Tiny Bones
by Millie Kensen
Maura Cotter watched the tendrils of steam rise from a chipped mug, the words STILLWATER HIGH peeking out from beneath four plump fingers.
“Want some?”
The scent of cheap coffee drifted towards her, wading its way through something floral and musty, reminiscent of gas station soap. Hushed sounds of idle chatter floated through the house, carried around on paper plates piled high with cubes of yellow cheese and blobs of mint-green pistachio pudding dotted with bright red cherries.
“No,” she told her aunt, who’d been hovering above where she sat on the stairs. “I’m fine.” Maura smoothed the edge of her skirt then stood using the banister to steady herself, the little white pill her cousin had slipped her finally starting to take effect. She’d insisted she didn’t need it, but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that horse was handing out free drugs.
“You sure?” Aunt Deidre asked. “Coffee always makes things better.”
“I stopped drinking caffeine last year,” said Maura. That was true, though she left out the part where the hiatus had only lasted two weeks. Detoxing from Starbucks to catch the eye of her hot yoga instructor hadn’t been worth the caffeine headaches.
Deidre peered over the top of her wire-rim spectacles, the thick lenses clouded with fingerprints. “There’s decaf in the dining room. Lemme get you some.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“You know, you should eat something. Bethy would want you to.”
Hearing her mother’s name made Maura’s mouth feel as though it were filled with sand. She considered slapping a palm across her aunt’s pig-like face, but the pill made her feel as though her hand might float away from her body if she tried. “Thanks, Aunt Dee, but like I said—I’m good.”
As if on cue, Maura’s uncle came around the corner holding a plate filled with rolls of sliced deli meat filled with cream cheese and chopped black olives. “Ham roll?” he asked, lifting the plate from where it had been resting on the mound of his gut. “Bev made ‘em. Says they’re good dipped in ranch.” He pushed one of the rolls into his mouth. “How was the flight? Dee says you got in late.”
Maura shrugged. “Flight was fine. Same as usual.”
Her uncle rocked back on his heels. “Yeah. Too bad it takes something like this to get you home, eh? We’ve been missing you around here. Your ma would’ve been happy to see you.” He placed a hand on Maura’s arm. It was warm and slightly damp, like undercooked ham. “We’re just glad you’re here.” The outer corners of his eyes folded like a paper fan as he smiled, then he strode off towards the living room, where the men had gathered to watch the end of the hockey game while their wives finished doing the dishes.
Deidre watched him go, thumbing the crucifix nestled in her freckled cleavage. “He’s right, you know. We’re just glad you’re here. Even Bethy would—”
“I’ll be right back,” Maura interrupted, turning away from the woman. She ignored the murmured scolding that chased her up the stairs. Everyone had been asked to stay on the main level, but Maura didn’t care. They wouldn’t stop her. This had been her home once, too, its familiar walls covered with mismatched picture frames that used to display the silver braces and unruly curls of her youth. Now, they only showed the plastered smiles of people she didn’t recognize, like women in her mother’s church group, men holding fish, or family members in matching shirts at reunions Maura hadn’t attended.
Slipping out of her heels, she pulled the side table from the wall and positioned it under the attic hatch, then climbed atop. Her mother had cut the string to keep Maura and her brother from playing up there, but enough still hung down that she could tug it open. When the seal of the hatch came loose, flecks of paint rained down, clinging to her dark waves like dandruff. She shook out her hair, laughter bubbling in her chest, and unfolded the ladder.
Maura felt uneasy as she climbed. A part of her shrank, expected to hear her mother’s voice reprimanding her from the hall. The other part was mad with rebellion.
The scent of dust and wood and forgotten things pinched at her nose as her head breached the dark opening. Vague forms stood out like headstones in an overgrown cemetery, the shapeless bramble of long-lost items tangled in nests around their bases. Maura hoisted herself into the space, grateful for the Valium-induced lightness spreading through her limbs. “Alright, Mom,” she said aloud, feeling both dolorous and giddy, “let’s see what you’re hiding up here.”
She scanned the attic, eyes adjusting to the dim light. How long had it been since she’d been up there? Five years? Ten? Longer? A smile twitched on the inside of her cheek. The space used to seem so dark and frightening, the only window a small dormer at the other end of the attic. She used to think the shadows would swallow her whole, then spit her bones in a neat pile for her mother to find in the morning. Now, the gilded light of late afternoon made everything look soft and hazy around the edges, as though Maura were seeing it through a film of Vaseline.
Or maybe that was the Valium.
A box with the word BRYAN scrawled across it in looping permanent marker caught her attention and she crawled towards it. Dust billowed from the top as she pulled it open and dove inside, a thief pillaging for loot. To her disappointment, the contents were entirely uninteresting: a few shoeboxes filled with baseball cards; scratched up Ninja Turtle figurines, half of which were missing a limb or a head; folders containing her brother’s faded childhood artwork. Maura set it aside, then tugged another box out from the stack. It held cardstock that looked like it was new in the ‘80s, sticks of dried craft glue, and colorful scissors with patterned edges. The next box—and the one after that—proved to be just as boring. Just as normal.
She sighed and sat back on her feet. Where were the secrets? The goodies? Where were the salacious little trinkets she knew her mother must have tucked away? A woman as self-righteous as Bethanne Cotter had to be hiding something good, but there was nothing. Nothing but unused dishes, yellowed photographs, and a few sets of Christmas-themed dishrags covered in tiny Baby Jesuses.
And where were the MAURA boxes, anyway? Had her mother truly gotten rid of everything? Had she hated her that much?
“Fuck this,” Maura said. “Fuck you, Mom. And Dad. And Aunt Dee. And all those fuckwads downstairs who pretend they care. Fuck everything. Fuck all of you!” She leaned back and kicked a tower of boxes. It toppled, but they stayed closed, their Maura-less contents still safe inside. As she turned to leave—not just the attic but the entire bunghole of a town—something caught her eye. She scooted closer, shoving one of the fallen boxes aside, and revealed a pile of animal bones.
