STORY

INTERESTING FACTS By Adam Johnson

Interesting fact: Toucan cereal The topic of dead wives came up a just so you’re clear, I’m going to dis- bedspread to my plunge and deliver. few months ago. My husband and I cuss the breasts of every woman who It’s okay if you can’t make sense of talked about it while walking home crosses my path. Neither hidden nor that. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t from a literary reading. It was San flaunted beneath white satin, her grasp it either. The most vital things Francisco, which means winter rains, breasts were utterly, excruciatingly we hide even from ourselves. and we’d just attended a reading by a normal, and I hated her for that. The local writer from her short-story col- story she read was about a man who Adam Johnson won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for !ction for his novel The Orphan Master’s lection. The local writer was twenty- decides to date again after losing his Son. His story “Teen Sniper” appeared in the something and sexy. Her arms were wife. It’s always an aneurysm, a car ac- March 2002 issue of Harper’s Magazine. taut, her black hair shimmered. And cident, or a long battle with cancer.

Photograph by McNair Evans STORY 61 Cancer is the worst way for a !ctional you shower, and you can towel like a I knew better, but still I asked wife to die. Anyway, the man in the crazy woman but still they drip. him: “How long would you wait?” story waits an appropriate amount of Before my husband won a Pulitzer, “Wait for what?” time after losing his wife—sixteen we had a kind of deal. I would adore “Until after I was gone. How months!—before deciding to date him, even though he’d packed on a many months before you went and again. After so much grief, he is exu- few pounds. And he would adore me, got some of that twentysomething berant and endearing in his pursuit of even though I’d had a double mastec- kayak sex?” a woman. The !rst chick he talks to is tomy. Who else would want us? Now I shouldn’t say shit like this, I totally game. The man, after all this his readings are packed with young know. He doesn’t know a teaspoon of waiting, is positively frisky, and the Dorothy Parkers who crowd around the crazy in my head. sex is, like, wow. The fortysomething my man. The worst part is that the He thought a moment. “Legally,” widower nails the twentysomething novel he wrote is set in North Korea, he said, “I’d probably have to have a gal on the upturned hull of his !ber- so he gets invited to all these func- death certi!cate. Otherwise it would glass kayak. And there’s even a moral, tions !lled with Korean socialites and be like bigamy or something. So I’d subtle and implied: when love blos- Korean donors and Korean activists have to wait for the autopsy and a soms, it’s all the richer after a man and Korean writers and various pil- burial and the slow wheels of bureau- has discovered, !rsthand, the painful lars of various Korean communities. cracy to issue the paperwork. I bet fragility of life. Well, secondhand. Did I leave out the words “beauti- we’re talking twelve to sixteen weeks.” Applause, Q&A, more ful” and “female”? “Getting a death certi!cate,” I say. applause. “You’re so sensitive to the Korean “That has got to be a hassle. But experience,” the beautiful female wait—you know a guy at city hall. Like I said, it was raining. We Korean socialite says to my husband. Keith Whatshisname.” had just left The Booksmith on Oh, he’s good about it. He always “Yeah, Keith,” he says. “I bet Keith Haight Street. “What’d you think of says, “And this is my lovely wife.” could get me proof of death in no the story?” my husband asked. Ignoring me, the beautiful female time. That dude owes me. A guy like I could tell he liked it. He likes Korean socialite adds, “You must vis- Keith could walk that death certi!- all stories. it our book club.” cate around by hand, getting every- I said, “I sympathized with the If I could simply press a button ev- one to sign off in, I don’t know, sev- dead wife.” ery time one of them says that. en to fourteen days.” To which my husband, the big- But I’m just tired. These are the “That’s your answer, seven to four- gest lunkhead ever to win a Pulitzer places my mind goes when I’m tired. teen days?” Prize, said: “But . . . she wasn’t even We’re four blocks from home, where “Give or take, of course. There are a character.” our children are just old enough not to variables. Things that would be out of This was a year after my diagnosis, need a sitter. On these nights our Keith’s control. If he moved too fast or surgery, chemo, and the various in- eleven-year-old son draws comics of pushed too hard—a guy could get in terventions, injections, indignities, Mongolian invasions and the civil trouble. He could even get !red.” and treatments. When I got sick, our rights movement—his history teacher “Poor Keith. Now I feel for him, at youngest child turned herself into a allows him to write his reports graphi- the mercy of the universe and all. horse; mute and untamable, our cally. (San Francisco!) Our daughter, at And all he wanted to do was help a horse-child now only whinnies and nine, is a master baker. Hair pulled grieving buddy get laid.” neighs. Before that, though, she went into a ponytail, she is #our-dusted and My husband eyes me with concern. through a phase we called Interest- kneading away. The horse-child, who We turn into Frank’s Liquors to ing Facts. “Interesting fact,” she is only seven, does dressage. She is the buy some condoms, even though our would announce before sharing a horse who needs no rider. But talk of house is over#owing with them. It’s wonder with us: A killer whale has my children is for another story. I can his subtle way of saying, For the love never killed a person in the wild. In- barely gaze upon them now. Their lit- of God, give up some sex. sects are high in protein. Humming- tle outlines, cut like black-and-white My husband hates all condoms, but birds have feelings and are often sad. cameos, are too much to consider. there’s a brand he hates less than oth- So here are some of my interesting My husband and I walk in the ers. I cannot take birth-control pills facts. Lupron halts ovulation and is rain. We don’t hold hands. I still feel because my cancer was estrogen recep- used to chemically castrate sexual the itch of Vinblastine in my nail tive. My husband does not believe predators. Vinblastine interrupts cell beds, one of the places, it turns out, what the doctors say: that even though division. It is a poisonous alkaloid that the body stores toxins. Have the effects of Tamoxifen mimic meno- made from the leaves of the periwin- you ever had the urge to peel back pause, you can still get pregnant. My kle plant. Tamoxifen makes your hips your !ngernails and scratch under- husband is forty-six. I am forty-!ve. He creak. My eyebrows fell out a year af- neath, to just wrench until the nails does not think that, in my forties, after ter I !nished chemo. And long after snap back so you can go scratch, cancer, chemo therapy, and chemically your tits are taken, their phantoms scratch, scratch? induced menopause, I can get preg- remain. They get cold, they ache I flex my fingers, rub my nails nant again, but sisters, I know my when you exercise, they feel wet after against the studs on my leather belt. womb. It’s proven.

