Dear Son #1,
I have a soul in my soul eating me away from the inside. That’s what the priest said in his office when I asked what my bad energy meant. I told him I could feel the fires of hell burning in me. Set out the Word of God, burn a few candles, take a bath, let my hair down, cut my hair off, put on some makeup, find happiness, drive a car: that’s what the priest told me to do. What I did instead was what my sister told me to do: get help. And get out of here. I needed rest. You understand. There’s more to the story than what your father told you. I wanted badly to believe things were going to be okay. I didn’t think any of this was your fault.
I remember things from where we lived: There was a tree outside the house that had a knot on it that looked like a witch’s face. In the corner of the garage, a bucket full of broken fishing reels. You went through four trampolines growing up—wrestling too hard with friends, wearing your shoes, bouncing too much on one foot. You weren’t even that big, when you were little. This is just what comes to mind as I’m writing. I don’t think any of this is your fault. I felt busy in the mind for a very long time, blocked by something. There were insects in the basement. You remember. I talked to them like people. Your father started talking to them. Eventually it wore off with him though. And perhaps he started to think I was lonely. I was never lonely. Please don’t think I was ever lonely with you.
I ran away for a little while. Then I came back for a short while. I stopped talking to the insects. I tried harder to talk to you, but everything was difficult. “Where have you been?” you wanted to know. I told you I’d been everywhere, when really what happened, and what I don’t look forward to reliving to your father, is that I spent all our money over the course of two months and had many affairs. It was my second midlife crisis. The first was just an affair, and a very funny one at that. Your father and I were about to get divorced for something completely else, and the affair brought us back together. Those were the days. When I came home, I found the only thing that could make me happy was eating relentlessly. I gained twenty pounds in the time I was home. But everyone was happy I was eating again, so no harm no foul.
We had a cat when you were little. I doubt you’ll remember anything about having a cat. She was a Russian Blue. With a silky-smooth crevice behind the ear. She liked running into the road and testing our patience.
Don’t get me wrong: there are things I didn’t like about having a family. I never liked going to the beach. I never liked digging for clams, the feel of their sandy shells against my skin. I never liked the cold. I could feel it when you threw up. I could feel it when you were ill, when you were upset about your father crashing the car you wanted. I could feel a lot of things I had no business feeling. Then that went away, hence my new journey, and these letters. I could hear voices for a little while. Not voices like demons or like psychosis, but my own voice in multiples, telling me I needed to get out of there, and then telling me I had nowhere to go because I had things to live for—you know what I mean, you know how it goes. That I don’t think any of this is your fault. Trust me on that. Just pick yourself up and do something right for all of us.
Yours truly,
Mom
❧
Dear Kate,
This is just a little something to cheer you up and let you know I’m still alive and to remind you of us growing up. I’ve been thinking a lot about religion as a result of conversations I’ve had with a man in my building and how you and I almost lost our faith, growing up, as a result of a strange revelation. There was a study done recently that nearly fifty percent of Americans believe they have Native American blood. I’ve never believed I have Native American blood. But you did, growing up. Even though no one ever told you this. I’m willing to bet you still do.
When we sent our blood off, we found weeks later that we actually have Norse heritage. That’s something to think about now. I had to tell the priest that I had Norse heritage. I’ve been coming to the wrong place of worship, I said. To which he responded all the Norse gods were vile. This was not the last time I sat in his office, but I promised myself it would be—I felt like he was talking about me when he spoke of the vileness of the Norse gods. “You should pray for answers,” he said. I talked to Jesus about my faith but he wouldn’t answer. But I wasn’t looking for anything, I guess, except to have a conversation with someone about something interesting I’d discovered.
By the time we became adults, we’d been shut down by our parents on so many occasions that we no longer saw the benefit of sharing our interests. When we were young, I remember you tried to explain to our mother the intricacies of time travel according to scientists: that theoretically an object with the mass of the sun could be spun and twisted to form a hole in space time. “But how does God fit into that?” she said.
I keep having dreams about going to hell, the Norse Hel, or Helheim, where it’s cold and there’s a bridge, and at the end a big ball of light in the shape of a fowl. I read this somewhere and that’s why I’m dreaming it now. Or perhaps I’ve never read it, and I’m a prophet of the afterlife. In any event, I’m never ashamed to have found myself where I am. I know there are ways out, but I never leave. I don’t know why I stay. Maybe there’s a certain spectacle to the afterlife that makes me reluctant to go back. When you’re dead, the novelty of novelties never wears off. It also helps that I don’t know anyone else there. Or maybe I do, I just can’t remember. These are dreams, after all.
I come back every night and wake up in whichever bed I’d fallen asleep in. I don’t ever regret not being dead. So don’t worry, I’ve found new ways of being responsible. Just so you know I haven’t given up on the car—it’s still running fine, and so am I. I’ve just been told that I need to be more communicative, and drink less. I’m in Wisconsin, looking into the water. I think this will be my last stop, but maybe not. Things are fine, and there are ducks on the lake. Everyone knows this.
