by Ursula Hegi
Opal folds her paper, slips it into the box. “This is for our Hungry Ghost.”
Mother-by-choice, then?
I kiss Aunt Stormy’s face.
“Hey…,” she says, surprised, and kisses me back.
Not just choosing sisters as she and my mother did, sisters-by-choice, but also choosing mothers, daughters?
The air around me feels spacious and light and complete, mine to breathe, to keep, and all at once I know I’m ready to work.
I WAIT till Opal is asleep before I retrieve her windbreaker from behind the Eckbank. Purple and hooded, it’s lined with thin white cotton, almost new still. I could return it to my daughter—
But I need it as the background for my collage. I crumple and rip the purple fabric, glue it to a canvas and overlay it with beach glass, drift-wood, a circle of dried catbriers…no longer dodging my panic and sorrow and rage but letting them become the background against which I’m reconstructing our lives the way Pete is reconstructing his body…layers and circles…paint and glass and seedpods that want to spill beyond the canvas…transforming superstition into a loss that did not happen: Opal drowning.
Water, then. The raft—
Again? I raise dental X-rays to the lamp. The hint of bones…shadows of flesh…light coming through from above. If only I’d had them for the windows of my Train Series. For the raft then, now. Linked, the X-rays make up planks. Like vertebrae.
What if Opal recognizes the fabric before it has become something else? But then what I begin with always changes—it’s part of what pulls me in, that risk of entering without knowing where I’ll emerge. Still, I work quickly in case she wakes up, keep a towel nearby to hide the canvas from her.
What’ll happen if I become as much part of that image as Jake and Mason? That long-ago fear rises up to meet me again, leads me toward seeing more.
They’re underwater too long.
One head rises.
The other is underwater too long. Mason—
But it’s true for the collage…the blue hinting at shadows beneath…hinting at bodies…and there’s a richness in that. I have to resist forcing them up to the surface, the boys. It’s just a trick of—
No. Not a trick.
I saw this.
This is what I saw.
And I have to let the boys stay where they are. Mason underwater. Have to let it be disturbing—not only to me in the making but to anyone who’ll see this.
I’m working. Working. And now the other head rises…Mason…both visible now…yes, shoulders and arms…Jake and Mason, hooting—laughing? no, not laughing—hoisting themselves onto the raft, torsos glistening, drawing together in the center of the raft, a knot of arms and legs—
Do they imagine me there between them, warm boards against our feet, the heat of our bodies, there?
Or is it only for themselves, the heat of their bodies?
Once I see, it’s there, between them. Has been between them since that day on the raft. I wait to feel surprise. Nothing.
Only on the raft?
Only that day?
What about Morocco?
THE SUMMER after the three of us graduated from high school and went to Tangier, we had cropped hair that bleached under the sun while our skin stayed orange-brown from the instant tanning cream Mason had bought. We never got a normal tan—just that orange-brown and white stripes bordering our new haircuts.
Our combined parents had made hotel reservations for us, a room with two beds for Mason and Jake, a single for me, where I kept my clothes, as if that would appease Mason’s parents if they were to call and check on us. In reality, Jake stayed in the single, while I slept with Mason. Our first night, we talked till late, made plans where we wanted to go in the morning. Then Jake slipped away to the narrow room with the narrow bed.
But the next day I felt assaulted by men’s stares wherever I went—stares and mumbled words close to my face and the smacking of lips—stifling in a way no one could have told me it would be. I’d traveled with my parents, had loved being in Italy and in Mexico—but Morocco confined me, pissed me off.
Jake stayed next to me. “I’m here, Annie.”
But Mason didn’t get it when I freaked out.
That afternoon, I urged Mason and Jake to explore the neighborhood without me. “Just go,” I said. “I’ll read. I’ll take a bath.”
While I waited for the tub to fill, I sat on the bed and looked through our guidebook, read the same passage twice, too upset to take it in. All I wanted was to get out of Tangier. I read a different chapter. Stood up to get my journal from my backpack. Wet, the bottoms of my feet. Wet. Water, rising through the rugs. Damn. Damn.
I shut off the tub faucet, grabbed our towels to soak up the water, but they got brown from dirt that oozed from the rugs. I smuggled them into the laundry room across the hall, absconded with fresh towels. But after four sets, the rug was still damp, and we had to sleep in the narrow room, where the rugs were dry.
“I’ll have to sleep in the middle,” Mason announced.
“Why is that?” Jake asked.
“Because I don’t want you to sleep next to my future wife.”
“Your—what?” Jake asked, stunned.
“If she’s in the middle, you’re next to her,” Mason said, “and if you’re in the middle, she’s still next to you. You know how I am when I get jealous.”
“When was all that decided?” Jake asked him, but he was staring at me.
“Sometime in first grade,” I said. “I haven’t thought about it in a while.”
Spooning. Mason spooning me tight on the narrow bed. His thigh thrown across me. “How about next summer for our wedding?”
“Would you two like some privacy?” Jake’s voice, so hurt.
“Let’s just sleep,” I said, “all right?”
