erica jenks henry aunt mary

mary does not look well. I mean, in a way, she does, but she’s skinnier than I remember, and the brown of her cheeks is not a friendly color. It looks forced, like she’s been lying out in her bikini in the ugly courtyard in the middle of her apartment complex as the men try not to watch or don’t try not to watch, like when I visited her.

Gemma walks into the kitchen where I’m making a lentil soup with leftover ham bone. We invited Mary for Easter, but flights were cheaper the week after, so this is what we get. “What’s Aunt Mary wearing?” asks Gemma, an amused smile on her lips. I hold it together. What Aunt Mary is wearing looks like a spaghetti strap tank top that’s been cut off beneath the part that covers the breasts, loose bra more than shirt.

“We’ve talked about this. Women should wear whatever they want. We need to be fighting for that right,” I say. “If Aunt Mary wants to show off her six pack, she should.”

“What about her boobs?” This is Jack, my husband, appearing. I put down the knife I am using to slice celery and smirk.

“Boobs too.”

“I know what I’m wearing to school tomorrow,” says Gemma. We laugh. “Where is Mary, anyway?”

“On the deck,” says Jack.

“Don’t leave her out there alone. Let’s be good hosts.”

“She’s not alone. Tillie’s there.”

I dump mirepoix into sizzling olive oil and pour vodka lemonades. I stir the pot of colorful confetti squares and head out to the cedar deck that overlooks the unruly green of backyard. I seat myself on the rattan loveseat. Mary smiles into the distance. “So why did Taylor Swift break up with him?” she asks.

Tillie sighs dramatically. “You weren’t listening! He broke up with her!”

“No. Who would break up with Taylor? Unless you’re Brad Pitt or something?”

I laugh, leaning into a damp pillow, some woven, ethnic-looking fabric.

“Why don’t you go jump on the trampoline?” I ask Tillie. She frowns. She knows I’m excusing her, and I raise my eyebrows. I mean it.

“We’re having a good conversation,” says Mary.

“But I haven’t gotten to talk to you. Hold on though.” I run back in to stir the base and add broth.

I return, remembering to pass Mary her drink. Tillie has gone to the trampoline and is doing splits in the air. “Wow, she’s flexible,” says Mary.

“How are you? You look good.”

“Do I?” Mary squints.

“I don’t know what that means.” I laugh, noticing lines in her face, the way she has aged. “You’re beautiful as always. Youthful. Fit.”

“Okay.”

“How’s work?”

“Good. I just don’t feel like I exist.”

“How so?”

“Since I broke up with Mick, I only exist online.”

“Why did you break up, anyway?”

“He was a loser. Mommy issues.”

“Wow.”

“Do you know what Tillie said? She told me she’s hardcore feminine.”

I laugh. “She means ‘feminist.’”

“That’s what’s funny.” Mary bounces up. “Let’s go on a hike.”

“Are you joking? I’m making dinner.”

“The girls would love it. We need to get outside.”

“We are outside. Why don’t you chill and enjoy your cocktail?”

“I quit drinking. Come on. I need to move my body.”

I sigh. “Do you need a jog? It’s fine if you do. You’ve been traveling all day.”

“No, I want to hang out with you guys.”

“Mary, I’m making dinner.”

“Please?”

I shake my head. “Sure.” The soup can wait. I turn off the stove.

“Where’re you going?” asks Jack, when I grab socks from our bedroom, his office.

“Hiking.”

“Weren’t you cooking dinner?”

“It can wait,” I call, running downstairs.

“Want to go on a hike with us?” Gemma is doing homework at the dining table when I ask. More specifically, she is wearing headphones and checking her phone with furrowed brow, laptop before her.

“What?” She pulls out expensive earbuds.

“Want to go hiking with me, Mary, and Tillie?”

“I have homework.” She gestures to the array of papers and notebooks.

“Okay.” But when I get to the back door, she’s on my heels. Outside, Mary is double jumping Tillie on the trampoline. My daughter flies through the air until her belly is above the protective netting. They laugh hysterically and collapse onto the black mat. I wonder about Mary’s boobs. “You’re coming?” I ask Gemma.

“I guess. I just might be up late doing homework.”

