Aquarium

by David Vann

  I was so angry, but she had the power to make me never see Shalini again and never see my grandfather again. She had the power to do anything. She could have decided we were moving to some other part of the country. Or she could have just vanished forever. So I hunched over and pulled her to the bedroom.

  I’m not due at work until Monday morning, she said. All of today and then three more nights. That’s how long it could be. You might want to become a faster learner.

  No Shalini, no school, no aquarium, no Grandpa. All taken away. My back had tightened up, stiff as I dragged. And then we were at the bedside and I hauled her off the ground and we fell onto the mattress.

  Sleep, she said. Sleep while you can. Forget where you are and forget the mountain of days. Each one enormous, lost in some forest that never ends, but then the edge will fold back and you’ll walk on what was the sky and is now only another forest floor, another layer, and you can feel the weight of hundreds of these layers above you. Like an ant climbing tunnel after tunnel in darkness and the mountain never ends. Think of that. More than a thousand days, each one never ending.

  My mother facedown in her pillow, yawning now, falling into sleep. She had never left that mountain of days. Her mother had died, but that hadn’t been the end of the forest. I wanted more than anything to free her.

  Sheri. I was confused at first, but then I knew my mother was calling me. Sheri. I struggled awake and could smell urine again, and more. The awful, overpowering smell of shit right here in the bed with us.

  Ah! I gasped. I thought I might vomit.

  Clean me up, Sheri. Letting your mother die in her own shit, like an animal.

  Stop this!

  I wish I could. I wish I could stop dying, believe me. I wish you could die instead. The cancer came from you.

  You’re crazy! I screamed. I was out of the bed already, running out of the room.

  You will come back here and clean this.

  I opened the front door and went outside in my underwear. Still snowing. Everything blanketed, only the sides of buildings showing, and thin tracks in the road. The piles of traffic barriers still orange. I gulped in the fresh, cold air and my bare feet ached already. I could run, just run to every neighbor and see if anyone would take me in.

  Sheri! I don’t want to smell this. This is vile. What have you done?

  My skin tightening, all heat already gone. My body thin and pale, flushing pink. It seemed a long way down to my feet. A body such an unlikely thing, the shape of it and how fragile it was, exposed.

  I marched into the bathroom and wrapped each hand in toilet paper, then I went to my mother and pulled back the top sheet. She had rolled over onto it, mashed all against her backside. My mouth opened to retch, but I held it back. I grabbed two handfuls with my toilet paper mitts, wiping, and carried them to the toilet, flushed, and wrapped again.

  I tried not to touch, but I had to get in between her legs, and there was the angle with the sheet, and the toilet paper too thin.

  Don’t be so rough, my mother said. You’re hurting me.

  So I tried to be gentle as I wiped the backs of her thighs and butt and crotch and the sheet, and nothing was clean, and the smell was no less.

  Baby wipes, my mother said. Baby wipes and then baby powder. You need to buy those things or my skin will get a rash.

  I couldn’t answer. I was still trying not to throw up, keeping my mouth closed. I grabbed a small hand towel and soaked it in warm water, then wrung it out. I wiped her with this and she complained.

  It hurts. Damn it, Sheri. You’re tearing off my skin.

  But I ignored her, washed out the towel at the sink, unbelievably nasty, something I never thought I’d have to see, all over my bare hands, and then returned to wipe again until she was clean. I pulled off the corners of the sheet, rolled her gently to the side, and wrapped it in a ball.

  You do this a hundred times, she said. Imagine that. A hundred times, no less. The shit soaks into the mattress. You can’t get the smell out. You use bleach and soap and shampoo, and you even try gasoline once. There are two beds, so at first you just flip her mattress. Then you use both sides of yours. But that’s only the beginning. It happens so many more times. If you had money, you could buy adult diapers, but you don’t have any money. So you try making diapers from towels, but there’s no elastic, so it all spills out the sides. Almost always diarrhea. A brown lumpy drool with bits of red in it, sometimes blood. And the smell is sulfur. Not like my shit now. This is nothing. This is healthy. But when someone is sick, that sulfur smell, the smell of gunpowder or rotten eggs, that smell is everywhere, and that’s what soaked into the mattresses, the smell of sickness and death.

  I’m sorry, I said.

  Just understand. I slept in that smell for years, but my bed should have been kept separate. I should have been kept safe. That’s what he didn’t do, keep me safe. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly.

  I understand. And he should have been there. He shouldn’t have left.

  Good, Caitlin. Good.

  There’s nothing he can ever do to make it up to you.

  Yes. That’s right.

  You suffered something no one should have to suffer.

  Yes.

  And you lost everything, and it can’t be returned, and your life will never be what it should have been.

  My mother sat up. Caitlin. I’m proud of you. That’s good.

  And she died without her husband. He committed a crime.

  Yes.

  And he can never make that better for her, because she’s gone.

  Yes.

  He’s a monster. He’s unforgivable. He should be hated. He should have nothing, and he should die alone.

  Caitlin. Yes. My mother looked excited, as if we had discovered something, as if we were going on an adventure.

  But he’s still my grandpa.