Maura blinked. They were probably from a squirrel, or maybe a large mouse. Some creature that had been unlucky enough to find its way up here without a way out. Or maybe it had come up here in search of a place to die, somewhere quiet and away from the world where it could go in peace. Either way, it didn’t matter. It was dead, the only evidence it had lived at all preserved in a pile of tiny bones hidden between stacks of junk.
Something hooked around the back of Maura’s navel, tugging her towards them. She held her breath, as though the slightest shift in air might cause them to disintegrate, then picked one up, spinning it between her thumb and forefinger. It was thin, maybe the size of a toothpick, and impossibly white. Clean, like someone had washed the gristle from it and placed it there for her to find.
Maura glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to see her mother standing there, a habit she hadn’t shaken despite the years that had expanded between them, but the air was empty. Nobody watched. Nobody’s brow pulled down with scorn. Nobody’s finger wagged with disapproval, commanding her to put that disgusting thing down and start acting like a little lady.
With delicate care, she placed the bone in her palm, then picked up another, and another. She picked up each one, examining it until the entire pile of tiny bones sat in the palm of her hand, the animal’s walnut-sized skull resting on top. She tried to imagine what they would look like—what skeleton they would form if put together correctly—but couldn’t conjure the image. She’d majored in communications, not biology, so she just held them and watched, letting them warm against her flesh.
Maura didn’t know how long she sat there, the Valium in her blood dilating time as she caressed the tiny bones. A hum rose into her chest, some long-forgotten tune dredged up from beneath her memories, and she let the room fill with its melody. Her body began to sway with the rhythm, and she watched the bones drift to sleep, safe and cozy, curled in her hand. Would they recognize her when they woke? Would they know that it had been her who’d found them and lulled them to sleep?
“Maura?”
She looked up. The attic was dark, the golden light outside the dormer now pale and colorless. Black hair bobbed in the glow of the open hatch, casting long shadows on the eaves overhead. “I found her!” the voice called out, speaking to someone below. “Yeah, she’s up here. She’s fine.” Her brother’s head reappeared. “What are you doing? Aunt Dee said you disappeared.” A pause. A glance. “Are those … ”
Before Bryan could finish his question, Maura closed her fingers over the bones and slipped them into her pocket. She didn’t know why. They were gross and probably riddled with diseases, but for some reason, she couldn’t let them go. It didn’t seem right to leave them up there, another thing left to decay, to be forgotten in the dark.
Later, after her Uber had dropped her off at the only motel in town, Maura pulled the bones from her pocket and set them on the dresser next to the TV. Tomorrow, she decided, after she’d slept the |Valium off, she’d take them to the woods behind the motel and bury them beneath a shrub or patch of wildflowers. That seemed a better place to rest than the shadows of an attic surrounded by broken, unwanted things.
But when Maura woke, she didn’t bring the bones to the woods. She stared at them as she sipped her watery coffee and nibbled the end of a granola bar. She watched them as she wrapped a towel around her hair and stepped into a black dress, one she’d found on supersale at Kohl’s. She snuck glances at them as she applied her makeup, sure that one of the times she looked, they’d be gone, her entire venture into the attic nothing but a white-pilled delusion.
Instead, the bones stayed where she’d put them, curled in a neat pile, skull still resting in the middle as though they were simply asleep.
When she couldn’t wait any longer, Maura swept them into the shiny silver mouth of an empty Goldfish bag she’d found at the bottom of her purse. Rolling the top, she clamped it shut with a bobby-pin and stuffed it back into her bag.
“Alright,” she told them, patting the faux-leather. “You can come with.” Why should she have to do this alone? The bones had nothing better to do, and she needed company who wouldn’t speak or ask questions.
“Want some?”
The scent of cheap coffee drifted towards her, wading its way through something floral and musty, reminiscent of gas station soap. Hushed sounds of idle chatter floated through the house, carried around on paper plates piled high with cubes of yellow cheese and blobs of mint-green pistachio pudding dotted with bright red cherries.
“No,” she told her aunt, who’d been hovering above where she sat on the stairs. “I’m fine.” Maura smoothed the edge of her skirt then stood using the banister to steady herself, the little white pill her cousin had slipped her finally starting to take effect. She’d insisted she didn’t need it, but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that horse was handing out free drugs.
“You sure?” Aunt Deidre asked. “Coffee always makes things better.”
“I stopped drinking caffeine last year,” said Maura. That was true, though she left out the part where the hiatus had only lasted two weeks. Detoxing from Starbucks to catch the eye of her hot yoga instructor hadn’t been worth the caffeine headaches.
Deidre peered over the top of her wire-rim spectacles, the thick lenses clouded with fingerprints. “There’s decaf in the dining room. Lemme get you some.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“You know, you should eat something. Bethy would want you to.”
Hearing her mother’s name made Maura’s mouth feel as though it were filled with sand. She considered slapping a palm across her aunt’s pig-like face, but the pill made her feel as though her hand might float away from her body if she tried. “Thanks, Aunt Dee, but like I said—I’m good.”
As if on cue, Maura’s uncle came around the corner holding a plate filled with rolls of sliced deli meat filled with cream cheese and chopped black olives. “Ham roll?” he asked, lifting the plate from where it had been resting on the mound of his gut. “Bev made ‘em. Says they’re good dipped in ranch.” He pushed one of the rolls into his mouth. “How was the flight? Dee says you got in late.”
Maura shrugged. “Flight was fine. Same as usual.”
Her uncle rocked back on his heels. “Yeah. Too bad it takes something like this to get you home, eh? We’ve been missing you around here. Your ma would’ve been happy to see you.” He placed a hand on Maura’s arm. It was warm and slightly damp, like undercooked ham. “We’re just glad you’re here.” The outer corners of his eyes folded like a paper fan as he smiled, then he strode off towards the living room, where the men had gathered to watch the end of the hockey game while their wives finished doing the dishes.
