All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

by Bryn Greenwood

Mr. Arsenikos said if you knew the constellations you would never get lost. You could always find your way home.

I thought about how he left spaces for me when he talked. If I saw him again, I decided I might put words in those spaces.

That was what I wanted for as long as she was looking at me, but when she looked past me, what I wanted more than anything was for her to look at me again. Most people look at you like nothing, but the

way she looked at me … it was like we were in the meadow again. Like I was important. People don’t usually look at me like that.

Lisa saw them all as possibilities.

“So she’s not your daughter?” Marilyn said. “No, she’s not my daughter.” What was I supposed to say? She’s my bike bitch? Not everything has a simple answer. I said, “She’s a friend of mine.”

Bike bitch? Foreshadowing of when she grows up maybe?

I prayed. Let Liam not come. Make Liam stay away. He always said he would do something and then never did it. When I was little,

he said he would take me to the zoo. He never did. So let him stay away. Stay away.

“Is that your birthday? The nineteenth?” Wavy nodded. That was rare, her telling me something I hadn’t even asked. She was usually more interested in finding things out, like with the tattoo. When I picked up a pen, she leaned forward on her elbows, waiting to see what I was gonna do. It needed to be big, to let her know I thought it was important. In big enough letters to fill the whole square, I wrote WAVY’S BIRTHDAY. She looked so happy I went back to the date and drew a heart around the nineteen. When I laid the pen down, she put her hand on my arm, like she trusted me. Then she stepped between my knees and slid her hand up my arm to the back of my neck. She leaned in so close, her cheek almost touched mine. I kept real still, like you would if a little bird came and landed on your finger. For half a minute, I didn’t even breathe. It wasn’t like me trying to hug her on the farmhouse porch. She’d done this herself. She pressed her chin into my shoulder, and then damned if she didn’t sniff my hair. I knew I had to be

rank, but she sniffed at me like I was fresh as daisies. Exhaled in my ear, and took another deep breath. To leave her a way to escape, I only put one arm around her. She trembled so hard, I figured she was set to run away, so I loosened my arm to let her, but instead she put her other arm around my neck and pressed her bony little self against my belly. She was so small it kinda scared me. “Hold on tight,” she said, so I put both my arms around her and squeezed. I turned my head to sniff her hair the way she did mine. Honeysuckle and what I figured the ocean must smell like—sharp and salty. She giggled, and I had the weirdest feeling she was about to say something else,

She turned on her side, laid her hand on my belly, and slid it down to my belt buckle. I had to grit my teeth not to squirm. She had a way of making me feel ticklish.

Creepy

Once I got my arm around her and she laid her head on my shoulder, we were warm and comfortable, and ready to go to sleep. And that was the goddamn problem. This wasn’t the same as falling asleep next to Wavy in the meadow. I was in bed with her.

“You love me?” I said. The sharp chin again. Twice. There weren’t many things she thought were worth nodding twice for. “I love you, too. I love you.” I said it twice, to be sure she heard it. I shivered, not cold anymore but knowing that saying it out loud made it real. For a long time it was this sneaking feeling I didn’t look at too closely, but now I’d said it. I laid awake for a while, feeling her breath on my arm, but finally, being warm and comfortable and drunk caught up with me, and I fell asleep.

Does he love her like a daughter or something creepy?

Her face lit up, so she was half angel and half little girl with sleep wrinkles on her face.

I took care of Kellen when he was tired. While he was asleep I kissed him. First on his cheek, then on his prickly sideburns. Then on his mouth, which wasn’t prickly at all. Even though the mouth is a dirty place, he wasn’t afraid of my germs.

Powell in a snapshot: drunk hillbillies beating the crap out of each other.

Lol

shoulda taken my own advice, and got the hell outta Powell. Except for Wavy. She kept me there. More than that. She kept me tethered, not just to Powell, but to being alive. In the whole world, she was the only person who cared whether I lived or died. If there was anybody who remembered tonight, it was her.

As I pulled up in the line, I glanced out of the corner of my eye and caught Wavy staring up at the stars. She was the prettiest girl there easy, with her hair blowing back like a flag. Amazed me how fast she was growing up. She’d be twelve in a couple weeks and she was gonna be long-legged like Val. Every time I looked at her, the gap between the bottom of her skirt and the tops of her boots was bigger. As soon as I thought it, I got to worrying about all the other guys there looking at her and thinking the same thing.

The hesitation was because he didn’t know what to call me. A lie? Daughter, sister, niece? Or the truth?

I liked my name in Kellen’s mouth.

A little tighter and I would know I was more important than anything else. That was what I wanted.

She took down Grandma’s cookbook and flipped through it. Nothing belongs to you. It didn’t matter that Grandma gave the cookbook to me. All Mama had to do was hold it in her hands and it was hers.

Kellen looked at me for a second, not long enough. Liam made me invisible. I needed Kellen to see me.

That scared me. What if it wasn’t dangerous for Donal to be with Liam and Sean, because he was one of them?

One of them? Meaning what exactly?

He wasn’t one of them.