62 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JUNE 2015 “You think there’d be an autopsy?” “What about your Native Ameri- I ask as he scans the display case. “I can obligations?” I ask my husband. can’t stand the thought of being cut “Wouldn’t you have to wait a bunch up like that.” of moons or something?” He looks at me. “We’re just joking, He is silent, and I cringe to think right? Processing your anxiety with about what I just said. humor and whimsical talk therapy?” “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know “Of course.” what’s wrong with me.” He nods. “Sure, I suppose. You’re “You’re just tired,” he says. Darwin Panama young and healthy. They’d want to The rain is more mistlike now. I open you up and determine what hated the woman who read tonight. A warm weather hat with Australian struck you down.” I hated the people who attended. I styling, hand woven in Ecuador from A small, citrusy ha escapes. I know hated the failed wannabe writers in toquilla !ber. Water resistant coating, better than to let these out. the crowd. I loathe all failed wanna- braided kangaroo leather band. He says, “Plus, if I’m dating again be writers, especially me. Reinforced 4½" crown, 3" brim. in seven to fourteen days—” I ask, “Have you thought of never?” “Give or take.” “Never what?” Finished in USA. “Yes, give or take. Then people “That there’s never another woman.” S (6¾-6⅞) M (7-7⅛) L (7¼-7⅜) would want to rule out foul play.” “Why are you talking like this?” XL (7½-7⅝) XXL (7¾)

“You deserve a clean slate,” I say. he asks. “You haven’t talked like this #1649 Darwin Panama ...... $125 “No one would want the death taint in a long time.” of a !rst wife to foul a new relation- “You could just go without,” I say. ship. That’s not fair to the new girl.” “You know, just soldier on.” “I don’t think this game is thera- “I really feel bad for what’s going peutic anymore,” he says, and selects through your head,” he says. his condoms. Interesting fact: Charles Manson Interesting fact: Tamoxifen carries used to live in our neighborhood, at a dreaded Class D birth-defect risk. 636 Cole Street. Interesting fact: My husband re- Manson’s house looms ahead. I always fuses to get a vasectomy. stop and give it my attention. It’s beige He makes his purchase from an now, but long ago, when Manson used Panama Fedora old woman. this place to recruit his murderous young Her saggy, old-lady breasts flop girls, it was painted blue. I used this Classic sun protection hand woven in around under her dress. house as a location in my last novel, a Ecuador from toquilla !ber. Water The cash-register drawer rolls out book no one would publish. Where did resistant coating, grosgrain ribbon band. to bump them. all those years of writing go? Where does Reinforced 4½" crown, 2½" brim. My friends say that one day I’ll feel that book even reside? I gaze at the Man- Finished in USA. lucky. That I will have been spared son house. In researching my novel, I S (6¾-6⅞) M (7-7⅛) L (7¼-7⅜) this saggy fate. After my bilateral, I came across crime-scene photos of Sha- XL (7½-7⅝) XXL (7¾) chose not to reconstruct. So I have ron Tate, the most famous Manson stab- #1648 Panama Fedora ...... $100 nothing, just two diagonal zipper bing victim. Her breasts are heavy and lines where my boobs should be. round, milk-laden, since she is pregnant, We turn south and head down with nipples that are wide and dark. Add $9 handling per order. Cole Street. I look up at my husband. He is big Satisfaction guaranteed. The condoms are wishful think- and tall, built like a football player. ing. We both know I will go to sleep Not the svelte receivers they put on Shop davidmorgan.com when we get home. booster calendars, but the clunky Interesting fact: I sleep twelve to linebackers whose bellies hang below or request a catalog thirteen hours a night. their jerseys. Interesting fact: Taxotere turns “I need to know,” I say. “Just tell your urine pink. me how long you’d wait?” Interesting fact: Cytoxan is a blis- He puts his hand on my shoulder ter agent related to mustard gas. and holds my gaze. It is impossible to When filtered from the blood, it look away. scars the bladder, which is why I “You’re not going anywhere,” he Tilley® Hats from Canada wake, hour after hour, night in and says. “I won’t let you leave without us. Northwest Jewelry Designs night out, to pee. We do everything together, so if Akubra® Hats from Australia Can you see why it would be hard someone has to go, we go together. for me to tell wake from sleep, how Our 777 will lose cabin pressure. Bet- the two could feel reversed? ter yet, we’ll be in the minivan when A 800-324-4934 davidmorgan.com 11812 N Creek Pkwy N, Ste 103•Bothell, WA 98011 STORY 63 it happens. We’re headed to Paci!ca, “Just what’s going on here?” I ask I was supposed to reassure her. I hugging the turns on Devil’s Slide, them. was supposed to remind her that her and then we go through the guard- They brazenly ignore me. husband was logging long hours and rail, all of us, you, me, the kids, the I got to know Megumi on play- that things would get better. dog, even. There’s no time for fear. ground benches, where we struck up Instead, I asked, “But what about There’s no dwelling. We careen. We