Roxy would flip her off under the table. She’d smoke in her backyard and ash on her precious roses. She even spit in Grandmother’s iced tea a time or two, but she never said a word out loud, even when Grandmother was mean to me.
And oh, when I dyed my hair blue … I tried to tell Grandmother I wanted hair like water, but that only made her tighten her butt harder. The good Lord did not make hair blue for a reason. It’s not natural. You look like some kind of creature from some kind of lagoon. I didn’t mention that the good Lord didn’t make her hair red either, or curly, but I decided to let that fight go. Roxy didn’t make me dye it back, even when Lyle said I should join a carnival and make best friends with the bearded lady and the tattooed man.
“We went to Sew Good, the shop in town, Mama and I, and we picked out material together,” Roxy goes on, touching the blanket. “She said she wanted your baby blanket to be just right for you. She asked me if I wanted to get pink or maybe red, but I said no, that I wanted a blanket like the ocean. So blue silk in three shades with satin trim is what we got. And it was perfect for you.”
I pull it over me, and even though it only covers my top half, it soothes me to just the right temperature.
Roxy opens the window and crosses her arms, looking outside, across the orchards laid out as far as we can see. We didn’t come back when her mother, Stitcher, died. Roxy said if we did, Santa Maria wouldn’t let us leave again. She said Santa Maria was heartbreak itself. And then later, when she had taken to her bed, she told me it was heaven, it was her bones, it was too powerful for her to touch. Even for her mother, she didn’t dare.
After Grandmother Stitcher died, Roxy wore black for months. I would hear her weeping on the phone with Elle late at night, when Lyle was out and she thought I was asleep. A silent house magnifies everything, so that whispered conversations find you in between your own insomniac breaths.
No, she would say, no, I can’t, Ellie. I can never come home.
And I would wonder what the truth was and how I would ever get to it. And now we’re here. Looking at the pictures hanging next to Roxy’s bed is like staring into oncoming headlights, but I can’t stop. My father on his surfboard, legs in the sea. My mother, pregnant and smiling. Me, a baby. Roxy and Elle and my father, together, arms linked. Was it this she didn’t want to look at, that she didn’t want to see? My father’s warm green eyes with the bursts of blue, Roxy slipped into the crook of his arm, where she looked to fit perfectly, her smile big and free and white inside her tan, brown hair waved over her shoulders.
“He used to stumble over his words sometimes,” Roxy says. “His English wasn’t as good as he wanted it to be. I didn’t care. I didn’t want him to change a single thing about himself, not then. And when he spoke Portuguese, it was the sexiest.” She wipes at my cheeks, even though they’re dry.
This is what I know about my father, Lucas Machado. He came to Santa Maria from a small beach town in Brazil with a surfboard and a few dollars in his pocket. He had broken contact with his family and never wanted to go back. He and Roxy met at a bonfire. He was dancing like he was part of the flames.
My mother loved his accent, the way his words slid into each other, the way he kissed her like he had been waiting for her his whole life, like he couldn’t wait one second more. He was her true love. That, she knew from the first night they met, from the way he ran at the ocean like he was picking a fight, squawking and hollering and then going completely still when they were together, watching her so as not to miss a moment. Lucas Machado caught her heart in a net. And then her family’s, too. Best of all, he didn’t expect my mother to leave Brayburn Farm or to give me any other last name. He contorted himself around her, to be her buffer against the world, to be the world itself.
Then he died. Fell off a cliff. Jumped off a cliff. Nobody knew why, or if they did they’ve never told me. Why he would end his own life and leave me when he was supposedly so happy is something no one has ever been able to answer. Or no one has ever wanted to.
I don’t know why my father died, but I do know most of my mother also died that day. I don’t know how else to explain what’s happened to her since. I’ve never known her any other way. The only time she’s whole is when she lets my father’s memory through the cracks of the fortress she’s built against him, everything that came before he stepped off the cliffside.
Now, Roxy’s lying on the bed, watching the candlelight flicker across the ceiling, Millie on her chest.
