Vacuum in the Dark

by Jen Beagin

  “If he dies, I might kill myself,” Clare said. “Just warning you.”

  “It’s probably just gas,” Mona said.

  Mona had expected an air of urgency here, but the ER was calm. They were sitting on a pink vinyl bench against the wall. Across from them sat an Asian woman and her son. The boy, who looked old enough to tell time, was sobbing quietly. The woman suddenly lifted her blouse and offered the boy her breast. She was braless and her breast was small and covered in stretch marks. The boy immediately stopped crying and fastened his mouth to her nipple. He was far too big to be cradled and merely stood between her legs, his arms wrapped around her torso. The woman closed her eyes and Mona felt lonely on her behalf, which was ridiculous—the woman didn’t look lonely at all, but as if all was right in the world. Mona stared, unable to stop herself, and looked around to see if anyone else was having the same problem. The few people waiting were in their own trance, watching CNN on the television. Clare was sniffling and gazing at her lap. Whenever her skirt rode up she lifted her ass a little and tugged it toward her knees.

  “Frank loves you,” Clare said suddenly.

  Mona shifted uncomfortably on the bench.

  “We both do,” Clare said. “Frank did something special for you. I never told you about it, but I think you should know.” She took a minute to adjust her skirt and crossed her legs. “You remember Chad—”

  “Chaz.”

  “You remember how he wound up in the hospital afterward?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “He fell off a roof.”

  Clare shook her head. “Frank and his friends beat the crap out of him.”

  “What?”

  “He didn’t come out and say it, and I knew not to ask him, but I could tell by the way he was acting that he was involved somehow, and his knuckles were all torn up, so I put two and two together.”

  She remembered seeing Chaz after he got out of the hospital. He’d had his face rearranged—that was the phrase she thought of. Bandaged head, eyes blackened and lopsided, nose broken, jaw wired shut, the whole nine yards.

  “Then Frank must have had him deported. That’s why he disappeared so suddenly.”

  “Wow.”

  Clare looked pleased.

  “That must have felt . . . cathartic,” Mona said.

  “It does feel good,” Clare said. “I don’t know why I kept it from you for so long.”

  “Not for you,” Mona said, and rolled her eyes. “For Frank. And his friends. It’s rare to feel justified in hurting someone like that.”

  Clare looked confused. “Why not be grateful?” she said. “He made the guy suffer for you and taught him a lesson.”

  “You can’t beat that out of a person, Clare. He’s probably alive and well and raping chicks in Brazil.”

  “I really wish you’d stop calling me Clare,” she said quietly. “That’s what I wish.”

  “What would you rather be called?”

  She blew her nose with the balled-up Kleenex on her lap. “Mommy would be nice,” she said finally.

  “Really?”

  She shrugged. “When you call me Clare I feel like a stranger. You know? Like I’m nothing to you. Like that wrapper on the floor.” She pointed to a silver candy wrapper pinned under a chair leg. The Asian woman and her son were gone. Mona didn’t remember seeing them leave.

  “Why not just plain Mom?”

  “That’s what you used to call me—Mommy. Back when you were little. You loved everything and everyone, except grass. You hated grass, wouldn’t go near it.” She chewed on her thumbnail and looked sideways at Mona’s face. “You look like you’re being tortured or something. It’s not like I’m asking you to call me Cooter. Or Gary, or something disgusting.”

  “I’m just wondering why now,” Mona said. “I’m twenty-six. I can’t go around calling you Mommy. Can I?”

  “I’m not asking you to say it in the supermarket. Just sometimes when we’re alone.” She looked around the room. “Like right now.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  Mona smiled. “Okay . . . Mommy.”

  “Why are you whispering?” Clare whispered.

  “Mommy!” Mona shouted. “Mommy!”

  The nurse at the front desk looked in their direction. Mona smiled and waved.

  “Can’t you make it a natural part of your speech?” Clare asked.

