Jack, Please

Alexandra Persad

Content Warning: Eating Disorders

His axe cracked in the distance. Emmalynne imagined how it would cut through the layers of wool and corduroy before it reached the warmth of her flesh. What would it look like, she wondered, her bloodied body against the white of the snow? Nothing more than a dead animal to him.

She didn’t scream.

Emmalynne brought golf balls—a pack of four, nestled into a clear casing like eggs in a carton, insignias pointing outward and glinting gold at different angles. Their destiny of being driven into country club dirt, earthy and wormy, made the minute details unnecessary.

         The driveway was filled with vehicles, compact and Tetrised together. Although she had purposefully arrived late, the crowd still took her by surprise. She had called Jamie twice to make sure he was already there. The second time, an unintelligible background noise had interrupted before he could answer.

“Are there a lot of people there?” Emmalynne pressed the phone harder against her ear.

“Yeah, actually.” Jamie’s voice was low. “I don’t know half of these people. Where are you?”

         “I’ll be there soon.” She hung up, feeling more uncertain than before.

Even after she arrived, there was no familiarity in the voices, how they swelled with laughter and melded with the hot air.

Her armpits began to prick with sweat. She would have to keep her arms down.

The deck was fuller than it had ever been, people hovering around each other in hesitant drones, shifting weight from one foot to another, hands in cargo shorts and around open cans. The grill was pressed against the banister, shut and smoking, surrounded by stacks of cardboard plates and napkins cemented to tables with heavy salt and pepper shakers.

         “Look who it is.” Ian was the first to see her. He was wearing sunglasses on the back of his head, shielding a pair of eyes that Emmalynne suspected were somehow real. “It’s been a while.”

Emmalynne studied him. She hadn’t seen him in months—not since the funeral. The image of him and their father together, dry-eyed and stoic, was burned into her brain. She had fallen apart beside them, squishing used tissues in her fist and blinking back tears that pooled in the corner of her eyes.

         At the end of the service, Ian had pulled her aside.

“There are smudges on your face.” He pointed under his own eye for reference. “You should find a bathroom.”

         It was the last thing he said to her as the hearse pulled away, their mother inside.

         His expression still looked the same, a quiet coldness beneath the warmth of a smile. Maybe it had never changed.

Marissa, blonde and pretty beside him, spun around. Her eyes lit up as they landed on Emmalynne. “Em,” she said. “How’ve you been?”

“Good.” Emnmalynne pressed the box of golf balls into her leg. “I’ve been good.”

Marissa’s eyes dipped as her phone vibrated in her palm. Ian craned his neck, peering over her shoulder.

         “Who is that, babe?” His hand rubbed the small of Marissa’s back.

She tucked her phone into her bag. “Just Steven.”

“Steven?”

Their gazes locked. Ian’s jaw clenched.

Emmalynne took a step back. “I’ll see you two later,” she said, although neither of them seemed to notice her leave.

“Look who finally made it.” Jamie was a few feet away, seated alone on the porch swing, a bottle of water sweating in the cup holder beside him. He smiled lazily. “I wasn’t sure if you were coming.”

         “I told you I was.” Emmalynne slid in beside him. “Who are all these people?”

         The deck was scattered with middle-aged men in varying shades of wickaway fabrics, the collars of their shirts upturned, pot bellies waterfalling over waistbands. It was a stark contrast compared to their mother’s side of the family, who were all absent. A sea of sisters and wives, skirts billowing in the wind and bangles jangling at even the smallest movements.

         Jamie shrugged, slurping his Bud Light. “Golf friends?” he guessed. “Probably from Greenbrier. I don’t know.”

Emmalynne imagined her father with them, huddled under the roof of a golf cart, drinks sloshing over rims and clubs clanking. They were all the same person. Men vehemently in love with themselves and no one else. Unlike her father, they had never tried to be parents, settling into their role as unfaithful husbands instead.

She wondered how much her father envied them. Even with her mother gone, his role as a parent remained, stubborn and steadfast.

“Where is he, anyway?” Emmalynne dropped the package of golf balls on the table beside her. It was stupid she had brought them at all. “I haven’t talked to him since…” She cleared her throat. “You know.”

Jamie shifted. “He’s around here.” His eyes scanned the deck. “Wait, there he is.”

He nodded toward the patio door, and their father appeared, older and fatter than Emmalynne remembered. Her hatred for him stung like poison in her mouth.

His eyes glazed over the crowd, not pausing to acknowledge her, but he knew she was there. Emmalynne could feel it hanging in the hot air between them—how much he hated her in return. 

Emmalynne made herself busy, listening to the men she didn’t know, staring at their shadowed faces beneath visors and looking anywhere but their receding hairlines. She stepped away with half-hearted excuses, crunching cans in her palm and throwing them away.