Roxy says obrigado. She says amor.
Whatever ghosts she thought she was escaping all those years ago were here all along, just waiting for her to come back.
FIVE
MOTHER
After my shower, Elle appears in the bedroom doorway with a camera around her neck. Even though she knows we’re sharing a room, she seems shocked to find me there, curled around Roxy. Now that I’m clean, I can smell the road trip on her. She should be taking her own shower, but is drifting in and out of consciousness and seems peaceful, so I don’t want to bother her.
“You find the bathroom all right?” Elle asks.
My hair is wet, my skin still damp.
Roxy opens up her eyes. “Hey, Ellie,” she says.
“Hey.” Elle leans against the door, unable to take her sad gaze from Roxy’s face. She hesitates, then steps into the room, folds her hands across her chest. “Listen, I know you left Texas with nothing. I know how brave that was, and I want to support you in your decision. You can have anything out of the fridge, and the townies leave us plenty of gift baskets and what not, which I urge you to help yourself to.”
“Okay.” Roxy sounds so deflated, so empty, I keep my body warm against hers.
Elle puts some bills on the bedside table. “It’s not much, but I don’t want you to be worrying. We’ll figure it out. And I know you’re not much for working the land, but maybe Mayhem can help me get ready for the market or something.”
Roxy covers her face. She’s never had a job that I know of. Her job was keeping herself in the condition Lyle liked, baking cakes for the appropriate functions, laughing at his stupid jokes. But Roxy also has pride.
“Thank you,” Roxy says into her hands.
“I’ve been living in this house this whole time. It’s okay for you to take a little.”
Roxy nods, face still covered, mumbles another “Thank you.”
Elle comes to stand at the foot of the bed. “I do have one more thing to talk to you about.”
Roxy looks up.
“I think we should go down to the station and file a report,” Elle says.
Roxy blinks hard as though trying to bring Elle into focus. “Station?”
“Police station, Rox.”
Roxy makes a sad sound. “Why in hell would I want to have anything to do with a cop?”
“It’s not easy, and I know that, but we should document the abuse. What I mean is, if Lyle should come around—”
“He won’t—” Roxy says.
“If he does—” Elle insists. “And I’m sorry because I know you just got here, but it would be better if the … uh … evidence were still evident.”
“You’re an expert?”
“Not an expert exactly.” Elle looks embarrassed, sheepish. “I fell into it at some point, when the townies were still coming up here thinking I could work magic on their lives and relationships, asking about mugwort and eyes of newt. I started to see what was happening to them, started to try to make sense of it and to take some action … legal action. There aren’t very many resources for victims of abuse, but we can do something. We can get it down on record, and maybe that’ll help later on.”
There’s a silence so prolonged I start to lose focus. The words “victims of abuse” floating in the air around us, it’s like none of this is real, like I must have dreamed it all. I must still be back in Taylor, in my bed, in the dark, with Lyle playing his music and dancing downstairs, holding Roxy by the hips long after she’s ready for bed.
“It’s nice you’re a hero.” Roxy closes her eyes again.
“Roxy, that’s not fair.”
“No, no, but it is. Always doing the right thing. Except when it’s the wrong thing,” she singsongs.
“I’ve apologized so many times.”
Roxy puts up a hand. “I’ll take your pictures and file your report, but I don’t want to hear any more. That’s the deal. Once it’s done, we’re done with this. Agreed?”
Elle’s fingers coil around the camera; then she nods, but she doesn’t move.
Roxy waits for Elle to leave, and when she doesn’t Roxy says, “Now?”
Elle’s face crumples. “I’m sorry, Rox, but it’s already starting to fade. Every hour counts.”
“Okay.”
“But if you don’t want to—”
Roxy uncurls herself and throws off the blanket.
“Nope,” she says. “Whatever makes you happy, Elle.”
“Rox—”
“No, no. Your house, your rules,” Roxy says, and Elle follows quietly behind her and down the stairs.
