Astor
Everything dies.
Every single thing you touch or feel or say will die. Sentences will leave your mouth, ill-thought and unwise, and they'll die halfway through the air. Some things take longer; some things take more effort. But in the end, they all die.
I'm no exception. My mother is no exception. But we're more like plastic than animals. We're more like nuclear waste.
I thought about half-lives and recyclables as I read the letter, ignoring Noah's anger as she prepped my arm for bloodwork.
"I can't believe you opened my fucking mail," she spat, searching for my vein. I ignored her and kept reading and rereading the letter.
For over a decade, Noah opened my mail all the time. I'd find opened bills on my coffee table after work or come across my children's report cards sitting on hers. She never actually let me know she'd taken any of it; I always had to find them. She'd leave new debit cards with sticky notes that read "ACTIVATED IT, HUN" with whatever PIN she'd chosen for me. Cell phone bills with "I PAID IT ALREADY! DON'T GIVE THESE VULTURES ANY MORE MONEY" written in her swirly handwriting across the top. She'd renew my car insurance and respond to inquiries about services for my speech therapy practice. Sometimes my husband would walk in the house with an incredulous frown, whining about a stack of my mail he'd found sitting on top of her car. She'd always had an insane privacy issue that seemed reserved for me, my things, and my personal space.
I never told her not to do it. It didn't change my life in any way, really.
The letter I'd opened was the first thing of hers I'd ever snooped through. And Noah was immediately vile with anger. Seething. I understood why before I even reached the second sentence, but I wasn't sorry.
That letter traveled with us to our lab appointment, despite her angry protests.
"Can't even keep mail on the fucking table. It's either covered in applesauce by the time I get to it, or your ass is in my house opening shit…"
I read the letter slowly, sucking in each word, and nodded. There wasn't really anything to nod about. The most recent company Noah convinced to fund her research into my blood, to pay for the lab work, wanted to "change the parameters" and "go in a different direction."
Destroy the body.
Noah waited for me to quiet my nerves before she stuck the needle into my skin. I felt the pull of the plunger but nothing else.
We recommend burning her.
I thought about those words while Noah pulled back another plunger on another needle, sucking my almost-black blood into another syringe. She swapped the containers, glancing over at me periodically, and I ignored her glances. The anger sifted out of her as she continued. Shame replaced it. When it felt like there wasn't any blood left to suction, she stopped.
"Same as always, hun. Eight vials to the sweet spot … you still don't see it?"
I didn't move. Something about the practice embarrassed me, made me feel open.
Try not to think about what you deserve.
"There's, like, a yellow color in there. It's really faint, but I can see it for sure. Can you put that down and look?"
I ignored her. Noah sighed, irritated, and I yanked my arm away. A long line of blood bubbled up and slid down my arm. It hit the floor and was dry in seconds. Just like that. Completely dry. Another second and it cracked, splintering around itself, before it sifted into the air and disappeared.
Noah spent a long time rolling her huge eyes. Neither one of us looked at the blood drop again.
We recommend burning her. We need to know what happens when her body is destroyed. Please note, we have yet to receive your report going over the methods you've tried already. We are obligated to send an official if you cannot complete the test yourself. Yvette Lincoln, the facilitator for Chastain, will stop by to discuss applicable laws and guide you through the process.
"The test. The process," I whispered, and my breath felt cool on my skin. Noah raised the vial in front of my face, but I couldn't stop looking at the letter.
We are obligated…
"It's really yellow now. Like the fucking sun." Slowly, she reached her short arm over and grabbed the letter from my hand. I realized she was shaking, too. The floor seemed calm compared to our faces, our attitudes, so I watched that instead of trying to speak. I wished I could sink into it.
Noah ripped the letter in two and placed her tiny hand on my shoulder.
"Let's get on with our day, hun."
After the lab work was done for the day and we'd shared a solemn lunch, we traveled from her small downtown office to her house. Sitting in her living room, she passed me letter after letter. There were boxes of them. Some were worded nicer than others. She'd lost a lot of investors over the years as they slowly figured out she wasn't going to meet their demands, that she was stalling. She'd been threatened with legal action too many times. She used tricky language and half-truths to convince universities and corporations to donate lab equipment and give her grant money. I marveled at the mountain of secrets, all typed neatly on various sizes and shades of white paper, all about me.
She mentioned "immortal cells" a lot. She mentioned a "lack of aging," an "inability to produce tears."
"There's that. You know, that always works with the rinky-dink facilities looking for fame. That's normal—"
"Normal?"
Noah shrugged, some of her shame dissolved by pride.
"Yes, normal. I have to pay bills just like you do, Astor. I hope you don't think any of my research has me popping bottles of champagne in my spare time." She hesitated, then slid her hand behind her television and pulled out a small box. "Then, there's this. It's all the stuff from … well, you know."
"Eon," I mouthed. Silence crept into me, hovering just above my voice, waiting.
"Yup. Eon."
Eon's letters were different. They introduced themselves gently. They questioned Noah's actions as if providing simple narration.
Why haven't you reported your subject's symptoms to be confirmed?
Why haven't you reported the results of your subject's test?
The letters escalated in tone and scolding as the months, then years, passed. I couldn't find an origin letter, no sign that Noah ever reached out. They grew shorter and shorter until the last one was only a paragraph long.
"Are these printed emails?" I asked, fighting through the silence.
"Nope. Old-school snail mail."
I glared over the boxes in front of me. Noah sensed my thought process and turned away.
"These letters are coming here? No PO Box, no secret address? They have my real maiden name in them."
"Only some of them."
"Others have my real first name! They have your name. What were you thinking? What were you thinking, Noah?" The confusion in my voice rolled over itself, cracking my sentence.
"They don't come here. My assistant brings them to me at the lab. Nothing comes here. Not a letter, not a bra, not a damn tampon, hun, I don't even—"
"Your lab? I'm at your lab twice a week. You're there every day nearly. How is that any better? How long has Eon been onto us?"
Noah stared down at my hands instead of at my face.
"We're going to be late to meet the boys if we don't go soon, Astor."
"Hun … get out of your head and pass me my lighter. It's behind your gigantic ass." Noah, with her thick curls rested on my thigh, held her hand up without looking at me. The waves under us seemed to drag me through memory after memory; she hated coming to the dock for that very reason. I didn't mind being in my head so much. It helped me forgive things, forget things, not strangle pretty women and throw their limp bodies into the water for lying to me for years.
For putting everyone we loved at risk.
I liked to sit and think over the calm shifting of the waves under the docks, think about what I deserved and what I didn't. My brain couldn't settle on a pain point, so I stared at the sea until Noah tapped my chin.
"Astor, please pass me the lighter before I kill everything. This water is making me nervous. This whole fucking day is making me nervous."
I laughed a little and found the lighter behind me, but I didn't move it. She struggled to hold her cigarette in the cold, salty breeze.
