mother said, “I have a Persian carpet in the living room. Perhaps you’d like to shit on it.” Then she stood, put her napkin on the table, and left.
“Lisa,” Amanda said, clapping her hand on my shoulder. “You can come over for dinner anytime you want.”
Mama loved to camp in the summer. She would wake me early, and we’d sit outside our tent and listen. My favorite place was in Banff. We camped by a turquoise lake. Mama made bacon and eggs and pancakes over a small fire. Everything tasted delicious. When we were in Banff, Mamawas happy. She whistled all the time, even when she was going to the bathroom. Her cheeks were apple-red and dimpled up when she smiled. We hiked for hours, seeing other people only from a distance.
“Imagine there’s no one else on earth,” she said once as she closed her eyes and opened her arms to embrace the mountains. “Oh, just imagine it.”
When we broke camp, we’d travel until Mama felt the need to stop and settle down for a while. Then we would rent an apartment, Mama would find work, and I would go to school. I hated that part of it. I was always behind. I never knew anybody, and just as I started to make friends, Mama would decide it was time to leave. There was no arguing with her. The few times I tried, she gave me this look, strange and distant.
I was eleven when we went through the Badlands of Alberta, and while I was dozing in the back, the car hit a bump and Mama’s scrapbook fell out of her backpack.
I opened it. I was on the second page when Mama slammed on the brakes, reached back, and slapped me.
“Didn’t I tell you never to touch that? Didn’t I? Give it to me now. Now, before you’re in even bigger trouble.”
Mama used the scrapbook to start our fire that night, but it was too late. I had seen the clippings, I had seen the headlines, and I was beginning to remember.
That night I dreamed of Aunt Genna showering in blood. Mama held me until I stopped trembling.
“Rock of ages, cleft for me,” Mama sang softly, as she cradled me back and forth. “Let me hide myself in thee.”
I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. Mama squeezed herself into the sleeping bag with me and zipped us up. Iwaited for her to say something about the scrapbook. As the night crawled by, I became afraid that she would never mention it, that I would wait and wait for something to happen. The waiting would be worse, far worse, than anything Mama could do to me.
Amanda and Matthew had a game called Take It. The first time I played, we were behind a black van in the school parking lot. They stood beside me as I rubbed a patch of skin on my calf with sandpaper until I started to bleed. The trick to this game is to be extremely high or just not give a shit.
Amanda squeezed lemon juice onto my calf. I looked straight into her eyes. “Thank you,” I said.
Matthew pulled a glue stick out of his schoolbag and smeared it on my calf. “Thank you,” I said.
Back to Amanda, who had been poking around in the bald patch of earth by the parking lot and had come back with a hairy spider as large as a quarter. It wriggled in her hands. Fuck, I thought. Oh, fuck.
She tilted her hands toward my calf. The spider struggled against falling, its long, thin legs scrabbling against her palm, trying to grab something.
Long before it touched me, I knew I’d lost. I yanked my leg back so that the spider tickled the inside of my leg as it fell, missing the mess on my calf completely. I brought my foot up and squashed it before anyone thought of picking it up again.
When I was twelve, I took the Polaroid picture Officer Wilkenson had given me to a police station in Vancouver.
In the picture, Aunt Genna and Officer Wilkenson are both blurs, but there is a little brown-haired girl in the foreground clutching a broom handle and squinting into the camera.
I showed the Polaroid to a man behind a desk. “That’s my Aunt Genna,” I said. “My mama killed her, but she’s not in the
“Lisa,” Amanda said, clapping her hand on my shoulder. “You can come over for dinner anytime you want.”
Mama loved to camp in the summer. She would wake me early, and we’d sit outside our tent and listen. My favorite place was in Banff. We camped by a turquoise lake. Mama made bacon and eggs and pancakes over a small fire. Everything tasted delicious. When we were in Banff, Mamawas happy. She whistled all the time, even when she was going to the bathroom. Her cheeks were apple-red and dimpled up when she smiled. We hiked for hours, seeing other people only from a distance.
“Imagine there’s no one else on earth,” she said once as she closed her eyes and opened her arms to embrace the mountains. “Oh, just imagine it.”
When we broke camp, we’d travel until Mama felt the need to stop and settle down for a while. Then we would rent an apartment, Mama would find work, and I would go to school. I hated that part of it. I was always behind. I never knew anybody, and just as I started to make friends, Mama would decide it was time to leave. There was no arguing with her. The few times I tried, she gave me this look, strange and distant.
I was eleven when we went through the Badlands of Alberta, and while I was dozing in the back, the car hit a bump and Mama’s scrapbook fell out of her backpack.
I opened it. I was on the second page when Mama slammed on the brakes, reached back, and slapped me.
“Didn’t I tell you never to touch that? Didn’t I? Give it to me now. Now, before you’re in even bigger trouble.”
Mama used the scrapbook to start our fire that night, but it was too late. I had seen the clippings, I had seen the headlines, and I was beginning to remember.
That night I dreamed of Aunt Genna showering in blood. Mama held me until I stopped trembling.
“Rock of ages, cleft for me,” Mama sang softly, as she cradled me back and forth. “Let me hide myself in thee.”
I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. Mama squeezed herself into the sleeping bag with me and zipped us up. Iwaited for her to say something about the scrapbook. As the night crawled by, I became afraid that she would never mention it, that I would wait and wait for something to happen. The waiting would be worse, far worse, than anything Mama could do to me.
Amanda and Matthew had a game called Take It. The first time I played, we were behind a black van in the school parking lot. They stood beside me as I rubbed a patch of skin on my calf with sandpaper until I started to bleed. The trick to this game is to be extremely high or just not give a shit.
Amanda squeezed lemon juice onto my calf. I looked straight into her eyes. “Thank you,” I said.
Matthew pulled a glue stick out of his schoolbag and smeared it on my calf. “Thank you,” I said.
Back to Amanda, who had been poking around in the bald patch of earth by the parking lot and had come back with a hairy spider as large as a quarter. It wriggled in her hands. Fuck, I thought. Oh, fuck.
She tilted her hands toward my calf. The spider struggled against falling, its long, thin legs scrabbling against her palm, trying to grab something.
Long before it touched me, I knew I’d lost. I yanked my leg back so that the spider tickled the inside of my leg as it fell, missing the mess on my calf completely. I brought my foot up and squashed it before anyone thought of picking it up again.
When I was twelve, I took the Polaroid picture Officer Wilkenson had given me to a police station in Vancouver.
In the picture, Aunt Genna and Officer Wilkenson are both blurs, but there is a little brown-haired girl in the foreground clutching a broom handle and squinting into the camera.
I showed the Polaroid to a man behind a desk. “That’s my Aunt Genna,” I said. “My mama killed her, but she’s not in the
Similar Books
