{"id":15947,"date":"2020-04-01T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T06:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=15947"},"modified":"2020-04-01T01:29:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T06:29:28","slug":"yeti-hunting-on-mt-seymour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/15947","title":{"rendered":"Yeti Hunting on Mt. Seymour"},"content":{"rendered":"

My sister Madison did not sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

In childhood, I could fall asleep in pool floats, among the shoes in coat checks, in baskets of unwashed clothes, on staircases. Often I would wake in my bed or in the car, our mother having moved me. This sleep-teleportation felt like a type of magic. At thirty-four, I napped most afternoons and slept in most mornings, trying to cast a spell that would not cast.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was a year younger than Madison. We both had huge, wide-set eyes but hers had permanent rings of insomnia; we shared the square jaws, the rectangle noses, the light brown skin; we had the same elbow-length hair, brown, with bangs, hers tangled, almost bedhead, mine braided. I was pretty and gullible; she was wry and understated. In high school, Madison had had acne in raised lumps the size of raspberries all over her cheeks, so heavy they seemed to drag her eyes downward. With acne medication the redness had faded, but even in adulthood, she\u2019d had these red marks across her cheeks, the same size and shape as the electricity webs at the surface of science center plasma balls. These permanent lipstick kisses, gone malignant across her face.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think she took that surfeit of sleeping pills two years ago on purpose. Only, she needed the sleep and gave herself too much. Jason, her husband, who found her, thought she meant to do it. To Mack and Gracia, their children, we said that she had fallen asleep and had not woken up.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

Tuesday, near the end of October, I left work through oil-black downpour. Between sleeps, I worked at a Mountain Equipment Co-op, my first indoor job after years of daffodil farms and lifeguard chairs and, once, a luxurious ski hill. I shared a partitioned attic in the Vancouver North Shore with a soft-spoken, expressionless Belgian woman almost ten years younger than me. We had hung dried rhododendron flowers and lemongrass by the windows, a string of Christmas lights over the sofa, and spoke on occasional evenings making tea together in the kitchen our downstairs landlords had rigged together as if from junkyard parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I arrived home, Jason\u2019s car was in the driveway. He stood beside it, arms crossed. When he saw me, I tugged on a braid and half-smiled. I hadn\u2019t seen him in months, but he still counted, if discordantly, as a kind of brother. Jason was still Jason Jikihara-O\u2019Clare: he and Madison had agreed to hyphenate, so he\u2019d attached our surname to the end of his and left it there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was going to call but I thought it would be easier to explain in person.\u201d He dressed well, still, mostly in gray, but since Madison\u2019s death this had softened from button-ups and dress slacks to the turtleneck and checkered pants he had on. Softer all over: his hair reached his chin now, his cheeks looked fuller as if in post-cry bloat, the old scar beside his eye like a teardrop. \u201cHey. I\u2019m sorry to come over like this. I can see why you might need warning. I should have called. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing wrong, but I think I need your help, Maggie.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d I said. \u201cTell me how.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/p>\n

The twins would not stop kissing each other on the mouth. Gracia had started it at a birthday party, and now they would both initiate. Not at home, but in the bank, at school, anywhere they could garner stares. \u201cI should have ignored them the first time they did it, but now they think kissing gets them attention,\u201d Jason said. \u201cI know they don\u2019t mean anything by it. It wouldn\u2019t be so bad, but they\u2019re <\/span>so<\/span><\/i> twins. It\u2019s doubly creepy. You couldn\u2019t mistake them for anything but siblings. And they\u2019re eight now\u2014it isn\u2019t cute.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So Jason asked me to accompany them on a camping trip, at my earliest inconvenience, to help parent. The twins missed having a maternal figure. I said yes, of course I would, as soon as he wanted. So, right away. I brought Jason upstairs, and together we packed my rucksack. Back when Madison was alive, this was how Jason and I used to catch up on holidays, me packing or unpacking or helping with the laundry, late at night, in their guest room with its bevelled baseboards and cream-colored walls and aquamarine-tiled floor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason didn\u2019t wipe at the rain on his face. \u201cThey\u2019re really good kids. Really hardy, resilient.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I scrolled underwear and tucked them into my bag. \u201cI guess they have to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We had grieved the same grief for a long time: comfort came to us instinctively. I hugged him, an afterthought embrace. Drenched raincoat slickered puffily against my fleece. He had lost weight, now only a percentage of his previous self. My head felt full of wax, as if my ear canals formed a tunnel straight through my skull, nothing else in there. I had a feeling of usedness; Jason could at least have dropped by a week earlier to invite me, rather than showing up as if I had nothing else in my life. If he knew I didn\u2019t, he could pretend not to know. Still, I texted my manager that a family emergency would steal me away from work for the next three days. We\u2019d have two nights on the trip, then; three days to sort the children out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMadison used to hate excuses,\u201d I said. \u201cThe worst type of lie, because they were easy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot always lies.\u201d From the bathroom door, Jason hefted a toiletries bag and a toothbrush. I nodded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd irresponsible. And cowardly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCategorically, yes.\u201d He rubbed water off his own arms onto the bath mat. \u201cShe had good definitions, even when I didn\u2019t agree with them. World feels uncontained, now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

