by Ani Katz
She had never been like that in our own games.
In August the singer’s face and naked torso appeared on the cover of a major popular music magazine. The object of my sister’s obsession lay in rumpled white sheets, his sharp cheekbones kissed by late-morning light, his dark hair tousled perhaps in agitation, perhaps by the hands of an unseen lover. His rakish eyes flashed, pleading with you to come back to bed, to stay a bit longer. He bit his lip, waiting. To Evie, it was a picture of pure sex.
The issue sold out immediately. After two weeks of searching every newsstand and bookstore within a bikeable radius of our house, Evie walked into our public library wearing one of our father’s shirts, an old chambray oxford that was much too big for her. A few minutes later, she walked out with the library’s copy of the magazine tucked into the front of her denim shorts, her beloved’s face pressed against her stomach and hips, finally hers.
But Evie hated the rest of the cover. She was repulsed by the red and black text that advertised other bands she hated and stories she would not read. All the headlines and teasers were pollutants, and they soiled the perfection of her love.
So she tried to free him from his bonds.
We sat on her bed and I watched as she took a pair of our mother’s nail scissors and began to snip carefully at the cover, pruning the words away, leaving the celestial face and body intact.
Trust me, she whispered to the lover cradled in her lap. This will be so much better.
Maybe I shifted then, trying to get more comfortable, or to get a better look. Or maybe Evie was the one who moved, crossing her legs beneath her or propping herself on an elbow.
Whatever the reason, in the next moment my sister’s hand slipped, and before she could stop herself she had sliced a thick scar through her beloved’s rosy left nipple.
For a long moment Evie was completely still and silent. I watched her pale face fearfully, waiting for her reaction. She let herself fall backward onto her pillows, lay as though she were dead—the same way she had been when I saw her with our father. It was as if she were not herself, not Evie anymore, just someone else’s body that didn’t move.
But then she raised herself up with a sharp gasp and began to howl.
It was a hoarse moan that tightened into a shriek and went on and on, a sound worse than anything I’d ever heard. Her face was grim and horrible, lit with an indescribable passion, and she gripped the scissors until her fingertips lost their blood and she slashed and shredded the image of the one she loved, the one she could not have and would never have, until all that remained were a few handfuls of ragged scraps spilled over the bed. All this time I watched her—even when she screamed at me to stop looking at her, screamed at me to go and leave her alone, I didn’t move.
I stayed—not consoling her, not even trying to calm her—just watching her. And when my sister had finally spent her rage we listened to her breathing rend the silence around us, each labored inhale like something too heavy that she’d been forced to drag too far for too long.
She was still breathing. I could still hear it.
When I tried to stand up she grabbed at me, her hand clutching at my ankle in a violent spasm, but I kicked myself free. I pulled the sheets and comforter off the bed, threw them down into a pile on the floor, covering everything but her bare feet.
I still could have stopped, then. But really, I couldn’t have.
The billy club was under my side of the bed. It had been there for weeks, growing a delicate skin of dust. I reached for it now, wiped it with the hem of my T-shirt. The collar had been stretched out beyond saving, and blood from my nose had stained the cotton. I would have to change and throw the garment away.
With the club I hit what was under the pile of bedding until it stopped moving, until the sound of the blows became muffled and wet. Then I lay down on the bed and blacked out.
When I woke up again she had come back. She stood at the foot of the bed, still wearing her robe. We looked at each other in the gray light of the early morning that hung like smoke in the room.
I thought you left, I said.
She shrugged, made a vague gesture.
You came back.
She didn’t answer me right away. She kept looking at me, kept herself very still, her eyes a flat and unblinking black. She held her breath.
I had to, she said finally. I left all my things.
Your things?
She pointed to the rumpled pile of bedding on the floor.
But that’s not—I said. That’s—no. That isn’t yours. Those aren’t your things.
She shook her head then, slowly touched her fingertips to her throat.
Then what is it?
A phone was going off somewhere. A hard buzzing against wood, loud digital chimes ascending and descending. My arms and legs jerked and I was awake again. My eyes ranged over the blank ceiling, the black windows with their curtains drawn back, exposing me to the night. For a moment I didn’t know where I was—it was possible I had been unconscious for days.
It was cold. There was a bad smell in the room that I couldn’t name.
The phone was still going off, the sound lodged somewhere deep inside my head. No. It was somewhere close to me. I threw my hand back behind my head, fumbled blindly over the cluttered surface of the bedside table. There. Holding it to my face, I realized that it wasn’t my phone—it was someone else’s—but I answered it anyway, my numb fingers probing the screen in a pattern I didn’t know I remembered.
Yes, I said. It’s me.
I was convinced that I was still asleep. That I was way, way down in the deepest part of a dream. That I hadn’t even begun to make my way back to the surface.
Daddy?
Her voice brought me back. I caught my breath.
Yes, sweetheart.
Why are you on Mommy’s phone?
