by Meg Haston
“Last session you were trying to remember what book Josh was reading during that picnic. I asked if maybe it felt like forgetting meant he was slipping away.” She tucks a lock of reddish hair behind one ear.
“And I said I didn’t know.”
“I wonder if that’s the reason for the tattoo.”
I roll my eyes and sit up. “So much for not prying.”
“I just think it’s beautiful, is all. Hard to take my eyes off her.”
Again, I trace the lines from my wrist to my elbow. I could do it blindfolded: my mother’s wide eyes, strong Roman nose, and full, red lips. The strand of pearls around her neck. She is exquisite. Permanent.
“I wonder if the tattoo is so you won’t forget the details,” Shrink suggests.
“I wonder if you read too much into everything.”
“Maybe.” She flexes her toes. Her calves are white in the sun. It’s strange how she doesn’t cover them when she sees me looking. How she allows her dress to trace the curves of her ass, to betray the softness of her stomach. “I do think most things have meaning.”
I look away. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. She’s gone.”
“How long?” she asks softly.
I point to the two dates below her image: one for birth, and one for the day she left. “A year in May. I was sixteen and Josh was seventeen. I was eating dinner on the back porch,” I say.
“When—”
“When my dad told me she was gone.”
“And what did he say?” Shrink’s face is different from the faces I used to get around the time Josh died. Faces that were twisted in disbelief and even curious fascination. They wanted to know how it happened, exactly how it happened, don’t leave anything out. Like his death was the climax of a tragic film, and they’d snuck outside for a smoke and missed the best part.
But Shrink’s face is relaxed, blank except for the eyes, which are the color of grass today. They are wide, almost sad.
“I don’t know,” I say sharply. I don’t want to relive this, not with her here. “I don’t remember what he said.”
“What do you remember?”
“Fried chicken.” The words are unexpected, like hot oil on my tongue. “And sweet tea.”
Josh was still in class, but I was on the porch swing in the back, at the house on Broad, when I heard Dad’s Buick pull into the garage. I was eating fried chicken from the Chicken Shack, a comfort-food place run by a black family from Macon. Little girls with plastic barrettes at the ends of their braids brought the food outside in white paper bags.
The night was humid, the kind of heat that made it feel like you were drowning. Next to me on the swing, Dad smelled like sweat.
“She did the best she could, Stevie,” he said. “And for whatever reason, she just . . . needed to go. But you should know that none of this is your fault.”
He read that in a book, I thought.
“And it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, little girl. She just . . . doesn’t know how.”
I sat there, silent with my arms crossed over my chest, until he finally gave up. “Well, I’ll give you some time alone,” Dad said.
So will she.
He stood up, and the porch swing suddenly felt too light. He went inside.
Hours later, Josh found me leaning over the porch railing, sick with the loss of her, the putrid smell of my own vomit mixed with jasmine from the trellis.
“Get cleaned up, Sass,” Josh said quietly. “Go take a shower.”
I didn’t answer. In the yard, lightning bugs flickered yellow-green around the azaleas. My only thought was: All this pretty is a goddamn lie.
“It’ll make you feel better.”
The lump in my throat tasted like fried flesh. I shook my head.
Josh pulled me in close like a rag doll. His heart was steady.
“Stop.” I tried to pull away.
“Nope,” he said into my ear, and squeezed even tighter. “Love you. And so does she.” I felt his tears hot on my cheek and I pretended they were mine. “Now go on.” His voice cracked a little. “And come find me when you get out. I have something for you.”
Upstairs in the shower, I convinced myself that maybe when I stepped into the hallway she’d be back. Maybe if I washed my hair just right or made my legs the kind of smooth you see in magazines. Maybe if I could mold myself into the perfect girl, the kind of girl who didn’t sneak chocolates or beg for sugary cereal. Maybe then.
I stayed in the shower for over an hour, huddled under the spray long after it turned cold. When I got out and stepped into the hall, the silence was unspeakably loud. The kind of silence that seeps into your bones and tells you that you are alone. My body knew before I did: She was still gone.
