The Suicide Year

by Lena Prodan

  Once my feet throbbed from the chilly water, and my toes wrinkled, I pulled on my shoes and set out again. It was true that I didn't know the woods well, but I made sure I caught glimpses of the highway through the trees so I could find my way back to it.

  There were a few trees showing brilliant fall colors, but the forest was mostly pine. The motes drifting through the slanted sunlight made my eyes water and my nose swell shut inside, leaving me gasping for breath. Still, it was one of the few places I felt at peace with myself.

  On the underside of a leaf, I spied a tiny, light brown bat. I stood quietly and looked it over for a bit, amazed at how small it was. It was one of those perfect moments where time moved at a leisurely pace and there was no one around to ruin it for me. Every second made me feel more connected, as if I might actually belong there.

  Further up the hill, I saw a crumbling stone hearth and a chimney not much taller than I was. I poked around, searching for other traces of the people who used to live there. Deep under the forest loam, I found the outline of the cabin. It paced out around fourteen by twelve, the size of our living room in the base housing.

  For a while, I sat on the hearth and enjoying my quiet, perfect happiness and the beauty of God's creation surrounding me. It must have been wonderful, living so far away from other people. Maybe I could do that too. Escape into the mountains. Stop playing the chameleon to fit in. With no one around to see me, I could be myself all the time.

  Not far from the ruins, I saw a low, rusted iron fence. I went over to see what it was for. The ornate wrought iron didn't even come up to my knees. Then I saw the weathered headstones that jutted out of the ground. From afar, they'd blended into the underbrush. Wooden markers lay hidden under ferns in the private cemetery. The few stone ones were almost unreadable, but three of them bore death dates within the same week. Diphtheria, cholera, or some other old-time sickness had swept through that family, taking them swiftly. Yet someone had buried them. Maybe that's why the cabin was abandoned. Or maybe the last survivor hung on, tending the graves and the garden year after year in solitude.

  Hoping to find out more about the family who had once lived there, because almost everyone in that county was related to me through blood or marriage, I cleared away the forest debris from fallen gravestones. A cloud of fine dust rose in air, making me sneeze. Then I felt a sharp pain on my forearm.

  A bee stumbled toward my wrist, trailing guts out its butt. The curled base of the stinger in my arm was clear, and I could see the gold venom draining down as the end pulsed. Fascinated and grossed out, I flicked it out of my arm. The dying bee fell to the forest floor.

  Each breath hurt more than the one before. My tongue filled my mouth and my chest tightened. I rose, leaned against a tree, and looked at my arm again. It was deep pink and swollen so that my fingers tingled, feeling as if they'd burst under the skin. I closed my eyes and gulped for air. Should have been carrying my inhaler.

  Far off, I could hear water making its way through the gorge and the wind. Animals moved through the underbrush like I wasn't there anymore. Those sounds helped me concentrate on each breath and try to recapture the comforting feeling of God surrounding me. He wouldn't do anything helpful, of course, like loosening the invisible boa constrictor that seemed to wrap around my ribs, but he would at least witness my pain. He was really good at that—watching me hurt and not doing anything about it.

  It felt like hours before I could catch a decent breath, but it might have only been minutes. Pain did funny things to time.

  I checked the sun. It was already low and night came quickly in the hills. It was time to head back to my grandparents’ house. Even though I couldn't see it through the trees, I knew the highway was downhill. The sound of passing traffic guided me to the edge of the woods.

  The dog was there, sniffing saplings along the narrow, crumbling shoulder.

  "Had enough freedom?” I asked. I showed her my arm. It wasn't as swollen as before, but it was still mottled pink. “Bee sting. It's your fault, you know."

  She tilted her head and looked as concerned as a dog could. I patted her head. “I don't blame you for running away though."

  By that time, it was solid dark. We trudged up the long dirt road from the highway, guided by the lights of the house. The back porch of the house was packed with family. There were more cars on the lawn. I crept around to the side door. No one sat on those narrow stone steps. I ran water from a hose into my cupped hand for the dog to drink, and then I washed my face and hands.

  I held the screen door with my hand flat against the hinges as I opened it, and closed it softly so that it wouldn't slam.