I consider arguing, but this is just a way to blame me for any potential poor performance.

Then we’re there, parking the station wagon and heading to the trail. “Mind if I smoke this really fast?” Mary holds up a cigarette.

Gemma and I slowly walk, letting Tillie get ahead as Mary finishes her smoke.

“Guess Aunt Mary hasn’t realized that vaping is the way to go,” says Gemma. I can’t contain a laugh.

My daughter is becoming a woman—she has become a woman by traditional standards—in front of me, and she knows far more than I remember knowing at her age. She knows I am unhappy with my job and our performative suburb, that I want more; she knows Jack and I are tired of each other, though not exactly like that; and she knows I detest watching myself become old. We hike beneath wide, spreading branches of live oak trees, Spanish moss hanging in dry gray hairy clumps, locks pulled off a sea creature or Medusa.

Gemma is lovely, though she looks like her dad, with his big, hooked nose. She asks me sometimes if I tell her she is beautiful because I am her mother, or if I really believe it, and I don’t know what to say. “Both,” I say, “though I probably wouldn’t say it as much if you weren’t. I’m lucky. My daughters are both beautiful.” Then I realize how shallow and sexist and materialistic this sounds, like I am a mother who only desires that her daughters be fair. My friend brags that she only compliments her girls for things they can control, like working hard and composing stylish outfits, but I always remember this too late, after I have blurted out something about my daughters’ physical appearance. I delight in their lithe bodies, the muscles stretched beneath smooth skin, especially half way through summer, when they are decorated with rich tan lines in spite of sunscreen I pretend to remind them to use. What if they had been ugly babies? What if they were truly unattractive? Would it have been as easy to love them?

Mary catches up, scent of cigarette smoke only faint, and hikes on the other side of me, away from Gemma. The workout attire which materialized on her body is futuristic, it’s so fashionable. When did she change? Gaps and holes with see-through material, lines and mixed fabrics that make her figure look like a machine, a stunning, feminine, human ma-

erica jenks henry

chine. My old running shorts that do not flatter my derriere but hang down and pull tight in all the wrong places feel prehistoric by comparison. And my shirt, a slightly fitted one that I usually find attractive when I look down at myself or in the mirror, appears pilly and misshapen from all the times I’ve worn it.

“How’s your poetry?” I ask.

“Terrible. I quit that,” she says. Then she stretches out her arms, bending them at the elbows so that her fists almost reach her shoulders and then stretching them back out. “I’ve been unable to do any since Mick left.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She shrugs. “It’s the nature of the beast, you know?”

“Can I ask what happened, really? What are these mommy issues?” I give Gemma a look that means she should leave us and go catch her sister.

“She can listen,” says Mary. “It’s good for teenagers to hear about relationships. The nitty gritty.”

Gemma shrugs.

“First of all, he’s way too attached to his mom.” She turns to Gemma. “Don’t date men like that. You need to be the number one woman in his life. Or her life, if you’re gay.” Gemma nods seriously, receiving the information. “But he thought I was getting a little obsessive, I guess. With my cyber presence. Anyway, I bet it was his mom who put the idea in his head. She just started following my social media when things started getting bad.”

“Hmmm.”

She continues. “I mean, I can see what he’s saying, but it’s how I make money. Vendors pay me to post about my life. That’s why I get free stuff and checks in the mail. I think he felt it was becoming more about attention and less about business.”

“Was he right?” I ask. Gemma’s listening presence is tangible in the air, so eager to hear juicy drama.

We turn a corner, a particularly dense forested place, where the sunlight is all but obscured by foliage, and we come upon Tillie, squatting in the trail.

“What is it?” Gemma asks, hurrying to bend down too.

“Some kind of animal,” says Tillie.

“That’s so gross!” says Gemma when she gets a glimpse.

I scoot my way around the girls to peek at whatever it is, and there is no animal, only internal organs, maybe a liver, red and dark and meaty along with something lumpy that is lighter, bluish and filmy. “I don’t think that’s an animal,” I say, trying not to let horror touch my voice. “I think that’s something’s body part.”

“The guts,” says Tillie.

“Disgusting. Let’s keep going,” says Gemma.

