skirt and a white blouse. My only pair of pantyhose has a long run snaking up from the left heel. I twist it as far to the back as I can. I get in the car and drive a fast ten minutes to Good Shepherd. At five after seven the parking lot is packed, so I park down the street from the church.   

My heart is hammering like God knows I’m up to something, but I keep going. Two huge wooden doors creak open, and I stand in a stone space of heavy silence. Two more wooden doors face me. I open one slowly and step into church. The congregation is quiet, like a child waiting for punishment. A few people in the back turn to look at me. There is nowhere — I mean nowhere — to sit. I have to walk down a side aisle, feeling too small and too large at once. I find a seat on the left edge of a pew near the front and sit down. A few more heads turn, and the Reverend looks straight at me before focusing his attention on the center of the church.  

What am I doing here? I think. Am I really here for me or for Brick? 

Brick lorded his age over me from the time I was three, and by the time I was ten he was lording the Lord over me. I don’t know where he got his conviction because he says it wasn’t from his daddy, who was a low-down-snake-in-the-grass who didn’t-deserve-the-time-of-day, much less a woman like my mother. Brick knew she stayed for his sake, leaving only when he was fifteen and old enough to fend for himself. He didn’t seem to have much respect for his daddy, so maybe he put all that respect into church. All I know is that for most of my life I’ve been hearing about the Will of God and the Hand of God and the Fear of God and the Wrath of God. Never, I noticed, the Grace of God. 

Brick and I shared the love of a good long walk in the peace of the woods. We used to take walks in the woods that bordered the meadow around our house. There was no one around for miles, which was how Brick and I liked it. We’d head to a stream that was shored up by large, smooth rocks. We’d sit, dip our toes, and not say a thing. I wasn’t tempted to share a single secret with Brick, but there were times when I placed my hand on his to feel the warmth of life. He’d sit still when I did that, like I was a wild animal he didn’t want to disturb. 

Brick kept coming for our walks even as I got older, but I ended them at fifteen, the age of fending for yourself. I had read the beginning of the Bible enough times to have a sense of what it was getting at, and some of it bothered me. The stuff about Eve causing us to lose paradise struck me as a fable, like the scorpion and the frog, where the scorpion promises to give the frog a ride across the river unharmed and then eats the frog when they get to the other side. In this fable, Eve was the scorpion. And she didn’t come straight from God, the way Adam did. On what became the last of our walks, I decided to ask Brick about it. 

We were sitting by the stream because I had led us that way, veering to the left when Brick wanted to go straight. I was heading for water, looking to feel cool and calm. When I had slipped out of my sandals and put them on a rock that was showing the first signs of spring moss, I dipped my toes in the water and moved my legs back and forth, watching the ripples. 

“Brick,” I said. 

He looked at me from underneath his khaki fishing cap, the kind that usually has lures pinned all over it. The top half of his face was in shadow. I studied him, my brother who was over thirty and more like an uncle, who was planning to marry a woman he’d met at church. 

“Brick,” I said again. “What do you think about the story of Eve?” 

“I think it is the story of Original Sin,” he said. He sat up straighter, pressing his back against a tree. 

“Doesn’t anything about it seem—old-fashioned to you?” 

“I like old-fashioned, Gracie. That’s why I’m marrying Sue. She knows the story of Eve, and all the other stories in the Bible. How many do you know?” 

 “I mean, it’s a fable, like something that didn’t really happen but has a lesson, right?” 

Brick stroked his beard, which was thick and red. This was before he shaved off all his hair and became a father and a bank manager. He gave me a sharp, calculating look. The kind of look my mother had when she talked about Brick’s father. “Watch it, Gracie. You’re on a slippery slope.” 

I slid right down that slope until my mother died, and then I got caught on a snag, like a piece of driftwood in a river. I haven’t been to church for anything but a funeral or a wedding my entire adult life, yet here I am looking for God on the night that Jesus’s apostles were preparing for his death. My mind’s been wandering, thinking about Brick and Eve and myself, and now I hear the pastor say, “Mary Magdalene, who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil, was doing so out of love. Some say Mary was Jesus’ beloved.” 

I hear those words, Jesus’ beloved, and the iceberg in my chest shifts. The sermon continues but I don’t hear any more of it. I stand when the people around me stand and I sit when they sit. When they sing, I move my mouth, but no words come. My tongue doesn’t know the songs of God. 

“He is Risen!” Sue says as she swings the door to the Jefferson Street house wide open. I step past her into the foyer, holding my glass-topped Pyrex dish tight against my chest. I’ve been here a few times before — most recently after Mama’s funeral — but I am in unfamiliar territory. There is a wide stairway in front of me, with a living room to the right and a formal dining room to the left. I walk into the dining room and set my mac and cheese on the table next to an empty crystal bowl. “Thanks for having me!” I say over my shoulder. 

Sue follows me. She moves around the table rearranging plates and forks, adjusting a serving spoon here, tucking a napkin in there. The table is set for five, which means the twins are joining us.  

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask, knowing Sue will decline. As far as I can tell, only she and Mavis ever do anything productive in this house. 

“Just make yourself at home. You can hang your sweater on the rack in the hall if you want. Brick should be down shortly.” 

“Where are the twins?” 

Sue looks up from the table. “They went out to get some ginger ale and ice cream. Funny, the things you forget.” She laughs and walks through the white wooden door into the kitchen. 

I pass through the foyer and into the living room, which is cluttered with dark furniture. An oval coffee table squats in front of a couch that looks like it’s covered in a Victorian tapestry. There are two armchairs to match, and heavy end tables at either side of the couch. Crystal lamps on each table. A mantelpiece loaded with angel figurines.   

There is plenty to look at, but what draws my attention is the Jesus clock. It hangs above the couch, taking up most of the back wall. It’s fashioned from a thin slice of tree trunk, stained and lacquered so each ring in the wood visibly gleams. The numbers around the edges are painted gold. It is unclear where the golden hands that mark the time are anchored. They float across the surface of the wood. And then there is Jesus. Smack in the center, all golden locks and glossy blue eyes.  

I used to think Jesus was like my father, a kind man who just couldn’t stick around. Fast on the heels of that thought was another: it was my fault. My sin was his curse. This belief wormed its way into me during those walks with Brick, when I was older and understood that my father’s curse wasn’t a swear word but a burden he carried, like how Jesus carried the burden of our sins. If I’d been better, maybe he would’ve stayed. And if that was true of my father, was it true of Jesus too? That’s why the Eve story got to me: it said I was the reason for the curse, the dry rot at the base of creation. No amount of thinking otherwise could shake that feeling from my heart. I had an inkling that Jesus would tell me I wasn’t dry rot, but only if he were more of a mystery to Brick and less of one to me. 

Staring at that Jesus clock, registering the time as five after eleven but feeling like it is no time at all, I wonder who Jesus really was. Was he the kind of man to take a woman as a full partner, a beloved, and minister with her? That’s what I’m thinking when Brick comes up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder. I startle at his touch. 

“You’re awfully jumpy,” Brick says.  

I turn around and give him a quick hug. “I’m not jumpy. Just surprised is all.” 

“You always were skittish.” 

“Well, I’m not a horse.” 

Just then, Lewis and Mavis come through the front door, laughing and talking. Lewis is holding a white plastic bag from Kroger, and Mavis is slipping her keys into her thin pocketbook.  

Lewis nods at me and continues on to the kitchen, but Mavis crosses the room and hugs me. “Aunt Grace, it’s good to see you.” 

I look at her for a moment, her white linen shirt with no wrinkles in it, her red hair loose over her shoulders. “You too, Mavis. Tell me about college.” 

She shrugged. “You know how it is. Classes, dorm rooms, projects and exams.” 

I smiled. “Have you chosen a major?” 

