I crawled beneath a hedge that surrounded an oak near the oldest headstones. Lightning cracked hard overhead in rapid succession, bleaching the sky. The image of my father’s bare back clung to my brain. Rubbing my eyes, I pressed into the sockets until colors swirled there, like fireworks, spangled red, blue, and gold in time with the lightning.
My father didn’t talk about sex. He didn’t kiss our mother in front of us; didn’t hold us on his lap or even hug us too often. I’d never seen him naked. At least, I hadn’t before that day, or couldn’t remember it. His body was a mystery to me. I couldn’t even remember him bathing us when we were little. Once I’d come out of my room wearing just underwear and a T-shirt and he’d yelled at me to cover myself.
I sat for a long time in the cold rain and worried what would happen next. If my father wouldn’t want me to come help at the shop anymore since I’d seen him like that, naked and vulnerable. Would he look me in the eyes ever again? I wasn’t sure I’d be able to face him at all.
I could hear Milo coming for me from a long way off, kicking through piles of leaves and jumping over downed limbs. He had a very specific way of walking, a kind of short-short-long pull to his step, a shuffling drag that always gave him away. He lost whenever we played manhunt.
Move over. He was soaked through. His Marlins T-shirt was a damp teal and looked like an entire Big Gulp could be wrung from it. More. Like another foot.
We sat together but didn’t touch. Just huddled there in the brush. He was wearing only socks on his feet. They were covered in mud, the soles so dark I knew he’d have to throw them away. He’d just put a couple of sticks of Juicy Fruit in his mouth and the smell comforted me. It reminded me of home, like the corn-chip scent of our rugs and the cinnamon-apple candle my mother burned at Christmas.
He didn’t ask me what happened and I was glad. He knew me so well. I liked that we could sit next to each other and just feel the warmth radiate off one another’s bodies. Things couldn’t be all bad if I had my brother.
There were three sticks of gum left. He gave me two and then shoved the last one in his mouth. We each licked the sugary stuff off the wrappers and ducked our heads to avoid the drips. The rain petered out, growing softer until the cemetery came back into focus. Everything was green again, leaves overhead dripping fat chunks of Spanish moss.
Both of us walked slowly back through the cemetery, glancing our hands off the headstones and avoiding some of the larger branches that had tumbled down in the storm. The air felt lighter again, humidity lifting briefly. My face was tight from crying and snot dripped down my chin. I wiped it off with the front of my shirt, a sheen of mucus sweeping across the front.
When we got home, I went straight to my room but left the light off. I wasn’t sure where my father was. I didn’t want to see him, and I wanted to think about it even less. I pulled off all my clothes and left them in a wet, muddy heap by the door. Then I crawled under the covers wearing only my damp underwear.
Low humming woke me. I was bundled in bed, the only light coming from the crack under the door. My mother sat beside me, stroking a hand through my long hair, which she’d taken out of its braid. My eyes were crusted shut from crying. They felt too big for my face, lids swollen.
I fixed your pants for you. Her cool hands felt good smoothing over my flushed cheeks and forehead.
You did?
It’s patched. You can wear them tomorrow to school, if you want.
My mother turned on the bedside lamp. Rosy light pooled from the stained-glass shade. The owl peered at me from the belled center of the dome. It had wide eyes and a large brown body, surrounded by green leaves and blue water.
See? All fixed. The hole in the crotch was gone. I couldn’t even tell where it had ripped. She flipped the pants over and stuck her open palm into the seat to present where the pockets had separated from the denim. She’d embroidered a twining vine of flowers there, the petals luminous in pink and yellow and blue. I followed the trail with my finger, feeling the slickness of the embroidery thread.
It’s really pretty. How’d you do it?
I’ll show you tomorrow. After school, okay?
Nodding, I burrowed my face into my mother’s lap. She was warm and smelled like the powdery deodorant spray she always wore. I thought about school the next day, how jealous Brynn would be of my jeans. She’d probably want to come over and have my mom teach her how to do it so she could embroider all her clothes.