On the way to my room I left shiny footprints on the floor planks. Inside, I let the threadbare towel drop to the floor and faced myself in the full-length mirror.
Look at yourself.
The girl in the mirror was too much and not enough. Her lines were soft, curved as though they had buckled under the pressure of being. Weak, her flesh.
It was my fault her absence hurt the way it did. My body was powerless to stop the pain. I turned and slapped my ass, staring in horror at the undulating excess. Punched my stomach, kneaded the flesh there. Too much, all of it. No wonder my mother chose to leave. I took up so much space; she couldn’t breathe! I crushed my beautiful mama with the weight of my very existence.
I locked eyes with the girl in the glass.
“No more,” I said out loud.
Shrink’s voice draws me back. “So food is linked to the memory of your mother leaving.”
“You asked what I remembered.”
“I did.”
“So that’s it.”
Shrink stays quiet for too long.
“What?” I say, suddenly irritated. Last night after Curly Blonde went to sleep, I figured out that every hour here costs twenty-eight bucks. For that kind of money, Shrink should be speed talking and fanning me with palm fronds.
“I was just thinking about . . . how difficult it must be to lose a parent like that, and then lose a brother. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”
No. She can’t. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“I have a sister. An identical twin, actually.”
It’s freaky to think that there’s a carbon copy of Shrink out there, sitting in the grass in a T-shirt dress and bobbing her head.
“Josh and I were Irish twins,” I say. “Or that’s what my dad called us. Have you heard of those?”
“Born in the same year, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And he passed away . . .”
That’s not what this was. Wrinkled men who breathe last breaths on the cheeks of their sleeping wives pass away. “July thirty-first. Last year. Just a couple months after my mom left.” Desert dust makes my eyes sting. I blink and stare directly at Shrink. I want her to know I’m not crying.
Ask me, I dare her. Ask me about how I killed my brother and haven’t shed a tear about it since.
Instead she says, “I imagine you might have felt very alone. Abandoned, even.”
I say nothing because there is nothing to be said.
After a minute passes, she tries again.
“What did he say?”
“Huh?”
“The night you found out your mother was gone. What did Josh say?”
“Oh. Nothing. He gave me a journal.” I wave her away. “I used it in this writing class I took.”
“And do you still use it?”
“Why would I? He’s dead.” I press the soles of my feet together, hard. Every fiber of every muscle in my thighs is working silently.
“Okay.” She sits up straight. “So what would it mean, if you chose to write even though he’s not with us anymore?” She eyes my legs.
“He was never with us.” I roll the hems of my jeans up, then down. Up, then down. Up, then down.
“Even thou
gh he’s gone, I mean.”
Jesus, she’s exhausting.
“Okay, I’ll cut to the chase,” she says. “I’d like it if you’d start journaling again. Would you consider it?”
I cock my head. “Depends on what you want me to write.”
“I want you to write about what those days were like for you, after your mother left. About the things that stood out for you. Whatever you—”
“I’ll think about it,” I cut in.
“Good enough for me.” She smiles. Her eyes flicker to the thin gold watch on her wrist. “We’re out of time. But we’ll meet again day after tomorrow?”
“I’ll check my schedule.”
She laughs as she fishes for her sandals in the grass. “Our next session will be a little different. We’ll meet with your treatment team: the psychiatrist, dietician, and physician. Now that you’ve had a little time to settle in, we’ll spend the hour talking about the best course of treatment and how to move forward during your time here. Sound good?”
“No.” I stand up. We are almost the same height.
“Noted. See you then.”
As I head for the villa I realize I never finished my exercises. I assign myself triple the reps. I’ll have to do them in bed tonight, after CB is asleep.
Just as I reach the double doors of the villa, Shrink’s voice floats to me across the lawn.
“Don’t forget to journal,” she calls.
I yank open the door and let it slam shut behind me. She thinks writing can save me. She never considers that it was writing that got me here in the first place, destroying me from the inside out.
day six
Wednesday, July 9, 6:01 A.M.
