Jennifer Popa
Back in 1992, on a day so cold that Mother Nature should have been embarrassed at having forgotten to turn the snow off and my actual Mother embarrassed at making her children slip their feet into bargain-brand Ziploc bags before stuffing them into boots, my cousin Amber found the body of Ronnie Reynolds frozen and slumped with his back against a thin tree at the creek’s edge. She shuffled through snow higher than our knees to find me and my little sister, Dani, to drag us to him and show off her prized booty—a word we relished back then. When we saw him, we ceased our brabbling, that endless claptrap of children.
“Is he sleeping?” Dani asked. Amber grabbed a stick and poked at his puffy coat. No response. I said, “Ronnie?..” But he was still. Maybe it was the slight blue of his skin or the exaggerated slump of his gangly teenage body, but we knew he was dead. There was a heady thrill to it, seeing something we shouldn’t be seeing. No grownup told us to cover our eyes. We could drink in his stillness, the fact of his death, unblinking.
I can’t recall whose idea it was, but suddenly there it stood, unbidden, fully formed, a scheme for keeping Ronnie. We would preserve him like how Grandma Wagner tucked her sauerkraut away in the dark under a towel in the pantry for weeks. We decided to make him a snowman or what ended up looking more like a snow slug once we packed the snow around his arms, legs, and the bump of his heavy head bowing to us like Father Lenny’s during communion when he said, “The Body of Christ.”
Our mittened hands scooped the snow while thick flakes continued to fall. Even in that copse at the creek’s edge, his legs were already pretty covered by the time we found him, but we finished covering his boots, the tops of his legs, then his slumping middle, his shoulders. I marveled at how pretty Ronnie’s eyelashes were, glittering in the golden hour—like my Ice Capades Barbie. He was beautiful. And so, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, I leaned forward and kissed him on his forehead like Mom did at bedtime, her allotted tenderness a sacrament I longed for each night. His skin was as cold as the playground pole the grownups were always warning us to never lick no matter how doubled the dare. Amber leaned in and did the same, and Dani said, “Me too, me too,” because she was always copying us. Her snotty peck landed on his brow before we packed his face with snow.
We’d only ever seen Ronnie alive working at Nolan’s party store, where we swapped our collected pop cans and Dad’s beer bottles for candy; ten equaled a dollar, which was three whole candy bars, one for each of us. Ronnie was one of the few who didn’t treat us like we were a buzzing annoyance to be tolerated. One time, he even slipped us three bottles of Clearly Canadian for free. We marveled at our booty—that would be three whole returns! One candy bar! We swished the wild cherry bubbles along our gums, giggled and pretended we were drunk. Amber burped, and said she was drunk, “for real though,” but I knew drunk when I saw it, and she wasn’t nearly mean enough.
Ronnie was our benevolent god, answering prayers we didn’t even know we had—his currency Clearly Canadians and compassion for us being kids, which seemed the origin of all our sins. Another time, when the big kids saw our bikes outside Nolan’s and came loaded with water balloons, he hid us in the backroom behind boxes of potato chips. Ronnie’s voice was soft, almost bashful, as he shuffled us to the backroom. He told the big kids to get out and stood watch until they left. He soared above them which meant even they had to listen.
When we’d cocooned him in snow, Dani unknotted and wrapped her scarf around Ronnie the snow-slug and the slender tree that sprung from the slug’s head. The scarf didn’t wrap around far enough, but I didn’t think Ronnie would mind. We told no one—not even when Mom complained about Dani “losing” another scarf. Dani just shrugged and repeated, “I don’t know,” as Mom pressed her about where she remembered seeing it last.
Honed in childhood, polished every day thereafter, self-preservation was the Swiss army knife at our hips, useful though maybe not as menacing as we’d hoped; it was as constant and familiar to us as our own hands.
