Hostage

Watched pots never boil. True love conquers all. The truth will out.

And blood will have blood, Abby thinks wearily, as the flabby cliches ricochet through her thoughts. She’s huddled in Michael’s recliner, clutching her phone, willing it to ring. The chair reeks of him—sweat, spiced aftershave, lemony hair oil. It occurs to her to wonder how many of his skin cells she’s wearing. Hundreds, thousands. She’s infested. At nine twenty-two, a text from her aunt, sprightly, inconsequential. At ten-forty, a scam text. Her heart begins to flap, lopsidedly. Finally, at almost midnight, her sister Glow calls.

Got him safe and sound, baby girl!

Thanks, Glow. Was traffic bad? Did he have a good trip?

Fuck yeah, terrible, and how the hell should I know, this man of yours keeps so many secrets.

Doesn’t he just, Abby thinks.

Michael’s voice growls in the background. Abby knows his vocal repertoire better than her own; he’s implying he’s been shamefully mistreated but is above retaliation. Glow is picking him up from the airport because three days ago, Abby’s Volkswagen began to belch blue smoke, and is now on a lift in a greasy garage. Through the phone she hears horns shout, a parking-lot shuttle wheeze. Do her sister and her husband snatch a moment to gaze knowingly into each other’s eyes? Do fingers accidentally on purpose touch? She doesn’t ask what Michael is saying. She doesn’t really want to know.

It's in the name, after all. Glow’s given name was Grace, but Grace died quietly in toddlerhood. Even at four she was like a panther, a vulture—wild, beautiful, deadly, brimming with appetite. She never walked; she spun, danced, skipped. She belted obscure show tunes when she got bored with conversation. She told edgy, titillating stories about thieves in the night, cocaine smuggling, dirty cops. She dressed like a bird trolling for a mate: Weird lacy concoctions, green and gold satin, fuchsia miniskirts with silver tights and platform heels. Her bright plumage dazzled and confused. People reacted to her as if she were a tsunami—an act of God too enormous to be understood. As the years passed, Abby lurked in the background of her older sister’s eternal pageant. She couldn’t be Glow but she could be what was left over. So she wore neat cardigans buttoned to the neck; she shunned offers of weed or coke; she got A’s and kept her room clean. She got no return on her investment. Glow stole her first boyfriend (Todd McAllister) and her second (Mark Abbott). After that Abby stopped counting. She saw that men were precarious things, always about to tumble. Glow snatched them as easily as a child might grab a penny from the sidewalk.

I’m sorry, Abs, she’d laugh, but he was so sweet and juicy! Like a ripe strawberry. I couldn’t help myself. Please don’t be mad!

And Abby never was, but she never ate strawberries, either.

She told herself to be angry; she tried, but she and her sister were like subatomic particles—haphazard, leaping, never seen, but sensed, imprisoned in a humming, indelible bond. She loved Glow as she loved her own fingers and toes, and she couldn’t scrub her heart clean. It was the Augean Stables; it was the broken, exhausted God bearing the world on his shoulders.

Michael left for Phoenix five days ago. That’s where he said he was going and it was probably true; Abby had dropped him off at the terminal, watched him disappear through the spinning door. She waited ten minutes, then fifteen, but he didn’t come back out. She reassured herself with the thought of his goodbye kiss, which was, for once, real—wet, lively, searching. He texted her a picture from the plane: His laptop on a tray table. Back to the grind, baby, was the caption, but the picture was a lie. On the laptop’s screen was a document neatly divided by bullet points, peppered with blameless phrases like revenue stream and market tendencies. Once he snapped the photo he’d switch to porn. Abby knows what kind of porn because she rummages through his devices when he sleeps. It isn’t just any porn. It doesn’t bear thinking about. She thinks about it.

Glow will insist on carrying one of Michael’s bags, but it will be the lightest. She’ll tell dirty jokes—nuns, bus drivers, astronauts contemplating black holes, with the expected vaginal punchline. She’ll settle him in her car, a battered Mazda with swirls of scratches, remnants of Glow’s habit of sideswiping mailboxes, trees, gas pumps. He’ll collapse against the window and doze. Or he’ll watch her operate the stick shift. The musical roar of the engine, the clutch catching, releasing. He’ll wonder why Abby doesn’t wear purple mascara, why she can’t drive stick, why she doesn’t smell of lilies, bourbon, and stale hash. Given the choice, what would any man choose? Her enormous grass-colored eyes. Her delicate, precocious insanity.

