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Authors: Sarah Cornwell
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idea what they’re looking at. “You have siblings?” Kandy asks.
I scrabble through the drawer of loose utensils for a corkscrew, planning to pretend I forgot that the wine bottles are screw-top, buying myself a moment to think. The impulse to lie is very strong. Yes, I had toddler brothers, but they died yesterday. I’m doing fine, thanks. No, the chairs are for my little cousins who visit sometimes from Trenton. Actually, our house has been rented for a movie set. But why should I lie? As far as my friends know, I am the kind of crazy where I punch boys in the face and climb roller coasters. Fun crazy, not sad crazy. I can tell them about my mother’s phantom baby rituals without implicating myself at all. I can tell them I am whoever I want to be, and then be that way.
“Oh, wow,” says Pam, and I turn to see that she is standing in the open doorway of the nursery. In contrast to the kitchen, I kept the nursery immaculate during my mother’s absence. I can’t pretend I did this only for her. The bars of the cribs gleam with Lysol lemon. I even ground my fists into the pillows to make the appearance of recent sleepers.
Pam looks at me critically. “Are they out? With your mom?”
“No,” I say. “I’m an only child. I told you, she’s crazy.” It’s easier to say it this time. I feel how much further I can go in this direction, and it is exciting. I am not her tiny bunny rabbit. “She had stillborn twins before I was born. She says she can see their ghosts.”
“And she believes it?” prompts Pam, opening the diaper closet. “She really sees them?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“That’s so fucked up,” says Kandy, and sighs happily. “So you want to watch the movie?”
Kandy and Pam look a little let down at the ordinariness of the rest of the house: wooden coffee table, cream chenille couch, some pictures on the walls, ceramic swan candleholders, scattered issues of National Geographic (my mother subscribes for me, for the pictures). Our curtains are made from old pink and gold saris, and Pam reaches behind the couch to touch them. Kandy says everything is nice . “Nice spider plant! Oh, nice place mats.”
We have gotten through all the chocolate and most of the movie—Michael J. Fox is hanging one-handed from the clock tower—when a key turns in the lock. I grab our wineglasses and throw them out the window behind us, followed by the bottle, and the tinkling shatter is masked perfectly by the loud creak of the front door. Pam and Kandy stare at me with puffed cheeks, containing their amused shrieks—again, I shock and surprise!—as my mother steps inside.
“Hi, girls,” she says casually, as if this is not the first time she has come home to anyone in the house but me and James. She turns and whispers out the door, which tells me that Rocko is standing just outside, and then she comes in alone and drops her purse on the floor. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you!”
This is not literally true. Since she denied my visions, I have begun to lie more and more about whom I see and what I do when I’m outside the house. Part of this is logistical; I am breaking rules and must not let on. But part of it is an amplified need for secrecy itself.
Outside, the wine soaks into the earth, and a tomato plant starts feeling dizzy. The movie’s epilogue unfurls, but my mother sits on the floor opposite the sofa, drawing focus. “Four is the right number for hearts,” she says, and she deals us in. “What are you girls up to this summer?”
“Nothing,” says Pam, “just chilling, swimming, hanging out with everybody.”
“Everybody?”
“Friends from Burling,” I’m quick to add, to paint an inoffensive all-female tableau.
“Tell me about yourselves,” she says to them, and nods along to their heavily censored descriptions of their homes, their families, their interests. As they talk, my friends turn toward my mother like plants to sun. The appearance of her deep
I scrabble through the drawer of loose utensils for a corkscrew, planning to pretend I forgot that the wine bottles are screw-top, buying myself a moment to think. The impulse to lie is very strong. Yes, I had toddler brothers, but they died yesterday. I’m doing fine, thanks. No, the chairs are for my little cousins who visit sometimes from Trenton. Actually, our house has been rented for a movie set. But why should I lie? As far as my friends know, I am the kind of crazy where I punch boys in the face and climb roller coasters. Fun crazy, not sad crazy. I can tell them about my mother’s phantom baby rituals without implicating myself at all. I can tell them I am whoever I want to be, and then be that way.
“Oh, wow,” says Pam, and I turn to see that she is standing in the open doorway of the nursery. In contrast to the kitchen, I kept the nursery immaculate during my mother’s absence. I can’t pretend I did this only for her. The bars of the cribs gleam with Lysol lemon. I even ground my fists into the pillows to make the appearance of recent sleepers.
Pam looks at me critically. “Are they out? With your mom?”
“No,” I say. “I’m an only child. I told you, she’s crazy.” It’s easier to say it this time. I feel how much further I can go in this direction, and it is exciting. I am not her tiny bunny rabbit. “She had stillborn twins before I was born. She says she can see their ghosts.”
“And she believes it?” prompts Pam, opening the diaper closet. “She really sees them?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“That’s so fucked up,” says Kandy, and sighs happily. “So you want to watch the movie?”
Kandy and Pam look a little let down at the ordinariness of the rest of the house: wooden coffee table, cream chenille couch, some pictures on the walls, ceramic swan candleholders, scattered issues of National Geographic (my mother subscribes for me, for the pictures). Our curtains are made from old pink and gold saris, and Pam reaches behind the couch to touch them. Kandy says everything is nice . “Nice spider plant! Oh, nice place mats.”
We have gotten through all the chocolate and most of the movie—Michael J. Fox is hanging one-handed from the clock tower—when a key turns in the lock. I grab our wineglasses and throw them out the window behind us, followed by the bottle, and the tinkling shatter is masked perfectly by the loud creak of the front door. Pam and Kandy stare at me with puffed cheeks, containing their amused shrieks—again, I shock and surprise!—as my mother steps inside.
“Hi, girls,” she says casually, as if this is not the first time she has come home to anyone in the house but me and James. She turns and whispers out the door, which tells me that Rocko is standing just outside, and then she comes in alone and drops her purse on the floor. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you!”
This is not literally true. Since she denied my visions, I have begun to lie more and more about whom I see and what I do when I’m outside the house. Part of this is logistical; I am breaking rules and must not let on. But part of it is an amplified need for secrecy itself.
Outside, the wine soaks into the earth, and a tomato plant starts feeling dizzy. The movie’s epilogue unfurls, but my mother sits on the floor opposite the sofa, drawing focus. “Four is the right number for hearts,” she says, and she deals us in. “What are you girls up to this summer?”
“Nothing,” says Pam, “just chilling, swimming, hanging out with everybody.”
“Everybody?”
“Friends from Burling,” I’m quick to add, to paint an inoffensive all-female tableau.
“Tell me about yourselves,” she says to them, and nods along to their heavily censored descriptions of their homes, their families, their interests. As they talk, my friends turn toward my mother like plants to sun. The appearance of her deep
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