But when I woke with sun in my eyes, the space between Mason and me was cool. I turned over. Mason’s hand lay on Jake’s hip—that’s where it must have fallen while they slept, unaware—and Mason’s body was curled around Jake’s back. My stomach felt weird. I eased out of bed. Filled a glass with water. How embarrassed those two will be to see themselves like that. I laughed. Drank more water. Got my camera. Snapped a photo. Thinking I’d paste it into their next birthday cards and really embarrass them. I was ready to tease them when they woke up. But then I didn’t. Maybe because Jake was crabby when he opened his eyes. He’d always been like that when startled from sleep.
I wanted to get away from the two of them.
Away from the disorienting maze of Tangier.
Asilah was different, white and open, high on the cliffs. We walked through the Medina without being hustled, entered the shop of an old black weaver and watched him weave while we tried on the soft jackets he’d made. He had such dignity and kindness, was a Muslim, talked to us about the extreme poverty in his country, about men having to be out there hustling for their families.
His daughter, a young, heavy woman, made tea for us, and I could smell the strong mint as the old man spoke about people learning to live with others and to live with themselves. I bought a jacket, and we drank the mint tea—its taste as pleasing as its smell. The daughter served, was reluctant to sit with us though I asked her to, but when she let herself down next to me, she smiled and touched my wrist.
The old man untied a string of wooden bracelets, inlaid with tiny stones, and asked me to choose one as a gift. Most were too small to fit over my hand. But he selected the one for me that fit. I wore the bracelet when we explored the ramparts high above the sea, and when Mason grabbed me—playful at first but then not—he tried to pull it off my wrist; and I bit him, wrestled him by the sheer drop of the cliffs, and all along Jake screaming for us to stop it. But his eyes were glinting.
And I went to him.
“STILL ANGRY at me?” I sit down on the back steps next to Opal.
She flexes Pete’s pocket mirror in one hand while Luigi hunts the reflection of the light. Muscles taut, he waits
, then pounces upon the flicker in the grass.
“He’s so much healthier,” I tell Opal. “You take good care of him.”
But she doesn’t look at me.
“Just the fact that he’s getting into mischief,” I say, “is a sign he’s getting more confident.”
She flashes her mirror for Luigi.
He’s been ransacking the neighborhood, carrying his booty home—a doll once, a feather duster, a tennis ball, a pair of sunglasses, a sweater—and tucking it behind his cedar bed as if burying bones.
“Do you feel like telling me a Melissandra story?”
“Maybe Melissandra offed herself too.”
“I don’t think so. I have a feeling she’s still around.”
Opal takes off her shoes. Cups her toes with her hands.
“You want me to rub them for you?”
“No.”
“Are they hurting?”
Opal shrugs.
“How about if you and I make up a story about Melissandra?”
“She’s not yours!”
“I hate it when you throw me away like this.”
“I’m not throwing anything.”
“I thought it was getting…easier between us. And I hate it that this stuff is happening again.”
“What stuff?”
“You working so hard to throw me away. Will you listen real closely to what I’m going to say?” I wait for her to nod, and when she doesn’t, I say very slowly, pausing between each word: “I. Am. Not. Going. To. Leave. You.”
“What does that have to do with the price of wheat in Bulgaria?”
I have to laugh. “Where did you get that?”
“Pete.”
“Very good. Is that the beginning of a smile?”
“No.”
“How about a story about our dad?”
Now she’s listening.
“TIHII.”
“What are you, Annie? A horse?”
“That’s what he used to say. TIHII. It means: this is how it is.”
“This is how what is?”
“Stuff we can’t do anything about. Like you being stuck with me and no longer having Mason.”
Opal tilts her mirror, and Luigi chases the light.
“Our dad told me TIHII made him peaceful inside.”
“Why?”
“Because peace takes up so much space, there isn’t room for anger and sadness and—”
“I don’t like this story. I want the one of how I began.”
“You began inside our mom…inside the same space where I got started too.” I wait for Opal to tell her part of the story as usual.
But she’s lifting the dog into her arms. His legs and belly and red-tipped penis stick up as she rocks him.
“You—” I continue, “—began nineteen years before me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you—”
“You can’t even get that right, Annie.”
“Stop sniping at me, will you?”
“I began nineteen years after you! Not before you!”
“I said after!”
“You said before!”
Siblings, for sure. We could be sniping at each other all day.
“Must you be so exasperating?”
“Exasp—What?”
“Irritating. Maddening.”
“Yes, I must!” She pushes out her lower lip.
“Anyhow, I was already nineteen—”
“You have to start from the beginning, Annie.”
“You—” Help me out here, Mason— “You began nineteen years after me. Got that?”
Opal nods. “And now I’m nine. Nine plus nineteen is twenty-eight. That’s what you are.”
“You began inside the same space where I got started too. Got that?”
“But not inside you.”
“Not inside me.”
“I never lived inside you. Because I don’t belong there.” Separating herself from me. Still seeking our mother.
As I am. “You lived inside our mother, and she let me touch her belly so that I could feel you move.”