I slept in the guest bedroom, so we could leave early. When Jason made a decision, he tended to make it wholly, and wholly last minute. In the morning, my alarm felt like a freak accident. Jason and I went to the car; already, Mack and Gracia sat in the back seat with their hockey bags and ate granola from the box. Their hair had grown out much like Jason\u2019s, chin-length and shaggy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going hunting for sasquatches.\u201d Gracia said, staring out the open sunroof.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot hunting.\u201d Mack fiddled with the cloth buttons of his coat. \u201cWe aren\u2019t going to kill him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIs too. You can hunt for anything. Jason hunts for his keys when he loses them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut we didn\u2019t <\/span>lose<\/span><\/i> any sasquatch. Anyway, Jason told us last night. We\u2019re going to the mountains.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe I was wrong, but didn\u2019t Mack and Gracia used to call him Dad? Mack had on yellow nail polish that matched Gracia\u2019s eyeshadow, and they both wore baggy snow pants. Throughout the drive, Gracia filled her palms with liquid glue and let it dry between her fingers, then stretched it, one hand then the other. To give herself webbed fingers, allegedly. Both twins smelled of chlorine. Never before had I felt such a distrust of children; it was as if, after their mother\u2019s death, they had slipped on cheesecloth masks and drank potions and spoken to strangers and become new people, not of this earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did you decide on this trip?\u201d I said to Jason.<\/span><\/p>\n

He held the wheel loosely, as he might a sharp object. \u201cTwo nights ago. The twins love cryptids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cExcept any that come from bogs,\u201d Gracia said. \u201cThose we hate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re scared of them,\u201d said Mack. \u201cThat\u2019s not the same thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At times I thought Jason took advantage of my willingness. And that wasn\u2019t fair, if willingness stemmed from emptiness. \u201cNext time, let me know as soon as you know.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He said, \u201cI didn\u2019t want to disappoint you, in case the trip didn\u2019t pan out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not the sort of thing that would disappoint me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gracia leaned against the opposite window from Mack. \u201cMe neither. We\u2019re <\/span>going<\/span><\/i> to find a sasquatch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

