Fearing the shaky grip I had on my resolve, I stopped answering Lucinda’s calls. I deleted voicemails without ever listening to them. She dropped by the apartment once and I let her knock until she wore herself out. I could hear her breathing through the crack in the doorjamb, silhouette blocking the light for what felt like hours. She called my name and I turned up the volume on the television until my ears hurt. When she left, I drank the bottle of rum she’d left in my kitchen and passed out on the couch.
The next morning I got up with a hangover so bad it felt like the world was ready to split in two and I’d gladly plummet straight into the bowels of hell. Outside my apartment, a group of birds were chirping fit to wake the dead. Instead of getting up, I rolled over in my dirty sheets and rooted around in my nightstand until I found the magazine I’d stashed the number inside. I opened it and the paper slipped out, fluttering down to land on my bare stomach. I stared at it, bleary-eyed, and contemplated calling right then, but remembered we lived in the time of caller ID. There was a pay phone next to the gas station where Bastien and I bought coffee every morning, though I wasn’t totally sure it worked.
Who even used a pay phone anymore?
I threw on dirty clothes and sunglasses and took the truck over, the magazine sitting beside me on the seat, paper slipped neatly back inside.
At the gas station, I bought the largest coffee they sold and a monstrous jelly doughnut that I knew I would not eat. Then I holed up in the phone booth and contemplated my next move. When we were growing up, Milo and I had sometimes used them to dial out to sex hotlines. The first few minutes were always free, and I delighted in listening to the breathy voice of the woman on the other end, begging me to stay on the line. There were a ton of quarters in my pocket, so I stuck one into the machine and listened to the clang and drop of it landing inside the empty belly of the phone. I got through one ring before hanging up and retrieving my change.
“Fuck,” I whispered, tossing back some coffee. Cleared my throat. “Fuck, fuck.”
I put the quarter back in and dialed the number, then waited.
It was a voicemail robot on the other end, but I startled when I realized she’d decided to say her own name. “Donna Franklin,” she said, and that was it. The voice was softer than I’d imagined. Higher-pitched, sweet.
The beep sounded, signaling my time to leave a message. “There’s some things I think you should know,” I said. I paused. It felt like a big moment. “Your wife’s cheating on you.”
Then it all poured out. A garbled mess of half-truths: I talked about the art show and the animals, mentioned that they’d been slaughtered inhumanely (they probably weren’t). Said they were illegally acquired (they hadn’t been). Told Donna that if something wasn’t done to stop the art show, there’d be a protest (there absolutely would not be). That PETA would get involved. I tripped a little over the word PETA, stupefied that a taxidermist would even invoke such a group. Felt like saying the name Beetlejuice too many times: if you weren’t careful, you could summon them like devils.
I hung up and hyperventilated for a few minutes. Then I drank my coffee, which had cooled, and got back into my truck and drove home to sleep off the rest of my hangover.
It was easier at work. I focused all my energy on the peacocks. They were gorgeous and shimmering; perfect mirrors. Observing them propped against each other on the metal surgical table, I saw the potential my father had spoken of: their myriad possibilities. By stitching rows of pale blue and green, I was able to reconnect the amputated leg until there was barely a visible mark. I strung copper wire inside their elegant necks, organizing the tail feathers into large, sculptured fans that reflected light like fiery opals.
I posed them several different ways before finally pinning them all together, flipping one of the tails around to the front to block the base of the mount. The beaks were sad little twists that took a lot of coaxing to set. I didn’t want them grim and anxious, or terrified like they’d been in the moment of their death. I wanted them icy and regal. I wanted them beautiful.
Perched on a bolted branch of an apple tree, the peacocks were a crowning achievement. Their tricorn heads bent lovingly toward each other, glittering feathers coated with a shellac of protective spray to ward off dust.
When Bastien saw the finished product, he crowed with delight.
“Holy shit. We’re gonna make a fortune off these.” Brushing the back of his hand along the largest tail feathers, he smiled and tapped one of the clawed feet. Light gleamed off the peacocks’ bodies, their plumage draped over them like jewelry.
