Animal

by Lisa Taddeo

  —Mommy! I shrieked, but my voice didn’t seem to reach her. My need was so primal, so simple, and her interior was so complex. Like the mantle of the earth, with layers upon layers of nicotine staining the cracks.

  31

  WHEN I WOKE, I WAS still bleeding and there was also a remarkable pain. Eleanor was home and she came into my bedroom and asked me if I was okay. I ignored her and walked into the bathroom. I locked the door and stayed inside for a long time. Eventually I told Eleanor to please go out, to take my car and get as many rags as she could.

  —Rags? she said. Why?

  —Because I’m losing the baby.

  I heard her gasp.

  —Just go.

  Because it had been vital for me to be practical, I decided it was all for the best. I reminded myself of the time I’d seen a picture on Big Sky’s wife’s Instagram, during one of my morbid nights. I was doing cocaine in my apartment off of a Jimmy Buffett CD. I was scrolling through her feed, which was rarely updated and sparsely populated, but this night there was a new image. It was of a bathroom in what was surely the Montana lake house. Their youngest son, just about a year old at the time, in a Japanese soaking tub. The walls surrounding him were made of smooth knobby stones. It was early evening and there was a fantastic light coming in and you could see the sun out the window firing up the trees, those sensational Ponderosa pines that Big Sky was always saying he hated chopping down. It made him feel like a murderer. So why do you do it? I asked. Because, he said, a family needs a fire.

  This child in the bath had no idea how lucky he was. The wife taking the picture had no idea who I was. What child could I bring into the world? You would only have had shower curtains with mold on the hems. We could only have stayed in damp motels, eating heather-colored burgers and greasy potato chips as we counted our last dollars on the filthy carpet. I’d eaten too much caviar and I hadn’t saved for your future. I’d eaten too much caviar with men who didn’t marry me. It was better like this, I thought as the blood rained out. Then a new contraction came, the worst one yet. I screamed so loud the sound might have colored the air, and then this thing, this palpable thing, released itself from under me. I caught it in my hand.

  It didn’t look like an alien but very definitively like a human child. The shape of it and the feeling of it. The eyes nearly sewn shut; I could see the dark balls beneath beautiful, tight lids. It was blue and red with organs and its own pumping blood, close to the surface of its glossy flesh. The nose was the most exquisite I had ever seen.

  It fit in my palm and yet it was larger than the length of it; I don’t remember, I only kept thinking it was large enough to live, I believed this with my whole being. You will have days when you think God is cruel, or what God is there at all? You may believe there is nothing. I believed and then I did not. Whichever I felt on a given day, the only thing I was certain of was that I must have been wrong. That day I figured it must be a female God to give you gifts like these that cannot or should not be kept. A female God would know who could be trusted with a child. And she would also know who might need a moment’s reprieve from the darkness. And then she would take the child back and place it into a real mother’s womb and let it grow there.

  It had perfect hands and I tell you this not to be sensational but because it was perhaps the only pure feeling my heart had felt in nearly thirty years. One of its hands curled itself around my index finger, wrapped itself nearly all the way around it. My finger was so concretely, so shockingly, held. I’d been held enough by my father in the short time I had him, but I had always pined after my mother’s arms, her hands. I always wanted them to make a cap over my skull, to grasp me and suck me into her. But now to have my child, its little fingers, webbed still and yet delicately discrete, to have them press into me, to hold me, it was enough love to keep me for another thirty years. It recognized I was meant to care for it as long as it lived. I don’t know why I keep saying it. Because I knew very well, it was obvious, the child was a boy.

  I don’t know how long he kept breathing in my hand like that. His ribs, ivory etchings beneath the gel of his skin, moved up and down in elegant puffs. With a finger from my other hand I stroked his forehead. My baby, I said quietly. I felt peace and happiness. I knew it wouldn’t last but I allowed myself to feel it for as long as it did.