Michael will be hungry, so Abby starts dinner. Potatoes, steak rare enough to bleed across the plate. She rubs the meat with herbs, finds she’s out of fresh garlic, uses the jarred substitute, wonders if he’ll hate it. Sometimes he’s oblivious to what he eats, ranting with his mouth full about inflation or “woke” politics. Sometimes he forces her to list every ingredient, as if she’s trying to poison him, as if one day he’ll say, aha, lemon zest, you murdering bitch. She used to think that marriage meant you knew your man so well you could predict even the rhythms of his breath. But he foils her; he contradicts himself every second. When they make love his eyes are always closed.

She’s adding cream to the potatoes when she hears Glow’s key in the lock. It rattles, grumbles; Glow is fetchingly clumsy.

We’re home, baby, she crows from the entryway. This man made me wait centuries. I was so damn bored I bought a novel about some guy trapped in a well.

Did he escape, Abby asks, as they enter the kitchen.

Fucked if I know, I got to, like, the fortieth paragraph about impenetrable darkness and chucked it in the nearest garbage. Airports, Jesus Christ.

Michael’s shoulders speak, and tonight, they are loose, mobile. Is it because Glow is wearing a necklace of tiny papier-mache flamingos and a dress she made from a Tuscan tapestry? Originally, the tapestry depicted a young mother fondling a newborn. White sheets, the baby’s unadorned perfection. But Glow is a cannibal. Now, the infant’s creamy foot climbs her breasts. His eyes hide in pleats. The mother’s sleepy smile is fractured across the hemline in rough amoebas of teeth and tongue. Glow would argue if Abby called her a cannibal out loud. She’d say, I am an ARTIST, Abs, and there was an omelette to be made. 

I fed Henry, honey, Abby tells Michael, but he won’t eat when you’re gone. Not even Fancy Feast.

Jesus, Abs, has that food been sitting there for five days?

It has. It’s crusty, fishy-smelling. How could she have forgotten?

Sorry, love, she says.

He groans and hurls his suitcase against a wall, leaving a gray scuff. Their house is huge and expensive, but full of marks of Michael’s displeasure. Sometimes Abby thinks about a life without him, without any man. It would be like living in a cave. Cold, forgotten, a devouring silence. She couldn’t bear it, but maybe she could. Maybe she’d nestle, build a fire, roast what she could forage. What about protein? Could she bring herself to kill a warm, breathing thing? She could. She’s an animal too, more than willing to kill to survive.

Henry streaks into the kitchen like an insult. He wails, twining himself around Michael’s legs. Michael laughs and hoists the orange body in his arms.

No love like a cat’s, he says to Glow.

Sure thing, Mikey. Mikey.

Did you make anything for me, Abs, Glow continues. Or am I supposed to curl in the corner and starve?

Abby laughs lightly, as she’s supposed to. Have some potatoes, she says. They’re flavored with fresh dill and cream and—

Okay, okay, sis, I don’t need you to recite the entire Joy of Cooking. 

That’s the only cookbook she ever uses, Michael says. Can we get any more bourgeois?

They sit at the oak dining table, which cost thousands, but refuses to last. One bad leg, two threatening to go bad. Glow plants her elbows beside her plate, causing an ominous shimmy. Michael licks blood from his fingers. Glow lights one of her clove cigarettes, blows spiced smoke into Abby’s face. After she leaves, no matter how late it is, Abby will launder the tablecloth, sheets, their clothes. Otherwise the smell will taunt her for weeks.

Switch on the TV, why don’t you, Michael grunts. No need for us to sit here staring at each other like idiots.

Abby surfs through Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu. She settles on a reality show about a large-animal vet. He’s much too old to do what he does—bent, wrinkled, with fragile wisps of white hair—but somehow he does it anyway. A cow gives birth. It’s a breech delivery, protracted and dangerous. The vet’s arm drips scarlet all the way to his shoulder. Abby smiles when the calf finally struggles free of its mother’s heavy body, slimy with shit and blood, suckling furiously with its eyes closed tight.

This is fucking disgusting, Michael groans. Isn’t there a game or something?

She finds baseball, Nationals and Pirates. The bat cracks; the crowd rockets to its feet. The camera zooms in on a fan and his small son. The child is frightened by the commotion; he plucks at his father’s sleeve, eyes glimmering and immense. But the man refuses to notice. Abby’s never been the type to see silver linings. She turns away from the screen as Glow smashes out her cigarette and bursts into song.

