by Terri Cheney
My father’s face turned serious. “What’s this?”
“You know. I’m supposed to write a story about myself.”
“And?”
“I can’t think what I should write.”
“Write about anything. Write about—” His eye caught the vase on the dining room table. “Flowers. Say what kind of flower you are.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. What did it matter now, anyway?
“Come on, Zach, we’re late,” my father said.
Zach stayed in his seat, frowning. “My hand hurts. And I think I’m getting a sore throat. I should be able to stay home too.”
“Forget it,” my father said.
“Why is she the only one who gets to lounge around all day?”
“Because she’s not the one who just got a D-minus on a math test. Out with you.”
My father scooped up his keys off the counter and held out his arms. “Give us a kiss, princess.” Knowing this would be the very last kiss nearly undid me. I hurled myself into my father’s arms and hugged his waist so tight I could feel his belt cutting into my skin. Then I burst into tears.
“Whoa, what’s this?” He stroked my hair. “You’re not afraid to stay home alone now, are you? A big girl like you?”
I didn’t want him to remember me like this. I’m not sure I knew the exact words yet, but I wanted him to remember my dignity. Grace. Poise. “No, of course not,” I said, shaking my hair back out of my face and cracking a lopsided smile.
“That’s better. Give ’em hell, baby.” It was his signature line, the one he always said before we had to part. As always, it stiffened my spine and made me feel like a soldier on my way to the wars.
“Bye, Daddy,” I said softly to his retreating back. Zach sped by me, saying, “Don’t cough up any blood on the couches. Mom’ll kill you.”
“Bye-bye, Zach,” I said with far more tenderness than I had ever mustered toward him before.
And then they were gone, and the house was all mine. My footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors. I caught a glimpse of myself in the living room mirror and decided not to look in mirrors anymore. I looked far too small for the big deed that I needed to do.
I thought about preparing one last grand meal, full of everything I was usually denied: chocolate chip cookie dough, a great big root beer float, Cheetos, corn chips, and an economy-sized bag of M&M’s for dessert. But I just wasn’t hungry. There were things to do, and Anna Marie was coming in an hour. If I was going on this journey, I needed to pack. I realized that packing for the afterlife might be futile, but those mummies had been pretty smart, and they had brought along a thing or two.
I had my very own suitcase: a small pink one that my mother had bought me when we visited her family’s farm in Canada a few years before. Standing on a kitchen chair, I wrestled it down from the closet shelf. It was empty except for one photograph tucked away in one of the silk-lined compartments. I remembered that photograph, although I wished that I didn’t. It showed what appeared to be a wild child, a seething mass of hair and bared teeth. Her mouth was open, clearly screaming. The child was locked in an empty cage.
The Black Beast had been upon me then. I’d been bad: I hadn’t wanted to go to a livestock show with the rest of my cousins. I hadn’t wanted to do anything, just wallow in bed. But I was maybe four or five, and of course, they couldn’t leave me behind. One of my cousins joked, “Let’s put her in the cage”—the one they used to carry the pigs. They tossed me in there and locked the door. It was a sweltering day, and the smell of shit was so thick and strong I thought I’d suffocate. Flies swarmed all around me, buzzing angrily in my ears and crawling in my eyes, my nose.
The Black Beast went berserk. I didn’t know any swear words then, I only knew how to scream. And scream I did, so loudly and so long that I lost the use of my voice for days after.
It was the first time I remembered ever losing control. In spite of my fury, in spite of my righteous indignation, the abandon felt delicious. It was like I lived on a freer, wilder plane than my grubby, earth-bound cousins, who by now were gathered around laughing, snapping photos of me. I played to the camera, loping around like a crazed gorilla, beating my chest, banging my head against the bars. I lost myself entirely in the part, leaving behind the immaculately dressed little girl in her polka-dot socks and Mary Jane shoes. I scooped up some dirt (mixed with pig dung, no doubt) and smeared it across my face, my dress. I was just about to start eating it when my aunt caught sight of us from the farmhouse window and made my cousins release me.
