The Book of X

by Sarah Rose Etter

  VISION

  Six years old in my mother’s bed. I wear my favorite pink pajamas. The television rattles off stories before us. Occasionally, my mother curls around me in a brief hug. I can feel our knots touch when she does.

  Then she pulls a bag of orange Circus Peanuts from the drawer of her nightstand. This is rare: A sugar, a candy, a treat. The bag seems to glow in the light of the white house.

  “Now, now,” she says. “We’re only going to do this once.”

  She feeds us both the small sugar sponges, alternating fairly. In my mouth, the sugar dissolves with a joy, melts into my bloodstream and courses through my body. Again, and again, she slides the candy into my mouth, until the bag is empty, until my body is a liquid pile against the bed.

  “There, there, isn’t that nice? A sweet treat for us today.”

  Then my stomach clenches up. My body breaks out into a sweat. The sugar has been too much. My mother lets out a small moan.

  Together, we crouch on the tile floor of the bathroom, our stomachs twin volcanoes, our knots briefly touching when we writhe.

  We take turns erupting together, my mother and I wrenching it up out of ourselves and into the porcelain bowl. For a moment, too short, her hand rests on my back, on the small of my knot.

  MY MOTHER MOVES INTO A SMALLER house with my brother, closer to town. I don’t mention it, but it nags at me. I hate the idea of them together in this way, aligned.

  We unpack the boxes, more long and exhausting days beside each other with the objects of their lives.

  For a brief moment, when we’re finished, the small house feels fresh and new.

  “It’s not bad,” my brother says. “I can take care of her.”

  I picture his life stretching on that way, tethered to her wailing, caring for her as she ages.

  “You’re the better one of us,” I say.

  WE SPLIT MY FATHER INTO TWO. IT IS A devastating magic trick: Half of the ashes in the first urn, half the ashes in a second urn. I take my half with me. I take what’s mine.

  He sits in my bag next to me on the train as I reverse my path: The bodies of the deer in the ditches, then the skyscrapers flashing by, no man snoring next to me, until I am back in town.

  It is night by the time I unlock my front door. My house has a stale air about it. I have been gone for weeks, mail piled up on the floor near the mouth of the slot.

  I ignore all of that. I walk to the bookshelf and place my father there, a few shelves above my head where he can watch me closely.

  EACH NIGHT BEFORE BED, I LIFT HIS URN each night and press it against my chest.

  This task feels holy, I move slowly, head down in reverence. Then I place his urn back on the shelf. I don’t cry anymore.

  Grief can be silent.

  “Goodnight,” I say. “I love you.”

  Then I kiss the silver.

  HENRY CALLS AND LEAVES VOICEMAILS. There are also letters in the mail, the crooked script of his hand reaching out. I ignore it all.

  I do see him once in the grocery store. From behind the cover of a shelf, I stare at the back of his neck. I watch how he moves. He seems regular now, the shine gone, everything dulled. My heart is an animal that has vanished, my chest an empty field.

  VISION

  We are at dinner when Henry dies. I remember the meal very clearly: Steak, red wine, round potatoes. I had forgotten the salad.

  “I’ve forgotten the salad,” I say.

  This is no surprise. I am often forgetful.

  “That’s all right now,” Henry says.

  Henry is as handsome as the day I met him; that thick beard silvered, sparkling eyes, hands which are beautiful to watch as they: Shuffle the bills, touch my body, cut the red meat of the steak with the strong knife.

  He forks the cube of steak meat into his mouth. I am still enamored with even his chewing. But suddenly, the jaw stops moving.

  “Henry?” I say. “Henry?”

  He doesn’t respond. Instead, his hands grasp for his heart. I watch his eyes get big, bigger, biggest then he cleaves to the floor.

  “Henry!” I scream.

  I try the moves from the television shows: I place my mouth on his and breathe in, breathe out. I press two hands hard against his chest. His body trembles beneath mine until it doesn’t.

  ONCE EVERY FEW MONTHS, MY BROTHER comes to visit me at the cabin.

  Here is the routine: I slide my hand into the body of a chicken to remove the organs. I bring them out like wet pearls, purple, red, almost black. They quiver on the table, my favorite small dance.

