Family (17 page)

her knife waves.

“let’s go,”
she repeats, her voice more urgent, more insistent, this time.

“let’s go. there’s still another one.

we still have to do the other one.

junior saved her for us.”

the other one
.

the singer.

a life-size barbie,

a living doll.

a whole and perfect creature.

shuddering in the corner of the living room,

shivering in her thin nightgown.

pleading with us,
at
us—

pleading with her swollen, sea-glass eyes.

doomed.

61.

shelly stops, tips her head back, listens for sounds.

the air outside—

the air
beyond—

is calm, quiet,

smooth as the surface of a lake,

betraying none of the chaos of our

mission.

she regards me, shelly,

seems to

understand

how i suddenly

waver.

but.

i have quieted,

finally,

for
now—

swallowed the echoes of my

bottomless scream.

for
now.

this seems to satisfy her.

my
sister.

“let’s go,” she says.

“let’s spread the message.

the word.

the terror.

for Henry.”

when i was six years old,

i drowned.

since then, there has only been
always:

fault lines, fragments,

well-deep tide pools.

a pull, guiding me.

pushing, stretching.

applying pressure in every direction

but home.

since then, there has been only

the undertow.

at night, i dream.

at night, the afterlife washes over me,

stiff and bright.

probing.

i know it is the afterlife—

not
me,
not i, and certainly not, never
now—

i know that it is merely some formless half-life,

a premise,

a promise

of a
maybe-infinity.

i know this

from the slow, measured sound,

the metered mantra of mirror-mel:

mirror-mel has tips, tricks,

techniques.

she knows special secrets,

ways of squirming out,

of disentangling,

of secreting herself

away.

she has methods of extricating herself from

thick, heavy hands.

she tucks herself up,

folds herself inward,

collapses in on herself.

she slides easily out from under crushing warmth,

from smothering, suffocating weight.

from beneath. from the underneath.

mirror-mel has never known the smell of whiskey.

mirror-mel has no uncle jack, nor any

blank, empty mother.

but.

mirror-mel is not me.

she is the opposite of me.

she is an outline,

a suggestion of my shape.

and at night,

when uncle jack comes,

i am alone.

when i was six years old, i drowned.

i
was
drowned. i was

covered, stifled, smothered.

it was the first time.

it was:

terror,

sharp and bright.

it was:

whiskey breath,

roaming hands.

it was:

waves. swells. tidal shifts.

swift.

imperceptible.

but unmistakable.

it was:

infinity.

a moment without beginning or

end.

a moment of bloodlust.

of chaos.

a moment that swallowed me

whole.

when i was six years old,

i drowned.

for the first time.

was
drowned.

for the first time.

when i was six years old, uncle jack sealed his mouth against my own.

he gasped, flailed against me, struggled to resuscitate himself,

to breathe life back into his own eternity,

his own
infinity.

he split me open,

pressed himself into every hollow place,

pushed against me

so that there wasn’t room for me

,

no space, no safety

inside of my own skin.

i couldn’t speak,

couldn’t scream.

couldn’t swallow or

breathe.

couldn’t do anything but

drift.

but

dream.

awake,

i dreamed.

of:

oceans,

tidal waves,

tsunamis.

of:

chaos.

of:

abandoned cargo,

of sunken, rusted

treasure,

weighted down,

soaked and

solid,

rotting beneath the

surface.

of:

valueless artifacts,

set to spoil

beneath,

in the underneath.

when i was six years old, i thrashed against

heaping mouthfuls of stinging salt water.

i did my best to hold my breath,

to stave off the looming
infinite,

the
ever-after
.

i did my best to stay

tightly bound,

to stay

together,

alone.

and when i heard my mother

poised atop the staircase,

heard my mother

in.

out.>

know.

know, but un-know.

hear, but not-hear.

when i heard my mother

choose the either/or,

heard my mother

offer me up as a

,

heard her

decide to let me

drown—

that was

the precise moment—

the heartbeat,

the hair’s breath—

the

,

when i

shattered.

i fractured.

i shrank.

that was the split second

when i collapsed inward on myself,

spiraled off into my own

orbit.

blurred the edges of my own existence.

that was when i left my hollowed-out husk,

set off in search of the edge of the horizon.

embraced the chaos of
infinity.

surrendered to the

undertow.