TIME is more of a concept here than anything else. It’s unreal: blocked out in perfect bold rectangles on the schedules we get every morning. Outside the sun creeps up, glowy over the lawn, then sinks like a sagging balloon losing air fast. I know that time is passing. But there are none of the usual indicators: the erratic beep of the coffee maker in the house on Broad (Broke & Decker, that’s what they should call it, Dad said), the hollow thunk of a basketball against a backboard in the parking lot at Le Crâpeau before the sun slid down. The brittle chorus of crickets at night.
Here, every day feels the same. Each morning at six, we’re required to report to the villa for weight and vitals. I leave Cottage Three early, to avoid the golf-cart mafia that lurch across the grounds searching for the disobedient: girls who speed walk, girls who run, girls who make the trip between the cottages and the villa more times than necessary.
Being first to report means I can walk a little fast. Weigh in and have my blood pressure taken before the others arrive. Change from my hospital gown into my clothes without the intrusion of judging eyes.
But this morning, I’m running late. I spent too much time in bed, checking and rechecking the angles of my body beneath the sheets to confirm what I already know: I am becoming soft. It’s as if the very act of being here is melting me.
After weight and vitals, I hurry to the small, dimly lit changing room adjacent to the villa’s dining room. It’s empty. A worn armchair in the corner and a few old desks and side tables are shoved against the dingy walls. Girls have stashed their makeup bags, hair dryers, and flatirons on various surfaces. A ritualistic girl frenzy stirs here every morning before breakfast: the buzz of electric razors (real razors are contraband), the sizzle of flatirons as girls make their hair as slight as their frames.
My fingertips are clumsy as I fumble with the thick cotton ties on my hospital gown. I slip into my jeans and Braves T-shirt just as CB, Teagan, and Cate (I have finally figured out who is who) burst into the room, huddled together and cackling like a trio of escaped mental patients.
“I’m not even kidding. I swear.” Cate, the anorectic with the feeding tube, whips her blond hair into a ponytail and gives me a nod. “So that new dude nurse gave me the stuff for constipation—that—what do you call it?”
“I know what you’re talking about.” Curly Blonde shuffles over the threshold in her filthy inked Keds.
“The stuff that tastes like orange chalk.” Cate finds her way to a paisley quilted bag on the desk below the only mirror in the room. It’s useless—hung high enough so you can see only your face—but she stations herself in front of it and peers at her reflection, tracing her tube with the tip of her finger. “Anyway, he makes me drink the whole thing in front of him, and when I’m finished, he takes this giant step back. Like shit’s about to explode out of me any second.”
“Ewwww! Cate!” Teagan rolls her eyes. I inch toward the doorway. The actual door, if there ever was one, has been removed.
“What? It didn’t! I’m just saying—he acted like I was a freaking time bomb or something!” Cate’s smile stretches her lips so tight they turn white.
This is small talk in this bizarre little universe: Girls prattle endlessly about how their hair is falling out, their skin is dry, they can’t take a shit. They complain, but deep down, they wear these things like badges of honor.
“Have they made you take that stuff yet, Stevie?” Cate says to the mirror. “The chalky orange stuff?”
I shake my head. “They can’t make me take anything.”
“She hasn’t met with her treatment team yet,” CB explains.
“Ohhh,” Cate and Teagan murmur in unison. In perfect sync, they reach for their clothes, scurry to separate corners, strip, and re-dress with furtive movements. I steal a glance at the curve of Cate’s spine, at her perfect, spindly knees, and the lines of her rib cage that rise up triumphantly from under her skin. I pinch the fat around my midsection until tears come.
“Hey.” CB’s sudden enthusiasm startles me. “Before breakfast, we’re gonna go down to the ring and see the horses. The nurses are too busy with vitals to care, anyway.”
“I used to ride,” Cate says. The hollows of her cheeks cast a grayish shadow over the rest of her face. She flicks the red plastic bracelet around her wrist. “When you get on yellow, they’ll let you ride the horses here. I already picked out my horse. Ernie.” She turns on her curling iron. Then she lets her hair down and winds a chunk of it around the barrel.
