turns to me.
“Get to your fucking room.”
I bound across the field and up the stairs, into my room, where I lock the door. I climb into my bed, head pounding, dizzy.
◆Late Stone Age jugs suggest that intentionally fermented drinks existed during the Neolithic period
◆Alcohol is a depressant which in low doses causes euphoria
◆In higher doses, alcohol causes stupor, unconsciousness, or death
I SPEND DAYS WITH THE LEMONS, RUBbing the walls. I am not allowed on the phone. The hours ache by.
A WEEK LATER, MY MOTHER IS STRANGELY happy. The fight has worn off of her. We are going shopping.
“Are you ready?” my mother calls, singsong.
I am rotten today, nastiness in my body. My knot feels thicker, more prominent. My mother does not notice. We drive to town.
“What a beautiful day!” she hums.
Mania is a trap. Trees whip past. I count the dead deer on the side of the road.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks.
The bloody ribs of the deer reach up out of their bodies to the sun.
“The ribs of the deer look like fingers,” I say.
“Could we try for just a minute not to be disgusting? We’re trying to have a nice day and get you a dress.”
“Yes,” I murmur. “Nice day.”
The store is rich and glowing. The lights are thin ribs electric above us. We walk over pristine linoleum floors, the racks of clothing around us pushing in.
“This would be nice!” she says. “How about this one? Oh, let’s try this.”
She fills her hands with lilac satin, yellow taffeta, a sickening green velvet.
“Won’t these be nice?” she asks.
“I don’t like those. I like black and red.”
“Well, we need to try new things, so we’re going to try new things,” she says.
In the changing room, the dresses hang behind me like limp bodies.
“Hurry up,” my mother calls.
I put on the yellow dress, too tight against my body, a cage. I look sallow, a tumor.
“I don’t want to show you this one,” I call.
“Stop fucking around,” she hisses. “Get out here right now.”
I stop fucking around and walk into the dull blare of the lights. A set of three giant mirrors triples my wrong shape, the horrid color, over and over again, infinitely. My mother lets out a sigh.
“This is all wrong. Take it off.”
I put on the next dress: An aching lilac satin that strains against me. I step out of the dressing room, teeth bared.
“Is this it?” I bellow. “COULD THIS BE THE ONE?”
“Don’t be goddamn ridiculous,” my mother hisses. “It looks terrible. Get it off!”
I picture her mouth with duct tape over it, the sky widening with calmness above my head in the bright new silence.
VISION
I stand on our front porch, barefoot, the white house muted behind me. My mother is cleaning inside again, but the scent hasn’t reached me yet.
The sky is stormy green, the shade of terror or mold. The wind riles itself up around me, pushing at my skin and hair.
In the secret part of my heart, I think about Jarred, looking at that sky. I only want to whisper into his ear, to feel the curl of his fine hair near my lips.
The wind rolls harder. Inside, the radio chatters warnings. Pressure builds, waiting to drench down thick on the land.
Suddenly, a red dress appears in the sky, a bright slash against the dark gray clouds. I watch as it falls, getting larger as it draws closer to the earth, then drifts onto the grass, empty and thin, collapsing into a pool of fabric.
The sky fills with other dresses in different colors: Blue satin gowns drip down alongside black strapless numbers. Old green chiffon twirls around black and white polka dot dresses until they go weak on the grass.
The sky is a mess of hues and textures, clouds building with the promise of more cloth to come. Tulles and silks and polyesters fall past my face, skirts and bodices billowing.
Each gown lands with a soft thussssh when its fabric collapses against the ground.
I walk through the gown rain until I get to the red dress. I kneel down to the scarlet fabric, running my fingers over it.
The dresses begin to fall faster, the closets of a million women pouring down over me.
Still-glittering prom gowns and wrinkled dark grey sheaths brush against my arms. A heat builds in my belly and below it.
The hues and textures keep falling, combining, coming, puddling. I hear the screen door open.
“You better get your ass inside,” my mother screams from the porch.
“I’ll be in soon,” I call. “Just a minute.”
A beige dress brushes past my face. The touch is so light my chest swells with the want to weep.
Jarred, I whisper.
I cannot stop myself. I collapse on the red dress, stretch my body over the slippery fabric, the new touch. I look up at the sky.
The dresses stack up around me, pile down, make weight on top of me. Scents rise up from the threads to greet me, smells of flea markets and old perfume and hidden sweat.
A yellow fabric falls over my nose and mouth like a hand over the face, taking my air. I go dizzy from the lack of oxygen, my eyes close against the fabric, the weight of it like Jarred’s body pressing against me.
LOW SOUNDS OF GRUNTING AND panting through my open window wake me in the night.
I follow the sound across the field to the deep red door of the barn.
I crack the door, and I press my eye against the peeling red wood.
Inside, my father is shirtless, covered in blood, bottle by his side. Piles of meat surround him.