Joy to the World! All the boys and girls!

Michael chuckles. And the fishes in the deep blue sea!

Glow grins at Abby. Her gold tooth glitters in the shadows. She’s never had a cavity; the tooth is solely for effect. Which meant she willingly submitted as a man wrestled out a piece of her and replaced it with hard, tangy metal. Which meant she always went way too far, that she smiled, and was a villain.

Michael falls asleep at the table, his tousled head on his arms. The game goes into extra innings. Moonlight caresses the three of them. Moonlight, Abby thinks, to think I used to be charmed by moonlight. 

Abby met Michael on a plane to Tucson. She was working as a wedding planner and her boss had insisted she travel to Arizona to oversee his daughter’s nuptials. He’d puffed on a reeking cigar and said make it perfect, I know you can. Abby boarded thinking about perfect and what it could mean. Masses of chrysanthemums and daisies? Champagne that flowed all night? A two-thousand-dollar bespoke dress, centerpieces of cucumber and twisted twigs, a deserted beach at twilight?

A man sat beside her, smelling of citrus. He was the type to manspread; his knee forced Abby’s aside. He pulled an iPad from his bag and began to read. Abby’s curious eyes traveled. It was a self-help book about willpower; her heart woke, emitted sparks. She knew what that was like, to try to manhandle the self into transformation. Selves were so stubborn. They knew when an attack was imminent; they dug trenches, readied artillery, never failed to draw first blood.

Good book? she asked him.

Oh sure, but it doesn’t tell me anything I don’t already know.

So why read it, then?

I like my truths reinforced. Often.

He turned to her and smiled. He had a scurf of late-afternoon stubble, a messy heap of overlapping teeth, a pimple on his chin. She grasped these small flaws like a life vest. Here was a man, she thought, who actually reveled in damage, asymmetry. He’d take what he wanted without wondering if he was good enough to deserve it. She smiled back.

I know exactly what you mean, she said.

They spoke of striving and discipline. Of inertia’s dirty tricks. Michael said the problem was thousands of years of evolution. Abby agreed. The plane landed and they went for a drink at the Friday’s in the terminal. Michael snorted contemptuously when she ordered a blueberry margarita.

No? she asked.

No, well, it’s okay for you. For a woman, I mean. That’s what people expect.

The casual, open misogyny should have disgusted her. But instead she was comforted. If she ended up with this man, she’d know the worst from the start. She wouldn’t wait, fearful, infuriated, as the onion was peeled, layer after excruciating layer. She watched him drain his IPA in three long swallows and wished she could pluck his bobbing Adam’s Apple from his neck. Wrap it in tissue, keep it in her purse, a treasured talisman. He ordered a scotch, neat, then three more. His eyes got red and watery and he ranted about his mother, eighty-three and in a nursing home.

I guess I love her, he said. Most of the time. But she always ruins it. She calls me by the wrong name or wants me to produce somebody dead for years or messes herself and needs her diaper changed. Have you ever seen somebody change an adult’s diaper?

No, I don’t think so.

Well, it’s grotesque. Like some old-timey circus attraction. You know, world’s most obese man, bearded lady, pygmies. I’m supposed to have empathy. But I hate all of life’s invisible rules, you know? Honor your mother. Take the trash out. Turn a fucking cheek.

I’m just the same, Abby said.

Really? he asked. Because I never tell people that.

Well, I’m glad you told me.

He grinned happily and touched the back of her hand. His fingers were fat, spatulate, like mushroom caps. They got a room at the Comfort Inn and fucked all night. Abby was dry and sore, but her body demanded more, more. She wanted to crawl inside him and arc lazily through his blood. She wanted his toenail clippings, the bead of saliva at the corner of his mouth. He fell asleep and snored lightly, almost imperceptibly. The sound reminded Abby of a child’s socks slipping over tile. It was a childhood memory—she’d been five, terrified of a rotten-breathed monster inside her closet, so she snuck out of bed. Her mother found her sprawled, blanketless, the next morning. She cursed and told Abby she should be more like her sister, who was never afraid of things she’d made up in her head. But what else is there to be afraid of, she wondered now, watching Michael sleep. She decided she’d been dealt her final card. All that was left was to play the hand in the right order.

