and tits. Sometimes I think I was already there when they met, hidden in the hot, dark cave of my mother’s belly. As a child, I dearly wished it to be so. As an adult, it’s just speculation. What is true, though, is that I arrived into this world a little too soon after the wedding bells rang.
Mother brought some money with her into the marriage. She always had class, if not the brains to play it smart. Hers was the remains of old money, shipping money, steeped in the sweat and labor of others. As the only child of an only child, the money was hers by right. It made her feel entitled, I think. Made her feel there was something to lose. She carried with her a picture of who she thought she ought to be—who we all ought to be. Falling in love with a boxer had clearly not been a part of her plan. She’d had a “phase,” I think now, back when they met, raging against the confinements of society.
He was different—a simple man, fueled by quiet anger. I’m sure it was no coincidence that he ended up in that ring. If he hadn’t met my mother, he probably would’ve been happy enough just working at the docks. Instead my father sold things: machinery mostly, expensive farm equipment, lawnmowers. We always kept a lovely garden. Our house was very white. We had help because Mother’s back was broken from carrying us children. Our surroundings were always spotless; fresh flowers in every vase, white surfaces unmarred by clutter. I think she needed that to keep calm, to feel an ounce of control. She always seemed to me a string wound too tight. One day it would snap, and we would all be in trouble.
My younger brother Ferdinand was a quiet boy, chewing his emotions. Honey hair and blushing cheeks. He was good at chess, but neither of my parents saw any value in that. He took up fencing for a while, but I think the weapons scared him. It always unnerved me, the silence in that boy, or maybe I’m only saying that now because I know what happened later.
And then there was Olivia; round of cheek, sweet as marzipan, protected by her own radiance. She was the image my mother had in mind when she set about producing children. It took her three tries to get one like that. When she saw what became of your mother, though, I imagine she probably cried. She could never have envisioned her golden child to grow so dull, didn’t pay for those ballet lessons and acting classes so Olivia would go on to be a mere housewife. She was supposed to accomplish, I think. Do those things our mother could not because she went and had us. Olivia was supposed to make a name for herself, be a movie star or a woman of the world. Have expensive lunches, host fundraisers for orphans, and click her way across marble floors in very expensive shoes.
Olivia blames me for how things turned out. How could she ever be all that, with my notoriety hanging around her neck?
I have ruined it all for her, haven’t I? Forced her to dwell in the shadows.
Forced you all to dwell in the shadows.
I am not sorry for that.
It’s not like I had any choice, you know, and even if I did, I might not have acted any differently. There was always a distance between them and me. They didn’t see what I saw, didn’t know what I knew. And maybe there’s some resentment in there too, because what my mother failed so spectacularly to see was how vulnerable it all made me. How I was like a raw egg, all tender and fragile, so easy to break.
No one keeps an eye on the bad girl. The peculiar daughter is left on her own. So easy to slip away then, fall into the twilight places of the world. To be taken and lost. Preyed upon.
Good girls smell like burnt tangerines for those with bad intentions—fragrant but bitter, it is a repellant. Bad girls like me smell like ripe apples, ready for picking, juicy and tart.
No one will miss them at all.
But I could have used a mother’s protection.
IV
This I remember: the horrid sound when the flowerpot crashed to the floor. I was five at the time, standing by the living room window, bright sunlight was streaming inside, and thin white curtains billowed in the breeze.