Aquarium

by David Vann

  My mother crushing me in a hug, her breath fast and hard. Have you lost your mind? You can’t do that. You can’t just run away into the snow.

  I couldn’t see her face, and she could have been anyone. How do we know to trust any form?

  Steve was just being an idiot, sweet pea. There are no snowmen. Come here, Shalini, she said, and then Shalini was mashed into the hug, the three of us standing in the snow while Steve and my grandfather waited at the edges, both probably in fear.

  I’m sorry, Steve said. I just thought it would be funny. I didn’t know you could believe it. Frosty as some kind of evil clown. He’s just Frosty the Snowman.

  Stop, my mother said.

  He’s got a button nose, I think, not even a stick one.

  I could see snowmen again, their stick noses and some with eyes not of stone but of buttons, larger and black and shiny.

  Jesus, my mother said. Shut the fuck up about Frosty.

  I’m just trying to say he’s not scary. He’s got his stick hands poking out saying hi. Steve laughed then. Okay, I’m sorry. That was too much. I just can’t stop, though. You have to admit it’s funny they ran from the snowmen.

  Wow, my mother said, letting go of us. It’s really still funny for you.

  Sorry, Steve said, but he had a grin. Sometimes a Frosty will have two heads and one can come off and roll around on its own.

  I didn’t think to follow their tracks, my mother said. That’s how panicked I was. I just ran anywhere. And after doing that, running in circles, where are the tracks then? I could have lost them.

  But we didn’t.

  Yeah, my daughter and her little friend haven’t died, so it’s all okay.

  Sheri. That’s a bit extreme. They’re okay, and they’ll laugh about this later.

  Ha ha, my mother said. We’re going home.

  Just let me get a tree.

  They’re shivering. Hurry up.

  Steve looked into the trees, all too large, an old forest. Let’s try along the road, he said. There are smaller ones there, I think, and I’ll just top one.

  My mother held our hands as we walked back to the road. I was still looking around, and now not only for full bodies but for heads on their own, large snowballs that would roll to the side and reveal a face.

  My grandfather walking just ahead in an old wool army coat, pea green, and a hat with earflaps. A heavy form through the snow, clearing the way, like some guardian, making everything safer.

  I had snow down both boots, icy and hard against my shins. This is the farthest I’ve ever been from home, I said. Ever.

  No, Shalini said.

  It’s true. I’ve never gone anywhere. This is the farthest.

  That’s embarrassing, my mother said. For me. Don’t ever tell anyone that again. And we’ll go places now.

  You’ve really never been anywhere? Shalini asked.

  No.

  You have so much to see. We have relatives in Geneva and Nairobi and Connecticut and Sydney. Every place is so different. My mother speaks five languages.

  Well you’re with a bunch of hicks now, my mother said. Welcome to America, where we speak American and that’s it. Sorry to disappoint. I can promise you I know nothing at all about the larger world. I’ve worked and I’ve stayed here. My plans have never been more than a week in advance.

  I hope you’ll see Europe, my grandfather said, taking a quick glance over his shoulder. And I should have gone back, in peacetime. I know it’s changed, but I’d like to go back.

  Well, my mother said.

  What happened when she died? my grandfather asked. What happened right after? How old were you and where did you stay? I know I have no right, but I’ve worried about this, over and over. If you were still under eighteen, how did you survive, and what happened to her? Was there a funeral? Was there any money for a funeral?

  My grandfather had stopped and turned around, facing my mother, standing there in the snow with his arms hanging. My mother stopped also.

  You don’t get to ask about that time.

  You said earlier today you wanted to be asked. All the way driving here I was thinking it was over, that you’d never forgive me. But then I realized you were just saying you wanted to be asked. You wanted me to show some interest. And Sheri, you’ll always be the person I love most in this world. I failed, I abandoned you, but I still loved you and thought of you every day. And I need to know how bad it got. I need to know how bad I was. I need to know the end of that or I’ll always imagine it worse.

