Cleaving

Victoria Merkle

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in English and Creative Writing under the advisement of Marilyn Sides

May 2020

© 2020 Victoria Merkle Cleaving Page 1

Table of Contents

Punnett Squares ...... 3

To Each Their Own ...... 29

Crows and Sparrows ...... 45

Rocks...... 63

The Box ...... 86

Play Until You Win ...... 102

Space Boy ...... 126

Spring ...... 146

Acknowledgments...... 161

Cleaving Page 2

cleave verb (1) \ ˈklēv \ cleaved\ ˈklēvd \ or clove\ ˈklōv \ also clave\ ˈklāv \; cleaved; cleaving Definition of cleave (Entry 1 of 2) intransitive verb : to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly cleave verb (2) cleaved\ ˈklēvd \ also cleft\ ˈkleft \ or clove\ ˈklōv \; cleaved also cleft or cloven\ ˈklō- vən \; cleaving Definition of cleave (Entry 2 of 2) transitive verb 1: to divide by or as if by a cutting blow 2: to separate into distinct parts and especially into groups having divergent views

Cleaving Page 3

Punnett Squares

Emma

November 21, 2017

I waited in the parking lot, watching the tracks and the time. Things were normal. The green numbers on the clock bled in the dark of the early evening. The trees were nearly bare and the sky overcast, threatening to break into a blizzard. Ghostly plumes of salt dust already stained the pavement. Exhaust chugged out of my car as I waited for my sister, parked in the front row as I had been doing for three years. I tapped my palms on the steering wheel, but I didn’t have any reason to be nervous except that being home always made my stomach turn. It was suburban

Connecticut, where most people blurred together, but anyone who knew me expected more from me than others because I had gotten the best grades in high school and attended Yale.

Two commuter trains passed before the Amtrak showed its blue-white lights. A small crowd of passengers got off: blazered professionals with leather bags over their shoulders and college students whipping their suitcases over the gap between the train and the platform. Mel wore the beat-up pilot’s jacket that she loved but I hated because it smelled like an old army veteran who smokes too many cigars. Her hair, cut just to her shoulder, was parted heavily to one side, the ends dyed blonde. She looked confident, and I was happy for her.

I went to help with her duffel, even though she didn’t need it. She smiled, and I hugged her like it had been years. We got into the car and I asked how the ride went and how school was. “I’m doing all right,” she said. “Happy to have a break, though, senior year is tough.”

“I bet,” I said, and offered her a latte from the coffee shop downtown. She loved the caffeine, but she didn’t like to go in because she worked at a coffee shop four days a week in Cleaving Page 4

Boston. “You’ll be done soon, and you’ll figure things out.” The advice was unsolicited and I am younger, but I couldn’t stop myself. “But also remember that you can take your time, everyone has their own path. You’re going to graduate and get a job and whatever else, but it doesn’t need to happen immediately.”

Mel grinned. “That’s the hope,” she said. “Hey, thanks for the coffee.” She asked how everyone was doing and I told her what I knew, though I had only been home for two days.

Livvy seemed to have friends and be enjoying school. But she missed us, and I worried.

“Dad’s probably counting his lucky stars he got another easy one,” Mel said.

I laughed. Collin must have given our parents false hope about the prospects of raising a child. He treated people well and everyone loved him. Mel threw a curveball at them—wild, complicated, and reportedly a cholic baby and a destructive toddler. Nate was difficult, too.

Impulsive, forgetful, and unable to do anything that didn’t interest him. I was their first relief.

“Oh,” I said. “Jerry’s broken.”

“What? No!” Jerry was our gnome. He sat in the mulch next to the porch, half of his body dusted with dirt, color faded and peeling, always smiling. We were saying it was the wind, but nobody really knew.

Dad called us in the car, his face popping up on the screen as the dial tone replaced the radio station. Mel and I exchanged glances before I picked up. We would be home in just fifteen minutes—what couldn’t wait? “I thought I should let you know before you got here,” he said.

“Nate isn’t coming. I just found out. I told him to call you and explain. He says he’s too busy and the trip is too long.”

“When did he decide this?” Mel asked. “Was he just not going to get a ticket? Wait for everything to book and say it was bad luck? What the hell is he doing for Thanksgiving?” Cleaving Page 5

“He’s not spending it alone, is he?” I asked. We had spent every previous Thanksgiving with each other, regardless of circumstances. I didn’t want to see Nate’s chair empty. Holidays were our one reliable opportunity to catch up. I loved to see how my brothers changed each time, their growing maturity apparent in the way they carried themselves and spoke to relatives. They stood next to each other comparing heights and Grandma called them movie star handsome, smiling like her entire world was at peace. As our lives changed, I worried we’d grow apart.

“He’s going to a friend’s. Someone from school. He asked for my stuffing recipe.”

“Did you give it to him?” Mel asked.

“Of course,” Dad said. At least he would have that. Mel hung up before I could say goodbye, and I tried to keep my eyes on the road. My hands were clammy and it felt like the steering wheel was trying to crawl away from them. Mel was fuming.

“Hey,” I said, “I’m sure he has his reasons.”

“And I’m sure they’re bullshit,” Mel said. She squeezed a lock of her hair between her fingers and released it into a jagged puff on the back of her head.

“I’m disappointed too,” I said. But it was different for Mel. She could be scary when the rage she let build inside sputtered out like oil. But it came from a softness; the vulnerability of stray kitten just hoping to lap up the milk on the patio without being discovered.

“Fuck this,” she said. “I’m calling him.” I waited for him to pick up. Would he go as far as ignoring her call?

“Yo,” Nate said, his voice pixelated through the car speakers.

“Nathaniel,” Mel said, because Nate hated it. “Why aren’t you coming to Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah, I can’t make it.”

“It’s fucking Thanksgiving,” Mel said. “You don’t get to opt out.” Cleaving Page 6

“Look, it doesn’t make sense for me to come. I only get three days off, and it takes 13 hours just to drive my ass over there.”

“You should’ve booked a plane,” she said.

“I didn’t have time,” he said.

“Where are you going instead?” Mel asked. She rolled her eyes and picked at her fingers as if he could see her and feel how much she didn’t care. “We all know you’re not meeting some girl’s parents.”

“You’re funny,” Nate said. “It’s a friend’s house. You don’t know him.”

“I see,” said Mel. “Well, I hope he warms your cold, icy heart.”

“You don’t have to be weird about this,” Nate said. “It’s just one holiday.”

“Have you told Livvy that you’re ditching?” Mel asked.

“No, but don’t try to guilt trip me. All right, I’ve had enough of this,” he said. The call clicked silent and the caller ID box disappeared.

“Jackass,” Mel said, folding her arms. She kicked the glove department so hard my owner’s manual and chewy granola bars rattled inside. Her boot left a dusty print.

“I guess he has a point, though,” I said. “He is really far away.”

“So? He should have worked it out,” said Mel. “It’s not always convenient for the rest of us to come home. But we do it, because that’s the thing to do. Especially for holidays.”

“He’ll be here for Christmas,” I said.

“Livvy’s going to be so crushed,” said Mel.

I nodded. Nate’s absence would especially hurt Livvy. She was the only one left in the house, and she loved it when we were around. She wasn’t growing up like the four of us, with somebody to bump elbows with as she brushed her teeth. Cleaving Page 7

***

We both knew the way home by heart: pass the string of department stores and office buildings, take Exit 72 off the highway, turn at the corner by the baseball field, follow the streets passed houses with amateur gardens and bicycles splayed out on driveways. Many of the front doors donned autumn wreaths now. Scarecrows perched next to flower pots and Thanksgiving-themed flags drummed in the wind. Once we drove by the elementary school soccer field that was always wet and littered with geese poop, we were close. Up the hilliest street was the middle school, the high school a few blocks over. Home was wedged into the surrounding streets, so embedded that the shortest route to school was through the woods around our backyard. You could walk straight down the footpath created by us and our friends and get from a bowl of cereal to a classroom in ten minutes.

We pulled into our driveway, passed the pillar that was still broken from when Nate learned to drive and the empty tulip garden that never came back. Our climbing tree had dark, almost-black red leaves, the last to fall. Its trunk was split and its branches thick and long, plenty of footholds. The car lurched to a stop and rolled back a little, scaring me like it always did.

Wafts of Dad’s cooking and Mom’s syrupy-sweet candles greeted us in the foyer. We made our way into the family room, where Livvy slouched on the couch with a copy of Macbeth in her hands. Mel tossed her duffel on the floor and threw herself onto the cushion next to Livvy.

“Honey, I’m home!” She cradled onto her, sending the book plummeting to the hardwood floor.

“You’re crushing me!” Livvy yelped.

“That’s your fault for being so tiny,” Mel said.

“Hi, Livvy!” I slid onto the end of the couch, avoiding the dogpile until Mel pulled me in.

“They’re already making you read Shakespeare?” Mel asked. Cleaving Page 8

Livvy confirmed. The school system thought it was good to expose them to high-level literature sooner rather than later. She even had to memorize a monologue before Winter Break.

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,” I said, “creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” I would have continued if Mel hadn’t whacked me with a pillow, the braided seam poking my eye, and called me a nerd.

Collin got home late the next night. The mechanic whir of the garage door could hardly compete with his voice. “Alright, here we are. I have to give you the Grand Tour.” Mel and I heard him from the living room, Mel on the recliner and me on the small couch with Livvy lying against me. Greasy tin bowls lay at our feet with just the kernels and burnt pieces of popcorn left. I wanted to curl up in my bed, but I fought to stay awake to see him.

“We should probably wait until tomorrow for that,” Marissa responded.

“The best part is the basement. We have this old pinball machine from my uncle. And then there’s the pool table. It’s a man’s dream, really. The rest of the house is nice, too, though.

Assuming it hasn’t changed. I don’t know, though, Jerry is broken.”

“Who?”

“The gnome; we’ve had him forever. He’s sorta a big deal. He took so many hits throughout the years without cracking. A real badass. But he’s broken now.”

Collin closed the door and lowered his bags. “We can just leave our bags here for now.

We’ll relax a bit, maybe have a drink. I don’t know if anyone is awake.”

“Maybe you should quiet down, then,” Marissa suggested. Cleaving Page 9

Collin walked into the living room wearing a fleece pullover with an old college t-shirt poking out of the zipper. His hair was fuzzy without its usual sideswept styling, but he had a new pair of glasses that made him look smart. “Mel? Emma?”

Mel rose from the recliner to greet him and wrap him in a hug. “Welcome home!” It was a weird thing to say, seeing as his home was now New Jersey.

Marissa greeted all of us, too, though I stayed in place because Livvy was asleep on my shoulder, a little puddle of drool on the corner of her mouth. When I looked at her, she could have been five years younger. Her hair was thin and wispy and her cheeks still pink and fragile.

“Livvy’s out?” Collin said. He approached her and drummed lightly on her head.

“Won’t you wake her?” Marissa asked.

“Nah,” said Collin, “Livvy sleeps like a rock.”

“It’s kinda creepy,” Mel said. “She doesn’t budge. Not even if the house were on fire.”

“You think I can still carry her?” Collin said.

“You can try, but she’s not a kid anymore,” I said.

“She’s got boobs now,” Mel said. “They add weight.”

Collin worked his arms gently under Livvy, lifted her, and rested her head on his shoulder. She mumbled, but didn’t wake. When Collin returned, he asked why Dad was in the guest room.

“He was ousted by Mom,” Mel said, bored.

“Well, why doesn’t she sleep in the guest room?”

“Good question,” said Mel.

“She passed out around seven, right in the middle of the bed,” I said. “I guess there was no space for him.” Cleaving Page 10

“But she’ll wake up,” Mel added. “Come downstairs, suddenly be really hungry because she doesn’t eat during the day.”

She was right; it had been like that for nearly ten years. She was probably always fragile, but it got worse after we all started high school and her dad died. Now, Mom woke up in the early mornings. Lazed around her room for a while, digging the pills and bottles from hiding places that weren’t actually a secret. Then she made her way down the steps, ate, drank, and stared dazedly at the TV or the stars from the porch. She’d be on the couch in the morning, crumbs and sticky rings of wine on the counter. Someone, not Mom, would clean up. It would probably be me—we all knew the deal. It’s what put Collin driving Livvy around, me learning how to cook dinner, and Mel washing the dishes when they piled too high in the sink.

Dad wouldn’t get home until later, and when he did all he had the steam to do was sit on the recliner and watch the news. He woke up at five every morning to get into Hartford and stayed up late because after work was his only time to relax. And he valued that time like gold, so we didn’t mess with it. He took off his shoes and socks and put his big feet up, the thick, jagged toenails pointed to the ceiling. I always thought he was a handsome man except for his feet. He once had rich dark hair that he could part to the side or gel back like Danny Zuko. Now it was a thinned out salt-and-pepper, but his eyes were still electric blue.

When Mom was around more, he would ask her for foot rubs. I was grossed out by it and she usually was, too, but maybe years ago she didn’t mind. That must be what a good relationship is—being with someone who will rub your feet just because. Maybe all he needed was those simple acts of affection that she was no longer capable of. Another man might have sought them elsewhere; have a torrid affair, leave his family. But Dad didn’t have whatever it was that made people cheat. He wouldn’t risk this world he built unless he had no other choice. Cleaving Page 11

“Should we stay up and wait for her?” Marissa suggested. She and Collin had been dating for four years but she was still naïve. They didn’t visit often, and when they did it wasn’t for a whole holiday like this. Holidays were always worse. I felt a pang in my chest as I thought about

Collin telling her our stories. I hated that it was so hard to find other things to say about Mom.

“Only if you want to see what hopeless looks like,” Mel said.

“You don’t have to,” I spoke over her. “She’ll be fine, really. There isn’t much anyone can do. Sometimes Dad gets up and tries to get her back to bed.”

“It’s not your problem,” Collin said. “Why don’t we just get some wine and go upstairs?”

“Take it all,” Mel said, “then she’ll be even more hopeless.”

I urged Mel to be quiet about it, but she only glared. I didn’t think we could have hidden it, but enough was enough.

Collin slugged their bags over his shoulder and Marissa carried the Merlot. When they left, Mel resumed flipping through the channels. “You’re terrible at hospitality,” I said. She huffed. She was in one of those moods I hated.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat anything, alright? She’s a lost cause and we all know it.

Marissa wants to be in this family, she’s gotta know it too.”

“I’m not sugarcoating anything,” I said.

“Emma, you’re basically the sugar queen,” she said.

There was a galumphing down the stairs; here it was. She looked like a ghost shuffling her feet, her shadow wobbling back and forth. She nearly tripped as she rounded the corner, had to hold onto the wall for balance. When the light from the kitchen hit her face, we could see her eyelids weighted with bags and cheeks sagging. She bunched her damp nightshirt up at the crotch with tense hands and stumbled into the kitchen, catching herself on the island. She Cleaving Page 12 hunched over, jagged bob flopping over her eyes, shadows covering half her face. She squinted at the glowing TV and tried to shake her hair out of her eyes, but it got caught on her sticky lips.

She looked towards Mel and me, and we looked at her, but she didn’t register our shapes.

We had said hi to her that morning before she started drinking. She greeted us energetically and told us she had started volunteering at the animal shelter, and wanted to become a foster mom for the animals that needed a midway stop. Because she was between teaching jobs, she had all the time in the world. She was applying to jobs, too, and had hope. She saw my picture in the town paper looking through the Classifieds. They wrote an article about recent graduates and where they were heading. She saved a copy, but couldn’t find it. That was because I had received it in my mailbox at school with a handwritten note from her. But I didn’t tell her that.

Since then, Mel and I had only seen her in brief flashes when she was going between the kitchen and her room. She wanted us all to get their nails done together. I had made the appointment for the afternoon. Livvy was excited. Mom got the times mixed up and was walking the dog when we had to be there. Mel and I took Livvy anyway, unsurprised, and added ice cream and a haircut as consolation prizes.

Mom moved from the island to the cabinet, rummaged for crackers. She ate them with messy streaks of hummus and pieces of cheese torn from square slices. Her chewing was loud and she pouted at the crumbs that spilled over her. Then she went in for the wine, taking a glass and a last handful of crackers to the empty couch, and she sat picking her teeth and sipping her wine. It was like we didn’t exist.

“Um,” I said. My voice cracked. “Do you want to watch something?”

Mom stared blankly at the TV for a long moment before answering. “Sure,” she said. Cleaving Page 13

Mel rose from the chair and moved sluggishly to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water. She drank it from the island, watching Mom from only afar. I saw her looking at the beer bottles in the mini fridge. That’s what she really wanted—she might even take some wine—but she wouldn’t do it with Mom. I wanted to collect all of the alcohol in the house and pour it into the toilet, watch the disgusting cocktail swirl down the bowl.

Mel always seemed to forget how bad things get when she drinks. She got carried away whenever she was in a crowd. It wasn’t like she needed the social crutch; she just got sucked into the feeling. We never spoke of what happened after her high school graduation, when a bunch of kids crammed into cars and drove to rental beach houses. I was in at home, scrolling through the social media of people I knew were at the parties, feeling horrified and left out at the same time.

They posted shaky, cacophonous videos chugging beer, cheeks rosy and tongues out, girls rocking into each other and guys throwing fists into the air. They took photos with belly shirts and swim trunks, squinty eyes and dopey smiles. I got a call from Kylie, one of Mel’s exes.

“Emma? Is that you?” Her end was loud and her voice came in and out, talking through the swelling music and drunken voices. Someone came up behind her and said something urgently and another person yelled over the group, but I couldn’t hear what either of them said.

“Yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?” She must have dropped the phone from her ear to talk to them. “Kylie? Hello?”

“Listen, Emma. Are you far from us? Can you get here?”

“About an hour,” I said. I had made Mel give me the address just in case.

“Okay, I think you better come. As soon as you can,” she said. “Mel got a little…” Cleaving Page 14

Her voice floated away as she spoke to somebody nearby. I thought I heard her laugh, and I wanted to scream. “Mel got a little carried away,” she came back. “We think she better go home. It’s not good, Emma. She’s all spacy.”

“Shit, Kylie. I’m coming, but you may need to call 911 before I get there.”

“Yeah, we can’t do that,” she said. “We’re not trying to fuck up anybody’s future.”

“I don’t give a shit!” I got Nate from the living room and headed out to the car in checkered pajama pants and slippers, pulling a sweatshirt over my faded tee to hide the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra. “Someone needs to stay with her. Tell me somebody is with her.”

“Yes, of course. We all took health class, Emma. Jules and Danny are with her now. You can relax, she’s going to be okay. I just think she should go home, that’s all.”

When we got there, cars lined the sidewalk bumper to bumper as though they had all broken down there at once. Limp, wet towels were draped across the roofs and doors. A few had coolers in the trunks popped open. Cannonball splashes echoed from the back of the house like cracks of thunder. Nate stayed in the car because he wouldn’t be any good with this stuff—he couldn’t be efficient and compassionate enough—and I walked to the house in a daze, my legs drenched and itchy in my fleece pajamas. A couple crawled over each other on the porch swing, sucking lips and squeezing flesh, not noticing me or caring. I went straight for the front door and was encapsulated by sweaty, throbbing bodies in swimsuits and t-shirts, the tips of their hair jagged and wet and the plastic cups and bottles in their hands swaying on their own. Limbs were like tentacles all around, and I imagined them rubbing into each other and leaving welts. Their bodies were warped like funhouse mirrors and their faces were all flushed, demonic with sticky salty drool wetting their quivery red lips. A sampling from nearly all high school cliques, comingling in a cesspool of hormones and freedom. Kylie told me that Mel was in the upstairs Cleaving Page 15 bathroom. Someone nearly knocked me over on the steps but I didn’t want to hold onto the railing because then it might grab hold of me and pull me in and trap me there.

Mel was on the floor, the buttons undone on her shirt, legs spread like broken twigs, head hanging lifelessly. She could hardly keep her eyes open. Two theater kids passed her tap water in a plastic cup. When I walked in, they moved back to the counter and lingered until I told them they could go. I sat next to her on the floor and let her lean against me, her sweaty head propped up on my chest. I touched her forehead and her skin was cold and clammy against the back of my palm. She smelled like cocktail and vomit.

“Emma?” she muttered. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I’m going to take you home, okay?” I said.

“I can’t go home,” she said. “Dad can’t see this.”

“He won’t.” I needed her to come with me. “I promise. We’ll get you right to bed.”

I walked her through the house, ignoring the thirsty eyes all around us wanting to take a long, slow sip of everything they saw. It didn’t matter because I wasn’t me, then. I was only my sister’s sister and I had to get her away. She stumbled and I caught her, clumsy but determined.

I helped her into the backseat, wrapped her in a blanket, and rested a garbage bag on her lap just in case. The car lurched and I sat with her, feeling her face and seeing if her eyes were still open and getting confused mumbles out of her. About halfway, her eyes closed and she stopped responding. Nate pulled into a gas station and I lifted a water to her mouth, but her lips were limp and it dribbled over her chin. Her heartrate was too slow to count, and my hands were shaking. Every time her chest rose I was relieved, but it wasn’t enough. I called 911 and told them our location through quivery tears. Nate told me she was okay, but I couldn’t believe him. I didn’t know what to do with my body except squeeze her hands and touch her cold face and try Cleaving Page 16 and try again to talk to her. I rode with her in the ambulance. Yes, I’m her sister. No, I don’t know how much she had, I wasn’t with her when it happened. No, she’s not a minor. She’s 18, check her ID. No, don’t call our parents. Please don’t call anyone.

In the hospital, it was just us. They said she was going to be okay, just needed to have a lot of water and recuperate. She’ll get a citation for underage drinking; you need to be more careful. Okay, is that all? Yes. You sure you don’t want us to call someone? Yes, we have a ride.

Nate picked us up, and nobody said anything. It was the best-kept secret in the family.

I joined Mel at the kitchen island and wiped the crumbs from the counter, then decided to wipe the whole counter. First a sponge, then a wet paper towel so I could feel the grime flatten under my palm. Then some spray and another towel. I slid my hand in long streaks until the counter was sleek like metal. We made quiet conversation as Mom moved between the couch and the wine rack. I counted her glasses out of pure habit and not any kind of hope to successfully intervene.

“Your brother isn’t coming home,” Mom said, loopy.

“We know, Mom,” I said. “It was too long a trip.”

“Yeah, but he isn’t coming,” Mom repeated. She twirled her hand clumsily, nearly knocking over her glass. “But whatever, it’s his choice.” She held her head up with her hand, staring towards Mel and I. “Nathaniel isn’t coming home. Isn’t that sad?”

“Yes, Mom,” I said. “But he’s doing okay. He’s going to have a good Thanksgiving.”

“Yeah, whatever. It is what it is.” Mom twirled her hands again and went to pour another glass. Seeing the bottle empty, she found a pack of cigarettes in her clunky purse and retreated to the porch. Every step looked pained, like her bladder would burst or knees would buckle. Cleaving Page 17

When she was gone, I buried my head in my arms. Mel went through another glass of water and announced that she was going to bed. “Okay,” I said, “goodnight.”

She rested her elbows on the counter next to my head. “You too.”

“What?”

“Go to bed.”

“I will, I just need to wipe the counter again.”

“The counter’s fine,” Mel said. “Come on.” She pulled at my shoulders until I lifted my head and stood. “Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving; you need to look bright and sunny for Grandma.”

She walked with me to my room and stuck around as I settled down. I looked at the corner of the porch that I could see from my window. That was how I discovered that Mom smoked, as a kid. I saw the glowing orange tip one sleepless night, and almost didn’t know what it was. Mom was still out there, staring aimlessly. Her figure was blue and sedated, like it had become a part of the porch, her feet nailed to the wood. Short clouds of smoke puffed from it, and I imagined the cigarette ashes falling and burning the entire place down.

Mel pulled the curtain closed and lingered at the end of my bed. “Goodnight.”

“Come here for a sec?” I said. She did, and I hugged her tight. “Goodnight, love you.”

“Love you too,” Mel said. She turned out the door, and I was alone. I stared at the dim glow behind the curtain until I fell asleep.

Thanksgiving Day, 2017

The doorbell rang twice. Grandma Charlotte was the first to arrive, surprising nobody. I heard the front door scratching against the floor and Collin introducing her to Marissa. I watched from Cleaving Page 18 the top of the stairs, not yet prepared to see anyone. Collin’s tie matched Marissa’s dress.

Marissa smiled and offered to take Grandma’s things, prompting her to clumsily shed her peacoat while trying to hold onto her purse and two pie boxes. Marissa draped the coat over her arm and freed Grandma of the boxes. Key lime and coconut cream, the same kinds she always brought. Nobody liked them, but someone always graciously took a slice of each. Collin pulled the coat from Marissa’s arm and took it to mudroom closet as Marissa walked with Grandma to the kitchen. “Now,” Charlotte said, “can someone tell me why your lovely girlfriend is greeting me rather than one of my granddaughters?”

“Oh, yeah.” Collin hollered down the hall. “Mel, Emma, Grandma’s here! Livvy, come say hi!” When he returned to the table, he explained that everyone was getting ready. “I think

Livvy’s in the shower, but Emma’s coming and Mel should be down soon.”

I finished getting ready and went to check on Livvy and Mel. Livvy’s hair was still damp from her shower, so I tied it into a French braid and we went to the kitchen together. Mel trudged out at her own pace, wearing jeans and a flannel.

The other guests began arriving as I unwrapped the appetizer platters, fruit and cheese and vegetables with dip. The one person who never made it was Mom. Dad said she wasn’t feeling well. Aunt Kate offered to go check on her, but was placated when told there was no need. She didn’t see her sister the way I saw Mel—she either couldn’t recognize the issue or she didn’t feel the same urgent need to help.

At dinner, everyone sat around the table as if nothing was unusual. Collin’s turkey stack was the highest. Livvy and Mel made competing potato volcanoes. Uncle Tom slathered everything with gravy. Aunt Kate took a bit of everything and left half of it untouched on her plate. Ava and Sydney snapped photos of their plates and posted them on social media. Eric got Cleaving Page 19 seconds before he finished his firsts because he was “bulking up.” Uncle Drew took half of the sweet potato casserole and most of the cranberry sauce. Cousin Jude, the youngest of the family, wouldn’t touch anything green. Aunt Lorraine was more concerned with Jude’s plate than her own. Grandpa Alexander indulged, joking about how his blood sugar was a lost cause anyway.

Dad watched the trays carefully, always worrying that they would run out. But they never did.

I sat across the table from Marissa and tried to talk to her. Spending a holiday with us might have been a big test, but nothing would’ve changed Collin’s mind about her anyway. He had shown me the ring already, a beautiful three-stone. I had no idea how he could afford it, but I gave him a big hug and screeched. He promised to let me know when he asked her. He would do it in front of her family, because that was important to her. It was very sweet.

I learned about Marissa’s college experiences, what inspired her to become a pharmacist and, her brother and sister. But after fifteen minutes I couldn’t stand it anymore. I excused myself from the table and went upstairs. Mom hadn’t shown herself once. Holidays were rough, but she had never failed to make an appearance at all. Dad story wasn’t good enough for me.

I knocked on my parents’ door lightly and got no reply. After the third knock, I tried the knob. Finding it unlocked, I entered the room without permission and heard a muffled grumble from the bathroom. I neared it, slowly and quietly, as if my steps could trigger earthquakes.

Mom was splayed about on the tile, wearing only a towel, looking like a crinkled, dried- out seedpod. The shower was running, the room filling with steam, but only half of her hair was damp. It was as if she had attempted to shower but been unable to tolerate the force of the water.

She had given up and crumpled to the floor.

Tears welled in my eyes and I imagined myself running out of the room, slamming and locking all doors behind me, and returning to Thanksgiving dinner. Cleaving Page 20

“Mom, what’s going on. Are you coming down?” I asked. I didn’t understand how my mother could be so lifeless and dull. She didn’t look like she could have nurtured anything—but

I have foggy images in my head from when it was different. We had photobooks full of our childhoods. Me running around the driveway, the bottoms of my sneakers lighting up pink as they hit the ground. We used to make chalk drawings there, the asphalt hot on my knees. Mom showed me how to blend the dusty colors with my hand and then sign the artwork with a messy pastel palmprint. She pushed me on the swings at the park, running under me and acting impressed at how high I could go. We sat in the old red armchair together, me in her lap drinking from a sippy cup as she braided my hair.

I didn’t know when and why it all went wrong, but it didn’t seem fair to her and I didn’t want to lose my mother. “Mom, talk to me. Come on. Dinner is really good.”

“My son’s not here,” Mom said, her voice empty and listless.

“Yes, Collin’s here. Nate couldn’t make it, but that’s okay. You’ll see him soon.”

“It’s not okay,” Mom said. I listened, but everything she said sent painful tingles through my body. “It’s his fault we’re like this!” Her voice was suddenly fervid, as if she loathed her son.

“What is?” I asked. “Whose fault? Nate’s fault?”

