“Gavin Beck. That’s your daddy’s cobbler.”
The room went deadly quiet. Dad froze inside the refrigerator door. I couldn’t breathe. Meg gasped. No one knew what to do. We were Southern fragments submerged inside a dome of wrecked humanity. The refrigerator made a weird noise. Mother fell apart and Dad rushed to comfort her. “I—I’ve baked him one every week, Gavin, every week for years. Ever since May Dell died. I don’t know how NOT to. I just…I just…” Her voice was disjointed and out of sorts. Meg vanished in sobs. I sat, unable to move and weighted by some force. The dead don’t eat cobbler. My mother was doing what Gabby does. Caretaking. Feeding. Tending. The cobbler cooked with love would remain untouched, a stone marker, sacred and holy sitting on the counter. I lost count of how many breakdowns occurred afterwards. One minute we’d be talking about Papa C and then the next minute, one by one, we’d disappear to grieve, to remember, to cry. We worked out our grief in different ways. Dad tinkered. Mother cooked. Meg disappeared to who knows where and I went to my internal house of seven.
It took a damn peach cobbler for me to see my mother, maybe a mere glimpse of her for the first time. I had always thought she was withholding of love and affection, but now I think she gives love the only way she knows how. There were no fireworks, no Mother Moonshine or pot dancers in the dead of night. Instead, there were pots, pans, silver spoons and lots of food. As a child I missed this. How did I not see this? It’s so clear now.
The kitchen is where I remember her the most, collaborating, concocting, cooking, canning and cleaning. All in the name of love. It’s strange how death can make you see a person in a completely different light. As a child I longed to know her, and I still don’t in many ways, but this I know for sure. If you received food in any form, at any time—you can bet a cast-iron skillet, it was pure love from the heart of Gabby’s kitchen. She insisted Meg and I inherit the kitchen gene too. By six, I could cook hot dogs and had my first cookbook thanks to Imperial Sugar. Ironically, it was titled, My First Cookbook. At age nine, I mastered French toast and by ten, the highly prestigious Southern dessert of all time, pecan pralines, or more properly pronounced, pee-can pralines. By the way Gabby went on and on about the recipe, I thought it was a prerequisite for marriage.
This wrecking knowledge of my mother sent me to a vulnerable place, a place that I could not deal with right now, so I made my way of escape. I ran outside to find Meg. I looked everywhere except for the one place I did not expect her to be. I looked up and there she was in the branches of the wondering tree.
“Aren’t you a little too old to climb trees, Meg?”
“Aren’t you a little too old to start fires?” she said sarcastically.
“Owww…that one hurt, sister.” I laughed and climbed up the opposite limb beside her.
We sat in the silence of the damp Texas wind with the rustling of the leaves to soothe us. It was peaceful and we were used to it, the absence of words, of resolution, of answers. As much as I struggled with the house inside me, the horrors of my own mind, my sister Meg had her own. I couldn’t tell you what they were, she never spoke of them. Even since we were young, there was always an anomaly of silence between us. Mute mouths unable to communicate the horrors beneath. An abattoir of family and personal secrets. Meg was the pebble you carry in your pocket. It’s there, it exists, you can feel it and rub on it, but it doesn’t speak. It carries secrets in the hard stone, heavy burdens, polished and shiny but ever silent. She’d creep into my room at night, half-asleep, cradling her pillow and blanket and nuzzle up to me. In order to fall asleep, she’d have to touch me somewhere, a foot, toe wiggle, a leg wrap, or a hand on my back. Something to tether her to earth in case the world spun out of control as it often did in our house.
Meg finally broke the silence. ‘Hey, Bill is out of town. You want to stay with me tonight? You can sleep with me like old times” She winked. “You know you want to.”
“Sure, why not. I love being tangled up in Meg vines,” I said, laughing. But deep inside all I could think of was the morning after the great sadness, when she was in my bed. She had tried to talk to me. After all these years, I wonder what it was and if she even remembers it. I started to ask but it didn’t seem like the right timing. For the moment, we were grieving our loss in our childhood wondering tree, a place we’d been a hundred times before. Two sisters staring from the treetops into the pine curtain of their magical, brutal kingdom.