Everything all right? My father stopped in the doorway. He wore his regular flannel shirt and jeans and had on socks with his slippers. His reading glasses slid partway down his nose. He was normal again, just my dad, not the emaciated corpse I’d seen naked in their bathroom. He was looking at me and smiling. It didn’t seem weird at all.
Everything’s fine. My mother curled a long strand of my hair around her finger. She was pulling it a little, but I didn’t care. I was tired and ready to forget everything, to pretend like none of it had ever happened. My life felt like it was supposed to again. Just like it should, with my mother and my father there and Milo just down the hall, and one of the dogs walked up behind my dad, sniffing at the leg of his jeans.
Can Brynn come over tomorrow and do embroidery with us?
Yes, sweetheart.
My breath came in slow pulls, drowsy, chest heavy. Smoothing down my hair once more, my mother stood up and turned off the lamp. She hung the jeans over the back of my wicker rocking chair and closed the door behind her.
9
Milo and I both showed up at our mother’s on the night of the art opening. When I got there, he was already climbing out of his truck, wearing something snappy. That suit looked familiar: the navy-and-gold-striped tie, light blue shirt with the white collar peeking out over the matching navy jacket. Then I remembered. In my mind, there was Brynn standing at his side in a white linen sheath she’d bought at the mall, eyes cutting back and forth at the crowd in my parents’ backyard. Worried someone else might have worn her wedding dress.
“You look fancy,” I said, clearing my throat. The pants still fit. His shoes were the same scuffed brown loafers he’d worn his entire adult life. It was a miracle the soles hadn’t fallen off. “Haven’t seen that jacket in a while.”
“Right.” He darted a finger at me, taking in my clothes with a dismissive sweep. “I can see you spent a lot of time getting ready.”
I hadn’t worn something dressy. I’d come straight from the shop, still in my dirty jeans and a stretched-out T-shirt with the word Bahamas faded to crackling red bits across its front. My plan was to go inside and try to talk some sense into my mother. I had a tiny glimmer of hope that she’d listen to me, maybe see what she was doing was hurtful to the people around her. That maybe she’d hear me and decide not to go through with the night. I wasn’t sure what good my phone call to Donna had done. I hadn’t heard from Lucinda either way—not about the show and not about what I’d said regarding her cheating, either. There wasn’t any way to know what would happen, not without calling again.
We started up the walk, overgrown with weeds, some sprouting up through the brick pavers. The flower boxes outside the front windows were full of moss and plants so far dead they looked like giant spiders, blackened vines twisting upward, trying to escape.
“Thought Bastien was gonna take care of this.” I kicked a fallen palm limb out of the walk before ducking under the trellis. Black, mildewed gunk dripped from a corner of the eaves, leaching stains into the peeling paint. “Isn’t that what he’s here for? To help Mom?”
“I would say it’s mutually beneficial. Besides, he’s been too busy at work to handle all this shit. You know that.”
“Right.” The last time I’d seen Bastien, he’d been carrying a black Hefty bag into the back of the shop. He hadn’t opened it to show me what was inside, but it was still moving. He was bringing more and more live fare back to the shop. It was beginning to feel like a slaughterhouse. “Where’s Lolee?”
“I dunno. P
robably with Kaitlyn.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’ve been at work.”
I doubted that very much. More likely he hadn’t checked in with his daughter for a few days and didn’t like the fact that I’d brought it up. I wasn’t in a very good mood either and didn’t have time for his pissy attitude. Our dad had constantly been on Milo’s case about the lack of time he spent with Lolee. Do you know a single thing about your own daughter? Do you know you missed her recital? Is this the kind of man you want to be? The kind of father who only pays attention to himself?
Our father, who ignored Milo most of the time.
“She’s been spending too much time with Bastien,” I said, stepping back when Milo threw open the screen.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A strong waft of cooking grease hit me, making my stomach rumble.
