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Then she surprised me. She doled out half of the pills and asked me to hold them. We didn’t say anything. She poured herself the rest. We both looked at the mounds in our hands. They were so full. I didn’t want to spill them.

  I sat completely still. I tried not to breathe.

  “Do you want me to go first?” she said. “Would that help?”

  I nodded, even though that’s the last thing I wanted.

  I told myself not to cry.

  “You’re my girl. You know that, don’t you?”

  I didn’t answer her.

  She wanted me to watch her swallow all of them, every last pill, and I did. I did that for her. I sat there like a good daughter, like I was the best daughter in the world. My hands were still full. I hadn’t moved. I couldn’t move. The pills held me in place.

  “Here,” she said. “Let me take those. You shouldn’t have those.”

  * * *

  When she finished mine, we held hands. She was smiling.

  “You can’t leave me,” she said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Promise.”

  * * *

  I waited until she closed her eyes. Then I ran as fast as I could. Marianne Moore wouldn’t stay. She chased me all the way through the hospital’s sliding glass doors.

  I WAKE BEFORE THE OTHERS and gather up more empty cans. I pass new wooden posts spaced apart in the water with the net Dox and Fritter mended. The faint line of the net is stretched out and still. There is no movement around it whatsoever. The morning is birdsong and humidity. The volume on both steadily rises. I wish I had that fly rod. I’d figure out a way to make it work, send a line out, and maybe catch a mess of silver perch. That would be something.

  * * *

  I step into the water, and the brown velvet head of a moccasin peeks up just a tad. It’s cruising along, not too far away, on a slight current. It isn’t interested in what I’m doing. I let out a sigh after the snake is downriver, then wade out some more and check the first trap. When I tug on the string, I know immediately from its weight. Each one is a little jackpot. Greenish bronze bodies click against one another like a deluge of pennies. I steady the cans for the gush.

  * * *

  On my way back to the boathouse, I spot where the net is because it’s moving in quick jolts. There’s something in the water, maybe caught up in the net, I don’t know. I set down the cans. All of those crayfish begin to mount an escape. They use each other’s bodies like ladder rungs to climb. I shake the cans and the crayfish fall back. They pause for a second, stunned. That buys me just enough time to lift an end of the net closest to the water’s edge. What rises, wrapped in the lines of monofilament, is the largest blue catfish I’ve ever seen. It’s probably forty pounds. Its head is wide and hard like a football helmet. I undo the other end of the net and furiously yank both ends to shore.

  The blue cat thrashes and tangles itself up good. I beach the behemoth in the mud. I don’t care that the crayfish have regrouped and are spilling out of the tops of the cans. I’ve lost half of them, easily. The blue cat starts with its grunting. It sounds like a ratchet tightening on a bolt. I can’t drag it all the way back in without tearing up the net, so I loosen one of the posts, working it back and forth out of the mud. Once I free the board, I swing it high above the fish and bring it down on its monstrous head.

  * * *

  I run back to the boathouse. I can’t breathe, it’s so hot. The air is a dress made of pink insulation. Its splinters catch in my throat. Dox is on the back porch drinking coffee from a tin cup. When he sees me, he holds it up and asks if I want to join him. I wave the idea away. He laughs. I look around the yard and then grab the tarp off the stack of plywood.

  “Where you going with my raincoat?” Dox says.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “You better be.”

  * * *

  I pull the blue cat onto the tarp, and once its belly is all the way on, it wakes and starts twisting its body, like it’s trying to swim upriver to where I’ve lifted the end of the tarp with both hands and have the bunched material thrown up over my shoulder. I’m hauling a sack of goods that has burst open. All that’s left is this ugly forty-pound bottom-feeder. Its gut is probably stuffed with polished beer-bottle shards and used rubbers from the weekend boat parties I sometimes hear out on the river. But I don’t care. It’s fat where it needs to be. I feel it with every thrust of my body moving forward, with every pull and step I make in the direction of the boathouse.

  * * *

  When I get to the edge of the yard, Dox sees me, drops his tin cup, and runs in the house singing. Out comes Fritter in cutoff beige-and-tan camo shorts and nothing else. All I see are haywire dreadlocks and his bouncing chest. The man has titties, and I don’t. The world isn’t fair.

  The blue cat thrashes to remind me what’s what, and I keep pulling the cinched part of the tarp over my shoulder and leaning forward. Fritter finally relieves me, taking the ends from my hands.

  * * *

  I watch the fish swim past me on the flattened sheet, up to the steps of the boathouse. I still think I’m holding it in my hands. I can’t unclench my fingers. My father steps out on the porch, dressed in pants and vest only. He starts clapping, and Dox steps out from behind him and does the same. Fritter drops the end of the tarp and looks down and then looks at me and joins them. All three of these men are clapping for me, but my fingers stay curled, like I can’t decide whether I want to make a pair of fists.

  NEXT TO THE PIER IS a plank mounted along one of the railings and streaked with tiny scales and dried blood. On one end of the plank is a long, crooked nail the length of a railroad spike. The nail points end up. It’s snagged a part of the sky.