Deidre watched him go, thumbing the crucifix nestled in her freckled cleavage. “He’s right, you know. We’re just glad you’re here. Even Bethy would—”
“I’ll be right back,” Maura interrupted, turning away from the woman. She ignored the murmured scolding that chased her up the stairs. Everyone had been asked to stay on the main level, but Maura didn’t care. They wouldn’t stop her. This had been her home once, too, its familiar walls covered with mismatched picture frames that used to display the silver braces and unruly curls of her youth. Now, they only showed the plastered smiles of people she didn’t recognize, like women in her mother’s church group, men holding fish, or family members in matching shirts at reunions Maura hadn’t attended.
Slipping out of her heels, she pulled the side table from the wall and positioned it under the attic hatch, then climbed atop. Her mother had cut the string to keep Maura and her brother from playing up there, but enough still hung down that she could tug it open. When the seal of the hatch came loose, flecks of paint rained down, clinging to her dark waves like dandruff. She shook out her hair, laughter bubbling in her chest, and unfolded the ladder.
Maura felt uneasy as she climbed. A part of her shrank, expected to hear her mother’s voice reprimanding her from the hall. The other part was mad with rebellion.
The scent of dust and wood and forgotten things pinched at her nose as her head breached the dark opening. Vague forms stood out like headstones in an overgrown cemetery, the shapeless bramble of long-lost items tangled in nests around their bases. Maura hoisted herself into the space, grateful for the Valium-induced lightness spreading through her limbs. “Alright, Mom,” she said aloud, feeling both dolorous and giddy, “let’s see what you’re hiding up here.”
She scanned the attic, eyes adjusting to the dim light. How long had it been since she’d been up there? Five years? Ten? Longer? A smile twitched on the inside of her cheek. The space used to seem so dark and frightening, the only window a small dormer at the other end of the attic. She used to think the shadows would swallow her whole, then spit her bones in a neat pile for her mother to find in the morning. Now, the gilded light of late afternoon made everything look soft and hazy around the edges, as though Maura were seeing it through a film of Vaseline.
Or maybe that was the Valium.
A box with the word BRYAN scrawled across it in looping permanent marker caught her attention and she crawled towards it. Dust billowed from the top as she pulled it open and dove inside, a thief pillaging for loot. To her disappointment, the contents were entirely uninteresting: a few shoeboxes filled with baseball cards; scratched up Ninja Turtle figurines, half of which were missing a limb or a head; folders containing her brother’s faded childhood artwork. Maura set it aside, then tugged another box out from the stack. It held cardstock that looked like it was new in the ‘80s, sticks of dried craft glue, and colorful scissors with patterned edges. The next box—and the one after that—proved to be just as boring. Just as normal.
She sighed and sat back on her feet. Where were the secrets? The goodies? Where were the salacious little trinkets she knew her mother must have tucked away? A woman as self-righteous as Bethanne Cotter had to be hiding something good, but there was nothing. Nothing but unused dishes, yellowed photographs, and a few sets of Christmas-themed dishrags covered in tiny Baby Jesuses.
And where were the MAURA boxes, anyway? Had her mother truly gotten rid of everything? Had she hated her that much?
“Fuck this,” Maura said. “Fuck you, Mom. And Dad. And Aunt Dee. And all those fuckwads downstairs who pretend they care. Fuck everything. Fuck all of you!” She leaned back and kicked a tower of boxes. It toppled, but they stayed closed, their Maura-less contents still safe inside. As she turned to leave—not just the attic but the entire bunghole of a town—something caught her eye. She scooted closer, shoving one of the fallen boxes aside, and revealed a pile of animal bones.
Maura blinked. They were probably from a squirrel, or maybe a large mouse. Some creature that had been unlucky enough to find its way up here without a way out. Or maybe it had come up here in search of a place to die, somewhere quiet and away from the world where it could go in peace. Either way, it didn’t matter. It was dead, the only evidence it had lived at all preserved in a pile of tiny bones hidden between stacks of junk.
Something hooked around the back of Maura’s navel, tugging her towards them. She held her breath, as though the slightest shift in air might cause them to disintegrate, then picked one up, spinning it between her thumb and forefinger. It was thin, maybe the size of a toothpick, and impossibly white. Clean, like someone had washed the gristle from it and placed it there for her to find.
Maura glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to see her mother standing there, a habit she hadn’t shaken despite the years that had expanded between them, but the air was empty. Nobody watched. Nobody’s brow pulled down with scorn. Nobody’s finger wagged with disapproval, commanding her to put that disgusting thing down and start acting like a little lady.
With delicate care, she placed the bone in her palm, then picked up another, and another. She picked up each one, examining it until the entire pile of tiny bones sat in the palm of her hand, the animal’s walnut-sized skull resting on top. She tried to imagine what they would look like—what skeleton they would form if put together correctly—but couldn’t conjure the image. She’d majored in communications, not biology, so she just held them and watched, letting them warm against her flesh.
Maura didn’t know how long she sat there, the Valium in her blood dilating time as she caressed the tiny bones. A hum rose into her chest, some long-forgotten tune dredged up from beneath her memories, and she let the room fill with its melody. Her body began to sway with the rhythm, and she watched the bones drift to sleep, safe and cozy, curled in her hand. Would they recognize her when they woke? Would they know that it had been her who’d found them and lulled them to sleep?
“Maura?”
She looked up. The attic was dark, the golden light outside the dormer now pale and colorless. Black hair bobbed in the glow of the open hatch, casting long shadows on the eaves overhead. “I found her!” the voice called out, speaking to someone below. “Yeah, she’s up here. She’s fine.” Her brother’s head reappeared. “What are you doing? Aunt Dee said you disappeared.” A pause. A glance. “Are those … ”
Before Bryan could finish his question, Maura closed her fingers over the bones and slipped them into her pocket. She didn’t know why. They were gross and probably riddled with diseases, but for some reason, she couldn’t let them go. It didn’t seem right to leave them up there, another thing left to decay, to be forgotten in the dark.
