Рон Рэш - The Best American Short Stories 2018

You are quiet, bobbing your head halfway into the water. And then you plunge as deep as you can to the bottom. You can hear the girls shout after you— Rude Bitch, why can’t you answer the question! You gone tell on us?

It’s lonely down below but also green. Pallid, alive. You wonder, as you open your eyes, where all the green has come from. There must be snakes here, you think, as you pull yourself—with fin arms—down farther into the hole.

He will never love you like he used to, your mother told you.

But he says I’m his favorite.

You are an angel, she replies, wincing. I have to live with that.

Down below, you believe you see your mother’s bluestone eyes, feel her farm-toughened hand upon your forehead. In Laboe there is an authentic German submarine on display on the sand; you can read the plaque and you can wail but you can’t go in. You look past the motionless sea plants and recognize a knife in your mother’s apron pocket. If he ever says “finger” again, she warns, then lifts the knife to her breast. You reach out and she vanishes among the weeds—how could you tell her that he never once even uttered that word?

When you bubble up out from the depth—when you gasp for air and hold tightly to Meggie’s arm—you hear Kate, speaking in a thick Southern accent, imitating someone back at the reunion. Hattie or Cathy or LaWanda or Ancient Hattie Mabel. Chris or Daquan or Malik or Harris. You think they’ve forgotten you when suddenly Monique nods toward the reunion noise in the distance and says, If Bobby Lee intends to take back Grandma Elldine’s house, he’s got another thing coming. Family is family. We got our own ideas.

You and what army, Kate asks. That house needs bulldozed, plain and simple.

It’ll be a place for you and me one day, Monique announces, taking Kate’s hand and pressing it against her neck. You and me.

Y’all better cut that shit out, says Meggie. But don’t forget to make me bridesmaid.

They laugh. They touch. Sunbeams try hard to burst through the woods’ canopy. You’re supposed to evict them all.

Kate says, I like it here. I open my eyes and every day it’s a new surprise.

Only a white girl would say that, Meggie laughs.

Why don’t you say something, Monique suddenly asks.

But you’re sure you are saying something, that words are actually exiting your mouth and penetrating their ears. You’re pretty sure you’re telling them that as of nine months ago, you inherited everything here, as far as the eye can see. Thirty-seven acres. You paid for it. You can’t imagine ever wanting to set foot here again.

And perhaps they have heard. Monique flips her fins playfully in front of her. We’d miss you if you never came back, she says, not understanding. This is a sign. They hear what they want to hear. And that’s fine with you. You can never really be free, but you’re already there.

Crows and starlings screech through the landscape. In the distance there is the fragrance of the pig being roasted on the spit. You hear the old shingles peel off the Victorian and land in the elderberry hedge. The house will certainly die.

You clear your throat, make your way to the other side of the pond. The others release themselves from the umbrella handles and follow you, drifting on their backs. A child screams into the woods and waits for an answer. Ancient Hattie Mabel is shouting the words to “I’m Getting Ready.”

You all dive again, this time not needing to come up for air. This is the world and there is no need for stealing, kissing, anger at past wounds. This world operates on scales and silt.

You expect it to end. For the fins to melt, the tails to finally recede, the women to call you all back to the tables. Hair will be quickly braided or wrapped into shirts, skin smoothed back into order. You expect that soon you will all tramp slowly and un-eagerly through the forest—Kate will suddenly squeal in horror as she steps upon a harmless worm—and then it will take forever for Meggie and Monique to tame her cries with their hands.

A fantasy arises in which you all continue your walk, even with the brays and hollers of the slave women in these woods, their feet smashing snakes, their arms tattered by thorned vines, their minds agape with the babies they could not afford to carry. The slave women are deafening, the slave women are worse than ghosts. You wonder if your parents are trapped here with the slave women. Would they torture your parents like ghosts in a cheap horror flick? Would that make you feel any better?

But this is all so conveniently stashed away. The world you’re in now is all scales and silt. Meggie, Monique, and Kate dive deep, trail air bubbles behind them; their light and dark brown breasts hang over their bellies, not in perfect mermaid style, but in the style of girls who have longed to do this since the day they were born. Their hair floats in the depth like a series of snowballs. They remind you of Christmas. There is swimming, miles of it—and a surprise underground clearing, and giggles over mermaid nipples and moles, and promises, and some hope. Why ever resurface? Why not stay here for all time? Dandelion wine and nougat truffles. You could live like kings.

It’s tempting, but not going to happen. Land ho! Meggie screams, laughing as she runs on ahead; she’ll be the first one to fill up another plate and hug the kids. Kate and Monique touch fingers to lips behind every tree, vow to go to Stanley’s room and steal the rest of his “raw material.”

And over midnight margaritas on Aunt Nephronia’s roof, you tell them (these girls now your girls) in clear, cement words, that you have no idea what your father is planning on doing to the land. But you promise it won’t be anything bad.

El lifted her hand to her throat and felt the tiniest swell there, like a foamy wave bundling itself to the shore. She would have to go out and see Jamaica Bay up close. She would have to find that chocolate-wafer edge of the world, once again.

There in the afternoon sunlight of the kitchen table, El dared not move. She hated the feeling that life was a race—would it be possible to remain here like this, forever? She found a pack of cigarettes behind the toaster and took one out, a race to the finish.

Anyone there, called Bob, slamming open the front door to the apartment. He carried a bag of sweet rolls in his arm. I’m home. I’m home.

She rose from the table, allowing herself to swoon against the wall. Don’t I get no sugar, he asked, and she felt oddly moved by his stingy smile.

He buried his face in her neck. I’m a changed man, he whispered. Do you believe?

But El wasn’t listening. She was wondering, instead, if her mother had finally noticed that the dishes were gone. She kept seeing the old face, disappointed and yearning at the same time. Not at all the right punishment for the crime.

June 15

Dear Future Husband,

Please do not call me Josephine. I’m writing to you because that’s what we’re supposed to do right now in quiet hour. Captain Bev says I ought to tell you that I am waiting for you. My mother says it’s rude to keep someone waiting. She also says that I am an impatient girl. She promised that this camp had horses but I have not seen the horses yet.

Cordially, Fin

June 16

Dear Future Husband,

I hope this letter finds you well. It is my second day here and already I am in trouble. Captain Bev says I ought to apologize for my handwriting, and for my impertinence. I am very sorry if I offended you. I look forward to meeting you one day, whoever and wherever you are. Today we were awoken at dawn and made to run east, toward the sun. I am fast for my cabin but not the fastest in the camp. I asked my bunkmate, Pita, about the horses and she laughed in my face. Pita seems like a real wisenheimer. Now I will share my hopes and dreams for us. I hope and dream you are handsome, with wavy hair and shining dark eyes and two distinct eyebrows. I hope and dream that you will not have a moustache, and that we will live in a mansion with horses in the stable. I do not know what exactly I am waiting for. No one will tell me.