“Aren’t the colors something?” Coral says hazily, almost lovingly, like she has worked so hard, like they are achievements. Mantis strips down to his boxers, wringing and setting out his own clothes alongside Coral’s. His chest is broad and strong. His arms and legs thick as tree limbs.
“Those look pretty tough, honey. How did you get them?” Zephyr’s question is a gentle press, a light touch. But Coral is looking up into the sky again, then out onto the water, then up into the boughs of the trees farther up the shoreline.
“Oh, little of this, little of that. I just bruise easily,” she says, voice quiet and disjointed. Unconcerned. Silence falls over the group. Mantis looks at her with agitation, hands on his hips.
“I didn’t push her,” Moss says, his voice steady. “I know that’s what you’re all fucking thinking,” he says, defensive. He runs his hand through his hair once, twice, three times. I look at Mantis, whose face has turned hard. Coral giggles, shivering despite her proximity to the fire, despite the June warmth. We all look at her.
“Of course you didn’t,” she says, looking deep into the flames.
“Are you sure, Cindy?” Mantis asks, looking like he wants to kill Moss. Mantis moves toward her, and Coral tucks herself into his side, her cheek against his rib cage.
“More sure than sure,” she says dreamily.
“Why didn’t you help her?” Mantis’s jaw is set, his eyes burning into Moss.
“I froze,” Moss replies, maddeningly placid and guiltless. Neither Zephyr nor I know what to say. I swallow. I can tell that Mantis would like to snap Moss’s skinny little neck.
“You’re a cowardly piece of shit,” Mantis growls.
“Don’t fight now, boys. Not on such a day of celebration.” Coral’s eyes are unfocused on the fire. She sounds…disconnected. Not like herself. We all look at her, noting the strangeness in her voice. Then she starts to laugh. But then the laugh fades into a woeful sob—as if the two emotions are linked, one and the same. She slaps her hands over her eyes and then grinds the heels of her palms into the sockets. We’re all silent. Scared. At least I am. This is a Coral I have not seen before. Not even on scavenger hunt day. “He didn’t push me,” Coral reiterates, almost angry, pulling her hands from her eyes and wrapping her arms around her body for warmth. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“Did you lose your balance?” Zephyr asks, ever the optimist, standing close to my side.
“No,” Coral replies simply. “Felt like it might’ve been okay to drown just then.” I look over at Mantis, who does not seem surprised at or alarmed by this statement, but I am. I look over at Moss. A strange expression has overtaken his face. Wide-eyed fascination. I think of what Moss told me about Coral in his cabin almost two weeks ago. About how she’d cut her wrists back in November. How she had a tendency toward self-harm. Was even suicidal. Moss had been astonished by it. Almost enlivened by it. I look at her collarbone above the sagging line of her damp camisole. The delicate skin stretched there. I feel the urge to pull her into a hug, pull her away from the fire.
“You two were fighting,” Zephyr says. Mantis is focused on Coral now like a laser beam.
“Oh, sure,” she replies, her inscrutable face breaking into a giggle that passes away as quickly as it erupted. Almost a shudder. “That’ll happen. I fight with everyone, don’t I?” The muscles in her face tic once more. “With you,” she says, gesturing to Mantis. “With Moss. With Brady.” A flicker of something like mischief is in her eye. Or is it terror? Glee? Panic? I feel so inexplicably nervous, I can’t stand to speak. I cannot read her. Her face, her voice, her mannerisms are mingling into a mixed-up language I cannot understand.
Mantis’s face reveals nothing.
“Get out the beer and all that,” Coral says, her hand extending toward the fire, farther and farther, so close to the flames that I almost scream. “We must have a toast to celebrate.”
“What the hell are you talking about, C?” Mantis’s voice is almost pleading. “Are you alright? I mean, truly? Are you okay?”
She giggles, her fingers close enough to the fire that the heat must be excruciating.
“Coral—” I breathe, stepping forward, terror in my chest, about to snatch her away bodily from the flames.
“I’m pregnant,” she says, drawing her hand back suddenly, pressing the hot fingers to her chest, balling her hand into a fist.
Pregnant?
Zephyr sits down at this, on a driftwood log, as if unable to stand any longer. Maybe, like me, Zephyr is unable to completely process the dissonance of the two salient points before us: Coral is a woman who tried to drown herself in this lake only minutes ago. Coral is a woman who would like, now, to toast to her pregnancy.
“Are—are you fucking with us?” Mantis breathes, looking shaken, licking his lips.
“No,” Coral replies, earnest. “It’s true. And growing.”
Mantis runs his hand back over his buzzed skull and turns away toward the water. I look to Moss like he might be able to anchor me somehow, but his expression only further unmoors me. He looks pissed. His arms are crossed in front of his chest. I think of how close he and Coral have gotten, and I think of Brady. It occurs to me that Moss must be jealous. Of Brady. Of this claim on her that Brady now has. I look over at Coral and wonder if she’ll even stay on at Lupine Valley. I wonder if this is also what’s bothering Moss. What will he do with his little muse gone?
