Cath and I met as neighbors. We shared an estate of Bermuda grass that my husband mowed before an asthmatic death followed him to South Carolina, where he resettled with one of the Debras who answered phones at his siding company. Cath’s husband took over the yard. Every Thursday afternoon during Wellfleet Sands, his machine roared to life exactly as I’d unfolded my tray table and placed out a bowl of sour cream and onion chips with a bowl of sour cream and onion dip. The mower’s engine droned over my television. Every episode I was condemned to guess what duplicitous things were being said among the staff, summer tourists, and lifeguards of the Wellfleet Sands Hotel & Resort.
And then one afternoon, while Cath’s husband was cutting the grass with his zero-turn mower, his heart stopped. The mower sailed ahead, carrying a vacant body to crash against my birdbath, where it sat chomping at the lawn beneath until all its fuel burned up. The funeral was filled with the heavy musk of Brut steaming off red-faced men. Men like Cath’s husband. A prerecorded organ warbled from ceiling speakers. In Cath’s eulogy, she referred to her husband as Oedipus, flying too close to the sun. My daughter, for an unknown reason, cried the entire time.
My daughter insisted I move in with her. Something about a new start. About being in my grandchildren’s lives. As I watched Cath shuffle dazed through the parking lot, a linty black dress clinging to her body, I agreed.
Until I moved, every Thursday afternoon Cath brought over lemon squares with cat hair in them. Her cat had been gone for two years. Every Thursday afternoon, I watched Wellfleet Sands on mute as Cath complained about TrueNorth Financial’s bereavement policy. I half-listened while watching as Leah and Jessica and Dr. Morris wordlessly describing Cath’s husband’s sun-speckled skin. I watched the trio spar with their bleached smiles, stealing looks across a beach that never saw rain as Cath described how the mosquitoes were drunk off her husband’s blood. How it fermented in his veins. I packed Cath’s lemon squares into my garbage disposal and my belongings into trash bags. I left behind a backyard of pure jungle.
Even after my daughter took me in, Cath followed. On Thursdays, as Troy Carosi, a motorcycle-driving bellboy, cast his square jaw to the ocean, to the final moments of summer, the phone would scream. It could be tuned to the stroke of one-thirty, when out of the receiver came Cath’s sobs. She would say, I still miss him so much. I can hardly get out of bed. I told her all the reasons there were to keep busy. There’s a whole world out there. You have your job. Your new granddaughter. With Troy and Leah and Jessica slinking into the orangey lavender of a Labor Day sunset, Cath moaned about her husband being the love of her life. They had planned to retire at the same time. Move closer to the son from his first marriage. Cath thinks it was somewhere in Oregon. Near a lake.
For dinner, my daughter was always renewing ground turkey into different forms. She prepared stone-fruit-adorned salads that tasted like plastic bag. My older grandchild, Hannah, would make the younger, George, cry by some vicious name-calling over his love for turkeys and vultures. When my daughter’s husband chastised them off to bed, my daughter, drunk and gossip-laden, told me Cath had been escorted out the back entrance of her job at TrueNorth Financial. My daughter knew all about the scene because her husband coached little league with the CPO. My daughter said Cath couldn’t stop crying: in front of clients, at the Keurig, at her desk responding to emails, on Webex meetings, while men consoled her with shoulder rubs. Her body was able to infinitely create its own brackish water.
After Cath received her payout, she invested every cent into a new company. OilBaroness: Natural Solutions for Health and Healing. Her phone calls became more frequent with promises that I could earn a thousand dollars a week as a self-starter. There’s a conference in the fall, she said. We could go together as early earners. I decided that Cath and I, though we had been neighbors once, would not continue as friends. It would be healthy for the both of us to release. With my grandchildren in school and my daughter busy with her gym, I’d be free for Wellfleet Sands reruns.
To screen my calls, I went to buy a phone with caller ID. The Kohl’s was being retiled and caution tape blocked the electronic aisle, rerouting my path to youth clothing. There I heard my name. I froze. It was impossible, but there she was. Just beneath a towering FALL BACK IN poster of children flinging themselves through dead leaves, Cath stretched her arms for an embrace. A spirit, adrift in chemical-smelling Jansports, desperate for a familiar thing to latch onto. I’ve never been happier, she said, sinking into me. Her body felt like debris. She wore a name tag, And a radio cord spiraled up from her belt to her pilly sweater. She said I wouldn’t believe the number of clients she meets here.
That’s how, beside an Easter candy endcap, out of pure guilt I ordered three hundred dollars’ worth of lavender-hemp oil. That’s how, a week later, I came to wake up to a rapid ticking. The smell of gasoline. A wet ear. My Honda folded against a pole.
The EMTs ruled I had overdosed on CBD concentrate and fallen asleep at the wheel. My license was revoked for eight months. My daughter buried me in a condo where between the living room and bedroom, I needed only one lamp. The rest of the lamps my daughter took and replaced with a DVD player. You’ll love it here, she said. Your car will be waiting for you in your very own spot. 28C. You love the number 28. That was Grandpa’s lucky number.
