Shit Cassandra Saw: Stories

by Gwen E. Kirby

The belly-button piercing got so infected after a month that I had to tell my mother, who instead of being furious with me was just exasperated. Ten days of antibiotics and a scar that, when I was pregnant with Emmy, stretched in an angry twist away from my navel. I liked to trace it with my finger and wonder wh...

You are an adulteress who is destined for hellfire, George responds. But fear not. I reside in heaven and, for all its beauties, its holy ecstasies, it is not everything which man has promised.

No, he says. Do not be absurd. And Hell is not the way you imagine it. The ways of Satan are more subtle, more inventive. “Really?” I ask. No. He does not laugh. There is no need for subtlety. Only foolish sinners like you imagine there is something worse than pain.

blotting it with the tip of her finger, about to get it on the skirt, which is the last thing that skirt needs, and I am done with Karl, I swear, I am already writing him the message that ends everything when I see that the text is from my husband instead. It’s very early in the morning, too early for him to be awake, but he can’t sleep. He says he misses me. He says the cherry blossoms will bloom soon, but he’ll be home just before they do. Figures, he texts, and adds a smiley face, as if to say, oh this wild dance we call life, what can you do, and right about now, as I try to remember if Emmy has white tights with no holes, as she yanks on the hem of the dress and I wait for the howl that says she’s stabbed herself again, I hate him.

“I have,” I say, which is obvious. I’m married, aren’t I? But I think married people aren’t given enough credit for being in love. For being in love with each other—which everyone treats as a given, as mandatory, which is the hardest way to love—but also for remembering what it’s like to be in love with someone else, for knowing that every love is different and sticking with the love you have. Of course I’ve loved other men.

Eventually my husband, who I do love, even though some days that love is hard to find.

Nursing is women’s work, so it comes as no surprise when they hang me for it. You should’ve stuck to weaving, Gwen, Mother tells me before they pull the trap.

All my sisters die before they can be born.

Without sisters, I weave daisy crowns and lay them on my sheep’s indifferent ears.

But Mother never likes the way I tell stories.

There are many ways to heal, and some do use magic.

The villagers do not like that I put sheep urine in their poultices. They do not like the looks I give their handsome sons. They do not like the stories I tell their children. They do not like that my sheep is fat and healthy. When the villagers arrive at my house, they take my sheep. They slaughter her and gather her blood in a deep bowl. With the blood, they paint their lintels and their palms. With the body, they make tough roasts. I promise them they will regret it.

I lift the noose from around my neck, step onto the hard wood, feel the boards with my bare feet. Soon I will walk the deck of a ship and sail away. Do not worry, Mother says to the crowd. I will stay. I will tell you.

In Mother’s version of the story, the virgin sings and the afanc is so mesmerized, he crawls from the water and lays his head down in the virgin’s lap to sleep, trustful as a child. When the villagers emerge to bind the afanc, the afanc’s struggles crush the virgin. In the end, the afanc is taken to a new and better lake. The villagers have their village back. Only the virgin dies.

A witch is the daughter of a crone, a slut the daughter of a whore, and I am the drop that races along the threads until the whole bolt is ruined.

When they hang Mother, I am long gone. The air does not hold her up, though it embraces her all the same.

That summer Brittany had found, among other things, a pocket watch, a left-handed bowling ball embossed with the name Porkchop, and a ziplocked bag of used condoms.

She wasn’t a cheerleader, but she wasn’t in debate club or band, either, wasn’t sure what her interests might turn out to be, except that she knew she wanted to be liked.

If you believe nothing else, believe that I never meant to run over our cat.

There were other things I did, things I’m not proud of, but what marriage ever ended smoothly? I’ll say upfront, in the spirit of total honesty, I shouldn’t have written “bitch” in poison on the front lawn of your new boyfriend’s house.

I know you know it was me, and in my defense, his lawn ...

When does he have time to fuck you, with a lawn like a golf course?

The point is that a car is a big object and Jelly was stupid.

Animals should distrust cars, the smell of death on them—exhaust, leather, pine air...

Our daughter loves me, and you wouldn’t say that made me a good husband.

I ran over Jelly as I was backing out of the garage, a small thump, like running over a forgotten bag of groceries.

When I got out to look, there was Jelly by the left back tire, on her side, ribs popped in like a broken umbrel...

If you were honest, you’d admit you never li...

But at that moment, I’d never wanted two second...

Give me those few seconds back, I thought, and I’ll give you every second this year that I spent respectfully enjoying the de...

It seemed kind, better to die with someone’s hand on you.

The kind thing—that’s all I was trying to do. The kind thing, for that stupid fucking cat that our daughter loves.

I can do the kind thing when it’s hard. The kind thing when it’s easy, well, you know I’ve always preferred big gestures.

You looked ashamed of me. But I don’t think you had it right. Sometimes it’s better to stop the pain quickly, not drag it out, not if the ending will be the same either way.

It is easier to be a man. My mother teaches me this when I am small, though that isn’t how she says it.

I thank her for the lesson, well-learned, that if the world will give money to a dead boy and not a live girl, then I will stay a daughter inside a son, a sister inside a brother, the man my sheath, the woman my blade.

I enlist in the British army. What a thrill to be a man! I say, in the arms of my lover. We both look splendid in our uniforms. But all this violence, he says, and rolls atop me, pins me to the mattress for another round. He dies in the way soldiers do, suddenly and young.

I kill men in duels.

Annie flips me onto my back for another round of lovemaking, but I keep on rolling, until I am on top again.

When we finish, I tell her the sea is so calm tonight, the moon so bright, I can see a pod of whales, their wet humps flashing silver.

Annie laughs between my breasts.

I do not know how Annie dies. As for me, it’s a bloody, violent death, and I fight bravely to the last. Yet when the coroner notes the cause of death, he writes childbirth, instead of the truth, that I died in battle against a daughter even stronger than myself, impatient to be free.

In the cab, squeezed between your host mother and sister, no seatbelts, your mouth open like a fish waiting for a hook: this is the moment you realize that you don’t speak Spanish. You were prepared to speak it awkwardly, prepared to feel a little foolish, but you weren’t prepared for this. These women speak a different language than your high school Spanish teacher, whose Midwestern accent forms each word like a pebble, distinct and hard. Libro. Bolígrafo. Yo soy. Tú eres. These two women speak a language that doesn’t have pauses. It is fast and slick and impossible to hold.

You are bien gringa, very gringa, and she has taken you under her wing.

When you arrive at the disco, she takes you into the bathroom and lays out her makeup on the counter: the black eyeliner, mascara, blue eye shadow, and red lipstick that Gabi doesn’t want her wearing because it makes her look like a princesa de la noche.

Gabi, María tells you, doesn’t trust her, but you can’t tell if that’s true or if Gabi simply doesn’t trust men, or both. You wonder sometimes where María’s father is, if that is why she and Gabi fight sometimes. Their fights are sudden, loud, and then over as q...

bien chida

Of course, you didn’t understand what he was saying but his voice was warm and a little quiet, intimate.

Leaving the bakery, you wanted to go right back and see him again.

You haven’t found the right word for your chest yet. In your mind you’ve tested out options: tits, boobs, rack, fun bags, tetas. Spanish is no help, the language impossibly sexual, even when it isn’t on the tongues of men catcalling you on the street. Amor. Ángel. You respect the men who are honest, who come out and say it. Que tetas, mamí, gringa. Tonight, in María’s blue top, your chest looks deflated in the draped cotton.