Later, after her Uber had dropped her off at the only motel in town, Maura pulled the bones from her pocket and set them on the dresser next to the TV. Tomorrow, she decided, after she’d slept the |Valium off, she’d take them to the woods behind the motel and bury them beneath a shrub or patch of wildflowers. That seemed a better place to rest than the shadows of an attic surrounded by broken, unwanted things.
But when Maura woke, she didn’t bring the bones to the woods. She stared at them as she sipped her watery coffee and nibbled the end of a granola bar. She watched them as she wrapped a towel around her hair and stepped into a black dress, one she’d found on supersale at Kohl’s. She snuck glances at them as she applied her makeup, sure that one of the times she looked, they’d be gone, her entire venture into the attic nothing but a white-pilled delusion.
Instead, the bones stayed where she’d put them, curled in a neat pile, skull still resting in the middle as though they were simply asleep.
When she couldn’t wait any longer, Maura swept them into the shiny silver mouth of an empty Goldfish bag she’d found at the bottom of her purse. Rolling the top, she clamped it shut with a bobby-pin and stuffed it back into her bag.
“Alright,” she told them, patting the faux-leather. “You can come with.” Why should she have to do this alone? The bones had nothing better to do, and she needed company who wouldn’t speak or ask questions.
~
Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash
The funeral was to be held at St. Joseph’s Church just before noon, with a potluck luncheon held in the church’s basement after the burial. Maura hadn’t wanted to go at all, but her brother had forced her hand.
“Come on, Mar. You can’t just not go.”
“Sure I can,” she’d told him over the phone, chewing on the end of a strawberry Twizzler. “She’d have done the same for me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true and you know it. If I’d have died, Mom would have acted like nothing happened.”
Bryan sighed. “Fine. Don’t do it for her, then. Do it for everyone else. They want to see you. They ask about you a lot, you know.”
And she did. Maura knew because they never let her forget it. Every picture posted on social media was inundated with a string of When are you coming homes and We’d love to see that pretty face in persons. Every text message ended with a remark about how long it had been since they’d seen her last. She knew they wanted to see her, but that was never the problem. The problem was that she didn’t want to see them. She didn’t want their hugs, the gesture sagging with an undercurrent of obligation and shame. She didn’t want their forced condolences. Their doleful gazes. Their silent pity hiding the things they wouldn’t say. She didn’t want any of it.
In the end, Maura didn’t go for them, she went because the thought of Bryan’s disappointment weighed more than their approval.
“Whatever,” she’d told her brother, “but you’re in charge. Don’t expect me to call around to funeral homes or anything. I’ll show up at the church, wear black, make sure my makeup is good and smudged. The works. Then I’m leaving, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he’d murmured before ending their call.
“Come on, Mar. You can’t just not go.”
“Sure I can,” she’d told him over the phone, chewing on the end of a strawberry Twizzler. “She’d have done the same for me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true and you know it. If I’d have died, Mom would have acted like nothing happened.”
Bryan sighed. “Fine. Don’t do it for her, then. Do it for everyone else. They want to see you. They ask about you a lot, you know.”
And she did. Maura knew because they never let her forget it. Every picture posted on social media was inundated with a string of When are you coming homes and We’d love to see that pretty face in persons. Every text message ended with a remark about how long it had been since they’d seen her last. She knew they wanted to see her, but that was never the problem. The problem was that she didn’t want to see them. She didn’t want their hugs, the gesture sagging with an undercurrent of obligation and shame. She didn’t want their forced condolences. Their doleful gazes. Their silent pity hiding the things they wouldn’t say. She didn’t want any of it.
In the end, Maura didn’t go for them, she went because the thought of Bryan’s disappointment weighed more than their approval.
“Whatever,” she’d told her brother, “but you’re in charge. Don’t expect me to call around to funeral homes or anything. I’ll show up at the church, wear black, make sure my makeup is good and smudged. The works. Then I’m leaving, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he’d murmured before ending their call.
~
Maura’s heels clicked on the marble floors of St. Joseph’s as she walked towards the exit, the tiny bones in her purse rattling against her hip with every step. She’d found their presence comforting as she sat in the oak pew at the very back of the church. Like a pilfered candy hidden beneath a child’s tongue before dinner, they were her little secret. Nobody knew she carried them, a token plucked from the orchard of her mother’s attic like an overripe peach. A reminder that not all dead things must be forgotten.
Expectant gazes had pressed against her from all directions during the service, but she’d ignored them. She knew they’d wanted her to give a speech—to regale them with a witty anecdote about her mom, one that would make them laugh before they cried—but she had none, the words gone like stones through a hole in her pocket.
“You okay?” Bryan asked as she climbed into his car. Maura snorted in response. “Look, I know things weren’t good between you two the past couple years but—”
“That’s an understatement,” she murmured. She flipped the visor down and peered into the mirror, checking the state of her mascara. It was somewhere between watched-a-sad-commercial and can’t-remember-what-happened-last-night. Perfect.
She snapped the visor closed as Bryan sighed. “She didn’t mean it, what she said. She was just … you know. Raised in a different time. It was hard for her, too, Mar.”
Maura’s gaze moved to the rosary swaying from the rearview mirror like a noose. “Whatever you say.”
“I know you won’t believe this, but she wanted to fix things. She was starting to come around. She—”
She cut Bryan off for a second time. “It doesn’t matter, Bry. She’s dead. She’s dead and she’s not coming back, so let’s drop it, okay?” Maura’s voice cracked at the end, and she swallowed hard, fighting the words clawing at her throat.
Her brother’s voice was soft, like waves against sand when he whispered, “Okay.”