Meg grabbed my hand like she did when we were kids. I noticed she had fat squalls sliding down her cheeks. It was rare for her to let me see her in pain, so I said nothing. I just squeezed her hand. We sat in the wounded bitter silence, surrounded by the comfort of the wondering tree, our childhood hide-away, each of us cradled by slender bark and bountiful leaves and the hush of the winds. It seemed magical, or so I wanted to believe. The tree held us together, sister to sister, child to adult, adult to child, wounds to bark, past to present, behind the pine curtain of secrets, shadows and sevens.
Later that day, I grabbed a few clothes and something to wear to the funeral and headed over to Meg’s for the night. This was as rare as a comet. I hadn’t slept near Meg since we were kids. I had no idea a sleepover would set me back thirteen years. I lost count of how many tequila shots we had. Papa C’s death took us back to our childhood.
“You know Mother is going to be pissed if we show up hung over to Papa C’s funeral, don’t you?” I said, taking a shot. Meg laughed. “Can you believe the last storyteller in the family is gone?”
“Not true.” Meg screamed. “You…. you are a great storyteller.”
“I’m not the one who said a band of trolls licked your face, and oh…oh, what was the other thing…. oh yeah. Flying frogs.” I busted out laughing.
“Yeah. Well, that was just a fluke. I had to get you back for cheating in cards.”
“Owwwwhhhhh really?” I said in my best Southern drunk accent.
“You were a handful for the parents, you know?”
“What do you mean?” Meg looked confused.
“You don’t remember all the parent-teacher meetings at school? The time you hit a boy over the head with a yard stick, and kicked another boy in the groin. Or let’s see, when you drew stick figures on the neck of that kid named Roger while he was asleep during story time, or when you cut a girl’s hair for calling you Meg the Smeg.”
“Oh my god, I barely remember,” she said, giggling.
“You were mean as hell. I think I still have teeth marks on my arm where you bit me. I think a few classmates do as well.”
“I wasn’t that mean? Was I, Cass?”
“Uhm…yeah. You were pretty mean when you wanted to be. You couldn’t help it though. Dad raised you like a little boy, hunting, fishing, horses. It’s a wonder you weren’t in bar fights.” We both started laughing.
“Remember the crackles?”
Meg fell back on the edge of the couch. “Lord, do I. Best prank on Maw Sue ever. I can still see her face waking up to find those damn things on her glasses. Oh my God she was so mad.” We belly laughed until we were both laugh-crying and our stomachs hurt. It felt good to laugh. To actually share stories and talk, to be together. I sat for a second in wonder.
Here we were. A sparkly diamond and Southern sap. Suddenly the atmosphere turned serious. Inevitable when the seeds grow from disturbed soil. When the word bones are buried alive. I should have seen it coming. But I was unprepared. I was about to learn of a side to my sister I never knew existed.
“See this?” Meg said, pulling up her shorts. I was stunned for a second, trying to figure out exactly what I was looking at on my sister’s thighs. Red, rough lines, up and down her thighs, some raised, some more subtle, but all of them apparently cuts. I was speechless, trying to comprehend what I saw and fit it with the sister that I thought I knew.
“What…I…” I gasped and lost my words as I shook my head in disbelief.
“And this too,” she said, holding out her arms in front of me, p
alms up and her fingers tracing the lines on her wrist. I could see the eerie scar in the shape of a seven on her palm, identical to mine. Identical to Maw Sue’s. In my warped vision it glowed a strange amber sizzle from beneath her skin, but I did not tell her that.
“No,” I said, confused, baffled. “Uh-uh,” I said, closing my eyes. “No. Not you, Meg. This can’t be?” I yelled. My mind spun. “How could I not know about this?” Tears welled up in my eyes.
“It’s not dinner table talk, Cass. Mom and Dad couldn’t face it themselves. It happened a long time ago. I didn’t know how to say it, even if I tried to talk about it. Not back then. I didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t get it out. I was a mess. It was this strange power that took over me and I was defenseless to stop it. I just remember not knowing who I was. I felt sad all the time. I wandered around. I felt disconnected from myself, from you, from Mom and Dad, from everyone. I was aimless, bored and useless.”
