by Joe Meno
L. Madeline thinks about being separated from Jonathan again. She does not know if she likes her husband anymore. Really. She thinks she does, she believes she still does, but she is not sure of anything. She isn’t even sure if love is anything more than some stupid song on the radio. A song like “Rocket Man” by Elton John. Or Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello.” Or “I Will Survive.”
M. Madeline thinks about vanishing. She does not like to think about it, but she does. She does, a million times a day. Maybe not a million. But a lot. Why? She does not believe the kinds of things that she has begun to worry about. Like what kind of toilet paper to buy. (Recycled or two-ply.) Like what Thisbe will or won’t eat. (Nothing brown or green.) Like why she does not feel bad that Jonathan slept in the den last night after their fight, both of them still not speaking. (He is as demanding as a third child, she thinks.) How does she try to forgive him? Should she even bother? She does not ever remember being so mad. She does not ever remember being so full of doubt about everything.
N. Madeline tries to ignore the pigeons she does not like. She really does. But it is very hard. She stands observing their interactions from the other side of the gray wire of their cage, recording minor conflicts, disputes, moments of affection. There are a number of young, beta males, only a few months old, all with yellow bands on their legs, that peck meanly at the other birds. When one of the beta males begins to mount a gray female who has already bonded with another, less dominant mate, Madeline, against her better judgment, intercedes, opening the cage door, kicking the animal away. Later, Madeline does not make a note of this interaction in her notebook.
O. Madeline does not like how often she swears. She runs to the grocery store before picking up her girls from school. The parking lot, unfortunately, is almost completely full. At the end of the last row, an enormous silver Hummer has seized two parking spots, a sticker of an American flag decorating its rear window. “Very fucking appropriate,” Madeline curses, circling the parking lot again. By the time she makes it around a third time, a woman, talking on her cell phone, is climbing into the gigantic silver vehicle. Madeline is unable to stop herself. She hits the brakes, rolls down her window, and shouts, “Nice parking job!” The woman, lifting her sunglasses from her bright eyes, squints at Madeline, then flips her off, laughing to herself. Madeline, more furious now, does not see the lone shopping cart rolling aimlessly in front of the Volvo, and without slowing, she plows right into it. The cart spins wildly, scratching up the paint on the Volvo’s passenger side, but Madeline does not stop driving until she has found a parking spot, far away on the other side of the lot.
As Madeline is about to switch off the car, she hears on NPR that there have been one thousand U.S. fatalities in Iraq since the war began. This figure haunts her as she tries to shop, the endless products marching up and down the grocery store aisles, their bright advertising echoing the number again and again: one thousand, one thousand deaths for all of this. Driving the Volvo an hour later, Madeline sees a flurry of red, white, and blue signs decorating several front lawns, some advertising President Bush, some the Democrat John Kerry. Madeline hits the brakes, shoves the station wagon into park, and—leaving the car running—leaps out. Murmuring to herself, she marches up the sidewalk, snatching a Bush sign out of the ground, kicking another one over.
Embarrassed, out of breath, her hands red and a little dirty, she sprints back to the Volvo and drives off, her legs still trembling.
P. Madeline does not like that she cannot remember the last time someone said something nice to her, even if they didn’t mean it.
Q. Madeline comes home from a bad day and finds her husband daydreaming. The phone is ringing but Jonathan does not answer it. He is hiding in the den, staring down at a drawing of that stupid fucking squid. Madeline drops a bag of groceries, two avocados tumbling beneath the kitchen table, before she can grab the telephone. By the time she hits the talk button, the party has already hung up. Madeline, frazzled, slams the phone down, then stands in the doorway to the den, staring angrily at Jonathan.
“Hey. Um, why didn’t you answer the phone?”
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t hear it. We just got some big news. Someone found another intact giant squid mantle somewhere off the coast of Japan. Looks like a sperm whale got ahold of it. We’re trying to decipher what species it is. This could go either way.”
Madeline stares at him and wonders if he is stoned. She cannot tell. He is maybe too excited to be high.
“Jonathan?”
“Yes?”
“What planet are you on right now?”
“Earth. Why?”
Madeline shakes her head.
“Your hair looks really nice today,” he says, looking back down at the diagram.
“Great.”
He pauses, then looks up. “I’m sorry for what happened. Yesterday. Forgetting to take my medicine. It was stupid. I’m sorry I fucked up. It was irresponsible and terrible and I’m stupid.”
“Great.”
“Can we be friends again?” he asks. He stands, taking her hand in his.
“Sure. Sure, we can be friends again.”
Jonathan kisses his wife’s cheek. She does not respond, only stares straight ahead.
“But you’re still mad,” he says softly, angrily, upset that he hasn’t been forgiven so quickly.
“Yes. Yes, I really am.”
“About me fainting or something else?”
“That and a lot of other shit. Jonathan, you live in your own world. And you expect me to take care of the things you don’t want to do.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” She thinks, glancing around the messy room. “Like how much money do we have in our checking account right now?”
