The Death of Small Creatures by Trisha Cull

falling. I have cultivated an intellectual existence, but I have the emotional integrity of a ten-year-old. “Mad, glad, sad or scared?” Fiona says.
    â€œScared?” I suggest.

    Several years back: Linden is on her tiptoes, leaning over the bathroom sink in the cabin at Two Coves Resort. Her head is in my hands. Woodsmoke in the air: sap and pine. Dust burning off the base heater against the wall. The air in this cabin is dank, coppery. The toilet water has not moved in months. The boys are by the fireplace threading popcorn onto a string. In a moment, Logan will flail a stick and burn Grant’s neck, scar him for life perhaps. Leigh will shout obtusely, ineffectually, “Jesus Christ!” But they won’t care. He only sees his kids every other Sunday and on special holidays.
    Linden’s hair is so long it gets sucked down the drain. I cannot manage this delicate relationship of soap and water and hair; it is up to me to keep this child from going blind; it is up to me to make her clean. I resent this process. I resent this child for being a child who does not fully comprehend my ability to resent her. I resent her for not loving me and making me whole. “Is the water too hot?” I say.
    â€œNo, it’s good,” she says, eager to please, already learning to be compliant and willing like good girls are expected to be. I lather her hair, gaze upon her tanned neck, a freckle.
    The first time I met her, she came up just above my knee, thudded along the steep path from the beach, her sandals kicking up clouds of dust, the thin straps of her yellow sundress falling off her shoulders to expose the slender tan lines beneath. “This is fun,” she said. “What’s your name?”
    Now, she strains higher on her tiptoes, lets out a gasp, her gut compressed against the counter. “Lean in more,” I say.
    She is a tiny drowned creature in my hands.
    She prematurely wears her mother’s hoop earrings these days, and Gap jeans and clunky shoes. I hear her shiny bracelets jingle as she taps on the bedroom door and whispers, “Aren’t you awake yet?” I smell ham and onions, burnt eggs. I hear Leigh’s silly banter, cartoons. I want to kill Spongebob Squarepants.
    Blue sky bleeds through the olive-green curtains. Gateau is terrorizing swallows in the lilac tree next door; their chirping is inflicted with urgency. It reminds me of the chatter that echoes from the cliffs overlooking China Beach when the small birds scatter every time an eagle swoops by, how they drive the solitary creature from the cliffs, and the eagle glides complacently onward until it disappears in the mist and gloaming above the treetops.
    My stepson Grant, the oldest boy, strums his blue electric guitar in the spare room with the lights out, doesn’t speak unless spoken to, has become infatuated with Led Zeppelin, scoffs at my love of John Denver. He is kind and sensitive, has the tender reserve of a monk. I worry about him sometimes.
    Logan is bright and mischievous, needs a lot of attention. Just now he torments Linden, calls her ugly and stupid. She screams in terror; she is too old for these antics, has no self-soothing abilities.
    â€œWhy did you stop eating meat?” he says.
    â€œI don’t like the way they treat animals,” I say.
    â€œBut you still eat eggs, right?”
    â€œYes,” I reply.

    I’m twenty-two years old. My best friend Kay sits next to me on the ferry. Her hands lie folded on her belly, caressing the slight curve protruding beneath her Kurt Cobain T-shirt. My hand rests on her belly too. I have friendship bracelets on both of my wrists—aqua blue and fuchsia threads, silky strings woven into tapestry. These are our three hands resting upon the life inside; this is the closest this kid will get to experiencing the world outside.
    Kay’s blown her student loan money to buy the RX-7, and I’m bulimic and fucking up everything.