“Your father! My son’s not here because he didn’t want to be. He hates his father, he hates his mother, he hates us!”

“That’s not true,” I said. I lowered myself to the floor and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. I thought it might shatter her hollowed bones. “That’s not true, Mom! Nate doesn’t hate us. Why would he hate us? Why would he hate Dad? He doesn’t hate us.”

“Because,” Mom bawled, “I’m useless! I’m a failure! I failed him, I failed all of you! I failed Nate, and Amelia, and you, and Olivia, and Collin.” Cleaving Page 21

“No, you didn’t!” I said. “Mom, why would you say that? We’re all doing very well.

We’re all very happy. Mel, she’s graduating this year! And Collin, he’s going to get engaged!

And Nate, he’s really finding out who he is.”

“He wouldn’t even come home for Thanksgiving!” said Mom.

“Everyone else is here,” I said. “We all want to see you, Mom. You should come down for dinner, Dad worked really hard to make it all.”

“What’s the point?” Mom’s words felt venomous.

“We’re family,” I said. “We all love each other, nobody hates anybody. We all just want to have a good time.”

“I’m not happy!” said Mom. “What’s the point if nobody is happy?”

“I think you’ve got a lot of things to be happy about. We’re all doing well, and that’s thanks to you and Dad and everything you’ve done for us. A lot of good things are happening.

The animal shelter, you love volunteering there. And you’re going to get a job, soon. It’s taken a while, but that’s okay. You’ll get one. And Dad—”

Mom shook her head. “What’s the point! There’s no point to any of it.”

“You’re not in a good state of mind right now,” I said. I had seen her like this a few times before; I couldn’t talk her down. She rambled on, and I knew the pattern. She’d cycle through it over and over again and never get anywhere. She couldn’t go downstairs for Thanksgiving dinner. She couldn’t even take a shower. I could only stick around for so long. If I didn’t get back, Mel would come looking for me—or worse, Livvy. My family was enjoying a fantastic dinner right now. They could be talking about Collin and Marissa’s plans and all of Mel’s opportunities. I could be telling them how great school was. Dad could be watching with Cleaving Page 22 satisfaction as his beautiful, happy family ate the food that he worked so hard to prepare. That’s how it had to be.

I stood quietly, draped another towel over my mother, and left. I rubbed my tears away, checked my makeup in the bathroom, and returned to the table.

Livvy was telling everyone about Punnett Squares. “This science guy was growing peas, and they all had different colors and shapes, and the Punnett Squares show why.”

“I know Punnett Squares,” I said as I returned to my seat. I had to push myself to participate in the conversation, but I hoped nobody had noticed.

“I like those,” said Livvy. “They work with people, too. Like, I can see why we all have brown hair and blue eyes, or something.”

“Technically, eye and hair colors are too complicated for Punnett Squares,” I said,

“because they’re polygenetic. They come from more than one gene,” I said. I loved how I could hold Livvy’s attention so easily—she was always curious, and always thought I had something worthwhile to say. It was encouraging. “They aren’t Mendelian traits, like the peas. The scientist’s name was Gregor Mendel, so we call the simple traits Mendelian traits.”

“Wow, waita crush her dreams,” Mel said.

I wondered if alcoholism and depression were Mendelian or not. Thinking about it formed a lump in my throat and made it hard to sit still, so I kept talking. “But that doesn’t mean

Punnett Squares aren’t cool,” I said. “You can use them for some things. Like, here, make a fist and stick out your thumb.” I pointed out the curve of Livvy’s thumb and compared it to my straight thumb. Mel followed suit, finding hers to match Livvy’s. The whole family was Cleaving Page 23 listening. “You see how yours and Mel’s are curved,” I said, “that’s called the hitchhiker’s thumb. It’s recessive, so Dad and Mom have to at least be carriers.”

Dad stuck out his thumb: straight.

“Okay,” I said. “So, Dad is heterozygous dominant. If both you and Mel have it, Mom’s probably homozygous recessive.”

“Cool,” Livvy said. “Maybe I’ll be a geneticist.”

I grinned, but I felt a pit in my stomach. “You’d be a great one.”

After everyone around the table examined their thumbs and announced their verdicts, I walked to the kitchen and began shoveling leftover food into Tupperwares. Mel came to the counter and stood right next to me. “What’s up?” she asked in a near whisper.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Tell me the truth,” Mel said. “You were squirming out there.”

“Mom isn’t doing well, all right? I went up to check on her and she was a mess.”

“She’s always a mess,” said Mel.

“Yeah, okay.” I knew she wouldn’t have anything valuable to say; that’s why I hadn’t intended to tell her about what happened. She would think I was foolish for trying to help.

“Look, if she doesn’t want to enjoy Thanksgiving with her family, there isn’t a thing we can do about it. It’s her loss,” said Mel.

I continued putting the food away and moved on to washing dishes. Mel watched me for a while before swiping a towel from the oven handle to rub plates dry. Chatter continued from the dining room to the family room as people peeled off and added their dishes to the pile.

Cleaving Page 24

After dessert, I retreated to my room. Things weren’t winding down fast enough for me. I snuggled under a blanket and put on a TV show, but kept my door ajar because I liked to hear the waves of conversation and laughter coming from different points of the house. Down the hall, I heard the adults in the kitchen. Through the floor, I heard the cousins playing video games with

Collin and Mel.

Later, I wondered if Livvy had gotten to bed. Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Drew had left with Jude, and she didn’t tend to stick around the older kids. I draped a sweater over myself and checked on her—no answer to my knock, lights off and bed untouched. She must still be awake.

Then I remembered Mom, and wandered to her room only to find it dark and empty, too. I went downstairs to see if she was finally socializing, then to the basement, where everyone else sat around the TV. Everyone but Livvy, I noticed. Was she upstairs with Dad? I didn’t remember.

Nobody had seen Mom. I checked the garage: missing car. Upstairs again: no Livvy.

After that, the night précised. I got into the car with Mel and Collin, searching. I repeated a mantra in my head— Livvy and Mom were missing. Livvy and Mom were missing. We had to find them. We had to find them. They would be okay. They would be okay.

Soon my mantra turned to into a rabbit hole. She got in the car drunk. She’s drunk. She’s driving drunk with Livvy. Nobody has called. They got into an accident. That’s why nobody called. They’re dead. Livvy’s phone is buzzing in the door pocket, a mechanical rumble, the only motion left in the car, my face flickering on and off the screen each time I call. Livvy can’t hear me. She’s gone. She’s gone forever. They are both gone.

When we found them, voices echoed and I didn’t know what my body was doing. I know

I went to Livvy. I enclosed her in my arms as Mel screamed at Mom. I went into the grocery store for wipes and the lights burned my eyes. I tried to clean Mom up. The smell of the wipes Cleaving Page 25 bothered me more than the smell of her vomit and sweat. Doors slammed and then I was in the car again, getting Livvy and Mel home.

Later, Mom knocked out in bed, we all stayed with Livvy. I crammed into her twin bed and curled against her, let her rest on me. Her head made a wet splotch on my shirt, her skin dewy and hair damp from a shower.

“I’m sorry,” Livvy said. “Is mom okay? What’s going to happen?”

“It’s going to be okay,” I said.

Mel’s lips were pursed tight, and I knew it was because she thought I was lying. Her leg bounced aggressively as she fought the urge to say what she wanted to.

“Hey guys,” Collin said. He lay on the carpet with his head propped up on a pile of stuffed animals, tossing a bear up and catching it. “Do you know that I’m going to propose?”

Livvy turned to face him, grinning and sparkling. “Really? That’s so exciting. You better do a good job, make it really romantic.” We talked through ideas for him until her voice got distant and floaty, and she fell asleep.

Collin dozed off on the floor, his snores filling the room. When we were pretty sure

Livvy wouldn’t wake up until morning, Mel and I got up carefully and left. I followed her to her room and then crouched over crying. She knelt to my level and wrapped her arms around me, pressing our foreheads together. “It’s okay, Em,” she said. “We’re going to get through this.”

She shushed me as though she were soothing an infant, but I felt her shaking too.

We settled into her bed, but neither of us got much sleep. I shifted my position all night, existing in the unsteady but numbed space between sleep and consciousness. Every time my eyes peered open, I saw her staring at the ceiling with her hands folded over her chest almost like a corpse, but livid. Cleaving Page 26

By 7:00 in the morning I gave up on sleeping and she was already awake, watching old sitcoms on her little TV. She had made coffee, and had it sitting on a coaster on her nightstand. A burnt smell filled the room. Her lips were taut and her eyes swollen and stormy. She looked a bit like she was hungover and a bit like she wanted to blow the entire house to pieces. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Awful.” I said, dragging myself out of the covers. “I’m going to go check on Mom and

Livvy.”

“Don’t check on Mom, she doesn’t deserve your attention,” said Mel.

I looked at her, taken aback. “She had a rough night, too.”

“Bullshit, she’s the reason we all had a rough night. She made a shitty choice and we almost lost our sister.”

“We could have lost her, too!”

“So what? Why do you still care about that? I’m gonna talk to Dad. He wants us all to go out to breakfast—we’re leaving her behind.”

“Why are you antagonizing me?” I asked.

“Because I think it’s time you pick a side. She is not worth it, Emma! She is not going to get any better, and it’s us against her at this point. Are you with your family or not?”

“She’s still our mom,” I said. “She is family.”

“She can’t be, anymore!” Mel said. She stood up and approached me. The oil inside of her was building, black and heavy.

“How can you say that?” I asked.

“Fuck, why are you so fucking wishy washy all the time? You have to care for everyone, but you end up not caring for anyone the right way! Pick a damn side, Emma!” Cleaving Page 27

“I can’t! And, you know, fuck you for telling me I have to.” My back tingled and my palms were sweaty. I hate anger. It’s impossible to control once it gets started and it’s the most sickening, uncomfortable thing to feel. Mine, in that moment, mingled with hurt and fear in an electric current inside of me, swelling and hissing. “Who are you to judge, anyway? She can’t help it, it’s a disease! And you know what, I think you have it too!”

“I’m not a fucking alcoholic,” she said, stone-faced.

“Who says? Why don’t you stop making me the bad guy and see yourself clearly for the first time in your life!”

“I like to have a good time, so what? It’s not like I sit home drinking my sorrows away alone until I get shitfaced enough to fucking kill myself.”

“You could, though!” I said.

“Is that what you fucking think of me?”

“And what if I abandon you like you want to abandon Mom, huh? What if I abandoned you at that damn beach house, left you all alone?”

“Shut the fuck up, that was one time—”

“It’s not just one time, Mel! You need to get a grip!”

She shook her head and turned away from me. Quiet fell between us, but it was a dense, splintery kind of quiet like the kind I imagine coming before a landslide. “You better come to breakfast,” she said.

I felt like the floorboards were slipping away from my bare, sweaty feet. Something had shifted between us—I couldn’t stand to look at her. Her face was distorted and I struggled to find one clear thought. They all seemed broken or tainted, now, every single one corrupted. My priority was Livvy, I knew that. But I didn’t know what was next, and I only had until tomorrow Cleaving Page 28 morning to figure it out before I had to go back to school. All I was sure of was that I couldn’t be in that room for another moment, so I stormed out to find Livvy, door slam and all.

Cleaving Page 29

To Each Their Own

Nate

November 20, 2017

I thought they would have me chasing the turkey across the field, my only redemption the fact that the curdled-milk red fleshy bits dangling off its neck made it look stupider than me; but no.

It was hanging by its feet without a hope left in the world, and they put a knife in my hand and told me where to chop its head off. I knew from the sinking feeling in my chest that, contrary to popular belief, I am not a barbarian and I do have what Emma would call a soul. But I killed it anyway, because I told Greg I was up for it and I’m a man of my word.

Before I did it, Greg gave me a thumbs up: a question, not a statement. He stood to the side with his dad, Lucas. They wore thick leather work boots, flannels folded at their big elbows, faded jeans, and dirty baseball caps. They looked like father and son, both crossing their arms over their body and standing shoulder to shoulder. Each had a beard, but Greg’s was a greasy blond and his father’s was greyed. Their cheeks were almost as red as the turkey’s face.

My dad and I look mismatched standing next to each other. He is tall and balanced, with a high school football player’s torso buried under a modest layer of dad fat. His face is always clean-shaven and his hair thin but neat. I have lanky legs and thick, broad shoulders like the caricature of a gorilla. My hands are giant and knobby, and I have terrible posture. I don’t get my hair cut frequently enough, so it flops around on my head and the ends curl just above my ears.

Collin and Dad look much more natural next to each other. Almost as much so as Greg and Lucas, but with less warmth between them. There is love there, sure—my dad is not a loveless man, only awkward with affection. After a cup of whiskey, with his glowing and his Cleaving Page 30 eyes sparkling, he might say something nice to us. But otherwise, it was logic and business and dry, witty humor.

“You don’t have to do it, man,” Greg said. “It’s tough.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, son,” said Lucas. “I always get the nerves the day before coming here. After you do it, it sits with you for a while. It isn’t easy. We’re not gonna think less of you if you don’t want to.”

“No, no,” I said. “I got this.” I wasn’t convinced, but I knew why I had to do it. I was a meat eater, and not about to stop. I liked to know where my food came from, and this was it. I didn’t want to have any delusions about the world. This way was better than the alternative, anyway: I was supporting a local farm, rather than an industrial plant that wreaks havoc on the environment, and I was taking responsibility for myself. If I wanted to eat it, I should be willing to kill it. But if nothing else, I was trying something new, and that’s how I liked to spend my time. There’s a world full of experiences out there to have.

I sliced its neck as the butcher held its head. The butcher was a friendly, patient guy with a pockmarked face and hairy hands. He chewed a toothpick as he talked—trying to quit smoking, probably, and missing the feeling of a cigarette between his teeth. He told me where to put the blade and said I could go whenever I was ready. When I did, hot, vibrant blood poured over our gloved hands. The wings flapped, and the butcher told me that it was normal.

“You know what they say about chickens with their heads cut off,” Lucas said. “Works for turkeys, too.”

We still had to clean and pluck it; Greg and Lucas helped with that part. Lucas kept calling it a beautiful bird, but it looked disgusting until we wiped it and wrapped it. Cleaving Page 31

“You did good,” said Greg. Greg was my favorite roommate. We lived in a house with two other guys: a Dane and a beach boy from coastal Oregon. We weren’t the frat type or the move-in-with-your-girlfriend type, so we split the rent in an apartment on the edge of campus and got along well. We sat in his truck, the bird bouncing on the seat next to me. “How was it for you?” he asked.

“Uh,” I said, “interesting.” He chuckled, knowing exactly what it felt like. He told me that he was thirteen when he did it himself for the first time. Lucas didn’t force him to—he asked for it after years of watching. It was a rite of passage. “I’m glad I did it,” I said.

“It’s an emotional thing,” said Lucas. “But at the end of the day, this is our food.”

Greg’s family lived on a farm down the road from the turkey farm, but the road went on forever and it took us twenty minutes to get back. Blocks of greens, yellows, and browns under a pale blue sky washed in and out of the windows. Bright silos stuck out of the fields and some of the farms had wood and wire fences along the street. The wooden posts ticked passed us slowly.

We listened to classic rock and talked about school. I was in aeronautical and astronautical engineering and Greg was in mechanical engineering, so we talked shop and his dad the farmer pretended to understand. He knew how machines worked, all right; he wasn’t dumb. But he never went to college. He was proud of his son for doing it, but it didn’t make much a difference to him. He never wanted to live anywhere but here, in Central Indiana, and he didn’t expect Greg to do anything different. I think Greg was getting the degree to keep his options open, but I’d be surprised if he actually packed up and left. Here was home, for him, and that was all he needed. Cleaving Page 32

Meanwhile, I would be leaving promptly after graduation. It had to be Texas for me, eventually, where NASA is. Texas and then Mars, or someplace better that we didn’t have a name for yet.

Greg’s family was very impressed with me. His mom, Dana, liked that I showed up with a tin of homemade stuffing. My dad’s recipe—the only thing from my home that I had this year.

I wasn’t sentimental about it; it was just a damn good stuffing. Dana hadn’t expected me to bring anything, and she was happy to learn that somebody in our apartment was willing and able to cook. I won over Greg’s little sister, Julie, when I told her I was going to be an astronaut. She nudged Greg’s arm and made fun of him for only wanting to work on cars—spaceships would be much cooler.

Julie was just shy of thirteen, but she looked like she had been through more than any kid should have to experience. She was ghostly pale with purple shadows under her eyes. Her breathing was shallow and hesitant, and I could see all the delicate blue veins in her forehead.

But she had a sweet smile that always seemed ready, and combined with her age, that was enough to make her remind me of Livvy.

I watched Greg with her and wondered if I was as good with Livvy. I hoped we were all being the best older siblings to her, but it was hard to tell because I didn’t know how to think about any of that. I didn’t know what life lessons I was supposed to pass on; the most significant thing I knew was how to try new things and have fun. In the face of everything bad, you have to be able to compartmentalize enough to enjoy yourself. If I could show Livvy how to do that— how to live without constant stress—that might be enough. But what more was there? And did she even see us as people she could look up to and rely on, or were we just cookie-cutter images of different parts of our parents? Cleaving Page 33

***

We got to Greg’s house three days before Thanksgiving. The first day, we walked up the highest hill (hardly a lump) on his farm and watched the sunset in webbed lawn chairs with flimsy aluminum frames. Some of the interwoven belts were stretched, so our asses were nearly on the ground. Still, I was happy. There was plenty that I didn’t like about Indiana, but the sunsets couldn’t go unappreciated. In the country the sun sat on the flat, plain land like it was suspended in quicksand. It all seemed slower, and I appreciated the chance to stop and watch.

I had a beer even though I typically only go for hard liquors, because it felt right in the moment. The sun glowed orange against the emptied fields, periwinkle clouds strewn around it.

“So, 5 AM?” I asked. I had agreed to follow him around in the morning as he fed the animals and milked the cows.

“Latest,” he said. “Welcome to the farm, New England boy.”

“Hey, now,” I said. “I’ve been around for three years. Don’t I qualify as country yet?” I had chosen Purdue for the engineering program, and hadn’t thought about much other than that.

It was a good school, and I shouldn’t have gotten in with my crappy grades in everything but math and science. I didn’t care enough in high school to put effort into anything I didn’t like; it felt like a waste of time. Now, keeping my grades up was purely out of need. A low GPA wouldn’t get me into NASA.

“Nah,” he said. “Not until you milk a cow. And it’s midwestern, not country.”

“Well, I hope I can shake the New England stigma,” I said.

“What, lobster and salmon-colored shorts don’t do it for you?”

“Nah, man.” Cleaving Page 34

He gave me the rundown of things we’d have to do tomorrow: feed the animals, collect milk and eggs, check the equipment for damage, and rake the yard. The work didn’t intimidate me—I had been working since I was sixteen and hired by a pushy Italian man who liked my eagerness and thought I’d encourage the high school girls to order their pizza from us. I didn’t have nearly as much sway as he hoped, but I loved having my own paycheck. I’d never ask my dad for anything but clothes and college tuition after that. I wasn’t unappreciative of everything

Dad gave to us, but I just couldn’t shake the guilt of it. I wanted to be my own man, with my own things, and nothing ever truly felt like mine unless I worked for it.

We stayed on the hill until the sun was replaced by a yellow crescent moon and crickets chirped all around us. “How are things going with Nicole?” I asked him. “You guys have seemed a bit tense, lately.”

“Ah, I don’t know,” he said. He took a swig and hung his head back as if looking for an answer in the stars. “She doesn’t want to stay here.” He had been dating Nicole for over a year, after courting her for two. She started coming by the apartment so often that you might wonder if she wasn’t dating all of us. She and Greg were crazy about each other, though. It was one of those relationships that everyone thought was untouchable. I haven’t ever had that. I had a couple of girlfriends in high school, even thought I was in love—but it was all delusion.

I didn’t tell him I knew it would happen like that with Nicole, even though I always believed they were being stupid. They were good friends and deep in it, knotted tightly together, but a college relationship would never last. Love is just a chemical reaction in the brain, anyway.

It doesn’t even last in the real world. They would just end up hurting each other.

“And you’re really attached to this place, huh?” I said. Greg was smart enough to go make it in a big city somewhere, but he wouldn’t do it. Nicole had him beat on that—she’d go Cleaving Page 35 wherever she had to, and she wouldn’t sacrifice her future for him no matter how much she loved him. She was going to go to a fancy med school, and then she was going to establish herself wherever it was, leaving him in her past.

“Guess so,” he said. “Everyone’s here, you know. My sister, my grandpa, my cousins.

It’ll be everyone except her. I have to be with my family.” I couldn’t imagine a life like that— everyone perfectly happy living in the country all together. The farm is a family business. It had been Lucas’s father’s father’s, and someday it would be Greg’s. I admire it, but I have a longing to see more of the world.

“I get that,” I said. “I mean I don’t feel the same, but I get it.”

He shook his head and laughed. “Yeah, I know. You’re not a farmer.”

I grew up in a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut, and I didn’t feel any need to go back.

Collin had moved out, Mel was at Boston University, and Emma was at Yale. I like the house; that is one thing my dad has that I want. He built our house up from a little two-bedroom on a yard four times its size. He left the fireplace and the garage, and made everything else exactly how he wanted it.

His mistake was marrying my mom and having kids. Without us, my dad would have a house all to himself and a lot less to worry about. He could have a garage full of cars just for the hell of it, he could go vacationing to another country every year, he could have a boat if he wanted. That’s what I would’ve done. I want to be a good brother and son, but I won’t have kids or marry. I don’t want to be like my dad, who instead of luxuries and freedom has three college tuitions to pay and hardly enough extra money and time to go to the beach for one week. Not to mention, he’s stuck married to a woman who can’t stand him and can’t take care of herself.

“To each their own,” I said. Cleaving Page 36

***

I slept on a trundle in Greg’s basement and met him in the kitchen the next day for coffee. Dana was leaning over the counter, already wearing a coat and boots, her hair tied up in a bun as she scribbled onto a list. She was a stout woman with freckles that made her look younger than she was, and she did everything with energy and intent. How nice it must be to have a functional mother.

Greg bit a muffin and listened to her talk.

“Let me know if there are any eggs, too,” she said, “I’d love to use them in my pies for tomorrow. Oh, good morning, Nate! Are you excited for your first day of farm work?”

“I actually am,” I said. “I always wanted to milk a cow.”

She laughed, warm and hearty. “Our cows are wonderful,” she said. “I hope Greggy shows you the horses, too. Maybe you’ll have time to ride before you leave!”

“That sounds fun,” I said.

Greg passed me a mug of coffee, steam trailing from the surface. “Yeah, we could go riding,” said Greg. “Nate would make a good cowboy.”

“I’m sure Julie would love to come along, too,” Dana said. “Make sure to ask her if you end up going.”

Greg frowned, but agreed. I had wanted to ask how Julie was doing since I saw her, but I imagined I was reading into things out of curiosity and ignorance. He’d tell me if he wanted to.

“You’re lucky,” said Dana, “you came at a good time. The harvest is over and we planted the winter wheat last week, so you don’t have too much hard labor to do.” She laughed at herself.

“Probably for the better, or you might not come back!”

Cleaving Page 37

My sister called as we walked back to the house, each carrying a fresh jug of milk that clunked with our steps. I paused and told Greg that I should probably answer her, then lowered the milk to the dirt and pulled my phone out of my jean pocket.

Mel demanded to know why I wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving, and Emma tried not to sound too disappointed. I could tell I had screwed up even as I spun some kind of reason for it. I told them I didn’t have the time to make the trip, which was about half of the truth.

Technically, I could have made the time, but it would have been an avoidable hassle and it wasn’t worth it. Greg looked off to the fields as if to give me privacy until I gave up on explaining myself and hung up.

“All good?” he asked.

“I’m sure it will be. My sisters are kinda pissed. They didn’t realize I wasn’t coming home, I guess. I didn’t think it would make that much a difference.”

He looked at me under the rim of his hat and we picked up the milk jugs again. They kept on clunking, and we kept on walking because there was nothing else to do. I was sure that my sisters would get over it—I couldn’t be missing much, anyway. Holidays were always the same.

“Did you tell them you slaughtered your own turkey?” Greg asked.

I laughed. “Are you kidding? Emma would hate that.”

Dana was thrilled to hear that we found a few eggs. She made three pies—apple, pecan, and the obligatory sugar cream. We all got up early again on Thanksgiving to help out. Greg and I milked the cows again, checked on the chickens, and fed all of the animals. They had five horses, a family of Pekin ducks, and a couple of goats plus a kid named Alfie that jumped around at our Cleaving Page 38 knees—all four hooves in the air, his fuzzy head bouncing. Alfie was Julie’s favorite, and I knew he’d be Livvy’s too.

We raked the front yard and hauled in enough firewood to rebuild the stack next to the fireplace. Splinters stuck to my black gloves and got caught in the fuzz of my flannel, but I loved the smell of firewood.

They had aunts and uncles, grandparents from both sides, and eight cousins come over.

Before dinner, we watched football and played cornhole, a game that consisted of beanbags thrown at wooden score boards. It was an intense competition that ended with a reluctant truce between two rowdy cousins, one in camo pants and one in a Boilermaker jersey. I was all right at it, only because I got a lot of practice on the quad at school and throwing the bag was almost the same motion as bowling. Greg’s family called me the rookie and howled whenever I scored, anyway, like parents around a peewee soccer field.

Dinner was our beautiful stuffed turkey and a collection of sides, including a family- famous casserole crusted with cornflakes. I tried to talk to each cluster of relatives for a little bit.

“Your stuffing is amazing, Nate,” Dana said. “Is your name Nathan? Nathaniel?”

“It’s Nathaniel, but only to my grandparents,” I said. A few people laughed.

“He wants to be called Nate, we call him Nate,” said Lucas.

“All right, Nate,” said Dana. “Nate has been such a big help here, everyone.” She pointed her fork at me, a green bean skewered, and everyone listened to her. “He’s really a fantastic house guest. You can never get tired of a visitor like that!”

They wanted to know how Greg and I were doing at Purdue—he and a cousin who went to Notre Dame were the pride of his family. We told them about our good and terrible professors, our research positions, and what our other friends were up to. I had the feeling that all of our Cleaving Page 39 words came out sparkly and new to them. The cousins asked us about the tailgating and the frat parties, to which we rose cups of beer up and vowed silence.

Greg’s grandmother thought I was “just charming.” She looked like his mom, but moved slowly and needed help with most things. She had silver hair tied back in a headband. When I first met her, she told me I had a great handshake. “That will get you far in life, all right,” she said. On her way to the kitchen for pie, she stopped by my seat and put her soft hands on my shoulders. It startled me, but I tried not to show it as she thanked me for joining them.

His grandfather told me Air Force stories all night, as if he was going to recruit me right there. He was a beefy guy with a missing thumb, and half of his face drooped from a stroke, but his eyes were wet and friendly and he laughed with his whole body. He didn’t have much work to do—I was already convinced I’d go into pilot training after I finished my degree. It was the quickest way to get into the sky and eventually qualify for NASA.

After dinner, Greg volunteered to wash the dishes and I helped because I didn’t like to sit around and watch. Most of his family moved out to the porch with drinks. His grandpa sat on the couch nodding off and snoring, then startling himself awake. The cousins started a game of manhunt in the yard, running between haybales and barns hollering at each other. Julie was in there somewhere, trying to keep up with them.

I remembered Livvy desperately wanting to play manhunt with us when we were younger. We played in the yard and the little patch of woods behind it, sometimes into the high school grounds. There were plenty of places to hide—heads ducked under bushes, spines pressed against trees, hearts thudding and heavy breath threatening to reveal us. For a big game of hide and seek, it felt more like war. We didn’t let Livvy join because someone would have to watch her. We tried to partner her up with Emma, but then Emma lost interest and quit anyway. Cleaving Page 40

We couldn’t leave Livvy alone. She was small, impulsive, and always curious. She might explore until she got lost, like when we couldn’t find her in the middle of a snow day. She had gone inside then, without telling anyone. We hollered her name and asked the neighbors if they had seen her, describing her puffy magenta jacket, thin brown braids, and the little glasses that made her eyes look huge. She was on the sofa with her legs mummied in a blanket, watching a kids’ show and drinking hot cocoa with mini marshmallows and too much chocolate powder.

Julie was old enough to play on her own, but she couldn’t run. She couldn’t get that much air in and out of her lungs.

Greg turned his cap to the back and moved the sponge voraciously around every heavy ceramic plate, his hands red under the scorching water.

“Hey, man” I said, “are you trying to rub the paint off?”

He shook his head. Didn’t want to talk about it. I ran a rag over each dish and stacked them next to the sink, talking to him about movies and video games instead.

The next morning, we went to milk the cows again and Greg slammed his hand against the barn wall and yelled. The cows looked at him, slobbery hay spilling out of their mouths as their jaws moved side to side.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He squatted and wiped a teat with a warm towel, massaging in gently to help the cow relax. “Leukemia’s back,” he said. “They took her to the doctor last week and got confirmation.

