The Goddesses

by Swan Huntley

Ana shook her head. She didn’t look worried at all. “No,” she said. “He must have stolen it. Which card is it, out of curiosity?”

  The young one lifted the baggie to inspect.

  But the scary one already knew the answer. “Wheel of Fortune,” he said. “I looked it up this morning. Means something about turning points. I wouldn’t consider that a lead.”

  “No,” Ana said certainly, like she was his partner. “I wouldn’t consider that a lead either.”

  A long pause. I stayed completely still. Ana rubbed her belly. The scary one reached for his belt and this was it, this was the moment. The cuffs and we need to take you in for questioning and it’s over now.

  “Well,” the scary one said, scratching his back. “We probably wouldn’t have come to find you if this man had had more in his wallet. But there was only a credit card and this card of yours. Seemed strange.” He set his hand on his waist. “But neither of you ladies knew Peter?”

  We shook our heads.

  He glanced at my necklace, then at Ana’s. “Most likely a hit-and-run,” he said.

  The young one nodded at his mentor. “Happens too much on these winding roads up here.”

  “We need more signs. We’re working on it.” The scary one patted his chest. “Well, you two be careful on the road.”

  “Absolutely, Officer,” Ana said, a little seductively.

  “And sorry you’re sick. You take care of yourself, Ms. Gersh,” the young one said.

  Her name was Ana Gersh.

  “My soul mate’s taking care of me.” Ana winked at me.

  “Mahalos,” the young one said.

  “Bye now,” the scary one said.

  We waited in silence until they had driven away. Ana lay back on the couch. She didn’t take her eyes off me. Feeling returned to my fingers. I wiped the sweat from my hairline.

  “Gersh?”

  “It’s my old name.”

  “How many names do you have?”

  “Names mean nothing, Nan.”

  “You broke your promise,” I said. “You didn’t confess.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Nan.”

  “You said you would confess.”

  “Please. You didn’t confess either.” Her dark eyes tightening.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, my voice hollow.

  She set her finger on her cheek. “You sure about that?”

  “Yes,” I fired back before I had time to think.

  Ana tapped her lips. “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

  The keys on the key ring. My purse by the door. I could leave now. I could be free from her.

  Ana pulled the blanket off her shoulders. “You know what I just realized?”

  I was already at the door. “I’m leaving.”

  “This secret?” she boomed.

  “I’m leaving!” I yelled, searching frantically through the pile of shoes.

  “This secret binds you to me!”

  I grabbed my keys. But—no—they were her keys. She’d put her keys in my spot. I tried again. Your keys, Nancy, your keys.

  I crashed through the door, jogged across the lanai. Her voice behind me, following me. She screamed it at the top of her lungs.

  “This secret binds you to me forever!”

  36

  “Chuck’s in the staff meeting,” the woman at the desk said. “It’s over in half an hour.”

  “Shit.” I scratched my head. I tried to think. I felt insane. The woman looked at me like she felt sorry for me, and I felt more insane. “Where’s the meeting?”

  She pointed down the hall with her pencil. “Third door on the left.”

  I burst through the door because I had to. Chuck was standing in front of a room full of people in the red Costco shirt he wore to boost morale. He was saying, “And the go-backs at the end of the day”—and then he saw me. I motioned for him to come here now and I backed out of the door so these people would stop looking at me. I heard him say, “Brad, would you mind taking over for a sec?” Low voices in the room, a chair squeaking on the floor, footsteps, and then there he was. He closed the door lightly behind him. He folded his arms across his chest. “What’s going on?”

  “Chuck, I can’t. Ana, I—”

  Why had I come here? I couldn’t tell him.

  “Nancy.” His hands on my arms. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.” I felt calmer with him touching me. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  We killed someone. No, she killed someone. There was an accident.

  “Will you come home, please?”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know, I just—Ana, I can’t be—I think we should—I don’t know what to do. I think we should ask her to leave. But I can’t. I need you to do it.”

  He sighed. He was disappointed in me.

  “Please,” I begged.

  He took his hands off my arms. “Nancy, if you want her to leave, ask her to leave.” Voices in the meeting room. He looked at the door. “I really need to get back in there.”

  “Chuck,” I pleaded.

  He put his hand on the doorknob. He wasn’t even going to hug me good-bye.

  “Chuck. Please. Help me.”

  He said it nicely, which made it worse. “I think you need to help yourself.” He turned the knob. In a way that sounded too final, he said, “I’ll see you later.”

  •

  Spinning. It was too hot outside. Someone in the parking lot called my name. “Hi, Mrs. Murphy!” I pretended not to hear.

  The thud, the flashlight rolling, rolling. Bound to her. Forever. And Gersh? Gersh? What the fuck, I didn’t even know her fucking name! And Gersh—there was something about that name. Had I heard it before?

  My eyes bugged open. My hand covered my mouth.

  I had heard it before.

  From her.

  That quote she’d written down for me.

  I stopped right there in the parking lot. I sat on the curb. I knew it was still in my purse. Where is it, where is it? I said, out loud or in my head, and I was boiling and dizzy, and where was that fucking piece of paper? and then here it was, here it was, and I unfolded it.

  Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold the truth within yourself as the only truth.

  —ANA GERSH

  I was already typing it into my phone.

  Search.

  I clicked the first link.

  Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold the truth within yourself as the only truth.

  —BUDDHA

  37

  Like a good person, or like a person who knew she’d be more likely to leave if she had a place to go, I booked Ana a room at Holiday Inn Express. “Ana Gersh,” I told the person behind the desk. “Yes, I will pay in full now.”

  On the way back to the car, a homeless woman approached me. “Hey, nice lady,” she said, her voice hoarse. Leathery skin hung off her bones and she was barely wearing any clothes. “You got a few bucks? I’m hungry.”

  Relief washed over me like something pure and purifying. “Yes, of course.” I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to her.

  Her worn face lit up. She was imagining what she would do with the money. “God bless you,” she said, and I thanked her. I needed a blessing. I would take anything.

  •

  The boys’ car in the driveway. Why? It was only one in the afternoon; they should be at school.

  “Ana?” I called, slipping my shoes off. “Boys?”

  I would say it with kindness.

  Ana, I booked you a room, and I would appreciate it if you left. Yes, tonight.

  Ana, I would appreciate it if you left tonight. I booked you a room at the Holiday Inn.

  “Boys?” I called again. “Ana?”

  And then I heard her laughing from down the hall. A burst of laughter, and then it stopped.

  “Hello?” I followed her voice. “Hello?
”

  The bedroom door was closed. Strange because she usually liked it open. I don’t know why I stood outside the door instead of just opening it, but that’s what I did.

  I heard movement. And then she was saying something. I couldn’t make out the words. Was she on the phone?

  And then—a man’s muffled voice. But it couldn’t be.

  And then something fell. Something light. The box of Kleenex I’d put by the bed.

  And then Ana moaned.

  No.

  Please God no.

  Please please please please please as I opened the door.

  I stopped breathing.

  I covered my mouth.

  I gagged.

  Jed’s naked back. The twisted sheets. My bedspread on the floor.

  Ana looked straight at me. Her eyes quivered and gleamed.

  Everything blurred. Jed’s back, Ana’s face, her dark eyes like smudges, the neon-pink streak, the heap of white sheets.

  And she didn’t stop. And she didn’t tell Jed to stop. She moaned again. Louder, she moaned. She craned her neck back and moaned.

  He leaned toward her neck.

  I screamed his name. “Jed!”

  He gasped. He didn’t look back at me. He looked around the room, searching for a place to hide. He rolled off of her and buried himself under the sheets so it was just his feet sticking out, and then Ana was waving at me with just her pinkie. In a high-pitched voice to the rhythm of her puppet finger, she said, “Hi, Nan.”

  I walked down the hall. The hall started breathing, turning black at the edges. In a second I would fall. I grabbed the side of the couch. I slumped over it. I closed my eyes tight, tighter. I tried to breathe.

  In the bedroom, Jed yelled at her. “I don’t know!”

  I made my way to the sink. I drank water with my hands like an animal.

  Jed pulling his T-shirt over his head as he walked into the kitchen. He said, “Mom.”

  “Go back to school,” I told his feet. I couldn’t look at his face. My voice was cold. “Now.”

  His toes curled. “It was her dying wish, Mom.”

  I still couldn’t look at him. “Tell me you wore a condom.”

  His voice cracked when he said, “I did.”

  “Go back to school.”

  “It’s not his fault, Nan!” Ana sang from the bedroom.

  “Go,” I hissed, and Jed, startled by this version of me, hurried out the door.

  When it clapped shut, Ana screamed, “Bye, Jed!” She was coming toward me down the hall. She was tying her robe. No, my robe. It was my robe. She plucked a grape from the fruit basket, popped it in her mouth. “Don’t be mad,” she said. “We all have needs.”

  She reached for my arm. I pulled away. I blinked at her. Her fat cheeks. Her duck lips. That bullshit thing she did with her eyebrows when she was pretending to look serene. The pink streak alongside her face hooking her chin like a warning.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Tell me you hate me. Tell me why I am the worst person you’ve ever known.” She let her head fall to the side like she was bored. She exhaled like she was fogging up a mirror. She brought her hands to her waist. “This is my favorite part.”

  Maybe I had known before, but I hadn’t wanted to know. I said it like I was sad for her, and I was. “You have no one.”

  She kept herself looking bored. “We are born alone and we die alone, Nan.”

  “But you have no one.”

  “I need no one,” she said louder.

  “Then why are you here?”

  She ate another grape. “I needed a place to crash.”

  “A place to crash? Who are you?”

  “I,” she bellowed, “am whoever you want me to be. I am the space you need filled. I am your projection.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Ana,” I said.

  She answered with her puppet pinkie. “Nan?”

  “Take off your wig.”

  Her eyes flickered as usual, but this time I saw fear. “Why?”

  “Take it off.”

  “No.”

  It happened in slow motion. I reached for her hair, she grabbed my wrist. I pushed her. She tripped. I didn’t expect her to fall, but she did. She landed on the carpet. Her breathing got shallow, a shallow wheeze. Hyperventilating. I crouched over her. I tore the wig off her head. I rubbed my palm against her scalp, hard so I could feel the bristles. Which wasn’t necessary. The hairs on her head were visible.