I was flabbergasted by my sister’s words. I thought I was the only one messed up in my family. But not my sister. This couldn’t be.
“Meg! Where was I when this happened?” I poured another shot while words spun in my head. My own sister…the curse…spirits…. secrets.
“I was seventeen, almost eighteen, I’m not sure, Cass, I don’t remember things like you do.” Meg poured a shot, licked her wrist, and sprinkled salt on it. In my vision, the white crystals lay like tiny gems, sparkly diamonds littered against her skin, her scars, ready and able to cut, to slice, to open up and pour out the madness. I had to blink several times to get the image out of my head. Meg licked her wrist, downed the tequila and bit into a lime wedge. I felt a siege within myself, inside the house of seven with all this newfound knowledge of my sister. Meg could sense my anxiety.
“I’m married to Bill now, Cass, so it all worked out. He’s good to me. Even with my faults. I have a lot of those. He does too. Actually, he’s a little controlling at times, and we butt heads. You know I don’t take shit from no one, but at the end of the day, we’re on the same side.” She rubbed her wrists and pulled her shorts down.
“Ugh. First love though, it’s confusing and messed up. I’m glad I’m past it. That lovesick stuff as a teen nearly did me in. I took shit seriously to heart. Now, not so much. Back then, I really didn’t want to live. Something’s not right about that, huh?”
I shuddered, knowing what I know. It went deeper than Meg wanted to admit, Seeker deep, Seventh Tribe deep, secrets and sevens deep. Meg never believed in all the Seeker stories, the gifts and the curses but she was using it now, and didn’t even know it, spilling out stories, secrets. Giving sight to things unseen. She was a Seeker in her own right, a shiny diamond. But those diamonds can do damage, and cut. Within minutes, Meg opened up again and began to spill out more secrets and hidden things.
What I learned in the next fifteen minutes would change me. Meg’s curse, the one she didn’t believe in as a child, would manifest itself again, years after the slit wrist and cut thighs incident. It would emerge darker inside her marriage and she would keep it hidden from everyone, including herself. My little sister Meg had her own slew of masks. I wasn’t the only one with people pieces.
Come to find out, the marriage was not all bliss. When it was good, it was great, but when it was bad, it was hell. Both strong-headed individuals and neither one would back down during a fight or argument. It grew into endless battles. When neither could surrender, they turned to alcohol and pills. This evolved into explosive tempers from both. This was a side of Bill I never knew existed. Meg said no one did. As for Meg’s temperament, she was always a powder keg, even as a child, and she never backed down, which made her even more dangerous.
“Cass, it’s strange. We were out on the lake, just Bill and me. We had been there all day and he was ready to leave. I wasn’t. I wanted to see the sunset but he was adamant that we go. It started a stupid argument. He was pissed, I was pissed and there we are in the middle of the lake screaming like a bunch of crazy loons. Then he just snapped, threw his shit down and cranked the motor and took off. I fell backwards against the boat and hit my head, enough to bleed a good bit. I screamed but he kept on going. I started throwing his fishing poles out, one by one and then I reached in the cooler, grabbed a beer can and sling up so hard, it hit him in the head and his hat blew off. The boat swerved and he stopped suddenly which made the waves swamp the boat and rock it so hard, when I stood up, I fell out. When I tried to get back in, Bill noticed all his fishing tackles and rods were gone. I started laughing in a vengeful tone and he turned beet red. He was madder than mad. He gave me a go-to-hell glance, sat down, cranked the boat and drove off. I thought for sure he was just bullshitting me, trying to pay me back for tossing his fishing gear, but I was wrong. The seconds ticked away and he grew tiny in the distance. My head was still bleeding and I had to swim to a nearby tree to hang on until an hour or so later, a boater came by and rescued me. You should have seen his face.”
“He LEFT YOU THERE?” I yelled. “In the middle of the lake. That bastard.”
“Yeah. I know. I couldn’t believe it either but hey, I did get to watch the sunset.” Meg laughed, but it was a cynical laugh born from pain. I recognized it too well. I had it myself.