  My mother slumped back down into her pillow. I stood and waited, but she said nothing. Aren’t you going to scream at me? I asked.

  Gray light of day in the room. My mother’s back almost the same color as the white mattress, lying in her bed nineteen years ago, when she was me. I waited.

  The clock said almost one p.m. I’ll fix lunch, I said.

  I dumped the sheets in the washer with the others and used all the highest settings, poured in bleach as well as detergent. It would be a shitshake, and I’d have to wash a couple more times, I was sure. I mixed a bucket of bleach and water and took another small towel and wiped at the spot on the bed while my mother remained silent. I didn’t sniff-test the mattress when I was done. And I could smell my mother. She wasn’t quite clean.

  I’ll run you a bath.

  No response, but I went to the tub and was careful to get the temperature right. I poured in some shampoo.

  In the kitchen, I looked for something fast, found cans of chili. I could fight her. I knew I was strong enough. I could last until Monday morning. I opened both cans and shook them into the pot, put it on low.

  I checked on her, but she hadn’t moved. Eyes open, not sleeping, but not responding.

  When the bath was ready, I rolled her over to face the middle of the bare mattress, got behind to hug and pull. Already, in less than a day, we had pathways repeated over and over. A thousand days did seem terrifying. I didn’t want to know what her life had been like then.

  I eased her into the tub, arranged her limp legs and arms and head, and she stared down into the water but didn’t look like she could fall.

  The chili was warm, and I brought her a bowl. She didn’t raise her arms. So I fed her spoonful by spoonful and she moved her mouth just enough to open and chew, some zombie come partially to life. Normally she would have been at work right now, in the snow and lights, an outpost of clanking metal and revving diesel engines run nonstop day and night all year. A place where she was no longe
r herself but only a body performing tasks, a kind of robot that looked like a person. But now she was the opposite, dead on the outside and lost somewhere inside what could only be her, remembering.

  When she finished her bowl, I went out to the kitchen to eat. I was trying to see my grandmother. We had no photos. My mother had erased everything. The silence in the house, no speaking for days. I saw her older. I couldn’t see her my own mother’s age. Wrinkled face, and I couldn’t make her cruel, only sad. She would smile to say she was sorry about dying, sorry to leave and not be there for all that would happen in later years, sorry for all that was being taken away. This was the only grandmother I could imagine, sorrowing and still filled with love.

  The bathwater had already lost its heat, so quickly, and she was sitting in it, probably getting chilled now, but not saying anything. It was worse than when she yelled at me.

  I have to get you out of here, I said. I’m sorry. I had meant to soap her more carefully, but the soak in shampoo suds would have to be enough.

  I tugged but she was entirely limp, so heavy. I couldn’t dry her off but dragged her dripping back to the bed made with our last clean sheets, laid her on my side and toweled her off, crotch last, a few small brown smears, then rolled her over and tucked her in with a top sheet and comforter.

  You’re clean now, I said, and warm. Just sleep.

  She closed her eyes and said nothing.

  When I lifted the lid of the washer and sniffed, the sheets seemed clean. I smelled only laundry detergent, but I poured in more, with bleach again, added the towel, and washed a second time. Then draining the bathtub and rinsing it, wiping up the floor. Then dishes.

  I was so exhausted. I went to my own bed, not wanting to wake up ever again next to shit or piss, and I must have fallen asleep instantly, then woke to knocking.

  I looked at my bedside clock and it was already six thirty in the evening, dark out, the day gone and someone knocking at our door.

  My mother wasn’t answering. I struggled to wake up, pulled myself out of bed to go check on her. She was lying on her side just as I’d left her, unmoved, her eyes open now.

  Should I answer? I asked.

  No response from her, so I went to the door. Who is it?

  Steve.

  The sound of his voice the most enormous relief. He could break the spell.

  Where’s your mom? he asked when I let him in. He looked like a normal person, friendly, talking, not pretending to be someone else, dressed and clean, not pissing himself. He was carrying a bag of groceries and a rose.

  In bed.

  In bed? Can I see her?

  I pointed to her room and he set the bag on the kitchen counter, then went to her. I followed.

  It smells in here, he said. Like shit. What happened?

  My mother hadn’t moved. Leave, she said. Caitlin and I are spending the weekend together.

  You weren’t at work today, he said. I went by at lunch, and they said you called in sick.

  Just leave.

  Not so easy. I decided I’m not leaving, that I won’t let you drive me out. Because I know you want me to stay.

  Caitlin, my mother said. I need to pee.

  I dragged her naked from the bed toward the toilet.

  What’s going on? Steve said. What happened? Can’t you walk? His voice so quiet it was only air. He was afraid.

  She’s fine, I said, struggling to talk as I dragged her. She’s just showing me what it was like to take care of her mother.

  What?

  Caitlin doesn’t believe my life was real. She wants her happy grandpa time, and she doesn’t believe any of what happened when he left. So I’m showing her.

  That’s crazy. And you’re naked.

  Get the fuck out.

  Not this time.

  I had my mother on the toilet seat finally. She peed as Steve watched from the doorway.