I got a lot of attention after that: a warm bubble bath, an extra helping of my Aunt Dolores’s famous mashed potatoes, and the right to keep the light on if I wanted. My dreams were full of cages from that night on.
I slipped the photograph back in its place and lugged the suitcase into my room. What to pack? Daddy had read me an article once about King Tut, the boy king who’d been buried with his gold. I had no gold, but I did have a genuine pearl pinkie ring from SeaWorld. In it went. There wasn’t much else in the way of treasure, so I just took what was most precious to me. Toto, of course; maybe God could restore his missing ear. An old picture of my mother with her arm around my father’s waist—it was one of the few times I’d seen them embrace. All seven books of The Chronicles of Narnia. (I left the lives of the saints behind, figuring that I could interview them in person.) But I didn’t take a single honor or award. There were lots of them lining my bookshelf: plaques and trophies and parchment scrolls. The best of this. Most valued that. In Heaven, I was sure, none of this would matter.
I shook my head in wonder. Imagine: a world without grades, without prizes. How would God know that I was the best? Would He still love me anyway?
I shut the suitcase and snapped it closed. The house was quiet. I could hear the clock out in the hall. I could hear the leaky faucet in my mother’s bath, the one she kept nagging my father to fix. Our house abutted the freeway, and the sound of the traffic was sometimes so loud it made conversation difficult. But it was strangely muted that day, as if all the cars were running on velvet. The world was hushed and waiting.
I sat on the bed and pulled the pill bottle out of my pocket. I tried to read the label, but it was an unintelligible mass of mostly vowels, followed by “Take as directed.” It didn’t really matter what they were called, I supposed. Everyone knew that pills were dangerous; that’s why they hid them in the lingerie drawer or on the very top shelf of the medicine cabinet.
I went in the bathroom and filled my toothpaste glass with cold water. Then I opened the bottle and emptied it out on my bedspread. Damn. There weren’t nearly as many as I’d hoped there would be: twenty-five—no, twenty-six—little blue pills. Was that enough to do the trick? Or would I end up a vegetable like my mother’s great-aunt Rosemarie, with the perpetual spittle in the corners of her mouth that nobody bothered to wipe away?
One thing was for sure: I couldn’t do this alone. I pulled Toto out of the suitcase and held him tight, careful not to crush his ear. Then I knelt down on the floor and prayed for guidance: “Dear God, I’m sorry if this is a sin, but please don’t let me mess it up.”
Not a very eloquent prayer, but deeply sincere. I got up, slipped off the robe with the big yellow daisies, and packed it carefully in the suitcase. Then I put on my First Communion dress—or rather, I tried to put it on. There was a row of little pearl-covered buttons in the back, which I couldn’t quite manage by myself. I felt an intense and sudden longing for my mother, with her efficient, nimble fingers. It was not the most auspicious start, to arrive at Heaven half-buttoned.
I checked the clock. Eight-thirty, and Anna Marie would be here at nine. If I was ever going to do this, now was the time. Now, now, now, the Black Beast commanded.
All at once, I felt a curious sensation, as if my body had split in two and was watching itself. I observed my right hand reach out and pick up one of the little blue pills. It was strange: I wasn’t afraid. In fact, if I had known the word, I
think I would have said I felt serene: the decision had finally been made. But I noticed that my hand was shaking, and my fingers were icy white. I placed the pill on the tip of my tongue and waited, tasting. It was bitter; so bitter it made my eyes squint. I took a long, cool drink of water and felt it course down the back of my throat, sweeping the pill along with it.
Now it was just like homework: I simply had to dive in and finish. I attacked the pills like potato chips. Over and over, I picked one up, placed it on my tongue, took a sip of water, and swallowed, until they were all gone. Around about the seventh pill, I noticed that my hand was still shaking. But other than that, I felt no different. I saw no visions, I heard no trumpets. Death tasted familiar, like toothpaste.
This wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d thought the pills would kill me instantly, and I’d be whooshed straight into Heaven, like in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy is swept out of black-and-white into glowing Technicolor. But I looked around, and the room was unchanged. Same old macramé wall hanging, same old faded pink sheets. I looked under the bed. Same old dust bunnies too.