She’s gonna be in the hospital again soon—just wanted to give her Thanksgiving. My mom told me this morning.”

“Damn,” I said. “Well, I don’t really know what to say. I’m sorry.” Cleaving Page 41

“She’s a fighter,” he said.

“Yeah, I bet,” I said. “Um, so what are the chances that she goes into remission again?”

“A lot less now that it’s her second time,” he said. “But still there. About 10%”

“All right,” I said.

“I want to take her riding before we leave,” he said.

“You can go alone if you want,” I said. “I can hang back and, uh, chill with the cows.”

“Nah, man,” he said. “Riding’s great, you should do it.”

We went at sunset. Greg and Julie readied the horses: brushes running against sleek fur, metal prongs cleaning clusters of dirt and shit out of hooves, saddles latching on. My brother called as I watched and learned. “Hey, Nate,” he said. “Can you FaceTime?”

“Not right now,” I said. “Why?”

“Something happened,” he said. “Please, man, we’re all here.”

I looked over at Greg and Julie stroking their horses, Julie’s a small gray mare speckled white. They looked almost ready, but Collin sounded serious. “All right,” I said, “just give me a sec.” I told Greg I had to take a call quickly, and walked back to the porch, where the Wi-Fi signal was weak but strong enough. My screen expanded to show Collin sitting on the foot of

Mel’s bed, Mel to his left with her back against the headboard and Emma to his right, fidgeting.

“So,” said Collin. He looked to Mel and Emma, giving them a chance to speak first. Mel was quiet, her arms folded over her chest. She looked up at the ceiling; I think because she didn’t want to look at me. Emma mumbled something, but couldn’t say any more. Her face was red and swollen, and she might have been crying, but the video was too fuzzy to tell. Everyone looked tired, at least. Where was Livvy? Cleaving Page 42

“Mom had a thing last night,” said Collin. I frowned; I didn’t like the vagueness. Why not just call it what it is—An episode? A breakdown? A drunken stupor?

“A thing?” I said. “Is everyone okay?”

“She took the car out with Livvy. They didn’t crash or anything, but we didn’t know where they were. She stranded them in a parking lot; Livvy was really freaked out.”

Mel was distracted, looking to and from Emma at the other side of the bed. The only one who could say anything was Collin.

“Well, I guess we’re all pretty freaked out. Livvy’s with Dad now. He took us out to breakfast today and told Aunt Kate to come get Mom and take her to Grandma’s. That’s where she’s staying, for now.”

“They’re separating?” I asked. It felt inevitable at this point. They weren’t in love anymore, and he didn’t have to put up with her if he didn’t want to. Some straw had to be the final straw.

“They’re getting a divorce,” he said. “We don’t really know what’s next at this point, but

Dad wants it to all happen pretty quickly.”

“What about Livvy?” I asked.

“Dad’s trying to get custody,” he said. “That’s the plan right now, anyway.”

“Good,” I said.

Emma pulled a couple of tissues from the box on the bed and left the screen. Mel moved forward. “You have to come home for Christmas, Nate,” she said. “No fucking arguments. I don’t care if you were planning to venture to the fucking North Pole.”

“All right,” I said. “Okay, I know. I was going to, anyway.” Cleaving Page 43

“Well, it might even have to be sooner than Christmas,” said Collin. “There’s going to be a case. We might have to be there.”

“I got it,” I said. I didn’t know how to tell them I had to leave, but I imagined Greg and

Julie waiting for me in the barn, the horses kicking and whining. “I gotta go,” I said finally. “I can talk more later. Maybe just, uh, keep me updated?”

“Where are you going?” Mel asked.

I grinned. “I am going to ride a horse.”

“What?” Collin laughed. Emma questioned me from offscreen, her voice muffled by snot and tissues. “You’re absurd.”

I was unsteady on the horse, but it was fun as hell. Greg taught me the basics as we went. He turned to look back at me, trailing clumsily behind with my ass wobbling in the saddle and my arms spread out for balance, holding the reins long and loose like putty between my tense hands.

The lowering sun gave his cap a golden rim as he shook his head and grinned. “Keep your arms down and your core tighter, man,” he said. “Just look at Julie, she’s got perfect form.”

She glanced at him and I knew she was smiling wide. They were sharing a private joke— communicating in the secret language of those who know the same things. They rode side by side, their shoulders bouncing rhythmically with the hooves clunking in dirt paths and the pendulum swing of the long, dense tails on massive hips.

Julie was good on her horse, despite everything. You would never expect her legs and core to be strong enough. But she rode with ease, not bothered by the horse’s shuddery snort or sudden head jerks. In her pale pink baseball cap and gemstone cowboy boots, she looked at peace. I wondered if it helped her to rely on the horse’s strength to hold her up. Cleaving Page 44

I thought Livvy would love riding. It would be another adventure. She’d be good at it, too, because she was a quick learner and nearly fearless. But I’d probably never see her try. If she ever got around to it, I’d be off in a plane or space shuttle somewhere far away.

Julie circled Greg and me a few times as we stayed behind to talk. I told him what happened at my house, sparing him the details I had imagined to fill in the gaps.

“That’s wild, man,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s life,” I said.

“Well,” he said. “Enjoy yourself here while you can. I don’t know what it is, but being on a horse always helps me think through my shit.”

I was thinking. I was watching Greg and Julies’ shadows overlapping as they rode, heads rocking and reins steady in their hands. I was thinking about how happy she looked on the horse, and I was thinking about Livvy trapped in that car with our mother. Then I was thinking about

Julie dying, and Livvy almost dying, and then Livvy going on with her life turned upside down.

We’d all be affected, sure, but Livvy would have the worst of it because she still depended on that world composed of father and mother, husband and wife—a broken world.

I looked at the sky and knew that my goals were up there somewhere, but then I started to lose my balance and had to grip the reins tighter. I focused on the jagged black hair between the horse’s ears and the leather against my clammy hands, feeling the hard ground under the horse’s hooves send jolts up my spine. Greg and Julie were two blurs in the edge of my vision, and I felt like it was just me and this horse in the world. I don’t know if it was the sky or the horse or my irksome conscience that told me, but I knew that I had to go home after graduation.

Cleaving Page 45

Crows and Sparrows

Emma

December 18, 2017

My grandma’s house was on a block that seemed reserved for grandmas; quiet, and the houses mostly small boxes on patchy grass. A few of them had neat vegetable gardens, basketball hoops without nets, and above-ground pools where grandkids float with plastic armbands and hit each other with foam noodles. My grandma didn’t have any of that. She had tomato plants that rarely grew, a splintery deck, and an old-fashioned standing mailbox with a red flag. She had birdfeeders strung along her deck and bird baths next to unmaintained shrubs along her yard.

She started liking birds after my grandpa died unexpectedly from an infection he caught in the hospital. He was only there for a broken leg, and then he was gone and she had nobody left to take care of. So, she took care of the birds, convincing herself that they needed her. The only birds she hated were the crows, because they were nasty to the others. They took all the food and snapped at the littler birds, beating their big black wings around. She felt most protective over the sparrows who looked like anyone could snap them in two. She was saddest in the winter when the birds were gone.

There was a thin layer of wet snow on the ground as I rolled my suitcase up the uneven stone path to her front door. The feeders were empty and the baths filled with lumps of snow atop piles of dead leaves. The doorbell glowed orange but didn’t work, so I swung the smudged glass door open and knocked. The door rattled under my knuckles. I waited for a moment before opening it on my own to spare my grandma and mom the trouble. Cleaving Page 46

“I’m here!” I lowered the bag of Christmas lights and decorations I picked up at Target.

Grandma suggested I bring something that would help us get into the Christmas spirit, and I thought it was a good idea. She had a little tree on a coffee table, just big enough for her favorite glass baubles, and candlesticks in the window.

Grandma came out of the kitchen wearing cotton pants, a sweatshirt, and reading glasses with a beaded chain. She had an uneven gait from an old injury but was quick on her feet. She smelled like cigarettes and the rose-shaped soaps in her bathroom. “Emma! I am so happy you’re here!” She hugged me and I kissed her cheek. “We just made coffee. Would you like some?”

“Oh, no, I’m okay. Maybe some tea?”

“Yes, of course. I think all I have is that Lipton stuff, I know you’re probably used to better.”

“That’s fine for me,” I said. I followed her into the kitchen, where Mom sat in pajamas with her coffee. She had a book laid open in front of her with the bookmark wedged into the spine. She smiled and waved at me with both hands, then got up and hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re here, honey! This is going to be fun.” I was surprised and happy to see her smiling. She looked better, even with gray smudges under her eyes that told of sleepless nights and flushed skin from the withdrawal.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m happy to be here.” It was a lie—my heart was already aching, not ready to celebrate the holidays without my brothers and sisters and the house we all share.

Mom had gained a little bit of weight since November. Her arms and legs didn’t look as narrow as they had, and she had a small rise in her stomach. I had done my research on what happens the first few weeks sober; probably the sugar cravings. Probably, too, Grandma exerted Cleaving Page 47 some kind of invisible force that compelled her to eat. Before, she said she didn’t want food, told herself that she didn’t need it, or didn’t have the energy to eat.

I took the remaining seat at the table as Grandma filled the kettle. A paper bag in the middle with splotches of grease on the back and a window revealed two remaining croissants.

“Have one!” Grandma said, handing me a tea plate with dainty flowers around the rim. “They’re from the little French bakery in town. We just found it the other day. I didn’t even know it existed—can you believe that? After how long I’ve lived here?”

“They’re really good,” said Mom. “Like, really.”

I took a chocolate croissant crusted with almonds. “Huh. I didn’t know either,” I said. “I guess it’s a little hard to notice things like that in your hometown. You can’t have fresh eyes and see things the way a visitor would see.” Grandma lived just two towns over from us, in the same little house that my mother grew up in. Ever since she married my grandpa at nineteen and moved away from her family home, she only ever lived in that place. It seemed a part of her, now. I liked the idea of a house that becomes an extension of you, and you its heartbeat. I wanted a place that people would call Emma’s House.

“What have you been reading lately?” Mom asked.

“Oh, you know, mostly school stuff. But there’s a lot of stuff I want to read for pleasure.”

I had brought five books with me, stacked gingerly in my suitcase because I read when I was sad and watched television when I couldn’t read. I needed the distraction. I read the endings first— the one thing that couldn’t change. I had been trying to break the habit of glimpsing through

Wikipedia summaries of TV shows because when the secret was outed my friends nearly disowned me for it. I told them that I didn’t need to do it, I only preferred to, but they are a bunch of psychology majors who saw right through me. I’ll never change my reading strategy Cleaving Page 48 and I’ll always be teased for it, but I like my habits. Habits are comfort. Dropping them feels like loosening an important knot in the whole tangle of my life. And in a time like this, I needed to hold onto as many things as I could.

“How have you been?” I asked my mother.

“I’ve been okay, actually. I’ve been keeping busy.”

“She is doing well,” said Grandma. “She’s taking this whole mess like a real trooper.”

She collected plates of pastry crumbs from the table and brought them to the sink, where she rubbed a sponge over them in small, uniform circles. I could tell that she was happy to have someone around the house again. She might have been the heartbeat of the place, but she was missing the vessels and organs. Grandpa had been gone for ten years. Her daughters were gone.

Her grandkids didn’t visit nearly as much as they used to, because we were all off at college. I began to trust my choice—my visiting was a good opportunity for all of us to connect.

Mom had a meeting later. That’s what she called them, just meetings. She asked me to drive her, because it would give Grandma a break. Grandma didn’t drive anymore, but she had been going with Mom every time. I imagined her in the car, wasting gas to keep it toasty enough, busying herself with a book of sudoku until my mother resurfaced.

The meeting was in the community room of a police station. I eyed the police cars sitting in a row like sleeping beasts, their blue and red lights darkened but seemingly ready to wake up suddenly like glowing eyes. Yet, in their dormant state they were so unlike the loud, spinning lights I fixated on that Thanksgiving night, when every passing police car brought my thoughts back to what might had happened to my mom and little sister. Cleaving Page 49

When I pulled up to the curb, she invited me to go in with her. My palms were sweating—I didn’t want to go into that room of strangers and pretend that I was comfortable. But

I did want to be supportive, and braving it for her seemed to be the way. She wanted me to see it, and I still couldn’t let her down, regardless of how many times she had disappointed me. I didn’t really believe in only second or third chances—I believed that family couldn’t run out of chances at all. It’s one of the things that set me a part from Mel, who had a short string for everyone.

Ironically, though, I had given Mel nearly as many chances as I had given Mom.

Inside, an A-frame sign indicated which way to go for the meeting. It must have been there so that nobody had to ask the reception, but I wondered if anyone was too ashamed to be seen following its directions. A haggard woman and a nervous teenager sat in the waiting room, watching for a man with a bruised eye to finish talking to the officers through the window. All three of them might have been having the worst night of their lives.

In the community room, people of all ages sat in a loosely formed circle. They recited the

Serenity Prayer and volunteers read the twelve steps. New members and visitors were welcomed to introduce themselves. “This is my daughter, Emma,” Mom told the group. “She’s spending her holiday break with me, and I’m really happy about it. Our family has been through a difficult time—my fault, of course—and I’m grateful for her support on this journey.”

I nodded and tried to smile as everyone said my name, but I couldn’t stop thinking about those words. My mother had never said anything was her fault before. Hearing it brought my attention to the bugging feeling I harbored that said it was my fault in some way. Or Dad’s, or

Mel’s, or anyone’s.

The group said hi as a clunky collective, their voices surrounding me from every angle.

Many of them had no problem smiling at me, but I felt like my presence hurt as they spoke of Cleaving Page 50 lost or distanced children, spouses who had given up on them, and parents who could never trust them. They had to have been jealous.

My mother was always strange to me. Our brains were wired differently, and it was hard for me to understand how she or any of these people could give up a family for something that only warmed their chests and masked their pain. Alcohol disgusted me as a thing, and I didn’t like looking at these broken faces that relied on it, their cheeks reddened and eyes darkened. But more than anything, I pitied them like I pitied the plover bird that sustains itself off pickings from the crocodile’s teeth, the predator’s mouth wide open for the cleaning. The difference was that in nature, the crocodile wouldn’t actually close its jaws upon the bird. Alcohol didn’t operate with the same rationale. The plover bird and the crocodile had a cooperative symbiotic relationship; alcohol was a parasite.

I only wished I didn’t have to pity my own mother.

When we got back to the house, I rolled my suitcase into my mom’s old bedroom and lowered my overstuffed backpack to the wood writing desk next to the wardrobe that my mom and Aunt

Kate shared as kids. The desk’s tiny drawers were crooked and some of the hand-painted daisies on the side were scratched away, but otherwise it seemed exactly as they had left it forty years ago. There were stray markers and pens inside atop faded lined paper. Bobbleheads sat on the shelves and stickers coated the back panel. I wanted the desk for my future daughter, but I could never imagine moving it.

The room had pale blue carpet, floral wallpaper, and two twin beds with just barely enough space for a third between them, each dressed with a quilt and five pillows. On one of them sat a pile of stuffed animals collected over many years. Grandma had cleared the other off Cleaving Page 51 for me. My mother was sleeping in the spare room—a guest in her childhood home, as if she were afraid of this room. A yellowed dial-up phone and a floral-printed lamp sat on the nightstand between the two beds. Stacks of photo albums, CDs, and trinkets covered on every surface that didn’t serve a specific function.

Grandma’s house never changed, and that is what I loved the most about it. The past was distilled there. Mom and Aunt Kates’ clothes and things were trashed or donated, but otherwise,

Grandma and Grandpa didn’t have reason to touch the room except to store things in it. When I slept over, I fantasized that I was going back in time. I imagined posters of heartthrobs plastered onto the wall, the wardrobe full of bright colors and patterns, secrets tucked away in hidden boxes and locked diaries. My mom and aunt having slumber parties and gossiping into the night.

Boys sneaking in through the window, poking their heads between the frilly curtains and wedging themselves in—because that’s what happened in every old high school movie.

I wished Mel were staying in the other bed. It had been a month since I had spoken to her, longer than we had ever gone, and the last time was when it all imploded.

The morning after Thanksgiving was deadened in time and space. We went to breakfast with

Dad and he told us his plans. We were crammed into a diner booth, Livvy between Mel and me,

Dad and Collin across. Collin stuffed folded napkins under the leg of the table to stop it from rocking. It was the only time Dad spoke of the legal matters in front of Livvy, and he avoided as many details as he could. He told us that Mom wouldn’t be living at home anymore, and he was going to figure things out with or without her. Things meant the divorce—the money, the house, the things, custody of Livvy. Collin listened. Mel nodded the whole time, humming approval, and told him that she thought divorce was the best move. I stayed quiet, swirled my tea bag in Cleaving Page 52 my mug until it got so dark that a shallow pile of dust from the tea leaves gathered at the bottom.

It was Earl Grey; typically my favorite, but the smell made me sick.

Before we left, I told Mel to come to the bathroom with me. I couldn’t leave things the way we had left them before breakfast—there had to be more. She sat on the counter, unbothered, as I paced back and forth in front of her.

“You’re really okay with this?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s for the better.”

“How is it for the better?” My neck was hot and my fingertips tingling. I had chosen to talk there because it was public, and I had to avoid getting worked up. A woman in one of the stalls flushed and went to wash her hands, waving under the faucet again and again, fruitlessly waiting for the water to come out before trying another sink. She glanced at us in the mirror, but her eyes shot down as soon as Mel turned her head to her. Then there was the squeaking of the lever under the soap and the weak whirr of the hand dryer. Then the door, swinging and clapping against its frame.

Mel could have that effect on people—I couldn’t. She was supposed to be stronger than me, but now she seemed so weak. How could she support this? Our family would be broken.

She’d have Mom disappear from our lives forever, but it was her that was fleeing because when she saw Mom she saw what she could become.

“This is not something Livvy should have to go through,” I continued. “Divorced parents! Like one of those sad kids in elementary school!”

“Divorce isn’t a bad thing,” Mel said. “Having her around is much worse.”

“Dad’s probably going to have to fight for custody,” I said. “You get that, don’t you?

Livvy’s going to have to take the stand, choose between her parents. We can’t have her do that— Cleaving Page 53 we have to work this out, together, as a family.” A house divided against itself cannot stand; couldn’t she see?

“She’ll get over it!” Mel said. “And then she won’t have to put up with Mom’s bullshit, do you get that? She’ll be better off.”

Another woman came in. The door swung and snapped, and she walked through the gap between us, squirmy and awkward with her arms out like she was a bug crawling through the narrow neck of a bottle.

“You need to get over it too,” Mel said. And then she left, and I stayed put listening to the woman pee and watching her struggle with the same faucet and try to get away without meeting my eyes.

I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go without talking to Mel again; everything felt disorderly, and I needed my sister in my life. But I also couldn’t imagine letting her off the hook.

It wasn’t a game, like it was when we were little. We weren’t just having a little fight; I wasn’t just giving Mel the cold shoulder for a few hours until she apologized, we weren’t just being rude to each other at dinner for a few days until the argument faded into the distance. It was serious, and it made me sick. I hated fighting with anyone, but I hated fighting with my sister most. I wasn’t even trying to prove anything. Mel wouldn’t see things my way, couldn’t believe that our parents could or should work it out, and trying to make my case was a waste of time.

Grandma knocked on the door and asked me if I wanted to watch TV with her and Mom.

I joined them in the family room, which was better than staying alone in the room. Grandma watched crime shows and medical dramas. She liked to talk to me about what actors were the most handsome. She also liked cooking and baking competitions. She went back and forth Cleaving Page 54 between wishing she could make something like that and criticizing the contestants’ techniques as if she were on the judge panel. “Come on, Sheryl,” she said, “your frosting trees look like piles of poop. You can do better than that.” I draped Christmas lights and tinsel around the room and laughed at her jokes because I thought she was genuinely funny.

That’s how we spent most nights, in triangle formation in front of the TV. I got Grandma hooked on The Bachelorette, and we all acted devastated when she sent the wrong guy home.

“These guys are all a bunch of bozos,” Grandma said. “What does she see in them?”

“I know right!” I said. “I swear, sometimes I think they make her pick the losers on purpose for the drama.” I felt a pang of longing to know what Grandpa was like; what kind of man Grandma had chosen to dedicate herself to. I only remembered him pulling my toes and stroking my hair, calling me his bumblebee. Thinking about death messes me up. One day he was here with her and the next he was gone, his consciousness halted and his body cold. I hoped that his soul stuck around right where it was, only we couldn’t see it. I wanted everyone to be more than a pixel dissipated into the universe.

“Ugh,” said my mom. “Just put on House Hunters, I can’t take this stuff anymore.”

During the days, I helped with the chores and read. Grandma showed me how to do laundry properly. She wanted me to turn everything inside out, “because that’s the part that touches our dirty bodies.” We started a thousand-piece puzzle of a sunset somewhere, and I didn’t expect Mom to have the patience for it. Turns out, it wasn’t even the first one she and

Grandma had done in the past month. Mom watched Hallmark Christmas movies. We went out to get groceries together, and I picked up Wonder Woman from a Redbox to show them one of my millennial feminist movies. Cleaving Page 55

Mel would have hated all of this. She couldn’t spend the better part of the week at a little house doing little, simple things. But it felt like an oasis to me.

One day, I helped Grandma sort through the boxes in the hall closet and she ended up showing us their contents, instead: photo albums starting in the 1920s. Her parents, my great grandparents, sitting on a grassy hill in flapper dress and boater hat. My grandma’s chubby- cheeked baby picture. Grandpa in Vietnam fatigues, eyes under clunky government-issued glasses, sleeves rolled up and lips pressed together. Grandma’s wedding: her hair in tight curls and lips dark, veil trailing behind her. My mother and aunt in matching Easter dresses, and years later, prom dresses of their own. I saw something wounded in my mother’s teenaged eyes. She was dressed up and standing next to her sister, but somehow out of focus.

I knew there was a story there, and thought there might even be an answer somewhere in these albums. I might follow the trail to its roots, look at all of her pictures until I see some sort of change in her, then go even further and try to track it through our bloodline. Who started it?

When, where, why? What made my mother like this, and what can explain the anxiety inside of me any time I see a glass of wine?

But it didn’t matter. When I saw the faces in the photos, I saw family all the same.

Christmas Eve, 2017

Mom got dressed early and asked me if I wanted to join her for a spin class. Who the hell went to an indoor cycling class on Christmas Eve? I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay inside and wear pajamas all day, go to bed early like I used to as a kid waiting for Santa. I wanted to sit by a Cleaving Page 56 fireplace and drink hot cocoa, play board games with my family, and sing along to dumb holiday music despite all of their protests. I could wear matching pajamas with Mel and Livvy, even though we all knew it was lame. I could make pancakes for everyone on Christmas morning, extra fluffy and topped with dollops of melty butter.

I must have looked at her funny, because she continued to justify herself.

“It’s really very fun,” she said. “They play music, and the trainer is really fantastic.”

“And this is, like, public?” I asked. I wasn’t athletic, and demonstrating my lack of athleticism to a group of strangers wasn’t exciting.

“Yeah! But everyone is really nice—nobody really cares what you’re doing, and if anything, they just encourage you.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s really not my scene.”

“Please? Come on,” she said. “This is all about trying new things.” She was the kid in the toy store, and I was the parent who wouldn’t buy her what she wanted. It was a role reversal I had come to live in. I was never good at saying no when there wasn’t any eminent danger. If it had been Mel trying to win me over, it would have been the same. But I didn’t have anything better to do, anyway. My grandma didn’t have a fireplace, and boardgames weren’t fun without company.

“Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll try it. Once.”

The class was held in a windowed room with two long rows of bikes circling around the trainer’s bike. About half of them were being used—still far more than I expected. The trainer wore a green sports bra and red spandex, along with Christmas ribbons around her ponytail and a bell that jingled with every stride. She chose speeds and resistance levels for us, and we followed along like panting dogs. I hated it, but it was good to see Mom eager for something. There was Cleaving Page 57

Christmas music, but I was too winded to sing along despite the trainer’s suggestion that it would provide an extra core workout.

I took a shower as soon as we got back to the house, and as I toweled my hair a stomping of knocks sounded from the front door. I glimpsed around the curtains and saw two guys at the door—Collin and Nate. Nate carried a stack of tinfoil trays; Collin wore a Santa hat and balanced a pile of presents. I thought they must be apparitions—delusions from my spin class exhaustion.

They disappeared through the door and their voices entered the house as they greeted my

Grandma, probably giving her one-armed hugs and letting her kiss their cheeks.

“Oh, this is a surprise!” Grandma said. “Emily, look who’s here! Emma, look at this!”

I ran a brush through my hair and went out to see them. Mom had beat me to it, and looked on the verge of tears. Collin finished tucking the presents under the coffee table and opened his arms to embrace me.

“Hey, Em,” he said.

“Hey, you!” I said. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“We call it Secret Santa,” said Nate. He grinned at me, and I almost forgot that he wasn’t there on Thanksgiving. He had disappointed all of us, but he was there now.

“Yeah,” said Collin. “We aren’t doing much today, so we figured we’d visit. I’m glad you guys didn’t decide to go out, or anything. That would have been awkward.”

“This is amazing,” said Mom. “Thank you, my boys.” She always said it like that—my boys, as if taking ownership of them was easier or safer than taking ownership of my sisters and

I. She could pass all of her issues down to us because we were the women. Cleaving Page 58

She stared at them standing side by side, Nate a few inches taller than Collin and proud of it, and her smile could almost make me forget the circumstances.

“Are you guys having a good Christmas?” Grandma asked. “How is everyone?”

“Yeah,” Collin said. “We’re okay. Not doing much, like I said, but it’s nice.”

“Good, good,” said Grandma.

Collin turned to Mom, who couldn’t stop looking at her sons. Her eyes glittered, but her lips stayed tight. “You look good, Mom,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m doing well—you know, trying.”

“Um, Livvy wanted to come,” he said. “Dad just thought it would be better for her to stay back, you know, after what happened.”

“Yeah,” said Mom. “Of course. Yeah, I get it.” She looked away from them, and

Grandma stepped up from behind her to rest a hand on her back. “It’s okay, once the divorce and everything is settled, we’ll work it out. Olivia will be with me every other Christmas.”

“Yeah, of course,” said Collin. “And, hey, maybe we’ll come too.”

Mom smiled carefully. “I’d like that.”

I made eye contact with Nate to ask him silently about Mel. He shook his head. I didn’t know if I expected him to tell me that she was on her way, or just wanted to bother myself with thoughts of her absence. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. On Christmas Eve, Grandma came to our house and gave us matching pajamas. We put them on immediately and wore them through the night, then galloped out to the tree in the morning with them on.

“So, we brought presents,” he said. “Nothing major, just a little something for each of you. And we have food, too. We weren’t sure what your plans were, but we have some turkey and roasted vegetables.” Cleaving Page 59

“That’s great,” said Grandma. “Thank you.”

“Oh, there’s something I wanted to show you,” Collin said. “Why don’t you sit down with me, here?” He directed Grandma and Mom to the couch. I stayed with Nate— I knew

Collin was about to take out the ring, and they needed to have this moment together. He pulled out the velvet box and held it in his hands gingerly, as though it were alive. It made a quiet, satisfying popping sound when he opened it.

“Oh my,” said Grandma. “You’re proposing!”

Mom screeched and hugged his shoulders. “Congratulations!”

“Well, she hasn’t said yes yet.” Collin scratched the back of his head and looked up at them with his eyebrows scrunched like a shy boy. “I’m waiting for the right time.”

“Wow, this is wonderful,” said Grandma. They marveled at him as though he were the

Christmas tree in the center of the room.

“Thank you,” said Collin. “I’m very excited. Marissa wanted to come today, by the way, but she’s caught up with her family. She sent me with gifts, though.”

“Yeah,” said Nate, “the sucker is actually going to do it—going to be a married man, a real grown up.” His big shoulders were stiff and his eyes skeptical, but he was smiling. We were both happy—it was hard not to be, after finally hearing something hopeful.

“I thought it was a good time for a new beginning,” he said.

“Good for you,” said Grandma.

Mom agreed. I agreed. This was good—good for all of us.

Cleaving Page 60

***

Collin and Nate stayed until just after midnight. I know they did it for me. We found a dusty vintage boardgame from the basement and rolled it out in front of the tree, then sat and played and talked until the clock turned.

“You’re good for coming here,” Collin said. It was a surprise—I was perfectly fine not talking about anything serious, just spending some good, easy time with them so that things felt okay again. “I mean, it took us time to decide whether or not we were going to show up. You know, things are just so awkward now with her.”

“Are things hard at home?” I asked.

Collin glanced at Nate and nodded. “Things are tense. Dad is more stressed than ever, if you can believe it.”