When Abby was eleven, Glow thirteen, Glow caught a bad case of pneumonia. One autumn night, she collapsed in the kitchen, her breathing labored and harsh, the tips of her fingers turning blue. She wore a pink nightgown onto which she’d appliqued wobbly plastic eyes, socks embroidered with question marks, neon-blue eyeliner. Their mother went white and shouted commands. Their father yanked Glow into his pickup and blazed off into the night. Abby sat beside her mother as she sobbed, covering her mottled face with her thin hands. She didn’t know what to do except pat her mother on the back, so she did, until her wrist ached and her mouth got dry and sour. She thought about what it would be like if Glow died. She’d have it all, then, everything denied her. But who would she be, if not Glow’s sister? How could she balance the central equation?

In the hospital, Glow was small and thin in the narrow bed, colonized by tubes, tethered to chirping machines. But her hair was blood-red with violet highlights, she called the nurses stupid cow-faced skanks, and she’d stuffed a pack of Camels under the mattress. Abby did not know what to say. She’d come prepared with love and reassurance, but Glow didn’t need them. She was like an alien. Bright-eyed, untouchable. Their mother left the room and Glow hissed demands.

Get me a bottle of Raspberry Stoli. You can sneak one of those flat bottles in your purse. Also some weed.

Glow, I don’t think you should—

I’m telling you I can’t stand it in here sober. Do you know what we’re supposed to do with our days? Fucking soap operas. Everyone’s in a coma. Every coma patient’s sister sleeps with her husband. Babies are either illegitimate or dead of some mystery thing. The Mafia kills off the only character you can stand. Abs, I have to get high.

But where am I supposed to get weed?

Glow rolled her decorated eyes. Honestly, Abs, you never know anything. Sneak under the west stairwell between classes. Tommy Wacker will be there. Have a twenty ready. Don’t fumble and don’t say anything.

But won’t they smell it on me? Doesn’t it have a smell?

Sure, but—

Glow fell into a coughing fit. It was long and grinding and horrible. Like an immense, rusted machine whose parts groan and scrape against each other. Abby started to cry. She thought about the time a bully had shoved her and stolen her purse. Glow had hugged her and bandaged her scraped knee. She’d promised Abby that when they grew up they’d live in a cottage by the sea. They’d have two golden retrievers named Bruce and Andy and eat pie for every meal.

But I can’t swim, Abby had sobbed.

Sure you can. Your body knows how; it just keeps it a secret from your mind.

Abby thought of those soft, rhythmic waves as she crushed money into Tommy Wacker’s sweaty palm and received a Ziploc of green specks. She tried to steal the vodka from her mother’s corner cupboard, but she was caught. Her mother slapped her and made her drink what was left in the bottle. Abby choked and sobbed and vomited hot reeking streams. The next day her head was a boulder, her mouth burlap, her stomach a boiling crater. She took the train to the hospital and gave Glow the weed.

This is it? Glow asked. Really? I guess he thought you were a sucker. Guess you are, huh?

Abby was fifteen and Glow was seventeen and Glow had three boyfriends while Abby had none. The first was David Pierce, a quarterback, a prize catch. Glow treated him with an offhand cruelty, but he bought her chocolate and jewelry and stroked her bright hair with ineffable tenderness. The second was a quiet, acne-scarred boy named Jack. He’d never attracted notice until Glow took him on as a project. She got him to shave twice a day, to wear cologne and saggy designer jeans. He began to get smiles from other girls, was invited to parties. The third was gay, but Glow insisted she could turn him. She cut newspapers into floppy strips and made a dress. Headlines screamed from her stomach. Trickle-Down Economics Fail to Move the Needle. Iran’s Hostages Speak. The Algebra teacher threatened to send her home to change but didn’t. Glow sucked Jack off in the boys’ bathroom and was caught by the janitor, who threatened suspension. Glow told the janitor to go fuck a splintery log and spat Jack’s semen onto the janitor’s shoes. She got three weeks’ detention and a parent-teacher conference. Abby rode home with their father afterwards, who couldn’t stop laughing.

Not just a log, he said, a splintery log. Your sister’s sure something, eh?

Yes, said Abby, who was in the back seat because the back seat was the safest part of a car. She was reading A Separate Peace even though it made her carsick. After all, it had been assigned.