“That’s interesting,“ says Mary. “Isn’t this one of those teachable moments? We should figure out what it is.”

“Nah,” I tell her. “The teachable moment is probably not to look for too long.”

“How far are we going, anyway?” asks Tillie.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“Let’s get to that lookout. Isn’t there one ahead?” asks Mary. Gemma raises her eyebrows at this suggestion, since the lookout is three miles from the start of the trail and it’s nearing dinnertime, but we’re already out here anyway.

“You’ve got a great body,” says Mary to my teenager, looking at her, both of them a little ahead. Gemma is larger than my sister. “Everything’s in the right place. All your curves are so taut.”

Gemma looks down at herself and pulls her shoulders in a little, shyly. I feel I should say something but I don’t know exactly what. I don’t think it’s good for girls to hear comments on their bodies. What if they change? What about when they do change? I want to interrupt, but it would be awkward now. And I am guilty of the same stuff.

At last we begin to climb, ending up on a bluff that looks out over the curling path of the old riverbed and hilly forest beyond. It’s not a high view, but there’s a rocky outcropping, and we walk out to the giant boulders.

“I just love the outdoors.” Mary’s hands are on her hips and her chest is thrust forward. She walks to the edge of the precipice and inhales deeply. “Meditation sesh, anyone?”

“I think we should hurry back, unfortunately,” I say.

“Not even five minutes?”

“I want to meditate!” says Tillie.

I am the jerk, doing something Jack would do because I am worried about him waiting for us at home, refusing to help my daughters cultivate mindfulness.

“Come on, Mom.” It’s Gemma begging, who has too much stress in her life and could use tools for coping with anxiety.

“Oh, all right.”

We arrange ourselves in a line looking out over the cliff, thirty or forty feet high. Mary leads us with simple directions. “Scan your body, starting at the head. Move down, checking each organ and part for stress, all the way to your feet.”

I groan and peek at my daughters, both seriously focused.

“Study your breathing. Touch your belly, feeling it move in and out with the breaths.” At last she is quiet. Minutes pass. I can hear them ticking, and I spend the entire time considering saying we should go back.

At last, Mary’s voice. “Open your eyes. Good work.”

We realize we are no longer four, but five. We’ve been transported into a reenactment of the Old Testament story of God appearing in the fiery furnace along with Shadrach, Mishak, and Abednego.

But this is a flesh and blood human. A youngish man with buzzed red hair, large round black earrings, I can’t remember what they’re called, an armful of tattoos. He grins. “Hope I didn’t scare you.”

The girls are laughing hysterically, fearfully, but Mary appears mesmerized. “How’d you do that?”

“Quiet shoes,” he says.

“We’ve got to get going. It’s getting dark.” I stand, dust my shorts, offer Gemma a hand.

“Okay,” says Mary. “But could you get a quick photo of me here in lotus position?” She hands me her phone. The freckled man eyes her as she closes her eyes again and presses her palms together in namaste.

I take the photo, and the man grabs his phone to take one too. “Sorry, too good to miss,” he says.

I turn to him with a grimace. “You can’t do that. Delete it.”

“No, she was posing for a picture. Not like I’m going to do anything with it.”

Mary stands, saunters towards us. “I don’t mind. Don’t worry about it, Sarah.” The girls watch, mouths slightly open.

“Well, nice to meet you, stranger,” says my sister. Then she leads the way back toward our car. She’s in high spirits, practically jogging, and she leads us in folk songs. “If I had a hammer,” she begins.

Sun has set and the last light is fading when we arrive at the vehicle and climb in. But before we can pull away, there’s the man, running towards us. He taps on my window, and my heart races as I consider whether to open it, but somehow, feigning normalcy, I do. “Hey, here’s my number. You should come see my band tonight.” He slips a small orange square of paper in and offers a final goofy smile.

“We should!” says Mary. I stare at her.

“That was fun.” I stretch to look in the rearview mirror at the girls, who look out their respective windows with furtive expressions.

Back home, Jack is making grilled cheese, the smell of cooking butter

erica jenks henry

rich, filling our home. He scrapes and tosses the golden sandwich, orange cheese dripping, onto a plate, and walks to the table without a word.