  It was worse. It was worse than you imagine.

  Tell me then. I need to hear.

  I don’t owe you that.

  I know, but tell me anyway. Give us a chance. How can we get along if the most important part isn’t known?

  My mother looked over to where Steve was climbing a tree with his saw. Not too big a tree, maybe twenty-five feet, and all of it pulsing each time he pulled upward. Branches moving in unison like a sea anemone in current.

  I can’t, my mother said. Because when she died, it wasn’t in the hospital. There was no help. She was just in her bed, and I was only sixteen, and there was no money by then.

  Tell me.

  You weren’t there. That’s the main part.

  I know.

  And there was no phone by then, or electricity, and we hadn’t paid rent, and there was not a single dollar.

  What did you do?

  I left her there, in her bed, for a long time. I just left her.

  How long?

  I don’t know. Maybe four or five days or something. I can’t be saying this in front of Caitlin.

  What did you do after the four or five days? Did you call someone, or did someone come?

  No one came. We had dropped off the edge of the world. We didn’t pay rent, but no one cared about that, even, it was such a shitty place. And it was cold, snowing. That might have been why no one came. But there was no heat in the house, so she didn’t smell any worse than before. She could have stayed right there through the winter. I thought about that, about just leaving her. I thought about hitchhiking and going somewhere else.

  Why didn’t you?

  I don’t know.

  There was a loud splintering, and we all looked over at Steve as he clung to the trunk and the part above him fell away, a slow and cushioned fall twisting and dusted in white, and what remained of the tree open now to the sky.

  No need to rush over and help, Steve yelled. The snowmen can help if I need it.

  I danced, my mother said. That’s the part you’re looking for. That’s how I bought food and started paying rent again and got the electricity turned back on.

  You danced?

  Yeah, the strip club that was close to us on the highway, Don’s. That’s what you wanted to hear, right? How low I went?

  No. It isn’t like that. I want to know because I care, because I’m sorry, because it’s all my fault and what I have to make up for.

  You can’t make up for it. I was sixteen and showing my cunt to truckers. How are you going to make up for that?

  My grandfather just stood there with this awful grimace on his face and his eyes closed. His arms in close like he was hugging himself, but hands clawing. We watched him, a shape of suffering. Waiting there in the snow together, waiting for what? What could ever help us? Sound of Steve dragging his tree through the snow. We can vamonos, he said. Caballeros.

  Shalini and I rode again with my grandfather, following Steve and my mother and the Christmas tree. It poked out over the tailgate and moved like fur in the wind. Snow falling more heavily now, the world whited out and passing at high speed, flakes curving midair and sucked into our windshield as if we were a magnet, as if we had gained a tremendous and impossible weight.

  My grandfather wasn’t speaking. Shalini silent also, looking out the side w
indow. I was far away from both of them, shivering and wet, my feet and hands and face very cold. I closed my eyes and ducked my chin into my jacket, tried to scrunch down and make myself small.

  My mother dancing. It wasn’t something I could believe. I wanted to go back to when I didn’t know this. Naked in front of truckers, dancing around a pole, men throwing money at her, like in R-rated movies. And did she have sex with them? It was all too much to understand or even think about, and it was the risk that frightened me, the exposure, knowing my mother had not been safe, and fearing that somehow for myself, even though I wasn’t exposed. Shame, also. Strange how easily it moves from one person to another. I felt dirty, embarrassed for Shalini to see me now.

  And my grandmother lying in her bed dead for four or five days. That was too much also. All of it was too much. And what happened after? Was there ever a funeral? Was she ever buried?

  The drive was too long, and not a single word spoken. When we arrived, my grandfather turned off the engine and sat there with his hands still gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead, as if we had entered some other kind of road, first heading out. But then his head bowed and he leaned forward and just hung across the wheel.

