Laura Adamczyk - Hardly Children

The youngest’s cheeks hollow and fill, making small sucking noises.

Stop it, the oldest says.

The youngest’s eyes stay closed.

Hey. The middle says her name.

Stop it, that’s gross, the oldest says again.

Just let her, the middle says. Seconds ago she was tempted to get up and pull her sister’s thumb out of her mouth herself, but she feels her allegiance turn sharply on its heel.

You used to, she says.

Yeah, well, I stopped because it’s gross.

It’s not gross, the middle says, standing up, her arms stiff at her sides.

No, it is gross. It’s disgusting and she shouldn’t do it.

You’re a cunt, the middle says, her eyes quaking.

You don’t even know what that word means, says the oldest.

Yeah, I do.

Oh, yeah, what?

It’s someone who’s mean and slutty .

Like that the oldest is up and on her, pushing her into the hammock, leaning over and punching her skinny arms. The middle puts her arms over her face and kicks out with her legs. The youngest sister stands and wails, her eyes closed, arms loose at her sides.

The middle rears back and kicks her older sister in the chest—a bony, dull thump—and she falls into the dirt. Her face is a mix of pain and anger, reared up, then—just as fast—restrained and put away. The middle stands up and moves away from her, the oldest says, I hate you, the youngest wails, and the father throws open the door of the camper, screaming, What the hell is going on goddamnit, shut up.

THEY WIND DOWNto the park entrance and find a pay phone, each of the girls taking a turn. The youngest sniffles, says she wants to go home, can’t the mother come and get her, and then she goes silent, listening. She nods and nods, bucks up, and gives the phone to her sister. The middle says, She started it, says, She’s so mean, I never want to be like her, and the oldest cries, finally, silently, turning herself into the brick exterior of the liquor store. There is the liquor store, a gas station, and a closed antique shop on this stretch of road, and nothing else. A grassy field behind a barbed-wire fence and beyond that the mountains they came here to see. Be good, the mother says to each of them, not be good for your father, just, Be good. The oldest and middle are made to apologize to each other before the father takes the phone, his voice a tight whisper.

They drive to the grocery store. The father’s is a summer birthday, and in the fluorescent lights of the aisles, the girls go off on their own, find a boxed cake mix and the accompanying ingredients. The oldest reads the list, leading them to the right sections. When the middle skips ahead and returns with a carton of eggs, the oldest says, Good job. They slide it all onto the back of the checkout conveyer belt, the father pretending not to see and then paying for everything. When they return to the site, he starts a fire and reads the local paper at the picnic table. Inside the trailer, the girls mix the cake’s ingredients, bake it in the tiny stove, following the directions adjusted for elevation. They poke their heads out the door at him and giggle, and the middle has that feeling again. Of the joy filling up and overflowing, of wanting it and so bad but knowing it as something that will peak then float away. It makes her giggles come up fast and nervous, edging out beyond her control.

The cake turns out funny—overcooked in some spots, wet in others. Still they cover it in unctuous frosting, pour on sprinkles, and push in blue-and-white-striped candles, and when they emerge from the trailer, candles lit, the father acts surprised. He says, My little munchkins . There must be a moment, the middle will think later—candles lit, the evening sun cutting sharp through the trees—when he feels he is alone. The father’s house is not a home. It’s the place where he lives. A squat house filled with itchy furniture and cigarette smoke. The girls will not remember the cake like he will, the undeniable adult feeling of getting older. The father wrinkles his nose, says, Daddy’s a geezer, and groans and goofs like an old man.

After cake, he says, Spread my ashes here. This place apart from the rest of the park, as quiet as a vacuum. He’s not even sick yet. Won’t be for another ten years, but he’ll say it when they get home too. Spread my ashes at the canyon. A refrain, just like everything he says is a refrain. Spread my ashes, and I saw the Who in a barn in Frankfurt, Illinois, and There’s Hitchcock, There he is, on one of those endless weekend afternoons watching movies at his house, a trick the girls think is particular to him, just as they think every joke is his original own. Hitchcock stepping onto a train, Hitchcock winding a clock. Spread my ashes here, he says, and they will years later. They’ll let some go at the edge of the canyon and some down at its river and some they will put into a campfire in the Rockies and some the middle sister will put into her mouth—a lick of her finger, a dip, and another lick when her sisters aren’t looking. The act will feel performative, purely symbolic, but she won’t know what else to do. Wanting her actions to mean something more than what she can give to them. Somewhere inside her grief, she will ask herself what is the worst thing she would have done to reverse his sickness, to have provided some momentary relief. She will have heard stories of what mothers have done to soothe their colicky sons, and in her mind’s eye she will see herself bent over him in his hospital bed. She will feel at once alone in her imagined sacrifice but also closer to her father than she will when she’s actually with him. The same way she will imagine a scene in which she and her sisters are kidnapped by a group of faceless men—a dark basement, a locked door—and she will say, Me. Whatever you’re going to do to them, only me.

In the evening, they go into their separate spaces. The father into the woods. The girls into the cool, echoey bathroom. They walk to and from the site together, flashlights bouncing along the small, curving path. There are more stars there than at home, the sky messy with them, and the girls are in awe. Whispering in the dark, the middle feels a silent fear they won’t find their way back, but just moments later they see their father at the picnic table in front of the fire. The girls go to bed and he stays up. Some hours later, the middle sister wakes. On the foldout bed next to the oven, the oldest sister is lost inside a mess of blankets, her face barely perceptible within her dark swirl of hair. Hateful and tender, the middle stands above her and a thought, perfectly formed, sprouts within her: It is easier to love you like this. She pulls back the drapes over the window in the door and pads out in socked feet. The father is smoking a cigarette and in his exhale says, Hey, little lady. She sits across from him on a log, and they stare into the fire, the light reflecting off his glasses so that his eyes cannot be seen. She wants to crawl into his lap or sit beside him, lean into his torso, but she feels shy with him now. Their talk is spare and quiet, minutes or hours passing, until he lets the red fire dim and smoke.

DAD WANTED TO SHOW UShis infinity box. It was Christmas and my sister, Carla, her husband, and my man and I were in the suburbs at my cousin’s. I had poured myself one glass of wine after another while my uncle told me where to buy the cheapest gas. I no longer drove. By the time Dad mentioned the mysterious box, I had dipped into a drunkenness that felt shut up and deeply personal.

Come over to the house, Dad said. It’ll take five minutes.

Nothing with Dad took five minutes. He was susceptible to obsession, frequently infused with urgency for a project that had taken him over. It didn’t end until he’d roped in someone else.