The Girl in the Flammable Skirt_ Stories - Aimee Bender [13]
When they returned, I asked my father how it was. He looked away. Sad, he said, fast, scratching his neck.
Did you cry? I asked.
I cried, he said. I cry.
I nodded. I saw you cry once, I assured him. I remember, it was the national anthem.
He patted my arm. It was very sad, he said, loudly.
I’m right here, I told him, you don’t have to yell it.
He went over to the wall and plucked off the black-and-white framed photograph of young Grandpa Edwin.
He sure was handsome, I said, and my father rested his hand on top of my head—the heaviest, best hat.
After we arrived home from the hospital, Hannah and I settled Grandma in the guest bedroom and our parents collapsed in the den: our father, bewildered, on the couch, our mother flat-backed on the floor, beginning a round of sit-ups.
Fuck if my mother is going to ruin my body, she muttered. Fuck that shit.
I brought a book on sand crabs into the living room and pretended to read on the couch. Hannah promptly got on the phone. No really! I heard her saying. I swear!
My father watched my mother: head, knees. Up, down.
At least you can do sit-ups, he said.
She sat-up, grit her teeth, and sat-down. Some good sperm, she said, nearly spitting.
It’s miracle sperm, my father said.
Excuse me, I said, I’m in the room.
Miracle? my mother said. Make it your dad then. Tell your fucking chromosomes to re-create him.
Her breasts leaked, useless, onto her T-shirts—cloudy milk-stain eyes staring blind up at the ceiling. She did a set of a hundred and then lay flat.
Mommy, I said, are you okay?
I could hear Hannah in the other room: She died in October, she was saying. Yeah, I totally saw.
My mother turned her head to look at me. Come here, she said.
I put down my book, went over to her and knelt down.
She put a hand on my cheek. Honey, she said, when I die?
My eyes started to fill up, that fast.
Don’t die, I said.
I’m not, she said, I’m very healthy. Not for a while. But when I do, she said, I want you to let me go.
I was able to attend my mother’s mother’s funeral. I kept close to Hannah for most of it, but when the majority of relatives had trickled out, I found my mother huddled into a corner of the white couch—her head back, face drawn.
I sat next to her, crawled under her arm and said, Mama, you are so sad.
She didn’t move her head, just petted my hair with her hand and said: True, but honey, I am sad plus.
Plus what I never asked. It made me not hungry, the way she said it.
She stopped her sit-ups at ten-thirty that night. It was past my bedtime and I was all tucked in, lights out. Before she’d fallen asleep, Hannah and I had been giggling.
Maybe I’ll have you, I said, stroking my stomach.
She’d sighed. Maybe I’ll have myself, she’d whispered.
That concept had never even crossed my mind. Oldest, I hissed back.
After a while, she’d stopped answering my questions. I prodded my stomach, making sure it was still there and still its usual size. It growled back.
I heard my mother let out a huge exhale in the den and the steady count: three hundred and five, three hundred and six, stopped.
Stepping quietly out of bed, I tiptoed into the hallway; my father was asleep on the couch, and my mother was neatening up the bookshelves, sticking the horizontal books into vertical slats.
Mommy, I called.
She didn’t turn around, just held out her arm and I went right to it.
My baby, she said, and I felt myself blooming.
We sat down on the couch, curled together, my knees in a V on her thigh. Her side was warmer than usual from the sit-ups, even a little bit damp. She leaned her head against mine and we both stared ahead, at the closed drapes that were ivory, specked with brown.
I’m hungry, I said.
Me too.
We stood and went to the refrigerator.