• • •
GENEVIEVE KNOWS that her father’s arm is a fake. He likes to take it off when he gets home. He likes to eat his dinner without it in his way, to hug his daughter unimpeded. She does not admit this to her friends, because they believe that what her parents have is the lucky thing everyone hopes for. But it is the lie that Genevieve loves. That he built himself what did not come on its own. He said yes, and though his physical form stayed silent, he created a voice for it. Made it sing the notes of his song.
• • •
“MY HUSBAND’S ARM IS PLASTIC,” Jan says, and the painted nails wink at her.
“Oh my god. But he talks about it all the time.”
“I know.”
“He must love you though.”
“He must. But he also must not.”
“Climb on,” Claribel tells her. The many fingers reel her in.
“How I used to hold the kids on my feet?” Jan asks. She climbs on, laughing and nervous. Claribel lies on the mattress of her back hands, and Jan rests like a platter on the front. Their bodies are held apart. Air travels through the tunnels. Fingers dig themselves in. Jan puts her three arms out like wings to steady herself.
Outside, boys crash into each other and land in heaps.
“Here I am, held up by everyone you’ve loved,” Jan says. “See that?”
When Jan begins to tip, Claribel tells her, “It’s only because you are looking that you can’t balance. Close your eyes. Close your eyes, because we’ve got you.”
• • •
ALONE THIS EVENING, Principal Kevin takes his arm into bed. He lays it down and rubs up against it. He is naked. The hand stays open in a lazy wooden cup. It will only hold what is given. He takes it into his own, places it over himself, moves it around.
“I love you,” he says out loud. “Do you know that? I love you.”
If you say so, he feels the hand tell him. It is cool on his most delicate skin.
“We all do,” he tells it. The hand is boss-able. If he wants to grind into it, it is grinded. “We all do,” he repeats. “We all love.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my teachers: Ron Carlson, Michelle Latiolais, Geoffrey Wolff, Christine Schutt, Brad Watson, Amy Gerstler, Doug Anderson, and Jackie Levering-Sullivan. My admiration is truly endless.
Thanks to my cohorts in Irvine who offered insight when these stories were still blind, bald little babies. Everything I’ve written since is better for having shared a table with you all.
Huge thanks to the magazine editors who gave some of these stories their first homes: Hannah Tinti and Maribeth Batcha, Cressida Leyshon and Deborah Treisman, Leslie Daniels, Carter Edwards, and Ben Mirov.
For PJ Mark—books and authors don’t get better friends than you.
Every single person at Riverhead. Special thanks to Geoff Kloske, Sarah Stein, Kate Stark, Glory Plata, and Lydia Hirt. And to Sarah McGrath and Jynne Martin, magicians both.
My family. My friends. How unbelievably good you all are.
For generous support, tremendous thanks to Glenn Schaeffer, the International Center for Writing and Translation at UC Irvine, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Tin House Writers’ Conference, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
And to Teo—I love you from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the Mekong River, Balboa Island to the Gobi desert. From me and you to me and you and Clay. Let’s always run away together.
A Guide to Being Born: Stories Page 16