“Mmmm, I want one of those,” says Mary. “Making them for us too?”

Jack shrugs, stares out the back window. “I can make you one,” I tell Mary. “Give me a minute. Who else wants grilled cheese?”

Jack hardly speaks, offering monosyllabic answers. He drops his empty plastic plate into the sink, with a noise that sounds like he may have broken something. “So you wasted all this stuff for soup,” he says, dumping the wet mirepoix mixture into the compost. I want to tell him to stop—I’m still going to use it, maybe just tomorrow—but it’s too late.

He marches out of the room.

“Someone’s in a bad mood,” says Mary, as she sits at the table. She pulls out her phone, feet on the chair by her butt, skinny knees near her face.

“He’s probably annoyed we left without a plan. Maybe he was worried. That makes him mad.” The sandwiches are finished, and I grab a jar of pickles. Gemma forks one out and turns on her computer.

“We should go see that guy’s band,” says Mary. Gemma’s face turns toward me so fast, it’s as though it’s responding to a lever, pressed down by the sentence.

“No way.” My teeth crunch through toast and sink into gooey cheese.

“Are you kidding? Why not?”

“Just, no way. That guy was a creep.”

“Not the vibe I got.” Mary is glued to her phone, food untouched. The girls watch me, fascinated by this exchange and what I will say.

“I think you’re scared of strangers,” she says. “Look at this, Tillie! People love the pic I posted of us on the trampoline.” She slides her phone across the table, and my stomach clenches as my eight-year-old examines the picture.

I remember a time we went camping with our parents when I was becoming a teenager. We borrowed our grandparents’ old white, eggshaped trailer and drove a couple hours from home to a simple campground by a lake. The first night, Mary and I walked to the lake to take a dip, rolled-up, holey jean shorts exposing both of our pairs of long, golden legs, mine always a little thicker and paler than hers. Some boys on bicycles whistled as they passed. Mary turned to me. “Did they do that to us?” she whispered. I nodded.

A couple inches taller and getting curves, I had grown used to the way men could be. I pulled my shoulders more tightly in and sucked my chest back in to be concave. But Mary, beside me, had chosen to do the opposite. Her shoulders and chest were thrust out, and her gait had become an elaborate, wide-stretching saunter, one leg thrown ahead of the other as her torso swayed. When the boys returned a little later, this time our bodies wet and only covered by bathing suits on our way back to the campsite, Mary was ready.

The boys whistled and slowed down, and Mary continued to strut. “What are you girls up to?” asked one, with dark, shaggy hair.

“Having fun,” said my sister.

“Looks like it.”

I held myself together, trying to suck all parts of my body into the smallest, most condensed piece of matter possible, tightening into a pillar, waiting for them to pass.

“What do you want?” asked Mary, turning suddenly towards them. They dragged their feet on the ground, right beside us.

“Nothing. Just saying hi.” The blondest one, the tallest, leered, so close we could have touched him with an outstretched arm.

“Oh, really? You’re sure it’s not this?” Then Mary pulled down the top of her bathing suit and back up again, a pale flash of cold, round chest, the whole movement so fast I thought I imagined it.

The boys didn’t know what to do. They howled and whooped and laughed, though one or two looked more than a little terrified. I doubt Mary told our parents or spoke to the boys again, but they never bothered us the rest of the trip, not even glancing our direction when we saw them.

The girls are in their bedrooms, Tillie asleep and Gemma on her phone while she continues tirelessly on homework, only distracted every thirty seconds or so by a “bing” from her phone alerting her that someone else has shared a bizarrely boring photograph of the wall behind their head and maybe a little hair from their head too via Snapchat.

Mary appears in the kitchen, where I am wiping counters and sweeping bits of food off the floor so we will not wake to filth. It took years of

erica jenks henry

living in mortal terror of a neighbor stopping by to discover my disgusting life to get me to exist as though I am a clean person, like pretending to sleep until you do. Now I can’t let things go. Part of me longs to walk out of the house, the island counter still decorated with an opened peanut butter jar, half eaten toast, crumbs on the granite, a sticky knife. But I can’t.

Mary hops up beside the farmhouse sink, watching me scrub white ceramic with a specialized cleaner. “We going to Fubbawubbit?”