  What? she said. Years of taking care of her. No one will ever know what that was like, but knowing a few days can’t hurt.

  How long has this been going on?

  Since yesterday, I said. In the evening. After she destroyed his car with the tire iron.

  You saw your father?

  You should hear the plans, she said. They’re making plans now. We’re supposed to move in with him, a happy little family. Our sugar daddy, saving Cinderella. He goes back to work as a mechanic, watches fish with Caitlin, and I go back to school and skip around meadows with all my free time. You get to be the prince. Caitlin has it all planned out.

  What?

  I know he would work again, I said. And he already told us we could live with him and not pay rent. And she could go back to school.

  That’s a lot to think about, Steve said.

  I’m not thinking about it, my mother said.

  Well why not? You hate your job, and I know you could do something better if you had a chance. Maybe you should at least consider it.

  Wipe me.

  I wiped my mother and then grabbed her from behind again.

  Stop it! Steve yelled. What the fuck are you doing?

  Oh, so upsetting, having to drag a healthy person to bed. Try someone whose body is turning to rot.

  Steve followed us into the bedroom. Why does it smell so bad in here?

  It’s not the right smell. It really was sulfur, day and night, as if the bowels of the earth were breaking open, as if we lived in hell. When I hear fire and brimstone, that’s what I think of, my mother’s bedroom. And always some new wicked torment from her, saying something crazy, how I had made her sick or driven everyone away or didn’t love her.

  I pulled my mother onto the bed and rolled her over, covered her with the sheet and comforter.

  Now leave me alone. Make dinner, Sheri.

  You’re calling her Sheri?

  Yep. I’m trying to break into that selfish little skull.

  Caitlin isn’t selfish.

  She’s a child. All children are selfish. And what would you know? You’ve never raised a kid. So I’ll tell you. We aren’t real. We don’t have any feelings or thoughts that aren’t about her. She can’t believe we existed before her. So I’m making her live that time. It will become a part of her own memories, and then she’ll believe.

  That’s crazy.

  You call me crazy one more time and I will cut you open with a knife.

  Look, I’m sorry. But please stop. Why can’t you just stop?

  Because I didn’t get to be selfish.

  Steve knelt beside my mother where she curled in bed, put his arm over her. Sheri, he said. I love you, and I won’t leave you. And Caitlin will always love you more than anyone else. She watches you in every moment, and whatever you’re feeling in that moment determines whether the world is good or about to end. She’s your daughter.

  He laid his head against hers, arms wrapped around, and I could see her convulse beneath the sheet, short quick tugs from crying, but no sound. I ran to her and put my arms around also.

  Sheri, he said. Things could be easier for you now. Let them be easier.

  But I hate him so much.

  Maybe it’s because you love him. Something left over.

  You’re a bastard.

  That’s right. I’ll be whatever you need me to be.

  Mom, I said. I’m sorry.

  I could feel my mother convulse again, soundless. I held her as tightly as I could.

  You’re sorry, she finally said. After how awful I’ve been to you. Well, I guess that decides it. Fuck. I can’t believe that piece of shit gets to have his way again. It’s not fair.

  Steve made clam chowder with razor clams from Alaska. As big as his hands, brown shells brittle and sharp. I froze these last summer when I was in a hurry, he said. You dig after them with a shovel. At low tide. The sand is black. Then you’re on your kn
ees or even lying down on the wet beach as you dig in with your hand, sometimes all the way to your shoulder. They’re unbelievably fast, and you’re grabbing at this hose which is their mouth and butt, called a siphon, but sometimes you grab the shell and it shatters and that’s how you get cut.

  The siphon on each clam long and dirty cream. Steve wedged a shell apart, pulled out the meat, cleaned the stomach, rinsed, and then chopped the clam into small bits.

  How do you know where to dig?

  They leave a sign in the sand. Called a keyhole if it’s clear or a dimple if it’s already filled in, or even a doughnut if you can see sand humped up all around the hole.

  And why do they have their mouths next to their butts?

  Seems like a bad choice. I’d hate to wake up one day and find my butt next to my mouth.

  I laughed and hit Steve in the arm. She was taking a shower after cleaning her room, so he was all mine at the moment.

  See how the shells look like trees? Steve said.

  What?

  Like a cross-section, if you cut a tree trunk. They have rings, and those really are growth rings, just like on a tree.

  Do the trees know about this?

  Steve laughed. That could mean trouble for the clams. You’re right.

  My mother emerged, her hair wet, wearing a long flannel shirt and no pants.

  Whoa, Steve said. I like that look.

  The shirt was held together by only one button, very low. My mother moving in for the kill. Come here, she said. Dinner will have to wait.

  So I was left alone in the kitchen thinking of Shalini, this unbearable feeling of wanting to pull at the air. I wouldn’t see her until Monday, and it was only Friday night. I found her mother’s phone number and dialed.

  Shalini’s father answered. This is late to be calling, he said. But I’ll allow it this once.

  I miss you, I whispered when she came on the line.

  Why weren’t you at school?

  I wanted to explain to her, but it was all too enormous. I didn’t know where to begin. I don’t know, I said.