“I’m trying to decide between History and Women’s and Gender Studies. I’m taking this class on women’s history—it’s through the history department, but it’s also part of the gender studies curriculum. I’m learning so much about women’s roles in society—in work, at home, in relationships—" 

“This is just a passing fancy,” Brick says. “She’s only a freshman. Her brother has a mind for business. Next thing you know, she’ll be taking statistics with him.” 

“That’s not true, Dad. I’m a feminist, and I love history.” 

There’s a silence as the word “feminist” hangs in the air. I am about to ask Mavis about what she thinks of that word, what it means for her—something I am real curious about—but Brick speaks before I can. “Mavis, you want to think about women, think about the ones in the Bible.” 

“Fine by me, Dad. There’s plenty of material there. Like Jesus with the woman at the well. He talked to her even though she was supposedly unclean.” 

This story rings a vague bell, but since I don’t exactly read my Bible on the regular, I can’t remember it. “Unclean how?” I ask. 

“The usual. Sex.” Mavis shoots a look at her father. “She’d had five husbands and a boyfriend.” 

That gets my attention. But again, before I can speak, Brick’s mouth is open. “You are two peas in a pod. Gracie, do you remember asking me about Eve when you were a little younger than Mavis here?” 

“I do. And I remember you told me I was on a slippery slope.” 

“You were questioning the story of Eve and sin. If you start there—if you question women and sin and sex, like what Mavis is doing with that well story—you are sinning. Sin always starts small. It ends up ruining your life. I don’t want that for Mavis, and I don’t want it for you. That’s why I told you to repent.” 

“Jezebels don’t prosper, you said. What friend told you about me and Richard, anyway?” 

Brick looks at Mavis, then at me, angrily. “I have friends who shop at Joseph-Beth. One of them saw you talking to that man from the hayride — they described him, and I knew who it was. They said you left with him.” 

Mavis touches my elbow. “Maybe we should see if Mom needs help.” 

I keep my eyes steady on Brick. “To question women and sin and sex is to sin? So, we  

—women — are sin?” 

Mavis lets her hand drop from my elbow. “Jezebel was a queen,” she says, looking at the Jesus clock. 

“She killed prophets,” answers Brick. 

“Yes,” Mavis says, shifting her eyes to her father. “But she wasn’t a prostitute.” 

I glance at Mavis, and the iceberg in my chest shifts again. “Let’s go see if your mom needs help,” I say. 

Sue is setting down a pitcher of ginger ale. The table is loaded—a plate of ham and one of fried chicken, some slices of quiche, a green bean casserole, my mac and cheese, homemade potato salad, rolls with butter and jam, and the crystal bowl I’d seen earlier, filled with clementines.  

Once we get settled at the table — Brick and Lewis at the ends, Sue and Mavis across from me — we have to say grace. I am a beat behind everyone else when they bow their heads, but I catch on right quick. I stare at the ring of pink flowers around the edge of my plate while Brick says a prayer about missing Mama, then something about Almighty God and forgiveness.  

We raise our heads and everyone, even me, says, “Amen.” Things are quiet as we pass the dishes around. I don’t put much on my plate because I don’t eat much. Lewis notices. 

“Hey Aunt Gracie, help yourself to more potato salad. There’s plenty to go around.” 

I smile at Lewis. “Thanks, Lewis. It all looks delicious.” 

The talk around the table is small at first. No one asks me anything because they already know all there is to know. They talk amongst themselves, mostly about what kind of classes Lewis is taking. Then talk turns to the service they attended that morning. Brick asks the twins what their favorite part was, like they were little kids.  

“I liked Reverend Afton’s emphasis on the resurrection conquering sin. Sin as death. I thought he really made sense when he said we talk about Easter like it’s just a happy ending, when really it’s this culmination, the erasure of the basic sin of our nature,” says Lewis. 

Brick nods and forks a bite of quiche into his mouth. Sue beams at Lewis like he’s just delivered the sermon himself. Mavis looks at her plate, moving food around. I watch her and take a bite of mac and cheese.  

Mavis looks up and turns her head to catch Sue’s eye. “I have the same favorite part every year,” she says. “I like the re-enactment of the empty tomb they do for the kids. The way Mary Magdalene was the first one there and proclaimed the news to everyone.” 

Sue, who has reluctantly looked away from Lewis, turns her attention back to him. “The re-enactment is nice for the kids,” she says. “But I think Lewis really got the sermon.” 

A quiet tension stretches above us, like a tablecloth ballooning in mid-air. Mavis puts a piece of ham in her mouth and chews slowly, looking at the crystal bowl of clementines. I take one out of the bowl. 

“I’d like to hear more, Mavis,” I say. “About Mary at the tomb.” Mavis shoots me a grateful look and opens her mouth to speak. 

Lewis interrupts flatly, “Mary Magdalene was a whore.” He looks straight at me, his eyes a glossy blue, and bites into his fried chicken. 

I glance at Mavis, expecting her to say something. But she is silent, her green eyes flashing forsakenness at Lewis. I hold the clementine in my right hand. I dig my thumbnail deep into its flesh, releasing the tang of citrus. I rise from the table. Mavis shifts her gaze to me. 

I don’t say a word, not to Lewis, not to Sue, certainly not to Brick. I look at Mavis, only her, so she won’t miss the wound of need in my eyes. “I went to church on Thursday,” I say. “And the Reverend said that some people believe Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ beloved.” 

I walk around the table and hand Mavis the clementine. She looks down at it and begins to peel it. The smell fills the air as I touch her shoulder lightly, then walk out of the dining room, into the foyer, and out the front door. 

I stand on the porch for a moment, but I’m not waiting for anyone. 

 Curtain

Ella Boehme

Their laughter comes back to me every May. 

That laughter, I’ll never forget it, the way it lilted and screeched. I understand the opera singers that hit notes so high they shatter glass with only their voices. Since then, I’ve heard that’s a myth, but that day it seemed like shrill voices could have sent entire cities crumbling to dust. 

When I was younger, I attended a small school past the outskirts of a rural town. The entire student body added up to less than a hundred and fifty kids, kindergarten through eighth grade. The school itself was bordered by cattle pastures on three sides and sagebrush on the fourth. I often looked out the window during English class and saw horses trodding by, or cows staring placidly back at me, chewing their cud.  

The school grounds were surrounded by barbed wire fences (to keep the cattle and horses out, and the children in) and magpies and meadowlarks were often perched there. A few times, all the children were herded inside during lunchtime because a mountain lion had been spotted nearby by a farmer. While we were all inside, looking longingly at the outdoors, a herd of deer wandered onto the lawn and grazed there until school was out. Though the school was small and underfunded, the eighth-grade class raised money every year for a class trip. Five days on the Catalina Islands. The trip depended on us raising the money to go, and this year we’d raised enough to spend two nights in cabins and the remaining two nights camping by the beach.  

It was a warm May day, the first day of our trip, and after swimming I returned to the cabin. I was fourteen, the age where girls are supposed to start protecting each other. Adults wonder why girls of that age cry so much, and rage at the world, and keep their bedroom door locked–it’s because even if we don’t know it–we’re realizing that our bodies are not ours anymore.   

We become acutely aware that safety is an illusion. Our body belongs to the man on the bus with a strange smile, the boys in our class who can’t stop themselves, the car that honks, and the teacher with high heels who gives us old T-shirts from the lost and found to cover our shoulders. Somehow, our constant anger is irrational and childish. At least, I suppose, we’re still seen as children in a way. 

Girls are supposed to hold towels up to shield each other with a curtain; it’s a sign of trust to let someone do that for you, to know that they won’t let it fall. Until they do. 

I don’t know if it was an accident or not, but my friend dropped the towel. Suddenly, I was exposed to everyone in that room–laid bare, literally and figuratively–and I tried frantically to cover myself with something or anything, but my hands weren’t big enough to shield all of me. Not even close.  