My girl, I thought. My girl.
She’s asleep, love, I said. What’s up?
Oh. Well, can you pick me up now?
Now everything else was starting to come back. It was all beginning to surface, dead fish floating up from deep water. I avoided looking at the floor, even though I knew what was there.
Of course, dear, I said carefully. I’m leaving now. I’ll be there very soon.
The phone went silent against my ear. I regarded the device for a few minutes, turning it over in my hand, trying to decide what to do with it. Finally I powered it down and put it in my pocket. Perhaps I would throw it away later, somewhere else.
I changed out of my ruined T-shirt. This too I hesitated over before leaving it balled up on the bathroom floor—I would deal with it later. I put on an old blue-and-gray flannel, a garment I almost never wore unless I was sick or doing work around the house. I turned out the light in the bedroom and shut the door behind me.
Downstairs I spent a while searching for my daughter’s winter coat, the pink puffer one. She would need it now that it had gotten so cold out; before I had powered the phone down I had seen the weather icon on the screen indicating that the temperature had dropped down into the forties. It seemed unthinkable that only a few hours ago it had felt like high summer.
I left everything the way it was—the abandoned meal on the dining room table, the school project in the living room—only turning off the lights as I made my way through each room. It would all be dealt with later, somehow. I finally found the pink puffer coat hanging on a hook near the side door, under a dark olive trench coat and some other jackets and sweaters that had been worn by other people more recently. The dog’s leash was there as well—I took it in hand, then put on my own coat.
I believe it was at this point that I realized I was carrying the billy club around with me. It hung loosely at my side, an extension of my right arm. I didn’t examine it as closely as I had the phone or my shirt. I simply set it down on the kitchen counter for a moment, the
n called to my dog.
He was upstairs, pawing at the bedroom door, yipping loudly and fretfully. When he heard me calling he hurried to the landing to peer down beseechingly at me. I crawled up the stairs on my hands and knees, stayed crouched down low and beckoned to my dog, cooing endearments.
Come here, I murmured, reaching out for him. Good boy, good boy. Come here.
Finally he approached me with a halting gait, came close enough to let me fondle his bowed head. He was a small dog, had probably been the runt of the litter. Years ago, when we’d first brought him home from the shelter, he’d crawled under the sofa and slept there for an hour before finally allowing us to coax him out, to hold and love him.
Come on, boy, I said. Let’s go out.
I notched my fingers under his collar and clipped the retractable leash on, then led him downstairs—his curly head hesitating over the precipice of each step, his paws making their soft, syncopated thuds as we descended. We went into the kitchen.
I was careless—I had given the leash too much slack and held it too loosely, and when my dog saw the club in my hand he jerked away and out of my grip, the leash retracting with a snap, its plastic handle clattering after him as he scuttled away. I chased him for several awkward, lunging laps around the kitchen island—clockwise, then counterclockwise, then clockwise again—each swing of the club a moment too late, a beat too slow. Finally I feinted right, then darted left, snatching the handle of the leash just before it got away from me again.
Breathing harder now, I stood and wound the thin cord of the leash around and around my wrist, pulling my dog to me across the hardwood floor, just close enough so that I could land the blow.
* * *
■ ■ ■
I don’t remember leaving my house, or any details of the drive south. At some point I glanced behind me and saw that I had placed the billy club on the backseat, partly covering it with my daughter’s pink coat. The bright beams of the streetlights kept slicing through the car, jumping over the mound of the coat and club. I faced forward again and kept my eyes on the road.
I thought idly of where my daughter and I would go and how we would rebuild our life together once I had her with me again. I decided not to worry about specifics just then. Together, we would make our plans and find a way to get over our pain.
I thought of a television spot I’d seen once for Homesteader, a real estate search engine. Our agency hadn’t made the ad, but I’d greatly admired it. The commercial was the kind of work I aspired to, a poignant and compelling story that stayed with the viewer long after its images had receded from the screen. No small achievement these days.
The ad’s opening scene takes place in a darkened kitchen, where a man sits at the counter, looking at his laptop. The light of the screen illuminates his somber face as he searches houses for sale, clicking through slideshows of cottages with picket fences, bungalows with big trees in their front yards. He frowns.
The man’s young daughter comes in wearing pajamas, a bedraggled teddy bear dangling from her small hand. He turns and speaks to her.
We’ll try to find something near Grandma, okay?
His daughter seems not to hear him, disregarding him, as if she doesn’t care to listen. She turns away to look at something else, then takes her father’s hand and pulls him to the window, points up at the night sky.
I think that star is Mommy, she says. It’s the brightest.
We cut to a new scene now, later on that same night. The man is back on his computer, using Homesteader to create highly individualized preferences and parameters. His features soften. He smiles at something unseen.
New scene. In the warm vestibule of a new house, the girl runs into her grandmother’s waiting arms. They are happy.