"I like the thought of you being nervous. Maybe it'll make you careful. Maybe you'll think of what could happen for once."
"Shit, that's your job, ain't it? For once, hun, don't think about anyone dying. Not while I'm sitting on this flimsy-ass wood. Please. Relax." She kicked her tiny feet up, crossed them, and nearly crushed the cigarette. Her work slacks scraped against the dirty boards, but she'd plopped down as soon as we'd gotten there, dragging me down with her. We hugged for a while. I held her tight enough to let her know all was forgiven, and she repaid me by keeping me company on what she considered a deathtrap.
The dock was small and unfortunate enough to be close to a more popular pier, one that crawled with sailors and commerce night and day. We'd lived in too-quiet Lostine for only a few years, but we'd already laid claim to the creaky boards a long time ago, way before we knew we'd settle down nearby.
There were four spots for boats, and our husbands took them all up—two for their workboats, two for their play boats. They usually stuck to the biggest boat for trips over deep water. I wondered for a moment why my husband, Osh, had taken his own boat along on their mini-vacation but shook the thought out of my head.
Ask him when he gets back.
A long pier stretched out over the water; we sat at the very start of it. The two workboats rocked calmly, empty—just the two of us, our sleeping daughters, and the sky to keep them company.
"This book is garbage," Noah said as her soft hair flopped against my thigh in irritation.
"Burn it," I mocked quietly.
A thick, ugly groan filled the air. Her anguish seemed stuck behind the cigarette, the third one she'd had since we'd gotten to the docks thirty minutes earlier. She reached around my back for her lighter, grabbed it, and lit the cigarette, resting the "garbage" book on her chest.
"Should we talk about an exit plan, or are you going to huff and puff all over my legs?"
Noah groaned harder. "We don't need to exit anything. We haven't been caught. It's not as serious as it sounds—"
"It sounds like gunshots. Or your sisters bleeding to death in front of you. Or my mother pushing my head down into a bathtub—"
"You think every issue is the big one. It's always going to look that way when we're tip-toeing all over the fucking universe. I like it here. I like waking up in the same place all the time and eating dinner at the same fucking table and fucking my husband in the same fucking bed every night. You love it here. We're not going anywhere."
"It sounds like my children watching me burn alive and smelling my cooked flesh for the rest of their existence. They'll smell me when they cook their first meals. They'll weep when they see raw meat."
"Jeez, bitch," Noah muttered, her face warped with disgust. "I get it. Can you stop?"
"Talk. Tell me when it started."
"There's nothing to talk about. They never say anything too specific. Just standard questions they would ask any researcher. I'm careful about how I answer. As far as I know, Eon doesn't even know your name. They call you the subject. That's it. I didn't think it would make sense to panic everybody if they were only on to me, but either way, they're not on to anything. It's the same strong-arming they do to anyone who might know … someone like you."
I rubbed her hair and sighed. "You don't need to be a martyr. None of us do. We're in this together."
"You know me better than anyone, Astor. When have I ever been a martyr type of bitch? Eon is insistent, but they're talking to me like I'm holding something I can't handle. They're trying to guide me into telling them more about you so they can figure out if I have what they think I have on my hands. Does that make sense?"
I thought, calming some. "I see."
"Right, it's fine! I told you. I play dumb and look pretty all day, hun. I'm in my element. Let me handle it."
"What about the scams? They'll want you to prove your words eventually."
"They can want it all day and night. Investors always end up going down that road after I send enough blood. There's only so many ways I can say, ‘She's probably immortal but maybe not but kinda, so give me money to figure it out.' Once they get over the whole 'possible fountain of youth' thing, they always jump straight to the sick shit."
I cleared my throat and murmured, "You can't just trick people out of money like that, Noah."
"They're scumbags; who cares?! You should hear the dumb shit most companies ask me to do when they think it's off the record. Shoot you, stab you, strangle you. I give them some excuse about it jeopardizing the research, or I say we found proof that your cells might NOT be immortal, and they back off and take their money with them. Boom. Done. I'm supposed to feel bad for tricking them?" Her fingers shook a little as they rolled the cigarette around. "They fill my bank account, hun, just stuff the damn thing. They send me letters suggesting experiments and asking for more samples, and I ignore all of it. The fuck are they going to do about it? And if it gets bad, hey, you know, standard practice: switch the money to a new account and disappear into the night. Everything's fake, everything's under NDAs, everything's ethereal. It's smoke."
I breathed in her cigarette, felt light-headed, then waved the fumes away.
"It's not smoke," I said simply. "It's attracting enemies. Scrutiny. It's not safe."
Noah huffed in frustration and sucked the cigarette so hard it could've evaporated.
I waved more fumes away and continued. "We need to move, and you need to find legitimate work. We'll pick a different country this time."
"Stop. Nobody knows who you are. Nobody knows where we live. We're ghosts! If they knew, they'd be here already." We sat with the slight wind, my loose ponytail softly nudging my lower back. Her five-foot-one-inch frame seemed to stretch, growing more intense the angrier she became. I tapped the ash off her cigarette and continued staring out at the ocean. I let it calm my nerves with every wave and roll.
There was always something about the way the water turned black in the dark that I both feared and loved.
"Look, this is my fuckup, so I'll take the loss on it. Stop thinking about moving. I'll shut down my lab. We don't all need to suffer every time something happens."
I smoothed her hair against my thigh and met her gaze for a moment. Her gigantic, super light-brown eyes, always either bored or sad, squinted back at me. Growing up, I hated her staring at me for even a second; her eyes were so huge. It was like having a praying mantis watching you, waiting to grab you and eat.
"You love that lab. Maybe we should just do what they want, Noah. Let's just get it over with and see what happens."
"We're not a torture chamber. Ask your dude to burn you if you're into that sort of shit." She sucked the cigarette again, coughing on release. The air was never clean around her. Noah existed as a tiny chimney, embodying smoke and smoldering looks.
Pushing herself off my lap, she gave a loud and exaggerated huff. "How long does it take a bunch of nerds to sail home? I have shit to do. We have shit to do."
"It takes as long as it takes. I'm not leaving until I know Moose is fine.…"
"Yeah, yeah, psycho helicopter mom. I get it." Noah flicked her filter and pulled another cigarette from between her breasts, so used to the movement that it was almost lit before it left her skin. She embodied a chimney. "I'm going to say something, but don't start worrying or anything. It's just a statement."
"I won't."
She let her head fall back and sighed, prepping for my anxiety. "This doesn't have anything to do with Eon. I just woke up the other day, and … something's off. Something's wrong. Something in the air tastes like shit, and I don't know where it's coming from. I can't shake it."
We were stuck for a moment, taking in the ocean. It filled me with a type of fear that I'm used to. An old panic. Something so old, I couldn't quite name it, couldn't quite identify it other than to say it was in my bones. In my skin. My veins.