“We’re not selling them.” I pushed past him with the cart and cleared a space near the goat, which needed dusting.
“What are you talking about? Of course we’re gonna sell them.” Bastien grabbed my arm when I went to lift the base. “We need money, right?”
We always needed money. Was there ever a time in anyone’s life when they finally decided they didn’t? “I don’t want to sell these.”
“Aunt Jessa, we don’t have a choice.”
A trio of perfect animals that complemented each other. One on its own was lovely, but there was something about the symmetry of three that made me feel as if the world had suddenly righted itself. Their feathers trembled in the sudden draft of the air-conditioning. “No.” I shook my head. “These are mine.”
“How are we gonna pay bills next month?”
I considered the fact that my nephew was in the business of murdering things for money. I loved that boy, could still see the little pinched face, doughy smile buried inside the new, leaner, adult one, but it didn’t cover up his mercenary qualities. Something very much like Brynn: willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted. I’d told Donna about the animals, but I hadn’t mentioned Bastien by name. He was right, after all. We did need the money.
“We’ll figure something out.”
Bastien helped me move the mount onto the floor. It sat nicely next to our display of freshwater bass. The light was very good through the front window, but not bright enough to dull the feathers. Different times of day would bring altered colors to the setting. Purple in the midmorning, radiant blue in the early evening.
Bastien pushed a hand through his hair, which looked sparser than usual. “If I get more, can we sell those? That girl from before called back, said she wanted tail feathers to make some kind of Mardi Gras mask.”
I’d already gotten what I wanted from the peacocks. Every time I looked at them I felt bone-deep satisfaction, as if a burden had been lifted. I wondered if this was how my mother felt about her own art, a selfish pleasure from forcing the work to give her what she wanted. For a short moment I was filled with guilt, to consider depriving her of that wildly good feeling. Then I remembered the father figure on top of the water buffalo, pale face peeking from the patent leather mask. The gray, bristling mustache fixed above its motionless lip. There was nothing redeeming about it. I couldn’t allow it to live.
“I can fix up whatever you bring me,” I said, adjusting the base until the feathers got maximum sunlight. They shone gold like pyrite. “I just want these.”
MICROPTERUS SALMOIDES—LARGEMOUTH BASS
Here’s what you need to do: hold the damn needle and keep your mouth shut.
My mother and I were crowded together on the love seat in our living room, the two of us leaning over a pair of jeans with a giant rip in the crotch. I’d been complaining nonstop since we’d gotten home from school, and my mother’s patience had worn thin. Seventh grade had given me a major attitude problem, according to my parents. Our father was sick again, gray around the mouth and so sallow he appeared dipped in neon paint. My mother took the brunt of his short temper, swallowing it down as she cooked and cleaned and kept track of my brother and me. She looked haggard, clothes spotted with bits of food and coffee stains.
But how do we hide the seam? This wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. There was a haul of fish at the shop, and my father was going to start mounting
them that night. I’d never worked on the bass before because he said it was too easy to mess them up, especially around the gills. He tugged on the end of my braid, told me that sometimes girls weren’t as steady when it came to detail work. It was odd to hear him say that when I knew that my mother took care of so many sewing things at home. She made our clothes, Halloween costumes, blankets and curtains, Christmas tree skirts. But he was my father and he was always right. I trusted him.
This sucks. I set down the needle, thread dragging across the couch cushion. Like super sucks.
What did I say? Mouth shut. She grabbed my hand and directed it back to the fabric. The needle jammed in too hard and stabbed through to my leg.
Jeans were the only thing I wore other than a pair of cargo pants I’d taken from my brother. I hated going shopping, didn’t like the dressing rooms with their bright fluorescent lights. My skin looked pocked in the mirror, as if someone had roughed it with a Brillo pad. The only time I liked going was with Brynn. She tried on sundresses, bathing suits, halter tops. I held the hangers and put the clothes away as she dropped them on my head. I watched her in the mirror as she changed, getting glimpses of secret skin, pink and white and soft.