Until then, I never understood the phrase “laughing like hyenas,” until I was drowning in it, and the fear I felt was comparable; they may as well have been carnivorous dogs, the way I cowered and waited for claws to tear into my flesh, knowing there was nothing to protect me. 

The world stretched, blurring at the edges. What was only seconds to them was hours to me, but I yanked the towel from the floor and covered myself, staring at them with betrayal, and all I could hiss out was “What did you see?” 

And the girl who always wore makeup, doubled over in her laughter, and said, “We saw everything.” 
Everything. 

I did the most childish thing, and I crawled onto the top bunk in the cabin and hid myself under the blankets and dressed there. No one would hold a towel for me again. I’d never let them. It was like being a little kid hiding in the dark of night from monsters, but this was the blinding brightness of day, and these monsters weren’t imaginary, they were my friends.  

The laughing eventually died down. Maybe they thought I was done being angry, that I’d pop my head up and act like nothing had happened. Somehow, they knew that as a child, I’d been trained to return to normal right after I was scared or hurt. They’d used that tactic mercilessly on me as school bullies, and I had always bounced back, but I wasn’t so quick now.  

One of them offered an apology, but I didn’t respond. I squeezed my eyes shut and hated her, hated all of them so much that my fingernails dug red crescents into the palms of my hand. In my mind’s eye, I was brave enough to jump up and punch them all in the throat, but I couldn’t do it for real. That meant they’d have to see me, and I never wanted to be seen again.  

The next day while I was alone, a boy cornered me on the trail. He was the only boy in our class, gangly and pale, and a little odd. I had never found him threatening until he told me what he was going to do to me the second I let my guard down, how he’d sneak into my tent and whatever he did, “I’d like it.”  

The words rotted down through my eardrums, curling around my brain even after he disappeared out of sight. I hiked until I found service and called my mom. I cried and asked her what I should do. “He’s harmless, really,” she said nonchalantly. “You could fight him off if you needed to. I wouldn’t worry about it.”  

What I didn’t tell her was that while his back was receding down the trail, he said over his shoulder, “Maybe I’ve already done those things to you, and you just don’t know.”  

And then again, the towel seemed to be torn away. Whatever illusion of safety had remained, however frail it had been, this shredded it and left nothing behind. 

Anyone who had met him said: He’s not right in the head, he’s a little off. He didn’t know what he said was a threat. He doesn’t know what to say. Poor boy, for not knowing, for being born that way. Poor boy. 

And the truth is, when I see him now and we’re both so much older, I always ask “how are you?” I had conversations with his mother when I was a cashier, when she’d come through my line. No matter what else she was buying, she always got an expensive bottle of white wine.  

She didn’t see me as the enemy, because when the girls in my class heard what he said, they were furious at him, and some of them told their mothers, and some of their mothers got angry at his mother. They took their daughters out of school so they would be safe from him. My mother didn’t do that. Unlike the other girls, I didn’t ignore him and pretend he didn’t exist whenever he came near me. I was always kind to him, even though I’m unsure if he deserved it.  

I remember, when the school found out, they let him stay home and they dedicated an entire day to teaching us about how to avoid sexual assault. We were held responsible, while his punishment was to stay home and learn nothing except what his mother told him, which was also nothing. 

The worst part, when I smile at his mother and ask how he’s doing, it’s not entirely fake. I know my classmates had bullied him that entire year, that he was the only boy, that he wasn’t as mature as the rest of us. There were so many excuses that could be made for him, to deflect the blame. I defended him from teachers and classmates, over and over again, and even when he turned on me with those words and threats that made my skin crawl, I couldn’t stop feeling sympathy for him. 

I have difficulty feeling sympathy for both of us at the same time, though. 

At camp, he climbed up on the cliffs high over the island after the teachers and chaperones knew what he’d said. My teacher climbed up after him and they exchanged words that none of us would ever know. Maybe it was a reassurance, maybe a plea to change his mind and calm down. I do know that once they came down from the cliff, the teacher laid the blame on us, on me, on our bodies for provoking that boy, and then for upsetting him when we held him accountable. Our fault. My fault. 

That’s the truth. That’s the real story.  

I lay awake that night, tightly gripping a rock I’d smuggled into my sleeping bag. I planned that if he was to come into the tent like he said he would, I would smash the rock into his skull. All of us girls wore three pairs of underwear and three pairs of pants that night; we dressed in them while we spoke, hushed, trying to reassure ourselves that this would stop him from reaching us. We all felt exposed.  

I escaped, and my mind left the camp in the darkness, walked up that winding trail and ventured out across the coastal brush and through the scrub oak, pushing through curtains of wild cucumber. I walked along the edge of the cliffs and stared down at the water – even at night – I could see the splotches of orange garibaldis. The dark waves rippled, and in the pitch black of night, the little bioluminescent creatures lit up the water. Just in spots, where the water crashes against the rocks or the shore, little bits of glowing pale green. It’s strange, because when I go back to my memory, the bioluminescence is pale green, but in all the photos online it’s pale blue.  

In the tent, I heard something outside, and my grip on the rock tightened. Someone was there, I heard footsteps on the gravel. The steps were slow, like a predator stalking, but they were there, and they sent my heartbeat into a gallop. 

I tried to go somewhere else. Back to that cliff over the night ocean, where the moon is just a thin sliver high in the sky, where the lights of the Southern California coastline are so far away.  

There was breathing, the way someone breathes when they’re scared, and my breath sounded terrified too. A shadow paused on the tent’s fabric, or had I imagined it? My mom used to say that faraway city lights looked like a jewelry box, twinkling silver, orange topaz, and pale gold. Across the water, the city looked more like a thin necklace. I stretched out my arms and let the night wind buffet me, it pillowed against my body, and I stepped off the edge of the cliff. I didn’t fall, I flew. 

My heart pounded so hard that I could hear the blood in my ears, my entire skull took the shockwaves like drumbeats. The rock dug red indents into my palm and fingers. Finally, whoever was outside the tent left, the footsteps grew further and further away until I heard the faint sound of a tent zipper opening and closing. 

Though my heart slowed down, I kept my eyes squeezed shut and flew over the moonlit Pacific, following the waves that glowed pale green. 

 Good Things

Katie Lynn Johnston

She’d been a child. And she recalled herself a pirate baring teeth, loping across blue sands and porch steps, a hand over one eye, a finger hooked — A sailor! A sailor! Ezzie would cry and Dottie bleat. But when the men came for her, it was not as a girl, but as a woman and, standing before her now, with their heads like paperweights and their eyes hidden behind the shade of their spectacles, not glittering like gold but rather that rotten sheen hidden in the cavities of her brother’s teeth, Eve thought there was nothing more horrible and couldn’t stop crying.

“There, there,” one of the lawyers said and patted her little hand as though it were a rabid dog’s head. His eyes were cold, pallored — and she remembered seeing the other lawyers in the woods, peering over hedges, from behind trees, their tweed pants hiked up around their knees, hairy legs exposed, hugging their briefcases to their stomachs, staring out into the light at other girls — the grown sons of goldfish-swallowers and war heroes; animals. “It is, after all, a daughter’s duty. Or”—he looked at his compatriot and smiled—“something.”

It was a sad many days. Eve cried and cried until she forgot she was crying. The salt got into the hardwood floors, the cat drowned in her tears, and the house began to smell so much of the ocean that Eve’s mother went out to the beach for the first time since her youngest son’s drowning and was determined to float out to sea to find his body. She crafted a raft out of driftwood and seaweed and, floating out in her good dress, she looked — through Eve’s tears — like a split cherry.

“There she goes,” Eve’s father said, standing on the beach with her, his hand resting on her shoulder, watching as his wife drifted farther and farther into the blue seam of the horizon. “For the fifth time this century.”