Maura’s mother was to be buried next to her father, who’d succumbed to his alcoholism when she was six, despite all the candles her mother lit at St. Joseph’s every Sunday. The only thing she remembered about the man was that he liked fishing and always smelled like woodsmoke and chewing tobacco.
As she stood at the edge of her mother’s empty grave, Bryan behind her asking wordless questions, Maura thought about placing her toe on the edge and pressing down on the soil. Would it collapse, or hold firm? If she fell in, would she be able to climb back out? Would the burial be delayed? Would they have to get a ladder? Maybe they’d let her ride the contraption that lowered caskets into the ground. The image in her mind made her lips part in a grin.
“Maura? Maura Cotter?”
She turned to see a woman, blonde hair pulled into a haphazard bun, approaching with a toddler behind her leg and a baby on her hip. Her smile looked tired, skin sagging beneath her bright eyes.
“Jenny?” Maura asked, uncertain. The last time she’d seen Jenny, she’d been vomiting out the side of Bryan’s black Dodge Ram, the front of her camisole stained pink with raspberry vodka.
“Maura!” Jenny wrapped the baby-less arm around her in a half-hug. She smelled like fabric softener and cheap hair spray. “It’s so good to see you! I was hoping you’d come back for—“ Her tired eyes widened. “Oh gosh, Maura, I’m so sorry. Bethanne was a pillar of the community. She’ll be dearly missed.” She bounced the baby, swaying as she spoke.
“Yeah,” replied Maura, who could think of nothing else to say.
The toddler at Jenny’s leg let out a low whine. She squatted down, whispered something to the girl, then stood up. “I’m so sorry to do this, but can you hold Jace for a minute? Ryleigh has to go potty and...” She smiled and rolled her eyes, as if that somehow finished her sentence. “The 7-Eleven is just across the street. We’ll only be
a minute.”
Before Maura could respond, Jenny plopped the baby into her arms and took off towards the convenience store. The baby stared at her, his brow pulled into a tiny frown as he studied her unfamiliar face. Then, he batted at a strand of her hair and smiled. He extended a chubby arm upwards, opening and closing his fingers at the bare branches above their heads.
“You want one?” she asked him. She reached up and snapped off a twig, then handed it to him. Without hesitating, he crammed it in his mouth, gnawing the tip with toothless gums. She bounced him on her hip like she’d seen Jenny do, simply because standing still felt wrong.
As she swayed, Maura’s purse banged against her side and her mind drifted to her bones sleeping within it. Did they like the motion? Were they giggling, bouncing around inside that silvery Goldfish bag? Were they being lulled to sleep? Or were they crying, craving the quiet stillness of the attic where she’d found them? She thought about taking them out. About handing one to the baby. Would he try to eat it as he was the stick? What would happen if he did?
An image of the baby’s mouth filled with tiny bones, each one protruding like some kind of demented baby tooth, popped into her mind. In it, he opened his mouth to laugh and out rolled the skull, tiny and white and clean. Except it wasn’t an animal skull; it was human, the size of a large marble. He giggled, and out spilled more bones, each one tinier than the last, until nothing but ash drifted from his toothless smile.
Maura blinked as the baby dropped the stick. She watched it plummet into her mother’s open grave, disappearing beyond the edge. A slow moan crawled out of the infant’s mouth before he tilted his head back and began to wail.
“Shhh,” she whispered, bouncing him harder, acutely aware of the stares she was beginning to collect. “Shhh, it’s okay. We can get you another one,” she crooned. She reached up to snap another twig from the tree, but that only made the baby cry louder. The sound was like needles inside of her head. Like sandpaper against her flesh.
She turned in a circle, panicked. Where the hell was Jenny? Instead of Jenny, Maura spied her aunt, scowling in her direction. She was speaking in hushed words to a group of women, all of them clustered together like crones over a cauldron. Maura took off and approached her aunt, then pushed the baby into her arms.
“He’s Jenny Hop—Jenny Bauer’s. She went to the bathroom or something. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I had to—” The baby took one look at Deidre and began to shriek louder, face purpling with the effort as his screams drowned out her words.
An elastic band wrapped itself around Maura’s chest, and she flashed her aunt an apologetic smile. Then, she spun, taking off in the opposite direction, the baby’s fading caterwaul chasing her as she pushed further into the cemetery. Her heels sank into the soft ground with every step, as though trying to keep her from leaving. She had no idea where she was going except away. Fuck Jenny. Fuck her baby. Fuck this stupid funeral. She should have left that morning like she’d wanted. She should have dumped those bones in the woods behind the motel. She should have refused to come. She should have never gotten on that plane.
She should have never answered that call.
Maura slowed her pace, then stopped, the baby’s cries replaced by the occasional groans of the branches overhead. Despite the warmish weather, she tugged her jacket around her tighter and shivered. She’d never been a fan of cemeteries; the idea of being surrounded by old bones and rotting flesh had always made her feel on edge.
Bones.
Her bones.
Carefully, Maura pulled the Goldfish bag from her purse and unrolled the top, spilling the tiny bones into her hand. They seemed even whiter than before, gleaming like stars against the sea of gray and brown around her. “I know,” she told them. “You were right. We shouldn’t have come.” She poked at them, shifting them in her palm until she could close her fingers over them comfortably. They nestled against her flesh, safe and warm. “Don’t worry. We’re going home.”
As she wound her way towards the back of the cemetery, the headstones began to change. Sharp edges began to round, words began to fade, and neat rows began to decay into haphazard clusters. Soon, Maura couldn’t read any of the names, as though someone had taken an eraser and rubbed the letters away.
Had rubbed their lives away.
She stopped near a constellation of crooked gravestones sleeping beneath a towering oak. Was there anyone alive who remembered what names these once bore? Or was all trace of them gone, forgotten by everyone, even the rock meant to memorialize them forever? Was that what life was? Maura wondered. Every moment—every late-night laugh, every early-morning cuddle, every slow work day, every scream, every tear, every smile—reduced to unreadable symbols etched in stone? If she left no one behind—if nobody remembered her, not even her own grave—would that mean she never lived at all?
