“Momma, quit,” Shauna whines. “Just stop.”
Mom exhales hard through her nostrils. She reaches deep into her robe and pulls something out: Caelin’s pageant bridge, smeared with lipstick. She picks up Shauna’s palm and slaps the bridge into it. “Brandon forgot this,” she says, “but I think he’s got the right idea because them pageants are sick, and you might just go to hell for putting her in one of em.”
“Look who’s talking,” Shauna moos.
Mom grinds her foot into her leg. Shauna shrieks. “Y’all are drunked up or high or somethin. Need to behave yourselves.”
“Quit,” Shauna yells, and kicks her. The volume in the room doubles. Shauna lolls back, scrubs wrinkled, stinking of weed. They kick, feet aflurry. Mel picks a loose piece of skin from her bottom lip, staring. Goes, “Hee.”
Shauna reaches in and slaps Mom’s leg, half meaning, half play. Mom giggles and smacks her head. “Go, goddammit,” she yells. She straightens her robe and gives her head a final tap. “Go home. I mean it.” She turns to us, breathing hard. “Mel, I got you a bed ready in Shauna’s old room. There’s clean towels in there. And I got your old room ready for you.” She takes the glass from my hands. “Out drinkin and druggin when here you just got out the hospital. Ought to be ashamed.”
“I’m okay. Really.”
Mom comes at me, grabs my chin between her forefinger and thumb. “Lemme see,” she mutters, and pulls my line of vision directly in front of her. I get a close-up of the gray in her eyes—they were always gray, but are nearly transparent now—and the large pores around her nose. How much do I resemble her? I should ask Mel. Objectivity is the key when evaluating visuals. Distance. Parsing a whole down to its barest, most shape-based elements, passionless, exact. I try to turn to look, just to make sure Mel’s there, but my mother makes a noise like “Aaaht” and jerks my head back.
Finally she lets me go. “Well, you don’t look too crooked.” She rocks back on her heels. Says to Mel, “When my uncle had his stroke, Sharon’s great-uncle Zeke, I swear, half his face just went limp.” Mom pokes my jaw, grabs a bit of cheek flesh. “Stayed like that for the longest time. Like that old-fashioned disease. What do you call it. Bell’s palsy. Know what I’m talking about? Like that. They had an open casket for the visitation and all anyone could see was that half of face, like someone let the air out of it.” Mom smooths my cheeks down hard with her thumbs. “Wife of his was a goddamned idiot, leavin it open like that.”
I manage to duck out of her way. “Mom, you gonna be around tomorrow?”
She sighs. “Gotta pull day shift. Other girl’s out sick with the flu.”
“So at night?”
“Yeah.” She looks to me, evasive. “Now, don’t get pissy cause I gotta work. Sometimes you just got to.”
“I’m not getting pissy. Who’s getting pissy?”
Mel is staring at the family portrait again. Her lips are pressed together. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
Mom doesn’t notice. “I’m going to bed,” she grumbles. “I’ve had enough of y’all’s bullshit. You and Shauna together just wear me out. Good night, Mel.”
“Good night, Mrs. Kisses.”
Mom flicks a hand at her. “Oh, I changed back to my maiden name,” she says. “I ain’t been Mrs. Kisses in years.”
“What?” I say.
She shuts the door.
—
I snap on the lamp. It is my childhood room, not a sign of me left. Underneath the bed, I find a stack of yearbooks and choose a paperbound elementary school volume from the bottom of the pile. Flip past Mrs. Monroe’s class where my photo should be, going right for Mrs. Harrison, fourth grade 1993. I find Teddy in the second row.
I pull my sketchpad from my bag. The photo’s a poor shot, overexposed against a smoky-blue backdrop. The photographer clearly issued orders: body turned in one direction, chin tilted down to the other, a pose which has made Teddy slump forward, discomfort crimping his mouth. I work hard on the nose, the chin’s delicate turn. A lot of tight, intense pencil work. Light-touch shadowing. Teddy would have made a beautiful girl. My hands are steadier than they’ve been in weeks.
Mel comes in damp and flushed from the shower. She rubs her head with a towel and looks over my shoulder. “Dude, look at pretty boy.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
She tilts her head to one side and cranks her pinky finger in her ear. “You know what? We should go find him. See the man Teddy Caudill in the flesh.”
“I dunno,” I say. “How did you get your information on him, anyway?”
She hangs her towel around her neck. “Jesus, Kisses, why haven’t you learned to exploit Google like everyone else?” She shakes her head, smacking her palm against her ear, then rubs her hands on her shorts and disappears. Returns with a notebook she flips open. “Owns an art-movie rental place in Louisville called Weirdo Video.”