When they returned to the house, Eve collapsed in the living room for three days and three nights, draped over her mother’s big red armchair, and cried even while she was sleeping. It was a silent, still sort of cry — mousey. She’d snivel and tremble and open her mouth as though she meant to call out, though no sound ever came. The tears curled out from between the corners of her eyes in an endless stream and rushed down her plump ruddy cheeks, catching the sunlight or the moonlight or the flashing of firelight as they fell to the floor as heavy as a wet sheet. Her nose felt like sandpaper — her blouse glittered with trails of snot. She thought that she must be the saddest girl in the whole world and that made her cry even more furiously. There were the papers on the coffee table — the ones her father had signed. She saw the halting lines of her own name, the unknown, confident hand of a man’s name sprawled beneath her own.

Her husband-to-be.

Someone she did not know.

She could just see herself standing before the altar in a wedding dress that was too big, that hung around her like vines on a tree, the lace too itchy, the veil too heavy, tears pouring from her eyes. And she could see the boy. The boy before her, who was not a boy but a man, standing tall and mean and ugly. Her husband-to-be would lick his lips and called her pretty. So young and so pretty. And she knew she would age in an instant then, as soon as his fingers crept over hers, as soon as his mouth covered hers, age like paper, turning yellow, wrinkled, all the time crying and crying with her children on one hip and laundry the other, while her husband sat there and contemplated life and bad poetry, telling her, One of these days, you’ve got to stop crying.

It was the cellar that flooded first. Vegetables, canned fruits, barrels of her father’s half-drunk beer floating around on the surface of her tears. Before long, the armchair was floating — and her other brothers were practicing their strokes, swimming around on their backs as gracefully as rotting fruit. They gurgled tears in their mouths and pretended to be cherubs in a spring. They all looked the same, like her mother, face plastered upon face with the same olive-green skin and dark hair as straight as a pin. Eve looked like her mother just as well, and she remembered how different her youngest brother had looked from the rest, how little even he looked like their blond father who was too big and too strong and too pale to be noteworthy. There were no pictures of their father on the walls, no trace of his existence except the liquor floating in the cellar and the smell of beer that was always on his breath as it wafted across rooms, through walls and floors and ceilings, settling under your nose as warm as dried laundry. Eve remembered the smell it would leave on her cheek when he tucked her in at night, the stubble of his chin, how big her parents had seemed then, how mighty, the veil of her mother’s hair as she bent down to kiss her good-night. She recalled the creeks and swamps and riverbeds she had trudged through with her brothers as children, mud between their toes, dirt around their throats. She pictured leeches in candy bowls — and it was only once the arrangements had been made and everything was finalized and she saw, from behind one of the lawyers’ egg-white heads, Olivia’s face peeking in from the window, that her tears finally stopped, and her father was able to pay for the damages for the flooding.

“She’s not crying,” one lawyer said to the other, astonished. They were standing around the kitchen table where they had propped Eve up like a doll on a wooden chair, her swollen eyes making her look much younger, much smaller. They were knee-deep in the water and their trousers stuck around their chicken legs like plastic wrap. “We should tell the other family.”

The reflection of the yellow wallpaper in the kitchen bounced and danced in the water around their legs. The lawyers were sweating, although the tears were cold, and they dabbed at their brows with starched white hankies. “We could be done with all this by Monday,” the other whispered. They both stared straight ahead at Eve and her father, Olivia peeking in behind their backs. She had a beautiful, mischievous, boyish little face, Olivia, the sort of thing that would ruin lives — and, as she looked in through the window, the yellow and red and purple tulips from the window-box falling around her brown eyes, Eve knew everything would be alright.

“And the wedding?” Eve’s father asked. The lawyers looked at one another as though the question hadn’t crossed their minds. “When is the wedding?” Her father held one thumb against his suspenders, sparse gray hair peeking out from the neck of his Henley. “We’ll have to fetch a dress and flowers, and I’ll have to send a boatman out for my wife.” He had not blinked since his son had drowned all those years ago, and so looked always as though he were sleeping — his eyes just open enough so that you could see, between each blond eyelash, a dull white sheen. He had his big hand on Eve’s shoulder if not protectively, then proprietorially — his other children swimming around the table legs and their feet.

“Tomorrow,” one lawyer muttered.

“Yes, Sunday,” said the other.

“We’ll call the churchmen this evening.”

Later, as they walked through the woods to the beach, Olivia looked at her and said, “He must be ugly,” solemnly, sweetly, so that it seemed somehow a compliment that he should want Eve. The soft crunch of dry leaves sounded underfoot. Olivia was fiddling with something in the pocket of her feed sack dress, the pink and white flowers patterned around her body seeming as though they were perpetually falling from a far-off tree.

Eve nodded and said, “Yes, yes, he must be ugly. But my family needs the money.”

Olivia looked down at her feet.

The woods were like churches here — dense, dark, one piled high atop the other, steeples stretching out into the sky, covering it, letting only speckles of light onto the path; crosses here, there, shadowed, staring down at them with stained-glass eyes. They walked, their fingers brushing against one another’s, if only accidentally — and each bare touch made Eve feel dizzy. The air smelled of rain and autumn and decay, the blithe dusty sugar of abandoned attics in November, and from the edge of the greenery, the twinkling eyes of the lawyers who lived in the trees followed their feet, their glances blinding yellow and sickly. Eve had felt them looking at her ever since she was little. Taking her apart. Feeling her in their hands. Holding her upside down and watching as her skirt fell down around her eyes. They were thinking always, so loudly, what they might do to her, what they might have done to her, and she wondered if her mother had felt it, too — if her father had turned his wife-to-be over and over in his mind like a dropped candy.

“Do you remember” — Olivia took off running, careening down the forest trail, arms out-stretched, an airplane, a fairy — “how we used to play out here?” She barreled back toward Eve,  blew out between closed lips like a fighter plane, brown shoes slamming against the dirt path. “When we were little?”

Eve did remember. She remembered lying on the cold damp earth, a mummy risen from his tomb, arms held out limply before her, eyes closed, staggering across the forest floor, dragging her feet, moaning, groaning, a smile peeking at her lips as she heard Dottie squeal and Ezzie scream. She remembered feeling bark at the tips of her fingers, every nook and knot becoming a part of her, and how each twig and leaf and rock beneath her bare feet became an extension of her body. She remembered Dottie’s and Ezzie’s and Olivia’s hands as they slipped around her waist while she stood there blindly, their voices guiding her one way and then the other. Friends who had, she thought, been with her forever — would be with her forever, but now she felt uncertainty. She tried to remember Olivia’s gaze as it fell against her; when — out of the darkness — her hand would reach out, clasp her wrist, and pull her back to the living. You got me, she’d say, smiling, the world shining in her eyes, every tree reflected, every fracture of light, Eve’s plain face and brown hair warped into something beautiful. You got me, she’d whisper — and then Eve would see over her shoulder the black creeping treeline, the spidery lace fingers of naked branches, the yellow eyes of men as they watched them hungrily.

Eve shook her head and the memories fell from her ears. “No. I don’t remember.”

“Oh, c’mon. You do.” Olivia was breathing heavily and her cheeks were flushed. “I know you do. Don’t lie.” She grinned like it had happened yesterday, like she did not fear Eve had forgotten it all.

Eve shrugged. Smiled. When they were kids, Olivia had always won the game. Real games, pretend games, imaginary games that rose from the dreamy black pits of their heads, where they would forget for an hour or two that they were real living things. She would win. She would always win. But now, Eve thought, the game was over — done. Olivia lost and so had she, and the only victor that could ever be stood tall, faceless, pillared between the sexes. She looked down at her and Olivia’s hands, the empty space between them, so close and so far — and she remembered putting worms in her pockets, feeling the wings of fireflies flitting against her skin. But now it was so quiet. But now it was so still. And here she stood, a woman of fifteen.

“Here,” Olivia handed her a blue candy heart. Eve popped it into her mouth. It tasted like lint. “It’s the last one I have from February.”