  Mona cleared her throat. “Well, Mommy”—she took a sip of water from Clare’s bottle—“I’ve been meaning to tell you something, actually. That guy I was dating who died? He was a junkie, not a carpenter, and he killed himself. His body was never found, but he would’ve been buried in a pauper’s grave, and the only person who would have shown up is me. And a few hookers.”

  Clare picked up an issue of Newsweek and began fanning herself. “Sorry,” she said. “Hot flash. I’m going through the Change.”

  “You’ve been Changing for ten years,” Mona said. “Anyway, a few weeks before he disappeared, we got high together. He shot me up with heroin and cocaine, and I overdosed, or had some kind of allergic reaction. This is going to sound crazy, but while I was unconscious I had some minor convulsions, during which I remembered being born. I remembered coming out of you. The passage through the canal, crowning, being delivered, the whole thing. Except it wasn’t a warm and fuzzy feeling—it was the most sickening thing I’ve ever felt or experienced. It was just . . . vile.”

  “My heart’s racing.” Clare stopped fanning herself and touched her chest. “I can feel it beating in my neck.”

  “It was worse than being raped . . . Mommy,” Mona said. “Anyway, my point is, I don’t feel any animosity toward Chaz. What I resent, actually, is being born.”

  Clare reached into her purse and frantically rummaged around. For a second Mona thought she was looking for a weapon. Something with which to stab herself—or Mona.

  “What are you looking for?” Mona asked.

  “Pills,” Clare said. “I don’t have any, but I keep looking. Old habit.”

  Mona felt sorry for her. Truth-telling: a ridiculous idea. Too late for that, just as it was too late to call Clare anything other than . . . Darlene? No—she would call her Mom. She should’ve just written Clare a letter, and then added it to the large file she kept in a drawer: Letters I’ll Never Send.

  “You all right, Mom? Want me to get the nurse?”

  “You were born with teeth, you know,” Clare said. “Nursing you was extremely painful. My nipples bled.”

  Mona yawned.

  “You also secreted breast milk when you were an infant,” Clare said.

  This was new. “What?”

  “The doctor called it neonatal milk,” Clare said. “But the nurses called it Witches’ Milk.”

  “I had milk coming out of my baby nipples?” Mona asked.

  Clare smiled wistfully. “Yes.”

  “Did I breastfeed anyone?” Mona asked.

  “Only the dog,” Clare said.

  Mona laughed. “We didn’t have a dog yet.”

  “The neighbor’s dog,” Clare said.

  “How many teeth was I born with?” Mona asked.

  “Two,” Clare said. “And you had hair on your forehead, and I was never more in love with anyone. I suppose it doesn’t count, though, because you don’t remember.”

  “Well, I remember Woody,” Mona said. “The guy eye-raped me at least once a week.”

  Clare frowned. “I’m sorry about that. He eye-raped me, too. I never should have left you alone with him.”

  They were silent for a minute.

  “You okay?” Clare asked.

  “Just waiting for the déjà vu to pass,” Mona said.

  Clare brought a shaky hand to her face and touched her cheekbone with the tips of her fingers. “I barely knew where my own vagina was until I met your father, and then he tortured it, and the rest of me, for fourteen years,” Clare said. “I’ve had a number of concussions.”

  Concussions were reserve
d for holidays. The most vivid in Mona’s memory: Halloween, the year she went as a giant, individually wrapped roll of toilet paper. Scott tissue. An elaborate and delicate costume, the result of a weeks-long collaboration between herself and her art teacher at school. They’d hand-painted the logo and taglines and had even included the barcode on the back of the roll. She was convinced the costume would make her famous, at least locally, and land her on the evening news, but her father had been in a blackout that night, which meant a bunch of shit got broken, including a casserole dish, Mona’s costume, and Clare’s nose.

  “What made you go to rehab after all this time?” Mona asked.

  “Frank found out,” Clare said. “You know, he never set foot in my apartment, never once in eleven years? And then one day he did, and he turned the place upside down.”

  Mona had spent nine years in Massachusetts. Clare visited twice: once when Mona was released from the loony bin, and then again for Mona’s high school graduation. The loony-bin visit was a disaster. First, it was January, and Clare had only seen snow in photographs. Second, Mona’s shrink had wanted to meet with Clare—alone, behind closed doors.