My daughter, reluctant and dutiful, became my driver, carting me to my doctor appointments. Every time we parked, she would pull out her phone to sigh at work emails. My daughter, hair bun sucked up with scrunchies as either a drain or a fountain depending on the day, reminded me it was Icarus and not Oedipus who flew too close to the sun. It was that friend of yours, Cath, with the dead husband who waded too far out into the sea.
My landlord was always repairing a blue van splattered in white paint. From my window I’d watch him beneath the hood, lifting a Miami Dolphins cap to comfort his scalp while drawing fluids from the van. My neighbors were a couple trying for children. Lots of children, judging from what screaming bled through the walls. The husband never left home without a zip-up vest sporting his company’s insignia. The wife worked part-time at a dog kennel. She’d introduced herself with a quiche made from grape tomatoes, feta, and graham crackers as the crust. I dissected every slice for hairs but found nothing. She promised I’d find out her husband was a better cook and said if I ever needed a ride anywhere, she’d be happy to help.
The idea arrived gently at first. It was a quiet nagging until I finally told my daughter, after dropping me off one day, Listen, honey, I don’t want to keep putting you out. I know my errands are slowing you down, and I have these nice neighbors who’ve offered. I could tell that in my daughter’s mind she could see her lunch breaks returning to Orangetheory and Panera. She feigned sadness. I pretended to be a wounded animal. Whatever you want, she said.
I was back in Wellfleet Sands. When the phone rang it wasn’t Cath or my daughter asking if I needed groceries. My only callers were men from the IRS, fascinated by stories of Wellfleet that I retold as if they were my own. I ordered gift cards for them, but not from Kohl’s, Heaven forbid. I’d match their voices to the tanned jaw of Troy Carosi, whose mouth, at long last, I could fill myself with.
Then, after a month, the cable resolved to static. My daughter had forgotten to pay the company. I was left with the DVD player and Prehistoric Future: Season 2, Disc 2 in the tray. Something intentionally hidden for me by my grandson, George, no doubt. Every day I settled in to watch my little dinosaurs traveling through time to meet Abraham Lincoln, Caesar, or Cleopatra. After finishing the six episodes, I started them over. I couldn’t believe in a God who decided these creatures were no longer worthy of stewarding the Earth. I allowed my teeth to grow fleece for them. Wellfleet Sands’ love-struck pool guards went on without me. My past self went on without me. I saw her wandering the streets outside at night. Even the phone stopped ringing. Cath’s Facebook account went cold. I figured that’s what she deserved for poisoning her customers.
We’re not not going to celebrate your birthday, my daughter assured me one Sunday morning three weeks before my actual birthday. She had brought fruit-infused wine and bags of Moe’s Southwest Grill that made my home smell like fryer oil. She brought her husband, Shane, who kept his phone faced down on my coffee table. She brought grandchildren who left urine on the toilet seat. Still, I was glad to see them.
We were sitting on the pull-out couch that came with my condo. Shane and the kids watched from the matching sleeper sofa. My daughter handed me a book-shaped slab concealed in blue tissue that I recognized as being reused from last Easter.
It’s an iPad, she said. I can send you pictures of the kids. And there are recipes. Here, I got you this book too. My trainer told me it’s the absolute authority on smart devices.
After finishing our rice bowls and tortilla chips, we took turns hugging goodbye in the parking lot, but only as a display for the neighbors. George asked why my car was hidden by a sheet.
Ghost car! Hannah said.
I leaned in close to George and asked, Do you like dinosaurs?
Yes, he said. Very much.
Take me to the site of their execution, I whispered.
Where?
The peninsula. The gut shrine, I said.
Sarah, don’t they close in like a half hour? My daughter’s husband had started their SUV.
What about my pumpkin madeleines? Mom, you promised me. Hannah was beginning to screech, throwing her seatbelt off.
Oh, where are you off to? I asked.
Shane wants to see if that new farmer’s market by the college has the cheap goat soaps, my daughter said. And there’s a stand that gives out free cookies for kids. Believe me, they know exactly what they’re doing.
After watching my family pull away from the lot, I settled into the sofa with iPad for Seniors by Anne Dysenear. There was a picture of Anne on the back cover, holding an iPad in each outstretched arm as if she were receiving a message from God. It began with Chapter 1: “Charging and Powering On.” I selected my language on the thing. I poked the icons to make them squirm like little bugs beneath my finger. I played a game of Mahjong until the screen was the only light in the living room. I unplugged my lamp. When I woke up, the iPad was connected to the wall by its cable, lying beside me on the pillow.