I was pretty sure I knew why I was still here. God didn’t want to take me yet because my homework wasn’t finished. Reluctantly, I got out of bed and walked over to my desk. I contemplated the horrid white paper. It looked even whiter and blanker than I’d remembered it. Write a story about yourself, Sister Mary Bernadette had said. I’d halfway promised my father at breakfast that I would—a story about flowers, I think he had said. What kind of flower was I?
My left temple was pulsing, and I felt slightly woozy, but I forced myself to sit down and face the page. The assignment seemed absurd to me. If I’d known what kind of flower I was, no doubt I wouldn’t be in this predicament. I’d be happy, in the right kind of garden, content just to be a daisy. But all I knew, all I’d ever known, was what I was not.
I grabbed my favorite crayon, burnt sienna, and started writing:
I’m not a rose like St. Thérèse
Or a lily like Joan of Arc
But a—
Here I stopped. I knew the image I wanted, but my mind was beginning to slip sideways and I couldn’t remember the name of the flower. It was shy and grew between the cracks—probably the last thing anyone would ever expect me to say about myself, but with death on my shoulder, I felt compelled to tell the truth. That was me, that little yellow flower always about to be crushed underfoot.
A sudden wave of nausea struck me, and I ran to the bathroom and was promptly sick. Plus I’d never had to pee so badly in my life. Once I did, the nausea lifted somewhat, and I made my way back to the desk. My legs felt as if they belonged to someone else, but my hands still worked, although the trembling was worse than ever. I examined what I’d written. Sure enough, it was wildly imperfect, the printing scrawled all over the page. I wanted to cry, but I was too preoccupied by the sensations erupting in my body: dizziness, thirst, and a violent buzzing in my ears. The paper was growing whiter by the second, the room began to spin and throb, and I barely made it back to my bed before I knew no more.
I woke to discover that Heaven looked just like my mother’s eyes. They were enormous; they filled the whole universe.
“You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you,” she said. “Anna Marie told me you were out like a light all afternoon.”
I hadn’t really expected to see my mother in Heaven. I thought she’d be so mad at me for stealing her pills, she’d never want to see me again. But here she was, and her voice was so soothing—soft and low and vibrant with concern—that I knew all must be forgiven. The whiteness of her uniform dazzled me. Clearly, she was an angel, and I’d never done her justice before.
I held out my arms to embrace her, but the motion unnerved me and I threw up all over the pillow. With one swift yank, she pulled off the pillowcase before it could soil the sheets. Then she kicked into nursing mode, laying one cool hand across my forehead, checking my pulse with the other. I loved it when my mother checked my pulse: she didn’t often touch me, and it felt like she was sending filaments of empathy straight through my wrist.
I leaned in to kiss her. She pulled back, let go of my wrist, and wrinkled her nose. “You’d better go brush your teeth,” she said. “And get out of that dress so I can fix the hem. I won’t have people saying I neglect my children.”
Shaky and dizzy, I went into the bathroom. I had a tremendous urge to pee again, but as I sat down, it occurred to me: there shouldn’t be toilets in Heaven. Nor should my mother pull away from my kiss. I realized then that I had failed—I had not scored an A-plus at suicide. What was I going to do now? I felt a sudden wetness on my cheeks, but I didn’t even look in the mirror to confirm that I was crying. I knew what I would see there: eyes like dead coals. I took off my dress and crawled into bed, careful not to let my mother see me cry.
“Dinner’s at six,” she said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself,” she shrugged. “It’s corn dogs.” She knew that was one of my favorite meals, but the prospect of food didn’t appeal to me. The thought of getting up and getting dressed was just too much to handle. I nestled Toto against my cheek and let him sop up my tears.
Sleep consumed me, and cages haunted my dreams. I was trapped and in danger, and there was no getting out. At some point, I thought I heard a man’s voice—my father’s, perhaps?—and felt familiar lips brushing my forehead. But it didn’t matter. The cages only grew smaller and tighter, the locks more cruelly intricate.