Noah's book had long ago slid to the boards, forgotten. I instinctively pulled the last few cigarettes from the pack between her breasts and held them hostage. I put them in my mouth playfully and raised an eyebrow. Of course, I felt something. But I always wandered around feeling things, wondering things.
I looked over at our daughters sleeping on the docks. Their tiny heads poked out of the pile of blankets we'd arranged under and over them, both just big puffs of hair. Noah, naturally, had wanted to leave them at my house instead of hauling them here and getting them back to sleep. I wanted to avoid the destruction her daughter Chaunce could wreak in ten unsupervised minutes, let alone what was obviously going to be at least two hours. Stairs, a stove, curtain cords, and outlets didn't faze Noah, and I often wondered how four-year-old Chaunce had managed to survive as long as she had. So, not for the first time, I'd overruled her.
Motherhood never came naturally to her. I supplemented ferociously.
We'd cuddled them up together, away from the human chimney, and they slept soundly.
"I just ... this is a shift, Astor. It's a fucking shift."
"A what?"
"You know what I mean, bitch. A change."
This is a shift.
"Yes. This is a shift."
I slipped into the past so easily on those docks.
When I found out I was pregnant at eighteen, given away by swollen breasts and a spreading nose, Osh gave our son a name. He sat with his arms under his head, smiled up at the sky—a vicious but soothing smile only he could make—and asked what I liked. We were on a blanket under the stars, the sea beyond us, and the lights were brighter than they'd ever been. Or so I remember.
"I don't know, Osh. I never thought about kids that way. Naming them, giving them permanence, it feels strange."
"You don't want any? Don't your people want you to have some?"
"…I don't know." He caught his mistake, patting my back in apology. "Anything but Osh would work as a name, honestly."
He chuckled and waved me off in his cool, unbothered way, smiling up at the glimmering sky and tracing the outline of a single cloud with his eyes. That was something Osh always kept with him: daydreaming. Tracing things in the air or staring off for long, somber periods. It could look like trauma if he sunk into it too deeply, treating walls like screens and his hands like books. He snapped out of it quickly enough; a wide smile, a wink, and he was back. There should have been a mark on his shoulder from years of being tapped back to reality.
"You're not worried? I can't imagine you'll get a warm welcome when you go home. Once they find out about your baby." I waited for his response, filled with anxiety. And Osh, mysterious as ever, made me wait. He closed his eyes and winced, going over some response in his head, then decided to stay quiet.
"Won't they expect you back after school? You don't care if you ever see them again?" Again, Osh winced. I stopped myself from shivering, moving closer to his warm body.
"We're going to be together forever, anyway, so stop worrying about where I came from. What names do you like?"
We both paused at "forever." Forever meant something different for me. He knew that. Even back then, he knew that.
"What about money? How are we supposed to live on our own? You're already sending money back to your family. How could I ask you to—"
"You wouldn't need to ask me."
"I'm not missing any school, Osh, I refuse. What about a place to live? Are we supposed to raise a baby in Davey's living room? Where will we go? What about—"
"I'm not worried about anything but a name right now. You can't think we won't handle it. We've handled worse."
And we had. Covered in blood, soaked in water, wrapped in fear, we had. There was another thoughtful pause as I battled my guilt over that statement. He'd handled the death of his father, hadn't he? And whose fault was that? Who put him in the position to watch his father die, squirming on the ground? I ate the urge to ask if he wanted to have a baby with the monster who ruined his life. He retraced the cloud, lost in some thought I wasn't invited to, then sat up with a roll of laughter.
"Man. I'm going to have a kid! My own family. I can decide what's right and what's wrong for once. Can you believe that shit? We made it. We actually made it. We have to give it a good name, make sure it's something solid. That's the first part of its entire life." He gripped my thigh so hard at the thought that my flesh bulged around his fingers. Or so I remember.
I moved his hand politely.
The name doesn't matter. It'll suffer the same no matter what you call it.
"What about ... you know, what if I give the kid Devil Syndrome? What if…"
Osh's smile faded, and he stared at my hand on my stomach until I shut up. It scared me.
"All I care about right now is the name, Astor." Quickly, embarrassed, I nodded. "What about Rick? If it's a boy. After my dad," Osh asked, staring intently at my face.
"That's nice."
"Or maybe we can combine names. I always loved Astor, it's sophisticated. We could do something closer to your name, even. Since we're not allowed to use an OG name, like Osh."
I smiled again despite myself. Osh grabbed a piece of my hair between two fingers and smoothed it down to the boards, disappearing again in the motion.
"Astor and Rick? I'm not sure what you'll get with that."
Osh turned away, thinking.
"And what if we have a girl?"
"Astrid," he said instantly.
"Quick! You must want a girl, old man."
"My mom's middle name, that's all. It sounds like the both of you. Reminds me of nice things. I think you'd raise an amazing daughter."
"A girl is more likely to inherit the syndrome. I'll be thirty before we know it. You'd take that risk?"
Again, he fell quiet. I tried to think of names to jump-start his enthusiasm, but nothing came to mind. The little being was just that. I couldn't connect it to myself enough to spare any imagination for it.
"You keep bringing Devil Syndrome up like I'm the one who has the problem with it. What'll you do if our kid inherits it?"
"Kill it. Mercifully, of course," I said.
Osh laughed a little, raising an eyebrow, but I let my face sit still. He kissed my hand, then pulled my face up to his.
"Nah, you wouldn't. You wouldn't take your eyes off it. You'd love it until it couldn't stand you—"
"I wouldn't waste the time."
Osh put his hand over my stomach, nuzzling into my neck. "You didn't think you'd ever make it this far. I get it. But I knew you would. And I know you'll make it beyond thirty and forty and fifty. And I know you'll love me until I die. You wouldn't kill my child. You'd never hurt me."
"The ravings of an idiot about to be hurt."
He finally laughed out loud, leaning back to let the sound travel. I gave him a small smile, hiding my grief and thoughts and worries behind it.
"I know what I'll name it either way. Don't worry."
And I didn't.
I thought about that day every time my best friend and I sat at those same docks so many years later, waiting for our husbands to come home, salt sticking to our skin and hair. Whenever I called my son by his real name, his ridiculous real name, I thought about his father and me under the stars.
Thirty was around the corner, six short months to go, and I was right. It felt like no time had passed. The same stars stared down at me; the same water sat under me. I lived by the docks now, but that wasn't a noteworthy change. I'd lived everywhere and still made my way back to that spot.
I often found myself by the ocean when Osh was away. Most times, I came out alone, leaving Noah with the kids she hated being around. Sometimes I woke Moose and put him in charge until I came back. A lot of times, I came out with Noah's husband, Juke, my other best friend. We liked to talk at night, bouncing ideas off each other, laughing about old times, and being generally loud.