We would be silent because Ronnie would have wanted it that way, Amber said on the way back, and we believed her because she was the oldest. We were silent because back then, Dad made us retrieve a switch, a weapon of our choosing from a tree in the backyard, reedy and pliant, that would stripe our backsides—though half the time our misdeeds were muddled. We only knew of our wrongness through someone else’s assertion, and finding a body was wrong wrong wrong. That much we knew. We should probably say a couple of Hail Marys just in case. But mostly, we stayed silent because we would protect Ronnie as he protected us. If we tucked him away, we might keep him forever—sparkling and still—where nothing and no one could reach him.
We made Dani remove her mittens and pinky swear to tell no one. Then we crossed ourselves to pray, but Dani did it wrong. She always messed up the “holy spirit” part, doing right to left rather than left to right. The distinction was still elusive, as evidenced by her boots often on the wrong feet. So, we did it all together: “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Amber began, “Dear Lord, please take care of Ronnie, because he is nice.”
“Very very nice,” Dani added. We all nodded.
Back then, I was always worrying about being stuck in perpetual fire because I’d simply forgotten to ask for forgiveness for some minor infraction, so I tried to do Ronnie a solid. “If Ronnie had any sins, he’s real sorry. Please forgive him because he didn’t mean it,” I said.
“Your turn, Dani.”
Dani cleared her throat, “God, if Ronnie comes back alive like Frosty the snowman—”
Amber began to laugh, “Don’t be stupid.”
“Stupid’s a bad word,” Dani said.
“Dani, Frosty isn’t real. It’s just a show,” I said.
“Maybe he will! I gave my scarf.”
Amber was giggling like an idiot until she fell into the snow.
“It’s just pretend,” I said as gently as I could.
“Nuh-uh,” Dani said, putting her hand on her hip. Only her mitten kept slipping over the nylon, her mobility greatly reduced in her snowsuit.
“Then why isn’t he awake now if you gave it to him?” Amber snorted.
Dani considered this but said nothing.
We explained that Ronnie was indeed dead, which meant not asleep, which meant he was in Heaven (probably), which meant he was never coming back. So, we wished for Ronnie’s family to be not too sad and for candy bars in Heaven for Ronnie, but none of the gross ones like 3-Musketeers or Payday, and we finished with a chorus of Amen.
On the way home, we fell to our backs to make snow angels. Crucified in polyester and nylon, we swished our arms and legs wide until our angels were perfect heavenly impressions of us and our arms tired of flapping to make wings. Dani snickered as she added lop-sided snowball boobs to her angel, and Amber hefted me out of mine because I hated how when you stood up, you had to leave a handprint behind in the angel’s middle. Giving up the ghost, as they say, telling on yourself, that you were only playing at being an angel.
That was before the snow erased our angels, and before the cop cars turned up, before dad skipped the switch and opted for his palm—a weapon in its own right. One that felt too intimate when it stung our backsides, more humiliating somehow. That was before I learned what it was to be truly sorry.
After Amber went home, we went upstairs to play in our room. We’d recently inherited a tote bag chockfull of Aunt Sheila’s costume jewelry, and we loved our game of being rich. Our necks and wrists heavy with glittering chains and beads, broaches stretched our T-shirts, and our fingers were covered with rings that were far too big; we made fists to keep them on. My favorite was a ring with ruby-colored glass encircled in fake diamonds; it looked like a flower. I always got my clothes and hair stuck on the sharp petals, but I didn’t care. I wore it constantly. Mom wrapped a long string of yarn around the band to make it almost fit my finger.
The hours in that bedroom seemed to happen inside a kind of pastel fortress. Our worries lingered halfheartedly outside the door; their vigil not only irrelevant but forgotten. Every day, our jurisdiction of that little room was a giddy certainty and astonishment clicking into place with the door’s lock. If you peeled back the papery skin of that certainty, unsurprisingly, you’d find a hard pit of guilt, and concealed within our astonishment, you’d locate seeds of unease, but they did not emerge until Mom jiggled the door handle and said, “Girls, unlock this door.” Then guilt and unease became the conqueror’s weapons stopping us stiff, mute, possibly dead if not for our ragged breath and the thumping of our child hearts. We weren’t supposed to lock the door. We knew this, but sometimes our thumbs found the button anyway, claiming something, anything for ourselves. Dani’s voice broke as she whispered, “Sorry, M—,” fracturing just at the middle. The fracture of her apology became a mine; our stillness and delay triggering a detonation for which we would only have ourselves to blame.