  "Quiet,” I warned the dog.

  The house smelled of ham and buttermilk-fried okra. I could picture Grandma's kitchen table crowded with covered dishes, carried there by the women of the family. Maybe there was a chess pie with a real butter crust for dessert.

  Voices carried from the back porch. Uncle Dewey was telling one of his stories. We'd all heard those tales a hundred times, but no one complained. I could hear the guffaws at the right places, and imagined the slow nods of heads during the telling. When he was done, another uncle would lean forward and start in on another story. That's how every family gathering there was. We laughed until tears ran down our cheeks and we begged them to stop, but when they did, someone would always ask for another tale. I couldn't think of a better way to pass the evening than sitting under the stars and listening to their outrageous tall tales of tricky raccoons and hound dogs with more sense than most people.

  I slipped down the breezeway into the back bedroom. Aunt Rosalind's suitcases were pushed under the bed. They were empty. I pulled open the drawers of the dresser. The dusty antique scent made me sneeze. I cupped my hand over my nose and waited for someone to fling open the door. I listened for the creak of someone walking down the hallway. Hearing nothing, I quickly searched the drawers.

  Aunt Rosalind's pills were under a slip in the top drawer. Elavil. I wasn't sure what it did, but it had to be better than anything we had in our medicine cabinet at home. Guessing from Aunt Rosalind's drowsy eyes and dreamer's smile, Elavil was a barbiturate of some type. Score!

  She didn't have many tablets, so I calculated my odds. Too many gone, and she'd notice. Not enough, and I'd fail again. The label on the bottle warned against taking the pills with alcohol. That made me grin. I silently thanked the pharmacy for the hint. All I had to do was find some alcohol to wash the pills down, but I wasn't in any hurry.

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  Chapter 11

  We left Grandma's in the middle of the night and headed for Pop's family farm. By sunrise, I could see the new towers of Atlanta rising above the kudzu-choked trees. I counted freeway exits for streets named Peachtree.

  By noon, the scenery was nothing but red dirt plowed in straight furrows reaching to the horizon, interrupted by small towns that were little more than a gas station and a Foster's Freeze.

  Before we even turned off the rural highway onto the long dirt driveway to the farm, the stink of chickens hung in the heavy air. We passed five low metal huts where the chickens were kept in tight rows of cages. By the time we parked in front of the old, three-story farmhouse with a Mansard roof, syrupy mucus coated my throat.

  As we got out of the car, Pop's family ran out of the house to encase us in hugs. Even Bunica, Pop's grandmother, hobbled out in her housecoat. Mom and Pop froze as they were embraced, as if being sniffed by hungry predators.

  Some nights, I dreamed that they weren't my real parents, and that a loving couple would show up at the door, apologize profusely for subjecting me to those two, and whisk me away to some place else. Anywhere else. I could adapt to almost anything.

  On our rare visits, Grandma usually led the charge out of the house, squeezed the breath out of me, and asked so many questions that I couldn't begin to answer one before she asked the next. She'd drag me into the house and have a cool glass of iced tea in my hand before
Pop got the luggage out of the trunk. That time, she stood back with her arm draped over the slumped shoulders of my cousin Sheri.

  Sheri was my doppelganger, although not so much an evil twin as an unfortunate one. We had the same stocky peasant build, same mud brown hair, same squinty brown eyes and double chins, but as the eldest grandchild, I was the automatic favorite. Sheri had never been able to overcome my four month advantage. Yet something had clearly changed.

  "You're lucky you got here! We almost left for the funeral without you. What a shame that would have been,” Bunica teased Pop.

  Pop glowered down at her.

  "Come on, come on. Get inside. You just have time to change.” She might have been tiny, but Bunica shoved Pop hard enough to make him stumble.

  The farmhouse was too hot and smelled of seawater. It usually reeked of poisonously sweet lilies. Everyone talked over everyone else, laughing and helping carry our suitcases up the stairs, as if it were an ordinary visit. When I thought about it, though, I realized I'd never spent a Thanksgiving, Christmas, or even Easter with any of my relatives. We only came for funerals.