This time the "boys" (it was hard to call them "the men" when we'd known them since they were skinny teens) would get their favorite welcome. They loved the excitement the kids displayed when they docked. Astric, or Moose for my sanity, was finally taking his first trip with them. They'd been gone for four days on a much-needed break from work and school. "Just the men this time, Astor. Moose has to learn the ocean someday...." Moose seemed pleased when his father waved away my protests at him joining the trip. I had a hard time allowing him out over the deep ocean.
To fall in and drown.
To slip and die.
Osh never brought his phone with him, so I painstakingly packed Moose's bag, took care of his hair, and made sure he wasn't showing any signs of sickness. I went over every little thing he should look out for, ways to get help if he went overboard, and what to do if his father or "uncle" went overboard.
I sat, waiting for my loves to return with my nerves crunching through my stomach.
"Astor. Relax." Noah's smoke-scratched, feminine voice broke through waves of fear.
I laughed. "I'm fine."
But, of course, I wasn't. There would never be a moment where I wasn't gritting my teeth or twisting my hair or wondering what would happen.
Almost an hour later, night blanketing us, the boat appeared on the horizon, the fog clearing dramatically to reveal them. We saw it growing bigger and bigger but didn't get up. By then, Noah was as anxious as I was, but we both knew not to look eager. We stayed put right up until Juke docked his well-kept Southern Trawlman in its usual spot. It was an expensive boat made by a company in Lostine and a favorite for the boys. I quickly noticed that my husband's play boat was still gone.
Did he leave it at the other dock this time?
Moose, tall and lanky for a ten-year-old, stumbled down, avoiding eye contact.
Juke grabbed him, swinging him up on his shoulder with no effort and whispered, "You'll be fine, boy. Calm down."
They walked toward us, Moose as somber as he usually was and Juke beaming.
Osh didn't appear.
Juke was jolly, nearly manic, and suspicion rose in me immediately. He lifted Noah with one arm, still carrying Moose on his shoulder, and he kissed her despite her shrieking protests. She loved to pretend she wasn't pure liquid whenever he came around. Juke made sure Noah was the first person he looked at whenever he entered a space with her in it, the first person he held, the first person he acknowledged. There wasn't an ounce of love in him that wasn't reserved for her. Juke was a long and outdoorsy six feet four, and he made tiny Noah look like someone's lost baby.
The speed the man possessed was inhuman. One minute, he was on the boat; the next, he was scooping Moose up; the next, he was walking toward me with Noah screeching in anger under his arm. They stopped in front of me. Neither Moose nor Noah looked happy to be carted around. I stared way up at my old friend's cheerful face, waiting.
He didn't speak.
"Where is—"
"He's not dead. He ain't drown. He's not cheating. He's not hurt."
"Good. So where—"
"Astor, I can't keep track of your man for you. Either you go look for him, or you take my word for it. That's as far as I'm willing to get involved."
Moose made a noise I couldn't identify and tapped Juke to let him down. Noah seemed to sense the mood and, already irritated at being carted around like a child, playfully bit her husband. He placed them both carefully on the ground, studying me. I studied him back, trying to figure him out.
"That's unacceptable. You all left together. Where is he? Where's his boat?"
Juke tried to smile again, almost pleading with me to leave him alone. Noah snuck off to have another cigarette.
"I'm serious, Astor. I don't know. We got out to a certain point, and he just suddenly asked me to bring him back here to get his boat. He said not to worry about him. You know how he is when he gets in his head. I ain't press him about it. Moose came with me, and Osh went off in his own boat. We still had a good time; nothing changed. Right, Moose?" Almost childishly, Juke looked to Moose for confirmation. My son didn't turn around.
"Juke…"
"Astor, I've never lied to you. No one has your back like I do—other than you, Noah, shut up—I wouldn't lie. He seemed fine. He just said he had to go do something. If I thought it was a big deal, I would've come home and said something to y'all! You know me."
He smiled a big, goofy smile, and I faltered a bit.
Juke was handsome. His smile was a weakness for me, much to Noah's amusement. It was what he did when he wanted to get away with something that he knew I wouldn't shut up about otherwise. Dazzle me with his sharp teeth and ever-stretching mouth.
"Damn, Moose, tell your momma what he said!"
I felt a pang of fear and turned to my children. Quietly, almost stealthily, Moose started gathering the blankets from the girls and nudging them awake with his foot. They both grumbled and moved to stand, slow and heavy. Realizing I was staring, Moose looked down at the ground and vigorously shook his thick head of hair.
"Dad said ... he said he'd be home tonight. He promised."
Osh has known me since I was alive enough to be known. Together, my mother and I destroyed the life his family made for him. We destroyed the comfort he was supposed to inherit. We took his father from him. He has never once expressed anger toward me over it, but I feel the guilt sitting between every word in my vocabulary. Every breath in my lungs.
There was no denying that Osh would be someone else if he hadn't met me. If he hadn't saved me.
Somehow, saving me made my safety his responsibility in his eyes. And he passed that responsibility on graciously. Our son was battered with instructions on how to protect me, how to protect his sister, how a man should act. And Moose soaked it all up. When Moose raised his head to look at me (barely needing to these days), the love that radiated from his eyes utterly washed away any fear or guilt I held onto.
Osh's hugs, his smiles, are backed by so much love. I only worry that I'll eventually need to worry again. I only fear that my one job is to accept his love, and I've never done it correctly. That I've never actually returned it.
Pressure to accept love is still pressure, isn't it?
Noah and Juke wanted some alone time after his four days out at sea, so I volunteered to take their daughter for the night. They lived directly across the street, our kitchen windows facing each other. We'd only lived in Lostine for around three years, but it was my favorite out of all the places we'd been. I'd helped Noah pick the house when she was pregnant with Chaunce and decorated most of it for her. Our daughters each had two beds in their rooms, and there wasn't really any separation between the two homes except for the street (and it was rare that anyone else traversed it).
After I trudged into my own house and busied the kids in their playroom, I cooked an elaborate tea-smoked, five-spice salmon that I wouldn't bother to eat once it was finished. Osh didn't arrive. I pulled Bear and Chaunce away from their playroom long enough to get them bathed and ready for bed, and he still wasn't there. I braided my hair, purposefully slow and detailed, and by the time I tucked the last strand into the braid, I was near rage.
Osh's cellphone sat useless on the nightstand. The house phone sat silent in the corner. I thought about him sinking, reaching for air, struggling against wave after wave.
He would never do something like this. Never. He's dying somewhere. He's dead.
Noah called me two seconds after I put on my coat to go back to the docks.
"Your idiot get back yet?"
"No. He didn't call, he hasn't shown up, and there are no fucking carrier pigeons outside. And he's not working, Noah. There's not enough field work for him to be gone right now. There's nothing out there but cold water. Has Juke said anything at all?"
"Hun, whatever they were getting into, it wasn't regular. My idiot's been acting weird all night. If he smiles any bigger, his face is going to split. He's hiding something. Just ... let's worry about it after the lab tomorrow. You know it's already stressful enough. He's Osh. Nothing ever happens to your boring-ass man."