when i was six years old, i drowned.

but i have always been broken.

my hands are streaked with blood that is not my own.

my hands are streaked with blood, and there is screaming.

somewhere in the house, there is a high-pitched, constant screaming that has, by now, dissolved into the sort of ambient white noise that a person could tune out, easily enough, if she were so inclined. canned horror, like you might find on a sound-effects recording, or at a theme-park haunted house.

voices. bodies. and panic.

so much panic.

i tune the shrieking, high-pitched panic, the shrill vibrato out, send it to a separate frequency, set it aside for the immediate future, as i tend to the issue of my stained, shaking hands.

how did they get this way?

i know the answer. i don’t want to know the answer, but these are things i can’t undo, can’t unknow.

my hands shake, the blood pooling into the crevices of my gnawed-down cuticles.

even now, amidst the chaos, i am struck by how i have my mother’s hands, though hers have never looked like this. would never look like this.

how strange to think that i should have my mother’s hands. since i no longer have my mother, a mother,

any mother.

how strange to think of what has become of me, of my half-life,

even of mirror-mel.

how unexpected to find one’s fault lines etched deep;

set in stone,

permanent.

how unexpected to discover that

the mirror-image remains

even after the curtain,

the veil,

the hazy woolen netting

has been

drawn.

how strange to think of what i’ve known—

of what i’ve come to know—

as
family.

Henry says:

everything belongs to everyone.

Henry says:

there is no
i.
no
ego.

no need for

parents.

but.

i did, i think.

i
needed.

i needed a mother.

needed more than just an outline,

more than the mere suggestion

of her self.

needed so many things

to fill myself

up.

Henry saw that.

He sees. everything.

and with my need

He makes Himself

whole.

Henry says:

there is only
family.

our family.

Henry is

and terror>

infinity.

Henry says there is no

belonging,

no
i
,

but:

Henry has us—

all the matchstick thin,

flimsy

paper-doll tracings—

all of the delicate, drowned

outlines—

all the members of our

family

to do

His

bidding.

Henry is the one who found the

singer

and the blank, important

man.

the singer struggles.

shelly has corralled her, wrestled her into the center of the living room, where she, leila, and junior have trussed the broken, battered china doll in twine.

bound, the singer surveys the scene, the carnage, the chaos. she passes flickering, fluttering pupils over the ruined man on the couch.

eyes wide with disbelief, round with dawning realization, she struggles.

she strains, breaks, thrashes against the current, digs her heels into the
now.
she heaves, hiccups, twists with pain, bright and swift.

she bleeds.

i listen for sounds.

crouched in the corner,

flattened against the sturdy stucco wall, i

focus.

i listen for sounds.

they come to me, unbidden.

choked, thick, drenched with helplessness,

they come to me.

unbidden.

the singer pleads, cries, begs.

she knows nothing of her husband’s broken promise,

nothing of our fractured family’s gravitational pull.

our orbit.

she
wants.

wants

life.

she moans. the sound is soft, but still unmistakable amidst the deafening mayhem.

it rises above the screaming, gaping, oozing chaos.

i hear her. shelly hears her.

there is no way to not-hear her.

she seeps.

from somewhere deep, someplace inescapable, she spills across the floorboards of her violated compound. she dissolves.

she is ephemeral. diaphanous.

she is, suddenly,
everything.

i shudder, stagger, heave.

i shut my eyes, open them again.

i take in shelly.

she hovers, poised above the singer, this

suggestion of a fantasy

who is little more

than a

husk of herself, really.

little more

than the remains of her own

half-life.

the singer is emptying out. hollowing.

maybe shelly is, too.

maybe. i think.

maybe we all are.

maybe this is our
now,
the
now
that we have finally come to,

collectively, pedaling furiously, foolishly.

paddling directly into the eye of the

storm.

shelly pauses, wipes the back of her palm against her forehead, leaves behind a streak of rust-colored blood, stark against the blank expanse of her pale skin.

she is marked.

she is endless.

she is forever.

she is
now.

and she is not my sister

anymore.

my hands are streaked with blood that is not my own.

my hands are streaked with blood that is not my own, and the horror-movie sound effects persist.