“And when she’s not with him, what’s she doing? You know what can happen when kids are left alone all the time,” I said, thinking of Brynn and the swell of her stomach when she was only five months pregnant with Bastien. She’d looked like a preteen with a basketball stuffed beneath her shirt. Milo had seen it too. He’d been with us in the hospital. He knew all about how easy it was for your teen years to evaporate; gone forever, no way to get them back.
“Don’t tell me how to raise my kids.”
“Don’t answer me in clichés,” I replied, shoving past him into the house.
Only the blue glow of the television set lit the living room. It was always on, no matter what time of day. My mother liked it as background noise, said it made a house feel homier when she could hear people talking.
The hallway was full of newspaper and bits of tissue. Lucinda must have been over, helping my mother package up any last-minute pieces. I imagined her over at the gallery, putting finishing touches on atrocities that shouldn’t see the light of day. Or maybe not, maybe Donna had done something about it after all. I itched to call again, one last-ditch effort, but I figured I’d save up that stress for handling my mother.
Milo picked up the remote and switched off the TV. The room went dark. “What the hell do you want from me, Jessa? I’m doing my best.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. He was doing the least he could, especially when it came to his daughter. “I’m just saying, Lolee needs a parent. God knows that’s not Mom right now.”
“Shut up, Jessa. Just . . . shut up.”
“Both of you shut up, you’re giving me a headache.” Our mother poked her head through the doorway. “I heated up a pot pie and threw some of those tater tots you like in the fryer. I put garlic salt on them.” She turned and walked back through the kitchen. “Jessa, will you help me get ready?”
My mother had never once asked me for help getting dressed. I followed after Milo and snagged a paper towel from the rack, filling it up with tater tots and taking them with me into the bedroom. I hadn’t eaten since that morning and thought I could use the fortification, though I was already feeling queasy.
She sat at the stool in front of her vanity. Her back was toward me, revealing the low zipper of her black satin evening dress. The band to her bra snicked around her torso, the soft skin over her ribs dimpling around the elastic. Her head was cleanly shaved this time, nearly glistening in the light from the ceiling fan fixture. The room was toasty-warm and smelled familiar: yeasty, like the bedclothes my mother seldom washed.
“Zip me. Then we can do the other stuff.”
Alone with her in her room, I felt the beginnings of a panic attack flutter in my chest. Because I hadn’t known what else to do, I’d brought my father’s letter with me. It sat in the back pocket of my jeans, folded up, feeling like it wanted to burn a hole through the fabric.
There didn’t seem to be any good way to bring it up, no specific opener that wouldn’t immediately upset her. I wasn’t used to saying difficult things. We didn’t do that in our family. It was one thing for us all to process my father’s suicide; it was another for me to present my mother with the last words he’d ever written. Words that weren’t even addressed to her. The letter hadn’t said specifically to keep everything to myself, but the contents made it seem like they were for me alone. All that duty. The vulnerability he’d shown. His overwhelming sadness and need.
She dug through the drawer in her vanity, grabbing a flat tin and a small paintbrush. I looked for the makeup, waiting for her to produce her stash of Mary Kay pale pink palettes, but that was it. No blush, no mascara. None of the eyeliner that always wound up smudged under her lids after a long day chasing after us or cooking for my dad.
She wriggled her shoulders at me impatiently, knocking the flap of the dress open wider to reveal another pale section of skin below her bra. I set my napkin full of tater tots on the bed and hurried over. The zipper was hard to grasp with my oily fingertips, and I left behind salt granules on her neck. She’d missed a tiny wisp of hair in her past few shavings. It peppered the base of her skull like a tiny soul patch, gray and wiry. It reminded me of Dad’s hair. I wondered, if he were still alive, whether they’d have started to look more like each other, the way couples often did when they got really old. I touched the light fringe of it and imagined it was his mustache.
“Oh, that stupid piece.” She handed back a pair of nail scissors. “Could you get that for me?”
A single snip and the hair was off, leaving just a dark smudge of stubble. For some reason, I couldn’t stand to toss it. I stuffed the pinch into my jeans pocket.