"What about Eon? What if they contacted his family? They could've—"
"Girl, no. They don't know about anybody but you and me, and they don't even really know that." She sounded so sure that I let out a long breath, but it didn't help.
"I'm going to the docks to wait for him."
"Astor, it's late. You need to stay home with your kids. And mine. I don't feel like getting up to come get her. Pleeeeaassseee?"
I stopped myself from making any sounds of irritation and agreed.
Osh coughing up freezing black water, wheezing…
A shift. I felt like the ground was moving when we hung up the phone, my usual goodbye tainted with uncertainty. An intense pressure built behind my eyes. He's drowning; he's bleeding; he's lost…
Something rattled as I got into bed, as I pulled the thick bundle of blankets up to my neck. Something ached, whined, and moved in me.
I tried not to think about it, but I eventually decided that I didn't deserve this.
Everything eats.
Every living being needs sustenance of some kind to stay alive. Amoeba eat algae, whales eat krill—massive beasts devouring as much as they can swallow. Monsters eat. Victims eat.
Vegans scarf down plants, meat lovers devour the flesh of beings with nerves and bone, and we all keep going as long as we can. Eating becomes a ritual, the transfer of energy only a small part of the process. We eat to fill a social need. We eat to gather, to love, to appreciate.
Every organic being must ingest, digest, and find energy. I'm more like bacteria than mammals. I'm more of a rising gas than a solid mass.
Eating was a chore; I didn't get hungry. It just never happened. In the months before she left me, my mother, regal and poised, would watch me for hours as if to note every moment that I might be wasting away. To note every second that I didn't waste away. It started with smaller meals. Stripped down staples, like toast with no butter, eggs with no bacon, peanut butter with no bread. She'd watch, her pupils filling most of her giant irises, intensifying her stare. You couldn't pretend there was a normal bone in her body when you saw those eyes, and the thick, snaked veins over her right eye didn't help. The scar looked painful, always swollen, sometimes so much so that the eye it surrounded couldn't open all the way. Even when that happened, my mother would stare at me, not bothering to breathe, waiting for something.
Are you sneaking food? Do you feel like you're starving yet?
She stopped cooking entirely but made me sit at the table. When I was caught sneaking an apple from the fridge, I came downstairs to find it open and emptied in the backyard, squirrels climbing over the shelves. She called me to eat, only to check my weight in the kitchen and send me back. Weeks went by before I found the courage to ask her to make me something, to at least go food shopping, and I was met with confusion.
You're not losing any weight. You'll be fine.
The longer I went without food, without nourishment, the more fixated she became. My father asked about it once, and somehow her answer satisfied him. He didn't intervene, but he stopped eating in some sort of solidarity, flashing me a shamed look whenever I went through the cabinets. There was nothing. Not one crumb of food.
Astor, pay attention. Tell your mother how you're feeling. Just be honest, okay? Are you hungry?
Something about the questions alarmed me, so I stopped talking, swallowing words in place of food. The answer was simple: no. I wasn't hungry. I wasn't losing weight. I wasn't dying. It took seven months for me to lose even a single pound, and then my mother said, cautiously, "We should do the test. I think we know enough to go through with it." And then, I failed. And then, my mother was moving on in her life, leaving me in a burning house with my father's dead body. Abandoning me.
I never saw her again.
One thing led to another and to another and to another. And one foster home led to another and to another and to another. Each foster parent was a little different, a little meaner or nicer or calmer. And eventually, I just learned to stop eating because it didn't matter. People would always be afraid of me for some other reason anyway. It wasn't until one of Osh's friends, Davey, snatched me away from the last family in her own violent, protective way that I ate again. It wasn't until she sat down in front of me with a plate full of food, pointed at it, and growled, "Eat." And then I ate.
There'd better not be a stain left on that plate when you're done, kiddo.
I learned that people who care about you feed you. They nourish you. They talk to you over corn and potatoes and soups. They ask about you. They warm you and heal you. Davey made me sit in the kitchen with her as she cooked, the scars on her face reminding me of my mother, but the warmth in her words reminding me of nothing I'd ever experienced.
Even after Davey, I ate. Osh had a rule: I had to eat three times a day, every day. He liked to joke, walking in the house with bags of food, "Oh, I stopped by the store. I figured you were hungry."
We took turns making big meals for our little family, with Noah, Juke, and Chaunce joining us so much that we had a system: Snows cook, Dills clean. I ate every night. When Osh was away on work trips, Noah came over and talked to me while I cooked. Juke stopped by with fish from work. Bear brought me sandwiches and snacks. I ate every morning. I ate so frequently around them that I started to eat out of habit, like smoking, like a vice.
You'd think I needed it to survive.
That night, waiting for my husband, I allowed myself to skip the dinner I'd made, wrapping it up for the kids and Noah. For once, no one noticed.
In the early morning, I woke up and got the kids ready for their day. I cleaned a little. I did as much as I could to stall, to give him time to come home.
To be resuscitated. To fight through the dark, ugly waves…
By the time I made my way to the docks, it was mid-afternoon. Sitting at the very edge of the pier in my coat with my feet dangling over the water, waiting for Osh, the sea reminded me of my mother's deep black pupils, dilated and engulfing. I just sat, listening to the water swish around under me. The pressure in my head crept down my neck, into my chest.
He didn't show up.
Three days went by, and they all rotted inside me. Work was impossible. I canceled all my appointments on the fourth day and waited in bed. Every noise rang through my head like cathedral bells; lights caused agony to the left side of my face; anything below or behind my eye was on fire. I tried to keep my mind clear; not thinking seemed to help. Not wondering about Osh's body sinking down to the ocean floor, picked apart, mangled…
Noah kept her distance. The longer Osh remained out at sea, doing whatever he'd decided was more important than being home, the longer she stayed away from my house. No one understands me better, I think, and I appreciated the distance at first. She still dropped Chaunce off when she knew I wasn't at work, and I watched the small ball of orange hair break things, get stuck under things, and climb on furniture with her outside gear on. I appreciated that less.
Juke still refused to talk about it. It was the first time in years they didn't venture across the street for dinner. The thought of throwing Chaunce into the sea eased the pressure in my head just a little. Instead, I walked across the street to drop her back off with them. Maybe I was feeling a bit confrontational.
Juke opened the door and smiled at me again. He held out his arms, and Chaunce did some type of kid parkour to crawl up his legs, ending up upside down and screaming in delight. He secured her over his shoulder and kept up his creepy clown smile.
"Juke. Please. What happened to Osh? Did something happen?" I asked, my voice breaking.
He allowed his face to fall, finally, and gave me a more serious look.
"I honestly don't know. He didn't seem strange or anything. The only strange part was him wanting to come back and leave by himself in the first place. I'm not worried at all, though, if it makes you feel any better. I mean that."