  In the hollow, I put the spices, the replacement. When my brother eats, I am whole again. His eyes glow if the food is good and they are glowing now. Then, his gaze lands on the organs, dry now, matte.

  “Why the fuck would you keep those?” he asks, head down, mouth sewn shut, not taking another bite.

  On the table, the organs continue to shrink. I love him so much I sob in the bathroom while he does the dishes, the sound of running water covering my warbling, my beautiful brother, my brother, alive, doing the dishes, my brother.

  VISION

  My brother’s face hovering above a birthday cake, exhaling onto the lit candles to extinguish the glow. My hand wrapped around the back of his soft head, pressing his face into the frosting, the sugar all over us both, the laughter pealing up out of our bodies, my god the way I love him, the way I cannot bring myself to say it then.

  SOME DAYS, MY MIND TRICKS ME INTO thinking I am still knotted. I run my hand over my abdomen, and a bittersweet river courses through me when I find it flat. I picture the knot constantly, obsessively, as if it is a lost lover. I imagine it with a new life, on a new body, moving through the world without me.

  IN THE GROCERY STORE, I FILL A SMALL cart with meat, eggs, spinach. When I touch the meat, the memories come: My father, bloodied up to the elbows. My brother, blood smeared across his cheeks and lips.

  “It was a good day in the quarry,” my father said, every day at dusk, over and over again, sun setting behind the red mountains of meat, the thick smell of viscera and coin on my tongue, in my throat.

  Later, the meat cooks in the pan. I stare down into the blood of it, knowing another man cleaved it up out of the land. I move my mouth against the meat. I cannot taste him there anymore, my father.

  NOBODY TOUCHES MY BODY EXCEPT THE strong wind now, which tilts me in various directions depending on the day: north, south, east, west. I stop sleeping. When I glance at the trees outside, I cannot help but count the knots, those unblinking eyes in the brown bark.

  THESE ARE DAYS OF NOTHING: SLOW motion, under water, distant from other bodies, other thoughts, other humans. I stop wanting and become very still. I want to cut my life off at the legs.

  MY MOTHER COMES TO VISIT FOR TWO nights.

  Before she arrives, I clean the house: I scrub the floors, the counters, I clean the bathroom tile and porcelain. I run lemons over the walls.

  “Look at you,” my mother says, smoking.

  When I hug her in greeting, her knot presses against me briefly. A strange disgust rises up in me, a desire to push her away. In horror, I shake the feeling from me.

  “Look at you!” I respond.

  That night, we eat a simple dinner: Meat, vegetables, red wine. Her face has aged beyond measure, her hair gray, her wrinkles deep.

  I reach over and touch her hand. She squeezes mine and we both let out small awkward laughs. It is easier, at times, to touch her than to know her.

  THAT NIGHT, WE SHARE MY BED, MY mother and me. It takes on the air of a slumber party, both of us in our pajamas.

  Before I turn the lights off, she rolls over to me. She pulls me into a long hug. Her knot presses against me and I warp around the shape of her.

  “I do love you,” she says.

  “Love you too, Mom,” I say.

  I mean it from a place deep within my ribs. If she notices the wetness from my eyes on her nightgown, she does not mention it.

&n
bsp; AFTER MY MOTHER LEAVES, I CANNOT stop crying. For days, my eyes well up without warning, a knowledge between my ribs: I have seen her for the last time.

  ◆Three days after death, the enzymes that were present in the last consumed meal begin to eat the body

  ◆Hearing is the last sense to go when we die

  ◆Certain species of jellyfish are immortal

  ◆Every 40 seconds, a human commits suicide

  SOME DAYS I WANT A PAIN GREATER THAN my own grief: the teeth pulled from my mouth, one by one, twenty small labors, my rotted children on a silver tray, my tiny cavities.

  Some days, I can hear a parade in the distance: there is joy out in the world, a celebration, confetti, cakes, laughter, not for me.

  Some days, I stand on the side of the road, sobbing beneath the sunset: this is waiting for death.

  I REMEMBER A TIME BEFORE MY HEART was cratered as the surface of the moon.

  IN THE MORNINGS, I FOCUS ON THE URN.

  “Good morning, Father,” I say.

  Outside, the purple sky begins to drop a slow snow upon us. My hands move calmly to make a nice coffee, a small breakfast of an egg and a slice of toast.