<…>

interference

white noise.

torrents of skin and bone.

skin and bone, and blood.

so much blood.

rushes, tidal waves, well-deep reflecting pools of blood, raging everywhere,

catching in every corner, flickering and taking hold like a thick, coppery fever.

leila does as Henry commanded: she scrawls symbols, secrets,

horror-story hieroglyphics all along the wall:

RISE

PIG

DEATH

HELTER-SKELTER.

she writes in blood

and laughs to see

the words form at her

hands.

junior holds the singer down.

shelly’s arm rises, the glint of her knife’s blade throwing a spark that arcs,

that glimmers, that gleams like a supernova

burning through the atmosphere.

sounds come to me, unbidden.

it takes a long time for a person to let go.

sometimes.

i shudder.

i swoon.

i stagger.

this
,

i realize—

it is my
either/or
,

my
half-life
,

my
underneath.

this moment is my witching hour,

my midnight tide.

i burn.

i melt.

i sink.

i drown.

bodies.
there are bodies everywhere.

and the bodies are broken.

we are
all
broken.

we are all supernovas.

black holes, disintegrating.

we are all:

crushing, pulling, recoiling,

unraveling.

we are all:

collapsing in on ourselves, like dying stars.

shelly calls to me.

i look up from where i cower, crouched,

to see her holding out her knife.

it is a suggestion, the knife.

it is:

an urging.

an invitation to join

my
family.

the knife is a call to

awaken,

to embrace

—to
embody—

the chaos.

it is a sound to spread the

message.

to
be
the message.

to be the love

.

the knife is a suggestion to step forward and out of my hollow husk,

to emerge beyond the outline of my own shadow tracing.

to be solid.

to be
self.

to become.

i reel.

i realize:

i have been left behind.

i have been broken.

i have.

always.

but.

this—

this
is my orbit,

my spiral.

my own
infinity.

my own

now.

and
now

i can

awaken.

arise.

i
can.

i have—

always—

contracted, recoiled,

refracted.

have always,

always,

wanted to patch the fault lines of my

cracked, jagged surfaces.

i have always wanted to staunch the waves of fever,

the rushes of heat.

infinity has always felt impossible to me.

there is nothing, after all, that doesn’t

end.

i have always been alone,

have always felt empty.

always.

still.

but.

still,

i have
now.

i
am
now
.

and

now
:

i rise.

breathe:

in.

and out.

now:

i am solid.

i am sturdy.

i am heavy as a smooth slate tombstone.

i am the opposite of antimatter.

i
am.

now
.

shelly calls to me.

leila cackles.

junior drips with
want.

the undertow beckons.

sounds come to me,

unbidden.

and
now:

i know.

finally.

finally,

i know:

i am
not
:

sister,

wife,

daughter.

not ephemeral.

not a paper doll.

i have no mother.

never had a father.

i am:

empty,

bottomless,

rudderless.

still.

yet.

yes.

i breathe:

in.

and out.

in.

and out.

and then:

i rise.

finally,

endlessly

—
always
—

at last:

my half-life rushes over me, fevered and thick.

i inhale, swallow deeply.

take in the washed colors of the

afterlife.

i see them:

the edges of the horizon, the mouth of the chasm.

the seams of my fractured body’s fault lines.

i see them so clearly

,

see the outline of each

as though each is a looming midnight

tidal wave.

there has never been a time that i was not drowning.

.

there has never been a time that i was not

adrift,

afloat,

pulled by an

invisible membrane.

an undertow.

there has never been a time that i was not haunted,

shadowed by a mirror-self,

cement-set

deep within my own

rotting half-life.

there has never been a time that i was not

set to spoil.

but.

still.

now:

my fault lines,

my fissures, my rivulets—

the scar tissue tracings that

seal up my fractured spaces—

they can entwine.

can bind.

can choke me,

cut me off,

tie me down.

they can.

or.

they could—

they
can—

be a lifeline.

now.

there has never been a time that wasn’t
now.

i know this, now.

now, i know.

there has never been a part of me

that existed only as a

photo negative.

only as a reflection.

only as an
either/or.

there is no such thing as mirror-mel.

no half-life version of my being.

there is only

my
self
,

here.

now.

alone.

damaged.

bruised.

fault lines, fissures,

scar-tissue tracings.

fractured, yes

,

but solid, sturdy, smooth as a slate tombstone.

lit from the inside

like a sliver of moonstone.

adrift,

but still

afloat.

still.

here.

now.

