Mammother

by Zachary Schomburg

  “No,” answered Enid immediately. “Please, don’t.”

  The boy put one last salty peanut into Enid’s mouth as she spoke. “If my mother comes by, will you tell her where I am?”

  “No, I don’t want to talk to your mother.”

  “Goodbye, Enid. Eat your peanuts.”

  Enid didn’t want to eat her peanuts anymore. She didn’t want to tell the boy’s mother where he was going. She looked around at all the ripe strawberries, and she didn’t want to pick strawberries anymore either. They were all unpicked and she could see there was no way for her to pick them all. She could see them, for the first time, as they were—maybe as that boy who looked like Pepe had always seen them—that none of them had ever really been picked.

  Enid didn’t feel like standing there anymore, herself ripening. She felt like walking toward the woods. And so she did. She followed the boy’s path to Mano’s cabin, but very, very slowly.

  48.

  There was already enough flour, sugar, and eggs to make a half dozen pie crusts in Zuzu’s shopping cart, next to some bananas and a loaf of bread, when she accidentally wandered into the bright lights of XO Meats’ meat department.

  The Butcher was cutting off the head of a pig with his back to Zuzu when she asked him where the birthday candles were. She didn’t know when Mano’s birthday was, but she thought it would be fun to put the candles in the pie.

  “Excuse me,” started Zuzu.

  “Zuzu?” The Butcher said her name before he even turned around. The way he said her name was very peculiar to Zuzu. It was entirely possible he would have known she had been missing for three days, but it seemed very odd to her that he, of all people, would care. Other than her conversation with Vera earlier that day, the way The Butcher’s voice said her name was her first real indication that anyone knew she had been missing at all.

  “Oh, thank god, you’re ok!” The Butcher dropped his butcher knife, and nearly skipped around the side of the counter to give Zuzu a long hard hug. He was still wearing his apron, which was wet with fresh blood and bits of raw flesh from around the dead pig’s head.

  In his arms, Zuzu felt the overwhelming sense of his relief. It was in the way that his hands pulled her shoulders and the back of her neck into his chest, and the way his chest pushed into the top of her head. She felt his hot breath quicken in her hair. “Yes, I’m ok. I’ve been just fine. Can you tell me where the birthday candles are?”

  The Butcher let go, but not to return behind the counter. He wanted to look at her. He wanted to see if any part of her was still missing. Zuzu looked down at herself, too, to validate The Butcher’s examination of her, but all she could see were the smears of blood that he left behind from his apron, and a pig eyelash, on the white button-up shirt of Mano’s that she was wearing.

  “You know, your mother and I have been so worried while you were gone. I was worried that you were hurt, or that you wouldn’t ever come back.”

  “My mother and you?”

  “Yes, you didn’t tell anyone where you were going. And Inez came here and told me everything. Then together we looked all around the city for you.”

  It then occurred to Zuzu why her mother had enlisted the help of The Butcher in her search. Zuzu now regretted her little lies, and she just wanted to run away again, out of XO Meats without getting candles for Mano.

  “Well, I suppose. I certainly didn’t tell you where I was going. Look, forget about the candles. I’m just going to leave...”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was dead and then I came back to life,” said Zuzu sarcastically.

  The Butcher laughed. “You’ve always been so funny, Zuzu.”

  “I have?”

  “Look.” The Butcher got a serious look on his face. “Your mother told me all about how you feel about me. I want to tell you something very important. I feel the same way about you, too. Every time you’ve ever come in here, even when you were a young girl, asking for a cut of meat, or this or that, I’ve always been able to tell that you really wanted something else, something more. I want something more, too. And now you’re a woman, Zuzu.”

  Zuzu was disturbed by The Butcher’s sudden sentiment, but she was intrigued by his perception of her. “You think so? You think I’m a woman.”

  “Yes.” He looked at her again, at her whole body. Then he squinted his eyes. “These lights, the lights of this store. They give me headaches. I chop and chop, weigh things on the scale, clean things, but the lights get to me. They’re bright and white, and they hum like an insect. When you walk in, Zuzu, it’s like the lights, they dim, you know? They dim and I can see, and the pain in my head floats away.”