Right up until that moment it was sweet and funny. Odd couple that they were, they had a real connection. Then he tugged her boot off and kissed the bottom of her bare foot. I could see him doing that kind of thing to his own kid, but she wasn’t. She was somebody else’s little girl.

In the meadow, I had Kellen all to myself. He smelled good. Sweat and motorcycle and wintergreen. No stinking weed smoke. No perfume. No sadness. He smelled like love.

Nothing belonged to me.

Sad

Looking at the stars was like opening a familiar book.

Also, Mama scared me. She was different people. “Wait,” Wavy said. Her rule was Don’t talk to Mama until she talks to you. Wait until you know which Mama she’s going to be. If Mama said, “Oh God, I’m so alone,” it was okay for me to hug her. If Mama said, “Worthless motherfucker. I’ll show him,” you better watch out. Even Kellen didn’t like to come in the house when she was like that, and he was lots bigger than Daddy.

Drug addict

“You don’t want to take your quilt?” “It’s not her quilt,” I said. Grandma, who I didn’t remember, made the quilt for Wavy, but I knew the rule. Nothing belongs to you. I knew the rule, but I didn’t like it. My stuff was mine, like the pocketknife Uncle Sean gave me. If somebody tried to take it, I’d sock them.

Sometimes I thought Daddy couldn’t see Wavy, but he pointed at her.

So messed up

It wasn’t fair if I had fun and she didn’t.

Sweet little brother

There had been several home nursing assignments where Patty felt she was a member of the family, but the Quinns was the first assignment that made her feel like a patient in the asylum.

Looking at it, my heart hurt so much I almost couldn’t breathe. Not because the motorcycle was beautiful, but hoping it was for me and knowing it might not be. Nothing belonged to me, but the rule didn’t keep me from wanting Kellen to be for me only. I put my hand on the tank and tried to smile, but there were too many hot things trapped in my mouth.

I don’t like it, if you’re going to let girls with snake tattoos ride on it.

It soothed me and I didn’t want to be soothed.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to be mean, but there were rules. Liam touched Sandy, and if she touched me, it might be the same thing as Liam touching me.

So interesting to think that way, but we know its because of her Mom spewing bullshit out

because the mouth was a dirty place. A dangerous place. A way for people to get into you. Not safe, and Liam wasn’t nice.

After he made her cry, Liam said nice things. He told Sandy how beautiful she was and how much he loved her. That’s what he always did after he hurt you.

“You can’t trust him, baby. He’ll get into you. You can’t get clean once that happens. And then he’ll break your heart, like Liam did mine. But you’re special. Nobody can touch you, okay? Promise?”

But why was he upstairs if she was still asleep? Here’s what I think happened: Kellen went earlier than me and got in bed with Wavy. What made me mad is that he stole all her words and didn’t leave any for me, because she didn’t want to talk. She let me get in bed and she hugged me, but she didn’t say anything. And she was naked under the covers. I felt her boobies against my arm. “Yuck. Where’s your nightgown?” I said. She lifted her hands over her head. I wanted her to talk to me, but she was looking at her ring. The rule was nothing belongs to you, but I think she was breaking the rule. If somebody tried to take that ring, she’d sock them. It was her ring. Kellen bought it for her so he could marry her. If it wasn’t Wavy, I didn’t know

Did they have sex?!

how he could like a girl that much. They’re kinda gross. She let the sun sparkle off the ring, so it made little rainbows on the walls and on me. I liked that almost as much as I liked her talking.

“Before I could read,” she said. “And Mama said, ‘Don’t touch her. That’s dirty! If you touch her you’ll go to hell! No one touches her!’”

And Val was crazy as hell. The kind of person who could see her daughter on her husband’s lap and think the worst thing. Might explain why Liam never went near Wavy. If your wife accused you of doing something nasty to your baby daughter, you might think twice before you ever touched her again.

If he didn’t want to touch me, I could accept that, but I wanted to touch him. That was never against the rules before, but it was now. All of December he didn’t let me touch him, and then I spent winter break at Aunt Brenda’s without him. Now January and February were gone, and I still wasn’t allowed to touch him. Even though he wouldn’t say it, I knew what he felt. I’d felt it enough to know. Dirty. Too dirty to touch. Too dirty to be touched. If he wouldn’t touch me, that was bearable, but to have him look away from me wasn’t. I needed him to see me.

On the sofa that night, after the haircut, he reached for my hand. I looked down at his jeans, the ones he wore for his birthday that got ruined by

bleach. Bright white spots already going threadbare. Because of me. I pulled my hand away and said, “I’m too dirty to touch.” He jumped like a bee had stung him and leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. “No, sweetheart. I told you. You’re not. You’re beautiful. I love you, but you’re only thirteen. So we can’t be fooling around.” He didn’t lo...

He came out in his T-shirt after me, so I was guilty twice. I made him unhappy and he was cold, but

walking was the only thing that kept me from crying. “Please, Wavy. You’re breaking my heart and I don’t know what to do.” He was unhappy when I was there, he was unhappy if I went away, and I was miserable. Now I understood what Mama’s hot, scary eyes meant when she danced with Uncle Sean. They meant everything was broken.

Damn