“Hold your breath!”
I sucked in a monstrous gulp of air and plugged my nose. Fish- like with budging cheeks I watched the graveyard pass by. I silently counted the seconds until I would be able to breathe again. The last defeated stone edged by the window and I let out the stagnant air. The clean air felt good, and I rubbed the goose bumps from my arms with fast, sudden strokes. Will and I looked at each other from across the backseat of the station wagon. He grinned, revealing several missing teeth.
The seats of the car were dark red plush, they smelled of spilled juice boxes and buttery ritz cracker crumbs. I always felt claustrophobic in that car as though I was trapped in the belly of a lumbering beast; the engine mumbled like a stomach digesting a meal and the seats quaked and shuddered, scared stiff. Mother gripped the steering wheel as if it were the wheel of a ship in a storm. Her frail body seemed small and out of place in the driver’s seat, with the cushions slowly devouring her body. Father used to drive us home from school. He had always sung when he drove. I remembered the way he’d slap his thigh in tune to the beat coming from the radio, while steering the car expertly with one hand. With my eyes closed, I tried to hear that slap, keeping rhythm to a beat I was playing in my mind.
It was November the trees were bare their bark brittle. Overhead the sky was a dark grey mirroring the grey asphalt beneath the car wheels. Craning my neck out the window I spotted two black crows flying parallel to us. I watched them for a few minutes then we gained speed and the crows dropped behind. The ride from school always took exactly 13 minutes. I would fervently watch the digital numbers and without looking outside, I would know we had arrived. Bad things were likely to happen if the ride took 14 minutes, or 12 for that matter. But as we pulled into the gravel driveway I saw that today was going to be a good afternoon.
Our house was white with peeling paint, the fallen chips like confetti in the dead grass. Inside was disarray. We waded inside amid towers of old magazines warped with moisture, likening them to birds with curling wings. Mother had taken up collecting. The results were piled in all corners of the house: the Ulti-Chop still in its box, foam pebbles spilling out and the “Worlds Sharpest Knife Set” gleamed dully underneath its plastic shroud. Mother didn’t really tidy up anymore. She sat down at the dining room table. I watched her look at the mail, but she didn’t’ take anything out of the envelopes; it seemed to require more effort than she could bear to muster. I went outside to play in the garden, knowing that she was safe inside.
The garden was dead, given the time of year. I kicked a rotten pumpkin. The weak crust broke revealing a mushy cavity where several oval seeds floated serenely. The ground was getting hard; there had been a good frost last night. Boot marks, cat paw prints and wheelbarrow treads were temporarily fossilized in the grey earth, leaving a permanent record of our lives, until the snows came and covered them up. I made my way over to the chicken coop. The grass in the yard had long been consumed, pecked away until nothing but the hard earth remained. Still they bobbed their heads mechanically groundward like life size windup toys. The chicken wire fence was rusty, and the red color rubbed off on my fingers as I clutched on to it, swaying back and forth on the balls of my feet. Looking back at the house it was dark, as though no one lived there. The old glass panes distorted the trees and my small form. I waved and watched an arm a mile long wave back at me.
Looking over my shoulder, I made sure that no one was watching and slipped inside the coop, latching the door firmly behind me. The structure was small and sturdy. Father had built it last year all alone. I remember how the new wood smelled when he sawed it up in the back yard, pungent and sharp, and the way the sawdust settled over his sweaty limbs, like a first snow. Stepping inside I was met with a lung-full of musty, thick air; I could taste the dust settling in my mouth as I opened it to breathe.
The hen had been sitting on the egg for the last three weeks. I didn’t want to tell Will about it yet, what if it didn’t’ hatch? I didn’t want to jinx it. She cackled softly as I slid my hand between her reptile feet and gently stroked the smooth warm surface of the egg. Her underbelly feathers were so soft on my hands, by far the softest thing I had ever touched.
Dinner was silent; I played with my grilled cheese halves making a tee-pee where broccoli crowned people lived. Will was scarfing down his tomato soup. It spilled down his chin and soiled the front of his white shirt, leaving a red stain. Mother didn’t comment. She was twisted in her chair, half her face illuminated by the supernatural glow of the television in the next room, her hands idly moving the food to her mouth, in rhythmic motions. I wanted her to cry, or to begin screaming and throwing plates. The noise would have been so comforting.
