by Amber Sparks
Anyway, after Christmas was born, just before Cal left, Maggie fell asleep and fell right off the ladder at the grocery store while she was stocking. She can’t work anymore, so she gets disability, but it’s not very much money for three people. And she has this chronic back pain that makes her cry sometimes. It really sucks. Nothing helps except smoking weed, which is why she’s going to kill me when she hears the price is going up.
Sometimes I wish Ted Tyler wasn’t married, so he could come and take Maggie (and Christmas) away with him. He would treat her pretty well, I think. You can tell by the way he looks at her. But I don’t know what I would do then—maybe go live with Aunt Mina? Clean the ashtrays and listen to awful old-people stories? Anyway, Ted Tyler is married. His wife and Jasmine’s mom are friends, and they always throw these stupid jewelry things where you think you’re going to a party but really you’re just there to buy stuff. In fact, they’re throwing one tonight, which is why Jasmine is sleeping over at my place.
I hate when Jasmine sleeps over. I have to sleep in the same bed as Christmas, and somebody always picks that night to come home drunk and start yelling and waking up the whole park. And the ghost girl gets nervous when men start yelling, so she wraps around me like an electric blanket and talks a boring blue streak about harvest season when she was alive and Jasmine can’t see the ghost girl or hear her so I can’t even show her off like you’d think a ghost would be good for.
I’M CURIOUS ABOUT the ghost girl, too, in case you’re wondering how dull can I be? I know ghosts only come back to haunt the earth when something truly fucked up happens to them, and I’m not so sure I really want to know what happened to my ghost. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I’ve Googled murders and suicides and stuff and I mean, part of the problem is that I live in a stupid suburb and I don’t know where the ghost is from. She doesn’t seem to know either—she can remember all kinds of dull shit about milking cows and old cars without windshields, but she can’t remember many things about herself. She says it’s all been blurring for a long time.
So today I decide to take what I know and head to the library. Hey, I say to Ms. Lisa, my fave librarian. She’s read basically every book in the world and looks like a movie star, but she only dates women. I think that’s pretty brilliant, but in a town like this one, that makes men mad. And women too—Jasmine’s mother says she has “nothing against gay people” but that Ms. Lisa is “wasting her beauty.” I think she just says that because Ms. Lisa has better things to do than come to a Tupperware party.
Hey, says Ms. Lisa. She’s wearing a tiara today. I don’t ask. I’d date her, though. What do you need? she says.
I need to know about tragedy.
Ms. Lisa looks at me weird. Her eyes are huge, but she narrows them and asks, Fiction about tragedy? Novels? Short stories?
No, like true crime kind of tragedy, I say. Did anything bad ever happen around here to a young girl? Maybe my age or a little younger?
Ms. Lisa comes around the desk and takes my hand. I don’t mind. She looks real fucking serious, though. She takes the tiara off. Okay. Like glasses for the modern librarian. Are you scared of somebody? she says. Is there anything you’re afraid of, honey? You can tell me.
I don’t want to, but I pull my hand away. Naw, I say, but something about the way she asked has me way more scared now than when I came in. I just wondered if there were any ghosts around here, I try. Like for ghost hunters, you know?
Ms. Lisa’s eyes narrow even more, until they’re practically closed. There are ghosts in every town, she says, and shakes her head. But I wouldn’t go hunting for them.
TONIGHT THE ANDREWSES’ DOG SNOTTY, a big huge white dog that’s part wolf, gets loose and starts running around the park howling like mad. The two stupid Andrews kids, Tina and Angie, start running around after him, shouting brilliant things like, Here, Snotty! Snotty boy, come back! Snotty, we love you, Snotty!
Over in my bed, Jasmine starts giggling. She’s trying to hide it, burying her face in the pillow, but her whole body is shaking and I can tell.
Shh! I tell her. You’ll wake up Christmas. That just makes her laugh even harder.
I sigh loudly and turn over in bed. The ghost girl is suffocating me and I seriously wish she’d disappear for one damn night. Jasmine always does this. And tomorrow morning, she’ll tell her mom and dad all about the trashy mobile home comedy.