“I can believe it,” I said. “You know, this has really hit him. Whenever I see him, I just know how hurt he is. I know they never had the perfect marriage, but I don’t think he was ever prepared for it to end.” On the phone, he babbled like he never babbled. He was losing his wife of I had only visited home once between Thanksgiving and now, on a weekend to check in on

Livvy. He came into my room one night and just sat on the foot of my bed to talk to me, his typically firm eyes swollen and fragile, flinching back and forth.

“Of course,” said Collin. “This isn’t what he planned for his life.”

“Nobody plans these things,” said Nate. “They just suck, and our only option is to get through them and move on.”

“I guess so,” I said. I fidgeted with a die and Nate ran his thumb over the edge of a stack of flimsy paper money. Collin leaned back, stretching his legs on the floor and resting his head and neck against a couch cushion. Cleaving Page 61

“Mel’s struggling, too,” said Collin. “She’s so angry.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

“And I think she misses you,” Collin said.

“How long are you two going to keep this up?” Nate asked. “It’s fucking weird.” As much as I wished I could isolate my issues with Mel so that they wouldn’t touch anyone else, I had expected them to pick up on some of it. Collin might have overheard something, and at least must have noticed that we stopped talking after Thanksgiving. Nate was going based off what he had heard since then, and what things were like at the house now. I wondered if Mel thought I was staying with Grandma just to avoid her, and I wondered to what extent I was.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’re not really keeping anything up. It just is what it is; we can’t help it.”

“You’re not ready to talk to her?” Collin asked.

I thought about it, looking down at my fingernails and the baubles on the tree and anything else I could find. I felt the desire to rebuild; the temptation to forgive her for the sake of peace and order. But then a long reel of memories flashed through my mind, much more than just this last month—Mel’s drinking, that day at the hospital, her temper, all the times she let me down—and I felt the sting of them all over again. “No,” I decided, “not yet.”

“Fair enough,” said Collin, and then we returned to the game.

At the end of the night, they hugged me and promised to give Mel hell. I told them not to, that I understood where she was coming from even though I couldn’t get on her page. There were things I would have to change: my perception of this family, my routines. I’d need to split my time, now, and help Livvy do the same. But I wouldn’t change how I felt about Mom and the Cleaving Page 62 divorce. I wouldn’t abandon her like Mel was. I would always wish things had gone differently, that my parents had stayed together and Mom had gotten better without leaving us.

But I couldn’t alter the course. Mel was more ready for the changes than I might ever be, and I had to get on board somehow. I couldn’t sit comfortably in a normal that didn’t exist anymore. I had to adapt. But I had to find my own way to that point, without Mel’s influence, and it started here: in my grandma’s little house with my mom.

Cleaving Page 63

Rocks

Mel

March 24, 2018

Carrie slept on my shoulder, her hair tickling my jawline and arms monkey-wrapped around me.

Sandwiched between her and the cool glass against the other side of my face, I felt safe. I listened to the hum of the plane and watched the space between her lips grow and shrink as her mouth fell open and then she caught herself and clapped it shut. It was cute. Carrie was a peaceful sleeper. She dozed off quickly and remained motionless all night except for the little stretches that made her arms tremor. She didn’t snore; she was so pretty and gentle that I couldn’t even imagine it. But nobody had any control on the plane. Jaws fell and heads dropped onto strangers, bringing everyone to an undesired level of intimacy.

I loved this intimacy with Carrie. Flying together felt like a big step, as though it made our relationship more real. Before our trip, I had never shared a row with anybody but strangers and siblings. Nate demanded the window seat, Collin sealed his ears with headphones and snored until we hit turbulence, Emma read a book for the entire flight, and Olivia was in constant need of new entertainment. Carrie rotated between giving me new information about her family and

Colorado, watching the in-flight movies on our synced screens, and resting.

“They just want to get to know you,” Carrie said. “No interrogation. No mean dad with a shotgun at the front door. They’ll just want to talk.”

“But unfortunately, I am not always the best at that,” I said.

“You’re crazy,” said Carrie. “You’re charismatic as hell.” Cleaving Page 64

“I never thought of Hell as charismatic,” I said.

“For real,” said Carrie, “you will be okay. You’ll see Danny, too, but he won’t say much.

He doesn’t look away from his computer these days. Mom tries to convince herself that the games boost creativity.” Carrie loved talking about her family. Throughout our relationship, she told stories and explained each of her family members in depth, as if doing so would bring the two biggest spheres of her life together.

“Your little brother is the least of my worries,” I said. “I come from a family of seven.”

The flight attendant rolled her plastic cart to our row, and Carrie politely asked for one of each snack, and two of the cookies. I stared at her, underwhelmed with my singular bag of pretzels and half-cup of root beer. “How did you do that?”

“What?”

“You cleaned her out.”

“They’re free,” Carrie said. “All you have to do is ask.”

“Fuck,” I said, “I always thought you had to pick.”

“Really?” Carrie laughed. “Damn, you’ve been in the dark.” She opened each snack and fed me pieces. I didn’t even have to ask—she wanted everything that was hers to be mine.

“Hey,” I said, between sips of root beer. “Promise to tell me if I say anything stupid.”

I had only agreed to visit Carrie’s family after she showed up at the coffee shop. I was in the middle of a shift. The shiny dials of the espresso machine reflected my warped image, cheeks pinched and face tiny. It was the only reflection I saw during my shifts, but the customers watched me freely. The sleeves of my black t-shirt folded up and jagged tattoos winding down my arms like vines, I looked exactly like they expected me to. People ogled me—boys who Cleaving Page 65 usually figured out I wasn’t interested, and girls who scribbled their numbers onto receipts.

Whether it was the rolled-up sleeves, the plastic glasses I wore instead of my contacts, or the combat boots that identified me as someone they could flirt with, I didn’t know. It was all deliberate. I had curated my look over many years, and I liked it. I liked being seen. It might have been old habits; the things that I supposedly let go when Carrie came into my life.

I wiped the frothing wand with a sticky towel and dipped it into the milk, holding the pitcher firmly and watching the liquid turn paint-like. It reminded me of Emma whipping egg whites into meringue for the glossy icing atop her Christmas cookies. But I quickly stifled the thought. Steamed milk was just steamed milk. I had been throwing myself into work to keep my mind off of Emma and my mother. I spoke to customers, made coffee, and cleaned.

Carrie walked in quietly and sat in one of the metal stools at the counter, watching me. I could only nod and tilt my chin up to her. Her presence made me feel flustered. I typically didn’t get back to my apartment until late, when Carrie was already showered and settled into her dorm.

She must have had something important to tell me. I spilled foam over the edges of mugs and confused coconut syrup for vanilla. I ignored the irritated glances from customers who didn’t like to get their fingers sticky, and made Carrie a chai latte with a foamy white heart.

After I clocked out, we walked down the sidewalk together, Carrie’s wooly mitten around my bare, clammy fingers. Our footsteps made prints in the thin layer of snow on the ground, but our trail quickly filled with more flurries. Being Carrie was the only thing besides working that quieted my thoughts.

“So, I had a talk with my parents today,” Carrie said.

“And how are Jeremy and Rebecca?” I asked.

“I want you to meet them,” she said. Cleaving Page 66

“I saw them before Winter Break, remember? And last semester when your mom came to help you move into the dorm.”

“Yeah, you saw them. I introduced you and you wished them happy holidays. I want you to meet them, and they want to meet you. Over Spring Break, maybe?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Of course, it’s okay if you aren’t ready. I mean, sort of. They are really excited, though.”

I watched the snowflakes collecting on her eyelashes and dissolving into tiny droplets, lit by the streetlamps, and I knew she needed me to be ready. I took a few weeks to commit, but I loved everything about this girl and I couldn’t let her down.

We had been dating for just over a year. We met on an app, after both swiping yes, and texted long-winded beautiful paragraphs to each other until we arranged our first date. Carrie walked down the steps of her dorm, spinning on the railing before meeting me on the cobblestone sidewalk. She had short blonde hair and freckles across her nose. The light brought out different shades of blue and green in her eyes. She hugged me despite not knowing anything about me, and I felt that she was a person who had an entire heart of love to give.

Beautiful, clever, resilient Carrie. Carrie who was more than a cute girl in a coffee shop.

We had our first date in a bowling alley and our second at an art museum. On our third, typically the date that resulted in a hookup and respectful goodbye, Carrie took me to a pottery studio. She knew the owner and had managed to get the place alone for us after the last class of the day. Painted bowls hung on the walls among pictures of large party groups who had recently visited. Shelves held unfinished and unclaimed work, one shelf labeled “Free: Take it as is or make it yours.” The floors were covered in clay dust, and I understood why Carrie had asked me if she was afraid to get dirty. I had thought it a sexual inuendo. Cleaving Page 67

I drew a smiley face on Carrie’s paint-splattered apron with dust from a table. Carrie sat behind me and laid her palms on top of mine, the wet clay rolling underneath them, rubbing and coating my fingertips. The wheel moved quickly but she instructed me to keep my hands steady.

“You need to adjust the clay slowly,” she said. “No sudden movements. Just let the wheel work.

Take it easy, be patient.” A slight increase of pressure here, a small pinch there. The clay slipped effortlessly through my fingers and began forming the neck of a vase. What was once a blob of slime was turning into something. “That’s it,” said Carrie. “You see, there’s no rush. If there are any bumps, we can go back and smooth them out. The clay is flexible.”

Looking back, I realize the pottery date is exemplary of who Carrie is. Carrie who had a strange, near-immediate understanding of me. Carrie who was willing to be patient as I sorted through myself, who wouldn’t try to rein me in before I was ready to be somebody’s partner.

In the back seat of the Subaru, Carrie squeezed against me even though we had the space to spread out. Our suitcases were tucked behind black duffels in various shapes and sizes—some large and clunky, some narrow and long. Jeremy’s travel photography equipment, stored indefinitely in the car along with emergency essentials: rope, flare gun, first aid kit, ice pick, a couple of fleece blankets, a deck of cards, a beat-up copy of Thoreau’s Walden, and a mason jar of Rebecca’s homemade granola.

I watched the Mile-High City shrink against the mountains behind it, gray stacks against periwinkle humps against the hazy orange sky. Here was where Carrie had lived for the eighteen years of her life before packing up and heading to Boston. I imagined her learning how to drive on these roads. I saw her moving in pods of teenagers between local businesses. Cleaving Page 68

In my hometown, we rode our bikes to the town pool and the Blockbuster, climbed to the tops of jungle gyms in school yards, and raced down hills on empty side streets. I drove Emma to the mall so she could browse and eat frozen yogurt with her friends as I hopped between movies with mine. I snuck to the high school football field on Saturday nights and pretended to know constellations. It wasn’t as though there wasn’t enough space in our yards to watch the sky. We went for the adrenaline of clinging facedown to the turf when the neighborhood cop rolled around the corner, hearts thumping as if the officer would arrest a bunch of kids for stargazing.

Nate and Collin would sometimes tag along if they had their own friends to bring. Emma had only come once, when I promised her that she would be able to see a rare full moon better from the field. When the officer did his rounds, she ducked into a bush, had a panic attack, and came out with poison ivy. After that, inviting her was only a joke. She wouldn’t fit in, anyway, especially when we started bringing weed and hard lemonade tucked away in our backpacks. We had each came to know the town by heart in our own ways.

I brought myself back to Colorado. The humble businesses lining the streets, the mountains in the distance. My girlfriend’s home. I wanted to know everything about it. I had imagined the car clambering up a rocky ledge to Carrie’s house, but it didn’t. The ride was easy, situated in the foreground of the nearby peaks. “I was expecting it to be hillier,” I said.

“Nope,” said Carrie. “Last flat land before the Rockies.” She got to it before Jeremy, who had been giving me Colorado fun facts the entire time. The strange blue horse statue outside of the Denver International Airport once killed a man. A lucky prospector found gold in the local creek. The cheeseburger, the Jolly Rancher, and Coors beer all got their starts here. Carrie insisted that her father wasn’t usually this dorky— “He’s just trying to impress you,” she said. Cleaving Page 69

Rebecca asked questions about our flight and eyed me in the rearview mirror, as if trying to learn about my soul from the outside-in. Were me and Carrie compatible? Would I become a part of the family? Carrie admitted to me ahead of time that she had spoken very highly of me.

She had told her mother that I was special, and that she thought she had finally found “the one.”

As Rebecca kept glancing at me, I wasn’t convinced I could be anybody’s “one.”

People had fallen in love with me before. Lana was the first—red hair, husky-blue eyes, and crazy about me. We lay together on the turf after our other friends had left, her head warm and her ear cold, our hair splayed out between us like overlapping strokes of paint. She passed me sour gummy worms from the bag in her jacket and I licked the sticky sugar crystals off her fingers. One night we hooked up in the dugout on the home side of the baseball field. We came out with clay-dusted Converse and tiny lines pressed into our skin from the cold metal bench, giggly, my fingers woven into hers like a spider’s. I wanted to do it there because then when we passed it running laps in gym class, we’d both feel the heat of our little secret. The musty dugout with the paint peeling off was thenceforth infused with a passion.

I walked her home before her parents got nervous, and then we sat in the hot tub and she told me she loved me. It smelled like sweat and chlorine and hormones. A week later, I cheated on her with Kylie from the volleyball team.

Carrie’s house was wood and masonry, a rustic ranch sprawled over a large treelined plot. I liked it more than my neat New England colonial, which was symmetrical and stacked tall with two rows of cookie-cutter windows. When Jeremy hit the remote clipped to his visor, a red barn door rolled up and I heard the barks of Carrie’s three dogs. Danny poked out of his room and met us at the door. He was still wearing pajamas, and puffy headphones rested on his neck. Cleaving Page 70

“Hey, Danny,” said Carrie. “This is Mel.”

He gave a small wave and asked his parents when and what dinner was. Then he trolled off and resumes talking to friends over his headset. He was about Olivia’s age, but my sister’s life would never be as simple as his. Emma and I had fought about that after Thanksgiving.

“Now she’ll never be just a kid,” Emma had said, “she’s a kid who has been to court and come from a broken family.”

“We’re not broken,” I had said, though I wasn’t sure if I believed it. “We’re just different, now. Maybe better.”

Photographs, paintings, and woodcuts hung on nearly every wall; sculptures, pottery, and knickknacks were strewn about most surfaces. It was messy, but it fit. I imagined that there was a story behind each thing, and Jeremy and Rebecca had been building the collection since they started dating. I thought about my parents dividing up the belongings they had compiled throughout their marriage, my mother’s shoes missing from the mudroom and damp sweaters gone from the pipe over the laundry machines, and I suddenly felt sad for them. I wanted to be part of a couple that could collect for years without worrying that it would all fall apart.

“None of it is their own work,” Carrie explained. “That’s the rule. I’ll show you my dad’s studio later. He’d love to talk shop with you.”

Jeremy went to school for geology, but wound up turning a hobby into a sustainable career. He sold photographs to National Geographic, got commissions, and published a calendar every year. Rebecca was an architect with a talent for woodworking. They met just after college and have been together since.

Carrie’s room was my favorite. She had a handcrafted bedframe with built-in drawers, each still stuffed with old sweatshirts, electronics, and yearbooks. I wanted to look through it all, Cleaving Page 71 but Carrie stopped me and redirected my attention. She didn’t like to talk about high school; she didn’t have the best time there. She was pretty, sweet, and not interesting enough to the people she wanted to love her. She got hurt enough times that she believed she couldn’t be loved. But loving her has never been hard for me, so I think she must have just lacked protective measures.

Kylie thought she had protected herself enough to spar with me. We both liked to party.

Kylie bought cheap beer from convenience stores using her older sister’s ID because they both had curly brown hair and hazel eyes. She hid the cartons behind the seats in my car, where they rattled and sloshed as we drove together to houses of friends—sometimes acquaintances— whose parents were away. Then, the cool thing was to play risqué games of truth or dare or

“Never Have I Ever” around a firepit or in someone’s basement. Everyone flirted, and I was no different. Kylie eyed me as I moved across the group circle to make out with someone on a dare, maybe a little too eager, but she never took an issue with it. She didn’t mind that I was a flirt outside of the game, either. I thought we had an understanding until she did care, one day, and hooked up with a teammate after a volleyball match in another town. I couldn’t stand the image of her and that girl, clothes damp and skin waxy, hearts still racing with adrenaline from the win.

The tinny rattles of the locker doors against their backs. The plastic swoosh of the curtain when they went to shower together afterwards. Two pairs of naked feet on the grimy tile. When I found out, she bunched my bedsheets up in sweaty fists and cried, saying she thought that’s what

I wanted. That’s when I knew she had gone and fallen for me, and I ended things right there.

“This is the exception to the rule about the art.” Carrie ran her thumb over the inscription on the foot of the bed: For Carrie, light of my life. May you have only sweet dreams. Mom. Cleaving Page 72

I touched the words with my fingers, and the love in Carrie’s family was palpable. Under the inscription was an elaborate etching of a dreamcatcher and three handprints in black paint: a man’s, a woman’s, and a small child’s. I noticed the creases in the palms, and wanted to check if

Carrie’s had changed. I don’t know why. Would Carrie’s hands be changed now, that she needed more than the love of her parents?

I smiled. “Would you say you’re the favorite child?”

“No,” said Carrie. “Just the only one alive at that point.” She sat on the edge of the bed and I sat next to her. “Mom had fertility issues. She was so scared she wouldn’t even be able to carry me. That’s how I got my name.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “I got named Amelia because it was close to Emily, my mom’s name, and Emmeline, my grandma’s name. I think my parents thought it would help us bond.”

Carrie rubbed my knuckles with her thumb and looked at me with that force of empathy she always has. I looked around the room. When I saw things I didn’t know the story behind, I was both scared and relieved that Carrie and I had more to learn about each other. I felt honored to be in Carrie’s space—it was a new level of intimacy. I touched the soft, peachy hairs along

Carrie’s jaw and kissed her. With her mouth on my chapped lips, the hardened patch in the middle that was always peeling or split in two turned moist and soft. I felt a crackling energy racing up and down my body, more than a hormonal rush, sustained between us like we were making loops around each other with sparklers that would never go out and never burn us. Carrie sank into the bed, me on top of her, and I wanted to kiss her for hours.

Carrie was sliding her fingers up and down my bare spine, tracing and retracing each knob, when

Rebecca knocked on the door. I lurched up to cover myself with the comforter, but Carrie held Cleaving Page 73 me tight. “Shh, it’s okay,” she said. She got up slowly, collected my clothes, and tossed them to me as she stood next to the door. “Yeah, Mom?”

“We’re working on dinner,” said Rebecca. “Want to help?”

“Yeah,” said Carrie. “Be out in a sec.”

I made a face. Carrie wasn’t a chef.

As Carrie dressed herself, she explained. “She likes to cook with me whenever I’m home.

It’s one of her things. She used to always tell us that cooking together brought us closer.”

“Did it?” I remembered the Christmas cookies, and my dad teaching Emma the family recipes. He always seemed to really enjoy teaching her something, passing the torch.

“I don’t mind it.” said Carrie. “It makes her happy, so I let her have it.”

“You’re such a people-pleaser,” I said.

Carrie shrugged. “We know this already.” We finished dressing, and I straightened the comforter. “Come on,” Carrie said. “Dad will make up stories about the recipes coming from my great great great grandmother in Sweden. Don’t believe him—they’re from Betty Crocker.”

Carrie peeled carrots and dropped them into a pot. Rebecca peeled and chopped potatoes and dropped them in too. Carrie’s movements were long and smooth along the shape of the carrot and Rebecca’s were short and quick against the potatoes, but they held their peelers with the exact same grip. They both had long fingers. They both had freckles, too, and smiles that could make anybody smile. They were both small and lanky, but Carrie’s jaw and eyebrows were more thickly drawn like Jeremy’s. I imagine Carrie likes all of these similarities.

In my family, we have the hitchhiker’s thumb—where the tip bends back. Emily has it. I do, too, and I hate it. I know that it doesn’t actually mean anything, but it bothers me anyway. Cleaving Page 74

At dinner, we passed heavy ceramic bowls. “Remind me, Mel,” said Rebecca. “What are your majors?” I shifted in my seat. Rebecca spoke as if she already knew the answers to every question, and only needed a refresher. I wasn’t sure how much Carrie had actually told her, but it took some of the pressure off of answering.

“I’m cross-registered between the School of Communications, in film, and sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences. What I really like is documentary and photo journalism.”

“Ah,” said Jeremy. “You’re speaking my language now. You know, one of my best buddies from grad school works on documentary. Really cool stuff. Have you guys started looking at places yet?”

“It’s hard because we don’t know where I’ll be, yet,” Carrie said. I frowned. Carrie hated the uncertainty. She wanted to find an apartment and move in with me as soon as possible. But we both had to think about what happens after graduation, and neither of us had answers. Carrie was waiting for responses from internships that would keep her in Boston for another year after graduation. I figured that I would stick around, too, if only to make coffees and think about my future in the comfort of Carrie’s presence.

“Right,” said Rebecca. “You haven’t heard back yet, huh?”

“Nope,” said Carrie. I touched her knee under the table.

“And real estate moves really quickly in Boston,” I said, “so we find one place and then somebody takes it before we know where she’ll be and are ready to commit.”

“You guys are going to be in your own apartment?” Danny asked. “And, like, pay bills?”

“That’s the idea,” said Carrie.

“Bills, bills,” said Jeremy. “I still say we should go back to bartering.”

“You’re ridiculous,” said Rebecca. Cleaving Page 75

“What?” said Jeremy. “The system works!”

“Yeah, Dad,” said Danny. “I got a trade for you. How about I do the dishes for a week and you buy me a PS4?”

Carrie laughed. “He has a point.”

“But you see,” said Jeremy, “it has to be considered a fair trade by both sides.”

I picked at a thread in my jeans, beginning to feel as though I was intruding on their family dinner.

“Do you have any siblings, Mel?” Rebecca asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Four, actually. Two brothers and two sisters. Collin is the oldest, he’s graduated and living over by New York. Getting married soon. Nate’s living in Indiana now, finishing up his degree. Livvy’s the youngest, about the same as Danny. She’s with my Dad in

Connecticut. And Emma, my other sister— she’s at Yale.”

Carrie switched the subject back to school. Rebecca meant no harm, but I didn’t want to talk about them. If Carrie’s parents really knew about my family, they would immediately see how fucked up I am. They would eject me from the table and from their daughter’s life, because

I’m not good enough for Carrie and I won’t be able to fake it forever. Carrie insisted otherwise.

She assured me that it was okay to struggle; both of us were in the process of making important decisions about our lives, and we faced a lot of pressure. Carrie didn’t mind the pressure. To her, it meant that we were moving forward. I worried that I would crack under it.

“Hey,” said Carrie. “I’m sorry about dinner.” She took my hand and brought me to the edge of her bed. I felt all the magic of being with her again. “I wasn’t expecting them to ask about your family. I mean, I guess it makes sense that they would want to know, but I’m sorry.” Cleaving Page 76

I shook my head. “It’s okay,” I said. “I know they just want to get to know me.” I lay on my back and crossed a foot over my knee. My chest felt tight. I couldn’t shake that feeling of inadequacy.

“It doesn’t seem okay,” said Carrie. “You’re upset.”

I looked at her, hoping it was a dreamy, brooding look: the kind that makes Carrie love me, and want to plunge into my mind like a labyrinth. I wanted her to purely, simply, flat-out love me. For the little things and the big things, despite all of the bad things.

I didn’t actually want Lara or Kylie or anyone else to fall for me. I just couldn’t get enough of the sensations—the kissing, the touching, the excitement, the game of making someone notice me. I didn’t actually want them to fall for me, but I also didn’t mind the attention. It was fucked up. I was already convinced that I wasn’t going to find anyone to spend my whole life with, so I couldn’t take shame in enjoying the things I could enjoy. If I developed feelings, I’d blow them up before they wrapped around me too tightly.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” said Carrie. “Bring it on, babe.”

“Am I the first person you’ve brought home?” I asked.

Carrie shifted her weight and pulled her knees to her chest, staring at the floor as if the woodwork would change. “No,” she said. “You’re not. I’ve done it two other times.”

“With whom? Do I know about them?”

“You know of them,” Carrie said. “The first one was Derek.”

“The dickwad who popped your cherry?” I gagged animatedly, trying to lighten the mood. “Too bad for him, he didn’t know shit about your body.” Cleaving Page 77

“He didn’t care. That’s all he wanted—to ‘pop my cherry.’ And he got it. My dumbass self didn’t know the difference. He made me feel like he saw me, and wanted me for more. But then he just cheated on me and ghosted me.” Tears came to her eyes and sat there, as if waiting for permission. “Whatever, I told you I made really bad decisions in high school.”

I sat up and brought Carrie into a hug. She was fragile in my arms, crying, and I felt as though I was the one holding her together. I wanted to protect her, but I just wasn’t sure if I could. Carrie was so good at protecting—I wasn’t used to it. I protected my family in ways that wouldn’t work here. I couldn’t put Carrie behind a podium and divorce her from her traumatic high school memories. “Hey, it’s okay. These things weren’t your fault. You were the victim.”

“No, I kept victimizing myself! The second one, the girl—Michaela was her name. She didn’t want me, either. Strung me along, told me she loved me when really, she wasn’t emotionally available. She was too tormented by her ex and her own shit.” Carrie stood abruptly and paced around the room. I could tell that she didn’t want to say another word. Maybe she had recognized that Michaela sounded a bit like me. “She destroyed me. It was actually on the day I brought her home. Dumped me hard, like I was nothing to her. I was so sure, before that. I couldn’t look at my parents or myself for weeks.”

“Carrie,” I said. I stood to comfort her, held her shoulders, and rested my cheek on hers. I watched us in the mirror above Carrie’s dresser. Carrie had slid old pictures between the glass and the frame. Carrie as a kid, standing between her parents in a floppy baby blue sun hat and one-piece Tweety Bird bathing suit. Pre-teen Carrie in a hammock with her cousins, lips smeared with popsicle. Carrie in her purple prom dress, silky waves of fabric at her feet and shoulders glowing like her own personal suns, her dad on her arm. I didn’t want to be a Michaela. I wanted to be one of those pictures, stuck to Carrie forever. “You’re everything to me.” Cleaving Page 78

But inside, I felt something cold and slippery like a snake coiled around my heart, ready to squeeze the life out of me or plunge its toxic fangs into Carrie. I thought about how many people I had let on, fucked, and discarded. I wondered if any of them had cared about me as much as Carrie had cared about Derek and Michaela, counted how many times I had run away from something that might have been beautiful. When I looked at Carrie, everything felt different, but the urge to flee lingered. I was toxic like the people who had hurt Carrie before, and like alcohol was to Emily. “Carrie,” I said, because I had to say something or I’d be swallowed by my thoughts. “I’m scared.”

Carrie’s tears dried almost immediately. It was my turn to be needy. “Scared? Of what?”

“I don’t ever want to lose you, but I’m scared.”

“I never want to lose you, either,” she said.

“But what if I’m no different than them?” I asked.

“You are,” said Carrie. “You feel different.”

“But look at us,” I said. “You were in all these terrible relationships in high school. You got your heart broken. But I was the heartbreaker.”

“You’ve come a long way,” said Carrie.

I shook my head. “I fucking hope so.” Carrie was confident, and I had no idea where it came from. I felt like a broken girl, unfit for anybody. I wondered if Rebecca and Jeremy already thought I was another one of Carrie’s mistakes. If so, they hadn’t let it on.

Carrie held my hand and kissed each knuckle. She wrapped her arms around me and scratched my back. She told me that tomorrow, we would explore the town. She could tell me more stories—happier ones. I could see that I fit right into the gap she wanted desperately to fill.

Cleaving Page 79

***

Carrie’s town was quaint and eclectic. It had history as a stop for miners and a promising future as a point of access to the mountains. She took me to a coffee shop/bookstore that made me think of Emma, because it was just the kind of place that she would love. I joked about how Carrie had whisked me away to Colorado only to put me back into a coffee shop.

There were too many breweries. Just a few months earlier, I would have jumped at the chance to try new beers and get tipsy with Carrie in her hometown—see what secrets would come out when she took me through the town without a filter. But since Thanksgiving, I didn’t want to drink. She understood this, and stopped talking about all the handcrafted beers around us.

We ate lunch at Carrie’s favorite taqueria “of all time.” We fed each other chip-fuls of guacamole. I liked the spicy sauces and made fun of Carrie for being a wimp. It felt good to be alone together. “So,” said Carrie. “Do you have any good Mexican in your town?”

I sucked on my straw. She was asking me to invite her to her hometown to meet my family, without using any of those words. “Not as good as this,” I said.

“I want you to take me to your best contender, anyway. This is fun, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said. I swirled my ice. We had avoided talking directly about Carrie’s desire to meet my family since I agreed to come to Colorado. She must have gotten bolder after our conversation the night before. She had brought me into her world, and it was my turn. The next step shouldn’t have been difficult—I loved her and wanted to make her happy—but I resisted.