When I woke up, we had begun our ascent of Mt. Seymour. I felt transported as a child, as if I had fallen into a wishing well or manhole or an underground beehive. Around us, evergreens slashed the kitten-gray sky from view. Occasionally, a falcon or a crow looped overhead. The kids snored in the back.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ll keep them away from other people, and they\u2019ll forget about the kissing?\u201d I said, hushed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA distraction, if we can.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey sleep better than Madison did.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think the only time I ever saw her properly sleep was right after the twins were born. And this one Christmas, too, she drank so much hot cocoa by the fire. Full REM. If there were other times they\u2019ll come to me, but I could count them on one hand. I\u2019ve always woken up a lot at night, so it was okay. I would go stay up with her at the window, or at the door. She was standing usually, did she ever do that when you were young?\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike a sleepwalker.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, like she was waiting for someone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I don\u2019t like that. I never thought of it like that.\u201d I pinched at my bangs.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said, \u201cWhen my family first moved from Japan, I heard about the tooth fairy. I was maybe five. In Japan, we didn\u2019t have her; instead, we\u2019d throw our teeth. At the ground, or in the air. It would depend which teeth. The Japanese tradition always made more sense to me. Teeth are all different enough to have different destinations. But\u2014I promise this is related\u2014I would pay the tooth fairy, because that\u2019s what I thought the North American custom was. Every time I lost a tooth, I\u2019d keep the tooth and put a quarter under the pillow. I thought it was a tip, that she had helped me lose the tooth so I was paying her. But my parents didn\u2019t know any of this. I don\u2019t think they knew about the tooth fairy, or if they did, they didn\u2019t care. By the time I was eleven and stopped believing, I\u2019d put twenty quarters under my pillow. One for each milk tooth. They\u2019d disappear when my mom washed the sheets. I wonder how she thought they got there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This was the longest I\u2019d heard him talk about himself at once, especially unprompted. I said, \u201cYou thought she\u2019d forgotten about you. The tooth fairy. That\u2019s sad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t sad. Tooth fairy isn\u2019t a common topic, not like Santa, and I had Christmases. Small ones, but that was just the way we did it.\u201d He had bluish divots under his eyes, and eyes like a newborn pup\u2019s\u2014perpetually partway closed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did you do with the teeth?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI kept them in a jam jar, I guess. I cleaned them off first. I think when I was fifteen or so I moved them into a fish bowl, with the teeth at the bottom and a little bit of sand and a decorative plant.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo fish, though, right.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I had two goldfish in there. They lived a few years, actually.\u201d In his thick button-up sweater, today he looked more college undergrad than father. I imagined fish food spiralling to the bottom of his fish bowl to rest among his teeth, a grotesque form of self-feeding.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

We had a campsite near the top of the mountain, with another occupied site through a copse of trees too barren for my liking. Jason agreed that we could have more space. The other site was occupied by a slender Black woman, about seven months pregnant, and her husband, a stocky man with red hair and a darker beard cropped close to his jaw. They had a camper van to which they\u2019d attached a sort of tarp on stilts, to cover their cooking supplies and chairs while they manned a fire a few feet out front. On the first afternoon, they invited us to eat with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The woman was Adrea, her husband was Tom, and the baby would be either Shonda or Shawn, depending. A sprinkling of rain had begun, and Mack and Gracia had to be coaxed out of the car under Jason\u2019s sweater and my fleece like shock victims. The chill raised gooseflesh in places I didn\u2019t know it could but felt bracing, a slap to the lungs. Jason and I sat on a log across from Tom and Adrea while the twins crouched at the fire. Firelight made false skylines in their dark eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHow did you two meet?\u201d Adrea said, body inclined toward the fire as if her full stomach were a bar table to lean over.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason sighed and flexed his fingers around the cup of over-strong coffee Tom had given him. I said, \u201cSleepwalking. At summer camp, when we were teenagers. Met out front of the bunks.\u201d I hadn\u2019t ever gone to summer camp and I doubted Jason had either. He sighed, which I took as gratitude. This trip was the first time I had been anyone other than Madison\u2019s griever for two years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s lovely,\u201d said Adrea. \u201cGosh, you must have such friendship bracelets.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe sure used to.\u201d Jason held up his wedding ring, on a chain around his neck. Adrea laughed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about you?\u201d I said. Adrea began to answer, but as she did Mack and Gracia stood simultaneously, turning to each other and gracing their palms together with their fingers spread wide. They leaned in with the surety of adults and kissed. The kiss lasted about four seconds, closed-mouthed, thank god, but not a peck either. A firm, brusque kiss, untheatrical and tender.<\/span><\/p>\n

Adrea coughed; Tom passed around a packet of chocolate biscuits. I said, \u201cThey tend to do that,\u201d and Jason gave me a look that implied I had misspoken. I rephrased, \u201cThey tend to do that when it gets cold out. They think it\u2019s what adults do when they get a chill.\u201d Lies did not come easily to me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you kiss each other often, when they can see?\u201d said Adrea in a changing-the-subject voice. She brrr\u2019d the zipper up and down her coat. \u201cTom and I aren\u2019t sure how to play that once the baby comes. How much love we should show each other in front of the baby versus how much we should hide. Like, can Tom and I still shower together, once she\u2019s older? What if she sees us in towels after?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom raised his eyebrows, but said, \u201cSure, what if?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe hold hands, just so we know we\u2019re still in love.\u201d Jason\u2019s eyelashes fluttered with the lie. He put his hand on my shoulder. It was very cold. I had the feeling of someone about to be abducted. I felt very aware of the back of my neck and swallowed to make the feeling pass. Often, I suspected I had either done too much wrong or not enough right but could not trace this suspicion to any real grievance. When I took too long to take out the trash, to call my mother\u2014 etcetera\u2014my abdomen would thrill with overblown guilt. After Madison\u2019s death, the guilt got worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAdrea worked at a soup kitchen,\u201d said Tom, \u201cThat\u2019s how we met.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