SIX
YELLOW WALLPAPER
Roxy asks me to come with her while she has the pictures taken, and that’s when I know things really are changing. Normally, she would make sure I saw nothing, or more likely, she wouldn’t let Elle take the pictures at all.
She stands against the one blank wall in the dining room, which is painted a rich buttercup. There’s a small crystal chandelier, a table made of redwood, its edges ragged with bark, the chairs crafted and thick, and opposite her, three large cases of china, stacked neatly. On one wall, a portrait of a woman in an old-style bathing suit, a cap on her head, hands on her hips. She stares outward defiantly, her bottom lip thrust forward.
Roxy takes off her jeans, gingerly, her skin sore and sensitive. She unties her blouse, undoing her buttons, and removes it. Her makeup has faded, she’s still dirty from the car, and next to the yellow paint she’s jaundiced. I wait out of the camera’s frame, but close enough to save her if anything goes wrong. The top half of her stomach is flat and taut, with a constellation of moles near her right ribs. The bottom half is yellow and green, the bruises on her shoulder bluer and more purple. The worst kind of rainbow weaves all up and down her legs.
“He should go straight to hell.” Elle hexes Lyle from behind her black Polaroid. “I could send him there for you. I will if he comes anywhere near here.”
“I’m standing here in my underwear,” Roxy says. “Can we just—”
Elle begins snapping the camera.
This is how we live in Taylor. We find excuses, ways to cover up so we don’t have to admit the truth to each other. If I don’t say anything and Roxy doesn’t say anything, and we pretend that sleeping in the same bed is just mother-daughter bonding, we don’t have to have conversations. We don’t have to see anything and it’s easy to lie, even to ourselves.
Now I see us through Elle’s eyes and there is no hiding. I am looking at my mother. I am seeing her wounds. I want to tell her how beautiful she is, even now, while she herself avoids the camera, staring to the side and down so her features etch a sharp shadow against the wall.
Chikaw, the camera says, spitting out picture after picture. Chikaw. Chikaw.
Elle walks up close to Roxy and clicks right in her eye, so I almost put my hand between them. I stop myself, but glare at Elle as she takes another.
Chikaw.
“That seems like plenty,” I say, startling myself with my own voice. “I mean, how many pictures … don’t you have what you need?”
Roxy grips my arm and doesn’t let go.
“Mayhem, you must think I’m a monster,” Elle says.
“No.” My lip trembles violently. “It’s not that.”
It’s that she’s pulling Lyle out of Taylor and bringing him into three dimensions, when I only want to leave him behind, in the past, gone forever.
Elle lets the camera fall to her side and considers her twin for a long while.
“I’m so sorry, Roxy,” she says. “Shit goddamn, I’m sorry.”
“My own fault, isn’t it? I did it to myself.” Roxy reaches for her shirt and her jeans, and disappears up the stairs.
SEVEN
THE ATTIC
Elle has retreated to her room and shut the door, so while Roxy takes her shower, I explore the house, munching on Nacho Cheese Doritos, sucking down a warm Coke. I run my fingers along the walls and take in the pictures of my family; paintings, black-and-whites where no one is smiling, then full color, fake Western shots, and finally my grandparents, my mother and Elle, grainy.
At the foot of the attic stairs, I smell incense and sweat. I tell myself I need to check out those kids and their private quarters for my own safety. They’re strangers and I don’t know anything about them, and we just came from being someone’s playthings. I don’t trust anyone, and I shouldn’t. The world is full of crazy people. Anyway, no one told me I couldn’t go up there. In fact, I was invited to move in. Sort of. I tell myself I am not like Lyle. I am not invading other people’s privacy. I just want to see more, to see who they are in secret when they’re alone. The stairs creak as I go up, and snaking guilt coils through me, but it doesn’t stop me.
I see two beds, piles of black clothes everywhere, old band T-shirts, some smaller trinkets that must belong to Kidd; rings on a side table; an open duffel bag; backpacks strewn in the corner. I rifle through their things, again swearing to myself this is only a precaution.
