—
The next morning at her father’s house, Jo finds a sleeve of Polaroids and, after initial hesitation, flips through them while sitting cross-legged on the floor. The bay at sunset. Two women, hips against his old LeSabre, rigid as coworkers. The girlfriend he left her mother for, wearing a sombrero. His parents smiling over eggs at the diner, when everyone was still alive. Jo in a bank vestibule, brandishing a lollipop. Jo honking the LeSabre’s horn. Leaping a sprinkler. Holding a turtle. Always alone. The sunset again, from a different vantage point. The sunset again. The sunset again. A tag of thumb at the corner of the photo. His thumb.
Jasmine rests on her father’s bed, licking her hoof. When she’s not chewing doorframes or urinating on Jo’s clothes, the unicorn is good company.
Jo holds out the lollipop photograph. Look, she says. This was me.
Jasmine climbs down and stretches her front legs. The bedspread is perforated by her rump, chin, and leg joints.
He let you sleep with him? Jo feels punctured, as if this would nullify an unacknowledged arrangement between her and her father, that he would stay isolated from other living creatures, as she had.
—
Family can slough away from you like bones shed meat in boiling water.
Jo’s mother thought daughters and fathers should talk, no matter how unwilling the daughter, no matter how disputatious the father. After she died, there was no one to force them around a table. Their twice-annual phone calls ceased. Jo never called and he never called, afraid or unwilling to disturb the quiet that Jo convinced herself was peace. She didn’t know he had been refusing dialysis for two years because they hadn’t spoken in three.
At the Econo Lodge, Jo pauses over her crossword, filled with inexpressible relief. In the gentle, rented space, amidst the fwip of television, she realizes her father’s death has canceled only his life. Their relationship, albeit one-sided, continues. When he was alive, there were times she forgot about him. Someone would mention his or her father, or the idea of fathers, and everyone would think of their own. Jo would wait the topic out, with no more emotion than one uses to write not applicable on a medical form. Existing conditions? History of diabetes? Father: NA. Then, something would catch and she’d realize, I have one of those. When he was alive, Jo never knew where her father was. Now his existence is irrefutable, his location exact and near: in incinerated fritters, sealed in the plastic depository on the coffee table, next to a box of matzo. Belief can create existence, but tonight the opposite is also true. For the first time, Jo believes in her father. This family is closer than ever.
—
Later, the zookeeper examines Jasmine, then he and Jo share a six-pack.
Pulling it out was the worst possible thing you could have done, he says about the ribbon. It could have been tied up in her intestines.
It wasn’t. Jo is sulky, guilty. She finishes a beer and starts another.
It’s easy to mistake her size and attitude for strength. He sits on the edge of the bed next to her. But there’s a tranquility inside her that must be protected.
He takes her hand with surprising delicacy. Jo perceives a cue in his earnest, fixed gaze. She leans in and presses her lips against his. She answers what feels like hesitance with certainty. His hands hover but don’t land on her body. She unbuttons her shirt and pushes his hand inside. Curled on a pile of blankets, Jasmine sighs, bored. Jo insists with her mouth though the zookeeper has no interest. Finally, he peels away from her grip and stands.
Don’t be upset but I’m going to leave.
Stay. Her blouse is open. Her bra is white and practically designed.
Sometimes when we’re grieving we think we want things we don’t. It is obvious he is accustomed to talking unmanageable animals into things they’re not interested in. She is not a wounded bird.
His coat sags on a chair. She roots through it and pulls out his gun. It is a cold, dumb bar in her hand. It doesn’t seem capable of something as sophisticated as a kill. She aims at his chest.
He raises his hands, smiling. I give up.
She lets it fall to the bedspread with an innocuous thump. Bang bang, she says.
He palms it and replaces it in his pocket.
Did my Dad ever…Jo says. Every word she could use to finish the sentence leaves her mind. Say…she manages…anything? She knows how pathetic she looks, unarmed on the bedspread.