I nodded, wrapping my arms over my chest. We both ignored Chaunce's light face turning a violent red and her worried groan.
"Daddy, headache! Turn me up!"
He stared down at me, leaned against the door, and for a moment, I felt like a teenager again. We talked and stared at each other too much as teens.
Sometimes we talked and stared at each other too much as adults.
"My birthday…," I started, but Juke's face fell so hard that I moved on to the next topic. "I'm going to go check again. I have to. I can't think about anything else. This is so strange, Juke. Something is wrong."
"You want me to check with you? In case you panic or whatever?"
I stared at him for a while, out of it.
"No, it's fine. I'll go with the kids and come right back. I'm sure you're right; everything's fine."
Juke gave me an understanding nod and backed into his house with Chaunce, careful. Right before the door closed, I heard him gulp.
Would he lie to me? Would Juke leave Osh somewhere to die?
Headache worsening, I rushed home and gathered my children to revisit the docks. I needed salty air.
Bear walked with the zeal, the imagined invincibility, and the unstoppable confidence of a six-year-old bursting through her. Almost like a dance, she tripped over every crack in the ground. She stumbled over every small twig, every rock, every acorn. Her brother, much less clumsy, watched everything she came within an inch of and moved the things that might cause damage. He passed over large rocks and branches with ease, agility, and attention. I trailed behind them, watching their dynamic.
Does Devil Syndrome make you clumsy?
"She's going too fast," I muttered, and Moose called for her to slow down.
We were only walking about three streets over, but I'd dressed them clean and crisp. It took my mind off of things to make sure they were presentable, to pull Bear's long torso up when she slouched, to commend Moose on his perfect posture. Nitpicking kept me busy.
"Mom. Are you feeling okay?" Moose asked as he continued to survey Bear's surroundings.
"Yes."
"I don't believe you. I know when you're upset. I pay attention." He tugged at his clean sleeve, itching at a spot on his arm. I lightly popped his hand away.
Does Devil Syndrome cause itchiness?
"It's been a stressful week. Thank you for being so observant."
Dissatisfied with my answer, Moose called again for Bear to slow down. His thick hair blew in the wind, and I considered, not for the first time, that I should just cut it all off. I imagined Osh coming home and seeing his son's hair in clumps on the ground, his brown skin turning bright red, and his utter shock when I yelled what I'd always wanted to yell at him straight to his face, hitting him with words like a steel bat.
What kind of a fucking name is Astric?!
"Mom, if you need to talk to me, you can. Dad is a better talker, but don't let that stop you. I might be able to help you even better than he would. I know that sounds strange, but it's true. I am getting really good at helping people with their problems."
Moose was so quiet, I was the only one who could hear him at times. His diction was clear and concise, mimicking my own speech. He talked to Bear's back, watching her skip and dodge side to side. She was even quieter sometimes, but that was my fault.
I wanted to vomit when she spoke, and I wasn't good about hiding it.
"Bear! Slow down. I'm not going to tell you again," Moose admonished.
She sighed and responded, "Oh ... kay, okay. Okay ... I will. Okay, I will."
"Say it once." I dug in my purse for a piece of gum, feeling pressure building in my head. Bear jumped a little slower.
She just couldn't speak properly. It didn't matter how much therapy we gave her, how much I sat her in her room and made her pronounce every vowel over and over; she just couldn't get it. I had a master's degree in linguistics, and I couldn't correct her speech, couldn't get rid of the echolalia, couldn't stop the stammering. Chaunce was two years younger and could talk better than she did. It filled me with a type of shame I couldn't clarify. A kind of violence.
I wanted to take everything she loved, down to the last fucking thing, every time she said "uh-sketti" instead of "spaghetti." When she said "even-chews-olly" instead of "eventually." When she repeated full sentences back-to-back, stopping in the middle the third time, butchering every word the fourth. Nothing matched that rage. I wanted to burn my own skin when she stammered over herself over and over.
Can Devil Syndrome cause speech problems?
The pressure heightened.
We walked in silence, Moose still glancing back to stare at me from time to time. I fought the urge to turn his head for him.
"Mom, birs! Birds! Mom, birs, mom!" Bear shrieked in joy and pointed at the flock of crows lining the houses. They watched us, their heads tilted.
The pressure slowly crossed into pure agony, and with it came panic. I imagined birds lining every house, the windows, the trees, the streets, waiting. I imagined them floating down, picking at Bear's hair, taking chunks of her, coming for me next, and picking me to pieces before flying off to their nests.
Take her instead.
"Does your eye hurt? It looks funny," Moose said, glancing back again.
"No," I lied. It felt like glass was slowly sifting through it. I'd spent much of the night doubled over in agony, my head searing. Whether it was from my missing husband, my shaky future, or some other hidden ailment, there'd never been a moment where I wished I could produce actual tears more.
Bear turned and shook her head. "Hur! Hurt hurt. It hurt. I do ... not ... like them hurt ... you. They hurt you at Auntie wor ... kuh."
"Who? You think Auntie Noah would let anyone hurt me? They don't hurt me, Bear. You want to see them hurt me?" I mumbled whenever I talked to her. She could hear so well, sometimes I just wanted to see if she would respond. There were times when I breathed questions to her, and she answered.
Devil Syndrome can cause hypersensitive hearing, sometimes accompanied with worse eyesight.
"No, nope. Really hurt, can tell. Stop, stop. Stop them. I can stop them. If they hurt ... you ... Mom!" Her speech and sentence structures hurt me worse than anything anyone else could do.
A thick, ugly laugh bubbled out of my throat. Stop them? A six-year-old, barely verbal girl? Moose looked up from his guard duty long enough to laugh with me, confused. A sharp, high-pitched, ten-year-old laugh. What a momma's boy!
Their father was probably dead in the ocean, probably being picked apart by seagulls on his boat, and they were merrily spewing meaningless words and laughter. One of them was walking around with a bomb in their veins, a disaster in their blood, and they were so damn jolly. So damn helpless and jolly.
Bear let out a louder laugh and started trying to ask me a question. It chopped itself over and over until my throat itched. An irrational rage pushed against me, and I rushed forward to put my hand over her mouth to stop the constant blabbering. She only smiled.
"You really think they're hurting me at Auntie's lab?"
She nodded. "Will make … them stop, stop."
I held my tongue until it could've bled. Her smile faded as she watched me, seeing something on my face I couldn't hide. Stop them. She would stop them. How would they understand her? How could she make them understand her long enough to stop them from hurting me when she couldn't even say a word once? She couldn't say a simple thing without it curling up and looping around itself over and over until my skin felt like needles and rashes.
"Mom?"
My hands shook a little, but I held her, forcing an ugly smile. She couldn't stop anyone from doing anything. She couldn't save me, and she couldn't save herself.
"Mom?"