“What?”

“The band. Their set doesn’t begin until ten. We’ll be on time.”

I ignore her and finish scraping the drain area, removing brownish gunk and returning the sink to marble white.

“Mary, come on.” There are so many things I can say. Jack will be annoyed? I have to wake up early? That sounds sketchy? She should know I have no interest?

“Please? You said on the phone that you haven’t done anything fun in a long time. That’s what I’m here for. I’m your reckless little sister here to bring the crazy to you.” She holds her hands together in a pleading, prayerful gesture. “What if we make a deal that if it’s not fun, I owe you something?”

“There’s nothing I want from you.”

“I bet I can think of something.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, but you should know that I’m doing this as a polite host. I am fulfilling a duty to my guest.”

“Fine, if that’s how you want it to be.”

“I’ll get dressed.”

“Wear something hot.”

“Whatever.” I want advice as to exactly what that means, but I don’t want to indulge her.

I pull a loose hippy dress I have not worn in ages over my head. It’s short and flowy, and it feels more snug than it used to. My breasts are half orbs poking out the top of the colorful fabric. I grit my teeth and force a smile in the long mirror behind my closet, before I realize Gemma has come into the bedroom brushing her teeth. She goes to spit and returns. “You’re going to see that band with Aunt Mary?”

“That obvious?”

She rolls her eyes. “Did you tell Dad?”

I shake my head. She makes a nervous face. “You sure that’s what you want to wear?”

“Why?”

“It looks old. Why not jeans and a cute shirt?”

“Mary said to be hot.”

“I bet she meant something different.” Gemma rummages through my drawers and gets my tightest jeans, leaves, and returns with a tiny tank top from her dresser. “Wear this, and put on mascara.”

Jack is in the basement, so I text him to say that I’m going out. Mary comes downstairs wearing a skin tight ribbed olive green dress with spaghetti straps and a very low V-neck neck that looks like it’s straight out of the 80s, in the fashionable way, along with Converse high tops. “Wow,” I say. She could be anywhere from fifteen to fifty-five with her long, straightened light brown hair parted in the middle.

“Do you need to borrow something?” she asks.

“No, I feel comfortable in this.” She looks at my outfit.

Jack surprises me by emerging from the basement. “Where are you going?”

“We met this guy who invited us to come see his band. Want to come?” asks Mary.

He studies her and frowns. “No. Someone needs to stay home with the girls.”

“You know that’s not true,” I say. “We leave them all the time.”

“It’s a school night.”

“You can come or not, but we’re leaving now.” Mary is unapologetic. Jack shakes his head as we march to the door and catch the Uber that Mary has booked. “He seems more controlling than he used to be.” She seems disturbed.

“Probably he’s annoyed we’ve been gone and now we’re going out all night.”

“Doesn’t he go out every Tuesday with his basketball friends?”

“I don’t mind. I go to bed and read or watch The Bachelor. Anyway, that’s his group therapy.”

“When do you get group therapy? Doesn’t he go out for drinks Fridays after work? And golfing?”

“He probably wanted more forewarning.” I don’t add that he may be irritated that Mary has scooped me up to drag on her whims instead of making dinner and tucking children in.

“Whatever. You look cute, but not exactly hot.”

“I tried on a dress, but Gemma nixed it.”

“What do you wear when you go out on, like, date nights?”

“It depends. It’s not like I own much sexy stuff. I don’t want the girls to see me with my boobs hanging out. And I don’t want to bump into other parents looking all sexy.”

“Why not?” She makes a face. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.” The Uber driver is painfully quiet. I want to examine him in the rearview mirror to see if he has been looking at us. I hope he doesn’t speak English. “I just prefer to be dressed modestly in front of them. I don’t like looking slutty.”

“Are you saying I’m slutty? Also, I object to you shelving your sexuality. It sounds like you don’t want your daughters to see you as a sexual person.”

“Can you stop? Sorry I don’t feel comfortable flaunting my body like you.” The niggling idea that I have split parts, the sexual and the nice mother that I present to the world, must be tabled. It’s appropriate that I’m not super sexy in front of my kids. They don’t watch me have sex; why do they need to be reminded that I do it?