  The urn gleams at me all the while, a knowing silver eye.

  I TEND TO MY SADNESS LIKE A WOUND each day.

  I STARE OUT INTO THE STRETCH OF MY backyard, which blends into the foot of my mountain. I can feel the urn watching me as I consider the land, a plan. The eye is hot, metal, probing at my body, trying to enter my thoughts which are of a single silver shovel.

  PAIN HAS MADE A PEARL OF ME. I CAN feel the breath of death pulsing, shaping me, making a knot of me again.

  VISION

  All around me, the world was expanding. Waterfalls were becoming oceans. A snake was devouring fur. Talons were clawing still-pulsing organs. A man and a woman were in love. A woman was giving birth. Another woman was inside of a glass box, chest expanding, ready to die. The woman was me.

  IN A SMALL AREA OF FLAT GROUND IN MY backyard, I bring the blade of the shovel to the soil and begin. I use my weight to press it deeper into the earth.

  I dig the hole two feet deep just to be sure. The pine trees at the foot of the mountain watching over me, a line of green priests.

  The earth smears across my forearms, my fingers caked in dirt. The fresh scent makes my vision sharper, and I move faster.

  I glisten sweat from the brow, I feel it pooling at the small of my back. A small mound of dirt piles next to me as I haul more earth out of the ground for my father’s grave.

  ◆One of the oldest known burials took place 130,000 years ago

  ◆Certain prehistoric societies de-fleshed the bones of the dead before burial

  ◆In England, those who committed suicide were often buried with stakes through their hearts

  ◆The Anglo-Saxons would often bury groups of urns together, believed to be family members

  I PLACE MY FATHER INTO THE MOUTH IN the ground. The silver shimmers out of the dirt in the low sun, metal against soil.

  I get back to work, piling dirt in high mounds above his grave so it will settle flat. I know how the land likes to behave. I don’t know any prayers. Instead, I nod at the land which holds him, my lost father.

  I BRING A SMALL OFFERING TO HIS GRAVE four days later: a small bottle of clear liquor, and the single white antler of a deer I found dead on the roadside, its eye open, reflecting sky, a fleck of blood on the pupil. The fleck of blood is a red so deep it is almost black. I imagine my insides that color and crystalline.

  I LIVE IN MY BODY IN MY CABIN AND WAIT for the days to pass and pass and pass, nothing changing, just the way the wind blows the ache inside of me around like dust, and breathe and hurt and hurt, my god, a life of pain pressing sharp against me whether I was knotted or loose as weakened rope.

  MY MOTHER CALLS. SOPHIA CALLS. IT IS all the same:

  “How are you?”

  “Are you OK? You never call.”

  I keep it pleasant. I keep it light.

  “It’s so beautiful here. I am so glad I have this cabin.”

  I imagine myself digging graves to stay calm.

  I BEGIN TO FIND THE SMALL BODIES OF birds on the road, the bleached fingers of their bones jutting out wrong, carcasses stuck on the final note of their song. I look at the patterns of their sprawled wings and envy their stillness.

  THERE IS SPACE FOR ME, SO I GET THE shovel. I walk to the backyard in my best red dress and stand right beside my father, next to the pile of meats and liquors and antlers I have left for him, which are slowly being eroded by the weather.

  I DIG AGAIN, THIS TIME SLOWLY, SPREADing my energy out over the day. I dig with precision, a machine, a perfect rectangle glowing in my mind. I dig without my knot, so my dream was not exactly a prophecy.

  DOWN, DOWN INTO THE EARTH, THE repetition of my body against the land. The mound of dirt next to me is big, a mass, the friendly scent of earth in the nostrils.

  By the time I am finished, the fat bright body of the sun has begun its drop, that purple twilight emerging above my head.

  VISION

  We are young. We are holding hands on a cold bright spring day. We are swimming in the river. We are making love in the Meat Quarry for the first time. We are eating a burger and splitting the fries. We are walking through the art museum. We are warm in bed. We are eating cakes and then kissing. We are standing beside the lake. We are eating a beautiful dinner. We are reciting facts to each other. We are twined around each other on a Sunday morning. We are reciting vows to each other. We are looking at our daughter. We are growing old, side by side.

