The Goddesses

by Swan Huntley

  Suddenly my head hurt. “Let’s talk about it later.”

  “Whatever you need, Nan.”

  “I need water.”

  “Oh, here, let me get it.” Ana rushed to the sink. Every time she seemed energetic like this, I reminded myself of what I’d read online: PC victims have good days and bad days. Her energy meant it was a good day, and we should be grateful for that.

  The boys. Jed was texting and Cam was looking at me. “Hi, Mom,” he said.

  Jed turned. “Hi.” He waved, then looked at his hand like it was a foreign object.

  “Here.” Ana handed me the water. She kissed my cheek. “Sleep well, okay?” To the boys, she said, “Say good night to your Mom, kids.”

  “Night, Mom,” Cam said.

  Then Jed lost it. He opened his mouth and the laughter erupted.

  And that’s when I thought, Fuck it.

  I walked straight to the bathroom and swallowed two pills before I could change my mind. As I put the orange bottle down, I glanced at the label. But then I picked it up again because who was Alan Jeffries?

  I looked at myself in the mirror, as though expecting that person to answer my question.

  But who was that person?

  I splashed water on my face, asking it to heal me, but it was just water.

  26

  I woke up feeling like I was encased in cement. A familiar tune. I knew this tune. Where was this tune from? Oh, my phone. My phone was ringing. I opened one eye and reached for it. My groggy finger pressed the button. “Hello?”

  “Nancy,” he said.

  In my head I said, “Chuck,” but what came out was “Mmm.”

  “I almost died of a heart attack this morning, Nancy.” Chuck sounded upset. “Do you know why?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Because there was a snake in my car. A snake that looked a hell of a lot like Ana’s lizard!”

  This was too loud. I held the phone farther from my face.

  “Nancy! The woman put a snake in my car!”

  It was taking me a second to piece this together. “Where are you?”

  “Costco!”

  The bathroom door opened and there was Ana. Those lips. But they did look better today. “Who is it?” she mouthed.

  “Chuck,” I told her.

  “What?” Chuck said.

  “At Costco,” I told her.

  “I know I’m at Costco,” Chuck said, annoyed.

  Ana smiled. “Is he bringing Portico home?”

  “Are you bringing Portico home?” I asked Chuck.

  “The snake? Am I bringing the snake home? Are you kidding? And no. It escaped the second I opened the door.”

  I shook my head for Ana. She scrunched her face, but she didn’t seem that sad about it.

  “Nancy,” Chuck said. “This woman is destroying our lives.”

  Right then Ana leaned over to kiss me on the head. I wondered if she’d heard Chuck through the phone.

  “Chuck?” I asked the dead air. “Chuck?”

  I looked at the phone. Call Ended.

  “Ana, I can’t believe you did that!” I called to her in the bathroom.

  She popped her head out of the doorway. She was wearing my hoop earrings. “So biblical, right?”

  “But Portico’s gone.”

  “A sacrifice,” Ana said. “I was happy to make it for you. Plus Portico’s smart. She’ll figure it out.”

  I imagined Portico getting run over, becoming a flat S in the Costco parking lot, or turning into a crisp pile of just scales somewhere in the lava fields. “Right,” I lied. “She’ll figure it out.” And then I touched my head, which felt like it was full of cotton balls. Those pills.

  “Ana?” I called. She was back in the bathroom. “Who’s Alan Jeffries?”

  A pause. “Nobody important.”

  “You smoked pot with my kids last night.”

  “I know,” she said. “Are you mad?”

  Before I could answer, my phone beeped. Text from Cam: Don’t forget dinner tonight. Dad promised to show them the ball.

  “Damnit, Chuck.”

  “What, honey?” Ana reappeared again, her whole body this time. She was wearing my green dress now, which looked a lot more comfortable than the purple one. She stated the obvious. “I’m wearing your dress. And your makeup. Is that okay?”

  I sighed. “Sure.”

  “What’s wrong, Nan? You look concerned.”

  I told her about the dinner. She told me there was a simple solution. “Just tell Chuck to behave himself.”

  I sent a text: Dinner with Tom and Liko tonight so you please FIND BALL and BEHAVE yourself. 6 p.m.! Right as I hit Send, I said, “This is going to be a disaster.”

