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My pigtails whip against my face as I run to my mother’s car in the school parking lot. Giddiness hums in my knees, radiates in my calves, begging me to start skipping.
My five-year-old heart is bursting with joy because we found him. Last Wednesday, my kitten, Priest, disappeared. We tore apart the neighborhood searching neighbors’ yards and posting lost signs with Crayola portraits of the black cat. Then after three days, my father heard a weak bleating beneath the house. Priest had been right under our noses (and feet) the entire time.
Poor Priest had trembled on his legs. His normally dulcet mewls were raspy screeches. Instead of dancing with excitement, his bright green eyes cast listless stares at us. Mom insisted on taking him to the vet today, but assured me he would be back to his old self by the time I came home from school.
I was already imagining Priest’s ebony fur against my palm as I slid into the Chrysler Voyager. My feline friend might still be weak, but surely he had the energy to cuddle? I could place him over my flat chest, feel the vibration of his purrs over the beating of my heart.
My mother looks in the rearview mirror. Even though her chocolate brown sunglasses conceal her gaze, I know she is looking at me in that mirror.
“Bridget,” Mom begins. Her voice is hoarse, scratchy like when she smokes. “Priest died today.”
The car seat sinks beneath me. I am stunned, I am frozen by this revelation. Yes, I am old enough to understand death. Death is the hooded specter that lurks near the elderly, the obviously sick. Death is the force in my feet as I crush pesky grasshopper and roaches in the backyard.
Years later, I will understand that death had always been hovering over the sickly feline. He was the runt of a street cat’s litter. Priest hadn’t been trapped beneath our house for three days; he’d sequestered himself so that he could die in peace.
After I absorb my mom’s statement, my blood boils. I am whipping through the stages of dying in a single car ride. It only took thirty seconds for me to change from denial to anger. Priest was a baby; death only strikes the elderly or the wicked. And he was not even sick, only starved and tired. The vet should have fixed him. My mother should have fixed him.
I whine. I shriek. I accuse my mother of taking him to a bad vet, of not taking him to the vet at all. Surely there was some way to fix him.
My mother does not respond to my accusations. She keeps her sunglass- covered eyes on the road. Her face is stony. Her mouth is frozen into a frown.
By the time the car pulls into the driveway of our brick house, I have transitioned into the bargaining stage of dying. I pray to God that Priest will be miraculously revived. I close my eyes, try to focus my will on Priest being alive again. Disney has convinced me that mere willpower can make children fly and turn peasant girls into princesses. Surely it can reverse death?
“I want to see him!” I demand.
Mom sighs and massages her forehead. “Come on.” She sighs. “We have to bury him.”
Mom disappears into the garage and returns with a shovel and a flower box. I furrow my brow in bewilderment before I realize that the box doesn’t hold roses. Priest’s body is in the box.
The earth is moist and black from this morning’s rain. The shovel sinks into the ground like a hot knife through butter. I watch my mother dig, listening to her frustrated grunts. She has not bothered to change into her Timberlands. The soles of her sandals bend each time they slam into the top of the shovel.
A dark red circle blooms on her oversized t-shirt. I gasp. “Mom, you’re bleeding!”
My mother glances down at her waist. The hole already reaches her knees.
“Shit,” she mutters, just loud enough for the curse word to reach my ears. I bristle at the word.
Without any explanation, my mother climbs out of the grave and stomps into the house. My juvenile mind is cast into confusion. How did Mom cut herself? Did she whack herself with a shovel? Unease twists my stomach.
My vision skitters over to the plain white box. Morbid curiosity overcomes me. I lift the top off the kitten coffin inch by inch, my fingers trembling in anxious anticipation. The smell hits me first. Only a few hours dead, and already the scent of rot covers him like a second coat. His slight, sinewy figure looks even more emaciated. Priest is just skin and sharply jutting bones, like an old leather glove filled with sticks.
I stroke the marking on his neck, a dash of white on his black coat like a priest’s collar. My fingers tingle, then the skin on my arm crawls. I imagine germs from Priest’s corpse crawling up my body. Bile rises up my throat.
I race into the house, desperate to escape his corpse. I wonder if whatever illness killed Priest has infected me.
“Mom!” I cry as I sprint into the kitchen.