“You forgot the blue light, Annie.”
“Our mom imagined her baby levitating in blue light.”
“You could feel my foot.”
“Like a step—”
“A quick step,” Opal corrects me.
I loop one arm around her. “You want every single word in the sequence you remember, right?” My voice has softened.
She nods. “You could feel a quick step from the outside when my mom let you touch her belly.”
“A quick step.” I feel the story swelling between us.
“And I punched you with my tiny fist.”
“You punched me with your tiny fist. And I already loved you.”
“And then I got born and she died. The end.” Opal shrugs off my arm. Leaps up and lets Luigi slide to the ground.
He squeals. Hides behind my legs.
“I’m sorry,” Opal whispers to him. She kneels in the grass, holds out her hands to him. When he finally comes to her, she lifts him into her arms.
“He’s all right,” I say. “Would you like a new story about our mother?”
She nods. Kisses the dog’s moist nose. “I’m sorry, Luigi-dog.”
“Our mother believed we can know about people by looking at their mouths…know what’s been happening inside them to shape lips into joy or discouragement or anger. Her favorite ones were mouths that rested, that didn’t need to smile or talk or move or pretend. She said she’d never seen a peaceful mouth and restless eyes in the same face.”
“Sometime you have restless eyes, Annie.”
“We need more dog food,” I tell her. “Want to go to the hardware store with me?”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.”
“Okay.”
In the store, she studies the seed packages, keeps her back to me.
“Why don’t you help me pick out some seeds? Which ones look good to you? Carrots? How about if we grow sunflowers…or pumpkins or…cucumbers?” Ridiculous, how I’m trying to bring her to me. Still, I dangle seed packages in front of her, tempt her with photos. “Zinnias? Corn? Rattlesnakes? Chocolate Santas?”
She’s working hard not to smile.
“We have to support our troops.” A woman’s voice. By the shelf with insecticides.
The man who is with her says, “Now that it’s happened, we need to make the best of it.”
“You make the best of it when you’re in the midst of a flood.” Heart pounding, I talk quickly before they can tell me to go to hell. “Or an earthquake. Sticking together. Making the best of what has already happened. But to make the best of a corrupt choice simply because it happened?”
“I did not invite you into our conversation,” the woman says.
“I’m sorry. But too many people still can’t believe that their government could be doing anything wrong.”
“I wish you had stopped with sorry.” She turns away. Dalmatian pattern boots with loud heels.
“Enough, young lady,” the man tells me and follows her from the store.
“Mason says you can tell the tourists by their shoes,” Opal whispers.
“Good observation.” I pick up a can of wildflower seeds. Jiggle it. Like rain on a roof. “You want to plant wildflowers?”
Opal gives me her ancient glance, cronish and wise.
“Don’t say it,” I warn her, hoping to provoke her into rebelling.
And she does. Loudly. “If they’re real wildflowers, they don’t come in cans.”
But any smile from me would turn her quiet again. I hate playing these games with her. So complicated. Still…I click my tongue. “Such a little cynic.”
She straightens herself. “Not little.”
“Still—a cynic.”
And she smiles. Finally, finally smiles.
How I knock myself ou
t for that smile.
Mason
—you could stop anything, Annie.
An avalanche eating up a moutain.
A tidal wave.
The rope clears the rafter. First toss. I thought that part would be harder. Maybe I was born to be good at this—what do you think, Annie?
When I slip the rope over my head, I’m suddenly not so tired anymore. It lies around my neck—enough rope for eight necks, imagine.
I climb on your worktable. A bit of your work—me—another one of your masterpieces. You don’t like that word, Annie. How about one of your creations, your inventions—
Why don’t you fucking choose?
All right, another one of your undertakings—
Undertake.
Undertaker.
Under—
Too irreverent. Even for us.
Your tabletop wobbles, that church door—weird to be thinking of it coming from a church—and I make sure to be right above the center, above your filing cabinets. Because it has to be tight, the rope, before I tip the door, step off—
You could still stop me now.
You know what scares me, Annie? That is you knew, you wouldn’t top me—
But that’s not true. It’s me. Who can’t stop. Because of what I’ve done to our love.
A flicker of light in the dark morning. Headlights? Are you back home, Annie? I wait for the car door to slam. Wait for your steps. For the resuming of all that ever mattered to me—you and me and Opal.
Something moving outside? But only silence. Still, I keep waiting, body tight and clammy. Because now I know what it’s like to be without you.
No longer able to call you to me, Annie…to laugh and scheme and be outrageous together.
Is that you?
Oh Annie—
Does silence then move with a sound of its own? A trick concocted from wanting. From too much wanting.
The sky…fuzzy and ashen and the smell of yeast. Chewing and swallowing the thief. Swallowing the it’s wrong. Till three boys trap me in the hallway where I’m chewing and swallowing. Every morning, eating mine for breakfast already wishing I could have it four lunch, swearing to myself I’ll save, it be a good person—
Then the boys. “Thief.”
Still chewing and ashamed and afraid and wanting more.
Calling me thief. Punching me.