  •

  Ana made the executive decision that we would have pasta all’Amatriciana again instead of sloppy joes, and the boys happily agreed. I was relieved not to be in charge of the meal. Like last time, we became her sous chefs. Jed chopped the garlic, Cam stirred the sauce. I cooked the pasta while Ana lit the candles and put on music. Not jazz tonight, but reggae. Jed, slicing the fat off the bacon, said, “Sweet, Liko loves reggae.”

  Ana, floating by in a flutter of green fabric, said, “Jedi loves reggae more,” and set two Buddhas on the far end of the table. “We’ll put these near Chuck so they can bless him with good energy.”

  “Great,” I said. And then to Jed, “Is your new name Jedi?”

  Jed smiled like he was flattered to have received this nickname. “I guess.”

  Ana winked at me first. Then to the boys, she said, “Do you guys know how cool your mom and I are?”

  “So cool.” Jed stuck out his tongue.

  “Oh, Jedi, don’t be a little dick. Your mom and I are so cool. And here’s why. Remember when it said ‘You are loved’ all over the sidewalks in town?” Ana put her hand on her hip and waited, looking at the boys, who were standing beside each other at the stove. They looked almost exactly the same in this moment.

  “Wait,” Cam said. “Did you guys do that?”

  Ana raised her eyebrows twice. “And we handed out sandwiches to homeless people. Well, needy people. Ugh, I should have been saying that the whole time, Nan. Needy not homeless. Boys,” she said, “your mother and I are basically Mother Teresa.”

  “Mom,” Jed said, turning toward me with the knife.

  In my Mom voice, I said, “Careful with that, please.”

  He lowered it. “Is that why you gave that homeless guy a Big Mac?”

  “Naaaaan,” Ana cooed, “you gave a needy person a Big Mac?” She fluttered over and wrapped her arms around me from behind. She set her chin on my shoulder. The boys stood across from us, still looking almost exactly the same—same height, same eyes, same freckles on their noses. The only difference was that Jed was holding a knife and Cam wasn’t.

  •

  Tom arrived first, a pack of Maui Caramacs in his hand. Fully dry, his hair was even blonder, almost albino blond, and, again, it seemed like a mistake that Tom lived in Hawaii because he looked like he’d just stepped off a snow-ridden field in Norway. He wore a nice sand-colored polo shirt and gray shorts, and I thought he’d probably dressed up a little for the occasion, which was adorable.

  “Sorry I’m kinda early,” he said, slipping off his cotton shoes.

  Cam went to open the door for him. “No problem, dude,” he said. “Come oooon in.” I could tell he was a little nervous.

  “Hey, Tom! Want some bacon fat?” Jed held up a strip.

  Tom looked at it as though actually considering. Then he seemed to understand this was a joke and his face relaxed. “Sure!” he said, with overcompensating irony so that it wasn’t ironic anymore.

  “Thank you for the Caramacs, Tom,” I said, trying to rescue him. I covered the pasta, wiped my hands on my apron, or my Mom apron, as Ana had called it. I shouldn’t have resented this because it literally said MOM on the front, but I still felt resentful—how many things of mine had she called Mom things? Point made. B
ut then, I was being silly. And I couldn’t resent her. She was dying.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Tom?”

  “No, let me get it.” Ana rushed toward him. Was she skipping? “Hi, Tom, I’m Ana.” She stuck out her hand and gave him a firm shake. “I live here now. This family has adopted me.”

  Tom seemed unsure if this was a joke or not.

  “Do you want some apple juice, Tom?” I asked.

  Cam gave me a look: No, Mom, apple juice equals not cool.

  “I love apple juice. Isn’t it the best drink?” Ana rolled her eyes in delight. Before Tom could weigh in, she said, “I’ll get you some, Tom.”

  And then Cam said, “Can I have some, too?”

  “Everyone can have some!” Ana bellowed, skipping toward the fridge.

  Tom stood by Cam, watching him stir the sauce.

  “I just have to…do this,” he said to Tom. “But you can sit or whatever.”