We arrive at an abandoned house set behind industrial buildings in a crumbling parking lot, not far from river access points. “Have you been here before?” Mary pulls hair away from her neck and lets it fall against her bare back.

“No.”

“I love this place,” she whispers. We walk up the aimless curb, part of a sidewalk that leads nowhere. Smoking men turn to stare. Three have white hair and beards, but one looks younger than us.

“Good evening!” calls Mary in a sing-songy voice. “Is this where we find Fubbawubbit?”

“You bet,” someone says.

“I want to smoke,” says Mary. “You want to wait or head in?”

I stay, though I wish I had the courage to sit at the bar alone. I watch her, not knowing what to do with my hands. One man offers Mary a hit of something off his electric device, and she enthusiastically accepts.

Inside, Mary pulls us to the bar. She treats everyone like she knows them. Though she is significantly overdressed and my casual outfit fits in better, she owns the place. Men pull back to make space as she passes, and she offers her merriest smile. She orders two vodka sodas, and we carry them to the stage.

“I thought you quit!” I yell.

“I did! You want this?” She holds out her drink.

“Why’d you order it?”

“I keep forgetting I quit.”

I down my drink and place the glass with ice cubes on an empty sidebar, holding Mary’s in the other hand.

Mary pulls us in front of the performers, just as the first band introduces Fubbawubbit. Our buddy from the trail is on drums. Within moments, they are playing, but his eyes dart around. He spots Mary. A startled look, mouth open, is overtaken by an eager grin.

Music picks up: a decent melody with painfully loud singing. Everything sounds off—the tempo, the melody, the tone, but the audience looks like they love it. I don’t understand the disconnect between the sound and the response of the people around me, and the only theory that makes sense is that we are surrounded by the musicians’ family and friends. My mind blanks as it does when there is football on the television screen. I consider my daughters, wonder if I have messed them up with my desire to be thin and the disparity between the type of work my husband and I each do. Though I say I am a feminist, I am not modeling feminism, not as I want to.

Mary begs me to stay, though it’s almost 1 a.m. Band members cluster around us at the bar, and I carry on a decent conversation about music and my past travels with the bassist. I’m thankful for alcohol. Mary declines every glass. The men are young, attractive too, and I feel vaguely alluring. I never mention my husband, but I allude to children. The bassist wears a wedding band and doesn’t seem to be flirting. But then he tells me I’m probably not used to being hit on, and I don’t know what to say or if that is a way of trying to hit on me. He seems happy I’m not seducing him either, but maybe I’m imagining that. I wish I was wearing the folksie princess dress with the generous decolletage.

erica jenks henry

I convince Mary to leave, and she gets another Uber driver to appear. “I can’t believe I got you out of there.” She slides in next to me. “I was sure you were going home with that guy.”

“I can’t believe it either.”

We sit in silence, until I speak again. “I tried making that ginger hangover smoothie.”

“Really?” She makes a face in the shadows.

“It was intense. I almost threw up.”

“Don’t try stuff you see on the blog, okay?”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“No, it’s just content. Did you read the comments? Nobody follows the recipes. They like reading stuff.”

I look out the window, more confused than before.

At home she changes, still completely sober though I am more than tipsy, and comes in the bathroom to give me a hug. “Thank you,” she whispers.

I notice the “But first wine” shirt she is wearing.

“Really?” I nod to it, my mouth full of toothpaste.

“I’m just taking an alcohol break this month. A fast.” I wonder how grilled cheese fits in, but I am too tired to ask.

I climb into bed, and Jack stirs.

“You’re back,” he says. His anger has left. I turn towards him, letting our bodies touch.

“Were men ogling Mary?” he murmurs.

“Why?” I ask.

“Just wondering.”

I retract. “Don’t you wonder if they were ogling me? A guy from the band bought me drinks.”

“That’s cool.” His voice carries a hint of surprise. The curtains billow. I think he may have gone back to sleep, but then he speaks. “You’ve still got a great body.” He rolls toward me and reaches to grope my hips and belly and then up to my chest. I lie there, staring at the ceiling for a long time. I can’t figure out what any of it means. ◆