conversations while watching our your kids?” barrel down. We rocket toward the daughters swing. I loved her Shinju- Megumi said nothing. jagged shore.” He squeezes my shoul- ku style and she loved all things And now here I !nd her, sitting der hard, almost too hard. “That’s American vintage. We bonded over on my couch, hand on my hus- how it happens, understand? When it Tokidoki and Patsy Cline. band’s shoulder! comes, it’s all of us. We go together.” “I love your dress” is the !rst thing I’m the one who introduced them. Something inside me melts. This she said to me. Can you believe that? I’m the one kind of talk, it’s what I It was a rose-patterned myrtle with who got her a copy of his novel in live on. a halter neck. Japanese. I watch Megumi open her “Interesting fact,” I told her. “I’m large, dark eyes to take him in. And My husband and kids came from Florida, and Florida is ground I know when my husband gives with me to the hospital for the !rst zero for vintage wardrobe. Rich someone his full attention. chemo dose. Was that a year ago? women retire there from New York I can’t make out what they are Three? What is time to you—a pluck- and New Jersey. They bring along a saying, but they are discussing more ing harp string, the fucking do-re-mi lifetime of fabulous dresses, and then than !ction, I can tell you that. of tuning forks? There are twelve IV they die.” Something else catches my eye— bays, and our little one doesn’t like “This is something I like,” she said arrows. There are quivers of arrows any of the interesting facts on the in that slightly formal way she spoke. everywhere—red feathers, yellow chemo ward. This is the day she stops “No one in Tokyo would wear a dead feathers, white. speaking and turns into the horse- woman’s dress.” In the kitchen is a casserole dish child, galloping around the nursing Then she apologized, worried that wrapped in aluminum foil. No, two station, expressing her desires with she might have accidentally insulted casserole dishes. taps of her hooves. Our son recog- me. “I have been saying the strangest I discover a hospital band on my nized a boy from his middle school. I things since moving to America,” wrist. Have I left it on as a badge of recognized him, too, from the talent- she admitted. honor? Or a darkly ironic accessory? show assembly. The boy had per- Our family was actually headed to Is the bracelet some kind of message formed an old-timey joke routine, Tokyo for the launch of my husband’s to myself? complete with some soft-shoe. Those book in Japanese. Megumi used sticks Interesting fact: The kanji for “ir- days were gone. Here he was with his in the sandbox to teach me kanji that rational,” I learned, is a combination mother: a hagged-out and battered would help me navigate the Narita of the elements “woman” woman beneath her own IV tree. She airport, the Shinkansen, and the and “death.” must have been deep into her treat- Marunouchi subway line. She asked ments, but even I could tell she wasn’t about my husband and his book. There was an episode not long going to make it. I didn’t talk to her. “Writers are quite revered in Japan,” ago that must be placed in the Who would greet a dead woman, who she told me. waking-and-sleeping-reversed col- would make small talk with death it- “I’m a writer, too,” I said. umn. I was in the hospital. Noth- self? I didn’t let my eyes drift to her, She turned from the kanji to re- ing unusual there. The beautiful even as our identical bags of Taxotere gard me anew. thing was the presence of my dripped angry into our veins. “But no one will publish my family—they were all around me as It’s how people would later treat books,” I added. we stood beside some patient’s bed. me, it’s exactly the way I’m treated Perhaps because of this admission, The room was !lled with Starbucks today when I come home to !nd my she later con!ded something to me. cups, and there was my brother, my husband sitting on the couch with It was a cold and foggy afternoon. sisters and my parents, and so on, Megumi, a mom from the girls’ grade We were watching a father push his all of us chatting away like old school. My husband and Megumi are daughter high on a swing, admiring times. The topic was war stories. talking in the fog-dampened bay- how he savored her delighted squeals My great-uncle talked about play- window light. On the coffee table is in that weightless moment at the top ing football in the dunes of North chicken katsu in a Pyrex dish. Megu- of the arc. Africa after a tank battle with mi wears a top that’s trampoline “If my life was a novel,” Megumi sud- Rommel. My father told a sad story

tight. She has a hand on my hus- denly said, “I would have to leave my about trying to deliver a Vietcong band’s shoulder. Even though she’s a husband. This is a rule in literature, isn’t baby near Cu¸ Chi. mother of two, her breasts are posi- it? That you must act on your heart. My Then my brother looked stricken. tively teenybopper. They pop. Her husband is distant and unemotional. I He said, “I think it’s happening.” tits do everything but chew bubble didn’t know that until I came here. We all turned toward the bed, and gum and make Hello Kitty hearts. America has taught me this.” that’s when I saw the dying woman.