this is my
self.

this is my
now.

and so:

i blink.

i breathe:

in.

and out.

i reel.

i rise.

i glance at the rimless reflecting pools of

shelly’s dead-eyed gaze,

another not-mother, not-sister,

not-self, swirling in her own

whirlpool;

drowned, delirious.

she is
not
my shadow-self,

but rather,

a darkened cloud of potent, poisoned

chaos.

she
is.

and

i

can be

the

light.

i
can
.

there is

is>

a

lifeline.

a way to fight the tide.

a sliver of moonstone, lit from the

inside.

even here.

even
now
.

there is a foothold,

a path carved

deep within the cracks and crags

of the desert canyons.

and it is—

it can be—

mine.

Henry says:

there is no
before.

just
now.

an always, ever-spinning,

infinite

now.

but.

now:

alone,

without the premise,

the promise of

a
family,

i am: adrift.

but still: afloat.

i know that,

now.

now,

i know.

so:

in the
now—

from deep within the tide pools of

my own,

my
only

now—

i lunge forward, swift and sure.

snatch the knife from shelly’s clenched fist.

swallow against the glee

that spreads the corners of her mouth

from cheek to cheek.

in a frenzied,

fevered

burst,

i charge.

i swipe.

i slice

at the singer’s

binding.

i set her

free.

a blink.

a beat.

a hiccup.

the room turns over,

rolls inside out,

tilted by the power of my sudden

current,

swift and sure.

in a dazzle of stardust, the singer is

gone;

out the door and into the inky night,

streaking like a meteor.

she is a whisper, a wisp.

a cipher.

released from the riptide.

saved.

it is almost as though

she never even

existed to begin with.

i breathe:

in.

and out.

i listen for sounds:

the rhythm of my heartbeat

keeping time

against

the pulsing

of the

undertow.

i breathe.

i listen for sounds.

i come to
now
.

back to
now.

always,

infinitely

now.

i was a messenger.

i had a
family.

but

this—

this
is my

now.

and i am not

sorry.

the streams of worry

of fear

have begun to ebb

even beneath the constant pounding of

Henry’s pills.

even beneath

the raging tide

i have a moment

of well-deep

stillness.

and when junior starts—

when he steps

forward,

looming like a twister,

like an all-consuming

typhoon—

when he moves

toward me,

i turn.

feint forward,

uproot myself.

skirt him nimbly,

shift so swiftly,

so imperceptibly,

that in a

beat,

a blink,

a pulse,

within a momentary,

coiled pause:

i find

a rushing

current.

a wave.

slippery

but still

a foothold.

still a cloud-shape that will

guide me

toward the

horizon.

when i was six years old, i drowned.

and
now
:

i
swim.

my undertow tugs

like an invisible membrane,

guiding me to a lifeline,

toward a rushing stream,

a current,

a fresh, clean channel

that beckons

just beyond the boundaries

of the flimsy screen door.

i will mark a path of moonstone, i know.

i
know.

the singer is—

was—

stardust,

a whisper,

a wisp,

a cipher,

a ghost.

while i am merely

a

shipwreck.

sunken.

but

tides are guided

by the gleam of the moon.

and so am

i.

mirror-mel would say that

fractures,

fault lines—

that they follow you.

that
broken
is

forever.

infinite.

that shadows can’t be

shed.

mirror-mel would say that

magic

is only a

mirage.

but.

there is no such thing as
either/or.

no such thing as mirror-mel.

no half-life

and never—

not ever—

before.

there is only my

self.

here.

now.

rusted,

but still reaching,

guided by the gleam

of the moon.

so in the
now

i tear, fevered,

out the front door of this house,

charging past this moment,

streaking like a

supernova,

lighting up the atmosphere,

glittering

burning

throwing sparks.

the road beyond the canyon stretches far,

yawning black and open,

marked by scattered glints of moonstone.

a cluster.

a constellation.

a galaxy.

that is

mine.

this is the
now.

my
now.

this—

this
is my
after.

it
is.

my
before.

my
always,

i am:

broken.

but i am:

solid.

i am:

afloat

but i ride the pressing, churning current.

the tide.

i

swim.

i am a shipwreck,

sunken treasure,

lit by moonstone.

rotted,

rusted,

alight, aflight,

afire.

but:

i
have

chosen.

i
have.

this