Banshee. Rachel Dewoskin

from ninth grade biology. I had stored that formaldehyde in my senses all these years. When I dissected the pig—cleverly named “Cletus” by my adolescent lab partner—I accidentally slipped and dropped its rubbery heart, which bounced on the table in the saddest way. I pretended to find it funny. A kid named Liam, laughing at the black slate desk next to mine, accepted a dare and took a nibble of his pig’s liver. It was probably still preserved inside him, twenty-eight years later.

      “Mom? Are you there?”

      “They’re going to take it out is all, sweetie,” I said. “And they’ll take some lymph nodes to see whether it’s likely to be elsewhere, but they don’t think so. It’s early, they think—small or whatever. The surgery isn’t risky. This is their bread and butter; they do these surgeries all the time. I’ll be okay.”

      “A mastectomy? Is that what you’re having? How is that not risky?”

      Was she thinking of the same terrors as I was? Had I nursed them into her, a DNA-style passing-on of neurosis, à la my ancestors? I had nursed her for two and a half years on demand, could still feel those years, our quiet milk-life, running underneath this year. Some kind of heaviness. Some kind of loss.

      And was the reason my own fear seemed so outside the normal human range because my great-grandparents died in gas chambers? Of course, we’d all read that trauma gets passed down, but is that true, even if we diligently hide it? Do you have to know you’re fucked to fear it? Or is it in the drink, the milk, even the mama-baby eye contact?

      It was unlike Alexi to be so worked up, and I felt irritated at being reminded that having cancer was both alarming and bad news. I could hear her trying not to cry, a swallowing sound, and I thought how I’d never kiss her goodnight in her dorm, how she’d never be my toddler again. I’d never snap her in and out of a romper. This created a vacuum of blood away from my heart and I thought I might black out.

      “Yes, there’s always some risk, I guess, but it’s going to be okay. I promise.” Who was I to promise?

      She collected herself quickly, put her Charles voice on. “When is this happening?”

      “The week before Thanksgiving.”

      “Jesus, Mom. Why didn’t you tell me?”

      “I did, honey. This is me telling you.”

      “I mean when they found it.”

      “I wanted to know what it was and what was going to happen before I told you. And now we know it’s not that big a deal. It’s going to be okay, and you have to stay at school, honey. Don’t panic. Like I said, the surgery is apparently quite simple.” I waited, hoping she would say something, but she was silent. “They say the tissue is external, so it’s easier to—”

      “External to what?” Ah, girl of my heart; thank you for asking. She was still at least part mine, not 100 percent Charles. Although why did it sound practical and rational when Alexi asked this, whereas when I asked, it was considered irrational feminine lunacy?

      “You know, uh—” I said, my fake voice metallic, “—my organs. They don’t have to cut near my heart or lungs or anything dangerous.”

      “But they know it’s cancer? That’s what they said?”

      “Yes, but it probably hasn’t spread, so—”

      “So they can take it out and you’ll be okay?”

      “I hope so. They’re optimistic.”

      “I’m coming home.”

      “No. Don’t come home yet. Finish your quarter. You’ll be home for Thanksgiving anyway. I’ll need you then. I’ll be recovering; it’ll be cheerful to have you here. Do your work. Stay in New York. I’m a grown-up.”

      She said, “Since when?”

      Once, when Alexi was in sixth grade, she went to camp for a few days. It was the first time I’d gone a single day without speaking to her. Even when I went to far-flung writers’ colonies and lived in the woods, I ran miles to find internet or phone service and stood—sometimes with foxes trotting by me—on the phone, hearing her daily rose, thorn, and bud. That five-day camp had felt like a devastating dress rehearsal for this empty nest. I had hated it, waking each day feeling like a depressive (which I’d never been), staring at the ceiling knowing I would not only not see her that day, but also not even hear her voice. It felt like having nothing to look forward to, which made sense, because for me that’s what it was. I loved seeing Alexi, loved 3:30 after school, walking her home from the bus or waiting for her later when she was older, listening to her kick her shoes off and toss her backpack into a heap on the floor, hearing about her days, sitting with her and Charles at dinner or just with her when he worked late, watching her twist noodles on her fork or lift a glass of milk to her small beak.

      That stupid camp! I was shaken by the confidence of the other mothers—that their children would be returned to them intact, that nothing would be lost by five days without each other. I recognized that the problem was mine.

      “Mom? I have to go, Mom. I have studio. I’m so sorry that this—”

      “I know, lovely girl. I love you. I’m sorry too. But please don’t worry so much.”