  When it was over, it wasn’t sudden or dramatic. The breaths simply stopped. A small chill came over his body. My next emotion was rage. It was more well defined than the happiness because I was better acquainted with rage. At what? Everything. Everyone. I wanted to kill the world. I knew that at the very least I would kill someone. It was more than a premonition. It was a promise I could control. The rage was so great it needed to go somewhere. But for once I did not have rage at myself. For once I didn’t hate myself. I loved myself as my child had. I saw myself as something greater than I thought I could be, and though certainly the feeling would fade, it still shone radiantly in that moment.

  Then suddenly from outside I heard the familiar screeches. If all the misfortunes of the world could be contained in one sound, it might be the bright hell of the coyote. Then I heard them make a new sound. An angry growl that sounded more like a human imitating an animal than an animal itself. I ran, with my cooling child in hand, to the door. Kurt the dog was being attacked by three slavering gray beasts.

  That dog had nothing to prepare him for his horror, staring down the imminence of his own death. He’d been mistreated for the first year of his life and then sent to a kill shelter and had no idea he was set to die until he was saved by a young man with a love of the great outdoors. He’d gone from vicious kicks to steel cages to pure love and heaping bowls of food and scaling mountains and sleeping in a bed with a warm body.

  I saw River come running from his yurt. Then I looked down and watched as one of the coyotes’ teeth, glistening and white, caught on Kurt’s fur. I saw the dog pull back and a strip of his furred skin come away from him. I screamed and one of them came toward me. Everything was going so fast. I didn’t think with my human brain and so I suppose that’s why I did the only thing that made sense. My hands released my glowing fetus. Everything stopped. The night went clear, a wash of starlight. I felt my knees buckle and the dog ran into my house.

  —Where’s Kurt! River screamed.

  I pointed inside. River, ignorant to what had happened, ran in and came out holding the enormous bloodied dog in his arms.

  —Thank you, he said to me, weeping.

  —I didn’t do anything, I said. Then I went inside and collapsed on the disgusting couch.

  * * *

  WHEN I WOKE, LENNY WAS stroking my hand. I noticed he’d somehow turned the air conditioner off. Perhaps with his cane, like a geriatric crusader, hitting the switch on his first jab.

  —Joan, he said, thank goodness. I wasn’t sure if you fainted or what. My God, those vicious creatures! You’re bloodied, dear, did they get you? Did they nip you somewhere? They don’t generally go after humans.

  I didn’t say anything. I was very still. I thought about what those people with their normal lives would think about me now. I knew I would never be able to tell anyone, not even Alice. Nobody wants to hear about great suffering or anarchic decisions. They think it’s an offense against their ears, their lives.

  —I cleaned up your vomit from earlier. I understand you were embarrassed. Of course, I was, too. I told you a great deal of things about my life that—I won’t say I regret it, but I don’t feel like you understood. I don’t think you understand men on the one hand and love on the other.

  I nodded, feeling my hands lit with blood.

  —Proust said that hell was the suffering that comes from the inability to love. I weep for your suffering, Joan. I know you have your reasons. I hoped you would tell them to me, as I told you mine, but perhaps your condition is worse, even, than I suspected.

  I looked at him, pressed my palm to my empty belly, and cackled like a witch.

  He was wearing the
watch. He was sure of his mental state in that moment, and that was why he was wearing it. He believed that the drugs were going to save him.

  —Joan, are you all right?

  —Leonard! I am more than all right! I am absolutely wonderful! Where is my red dress? Where is my red dress?

  I looked around crazily.

  —Joan, please. You’re—

  —I’m depraved, I said. Isn’t it fun?

  Outside, it was quiet. The coyotes had gone about their evening. Soon Eleanor would be back with the rags and I would use them for the blood. I didn’t have a washing machine so I would have to bag them and drive them to the dump. I didn’t remember a washing machine in the Poconos. It was possible we didn’t have one in that crappy mountain home.

  —I’ve just never seen you like this, Leonard said.