I know you don’t like the thimble, but use it.
My mother made most of her clothes. She’d had lessons when she was a little girl from an elderly preschool teacher who lived next door to her family. She’d learned embroidery; how to perfect a stitch, the best way to sew a hem.
Like this?
Not such a big knot. There’ll be a lump and it’ll be really uncomfortable when you sit.
My father was an expert, his stitches so tiny they were almost invisible. He always said you could tell when a piece of taxidermy was professionally done because there wasn’t a single stitch in sight. The rabbits with their plush coats, doves with downy white breasts, even the deer mounts with their slick, oily hair looked pristine. I knew they were piecemeal; had seen him pry them apart, scrabbling with the flesher on the meatier animals, separating the pelts. But when he was done sewing, they were whole and clean again, ready to jump from the table in a wild bid for freedom.
It was well past time for me to learn the fancier stitches, the looped double threads that led behind the tanned skin, but my father had no time for it. He was barely in the shop most afternoons, so sick to his stomach he couldn’t be out of bed for longer than an hour without vomiting, or falling asleep upright in his chair. When we asked why he looked so skeletal, our mother told us he had the flu. Only the flu, nothing to worry about. Milo and I waited to catch it, but we never got sick. Not even a sniffle.
Why are we using light blue here? Shouldn’t we use gold, like the thread in the seam?
Blue matches the fabric. Because we’re patching; it needs to look natural.
My mother didn’t watch her hands while she worked. Unlike my father, who couldn’t look away from his raccoons and possums, my mother looked around, her eyes flitting everywhere. From her hands, to the magazine held open on the arm of the chair, to the flashing television, and to my face. She made everything look too easy, like it was something anybody could do. That’s how she always treated crafts. Simple things that meant nothing, just a way to make something a little prettier. She’d hand-painted mosaic tiles and put them up in our dumpy kitchen as a backsplash. Whenever people came over, they asked where we’d bought them and my mother just shrugged them off. The things she made felt valueless to me. How could I take her seriously when nobody else did? Even she didn’t care.
Stew simmered on the stove and she’d made sourdough rolls, my father’s favorite. I knew he wouldn’t have any of it. When we ate, he stared at the food grimly, as if eating were a momentous, exhausting task.
I pulled too hard and the thread broke, taking some of the frayed material with it. Pieces flicked down onto my lap, meshing with the dog hairs pilled in the fabric of my sweatpants.
You’ll have to pull those stitches. Carefully, or you’ll wind up with an even bigger hole, and that’s the last place you want an extra.
Cutting my eyes over to her in shock, I saw her smile into her own quilting square.
That’s gross!
Sex isn’t gross, Jessa. Her eyes went back to her work. I know your father acts like it’s the worst thing in the world, but sex is natural and normal. People should be able to talk about it. Even moms.
No. That’s weird.
She laughed at my serious expression. Her throat was scratchy from the cold she was trying to kick. Because she was busy taking care of us and my father, there was no one left to take care of her. She was so congested I’d seen her hack mucus into our kitchen sink while scrambling eggs for breakfast.
Using the stitch ripper, I dug into the knots that were pulling loose from the fabric. The jeans were too short, but I’d gotten them from Brynn last spring when she’d decided they were the wrong style for her. The fabric was pretty wrecked. Everything I ate wound up on my clothes: red Kool-Aid drips and butter from a toasted bagel. There were grease stains from the carport, bloodstains and rips in both knees from wiping out on the asphalt after Milo pulled me around on the skateboard behind his bike.
Why don’t we just get you new ones? My mother put her hand on the back of my neck and ruffled her fingers through the short hairs that wouldn’t stay in my braid. She caught a snarl and I yelped.
I like these.
You’re gonna like lots of things in your life. She finished the coffee. Lots and lots of things.
I know what I like.