When I woke the next morning, I was seven.
I felt a burning thirst and that same insatiable need to pee. On my way out of the bathroom, I ran into my mother. She looked harried. “Have you seen my pills?” she asked.
“What pills?” I smoothed my face into a blank.
“You know, those little blue pills I take every morning. My diuretics.”
“Your what?”
“My diuretics. My ankles are going to swell like elephants’ legs if I can’t find them. Come help me look.”
“I don’t know where you keep them.”
“In my lingerie drawer. Mind you don’t mess it up. And hurry.”
It was impossible to hurry. My arms and legs felt like sacks of bricks and didn’t want to move. I spent the next ten minutes pretending to look for what I already knew wasn’t there. I’d hidden the bottle in a shoe box in the very back of my closet. There was no chance of it ever coming to light. But I sifted and sorted most diligently while my mother tore the rest of the room apart. Naturally, she found nothing.
“This means I’ll have to wear support hose today,” she said finally. “I can’t stand support hose. I don’t even know where they are. I hate this stupid house, where you can never find anything.”
I felt a little guilty then, but not enough to tell her my secret. Besides, the Black Beast had hold of my tongue, and it was difficult to speak. I wanted to say, “Don’t you even realize that I’m seven today?” but there were too many syllables in that sentence and too much emotion required to voice them. I left my mother ransacking her drawers and burrowed back under the covers.
Seventh birthdays are highly overrated. I slept almost the entire day. I didn’t have to resort to the pepper trick or stick a thermometer under my arm. Nobody expected me to go to school. My mother had left a note, so my father didn’t even try to wake me. He told Anna Marie to give me two aspirins when I woke up, but I never did. “I tried to call you all day, but you were asleep, and your mother thought it best that we leave you be,” he told me later that evening. I guess I must have looked as sick as I felt.
I was still a bit queasy from all the pills, but of course, that wasn’t the problem. It was the Black Beast, sitting on my chest. Each and every one of my bones felt too heavy for my body. Blinking and breathing, no longer automatic functions, had turned into strenuous acts of will. It was all I could do just to pull in my ribs and push them back out again, over and over. And always, behind each labored breath, was the knowledg
e that I had failed. Like it or not, I was going to live.
There was a cake—a fancy one, with ballerinas pirouetting all over it. Chocolate with buttercream icing, my favorite. While everyone sang the birthday song, I closed my eyes and pretended to make a wish. But there was only one thing to wish for, and I think I had already exhausted it: “Please don’t let me get a C.”
I even got the presents I wanted most: an Easy-Bake Oven and a beautiful hand-tooled red leather diary with its very own lock and key. I was a creature of secret thoughts; now I had somewhere to put them. I forced a smile and tried to sound gay, but it came out rather lugubrious.
“You’re still not feeling well, are you?” my father asked.
I shook my head.
“Do you feel too sick to go to school tomorrow?”
I nodded, hard.
“Jack, she’s already been out almost ten days,” my mother said. “You’re indulging her, as always. And don’t forget, her First Communion’s on Sunday.”
That was three days away. “The only thing she really needs to show up for is confession on Saturday,” my father argued. “She’ll be good and rested by then. Won’t you, princess?”
I threw my arms around his neck. “I’ll sleep all day, I promise.”
My mother shot him a look of disgust, but he got on the phone to Anna Marie. “Terri Lynn’s having one of her spells,” he said. “We’ll need you tomorrow and Friday, okay?”
“One of her spells.” I’d often heard my parents use that phrase, but I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Was I simply being ungovernable? Or was it possible, however unlikely, that they knew about the Black Beast? I immediately dismissed that notion. No one had ever mentioned it, and ours was too small a household for diplomacy.
Anna Marie was available, so I was all set. I’d rest up Thursday and Friday and go to confession on Saturday. Confession was, of course, mandatory before a First Communion. All sins must be cleansed, all impurities banished, before one could receive the body of Christ. I’d have an awful lot of confessing to do, I realized. I dreaded to think what Father Joseph would say, or what kind of penance he’d give me for attempting suicide—that most mortal of mortal sins.