She felt the indentation of each letter against her tongue — K-I-S-S-M-E — and sucked the candy into her cheek. She felt like crying.

“I had so many,” Olivia said, absentmindedly. “I gave them back to the girls who had given them to me.”

The trees were beginning to part, the branches giving way to clear white light, storm clouds forming on the horizon like curdling milk in a jug — the eyes of men dimming away to nothing.

“They didn’t even notice.”

Dottie and Ezzie had gone out to the water as if blown by the wind. The waves met their skin and exalted in every plush edge and corner, rushing through their fingertips, their lips, each bare part of themselves shining out like mother of pearl.

Olivia and Eve stood there, above them on the sand dune, watching them, the trees crowning their heads, and Ezzie and Dottie glanced back at them, chirping in glee.

The beach was full of bodies — resting under umbrellas that flipped inside out in the wind, lounging on pink and blue towels as pale as their skin. Their figures were all covered in the same navy blue, a white band around their hips, another running around their necks. They were reading, sunbathing under storm clouds, children choking on metal shovels and sand. Moving, bustling, seeming even to breathe too loudly, too excitedly. Dottie and Ezzie stood, the only still things against the raging gray waves and sky. The wind howled bitterly, and again Eve felt like crying. But her eyes had dried up, had given up, and she wondered if her mother had made it out to sea.

“Do you want to go swimming?” Olivia asked.

“Not really.”

Eve and Olivia both stripped off their clothes anyway and buried them in the sand beneath their feet. It would storm. Eve could tell by the sky, the clouds, the wind as it bit at her skin. “Good day for the beach,” she heard someone say. Kites and towels and hot dog buns were blown across the sand violently. “I’ve never seen the sky so pretty.” There were children, so many children, some just there, floating out into the black tumult of the lake, while everyone sat around smiling. Eve could hear both Dottie and Ezzie squeal as the water reached their toes and then their ankles and their thighs, rising up to their bare waists only to fall again, leaving them goose-pimpled, smiling. She could see every follicle of hair on their skin, risen, sharp, each soft curve as it fell into the corners of their legs, the dimples at their lower backs. Their arms would float up into the air as the water did, peaks of underarm hair and loose skin. Children and mothers and fathers and daughters were laughing, and she wished they were crying. That they would cry for her. It was going to storm and here they were living, fabric ripped off umbrellas, sand blown into their eyes, a baby — not even crying — tumbling away in the howl of the wind like a tumbleweed.

Eve and Olivia plopped down on to the sand.

“Couldn’t you just run away?” Olivia asked. She was looking at Eve intently, her knees pulled into her chest so the hallowed lines of her ribs shone out like a night sky. “It’s like this’s the last day of your life.” She looked back at the shore. Ezzie and Dottie were walking toward them now across the beach, moving as if invisibly around the clothed people.

And what then? Eve wanted to say, what then? But she only hissed, “Don’t tell them anything,” and wrapped her arms around her body.

Ezzie and Dottie stood before them, water dripping down the curves of their waists.

“Are you going to go swimming?” Ezzie asked, her voice tinkling. Her long brown hair was piled upon her head — Dottie’s hair plastered across her cheeks. Eve noticed suddenly that Dottie was holding her hand — just their pinkies looped together like the stems of cherries. An umbrella was ripped out of the sand behind them and went tumbling across the beach, knocking down bodies.

“I don’t think so,” Olivia said before Eve could say anything.

“Should we get something to eat then?” Dottie asked, glancing at Ezzie. “We could sneak into your family’s orchard.” Between their bare legs, Eve saw the water begin to rise into a monstrous wave. A child carried over on a yellow raft by her mother was set on the lake and pushed out to drift.

“Sure.” Olivia stood up and pulled her clothes out from the sand. She hurried to get dressed. The other two looked down at Eve.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Olivia had always been told she was ugly.

Her mother poked and prodded at her face even when she was a baby — “If only a smaller nose or bigger lips; if only the forehead were shorter and the cheeks more defined.” If only she had been a boy, her mother said over and over and over. “You would’ve made such a handsome boy,” gazing down at her from dark stairways. A boy — and then when girls would leave notes in her shoes at school with curlicue letters and candy and baked sweets, stacks of love letters rolled into her socks, it would not seem such a curse, such a malady. Olivia would hear her mother cry into pillows, into the pockets of her apron, in her sleep — a black distance spreading out between them — could haves, should haves — and Olivia would stand in front of the mirror in her bedroom, poking at her cheeks. Should’ve been a boy, a boy. Ugly.

But Eve thought she was alright — Olivia, standing there now in the apple orchard above her, the red trees shimmering behind her head, the sun beginning to set, making her gold, golden, the color of amber left alone a million years — and she, Olivia, bit into the apple like a masterpiece, juice spurting, gilded — and Eve, lying there, just watching. She was flat on her back beneath a tree, in the shade of the trees, her arms behind her head, looking up at Olivia and the sky. The clouds were beginning to fall away now, turning orange, a crisp white. She knew somewhere far off, Ezzie and Dottie were doing things that should not be seen — and felt almost like she could hear their breathing, panting, see them now encapsulated in a mess of white cotton and grass stains, becoming one body.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” Olivia asked, grinning, and Eve glanced back across the row of trees. Crickets were chirping. And she spotted, behind the trunks, the flat eyes of men, peeping at them. Olivia threw the core of her apple over her shoulder. It had already browned, and it was as though Olivia could not see them, the lawyers who had sniffed after them since they were three. “What’re you thinking?”

It was too warm suddenly for the end of September — the chill had gone out of the day and with it, too, some semblance of what would happen on Sunday. Most of the fruit in the orchard had rotted, smelling sour and sweet, turning to black mush beneath their feet, decaying on the trees and falling from branches, piece by piece — and the rot of it, the sheer end of it made Eve sick.

“Where d’you think they went off to?” Eve said.

“They’ve probably gone somewhere with better pickings.”

The dull gray of day burned into the color of apricots and the eyes of tabby cats.

“Probably.”

 “You should eat something.”

Olivia reached up, her hand disappearing into the shrouded brown and red branches of the tree. Her skirt rose. The white dough of her thighs. Eve looked away.

“Here.” She handed Eve the apple and held an invisible one in her own hand, biting into it with an extravagant smile, as if reminding Eve how to eat. The apple was smooth — perfect, not a blemish, a sunset of red and green. Eve ran her hand over it. Had an urge to shine it against the fabric of her dress like she’d seen her mother do. Suddenly, she was starving. She bit into it ardently. The juice mulled, too sweet, too flat, settling against her tongue like bile. Olivia was smiling — so beautiful, so proud, looking at Eve now in such a way that Eve knew Olivia could feel it, too, had always felt it, a pull, a want, something more hidden between their lives, hidden now in the space that separated them, the air they breathed. But now it was too late. And in the pale yellow meat of the apple, she saw a headless worm squirming—and felt its head writhing against the inside of her cheek.

The skeleton of her youngest brother was set up in her mother’s big red armchair as if hanging from the branches of a tree. He had been licked clean — no signs of living — but looked almost as though he were still breathing, the stark white of his ribs seeming to rise and fall against the red brocade fabric of the chair. His head was adorned with flowers and beads, and his brothers were gathered around his feet, having outgrown him, but looking up at him all the same as though he were telling a story. He had such a small little body. So white and so clean. But the house was molding. The tears had been pumped out of the rooms, and everything was starting to turn a dull fuzzy green, creeping over doorways and windowpanes, nestling in the corners of picture frames. Monstrous plants had begun to sprout in the backyard from all the watering — tall black vines that encircled themselves endlessly — and Eve’s mother was sitting in the little yellow kitchen, her head in her hands, crying.