It’s not that I want her life. Horses and wall-to-wall carpeting and a perma-tan mother? No thank you. It’s just that I don’t want my life to be amusing. I don’t want my life to be small and funny and disposable.
We could go to your place, I tell Jasmine. We could sneak out and go to your place and watch some horror movies on Netflix. Jasmine hates horror, and she thinks fantasy is stupid. Why would I want to read about things that aren’t even real, she always says.
Real life is boring, I always say. Don’t you ever want to escape?
Every damn day, she always says back. But when I do, I’ll do it for real.
THE NEXT MORNING, Maggie takes me and Jasmine and Christmas out to Denny’s for breakfast. The ghost girl doesn’t come—she seems to have her own shit to do some days—but it’s still a total disaster, as it usually is when Christmas goes anywhere. She spills her Coke all over the table and screams because she has to sit in a booster seat. I don’t blame her—it’s one of those hard brown plastic ones, and it’s got some kind of sticky goo all down one side of it. I order a Grand Slam and eat every single bite, dipping my sausage links in the syrup over and over again until they’re nice and saturated. Jasmine glares at me because she says she’s watching her weight and I don’t have to. I’m straight like a pencil. I wish I had a figure like Jasmine, though I wouldn’t want all the attention she gets from the senior guys just because her boobs are huge.
AUNT MINA IS in her office, chain-smoking as usual, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” playing very softly in the background while she sits there typing. She loves old country music, Aunt Mina. She can’t get enough Tammy Wynette and Crystal Gayle.
I have been told to march myself right over to Auntie Mina’s and keep her company. I am totally horrified by this direct order from Maggie, and only the slightest bit of pity makes me ride my bike past Jasmine’s and on to Aunt Mina’s. Especially since Jasmine has just texted me to see if I want to go ice skating, which I do. Damn. Entertaining crazy old lady, I text back. Sorry.
Mina stops typing for a second, and spins her chair around. She jams a cigarette between her lips and waves her hands at me. Here, what are you doing? Stop playing with your phone and get me my lighter, she says, and I dig it out of her crusty old purse. There are a million balled-up Kleenex in there. So you know, she starts, I have lung cancer.
I just kind of stare at her, not sure if she’s kidding. I mean, she must go through three or four packs a day, so I guess I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe it’s mean, but I have to ask, For real?
She squints her eyes at me through the smoke around her face, as if I might have turned into someone else there for a second. Yes, for real. I found out a few weeks ago. She takes a deep drag off the cigarette and blows smoke out of her nostrils in this totally dramatic, gross way. She reminds me of a character in a Chekhov play. You know, the ones that always seem to be living about forty years in the past? But she’s not Russian. She’s from Nebraska, and her family came over from Iceland, if you can believe that. I mean, who moves here from Iceland? Are there even people there?
Jesus, so why don’t you quit smoking, then? I don’t mean to say it, but it’s out of my mouth before I realize.
She does that squint thing again. She’s got some crazy wrinkles, Aunt Mina. When she squints they come out in big dents all over her yellowy face. Oh, right, I’m going to quit now, she says, and laughs. It’s already killed me—what else could it do to me? Then she gets this really serious look and turns so she’s facing me. She smells like old people: that stuffy, decaying, B.O. smell. I don’t want to look at her, so I pick up a lit
tle ballerina statue she has sitting on the coffee table. It’s one of those stupid statues where the figures are doing adult things, like dancing and getting married and holding babies, but they have little-kid faces with great big eyes. Mina has a whole lot of those.
Put that down, she snaps. That’s valuable. I put it down and sigh loudly.
Have you told Maggie yet? I ask.
No, she says, and I don’t know that I will.
That makes me mad. I mean, Maggie’s no angel, but she’s had a fairly shitty life and this is just going to be another shitty blow in it. And I think she deserves to know that her own ex-mother-in-law is dying. So, naturally, I tell Aunt Mina that.
