The Animators(50)

—

“We should actually go there, you know,” Mel says.

“Go where.”

“Kentucky. If we go there, we might get a better idea of what this thing is actually supposed to be. That’s the story’s cradle, man. It’s crucial.”

“Not a good idea,” I say. We’re in the living room, Mel hunched over the drafting board, me massaging my weak leg. “For several reasons.”

She turns to me. “What color were the shutters on the outside of your house?”

I stall, digging into the big muscle of my calf. I get a glimpse of what she’s been working on. A pack of enormous deer, staring out, malevolent. A List-like quality to it. It’s contagious. “I dunno. Black, I think?”

“You have to know, man. It can’t be fuzzy.”

If I weren’t still recovering—if it didn’t still take me a solid ten minutes to get dressed in the morning, if I weren’t still limping so heavily I needed a hospital cane just moving around the house—I’d fight harder. But I don’t have all my ammo back. I’m still at a loss—slower in arguments, pokier making connections between things.

I remind myself: Mel has shown genuine patience. That’s against her true nature. She’s willfully changing herself merely by sitting there and shutting the hell up.

“Making a trip just for that is not necessary,” I tell her. “We can figure this out on our own. Let’s not get the family involved. You know? Making this—thing you want to make will be hard enough without piping my mother into it.”

She pokes me in the side. “Nuh uh. I want me some Missus Kisses.” Yells, “You think you’re better’n me?”

I roll my eyes. Peel the top off a dish of rice pudding.

“We have to,” she presses. “You know why? If you didn’t have that afternoon, with Teddy, in his dad’s bedroom, we wouldn’t have this.” She reaches out and taps the Moleskine, the now ever-present Moleskine, Goody hair band in place. She refuses to be separated from it. I once saw her carry it with her into the bathroom. “The List is the fallout, man. How did this make you what you are?” She flicks her lighter, wags her thumb through the flame. Shakes her hand to cool it. “It’s about solipsism. It’s about wanting. Hunger. It’s about how we get what we need, how we make what we need, and why we need it.”

“Safe to say you’ve moved on from your slapstick Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould idea.”

“Did you ever notice your crush numbers went down when you were working on a project?”

I shrink back, surprised. “No.”

“I did a count by year. When you weren’t busy, you had to find a way to make yourself busy.” She wags her finger faster through the flame. “It’s about holding stories. It’s a control thing. A self-protection thing. I—I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out.” She gets up, starts to pace. Doing that thing where she cups her hands and pops them on top of each other, snapping her fingers. “The story’s not about guys on the List. It’s the List itself, the stuff underneath. And that starts in Kentucky. You, your parents. That fucked-up little house. Those pictures. That shit was so damaging, your brain had to hide it from you. You can’t tell me that’s not a part of the story. That’s the story. And Teddy. Oh my God.” She rakes a hand through her hair. “He’s in this thing so deep, man.”

I stew for a minute before I say, “I’m glad you’ve had such an awesome time figuring this problem out for yourself, but this is not a story. This is something that happened to me. This is something that is still happening to me.”

“That’s why we have to go.”

I shake my head.

“Sharon. This is something people feel but can’t find the words to talk about. That was your first, best lesson: It really is better to be someone else, isn’t it? Someone who hasn’t seen what you’ve seen or felt what you’ve felt. And you wanted it so badly, you found a way to give it to yourself. For a long time. Putting yourself in these stories.”

“Yeah. And it’s done me so much good.”

“I disagree. You have an overpowering imagination,” she says. “But it’s a gift you’ve had to pay for. That’s a story that needs to be told. So tell the fucking story, man. Do the footwork. Don’t just fight a fight you know you can win.”

“You’ve never met my family,” I tell her. “You don’t know what they’re like.”

Mel peers at me. “You know what? I can handle the Kisses family, dude. Bring it on.”

—

My cell rings the next morning. “Sharon?” Mom wavers.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I know that tone. Here comes the explosion. I was wondering when it was going to happen. I take a deep breath and push my oatmeal aside.

“I’m sorreee,” she bleats.

I drop my spoon. It clatters to the floor. Son of a whore. Picking it up is going to be a three-minute operation. I stare at it, frowning.

“Sharon? Say something, honey.”

Today is the first time I have ever heard my mother say the word sorry. She has never apologized, or rephrased, or softened. Usually when she screwed up, she just let us stay out, or keep the car longer. She’s bad for letting stuff marinate. Angry rebuttals delivered two months late, silent acquiescing three weeks after argument. Prime example: She was the portrait of reticence at Dad’s funeral. A few appropriately timed tears, eyes rimmed with red. Two months later, Shauna found her in the backyard setting fire to a pile of Dad’s belongings, screeching and sobbing at it to burn quicker, goddammit, burn QUICKER.