“And you—are, are we happy about this?” Zephyr asks delicately. Coral smiles at Zephyr, those pale, harried eyes looking so tired to me now—then she laughs. And once more, her laughs bleed into sobs.
“We’re so happy!” she cries, shivering. And it’s like she’s drowning in thin air.
Thesis
Her Dark Things by Audra Colfax
Piece #4: Look What It Can Do
Oil and mixed media on canvas. 24″ x 12″.
[Close-up of a fat, round apple in nuanced and complicated shades of dusky red and pink. Found objects incorporated throughout by layering.]
Note on Lisa Frank stationery found in a purple-and-pink caboodle in Cindy Dunn’s bedroom-closet crawl space in the Dunn residence.
The Dunn girl is pregnant
unmarried
and PREGNANT
just out of high school
what a shame
Brady convinced me to keep it
—June88. CD.
Note on Lisa Frank stationery found in a purple-and-pink caboodle in Cindy Dunn’s bedroom-closet crawl space in the Dunn residence.
It’s like the two things
were living in separate WORLDS before
the world where I was going off to
school in August
where I was working on my art fine art
my fine art
and the world where I would be having a BABY
in the middle of the school year
that RIPPED OPEN place inside me, that new one
the tar pit
is bubbling and OOZING and I feel like I am
burning up from the inside out like I want to JUMP
out of a moving car
off a cliff
into the ocean
into nothingness
what a shame
BRADY convinced me to keep it
—June88. CD.
Note on yellow legal paper folded and found in Nightwood by Djuna Barnes on a bookshelf in the den of the Dunn residence.
Look at what LIFE can do mom said
with a marveling
contented sigh
she looks at my
TUMMY
she looks at the
GOLDEN DOVE
at my throat
peace peace peace be with me
I think of
the CUTS I just
made in the skin of my
upper arms
with a STEAK KNIFE
from the butcher block
she and dad got for me and
Brady since now we moved in
together
for the BABY
the cut skin that
touches my ribs
yeah
look
what it
can do
—June88. CD.
Drawing on water-stained sketchbook paper found in a clear, yellow, plastic trinket box in a birdhouse on Lupine Valley property.
[A large, sprawling crow or raven, feathers minutely rendered across its wide, robust chest. The black of its perfect, intricate feathers is deep, rich. Its expansive wings spread across the entire width of the sheet of paper, which is given a grid effect by its fold lines. Charcoal pencil.]
—June88. CD.
Note on torn scratch paper found in a seventh-grade report card belonging to Cindy Dunn in the Dunn residence.
BRADY told my therapist that I have been
“obsessively”
reading my college ACCEPTANCE packet
that it is making me worse
MAKING me depressed
that he’d like to take it from me, burn it
I drew Brady a picture a picture just a little picture to show a show and tell
ILLUSTRATIVE
after the most recent appointment I told him
he could
frame it like a real SWEETIE PIE
he looked at me like I was
disgusting
it is called MAMA & BABY
—July88. CD.
Note on coffee-stained graph paper found folded inside a 1988 edition of the Farmer’s Almanac inside the Dunn residence.
I showed M
in his little cabin
at Lupine Valley
my new drawing Mama & Baby
he thought it was hilarious he
laughed at me and he also said
it was really good that I had gotten it
just right
that it was perfect and true
don’t I feel better he asked
and would I let him
draw me
he asked
with my face all tired and sad like that
and with my hands clenched up in fists like that
and with the tears on my cheeks like that
and the cuts on my ribs like that
in the glow of my old brown enamel lantern
with the Bar Harbor
sticker
he loves the light of so much
and I said
yes
but when I showed M out behind the mess hall
when I showed M the cuts on my ribs like that
he just looked at me like I might be
a monster he said
this is an abomination
he said what is wrong
with you
—July88. CD.
Drawing on ripped loose-leaf paper found folded inside a volume of poems by Nikki Giovanni in the den of the Dunn residence.
[Pencil sketch of a thin, tired fox lying curled up prettily, fur coat rendered so finely, she looks three-dimensional. There is a baby fox, a kit, eating its way out of the mother fox, its nose and sharp little teeth pressing up and out from under her rib cage through the soft belly. The face of the precious kit is covered in slick gore. The precious kit is very healthy.]
Title: Mama & Baby.
—July88. CD.
Five
What Do You Call This?
Max
Saturday, October 20, 2018
Today will be better. I have to believe that.
Even in the bright light of a new morning, however, I am hounded by last night.
Audra’s gun, the jarring blasts of the shots, the guttural groans of the moose, the sharp pain in my ankle, confronting Stone ’Em Bog in such a grim way—all of it mixed into a bodily repugnance inside me as we drove away from the bog, and it stayed on to roost when we arrived back at her house. She had me settled on the couch, socks off, calf propped up on a pillow on top of her coffee table. While I chewed Tums, she took another look at my scraped hands and assured me the cuts were only superficial. She told me we were wound twins now, and she showed me the scar on her palm again. A broad smile spread across her face. I was not amused.