64 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JUNE 2015 There was a wheeze as her breathing earlier. She lifts a !nger to her lips. thing in my life, I’m not a competent slowed. She seemed to get lighter be- Shh, she says. Then it really hits you person in general, so I would lift the fore our eyes. I’ll admit I bore a re- that you’re trapped inside a dying blade in full knowledge that my aim semblance to her. But only a little— woman. You’re being buried alive. would stray, that the evil and the in- that woman was all emaciated and Will be turns to is turns to was. You nocent would fall together. droop-eyed and bald. can no longer make out the Republi- Interesting fact: My best friend, My sister asked, “Should we call can red of your mother’s St. John Kitty, died of cancer. Over the years, the nurse?” jacket. You can no longer hear the the doctors took her left leg, her I pictured the crash cart bursting tremors of your sisters’ breathing. breasts, her throat, and her ovaries. in, with its needles and paddles and Then there’s nothing but the still, In return, they gave her two free intubation kit. It was none of my the gathering, surrounding still of helpings of bone marrow. As the end business, but Leave the poor woman this woman you’re in. came, I became afraid to go see her. be, I thought. Just let her go. Then pop!—somehow, luckily, you What would I say? What does good- We all looked to my father, a doc- make it out. You’re free again, back bye even mean? Finally, when she tor who has seen death many times. in the land of Starbucks cups and had only a few days left, I mustered He is from Georgia. His eyes are pay-by-the-hour parking. the courage for a visit. To save mon- old and wet, permanently pearlescent. It was some brain-bending busi- ey, I #ew to Atlanta and then took a He turned to my mother, who was ness, the illusion of being in that bus. But I got on the wrong one! I weeping. She shook her head no. dead woman. But that’s how power- didn’t realize this until I got to Maybe you’ve heard of an out-of- ful cancer is, that’s how bad it can North Carolina. Kitty body experience. Well, standing in mess with your head. Even now, you died in Florida. that hospital room, I had an in-the- cannot shake that sense of time. body experience, a profound sensa- How will you ever know again the My husband soldiers up. He tion that I was leaving the real world difference between what’s past and gives me space and starts getting up and entering that strange woman, what’s to come, let alone what is? early to make the kids’ lunches and just as her eyes lost focus and her lips My husband and kids missed the trek them off to school. The kids are went slack. Right away, I felt the entire nightmare. They are down- rattled, too. They take to sleeping morphine inside her, the way it stairs eating soup. with their father in the big bed. traced everything with halos of Interesting facts: The Geary Bou- With all those arms and legs, there’s neon -tetra light. I entered the dark levard Kaiser Permanente Hospital is no room for yours truly. They’re a tunnel of morphine time, where the where breasts are removed. The egg- pretty glum bunch, but I understand: past, the present, and the future be- noodle wonton soup in their cafeteria it’s not easy to almost lose someone. came simultaneously visible. I was a is divine. The wontons are hand- I spend a lot of time in Golden girl again, riding a yellow bicycle. I made, filled with steamed cabbage Gate Park, where my senses are new- will soon be in Golden Gate Park, and white pepper. The Kaiser on ly heightened. I can see a gull soar- watching the archers shoot arrows Turk Street is chemo central. This ing past and know exactly where it through the fog. I see that all week basement cafeteria specializes in huge will land. I develop an uncanny abil- long, my parents have been visiting bowls of Vietnamese pho, made with ity to predict the weather. Just by this woman and reading her my fa- beef ankles and topped with purple gazing at a plant, I can tell its effects vorite Nancy Drew books. Their yel- basil. Don’t forget Sriracha. The Kai- upon the human body. low covers !ll my vision. The Hidden ser on Divisadero is for when the end Interesting fact: The blue cohosh Staircase. The Whispering Statue. The is near. Their shio ramen with pork plant grows in the botanical gar- Clue in the Diary. cheeks is simply heav- dens just a short stroll into the You know that between-pulse en. Open all night. park. Its roots are easily ground into pause when, for a fraction of a sec- a poultice, and from this can be ex- ond, your heart is stopped? You feel My Vulcan mind-meld with tracted a violet oil that causes the the resonating bass note of this death has strange effects on our fam- uterus to contract. Coastal Mi- nothingness. Vision is just a black vi- ily. Strangest of all is how I !nd it wok tribes used it to in- bration, and your mind has only that suddenly hard to look at my chil- duce abortions. bottom-of-the-pool feeling when dren. The thought of them moving your air is spent. You see the insides forward in life without me, the per- All this is hard on my husband, of this woman’s body, something son whose sole mission is to guide but he does not start drinking again. cancer teaches you to do. Here is a them—it’s not tolerable. My arms I’m proud of him for that, though I lumpy chain of dye-blue lymph tremble at how close they came to would understand if he did. It would nodes, there are the endometrial having their little spirits snuffed out. be a sign of how wounding it was to tendrils of a thirsty tumor. Every- The idea of them making their way nearly lose me. If he hit the bourbon, where are the scattered Pop Rocks of alone in this world makes me want I’d know how much he needed me. calci!cations. Your best friend, Kitty, to turn things into sticks, to wield a What he does instead is buy a set of silently appears. She took leave of hatchet and make kindling of every- kettlebells. When the kids are asleep, this world from cancer twelve years thing I see. I’ve never chopped a he descends into the basement and