  My grandfather weeping, a small sound, choked and hidden, his back shaking. I opened my door and stepped out into the snow, and then I walked around and opened Shalini’s door so she could escape. She didn’t look at me as she climbed out. We walked up to the porch and stood there cold and waiting. My mother and Steve in the closed pickup talking.

  I’m sorry, I told Shalini.

  I don’t like it, she said, but it’s not your fault. I’m cold, though. I need a hot bath. Do you have a key?

  No. I put my arms around Shalini to try to warm her, and she ducked her head against my shoulder. There was a wind now, not much but icy. Snow reaching in under the small awning. Some fairy tale on pause, the cottage door never opening. Characters gone to the wrong place, the wrong story. Little Red Riding Hood finding herself at the houses of the Three Pigs. A wolf out there somewhere but not the right wolf, and the pigs asleep and don’t hear Little Red knocking, or maybe it’s the Three Bears who are sleeping in these houses now. We never know what will happen next, our lives unshaped.

  So we stood shivering on that porch and waited while two other stories continued without us, my grandfather in his car recognizing finally the cost of his leaving, mourning deaths from long ago, and my mother in Steve’s car. Were they talking about the snowmen, or her past, or something else?

  We had been forgotten, and cold only becomes more bare, our clothing thinning. Shalini’s teeth chattering, so I let go and ran down the steps to pound on Steve’s door. We’re freezing! I yelled.

  Steve opened his door, and then my grandfather did too. I’m sorry, he said. I’m sorry, Caitlin. I forgot I’m the only one with the keys. His eyes swollen and red and wet. He hurried to the door and let us in and I took Shalini to the bathroom and ran the water for the tub and also the hot tap in the sink so we could warm our hands.

  Don’t make the water too hot, my mother said. You have to be careful. Start with only lukewarm.

  What I imagined was that our hands could shatter, as if we were made of glass, and my fingers felt like that in the warm water, needles and shards breaking free and clogging in my veins, poking at the walls.

  This hurts, Shalini said.

  It doesn’t last long, I told her. It’ll be worse, though, in our feet. I can’t feel my toes.

  Nice idea, Steve, my mother said, but I don’t think he heard. He was huffing and puffing and nearly knocking the house down as he brought in the tree. It had grown since we’d left the forest, enormous now. My grandfather standing helplessly by, still in his coat, watching his floor and walls scraped.

  My mother tested the water in the tub and then began stripping us, boots and jackets and snow pants first, then thinking to close the door so Steve and my grandfather wouldn’t see. The air warm and steamy, and I felt sleepy. I loved being undressed by my mother, just putting my arms up for her to pull off my shirt. She hadn’t done this in so long.

  She pushed my pants and panties down, and I stepped free and watched as she stripped Shalini. Her beautiful skin and long black hair. Small triangle of her softest hair. I looked down at my own hair that had only recently appeared, so light in color it was possible not to notice it, like the hair on my arms that you’d never see unless it was summer and the skin turned dark enough and the hairs turned golden, all curved in the same pattern.

  We stepped into the tub and my toes were splintering and I could tell from Shalini’s face that hers were doing the same.

  Sit down, both of you, my mother said. You look dizzy.

  This huge claw-foot tub, a heavy cascade of water, and as we sat, the water that burned my toes felt cold between my legs. It’s cold, I said.

  I’ll turn it up now, slowly, my mother said, and she adjusted and tested and adjusted again as our feet thawed. You get chilblains if you go too fast, she said. Never go straight into hot water.

  What are chilblains? Shalini asked.

  I don’t know, my mother said. But you can get them if you don’t do this. And they’re bad.

  Shalini hugging herself, as if we were still standing on the porch, until the water rose high enough and hot enough that she relaxed. My mother bent over the tub between us, swirling the water, and the two of us naked and looking at each other, waiting for her to leave. Shalini’s eyes.