Despite Glow’s efforts, the gay boy failed to transform. She took this in stride, even became his champion against bullies. She scratched the basketball players who taunted him and kicked a girl who made anus jokes. For no reason whatsoever, she would only speak in French about these episodes. Je suis courageuse. Il et etrange et beau. The boy proclaimed Glow his best friend for life. Then, his junior year, he was killed by a drunk driver in a rusted Nissan.

Isn’t that just perfect, Glow sighed, a fucking Nissan. I would’ve accepted an Acura, even. Now I have to find a new gay best friend.

You’re just going to what, replace him? Abby asked. Aren’t you even sad?

Glow looked at her with irritated pity. Sure, she said, but every gorgeous girl needs a gay best friend. It’s an essential accessory. Like earrings.

You don’t always wear earrings, Abby said.

I know, Glow replied, but I always act like I do.

But there weren’t any other gay boys in their school, at least none who had come out yet. So Glow attached herself to a trio of lesbians. Two loud and butch, one taciturn, with silken yellow hair. All three fell hopelessly in love with Glow. They wrote her maudlin notes, bought her makeup, mall pretzels, necklaces. Glow gave them insulting ballpoint tattoos: Carpet Licker, I Luv Minnie Mouse. She held their hands and twisted away laughing when they thought it meant something. She blamed them for a fire she’d set in the teacher’s lounge, which burned up the Chemistry teacher’s sandwiches and singed the old flannel shirt he wore on lab days.

Did him a favor, she drawled, he needed a new fucking shirt.

The lesbians didn’t hate Glow; they hated the teacher. They spat in his coffee, stole his notes, wrote motherfucking chinless loser on the board in his classroom. Abby wanted to make it up to him, so she stayed late one afternoon to help sort textbooks. It was a winter evening and it got dark early. The classroom seemed cozy, faraway, as if they inhabited a fairy tale. She smiled at the teacher, who groaned and kneaded his lower back.

Slipped disc, he said, it’s a bitch. Where’s your sister tonight? Bet she’s got a hot date. Or maybe she’s robbing a bank.

He chuckled indulgently.

Yes, most likely, Abby replied. She wrote the correct number on a tattered copy of Intermediate Chemistry. She knew it was correct because she’d checked it three times. She couldn’t afford mistakes.

Michael was in sales and fiercely ambitious, so they moved around for the first several years of their marriage. Phoenix, where summers made Abby feel like a roasted chicken. Manhattan, where they squeezed into a dingy studio, assaulted by the screeches of a neighbor’s violin. Montana, the worst, because it was so empty. Wheatgrass prairies, moose, echoes. She said as much to a man helping her with a light fixture at Home Depot. He frowned and said this is God’s country, honey and will your husband be home to help you with this? Abby drove home wondering why it would matter which patch of ground the faithful occupied. Her windshield was smeared with dead flies and banana spiders and a prairie dog streaked across her path, causing her to break suddenly and hit her head on the steering wheel. Her husband was fucking a red-headed intern, his sixth infidelity. God didn’t do anything about any of it.

Finally, Michael became a VP and they could choose where they lived. They came back to the Chicago suburbs, close to their families. Michael jubilantly proclaimed that now they could have kids, since they’d have so many aunts and grandmothers to love them. Abby thought about these potential children. Jabbering needy ghosts, flitting through the rooms of their new half-a-million-dollar house. Where was the space for them, in her overloaded heart? Could you be a real mother if you’re only background noise? She told Michael she wanted to wait, but he threw her pills away while she showered. She couldn’t even retrieve them from the trash, because he’d ground them to powder with his shoes. He’d always been good at anticipating her pointless rebellions.

Glow threw them a welcome-home party. It was a riotous bacchanal: Strippers of both genders, a bowl of straight Jack Daniel’s with lemon slices, heaps of cocaine, intricate hors d’oeuvres from a tiny, exclusive bistro Abby hadn’t even known existed. Caviar-stuffed olives, rosewater cheesecake, truffle-and-unsalted butter sandwiches without crusts. Abby hated it all, but it didn’t matter; the party had grown into itself, become belligerent and alive, like a ravenous animal. The male stripper stuck a bagel on his dick and helicoptered while singing Sweet Home Alabama. The guests shrieked in delight and hurled dollars at his sculpted stomach. Someone found Abby’s makeup mirror and noses began to run. People vomited robustly into the four toilets, the six sinks, the two bathtubs, the backyard. Two people cheated on their spouses but the spouses only smiled and said it was a special night, wasn’t it? It went on until five in the morning, when everyone hugged Glow and congratulated her on the best party ever. After they left, Abby put her arms around Michael and asked if he was happy. She didn’t add finally. She’d never say something like that.