STORY 65 swings these things around for hours, Write what you know, that’s what my the gallop of death without having listening to podcasts about bow professor kept telling me. I to leave this life. hunting, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and Na- never listened. The horse-child asks, “Why didn’t tive American folklore. the ghost horse just go to heaven?” He sheds some weight, which One afternoon, I wander deep I suddenly realize it’s the !rst time troubles me. The pounds really start into Golden Gate Park, beyond the pot I’ve heard the horse-child speak in— to fall off. dealers on Hippie Hill and the rust- how long? He gets the kids to music lessons, colored conning tower of the de Young My daughter answers her. “The martial arts, dental appointments. Museum. I pass even the buffalo pens. story’s really about the ghost war- The problem is school, where a In the wide meadows near the Paci!c rior,” she says. caval cade of chatty moms loiter away Ocean, I discover, by chance, my hus- The horse-child asks, “Why their mornings. There’s the band and children at the archery range. doesn’t the ghost warrior go to Thursday-morning coffee klatch, the What are they doing here? How long heaven, then?” post–drop-off beignets at Reverie have they been coming? They have My daughter says, “Because ghosts Cafe, the book club at Zazie. These bows drawn and without speaking are have un!nished business. Everybody moms are single, or single enough. solemnly shooting arrows downrange, knows that.” Meet Liddi, mother of twins, famous one after another, into heavy bales. My son asks, “Did Mom leave un- in Cole Valley for inventing and The horse-child draws a recurve, while !nished business?” marketing the dual-mat yoga back- my daughter shoots Olympic and my My husband tells them, “A mom’s pack. She’s without an ounce of fat, son pulls a longbow with his lean and work is never done.” but placed upon her A-cup chest is a beautiful arms. My husband strains A health issue can be hard on a pair of perfectly pronounced, fully behind a compound, its pulleys and family. And it breaks my heart to articulated nipples. There’s rocker cams creaking under the weight. He hear them talk like I no longer exist. mom Sabina, heavy into ink and has purchased hundreds of arrows, so If I’m so dead, where’s my grave, why steam punk chic. Octopus tentacles they rarely pause to retrieve. When the isn’t there an urn full of ashes on the beckon from Sabina’s cleavage. And sunset fog rolls in, they !re on faith into mantel? No, this is just a sign I’ve don’t forget Salima, a UCSF prof a blanket of white. When darkness drifted too far from my family, that I who’s fooling nobody by cloaking her falls, they place balloons on the targets need to pull my act together. If I D’s under layers of fabric. Salima will so they can hear the pop of a well- want them to stop treating me like a not speak of the husband—alive or placed arrow. I have acquired a keen ghost, I need to stop acting like one. dead—she left in Lahore. sense of dark trajectories. I stand beside Interesting fact: In TV movies, a “How are you getting by?” they ask my husband, the power of a full draw ghost mom’s job is to help her hus- my husband. bound in his shoulders. I whisper re- band !nd a suitable replacement. It’s “Let us know if you need any- lease when his aim is perfect. He obeys. a venerable trope—see Herodotus, thing,” they offer. I don’t need to walk through the dark Euripides, and Virgil. For recent ex- They give our kids lifts to birth- with him to see the arrows stacked up amples, consult CBS’s A Gifted Man, day parties and away games. Their yellow in the bull’s eye. NBC’s Awake, and Safe Haven, now ovens are on perpetual preheat. But Later, he doesn’t read books to the in heavy rotation on USA. The TV it’s Megumi who’s always knocking. children before bed. Instead, on our ghost mom can see through the gold It’s Megumi who gets in- California king, they gather to hear diggers and wicked stepmoms to side the door. him repeat a story he has heard pod- !nd that heart-of-gold gal who can casted by Lakota storytellers. My help those kiddos heal, who will Interesting facts: Chuck Norris husband never speaks of his Sioux clap at the piano recitals, provide kills dozens of bad guys at once in blood. He has never even visited the much-needed cupcake pick-me-ups, Missing in Action III. Clint Eastwood reservation. All the people who and say things like, “Your mom takes up the gun again in Unforgiv- would have connected him to that would be proud.” en. George Clooney is hauntingly place were taken long ago by liquor, I assure you that no such confec- vulnerable in The Descendants. Do accidents, time-released mayhem, tionary female exists. No new wife you know why? Dead wives. and self-imposed exile. cares about the old wife’s kids. Interesting fact: One wife that The story he tells is about a ghost They’re just an unavoidable compli- didn’t die was Lady Mary Montagu. horse that was prized by braves rid- cation to the new wife’s own family- My M.F.A. thesis was a collection of ing into battle because the horse, be- to-be. That’s what vasectomy rever- linked stories on Lady Montagu’s ing already dead, could not be shot sals and Swiss boarding schools are struggles to succeed as a writer despite from under them. It was afraid of for. If I were a ghost mom, my job her demanding children, famous hus- nothing; it reared high and counted would be to stab these rivals in the band, and painful illness. I didn’t have its own coup. Only at the end of the eyes, to dagger them all. much to say about the subject. I just clashes do the braves realize a ghost Dagger, dagger, dagger. thought she was pretty amazing. Not a warrior had been riding bareback single person read my thesis, not even with them, guiding the horse’s every The truth is, though, that you the female professor who directed it. move. In this way the braves learn don’t need to die to know what it’s