  Fritter uses this nail to impale the heads of fish he cleans by the water. He lifts up the blue cat and in one swift gesture plops it onto the plank. Immediately, blood begins to pour from under its chin.

  “Go get the knife,” Fritter says to me. “And the pliers. Make sure to get those.”

  * * *

  I go in the kitchen for both and have to rummage around in one of the drawers. When I come outside, my father and Fritter are discussing the fish, but then Fritter notices me and takes a big step away from the railing.

  My father says, “It’ll be good for you to do this one on your own. Just in case we’re not around.”

  “I’ve cleaned fish before.”

  “Nothing like this, you haven’t,” Fritter says.

  I glare at Fritter. “Whose side are you on?”

  “No one’s side.”

  “There are different sides?” My father shakes the idea from his head.

  The blue cat doesn’t even look real to me now. I poke and push into the slime of its cushioned skin. It doesn’t move.

  “Run the blade right here.” Fritter draws a line with his fingertip.

  For some reason, I can’t do it. I put the blade up to its skin, but then pull it away. Fritter takes the knife from my hand and slices a horseshoe pattern, starting from one spot just behind its enormous head. He mirrors the cut all the way over to the opposite side. Flies begin to gather.

  * * *

  “At least separate the skin from the meat,” my father says to me. “Just slip a finger underneath and move it around a little bit.”

  It’s all papery tissue between the muscle and the skin’s slick coating. I make a small space, enough for the ends of the pliers to get a decent hold. I clamp the nose end down and slowly pull back toward the tail. I lift. The slime and the skin come off in wide strips. I keep going.

  There are more flies now, a real business. They swarm the pale meat, some bouncing off and swirling back to have another run at it. I can tell Fritter had been careful not to put the knife in too deep. He didn’t want to ruin it, but the flies are insistent. They cover my hands. They kiss the slime. They plunge through the heat, into the sides of the blue cat. There are so many, they’re trying to become the fish’s second skin.

  * * *r />
  My father and Fritter have left me to it. Now they have stepped back onto the porch with Dox running the glass slide up and down the neck. I wipe at my face with the back of my wrist. My hair sticks to my cheeks and chin.

  “What are you doing out there?” my father says.

  I feel like taking off my shirt and shaking my nipples at them.

  The blue cat is covered in so many flies now.

  I fan the top of it, but the flies don’t move. They know a good thing when they have one.

  “Come on, honey,” Dox says between riffs.

  I’m careful with the side fins, making them retract so as not to get stabbed. I lift the fish off the nailed plank. The wound makes a sucking sound. I cradle the body. I have to keep my footing.

  Because it doesn’t move, it feels like I’m holding Marianne Moore in my arms.

  “What are you doing now?” Fritter says.

  “I’m washing it off.”

  In my mind, there are too many flies. It shouldn’t have to be covered in them.

  I step off the pier to wade in by the bank.

  “There’s water in the cistern,” my father says. “We’ll use that to clean it up. Put it back on the board and pull off the fillets.”

  “I’ll get to that,” I say.

  “Wait.” Dox laughs. “That’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”

  I keep the blue cat cradled to me. There’s no way I’m letting go. I carry it off the pier and over to the side. I bend down and dip its body into the river. The flies scatter and don’t come back right away. They circle.

  Rinsed now, the muscles look brighter. Then all at once the fish tenses, electrified. I can’t help it, I scream. It’s not my imagination. The fish pulls away from my grasp and slips underwater like a submarine.

  HAMMERED FLUSH ONTO FRITTER’S DOOR is a sign carved into a cut piece of plywood. The message reads DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, but I knock anyway. I hear a low groan and then the door swings open. Fritter’s bare chest is large as a bank safe. He smells like my father and Marianne Moore put together. A cloud of turpentine rushes out from the room and cleanses the warmth in the air.

  “You forgot how to read?”

  “I’m here to say I’m sorry about the fish. I didn’t mean to let it go.”

  “You let it go?”

  “No, but I thought I was holding it good enough.”

  “No, you were right the first time. I think you let it go.”

  I don’t tell him that my father and Dox won’t speak to me right now, too. They’re still fuming.

  “Why would I do that? I’m just as hungry as you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  I don’t bite.

  Fritter grimaces. “Guess that thing just wanted to live more than you wanted to eat it.”

  “I guess. But it doesn’t have skin now.”

  “Who needs skin? It’s swimming free.”

  “Don’t tell me that.”

  Fritter puts his hand on the doorknob, but I push back against the door. If he wanted to, he could shut me out, no problem. He takes a step back. The door slowly swings open. I can see the wall where he last stopped.

  Blisters have formed around the dents in the lid. Fritter slides the tip of the flathead into the coated groove of the paint can and lifts every few inches, going around in a full circle. I don’t say anything. He frees the lid and begins to stir the paint with the screwdriver.

  With the thinnest brush, he dabs the top skin and squats next to the spot on the wall. He picks up the spent bullet and holds it flush with where he left off.

  “Plan on watching all day?” Fritter says.

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “You planning on working all day?” I say.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On if I have to hear that bike of yours tear out of here.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “He’s been worried about you. He won’t say it.”