  No one had ever said anything quite so loving to Zuzu before. She could be sure that she didn’t love The Butcher. She knew nothing about him. And he was a man, and men, in general, were the kind of people that she had no way of falling in that kind of love with. She knew at least that about herself. But still, she didn’t walk away from him right away either. She wanted to hear a few more of his words. Maybe he loved her. Maybe this is what love felt like when it was returned. Maybe he felt that dull pain of love that Mano had described for her. Even though it wasn’t her love, something inside of Zuzu wanted to be near it, even if just for another minute.

  The Butcher hiked up his trousers.

  “Yeah?” Zuzu encouraged him to say just one more thing before she left.

  “Yes. I’ve been thinking about this a lot the past few days. Your mother and I think it would make a lot of sense if you and me, you know, gave it a shot.” The Butcher stood there waiting for Zuzu to say something. But she didn’t say anything. She was trying to swallow her laughter.

  Another customer did say something though. Irene Mire’s younger sister, who was wearing a white silk handkerchief on her head, said, “Do you have any duck livers?”

  Zuzu recognized the woman from her visits to Irene at The Good House.

  “No, we don’t have any duck livers today,” said The Butcher without ever breaking his gaze into Zuzu’s eyes.

  “I’m going to go,” said Zuzu.

  “No, I’ll walk you home.”

  “I’m not going to go home. I’m just going to go.”

  “Hold on, then. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to go get Inez. She needs to know you’re ok.” The Butcher started to walk out of XO Meats.

  Zuzu thought that she should tell him that her mother wasn’t at home, but she didn’t.

  As he left, he yelled back to her, “I missed you, Zuzu!”

  “You don’t know me, fool,” she said to herself.

  Now, in XO Meats alone, briefly, with Irene Mire’s younger sister, Zuzu walked back behind the meat counter. “He doesn’t have duck livers, but he has cow livers. Do you want one?”

  Irene Mire’s sister nodded yes, and Zuzu wrapped a liver from a cow in paper and handed it to her. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Zuzu smiled at her, and loaded a little more meat into her own backpack. “You know, I saw your sister today.” Zuzu decided not to tell Irene’s sister that she pretended to bury Irene in a grave.

  “You did?” Irene’s sister’s face lit up with pride.

  “I did.”

  “Isn’t she lovely? She’s doing well, no?”

  “Yeah, real well,” said Zuzu. “You know, I can ring you up from back here.” There was no cash register behind the meat counter, but Zuzu wasn’t planning to charge Irene’s sister for any of her groceries.

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “Of course. Did you find everything ok?”

  “No. I didn’t find duck livers.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Zuzu. “You know what, those cow livers are on us.”

  “That’s so nice of you.”

  “Would you like some strawberries, too?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Irene’s sister began putting her groceries onto the meat counter to be rung up. “How much
are they?”

  “They’re free,” said Zuzu. “In fact, everything is free today.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes, it’s our customer appreciation day. Thank you for being such a loyal customer.”

  “But this is only my first time here. I’ve just been visiting my sister at The Good House. Her name’s Irene. Do you know her?”

  Zuzu knew that this wasn’t Irene sister’s first visit to the grocery store, but there was no reason to correct her. “That’s even more reason to thank you. What’s your name?”

  “Mira. Mira Mire.”

  “Mira Mire, would you want to go to a grave with me and eat some strawberries?”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “No. Not really.” Zuzu put the contents of her shopping cart into her backpack, and walked with Mira through the aisle with the birthday candles. She put some birthday candles into her own backpack, too, then together they walked out of XO Meats without paying.

  “It’s customer appreciation day,” said Mira to the XO Meats cashier as they past. The cashier looked confused, then kept filing his nails.

  Zuzu helped Mira carry her bag a few city blocks behind XO Meats to The Shoveler’s Graveyard.