  Mona had paced the hallway outside as if Clare were undergoing risky surgery. Twenty minutes later, Clare emerged in tears. Clearly, the shrink had told Clare about the fucking rowboat, the not-very-complimentary analogy Mona had expressed in therapy. Clare was safe inside a rowboat while Mona and Frank were awash in the deep dark ocean, except Mona was actually drowning while Frank was merely waving his arms, but take a wild guess who Clare saved. “They’re blaming me,” Clare said in disbelief. “They’re acting like I was the one cutting you.”

  Clare was shell-shocked and incredulous for the rest of the weekend, but Mona dragged her to Cambridge. Clare didn’t care for Harvard Square, but she took Mona shopping and bought her a bunch of clothes, including a good winter coat. She also bought a very expensive pinkie ring for Frank. The ring cost six hundred dollars. Clare lost the ring within hours. They spent the afternoon retracing their steps, but it was long gone. When Clare got back to Los Angeles, she checked herself into a mental hospital.

  “Listen, letting you go wasn’t a selfish act,” Clare said. “I was afraid you’d end up pregnant and on drugs. You were already sniffing glue, and you were almost raped. I told myself you were better off in New England. It hurt to admit that, you know. It’s partly why I did drugs for so many years. But I’m awake now. Wide awake.” She belched softly. “It sucks being awake.”

  “Tell me about it,” Mona said.

  “I should have visited you more,” she said.

  “Spoon and Fork,” Mona said. “What about them?”

  Clare sighed. “First of all, excuse me, but those dogs were a fucking nightmare, okay? Forky’s breath was so terrible it could melt your eyebrows, and Spoon was a complete psychopath. He terrorized the whole neighborhood. He killed Mittens or Buckles or whatever that cat’s name was.”

  “Peaches,” Mona said. “The cat’s name was Peaches.”

  “There he is,” Clare said suddenly, and nodded toward the front desk. Frank was standing there, squinting at a piece of paper on the counter. Clare stood up and hurried toward him, clutching her purse to her stomach.

  Mona stayed seated for a minute. She watched them embrace. They loved each other more than they loved her—was that such a crime?

  “Mr. Disgusting loved you more than your own parents,” Terry said out of nowhere.

  “I’m okay with that,” Mona told Terry.

  Clare and Frank were kissing. Mona approached them after they were done.

  “Panic attack,” Frank announced to Mona. “Not heart attack.” He flashed an embarrassed smile.

  Panic at El Pollo Loco, Mona thought. A new song by Frank Torres.

  Frank and Clare walked hand in hand toward the exit. As usual, Mona followed four or five paces behind, staring at their backsides. Then, at the automatic doors, Frank stopped and looked back at her. She figured he’d forgotten something—his jacket, maybe—but he was looking at her face.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Just waiting for you to catch up,” he said.

  * * *

  CLARE STOPPED BY ON HER way to work the next morning. Frank had called in sick, she said, which he’d never done before, and was behaving strangely.

  “Strange, how?” Mona asked.

  “Like he’s about to die,” Clare said. “He’s calling everyone he knows, people he’s been avoiding for years, just to ‘check in.’ And he’s also throwing a bunch of stuff away. Stuff he loves.” Clare sat on the bed next to Mona’s open suitcase. “Why are you packing?”

  “I’m leaving after your ceremony,” Mona said.

  “You know you can stay here as long as you want, right?” Clare asked.

  “I thought you were getting rid of the place.”

  “You could take over the lease,” she said. “It’s not too late. We could be neighbors. I’d love that.”

  Mona shrugged. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Let me ask you something. Why haven’t you been to the beach? It’s like, right there.”

  “I find the ocean depressing,” Mona said. “I don’t like the sound of pounding surf. I like lakes. Placid lakes. I like the sound of water slapping a boat—”

  “I’m happy you’re here,” Clare interrupted. She scratched her ear and looked at Mona. “Why do you look surprised?”

