Tigers, Not Daughters - Samantha Mabry Page 0,37

weird mouth,” she said, nodding toward the screen. “Seriously. These actors are so ugly. Where do they find these people?”

Jessica scooted her butt back, squashing Iridian’s feet into the cracks between the cushions. “Get your giant-ass crane legs out of the way,” she said. “You should write for soaps. You’d be good at that, right?”

“I . . .” Iridian hesitated. “Maybe?”

What was happening? Iridian stared at the side of her sister’s face, which was lit up by the flashing screen. Who was this alternate, compliment-bearing version of Jessica? It wasn’t the sneering version, the one who talked to Iridian as if she didn’t have a brain in her head or a heart in her chest. It wasn’t the hard and silent version, the one who wanted everyone to believe she was made up of wires and cold plates of metal, welded together tight.

This version of Jessica was just hanging out, sucking on a Diet Coke, seeming totally absorbed in a scene on low volume between a middle-aged woman wearing a slinky designer gown pointing a gun at another middle-aged woman wearing a slinky designer gown. Everything seemed so normal. Jessica hadn’t said another thing about Ana or Ana’s hand or the writing on the wall.

With her gaze still on the screen, Jessica pulled more of the blanket toward her, tucking it up and under her chin. Iridian was left with a corner that only covered her from the waist down. She was sort of cold now, but it actually wasn’t that bad: two of the Torres sisters sitting together on the couch, watching soaps.

“This blanket smells,” Jessica eventually said.

“You smell,” Iridian replied.

Jessica cracked a smile, and Iridian ate it up.

Jessica

Jessica had only two memories of her mother, but they were both so old she didn’t know if they were real or if she’d invented them. The first was simple. It was of her mother standing outside, backlit by the sun. Her bare legs were copper-brown, and there was a crease of sweat behind each of her knees. Her nails were short, round, and not polished. She was wearing three gold rings that Rafe had given her on three separate occasions, all stacked up on one finger. Aside from those rings and a small gold cross that hung around her neck, she wasn’t wearing any other jewelry.

The second memory Jessica had of her mother was of them in the car together. Ana was also there. This memory Jessica was almost positive she’d made up, because she would’ve been only four years old and strapped in a car seat in the back when it had happened. Ana was in the front, even though Jessica knew now that her sister would have been too young to be riding shotgun. It was cold outside. Ana was wearing a puffy pink coat that was dirty around the wrists and had probably been bought secondhand. The heater wheezed. After easing through a stop sign, Jessica’s mom reached over and took Ana’s hand.

“Hold your breath,” she’d commanded.

They’d been driving through a graveyard. It was on both sides of the car, as if the cemetery had been there first and the street had later been plowed through it. There were tall iron gates and tilted stones. Most of the writing on those stones had been rubbed smooth. Names and the dates of long or short lives had dissolved along with the bones below. The graves went on and on. Jessica’s eyes were starting to water from holding her breath for so long.

Finally, after they’d driven through to the other side, Jessica’s mom dropped Ana’s hand and told both of her daughters a story. It was about how, when she was a girl, she went to her uncle’s funeral. She didn’t have a good coat, so she stood there shivering throughout the graveside service in a long-sleeved wool dress. Once she got home, she stood in front of the radiator until the sun went down, but she couldn’t get warm. At dinner, she ate chicken soup that turned cold when it hit her tongue. After dinner, she took a hot bath, but she was still freezing. She put on a bunch of clothes, heaped blankets on her bed, and climbed into it. Still, she shivered. Nothing like