You need a bath, he said tiredly. You smell like fish.

She lay in the tub, listening to him brush his teeth, fall into bed, snore quietly. The water grew oily and tepid. Her stomach heaved. At first she thought it was just too much bourbon and unfamiliar food. Then the cramps started—sharp, vicious convulsions. She threw up in her mouth, dizzy and sick with pain. A dark, tentacled clot emerged, spiraling languidly through the bathwater. She realized she was having a miscarriage. She didn’t know what to feel about it. What would Glow feel? Easy. She’d be inspired. She’d photograph the thing, match its colors with red embroidery thread and black fabric, sew furiously, announce to everyone she met that this was her miscarriage dress. They’d expect to be horrified but find they couldn’t be. They’d wonder, they’d laugh.

She didn’t tell Michael. She did tell Glow, who cried in sympathy and took her to lunch at the bistro. Abby forced down bites of undercooked fish in ginger-lime sauce while Glow prattled and chain-smoked. The waiter appeared and told her she couldn’t smoke inside. She grinned up at him, fingering her safety-pin-and-African-bead earrings. He was charmed; he brought them a complimentary bottle of Pinot and faded away. Glow blew smoke rings at the ceiling and asked Abby how sad she was, on a scale of one to twenty. Abby settled on six. Very sensible, Glow said, it wasn’t even a person yet. They could always make another. Abby suddenly realized that was exactly what they couldn’t do. Those cells, those scraps of DNA— irrevocably gone. Good riddance? Was it? Glow said Abby was looking morbid and dragged her to a vintage record store, where she found an original .45 of Scarborough Fair. She sang about parsley and sage the whole way home. She made a sad song happy. She did that all the time.

The Pirates score three runs in the eleventh inning and win. Players are interviewed on the field. They grin modestly, sweat, praise the opposing team’s closer and say thank you and it was nice talking. Michael wakes, rubbing his eyes. Glow rises and yawns.

Better get home, she says, the place gets so lonely without me.

Michael snorts. I can’t imagine anything you own getting lonely, he says, I’ve never met somebody who should so obviously be on TV.

But then I’d live in California and you two would never see me. Wouldn’t that be terrible?

Abominable, Michael says.

Glow kisses him sloppily on the cheek. She does the same to Abby. She slams the door on her way out, causing a print of Waterlilies to slant. Abby straightens it. Henry slinks into the kitchen and issues demanding meows.

All right, all right, she tells him. I’ll fix you something.

I don’t know why you do that, Michael complains. Talk to an animal like it’s a person. It’s dumb. He can’t understand. He doesn’t even know what understanding is.

Yes, I know, Abby says. She pours kibble into the cat’s bowl.

Well, I’ve had enough of you and the cat for tonight, he says. I’m going to bed.

She listens to his bedtime noises, drifts through the enormous house, examining the artifacts of their lives. Picasso prints, cloisonne vases, rugs hand-woven in Bangladesh. Her mother’s ashes, in an urn etched with lavender tulips. Glow had handed it to Abby after the ceremony.

But why, Abby said, you’re the eldest. You have more of a right.

No way, said Glow. Can’t have them in the house. Death does not become me.

Now Abby realizes how silly the urn is. Their mother hated flowers. Sometimes their father would bring them home, big bright bouquets, infecting the air with heavy sweetness, and she’d grumble about having to take care of something that would die in two days anyway. The tulips can’t even be a metaphor. Their mother wasn’t a tulip. She smoked Parliaments and barked orders; her sweat was oniony, her eyes piggish. She was a tall cliff you couldn’t help peering from, drunk on the call of the void as the sea crashed hundreds of feet below. What would she say about how the story had ended? She wouldn’t, that was what was so puzzling. She’d say, you’re out of milk, the mail is late, you need to clean up that spilled ketchup in the fridge. Metaphysics did not interest her.

Without thinking, Abby removes the urn’s lid and runs her fingers through the ashes. She looks down, sees the moonlight has caused them to sparkle on the tips of her fingers, like tiny stars. When Abby becomes ash, will her remnants shine, and who will accept that tricky, demanding burden? Glow will wear purple glitter to her funeral. She’ll tell Little Johnny jokes and vape beside the coffin. Her heart will beat for both of them.