  Outside XO Meats, the sky had gone dark. The street lights had come on. There was no sign of The Butcher on the streets, returning from The Barber’s house. There was no sign of The Butcher looking for Inez. The streets were dark and quiet.

  Together, Zuzu and Mira walked into the gate of the graveyard. In the years since the graveyard had begun with June Good’s grave, The Shoveler had installed paved and lighted pathways so that people could visit their dead at any time. It was all he could do to compete with the megaplex that had become XO Graves. The Shoveler let the trees grow back, so that his graveyard looked more like the woods down by The Cure. Wherever a tree stump remained, there was a grave.

  As they approached June Good’s grave, Zuzu noticed that there was another tree stump right next to it, and a plot, covered with a heavy green carpet, just waiting to be filled. The stump read: “Vera Good is Dead / In Here.” But Vera’s not dead, Zuzu thought. She’s not in there. Zuzu thought this gesture seemed a strange foregone conclusion for Vera to make. And something about seeing this stump hurt Zuzu. It made her miss Vera, even though she just saw Vera a few hours ago. Zuzu felt the kind of ache Mano told her about, and that meant everything.

  Zuzu lifted the green carpet and set it on the grass next to the grave. The carpet was designed to resemble the color of the grass around it, but it was a different shade entirely. Zuzu and Mira then sat on the edge of Vera’s empty grave. It was the second time Zuzu sat in a grave with a Mire sister that day. They shared strawberries, and talked about death.

  “Has your sister ever been in love?” Zuzu asked.

  Strawberry juice drooled down Mira’s sticky chin. “I used to have a lot of sisters. Which one do you mean?”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. We did,” said Mira. “They all died in God’s Finger though. You wouldn’t remember God’s Finger. You’re too young.”

  “No, I remember. My father died in God’s Finger when I was just a baby. He used to be The Barber.”

  Mira touched Zuzu on her leg. “I’m sorry to hear about that.”

  “Are any of your sisters buried here?”

  “Who?” asked Mira.

  “Your sisters.”

  “Oh, my sisters are all dead now.”

  Zuzu watched Mira try to eat another strawberry. She couldn’t be sure that she was actually swallowing them because so much of them were spilling out of her mouth and down her chin. Zuzu untied Mira’s white handkerchief from her head, and tied it around her neck to catch all the red sticky juices spilling there.

  “Have you ever been in love?” asked Mira. The clarity of her question surprised Zuzu.

  “I don’t know. I would like to someday. I think maybe I love Vera Good.”

  “If you think maybe you do, then I think maybe you do, too,” said Mira. She slobbered on another strawberry.

  Zuzu was focused on adjusting Mira’s handkerchief just right.

  “Your father is coming,” said Mira with the strawberry filling up her mouth.

  “Excuse me?” Zuzu figured she was just hearing things. “My father’s dead, remember? I just told you that.”

  “Well, then who is that?” Mira pointed to the edge of the graveyard, where The Barber and The Butcher were opening the gate. “You said your father is The Barber. Isn’t that The Barber?”

  Zuzu looked around for a place to hide. “Yes, that’s The Barber,” said Zuzu. “But...” Zuzu didn’t feel like explaining. All the trees were too young and too narrow for Zuzu to hide behind. As she looked, she saw her mother walking toward The Barber and The Butcher from the other direction, from the woods. Zuzu had no idea why her mother would have been walking from the west. “Oh, fuck. Mira, I’m going to die now.”

  Mira nodded. “Ok, it was so nice to meet you.”

  Zuzu lowered herself into Vera’s future grave. “Will you move your legs for me?”

  “Of course. It’s the least I can do for the dead,” said Mira. “I haven’t been to a funeral for a very long time. Can I say a few words?” Mira moved her legs, and then struggled to stand up.

  “I would appreciate that. Thank you.” Zuzu pulled the green carpet over her head.

  “I’ll start by saying your name. But what is your name, dear?”

  “My name is June Good.”

  “Ok, June.” Mira cleared her throat and began saying a few words. “June Good gave me free strawberries,” she said.