For many years afterward, I would dream Ronnie was alive, just sleeping, that our cocooning trapped him in the icy dark, that we’d done the killing ourselves with child hands. My dream brain having misplaced the truth, a simple, stupid truth like a heart condition, so common and unremarkable.
“Helluva thing,” Dad had said once it all was revealed by Nolan, who was working the register at his store. “How’re his folks?”
“’Bout what you’d expect.”
“How old was he?”
“Seventeen in June.”
Dad shook his head as he pulled wrinkled dollars from his wallet. They went on like this for a while—the shorthand of men was a language just out of reach—until Nolan looked down, noticing me for the first time.
“You don’t talk much, darlin’,” he said. But what to say to that? I stayed silent.
Dad looked down as if he’d forgotten I was there. “This is my girl, Melissa.”
“Aren’t you a pretty little thing? You’ll have all the boys soon enough,” he winked and grinned so wide I could see the fillings at the corners of his mouth. I didn’t know what he meant. I only knew I didn’t like them sizing me up, waiting for my response. My cheeks heated, so I picked up Juicy Fruit and pretended to inspect it.
Sometimes, in the dream, I was Ronnie trapped under the snow. Occasionally I tried to dig myself out. Though most of the time, it was the only place I felt safe, where no one could reach me with their hands, mouths, or eyes. I would sit in my snow cave and listen to their muddled voices calling out my name, but I would never reveal my position.
We ate goulash for dinner on the day we buried Ronnie in the snow. I hated goulash. The tomatoes were slimy red slugs hidden among the noodles; how many would I have to swallow before I could be excused? I protested, but I pinched my nose and chewed, washing down noodles, ground beef, and tomato slugs.
Dani loved goulash and ate it with relish. Slurping up the noodles and never sitting all the way down in her chair; she shimmied, hummed little songs while she ate, wiggled out of her chair, did this until Mom asked the question, “Does your father need to come over there?” Mom’s mouth the proxy for Dad’s brutality. A warning that while Mom might not have the physical strength to make you regret misbehaving, Dad did. He could make it hurt. That shut Dani up—for a few minutes anyway.
“Can I be done?” I asked, having moved most of the goulash to my plate’s edge to give the appearance of having eaten enough, though I’d mostly filled my belly with the milk I’d used to wash down a few bites.
Mom looked at my plate. “That plate doesn’t look clean to me.” I groaned, but she gave her usual, “There are children starving in Africa who would very much like your goulash.”
“We can send it to them,” I replied. I knew those Sally Struthers commercials with the children with flies on them, their dark eyes that wobbled toward the camera, never focusing.
“Watch your tone,” Dad warned, taking a sip from his beer. I didn’t know what he meant, but I knew I’d mis stepped somehow.
“I know! We can take it to Ronnie in case he gets hungry!” Dani exclaimed, pleased with her solution. She climbed off her chair, walked over to my side of the table, and reached for my plate as if it was decided.
“What?” Mom asked. Her brow furrowed.
I pinched the skin on the back of Dani’s arm and used my nails to illustrate my point. “Shut up,” I hissed under my breath.
“What is she on about?” Dad asked Mom, exasperated, like she could decode Dani’s chatter.
“Nothing,” I said a bit too loud. Unsure how else I might redirect the conversation. Dani withdrew her arms. Only as she did so, her elbow knocked my half-full glass of milk across the table.