Something small and white caught Maura’s eye, concealed behind two graves at the base of the tree. She stepped forward, craning her neck to get a better look. An ivory baby with the wings of an angel lay sleeping, its toes nestled in the brown grass as though it’d just laid down for a midday nap. She knelt down, the bones in her hand suddenly heavy. The ground was damp against her knees, filled with the scent of melting snow and decaying leaves. The baby had no markings to indicate who slumbered beneath its wings.
She reached forward and brushed her fingertips against the stone. It was colder than she’d expected, like fresh snowfall, and smooth as new marble. Maura glanced around. Why hadn’t it weathered like the others? Was it new? Had someone placed it there recently? She opened her palm. “I’m sorry,” she told the tiny bones. Tears formed and she held them, cradling the bones, refusing to let them go. “I’m so sorry.”
Expectant gazes had pressed against her from all directions during the service, but she’d ignored them. She knew they’d wanted her to give a speech—to regale them with a witty anecdote about her mom, one that would make them laugh before they cried—but she had none, the words gone like stones through a hole in her pocket.
“You okay?” Bryan asked as she climbed into his car. Maura snorted in response. “Look, I know things weren’t good between you two the past couple years but—”
“That’s an understatement,” she murmured. She flipped the visor down and peered into the mirror, checking the state of her mascara. It was somewhere between watched-a-sad-commercial and can’t-remember-what-happened-last-night. Perfect.
She snapped the visor closed as Bryan sighed. “She didn’t mean it, what she said. She was just … you know. Raised in a different time. It was hard for her, too, Mar.”
Maura’s gaze moved to the rosary swaying from the rearview mirror like a noose. “Whatever you say.”
“I know you won’t believe this, but she wanted to fix things. She was starting to come around. She—”
She cut Bryan off for a second time. “It doesn’t matter, Bry. She’s dead. She’s dead and she’s not coming back, so let’s drop it, okay?” Maura’s voice cracked at the end, and she swallowed hard, fighting the words clawing at her throat.
Her brother’s voice was soft, like waves against sand when he whispered, “Okay.”
Maura’s mother was to be buried next to her father, who’d succumbed to his alcoholism when she was six, despite all the candles her mother lit at St. Joseph’s every Sunday. The only thing she remembered about the man was that he liked fishing and always smelled like woodsmoke and chewing tobacco.
As she stood at the edge of her mother’s empty grave, Bryan behind her asking wordless questions, Maura thought about placing her toe on the edge and pressing down on the soil. Would it collapse, or hold firm? If she fell in, would she be able to climb back out? Would the burial be delayed? Would they have to get a ladder? Maybe they’d let her ride the contraption that lowered caskets into the ground. The image in her mind made her lips part in a grin.
“Maura? Maura Cotter?”
She turned to see a woman, blonde hair pulled into a haphazard bun, approaching with a toddler behind her leg and a baby on her hip. Her smile looked tired, skin sagging beneath her bright eyes.
“Jenny?” Maura asked, uncertain. The last time she’d seen Jenny, she’d been vomiting out the side of Bryan’s black Dodge Ram, the front of her camisole stained pink with raspberry vodka.
“Maura!” Jenny wrapped the baby-less arm around her in a half-hug. She smelled like fabric softener and cheap hair spray. “It’s so good to see you! I was hoping you’d come back for—“ Her tired eyes widened. “Oh gosh, Maura, I’m so sorry. Bethanne was a pillar of the community. She’ll be dearly missed.” She bounced the baby, swaying as she spoke.
“Yeah,” replied Maura, who could think of nothing else to say.
The toddler at Jenny’s leg let out a low whine. She squatted down, whispered something to the girl, then stood up. “I’m so sorry to do this, but can you hold Jace for a minute? Ryleigh has to go potty and...” She smiled and rolled her eyes, as if that somehow finished her sentence. “The 7-Eleven is just across the street. We’ll only be
a minute.”
Before Maura could respond, Jenny plopped the baby into her arms and took off towards the convenience store. The baby stared at her, his brow pulled into a tiny frown as he studied her unfamiliar face. Then, he batted at a strand of her hair and smiled. He extended a chubby arm upwards, opening and closing his fingers at the bare branches above their heads.
“You want one?” she asked him. She reached up and snapped off a twig, then handed it to him. Without hesitating, he crammed it in his mouth, gnawing the tip with toothless gums. She bounced him on her hip like she’d seen Jenny do, simply because standing still felt wrong.
As she swayed, Maura’s purse banged against her side and her mind drifted to her bones sleeping within it. Did they like the motion? Were they giggling, bouncing around inside that silvery Goldfish bag? Were they being lulled to sleep? Or were they crying, craving the quiet stillness of the attic where she’d found them? She thought about taking them out. About handing one to the baby. Would he try to eat it as he was the stick? What would happen if he did?
An image of the baby’s mouth filled with tiny bones, each one protruding like some kind of demented baby tooth, popped into her mind. In it, he opened his mouth to laugh and out rolled the skull, tiny and white and clean. Except it wasn’t an animal skull; it was human, the size of a large marble. He giggled, and out spilled more bones, each one tinier than the last, until nothing but ash drifted from his toothless smile.
Maura blinked as the baby dropped the stick. She watched it plummet into her mother’s open grave, disappearing beyond the edge. A slow moan crawled out of the infant’s mouth before he tilted his head back and began to wail.
“Shhh,” she whispered, bouncing him harder, acutely aware of the stares she was beginning to collect. “Shhh, it’s okay. We can get you another one,” she crooned. She reached up to snap another twig from the tree, but that only made the baby cry louder. The sound was like needles inside of her head. Like sandpaper against her flesh.