About you? the zookeeper helps. He said you were as stubborn as him. She thinks he will reach out to her, but he nuzzles the unicorn’s ear, crosses to the door, and with a look in Jo’s direction she can’t decipher, leaves.
—
In Jo’s dream, an apricot asks her a series of difficult questions. She gets most of them right. Frustrated, the apricot lapses into a paroxysm of hooting.
Jo awakens, slick with sweat. The hooting has followed her out of the dream, transforming into a flute coming from the next room. Someone is practicing scales with the ambition of a newbie. That can’t be, thinks Jo. Practicing an instrument is something one does in a permanent home. Motel rooms are for transitory activities like preparing for a meeting or dressing for a wedding. Do people live in the Econo Lodge? A breeze through the open door chills her. The open door that, Jo realizes, is open.
Jasmine is not in the parking lot or the motel store that sells car-specific items like replacement windshield wiper blades. Wearing pajamas and motorcycle boots, Jo runs through a copse of evergreens that connects the motel to a service road. She sprints the service road, streetlights switching on above her. Seagulls make erratic arcs over a figure in the distance. Teenagers jeer and throw cans. They’ve tied a rope around Jasmine’s neck. They’ve fisted a newspaper into her mouth as a bridle. One of the boys mounts and sinks his heels into her hide. They close ranks. Jasmine blows and canters, attempting indifference. They kick out her back legs. The unicorn does not defend herself. She falls gracelessly against the asphalt.
Hey, Jo yells.
One of the kids registers her with a quick slip of his tongue while another throws a broken bottle that pierces Jasmine’s skin. Pain storms through the unicorn’s body. Jasmine rolls her eyes toward Jo, who recognizes a familial sense of disappointment. Jo doesn’t know how to put herself in between something she’s responsible for and something that wishes to do it harm. Her people were withholders.
The unicorn lifts her head to the electric wires fretting above them and bays. The sound begins as the whine Jo has become familiar with but then it grows mythically, emergency loud. Jo covers her ears. The boys scrabble across the lot into a waiting truck and yell, Go to the driver. The unicorn’s cry grows louder, splintering the back windshield. The truck screeches away as its windows concuss.
Jasmine quiets. The lot is silent. Mackerel-colored bruises bloom along her shoulders. Blood pushes through the skin where the bottle hit; slippery and silver, like mercury. Jo rests her hand on Jasmine’s neck. The unicorn shudders but doesn’t protest. Halting occasionally so the unicorn can steel herself, they walk the service road back to the motel.
—
The expression of the Kmart cashier sours as she turns to the line and asks, Who smells like horseshit?
Jo holds a heating blanket, bandages, a jar of apricot juice, a tube of mascara, and a hairbrush. Jasmine waits in the car.
Me, she says.
Jo and Jasmine drive to the Econo Lodge in silence. Jo cleans the unicorn’s wounds and they watch television. Seeing her in pain is like seeing someone in a bathing suit for the first time. Too much exposed softness. Jasmine seems unfamiliar now, as she places her chin in the crook of Jo’s elbow and heaves a relieved sigh. Jo is surprised by how much this intimacy pleases her. She runs her hands through the creature’s silky forelock. She rests her head against Jasmine’s and falls asleep.
—
On the last day, only the items in her father’s bedroom closets remain. The first holds his casual clothes; sweaters folded and arranged by color. Jo slides them into trash ba
gs, relieved to be almost finished.
Despite her best efforts, she has pieced together an image of her father’s life: He lived on an impeccable cul-de-sac in an organized house, eating diet dinners, shaving regularly, exercising his bi- and triceps with products ordered from television, and ignoring advice from doctors and zookeepers, with a drawer of old photos and a flatulent, possibly Jewish unicorn. It was maybe not the most thrilling life but it was at least as happy as hers. She thinks of her second-floor apartment, the din of other people’s children in the courtyard below.