The next chapter was called “Embarking on a Web Safari.” It began with a picture of Anne in a wide-brimmed hat and khaki vest, holding a pair of binoculars. I searched for what the dinosaurs on Prehistoric Future were made from but received only ads for moisturizing lotion. Discounted steak bowls. I treated myself to the rest of the Arbor Mist that my daughter had left, and read Chapter 3: “Life One Gram at a Time.” Through the iPad’s camera, I captured the beauty of each eye blinking out within the soap froth of my sink drain. Mold forming on the leaves of my rubber trees. People walking their dogs and the dew that formed on the swollen film of my Hungry Man lasagnas. Anne taught me step-by-step how, with the photo’s sun wand, I could soften my surroundings into their true nature.
Then, my head still floating in Mango Strawberry Merlot, an idea bloomed. I opened Photos and reversed the camera with the sun wand setting flipped on. Instantly, I became adorned by golden visions of insects and birds. Softening my face and alighting my eyes with effervescence. I asked the birds that worshipped my crown of flowers what they were made of. Paper? Pixels? They didn’t answer. After documenting every corner of the condo this way, I removed the Moe’s wrappers from the garbage and slathered them over the mirror in the bathroom.
At night I heard my neighbors gossip through the walls. They hissed about my family’s waning visits, and about my smell, which they described as Frito bag. I turned Prehistoric Future up to full volume, so the little dinosaur’s songs could drown their gossip. If only I had my neighbor’s phone number I could send them the real me, the queen with a crown of insects and spring birds. When I Googled the husband’s name there was no phone number. Only ads for the Yucatan Family Adventure Park off I-61. I took two lasagnas from the freezer and microwaved them at the same time. Dizzy off sodium, I called my daughter’s home. I hung up and tried again until finally, George answered.
George, I hissed into the receiver, you need to take me to the peninsula. Remember, you promised? He said he was seven and couldn’t drive. I asked him what they were made of in the future. I told him, I think they’re made of tinsel. I heard Shane’s voice from the background. Who is that? Hang it up. Then directly into the receiver, he said, Please. You need help.
The next morning, I finished the lasagnas remaining in the freezer, burying the cardboard boxes at the bottom of the green waste bin instead of the blue bin. In the grass square out front, I watched our landlord collecting bagged dog shit and kicking the bags into a pile for his mower to consume. After every pull of the cord he’d lift the front of his hat to nurse a sunburned scalp. I wondered how sun reached the skin there. His mower refused the ritual. It refused my landlord’s command, and it was then I understood what every dinosaur came from.
Thank you! Thank you, I cried from the porch. The mower’s engine announced itself with a retch of gas.
Soaked in the remainder of Cath’s oils, I drew the sheet off my Honda and got behind the wheel, muscles remembering how to shift. There was still a half tank of gas. Windshield wiper fluid cut through the pollen that had accrued. I stole away from the apartment building, knowing my neighbors were probably excitedly watching from their windows. The Honda roared at every incline but didn’t give up. There was a smell of mineral spirits. Brown house paint. I thought about how Cath’s husband’s mower had only been trying to dig down to his ancestors. To be rid of his heir.
I turned around before the highway and headed for Kohl’s. There I found Cath, asleep by the microwaves. Her eyelids were purple and she had taken to wearing a wig underneath a hat adorned with a paper sunflower. A single quartz, meant to showcase her new healing-gemstone business, was a perfect pendulum from her neck.
My Honda’s parked outside, Cath. Let’s go.
Where are we going?
I pursed my lips in her ear, a mollusk untouched by blush, and said, the gut shrine.
Oh, OK, she said.
The Yucatan Peninsula Family Fun Park came up immediately on my iPad’s map. The park was closed, but I was sure they’d let us in by the time we arrived. On the way, we would see how the meteor reversed everything once green. How Icarus had turned around midflight and headed right back for the jungle to have his revenge. Over highways and bridges, I recalled this correctly to Cath, the story of Ares who was devoured by a brachiosaur. The animal that at night, drunk off berry rot, simply abandoned its instincts to be herbivorous.
The Honda quit somewhere between ranch and desert. Right after we had finished our dinner of Wendy’s baked potatoes and Fuji apple chicken salad. I found an old down parka in my trunk Hannah had given me for Christmas the year she was born. Cath sliced open the parka’s midsection with her Kohl’s imprinted box cutter, filling the dry air with snow. We caught the remainder of the Honda’s gas in the down and took turns breathing in the fumes as we scaled an embankment and traveled over cattle fencing to a barren, oceanless shore. There we sat on the rim of a canyon. I looked at Cath. She was beautiful. Made of human tears and bootleg oil.
How much turquoise would we have to swallow if we needed to become gods? I asked.
Cath wasn’t sure how to answer. She pulled at a pink tapeworm from the youth-sized sweatshirt she wore. The canyon was the most haunted place I’d ever seen. A basin of infinite death.
The crystals in this place are ideal regulators of energy, Cath said, motioning to where the afternoon sun spilled over a quilt of mineral and sediment. There we saw the crater, but not the actual crater. It was close enough. It must’ve been five miles wide.
You might also like