I can hear the shower running upstairs. She will not hear me. My eyes roam around the kitchen for any distraction, any momentary pleasure that will erase the feel of Priest’s matted fur on my fingertips.
The cabinet beckons me. I tear open a red box and start shoveling crackers in my mouth. The crackers sharp edges scratch the roof of my mouth, but I keep on shoving them down my throat. I have to get rid of the dread in the pit of my stomach.
My fingers hit cardboard. I stare at my fingers, coated in cheesy crumbs, then at the box. I have polished off the entire container in minutes.
I glance up at the ceiling and realize the dull hum of the shower is gone. I trudge up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom. The upstairs is completely silent. Usually the hallway is filled with the sound of the radio. Now all that breaks the silence is the faint tempo of my sneakers on the hardwood floor.
The master bedroom door is ajar. I creep up to the doorway and surreptitiously peer into the bedroom. My mom is sitting on the bed completely naked, gazing at the mirror. Her golden brown hair cling to her back in wet tendrils. Beads of moisture course down her breasts. She slouches, forcing her abdomen into thick fat rolls.
My mom’s pink complexion that usually glows with warmth now looks sunburned. I can see the pale, hairy thighs above her toned and smooth calves. Her laugh lines have become wrinkles. My mother looks frail and weary.
Is this what all adults look like in private? Are they all frail and weary when they think the door’s shut?
The rest of the afternoon drips by into the early evening. I hug my stuffed animals and pretend they are my dead kitten. My skin continues to crawl, but now it’s because I recall my mother sitting on the bed.
Despite my anxiety, I manage to fall asleep on the stained area rug in my bedroom. A knock on the door awakens me.
I cast a bleary look at my father standing in the doorway. His hand still rests on the bedroom door. His tie hangs loose around his neck. He has already unbuttoned his shirt. Dad always tears at his tie as soon as he steps in the front door, as if that thin piece of fabric is a noose.
“Where’s your mother?”
I shrug and rise to my feet with a groan. I follow my dad on his quest through the house to find my mother. We eventually locate her in the garage, deep in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“Kathy, you’re not supposed to be smoking,” Dad says, his voice stern. “It’s bad for the baby.”
Even through the smoke, I can see Mom’s eyes fill with tears. “The baby’s gone, Greg.”
My father’s face turns to stone.
They talk in cracked, raspy voices. I can tell from their tone that they’ve forgotten about me. I’ve already learned that if I don’t speak, people forget that I’m there. Silence grants me superpowers; I am the invisible girl, the ultimate bug, gathering intel on all the adults. Last month I learned that Caitlin’s dad has lost his job, and that the male florists likes to kiss other boys.
Later that night, my father tucks me into bed. Mom’s stuffed with pain pills and already passed out on the living room couch.
Dad reaches over to turn off the ceiling light, then hesitates. He turns to me, but his hazel eyes won’t meet mine. “Bridget, you know how to be a good girl, right?”
I nibble on my comforter. Dad usually says this when he’s found out I got in trouble at school, or snuck into Shelton’s lawn. My mind flashes to Priest’s stiff corpse. Would Daddy punish me for touching a dead animal? He chastises me for touching “unclean” things. Last summer he slapped a beautiful light blue feather out of my fingers because it could carry a disease.
“Yes, Daddy,” I reply with trembling words.
“Good.” He pats the crown of my head with a warm smile. “You be extra good the next few days. Mom’s very sad about the kitten dying.”
My father thinks I’m stupid, I realize. I’m too young to understand naiveté or ignorance. It doesn’t occur to me that my parents want to protect me. Anger washes over me. I want to tell him that I’m not as stupid as they think I am, that I know what it means when Mom says the baby’s gone.
But I hold my tongue. I’m not sure if my father can see me biting my lip in the darkness as I hold back my words. I nod, because pretending is easier than telling the truth.
I’m starting to understand why my mother looked so different when she was alone. Adults do this all the time. They’re always holding back their words with a smile. They pretend to enjoy wearing a tie even though it feels like a silk noose. They pretend to give a fuck about a dead kitten when they’re bleeding out a baby. And they grin and bear it when someone thinks they’re stupid.
That weekend, we went to the hardware store and found an orange tree to plant over Priest’s grave. It took over a year for the tree to bear fruit. When I finally plucked an orange from the tree, it was a huge disappointment. There was no sweetness, only a sharp bitterness that made my skin crawl.