“I don’t know,” he says, smiling. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m talking about real things here.”
“That is a real thing. What about savings? How much money do we have in our savings?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“What about car insurance? Where do we get our car insurance from?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about food?”
“I get groceries, too,” he murmurs.
“How much do we spend on food each month?”
“Jesus, Madeline, I have no idea.”
“Exactly. Because you don’t care. And if you don’t care about something, then that means I have to do it.”
“What’s your point?”
“I am sick of having to be in charge. You have all the time in the world for your work, while I have to take care of you and the girls and everything you don’t want to do. When am I supposed to do my work? When is that?”
Jonathan frowns. “Everything I’ve ever done, all my work, has been for you. And the girls.”
“That is such bullshit. You do it for yourself.”
“Is this about the Talbott grant again?” Jonathan asks.
“Jonathan, I swear to God if you bring that up…this has nothing to do with that.”
“Nothing? You don’t still feel bad about it?”
“Jonathan…you gave the grant to someone else. Big deal.”
“It wasn’t just me. It was a whole committee. You’re my wife. How would it have looked if we awarded it to you?”
Madeline ignores his question. “How long are you planning on staying down here?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe forever. Maybe I’ll just move down here in the den. Then you won’t have to be constantly disappointed in me.”
“That would be okay by me,” she says, slamming the door behind her.
R. Madeline does not like that she has begun to get a little fat. She does not like to be naked anymore. She thinks her backside is out of shape. She might even use the word “atrocious.” She takes off her work clothes and wonders how she ever became someone’s mother, someone’s wife, how did she ever become forty-five?
S. Madeline does not like thinking that she
may be the worst parent ever. She passes the doorway to Amelia’s room, where her oldest daughter is busily building an explosive device.
“It works on the principles of concussive force.” Amelia points to the empty soda pop bottle. “Gas builds up inside until it explodes. This is the easiest kind to make. I’d really like to figure out how to put together a pipe bomb.”
Madeline slowly closes the door, shaking her head.
T. Madeline does not like to think about the war in Iraq. She does not know if it is good or bad. She can see points on either side. She hates to mention this ambivalence to Jonathan, or Laura, her research assistant who sends an angry email to the White House every day. Everyone else seems like they can make up their minds up without having to think. Maybe the war really is a terrible mistake. Maybe it is an awful display of military power meant to threaten an entire religion. Maybe it is only for oil, after all. But maybe, in the end, it might make those peoples’ lives a little better. Maybe it might bring some sense of order to the region. Maybe it’s something awful right now that might become something astounding later. Madeline does not know and she does not like that everyone acts like they already have the answer. She thinks about this as she folds her daughters’ laundry down in the basement, glancing at the small television, which is now on CNN. The anchorperson, a woman with dark hair and glossy red lips, is explaining that an American soldier, a PFC by the name of Daniel Harkins, has been kidnapped somewhere outside of Baghdad. He has been videotaped and his captors are threatening to cut off his head. The soldier is very young, nineteen or twenty at the most, and his face is dirty, his forehead lined with cuts and scratches. He is crying. He is blond and handsome and shaking visibly before the video camera. Madeline feels sick to her stomach. She switches the television off, closes her eyes, and tries to imagine the soldier being safely returned to his family. But she cannot. She tries and tries and all she can see are his soft, wet eyes.
U. Madeline does not like smug people who go around thinking they believe in God. God might be a million different things, and who knows what the answer might be? At dinner that evening, Madeline notices that Thisbe is once again praying. The idea is enough to make Madeline go absolutely nuts. Before dinner is served, while the rest of the family argue, detail the major hassles and minor triumphs of their day, pass their plates, Thisbe lowers her head, closing her eyes, going very still in a pose of contemplative prayer, her lips moving slightly as the words thought privately in her brain echo upon her lips. Madeline glances out of the corner of her eye at her youngest daughter, feeling something go tight in her chest. When, finally, Thisbe opens her eyes, smirking a little to herself, Madeline realizes that the person she is glaring at is her own daughter. She looks down at the food on her plate and wonders if she has lost her mind, giving her daughter a dirty look like that.
V. Madeline, that evening, putting away Thisbe’s laundry, notices her daughter praying again, lying in bed, her eyes closed in serene penance, like a painting of a young nun from the Middle Ages. Madeline does not know why, but out of anger, she quickly piles her daughter’s clothes at the foot of her bed and then slams the door.
W. Madeline picks Thisbe up at school the next day, after chorus practice, both of them running late. In the backseat of the Volvo, Madeline notices that her daughter’s hands are folded carefully in her lap. Driving, she glances in the rearview mirror and sees Thisbe muttering to herself.
“What are you doing back there, Thisbe?”
“Nothing.”
Thisbe opens her eyes and her small white face goes flush.
“Were you praying?”
Thisbe nods but does not say the word.
“Yes?” Madeline asks.
“Yes.”
Thisbe glances down at her lap. When the car pauses at a stoplight, Madeline turns around in the seat.
