101 Words

“I’m home!” I toss my keys onto the marble kitchen table. The echo of metal on stone dies around me. Too late, I remember I’ve announced my arrival to a house and not a home. I take inventory of the rooms: uncleaned dishes in the sink; a leash draped on the back door handle like a vine of poison ivy; a bed that still holds the shape of a sleeping body; a dry water bowl calcified like a fossil; and a food dish I haven’t found the will to empty after two months. It’s alive with a body of swarming ants.

Once, when I still blithely romped in dungarees and sang to the summer world, I visited my cousin on the coast. He lived beneath a lighthouse, telling me at the witching hour of its withering caretaker and his lost, lovelorn bride. Each night, her specter flung itself from atop the tower. Each dawn, she wept bitterly into the wind. Between, she trawled, ached, for children. When the foghorn bellowed, I shrieked every time, spooked, left sleepless. He thought I’d never stomach a ghost story again. He never knew I’d become the one stalking the darkness, wailing for children I’ll never have.

Mac was a pandemic puppy, all six pounds of him. Before Mac, we were underutilized and had too much time on our hands. After Mac, we often wished we were still before Mac, when we were often underutilized. The rescue organization told us Mac might grow up to 80 pounds. Still, when he was only 40 pounds and 6 months old, we allowed him to sleep at the bottom of our bed. He grew to 80, then 100 pounds. We could have trained him to sleep elsewhere, but we didn’t—I needed the feeling of his heavy head resting on me.

My body, my choice, but it wasn’t my idea to pile into the back of Dad’s old truck to drive down Main Street in the July heat with Lila picking at the scab on her ankle with bloody fingers, Shelly pulling at the scratchy dress I pulled over her head this morning, and Mom sitting high on the hot metal throne above the wheel well. Sweat drips in my eyes and wets my bangs, making it hard to see the clouds running away from us or Mom, yelling at me to wave my dollar flag and pinching me when I forget.

“Under the bed?”

I look beneath the bed. School bag, random socks, dust.

“All good, pal.”

I stand. Ben’s eyes lock on mine.

“The closet, dad.”

I run my arm through the clothes. I call out, “Hello?”

Silence.

“All clear,” I say.

Ben dives beneath the covers. A whispered, “Love you, Dad.”

“Good night, Ben. To the moon and back.”

I flick on the nightlight, close the bedroom door.

In the shadowed hallway, I watch fur grow and cover my arms, wrists, and hands. My fingernails sharpen into claws.

No one is going to harm my son.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

Morning sneaks in, interrupting Sam’s complicated relationship with the dark. Daylight is a unwelcome companion, daring him to try again.

He doesn’t move.

He blames gravity. Climate change. The anticipated end of democracy. The misunderstood Oxford comma and the death of Princess Leia, overpriced and under brewed coffee, Covid, the Cloud, and used bookstores with closed forever signs.

Sam is young and doesn’t yet understand the cost of caring deeply. When March snow is piled high and hard and gray, the promise of spring seems unconvincing.

A cat might help. He might name her Misery, and she could keep him company.

A mischievous child tied an enamel cup to a baby monkey’s tale. The baby frantically leaps from tree to tree to ditch the cup.

We try to catch him to remove it, but we fail as angry monkeys shriek while trying to chase us away.

The baby disappears. Chaos calms. I raise my eyebrows like monkeyface language, challenging the aggressor. He relinquishes his preeminence.

I’m struck by cobalt blue testicles and bright red penises these males display. Never mind that I’ve intimidated the big man. I’ll feel inferior until I too sport cobalt blue testicles and a bright red penis.