         As she shut the lid of the trashcan, Marissa’s hand wrapped around hers, sweeping her into the shade.

         “They’ll talk your ear off, won’t they?” She giggled behind a manicured hand.

Emmalynne’s eyes ran over the drones of men. Ian was nowhere in sight.

         “They will,” Emmalynne concurred.

Marissa sipped her seltzer.

“So, how are you and Ian doing?” Emmalynne grabbed another beer from the cooler, shaking off droplets of water.

         “We’re good.” She smiled to herself, playing with a heart-shaped earring.

         Emmalynne’s ears were unpierced. As a child, she had tried to pierce them alone in her bedroom, stabbing her left earlobe with a thumbtack. It gained a pulse of its own, turning a hot, angry red. She ran to Jamie’s room, feeling blood leak down her neck.

His eyes had widened with panic as he sat her on his striped comforter, disappearing and returning with a roll of toilet paper. He spooled off large, crumpled wads and pressed them against her ear. She didn’t feel any pain, but the blood kept pulsing. She watched the trails of toilet paper, dampened and shredded, pile on his bedroom floor. She wondered if she would bleed out completely. What would her parents say when they saw her lying there?

Her mother’s face was easy to picture—frozen and horrified beside her father’s. He wouldn’t care at all, she realized. He would be glad.

         “We’re actually looking for a place together,” Marissa announced. She had been holding it in, unsure of mentioning it without Ian’s supervision.

         “Marissa.” Emmalynne considered hugging her, but clapped her hand against the can instead. “That’s wonderful. You’ve been together so long. I’m so happy for you both.”

Marissa’s features dropped at once, eyebrows flattening and lips thinning. Ian materialized from the shadows, his arm suddenly around her shoulders, pulling her against him.

“Christ.” His eyes were locked on Emmalynne, cold and estranged. He kissed the back of Marissa’s head and murmured into her hair. “I don’t even know the last time I talked to her, really.”

She pushed him away. Her shoes clattered down the stairs, hands grasping at her skirt.

“What did I—?”

“Marissa and I broke up last year. That’s Madison.” Ian’s body was stone, no longer veiled with niceties. “Maybe you’d know that if you came around for more than funerals and birthdays.”

Emmalynne opened her mouth and shut it again. He was already gone.

It looked like a herd of cattle had been slaughtered. Stacks of steak with fat falling off at the edges and piles of angular patties, pink middles belly up, stewing in a thin pool of blood. Everyone collectively disregarded the cardboard plates, as a spread of Fiestaware polka dotted the table.

         Madison sat opposite Emmalynne, looking wounded, Ian’s hand on her thigh. Their father had disappeared inside, something about changing the channel of the TV. The patio door was open, a stream of air conditioning mixing with the humidity, the voice of a commentator in the distance.

         “What do you want?” Jamie reached for Emmalynne’s plate.

         She gripped its edges, staring at the blood. “That’s okay.” She returned it to the spot in front of her. “I’ll just get some potato salad.”

         He eyed her carefully. Their entire childhood, he watched her throw away dinners in crumpled paper towels and choose cups of ice over school lunches until even the most hidden bones in her body protruded.

         Jamie shot her concerned looks and Ian slung backhanded comments.

“You look like you’re about to break.” Ian’s teenage hair flopped over his eyes, his features twisted into a grimace, as if looking at her caused physical pain. “No one is going to want you like that.”

His words didn’t faze her, regardless of how painfully he intended them. The only thing that hurt was her mother’s worry, dirtied pots and pans piled in the sink, Emmalynne’s favorite meals plated and untouched in front of her. Her mother watched her with watery gazes, begging her to eat, while her father turned the color of a grape tomato, throwing full dinner plates at her from across the room. The shards stabbed the wooden floor and glittered at her feet, grilled chicken and asparagus now inedible and sprinkled with glass.

“Really.” Emmalynne gave Jamie a close-lipped smile, averting her gaze from the bloodied tray of meat in alarming proximity. “I’ll find something else.”

“What’s this? You don’t want any food?”

        Her father’s voice boomed above her, thick fists wrapped around the back of her chair, casting the shadow of a god she didn’t believe in. Suddenly, she was a child again.

         Emmalynne cleared her throat and looked up at his face, sweaty and wide. He had a sheen of drunkenness over him, his movements clumsy, but wordlessly tempting her to engage as the chatter quieted.

         “I’m going to eat.” She pushed her chair out slightly and he stumbled back. “I just wanted to get it myself.”

         He chuckled, wiping off his brow. “So independent.” His voice was louder now, making a show for the table. “Just like her mother. She would be so proud.”

         The rainbow of collared shirts chuckled, and Emmalynne stiffened, feeling Jamie hold his breath beside her. The commentator inside pressed onward.

Look at that stroke! He’s got complete control over that ball—is that gonna be a hole-in-one? Is it? And he sinks it—unbelievable! This is what the crowd came to see!