She turned in a circle, panicked. Where the hell was Jenny? Instead of Jenny, Maura spied her aunt, scowling in her direction. She was speaking in hushed words to a group of women, all of them clustered together like crones over a cauldron. Maura took off and approached her aunt, then pushed the baby into her arms.
“He’s Jenny Hop—Jenny Bauer’s. She went to the bathroom or something. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I had to—” The baby took one look at Deidre and began to shriek louder, face purpling with the effort as his screams drowned out her words.
An elastic band wrapped itself around Maura’s chest, and she flashed her aunt an apologetic smile. Then, she spun, taking off in the opposite direction, the baby’s fading caterwaul chasing her as she pushed further into the cemetery. Her heels sank into the soft ground with every step, as though trying to keep her from leaving. She had no idea where she was going except away. Fuck Jenny. Fuck her baby. Fuck this stupid funeral. She should have left that morning like she’d wanted. She should have dumped those bones in the woods behind the motel. She should have refused to come. She should have never gotten on that plane.
She should have never answered that call.
Maura slowed her pace, then stopped, the baby’s cries replaced by the occasional groans of the branches overhead. Despite the warmish weather, she tugged her jacket around her tighter and shivered. She’d never been a fan of cemeteries; the idea of being surrounded by old bones and rotting flesh had always made her feel on edge.
Bones.
Her bones.
Carefully, Maura pulled the Goldfish bag from her purse and unrolled the top, spilling the tiny bones into her hand. They seemed even whiter than before, gleaming like stars against the sea of gray and brown around her. “I know,” she told them. “You were right. We shouldn’t have come.” She poked at them, shifting them in her palm until she could close her fingers over them comfortably. They nestled against her flesh, safe and warm. “Don’t worry. We’re going home.”
As she wound her way towards the back of the cemetery, the headstones began to change. Sharp edges began to round, words began to fade, and neat rows began to decay into haphazard clusters. Soon, Maura couldn’t read any of the names, as though someone had taken an eraser and rubbed the letters away.
Had rubbed their lives away.
She stopped near a constellation of crooked gravestones sleeping beneath a towering oak. Was there anyone alive who remembered what names these once bore? Or was all trace of them gone, forgotten by everyone, even the rock meant to memorialize them forever? Was that what life was? Maura wondered. Every moment—every late-night laugh, every early-morning cuddle, every slow work day, every scream, every tear, every smile—reduced to unreadable symbols etched in stone? If she left no one behind—if nobody remembered her, not even her own grave—would that mean she never lived at all?
Something small and white caught Maura’s eye, concealed behind two graves at the base of the tree. She stepped forward, craning her neck to get a better look. An ivory baby with the wings of an angel lay sleeping, its toes nestled in the brown grass as though it’d just laid down for a midday nap. She knelt down, the bones in her hand suddenly heavy. The ground was damp against her knees, filled with the scent of melting snow and decaying leaves. The baby had no markings to indicate who slumbered beneath its wings.
She reached forward and brushed her fingertips against the stone. It was colder than she’d expected, like fresh snowfall, and smooth as new marble. Maura glanced around. Why hadn’t it weathered like the others? Was it new? Had someone placed it there recently? She opened her palm. “I’m sorry,” she told the tiny bones. Tears formed and she held them, cradling the bones, refusing to let them go. “I’m so sorry.”
~
Photo by Edward Howell on Unsplash
“Hmmm,” the tech had said, a deep frown carving lines across his forehead as he studied the sonogram image on the screen. He moved the wand over Maura’s lower abdomen, sliding around on the jelly lubricating her skin, and pressed another spot.
Maura’s heart had lurched. “What? What is it?”
He’d been silent for a long time after that question and, looking back, Maura should have known then what that silence meant. The weight it carried.
Still, she’d left the ultrasound feeling anxious, but optimistic, the little black-and-white pictures clutched in her trembling hands. Her doctor would confirm that everything was fine, wouldn’t she? The tech would have said something if anything serious had been wrong, right?
But something serious had been wrong.
For weeks following her appointment, Maura tried to recount exactly what her doctor told her, but adrenaline or shock or both must have made her black out half of it. She remembered the words “neural tube” and “no chance of survival,” but everything else was the same colorless blur, nothing but an endless warble of noise, as though Maura heard everything from underwater.
Her doctor had told her she had options.
None of them were good.
She had placed a hand on Maura’s shoulder—that much she remembered. It was heavy, capable of collapsing her into the ground, shoving her deep into the earth like she were sitting atop a pit of quicksand. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She’d already decided to keep it. Already made a list of names. Already bought little shoes and hair bows and teethers shaped like fruit.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
They said it was her decision—that they’d do what she wanted either way—but what kind of decision was it? What choice did she have? She’d already made her choice the moment both lines turned pink, and now an entire lifetime of moments was being snuffed out, rubbed away like names on weathered headstones.
There had been no body to hold. No flesh to kiss. No bones to bury. No service. No goodbye. Nothing but the steady beep of a heart rate monitor and the chemical taste of saline every time the nurse flushed her IV. They’d handed her a few stapled sheets of paper explaining what to do at home and sent her out the door, the neon-pink gauze wrapped around her elbow the only evidence anything had even happened.
Nobody had come. Nobody held her hand. Nobody told her it wasn’t her fault. Maura’s brother had sent a single broken heart emoji. Her best friends offered to take her out for drinks to get her mind off of it. Her mother said something about eternal damnation—said she’d pray for her soul, then hung up and blocked Maura’s number. Everyone else pretended like nothing had happened because to them, nothing had. The bones were her
secret, one she’d never wanted to have.
Maura stared at the tiny bones in her hands, then placed them in front of the sleeping baby, shards of ice amongst the grass. A tear slid down her cheek, and she wept. For the mother she no longer had. The mother she’d never had. For the mother she wasn’t. The mother she’d never had the chance to be. For the bones, those in the grass and those deep beneath, who’d been loved more than hers ever had been.