Near twilight we left Adrea and Tom to take the kids searching for sasquatches. I asked the difference between sasquatches and yetis, to which Mack responded, \u201cYetis come from the glaciers. The Himalayas.\u201d He said Himalayas with a Spanish throatiness to the H. They were learning Spanish in school, Jason explained. Madison had wanted them to learn Portuguese; our mother was Brazilian, our father Irish. The most expressive culture wed to the most touch-starved, as Madison put it. Celebration crossed with repression\u2014\u201cPotato famine Carnival,\u201d I remember responding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Snow spangled the mountains. Both children were bundled, mittens and hats, and ran ahead of us. Jason said, \u201cHow do you explain this to children that age? That they\u2019re going to disturb people?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSay that,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s no explanation for them.\u201d He hunkered into his scarf until I couldn\u2019t see his mouth. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to wrangle my own children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably have to chastise them sometimes. But I don\u2019t have kids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ahead, Mack knocked Gracia against a tree and apologized right away, pulling her back from its limbs as if saving her. At least they got along. In childhood, Madison and I had formed an alliance against our father, his silences and outbursts, had acted sister-like to our mother, in competition for her to do our hair and paint our nails. As teenagers, we competed through friends, boys, sports, any outlet. Most often I won, although I had no real strategy. I just had a calm certainty that I could beat her. Anything Madison wanted, she wanted too frantically. She\u2019d even been the one to propose, not Jason. She\u2019d gotten down on both knees in a Zen garden.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mack and Gracia trotted back to us. Small footprints scattered in the ice-whitened earth behind them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to run away together,\u201d announced Gracia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a big deal,\u201d said Mack. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to live at home anymore. We have a plan. We\u2019re going to live at a children\u2019s shelter. An orphanage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to get adopted by a priest,\u201d said Gracia. \u201cA very rich one and live in a mansion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen are you doing this?\u201d said Jason, logically.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the night.\u201d Mack held out his arms, palms out, wrists up. I half-expected them to be injured, but they were regular little boy arms. \u201cThat way you won\u2019t know when.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re scared of the dark,\u201d said Jason.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOnly at home,\u201d said Gracia. \u201cMom isn\u2019t there to keep night stalkers and spiders out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can do that, too.\u201d Whenever he spoke to the children, I could only see him at the funeral: faced downward, breathing shallow. His expression like that of a songbird stunned from hitting a window.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNo, that\u2019s her job.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI help you find cryptids. Right?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot yet,\u201d said Mack.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t looked hard enough,\u201d said Jason.<\/span><\/p>\n

The trees turned navy under a feverish sunset. Off the path, Jason led us through weeds with their leaves frozen stiff. The children made throaty cooing sounds. They had created their own sasquatch calls. From out here, the campsite seemed distant, even unfindable.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a bad whisper, Mack told Gracia, \u201cIt\u2019s unfair. That Maggie\u2019s prettier than mom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason gently put his hand between my shoulder blades. I shook my head; I wasn\u2019t going to say anything. I looked upwards and saw spots: overhead and about ten feet in front of us, where the brambles looked trampled down, bats folded and unfolded themselves between the branches. \u201cLook up,\u201d I said. The bats flickered in bumblebee patterns, invisible choreographies in jet stream behind them. Twigs pearl-strung with ice formed an art-deco frame around their flight.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gracia said, \u201cOh gosh, god, I wish I were that webbed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mack started forward with a hand outstretched, but Jason pulled him back. \u201cThey\u2019re often rabid,\u201d he said. Mack snapped his teeth at Jason\u2019s arm. He might not have actually bitten him, but Jason released him, and Mack ran ahead into the bramble clearing. He turned circles in wonderment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMack. You\u2019re coming back with us right now, or we\u2019re taking Gracia back alone.\u201d My voice sounded cold, strained.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFine,\u201d said Mack. \u201cI\u2019ll turn cryptid then.\u201d He brought his arms into his chest, fingers in claws.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll freeze, is what will happen,\u201d I said. Bats flung low over his head. He opened and shut his mouth and then noiselessly started to cry. Jason nodded and gripped my bicep in encouragement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not to bite, Mack,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t even threaten to.\u201d Either the sky had grown too dark to see them, or the bats had dispersed. Gracia went to Mack and kissed him, not on the lips this time but on each cheek to make the tears disperse. Then she took his hand and led him back to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d she said. \u201cMack\u2019s very sorry. That\u2019s all for now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