  It seemed like forever before my mother left us and closed the door. We met in the middle, our knees touching underwater, and had the softest kisses. Our faces damp in the steam, hair stuck to our cheeks. My spine lifting out of my back and making the rest of me curl. I couldn’t believe how silky her lips were, and I slid along them and closed my eyes and thought this was so perfect.

  Did you find the shampoo? my mother asked as she came in. My arms jerked back from around Shalini, lightning-quick movement of shame and fear but not fast enough.

  What are you doing? My mother’s voice a whisper.

  I couldn’t answer. Her face looked disgusted. I’ll never forget that. I’ll never be able to, and I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive her.

  Shalini had collapsed down into the water, hiding, but I remained upright on my knees and just could not believe my mother’s face, all love gone and only disgust, looking at me as if I were garbage.

  No, my mother said. No. You are not going to do this to me.

  What’s wrong? my grandfather asked, and then he looked in, and I covered my chest with my arms, sank down lower. What happened? he asked.

  Stay out of this, my mother said.

  But what is it?

  My mother’s mouth hanging open in some vicious look, and I didn’t want to love her less, but I did from that moment on. Something I felt for her died right then, so quickly I don’t really understand.

  You have to tell me, my grandfather said, his voice rising. What the hell is going on?

  What’s happening? Steve asked, ducking his head in.

  They were kissing. They were making out in the bathtub.

  Really? Steve asked.

  My mother turned her rage on Steve. Don’t sound interested. You will never see me again.

  Jesus, he said, and he slipped away.

  I thought someone was hurt, my grandfather said. I thought something terrible had happened.

  And this is not terrible, that your granddaughter is turning into a little dyke?

  Sheri. Slow down here. Caitlin and Shalini are both good kids. If they’ve kissed, maybe they’re a little confused or something, but they haven’t done something wrong.

  I won’t raise a pussy licker. Shalini, get out of the fucking tub right now. You’re going home, and you’re never seeing Caitlin again.

  Sheri! my grandfather yelled, and I could see him as a father for the first time
.

  But my mother ignored him. She stalked over and grabbed Shalini by the hair and yanked her out of the tub, dripping and naked and grabbing at my mother’s arm, trying to free herself.

  Stop it! I screamed, and I was out of the tub but fell on the slick wood and was too slow. They were clogged at the doorway, my mother trying to get through, pulling Shalini, and my grandfather blocking as if this doorway led to somewhere important, as if this were the gate that had to be guarded. He had grabbed my mother’s shoulders but was pushed back into the living room.

  The violence has to stop, Sheri. You’re violent, and it’s not okay.

  I’ll show you violence, she said, and she punched straight ahead with her right fist. Something I could hear, and he caved, punched right in the heart. He let go of her and took a few steps backward and then just sat on the floor, collapsed. His mouth open, unable to get a breath.

  I didn’t know who to run to, my grandfather on the floor or Shalini with her hair twisted in my mother’s fist. Shalini crying and wet and naked, exposed, and I went for my mother’s arm and bit down through her shirt and into flesh. It seems so animal now, but everything about that day was barbaric, and how else could I get her to let go? I wasn’t strong enough for any other way.

  My mother hit me very hard then, in the face, a popping sound in my head and the world closing, and I fell back onto the floor and somehow didn’t pass out. I saw my mother let go of Shalini and come to me, touching me, her face in close, sorry, but Shalini pushed her out of the way and held my head in both hands and kissed me.

  How do you recover from a day like that? My grandfather on the floor trying to breathe, Shalini and I naked and wet and both hurt, my mother crawled away into her own corner, Steve hiding. How do you put a family back together, and how do you forgive?

  Caitlin, my mother said. My baby. I’m sorry.

  She was tucked against the wall at the end of the couch, her hands up to her face, hiding her mouth. Hands in fists like a boxer defending. She seemed animal. The fact that she could talk didn’t seem to fit at all. I watched her as I would something at the zoo, removed for the first time, distant.