Upstairs, Eve couldn’t hear her mother. She looked out from the sole window in her room at the yard, the intricate twisting trees, everything she had ever known stretching out below her feet. She knew nothing outside of this world. It had never existed to her and, now, she thought, it never would. It could only be the trees and the beach, a shack which would steadily fill with babies — she would live in the folds of laundry, in the snap of cabbage leaves, in the moments when she would stand out under the night sky, knowing already that she had lost the best years of her life.

Eve took a step forward and the floorboards creaked. She thought she saw the eyes of the lawyers, glowing yellow, watching her from the trees — but then thought herself silly. It was over. It was done. It had all been arranged. The moon had risen into the sky, full, pearly white — the day was finished, “the last day of her life.” She could hear the wind blowing through the trees — hear in the distance, she thought, the waves crashing against the shore, groping for her brother’s body. The world seemed black and white; all ending.

Olivia was lying in Eve’s bed behind her — the flowers on her body finally still — and was full of color; sturdy. She was not sleeping, but she lay so still, her eyes soft, unfocused, so it seemed to Eve that she might be. She thought about tiptoeing over to her, about waking her, about pulling her back to life, kissing her and touching her, to feel something, if only accidentally. She remembered the delicate lines of Dottie’s and Ezzie’s fingers as they came together, the soft lines of their skin. Eve saw her reflection in the window glass, saw Olivia’s slim frame over her shoulder against the dark empty trees, her body curled in on itself, her hands stretched out, reaching to the edge of the twin-sized bed — sleeping, but not sleeping — color pulsing from her, spreading from her. For the first time, Eve felt unseen. She felt alone, she felt solitary, and there was a joy in it that she had not known, a sweetness to it that stung like an unripe berry. She did not hear the snap of cabbage leaves, she did not remember the dull white of a wedding-to-be, the boy who was not a boy and had never been, the black and white of an ending, the impossible victor who stood between her and she. Eve felt only, saw only: color silence trees. And she threw open the window, sticking her head out into the crisp night air as if it was the first time she had ever breathed.

She was gasping, and it tasted delicious, brief.

“Evie,” Olivia said, drowsily. She peered at her from under the guise of sleep. “What’re you doing?”

Eve glanced back at her, panting, smiling abjectly, solemnly. She pushed her hair out of her eyes, still leaning against the window — and Olivia burned, a living light. “Just thinking about the wedding.”

 The waterfall, or a dream

Carlyn Schmidt

 
 
I don’t know the name of the place. I don’t remember how we came to be there. Those memories had slipped from my mind a long time ago, or maybe they never existed in the first place. 

My friend and I each share an earbud, and Deep Blue Something plays through the iPod shuffle. Typically, I keep my thumb on the skip button, but I’d let my mind wander. She knows within seconds. Her eyes sparkle, ready to announce my crime. 

“You don’t listen to good music,” she says. 

Strange of her to make that generalization now, when I had shared my music with her this entire trip. I didn’t hear her complaining when one Green Day song played after another. I think what she meant to say was, “You listen to bad music sometimes,” but I’d never been one to split hairs. 

It’s Sabrina’s mother, sitting in the fraying passenger seat of the four-door sedan, who calls back. 

“Sabrina,” she chides. “You can’t say things like that to people. It’s very rude.” Sabrina’s lips press together in a hard line. 

The drive is mostly silent. Every so often, Sabrina’s mother will ask the driver, Paola, a question and she, small and polite, will answer back in short bursts of Spanish and English. I have to stare out the window to keep from getting sick. We weave through narrow and crowded streets and then the road is open, surrounded by trees. Not palm trees, but similar. I don’t know their names. These are wider, with light and wispy fronds that look like they might tickle. Out of the city, the sedan pulls over onto the mud-packed shoulder. It only feels normal because there are other cars lining the road. 

Paola leads us through a narrow trail. Fronds brush my shoulders as I pass. They do tickle. The air is cooler here and I clutch my arms to my body. I am in my bathing suit — a tankini — and denim shorts that hit just above the knee. I cradle a hotel towel to my chest, covering the newest additions to this body that grows fuller and more foreign with each passing day. 

The culvert in the trees opens before us without warning. The sun shines directly overhead onto an irregular stone platform that hosts a few picnic tables. The ground is cool. Beyond the platform is a small pond, smaller even than the above-ground swimming pool in my neighbor’s yard back home. Feeding this pond is a cascading waterfall. It is small and gentle, descending over smooth rocks before falling a few feet and disrupting the calm water below. 

Paola gestures to the table nearest the pool where a shirtless boy sits, waiting. He doesn’t show any recognition as we approach. In fact, he looks terrified. 

“My son,” she explains. “Luis.” 

Sabrina’s mother greets him in English. “Hello,” he replies, the word too round in his mouth. 

Paola says something to Luis in Spanish, and he nods, looking to me and Sabrina and gesturing silently to the pond. Already? We follow, exchanging giddy almost-smiles. 

Luis is not small like most boys in my seventh-grade class. They are short and wiry, with tennis ball arms and jutting ribs. Not like Luis. He is as tall as I am, but shorter than Sabrina. His arms and belly are full in a way that makes me wonder how he spends his days, what he does for fun. I want to ask. 

There is no obvious entryway into the pond. No ladder or gradient. Luis steps carefully over rounded stones toward the water. Before we can follow, he turns to us. Clenching one hand into a fist, he swipes a flat hand over it in a sweeping motion. He does this a few times before I nod and say to Sabrina, “It’s slippery.” 

It is slippery and Sabrina falls. I help her to her feet, and we laugh. Luis smiles, revealing dimpled cheeks. 

The edge of the rocks is a sharp descent into the clearest water I have ever seen. Luis sits on the edge with his legs submerged. No expectation hangs in the air as he moves his calves against the clear water, disturbing the calm of the surface. He doesn’t look up at us. He waits, patiently, as if he knows that this setting is impossible to take in in one big gulp. 

The tree canopy has given way to the pond, and I can see clearly where it protrudes through the fronds overhead. Beams of warmth stripe the surface of the water. The breeze is cool and gentle. The surface ripples then quickly settles back into an undisturbed state. No place has ever looked so lovely, so untouched. 

I dip a foot into the pond and yelp. A laugh peals behind me. 

“It is cold!” Paola shouts in accented English, grinning. I grin back. Sabrina’s mother sits opposite Paola looking pale and sour. Her questions had grown more and more personal as our journey progressed, which made them harder to ignore. We had left them sitting at the picnic table as Paola searched for the words to answer the question, “Where is your husband?” 

The water is cold. Freezing, icy, cold. Far colder than the ocean or Lake Muskoka in April. I remove my denim shorts quickly, since my body feels like a secret, and lay them on the slick rocks. I sit as Luis is, but not close to him. My face contorts into a grimace, and he laughs, a sound I can barely hear over the soft beating of the waterfall. 

“I don’t know if I can go in,” Sabrina says. 

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” I attest against clattering teeth. My nerves are fraying at the seams, screaming to be released. Sabrina’s jaw flexes as she sits beside me. 

For a while, this is all we can stand. 

“You can go in without us,” I say to Luis, but panic flashes in his eyes. He doesn’t understand. I think about how afraid I am to speak to anyone my own age and wonder whether a language barrier will make it better or worse. Better, I think. 

I shake my head, hoping to convey something like, “Don’t worry about it,” and his face relaxes. 

He dips his hand into the water and looks at me, slyly. When I realize what he’s about to do, he has already done it. Fingers flicked and sprayed icy cold water across my neck, my shoulders, my face. My sharp scream fades into laughter. He gets Sabrina too, only reaching her upper legs. There are those dimples again. We beg him to stop, and he does.  

After a while, the breeze slipping through this small culvert in the trees has made me so cold that I imagine the water can’t be much worse. Without warning, I push myself off the rocks and feel the sharp bite over every inch of me. My face hurts the most, and my ears, and my neck, previously untouched. I burst through the surface, exclaiming, and look back at Luis. Is he impressed? Every muscle in my body is tense as I tread water, waiting for the clutching in my gut to subside. Trying not to be too obvious about it. I’m fine, I’m fine. I do this all the time. 