Milo lay on the rug by our feet, digging into a big Tupperware bowl of popcorn. He’d eaten almost all of it and was biting down on the uncooked kernels at the very bottom, licking salt from his fingers. His hair was getting long, which was good, because he’d started to break out on his neck. On his treks to and from the shower, I saw the blotches covering his back, topped with pus, like boils. Brynn kept talking about how cute he was getting, and I wanted to show her that proof, to point out that, of the two of us, I was the one who didn’t look like a plague victim.
Before, we’d make fun of him together. We’d ditch him at the house and sneak out the back so we wouldn’t have to bring him along when we did things: bike rides, trips to the grocery for ice cream. But the past school year, she’d begun talking about him the way she did the other guys from our grade. When she came over, she hung on his arm and tugged at his T-shirt sleeves. She laid proprietary hands on his stomach and leaned her head against his bony shoulder, as if it might offer some kind of comfort. Brynn laughed at the stupid things he said instead of mocking him for how dumb they were. My brother was a lot of things, but he’d never been funny.
Thinking about it put me in an even worse mood. It was hard to focus on sewing when I wanted to pinch the back of Milo’s neck until he yelled.
Halfway through stitching the crotch, my thumb tore through the paperlike material at the seat of the jeans. It made a hole big enough to fit my hand inside.
Goddamn it. Enraged, I kicked the popcorn bowl. Milo jumped back and knocked a full glass of Coke onto the rug. Stupid piece of shit!
That’s enough. My mother got up and grabbed one of the dishrags that hung from the fridge handle. She got down on her hands and knees and pressed it to the carpet, sopping up most of the spill. Go get me the stain remover and a damp towel from my bathroom.
I purposely ground the buttery popcorn bits into the rug on my way out of the room. Milo scuttled backward on his hands to get away from me.
And don’t wake your father! He just got to sleep.
Our parents’ bedroom was at the end of the hall. The lights were off and the door was closed. I inched it open, eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. Their bed was heaped over with quilts, the lumps so high that I couldn’t tell which of them was my father’s body. I padded across the carpet, carefully avoiding an overflowing basket of laundry that my mother had yet to wash, and eased toward the bathroom.
The shell nightlight my mother had bough
t in St. Augustine glowed pink along the walls above the mirror. There was a weird noise, some kind of hyuk-hyuk sound that reminded me of dogs throwing up on the rug. I stepped inside and turned toward the tub.
My father stood in front of the toilet. The pale line of his back showed the entirety of his rib cage. He was shockingly skeletal, skin pale beneath a smattering of dark hair. He breathed heavily, grunting. At first, I thought he was trying not to get sick by holding it in, like how Milo did because he hated throwing up so much. Then I saw that his arm was moving, just the right one, stutteringly, the muscles in his biceps flexing and releasing spastically.
He was muttering something, words beneath the grunts that I couldn’t quite make out. I heard the word shit and then I heard it twice more. My father sometimes swore in front of us, in the shop especially when he had messed up something with one of the mounts, but this kind of swearing sounded different. It came from deep inside his chest.
It scared me to hear those strange animal sounds coming from my father. I leaned away and hit the door. The handle smacked against the tile with a loud, resonating bang. My father spun around. He had his hand around his privates, gripping himself. He made a noise halfway between a bark and a cough. When I looked up at his face, I saw that he was crying. Mouth working up and down, he brought his other hand down to try to cover the soft mess of his genitals.
I turned and ran.
I dodged through the side door and into the carport, passing through the living room where my mother still knelt on the carpet. It was raining, and the wind blew leaves and pine needles across the yard and over the driveway. I sped into it, sliding wildly for a minute on the slick walk before righting myself and taking off down the street.
Rain fell into my eyes and half blinded me. I headed for the cemetery, bypassing the gate and launching myself over the chain-link fence. The ground was soft and mucky, and my feet slid there too, but I kept going. I ran between the new graves with their fresh white headstones, through the dripping trees, and past the mausoleum. Rain dashed across the stone benches with their lichen tops, crumbling legs dropping chunks of themselves into the dirt.
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