In the tent, Jason and I lay in overlarge sleeping bags with Mack and Gracia at our feet. In a sleep-stilted voice, I told him how in our twenties, Madison and I would meet at the public library to read together without speaking. The only times we ever hung out back then. Eulogistic, to tell Jason anything at all. Even what didn\u2019t pertain to Madison still pertained to Madison. I don\u2019t know which of us fell asleep first.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the morning, we took to the hiking trails. Mack and Gracia walked ahead of us with their arms linked. There was a dearth of animals along the trail. No birdsong, no rustling. A timid rain sprinkled around us, the snow slowly disappearing. Both the children and the wilderness had gone prim and quiet. At any rustle or creak, we stopped moving. Once, a white flank breached in the underbrush, and I hissed for Mack and Gracia to look. At my voice, the creature startled away.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cToo low to be a yeti,\u201d I justified. \u201cMust be a raccoon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSasquatch,\u201d corrected Gracia, without eye contact.<\/span><\/p>\n

We stopped on a slab of rock that jutted from the side of the mountain. Below us, a stony descent ribbed white and green, that stretched into a valley as if at airplane distance. Gracia held a hand between herself and the low, black-rimmed clouds, stretching and closing her fingers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you going to do when you find the sasquatch?\u201d said Jason. He stood beside me on one side of the outlook, the twins on the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

A braided rat-tail ran down the nape of Mack\u2019s neck, longer than the rest of his hair. When he moved, it twitched. \u201cWe just want to find it so that we\u2019ve found it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gracia sat on the edge of the outlook with her legs dangling over the edge. Jason full-body shivered and said, \u201cGet back from there.\u201d But she began to pull craft supplies from her pockets and array them on the rock beside her: glue bottle, safety scissors, mini hockey tape, tube of glitter. Mack sat beside her, took her wrist, scraped the dried glue off her palm.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of you get back. I\u2019m counting to three. One.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In their kiss, Mack and Gracia became silhouettes against the breathless blue-green landscape beyond, below, everywhere around them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTwo,\u201d said Jason. He walked toward them, but they flinched toward the drop-off, and he stopped. Jason\u2019s mouth rested in a pale o-shape instead of saying three. The children kissed each other again, and Gracia picked up her safety scissors and held them to Mack\u2019s jaw. He didn\u2019t react.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMaggie\u2019s here because we aren\u2019t supposed to kiss,\u201d said Gracia. \u201cAren\u2019t you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCome back over here,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut I could also cut out Mack\u2019s tongue,\u201d said Gracia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThen we couldn\u2019t even kiss at all,\u201d said Mack. He nodded. The blunt ends of the two blades nudged into his chubby cheek.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s your brother,\u201d said Jason. \u201cRight, Gracia? Don\u2019t hurt him. You love him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He opened his mouth, and she moved the scissors, open, to the frenulum under his tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pointing toward the valley, I said, \u201cSasquatch.\u201d The twins looked. Everything below was too miniature to see. In my throat, I made the cooing noise the children had made when they tried to coax the sasquatches. Quiet enough I hoped it would make up for the direction of the sound. Jason had the look on his face he used to get before Madison\u2019s death, that white-hot curiosity, glancing away as soon as I saw him. Gracia shaded her eyes with the scissors.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