Luis follows soon after and we coax Sabrina together, my trying to assuage her fears and Luis threatening to splash her again. Her frustration turns to consent turns to fearful excitement. She jumps, careful to keep her head above the surface, and we’ve done it. 

“Now what?” I say as we tread water. 

Luis cocks his head toward the waterfall, and we follow. He dips his head under the wet veil and disappears behind it.  

“No,” Sabrina says, “I don’t want to get my head wet.” I sigh and continue on. 

The space under the waterfall is a small cave, barely enough room for three. I should be glad that Sabrina isn’t here, but I’m not. Luis realizes what he’s done now and seems once again like the bashful boy from the picnic table. There’s nothing to say, nothing that could be said, to alleviate the silent tension, the tangible wordlessness. Rushing water pounds through the cave and I am desperate to pretend that there is more than Luis. I look through the water, at the grainy shape of Sabrina’s head on the other side. I pretend to study every cleft and hollow in the rock above. Luis does the same.  

An object, hard and bristled, passes against my mid-thigh. I shriek, stupidly, and search the clear water. There is nothing but Luis’ legs and mine, kicking in a fluid and synchronized motion. His leg, I realize. His leg against my leg. I snap up, electrified and dreadfully conscious of where the fabric of my too-small swimsuit hugs my body. 

I search for an answer in his brown eyes and find that panicked expression again. I wait, hopefully. A simple “I’m sorry” would render the situation bearable. Awkward, but bearable. Maybe he doesn’t have the words. 

Maybe he's not sorry. 

Too many moments pass as I ponder all the questions that I wouldn’t dare ask. Something about my expression must amuse him because his face erupts into that warm, dimpled smile and I realize with a start that Luis is kind. Never had I met a boy my age who was kind, yet here is one. Not prodding, not performing, not letting his eyes roam where I don’t want them to. Not even punishing me for what might now be interpreted as rejection, if he is as not sorry as he looks. 

I could easily close the distance between us. I want to. The cave is so small, it would almost be like an accident. I’ve never done anything like that before. But I could. And wouldn’t this be the place to leave such a moment? Safe and protected by a kind boy and a veil of water? Sabrina would do it. Sabrina would do it without a single thought. But that is her power, not mine. 

The air in the small cave tightens as we tread water, moving inches toward and away from each other like the undulating tide of breath. We dance until the lingering question becomes too heavy. I could do it, I could do it. But I am not brave, and I know, through some small understanding, that Luis is not brave either.  A small smile, awkward and unfledged, passes between us, and we dip back into the main pond. 

Luis demonstrates how to climb up the rocks. Sabrina and I are hesitant at first, then eager. She seems grateful to be free from the water. Her lithe form clambers up the incline with little effort. I feel exposed, hungry for the familiar blanket. The rocks are soft against my skin. We slide down the waterfall dozens of times, until the once soft material of my swimsuit bottoms is rough and pilled. Until I can no longer feel the cold of the air. 

Luis’ mother calls us out of the pond. She has prepared sandwiches. We eat them while shivering under hotel towels. I return to the rocks, towel wrapped around my waist, to fetch my shorts. There are others now. Tourists, locals, sitting at the edge of the pond rousing the courage to jump. 

That’s where it ends.  

I think of Paola, our guide, and wonder how we came to know her, how our wet bathing suits soaked the seats of her car, what happened after we left Luis at the picnic table. Their features are so clear in my mind that any notion of their nonexistence seems crass, an insult to their undeniable humanity. 

How did these memories come to exist; I ask myself. I try to remember remembering them, grasping for clues that might tell me where this all began. I look back to when I was a teenager, when they would have been fresh. I ask my husband if he remembers my telling him this story. He doesn’t. I could reach out to Sabrina, but she is even more distant than this memory. Instead of tracing it back to a time that I know was real, a vacation with my friend and her mother, I grasp for sensations. Slick rocks at my backside, a show of kind dimples and a warm flutter, icy water penetrating deeper into my skin. The sharp awareness that can only come from seeing a beautiful place and knowing that you are not likely to see it again. 

Alexandria

Tahia Abdel Nasser

One day my cousins and I squirreled down to the beach and cooed. The prettiest natural pools shimmered in the sun. Pools dotted the beach like natural springs. The waves broke on the shore. Overnight they had spilled into the pools. We giggled, plopped down into the pools, and lay in water as deep as our shoulders. Some pools were shallow, barely covering our ankles. We hopped from pool to pool, splashed and bathed in the water, and squealed.

The first pool was the largest and choicest. I crouched in the pool, plopped down and stretched out my legs. The pools were sweet and warm and sheer, the sand was silky, I sank and wiggled my toes. I played awhile and came out of the pool and held the sandwich Nargis brought me. White cheese and tomatoes in a sliced baguette, full and fresh.

Then the pools seemed to disappear just as suddenly as they had appeared overnight. They became a sweet memory or mirage. They faded so quickly like our footprints in the sand.

Some mornings I rode my bike in the garden. I came upon empty crab shells in the derelict fountains. I mulled over the slow progress of snails near the flower beds. I pedaled to a deck with a roof of grape vine leaves. I climbed steps. I leaned against a door with metal bars in the garden’s wall. I peered through the bars at overgrown, unkempt foliage. The forest was empty.

Each day, we drove to Al-Montazah for ice cream. It was a treat. We bought soft ice cream and watched the large clock strike nine o’clock. If you leaned over the bridge in Al-Montazah, you could spot our house in Al-Maamoura. The trip was a quarter of an hour, past Al-Montazah summer palace, but both beaches were separated by a gate on land and a bridge at sea. In Ramadan, my father bought us mastic ice cream from Ibrahimiyya for suhur. I swirled spoonfuls of ice cream and slivered pistachios in a plastic cup. The ice cream seller in Al-Montazah swirled delicious soft strawberry and vanilla ice cream in sturdy golden cones. We leaned against the car with Nargis and licked away our ice-cream. I tugged at Nargis’s dress to buy my sisters and me fluffy necklaces of Arabian jasmine for 1 pound apiece. The scent was so lovely. I wore my necklace, twirled the Arabian jasmine like rosary beads. At bedtime I hung the necklace on the mirror on my dresser. It curled and yellowed and withered over the summer.

The family—uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandmother—flocked to Alexandria in the summertime. When we arrived, I wore a summer frock and strolled on the beach. It was sprinkled with shells and crabs’ little burrows. Seagulls swooped down and squawked and soared. Tiny crabs scurried to the sea and burrowed in the sand.  I stooped to collect shells, pressed them in my palms. They looked like a fan, chrysalis, sarcophagus, harp, horn, cone, and rose petal. I waded out into the shallow sea at low tide. The translucent water lapped at my ankles so far out I was as tiny as a shell. I held a pretty shell to my ear to listen to the sound of the sea. The susurration of waves in a shell. Conches, cowries, and cockles jangled in my pockets.

A long, sturdy bridge in the sea sliced the beach in half. The bridge was weathered and looked like the skeleton of a beached whale. The neighbor’s house had a twin bridge that from afar appeared to be in the same state of disrepair. I climbed the bridge, tiptoed on the wooden boards, skipped over the missing planks. It had been a year. I inched further along and clutched the rickety railings until there were no planks, there was nothing, and the sea yawned before me, roiling and frothy, spraying the steel poles jutting out of the sea. I leaned over the bridge. The water was deep and blue-black. There were some planks, the extension of the bridge, and then one or two poles where the bridge had been. The bridge was long. It was built to carry swimmers halfway through the sea. It was impossible to hop over to the remains of the bridge. I backed away to the complete planks towards the shore.   