  I almost answer Fritter. Instead, I point at the floor. “Why lines? Why not people or even animals?”

  “You done?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “And I’m wondering why you don’t get the fuck out of here.” Fritter presses his meaty palm on the wall where it’s wet. He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t move at all.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Then leave already.”

  I LET FRITTER BE FRITTER and walk outside. It’s so hot. All I want is to wash away the blue cat’s blood that dried on my arms and chest. My father and Dox are sharing a bottle, jawing about how underappreciated fathers are. They are leaning up against the side wall of the boathouse that’s looking like it will fall in at any moment. It’s not for me to warn them.

  * * *

  I get on my dirt bike and start it up and crackle the air. No one asks me where I’m going. I lift my feet as I give it gas. The world wakes up just like the monster fish did, but this time I’m right on its tail, chasing it across the road and into the field. I smear a trail through the low clover. I can almost see the path all the way to the golf course and the enormous house and feel the AC that will greet my face and the warm water of the shower that will brush my skin.

  I don’t care what anyone thinks, not Mason or Wythe or any of the flies. I just want to be clean and have a chance to pretend. When I stare ahead, it’s this fucking world that keeps coming at me. I have to squint to see it, and I want it to happen right now. I want to start, to finally grow up. And why can’t it happen right this very second?

  No amount of imagination will let me pretend myself into becoming a woman. I’m just a girl on a dirt bike in the middle of nowhere hauling ass and finding at that spot on the gas tank where it’s flush with the seat that nothing is there, no blood at all.

  * * *

  I let off the gas and coast to a stop. The heat clings. My stomach is killing me. My body aches. If I could cut out the pain, it would be in the shape of the fish I would let go of, no question.

  I call Mason and ask him what he’s doing, and he tells me how a bunch of them are taking out Everett’s father’s boat and going waterskiing. I hold my breath. He doesn’t ask me if I want to come with him.

  “Will I see you later?” I say.

  “Why?”

  I tell myself, “Don’t even think about it.”

  BACK WHEN WE LIVED NEAR the college, I would wait for the mail every day, but no cards or letters ever came. I began to think she had forgotten about me. My father said the program she had checked into wouldn’t take long, and at first I believed him.

  * * *

  Junk mail was a different story. It seems no one told these companies that my mother was no longer here. We still received all of the catalogs she had signed up for. I gathered them into a pile and started cutting out the models that shared some trait with her. It might be the shape of the woman’s hands or her mouth. Maybe even just the tilt of her neck.

  I kept them all. I made a scrapbook with all of these parts. I never assembled them into one person. They just floated there, glued on construction paper. I was going to throw them all away the moment my mother came back to us.

  * * *

  It was during this same time that I started reading Anne Frank’s diary, something my father had checked out for me from the children’s literature section in the college library. Of course, I started keeping a diary myself, which was my father’s hope all along, I suspect. He wanted me to write down my feelings, but I couldn’t do it. And I wasn’t interested in boys like Anne was so my entries were more just random thoughts, mostly nonsense. It was the nonsense that scared me the most.

  The closest I ever came to knowing anything about boys back then was when I found some romance novels my mother had stashed among her things. There were scenes describing how men made women feel. The men had lots of muscles and grabbed at women and held them down. Everyone seemed to always be breathing heavily. Living, it seemed, was a chore. At one
point I had to look up the word flaccid. Each time I read over certain scenes, I tried to imagine what these men were doing. I kept circling back to this one thought: I didn’t want to be held down. I wondered if my mother had arrived at the same idea. I suspected she had.

  * * *

  Whenever I wrote, Marianne Moore would jump up on my bed and push herself against me. It was hard to concentrate with her licking my face and panting with her dog breath. My entries quickly turned to translations, or tried to. I was going to write what I thought Marianne Moore was thinking. That, however, didn’t last long at all. I couldn’t keep it up. I wasn’t a real translator. The more I tried to think like Marianne Moore, to describe what crazy things she had already seen, the more I realized I was never going to be my mother.

  IT WAS THE START OF a new school year, and my father began coming home from classes later and later. I was trying my hand at cooking, wanting to take the lessons my mother had already given me and to build on them. My father wouldn’t eat the food I made for us on the stovetop. Instead, he mostly drank.

  When he wasn’t drinking, he was carrying lots of books in his leather satchel. The strap on the satchel eventually broke. He wrapped the strap with duct tape and even that separated. He carried home books in both arms. The sleeves of his suit coat began to rip, but he wasn’t deterred. He brought home more books. He mumbled in French, as if I could understand him. My mother, at least, used to wait for us to go to sleep and then would read aloud the poems she was studying.

  My father began to read the same poems aloud day and night.

  Sometimes I thought my mother was in the other room.

  * * *

  My father stopped wearing suit coats and matching ties altogether, but he kept wearing vests. I washed his dress shirts, but they began to rip as well. I wanted to sew them, but there was no one to teach me how to sew. I tried on my own, but my sewing was crooked. When I asked him if he knew how to sew, if maybe he could teach me, he’d pat at a growing stack of student papers like they were Marianne Moore’s head.