Home was my vulnerable place, and Carrie shouldn’t have to see that. I never even wanted her to meet my mother. She’d pity her and me and all of us, and I couldn’t stand that. “Someday,” I told her, hoping it was reassuring enough. Cleaving Page 80

“All right, well,” said Carrie. “At the risk of undoing our progress, I have another proposition for you.” I played a game with the hollow ice cube on my straw, sliding it up and down until it accidentally slipped into the water, and then scooping it up again. I couldn’t imagine where Carrie was going with this.

“My parents want to spend more time with you, I think,” she said. “So, my mom mentioned going on a hike together, just the three of us. Would you be down?”

“Sure,” I said. “We can climb our metaphorical mountain while we’re at it. Very poetic.”

The next day, we woke up early to meet Rebecca in the kitchen for coffee and buttered croissants. She told us that we could stay on the short trail down the street rather than going into the thick of the mountains, but offered a collection of extra hats and gloves anyway. “It’s still winter in Colorado,” she said. “If winter means snow and cold, anyway.”

As we walked, Rebecca told me about her childhood, split between Michigan and

Colorado. She had three brothers and conservative parents who did not approve of the artistic life she wanted. She spoke about meeting Jeremy, and how it was the Hallmark moment she hadn’t expected to find with a geologist from Nevada. She talked about her exes and her sex life— which Carrie zoned out, walking four paces ahead of us—and she talked in depth about her pregnancies. She told us about her lesbian experience in college. She discussed womanhood, and feminism, and romance. She laid her life out like a collection of rocks. Her honesty was refreshing; my family kept our rocks tucked safely away in sealed boxes. Rebecca talked more than she asked me to, and I was happy with that. Cleaving Page 81

When we returned to Carrie’s house, Carrie and I settled onto the couch with more coffee. Rebecca and Jeremy joined us in front of the crackling fireplace. “The fireplace was a necessity when we were looking for a house,” said Jeremy. “We love it.”

“Me too,” I said. “I love a good fire.”

“Do you have one at home?” Rebecca asked.

“We used to,” I said. “Before my dad added to the house and had to tear it down. Now we have a wood burning stove, but it isn’t the same.”

We sat talking into the night, and the warmth that hit me when I ran my fingers over the inscription on Carrie’s bed was radiating through the house like the heat from the fire. I saw how much Carrie was enjoying it, too. Her cheeks glowed and she couldn’t stop smiling.

When Jeremy poured himself a whiskey and offered me one, something lurched in my stomach. I declined and felt myself clamming up. After another five minutes, I excused myself to the bathroom and wound up on the foot of Carrie’s bed, staring into the mirror for too long.

“Hey,” said Carrie, appearing behind me. “Are you okay? My parents don’t want to disappear on you, but they’re about ready for bed.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We should get to sleep too.”

I followed Carrie back to the family room to say goodnights, and then we returned to the bed and she asked me what was going on.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You shut down,” said Carrie. It was a habit she probably thought I had broken.

“I guess,” I said.

“Can you just tell me what happened? Please? I thought it was going well.”

“It was,” I said. “I don’t know, I got scared. I feel like I’m very, very bad for you.” Cleaving Page 82

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t even know what you see in me,” I said. “Or why you’re so patient. I’m a mess, and I’m not going to change.” All it took was a cup of whiskey, and I flipped. I was a fragile, damaged person and I hated myself for it.

“Is this about the drink?” Carrie asked. “I’m sorry he offered—he didn’t know.”

“I know. How could he know? I hope you didn’t tell them.”

“No! Of course not!” Carrie tried to hug me, moving her hands around my back with her fingers frantic and needy, but I was limp. “You know you’re not like your mom. I know it, too.

They wouldn’t even see any of that if they knew, they’d see you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Just let it go.”

There was only one full day left of the trip, and it passed slowly. Carrie and I stayed in watching movies. We didn’t speak much. Carrie cried a bit and I felt guiltier than I had ever felt in my life.

Guiltier even than I felt when I thought about Emma. I was wholly aware that at this point in our relationship, my closing up hurt Carrie more than anything, yet I couldn’t stop it. It was the only way to numb those old cravings for simulation and the freedom to seek it.

On our last night, I left Carrie snuggled up in her bed and walked down the hallway. I felt an inclination to see the house again, feeling that it might be my last time. My thoughts went back and forth: I’m not good enough, I can’t lose her, I’m not good enough, I can’t lose her.

The cycle was halted abruptly when Jeremy rose from the couch. “Hey, Mel,” he said.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” I said. Cleaving Page 83

“Good,” Jeremy said. But he frowned, and I realized that I wasn’t being very convincing.

“We are really happy that you got to visit.”

“Me too,” I said. “It’s really beautiful here.”

I stood looking at him. “You know,” he finally said. “You never got to see my studio.”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“Want to see it now? I mean, if you’re up.”

The studio was a spacious room with corkboards along the walls and photos pinned carefully to them. He had a counter in the middle lined with drawers and topped with the largest paper cutter

I had ever seen. In the back corner, an unlit “In Use” sign hung over a black door next to a sink stained with yellow photography chemicals.

“I still use the darkroom,” Jeremy said. “Ancient, I know, but I just really like it.”

“This is really cool,” I said.

“Let me show you something,” said Jeremy.

On one of the cork walls, he showed me a large black and white mountain landscape. The blacks were as dark as possible, and every detail crisp. “I’m still working on this one,” he said,

“but this is my favorite print so far.”

“Wow,” I said. It was no wonder that his work was popular, but the word felt stupid in my mouth.

“I like black and white best. Not because I don’t like color, but there is just something about black and white. I think it’s the contrast. People always say, you know, nothing is black and white. But really, everything is composed of black and white. Shades only exist because the extremes do. The picture only comes together when it’s all balanced.” Cleaving Page 84

Jeremy shifted his attention from the photo to me. “Rebecca and I, you know, we are a bit of an odd couple. We might seem to make sense now, but it wasn’t always like that. We both felt like we fit together—some sort of click, chemistry, whatever you want to call it—but we have our differences. Now, I think it might be about the balance. The opposites attract thing, you know. Rebecca keeps me honest; I keep her on her toes.”

I grinned politely. What could I say to this man? Had he heard me and Carrie fighting?

“Mel, I’m going to be honest with you,” said Jeremy.

I felt a sense of panic. He was going to lay out his rocks. This was the protective father talk, when he was going to tell me to stay away from his daughter.

“What I’m trying to do here is offer some sort of wisdom. My daughter hasn’t had the best luck with relationships. She needs someone to love her, just like the rest of us. She deserves it more than anyone I know. And I can see that you are hesitant. You care for her, but you don’t believe you’re enough. So, I guess, what I’m trying to tell you is that I think you are.”

“But why?” I asked. The question spilled out before I could catch it, and I wanted to backtrack. “I mean, my life is complicated.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jeremy. “I’m not pretending to know the depths of your character, all of these things you think make you so complicated. I’ll tell you what matters to me: when you look at my daughter, I see that you love her. And when she looks at you, I see that she loves you. And at this moment, that’s enough for me to believe that you might actually be exactly what each other needs.”

I left the studio and padded into Carrie’s room, opening the door slowly to reduce creaking.

Carrie squirmed and the comforter made a scratching noise. She let out a low, sleepy mumble. I Cleaving Page 85 stood at the side of the bed and looked at her, only her chin and the underside of her nose lit by the dim orange nightlight in the hall.

“I’m up, you know,” she said. I could tell by the dullness in her voice that she had been lying awake with her eyes closed, maybe crying, her thoughts circling.

I climbed into the bed beside Carrie and wrapped an arm around her, cupping her shoulder with one hand and holding her hand with the other. I nuzzled my chin into the dimple of her collarbone, and exhaled slowly. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m an ass.”

Carrie hmphed gently. “Okay,” she said.

I gave her hand a squeeze and took another breath. “I’ve decided. It’s time.”

“Time for…”

“Me to take you home,” I said. “To my home, I mean. Will you come? For Christmas?”

With my head against her face I could feel her jaw clench and her cheeks rise, and I knew she was smiling wide and trying to be subtle about it. “Of course I’ll come home with you.”

Cleaving Page 86

The Box

Collin

April 11, 2018

The night before, I dreamed about my baby sister shivering and stuttering behind the court microphone, not knowing where to put her mouth or what to do with her hands. Suddenly she started seizing, and Dad was running to her, and then Mel and Emma next to me started seizing, and Nate collapsed, and Mom screamed, and I froze.

I woke up sweating, my fingers yearning for the little velvet box I had been turning in my jacket pocket for months. It was red with a silver trim, and when I ran my finger over it back and forth, I made shimmery streaks. I spelled Marissa’s name with my finger over and over again throughout the day, finding comfort in the shapes.

Marissa mumbled and shifted towards me. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her words coming out like taffy in her sleep. She stretched her arm across my body and rubbed my shoulder. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

Her sleepy-talking made me smile. “Nightmare,” I said. I didn’t have many nightmares, but when I did, they were usually about losing people.

She nuzzled her warm head into my chest. “It was just a dream,” she said. I imagined her saying to the same to our child, down the line, when she wanders into our room slipper-footed and tear-streaked in the dark of the night. “Tell me about it.”

“It was Livvy in the courtroom, they had her giving a public testimony. And then everyone just started… dying.” Cleaving Page 87

Marissa hummed, and I knew she was falling asleep again. “Baby, that’s not going to happen,” she said.

“I know,” I said. I stroked her hair the way she loves and I love, too. They had agreed to let Livvy do a private testimony in the judge’s quarters, where she wouldn’t feel as much pressure. She could talk freely about what she had experienced and what she wanted. That was the idea, anyway. Mel tried to coach her on what to say. Emma tried to tell her that it would be over soon. None of us would get to see how it actually went down.

The morning of, I rubbed my eyes and padded down to the kitchen before Marissa woke. It was only 5, and I had to head out soon to get to Connecticut in time. I washed the dishes that we had left soaking in the sink because we spent last night watching movies to take my mind off things.

Orange-ringed oil bubbles had settled onto the surface of a sauce pot full of water and it still smelled like rosemary and basil.

We live in a townhouse with a carpeted staircase from our bedroom on the third floor to the kitchen on the second floor. There is a balcony at the top where you can see the person in the kitchen. I like to stand there in the morning and watch her stir cinnamon into oatmeal and fry eggs, her arms moving so slow and steady. She generally wakes up earlier than me but we have a little overlap, so I can kiss her on her way out for work.

I started breakfast, and in a few minutes, she was standing on the balcony in her dotted pajama shorts and the tank-top with the straps that hung off her shoulder, her blonde hair messy and beautiful. She stood squinting one eye against the light. “Good morning,” she said.

I turned to her and grinned. “Morning.” Cleaving Page 88

She walked down and hooked her arms around my shoulders from underneath, her chin pressed into my upper back, so little it felt like a finger. “So, today’s the day,” she said.

“Today’s the day.”

She squeezed me and trailed over to the coffee maker—a housewarming gift from Mel.

She scooped the grounds into a filter and the machine started gurgling.

Coffee brewing and eggs frying, I pulled her into a hug. I feel extra tender towards her after hard nights. Sometimes one of us can’t sleep, and ends up interrupting the other’s night. We don’t hold it against each other, but it exhausts us both. After a fight, neither of us sleep well. We try not to go to bed angry at each other; this is a healthy couple practice we picked up during a brief stint of therapy when we went through our rough patch after college.

I had never been to therapy before. It wasn’t much of an acknowledged thing in my house growing up. We didn’t speak about feelings. I knew Dad was under a lot of pressure from his work and the family, but he kept it all subdued until it broke through in a fit of rage. There was quiet, and then there was yelling. Lots of it, usually directed at Mom or Nate because they just couldn’t get a grip on themselves. Sometimes it was me, if I had slipped up or spoken against him, but mostly I appeased him.

He was careful with my sisters, but Mel challenged him. When she triggered him, he fought harder to hold back because everyone knew that the worst blowouts were theirs. Her rage could rival his.

The first I could remember happened when she was thirteen. She had gone from theater practice to a friend’s house without telling anyone. Her phone had died, so she said. He paced back and forth through the halls like I had never seen him, his arms swooshing and footsteps hammering Cleaving Page 89 into the floor. He asked us for names and clicked through the contacts on our clunky Motorolas looking for numbers. Then he flipped through the phonebook for contacts he didn’t have, thin yellow pages slicing through the air and dampening where his fingers were. He and Mom must have called twenty houses. She wasn’t with anyone our parents knew to be a close friend; she was always finding more people. He was so calm on the phone with the kids’ parents—slow, polite, even coy, as though he was sorry that he had interrupted their nights. But when he finally got a hold of her, he lost it.

Whenever it happened, it filled the whole house and everybody knew who he was up against. He yelled until his voice cracked, tirades about how nobody appreciated him, and then he bashed his hand into the wall and spent the next few hours watching action movies on TV with a grimace on his face.

Whatever I did, I didn’t want to be like that. So, I went to therapy with Marissa. Dr. Ness suggested that we work on creating a more balanced life together. It couldn’t be all us, all the time. We graduated from the same school and were on the same career path, but we had to remain attached to the things that made us individuals. If we every felt stifled, we had to communicate it to each other clearly without worrying that the other would be hurt.

After a while, it became natural. Now, I always try to tell Marissa how I’m feeling. She likes it. To her, I’m not like any of the other guys.

We sat across from each other at our little four-chaired dining room table and ate slowly.

She thought I was depressed, so she flicked her tongue over her lips to make me smile. I blew my cheeks up with air and made an eyebrow bounce until she laughed. Cleaving Page 90

Afterwards, she followed me into the bathroom and sat on the toilet as I showered, one knee bent and one pretty foot hanging off. I could see her in foggy colors through the glass door.

“Are you really sure you don’t want me to come?” she asked me.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m really sure.” I had already told her not to come, multiple times, but she always needed reassurance. “I mean, of course I want you there, but I think it’s better you stay.” I scrubbed shampoo into my scalp and hung my head under the water so the foam trickled down my neck and back. She had started clipping her toenails, a foot stretched onto the counter so the pieces fell into the sink. I heard the snaps and the faucet running as she washed them away. I imagined that her nails were already stubs; she just had to busy herself because she got antsy when she sat for too long.

“You’re not going to scare me away, you know,” she said. “No matter what you do. I know that your family is going through a lot.”

“I know,” I said. “But my dad would prefer the smallest possible crowd, anyway.”

When I got out and wrapped a towel around my waist, she stopped messing with her nails to hug me again. I stood in front of the mirror and spread shaving cream over my face. She liked to watch me shave. She liked to watch me clear the white from my chin and jaw in slow, even streaks, and see the bristles sitting in a puddle of foam in the sink. She told me once she found it relaxing and I told her she was weird, but I didn’t mind the company.

“Well, keep me updated,” she said. “We’ll talk on the way, and after. I know you have to be with your family, but I’ll be here for you, too.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Cleaving Page 91

I wiped my face with a warm washcloth and studied myself on each side. I had to look nice so that the judge saw me as responsible. When my dad’s lawyer asked, I agreed to testify reluctantly. I didn’t particularly want to take a stance against anyone, but if my family’s future was going to be determined in that courtroom either way, I wanted to play a part. Mel was testifying for Dad, too. Emma wouldn’t. Nate couldn’t because he didn’t feel like he was in the place to judge anyone. That’s what he said, anyway, but really, he couldn’t stow away his holier than thou attitude. My brother liked to imagine himself the humble but brooding hero of an action movie, and such heroes couldn’t speak out against their alcoholic mother because they understood the burdens of life and couldn’t blame anyone for faltering. It might have been an accurate image—everyone loved Nate because somehow behind his stoicism they thought he had a heart full of compassion.

Marissa studied me, too. She wiped a tiny patch of wet stubble that I had missed from my face, then took her tweezers out from the medicine cabinet and grinned. “Let me do your eyebrows, at least” she said. She sat on the counter so she was at my height and pulled me in between her legs. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and closed my eyes as she carefully plucked the hairs between my eyebrows. She pressed one cool hand against my face and held the tweezers in her other hand, pinched each hair firmly first, and then gave it a quick tug and held the tweezer between us so we could both assess her success. Two thin hairs were nestled together between the prongs, curled slightly, a tiny black bead on each tip. She dropped them into the sink and moved to the next.

I couldn’t remember when or how she started plucking my eyebrows, but that was the best part. We started dating halfway through college and had become so integrated into each other’s lives that our routines were as natural to our days as going to bed at night and waking up Cleaving Page 92 in the morning. I saw her first in a lecture hall. I had thought she was so fixated on the class, but later she told me that she was spacing out for most of it. She bit the plastic clip of her pen and then scribbled urgently into her notebook. The process repeated the whole time—bite, scribble, bite. Then, I was always scanning the classroom for pretty girls. I was in college; I couldn’t help it. There were so many people to meet. She wore a sweatshirt from the school store and yoga pants, and I honestly didn’t think of her as any more than a pretty, probably-smart girl until I introduced myself after class and saw her smile. For some it’s the body and for some it’s the eyes, but for me it was that smile. It took me another month to ask her out because I had an unprecedented fear that she wouldn’t be interested. I knew that I could find someone else to go out with that weekend, worst case, but I didn’t want anyone else.

In the bathroom mirror, I brushed fuzz off of my dark blue suit and parted my hair to the side. Marissa adjusted my tie and collar and walked me out. “Good luck,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I said.

It was going to be a long drive to Connecticut. Two and a half hours at best. I wanted her to slip into the car so I could glance over at her whenever I wanted, watch her fall asleep with her ear to the window or sing along to the radio.

Before the session, we met at a diner with a neon sign and a clock on the roof. It was Mel’s idea—she thought it would be good to touch base. The six of us showed up and the waitress led us to a table next to a window, with a vinyl bench wrapped along three sides and a single chair on the fourth. There were jelly stickers on the glass, butterflies and tulips with their stems all stretched and bent by fidgety fingers. Cleaving Page 93

On our 10-hour road trips to North Carolina, Mel would be the one peeling the decals off and rolling them in her palms. I imagined us then, two parents and a gaggle of kids, already smelling like sunscreen. Having eaten only gas station snacks, we were never patient. We shot spitballs at each other and asked again and again how much time we had left, would we get there too late to go swimming, what about dinner? Sometimes we wore our bathing suits in the car so we could run right to the beach when we got to the rental house. The waitresses asked where we were heading and then we’d all get excited all over again.

I played with my Gameboy under the table until Dad made me put it away. Livvy scribbled on the kid’s menu. Emma raced through a chapter book. Mel made towers out of the sugar packets. Nate would only ever get chocolate chip pancakes, and he would spill the syrup over his sweatshirt every time. Mom wet napkins in the plastic water cup with the diner’s name printed on it and tried to dab him clean until she got fed up and took him to the bathroom.

“Don’t spill anything on the suit,” I told him, as if it would lighten the mood.

“Very funny,” he said, “I won’t.” He lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders, adjusted his tie and said, jokingly insistent, “I’m a grown man now.”

When the waitress showed up, I wondered if she thought we were going to a funeral or a wedding. Probably not a funeral, because the attorney told us not to wear black. “We don’t want you to seem too imposing,” she said. “You should seem serious, but humble. Especially you men—we don’t want them to think you’re the villain.” It didn’t make a difference to me what we wore in court, but I hated being overdressed in a diner. The waitress might ask us who was getting married. Or maybe, at this crappy diner fifteen minutes from the courthouse, they got families here all the time before the cases that would determine who gets the money, who gets Cleaving Page 94 the kids, who gets the restraining order or sent to jail on domestic assault charges. I liked the thought of families here in worse shoes than us.

As we finished our food, Mel finally asked how we were all feeling.

“They almost always side with the mother on these things,” Dad said. It was one of the only things he had said about the whole ordeal, and he only said it when Livvy went to the bathroom.

“But I don’t think they side with reckless alcoholics who can’t even take care of themselves,” Mel replied.

“Yeah, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about,” said Nate.

“They’re going for the corporate angle. They’ll say that because I have such a demanding career, I don’t have much time for Livvy.” His words sputtered out frantically and his eyes kept darting to and from the restrooms. It was a wooden sign shaped like an arrow, but he saw a ticking clock there. As soon as Livvy got back, we had to be tight-lipped and on our way to the courthouse.

“Hey,” I said, “whatever angle they go for, we’ve got your back.”

Emma was silent. This thing had devastated her. She was with us but she couldn’t abandon Mom, so she was stretched paper thin. Mom had asked her to testify for her but she wouldn’t do that, either. She insisted that she would not take a side.

“I’m gonna go check on Livvy,” she said. “She’s been a while.” She rested her napkin on the table and slid out of the seat.

“Of course you are,” Mel said. Too loud. Emma didn’t look back at her.

Dad rose a hand to the waitress for the check, but she walked by us unaware and took another table’s order, so I went up and told her that we were ready and in a hurry. Cleaving Page 95

***

I met my siblings again outside of the courthouse. We saw the lawyers we had all met—Dad’s, a wiry woman named Anita with narrow glasses and a hair bun; Mom’s, a thin blonde woman named Maura with long fingernails and square eyebrows. Anita found us all right away and took me and Mel to a private room to review our statements. It felt like clockwork, but the work of a vastly unfamiliar clock. I was supposed to talk about whether or not I felt my mom was dependable, whether or not she had been supportive of me, and whether or not I was worried about Livvy. Then I was supposed to affirm that my dad had always provided for us, but I couldn’t focus too much on money. There had to be more to his fathering. Our family vacations when he had learned to surf with us despite looking like a pale, hairy klutz on the surfboard; the vast collection of photos he had of us at all of our big moments, from recreational basketball to prom; the family dinners that were always great, when he could fit them in.

In the courtroom my father sat on one side, looking more exhausted and broken than he had after any long day of work. My mother sat on the other side, gnawing a lip, her eyeliner too thick for her age. This is how families fall apart. I didn’t see her as villainous—only the weaker of the two links, here. For Livvy, Dad was better. I thought Mom needed and deserved time to herself to take on the personal difficulties she had neglected all these years. But I knew that she had neglected them for us—as a mother with five kids and a busy husband, she had put herself aside so many times that she ultimately wore herself out and became incapable of doing so.

It shouldn’t have even gotten to that point, though. Dad should have been more patient and encouraging. Mom should have been more communicative and willing to help herself. They should have been able to settle without going to court, like a million other divorce cases, but here we were. I wished Marissa were next to me, where I could squeeze her hand to feel better. I was Cleaving Page 96 like a kid getting a shot in the arm, sometimes. It helped just to have her near. But there was no reason for her to see my family in this humiliating place. I wanted her to see the best of us, not the worst; this low that I had never actually imagined we’d reach.

I was sitting between Emma and Mel instead. They always needed someone between them these days—the whole thing had been too hard on them. Emma’s eyes were puffy with tears because she didn’t think any of us should be there. She was more fragile than the rest of us, and I always hated to see her cry. Mel had her arms folded and lips taut, probably biting the inside of her gum. When we were growing up, everyone called them “the girls.” We had all that time before Livvy was born when it was just them, two sides of a coin. Now, if Emma were water, Mel was burning oil floating on the surface of it.

Livvy was next to Emma, and Emma held her hand throughout the whole thing. Nate sat next to her, so she was comfortably surrounded.

When it was my turn to take the stand, I tried not to look at my mother. I looked at Mel, whose confidence was reassuring. I looked at my Dad and tried to focus on my sympathy for him and alienate my feeling that he could have done more to save his marriage. More therapy, more listening, more patience. I didn’t know what would have worked, but I knew that if I were him, I wouldn’t have given up. I could never look at Marissa and not feel love and sympathy for her, not believe in her and want to help her though her hardship.

Mostly, I looked at the lawyers. Anita and Maura. I tried to humanize them, tried to imagine that they were friends from college and not getting paid for the thing that would be remembered by all of us as one of the worst things we had to deal with.

I kept my comments as straightforward as possible. When Anita asked me if my mom had ever disappointed me, I said that she would miss things. Cleaving Page 97

“Do you have any examples?”

“My track meets, prom photos,” I said. “Graduation.”

“She missed your graduation?”

“Yes, in high school.”

“Why was that?”

“She was having a bad day,” I said. “She was drunk, and I guess she just didn’t make it out of the house.”

She asked me if I thought Livvy was in danger that night, and if anything, similar had happened in the past. Her face was stern when she was talking and fixed in a frown when I answered—all part of the clockwork.

Maura asked me when my dad usually got home from work and how often he spent time with me as a child—he and Anita were right about the angle.

Anita asked me what my favorite memories of my dad were, and who I would turn to if I ever needed something.

Maura asked me if I thought my mother loved us, and if I thought it was important for

Livvy to have her mother in her life. They were questions I couldn’t say no to.

Mel’s statement was polarizing. She talked about Mom’s fragility and inability to hold her weight in the family. She listed the occasions that Mom had let her down or embarrassed her until Anita respectfully cut her off

Still, Dad was terrified. He had shaven and styled his hair and even lost some weight for this day, but he didn’t believe he had a chance.

When the judge shared the verdict and the gavel hit the wood, Dad cried tears of relief and Mom knelt over her legs and cried tears of grief. I felt the tickle in my nose and knew that I Cleaving Page 98 was going to cry, too, but I didn’t know what kind of tears. He had gotten primary custody of

Livvy, and she would be allowed every other weekend and holiday. I started picturing Livvy being shuffled back and forth like that, and Mom and Dad living alone or maybe eventually with a new person who didn’t share their memories of our road trips to North Carolina and everything else about us and all they had experienced together. They wouldn’t grow old together looking through the same photo albums and talking about the little things they each remembered, and that was the saddest part of it to me. I wanted the ring box again, but I had left it in my glove compartment so I wouldn’t mess with it during my testimony.

After, they walked away from each other. Just like that, as if they hadn’t been married for almost thirty years. Mel left with Dad and Livvy, and suddenly they looked like the guilty ones to me. Emma went over to hug Mom, and I decided to go with her. Their shoulders shook in their hug and they didn’t let go for a long time.

Mom was frail and shivery in my arms. Her hair was tousled and her makeup starting to smudge. “I’m sorry things went this way,” was all I could say. I let her cry into my shoulder and tried to hold her firmly enough.

Nate came over with his hands tucked behind his back like some kind of soldier. He looked at her and then offered a short hug. “No outcome is good in these things,” he said. In other circumstances, I might have laughed at him for acting as though he had experience with

“these things” at all.

I called Marissa when I got to my dad’s house. My room hadn’t changed much since I came back from college and stripped it of valuables to take to our new place. My mattress sat alone in the middle of the room, an iceberg without a bedframe. The comforter was too long for it, and the Cleaving Page 99 pillowcases were a mismatched collection from the hall closet. I lay on top with my feet hanging off the edge of the mattress and could reach down to pull at the loops of red and brown in the carpet. But everything felt huge and empty without Marissa.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

I shook my head before realizing that she couldn’t see. “It’s hard to celebrate this,” I said.

“I think it was probably the right thing. But, you know, it all sucks.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s not a winner/loser kind of situation.”

“Things do feel different, though,” I said. “This doesn’t feel like my childhood home.” I reached for the ring box and turned it around in my hand, rotating it by the corners with my thumb and index finger. Its lid was soft against my palm, like Marissa’s cheek.

“Things are going to be different,” she said. “But I’m here for you, okay? That stays the same.”

“I wish you were here here.”

“I know,” she said. “Me too. When do you come home?”

“Sunday morning,” I said. I found the little silver latch and pushed it open and closed with the end of my fingernail.

“Okay,” she said. “Do you guys have plans at all?”

“Mel wants to go out, so I’m probably going with her. I think Nate’ll come, too.”

“How is Emma? Have you spoken to her at all?”

“Only a bit,” I said. “I’ll check in.” Of course. Without even being there, Marissa knew what the right thing to do was.

“That’s good, you all need to be patient and supportive with each other.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just wish she and Mel would bury the damn hatchet.” Cleaving Page 100

“They will,” she said. Always so confident that things would get better. I hoped she was right, but nothing felt certain enough anymore.

We went to the pub called Matty’s where kids had birthday parties at day and dads watched sports at night. Mel drank a beer, and then another, and then another. It was weird, being out with my little sister and topped by her. She drank and threw darts and played pool with suckers who didn’t know how good she was. Nate hung around, drinking an old-fashioned and making jokes. I sat at the bar, watching from afar. I felt a need to be the protective older brother, but I was distracted. I was plotting, scrolling through my calendar and texting Marissa’s family to see when they might be around to get together. I had something I needed to do.

After a couple of hours, Mel insisted we go to another bar, one outside of town where there would be music. She danced with a pretty girl in booty shorts until it looked like she was going to run off to the bathroom with her, and I stepped in.

“Hey, Little Sister, don’t you have a girlfriend?” I asked.