  Zuzu listened to Mira from inside Vera’s future grave. She was crouched beneath the fake grass carpet in the pitch cold black of the grave. It felt good in there, quiet and safe. She thought about her mother pulling back the carpet and finding her there, and about what she’d say. Zuzu would tell her that she’d been hiding there for the past three days. That felt like a good plan.

  “Her father died in God’s Finger,” continued Mira.

  Zuzu pushed up the carpet just an inch and she could see her mother approaching. Inez was still walking from the woods in the west toward The Butcher and The Barber. In the distance, she could hear just enough of what they were saying: The Barber asked Inez where she’d been, and Inez asked The Barber where he’d been. Then The Butcher told Inez that Zuzu had returned to him, and that she had run away again because she couldn’t bear to go home, that she only wanted to be with him, that she wanted to be with him so badly that she could barely speak. Then The Butcher asked Inez where she had been, and Inez asked The Butcher where Zuzu was now. It was a long dumb parade of questions.

  Zuzu listened to Mira’s beautiful eulogy get interrupted by The Butcher. “Excuse me, we’re looking for a girl. She was in the store with you earlier.”

  As she listened from the grave, Zuzu was very upset that The Butcher referred to her as a girl, when just an hour earlier, he had referred to her as a woman. Being lost to him made Zuzu lose years in his eyes.

  “Oh yes, the young woman, you mean? She was very sweet. She gave me free strawberries! She’s dead now though.”

  “No, she’s not dead!” shouted Inez. “She’s my daughter. She was just in the store. You must be thinking of someone else.”

  “No. I’m thinking of the young woman. Her name is June Good. I miss her already.”

  The Butcher, The Barber, and Inez all looked down at June Good’s grave. “June Good is dead in here.” The Barber read the worn carving on the tree stump as if he was just learning to read.

  “You know, she really loved Vera Good very much. She told me so,” said Mira.

  “Yes, we all know about June and Vera. They loved each other very much. It’s not much of a secret anymore,” said Inez.

  Into the blackness of the grave, Zuzu stretched her legs. She rested her hands behind her head. She quietly pulled a banana out of her bag and peeled it back. In just a few minutes, he
r little funeral procession that included her mother, her step-father, her fool of a suitor, and Mira Mire was gone, back into the blacknesses of their own lives.

  About an hour later, when it was safe and quiet, Zuzu crawled out of the grave and walked west.

  49.

  Enid’s journey along Zuzu’s path to Mano’s cabin took three months. She walked so slowly that when people saw Enid on her journey, they thought that she was standing still. In the first month and a half of her journey, while she was still in town, she was like a statue, a municipal landmark. To some, she was a statue of a woman with a dress and a basket, memorializing historical Pie Time’s rich strawberry picking industry. To others, Enid was a statue honoring the survivors of God’s Finger. As she walked, some people set flowers at her feet, or ate sandwiches and smoked XO cigarettes while looking upon her from a spot in the grass or from the sidewalks next to her. Others brought their children to see her. “We used to be known for our strawberries. This is what a typical strawberry picker used to look like,” they’d say to their children. Or they’d say something like, “This is one of the survivors of God’s Finger. Isn’t she strong?” Their children would ask what happened to her and the parents would make something up, or just say something general about bravery.

  “There’s no such thing as survivors,” Enid always said, but no one ever heard her, because she only said it in her mind.

  Sometimes the children would crawl on Enid, step up on her slowly bending knees. They’d pull themselves up onto her shoulders. The parents would pull their children off of her, or just yell at them to jump down.

  Enid knew no straight path to Mano’s, no other path but the one that Zuzu took the night after she left Enid’s strawberry patch for the last time, and that path was winding, doubled back, and first went through XO Meats, The Shoveler’s Graveyard, and June and Vera Good’s graves.

  In terms of distance, it was a relatively unimpressive journey. But it was the most remarkable and most ambitious journey anyone in the history of XO City had ever embarked upon. For Enid, it was like taking the first steps on an epic hunt out over a frozen ocean.