“Damnit Dani, sit your ass down!” Dad yelled. Mom jumped up to grab towels while Dani rubbed at the spot where my nails found her flesh. Her greasy bottom lip protruded.
She returned to her chair, mumbling apologies. After we’d gotten an earful about not playing at the table, Dad’s anger having shut us both up, I turned to my plate to stack as many noodles on my fork as possible. When the fork was full, I used my fingers to squish them tighter on the tines so I could add even more.
“No playing with your food, Melissa,” Dad said. “I’d expect something like that from your sister.”
He nailed me with the greatest of insults: being called a baby, made to feel little and as immature as Dani. Even now, all these years later, what was an insult to me then now feels like the excuse I use to understand my parents, who were only replicating what they knew of raising children, what their parents did to them. My father’s hand didn’t stop spanking until we were crying because that was what his father had done. This was how you raised children to mind you. A child’s eventual tears signaled you’d taught them regret. But my parents were practically children themselves. I was born when they were just twenty and twenty-one. We were hardly angels, and they were hardly adults. They played at being parents like how Dani and I played at being rich. Maybe this is too generous, or I am making excuses for cruelty. Maybe I resurrect their memory to find a way to live with what was done to my child body. I only know they did what they could with the tools they were given.
At bathtime I had graduated to showering alone, a slight Dani took personally. She insisted we didn’t need privacy, starting the argument again and again each night. Sometimes, she threw a fit until I would sit on the toilet while she played with her tugboats, always needing an audience. When she finished, I took my turn, delighting in the shower’s stream, which signified that I was older. I had graduated from tugboats, and with age, I would be good too. In the tub, we mostly swished and steeped in our watery filth, but the shower head could rinse away every sin and misstep. How clean I would be.
When I entered our bedroom after my shower, Dani was already in her pajamas and tucked in, but her back was to me. Mom hustled me into my bed after prayers, stamped her nightly kisses on our foreheads and turned out the lights, but Dani was behaving strangely. She stared at the wall, with her body tightly wound. She’d gone to bed without complaint, though it was usually her leading the charge for a glass of water or reassembling her stuffies along her headboard or telling me every little thought that entered her head. Suddenly, it clicked.
“Where’s my ring?” When she didn’t respond I asked again and crossed the bedroom, tugging back her blankets. “Give it.”
She was a roly-poly, folding in on herself, burying her hands at her middle. I grabbed at her limbs until I found her clenched fist and pulled back each finger as she grumbled, revealing my ring in her sweaty palm. I retrieved it and slipped it back on my finger.
“Stealing isn’t nice, Dani. It’s a sin.”
“I was just looking,” she jumped out of bed, indignant.
“Lying is a sin, too.”
“So?”
“So, you’ll go to,” I cupped my hands around my mouth, leaning down toward her ear and whispered, “Hell.”
“Will not,” she crossed her arms.
“Will too.” After years of catechism, on this I was certain. “Where’s the butterfly ring you picked?”
“I don’t want that one.”
“You get whatcha get and you don’t pitch a fit,” I repeated the catchphrase Mom was always saying when we grumbled.
“Well, you can’t go to my birthday party,” she stuck her finger in my face when she spoke.
I started to laugh, which only made her madder.
“And you can’t go to Heaven,” she said. I stopped laughing then. “Mom and Dad and Ronnie and me go to Heaven. But not you. You’re all alone.”
“That’s not nice, Dani.”
“I hate you,” she spat as her tiny fist slugged my shoulder. Little droplets of her spit landed on my arm
It didn’t even hurt. I watched her shake her fist loose, her effort to hurt me rebounding back on her. I couldn’t tell you why I did it, but I used all my might, and I slapped her. My hand sailed toward her cheek, moving along a trajectory predetermined after years of receiving the same. I felt my jaw set, teeth bracing for impact, but then my ring suddenly leapt from the back of my hand to the palm side, like a weapon selecting its mark, like a warm cat sleeping in your lap who startles at a noise and splays its claws wide on your bare skin as it scrambles to get away, and the flower of the ring met her cheek, its petals scratched three perfectly-spaced red channels along her cheek’s fat, and I gasped just as she did, and then I slapped my hands over my mouth, willing her inevitable howl to hush. Like I might stop up the sound that would spill my sins, only I pressed desperately at the wrong mouth. The ring’s flower stamped Dani’s blood across my lips as her wail summoned the grownups.