  “Okay, yeah,” Tom said, moving toward the couch. Portico’s tank was still on the coffee table, and it was now filled with offerings. Ana had been performing “a new kind of burial” all day by dropping things into the tank. So far they included twigs and clumps of grass and a bird’s nest she’d found in the driveway and the core of a pear she’d eaten earlier and most of the huge tub of Costco salt we had in the pantry.

  Ana fluttered to Tom with his glass of juice. “Here you go, Tom,” she said. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” Tom said, and they clinked.

  “And a little for my dead homies,” Ana said, pouring some of her juice into the tank.

  Tom didn’t ask. He sipped his juice. The song switched to Bob Marley, which reminded me of Chuck in his college days.

  I poured the pasta into the sieve. Jed finished chopping and went to join Ana and Tom on the couch. Cam stirred the sauce, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at Tom.

  And then footsteps, and Liko appeared at the door. In a black shirt with some graffiti words on the front that were illegible. No, he hadn’t brought chocolate or flowers.

  “Yo,” he said.

  “Yo,” Ana said back, copying his voice exactly.

  “Dude,” Jed said, springing off the couch.

  “Come in,” I said in my nicest voice.

  In the silly voice of a gatekeeper, Ana said, “Name yourself.” She chuckled. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?” Liko said, kicking his last flip-flop into the pile.

  “I am Ana,” she said regally.

  “Yeah, dude, this is Ana, we adopted her. She’s chill,” Jed said, too nonchalantly.

  “Well, I am Liko,” Liko said, and pointed to himself with both hands.

  “Can I get you something, Liko?” I was determined to be kind. “Apple juice?”

  “It’s good,” Jed said, as though apple juice was a rare drink Liko had never heard of.

  “Coo,” Liko said.

  Coo? I tried not to judge. Kindness. I poured him some apple juice. The microwave clock said 6:13. Cam had plated the pasta. It would get cold. “Let’s eat,” I said, “Chuck will be here soon.”

  “He’s going to show us that ball, yeah?” Liko asked.

  “Yeah, man,” Jed assured him.

  I looked at the door. If Chuck found that ball, it would be a miracle.

  •

  Ana dimmed the lights. Liko said, “Like a freakin’ séance in here,” bobbing his head to the syllables. The way he spoke had a particular rhythm to it—everything came out in the same up and down beat.

  “Yeah, it’s badass right?” Jed said, to which Liko replied, “Like a voodoo den.”

  Cam and Tom sat on one side, Jed and Liko on the other. Ana sat next to me at the head of the table. When Chuck got here, he would sit across from us.

  “Yum,” Tom said, looking at the pasta.

  “I hope I cooked the sauce right,” Cam said.

  “I’m sure you did,” Tom said, and smiled at Cam, who blushed.

  “I’m sure you did, sweetie poo.” Liko kissed the air, and then he smiled that joker smile of his.

  Before I could form a response to that, Ana said, “Let’s hold hands.”

  The twins glanced at each other, a glance that said: What will our friends think of this? But Liko and Tom held out their hands like it was normal. Maybe they said grace at home.

  Ana, her face glowing in the candlelight, said, “Breathe.” She inhaled and exhaled deeply. “You are here.”

  A pause.

  “Some of us will rise and some of us will fall. Some of us have small black hearts. Small blackened black hearts. Some of us will have time to change that. To grow and grow and find love, and our hearts will become big and joyous and they will pump blood through our bodies joyously.”

  “Sick,” Liko said.

  Ana continued. “We are on a journey. All of us together. We are all surviving. We are all hanging on…to this moment. With our big and tiny and joyous and blackened black hearts, we are all right here, learning to breathe.”

  “Ay-men,” Liko said, and Ana repeated it, but she pronounced it like her name. “Ah-men.”

  “That was rrrrreal,” Liko said, stuffing his napkin into his lap. “Way more real than how my auntie says it.”

  The door clapped shut. “Hey!” Chuck said. I could tell just from that “hey” that he was in full-on Cool Dad mode. He would play his role up tonight and make these boys swoon. He walked through the dark living room and appeared in the flickering candlelight wearing his work clothes—had he really been at work all day?—and he was holding a ball.

  “Sorry I’m a little late.” He looked at me almost like he thought he should touch me—how far to take this charade?—but he didn’t touch me. He looked at Ana and his face didn’t fall. He was really trying. Trying to win us over with the same grin he had used on Shelly Two at Patricio’s, and I wanted to kill him just as much as I wanted him to apologize and explain.