“And I think your ankle’s just sprained,” she reiterated as she held ice on it. “You were able to put some weight on it, obviously, getting back and forth to the car, so that’s a good sign.”
“It really hurts now,” I told her, voice hard.
“We’ll keep it iced and elevated and see how you are in the morning,” she said, unfazed.
I looked down at my swelling ankle with worry and disgust. Something about this—maybe my expression, maybe my overt concern—made Audra laugh.
“What’s so funny?” My voice bit with anger.
“Oh, nothing—what a night we’ve had.” She shook her head. “Leg injuries abound. I just hope I don’t have to do to you what I had to do to that moose.” And she’d started laughing again. The strong urge to recoil from her touch swelled within me, which is something I never expected to feel toward her.
After a while Audra had helped get me up into my room, and I felt only a dangerous, angry form of attraction to her then. The kind that could only manifest in hate-fucking, the kind that comes out of a seedling of fear. And I did feel fear. I realize that now, in the morning light. I feared her. Something about her. I felt like an old man, and like she was my nurse with far too much control. Annie Wilkes in Misery.
As I lay in bed last night, all I could think about was that gun.
I just hope I don’t have to do to you what I had to do to that moose. Ha Ha Ha.
The flash of the gun was the flash of the yellow ribbons in her apple tree, the flash of the lemon enamel birds on her ears. I had closed my eyes against it in some pathetic attempt to banish them, to fall asleep.
She never even said she was sorry. That stands out to me, too. There was no I’m so sorry, I should never have suggested we take that walk in the growing dark like that. On such rough terrain. I feel so bad. Oh, Max, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have driven through all those potholes. Shown you the gun in the glove box. Oh, Max. I could have worked with guilt. You know, there are a few things you could do to make me feel better, Audra. A lesser woman might have smiled sheepishly, bitten her lip, asked what she could do, that she would do whatever I wanted if I would only feel better. No, there was no apology in Audra, no pity. She went to her own room. We slept apart. She touched me as little as was necessary to get me set up for rest. And by then, that’s all I wanted to do anyway—rest—and I hated her for that, too. A bait and switch, all her fault.
Maybe it’s a test. Maybe that’s what it’s been all along, over this whole last year. One big fucking terrible test. But of what? For what?
Or maybe it’s just some standard-issue misfortune. Hard luck in the wildlands. If I take a breath and think for a second, it is likely the latter. Animals get hit by cars. People who live in remote areas often have guns. Walking on rugged terrain can result in injuries. So what that Audra literally lives in the place that is the epicenter of my longest-held secret? So what that there are goldenrod ribbons dangling from her tree? So what that she took me to the bog? So what that she shot an animal to death before my eyes? So what that I am here less than twenty-four hours and already injured? So what?
The images threaten to rise—weathered picnic tables, tin cups, papery-white skin, so much gold—I push them all back where I have kept them all this time. I shut my eyes against my own frenzy.
Keep it together, Max. H
old to the prayer, man. Hold it.
My mind conjures blue Misha’s silky, blond hair, red Francesca’s deep curls, purple Audra’s wild, auburn mane. In my grasp. Holding. Held.
Today will be better. It has to be. It can’t get much worse than yesterday.
I manage to get myself into the shower, taking my time, meditating under the hot water and trying to rinse away the negativity. Hold to the prayer, Max. The prayer still abides. I get out of the shower, testing my ankle—it chirps at me, bright, sharp, acid yellow in its clarity. I lean one way to dry myself then recover.
She’s probably right, it’s probably not broken. But it still fucking hurts.
I make my way downstairs to find Audra cooking us brunch. I see some of my favorites—poached eggs, French toast, black coffee. Maybe it’s a peace offering.
“Morning, professor.” She smiles from across the kitchen. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore, you know. But I’ll survive.” I pour myself some coffee and orange juice.
“Good. Because today is thesis day. Studio day.” She flips the toast in her frying pan. I stare into her taut back, the black tank top she’s wearing clingy and thin. She wears black leggings with it. Bare feet. “And I know you said you have some work to do—for school. I’ll make sure you have time to do what you need.”
“You’re the boss,” I reply, and I realize how true that is. I’m hundreds of miles from anything that has even the semblance of being mine. My apartment. My car. My office at the institute. The places I shop. The streets and routes I know backward and forward. This is Audra’s turf. Audra’s rules. I have no choice but to follow the leader. Usually I am the one calling the shots. “As it turns out, a professor’s weekend is often not much of a weekend at all, my dear.” I sigh, thinking of the letters of recommendation I have to write over the coming weeks and months, the independent studies I’m directing, the ever-present grading and prepping.
I start scrolling through the Boston Globe on my phone. Then I go to the institute faculty website to see if the department admin has updated my page with the news of my latest publication credit. It’s an essay in a collection about historical censorship in art coming out in the spring from the New York University Press. Not yet. I’ll have to nudge them. Again.
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