That night on the front porch, the father gazes up at the stars, his daughter standing on the lawn before him, her hands raised to the sky. The camera zooms in on the brightest star above.
Good night, Mommy, the girl whispers.
* * *
■ ■ ■
When I arrived I hesitated out front for a while. I stood shivering in the driveway, listening to the walls of dark pines breathing around me, watching for signs of life in the old house. I took in the dark gabled windows, the missing shutters, the rotten columns of the porch where I once lay sobbing and powerless as my father had his way with my sister. From where I stood I could look in and just make out the television in the living room, its weak and stuttering light flitting against the walls like a trapped bird. I looked up above me, but I could see no stars—the sky had clouded over, paling to a warm, unearthly mauve. Soon it would begin to snow.
In that moment, I decided that I should leave my daughter behind. I knew that she would be safe here, surrounded by the strange and broken women who loved her. They may have had their flaws, but they would do their best to take care of her. They would chip away at her inchoate anorexia, fattening her up with their relentless cooking and feeding. They would launder her uniforms every Sunday and see that she stayed at Hutch, where her clan of girlfriends would close ranks around her, precious survivor of unspeakable tragedy. Teachers would go easy on her; therapists would help her get through the worst of it. And perhaps one day she would write about what had happened to us, just as beautiful, brave Evie had intended to write her own sad story, before she gave up and jumped.
The truth was that I didn’t deserve to see my daughter grow up and become a woman. Not after what I had done to us.
But who would take care of them if I were gone?
No, I thought. No. Whatever might happen to us now, my daughter belonged with me. There was no truth deeper than that.
I let myself in through the unlocked door, my daughter’s coat slung over my shoulder, its soft sleeves dangling against my chest. In the front hall I turned away from the murk of my reflection in the credenza mirror, and with careful quiet steps I passed through the French doors and into the lightless living room where my sisters lay lumped together on the sofa like dogs, snoring in guttural wheezes. On the television screen two teenagers in parochial school uniforms—a black boy and a blond girl—were arguing fiercely, their attractive, tearstained faces drawn close, as if to kiss. My mother was nowhere to be seen.
If anyone else had been awake—if I’d had to speak with my sisters, or see my mother—I still may have given it all up, even then. But the only soul stirring was my girl, huddled in the rose-patterned wingback chair that dwarfed her little body, her dark eyes glazed with sleep as she gazed at the escalating fight on the television screen. I stood and watched her for a while. Even then—even then—I still could have stopped.
I whispered her name.
She looked up. Saw me. I beckoned to her with a nod, and she got up out of the chair and approached me, yawning widely. I put my arm around her, draped her coat around her shoulders—together we walked out of the house, and my daughter let out a little gasp.
It’s snowing?
It was. We stood and watched the flakes drift through the streetlight, specks of static falling and falling through the night. It fell on our shoulders and hair, too soft and light to chill us. The silence was smothering and complete, thick against our ears. My daughter did a little twirl, as if she were playing the role of an enchanted girl, and I thought I saw Evie again, performing for us—for me—as she always had.
In the car I made sure my daughter buckled up. The billy club was still resting on the backseat, hidden in a lean-to of shadow. As I drove away I looked back at the house once, briefly. I was reasonably sure that I would never see it again.
My daughter fell asleep beside me almost immediately, and as I accelerated westward down the abandoned road I let my thoughts race on unencumbered. It was just after midnight—I could drive all through the night, and by early morning we would be far away. The Canadian border was only seven or so hours north, and there would be no traffic. Perhaps
we could go to Montreal—I had never been there myself, but I’d heard good things. I hadn’t packed anything for us, but it didn’t matter. I had my wallet, so we would be able to buy whatever we needed for our new start. I imagined a tree-lined street in a new city, a bilingual girls’ school, two pairs of scuffed snow boots waiting by our back door.
The worst was over now. It would be hard to move forward, but in the end we would be all right.
But I hadn’t taken our passports. They’d been right there, stashed in the drawer of my bedside table, but I hadn’t thought to take them with me when I left the house. I hadn’t been thinking at all.
I looked over at my daughter, and then I knew that there were other problems, insurmountable ones that I hadn’t let myself face until now.
What would I say when she asked for her mother? What could I possibly tell her? I knew in my heart that there was nothing I could say, that no possible explanation would make it all right. And now it was much too late to bring her back.
I had changed my mind about that, anyway. I no longer saw that house as a safe haven for my girl. She would wither away there. Her life would be nothing like what I had wanted for her. My family didn’t have the means or wherewithal to take care of her. They couldn’t even take care of themselves. Soon my ailing mother would die, and my sisters would fully capitulate to their trash mysticism and squalid sloth. Money would run out, and my daughter would have to go to the unfathomably lousy district school, if my sisters even bothered sending her to school at all. She would end up just like the twins, stunted and perverted, shut into that crumbling sanatorium for the rest of her life, which would really be no kind of life at all.