PACIFIC NORTHWEST GOTHIC

My first memory was of violence. I woke up from my nap without my Polly Dolly and found her in the tub, sudsy and miserable. My mother held her head underwater and I screamed and screamed and screamed until I got close enough to sink my teeth into the flesh of her calf. She whirled around, smacked me across the face, and I wailed.

Mama dug her nails into my wrist and dragged me outside, Polly
drip-drip-dripping along the way. She forced me to my knees and slammed my dolly into the mud-soaked garden.

“We bury the things we love,” she snapped and told me to “Dig. Now.”

No shovels nor spades, only hands, as if the dirt caked beneath my cracked nails was proof of my devotion.

I’ve buried a lot of things since then. Squirming beetles and dried butterflies, seashells and letters from faraway friends. Mama’s favorite lipstick, RED AS AN ORGASM. She searched for it for weeks before I told her it was by the tulips. When she demanded I dig it up, I reminded her that it was important to give the things we loved to the earth and that shut her up.

Once, I asked her why she never buried daddy if she loved him so and she said we shouldn’t bury the living, but that never stopped daddy from burying the litter of kittens we found in the shed or the bunny that munched on our carrots.

“Those are different,” she said. “They can’t feel anything.”

But Polly felt something. And the kittens keened like they were scared.

As I grew, I learned how addicting adoration could be and shoved more things under the soil. Pens with smooth ink and underwear stained by my womanhood. Deeper and deeper than ever before. My life belonged to the worms and mites.

And my mother belonged to Clematis. My drooly baby sister with her fat wrists and gummy smiles. I loved her so much I wanted to chew on her cheeks. I wanted to bury her alive.

I tried to. I spent two days digging a hole next to the fir tree in our backyard, the one that I took a picture next to with every new year of my life. Thirteen of them hung against the yellow wallpaper in our family room. Clematis didn’t–wouldn’t–have a single one.

But mama heard her screeching and yanked her from the dirt before I could finish covering her up. Daddy didn’t look at me for a whole week after that. In fact, he rarely came inside.

Rain or shine, he was out there digging something fierce. I watched him from my bedroom window, amazed at the size of the pit. I didn’t realize it was for me until they dressed me in a pretty dress, adorned my hair with ribbons and bows.

From the bottom, I smiled up at them. They had tears in their eyes.

They must love me so much to bury me this deep.