Yours,
Ang
❧
Dear Son #2,
I did the New York thing. I dated a man and wore suit jackets with shoulder pads. I bleached my hair. I got engaged. I threw myself into conundrums with herds of dogs, one of which, Misty, became my own. I wrecked a car into a taxi. I lost Misty in Central Park and cried at the top of my soul until they had to have me removed. I went back looking for Misty several times but never found her. I walked down an alley, alone, fear crawling down my skin. I climbed all the steps in a high-rise, and came down in an elevator, exhausted, and slept for an entire day afterwards. Bless me when you see my name written in the sky: there are at least a couple of people here that care so much about me. I gave a woman some money, and as I walked away two men appeared out of the garbage and they all left together. A man followed me to the apartment where I lived—I left him at the door and ran upstairs, changed into my nightclothes, and called the police. I watched a parade go by and was pushed into the marching band by a gang of young children. I chased a taxi after getting splashed in the street by a moving truck. I smiled so big you could see my gums. I fell into a culvert, broke my leg, and was hauled out by my landlord, who gave me three months rent-free. I developed a staph infection that nearly killed me.
I suffered an attack, one night, alone, in my hospital room, I was trying to sleep, and I saw a figure standing next to the window—I knew it wasn’t a person, that I was alone even though I wasn’t alone, and I imagined it was my time to die, and I tried to call for help but nothing came from my mouth. I went to a therapist for the first time, gave her two hours of my time, told her how many people lived in my family, told her how many pets, told her about the insects in the basement, about the nighttime spirits, about coming to do the New York thing, about my Norse heritage, about you and your brother and our life that could be interpreted as a good life, and she gave me homework: make a graph of your family, write down their names, put level of stress beside each name, and describe each person in two sentences or less. I never went back.
Instead I went on a date with a man I met in front of the Manhattan Library. I’d just been splashed by another moving truck. I said hey, I see you all the time, what’s your name, want to go on a date? And After dating Jake for a moment I went to Central Park and called hopelessly for the dog. I stood next to the water and looked around, imagining him drowned. I ran on the trail. There was a big rock that looked over the trees. I lay in the moss. You could come to Central Park and live in the moss with me. We could make a home under the rocks, in the roots of a tree. I want to give this letter a happy ending. You deserve things. Would you believe I found Misty tucked in the ditch next to those very same rocks? She saw me and got up, leaves and dirt matted to her fur. Then we went home.
Please write back.
Love,
Mom
❧
Dear Husband,
You wanted an explanation so this is the best I can do. I guess there’s no point in telling you there is no point in telling you. At the time I left, I was sleeping with a man in Gear Port. I walked right onto his boat and said I was in love with him, and he believed me. You met him—we were driving through Gear Port and bought shrimp. I ended up on the other side of the country, alone.
I’ve since dated several men, one woman, and have eyed many boys too young for me, but nonetheless—I’m telling you because I understand how hard it is for you to move on, and I thought you knowing this would help. Please don’t mistake me for someone who left because I’d lost my self-respect. It’s true that I still love you, but I didn’t feel anything for you when I was there. Everything I did was for myself. I’d always wanted to see New York, for instance, and so I lived there a little while, and worked as a receptionist at a body shop. There’s nothing interesting to tell you about the places I’ve lived.
If you’re looking for closure, I don’t blame you. I just don’t have any answers for you. So I’ll do my best to explain myself as simply as possible, so you’ll understand.
It got to be, one morning, that I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed peculiarly small things. Those black spots on my nose could be pressed out, there were creams for the bags under my eyes, my lipstick no longer complemented me. I had split ends, grayed in patches. My body was doing the usual stuff of aging that’s not worth going into, and it’s not that I’d never noticed, but I’d never Noticed with a capital N, if you know what I mean. If the sound of a corn husk being ripped away from the cob had a feeling, that would be the thing I felt. I don’t think there’s any good way to talk about corn, unless you’re doing it in the pastoral sense, which is probably irrelevant in my case. The money thing you’ll just have to forgive me. All that is behind us by this point.
What did I do with all that money? Well let me tell you. I lived in different places and barely worked. I went to Las Vegas, didn’t gamble a dime away, but ate more food than any one person ever needed to eat. I didn’t gain a bit of weight. I drove along the southern coast and found all the casinos in Biloxi, Mississippi, and gambled a few hundred dollars here and there, because I felt stupid for not doing it in Vegas—the entire row of casinos bobbed in the water, castles, pirate ships, space age hotels. I gave a homeless man twenty dollars because he frightened me and I thought if I didn’t give him any money he would kill me. This of course was unfounded because he then reached in and gave me a hug. I let him hold me for as long as he wanted. It was a good mindset to be in and helped me get through the day.
I had visions for a while of spirits, and this goes beyond my night terrors, but I could hear them speaking to me, and eventually I paid out around five hundred dollars to a demonologist to look me over and tell me that the room made her uncomfortable and I made her uncomfortable but she would do the procedure anyway, tears and all, and would you believe it worked? I bought three hundred dollars’ worth of artisanal candy at a store in Manhattan. It was gone in less than a week.
I barely worked while I was in Manhattan, and I had my moment there, and it cost us a lot of money, but in my defense you could have cancelled the card and been done with me, but you didn’t, did you? Why is that? Is it because you thought there was some hope left for us? I never said I wasn’t a flawed individual. I am. But at least I was able to do everything I ever wanted. Sure, it was done in a short period of time, but it was done nonetheless. I’ve had a good life, and I’m proud of myself. I’m proud of you, too, for helping me have that good life, and for helping me with the kids.
Now I want you to go down to the basement and totally eradicate every bug you see. And please don’t use the bug killer on yourself, after you’re done. Things will be fine.
Love,
Angela
Garrett Ashley’s work has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Reed Magazine, Moon City Review, DIAGRAM, and Analog SF&F. His story collection, My Grandfather Ran Off to the Woods, was a semifinalist for The Journal’s 2019 Non/Fiction Collection Prize. He lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.