I tried to respond, but my breath came out in a sharp burst. I couldn't move. My hands shook again, gripping tighter on Bear's shoulders. At this, they both stopped moving. Moose cleared his throat and slowly touched my hand, a bit of aggression behind his fingers.
"Mom. It's okay."
"She'll make them stop?"
Before I could sink deeper into my rage, Bear shrieked in delight.
More and more squirrels surrounded us. They blocked Bear's way, but she just plowed forward as if they weren't there, knocking some over to get to a small one in the back. I shrieked, backing up, but Moose followed me.
"It's okay, Mom. It's just a panic attack. Okay? Can you hear me?"
The squirrels surrounded Bear, staring up at her. She moved to touch one, and Moose grabbed her hand too tight and yanked it away. He struggled to decide who to speak to first, then settled on his sister.
"Don't! They're not clean. Mom, do you need me to help you count down? What are you seeing? Do you need me to get Unc?" He tried to get my attention off the squirrels, his face a blanket of worry, but I couldn't stop watching them pile onto each other. The squirrels watched us. I felt their tiny eyes in my bones, felt them walking along my spine. They jumped from the houses, surrounding us, biting at our feet. Chunks of my calves bled, the blood drying in my skin, my veins shriveling and cracking up my legs. I kicked, trying to get them off me…
So many of them. They're here to take us! They're finally here to take us.
"Mom!" Moose grabbed my arm and yanked me forward. He pointed at the squirrels. "Look! Just look at them!"
I stopped, staring after his finger, and they disappeared. The masses of squirrels disappeared one by one until there were only a few running around Bear, grabbing at the small acorns on the ground.
"Oh," I choked, pulling myself up. I moved Moose's hand and grabbed my purse from the ground, ignoring the small clinking noises as I shook. The spot where he'd grabbed me stung. "Thank you."
Devil Syndrome can cause extreme strength…
There were only three squirrels. I looked up, and only one bird sat perched on a house. Bear moved to touch the squirrels again, ignoring my outburst, but stopped when she saw Moose's stern expression. She wiped her teary eyes and wailed at the top of her lungs.
"They do! They do that. They dothat. Like me! They likeme. Is oh kay! Stop being mad!"
Before I could stop myself, before I could talk myself out of it, I rushed forward again and grabbed her shoulder, hard.
"It's not okay. Walk."
... ...Osh's play boat was docked, sitting eerily still on the water next to his workboat. We boarded and looked around and around for him, looked everywhere for him. He wasn't there. We checked Juke's boat. My head pounded with violent imagery of Osh floating face down in the water, of him being choked to death by a squid. Osh dead, dead, dead.
The pressure in my head was so intense. I couldn't understand it, couldn't take it.
He wasn't there.
Panic is such an odd thing. No matter how much you feel it, no matter how long you've drowned in it, you never properly adjust. Never. It becomes a different monster with each iteration, warping and mutating. It commits to swallowing you in a different way every time. This panic in me is old, but it never feels that way. The pressure varies, but I know a panic attack is coming on sometimes hours before it actually does.
It's a chronic pain.
The same panic sat in me and transformed itself through every waking moment Osh didn't call. It trailed after me through the chaos of working with children. The panic shadowed me through speech therapy lesson after speech therapy lesson. It glued me to the ground or my seat or the tub floor, attacking relentlessly. I sat in the shower until the water turned to ice on my hot skin day after day, waiting for that pressure to give me a moment.
Give me a damn moment!
The panic resurfaced as I sat on the docks morning after morning, waiting for Osh. I've watched people get beaten to death. I've found bodies that my mother left behind when I was a child, twisted and gnarled from decomposition. The feeling that comes over you when you see someone who has completed this life is so familiar to me, I could be a coroner. The realization that they are merely an empty shell sat heavy with me as I waited for my husband to reappear.
A couple of times I woke up, breath rancid, hair everywhere, and body cold to the bone, still sitting at the edge of the pier. Osh made no appearance. His boats remained docked, unchanged.
It was hard to give myself space to adjust to his absence. There was never any alone time, never a second to sit in my panic. I woke up to Juke carrying me home twice. Once to Moose sitting next to me eating an apple, staring out at the ocean.
He shrugged away my incoherent scolding and whispered, "I didn't want you to fall in, Mom."
My experience with death constantly taunted me, telling me I needed to get used to it, that I needed to start moving on. And day after day, I realized I edged closer and closer to considering Osh a complete loss. Death was the only thing that made sense in his absence. He loved me too much to leave me to the life I'd doomed him to.
If I could sob, I'd do it until my chest caved in.
The pressure was nightmarish. I'd gone back and forth with myself about reporting Osh missing. That hesitation sifted out of me day by day. Finally, after two and a half weeks of relying on Juke's word that Osh was okay, I decided it was time. I had to know what happened.
I called Noah and asked her to watch the kids. Something in my voice must've alarmed her. She showed up in curlers and a tiny dress, house shoes flopping, Juke trailing so close they could've been fused together.
"Where are you going?" Noah asked, half-excited and half-worried. I love her to death, but drama fuels her.
"…police station. I don't know how to do it, but I need to report Osh missing."
"Oh, hun, let me put my clothes on. I was going to go if you didn't; this is nuts. Where the fuck would his boring ass even go for this long—" Juke covered her mouth with his hand, lost in thought.
"Look. Don't do that."
We both turned to look at him like he was crazy.
I mustered up all my restraint and asked, "You're not worried at all? His boat is docked! He's not on it, not here, hasn't shown up for work. He's nowhere."
"Are you thinking at all? Are we suddenly citizens of the world or some shit? How are they gonna find him if you can't tell them who he is?"
My defiance wavered a bit. "I have to try something."
"What name are you gonna give them? Who are they looking for? Where should they look?"
"I have to try something!"
Juke put his hands on his head and held back a scream of his own, closing his eyes. He paced.
"That man will kill you if you send the cops after him. You have to be smart about this, Astor. He'll come home. Just wait it out."
Noah made a face. I heard one of the kids shuffling on the stairs but didn't move to shoo them off. It had to be Bear. Moose was too quiet to hear, and Chaunce was too loud to miss.
"How can a dead man kill me?" I asked.
Juke blinked in surprise. He put his arms on top of Noah's head instead of his own, leaning on her like a desk.
"He's fine. If you go down there, I'll call and tell them he's out cheating on you and you wanted to get him in trouble for revenge."
Noah turned and smacked him in the nose like a dog.
"Ay!" he yelled.
"How do we know he's not out cheating on her at this point? You don't want us to get the police involved? Then tell us what the fuck happened, Jukel. This is not a joke for you to dance around. This shit is ugly. You know how seriously she takes this low profile shit! You think she'd go if it wasn't serious?"
"Y'all really can't just take my word for it?"
"Give us a reason to, Jukel! We're hitting on a month, no Osh. Not a call, not a word, nothing. Astor's walking around having panic attacks, and you're sitting here putting more scenarios in her head…"
"Don't mention my panic attacks."