This was where my uncle went fishing. Where my uncle cast his fishing rod. Where my cousins and I fished tiny shrimp from a plastic bag and nimbly jabbed them on the hooks. Where the fishing line tugged, the bubble float bobbed up and down. Where my uncle reeled in fish. Where he pulled the fish from the hook and plunked them in an empty bucket. Where the fish sputtered and flapped, where gills bled. Where fish lay in the bucket. Where I felt sad. Where a heap of fresh fish and pearly scales shimmered in the sun. Where Mama liked to cast the line into the sea and stand patiently. Where my uncle caught large sea eels. Where two sacks of freshly bagged sea eels trembled. Where we tiptoed on tenterhooks. Where we had no wish to peep into sacks. 

The kitchen was a hive of activity. There were boxes of cheese and fruit on the floor. The kitchen counter was bare. Khamis the cook was ready in his buttoned cotton shirt and striped pants. Tomorrow we would bake bread, he promised. All we needed was flour, water, and an oven. He waved us in. He had a surprise. We tiptoed up to peer at the kitchen counter. There was a hedgehog, curled up like a ball of yarn on the counter, and his quills looked prickly and spiky. He won’t hurt, he said. Saucer-eyed, we goggled at the hedgehog in our kitchen.

One day we came upon skeletons of wild dogs on the beach. Two skeletons jutted out of the sand like tents. “Stray dogs on the beach,” said Mohamed the lifeguard. They had died on the beach. They barked, ran, died, and decomposed. He strolled with us around skeletons like funeral pyres. But we had never seen dogs on the beach. There would have been carcasses and paw prints like flowers on the sand. I tucked a windswept strand of hair around the shell of my ear, brows furrowed at the beach. I never heard dogs barking along the beach. They could have been washed ashore. Or buried on our beach. Our feet sank into the sand along the beach. Crabs scurried out of burrows and into the waves.

That day we were to have a family lunch on a nearby island. We had never had a picnic there before. The island was on the other bank, a pea-sized island we regularly went to by boat to swim. I woke up early and scurried upstairs to my grandmother’s small table looking out on the sea. My father was the first one at breakfast, a large newspaper spread out in front of him. A large pool of skin peeled on his sunburnt back. Afterward, I squirreled down to the large kitchen. There was a sitting room nearby for Osman and Nargis, where my cousins and I often had breakfast, a hearty bowl of fava beans and tomatoes and loaves of warm flatbread. Nargis stirred Nido powdered milk in cups. I sipped Tang orange juice in a glass. Nadim poured the powdered milk down the sink and bawled as Nargis wrestled the cup from him.

My father ferried us to the island. It was to be a family picnic. The inflatable boat nosed into a lagoon—what was called the ‘Princesses’ Bath’, where real princesses once bathed in a little natural pool—and pulled up on the sand. We spilled out and ran on the beach and into the pool. We dove into the princesses’ bath like mermaids and fished for shells in the sand at the bottom of the sea.

We came out of the pool and strolled barefoot to an elegant summer rest house that belonged to King Farouk. It was deserted and padlocked. Soldiers in pale summer uniforms patrolled the small rest house and disappeared behind the walls. We skirted the rest house, peered inside. We happened upon a set of steps that led into the open sea but a door with iron grating rose from the water. We contented ourselves with looking down into the water pooling at the bottom of the steps. We raced to a small wooden cabin on the other side. This is where we were to have the family picnic. The family hauled dishes for the summer lunch from the house. Large platters of grilled fish, rice, shrimps, salads, and my grandmother’s spiced eggplants. Famished, we crowded into the cabin, heaped plastic plates with food, and sprawled on the beach. The family picnic was so lovely.

My father swam around the island in flippers and pried sea urchins off the rocks with his dive knife. He prised them open and scooped the orange meat out of the shells. “Sprinkle some lemon and eat it like so,” he said. The sea urchin tasted like seawater. He passed around handfuls of fresh sea urchins at the family lunch. His flippers and goggles were plopped beside him like upturned slippers.

After lunch, we had mangoes. We helped ourselves to mangoes from a bowl on the table in the cabin, wandered out, perched on makeshift chairs, plates balanced on our knees, and turned towards the sea. In summertime my grandmother had crates of mangoes brought from our orchard in Cairo. Osman lugged cases of mangoes from the car and plopped them on the kitchen counter. Mangoes in sweet-scented boxes. While we spent summer in Alexandria, the mango trees ripened in our orchard in the sweltering heat. We knew no fruit vendors. Mangoes came from our orchard. We heaped mangoes on our plates. Hindi, Alphonso. Round, oval, green, fragrant, and fleshy.

At sundown, after a hearty meal, we would clamber up to my grandmother’s parlor and help ourselves to fresh mangoes. Our plates were heaped with mangoes as we gathered in her parlor around the television. Sometimes I sampled mangoes from my grandmother’s kitchen and hitched them downstairs in the hem of my dress. Osman chewed mouthfuls of mango in the kitchen. He wrapped a handful of mangoes in newspapers and tucked them under his arm when he walked to the servants’ quarters at night.

We had mastered the art of eating mangoes. At the picnic, Mama cut a mango in half—a cap and a boat—and scooped out the flesh with a spoon. I sliced a mango lengthways, each slice like a canoe, and savored the sweet yellow flesh. Nadim bit into a mango like a sandwich, savoring flesh and skin. Sarah sank her teeth into the large seed. Adam crosshatched a piece and pushed the skin. The mango looked like the quills of a hedgehog. He cut the upturned mango cubes.

Tiny crabs scurried on the beach. Mohamed caught a crab and snapped its claws. “It won’t sting,” he plopped the tiny crab in a plastic cup. I tilted the cup on the sand. I felt so sorry for the crab scurrying into the sea.

In the late afternoon, the cabin was cleared, scrubbed clean, and shuttered. We went to the pier to go home in droves. I loitered on the pier. I spotted the rocks where my father dove for sea urchins, peered into the water at shoals of fish. I went back to the cabin. Turned the handle. The door was locked. I rubbed the glass window, peered inside. It was bare—furnished only by the ungainly wooden table. The cozy, bustling cabin, spread, and family had disappeared like the natural pools. I strolled lackadaisically on the sand, scanned the stormy sea for the boat and our house on the other shore.

A swirl of aunts, uncles, and cousins trudged in single file to the house. To take showers. There was only one bathroom in our wing. It was cavernous.

At suppertime, a large wave—my father, mother, aunts, uncles—spilled out of the entrance and trickled into the garden. Down the steps we skipped down at Eid with gold purses clasped onto crispy 1-pond notes from our grandmother. They called out and squeaked feebly. Bicycles lay scattered at the entrance. It was light, the sky blazed lilac and tangerine. Crickets chirped. They looked half-heartedly at the house. It was too large, so many rooms, three floors, empty wings. The garden sprawled. There were the front gates. But they would have known. The gatekeeper would have called. My father trudged towards the beach, brows furrowed, shoulders hunched.

When I lay in bed looking out onto the sea, the waves sounded as if they were lapping into the bedroom and lulled me to sleep. The moon shone brightly on the waves. Face and shoulders sunburnt, but the waves were a balm to the searing pain. The rolling, crashing waves. I slept soundly.

Have you ever been to Alexandria in winter? The sound of the waves was deafening, the house was quieter. When I went out on my grandmother’s terrace overlooking the sea, I felt the waves would swallow me. I unlatched the French doors, the wind blew, the waves thundered, a black-and-white movie playing in my grandmother’s parlor in the afternoon. Waves crashed into frothy plumes. The soft drapes billowed in my grandmother’s wing. We were cooped up in the parlor, me with a dog-eared fairy tale. I was in my shell. The waves seemed so high they could swallow the house.

One day, the sea heaved me out, tossed me ashore. I rolled in rumpled sheets of waves and burrowed in the sand like a shell. An empty shell. My tousled hair was wreathed in seaweed.  

My cousins would wake up and scurry down to the beach.