Abby washes her hands of her mother’s flesh. She throws shirts and underwear into an old duffle bag and calls an Uber. The driver is a freckled boy in a baseball cap.

Who’s your team? she asks him.

Oh, Sox, no question. I’m a South Side boy. Who’s yours?

Oh, I’m—I’m from the suburbs.

Well, you oughta choose. Can’t live in this city and not take sides.

I’ll remember that.

The car devours the highway and the city rises up before them, a flickering panoply of light. They pull up to Glow’s building, a converted coffee factory with rickety windows and a crumbling stoop. Abby pushes the intercom’s button.

Yeah, Glow says, in a surly, sleepy voice.

It’s me. I’m—Michael—

Well fucking finally, Glow shouts. Good for you, Abs! He’s a stupid cheating bastard with shitty teeth and he never once deserved you.

Abby starts to cry. Not the huge, abrading sobs she’d expected, but a fine mist, like early spring. She climbs the stairs. Glow’s apartment is a motley carousel. One wall painted puce, another magenta, another with bee-speckled wallpaper. The fourth is packed with abstract prints. Triangles, smears of color, faces without mouths, maggots curling into rotting fruit. Nothing is framed; Glow doesn’t want permanence. Abby slumps onto the couch and stares at a stuffed squirrel perched on the mantel. Glow mixes her a drink that tastes of cinnamon and mezcal. It burns her throat but she forces it down. Then she’s a little drunk but she’s also something else. Her body fizzles, whirrs, as if she’s an appliance that’s been plugged in.

What was in this, she asks Glow.

Honey, do you ever stop asking questions you don’t want to know the answer to?

Well, did you?

Yes, but it was crappy. I didn’t even come once. Why won’t he talk in bed? He reminded me of an abandoned building. Or like, an empty parking lot with weeds growing in its cracks.

Yeah, says Abby. Me too.

Glow starts to cough. It goes on. It sounds like thick fabric ripping.

You know, she says, catching her breath, I never really got over that pneumonia I had when we were kids. Remember?

Of course. I brought you weed in the hospital.

Babe, that wasn’t weed. Tommy Wacker saw you coming. It was shredded oregano.

Abby laughs. Guess I should have known.

Anyway, I still cough, I never feel like my bones are strong enough, and I can’t breathe in crowded trains. There was a nurse there, this big mean woman with bad breath, and she told me I’d cough for the rest of my life. And you know what? That bitch was right. 

Glow, why are you the way you are?

What a stupid question. Because I can’t be anything else. Who can? Life fucks us all, Abs. Listen, want to play dress-up?

What?

You wear my clothes, I’ll wear yours. It’ll be fun. I’ve still got that newspaper dress from high school. It’s my favorite thing I ever made so I laminated it.

In the moldy bathroom, Abby slips the dress over her shoulders. She looks at herself in the mirror. Her face is the same but her body shouts. Hostage Speaks! Her torso is a blurred picture of an emaciated, bearded man with empty eyes. He must have slept on a hard floor, eaten strange food, maybe even been tortured. While she was taking notes on World War I, memorizing sonnets, failing to hate her sister. Eventually he was let go. They all were. So it’s over, it’s gone, all that trauma, that history, and yet Glow’s dress remembers. It’s impossibly heavy and weightless at once. Abby thinks maybe she’ll sleep in it, then rejects the idea. It might wake and whisper truths she can’t swallow, not even in dreams.

Glow has donned Abby’s beige twinset and black trousers. She’s wiped off her lipstick and mascara. But her eyes are brilliant and forever, and she can’t help giggling at Abby’s confusion. Abby steals a clove cigarette and lights it. Her lungs crackle in protest. She and Glow cough together, laugh, cough more, dissolve into giggles. She takes off the dress, accepts Glow’s South Park pajamas, drifts off in her spare room, thinking of the new calf, bloody and reeking, blazing with vivid but temporary life. Far away in their bland suburb, Michael will wake, wonder where she is, feel whatever he feels. What does it matter what she deserves? It was never a bank account into which she made deposits. Everything she’s seen is only what it is because of her frozen, manacled gaze. I could go blind, she thinks, and the thought is so comforting that she falls asleep instantly and is untroubled by dreams.

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Grace Glass lives and writes in Frederick, Maryland. Her work has appeared in several journals, most recently including Bellevue Literary Review, South Carolina Review, and Packingtown Review.