I find some family pictures of Kidd and Jason with what must be their parents, a nice-looking white woman and a pleasant-looking black man. Everyone is smiling. Jason is clean-cut, and Kidd’s hair is in braids. They look new.
Kidd in a drum majorette costume.
Jason holding a football.
It’s so all-American, so healthy.
I put the pictures back and move over to Neve’s section of the attic, which I easily identify by the necklaces hanging from a nail in the wall. It’s a mess, and I smell traces of tobacco and maybe weed on her dirty clothes. A couple of gallon-sized glass jars filled with water sit in the corner of the room, but there’s nothing that gives me any hints about who she is, other than feather boas, glittery bustiers, huge crystal earrings, and some leather pants.
I wander toward the part of the room that’s used for storage. Boxes and boxes. I glide my finger across their tops, come away dusty. Then I see the trunk in the back right-hand corner. It’s shiny, its leather oiled and protected. A rusted lock hangs open from its center. I lift the lid. I smell lemon balm and rosemary and sandalwood, and my throat constricts. Memories of my mother’s soft whiskey-laced whispers in the night.
Sandalwood is for protection.
Rosemary is of the sea.
Lemon balm? I can’t remember anything but the smell itself. My nursery rhymes, incantations from another time and place. From before. I hear my father’s chuckle, low. I see my parents’ hands pass across my field of vision, see my own small one reaching.
Inside the trunk are four wedding dresses, each wrapped in clear plastic, some folders containing report cards. Underneath a neat pile of crocheted baby clothes sits a diary, a notebook covered in blue satin, finer than anything I’ve ever seen, definitely nicer than the composition notebooks whose pages I have always filled with my secret thoughts. I open it, let my fingers dance along the edges of the pages.
Brayburn
Santa Maria, California
Letters are pasted in. Tickets. A couple of pictures. Some newspaper articles.
Diaries are sacred. They belong to their author. They are not to be touched by anyone else. I know what happens when you go poking around in other people’s things. People get hurt. They get slammed into walls. People get bruised.
Sound ricochets across the attic, like something has fallen. I jump and look quickly out the window, but all I see is a black sky. I hear the noise again. It’s a car door.
Elle’s kids are back.
I flee down the stairs like I’m being chased, the diary clutched in my hand, all the way to Roxy’s room. The shower is still going down the hall.
I open the diary.
I read until the water turns off and Roxy’s feet creak along the carpeted floors, and then I stuff it under the mattress and pretend to be asleep as Roxy’s body sinks down next to mine.
Everything comes with a price. Every victory has a trail of blood behind it. Maybe the sorrow I am dragging behind me means a victory is coming my way.
EIGHT
JULIANNA BRAYBURN DAUGHTER OF THE WOODS
1940
Dearest Billie,
When I was young I swore to myself never to be the kind of person who carried secrets like an extra suitcase, as so many seemed to do; busy running from everything in their past. And now, ironically, I have a chest full of secrets I carry on my back that’s so heavy it threatens to lay me flat. It’s not what I want for you, my girl; a mother with worries she can’t shake off. I know we’ve never picked wildflowers together as you have done with your father. We have never laughed together or baked a cake and iced it with colored sugar. There is something missing between us, something fundamental that should be between a mother and a daughter, and I wish for your forgiveness every day, for what I cannot muster that you need.
But we have stories, and our stories help us to understand each other. I write you today, knowing I am too cowardly to give you this story before my death, but I am comforted, knowing you will have it one day and then it will not be mine alone. It will be yours as well. It is already yours. I’m sorry I’m not brave enough to help you make sense of it.
I wonder what’s inside you.
I think back to Alfonzo Luna, the great director with his wild hair and purple scarf, and I wonder, if I had refused to be in his play would I have saved myself? But I cannot undo one thread without undoing them all, and I’m afraid I’m far too selfish to live a life without having met your father, without having brought you into the world, consequences be what they may.
Mayhem Page 3