She stubs out her cigarette and puts both her old spotty hands on her knees like she’s steadying herself for something. I’ve never seen so many rings on one set of hands. She does the serious look at me again, and again I have to look away and quick pick up the stupid big-eyed kid statue again, like it was the most interesting thing ever on the planet. Oh, wow. Look at the way somebody painted the tiny eyelashes on by hand. What a total fucking waste of time.
Oh, honey, she says. She has not ever for real ever called me honey before. I’m leaving everything to you, she says. The house, my money—all of it. You’re the only one who’ll ever amount to anything—maybe you can use it to go to college, huh?
You know how people in movies are always dropping things when they get surprised? And you’re like, Yeah, right, who does that? I dropped that big-eyed ballerina kid statue so quick the thing shattered into forty million pieces.
I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO tell anybody. Aunt Mina said so. Not yet, anyway. I try to be good. But I really do want to tell Jasmine. I want to tell her that with my money, she won’t have to worry anymore about her horrible mother or her messed-up brain. We’ll have enough money to leave this town behind and head for L.A. or New York or someplace, be real people somewhere. Make good the way my mom and Maggie never did. Stop getting stuck. Maybe I’ll tell Jasmine I love her, that I always have, you know? Maybe the ghost girl will come with us, too. Maybe she’s as ready to move on as we are.
Then she’s here, the ghost, saying Hurry hurry, and I think damn I guess I’m right, this chick is in as much of a hurry to leave this place as me. Yeah yeah, I think at her, but her power is a wind, is a huge muscular wind flying me forward, like she’s never done before, and I feel scared and small and dangerous all at once. She’s pushing me toward Jasmine’s, so fast the fields and chain stores blur into one brown smear, kind of apt I think haha but I am suddenly there like some seven-league boots and before I can freak out properly I see the car, Mr. Pete’s car, and he’s putting something in the trunk. Hurry hurry, says the ghost. It’s almost too late. I rush to the trunk and Mr. Pete freezes, and I look and it’s Jasmine, tied up and struggling, and her eyes are so scared, holy fucking shit what would you do, and Mr. Pete starts toward me and I think Oh shit I’m dead, we’re dead but the ghost girl pulls my voice out like yarn into a thick, tight scream, on and on, unwinding until the neighbors start outside. Mr. Pete is stuck still, his trunk up, his legs rooted, and the sirens scream and Jasmine is free, is sobbing, is on the ground saying I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean it and her mom is there crying too like I didn’t even know that bitch could cry actual tears and everything just seems to go on and on like none of it is ever going to stop. The ghost girl holds my hand, electric fist in mine, and I can hear her thinking It’s okay now, but of course it isn’t. What kind of tragedy is this? It’s not grand and operatic at all; it’s just awful, just like all the other awful hurts that happen to people like us.
This is not the kind of surprise where you drop things, or jump up and down, or faint, or even let your jaw fall like characters in books. This is a different surprise. This is the kind of terrible surprise where you just sort of stand there, doing nothing, holding your hands in fists. This is the kind of surprise where your insides quietly eat each other, and your brain goes dark and red and sad.
A Short and Slightly Speculative History of Lavoisier’s Wife
LAVOISIER’S WIFE WAS A CHEMIST; OR RATHER, LAVOISIER’S wife was a chimiste: from the Latin alchimista; see also “alchemy.”
Lavoiser’s wife was a chimiste, a term first used cattily, contemptuously—a term first linked with palmistry, sophistry, casuistry. The OED seems to be telling us, wink wink nod, that chemistry once held hands with charlatanism. But! Lavoisier’s wife! Was, in fact, a mover and shaker in chemistry’s side business of buying respect. (R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to ions and she!)
Lavoisier’s wife was buried in 1836 in Père Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris, alongside her husband. Did You Know: Pere Lachaise was the very first modern cemetery in Europe? Not the kind chained to the church, with the best bodies piled up under the altar—but the smooth green lawn, Elysian Fields-ish kind that a respectably diverse, even irreligious citizenry might be interred in?
Lavoisier’s wife was rather modern, in a century where modernity and superstition were two ends of a long, tattered rope bridge.