  The noise and confusion sent the dog into a skulking panic. She paced circles until her leash bound my calves together.

  Tata, my great-grandfather, winked a milky eye at me. He crossed over the braided rug on the parlor floor, barely lifting his feet, until he got close to me. He pressed a root beer candy into my hand then leaned on his cane and bent down to pet the dog. She cringed back.

  "Be nice,” I scolded her.

  He laughed and tried to pat her head, but she easily dodged his palsied grasp.

  "Sorry, Tata. She's not used to so many people. Do I smell fish?” I hoped it was fish. Twice before, that I remembered, there had been a body in a coffin on the dining room table, surrounded by wilted flowers. Such a charming old world custom.

  Tata's voice was raspy, faded. Back in Romania, he'd been a country bumpkin. In Georgia he still was, but his heavy accent made him seem exotic. Somehow, that didn't seem to carry over to the rest of us. “Your Aunt Ana brought crabs from Florida. Crabs tonight, chicken tomorrow, Prunc.” At least when he called me baby, he didn't pinch my cheek.

  "Chicken?” I asked. “Isn't turkey more traditional for Thanksgiving?"

  "Why buy turkey when we have a barn full of chickens? Wasted money! As soon as a layer stops earning her keep,” he said, drawing his finger across his throat and cackling, “chicken dinner."

  Sweat trickled down my spine. It was too damn hot in the house. They were in the middle of a heat wave but were running the heater too. Old people could never keep warm.

  Tata fixed his gaze on me. “When we come back from the funeral, you will come out to the barns with us."

  "But—I'm allergic to feathers, to chickens."

  He tapped the floor with his cane. “Never admit weakness. Your enemies will use it to destroy you.” He grasped my wrist harder than a man his age should have been able to. His hand was mottled, red stains like bruises and dark freckles on gray skin that pulled tight over bone and ropey blue veins. “We all earn our keep here, even you. Nothing is for free."

  I tugged, trying to get away from his grasp. The dog growled, but Tata didn't hear her or he wasn't scared. My chest was getting tighter by the moment.

  "You will help us collect the eggs."

  "Okay,” I said as I twisted my arm away. The dog followed me when I ran up the two flights of stairs to the attic room. I flung open my suitcase, found my inhaler, and puffed in the medicine. Slowly, the grip around my ribs eased.

  * * * *

  At dinner, Grandma and Bunica carried an old enameled pot between them into the dining room and dumped it over. Piles of red boiled crabs scattered across the newspapers on the table. All conversation stopped for a brief blessing. As soon as the prayer was over, everyone grabbed mallets and slammed them down on the crabs.

  Tata, well into his nineties by then, barely had the teeth to eat anymore, but he didn't seem to need food. He talked through every meal. Down at our end of the table, we couldn't hear his whispering voice over the mallet blows. Sheri and I sat together at the end of the table. Age was rank in our clan and we were at the bottom.

  Pop's family weren't prolific breeders, but the family made up for it with size and noise. Wide butts spilled over the sides of the wooden dining room chairs.

  Mom closed her eyes and turned her head as shell shards flew across the table and my aunt sucked crab juices from a claw. Mom's lips compressed into a thin line. She shot Pop hard looks.

  Pop gave his plate a dour glare as Bunica slid a slice of fried mamaliga—the culinary cousin of grits and polenta—onto his plate. “We're leaving right after dinner tomorrow,” he announced.

  I'd never heard such silence in the farmhouse before. Tata's milky eyes narrowed on Pop.

  Pop put his forearms on the table. “We have to get back home."

  "You stay,” Tata said.

  "Poppa,” Pop appealed to his father, but my grandfather only stared at the pile of crabs in front of him, clearly embarrassed by Pop's behavior.

  "You can leave Friday morning,” Tata told Pop. That was that.

  Mom fumed, but even Pop knew better than to defy his grandfather. He'd already stepped way out of line. Pop avoided Mom's glare. She clenched her fork in a white-knuckled grip.

  Even though there were no chickens inside the house, it felt as if I were being held face-down into a feather pillow. I fought back the tickling in my throat but finally had to clear it. “Uh hum."