She wiped her face with the sleeve of her jacket, then ran her fingers through the grass, moving the thatch to find the damp earth beneath. Sniffling, she plunged her fingers into the ground at the base of the sleeping baby, grateful for the warm weather that the dirt wasn’t frozen. She pulled up a clump of soil, then another, and another, until she had dug a hole the size of a grapefruit. One by one, she picked up each bone and placed it in the hole, arranging and rearranging them until she was satisfied.
When all that was left was the skull, Maura brought it to her face and ran it along her cheek. “Shhh,” she whispered. “I’m here.” She placed it in the hole along with the others. Then, with both hands, Maura buried her tiny bones.
Swaying, she conjured the melody she’d found in the attic and began to hum, rocking as she patted the earth. “Shhh,” she hummed. “Sleep, little one.” The branches overhead creaked with the breeze, punctuating the music.
When her song was over, Maura stood, feeling better. She didn’t feel whole. She knew she wouldn’t for a long time, but she felt better. Lighter, like removing a lead vest after an X-ray, or peeling off wet clothes after getting caught in a rainstorm. For so long she’d carried around those bones, not just the ones in her purse, but the ones in her heart. For so long, she’d wanted to bury them—to let them go—but she hadn’t known how. She hadn’t known that carrying around such tiny bones could be so heavy.
Maura’s heart had lurched. “What? What is it?”
He’d been silent for a long time after that question and, looking back, Maura should have known then what that silence meant. The weight it carried.
Still, she’d left the ultrasound feeling anxious, but optimistic, the little black-and-white pictures clutched in her trembling hands. Her doctor would confirm that everything was fine, wouldn’t she? The tech would have said something if anything serious had been wrong, right?
But something serious had been wrong.
For weeks following her appointment, Maura tried to recount exactly what her doctor told her, but adrenaline or shock or both must have made her black out half of it. She remembered the words “neural tube” and “no chance of survival,” but everything else was the same colorless blur, nothing but an endless warble of noise, as though Maura heard everything from underwater.
Her doctor had told her she had options.
None of them were good.
She had placed a hand on Maura’s shoulder—that much she remembered. It was heavy, capable of collapsing her into the ground, shoving her deep into the earth like she were sitting atop a pit of quicksand. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She’d already decided to keep it. Already made a list of names. Already bought little shoes and hair bows and teethers shaped like fruit.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
They said it was her decision—that they’d do what she wanted either way—but what kind of decision was it? What choice did she have? She’d already made her choice the moment both lines turned pink, and now an entire lifetime of moments was being snuffed out, rubbed away like names on weathered headstones.
There had been no body to hold. No flesh to kiss. No bones to bury. No service. No goodbye. Nothing but the steady beep of a heart rate monitor and the chemical taste of saline every time the nurse flushed her IV. They’d handed her a few stapled sheets of paper explaining what to do at home and sent her out the door, the neon-pink gauze wrapped around her elbow the only evidence anything had even happened.
Nobody had come. Nobody held her hand. Nobody told her it wasn’t her fault. Maura’s brother had sent a single broken heart emoji. Her best friends offered to take her out for drinks to get her mind off of it. Her mother said something about eternal damnation—said she’d pray for her soul, then hung up and blocked Maura’s number. Everyone else pretended like nothing had happened because to them, nothing had. The bones were her
secret, one she’d never wanted to have.
Maura stared at the tiny bones in her hands, then placed them in front of the sleeping baby, shards of ice amongst the grass. A tear slid down her cheek, and she wept. For the mother she no longer had. The mother she’d never had. For the mother she wasn’t. The mother she’d never had the chance to be. For the bones, those in the grass and those deep beneath, who’d been loved more than hers ever had been.
She wiped her face with the sleeve of her jacket, then ran her fingers through the grass, moving the thatch to find the damp earth beneath. Sniffling, she plunged her fingers into the ground at the base of the sleeping baby, grateful for the warm weather that the dirt wasn’t frozen. She pulled up a clump of soil, then another, and another, until she had dug a hole the size of a grapefruit. One by one, she picked up each bone and placed it in the hole, arranging and rearranging them until she was satisfied.
When all that was left was the skull, Maura brought it to her face and ran it along her cheek. “Shhh,” she whispered. “I’m here.” She placed it in the hole along with the others. Then, with both hands, Maura buried her tiny bones.
Swaying, she conjured the melody she’d found in the attic and began to hum, rocking as she patted the earth. “Shhh,” she hummed. “Sleep, little one.” The branches overhead creaked with the breeze, punctuating the music.
When her song was over, Maura stood, feeling better. She didn’t feel whole. She knew she wouldn’t for a long time, but she felt better. Lighter, like removing a lead vest after an X-ray, or peeling off wet clothes after getting caught in a rainstorm. For so long she’d carried around those bones, not just the ones in her purse, but the ones in her heart. For so long, she’d wanted to bury them—to let them go—but she hadn’t known how. She hadn’t known that carrying around such tiny bones could be so heavy.
~
Maura found her brother leaning against his car, the last one left in the parking lot. “You alright?” he asked as she approached, and Maura nodded. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Fair enough.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “You ready to go?” She looked over her shoulder and gave her bones a final goodbye, then turned to face him.
“Ready.”
“No.”
“Fair enough.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “You ready to go?” She looked over her shoulder and gave her bones a final goodbye, then turned to face him.
“Ready.”
Millie Kensen studied creative writing at the University of North Dakota and holds a master’s degree in education from George Mason University. She lives in Colorado with her husband and three young daughters, where she spends most of her time rewriting the endings to her favorite books and hiking in the Rocky Mountains. You can find her work in Typehouse Literary Magazine and The Bookends Review. Follow her online at: milliekensen.com
A 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee, Millie's story can be found in Issue 27 of Glassworks.
A 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee, Millie's story can be found in Issue 27 of Glassworks.
