Gabriel Tallent - My Absolute Darling

Cayenne brushes a wisp of hair snagging on her eyelashes, her hand shaking. Her shirt clings to her sternum with sweat. “She missed,” she says again, watching them for a reaction. Father and daughter wait in the darkening kitchen, attentive to each other.

“She didn’t miss,” he says. “She hit what she was aiming at, and what she meant to show,” Martin explains, as if speaking to an idiot, “is that she has too much spread. She can’t place her shots close enough to the target.” He walks to the door, measures the distance between shots with thumb and forefinger, a little more than an inch.

“Oh,” Cayenne says, clearly still confused.

“Pick that shit up,” Martin says, turning around, annoyed.

“I thought—” Cayenne says.

“Pick that shit up,” he says.

Cayenne picks up the coin.

“Kibble just has to do better.” He turns and looks at Turtle. “Kibble,” he says to her, meaning that she should try again.

“I’ll miss,” Turtle says.

“Nah,” Martin says. “You’ll be fine.”

Cayenne looks from one to the other. “I thought, I thought she had too much spread,” she says.

“Don’t you worry,” Martin says, “don’t you worry. Kibble has a genius for this. She’ll do just fine.” He looks at Turtle, says, “Kibble? Don’t choke.”

“Daddy,” Turtle says, “you can’t mean it.”

“One more try,” he says, holding up a finger.

“But—” Turtle says.

“No ‘buts,’” Martin says. He walks across the room, steaks hissing on the skillet.

“I have a Sig Sauer,” she says, “a nine mil, clean and greased, with Hornady 115 grain FTX.” The round weighs half as much as the 230-grain .45 round.

“This gun is fine,” he says, hefting the Colt.

“It’s not fine. It’s dirty. I don’t trust the extractor.”

“Where’s your backbone? Positive mental attitude, kibble.”

“Christ,” Turtle says.

“Kibble,” he says, warning her.

Turtle walks across the room. He stands beside her, holds out the gun. She takes it, unloads it, thumbs back the hammer, and takes aim. She pulls the trigger, watching the front sight post carefully for movement. The gun dry-fires, the sight post remains as fixed as if held by a vise. “I have my doubts about this gun,” she says, although she is reassured by her own steadiness and the lightness of the trigger pull. She returns the magazine and chambers a bullet. She wraps her hands around the grip, marrying one to the other, her thumbs spooning like two lovers beneath the slide. She brings the gun to bear on the coin, and exhales.

“Is that what you wear these days?” Martin says.

Turtle stops, looks over at him.

“A black bra,” he says, “and a white undershirt? You’ve got to have better clothes than that.”

Cayenne, expecting the shot, gasps nervously when it does not come. She squeezes her eyes closed.

“Where’d you get that bra? I never bought you that bra.”

“No,” she says.

“Where’d you buy it, then?” he says.

“Can we talk about this later?”

“Tell me how you got that bra,” he says.

“I bought it,” she says.

“Well, it’s terrible.”

“I needed a bra,” she says. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Well, that’s a terrible bra.”

“I never saw you stepping up to get me a bra.”

“That’s because you never had tits.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. Do you know how I know that it’s true? Because if you’d’ve had tits, I would’ve bought you a bra. That’s how I know.”

“I had tits.”

“No. Because if you had had tits, I would’ve bought you a bra.”

“Well, I have them now,” Turtle says.

“If you can call those tits.”

Turtle looks at him.

He says, “Are you going to pull that trigger, or what is this?”

“I don’t want to do this, Daddy,” she says.

“You have this, sweetheart. My love. My absolute darling. You have this. Take your time, and do it right; just put your brain in your lunch box and let your body relax; roll the trigger without tugging, let the action engage smoothly; know that the recoil is coming, and then forget it; do not surrender your attention until the heartbeat after you have fired. What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” she says, though it’s not true.

“That’s right,” he says, “nothing.”

Turtle empties her mind. Her focus is intent. Bullets don’t follow a flat trajectory. They arch, just slightly, before descending. Turtle zeros her sights for twenty-five yards, so at this range she can expect to be shooting a little low. But if he’s zeroed the sights for fifty yards, she’ll be shooting an inch high. It is also possible he’s zeroed his sights for seven yards. She cannot ask. The best she can do is guess. She takes all the slack out of the trigger, places the top edge of the front sight exactly on the top edge of the coin. It goes minutely up and down, less than a quarter of an inch variation, but Turtle sights at the top of the coin’s cycle, and then waits for the girl’s inhalation to lift the coin again.

“Don’t blow it,” Martin says warningly.

“I can’t do this,” she says.

He says, “My absolute darling.”

Across the room from her, Cayenne’s eyes are clenched shut and she cries silently, snot running down her lip. Wisps of hair stick to her face. Turtle puts all of that out of her mind, takes the girl out of her focus, and all that she can see clearly is the front sight post, a flat steel horizon, and she places it exactly on the out-of-focus coin, knowing in her bones that she has this shot, even with the unfamiliar and dirty gun, its barrel sparking like streambed gold with shaved brass, even with the hot ammo, even with Martin breathing down her neck. All the old habits are coming back to her and the sight post is unwavering and obedient to her intention. The coin rises to the top of its cycle, Turtle draws the trigger, and Cayenne pitches off the counter, screaming.

“Fuck!” Martin says in surprise. A chill of disbelief goes over Turtle’s body. She and Martin stand watching Cayenne flop across the kitchen floor, clutching her hand to her chest. Turtle thinks over and over again, oh shit. The girl’s shrieks are broken by ragged gasps for breath.

Martin stands in place and Turtle walks into the kitchen. Cayenne is lying on the floor, on her belly, with the injured hand trapped to her chest, shaking her head furiously. Her screams subside into panting. Turtle thinks, oh shit. Oh shit.

Martin follows. Cayenne, whining and panting, curls slowly onto her side. Martin casts about for the fifty-cent piece. It is in the frying pan. He walks over, plucks it out, and sets it on the counter.

Turtle and Martin wait with the huddled Cayenne in between them. The girl is wordless, one hand clutched to her chest, the other extended, the fingers grasping at the splintery floor. A high-pitched keening comes from her.

Turtle takes two steps across the kitchen, seizes the edge of the sink, bends over it, thinking that she will throw up. Martin touches Cayenne with the tip of his boot. “Are you all right?” he says. Nothing comes from the girl except for gasps. Turtle turns around and looks at the child. The sight of her small, shivering rib cage fills Turtle with torment. In the gap between the girl’s hair and the neck of her shirt, Turtle can see the articulated knobs of her vertebrae, and the fine, small hair at the nape of her neck. Martin squats down, his knees popping, the leather of his boots creaking, and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, sweetheart, you okay?” he says.

Cayenne shakes her head, which is folded into the crook of one arm.