“Don’t worry. It’s from that green cleanse you did. It’s mucoid plaque sloughing off the intestinal walls.”
—but not in all areas.
Can you tell me what color eyes my grandmother had?
What color hair my grandfather had?
Were my great-aunts all deaf?
My great-great-uncles all lunatics?
Do I come from a long line of mathematicians?
Were their teeth as crooked as my teeth?
No, you can’t tell me, and neither can Dad, and neither can the agency.
It was a closed adoption. Zero trace.
Are you mine?
Ephraim doesn’t have an orgasm, he stops after a couple of minutes, says he isn’t feeling it. Shifts his weight off her. The first thing she feels is relief. The second is fear. No male teenager ever passes up the chance for intercourse, according to her mom, who last year gave her A Talk that included, thank God, no anatomical details but did feature warnings about the sex-enslaved minds of boys. Yet here is Ephraim, sixteen going on seventeen, passing up a chance. Or stopping mid-chance.
“Did I, like, do something wrong?” she says quietly.
“Unh-unh. I’m just way tired.” He yawns, as though to prove it. Pushes back his blond-streaked hair. “We’re doing two‑a‑days for soccer. Hand me my hat?”
She loves this hat, which makes him look like a gorgeous detective.
But her own clothes: Black wool leggings. Red tube skirt. White glitter-paste long sleeve. Purple loop scarf. A pathetic outfit; no wonder he stopped.
“Want me to drop you at Ash’s?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She waits for him to say something about the next time, make a plan, allude to their future together, even just You coming to our game Friday? They get to Ash’s and he hasn’t. She says, “So …”
“See you, September girl,” he says, and kisses, more like bites, her mouth.
In Ash’s bathroom she drops the purple scarf in the trash and covers it with a handful of smushed toilet paper.
Eivør Mínervudottír’s family lived on fish, potatoes, fermented mutton, milk-boiled puffin, and pilot whale. Her favorite food was the fastelavnsbolle, a sweet Shrovetide bun. In 1771 the Swedish king ate fourteen fastelavnsboller with lobster and champagne, then promptly died of indigestion.
Bex won’t wear a raincoat. They will be in the car mostly and she doesn’t care if her hair gets wet between the car and the store and she hates how the plastic feels on her neck.
“Fine, get wet” is Didier’s answer, but the wife isn’t having it. It’s pouring. Bex will wear a raincoat. “Put. It. On,” she bellows.
“No!” screams the girl.
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Bex, nobody is getting in the car until you put it on.”
“Daddy said I don’t have to.”
“Do you see how hard it’s raining out there?”
“Rain is good for my skin.”
“No, it’s not,” says the wife.
“Jesus, let’s go,” says Didier.
“Please back me up on this.”
“I would if I agreed with you, but we’ve been standing here for ten goddamn minutes. It’s ridiculous.”
“Enforcing rules is ridiculous?”
“I didn’t know we had a rule about—”
“Well, we do,” says the wife. “Bex? Do you want to keep holding everyone up, or are you ready to act like a six-year-old and wear your raincoat?”
“I’m not a six-year-old,” she says, arms crossed. “I’m a little babykins. I need my diaper changed.”
The wife slaps the raincoat across Bex’s shoulders, yanks the hood into place, and ties the strings under her chin. Lifts up the girl’s rigid body and carries her out to the car.
Her husband’s hands sit on the wheel at ten and two, a habit that in their courting days shocked the wife: he had played in bands, done drugs, punched his father in the face at age fourteen. Yet he steered—steers—like a grandma.
She is glad not to be driving. No decisions to be made at the bend in the road.
Little animal black and twitching, burnt to death but not quite dead.
A scrap of tire struggling its way across.
Little animal, plastic bag.
But maybe it wasn’t a plastic bag.
Maybe her first sight was correct.
Somebody lit it on fire, some bad kid, bad adult. Newville is not lacking in badness—
but it’s beautiful here and your family’s been coming here for generations and the sea air’s full of negative ions. They boost the mood, remember?
Bex is chattering again by the time they reach the store.
Where’s the doll section.
John’s so lazy.
Somebody’s mom came to class who’s a dental hygienist and said even the nub of an adult tooth growing in still needs to be brushed.
“Perfects at two o’clock,” hisses Didier, elbowing the wife’s elbow.
Not them. Not today.
“Shell!” squeals Bex. “Oh my God, Shelly!”
The girls embrace dramatically, as though bumping into each other in the town where they both live were the most amazing surprise.
Bex: “Your dress is so pretty.”
Shell: “Thanks. My mom made it.”
“Hey, friends!” chirps Jessica Perfect. “Good to see you!”
“You too.” The wife leans in for an air-kiss. “Brought the whole crew, huh?”
Shell’s tanned, slender siblings stand in a row behind their tanned, slender parents.
“Yep, it’s one of those days.”
Those days at the Perfects’ are probably a little different from those days on the hill.
On top of making dresses, Jessica knits sweaters out of local Shetland wool for all four children.
Cans jam from the wild berries they pick.
Home-cooks their wheat-free, dairy-free meals.
Chicken nuggets and string cheese never cross her threshold.
Her husband is a nutritionist who once lectured Didier on the importance of soaking nuts overnight.
“Blake.” Didier nods.
“How’s it hangin, buddy?”
“Long and strong,” says her husband, with only a flicker of a smile.
“Look at this guy! He’s getting so big! How old are you now?” Blake leans down toward John, who squirms in the shopping cart, shoving his face into Didier’s