From above, everyone looked small, like bugs that would inevitably be squashed, milling over top of each other. Their voices coalesced into a vapored cloud by the time they reached Emmalynne’s window.

         She sat on her bed, leaving the window slightly ajar. Her bedroom wasn’t what she had expected it to be. The bare bones were the same, lilac walls and eyelet pillowcases with hints of adolescence—rolled-up posters, dusty makeup brushes, Scotch-taped photographs.

         Overtaking it all was a wall of cardboard boxes and haphazardly thrown garbage bags. Emmalynne had already opened one. It was filled with her mother’s purses, forced where they didn’t belong, their leather creased and zippers mangled.

         Emmalynne couldn’t help but giggle at the sight. She was on her fourth beer, feeling it bubble up in her empty stomach. She imagined her father tearing through the closet in a fit of rage, banishing every last trace of her mother into a room he hated just as much.

         It was a fitting spot—she and her mother had spent countless nights hating him in that very room without speaking a word. Her mother simply let herself in and sat at the foot of the bed, head bent downward. If Emmalynne didn’t know any better, she would think she was praying.

When her mother finally looked up, her eyes shone with tears and her face was more tattered than it ever looked in the daylight. She patted Emmalynne’s blanketed foot before she left, shutting the door softly behind her. The slight indentation in the mattress was the only indication she had been there at all, as if she were a phantom.

         “Knock, knock.”

         Emmalynne stood, her hand upsetting the beer beside her. It glugged out onto the purple carpet. “Shit.”

         “What’re you doing in here?” Ian stood in the doorway. His hair was gelled tightly against his scalp, a thick sheen reflecting the light.

         “I wanted to see what my room looked like.”

         His eyes scanned the space, running over the most intimate parts of her life. The alcohol quieted the pounding in her chest.

         “What’s all this stuff?” He tore open a cardboard box buried beneath grocery bags. They tumbled to the floor. “Shit.” He pulled out a gray sweater that had started to unravel. “This is hers, right?”

         Emmalynne dented the can beneath her fingertips. “Yeah.”

         He took a long slug of his own drink, tipping his head back as he finished it off, then sat it on her nightstand. “Are you still sad about it?” His voice was distant, as if he were observing someone he had never met. “You’ve looked miserable all day.”

         “Of course I’m sad. She was my mother.”

“People die every day.”

Emmalynne bit the inside of her cheek. He carried himself with a newfound confidence—someone who had the freedom to be exactly who they wanted, as if their mother’s death had brought him new life.

She remembered him standing in that very doorway years ago, boxers puffing over the waistband of his jeans, his face sprinkled with blonde stubble, while she sat in bed, empty and skeletal, waiting to erode above ground.

No one is going to want you like that.

“She was your mother, too.”

He stared at her with the same disgust he had years ago. It was the same way he had always looked at their mother.

“I know.”

The chorus of singing had just ended when Emmalynne pushed past Ian and headed back downstairs. Large wedges of cake were being passed around, icing-coated candles discarded on the counter. She imagined her father smiling through the flame of candles, peaks of frosting catching melted wax. Everyone crowded around him, as if he were someone worth celebrating.

         She yanked the fridge open, spotting a veggie platter inside, forgotten and crystalized. A thin film coated the dressing in the center.

         “Where were you?” Jamie ran water over his empty plate, crumbs gathering around the drain.

         “I was upstairs.” Emmalynne bit the end of a carrot. “All of Mom’s stuff is in my room.” She didn’t feel upset about it, but her voice wavered.

         Jamie paused. “Are you okay?”

         Emmalynne dropped the carrot, pushing the tray away. “This is disgusting.”

         “Do you want some real food?”

Her head was already buried in the fridge, pushing takeout containers to the side as she searched for another beer. “I’m not hungry.” She cracked it open and pressed the cold of the aluminum against her cheek.

Jamie raised his eyebrows slightly but said nothing, setting the plastic package of golf balls wordlessly on the counter beside her.

“God,” she laughed. “I don’t know why I bought those. Did you bring him anything?”

         Jamie shrugged. “I got him a gift card to that steakhouse around the corner. I emailed it to him before I came.”

         “What do you think Ian got him?”

         Jamie shook his head. “I have no idea.”

         Emmalynne looked outside. Ian’s arm was thrown over Madison's tiny body, his fingertips clamping down on her shoulder . He gestured wildly with his other arm, making things up for attention, Emmalynne imagined. It was a habit of his as a child, and she was sure he hadn’t broken it.

What lies had he told Madison about their mother, she wondered. She imagined the horrible things her father told everyone else. The words fit perfectly in Ian’s mouth.