66 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JUNE 2015 like to be a ghost. On the day my from their eyes as they don orange doctor called and gave me the diag- vests and shove off. Right away, the nosis, we were at a party in New horse-child screams that she is Come explore the Golden State with Caravan York. Our mission was to meet a afraid of the water. She strikes notes young producer for The Daily Show of terror we didn’t know existed. My who was considering a segment on son, in the bow, tries to hide his $1295 my husband. She was tall and wil- clutched breathing, and then I see lowy in a too-tight black dress, and the shuddering shoulders of our rom San rancisco to Los Angeles, with while her breasts may once have daughter. She swivels her head, Sonoma and Yosemite National Park, see been perfect, she had dieted them looking everywhere, desperately, the very best of the Golden State!—oin the down to nothing. Right away she and I know she is looking for me. smart shoppers experienced travelers who greeted my husband with Euro kiss- My father, stunned and bereft, is rely on Caravan for a wonderful vacation. es, laughed at nothing, then showed too inconsolable to lift the paddle. ffordable Guided Tours—tax & fees extra him her throat. I was standing right My father, who performed more there! Talk about invisible. Then my than "fteen hundred "eld surgeries phone rang—Kaiser Permanente near Da Nang, my father, who 5V]H:JV[PH7ҏ,ҏ0ҏ KH`Z   with the biopsy results. I tried to didn’t !inch when the power went talk, but words didn’t come out. I out at Charity Hospital in New Or- .YHUK*HU`VU)Y`JLAPVU KH`Z   walked through things. I found my- leans, my father—he slowly closes 4[ҏ9\ZOTVYL@LSSV^Z[VUL KH`Z   self in a bathroom, washing my face. his pearl-gray eyes. They !oat there, 5L^,UNSHUK-HSS-VSPHNL KH`Z   Then I was twenty !oors below, on not twenty feet from us, the boat “rilliant, Affordable Pricing” 57th Street. I swear I didn’t take the too unsteady for them to comfort elevator. I just appeared. Then I was one another, and we onshore can on a bus in North Carolina, letting only wrench at the impossibility of a hard-drinking preacher massage reaching them. my shoulders while my friend was Back inside the New York party, I dying in Florida. Then it was my realized time had ceased to !ow: my ∙ turn. I saw my own memorial: my husband and the producer were parents’ lawn is covered with cars. laughing the exact same laugh, the Guided Vacations Since 1952 They must buy a freezer to store all lime zest of their breath still acrid in the HoneyBaked Hams that arrive. the air, and I saw this was in the fu- My family and friends gather next to ture, too, all these chilly women the river that slowly makes its way with their iron-"ling eyes and rice- SUBSCRIBER ALERT past my parents’ home. Here, people paper hearts. They wanted some- take turns telling stories. thing genuine, something real. They ear arper’s Magazine Readers, My great-uncle tells a story about wanted what I had: a man who was me as a little girl and my decision to willing to go off the cliff with you. It has come to our attention that wed the boy next door. My folks got They would come after him when he several of our subscribers have a cake and flowers and had the was weak, I suddenly understood, UHFHLYHG UHQHZDO QRWL¿FDWLRQV judge down the street preside in when I was no longer there to fend from an independent magazine robes over the ceremony. The whole them off. This wasn’t hysteria. It clearinghouse doing business neighborhood turned up, and every- wasn’t imagination. I was in the one got a kick out of it. The next room with them. Here they were, under the names Magazine Bill- day brought the sobering moment perfect teeth forming brittle smiles, ing Services, Publishers Process- when my folks had to tell me the hips hollow as sake boxes. ing Services Inc., and American marriage wasn’t real. “That story is too funny,” the pro- Consumer Publish Assoc. These My brother tells a story about my ducer said. “Stop it right there. Save companies have not been autho- first Christmas home from college it for the segment!” rized to sell subscriptions on be- and how I brought a stack of canvases In a shrug of false modesty, my to show everyone the nudes I’d been husband accidentally sloshed his half of arper’s Magazine. letting the art-major boys paint of me. soda water. My mother tries to tell a story. I “Well,” he said. “Only if you think If you receive a renewal notice can tell it will be the one about the it would be good for the show.” and are unsure of its authenticity, Christmas poodle. But she is over- I suddenly put my hand on the please call our subscriber ser- come. It scares the children the way producer’s arm. She turned, startled, she folds up in slow motion, drop- discovering me. vices department and order your ping to the ground like a garment I used my grip to assess her renewal through them. You may bag. To distract them, my father de- soul—I felt the want of it, I calculat- contact subscriber services by cides on a canoe ride—that always ed its lack, in the same way Lady calling our toll-free number, was a treat for the kids. Tears run Montagu mapped the microscopic (800) 444-4653, or via the Web at www.harpers.org.