  AFTER THE WHITE PILLS FILL MY MOUTH, I climb down into the earth, my hole, the scent of soil all around me, face up to the night above me, navy, dark, stars stationed and shimmering.

  I can feel my father beside me, my mother and brother in the distance. I lie in the dirt and wait.

  VISION

  We are eating dinner around the table in the white house on The Acres. We are selling the meat in town. We are riding in the truck to the river. We are shouting out the years from the tombstones in the cemetery. We are walking in the cold light of the full moon. We are singing happy birthday to my brother. We are harvesting the meat from the quarry. We are eating Circus Peanuts. We are laughing at my father’s joke. We are gathered around my daughter’s crib where she is dreaming. We have no knot among us. We are laughing from deep in our bellies. We know joy.

  THE SKY OPENS UP AND SWIRLS ABOVE me, a blur of stars streaking out from a pure white pinprick in the center.

  I blink to clear my vision. When I open my eyes, the light is only stronger and more luminous. The sky throbs and streams with color, rivers of shimmering green and blue and white against the dark night.

  The beauty of the brightness makes tears flow down my cheeks. I know now that I was wrong: The maw of the world was never metal. It was always light.

  The brilliance illuminates each black cavern inside of me, smoothing the deep craters in my heart. My ears fail and my eyes widen, all pain finally gone, offering myself up to the wide, bright mouth of death.

  A NOTE ON FACTS

  The facts in this book were compiled and edited from a variety of sources online, with special thanks to: Wikipedia, WebMD, Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, National Geographic, The March of Dimes, Healthline, LiveScience, and countless others.

  A NOTE ON PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS

  Early pieces of this novel were first published in Salt Hill Journal, Triangle House, The Fiddleback, Everyday Genius, New York Tyrant, littletell, and darkfuckingwizard. Thank you to the editors for their support.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For my family, first and forever. Love you big.

  For being my first readers, and being kind at the right time: Jaime Fountaine, Maria Flaccavento, Ginger Rudolph, and Blake Butler. For their artistic support: Alda Sigurðardóttir & Kristveig Halldórsdóttir of the Gullkistan Residency in Iceland, where the first draft was writt
en. For their hard work: Eric & Elizajane Obenauf, and everyone at Two Dollar Radio who made it real.

  For their friendship & kindness: Missy Meyers & Demian Fenton, Susan Johnson, Katie Reing, Julie Schuchard, Allisone & David Brussin, JT Cobell, Edward & Sara Francks, Michael Thursby Kerchner, Alicia LaPann, Annie Liontas, Clare & Ted Cotugno, Mike Kitchell & Dean Smith, Caroline Crew, Carlos the Rollerblader, Michael Kimball, Sara McCorriston, Roxane Gay, Melissa Broder, Amelia Gray, Simon Jacobs, Scott McClanahan, Samantha Irby, Kent D. Wolf, Julia Bloch, Colin Winnette, Peter LaBerge, Jeff Jackson, Tommy Pico, Carmen Maria Machado, Erica Dawson, Olivier Desmettre, Véronique Béghain.

  For the friends who loved and supported me while I fought through this book when it felt impossible: Thank you.

  BOOK CLUB & READER GUIDE

  Written by Sarah Rose Etter

  We hope the following list of discussion questions will enhance your exploration of Sarah Rose Etter’s debut novel, The Book of X. They are meant to stimulate your discussion, offer new points of view, and enrich your experience with the novel.

  This and other Two Dollar Radio reader guides—as well as additional material like interviews, book trailers, excerpts, and full lists of reviews—can be found on our website, twodollarradio.com.

  Enjoy!

  BOOK CLUB & READER GUIDE

  Questions and Topics for Discussion:

  1. Much of The Book of X is focused on Cassie, the main character, being born in the shape of a knot, a hereditary condition passed down from the female side of her family. What parallels can you draw between this surreal physical condition and your body? Do you find the idea of the knot to be effective as a literary device? Why or why not?

  2. Cassie’s relationship with her mother is marked with difficulty, as her mother constantly attempts to “improve” her—whether through weight loss, dresses, or new makeup. How would you have improved or distanced yourself from this relationship if you were Cassie? Are the actions of the mother enough to warrant the ending of that relationship? Do Cassie and her mother love each other?