Every snowfall, they sledded down the hill in the backyard. Their mother helped each of them get ready, layering T-shirts under sweatshirts and puffy coats. Emmalynne wore the clothes Ian refused and Jamie’s outgrown corduroy jacket. Every movement was a feat of strength, powering through clothing that was thicker than she was, the sled’s cord wrapped around her fingers.

         Every few seconds, Emmalynne threw a longing glance at the kitchen window, where their mother washed the dishes, her hands wrist-deep in soapy dishwater. Their father was in the distance, buried beneath a cover of snow-coated branches, wood splintering as his axe rose and fell.

Emmalynne didn’t know why they had started sledding every time it snowed. She found the entire experience unpleasant—the trek up the hill, the ride down, the unavoidable wetness of her socks.

Privately, it was more than a mere discomfort. She felt a flutter of fear every time she reached the top of the hill.

The crack of her father’s axe was somehow more sinister from above. He was a machine, his hands poised over his head, raining down on the wood with unstoppable force and breaking tree trunks into logs. His jacket hanging open, revealing a thin, sweat-soaked T-shirt beneath. Eyes wide and unaffected by the cold.

Emmalynne forced herself to look at the ground, pretending that the hill didn’t lead into the mouth of the forest. Jamie waved at her from the bottom, clapping his mitted hands.

A sheet of ice glimmered between them, sitting unbroken on top of the snow.

Emmalynne shut her eyes when she pushed herself off, knuckles white as she gripped the cord, wind battering her bare skin. She held her breath, and—suddenly—she was still. Airborne, flying over a patch of rocks.

Jamie and Ian looked further away than ever, their bodies transformed into twigs that blended into the woods behind them, while her father looked just as overwhelming. The blade winked at her, frozen above his head. She was headed straight for him.

Crack.

Her sled slammed into the ice below. She untangled her fingertips, grasping at the ground. It was hard and unforgiving. Beads of sweat ran down her back, eaten by the fabric of Ian’s unwanted sweatshirt.

Crack.

Her hat squeezed her head. It was too small. Who would it go to after her? There would be no one to pass it down to.

Crack.

She wanted her mother to keep it under her bed, away from the rejects in the Goodwill pile.

Crack.

There was a faint shriek in the distance. Emmalynne pictured her mother rushing out of the house, flailing her soapy gloves into the cold air. Her screams morphing into frosted clouds.

Jack, stop! Don’t you see her? Emma’s coming right at you—fucking listen to me—Jack, please!

“What are you looking at?”

Ian was beside her, following her gaze and peering into the woods. Honeysuckles were sprinkled around the trees, flowers starting to bloom.

         “We used to sled down that hill.”

         “Oh yeah.” His eyes brushed over the blades of grass, watching them bend freely in the wind. “You were always so scared. You acted like you were going to die or something.”

The sky darkened and people started to leave, rolling their eyes and describing wives they had to get back home to. Emmalynne watched it all from the living room, seated alone on the loveseat.

         The room felt small. She considered slipping away with everyone else, ducking back into the safety of her car. Jamie had already left, saying goodbye to her and then their father. It had been a stiff nodding of heads, few words exchanged.

“What’re you doing all by yourself in here?” Her father asked.

Emmalynne stood. “I was actually just about to leave. I have to drive home.”

“Right.” His arms were crossed over his chest, stretching his shirt taut. A silence hung between them.

Emmalynne made room for it, letting his eyes bore into her.

“I didn’t think you would come back without her around,” he said.

“Jamie asked me to come.” She sat the golf balls on the table. “I brought you these.”

He nodded but made no sign of moving to retrieve them.

The string lights were on outside, round bulbs bordering the perimeter of the deck, and clouds of cigar smoke obstructed their brightness. She could still hear Ian’s voice.

“I’d better get going.” Emmalynne turned away, heading to the front door.

“I guess there’s no reason for you to come back now.”

The underarms of her shirt had just begun to dry, but they were still cold against her skin. She hesitated. “I guess not.”

“You always thought you were too good for me, Emmy.”

She slowly turned around, getting one last look at his face. How his cheeks rounded with his smirk, eyebrows raised and ready, urging her to engage. She wondered if he knew no one was watching them.

“I guess I’m like my mother in that way, too.”

His mask faltered, a flash of unfiltered anger that made him exactly who he was. His undeniable hatred for her finally visible, even if it was just for a second. It was something he couldn’t contain.

Alexandra Persad graduated from West Virginia University and now lives in Pennsylvania with her cat and writing companion, Jasper. She writes both fiction and nonfiction, where she explores themes of female identity and detachment. Her writing has been featured in Flossy Lit Mag, Sad Girls Lit, Glint Literary Journal, Blaze Vox Journal, Barren Magazine, and Better than Starbucks, where her essay was nominated for the Best of 2020. In her free time, she enjoys collecting candles and making homemade dumplings. Find her on Twitter @LexxiPer.