“You’ve been doing that a lot lately, huh?”
“I guess.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Why?”
“Because I worry about you.”
“It’s no big deal,” Thisbe says. “It’s just something to do.”
“Oh,” Madeline says, searching through the radio stations. “I think it’s nice.”
“No, you don’t,” Thisbe says, glancing out the window.
“Of course I do. I think it’s fine. I think it’s better than fine. I think it’s great.”
Thisbe’s brown eyes meet her mother’s in the rearview mirror.
“Well, it’s no big deal. It’s not like I’m doing drugs or having sex or something.”
“Wow, that’s a relief,” Madeline says, trying to make a little joke. Her daughter barely smiles, turning back to glance out the window.
“It’s not like it’s anything. It just makes me happy.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Madeline says, though she is not, not at all.
The station wagon pauses at a stoplight. Cars blur in different colors back and forth. Madeline switches off the radio and glances in the rearview at Thisbe again. Her eyes are closed but she is pretty sure she isn’t praying.
“Thisbe?”
“Yeah.”
“When you pray, what are you asking for?”
Thisbe’s face goes red again. Her tiny eyebrows scrunch up. “I don’t know,” she says. “Different things.”
“Like what?”
“Like I dunno, personal things.”
“Is it about us? Your father? Or me?”
“No. I dunno. Sometimes. But it’s not like supposed to be anybody’s business.”
“Do you pray because you’re worried about something?”
Thisbe shakes her head. Her eyes begin to look cloudy, like she might start to cry. Madeline sees the light has turned green and accelerates through the intersection.
“I just want to be sure you’re okay,” Madeline says.
Thisbe does not nod or respond. She is looking out the window again.
“Are you okay?” Madeline asks. She glances into the rearview and sees her daughter has started to cry. “Thisbe?”
Thisbe nods. “It’s fine. I’m okay. It doesn’t matter.”
“I know things have been a little weird at home. But your father and I are fine. I just want you to know everything is okay.”
Thisbe nods, wiping the tears away with her fingertips. “I know. I’m not dumb,” she says.
“I know you’re not dumb. I just wanted to let you know you guys are still the most important thing in the world to me.”
“Okay.”
“And I just want to make sure you’re not praying this much because you…because you think you have to worry about Dad or me or anything.”
Thisbe looks shocked. Madeline can’t figure out what she has said that causes such alarm in her daughter’s face.
“Thisbe?”
“What?”
“Why are you giving me that look?”
“The whole world does not revolve around you guys,” Thisbe says. “That’s not why I’m praying.”
“Oh,” Madeline says, feeling her heart beating heavily. “I just. I just wanted to be sure…”
“I’m praying because I’m trying to come to an understanding with God. I’m trying to figure out how to see Him, like in everyday situations. Like at school and around people I don’t like. I’m trying to be like thoughtful.”
“Well, I think that’s really wonderful,” Madeline says, more flatly than she would have liked. Then adds, “I mean, I think that’s incredibly mature of you.”
“I don’t even care about you and Dad right now. It’s like not even on my radar,” she says. “I’m just trying to get through high school without killing somebody.”
X. Madeline pulls the Volvo into the garage. Thisbe races into the house, closing the back door behind her so quickly that Madeline can’t even call out to her to finish the conversation. Madeline turns, grabbing her purse, then climbs out, locks the Volvo, and closes the automatic garage door. Standing there in th
e dark, Madeline feels as if she is going to cry. For no reason. Just because everything is so junky. She holds her hand over her eyes, feeling the soft moisture building there, trying to calm herself. When she steps out of the garage, slamming the door closed behind her, something catches her eye.
Y. The cloud-figure is standing in the treetop.
Z. The cloud-figure seems to be moving.
Three
AMELIA CASPER, AGE SEVENTEEN, IS DOING WHATEVER she can to overthrow the evil empire of capitalism, day by day. Mostly by writing long rants in her high school paper about how awful capitalism is. Mostly by only listening to French pop music. Mostly by wearing her black beret.
WHENEVER AMELIA IS ALONE, she may hear the sound of mass-produced objects crying. If she listens carefully, closing her bright blue eyes, holding her breath, pressing the soft, fleshy ridge of her ear beside whatever object is now screaming—a yellow pencil, a glowing lamp, a furry, stuffed animal lying on her bed—she will be overcome by the urgency of these foreign-made products weeping for her help. Liberate me, each of them will beckon. Liberate me. For this reason, one of her dresser drawers is nearly filled with a number of useless and consumable objects, objects that she has either found or stolen, each of them manufactured in a faraway place like Taiwan or Indonesia, all of them molded from a variety of plastic and metal—a key chain, a rubber doll, a miniature American flag, made somewhere in Asia, which she decided to steal from a nearby convenience store. She does not know what she is supposed to do with these things. But whenever Amelia is alone in her room, whenever she is trying to think about the future of the world and the end of the capitalist system, she will hear this deranged chorus, this unmistakable, otherworldly aria, resounding from the back of her bottom dresser drawer.
