One month, two months. After the third month with no word, Bastien stopped asking about her. She’d missed his tenth birthday. There was a party at the bowling alley down the street. A lot of people showed up. Lots of balloons and pizza and streamers. It was one of the worst days of my life.
Milo bought gifts haphazardly and with very little thought: sports equipment Bastien didn’t want and video games he already owned. They were the kind of gifts my own father would have bought for Milo. The kind of gifts that said I know nothing about you; you’re a part of my life I ignore and your birthday means that little to me. I took everything back and exchanged it for the stuff Bastien actually asked for. I put Milo’s name on the front, barely restraining myself from writing Brynn’s alongside it. Hopeful she’d remember her son’s birthday and show up.
We served cake and half-melted ice cream. Nine kids came and bowled three rounds. I handed out tokens in little Dixie cups to play the outdated arcade games: Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga. When we were growing up, Milo’d had two birthday parties there and I’d had one. Brynn and I’d taken so many pictures in the photo booth we could’ve papered a wall with all the photo strips.
I hated being around Milo’s wallowing, but I couldn’t stand to be alone. In my apartment I sat up all night drinking and watching TV, praying I’d hollow out and stop caring. Every place that used to feel comfortable to me just felt filled with Brynn. Every place in town held a memory. The movie theater where she’d barfed Sno-Caps. A gas station parking lot where we’d gotten strangers to buy us lime-flavored wine cooler. There was no escape.
I spent all my free time at my parents’ house with the kids and used them as a distraction. We built forts, played in the sprinklers, wandered the graveyard. My mother said nothing, just stared at us with sad eyes and made too much food.
When I was over there, I found myself looking for traces. Clues. Brynn wasn’t the kind of person who’d kept a diary. She liked shouting her feelings at the top of her lungs so everyone could experience them with her. I knew every bad thing she thought about anyone, including myself. No one knew her better than I did, but I couldn’t think of a single way to reach her.
Her mother had moved down to Boca a year after Brynn and Milo got married. They weren’t on speaking terms. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I snuck her number from my mother’s address book and called. As the phone rang I prayed Brynn would be the one to pick up. Knew I’d be able to tell it was her even by the way her breath touched the receiver.
A man answered. He sounded boyish, even for Brynn’s mother, whose taste in husbands ran toward half her age.
Can I speak with Marsha?
Who’s calling? The voice was sullen, kind of defensive.
Tell her it’s Jessa-Lynn.
There was a pause and the tone brightened. Hey. Jessa. It’s Gideon.
The last time I’d seen him was before he’d hit puberty and still sounded like a chew toy someone had stepped on. Brynn’s little brother—half brother, I amended, just like Brynn would have done.
Is your mom there?
Nah, she’s at work. Probably won’t be back till pretty late tonight. You know Mom.
The day stretched out in front of me like an endless nightmare. Even if he gave her the message, there was no guarantee she’d call back. Marsha Wiley was even flakier than her daughter. Could you give her my number? I need to talk with her.
There was laughter in the background; maybe a television set. Maybe the radio. He sighed. You can ask, you know.
I was too needy to pretend I didn’t understand what he meant. I went ahead and asked if they’d heard from her. I promised not to tell Milo. I’d have promised anything for an answer. Anything to explain why this had happened.
Not recently, he said. But yeah. She’s been by.
It was a careful response; one I’d anticipated. Is she okay?
She’s fine. The same Brynn.
More muted laughter, a door slamming. Was it her? There was no way to know. I dug my fingernails into my palm and focused on the burn.
I’ll tell her you called, he said, and then he hung up.
Wait. There was still work to finish. Wasn’t there always something?
Handfuls of hair littered the counter. My father had always called it “a woman’s crowning glory.” He’d told me never to cut mine, that it was as beautiful as my mother’s.
Gingerly I touched the places I’d torn fistfuls straight from the root, rough patches where tingling radiated from the skin. I’d torn two nails down to the quick and blood welled beneath the pinky on my right hand. My whole body jittered and shook. I pressed my face to the cool metal of the table and wept until I couldn’t breathe. Cried until my chest wanted to collapse.
When I was done, I wiped my face with the hem of my shirt. Gathering up the handfuls of hair, I separated the collected bundle into two sections and rolled them. Then I opened up the raccoon bodies and slipped a knot of my hair into each tiny stomach.
I drank one more beer and cried again. My eyes burned as if I’d rubbed sand in them. Wiped my face again, finished the beer. Threw out the empty.
Turning off the lights, I left the work half assembled on the countertop and fell asleep on the cot. When I woke the next morning, the raccoons were gone. My father had covered me with his Florida State sweatshirt, a huge thing that he always wore in lieu of a coat on the five occasions a year it actually dropped below sixty degrees in Central Florida.
He squeezed my shoulder, then cupped the side of my head with his warm hand. Pull up the hood, sweetheart. Your hair’s a wreck.
7
After the unveiling of the buffalo, Milo’s eyes looked glazed, as if he were trapped underwater. We both turned our attention to the TV set, which was playing a rerun of some crime show. On-screen, a woman sprayed luminol onto a linoleum kitchen floor. When an investigator turned out the lights, the room glowed like a radioactive chamber.
“It never looks like that,” Bastien said, cutting himself another slice of pie. “Way too bright.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked my brother. People milled around, acting as if there weren’t a gigantic buffalo covered in S&M props taking up half the living room.
“About what?” He picked at the crust of his egg custard until Lolee took his plate to scavenge the remains. I put my hands over her ears.
“About what just happened, you fucking dummy. Mom obviously had a breakdown.” I nodded vaguely toward the monstrosity, unwilling to raise my eyes above its broad sides, where the patent leather leg still dangled.
“It’s gonna be fine. Probably good for her, right? Get it all out of her system.”
It was the complete opposite of fine. My brother, the one with the insight and empathy to understand what people needed, couldn’t even be trusted to look at our poor mother and know that something had gone horribly wrong.
He stared at the TV, wiping his clean lips repeatedly with a folded napkin.
“You’re delusional,” I said. Lolee got up and moved toward the water buffalo and I snagged her back by a belt loop. “Go play outside,” I told her, pushing her toward the back patio.
“I’m with Aunt Jessa, Grandma has fucking lost it.” Bastien dug into his pie, crumbs clumped in the corner of his mouth. “Weirdest shit I’ve ever seen.”