“Yeah, Carrie. Fuck, I love Carrie.” Automatic, candid. She didn’t catch the gravity of her words, but Booty Shorts did. I nodded to the girl, something of an apology, as she turned and walked away.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s pretty great, I hear.” I sat Mel down and got her a water.

“Fuck,” said Mel. “I gotta stop.”

Nate drove us home. When we walked in, Emma was waiting for us on the sofa with her arms crossed and leg shaking, as though she was going to scold us and banish us to our rooms.

But she had been crying. When she saw us, the tears gurgled out and she wiped them quickly with a hand tucked into her sleeve. Cleaving Page 101

“You’re back,” she said, standing in front of us like she wanted to hug all of us, her lip quivering uncontrollably.

“Oh, god,” I said. “I was supposed to text you. We went to another bar.”

“Oh, ok. It’s okay,” she lied. “I figured something like that.”

When I got home to Marissa, I hurried to her in the kitchen, lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom, then lowered her to the bed just so I could hold her.

She giggled and kissed me. “It’s only been a weekend, you crazy person.”

I grinned and kissed her more. “Crazy about you.”

The next weekend, we had dinner at her parents’ house. We gathered in the family room to play charades, because that was one of those cheesy things her family liked to do. Her sister had shown up unexpectedly and her dad couldn’t stop smiling all night, but she had no idea until I stood before them all and got down on one knee, the little velvet box open in my hand.

Cleaving Page 102

Play Until You Win

Mel

December 15, 2018

The five-year-old in the booth behind us ripped apart sugar packets and made designs with the grains as his parents bickered. One of them had forgotten to take the chicken out of the freezer and it wasn’t ready to cook for dinner, so they ended up at the local Friendly’s buying the kids chicken tenders and sundaes. Laminated menus in hand like shields, they fought over who was supposed to remember. It was one of the silliest arguments I had ever heard.

Carrie grinned at me from across our table. She chewed and sucked on her straw until the tip was flattened and she could fit it between her teeth. “I’m so excited to be here,” she said, gnawing at the plastic as if it would stop her from being too enthusiastic. “Even though I can’t for the life of me figure out why you took me to a Friendly’s instead of some cool local place.”

Boxy red lamps and glossy advertisements hung from the ceiling. A horde of teens about Livvy’s age sat in the corner. They gossiped over phone screens and slurped the Coke left between ice cubes. The girls wore leggings and white sneakers and spoke like a unit, each of them happy to have backup. The boys had scraggly chin hairs and Adam’s apples that bobbed when they laughed their hearty laughs that sounded too deep for their bodies.

“We really don’t have many cool local places,” I said. “And besides, when I was a kid, this is where everyone came after sports games and plays,” I said. “I got this clown-face sundae with cherry nose and an ice cream cone for a hat. So it’s very sentimental, you see.” Cleaving Page 103

It was also the first restaurant off the highway, and I wasn’t ready to go to my house yet.

The last time I had been there was for the court case that split my family apart, and before that was the Thanksgiving that resulted in the court case.

I was sitting in front of the basement television with Collin and the cousins when Emma came looking. Our parents used to leave us all alone there to play video games and mess around as the adults had quiet adult conversations over wine. The entire basement used to smell of sweat and the Thanksgiving pies we brought down for seconds. Then, the room smelled mostly of alcohol.

There used to be chip crumbs buried into the carpet and greasy PlayStation controllers. Then, wet paper towels were piled up on the table over a spilled cocktail. Cousin Eric paced around the room sucking a vape and releasing clouds of cotton-candy smoke. His sisters, Ava and Sydney, giggled as they dared each other to try a sip of something. Collin sat with his hand folded over a bottle of beer, past the pre-adult phase where alcohol went from an emblem of rebellion to a college obsession. After spending the day with the family for the first time, Marissa slept off jet lag in his bedroom. They had hung out with the parents upstairs until she started falling asleep at the table, and he had tucked her in and joined us in the basement.

I had turned 21 a week before heading home for Thanksgiving, and I held a crappy Old-

Fashioned proudly made by Eric, who was set on becoming a bartender but not legal yet. I was only getting tipsy enough to deal with Thanksgiving. Emma couldn’t stand the drinking either way, and when she approached us there were lasers coming from her eyes. I lowered my drink to the table, and Eric waved his cloud away and tucked the vape into his shirt pocket. We were like schoolkids caught by the study hall monitor. “Has anyone seen Mom?” Emma asked. Nobody answered, so she repeated herself and stood in front of me and Collin. Cleaving Page 104

“No,” said Collin. “I haven’t seen her all night, actually.”

I craned her neck to look around Emma and continued spinning the joystick under my thumb. I felt my eyes rolling at her and I couldn’t control it. “She left out the basement.”

“What? Where the hell did she go?”

“Didn’t say,” I said.

“Shit,” Emma said under her breath. She disappeared for a couple of minutes, and then came back wearing a serious, stone-cold look. “Mel, can you come here for a sec?”

I wanted to ignore her and keep playing. I couldn’t deal with it—it had already been a taxing Thanksgiving, Mom tucked away in her room all day and Emma unable to ignore it. But she was my sister, and her eyes were pained and she was pinching the thin skin on the top of her hand like she was about to have a panic attack. “What’s the issue?” I asked.

“She took the car,” Emma said.

“So?”

“She wasn’t in good shape today.”

“She’s never in good shape.”

“She’s drunk, Mel. Absolutely lost. Hyped up on her prescriptions too. And now she’s out in a car somewhere.” Her face flushed, and she tugged at her neat brown hair.

“All right,” I said. “All right, fine. We’ll get Collin and go around the neighborhood. I doubt she made it very far.”

Upstairs, the adults sat on the couches talking and laughing. Dad was speaking with a rare looseness and grinning the way he always did when he reminisced about our childhoods.

The words rolled off his lips, his hands moved in animated gestures, and his eyes shined. “And Cleaving Page 105 there they are,” he said when we reached the foot of the steps. “My beautiful children.” Fear crept up in my throat— my age-old feeling that I would disappoint him—but I ignored it.

Collin whispered to him calmly, and Dad clenched his jaw. “Is everything okay?” Aunt

Kate asked. Emma looked to the floor; she couldn’t tell a lie for her life.

“Yeah,” said Collin. “We’re just going to run to the Stop & Shop for more ice cream.”

“Keep me updated,” said Dad.

Collin grabbed his keys from the mudroom and spun them in his hand before passing them to Emma. “I’m okay,” he said, “but you’re more okay, so.” He climbed into the passenger seat. “Better safe than sorry.” Our garage smelled like grease and mothballs, and the shadow of the tool shelf looked ominous. I climbed into the backseat, rubbing my hands together and blowing on them as Emma started the engine and all of the buttons in the car lit up.

Emma froze. “Wait,” she said. “Where’s Livvy?” We didn’t know. “I thought she would be with Dad or you guys.”

“She’s not upstairs?” I asked.

“No,” said Emma. She swung her head around and looked at me. In a second, her frustration turned to horror. I had seen her afraid before—on the nights she was sure that our parents would get a divorce, or that she would fail an exam and lose her chance at getting into college, or that I was too drunk. But nothing compared to that horror.

“Just go,” said Collin. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about Livvy.” He rested his hands on his knees and ended up gripping his slacks. He scratched the back of his neck, fuzzy from his recent haircut, and I saw sweat stains forming in the armpits of his collared shirt. He tapped his foot and looked out every window as we drove through town. Holiday music droned on as we moved to the second neighboring town. In the reflection in the window, I saw Emma’s Cleaving Page 106 eyes wet with tears. I tensed every time I heard sirens or saw red and blue lights. As cop cars drove past, I wanted to follow each one. I was assuming the worst. The third cop car was followed by an ambulance. Emma started crying as she pulled over for it to pass.

“Hey, Em,” said Collin. “Maybe I should drive now.”

“No,” said Emma, “I’m okay.” She pulled to a stop in a parking spot in the nearest lot and took a few deep breaths. “We have to find them—her. I don’t know.”

I crouched forward to reach for Emma’s hand., and she collapsed onto the steering wheel and started sobbing. “She could be hurt.” Her voice was shaky and agitated, and she could hardly catch her breath. “She could’ve gotten into an accident. She could be at the police station right now—or worse, at the hospital. We’re all thinking it!”

“I’ll call Dad,” said Collin. “We can check with the police, just to make sure. I’m sure it’s okay. Maybe she’s home already.”

“Dad would’ve told us!” Emma said.

I squinted across the parking lot towards the old Blockbuster replaced with a hardware store. A car in the lot across the street was parked crooked, one wheel on top of the curb and another rammed against it. “Guys,” I said. “Oh my god, she’s here.” I swung the door open and ran across the street, flailing my arms at the honking cars. Collin followed me and Emma sprinted to catch up, tears still spilling down her cheeks. I stepped over a puddle of vomit on the pavement and yanked the car door open. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Mom sat in the driver’s seat fumbling through her handbag. She reeked and her eyes strained under the glare of the streetlight, and I wished she had left Livvy alone and run herself into traffic. Emma rounded the car and opened the passenger’s door, where Olivia sat in her winter-themed pajamas. “Livvy! You’re here!” Cleaving Page 107

Livvy got out of the car and Emma hugged her tightly, both of them crying and crying.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t know what to do.”

Mom held a hand over her eyes and tried to look at me, but I wasn’t sure she even knew who I was. “I just wanted to go for a drive,” she said.

“You’re a fucking idiot.” I slammed the door and walked over to my sisters.

Livvy’s hysterics made it difficult to piece the story together, but it started with Mom telling Livvy that she had to come with her, that they had to go somewhere. Livvy didn’t know where. Every time she had seen a police car, she got scared and begged Mom to stop. She realized Mom was drunk and she knew from health classes that driving drunk wasn’t safe or legal. She didn’t want her mother to go to jail. Stuck in the parking lot for half an hour, she was afraid to call someone—she didn’t want to cause any problems.

I kept talking to Livvy as Emma ran into the grocery store and got Mom baby wipes and a liter of water. Collin retrieved his car from the other lot and moved Mom to the passenger seat to drive her home. Emma drove us in Collin’s car, me in the back trying to keep Livvy occupied with stories about past holidays. The year we played Monopoly for hours on Christmas Eve, and it got so late that we didn’t realize it had turned to Christmas. When it snowed on Thanksgiving, and we made an entire family of snowpeople, and even Dad got his knees soaked in ice and white powder to help with an igloo. The time we forgot the pie, so Uncle Drew ran us to the grocery store to gather ingredients and pull one together before the turkey finished cooking. “We still have some pie at home, you know,” I said. “We saved a piece of apple for you, with the last scoop of ice cream.”

Cleaving Page 108

***

Between that Thanksgiving and Christmas, our household dropped from seven to six. Mom’s remaining things might as well have been wrapped in yellow tape. There had to be sides. Mom had put Livvy at risk, and I wanted her out forever. That woman should not be allowed to destroy this family. It doesn’t matter that we each have half of her genome.

Emma disagreed. She wanted our family to stay together, to give Mom a chance to recover without losing her husband and five kids. She warned me that Livvy would have to take the stand and tell the court that she didn’t want to be with her mother, and we couldn’t do that to her. We fought through the whole process. Now, I felt the ghosts of everything we said to each other roaming the streets of my hometown.

Having Carrie there felt strange. I had only brought one other girl to the Friendly’s. Lana.

I thought about her, and Kylie, and everyone else I dropped in my path.

“You better be getting that sundae,” Carrie said. Her smile was always inviting.

“If you insist,” I said.

When the sundae showed up, its ice cream cone hat was replaced by halved peanut butter cups that were supposed to be ears. I picked the bright, sticky cherry off and popped it into my mouth. It left a pink ring on the melting mound of ice cream. They hadn’t taken off the stem— must have gotten lazy or figured that I was big enough to handle it—so I held it between my teeth and grinned. I couldn’t help it. On our first dinner date, I had seduced Carrie by knotting a cherry stem with my tongue. It was one of my moves. Now it just made us laugh.

As we left, I held her hand. That was something I had never done with the others, not as comfortably. I kissed her knuckles and welcomed her to my hometown, and then I won her a rubber duck with a cowboy hat from the play-until-you-win claw machine at the entrance. Cleaving Page 109

***

It was quiet when we walked into the house. I don’t know why I was expecting some kind of fanfare. There was one string of Christmas lights around the porch, and a wreath with a ribbon and fake red bells in the foyer. We lowered our luggage and assessed the situation, nobody around. The family room TV wasn’t on, and we didn’t hear footsteps. Carrie saw the mahogany piano to the left, a basket of music books and a brass desk lamp on top. It always looked picturesque, even though nobody touched it.

“Ooh, do you play? Why didn’t I know that?”

My parents had arranged lessons for us in middle school, but I hated to get up early for them and the teacher smelled like canned soup. “Emma’s better at it,” I said. She was better at most delicate things that required specificity and patience.

Carrie rubbed my shoulder with her thumb. I swallowed hard. Of course, the first damn thing I say is about Emma. We were going on a year of little to no communication and it had started to feel like I should move on, but I couldn’t just move on from my sister. We walked past her room to get to mine. I knew she was in there, probably sitting on her bed and listening to us come in, our footsteps heavy with our luggage and winter coats scuffing, but her room was quiet.

When we got behind my bedroom door, I took Carrie’s coat off and wrapped my arms around her waist. “I’m sorry you didn’t get much of a warm welcome,” I said. “Everyone’s probably tired. Nate got in late last night—he’ll sleep all day when that happens. Collin and

Marissa are getting here at the end of the week. I’m not sure what my dad and Livvy are up to.

Emma is, well, you know.”

She kept shaking her head as I talked, and kissed me when I finished. “It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t need anything special.” Cleaving Page 110

“Yes, you do,” I said. “I’ll give you special.” I pulled off her shirt and kissed her, moving my hands up her back and shoulders. I took a step forward and she took a step back, until we hit the edge of the bed. I kissed her neck and she ran her hands under my shirt. Then we were taking everything off and clinging to each other on my bed so that I couldn’t think about anything else.

After, we lay together and she finally got a chance to look around my room. There wasn’t much in it; almost everything had been moved to Boston. My walls were gray and my curtains were heavy and red, almost velvety. I had a guitar and a shelf full of video games. One wall held a series of three black and white photos. Another had the splatter-painted wooden ‘M’ from when Emma and I shared a room. I stared at the initial and thought about how the hell my life had reached this point. Carrie ran her fingers through my hair and I felt her breath on my neck.

“It’s nice here,” she said.

I turned to face her and we lay there smiling at each other like a bunch of giddy teenagers. “It’s nice to have you here,” I said.

“How about this,” she said. “How about we just go knock on Emma’s door ourselves.”

“She doesn’t want to see me,” I said.

“Come on, really? I bet you she wants to meet me.”

“She will mee you when she decides to show up,” I said. “Can’t we just stay here together, please?”

“Yeah, okay.”

I kissed her again, and I was perfectly okay just kissing and touching her all day without seeing anyone else. She seemed okay with it, too. She knew that this was how I handled stress; like an anxious puppy humping a blanket. Cleaving Page 111

We were thinking about ordering pizza when someone knocked hard on the door. I thought it was Nate, so I yelled for him to wait, got dressed, and rammed a hand against the door as Carrie pulled her shirt on and hid her legs under the comforter. When we were ready, I opened the door to see Emma having just turned away to go back to her room. “Wait, Em!” I said. Too desperate. I closed the door and took a couple of frantic steps towards her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was you.”

She turned to look at me and came back. She looked different, but I couldn’t figure out how except that her arms hung looser when she walked and her eyes were tired. “We need to get dinner,” she said. “Dad and Livvy are coming home and he wants us to order now.”

“Oh, they’re not here?”

“He took her to therapy. Sorry, I was supposed to tell you.”

“Oh.”

“So what do you want?”

“Wait a sec,” I said. The doorknob clicked in my hand as I turned it. “Carrie’s here.”

Emma’s eyebrows rose and her face morphed into something friendlier and more excited as Carrie came forward to shake her hand.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” Carrie said.

“Hi! I’m sorry, Mel said she was bringing you but I honestly didn’t think she’d go through with it,” Emma said. “You know, Mel is weird about these things. She’s never brought someone home.” Her cheeks reddened and I knew she thought she was saying too much. “It’s so nice to meet you!”

She hugged Carrie, and I stood off to the side feeling like a fool.

“We were going to order dinner,” Emma said. “Do you have a preference?” Cleaving Page 112

“We were thinking about pizza,” I said. “Seems easiest.”

“Okay,” said Emma. “Yeah, we can do that. I’ll call it in. Um, pineapple?”

I grinned. She didn’t return it, but this was our thing. Everyone else in the house was in the camp that thought pineapple on pizza was an abomination. “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do one

Hawaiian and one sausage.”

I kept a hand on Carrie’s leg as we sat at the table with everyone. They were all happy to meet her. She told them about the jobs she was looking at in California and they listened attentively.

She talked about Colorado, and Nate wanted to hear all about the mountains. Then they got into a debate about science and art and neither of them got too frustrated to continue. That’s what happens when you put two natural conversationalists together, I guess. Even Livvy liked to talk her. They talked about biology, because it was Carrie’s major and Livvy still thought she might become a geneticist.

When Collin and Marissa arrived, we went on a double date to dinner and bowling.

Carrie and Marissa were both terrible, so it turned into a competition between Collin and I with them as mediators.

Carrie helped Dad with the cooking for Christmas and we all went to the mall together to get last-minute presents.

On Christmas Eve, we crowded onto the couches with Carrie’s best hot chocolate and watched the classics. She filled a space in my home that I didn’t know was there. She held her mug the way she always does with both hands woven together around it, and I started to look at her finger and imagine a ring there. I glanced at Collin and Marissa, cuddled on the couch with Cleaving Page 113 matching pajamas and wool socks, all tangled and perfectly comfortable with it, and I felt like the biggest fool in the room for ever resisting the idea of being with someone forever.

Mom once told Emma and I never to get married. I had just turned 18, and Emma was 15. On a rain-beaten deck of a vacation home in the remote Outer Banks of North Carolina, Mom sat barefoot with her pants soaked up to the crotch, swirling a glass of purple wine and staring into the sea with dead eyes. I watched her from the couch for an hour, sitcom reruns playing quietly on the TV. She walked down the wooden path over the dunes to the beach, the moon casting her shadow in front of her and distorted shapes of tall beach grasses all around her. I couldn’t see her after she got beyond the dunes, but I figured she had walked well into the water, far enough to soak herself but not far enough to be swept away by the current. The year before, I might have followed her or told Dad, but I didn’t have the energy.

Now, she had settled into a damp wooden recliner. Her head fell down a few times, and I imagined that she was trying to cry but couldn’t get any tears out, so her jaw was tight and her eyebrows furrowed.

Emma walked into the family room with her hair neatly combed and parted to the side.

She smelled fruity and wore whimsical pajama shorts with palm trees and sand buckets printed across them. I wore sweats with OBX North Carolina printed across the ass and had my hair tied up in a bun, still sticky with sea salt.

“The boys are still in the hot tub; can you believe that?” Emma said. “They’re going to fall asleep in there.” She filled a glass with lukewarm tap water and sat next to me.

“People die that way,” I said.

“What the hell,” said Emma. “That’s not funny!” Cleaving Page 114

“Wasn’t joking,” I said. I let her squirm for a moment before adding, “Relax, Em, I’ll check on them before I go to bed.”

“When will that be?”

“Not sure, why?”

“I don’t know,” said Emma. “Maybe I just miss sharing a room with you.”

“Right.” Having someone to talk to after nine o’clock was nice when we were younger.

We sometimes pushed our beds together and hid under the blanket with Gameboys and iPods, luminescent green stars plastered on the ceiling above us. But when Dad added to our

Connecticut starter home years ago, we weren’t resistant to having our own rooms. Sharing a room at the beach house brought back memories.

“Hey, have you seen Mom?” Emma asked. I glanced to the porch, and she stood abruptly from the couch. “We should go sit with her.”

“I’d really rather not.” I was perfectly happy remaining with my back to the glass and the glow of the television filling the space.

“Mel, come on.” Emma looked at me, lips parted and forehead wrinkled. She wanted me to be patient with Mom, but I was sick of that. Emma just couldn’t turn off her unconditional support.

“I don’t want to,” I said.

Emma made a move for the door and scoffed to let me know that she didn’t approve.

“Okay, fine, I’ll be out in a minute,” I said. I watched from inside as Emma sat next to

Mom. Mom hardly moved. Emma lowered her water to the foggy glass table between them and tried to start a conversation, but the way Mom rolled her head to look at Emma made it clear that she couldn’t focus on anything. I opened the cooler next to the fridge and sank my hand into the Cleaving Page 115 freezing water to grab a beer. Only a couple of shrunken ice cubes floated on the surface from the day at the beach. The label was saturated and the bottle dripping. I stuck it into a torn foam sleeve branded with the beach rental company’s name and slid open the glass door to the deck, its rubber liner scratching against the track.

Emma stared at me. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a fucking beer,” I said. Emma knew that I had my first drink in the 10th grade at a neighbor’s party, and plenty of drinks at parties after that, only because she’d catch me sneaking through the backdoor or throwing up in the bathroom we shared. But she didn’t know about the stash in the back of the old fridge, tucked away in the basement at home behind the uneaten homemade soups and the boys’ protein drinks. Emma looked to Mom as if expecting her to stop her underaged daughter from having the drink, but she had closed her eyes.

“If you’re going to make me sit with her, I might as well drink with her,” I said.

“Girls,” Mom said suddenly. “We’re on vacation, can’t we all just be nice?” She tapped

Emma’s arm and rocked her head to the side, slurring on every word. “Lighten up, sweetie.”

I lifted my feet onto my chair and leaned back—I had won. Emma stared at me with disgust as Mom droned on about how she only wanted a nice family vacation. I stared back because she couldn’t intimidate me. “I really thought this would be good for us,” she began. “I don’t know why I always think that, you know, it never is. It never is good. No chance. Your dad, you know, your dad. Your dad is terrible.”

Then, we focused only on our mother’s words. Tears built up in Emma’s eyes and anger tightened my chest. Emma hated to hear our parents fight. Even after we moved into our own rooms, she would find me whenever it happened. She knocked quietly on my door and I let her Cleaving Page 116 come in without complaining. I learned to distract her with Netflix or gossip. But then Emma started airing out her worries that our parents would divorce and tear the family apart.

By this time, I believed that our parents weren’t compatible at all anymore. I couldn’t remember a time in which they had been affectionate with each other, except on special family occasions or when they were both inebriated. I imagined they were once in love, but what was between them now was resentment. Dad worked too much and had little patience when he got home. He loved his family, but he had a short temper and saw things only in his way: reasonably and practically. Mom had emotional needs that he couldn’t fill. She wanted to go on date nights and take the family on adventures. He was always tired and worried about money. She wanted to speak openly about her feelings and fears, and know that he was struggling right by her side. He wanted to focus on what needed to be done in the house and how they would accomplish it. He grew frustrated when she struggled, and she grew depressed when he grew frustrated. She was dead weight that had to be carried, and his endurance had been exhausted.

“Your dad is a repulsive monster, and I hate him,” Mom continued.

“Why do you say that, Mom?” I asked. She was wrong. He wasn’t always cheery. He was stubborn and often mechanistic, but he was not a bad person. I suspected that there wasn’t any passion between them, anymore, but nobody could be blamed exclusively for that. It was a product of a thirty-year marriage.

“He is a disgusting, fat, ugly, monster, and I just can’t stand him anymore.”

I recognized the pattern: none of Mom’s problems were ever about her. In most cases, they were Dad’s fault: She was unhappy because Dad didn’t care about her happiness anymore, lonely because he was closed off, and insecure because he didn’t make her feel beautiful. Cleaving Page 117

“Dad works hard for us,” I said. Yes, the man Emily she called a monster gave them a three-story house and enough money for all five kids to go to good colleges. He stuck by his wife despite everything, and she certainly wasn’t easy to bear, either. She had mood swings and fell into depressions. She relied on alcohol and prescription drugs for comfort. She said impulsive things that ruined friendships, and could rarely hold a job for more than a few years. All he could do was work harder to make up for her shortcomings.

“No, I know, but no, no, your father is a lazy, hairy, disgusting man. A monster.”

“Dad is not a monster,” I said. “He might get grumpy sometimes, but he’s not a monster.”

“No! No, no. I tell you, he’s a monster. I tell you, never get married, girls. Never. You marry someone and then they turn into someone else, and then you’re just stuck with them.

Stuck. I’m stuck here.”

That night, neither of us could sleep. I found a copy of Little Rascals in the stack under the boxy television in their room, the color nearly rubbed off its paper case, and stuck it into the

VHR. I climbed into Emma’s bed and lay next to her, just like we used to. Emma told me that she hated what Mom had said. She knew they were unhappy and that Mom had difficulty coping with it, but it still upset her to see it so clearly. “She was like a zombie,” Emma said. She was unsettled; she feared for our parents, for me, and for her entire family. “Promise me you won’t make a habit out of the drinking.”

I nestled my head into Emma’s shoulder and looked up, missing the glowing plastic stars.

“For real, Mel, it’s dangerous. Your brain is still developing, your body is still changing.”

I laughed. “Is this health class?”

“Promise me!” Cleaving Page 118

I squeezed her hand and pulled the scratchy beach house blanket closer to my chin. I felt something unraveling within me, and didn’t suspect that it would slow down anytime soon. I didn’t believe that I would ever find a partner who could love me. I saw myself going down

Mom’s path in an unstoppable freight car that had derailed. “Don’t worry about me,” I said.

Christmas Day, 2018

I woke to Carrie kissing my neck and lips and whispering in my ears, “Merry Christmas, baby.”

She smelled like her sweet berry shampoo and already had a neatly wrapped present in her hands. I had told her I wanted to do our presents to each other in private because I didn’t want it to be spoiled by everyone else. She had agreed, but I had forgotten the plan. I stumbled out of bed and found my present for her under the bed. We sat across from each other and exchanged, then maneuvered into each other’s arms and had sex with the shreds of shimmering wrapping paper scattered around us in the sheets.

When we made it out to the family room, everyone but Nate was waiting in pajamas.

There was fresh coffee and Emma had cinnamon buns in the oven—a tradition our parents started because they didn’t want to have to cook on Christmas morning. Collin popped his eyebrows up at me and gave me a cup of coffee.

“Have a good morning?”

“Shut up,” I said. “I’m sure you did too.”

“You’d be right about that.”

Nate showed up in flannel pants and a bathrobe that we made fun of him for. We all gathered around the tree, and it didn’t feel nearly as empty as it did last year. Dad brought out the Cleaving Page 119 camera and snapped photos of all of us like he was getting paid for it. He went around squatting and twisting his arms to get the best angles as Collin handed out the presents.

After, Collin and Marissa went around balling the remaining wrapping paper and shoving it into a bag. Nate sliced boxes with his pocket knife and flattened them. Livvy sat cross legged next to the tree, eating another cinnamon bun. When my plate was clean except for a congealed blob of icing and some cinnamon dust, Emma finished her tea and walked towards me.

“Hey, um, do you want to go for a walk?” she asked.

“In the cold?” Carrie’s hand in my lap squeezed mine and I realized that I was supposed to say yes. “Yeah, sure, yes. Now?”

“Carrie can come, if she wants,” Emma said.

“No, no,” Carrie said. “Don’t worry about me.” Everyone looked at us. Livvy smiled shamelessly but continued licking the icing from her fingers as if she wasn’t paying attention.

Dad pretended to captivated by his assessment of the photos on his camera. They all knew it was a monumental moment.

We walked to the high school, our noses red and breath making clouds in front of us.

There were mounds of dirty snow along the streets, and gray slush under our feet. Most of the houses were more festive than ours—colored lights around the entire roof, big trees glittering in the windows. I knew it was Christmas for them, but it didn’t feel like Christmas to me.

We walked at each other’s pace, and our jacketed arms brushed. I had no idea what to expect. “I like Carrie a lot,” Emma said.

“Me too,” I said.

“She makes you happy,” she said. Cleaving Page 120

“I know,” I said. “Very happy.” We passed our neighbor’s house with the trampoline and our other neighbor’s house with the pool, the spot where spiky leafless shrubs encroach on the walkway and the place where the sidewalk ends without explanation and we have to walk along the curb until it resumes—all places we both knew.

“You guys are pretty serious, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you good to her?” She fixed her eyes on the gray panels ahead of us.

I huffed and almost stopped in our tracks. “Are you asking me if I’ve cheated on her?” I didn’t know if I should laugh or yell at her—both reactions felt too strong, as though they would shatter the space between us and wedge us apart forever.

“Yeah, I suppose that is what I’m asking. It’s not like you’ve had a very monogamous lifestyle.” Emma said. “But I also mean, more generally, are you all in with her? Is she the one?”

“No, I haven’t cheated on her. And yes, I’m all in. If I have a one, I think it’s her.”

“Of course you have a one.”