Suddenly, the sounds of Mom and Dad moving were all around us, just downstairs—it wouldn’t be long, their steps surged and stomped and stormed a rhythm I could feel in my teeth and knees, and when their voices called up, “Girls?” it was both accusation and concern.
I stood there petting Dani’s damp hair, like she was a dog I could soothe. I’d never seen so much blood before. It slid down her chin and throat before flowering at the collar of her pajamas. I hissed a shhhhhh-shhhhhh-shhhhhhhhh into her ear in the hopes of calming her, and then a string of “Sorry, Dani, I’m so sorry, you’re okay,” but I doubt she even heard me as she panicked at the sight of her blood on her chubby hands.
I have trouble forgiving that girl who wounded her sister. Sometimes, I will see Dani’s scar catch the light, just so, its cruel geometry taunting me all these years later. It’s barely visible now, her baby fat long gone, but my eye seems to always latch on it. She’ll be sipping a glass of Pinot Grigio or leaning down to pet the dog, and it will wink at me, the three lines reminding me of what I did. Right there, tracking across her cheek, a road I might follow toward the truth of my brutality.
How do I ask for forgiveness when I can’t even give it to myself? I suppose this shouldn’t be surprising given that my childhood pastime was going to the bathroom after Dad stopped, locking the door, tugging down my pants, and craning my neck. I needed to see the ruddy flesh summoned by his palm. I needed the hot pink to be tangible, to anchor me. When I placed my hand on my skin, I was always stunned by the smarting heat. All that blood blooming just beneath my skin would make me cry even harder, expanding the shame in my throat until I could barely breathe. At the edge, pinpricks of red laced my skin, a precursor to the eventual bruise.
Before the door of our bedroom swung open, I scrambled under my bed’s blankets, abandoning Dani wailing in the middle of our room. As if I could hide from what was coming. Tented beneath my sheets, I waited. I licked at my sister’s blood along my lips; she didn’t taste at all like the wine they called “the blood of Christ.” I played dead, pinched my eyes shut, and tried to hold my fraying breath. I wanted to be as still as Ronnie, as if that might save me. I wanted to be worthy of forgiveness.
What the Catholics gave me, what I do believe in (mostly) is a kind of reconciliation. Not that I need the meaty hand of a priest hovering over me, granting it after confessing my sins, as some kind of inside guy who knows the mind of God, who can sign off on forgiveness like a banker on a loan application—an advance of good will so long as we make payments every month. Reconciliation has always been about crafting a sort of peace, finding a way to give yourself permission to live—a cease-fire with the ugly, warped parts of yourself. I’m still working to open my hand and gift her good will, but I will never stop trying.
So, what happened as I lay and readied lies? What fib or bare-faced lie could explain the blood-faced sister?
As bad as it was, it turned worse still. When the door swung open, hiccupping through tears and snot and blood, Dani howled when she saw them, moaning that she didn’t want to die, not like Ronnie had. Her child mind conflating all that blood with her end. Through my blankets, I made out her hysterical pleading, part gibberish and part caterwaul, but her frantic words rang true—“P-please don’t bury me in the snow, Momma.” I didn’t need to see their faces. We both know what came next. This could only ever be a story about all the times we die before we actually do.
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Jennifer Popa earned her PhD in English at Texas Tech University and her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. These days, she works as the Special Folios Editor at Pleiades and a Grants Manager on Lake Erie. Some of Jennifer Popa’s most recent writing can be found in Ninth Letter, Cleaver Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, and West Branch. She can be found at www.jenniferpopa.com.