STORY 67 world of smallpox pustules and Vol- band, I was in his presence three dif- his dialogue. Then my husband stole taire learned to weigh vapor. ferent times before he "nally noticed this character and wrote a story from You tell me who the me. I was wearing that dress when he Mister Roses’s perspective called fucking ghost is. did. I wonder if he remembers it. “Dark Meadow.” I can’t even say the Megumi holds the dress to her name of this novel There is a knock at the door. It’s body, studying herself in the mirror. without getting angry. Megumi! Then she turns to my husband, drap- My husband answers, and the two ing the dress against her "gure for My husband does not return to of them regard each other, almost his approval. the novel he was working on before sadly, for a moment. Interesting fact: The kanji for “"g- my cancer. After the kids are asleep, They are clearly acknowledging ure” is a combination of the ele- he instead calls up the website Big- the wrongness of whatever it is ments “next” and “woman.” boobsalert. He regards this on slide- they’re up to. I study my own "gure in the mirror. show mode, so ladies with monstrous They head upstairs together, Interesting fact: The loss of breasts chests appear and fade, one into the where I suddenly realize there are doesn’t !atten your chest—it leaves next. My husband has his hand lotion Costco-size boxes of condoms you concave and hollowed-looking. ready, but he doesn’t masturbate. He everywhere—under the sink, in the And something about the surgery stares at a place just past the comput- medicine cabinet, taped under the pooches your tummy. My surgeon er screen. I contemplate these wom- bedside table, hidden in the battery warned me about this. But who en. I can only see in their saucerous !ap of a full-size talking Tigger doll! could picture it? Who would volun- nipples and pendulous breasts the su- Megumi and my husband enter our tarily conjure themselves that way? perpower of mother hood. Instead of bedroom. Right away, the worst possi- Megumi waits, my dress held offering come-hither looks to lonely ble thing happens—they move right against her. Then my husband reach- men, these women should be feeding past these birth-control depots. They es out. He has a faraway look in his hungry babies, calling on foundling do not collect any condoms at all. eyes. With his "ngertips, he tugs here wards and nursing the legion orphans My kind of ghost mom would make and tapers there, adjusting the fall of of the world. We should air-drop these it her job to stop hussies like Megumi fabric to the shape of her body. Fi- bra busters into tsunami zones, earth- from fucking grieving men, and if I were nally, he nods. She accepts the dress, quake epicenters, and the remote too late, it would be my job to go to folding it in her arms. provinces of North Korea! Megumi late at night, to approach her I do not dagger her. I I kneel beside my husband, as she slept on her shabby single-mom stand there and do nothing. slouched in his ergonomic office futon, and with my eyedropper dribble chair. I align my vision with his, but one, two, three purple drops on her lips, Interesting fact: My "rst novel no I can’t tell what he’s looking at. Our just enough to abort the baby he put one would publish was about Scotts- faces are almost touching, and inside her. In her belly, the fetus would dale trophy wives who form a vigilante though he is lost and sad, I still feel clutch and clench and double up dead. group to patrol their gated communi- his sweet energy. Come to bed, I Megumi and my husband do not ty. It contains, among other things, a whisper, and he sort of wakes up. But approach the bed. They move in- bobcat killing, a night- gol"ng tragedy, he doesn’t rise to face our bedroom. stead toward the armoire, beside the illegal use of a golf-ball- collecting Instead, he opens a blank Word doc- which is a rolling rack of all the vin- machine, and a sex scene involving a ument and stares at it. Eventually, he tage dresses I could no longer wear man and a woman wearing backpack- types “Toucan cereal.” once I lost my bustline. I moved mounted soda pistols. It was called “No!” I shout at him, “I’m the one them to the rack, but couldn’t bear The Beige Berets. who got cancer, I’m the one who was to roll them out of the room. Interesting fact: My second novel struck. That’s my story. It Megumi runs her fingers along no one would publish concerns two belongs to me!” these dresses. young girls who have rare powers of She pauses only to eye a stack of perception. One can read auras while Interesting fact: Cancer teaches my training bras on the dresser. the other sees ghosts. To work the you to see the insides of things. Do Interesting fact: While you can get ghost angle, I had their father live in you see the “can” in “uncanny” or used to being titless, the naked feeling Charles Manson’s old apartment. To the “cer” in “concern”? When people of not wearing a bra is harder to shake. make the girls more vulnerable, I de- want to make chitchat with you, You just become accustomed to the hug cided to kill off their mother, so I even though, if they took the time, of one. I recommend the A-cup bras gave her cancer. To ratchet up the they could see that under your ban- from Target’s teen section. Mine are tension, I had a sexual predator danna you have no hair, it’s easier to decorated with multicolor peace signs. named Mister Roses live next door. just say to them, “Sorry, I have some Megumi selects a dress from the My husband came up with the name. uncanny concerns right now.” If rack and studies it—it’s an earthy pink In fact, my husband became quite you’re feeling feisty, try, “I feel arcane Hepburn, with a boat neck, white enamored with this character. He and acerbic.” Who hasn’t felt that? trim, and pleated petticoat. At the was really helpful in developing Mis- But sometimes you’ve got chemo Florida university where I met my hus- ter Roses’s backstory and generating brain and your balance is all woo-woo

