Fiction, Maggie Menditto
C works late and I keep in the house. Thin, midwestern walls—I write my name in the space behind the bed. He knows I’m here, that’s not the problem.
We bought this house with money from the book. Here, there are garden rules one must obey. Some mornings I slice the oranges and others I sit in the car thinking of places I’d like to be. When none occur to me, I’m back inside with the knife in my hands.
The night she goes missing, I place the diamond on my tongue. Pointed lips refuse to swallow down. Once, I get close and see it all, even the cake they’d serve beside my body with its chocolate shell. What stops me is C, the image of him beside a long pair of legs, manicured Kleenex fingers trying to get to him. Nothing is sexier than a widower, but I can’t give him that.
The house has space I’m supposed to fill. I go to the store and purchase a mattress for the guest room. Sweaty men with rags bring it over and I flirt around the house. “Should we break it in?” I tease.
I watch the news on a harvest moon. A college girl has gone missing and she has two parents who look like they’ll topple over from grief. I watch the mother hold her own hands on a makeshift stage. I think, here is something to care about.
While C’s asleep I read the papers from his first class. When the praise is effusive, I imagine stockinged feet and headbands, I imagine libraries after dark. On one paper he’s written the word, “Divine.” I rip the page in half and place the holy word in my pocket.
There’s a mouse that lives in the coat closet. When we’re alone together I leave out snacks to see what he might like. He turns his nose up at cheese; cheddar, provolone, swiss, a little brie scooped on the edge of a spoon.
My mouse prefers sweets. He gets into the licorice I leave in my coat pocket, a blood-red offering twisted on the floor. When C finds the open bags, I look up from the couch. “How did that get there?”
Every month I pray for something to tether me. At the doctor, they clipboard my thirty-nine years, photograph the eggs that are meant to live inside me. I shouldn’t have waited so long to come in, they say. The waiting room is full of children with open mouths, mothers balancing bodies on a single chair.
At the pharmacy, I tell the cashier I’m here on business. I purchase a toothbrush and mouthwash, place some lemon drops on the counter. The missing girl’s face sits on the rack, a mouthful of fat teeth. “Just these.”
I bring her home with me. In the pictures, the missing girl is attractive whereas I’m not. I pour a glass of wine, read: Anna worked with poor children, she taught them to play tennis. Thick arms and unblemished skin, hair washed blonde as beachgrass—the kind of wholesome you’d expect someone like C to end up with. I can tell from looking at her that she drank a glass of milk on school mornings.
C gets home and places a hand on my thigh. With his tie undone, he looks like the child that he is, the lines around his eyes will be washed away by morning sleep. “And how was your day?”
I assemble my papers on the empty mattress, remember how it feels to work. My email is full of requests from old students who want advice. I hope this finds you well. I hope this finds you—I go to youtube and search: soldier reunites with spouse, soldier reunites with dog, dog.
I feel my best when looking for Anna. In chatrooms, basement detectives watch security footage from the night she went missing and jerk off to her photos.
setsail: Watch her eyes in fig. 2. pupils dilated I would guess 6 mm, suggests intoxication beyond wt we’ve heard?
>>>mongoose88: could be shadow from sign above car wash. See how it recedes when she steps back towards glass door?
>>>setsail: Could be reflect from display inside
>>>madden212: bullshit
I hit repeat and watch her stumble up the steps. I place a stack of books on the ground and hit my shin against it, over and over, trying to figure out what comes next.
When the weather turns cold, I leave a trail of kettle corn from the closet to the couch, tempting the mouse into coming out to play. C steps on it and the pieces crack under his feet, becoming bite-sized.
I tell C I can’t focus here. He says I need a hobby so I go for walks when the neighbors are asleep. I cut flowers from their gardens and leave them in the sink. Red clots pour from my body into the tub, I run water over the mess until it becomes something that doesn’t belong to me.
Every new moon is a curse and every day a reminder that my missing girl is still not home. On the news her name becomes a checkpoint, something to pass over between the weather and despair. I feel a duty to listen for it. The sun will shine tomorrow, they are eighty percent sure.
C comes home smelling like sugar water. I follow him up the stairs and he puts me on my knees. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” he says. He smiles while I’m down on the floor. He was only twenty when I met him, gym socks in the front row. The first time he stayed after class I was cruel on purpose. This has potential, I said, but it’s careless.
I rub bleach against my scalp and bury it under a cap. On TV, the station plays the same clips again. Anna in her tennis skirt, Anna at her recital. She sings like an angel and I pout my lips in the mirror until they’re full, slick them red to blow a kiss. “I have somewhere to be,” I shout to no one. I leave a pot of yogurt by the door in case the mouse gets hungry while I’m gone.
With my blonde hair I feel like a stranger. In the restaurant, I frown at the waitress’ flat stomach, her milkmaid hips. I throw my hair around the room. “You made it,” C says. The woman he brought has a lazy eye I can’t look away from. Suddenly generous, I handle the professor’s fingers, feel skin slip around bone. “A pleasure,” I say.
We drive past strip malls with dream signs flickering over the pavement. I don’t recognize our house until we’re on the curb. “What did you think of her?” he asks. I hate when I can see the need in him. I climb over the console and shove my fingers in his mouth. My ring snags on his lip, his belt undone in my hand. Across the street a man stops to lift his dog’s shit from the sidewalk. My ass on the steering wheel—I get off on the shock before he’s even inside me.
Online, the chatrooms turn dark. People want to blame Anna’s volleyball coach, a family man with twin boys and a wife who works the suicide hotline.
blondie911: you guys r fucking sick
The mouse is gone for days that turn to weeks. The weather gets cold and I buy a blanket for the closet floor. “Just in case we need it,” I tell C. When he’s gone, I’m on the ground with candy in my palm, hiding it inside the folds.
By Halloween, the police are ready to rule it a homicide. I have an email from C’s friend, would I like to come in and read something for her class? I spread my pages across the floor, lay beside them, feel my knees and back arching toward a new center. Through the window, I can smell smoke, hear children scream through marshmallow mouths.
Anna’s body is found by a farmer, buried in a cornfield’s shallow grave. The coach’s fingerprints are on a scarf that landed on a branch. At the televised vigil, the pastor thanks God his child was returned to Him. Anna’s mother sits behind in a folding chair with wax pooling at her velcro shoes.
When C asks where I’ve been, I pull the photo from my pocket, a white form taking shape against shadow. “Did I steal something from you? That first time on the office floor,” I ask. “Will this be enough?” He holds me to him. There’s a monster growing inside me, and I intend to feed it.
The house’s silence changes, a new purpose to these hands. I install a backdoor lock and paint the upstairs peach. When men arrive with the crib, I am chaste, a hand on my stomach though I’ve hardly begun to show. On the television I keep it light, sap stories with doctors and long-lost twins back from the dead. I write to C’s professor friend, “Perhaps another time.”
I paint the crib to match the walls. I stand in each room looking for things to take care of. By the door, I hear the mouse before I see it, racing in the dark. I lift a book from the shelf. The mouse runs toward me, all pupils and tail shivering with its smallness in the light. The book crashes to the floor, smothering fur; at the end, not a sound. I leave the mouse for C to find.
Maggie Menditto is a writer from Washington, DC. She received her MFA from Columbia in 2021 and past publications include a personal essay in the New York Times. Maggie lives in Brooklyn. Find her on Instagram @maggie.pix
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