“What do you need?” I asked, brushing some stray dog hairs off the back of her dress. I still wasn’t ready to talk, though I’d had weeks to come up with something. I knew if I could say the exact right words, I wouldn’t have to show her my father’s letter. Something heartfelt, maybe, that would show her how I was hurting. That way we wouldn’t have to deal with whatever fallout was going to happen at the gallery. Whatever Donna had decided to do.
She uncapped the tin. It was full of oily, bright-colored paints in tiny pots: teal, indigo, fuchsia, orange the neon of a nacho cheese Dorito. She dipped the paintbrush into the brightest red and swirled it there, handing it back to me the same way she’d done with the scissors.
“I want you to paint it. My head, I mean.” Some dripped off the tip of the brush and landed on her dress. I swiped up the dot with my finger, using the cleanest edge of the paper towel to blot the excess. It left behind bits of white linty residue on the black fabric.
She held up a picture torn from a magazine. It was a full page of stained glass, light pouring through the colors like a geometric rainbow. “I want something like this.”
I stood there, holding the paintbrush and staring down at my mother’s pale scalp. “Mom,” I said, speaking carefully. “This is extremely weird. All of this is very, very weird and it’s making me uncomfortable. I would like you to stop.”
“It doesn’t have to look perfect. I just want the colors.” She uncapped some ChapStick. It was a very yellowy old tube that smelled like VapoRub. I was positive she’d owned it since before Milo was born. She smoothed it on in concentric circles until her mouth looked tacky with it.
“You’re not listening to me.” I held the paintbrush in front of me, red end ready to drip again. “I don’t want you to do this show. I think it’s a bad idea, for you and for our family. It’s upsetting, especially the stuff with Dad in it.”
My mother groaned. “If you’re not going to do it, just give it back.”
“Fine.” I decided I could talk to her while I clown-painted her bare head. It was bizarre, but I could get through it. I set the brush against the base of her scalp and drew a bright red line up the middle, bisecting her skull.
“Was that really so difficult? Think of all the times I did things for you and Milo.” She leaned forward and I doubled up on the red line, nearly pressing her face down against the vanity. “Driving you places, cooking, cleaning up. This is just a couple minutes of your time.”
My mother ha
d done everything for us. The letter poked from my back pocket and all I could focus on was the feeling of it there; my father’s hand in his exacting print. My name at the top written tight and controlled. How he’d ended it with the word love, something he hardly ever said when he was alive. My mother told me she loved me constantly, said it so often I wondered how she could possibly mean it. I love you, please pass the butter. I love you, could you get the laundry from the dryer? I love you, I am going to hurt you, but I love you. Just remember that.
I dug the brush down into the tin and smeared a red heart onto the left side of her head. The oily slickness of the paint and the smoothness of her scalp moved the brush along. I felt myself relaxing into it, the way I did when I was piecing something together in the shop: sculpting a nose, perfecting the tiny, intricate stitches on rabbit pelts. I smeared blue circles near each of her ears, dipping indigo, then violet, the orange and yellow mixing together to make a nearly radioactive triangle at the spot over her brow. I created a pink starburst in the center, as if I were parting hair. I almost enjoyed it.
My mother sighed and leaned back into my hands. “Remember when we used to do watercolors out back on the porch? When you guys were little?”
“Yeah, I remember.” It hadn’t been fun. Brynn dumped an entire cup of water on my work after hers fell into a puddle on the corner of the porch. We were eight years old; Milo had just turned seven and had the chicken pox. He couldn’t come out of his room—Brynn and I were going to slip the pictures under his door as get-well cards.
Those memories no longer gave me pleasure. Instead, there was a dull, constant ache, like a rotting tooth that had broken and needed to be pulled; a sharp fragment that I kept touching with the tip of my tongue. Every slide over the memories left behind the coppery taste of blood.
“I’m excited for you to see my art,” she said. “I worked really hard on everything. I want my family there.”
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