  I turned away and walked toward the window. I could see very clearly where the child had fallen. I would have to move out of this horrible house immediately. I could never comprehend how someone could continue to live in a place where a loved one had died.

  —Joan!

  —Shh, darling. I have a craving for a chopped egg sandwich. With mayonnaise and some nice cracked pepper. Let me make us a platter. You can’t take the pill on an empty stomach.

  He nodded agreeably and I moved to the kitchen. My voice just then had come from deep in my lungs, not from the back of my mouth, as a different older man once remarked of me. Speak from here, he told me, jabbing me just below my breasts. You sound unattractive when you speak from the back of your mouth. It’s low-class.

  It was strange to no longer be in pain after all those hours of it. I boiled the water for the eggs with a drop of vinegar, as my mother had done. Not as she’d taught me but as I’d watched her do. I boiled the water and felt the blood drying in my underwear.

  Lenny once said he could understand how a woman like me could turn a man crazy. Not even my looks, he said, which were formidable (formidable!) but my presence. I was very real, he said.

  It didn’t take me long to drop Lenny down the rabbit hole. By that point I knew a good amount about Lenore. I knew her favorite colors and music and foods and precisely the shitty way she prepared an egg. Absently I drew my hair into a sloppy chignon. I’d seen several pictures of Lenore—in the ocean and in the pool and at formal events—and I’d noted the way she crossed her arms and smiled when she was shy. I imbued my knowledge of her and his love for her and his betrayal of her into my role. Had I been going after a part, had playing Lenore been an audition, I’d have nailed it.

  I’d learned that I could keep him in the hole the longest when I never let the Lenore spell be broken. Mostly that meant being fawning, treating him like he was the most learned man in the world, the most gallant and benevolent and brilliant. It was exhausting.

  The eggs were just barely cooked when he called out to me.

  —Lenore, he said.

  —Just a moment, darling. I have to get these eggs off the heat so the yolks don’t overcook. I know how you hate a powdery yolk.

  —Yes, but I also don’t like it too wet.

  —Of course.

  I ran the eggs under cool water and began to peel them while they were still hot. My mother could touch the bottom of a boiling pan. She could hold anything without mitts. Indeed, her hands were callused, but I always suspected there was something else at work. Witchery.

  I mashed the eggs between the tines of a fork. I added a tablespoon of mayonnaise and a teaspoon of horseradish sauce. I added smoked sea salt and freshly cracked black peppercorns.

  As I approached Lenny, he finally looked below my waist.

  —Lenore, my dear, did you spill something on yourself?

  —Not exactly.

  —What is that? he asked, pointing to my thighs. Lenore, is that blood?

  —I lost our baby.

  —Oh, dear.

  —But it’s all right, I said, sitting beside him and taking his hand in mine. We’ll try again.

  He nodded and looked all around the room. He wrung his hands as old men do.

  —Was it painful, my love?

  —Not too bad, I said.

  —Sometimes it’s for the best, you know.

  —You’re right, darling. You’re right about everything.

  —Oh, Lenore. That’s kind of you. I’ve studied and read my whole life, my love. I come from a long line of wise men.

  —Please, dear, try some of this egg salad.

  —My Lenore, he said, not a woman of the kitchen.

  —Well, you didn’t marry me for my cooking.

  He nodded. He licked his lips. He brought his wrinkled hand around to rest on my rear, cool and wet with blood.

  —Darling, you’re aroused, he said.

  —Oh, always when you touch me. You know that. But now is not the time. We wouldn’t want to make a mess.

  —Wouldn’t we, he said, smiling impishly.

  —I suppose I could lay down some sheets.

  —Go lay down some sheets. I’ll eat my lunch and be right behind you.

  My legs felt rubbery as I walked up the spiral staircase to the hottest bedroom in the world. I’d taken two Klonopin right before my child was born and the effect was finally at work.