“You’ll get there,” Teagan says almost forcefully. She pulls her green bracelet tight, until the puffy flesh around her wrist goes white.
“Morning, girls.” The thick-ankled redhead from the lawn stalks past me, twirling the cotton tie on her gown.
“Hey, Jenna. Have you met Stevie? She’s in with us now,” Cate says.
No, I’m not.
“Cool.” Jenna gives me a nod and hunches over her makeup bag. “Anyone need anything?”
“Ooh! Me.” Cate finishes curling her hair, flips her head over, and gives it a shake.
“Fine, but make sure they’re all hidden, okay?” Jenna clutches something in her grip. I want to know what it is and I don’t, all at once. “And if you get busted—”
“I won’t tell! Come on, Jenna.”
Jenna eyes me. “Is she cool?”
“Jesus Christ. I don’t care,” I say.
“Fine. Here.” She releases the forbidden item into Cate’s outstretched palm, then groans as she tugs on a pair of jeans beneath her gown.
“Ashley? Can you do a topknot?” Cate asks. She hands over the contraband, and I get a glimpse. Bobby pins.
Teagan’s watching me. “It’s because if you take the little plastic caps off the ends, you could use them to self-harm.”
Like I asked. Besides, using hair accessories to self-harm is just . . . uninspired. I don’t need tools. My body is both weapon and wound, predator and prey. I will self-destruct without any help.
“So? Wanna come? To see the horses, I mean?” CB bites down on a bobby pin and twists Cate’s hair into a feeble knot.
I shake my head. “Nah. No.”
“C’mon. I know the first week’s been hard for you, but—”
“It’s not.”
“Huh?” Curly Blonde’s brows arch.
“It’s not hard.” Slowly, I let my eyes trace every indulgent inch of her body. “Not if you have the slightest bit of willpower.”
Once I’m outside on the patio, I can breathe again. I hold a notebook in my lap, an empty black-and-white composition book Shrink left on my pillow along with a thin black marker and a pink metallic paper crane. Complimentary chocolates must be out of the question.
The marker is heavy in my hand. It’s the first time I’ve written anything since seminar. I’m not journaling for Shrink. I’m not. I’m writing because I can’t stand to be inside the villa with the girls and the noise and glittery clouds of hair spray.
I turn to the first page. Shrink’s handwriting is unrestrained.
Write about what changed for you. How you experienced life after the loss of your mother.
The memory of the first few hours and days after she disappeared is hazy, smeared like pencil marks that have been partially erased. I remember the sounds, mostly: the laughter downstairs as Dad hosted his Tuesday night writing group. The creak of Josh’s footsteps outside my door as he debated whether to come in.
On the sixth day he finally did. “Get up, Sass. You have class.”
I’d begged him not to make me go. I wasn’t ready.
“I’m grieving,” I told him from beneath the sheets. “Fuck off.”
But he’d said I had to, said Dad needed me to be okay and normal and other things I wasn’t. Pushed me until I was dressed and out the door, walking to the Stacks, a bar/coffeehouse in a Victorian-style house just a few blocks from our place. The first floor was a nameless used-book shop where Dad went to read old Hemingway and avoid deadlines. Where my mother bought teetering stacks of classics (no Hemingway, she’d told me when I begged. Hemingway was a misogynist! A drunk!) to keep me occupied as a child. But the second floor was a bar where Ben taught seminar on Wednesday afternoons in summer.
The bar was dark, with mahogany-paneled walls and dim Tiffany lamps. I stood at the top of the staircase blinking like a moron, waiting for my pupils to adjust. I’d never been in a bar before. Never had a drink. I blamed Josh: Everybody else in my grade already had a fake ID and spent Saturday nights parked behind the soccer field with their friends, chugging a fifth of nobody-cared-what. Not that I had any friends to underage drink with. But still, Josh didn’t understand. He was one of those rare breeds who could stay completely straight and everybody loved him anyway. He didn’t understand that most of the world wasn’t like him—most of us needed a little something extra to be okay.