68 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JUNE 2015 and your nails are itching like crazy has to wait. In his of"ce, my husband dial me in. He doesn’t smile, but on his and you don’t want to talk to any- calls up his document and continues face is a kind of recognition. body. Be prepared for that. stealing my story. I don’t shout at him Through the bay windows, troughs Person 1: “Gosh, I haven’t seen this time. He is a slow and expressive of fog surge down Frederick Street. you in forever. How’s it going?” writer. He works most of the night. “I think it’s happening,” I say to him. You: “Toucan cereal.” Interesting fact: My third, un"n- He nods, then he drifts off again. Person 2: “Hey, what’s new? I’m ished novel is about Buffalo Calf Later, this will have been only a dream. so behind. I probably owe you like Road Woman, the Cheyenne warrior I near the bed and regard my chil- ten messages.” who struck the felling blow to Custer dren. Here is my son, his back grown You: “Vulcan silencer.” at Little Bighorn. I wrote about her strong from pulling the bow. Still I see Smile blankly. Hold it. life only because it amazed me. his little-boy cheeks and long eyelashes. My husband has my research Still I see the boy who nursed all night, Our daughter takes on my voice. spread before him: atlases of Native who once loved to hug "re hydrants, I study her as she admonishes her American tribes and "eld guides for who ran long-haired and shirtless along brother and the horse-child to take botanicals and customs and mythol- a slow-moving river in Florida. His hair their asthma medicine and do their ogy. I think this is good for him. is buzzed now, like his father’s, and his silent reading before bed. When lice I’m there when he hits one last pupils behind closed eyes track slowly, outbreaks arrive, she is the one who Command-S for the night. like he is dreaming of a life that unfolds meticulously combs through their I follow him upstairs. The children at a less jolting pace. hair after my husband succumbs to are sleeping in the big bed. He climbs My daughter’s hair is the gravest frustration and salty talk. in among their !opped limbs, and I shade of black. If anyone got the Na- I keep a hairy eyeball wide for want to join, but there is no room. My tive blood, it is she. Dark skin and Megumi. She doesn’t come around, husband’s head comes to rest on the fast afoot, she also has "erce, farsee- which makes me all the more suspi- pillow. Yet his eyes remain open, grow- ing eyes. She is the one who would cious. I wonder if my husband took ing large, adjusting focus, like he is enter the battle to save her brother, some of that Pulitzer money and trying to follow something as it disap- as Buffalo Calf Road Woman fa- bought a “studio” in the neighbor- pears into the dark. mously did. Tonight she sleeps hood. You know, a place to hide your Interesting fact: My husband clutching my iPhone, the alarm set book royalties from the IRS and “get doesn’t believe that dreams carry for dawn, and in the set of her jaw I some serious work done.” I !ip through higher meanings. can feel the list of things she’ll have his key chain, but there is nothing Interesting fact: I had a dream once. to accomplish to get her siblings up new, just keys to the house, his Stan- In the dream, I stood naked in the dark- and fed and off to school. ford of"ce, the Honda Odyssey, "ve ness. A woman approached me. When And then there is the horse-child. Kryptonite bike locks. she neared, I could see she was me. She Interesting fact: My youngest’s love of I use my powers of perception to said to me, or I guess I said to myself, “It’s interesting facts was just a stage. When scan the neighborhood for signs of this happening.” Then she reached out and my illness turned her into a horse, she so-called writer’s studio. I try to detect touched my left breast. I woke to "nd my never said “interesting facts” again. the effervescence of my husband’s breast warm and buzzing. I felt a lump in Interesting fact: Horses cannot ut- ever-present sparkling water, the shim- a position I would later learn was the ter human words or feel human mer of his condom wrappers, or the superior lateral quadrant. In the morn- emotions. They are resilient beasts, snap of Megumi’s bra strap. My feelers ing, I stood in front of the mirror, but immune from the sadness of the hu- feel only the fog rolling in, extinguish- the lump was nowhere to be found. I told man cargo they carry. ing the waking world block by block, my husband about the dream. He said, She is once again a little human, a starting with the outer avenues. “Spooky.” I told him I was going to the member of a weak and vulnerable breed. Interesting fact: The Miwok be- doctor right away. “I wouldn’t worry,” he Who will explain what she missed while lieved the advancing fog could draw said. “It’s probably nothing.” she was a horse? Who will hold her and one into the next world. Eventually, my husband sleeps. tell her who I was and what I went Interesting fact: Accidentally slip- An arm passes over one child and through? If only she had never been a ping into the afterlife was a grave con- secures another. All the pillows horse, if only she could remain one a cern for them. To locate one another have been stolen, then half-stolen little longer. What I wouldn’t give to in the fog, they darkened their skin back. The children thrum to his hear her whinny and neigh her desires with pigment made from the ashes of deep, slow breathing. I have some- again, to see how delicately she tapped poison-oak "res. They marked their thing to tell him. her hoof to receive a carrot or sugar chests with the scent of Brewer’s an- Interesting fact: My husband has a cube. But it is over. She’ll never again gelica. They developed signature calls secret name, a Sioux name. gallop on all fours or give herself a mane by which they alone would be known. He’s embarrassed by it. He doesn’t by drawing with markers down her back. For some reason, my family skips like anyone to say it as he feels he It will just have been a stage she went archery tonight. And there is no Na- doesn’t deserve it. But when I utter the through, preserved only in a story. And tive American story when the kids Lakota words, he wakes from his sleep. that, I suppose, is all I will have been, a are put to bed. Even Bigboobsalert He sees me, I can tell, his eyes slowly story from when they were little. Q

70 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JUNE 2015