  Mom's chair hit the wall behind her. “Would you cut that out! I'm sick of your noises!” she screamed at me.

  Bunica reached up to pat Mom's shoulder. “Sit. Sit."

  Mom shook off Bunica's blue-veined hand and dropped back down into her seat. “Use your inhaler."

  "I can't again. Not for another three hours.” If I hit it more than I should, I got really hyper.

  "Then take another Actifed,” Mom snapped at me.

  I felt as if everyone in the family stared at us. Not just once, but twice, we'd dared interrupt Tata's sermonizing. The rest of the family probably didn't know whether to be horrified or impressed.

  Tata's pink tongue ran over his lips. “—those bastards at the water district are..."

  He said more after that, but I'd drifted off into daydreams about Amanda and wondered if she missed me in P.E. Maybe she asked if anyone knew where I was, or looked for me in the hallways between classes. Maybe someone told her I was at a funeral, and maybe she was sad for me.

  "Uh hum.” I cleared my throat again.

  Mom glared at me. I sipped my iced tea and hoped she couldn't read my mind. I didn't think she could, but to be safe, I tucked away thoughts of Amanda into the floating part of my heart and forced my mind back to the farmhouse.

  Tata droned on. Around the table, everyone had a glazed look in their eyes, as if we were all taking refuge in our private worlds. I glanced at Sheri and tried to figure out why Grandma kept fussing over her. Grandma even gave up her seat near the head of the table to sit beside Sheri.

  The few glimpses I caught of Sheri's face through her curtain of hair made me wonder if she'd been ill. She had dark circles under her eyes. Sickness would explain why, in the overbearing heat inside the house, Sheri wore a thick, long sleeved shirt.

  It wasn't fair. Grandma rarely got to see me. She saw Sheri every day. Couldn't she spare an hour for me? I wanted to tell her things, secrets I'd kept bottled up just for her. I couldn't tell her about Amanda, absolutely not, but I needed a sympathetic ear.

  Grandma reached over and stroked Sheri's stringy hair. I wouldn't have touched it. Sheri smelled as if she were on her period—metallic and overripe in the heat. I wondered how long it had been since she'd gotten into a shower.

  Once upon a time, Sheri and I got along well enough. It wasn't that we had much in common, other than blood, but we used to be friends by necessity—natural allies in a house full of grownups.

  A
fter dinner, Sheri and I used to crawl under the dining table. Once the adults thought we'd fallen asleep, family secrets came out. People who were dead thirty years lived on in scandalous stories—children abandoned in Europe as the Germany Army advanced, the reluctant bride who used to dance on tavern tables, and the murder that made Tata flee Romania. Sheri and I clutched hands, our eyes open wide at the casual brutality of those tales.

  As the night wore on, and the light filtering through the lace tablecloth became a soft gold glow, the stories took a turn to the fantastic. Tata began his creepy tales of the frovoliki—a type of vampire. In those stories, the frovoliki were never elegant, sexy hunters like they were in the movies. Our vampires were rustic. Not a Count among them. They were family gone feral, who wanted to drain the life from us and to see us in the grave. They knew our weaknesses and used them to lure us outside or to trick their way into the house.

  The hair on my arms used to rise and I would strain to hear beyond the old farm house. I figured that Great Aunt Ecotrina was the one who'd turn out to be frovoliki. Despite her cheap wig and the tangerine lipstick that bled down the creases surrounding her withered lips, she'd borne a strong resemblance to Nosferatu.

  I expected to hear her call for me.

  "Prunc, all you have to do is open the kitchen door and let your Great Auntie in. I'll give you this Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream pie. Your favorite."

  Imagine my relief when I overheard Bunica tell Grandma, “Ecotrina's dead now, and she's not coming back.” Thank goodness. In the new world, the dead had stayed buried.

  Later, the conversation would lapse into Romanian. The adults would yawn and hint about how late it was, but even Grandpa couldn't leave the table until Tata stood. Sheri and I would fall asleep for real then, lulled by the musical language we didn't understand as it was spoken in the deep, rumbling voices of the old world men. Because we were small then, someone would carry us up to the attic bedroom and tuck us into a big brass bed.