Lavoisier’s wife—not time, not contemporaries—secured his place in history. (As is, must we point out, so often the case?)
Lavoisier’s wife, once upon a time, went out to lunch and when she came back her husband and her father had both been eaten by a savage, starving wolf.
Lavoisier’s wife was a woman, yes, and a character of courage, yes. And as such, was undaunted by the state-sanctioned murders of her husband and her father, and by the seizure of her husband’s papers during the Reign of Terror. And by some other threats made at her and toward her by Friends of Marat.
Lavoisier’s wife said, Screw these revolutionary assholes.
Lavoisier’s wife held up a glass to show us not everything about the French Revolution, or indeed any revolution, was enlightened.
Lavoisier’s wife knew that reactionaries are often, well, reactionary.
So Lavoisier’s wife wrote a preface. The preface was to accompany his final work and memoirs, and was basically a middle finger to his contemporaries, whom she blamed for his death.
Lavoisier’s wife was like, Do you see me over here writing this preface?
Lavoisier’s wife was like, Do you see me over here demanding the return of my husband’s papers?
Lavoisier’s wife was like, What are you going to do to me? Which was quite brave, because she certainly knew exactly what they could do to her.
Lavoisier’s wife had no more fucks to give.
Lavoisier’s wife was called Marie-Anne, and in full Marie-Anne Pierrette Lavoisier, née Paulze, but for the purposes of this narrative she shall be known as Lavoisier’s wife. This is not intended to strip her of her humanity or personhood, as a woman; rather, it is meant to focus a tight and somewhat ironic spotlight on the role she will play in her husband’s drama, and to signal (wink wink nod, as the OED would do) her eventual and historical erasure from it.
Lavoisier’s wife eventually married a second time, a man named Benjamin Thompson. Or if you want to get fancy, call him Count Rumford. But whatever you call him, know that this is not the end of one love story and the beginning of another. (And indeed, life rarely is.)
Lavoisier’s wife remained Lavoisier’s wife, that is to say, she did not change her old married name to match her new husband’s. Interesting, as polite society said.
Lavoisier’s wife apparently really pissed off Count Rumford, what with her refusal to take his name and also her general absolute devotion to her first husband’s work.
Lavoisier’s wife apparently liked to tell stories—sooooooooo many stories, as Rummy would say—about her dead husband and the good times they had together, doing chemistry stuff. Sure, it was probably kind of annoying. But you know, when someone’s husband gets decapitated in a revolution, you make allowances for them. But not Mr. Thompson, a.k.a. fancy-pants Count Rumford. Nope. He complained, like an asshole. And this did not go over well.
Lavoisier’s wife probably said somet
hing like, Oh, Mr. Thompson, didst thou discover phlogistan? Dost thou even know what phlogistan is? Yeah, prithee I did not think so.
Lavoisier’s wife probably didn’t say exactly those words, but you know, we want to give the sense here that we are waist-deep in the past. At least ankle-deep.
Lavoisier’s wife is an important historical personage, and in restoring her reputation, we do not want to give the impression that she was a contemporary woman. Understandably, that would be false. Lavoisier’s wife was without doubt a helpmeet, or would consider herself so. And though she was herself an accomplished woman, it was her husband she would help make famous.
Lavoisier’s wife did not sound like a sitcom character, of course. We are sorry to have previously given that impression. History does not record any extraordinary level of sassiness on her part.
Lavoisier’s wife, perhaps, may have sounded more like her rough contemporary, Charlotte Corday. Corday, though a bit younger, was also from a good family, convent-educated.
Perhaps then they could have been friends, had Corday not been, you know, guillotined on the Place de la Révolution. Maybe they could have started a zine, could have conducted their own chemical experiments. Perhaps they could have discussed the practical problems of being broad-minded women when women were basically just broads. Perhaps they could at least have had coffee and croissants and bitched about the nuns.
Lavoisier’s wife, though—back to Lavoisier’s wife.
Lavoisier’s wife was an accomplished woman in her own right, as we implied before.