We got to the parking lot and walked straight across diagonally. It was where we each learned to drive by turning left and right amongst the rows, trying to avoid the telephone pole and the parked cars and buses, the occasional tennis player or dog walker.

There weren’t any cars or people on Christmas. We passed the tennis courts. The fence around them was bent and broken in places. We walked on the path along the fields, gravel dust crunching with each step. “Do you remember that time the cops came and almost caught us all on the field?” I asked.

“Yes, of course. I hated that. Dad would’ve killed you.”

“We were just being teenagers. Smoking weed, stargazing. It was fun.” Cleaving Page 121

“That kind of thing was never fun for me,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.” It was instinctive, falling urgently out of my mouth before I knew the gravity of it.

“For what? Being an ass, insensitive to your sister’s crippling anxiety growing up?” I thought there was something teasing in her voice, and that was a good sign. “Or sorry for something else?” She looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if she was expecting anything.

I puffed out hot air.

Emma settled onto a bench next to the football field. “Okay, fine. I’ll start,” she said.

“I’m sorry.” I joined her on the icy metal. Melty trails of snow littered the turf and the wind dried my eyes. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she said. “I don’t want another crappy holiday.

I know we disagree about this whole thing, but I can see where you’re coming from. Maybe we’re better off now, I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. I think therapy is helping Livvy, at least.

Maybe she needs it. I think maybe she needed it before, and would’ve needed it regardless.

Maybe we all need it.”

“Maybe,” I said. I looked at her. She had definitely changed within the year. She wasn’t as light and watery. She looked splintered in some way. “I’m sorry, too,” I said. “I wasn’t fair to you. I could see how much you were hurting and I hurt you more because I was so fucking mad.

But I wasn’t mad at you, really. I just think we all needed the change so badly, and I needed it, and you couldn’t see that.” I thought that might be it, and we could turn around and move on.

But then she said, “Change scares me.”

“I know,” I said. We knew each other well.

“I needed time,” she said. “And help. We should have just talked like civil people.” Cleaving Page 122

“We should have,” I said. “I tried to text, call. You weren’t receptive.” I started to sweat and my neck tingled against the winter air.

“I know, but come on,” she said, “we wouldn’t have talked about that. We couldn’t. You wouldn’t deal with any of it.”

“I couldn’t. I’m not like you,” I said. “You put so much pressure on yourself. You just have to hold everyone together. I’m too irresponsible to do that shit. I just wanted to let it all happen and move on.”

“You made me feel abandoned,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears and I knew I was going to lose my shit. “Like I was the bad guy, for trying to be there for her.” One tear fell, then a second and a third, racing each other down her cheeks.

“Because that’s how I fucking felt!” I kept my eyes on her and felt myself boiling.

“I was only doing what I thought was right!” she said. When she gets upset, she starts waving her arms and enunciating every syllable frantically. “And I needed you!”

“I fucking needed you, too!”

She groaned and buried her head in her hands. I thought I could see her counting deep breaths for herself. After a long, sweltering moment, she reached over to squeeze my gloved hand. “Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry.” Her lips and eyebrows relaxed and she started to cry again, gentle and broken.

“Fine,” I said. “It was probably good that you were there for her. I couldn’t have done it, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have had anyone.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“I’m sorry I was harsh,” I said, hoping she knew how much I meant it. “You missed so much with me, though.” Cleaving Page 123

“I know,” she said. “I hated it.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I thought you stopped caring,” I said. I tried to shrug it off but I was out of steam, too.

“No, you didn’t. You had to know how much I hated not talking to you.”

“I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But that was dumb. You’re my sister, I can’t stop caring.” Maybe

I did know it, but it felt good to hear her say it. She was always the one to offer reassurance, and

I liked the feeling that she could still do it. “I really missed a lot, didn’t I? Tell me about it now.”

“I met Carrie’s parents,” I said. “And then we graduated and moved in together.”

“I’m so happy for you.”

“And I stopped drinking,” I said. I had wanted to tell her that all year, because I knew that it would unknot that part of her brain that always worries about me. When we were growing up, she saw the worst of it. She witnessed my hungover mornings, skin pasty and eyes bloated, hiding under a mound of blankets and screaming at her for trying to open my curtains. She knew how bad it was with Kylie when we were two lost girls, tethered at the heels and drowning, one sinking further into the deep just as the other managed to swim up a bit.

We were at the same party twice. The first time was at a pool party, when our neighbor Jackson offered me a margarita because he was a horny college boy who wanted to see me tipsy. I didn’t have any reservations. Jackson was a bigheaded frat-boy in Hawaiian swim trunks with a little silver cross hanging between his pecs even though he never went to church, and I wouldn’t let him make a pass at me. It was an opportunity, more than anything else. We hung out in the Cleaving Page 124 garage with two other guys and a girl. Jackson sat on the fat white lid of a cooler and told me all he knew about alcohol, life, and death. Emma tried to stop me as I reached for a beer after the margarita, but I didn’t care. I told her to relax and leave if she didn’t want to be around, but she sat firmly on a rusty Razor scooter, sipping a lemonade and trying to appear unbothered, just to keep an eye on me. She was only in 8th grade, then.

The second time was a year later when she had been dragged by her two closest friends to a high school party because they wanted to try being more reckless. I was a junior and she saw me across the room playing pong and dancing. All she did was look at me, her face blanched. I felt suspended for a moment, as though she had turned off the music and frozen me in place so I could think about it all. Then she spun around and lefts, and I shrugged it off.

Now she hugged me, close and firm. “I’m proud of you,” she said.

We decided to head back before the blood stopped flowing to our fingers and toes entirely. We walked across the turf, leaving wet indents in it. It had been a while since we had been in high school, and I hoped that a lot had changed since then. I thought I should say something, so I told her I was glad we talked.

“Me too,” she said. “And I’m glad we’re finally meeting the love of your life.”

I grinned and blushed, feeling the childish desire to pull my hood over my face.

“Just one more thing, though,” she said. “Why did you bring her?”

I slowed, confused. “Because I thought it was time.”

“Why? Is it because Mom is gone?”

“Yeah. It felt safer, I guess. Now that she’s not in the picture, we can all breathe and grow like normal people.” Cleaving Page 125

We kept walking, and I couldn’t figure out how Emma felt about that. She seemed to be holding it somewhere in her brain, twirling it around and dissecting it, deciding if she was upset.

I could always tell when her gears were turning. Sometimes it pissed me off because she was so damn careful about what she said and I just blurted everything out without a second thought.

“You’re wrong about that,” she said.

I felt the impulse to lash out again. Who the hell is she to tell me I’m wrong?

“I just mean that you shouldn’t give her all the credit,” she said, quickly. “You got to this place in which you were able to let Carrie in, all the way. You’re better than you were in high school. You can handle this relationship and keep moving forward. You’re not some kind of toxic bomb that is just going to just make everything explode around you.”

I bumped her shoulder and we walked up our steep driveway together.

Cleaving Page 126

Space Boy

Nate

June 6, 2019

Our house looked like a castle on a hill, except the hill was just a steep driveway. Two lanterns atop stone pillars at the end of the driveway lit up like the eyes of a guard dragon. Tiny gnats swarmed around them in the dark. I broke Dad’s bumper on one of them and shredded my knees on the driveway multiple times, as a kid rolling down out of control on a scooter. I liked getting scraped and bruised, back then. Scrapes—narrow red lines, unexpectedly uniform, broken as they heal. Bruises—purple-pink splotches turned black and yellow. I’m not a masochist. I wore them like battle scars, trophies from doing what they told me not to, being reckless when they told me to be careful. It wasn’t about defiance, either. It was all to prove I could do these things and survive. I was a foolish kid.

We had two garage doors. One stuck a foot above the ground, leaving an opening just big enough to crawl under on elbows. I sat in my car staring at it, the sky dark behind the house. It wouldn’t roll up automatically, but we had duct tape around the handle so we could pull it up without hurting our hands too much. I was supposed to fix it on winter break two years ago. Dad refused to do it himself because he asked me to, so he left it there as a reminder. He mentioned it every time I came home from school, almost in the same breath that he would ask how I was doing. I would really have to fix it now that I was home indefinitely.

I stopped my StarTalk episode after Neil deGrasse Tyson asked his guests how humanity is most likely to go extinct, wishing I could sit there for the rest of the podcast. Dad would be in his room for the night, but the others might be up waiting. My Jeep rumbled to silence and I went Cleaving Page 127 around the back to get my first load of stuff. The trunk and backseat were full of military-grade duffels and used cardboard boxes that held my college apartment.

It was muggy and there wasn’t any moon, but the stars were bright. The air always smelled like sweat in the summer, even if nobody was around. The other houses on the block, quiet boxes lit by yellow lights and slow-flashing TV screens, reminded me of the constraints of this life. The suburb is the worst. In the city there is excitement and movement and money. In the country, wilderness and air and the good-old us versus nature trope. People in the suburbs are too content in their boxes.

Inside, the kitchen and family room walls were splotched with pasty white primer.

Another project of my dad’s. A chunky yellow ladder leaned against the wall next to the work light with twin heads that would make my eyes burn as I painted the room. If I moved back home, I had to help around the house. No rent, just responsibilities and the endless griping of my father. I didn’t mind the work itself; it was the griping I couldn’t stand. But I had learned to suck it up over the years because someone had to be the one to butt heads with him, and I was the easiest target. It would all mean very little in the end.

Emma and Livvy were in the kitchen. Livvy saw me in an instant and skipped over to me.

She had the same big smile as always, but her skin was grayer and pimples reddened her chin and hairline. I still had her in my mind as the little kid with baby skin and no worries, but I guess that had passed when she started high school.

“Nay!” she said. “Welcome home.” She was the only one who called me Nay. It was because she wasn’t good with t’s growing up, and it stuck.

I put my boxes down, hugged her, and ruffled her hair to aggravate her. “Hey, Livvy.”

Emma tried to say hi to me, but she was nearly asleep on the couch. Cleaving Page 128

I lugged all my stuff up to my room in three trips to the car. Livvy helped and then we hung around in my room for a while talking. She spun on my desk chair and played with the puzzle box I had made in my high school woodshop. It was a cool piece, and I didn’t see any reason to get rid of it. Woodshop was one of only parts of high school that I liked—making things with my own two hands suited me.

“Are you enjoying the summer yet?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I like sleeping in. My friend had a pool party and it was kinda awful because these girls started a bunch of drama, but besides that it’s been cool.”

“Girls suck, man,” I said.

“I’m a girl.”

“I mean all girls but you, obviously.”

Livvy shrugged. “They do suck sometimes.”

“How was the musical?” I asked. She had been in the backstage crew for the first time after years of auditioning and being put into the ensemble. I convinced her to go for sets or lighting after seeing her sulk about only having one line in the show. She had a couple of friends with bigger roles and they sang their lines over the lunch table, rubbing it in her face. She only wanted to have fun with it; they thought the school musical was their path to Broadway. “Sorry I couldn’t go,” I continued. I wanted to make it, but I was stuck on campus working on a model for an engineering class. It bothered me more than it might have a couple of years ago. I felt like

I was only half of a brother—giving her advice, and then not seeing her follow through with it.

“It was fun!” she said. “You were right about the crew; it was much better than cast.” Cleaving Page 129

When we went back downstairs Emma had turned off the TV and was walking to her room, a blanket trailing behind her and picking up dust. I reached a fist out and bumped hers.

“Goodnight,” I said. She waved a hand as she walked down the hall, but then turned back to us.

“Livvy, why are you still up?” she asked.

“Because it’s summer and I don’t want to go to bed yet,” Livvy said.

“You know your brain really needs sleep to stay strong, recuperate,” Emma said.

“Especially because you’re still growing.” I grinned because it was so typical. Emma was always reading things and trying to teach us about them, take care of us.

“I don’t care about that,” Livvy said, forceful and unmoving. “I’m sleeping in tomorrow, anyway.”

Emma stared at Livvy, her eyebrows furrowed and lips parted, as though she wanted to say more but was too tired or worried that she’d set something off in Livvy. I didn’t understand what—Livvy wasn’t quick to anger, but there was some kind of thunderstorm in her face. Was

Emma afraid? She mumbled and kept walking, pulling the blanket back up over her shoulders.

I didn’t want to sleep, either. I made a sandwich and sat in front of the TV for a few hours, during which Livvy finally got tired enough to go to bed.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the end of the podcast. I thought about it until I listened to the rest after my shower, sound droning through my headphones as I smoked a joint on the roof and looked at the stars. They thought our extinction would be our own fault, and I thought they were right. It wouldn’t be robots or aliens—just our own foolishness, murdering each other with nukes or using up everything the planet has to offer. I knew humanity would go down, sometime, but I hated the idea of death. I didn’t want to stop experiencing things. If I could—though I knew

I probably couldn’t—I would stick around as all of society burns to the ground and something Cleaving Page 130 new surfaces. I would be the last human alive, live in the woods with all of the post-human extinction animals running rampant, nobody left to shoot them for sport and chop down their trees for money. I’d have my own forest hut and fend for myself, inconspicuous as another species takes the seat at the top of the food chain. I just didn’t want to die and miss it all.

I could see the backyard from my roof. The old wooden playset with the sticky swing chains. The shed we painted over four times. My archery target, color stripped off. The hole we dug and lined with rocks for a firepit. Everything faintly lit with orange highlights from the shed lights and the lamp we had stuck into a tree. Fireflies flickered in the grass, and they almost looked like the night sky except that stars don’t go on and off like that.

I woke up without an alarm ringing and realized that I did feel different, after graduating. I didn’t have anywhere to go. I had to find a job, but until then, I would just be here. I figured I had a few days until Dad started hawking me to paint and fix the leaky faucet in the basement. In that time,

I would do things I enjoy.

First, I would go to the rock gym. For the climbing, but also because there was a girl I liked there and I didn’t mind the prospect of seeing her. I said hi and bye to Livvy and Emma on the way out. Livvy was making a pizza pocket for lunch and Emma was out on the patio reading.

She had a thing for that. After breakfast and lunch, she’d read and drink tea, and that’s how she spent her summer. I could never do something like that. I went around climbing, hiking, seeing movies, and taking day trips. Habits were all right, but I’d need good ones to make it to NASA— regular workouts for body and brain, lots of discipline. If I set my mind to it, I’d get it done. But

I couldn’t deal with those quiet, domestic routines that Emma needed so badly. Cleaving Page 131

Avery had worked at the gym since I had started going in high school. She only graduated two years before me, but she was in a different district, so we never crossed paths in school. I liked it better that way because it was in the real world, outside of the high school bubble. After she graduated, she had gone to a local college for her bachelor’s degree. She had been at the gym all the way through, as far as I knew, and she was the manager now.

She had a mess of dark, wavy hair that trailed down her spine when it wasn’t tied up in a bun. But she always had it tied up at the gym. A few wisps hugged her forehead and jaw when she got sweaty. Her bright amber eyes fascinated me because there wasn’t a fleck of another color in them; it was just amber.

When I saw her, she was belaying for a kid’s party. She called up to the 10-year-old shaking like a leaf on the beginner’s wall, told him he was doing great as the mom tried to get pictures. I kept looking back at her as I went about my climb. She was so patient with them.

When they went into the party room for pizza and cake, I focused on myself. I scaled half the wall, palms and cargo pants covered in chalk and back drenched. I stopped when my neck started to tingle, put my weight into the harness and let the ropes hold me. Avery was at the front desk, now, talking to a new employee. She looked at me and raised an arm in a little wave, and then I was rappelling down as quick as possible to meet her at the foot of the wall.

“Hey, Space Boy,” she said. I always grinned at the nickname. When we met and I was trying to charm her, she was impressed that I was planning to be an astronaut. She had never met someone who said that and was serious about it. I had never met anyone as beautiful and interesting as her.

She passed me a slice of pizza and birthday cake on a greasy paper plate.

I rose an eyebrow. “This shit is terrible for you, you know.” Cleaving Page 132

She rolled her eyes and withdrew her arm. “Fine, I’ll take it.”

“Hey, wait, no,” I said, swiping the plate back. “That didn’t mean I didn’t want it.”

The pizza was cold, but it had that sweet tomato sauce that meant it was from Sandro’s

Original, the best pizza place in town. I could count the good things about home on one hand, and that was one of them. Avery was, too.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to be back,” she said. The last time we talked was two summers ago, when moving back home was at the bottom of my list. I had tried to say a goodbye of sorts. After my plans changed, I would’ve seen her. I hadn’t ghosted her—in fact, I thought about her on more nights than I wanted to. Things were just too much of a mess, and it hadn’t worked out to meet up.

“I was wrong, I guess,” I said. She smirked and shook her head. “What, surprised?”

“Not really,” she said.

Every time I saw her, I expected her to be coupled with some guy that was going to marry her. But she never was. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought she was like me.

She wasn’t, though. I knew that she actually wanted to get married and have a kid someday.

“So, uh, when are you off?” I asked.

“Oh, you think you’re getting some?”

“No,” I said. Probably blushing like a damn fool. “But I’m here, and you’re here, and I’d like to catch up, if you want to hang out later.”

She looked at me. Studied me. It always felt like she was studying me, but I knew from her grin that she had expected me to ask. “All right,” she said. “Seven o’clock.”

Cleaving Page 133

***

We sat on the creaky swings in her apartment complex with burgers and milkshakes, moving lazily back and forth. Our legs were too long for them, so it was more like skipping. When we passed each other in the middle it felt like we were weaving some kind of web.

“So, you graduated, huh?” The playground was still and quiet, jungle gym and monkey bars casting funky shadows on the woodchips, colors dark and dusky. It was the only way I ever knew it, because we always hung out too late for the resident kids to be playing. I couldn’t even picture the alternative.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just last month.”

“Congrats, Space Boy. Or are you a Space Man, now?”

“Come on,” I said, “I’ve been a man for a while now, don’t you think?”

She laughed, dipped a fry in her milkshake and ate it.

“Where are you at now?” I asked.

“Saving for business school,” she said.

I cocked my head at her, trying to imagine her in a suit.

“I’d like to start my own business,” she said. “A gym, or food product, or maybe some kind of specialty clothing. And then make enough money to travel wherever the hell I want.”

“Nice,” I said. That sounded more like her—adventurous, creative, self-reliant. She couldn’t be a corporate mouse somewhere; had to be her own boss.

We let quiet fall between us, back and forth again until I grabbed hold of her swing and she wrapped her legs around my back to pull me closer.

“Are you here for the whole summer?” she asked. Cleaving Page 134

“Longer,” I said. “I’ll be here for a while. I decided not to go right into the Air Force. I’m going to look for a job instead, go from there.”

“Can you still get to NASA that way?”

“Yeah,” I said. I wouldn’t have come home if it threw my plan off too much. Not many people make it to NASA, but if I was dedicated and resilient, I didn’t see why it couldn’t be me.

My degree was strong and I had wanted this forever. “Relevant experience works the same as flight hours. If I do well enough in a job, I have a chance. Or I could get a PhD.” She laughed; it was her turn to call my bluff. I hated school and thought NASA needed more mechanics than doctors, anyway. “I might go for the Air Force if things aren’t working out in the next couple of years,” I said. “But for now, I’ll be around.”

She grinned and let go of me so she swung away with her legs in the air and my feet skidded on the woodchips.

“What?” I said. “Surprised?”

“No,” she said. “You’re not as detached from shit as you think you are, Nate.” Her lips were moist and shiny and I wanted to kiss her.

We went into her apartment and our pattern. She sat on the edge of her bed and yanked me towards her by the neckline of my shirt. I felt the fuzz of her nose against my face and neck as she got close to me. She locked her legs around me and I clasped her shoulders and held her to me, digging my fingers into her back and kissing her collar bone. Our sex was feverish and ravenous, almost like a competition of strength. It left us both satiated.

After, we drank black coffee from her French press and talked. She told me about her grandpa, who had dementia and was getting worse. I told her about my mom and the court case. Cleaving Page 135

We played Xbox on her tiny TV, messed around again on the slumped couch, and I went home feeling alive and energized.

The next day I woke to my dad’s heavy knocking on my door. I ran my fingers through my hair and got up to see him waiting in the hall, losing his patience. He was tapping a foot and looking down as though counting how many times it hit the floor before I said something he wanted to hear. I nearly laughed at his hair, dyed the dark brown it used to be. It didn’t look bad, but strange. Fifty-five years old, and he had never dyed it before. He wore a towel on his shoulders and sweat pooled in the creases of his forehead and poured down his face, wetting the thin hair under his ears so much I thought the color would wash right out. I had forgotten that it was a

Sunday, and he was home, and he had started working out after the divorce.

“Nate,” he said. “I didn’t see you last night; welcome home. Do you have any plans tonight?”

“Not yet. I might hang out with Jason.”

“I need you to take my car into the shop. There’s an issue with the tank.”

“Now?”

“It’s 2:30 in the afternoon and I need it for the week!”

“Ah, okay,” I said. “I got it.”

He kept looking at me, as if expecting more or less, and then wiped his face with the towel and left, like a bear who doesn’t know what to do after he gets his way.

As I swirled Listerine through my mouth, I found my jeans on the bathroom floor and put them on with a t-shirt that had little holes on the sleeve. It was one of the only ones I had left here throughout college, and I hadn’t unpacked my other stuff yet. Most of my t-shirts growing Cleaving Page 136 up were too short for my long torso, so I kept the ones that fit forever. This one was an old

Abercrombie from middle school, and even I was a little embarrassed by it. I spit the mouthwash into the sink, leaving a blue splotch, and left.

Livvy was asleep on the couch, cocooned in a blanket with a teen drama on. She was tiny and motionless. She had a mug next to her, and I thought it might have been coffee before I saw the wet film of milk on the bottom. Livvy always had a thing for milk—at least that was still true. I startled her awake, and for a moment her eyes were hollow and her skin pasty.

“Hey, Liv, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just tired.” She inhaled through her whole body and brought the blanket closer to her face. She was wearing a big clunky sweatshirt, sleeves so long they covered her hands, one sleeve damp and frayed from where she had been chewing on it—a nervous habit.

“All right,” I said, deciding to ask Emma how Livvy was doing. She might think it weird for me to ask. They all thought I was so detached. But there was no way I was noticing something that she wasn’t, and she might even be impressed.

Jason came over later, chin stubble longer since I had seen him a few months ago, but otherwise the same. I met him in first grade, when we were both put into a class for kids who needed extra attention. They didn’t call it special ed, but our class was less than half the normal size and we were all better at slow, hands-on learning with rubber-band balls and putty and things. Later, I learned that I was put into it because I was called distractible, and had a hard time progressing in

Kindergarten. Jason was dyslexic and wrote his letters like hieroglyphics. Cleaving Page 137

Jason had a deep, hearty voice like a radio announcer. He wanted to be an animator, because he learned to make up for his bad letters with great drawings. He had been single for most of the time I had known him because girls thought of him as too good a friend to kiss.

We watched Futurama reruns and talked about college. He had this really weird roommate who believed in absurd conspiracy theories. We were both glad to have graduated.

“I saw Avery last night,” I said.

“Of course, you did,” he said. I shook my head and took a sip of my Coke. I wanted to defend myself, remind him that it had been nearly two years, but then I’d be confessing that I missed her.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She’s good. She’s still at the gym, but she wants to go to business school. I think she’s going to do it. She just needs to save enough.”

“Man, I don’t know why you don’t just date her,” he said.

“Yeah you do,” I said. Avery and I had talked about dating, but decided not to do it. I wished she could just be in a long-term relationship with me without looking for something else in the end, but she couldn’t. She probably hoped I would shape the fuck up and decide that marriage isn’t always a bad idea.

“All right, well I think it’s stupid as hell.”

“She’s living on her own,” I said. “It’s pretty cool. She’s still really nearby, but she finally moved the fuck out of the house.”

“Lucky woman,” he said. Jason still lived at home with his mother and three brothers.

They had an overcrowded house that was always falling apart somewhere, but it was one of the most loving families I had ever known. Cleaving Page 138

“Uh-huh,” I said.

As we were talking, Emma came in and sat with us. Jason thought of her like a sister and always made sure to ask her how she was doing when he saw her.

“I’m doing okay,” she said. “Still not used to this whole arrangement, but we’re working on it. I’m glad Nate’s home.”

“Yeah, divorces suck,” Jason said. His father had left them young, and his mother held the fort. I couldn’t imagine their family any other way, though.

“Hey, how do you think Livvy is doing?” I asked Emma.

She hesitated, her eyes flicking between me and Jason until she decided that it was okay if he heard. “I think she’s having a hard time.”

“In what way?” I asked.

“She’s still not sleeping. You know, it got better for a few months around Christmas, but then we left again and she must’ve gone backwards,” she said. She talked slowly and picked at her nail, trying to stay calm. It was unsettling that I didn’t know any of this already. “She’s also lost some weight, and she’s just sort edgy all the time.”

“Dad’s still having her go to those appointments?” I asked. The guidance counselor had suggested therapy. It wasn’t mandated, or anything, but she had thought Livvy might be having a difficult time with the divorce and everything.

“Yes. I think it makes him uncomfortable to take her there all the time, but he’s trying.”

That was no surprise—Dad probably hated the idea that his little girl could be broken. He loved us, but even more than that he needed the sense that we were doing okay. It was so integral to his vision of himself: the hardworking family man. “What about you?” I asked. “Have you been able to talk to her?” Cleaving Page 139

“She’s not really interested,” Emma said. She looked to the floor and her face washed over with grief. She wanted to be the one to save everyone, and I didn’t know how she’d stand it if she couldn’t get through to her little sister.

If it were my turn to try, I didn’t have a clue how to. “All right,” I said. “I’ll see if I can check in with her.”

Fix pipe downstairs. Organize shed. Pull weeds. Fix garage door. Gutters. Paint. Livvy dentist

Wed. Livvy appt Thurs.

All things on my dad’s list, scribbled onto yellow loose leaf ripped off a pad of paper and stuck to the fridge with my name on top. He had terrible handwriting like me.

I was too slow with things. I forgot to pick up his car from the shop and he snapped at me for it. It didn’t help that the night before I was supposed to pick it up, I had been smoking weed.

“You can’t do that shit here,” he said. “This is my house, not a college dorm. Your sister is downstairs.”

“Livvy’s not a kid anymore,” I said.

“That’s not the point! It smells awful and you look like a pothead. You have to stop if you’re gonna get a job.” I was too slow on the job search, too.

“Whoa, I’m not a pothead. I barely do it.”

“Cut it out or take it somewhere else,” he said. He had asked me to paint one week, and I went out hiking with Avery instead and then spent the night with Jason and some other friends.

“What have you been doing! Why couldn’t you do the kitchen?”

“I forgot,” I said. It was pretty much true. After I had decided to go on the hike, painting was so far in the back of my mind that I did end up forgetting. Cleaving Page 140

“That’s bullshit!” he yelled. His face twisted into a snarl and his arms were stiff against his sides, fists clenched. He wouldn’t do anything with them, really, but his knuckles were white and his eyes fire. “There’s so much crap to do around here, Nate! You have to do your fucking part! Stop wasting damn time!”

“I just got out of school! I’ve been home not even a month!”

“I know you haven’t been sending out applications, going to interviews. You want to be this big successful guy, but you aren’t doing shit!” He got closer to me, his chin squared and the veins on his red forehead popping. That pissed me off even more than anything he could’ve said—the way he stood in front of me with his wide shoulders and big chest, eyes unblinking. I never understood how this man could be so awful, insecure, and full of a quiet, committed love for his family all at the same time. In these moments, he was just a raging ape.

“I’m working on it, all right?” I said.

“You’re not working on anything!” he said.

“Fuck you!” I said.

“Fuck me? You know, fuck you! Fuck you!”

After that, I was quiet and I didn’t let him bait me again. I left him alone, sliding through the door without touching him. I heard him kick the wall and slam his hand on the wall.

I spent the night at Jason’s house and returned the next morning to ask Livvy if she wanted to come see the new Men in Black with me and him. A stupid-fun movie sounded like a good idea.

She was alone in the family room again, in pajamas with a pillow wedged between her arms, and the sunlight coming in blanched her skin. I thought she was asleep until I saw the TV reflecting Cleaving Page 141 in her glasses, her eyes open but narrow slits staring lifelessly. I hadn’t stopped thinking about how unfair all of this was to her.

She was excited when I invited her. We got appetizers and desserts at Applebee’s after the movie because she used to love the place. Before they redid the strip mall, they had a wishing fountain in a corridor between the restaurant and the other shops. Livvy walked sneakered heel to sneakered toe along the edge, pretending to be the fairy that grants everyone’s wishes. She’d point out the shiniest penny in the smelly water and claim that it was the strongest wish, she’d make that one come true first. She told us with such detail whose wish it was and what they were getting, then jump down and spin and twirl her hands around and tell us that it was done.

Now, she sat across from me rolling a straw wrapper into a ball. The walls were plastered with pictures of local recreation and school sports teams—the only claim to fame anyone here had. Orange-tinted lighting made everything look vintage and more important. It was too quiet. I leaned on the waxy table atop my forearms, looking at her and waiting for one of us to come up with something significant to say.

