After the biting had died down Katka went to the bathroom. The dishtowel was spotted red—probably ruined—but when she arrived at her thumb it was strangely bloodless. She’d never have cut it if she hadnt been drinking, if she hadnt been distracted by the thought of Mary whining and whining over shit that couldnt be helped. A flap of skin she would have to cut off at the root in a few days with a set of nail clippers. For now very alive, very capable of causing her pain. She swaddled it with a couple Band-Aids pulling on the tabs to make them tight then went back to the kitchen, taking a long drink of Truly on her return.
She stood on the right side of the cuttingboard this time, her back to the window. The air was fragrant with the smell of simmering stock. She diced the remainder of the garlic and put it in its own special tiny glass bowl. Lifted the lid of the carrots and potatoes steaming and tested them with a fork. Got an onion from the fridge and set about peeling it.
And they said she couldnt do it, couldnt take care of this whole place by herself, out here in the middle of nowhere. They couldnt say she had Mary. Mary was no help. Katka could see her through the window in the grass between the playset and the sewerpond, not even the size of the cut on her finger, a blotch on her family’s farm.
A sidewalk angling left to a garage painted banana cream and white. A big lawn. Two hundred feet from the garage to Mary. Glowing wheatstubble of autumn beyond the fenced-in reedy pond, where once there had been a gnarled treerow full of rusty metal. What a waste it would have been, to let it all go. What use would all her Dad’s work have been?
Hot oil. Sizzle, tiny bubbles where white flakes met grease. Blood on a rag soaking in the next room. Katka added the root veggies to the pot and made herself an old fashioned, returning to harass the contents of the frying pan.
Her mother white as a ghost leaning over this very stove. Her father’s face red as blood, hands clinched, elbows on the table. Gay yes gay i love her mom gay well if you cant—. She had never been the kind of daughter country people want anyway and she had not been back here for four years because they would not allow her to bring that stain of a woman here for four years. The garlic and onion was brown and edges were curling. She shut off the heat. Poured it olive oil and all into the pot and stirred it in. Lit the fire on low. Dropped beef chunks onto the same pan and they ssst in the remaining liquid.
A strand of smoke curled upward into the near-cloudless afternoon. Katka stood on a concrete slab off which the sidewalk branched like a tributary. In the west a driveway and a rickety cattle pen with rails made from one-half-inch pipe. Mary was lying in the grass now, face down. “I DONT CARE IF YOU DID LOSE YOUR BABY YOU DESERVE IT YOU WHORE.” Mary didnt move. Katka dropped the filter and ground it out with the ball of her foot.
She flipped the meat. The edges were nice and crispy. Tasted the soup. A bit more salt, a bit more pepper. Added the chunks to the pot and shut off the pan’s burner. Even at the end her father had been disappointed in her, in the little digs he took at her, unable or uncomfortable or unwilling to talk when Katka mentioned her painting or Mary or travel, ticking his life away in an armchair as the stain his daughter had brought into his home served him chicken and potatoes and folded his shirts and swept his kitchen.
Her face puckered. She dipped and sipped another spoonful. She never could get soup right. Perfect, like her grandma used to on her mother’s side.
Whatever. Waste not, want not. Katka started the washing machine. The splotches on the rag looked like dried blood on the outside of a bandage. Straight whiskey this time cut with a bit of water.
She sat against the garage watching the sun fall down the western sky. It was a still evening. There was breathing. Maybe she was asleep. Exhausted. “Mary…? Mary.”
After a while Katka went back inside. Shark Tank is what she settled on. Dusk came. Mary in her blue dress faded like the landscape.
After the load had finished Katka looked but the cloth was still blotted. She took it to the livingroom and turned on the lamps and scrubbed at it with a brush. She’d be better off throwing it away but she couldnt bear to lose—not to a cut and a bit of blood and a handtowel. Twenty minutes later she started another load—added bleach—woop woop woop woop. Better now, “discolored” this time. She filled up the porch sink and added bleach and let it soak again. Made some coffee to keep awake.
The last episode for the night was over and there were just infomercials left. Katka clicked off the TV. Thirty more minutes then she’d start the washer and go to bed. She went outside for a cigarette. A cool night, with stars. “Mary. Mary come back in. You dumb cunt come back inside. This is stupid.” The still-burning end fell like a meteor into a coffee cup sitting on the patio table they kept on the slab. Katka lit another. A pack of coyotes started howling—first one then two then a chorus somewhere in the darkness outside the circle of moonlike light the yardlamp spread over the property.
“Fuck you come inside.
Mary pleeeeese.”
In bed she could not sleep. Fantasized the pressure of Mary’s arms around her. In the morning she would go in search of her. Hell she’d throw her over her shoulder and carry her in kicking and biting and screaming if she had to. Katka went to the living room and turned on the lamps and set up an easel. A headache grew and she took a Tylenol to soothe it. She looked in the washer. The dishtowel was almost perfect this time. The rest would come out with use. Katka threw it in the dryer with a sense of triumph. She painted with one eye on the clock. At first light she would go to her. She would leave this place if she had to. Morning couldnt come fast enough.
Jacob Jirák resides in Kansas City. His work has appeared in BlazeVOX and American Mensa’s Calliope.
Header photo by Bene Tan, courtesy Shutterstock.