“But Cass, I’ve done some crazy stuff too. Once, I can’t remember what we were arguing about, but whatever it was, we were both too drunk to be driving, that’s for sure. I’m embarrassed to say it but it also didn’t end well, but in hindsight, it could have been worse. We had been having a pretty rough patch a few years back. You know Bill and how fast he drives, well, I kept poking the bear and wouldn’t let it go, and he just kept pressing the gas getting madder and madder. I had been drinking all afternoon. But that’s not the worst part. It’s like my mind just imploded. I had nowhere to run from it. I couldn’t escape it. Bill’s screaming, the radios blaring, the trucks flying down the highway and this horrible thing is inside my head just eating away at me and telling me to end it now. Just do it. Stop it now. Let it all go. DO IT! It was awful. Of course, I’m sure the alcohol intensified it. But it drove me. Pressed me. This dark harboring voice would not stop. Louder and louder until I just reacted. The next thing I know, I’m reaching for the door handle, the door is open and I jump. I feel the gulf of freedom for just seconds before the impact of the ditch sent me into a painful rolling howl.”
“You did what?” I punched her in the arm. I was mad. Fearful. Angry. Scared. “Jesus Christ, Meg!” I could barely listen to her and I knew the reason why. I knew the voices that drove her. Those horrible, terrible interceptors—the shadows, the black angels Maw Sue warned us of as kids. I poured two more shots, unable to accept my sister had suffered as I did—and I didn’t even know it. Meg wore her mask well—well enough to fool me. I thought all these years she had her life together and I was the damaged one. What a fool I’d been.
I poured Meg a shot. I poured myself a double. I let Meg’s words settle into my spirit, while my own restless life felt the need of confession. If I didn’t know her as well as I thought, then there was a probability she didn’t know about me either. I downed one more shot of tequila and let her rip. I started at the beginning, my earliest memories of what I had recently remembered of my past. I told Meg everything—start to finish, all the memories emerging of childhood, teenage years, of seeing myself as a monster, to the magazines I found, to my non-relationship with Mother, to the madness of my mind, the intermingling of Maw Sue’s madness, my fears of Castle Pines, to the old stories of the Seventh Tribe. I told her of my unflinching belief in everything Maw Sue told me, and how I was convinced it was real and there was more to it than we ever imagined. I told her about the night at the river, the terrible awful sadness, the white rose and sacred ritual of Petal People and bearing my grief. When I was finished the room seemed a tad out of the ordinary, as if the combination of secrets spilled out made it momentarily a mixture of magic, mayhem and madness. Or it could have been the alcohol. I wasn’t sure anymore.
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br /> “Cass, I think…” Meg said before I cut her off. A plunder of tears ran down her face.
“Meg, I’m not finished. That was just a portion. I think my mind had to take a break or I would lose it. So please…let me finish. I may never be able to talk about it again. Okay?”
She nodded and leaned against the couch cushion while I sat in the pain of the memories that poured out. I told her about Sam, our marriage problems, his cheating, me losing my mind, the phone call to Mother, seeing the little girls, ghosts with word skeletons, me making the bed and living the lie. I told her how I lost myself long ago, lost my voice, and the little girl I used to be. I told her I believed in the House of Seven. But I didn’t know if I’d ever find myself again, not fully, not whole and complete. Not like the number seven Maw Sue always said we should live up to. I feared I’d be broken forever. I’d never make lovely my losses. When I finished talking, I glanced up at Meg. Her face was red and her neck was dripping wet with tears and her lips trembled. Right then, our bedfellow returned to pay us a visit, as it did many times when we were children. The silence of secrets. The gap of time void and lengthy where nothing fits. The collective knowing of dark things that bound us as one. The strange hole of emptiness surreal.
I leaned over and grabbed Meg’s hands. Our foreheads fell together, a meeting of minds, of madness, magic and memories of our past. It was like we were in a ceremony again, sisters of the Seventh Tribe, Seekers of the way. We clung to each like vines, afraid of drifting apart, swept away, as if we were waiting on the world to spin out of balance and fling us off. Our need for touch was deep and all we had was each other. In this tender moment, we were kids again, two small saplings underneath the disturbed soil in our kingdom behind the pine curtain. Trying to survive. Adapt. Thrive.
Meg let go of my hands and leaned up. “Cass…,” she said, tender and breakable. “I need to tell you something.”
I flinched. “Okay.” And braced myself.
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