As we ate sundaes dripping with the sickly-sweet chocolate syrup that burns your throat,

Jason and I started debating whether the movie did the series justice—filling the silence.

“Do you guys smoke weed?” Livvy asked.

Jason’s eyebrows popped up as he turned to look at me, laughing through his spoon of ice cream. “I don’t know, man, this one is on you.” Everyone always thought we were more into weed than we were because we had long hair and stubbly faces.

I stared at her, confused and fascinated. “Um, why do you ask?”

“Okay, maybe it’s a rhetorical question, because I know you do, I can smell it” she said.

“I guess I mean do you have any?” Cleaving Page 142

“Why?”

“I want to try it.”

I put my spoon down and folded my hands on the table, feeling that it was my time to be a responsible older brother. “Okay, yes—I do have some. But, no—I don’t smoke very often.

And, no—I’m not going to teach my little sister how to do it.”

“But why,” she said. “If you don’t, I’m just going to do it on my own.”

I laughed and shook my head, but she had a point. “Okay, fine. Listen. We’ll go do it, just so you can try it.”

After we left, I dropped Jason off and drove Livvy to an unused park near town and we sat on a flat tire swing, rocking back and forth as I passed her the joint and told her to inhale slowly. I watched closely as she brought it to her mouth, hand shaking and eyes nervous. I knew it wouldn’t kill her—I didn’t believe in the “gateway drug” theory—but it was strange to see the puff of smoke circle her face. She was my youngest sister and I always kept her in a separate place of my mind. Now, the weed was an equalizer. I smoked with her just as I would smoke with my friends or alone on the roof. She only coughed once, but ended up telling me she probably wouldn’t do it again.

“Why did you even want to?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I thought maybe it would be helpful. A coping mechanism, or whatever.” I wondered if that was the therapist’s term or her own. But she wouldn’t elaborate, so we went back into the Jeep and I drove us around town a few times with the windows open until the smell went down. When we pulled into the driveway, I told her to spray Febreze and change her clothes before she saw Dad.

She laughed. “I think I got that part, thanks.” Cleaving Page 143

***

The next morning, I got up early to paint. I wore an old t-shirt and a ripped pair of jeans, stood on the ladder with the fluorescent lamp in my face, and rolled streaks of color onto the wall. Dad was excited about repainting—he must have gone years hating the colors on the walls. As I worked, Livvy came into the kitchen. I had barely noticed her because the floor was covered with a white tarp that muted her steps.

“Wow,” she said. “You’re actually doing it? After that whole thing?”

“I don’t really have much of a choice,” I said. I had hoped she didn’t hear Dad chewing me out, but I sorta knew she did. The roller made a sticky crinkling sound as I moved it.

“Sure, you do,” she said. “Why don’t you just say no?”

The lamp brought out the sacks around her eyes and made the irises look tiny. Her nose was red and her skin dull and greasy. She wore baggy clothes that swallowed her. Suddenly, she reminded me of Mom—tired and weak.

Then I started thinking about how many times I had seen her in the last two weeks, and how much I had seen her eat, and what Emma said, and smoking weed on the tire swing, and I realized that I had to choose my words carefully. “It’s not worth it with him,” I said.

“But how do you deal with it?” she asked.

I lowered the roller, my arms sore, and got off the ladder. “Deal with what?” I wiped my sweaty forehead with my shirt and went to get a glass of water.

“Everything. Dad, how hard he is on you, all this crap going on. You just take it.” She followed me to the table and we sat there together. “You’re like, cool as a cucumber.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, that’s just the way I am. I don’t like to worry about shit.”

“But how? How do you do that? Just not care? Not feel depressed, or pissed, or worried?” Cleaving Page 144

“It’s not about that,” I said. “You can’t stop feeling things, and you shouldn’t. I feel things, too. I care about things.”

“But you don’t show it. Like, there’s that girl—The one from climbing, that you’re always with, that you bring here sometimes.”

“Avery,” I said. Avery. I hadn’t realized that Livvy recognized her.

“You obviously like her—you probably love her,” she said. The word made me uncomfortable; I just didn’t believe in it, in the romantic sense. But I also didn’t know what other word to use. “And she must like you, too,” Livvy continued. “But you aren’t together, and you’re just okay with that.”

I held my head in my forehead, sweat dripping along my ears, and when I looked up again, I think I saw her reality for the first time. The dead eyes, the insomnia, the clothes that left as little of her to be seen as possible. She was tearing herself up inside and she couldn’t take it anymore, but she couldn’t get away from her feelings.

“I’m not really okay with it,” I said, not knowing if I was being honest or just guessing at what she had to hear. “Things get hard for me, too. I feel a lot of things.”

“Well you don’t show it,” she said.

“Well, maybe that’s not so good,” I said. “Maybe I’m the one who needs to learn.”

Livvy looked down at the table, and I knew she didn’t believe me. I was disappointing her. I had finished my water, and the only thing left to do was spin the cup around in my hand and watch the little drop at the bottom race along the edge. “You’re talking to someone, aren’t you?” I asked.

Livvy shook her head. “If you mean therapy—no. I go and we sit across from each other and just stare. She just waits and waits for me to say something, but I don’t want to.” Cleaving Page 145

I wanted to ask why, but it was probably our fault and I didn’t feel enlightened enough to talk about it. “All right then,” I said. “Let’s make a deal.” I stood, stretched my back, pushed on the side of my head until my neck cracked, and headed back to the paint tray. “It’ll be like an experiment,” I continued. She watched me just like I knew she would, curious. “You start talking more in therapy, and I’ll ask Avery out on a real date.”

Livvy grinned wide, couldn’t help her intrigue. “You won’t do that.”

“Yes. And then you tell me how it went for you, and I’ll tell you how it went for me. And if it works, we’ll keep on going. And that’s how we’ll test it.”

“Okay,” she said. “Fine. Deal.”

“Good,” I said. I shook my arms out and dipped the roller again, the drying color on the sponge coming to life, and stepped back onto the ladder.

Cleaving Page 146

Spring

Collin

April 18, 2021

Marissa and I wanted to get married in the beginning of the spring when the cold was gone, the grass green and sodden from melted snow, and everything blooming. Birds flirted and sang and rabbits and squirrels came out of hiding. We wanted our relationship to be part of this natural transition, hopeful and fertile after the barren winter.

We rented out an entire inn in an old mining town between Pennsylvania and New Jersey revamped into an art and culture hotspot. Situated next to a river with a waterfall pouring under a steel bridge, it had a cleanly landscaped courtyard, a big stone fireplace, and a winding staircase leading to a ballroom with windows on every side. We loved it. A combination of cozy and elegant that checked all our boxes.

Every room got old-fashioned keys with wooden plaques attached to the keyrings, each engraved with a room number. Room service brought complimentary pastries and coffee to guests each morning. Our siblings and cousins would love that. Meanwhile, I would be eating the

Marriott’s continental breakfast across the river because I wasn’t allowed to see Marissa until after the ceremony.

I convinced Mom to stay in the hotel with me instead, promising her that I’d meet her for lunch and talk to her the night before the wedding. We booked my aunt and Grandma in the same hallway as her so she wouldn’t be alone. Yet, she only agreed once I pointed out that she’d actually be closer to me than the guests at the inn. Cleaving Page 147

I knew that Dad didn’t want to see her, and I didn’t think she was ready to see him. I didn’t trust her not to lose her grip at the sight of everyone around my nuclear family table, herself seated next to it with her side of the family. Besides, Dad was bringing Katherine.

Katherine was a sweet woman he met on a dating website for middle-aged divorcees, not even a year after the divorce. She smiled frequently and always smelled like flowers sitting in a pool of spring water and baking in the sun. She had two shaggy-headed sons, Kyle and Louis, who weren’t comfortable with us but went along with whatever she needed them to go along with. Her marriage was bad. The man was abusive, according to Dad. He couldn’t care for them like they deserved, but it took far too long for her to get away from him. I hated that kind of story. My dad was not always easy to get along with, but he wasn’t cruel. Only had difficulty managing his emotions. Katherine was good for him—around her, he thought more deeply about what he was going to say and do for fear of stepping over a line and losing his chance with her.

I met my family in the lobby of the inn. It smelled like oak and the old leather chairs around the fireplace. Wood was already crackling, and Mel stared at the flame because she couldn’t be around a fire without wanting to poke at it. Carrie stood next to her with an arm around her back, as if stopping her from touching it. Emma sat in an armchair talking to Grandpa

Alexander, her eyes almost as bright and round as his. They were two peas in a pod. But then,

Emma could be a second pea in a pod with nearly anybody if she wanted or needed to. She was kind and intuitively knew what people needed from her. If someone needed a listener, she was an ear. If somebody needed advice, she was a talker. Across the carpet from them, Dad sat with his hand over Katherine’s, her kids beside them, awkward in collared shirts and khakis. Livvy and

Nate hovered around the mini bar pouring water from sweaty pitchers and skewering lemons with toothpicks. I liked how close they had gotten. He was around the house more than any of us, Cleaving Page 148 and she needed that. He wasn’t the typical role model type, but he was trying. At the very least, he kept her company.

Everyone cheered when I walked in. My cheeks warmed and I threw up my arms and went around hugging each person. I made sure that they had settled into their rooms all right, and then we headed to brunch as a herd. The café was down a narrow road without any numbers, lined with galleries and colorful shopfronts. We sat around a long table covered with a white table cloth falling off the edges like slipping snow. There were still-life paintings from local artists on the walls and bright ceramic dishes.

“Are you excited?” Emma asked me. We passed a basket of biscuits and rolls around with a tray of butter, crumbs sticking to it as everyone slid their knives down.

“Absolutely.”

“Nervous?” Dad asked.

“A little,” I said. “But not too much. I feel ready.”

Mel and Carrie sat with their shoulders and forearms touching, whispering and laughing quietly to each other. I had never expected to see Mel like that—so entwined with another person that anywhere they went a bubble formed around them. I was happy to have Carrie there. I was also happy to see Katherine next to Dad, him smiling and blushing more than I had ever seen.

Everyone should have someone by their side; attending a wedding is brutal without that. Nate,

Emma, and Livvy stuck together to fill the gap.

I had a late lunch with Mom after brunch, and that night the entire wedding party was meeting for the rehearsal dinner. Nate and Mel made me promise to go out with them afterward.

Cleaving Page 149

I walked across the bridge to meet my mother at the café next to our hotel. My footsteps made sharp chimes on the metal. Very few cars passed. I imagined how incredible Marissa would look walking down the aisle, and my heart swelled. She was always a thought oasis for me. It was a great day, and nothing would ruin it.

My mother and I sat across from each other in a booth. She smelled like wilted lilies and had a whole face of makeup on and a new haircut, shorter and dyed reddish brown. Dad had always preferred her hair longer, but I thought she looked beautiful—albeit there was a sort of tamed sadness in her face, as if she was reinventing herself but still mourning the old. She had been lost for probably fifteen years, lacking a sense of peace within herself. She must have burned out after the early years of raising us, and now she had a chance to find herself again and was taking it. But I knew that she hated moving forward with us at arm’s length. Each of us had bits of her and bits of Dad, rolled together and built upon along our own paths. I imagined it pained her to be so distanced from the seeds she planted.

The waitress poured coffee into mugs and handed one to each of us. I was still full from brunch, but I ordered a salad to be polite.

We had been close when I was a kid. My favorite picture of her is the one where she’s in the hospital bed with Olivia. Her hair’s a mess, greasy and licked with sweat, and Olivia is swaddled in a pink-striped cloth in her arms. We’re all piled around them, little enough to fit. I’m on the bed with my lanky legs hanging off and my elbow resting on my mom’s chest. I have a jagged tuft of hair and narrow rectangular glasses that make me look a smart kid, and I’m wearing a tie-dyed shirt from a cruise ship. I’m looking down at my baby sister, her fingers wrapped around my thumb, and we are all so damn happy. Cleaving Page 150

That was before she needed the alcohol. I was too young to realize when things started to change. All I knew was that she seemed sadder and less energetic. When I got to high school and started recognizing the smell of alcohol on her, I didn’t know what had happened or whose fault it was. Was it me, or one of us? Was it her father’s death? That was just over ten years ago—a sudden loss of the chance to improve her relationship with him. Or was it just the build-up of life’s responsibilities and her inner turmoil?

“Is your room okay?” I asked her.

“Yes, it’s fine,” she said. “It’s nice, very cozy. How is the wedding preparation going?”

“Oh, we’re doing okay. The rehearsal dinner starts at 5:00, remember. You can meet me in the lobby and I’ll show you down.”

“Great, I’m excited,” she said. Her hands were wrapped firmly around her mug, layered on top of each other, the nails painted with intricate floral designs. I thought it was a little bold statement she was making—telling us all that she was doing all right.

“Me too,” I said. “I’m really happy to have you here.”

She laughed the kind of laugh that was stifling something else. “My marriage has just ended, and yours is just beginning.”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I hope it’s endlessly thrilling and happy for you,” she said.

“Any tips?” I asked. A misstep. I didn’t mean to be ironic—only wanted her to feel involved.

She chuckled. “Don’t do what we did.” Cleaving Page 151

“Okay, gotcha.” I laughed it off even though it didn’t feel like a joke. If my parents had once understood each other’s needs, that was long gone. But when did they stop understanding, and how could I prevent that from happening to me and Marissa?

She drank her coffee and quiet fell between us. The smell of burnt toast swept through the café. “Let me think about that one and get back to you, okay?” she said. “Maybe I’ll come up with some better advice.”

I met Nate, Mel, and Carrie outside of Emma and Livvys’ room after the rehearsal dinner. We waited around inside as Emma finished showering and drying her hair. Everyone had changed into comfortable clothes except Nate, who stayed in a vest and blazer.

“Why waste time changing when I should be giving my brother the best last night as a bachelor?” he said. He sat on the radiator drumming his fingers to the music coming from the

Bluetooth speaker in his pocket.

“You know I’m not going to go crazy,” I said. “I have to be ready for tomorrow.”

“Not many places to go crazy in a little town like this, anyway,” said Mel. She sat on the edge of one of the beds, Carrie beside her.

“Don’t worry,” said Nate. “We’re just taking our brother out to chill. We’ll find a bar somewhere, hang out.”

“Livvy won’t get into a bar,” Emma called from the bathroom.

“Yeah, I don’t have a fake,” Livvy said. She was on her bed, stretching her legs up to the ceiling, careless.

“Wait, do people you know have fakes IDs?” Emma poked her head out to glower.

“Would you use a fake ID?” Cleaving Page 152

“Oooh,” Nate said. “Tsk-tsk, Liv.”

Mel laughed. “Livvy, honey, you couldn’t get in even with a fake.”

“What? I could totally pass as 21,” Livvy said. I laughed because it was so ridiculous.

“That’s so bad, Livvy!” Emma teased, throwing a damp towel at her.

“Relax, okay? I’m not tryna get arrested on Collin’s wedding day.”

“We’ll find a family friendly place,” said Nate. “Some kind of bar and grill joint. Don’t you worry.” He ruffled Livvy’s hair. “We’re not going to ditch you.”

When Emma was ready, we all walked across the bridge to a pub I had seen earlier. Rain-mist hit our faces and made the metal slippery. Moonlight stretched through thin clouds and hit the droplets collected on the steel. We had wanted a near-full moon for our wedding.

Nate whistled as we walked, like an old man working a railroad. Emma walked with her hand on Livvy’s shoulder, afraid of slipping. Mel jumped up and down to freak Emma out, the bridge rattling under us.

“Do it again, and I swear!” Emma protested, only encouraging her. Carrie laughed and tightened her arms around Mel, pinning her so they had to walk clumsily as a unit.

When we were kids, Emma would’ve burst into tears. She was the easiest to torment, and

Mel was the best tormenter. It came from a place of love, but sometimes walked the border. I often had to be the mediator. As soon as Emma stopped being the youngest, she became protective. Livvy didn’t really need it, but Emma had so much to give. She wanted to take care of the rest of us, too, fill in the gaps that Mom left. She was the second youngest but still somehow the oldest of us all. Cleaving Page 153

At the pub, we crammed into a corner table and ordered chips and dip and steak fries to share. The walls and furniture were dark wood and our table set upon a barrel. It was the kind of place you could imagine the miners going to at the end of their days, faces dirtied with dust and grease, voices scratchy and eyes only comfortable in the dark. Mel beat Carrie at darts and Livvy got excited over the old-fashioned jukebox. I ordered a flight of craft beers and Nate got a whiskey.

“This is your wedding, man,” said Nate. “You’re really doing it.”

“I hope you have something better than that for your speech,” I said. I couldn’t imagine picking anybody else to be my best man, but I had no idea what he was going to do. Any one of my friends would have been a more predictable option.

“Ah, of course. I have a great speech. I’m just saying. It’s kind of insane, isn’t it? You’re getting married.”

“We all know how you feel about marriage, Nate,” said Emma. “But for Collin, this is incredibly exciting. Don’t be a downer.”

“I know. I mean, marriage isn’t for me, but I don’t care what you do.”

“You just haven’t found the right girl yet,” said Emma. “When you meet her, you’ll want to get married.”

“She may be right,” said Mel, grinning at Carrie like a schoolgirl.

“That’s a load of crap,” said Nate. “You know, relationships are fine. I’d be okay dating someone for a while. Maybe even living together. I just have to find someone who doesn’t care about making it official, or whatever.”

“But what about Avery?” Livvy teased.

Nate held a finger to his lip to shush her as she fluttered her eyelashes. Cleaving Page 154

“All right, man,” I said. “Whatever suits you.” I finished a beer and thought again of

Marissa. “I think I really got this one right.”

“You think?” said Mel. “You better know.”

“But you can never really know anything, can you?” Nate asked.

“I think thinking is all right,” said Emma. “It’s the best guess we have.”

“Well,” said Mel, “May you have years of happiness and good sex together.” I could tell she wanted a beer by the way she watched the liquids of varying shades of amber disappear from my cups, leaving a white foam. Carrie kept getting her iced tea refilled and removed the lemons that the bartender assumed people wanted, and I knew that they were really in this life together. I was happy for her. I wondered if they would be the next to marry, maybe even adopt or try to get artificially inseminated. I’d love for my kids to have cousins, and I knew Emma wanted kids but she was far from that phase of her life. Mel might surprise us all and get a jump on things.

Kids, kids, kids. I had to slow down. One step at a time. I brought my image of Marissa to my mind.

“You’re not like Mom and Dad, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Emma said. She always knew. I smiled at her, hoping it spoke my thanks enough.

Mel laughed. “Yeah, Marissa’s much more stable than Mom.”

“And you are not Dad,” said Nate, and I hoped he was right. I had love and respect for

Dad, and I didn’t think him or Mom could alone be blamed for the demise of their marriage, but he wasn’t the best model.

“Just make sure you don’t merge, either,” said Mel.

“I thought that was just a lesbian thing,” said Carrie.

“Merge?” I asked. Cleaving Page 155

“It’s when you and your partner become so connected that you basically morph into one person, lose your sense of individuality,” said Mel. “I can’t stand that shit.” I wondered if she thought she and Carrie were like that—no, I decided. They were too good together. She must have been referring to an old relationship, maybe Kylie, but I couldn’t remember the details.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “We won’t do that.” Yes, we had to take it easy or we might. With our therapist, we made ground rules. We would never work with the same company, otherwise we’d have no distinction between us and the rest of life. We would stay in touch with other people and all facets of our lives, even when the idea of being married threatens to outshine it all.

These commandments cycled through my mind without difficulty when I was a tipsy and thinking, but it wasn’t always easy. Marissa was clingy—she feared being alone, and always wanted to be close to me. It could be exhausting. But mostly, I didn’t mind—I liked to be held onto like that. Every other relationship I’ve had has ended with me getting dropped. Marissa and

I needed each other, and I almost felt embarrassed thinking about it in front of my siblings. I was supposed to be the strong one, but with Marissa I was weak. And that was okay, wasn’t it?

All the beers started to taste the same, so I decided to stop drinking. I didn’t need it. What

I needed was to think about Marissa. Her delicate fingers with the perfect, pink, rounded nails the size of children’s. Her left dimple. The freckles across her nose like a stepping path. The way she looks at me and stills the whole, vacillating world.

Did Mom and Dad ever think they needed each other like that?

After a few hours, I told everyone I had to head back to make sure I got enough sleep.

They wanted to stay late, and I felt bad leaving, but my thoughts were starting to spin.

“Yes, get some beauty rest for your big day,” Mel said. “We’ll be okay.”

Cleaving Page 156

***

On my way back to my room, I found Mom at the hotel bar. Sitting on a stool talking to the red- necked man next to her, swaying back and forth and moving her hands around when she spoke as if she was painting a picture with them.

“Mom!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, my baby,” she said. Then, to the man, “This is my baby. My firstborn. The one who’s getting married. The golden child—we call him that because he gets so tan in the summer.”

“Heya,” said the man. Name was Roger and he was here on business.

I examined my mother’s drink. A plastic cup, tinted blue, nearly empty except for a few wet bricks of ice. Most bars didn’t serve alcohol in plastic.

“It was seltzer,” she said. Roger tipped his baseball cap up to her and took his leave.

I leaned against the seat next to her, awkward with my hands in my pockets, cleared my throat and tried to decide whether to apologize.

“I like to go to bars just for fun,” she said. “To talk to people. Not to drink.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess it’s a good place to do that.”

“I just like the energy, you know? And the openness—people are more open in bars.” She went on about how there aren’t enough places to just talk to people, anymore. “Nobody talks in the park, or in the grocery store,” she said. “Everyone is on the go.

She must be very lonely, I thought. Ironically, though, the divorce might have been just what she needed. Out here, she was more than a worn out mother and failing wife.

“Hey, so I thought a lot about your question earlier, and I could only think of one good answer,” she said. Cleaving Page 157

“Oh yeah?”

“It sounds so simple, but just communicate. You know, never stop talking to her. Never stop making her feel heard. Never make her feel like she’s not bringing anything to the table.”

Of course—that seemed like second nature. I would never let Marissa lose herself in me—or anything, for that matter. And she wouldn’t let it happen, either. She was too bright a light. But would it have been that easy to save my parents’ relationship? Dad was always looking for an acknowledgment of everything that he does, but had he ever thought to give her some recognition? If he could have just been more appreciative when she was okay and sympathetic when she wasn’t, they might have made it.

I got up early the next day to shave and dress in my room. Nate and Dad met me there. In my hotel room, I stood in front of the mirror outside of the bathroom making adjustments to my hair and bowtie. Nate lounged on the sofa spinning his pocket knife between his fingers. He had gotten in one Christmas and held onto it ever since; a totem. It had a black dragon painted on the back, nearly scraped away now, and it smelled like rust. He looked comfortable in his suit, but I felt like a penguin in mine.

Dad congratulated me about how well things were going so far and asked for details about the dinner, for the fifth time. He thanked me for putting Mom far enough from him, and it occurred to me that he might be jealous of me. He once had a ceremony like this, and surely put his heart and soul into it as much as I had. He flipped through the TV channels, drinking a lite beer. When I had finally stopped messing around and stood in front of them, he looked up and grinned at me, as if remembering that this was my day. “You look great,” he said.

“Really?” I looked again at my ensemble. I felt good, but nothing seemed good enough. Cleaving Page 158

“Yeah, man, don’t worry about it,” said Nate. “You’re classy as fuck.”

We went down to the inn early to meet with the photographer and the rest of the groomsmen. We stood shoulder to shoulder and smiled, tilted our bodies for better angles. It was all compliments, best wishes, and imaginations of the crazy night everyone was hoping to have. I wanted to ask if anyone had seen Marissa, but fought the urge. I liked the surprise factor, just couldn’t wait to be alone with her again.

The wedding was more beautiful than I could have imagined. We had decked the banquet hall with pink and orange flowers and fairy lights that dangled from the walls like icicles. Marissa and her family had made most of the aesthetic choices, but I approved. I knew that Marissa wanted to feel like a princess. She had been imagining this day her whole life, and I was the lucky guy who got to fill in the pages of her storybook.

She certainly looked like a princess. Her hair was curled and held up in a hairpiece of glass flowers with tiny, delicate threads of silver for stems. Her face was like a rose petal under the back of my hand as I stroked it. I started to tear up dancing with her, watching her cheeks pinch and nose wrinkle as she smiled. Everything was a wash of color and light around her as we moved together, arms anchored to each other forever, and I hardly heard the music or the light patter of our feet. It was magic.

The food was good, and everyone was happy. Nate talked to pretty girls and strangers. Livvy and

Mel tried to get Emma to hook up with one of Marissa’s cousins with no success. With more success, Carrie convinced Mel to dance with her. Mel wore a groomsman suit instead of a Cleaving Page 159 bridesmaid dress, and it fit her as well as it fit anybody. She danced without caring about anyone or anything but Carrie, and I thought they must have the magic too.

I knew it must have been odd for the cousins to see Mom and Dad at separate tables and

Katherine next to Dad with two kids they didn’t know. Everyone knew about the divorce, of course. They knew it was hairy, and they knew this was one of the only days they’d see us all together again. Nobody said anything, but I felt that side of the room clench when Mom made it to the dancefloor. She danced with her arms up, skittering from foot to foot and clacking her heels on the floor. She swayed and spun with people from Marissa’s family, swelling with the music as though she were feeling it everywhere.

They were all nice people, Marissa’s family. They saw Mom without seeing her past.

They had cancer in their genes and had experienced more loss than any good people should in the last few years. Just over a year ago, she had lost her grandma—one of the women who held the family up, taught them how to laugh and cry, seen them through it all. They were left ravaged; while we went through our chaos, they went through theirs. But in the banquet hall, they were happy. I felt a balloon of relief deflate inside of me for them, and my chest filled with warmth.

Dad and Katherine did a foxtrot at the edge of the dancefloor, sweet and awkward like kids at prom. This was our new reality. It felt off-kilter when I focused on it, but I quickly thought of Marissa again and remembered that we were about to sculpt all kinds of new realities.

If moving forward happened with her, I could handle anything.

When the guests were saturated with alcohol and socialization, flushed in the faces and weak in the knees, they started moving back to their rooms like drowsy sheep. My wife and I stuck Cleaving Page 160 around to hug and kiss them all, thank them for coming, and accept congratulations and compliments. The whole time, all I could think about was the feeling of falling onto her bed and being engulfed in the downy comforter and our new marriage.

The bridal suite was tucked behind two doors, at the end of a hidden hallway. We kissed in the center of the empty ballroom and then abandoned the floor littered with utensils, napkins, name card and shreds of ribbon from the gift bags. The staff folded tables and swept behind us.

Marissa led me down the hallway with her four delicate fingers hooked into my hand, and she couldn’t stop smiling back to me.

An expanse of windows surrounded the bed, but nothing but grass and water was outside.

The sun had set and the moon was big like we wanted, blue shards of moonlight hitting her face.

I lowered her to the mattress, took the clip out of her hair—gingerly to avoid pulling her—and slipped my hands under her dress. She wrapped her arms around my neck and we just paused for a second, looking at each other. I felt her cheek with my thumb, soft and supple. She rubbed my jawline, and we both started to cry. We had done it. We had succeeded for each other, but we had also succeeded for our families. We had made the transition, and we were onto spring.

Cleaving Page 161

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I wish to express my sincerest appreciation to my thesis advisor, Professor

Marilyn Sides, for her continuous support throughout this project. With her guidance, insight, and thorough line editing, I was able to pull together the stories within this novella and shape them into a cohesive form. She always pushed me for more—more detail, more clarity, more physicality—and without her pushing, I would not have seen myself grow as a writer as much as

I have this year.

I would also like to thank my committee members for their invaluable roles in this process, as well as the Wellesley College English department as a whole for offering outlets for creative writing and providing this opportunity. I knew upon arriving at Wellesley College that I wanted to complete a creative thesis, but worried that I would not be able to do so as a junior transfer student. Fortunately, this department welcomed me with open arms and made it possible.

Professor Lauren Holmes and Professor Lisa Rodensky helped me as members of my committee to refine my vision of this project and ultimately restructure it. Professor Marjorie Agosin, as my honors visitor, stepped in at a crucial point in my evaluation to offer her feedback and assistance.

This project has spanned not only this academic year, but my entire undergraduate experience.

As I discovered the first kernel of this story at Boston University, I would also like to thank

Professor Leslie Epstein. In his class, I wrote the primeval form of this project—a “short story” of 40 pages that I had always wanted to expand upon. I am appreciative of the early strides he helped me take as I began to develop my form and style as a writer.

Cleaving Page 162

I am also grateful for the support of my writer friends and colleagues, including Jack Rochester, who is always interested in what I am working on.

Finally, I wish to thank my family, for their unwavering support of my education and encouragement of my intellectual and creative pursuits, and my partner, Kelsey, for making me smile even when I am up all night writing.