Lydia Netzer - How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“Good,” said Bernice.

“Not good,” said Sally. “Because the lies you have told have been back to the beginning of our lives. If you love me.”

“I do,” said Bernice. She felt very quiet and small. She felt like a lot of things had been taken away from her that were protecting her, and now she was naked without them, small and cold. Sally stood up and began to pace the porch. The heels of her boots snapped against the floorboards. The light filtering through the blinds from the television streaked across her face, across the back of her head and her golden hair.

“What kind of mother are you,” Sally said with precision. “What kind of mother are you, letting a stranger knock you up, just to get—just to get your breast into my mouth?”

Bernice put her hand over her mouth, and bit into her finger. Sally remembered that night. Remembered it with accuracy, all the ways that it had happened. She had hoped that Sally remembered it, in some way, but not like this.

“It was for the children,” said Bernice. “I love them. I do. Even yours.”

“Your breast was in my mouth!” cried Sally. “How dare you not tell me. How dare you?”

Bernice felt herself stiffen. She felt herself begin to fight. She fought for the memory of that night, for it not to be something wicked that she did, something small and deceitful, her deceiving both of them, for that brief second of contact, for that encouraging smile, that voice humming into her flesh, those eyes flashing encouragement at her: “It’s working!”

Once, when they were kids, when Sally’s breasts were just coming out, and they were still playing with Barbies, there had been a moment in Sally’s bedroom. Making two moments, in all. Two, forgetting all the girls she had drawn into her bed, all the nipples she had rolled around in her mouth, all the tit fat she had smacked with the back of her hand, all the places she had put her cheek and slept. That day, they were putting on their bathing suits. Sally was having trouble with her ties, and the triangles of her bikini were laid down on her belly as she stood there, fighting with a knot, and her new little breasts sprouting. Bernice had said, “Can I touch them?” And Sally had said, “Yeah, sure.”

Bernice, just another young girl with curiosity in the palms of her hands, put those hands over the place where the triangles would go, feeling Sally’s skin cool under her hot palms. “Weird, right?” said Sally. “Come on.” The knot was untied. They never talked about it. Never mentioned it. When they were in bed together, so many countless times, for sleepovers, for college overnights, for whatever reason, Bernice petting her endlessly on the back, never trailing her hand those two inches more down past her tailbone. Suntan lotion on the collarbones, the neck, but never inside two imaginary circles drawn around her breasts. For other girls, her hand slamming into the most unforgiving places. But for Sally, a map of forbidden zones. This body she knew so well. Better than her own.

“How dare YOU?” she demanded, shouting at Sally now. “How dare you not know? You have been my best friend for twenty years, twenty-five years, how dare you not know who I love?”

Sally hesitated, said nothing. Her face was a blank. Bernice was reminded of her expression in that moment, her hands pressing into the cool breasts before the swimming suit was applied, and it was as if Sally’s face turned to hers, her eyes suddenly aware, locked on Bernice’s eyes, saying, “It’s you.” Then Bernice swallowed.

“You knew,” Bernice said slowly. “You did know. How could you not know?”

“No, I did not know. Because you lied!” Sally growled, her teeth bared. “You lied to me. Don’t you turn this around, you liar.”

“You knew,” said Bernice. “You knew and you used me, you knew and you let me follow your bait. My breast in your mouth. You did that. On purpose. Like a prize you were giving me.”

She could feel it there still, stiff under her friend’s tongue, still feel her hands itching to crawl over Sally’s rib cage, dig into her back, draw her down on top of her, never let go.

“This is over,” Sally said. She stood up. She brushed off her shirt, pulled down her skirt.

“No,” said Bernice. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You’re drunk, may I remind you. And you’re the one that wanted this to be over. So it is. I don’t want you in my life, and I don’t want your daughter for my son.”

Bernice felt bad. She felt drunk and bad. And sorry. And like it was all her fault.

“It’s not her fault,” said Bernice. “It’s not my baby’s fault. Please, please. What is she, if we don’t have this? What is she without him?”

“You sound like the town drunk,” said Sally. “You are out of control. Get yourself together, and go find something else to do with your life. Obsessing over me, and prepping your daughter to marry my son, that’s over now.”

“No,” Bernice begged. “Not like this.”

“What’s more,” said Sally. Bernice, in her drunkenness, couldn’t tell if her friend was angry, or tired, or excited, or dismayed. But she understood this: “What’s more, if you ever come around trying to talk to me, or if you ever send her around to talk to him, I will fucking kill you. I’ll kill you. I am not what you are. Remember that. I am not like you.”

That night, Bernice set a fire. She set a fire but she did not die.

Here’s what is known: one got pregnant and then the other. They took some herbal drugs to induce labor, and they had their babies at the same time. What else really happened? Who knows? What else can really be documented or understood? Why do some people fall in love with each other, and others don’t? What is love? It’s so, so, so stupid right up until it’s real. And then it’s the most important thing in the world, whether you believe in it or not.

Sam Beth was dressed as a Daughter of Babylon in all her ritual markings. Irene, uninitiated, was only allowed to watch and learn, but she wore a black robe with a long cowl that Sam Beth had provided. The procession started at the top of the ziggurat, at 10 P.M., when the moon was at its zenith. The dark rectangle containing the remains was draped with a black cloth, and Sam Beth carried it in her arms. She had a large diamond in her belly button, one shoved into her left nostril, and one hanging from her right ear. She had explained that the triangle created by the relationship between these three diamonds was also traced in coal around her right breast, and the parallax measurement described by the arc of the acute angle was reflected in the name of the star she claimed as her own talisman. They carried the dead woman’s rectangle of ashes from the top of the ziggurat to the bottom and into the crypt that was generally kept for dignitaries in the world of astronomy and math, and they carried her past the person who created the lens that allowed the universe to be mapped and the person who hypothesized the particle that was created when two iron ions collide, and they laid her to rest in a very modest crèche and draped the black cloth across the entrance, and no one disturbed her at all forever. She was left entirely alone.

Bernice had tried to get into her daughter’s dreams from the very beginning. From before she even gave birth she had tried to dream herself into her daughter’s reveries. Before Irene could talk, before she could walk, Bernice was reaching out, reaching in, helping her discover how to release her body from her mind, and go where she would in sleep. All the while Bernice was dreaming and building a special place for her and her daughter to reside. It was a beautiful lake island, with a clay and wattle cabin, a bean garden, and beehives. She invited, and invited, but the girl never ever came. Maybe when I am dead, Bernice had thought, this is where I will end up. Here on this lake island, with the girl I brought into the world. We ’ ll hear the water lapping and the linnets swooping, and we ’ ll drift through the rest of time this way. But if she never visits it with me now, how will she ever find me when I am gone?