  “Hey, Liko, hey, Tom,” Chuck said.

  “Hey, Mr. Murphy,” they symphonied.

  Proudly he held up the ball. “Look what I found.”

  Liko grabbed the ball. “No way,” he said, and turned it over to find the inscription. “Dayum, he even wrote your name. ‘Chuck, play hard.’ This is money. Dayum!”

  Jed took the ball, looked, repeated, “Dayum!”

  I told myself not to ask, but I had to. “Where did you find it, Chuck?”

  Chuck took his place at the far end of the table. He scooted in and picked up one of the Buddhas and made a face like: Huh?

  When he still hadn’t answered me, I asked again. “Chuck, where did you find the ball?”

  He scratched his neck. “The closet.”

  “Really? Which closet, hon?” I set my chin on my fist.

  Chuck’s clenching smile. I could see him flailing under that smile. I knew the ball was a decoy. Even from here, it looked too new. It also looked like he had done something to it to make it look weathered. Rubbed it on the pavement, maybe. Also, on the real ball, Tony had written, “Play better,” not “Play hard,” which meant that Chuck’s memory was failing, which meant that we were old.

  I asked again. “Which closet, hon?”

  “Who cares, Mom,” Jed said, passing the ball to Cam. The boys wouldn’t have remembered the original ball. The last time they’d seen it was when they were about ten.

  “What kind of pasta is this?” Chuck asked.

  I knew Ana would sing it in Italian, and she did. “Pasta all’Amatriciana.”

  “Your recipe?” Chuck was grinding his poor teeth to dust in his mouth. He’d been a grinder since I met him. He carried stress in his jaw. And he had a special mouth guard for sleeping, which I knew he wasn’t wearing alone in the ohana without me to remind him.

  “Yes,” Ana said. “I hope you like it.”

  Chuck picked up the fat Buddha in front of him. “And this is your doll?”

  “Those are Buddhas, Chucky,” Ana said, sounding very light and bright.
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  “Please don’t call me Chucky,” Chuck said, and smiled harder.

  “All right, sir.” She saluted him.

  Chuck scooted his chair out. “I forgot something in the car,” he said. “Be right back.”

  We watched him disappear into the dark.

  Tom and Cam were still inspecting the decoy.

  “Dude, plate me up some more pasta,” Liko said to Jed, who quickly complied.

  “So, boys,” I said, not knowing what I would say next. And then—why?—“How’s school?”

  “Fine,” “Fine,” “Fine,” they echoed.

  Liko said, “Stupid.”

  Ana hovered her fingers above the candle flame. “Liko?”

  He grunted. His mouth was full.

  “What’s your deeeeal?” she asked him slowly. But then he was still chewing so she went on. “Do you plan on going to college?”

  “Ana wishes she went to college,” Jed explained. “That’s why she’s asking.”

  Liko swallowed. “I’m going to college, hell yeah,” he said. “That’s where all the hot chicks are. Col-lege.” Joker smile, and his teeth were smeared with red sauce.

  “Word,” Jed said.

  God, I hated peer pressure so much.

  Then footsteps. The door clapped. Chuck was back.

  Half an hour, I thought. This dinner will be over in half an hour.

  When Chuck walked past me, I looked over at the exact right time to see the bulge in his pocket. I waited for that sinking feeling. Chuck was putting fifths of vodka in his pockets again and he was so dumb to think I wouldn’t notice, just like he was so dumb to think I wouldn’t know the ball was a fake.

  “You want more pasta, Dad?” Cam asked.

  “Thanks, son,” Chuck said in his Ward Cleaver way.

  “So Chucky. I mean Chuck, sorry,” Ana said. “How was your day today, Chuck?”

  Obviously, she wanted him to tell the story of finding a snake in his car.

  But Chuck was unwilling to go there. “Great pasta,” he said. I had to give him kudos for that, even if he did have vodka in his pocket.

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” Ana said. “We made it with a lot of love.” She picked a noodle from the heap with her fingers and slurped it up and smiled. “So you had a good day, Chuck?”

  Twenty-five minutes. No, twenty. In twenty minutes, this dinner will be over.