Juke gave an exasperated sigh. "Look, I'm not the bad guy here! Osh is the one who won't come home. Why are y'all yelling at me?"
I stopped talking and let them argue for a second, focusing instead on Bear's tiny feet squeaking on the steps, her breathing hard and pronounced. She sobbed quietly to herself.
"He won't come home? Like he voluntarily won't come home? Have you spoken to him?" Noah's questioning was more direct, more aggressive, and her husband buckled under it.
Juke looked around as if something in the room could give him support, then he settled back on me. He smiled, looking for any softness he could pull from my body.
When he couldn't find it, he grumbled to himself, "Just a word slip. That's it. She knows damn well that man ain't out there cheating or dead. Osh ain't that stupid! He's a grown man! Let him think for a while! Maybe he's just thinking!"
"So you're telling me you would do something like this to me? You think I'd be here when you got back? At this point, his ass better be dead."
A heavy silence filled the room, then my daughter's quiet sobs dug into my head. I closed my eyes, trying to block them out, but they grew, pathetic and sharp and small. I realized after a moment that I was the only one who could hear Bear crying in the corner.
Devil Syndrome causes hypersensitive hearing and…
"Juke, I should have gone the minute you came back without him," I whispered, staring at the hardwood floor.
"Astor. I know this is tough, but you can't walk around driving yourself crazy about this. We like it here, right? We like this life we've built, right?"
"Yes, but—"
"Keep going to work. Play with the kids. He'll be back before any of us even miss him. You have to know that. I'm counting on that. That's my day one. He's not going to die out there, and he's not going to abandon you or us. None of that shit is even in his character."
Something about his tone made me look up. It was like he wanted to convince himself, not me, but it was thin. Weak. Every word from his mouth was soaked in offense. I looked over at Noah, and she dropped her eyes to the ground, rubbing the back of her head. Juke was more worried about me going to the police and leading someone to him than where Osh was.
There was a loud rumble around the corner, and a small voice cried out in pain. Rage seared through me. I walked over before Noah could grab my arm.
Bear, holding her knee and unsuccessfully fighting back a barrage of tears, tried her best not to look up. I towered over her.
"Daddy is … Dad-dee is … Daddy is not hurt! Daddy is not hurt! Find! I go find!" she whined, holding her knee.
Her fresh tears made my head hurt more, made me wish I could trade places with her. I leaned forward, teeth gritting, hands balling into fists. I felt Juke slowly put his arm around my stomach and hold me in place.
"Relax."
I smelled cigarette smoke and realized Noah had stepped out. My heart beat against his hand, straight through my stomach, almost raising my skin.
Juke protected me from myself a lot when we were younger. He would grab and hold me until my rage seemed to transfer into him, until all my emotions bled into him and I shriveled and calmed, tearless and blank. The size of him so wholly engulfed me that I had no choice but to relax, to stop and gather myself.
I let all my rage go and took a deep breath.
Juke leaned over Bear, holding out his hand. His smile quieted her sniffles a bit.
"Hey, pretty girl. Your daddy's a superhero. Even I can't beat him! So nothing can hurt him, right? We're going to wait, and when he's done with his secret mission, he's coming right back. If you cry now, he won't be able to take you on the next secret mission, will he?" He hoisted her up.
Moose suddenly bound down the stairs, frantic, nearly colliding with the wall. He assessed the situation, noticed Bear's weepy eyes—her hand on her knee—and my serious expression, and held his hands out to calm himself. Juke motioned for him to move out of the way.
"Unc, she's hurt! She might have twisted her knee! That can cause permanent damage! We have to get bandages and wrap it tight! How far did you fall? You have to watch what you're doing, Bear!" Moose ran up the stairs for the bandages while Juke cradled Bear. She watched me over his shoulder, eyes wide and pathetic.
Take her.
"I'm going to the police station," I muttered. I pulled on my coat. The smell of Noah's cigarette wafted into the house. I followed it, ignoring Juke's movement behind me. She held up a finger for me to wait, skipping across the street to get dressed.
The night serenaded us with the quiet rustling of trees as we stood there, Juke holding my daughter, the wind blowing soft and cold. Her sniffles stabbed into me. When he saw me glaring, Juke turned her face away from me, cuddling her closer to him. They rocked side to side.
"New school. New jobs. New names, new backgrounds, new fucking problems. All over again. And you're acting like it's not a big deal." He covered Bear's ears as if that would help her avoid his curses.
"I'm so disappointed in you, Juke. I expect better. I expect you to care when your friend goes missing. You're supposed to give a shit about us."
Finally, Juke didn't protest or make excuses or even try to defend his honor. He rested his head on top of Bear's giant mess of hair and rocked her side to side, humming until she stopped sniffling and drifted calmly to sleep.
He didn't speak again until Noah came out, and when he did talk, it was with razor-sharp, blistering anger.
"I can't start over again. There's no point in starting over again now, is there?" He waited for me to answer, but I couldn't. "Right. You're not stupid or evil. I put a lot of myself into protecting you and everyone here, everyone in our fucking circle. We had families, Astor. You think I would've done that if I knew I would just have to watch my daughter get snatched up at the last moment? You think I would've brought her into this world to watch Daddy suffer? Did you bring Bear and Moose into this world just to give up at the last minute?"
Again, I couldn't respond.
"I put a lot of thought into every move I make. Y'all come home from the lab covered in all types of shit, looking weird. Being obvious. Do I ever say anything? Do I ever ask what you're doing under everyone's noses? No. I trust you. We made the decision to live, and we need to stick to it at all costs. What if Osh never comes back? Oh well! Osh isn't the only person who matters. What about your damn kids? What about my daughter? We just throw them away to find a grown man?"
"You know I love them. I wouldn't harm them."
Juke spoke over me, barely holding his rage. "We don't need Osh. I got this! I always make sure everything is okay, right? What, everybody falls apart without him all of a sudden? Y'all need him to function? He's not the only one protecting you!"
"I'm sorry. You're right."
I heard Noah scoff behind me, but I didn't look.
"I put it on my momma, wherever she is. I put his safety on my momma. Osh is okay. He is coming back; you don't need to worry. Let this be the time you believe me, Astor, because I'm not saying it again." He turned with my daughter and walked into my house, closing the door softly behind him. Noah and I stood stiff under the evening sky, speechless.
"Well thank God for Saint Juke, huh," she said with a cruel laugh, lighting a cigarette. She waved and headed back across the street. I watched her disappear into her big house, swallowed by warmth, but I couldn't get myself to move.
There'd been one other time when Juke put a promise "on his momma." Just one.
"No one will know unless you tell them. How would they find out? On my momma, I promise I'll protect you through this. Please, let this be the time you believe me, Astor. Don't tell anyone. Trust me."
And, like before, I did.