  I heard the wretched sounds of him eating, the dentures clacking, the whole mouth working to move the soft food down the throat. That noise was enough of a reason to kill him. My white dress was bright red from the waist down. It was rather lovely. I figured I could dye the whole thing red. I took it off and used it to wipe between my legs. I put on a clean pair of underwear and a green t-shirt that said MONTANA on it. I would love to tell you it belonged to Big Sky, but it didn’t. There was a night he came to my apartment wearing the same t-shirt. After we fucked, as he was putting the t-shirt back on, I was struck with the usual fear. He was about to leave. I never knew when I’d see him again. Every time could be the last time. He was going home to her. She got to have this man in this t-shirt.

  I was naked in the bed. Listen, you must always be the first one to dress. This is obligatory. I didn’t know to do that. Gosia hadn’t lived long enough to impart that wisdom. We lie there naked after the other person rises because we can’t bear to leave the space. We can’t leave the sweat and the warmth because we love it too much. We love it more, nearly, than we love the asshole rising to put on his t-shirt. Don’t be the fucked one. Be the first to rise.

  Meekly I asked, Can I hold on to that shirt?

  He laughed.

  —I mean it. Can I have it?

  He continued to laugh and shake his head.

  —Please, I said, hating myself.

  He left quicker than usual. He usually stayed long enough to come twice. The moment he was out the door, I opened my computer and bought the same shirt off the Internet. Ponderosa pines on a green background.

  —Lenore, are you ready? Lenny called from the bottom of the stairs. I looked down and saw the dirty plate on the table. The fork beside it. There were little mounds of egg salad on the table that he must have dropped as he spooned a second serving onto his plate.

  My father used to bring all the dishes to the sink. He even asked me to place my dirty clothes neatly in the laundry. If I left something inside out, he considered it disrespectful to my mother. Leonard wasn’t the type to pick up his plates. He’d grown up with a live-in housekeeper in some colonial house with a foyer table and fresh flowers every three days.

  —Put that fucking dish in the sink, my love.

  I could have said anything to him as long as I did it in his sweet Lenore’s voice. He stuttered something and dutifully bussed his dishes. Then I heard him make his way up the stairs.

  —Remember when we met?

  —Of course, I said. You were my boss. I didn’t like you at first. You were married and ugly.

  —Excuse me?

  —You were ugly, Leonard. You are ugly. But it’s okay.

  —I was never ugly.

  —That’s true. You were never ugly
.

  He approached the bed and unbuttoned his fine linen shirt. His hands were shaking with his disease. The full extent of his disability was revealing itself to me. The heat was too much for me to bear and I couldn’t imagine how he was handling it.

  He lay down beside me, shirtless. He wore nice khaki pants and simple black socks. Klonopin is a wonderful thing. Xanax, Ambien. They melt you down to your wolf tone.

  —I remember the first night, I read to you from Muldoon. “Incantata.” Do you remember? Every stanza is a sentence, I told you, and you, silly thing, you hardly knew what a stanza meant. You wore a lime-green dress. It suited you, but of course a paper bag would have suited you.

  He scuttled closer. His touch was odious and yet Vic’s had been worse. I could count on one hand the number of times we’d fucked traditionally, the number of times I hadn’t simply masturbated in front of him. I couldn’t for the life of me call up the sound of Vic coming. Honestly I felt like his love for me—what he thought was love—drowned out his lust.

  —Len, I said.

  He brought his hand to rest over my belly.

  —Yes, my life?

  —I’m a whore, my love. A filthy used-up whore. So fuck me. You can feel how wet I am. Only whores are wet like this.

  He gasped and began to pinch at me with his old fingers. Roughly and cruelly. How I missed my child. In the mere moments he lived, my child showed me how useless men could be. How boring, how selfish. This old man. This old killer.

  I groaned against the invasion of his hand on the place where my child had fallen, but he thought it was rapture. My rage was growing by the second. I felt the tendons in my neck straining like a junkyard dog’s against a chain. I closed my eyes. I pulsed my pelvis against his bony hand when I heard the music from that night.

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