I hadn’t told Will about the egg. I didn’t want to remind him about that day in August…We were making pancakes, only to crack the first egg and find the body. The half-fertilized egg left us paralyzed. The premature chick was bathed in a shimmering dress of egg casement with red blood and a half formed beak. Its tiny eyes were tightly closed, and its wings were delicate and featherless. Will threw it into the woods behind the house. The specks of dirt, and pine needles seemed so desperate as they clung to the sticky body like glue. We stood there fascinated. He prodded it with a stick and then we ran away, squealing like young pigs, panting and out of breath with exhilaration. We had to throw the pancake batter out, it seemed a shame to waste it, but the bird’s blood had stained the white flour. We did not know at the time, what was to follow the next day…
*
The floor boards squeaked and warped underneath my feet as I walked out of my room that night. Dinner was over, I knew that the plates were still lying on the table, all three of them, since no one had bothered to clean up again. Sometimes I would set out four, and then catch myself, overwhelmed by an enormous blow to my gut, immobilizing me.
The house was old, and it complained more than any live person I know. Going into Will’s room, I sat down on the edge of his bed. His sobs had woken me up again. I had lain awake listening to them for a while, until I couldn’t stand the noise. I could feel his bones as I patted his back. His body felt so fragile, like a bird’s. Soon Will’s whimpering faded into the slow breathing of sleep. The room was hot, the hair on my forehead was sticky and my pajamas were adhered firmly to my limbs. I opened the window and gasped as a shock of frozen air swept down my throat making me cough, and involuntarily causing my eyes to water. Then I crawled into bed next to Will and lay there listening to his even breaths.
*
“Death always comes in threes.”
She told me. It was after the funeral was over and I was standing by the picked over buffet table rearranging the wilted bits of leftover lettuce. I looked at her blankly, only half trying to place her face. I think she was a senile half cousin of my father. She was looking out of the window, onto the manicured shrubs that are popular with funeral homes. Her lipstick had smudged and had seeped into the wrinkles around her mouth making tiny mauve rivers. On the windowsill I saw the lonely bodies of two flies, belly up. I pointed to them.
“There, now you have your three” I said. I didn’t believe it though. The chick was one, my father two, who was next? I was terrified by the prospect of another death.
Someone had switched a lever inside me and I didn’t know how to turn it off. Heavy dread followed me, in the form of invisible hands bullying my thoughts.
*
The next morning was Sunday. On Sundays we went to the graveyard. I would have liked to have held my breath for the entire duration of the visit, but it was impossible. Red faced and panting I ran to catch up with mother and Will. There had been a light snow the night before. Our boot prints looked so guilty in the virgin snow, defiling its perfection. The cold grey markers all around us stared blank ominous stares. We crouched down together next to one grey marker. The carved stone words seemed to mock us with their fake sentiment. The white moisture of our breath hung in the air like ghosts. After a few minutes we all stood up to go. I stayed back for a moment watching Mother and Will retrace their footprints. I looked down at the snow in front of the grave; it had not been stepped on. Without further thought I positioned my body and freely fell on my back into the snow. I reached up my arms and made wings, the snow swirled up and dusted me all over. I got up carefully surveying what I had made with approval and then I ran to catch up.
As we returned home the snow had begun anew and the white house seemed bathed in a glimmering cape of snow. Before going inside I made my way to the hen house. The straw crunched underneath my feet, and small clouds of dust rose up, making me sneeze unexpectedly and scaring the dozing hens. Crouching down I maneuvered my hand underneath her, I couldn’t feel the egg. Panicking I lifted the hen’s body up in my arms, her wings flapping as she tried to lift her flightless body. Beneath her I saw broken white bits of shell scattered haphazardly in the straw. But standing amid the wreckage of its former home, a chick was cheeping mournfully, its body still slick with fluids, its eyes were bright black and shiny and it was very much alive.
