David Vann - Aquarium

I poured the can of tomato soup directly into the drained pot of spaghetti and put it back on the burner. I stirred and tried to break apart the clumps. I added some pepper and grabbed two plates and hurried back with our meal.

Sheri, my mother said when I returned. My good little girl. You’re an angel, you know that?

I didn’t know what to say. I gave her a plate and fork.

I’m not hungry, she said. I can’t eat. Just come and lie down next to me.

So I set the plates on the floor and lay down beside my mother and she put an arm around me, her other hand stroking my hair. I was so tense I was grinding my teeth. I expected her to twist my neck or pull my hair.

Sheri, you’re an angel. I made you. I made you perfect. This body died to make you.

She played with my hair and began humming to herself, some simple song I didn’t recognize. You have to remember me, she said. When I’m gone, you’re the only one to keep my memory alive. So you have to understand. Sometimes I say things because I have unbearable pain, but that’s not me. That’s not who I am. Do you understand?

Yes.

That’s good, Sheri. That’s good. I don’t need to be forgiven, because I’ve done nothing wrong. If you do something out of pain, it can never be a crime.

She kissed the back of my head and then stayed there, her mouth in my hair. Pain offers only one choice, Sheri. You have to run from it. You have to try to escape. There’s no other choice, because it’s more terrible than anything else. People complain about emotional pain or psychological pain, the pain of loss, but this is nothing compared to pure physical agony. You’ll twist and turn until you rip yourself apart. You’ll scream and destroy and fight everything and everyone if it brings even a single moment in which you’re not as fully aware of the pain. You have to understand this, or you’ll think I’m a monster.

But you don’t have this pain, I said. Your mother had this pain.

You can’t do it, can you? You can’t be generous and try to imagine another life, even your mother’s. You can’t be Sheri for one night and try to understand what it was like for me to be left alone with my dying mother. Do you think it made the cruelty any better to hear that it wasn’t her fault? She still screamed and slapped me and did horrible things. She still took away my childhood and also my future. Was there a bigger price I could have paid? My childhood and my adulthood.

I didn’t make you pay.

My mother’s arms wrapped around my head, and I really thought she might twist and break my neck. True, she said. That’s true. And what have I always told you? Not to ever let me blame you for my problems. I didn’t talk about the past. I’ve done everything to protect you, so you wouldn’t have to go through what I did. And how have you thanked me for that?

I haven’t done anything.

But you have. You won’t rest until the three of us are skipping hand in hand.

We could live at his house, and he could take me to school. You wouldn’t have to work as much.

Maybe your brain just isn’t old enough. He committed a crime. He’s responsible for that. He doesn’t get to have everything given to him as if he never did anything wrong. Nineteen years. I didn’t see him for nineteen years.

Then why miss the years now?

My mother rolled away from me on the bed. You’re smart, Caitlin. You’re hard to argue with. But he is no longer my father. He gave up that right. And I will not let him be a grandfather, because really I want to see him burn. I want to set a match to him and watch him scream. I want him to feel unbearable pain. I want him to feel more pain than there is in this world. There’s not enough pain available for him.

I woke in darkness, my arm shaken.

Take me to the bathroom, Sheri.

What? I didn’t remember at first, disoriented.

Take me now or the sheets will need changing. And actually, you should experience that.

Experience what?

I could smell her piss then, acidic and thick.

Oops, she said.

I yanked the comforter and top sheet back. What are you doing?

Change the sheets, Sheri. And clean me. How could you let this happen?

You did this. You wet the bed.

Letting your own mother die in her bed pissing herself. Do you hate me so much?

I got up and turned on the light. My mother naked on the bed with a yellowish spot on the sheet, spreading. I’m cold, Sheri. Curling as if she were weak.

You’re not sick. You’re not your mother. I’m not Sheri.

I’m cold, Sheri. And if you don’t take care of me, I will leave. Maybe you don’t believe that. But it’s true. I will leave. You will understand your mother and care about her life or you don’t deserve to have a mother.

She looked the same as my mother from before. Nothing had changed, except that nothing made sense now. Lying in her own urine.

I’m cold, Sheri! she screamed. I looked at her bedside clock, and it was after three a.m. I’ll get a towel, I said, and I ran to the bathroom, grabbed a small towel and soaked it in warm water, wrung it out.

I grabbed her legs carefully at the knees and pulled her to the side, away from the spot. And then I wiped her with the warm wet towel, wiped everywhere carefully, all the way to her lower back and down her thighs.

I’m cold!

I arranged the top sheet carefully over her, not letting it touch the urine, and then I arranged the comforter. Then it was time to strip the sheet from under her.

I started at the head of the bed, pulled off the corners and lifted her gently.

You’re hurting me, she said.

I’m doing my best.

This isn’t about you.

I kept pulling that sheet and lifting each part of her body, as if I were a priestess and she were some god made of flesh. No prayers or sacrifice except caring for the body, and all must be kept quiet. All our movements meant only not to anger. You had to do everything perfectly, I said. And she was still angry.

Yes. That’s right. You’re learning.

You were afraid the whole time.

Yes. But not afraid of her yelling at me or slapping me or any of that. What was I afraid of?

That she would die.

And what else?

That it would be your fault.

Yes.

My mother sat up then, and she hugged me. This is good, Caitlin. You’re good. I think you really understand something of what it was like.

But he’s still my grandpa, and I get to see him.

My mother let go of me and lay back down. Clean that spot. Use a little bit of bleach and water. Then dry it with a hair dryer. And let me sleep, Sheri. Why can’t you let me sleep? I’m tired.

I did what you wanted. I understood your life.

My mother smiled. Yeah. You understand everything. Let’s talk again tomorrow night, in another twenty-four hours, after you’ve worked and had almost no sleep. You haven’t been broken yet. I’m going to break you, and then we’ll find out who you are.

I pulled the rest of the sheet free and bunched it up and carried it to the washer. I didn’t turn it on because of the neighbors. Then I found the bottle of bleach and poured a little bit in a bucket with some warm water and grabbed a sponge.

The mattress had other stains, old. And it seemed it might soak up a lot of water, so I was sparing. I wondered whether my grandfather was awake, too. Where was his house, and what was it like? I was almost like Cinderella dreaming of the prince, except he was an old man, not a prince, and his house would be small, no castle, and this was my real mother, not my stepmother, and she had already destroyed the carriage. But the idea was the same, to leave the old life and have a new and better one.

I’m Cinderella, I said. You were Cinderella.