  Ana hadn’t shaved in a while.

  I wanted to smack her. I smacked the floor instead. I screamed her name. “Ana!”

  She was quiet. And still. Too still.

  “Ana?”

  I checked her breath.

  “Ana!”

  I pressed her eyelids back with my thumbs and saw white.

  “Anaaaaa!”

  38

  I’d been in the waiting room for over two hours when the doctor finally came out and said, “Gersh?”

  I set the magazine I hadn’t been reading on the table. I’d told them I was her sister because I knew they wouldn’t tell me anything otherwise. When they’d asked me to sign in, I had written Nancy Gersh.

  He was a small Hawaiian man with round glasses and a goatee. “Dr. Maka,” he said. “Hello.”

  “Nancy.” I shook his hand.

  “Your sister is fine,” he said first. “Her blood pressure was very low. It might be the new medication. Common side effect of antidepressants is low blood pressure. Her stomach pain—I imagine it’s stress. She told me she’s been very stressed recently. We have her on a drip now, but I’d like to keep her overnight, just to be sure.”

  Antidepressants? I must have looked shocked because he said, too consolingly, “But don’t worry. She’s in good spirits.”

  I thought of all the times I’d googled antidepressants, and what Ana would have said if I had told her. Would she have admitted she was taking them herself ? Or would she have said, “Breathe it out”? I guess I somehow thought we’d taken a silent oath to breathe it out together. Why had I assumed that?

  On the loudspeaker: “Dr. Maka, patient in room 348.”

  “Is that Ana’s room?”

  “No,” he said. “She’s on the second floor.”

  I imagined Ana in a hospital bed, depressed, with a needle in her hand.

  Kindness. Compassion. No, I hoped she was suffering.

  “Do you have any questions?” the polite doctor asked.

  “I do,” I said. “I have a big question.”

  He perked up. “Yes?”

  “What about Ana’s cancer?”

  He pushed his glasses higher up his nose. “Cancer?”

  “Cancer.”

  He looked confused.

  I was impatient. “Does Ana have cancer or not?”

  “No,” he said. “That would be very serious.”

  I sighed. “You’re telling me that Ana does not have pancreatic cancer.”

  “Nancy. If that were the case—well, let’s just be happy that is not the case.”

  “Does she have breast cancer?”

  He couldn’t help but look at me sideways. “No.”

  Even as I said the words, I somehow still didn’t believe them. “Ana has never had cancer.”

  “That is correct,” he said. “Ana is healthy. She had a mammogram recently. It came back clear.”

  I chuckled. It was her chuckle. “Ana is not dying.”

  “I hope not anytime soon,” the doctor said.

  I chuckled again. Like her or like me, I didn’t know.

  Ana did not have cancer.

  Ana had never had cancer.

  Ana was not dying.

  Flash to her writing her bucket list. Her concentrated face, that ridiculous souvenir pencil.

  Flash to her saying, “I’m dying, Nan. I don’t have time for longing.”

  Flash to the piece of paper she’d shown me: PANCREATIC, 3–6 MON
THS. And its decorative font. Had she typed that up herself ?

  Flash to the night of Peter: “My dying wish, Nan.”

  To Jed: “Her dying wish, Mom.”

  Outside the hospital window there was a red bird perched on a palm frond, and it was laughing.

  On the loudspeaker: “Dr. Maka, room 348.”

  The doctor nestled his iPad under his arm. “I should get going,” he said. “Would you like to go back and see your sister now, Ms. Gersh?”

  I said nothing.

  For too long.

  He tried to hide his disapproval. “Or if you have somewhere to be now, you can pick her up in the morning, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Right.”

  On the loudspeaker: “Dr. Maka, room 348.”

  “You have a good night, Ms. Gersh.” He nodded at me and then walked through the door. It swung back and forth in his wake.

  Ana seemed far away. The parking lot seemed far away. Both options felt wrong, so I stayed right where I was, my Tevas planted on the mint-green floor, listening to that red bird laugh.

  39

  Jed opened the door. “Mom?”

  I was in Cam’s bed because there was nowhere else to go. Jed’s bed scared me right now, my bed scared me more, the living room still smelled like Portico’s rotting memorial, and I hadn’t wanted to lie down on the kitchen floor.

  “Mom?”

  I opened my eyes. The Harry Potter bedspread I’d bought Cam when he was ten and beyond it, Jed.

  God, his head. My poor baby. He was standing there like such a kid, with his backpack slung over one shoulder.

  “Hi,” he said.

  But his deep voice and his broad chest and the way the backpack looked almost like a silly prop. Jed was a man now. It was hard to look at him.

  “Mom, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to…” He searched for vague language. We couldn’t talk about this directly. He tugged at his shirt. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I know she’s your friend. She just, like, talked me into it or something. I know that sounds stupid. It’s totally my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said like I was sure, or like I wanted to be.

  Jed’s hand on the doorframe, sliding up and down. It reminded me of the first night in this house when Chuck kept saying, “Can you believe we’re here?”