The last closet holds his work clothes. Twenty or so replicas of the same evergreen jacket. Pockets for his tools. His name tag gleams on each left breast—she flips through them and it is as if her father is standing in front of her, repeating his full name. Jo lifts as many coats as she can over the clothing rail. The collars press against her neck. The smell of his skin: cardboard and licorice. She stands and inhales into the gruff fabric, his battered sleeves gathering her.
—
Jasmine’s irritable nature, briefly anesthetized by pain, returns and, as if to make up for lost time, worsens. She takes proud dumps where it is hardest to clean, kicks through the door when Jo is in the shower. She belches and farts to fill the room with the odor of minty trash. She refuses to sleep, neighing and pacing by the foot of the bed until dawn.
After making the last of the funeral arrangements, Jo returns to the Econo Lodge to find that Jasmine has eaten most of the Polaroids. Those she has not subsumed she has mauled unrecognizable. The creature dozes in the corner, exhausted as Jo surveys the scene, mute with shock. She paces over the mutilated photos. A corner of sunset. Half of the Buick. She grips the unicorn’s head unkindly. Jasmine tries to corkscrew out of Jo’s hold but Jo is stronger and accustomed to restraining unmanageable things. She screams into her face until the unicorn’s cheeks quake and her eyes fill with pearly liquid. The unicorn cowers in the kitchenette. Jo hurls herself around the room until she collapses onto the skin-thin bedspread and dials the number by heart.
—
By the time the zookeeper arrives, Jasmine is trying to repent. She cozies against her. She laps up her juice, taking care not to spill. When none of it works, she leans against the kitchenette, blinking and panicked. Jo sits on the bed, dismissing television channels. They both startle when he knocks.
Even though she called him, Jo glares through the peephole.
It’s cold out here, he says.
Jo opens the door and attempts aloofness. How are the Red Knots? Has anyone heard from them? He doesn’t answer but makes the breeze-moving-through-plastic-tubing sound. Jasmine perks and trots toward him. Jo cannot anticipate the damage this act of recognition wreaks in her heart. Before she can protest, the zookeeper unfurls a gold leash and collar from his bag and secures it around the unicorn’s neck. Jasmine knickers, flirting.
What did you do to her forelock? he says.
Jo feels accused. I braided it.
He rolls his eyes and leads Jasmine out of the room to his truck. The unicorn follows his unapologetic gait, which annoys Jo, though she follows too, her breath coming in quick punches. She’s too much for me, she says, though she is suddenly not certain. A ramp extends from the flatbed and the unicorn back-walks into the kennel. She doesn’t have room to turn around.
It’s only ten minutes to the zoo. He snaps the door in place.
I was wrong to think she could ever fit into my life. The other night she got out and kids attacked her. Jo knows she sounds desperate. She has failed her father in a way she doesn’t understand. She wants the zookeeper to tell her she is making the right decision.
Sounds like you could have used a gun. He starts the engine. Look. His eyes stay trained on the roof of the Econo Lodge where a fistful of shorebirds gathers to watch. You did your best, but there was no way you could handle it. I told him that but he wouldn’t listen.
The truck joggles across the lot. The unicorn stares whitely toward where Jo stands in the doorway. Under the slate sky, her metallic coat debates gray and purple, and appears to rise. The truck turns onto the service road. Jo waits until she can no longer see the wink of it through the trees. Until she forgets she is a person leaning against a doorframe, until she remembers, and is still unable to move.
—
At the funeral home, Jo places the cremains like a vase in the center of a platter of cold cuts. She and the executor sit on a mannered loveseat and she signs the paperwork that concludes a life.
Were you able to take a leave of absence from your job? he says.
She is pleased he remembered. I can work from anywhere. What I do doesn’t require me to be present.
And what is that? he says.
Someone pushes through the front door. They look up in greeting but it is a churchgoer, mistaking the entrance. I make God laugh, Jo says. She thinks he will look confused, or get up and remix the dips stiffening in the parlor’s stilted air. Instead, he smiles.
That’s what we all do.
