When Women Were Dragons(8)

In any case, it didn’t really matter in the end. When my mother went away when I was four years old, her sickness was unmentionable. When she returned it was still unmentionable. What happened to the old lady across the alley was unmentionable, too. As was the boarded-up house. People walked by and averted their eyes.

But, whether anyone liked it or not, the Mass Dragoning of 1955 was coming. My family, my school, my town, my country, and the whole world were about to fundamentally change.

And this change, too, would be unmentionable.





4.

Even though my aunt and uncle became regular presences in my house after they got married, my uncle always seemed to me to be a bit of an afterthought—and even more so after my cousin Beatrice was born. Now, all these years later, I can barely remember what he looked like. I just remember his scratchy chin and sour smell and that he was sometimes mean. He became infinitely ignorable once Beatrice came along.

Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice, Beatrice! She came into my life like a rare bird—all color and motion and enthusiastic yawp. She had orange hair and eyes the color and sheen of beetles’ wings and skin that turned grubby within seconds of washing. On the day she was born, I swear that the sky froze and the sun stood still and the earth began to vibrate. On the day she was born, no one told me my aunt was heading to the hospital, or that this was the day that the most wonderful human to ever exist would enter the world. But I knew it all the same. The universe became more of itself once Beatrice was in it.

Beatrice and I were made for each other. We were the paired wings of a dragonfly, or lightning with its necessary thunderclap, or the spinning dance of binary stars.

The evening visits from my aunt and uncle felt very different indeed after that. My required presence at the dinner table—to practice social graces, and sit still, and speak only when spoken to—went from a mere annoyance to an interminable chore. What use had I for the world of adults when Beatrice was in the house? Beatrice with her whole fist stuck inside of a drooling smile. Beatrice only just discovering her toes. Beatrice following along with a baby song, her light, clear voice matching my pitch and volume with accuracy and intention, erupting in giggles at the end of each phrase. Beatrice squealing with delight when a toy reappeared. Beatrice was, from the moment she was born, my favorite person on the planet. Sometimes, it felt as though she was the only person on the planet. Or that the two of us were. We were Beatrice and Alex, rulers of the world.

I sat at the table with the adults in my child’s chair, painted red, with my hands folded and my napkin on my lap, counting the moments until I could ask to be excused to go to the living room to play with the baby. Ten minutes, my mother had told me. Ten minutes I had to sit at the table and make conversation though I wasn’t exactly sure how, since I was also told that children should be seen and not heard. I watched the clock. Each minute that went by seemed to last a thousand years.

And it was in that moment, when I watched the minute hand creep toward another notch, that I noticed my father’s voice becoming hard, and abrupt.

“It’s the past,” he said, his voice whipping across my face, like a slap. I flinched. “It’s not polite to bring up the past.” A weighted silence dropped, and my ears began to ring. My mother’s skin turned pale, and her shoulders curled inward. My father’s face confused me. His jaw clenched and his mouth became hard and grim, showing the serrated edge of his lower teeth. But his eyes told a different story—damp, soft, and pleading.

My aunt began to finger the bracelet on her left arm—a complex pattern of knotted wire that my mother had skillfully made with a crochet hook as a bridal present. She had two, one for each wrist. The metal whorls and twists glinted and flickered in the candlelight, as though they too were made out of flames. “Well, there are several things that aren’t especially polite,” my aunt said with a swallowed smile. She set down her fork and began to dab her fingers and mouth with her napkin. “But that doesn’t stop folks from doing them. On business trips, for example.” She winked, and sipped her glass of wine, her red lipstick lingering on the glass, like the ghost of a kiss.

“Can we please not argue,” my mother said in a small voice. The air in the room became tight. My father’s cheeks clenched and relaxed, clenched and relaxed. The skin on his neck turned red. I looked at the clock. It seemed to have stopped. Beatrice cooed in her baby seat in the other room. Likely examining her toes again. She giggled at something. The air perhaps. Or perhaps her own wonderful self. I bit my lip. Beatrice was being cute and I was missing it.

My uncle swirled the dark liquid in his glass and knocked it back. Refilled it in a flash. “Don’t make her mad, George,” he rasped, casting a bloodshot eye toward my aunt. “You know what they say about angry women.”

My aunt gave him a hard stare and the color drained from his face. Her eyes were dark and hot. “And what do they say? Darling,” she said with the calmness of a snake about to strike. She gently readjusted her bracelets as though they itched.

His lips were dry. He didn’t say anything. He returned his cup to his lips and jerked his head back, pouring his drink down his throat.

“We don’t have to talk about this now,” my mother said, gathering the plates into a haphazard stack. “It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.” She hurried into the kitchen and let the dishes fall into the sink with a colossal clatter.