Bearded Women (27 page)

“I guess that happened a few times,” said Auntie, “but I didn’t think it went on for long.”

I was angry they didn’t care enough to recall the rough times I had, or the stamina it took to live with them. I didn’t want much, just a little acknowledgment, a hint of identification, a few words to suggest they knew my childhood hadn’t always been easy. Was that too selfish?

After the bank fiasco I go to Mom and Auntie’s favourite Lebanese place for lunch. Don’t ask why. They ate here every Wednesday, ordered hummus and falafel and tabouli and got the whole meal for free because they brought people in. They had a hundred friends at the restaurant between the wait staff and regular customers, so four servers stop to hug me and say how much they’ll miss Mom and Auntie. I chew my pita and wonder what it would have been like if Auntie had shown up here or at the bank without Mom. How would everyone have looked at her? What would they have said after she left?

Before now I didn’t consider how much of her decision was a matter of pride. Was she worried that people would whisper of her selfishness? No one could fault her for wanting to live, but that would have meant taking Mom’s life early. Besides, without my mother, I don’t know who Auntie would have become. They were connected in more ways than just the body.

When I get home and the For Sale sign is in the front yard, I blow up at Dad. He’s in the kitchen making eggplant parmesan and doesn’t blink when I barrel through the door screaming that he can’t do this yet.

“Pretty soon no one will live here but me,” he says. “Unless you want to move back in.”

I pause because I like my drafty little efficiency apartment, but I want to come back here and remember the conversations Mom and Auntie and I had on the couch. I want to remember them tucking me into bed. I want to remember sitting outside their bedroom door at night with my ear tight against the wood, trying to hear what they said to each other when alone. I never could make out many words, but that didn’t stop me from trying to poke into that small important space.

“I’m worried you’ll regret selling the house later,” I say which isn’t entirely a lie.

“But this place is full of them,” Dad says. “Everywhere I go I feel them watching me.”

“Yeah,” says my uncle. He sits at the kitchen table with half a bottle of red wine.

“Then why don’t you leave?” I say to him.

“Your mom and aunt won’t watch me anywhere else,” my uncle says. “I want them to drive me crazy.”

This sort of truth can only be spoken by a half-drunk person.

I call my brother to tell him the house is for sale. I don’t expect a response, so I’m surprised when the doorbell rings just before seven and I find him on the front step.

“Are we having dinner or not?” he says. “We always eat at seven.”

I step to the side and he breezes past me.

“Where did you come from?” says Dad.

“Want a drink?” says my uncle.

“Sounds good,” says my brother and grabs a wine glass from the cupboard. At dinner we talk about everything but the For Sale sign in the front yard. My brother says the eggplant parmesan is great. My dad says he should come over more often. My brother says he might.

After dinner my brother follows me to my bedroom. I’m not expecting this. We sit side by side on my bed. I’m still not sure why the hell he showed up.

“How’s Jen?” I say.

“History,” he says.

“She was too annoying?” I ask.

“She thought I was too annoying,” he says. “I was with her for two fucking months. She was pretty cool.”

A compliment like that from my brother is close to a marriage proposal.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That sucks.”

My brother rubs the blanket between two fingers and doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“Why the fuck didn’t Auntie think it was worth it to stay around?” he says.

“She didn’t want to live without Mom,” I say.

“What about us?” yells my brother. “Didn’t she think we had fucking feelings? Didn’t she think we’d want her to be alive?”

“Well, yeah,” I say, “but living without Mom, it would have been—”

I pause. Then I start crying. He’s asking everything I want to ask. That’s why it hits me then, this overwhelming loneliness, the kind you feel when you’re in a crowd of strangers getting shoved back and forth, surrounded by people, and totally isolated. Somehow being alone in a crowd is a million times worse than being alone by yourself. It makes the knowledge of your isolation worse.

That’s what my aunt would have had to deal with every day.

“Fuck,” says my brother. “I’m sorry.”

“They’re dead,” I say. “We’re supposed to fucking cry. That’s what you do after someone passes away. It’s fucking normal.”

I’ve never seen my brother cry. Even now I don’t know if that’s what he’s doing, but he wipes his eyes with his sleeve and pulls me close in a hug and I let my body shake against his. The house dissolves, and the only thing I feel is my heart beating in my fingertips and my brother’s heart beating against my shoulder, the rhythms regular and strong and almost in sync.

“Bianca’s Body” first appeared in
Hayden’s Ferry Review
, 38 (2006)

“The Shell” first appeared in
Nimrod
, 52.1 (2008)

“Mr. Chicken” first appeared in the online edition of
PANK
, 5.06 (2010)

“Cyclops” first appeared in
Indiana Review
, 31.1 (2009)

“Seventeen Episodes in the Life of a Giant” first appeared in
CutBank
, 69 (2008)

“Snakes” is original to this collection

“Ears” first appeared in
Guernica
, 15 July 2010

“Combust” first appeared in
North American Review
, 295.2 (2010)

“Three” is original to this collection

“Butterfly Women” first appeared in
Oyez Review
, 38 (2011)

“Markings” first appeared in
Clackamas Literary Review
, Fall 2011

“To Fill” first appeared in
North American Review
, 292 (2007)

“Skin” first appeared in
Cream City Review,
31.2 (2007)

“Holes” first appeared in Nimrod, 53.2 (2010)

“Things I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You” first appeared in
So to Speak
, Spring 2011

“Mothers” first appeared in
Gulf Coast
, Fall 2011

A large trophy and several gold stars go to my parents, who have been my writing cheerleaders since I was six years old and started dictating stories to my dad. A lifetime supply of pens, coffee, and diet Dr. Pepper go out to Lawrence Coates and Wendell Mayo, my creative writing professors at Bowling Green State University. They read early versions of many of these stories, and their comments were instrumental in the revision process. Several gallons of mint chip ice cream go to my husband, Tristan, who was my editor even before we were dating, and who still suffers through the first drafts of everything I write. An attractive Chinese paper lantern goes to my Women’s Studies professor, Jeannie Ludlow, whose course “Theories of Othered Bodies” launched me into doing much of the research I performed while writing these stories. Many hugs and ten pounds of Gummi worms go to my sister Kat, who shares my sense of humour and is the only woman I know to have knit herself a beard. Finally, a silver shower of gratitude goes to the literary magazine editors who first published several of the stories in this collection.

Teresa Milbrodt received her MFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University, and her MA in American Culture Studies from the same institution. Her stories have appeared in numerous literary journals, and several have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, where she lives with her husband, Tristan, and her cat, Aspen. When she’s not conjuring gorgons and cyclopses at her laptop, she enjoys cooking, sewing, and questing for the perfect cup of coffee.