No other mourner arrives. Jo and the executor wrap the cold cuts and seal the extra rolls in bags. He was a good man, the zookeeper had said. It’s been bothering her for days.
Can I ask a question?
Yes, the executor says.
Would you call my father a good man?
He pauses transferring cold cuts to a bag. He always sent contracts back promptly.
The executor resists taking the leftover food, but accepts after Jo insists, voice breaking over the words. Leftover food at my father’s funeral.
Can you think of a reason your father wanted you to have a unicorn? he says. He took wild risks to get it. Did you like them growing up? My girls love them. They have figurines, brush their hair, make waterfalls for them in the sink.
No doubt these are the girls who crafted the #1 DAD keychain that hangs from his belt loop. Jo admits she’s considered every possibility and has arrived at no conclusion. Sometimes a unicorn is just a unicorn.
You did the right thing, giving it to the zoo. He is already looking toward the parking lot where his car waits to take him home.
She, Jo says.
—
Jo eats tacos and steers with her knees. She sits on the damp sand and watches the ocean hoist itself into the air. It is unapologetic and there are glints of anger in it and Jo appreciates this as she eats. She’s alone. It’s Sunday. Hundreds of miles south on another, warmer beach, one hundred cardiologists are being secured into life preservers. They will snorkel by the light of the moon then enjoy a champagne toast. Even with its detours, the week has gone according to plan.
This ocean, however, is not one you can see the bottom of. Aggravation frills its waves. A hard-tailed horseshoe crab rudders through the sand and muck. One force pushes toward the shore while another pulls, clearing the previous wave’s under-layer of silt. A seagull beats against calm air, arcing and holding, arc and hold, battling pressure only it feels.
But where are the Red Knots? Legs tucked into plumage sheared from struggle. Their gaze alert, expectant. Neutralizing their ache by communicating to one another in flight: a little more, a little more, a little more.
That morning, Jo was charged one thousand dollars in room fees for the carpet, the mirror, the drapes, the vent, the shower curtain, the coffeepot.
The motel clerk rang her up with a pitiless look. Rough night?
Embarrassed, Jo had lied. My sister gets a little nuts.
Jo finishes her tacos and balls the wrapping. She would like to see a unicorn charge across the sand. My sister, she thinks, watching the shoaling waves.
—
The unicorn leaps from the brush and gallops across the field. Jo and the zookeeper watch her under the darkening sky. Her wounds have healed. Her coat shines. Jo realizes—how had she missed it?—that the creature advances and retreats in the same movement, obeying two instincts, the way her father would, even in the midst of his worst tirades, pause to drag his cheek against his shoulder, as if askin
g himself for pardon.
You gave her to me, the zookeeper reminds her, because you couldn’t handle her.
A decision I regret, Jo says. However my father left me everything he owned, and he owned her, so she is mine.
She needs room to run. He gestures to the field. Do you have a big apartment in New York?
I have a junior one bedroom, Jo says.
The nervous, barking chuckle. He points to the walking path where goldenrods flex in the cold breeze. How about this? I’ll go over there. We’ll both call to her.
This can’t be how it’s settled, Jo thinks. A simple call and response. But the zookeeper is already walking to his appointed spot. If you know what’s best for her, you shouldn’t be worried.
Jasmine reclines in a thatch of foxtails, chawing the bulb of her heel. Darkness blots out the bordering trees making the field seem endless. Somehow they both know he will go first.
______, he calls. A vestibule where chimes hang, a benevolent sound that mothers out background noise. For the first time since entering this town, the scream of seagulls doesn’t fill Jo’s ears. The unicorn looks up but doesn’t move. He calls again. The unicorn rises and takes a few skittering steps. Jo envisions her drive home alone, mile markers flipping silently by. But Jasmine halts, investigates an infraction in the grass, and doesn’t move again.
The zookeeper jockeys from foot to foot. He rattles his keys to get the creature’s attention. He tries again, but Jo knows—it is no longer her name.
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016 Page 19