The Six Granddaughters of Cecil Slaughter by Susan Hahn

easily joke about, when others could not—peep-holes in the bathrooms both intrigued and amused her, at least before Herr M entered her life. Then, her reaction to
any
possible intrusion ignited her to full-blown alarm.
    Cecily’s two plays received not-great reviews, but now she has written a third one which she believes is a huge improvement. So far, however, no theater seems that interested and she has become wise enough not to call too often for updates on it. Alone, in her large, half-furnished apartment, she thinks, “Perhaps they feel if they ignore you enough—not return your phone calls—you’ll go away.” The emptiness of the place in which she lives has become a metaphor for both who she is and how she feels.
    She thinks about going away a lot, but not in the way you first might think. Going away, not as in stopping calling about the play or as in going on a trip, rather she thinks about disappearing. She is tired. Tired of being Cecily Slaughter, granddaughter of the mythically brilliant Cecil Slaughter, cousin of the highly praised poet Cecilia Slaughter, daughter of the sad and broken late Abraham Slaughter, victim of the dead monster Emmanuel Slaughter, daughter of the also deceased Lillian—who, she believes, really did love her in her own weak way.
    As for my other female Slaughter cousins, Celine (unlikeher baby sister, Celeste, who was gone before she could speak an understandable word) survives rather well in the world she has constructed for herself with flashy colors—most of them variations of shocking pink—her whole being a shock of pink. Celine, is known for such statements as, “Well,
I can’t help it
if there’s
at least
two men in love with me.” And, then there is Celie—the one most prone to dissociative thinking—shy, modest Celie, who works in a high-end suburban dress shop. Celie, who
seems
of little threat to anyone except herself. Celie, who needs love so much and receives so little, except from Cecilia.
    In Cecily’s third play the dying mother,
Tanya,
is all light and grace. Cecily,
of course,
is
not
the daughter in the play. She is a poet and although she has borrowed “a bit” from Cecilia’s life, she justifies it in the name of art. The fact that Cecilia is disturbingly beautiful with five applauded books, makes it difficult for Cecily not to hate her, though Cecily, at least consciously, believes she does not. She feels she can fairly assess the adventures that all Cecilia’s beauty and so-called talent have taken her on—borrow from them and create art.
    Some people would call them less adventures than misfortunes. (And then, of course, there was one person for sure—Herr M—who believed Cecilia Slaughter deserved all the bad things that happened to her—had ever so directly caused them herself.) Cecily believes she is neutral—so she can present a somewhat disguised story of Cecilia’s travails on stage with a clear, clean eye. Although she is beginning to worry that maybe the reason no one has called her back about the play is that they all think she has burgled Cecilia’s life and that “isn’t right or nice or whatever.” She continues to further excuse her feelings about Cecilia, thinking, “Celinebelieves whatever’s happened to Cecilia is no big deal. That Cecilia clearly just doesn’t know how to handle men.” Then Cecily thinks about Cecilia’s “not so secret habit.”
    Cecilia’s mother’s head was a mess of tiny sores from tearing at her hair. One by one Aunt Lettie would pull each out and examine it when she thought no one was watching, but all of the cousins at one time or another saw her doing this. Sometimes, I would hide behind a chair and stare. She would sit on her worn beige couch, almost hypnotizing herself with this motion. If she did not comb her hair just right you could see those irritated moth holes