  “Because you seem to have trouble spending more than twenty minutes alone with me.”

  “Not true,” she said, and looked at her watch. “I’ve been sitting here for thirty minutes. I’m late for work, honey. Would you mind checking on Frank later? If you see him throwing away something important, stop him.”

  “What am I supposed to do—wrestle it out of his hands?”

  “I love you,” she said, and kissed Mona on the mouth. “Just call me.”

  * * *

  FRANK WAS CERTAINLY BEHAVING AS if he’d had a heart attack. She sat on the couch and watched him wander around with a large black garbage bag, snatching various items off shelves and dropping them in. Wahkan cooed like a pigeon from his shoulder. Takoda was stuck in his cage, weeping quietly.

  “He cries like Clare,” Mona commented.

  “Who’s Clare?” Frank said.

  “My mother,” she said. “Why are you throwing your stuff away?”

  “I feel like a giant fat man is sitting on my chest,” he said. “The fat man is pigging out and can’t feel me squirming, but, so. That’s the image that came to me in the ambulance.”

  “What’s the fat man eating?” Mona asked.

  “A tub of fried chicken,” Frank said.

  As far as she knew, he’d never talked about his feelings before. Nor had she ever been alone with him as an adult, she realized now. It was just as uncomfortable as she’d always imagined.

  He was asking her what she wanted. She looked around nervously, at a loss. Takoda stopped crying and loudly blew his nose.

  “Hold on,” Frank said, and disappeared into the bedroom. He came out a few seconds later with a small oil painting. “Check this out.”

  At first glance it looked like a Christian cross in flames. Then she saw that it wasn’t a cross, but rather an eagle with its wings spread. But wait a minute, the eagle’s face was also a Native American guy with wings, and the wings had eyes in them, and the eyes were staring at her.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Take it,” he said happily. “It’s yours, so.”

  “Wow,” she said again. “Thanks, Frank.”

  “What else you want?” He walked over to a shelf and picked up a small cone-shaped basket with a bunch of feathers and bells hanging off it. “How about this?”

  “Oh no,” she said. “That’s okay. I’m not really in the market for baskets.”

  “Yeah, but this is special, Mona. What they call a burden basket. It’s made from willow fibers. And so in the old days, the Apaches used these baskets to carry food a
nd firewood and stuff like that, so, but. Now they hang ’em on people’s front doors, and visitors are supposed to place their burdens in the basket before entering, so. You know that expression, ‘Leave your burdens at the door’? Well, that’s where it comes from.”

  “My soul is a burden basket,” Mona said.

  Frank looked nervous.

  “What else you want?” he asked. “Pick something. Anything.”

  She looked at the kachina dolls lined up on a shelf. Some of them were carrying burden baskets. She remembered focusing on one of the morning singers on the night with Chaz. The doll had aged considerably since then. Her hair and clothes were soiled. Originally the singer held a miniature spruce tree, but it was gone now, disappeared.

  “Your vacuum,” Mona said.

  “Done,” he said without hesitation.

  “Really?”

  “Get the vacuum and follow me,” Frank said.

  She carried the vacuum to the parking lot out back, where Frank kept his Mustang and other vintage cars. He had three. They all looked alike to her, except for the biggest one, a Ford something. She watched him caress the hood of the Mustang.

  “Isn’t she a beauty?” Frank asked.

  “Sure is,” Mona said.

  Wahkan took a shit on his shoulder. “Good night, sweetheart,” the bird said in a heavy lisp.

  “So what’re you driving out there in New Mexico?” Frank asked.

  “Toyota pickup,” she said. “I ran out of oil once and was still able to drive six hours.”

  “How many miles?”

  “A lot,” she said. “Over two hundred thousand.”

  He nodded. “You prefer the Ford, I can tell.” He walked over to it, ran a clean finger over the hood and held it up for her to see.

  “Time for a bath,” she said.

  “She’s a Fairlane.” He wiped his finger on his Wranglers. “Nineteen sixty-four.”

  She nodded and said nothing, but he seemed to want more of a response. “Wow,” she said again. “Pretty old.”