Back at the campsite, we sat the kids on a log while we folded and gathered and cleaned. It reminded me of holidays at Jason and Madison\u2019s, in their lovely house with the kitchen island, the glistening roast turkeys at every occasion, Jason and I doing the housework, Madison entertaining neighbors open-house style, remembering every name and birthday and graduation. Madison in ski pants and a puffy jacket, Madison solemn and dutiful at the hospital in labour for thirty-two hours, Madison who let weeds grow in her flower garden because she felt bad to pull them, Madison.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we\u2019d almost cleared the site, Adrea, sans Tom, with her hair in a cloth that fell, fringed, multicolored, Lovecraftian, to her shoulders, came to the boot of the car to help us pack.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGoing home early?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I said. \u201cJason thought we should cut the trip short.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too much time out here for the kids,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, eat a little dirt, what\u2019s the harm?\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

At once, Mack stood at Adrea\u2019s elbow. He had glitter glue in his eyebrows, the tube in his fist. The yellow on his nails had almost chipped away. \u201cMaggie\u2019s here instead of our mom. So. Our real mom is dead.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, dear,\u201d said Adrea. She made an awkward wince face at Jason and me, the type of face I associated with overly polite British people, waiting for our take.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason ushered Mack into the back seat. Done with this trip, clearly. He kept facing away from me. I shook Adrea\u2019s hand, gave her my number in case she wanted us to babysit. An almost sitcom-level lie, to keep pretending Jason and I lived together, had a family together, but what if she wanted to call?<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/p>\n

Driving back down the mountain cast the spell that sleep should cast, as if the whole trip had been part dream, part dreamless-REM. I felt as if I had avoided a disaster. In the back, the children murmured to each other, their whispers actually quiet now that they were sleepy. Jason had confiscated the safety scissors to the dashboard. He looked at them over and over, checking the time in their two dull hands. Jason, a safe, nostalgic echo in my peripheral vision. Dense purple evening fell over the car; the light turned to lavender stalks. The children dozed. Neither Jason nor I spoke. We reached Vancouver proper as if entering a nightclub. The skyscrapers and roads blitzed with brightness. Jason\u2019s face seemed moonlit. Nobody wore serenity how Jason did. The angles of his cheekbone formed a number four. His eyes traced me, then the road, then me, but he didn\u2019t ask any question. When he focussed on the road again he was searching, and a few blocks later he did a hand-over-hand turn into a parking garage.<\/span><\/p>\n

We got out of the car, locked it, windows cracked, kids asleep in the back. Jason checked us in to the glass-walled hotel. I leaned on the front desk rubbing my ankle with my foot and feeling my pulse in every joint. There was a bowl of lemons on the desk. Though perhaps not real lemons. On the way to the elevator, Jason put his hand on the part of my back so perfectly called the small. When would I have even gotten around to thinking about sleeping with Jason before now? I wouldn\u2019t have. I wouldn\u2019t have ever considered this.<\/span><\/p>\n

We had a room on a high-up floor, the bed a smooth white king-sized rectangle, the view from the enormous window a glossy magazine spread. Once in the room, we stood on either corner of the end of the bed and breathed chest-lifting breaths. Desperation has to be the purest emotion. The idea that a person can need another person. That marrow-scraping necessity, beyond want. Chase-down-a-train desperation. The veins on Jason\u2019s wrists stood out. Everything about him was young and tired. He went to me and wrenched me into him and kissed me. Buckles and zippers and jackets. We stayed standing for so long, held up by each other. All his bones against me at once. I had on waterproof pants with so many buttons, and he took those off. Then finally we were on the bed. He bit my collarbones, and I pulled his hair. We didn\u2019t have a condom; why would we? He sucked my inner thighs, and I dug my nails into his back. I said, \u201cI want this.\u201d Each touch exploded like a blood blister. He held my sides so hard they\u2019d bruise. This camaraderie, now made tactile. I said words I had not said to him before. The way he touched me; how he wrung out laundry. Then, inside me, he felt exactly as I\u2019d expected for so long. He liked everything I had always thought he would like.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SOPHIE CROCKER<\/strong><\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My sister Madison did not sleep. In childhood, I could fall asleep in pool floats, among the shoes in coat checks, in baskets of unwashed clothes, on staircases. Often I would wake in my bed or in the car, our mother having moved me. This sleep-teleportation felt like a type of magic. At thirty-four, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2041,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[62],"tags":[20],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-49d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2041"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16069,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15947\/revisions\/16069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}