The Blood: A Denouement

Marabeth touched her head.

Had he thought crossing it out would make her unable to read this? And then… Her father and Jim’s mother? Marabeth remembered Delia. She was red headed, fiery headed in contrast to her mother’s thick, dark red hair. Delia was all air and fire, she could hardly stay on the ground. In the end it was as if she had flown out of that window, but that day gravity caught her at last.

And Delia and her father? Delia and her father? She didn’t like to think of Nathan this way, and when she wondered why, she realized it wasn’t simply that she didn’t want to think of him sexually, she didn’t want to think of him as ashamed, embarrassed, a boy out of control and full of guilt.

Can I not think of him as Father? Can I think of him as someone else? Just a boy?

No, but he is Father. The only reason I’m reading this is because he is my father?

And so she read.

We’re doing it everyday. I’m not proud of it. I keep praying to be pure, to not be like this. It would be different if I was older or had a proper girlfriend, but I feel slutty and dirty. But I can’t stop doing it with Delia, and when I tell her it’s wrong she just laughs.

Here’s the thing, I’m fourteen and I should be better than this. I tell her I’m going to be better than this, and then she touches me in these ways, and we do it again. I did it to her in Aunt Pam’s house and she was putting her hands on me when I was doing it to her and telling me, Nate that feels so good, you feel so good, and then I lost control and started going really fast and just emptied in her.

The other night Mary Anne was getting dressed for the movies so her boyfriend Jackson could pick her up. She’s so pretty and I wish I could meet a girl like her. She’s always laughing and smiling. She says they’re going to see the movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon. It’s supposed to be about Saint Francis. Her mom, Aunt Maris, saw it, and said she didn’t approve and that there’s a point where Francis gets naked. Mary Anne doesn’t care a lick about what her mom says or how Maris always disapproves of stuff. She just laughs and says, “Well, then, I’m definitely going!”

When she comes back, she comes back alone. Jackson has gone home, she explains. She is a little sad, but mostly happy.

“Mary Anne,” my Grandmother Katherine says, “what has come over you?”

Mary Anne smiles like a blond angel.

“I saw Saint Clare, how lovely she was. How she followed Saint Francis. And how free he was. And then there was this part where he cut her hair, after she decided to follow Jesus, and it all came away like gold thread, and she was smiling, and he was smiling, and she was free. And I started crying, and Jackson looked at me like I had lost my mind. But I felt free too. I’m going to become a nun,” she said. “I’m going to follow Jesus.”

Jesus, can’t you make me good? Please Jesus, make me follow you and get my act together, stop doing nasty things. Let me be like Mary Anne.

Aunt Pam is gone south to visit friends (who knew she had friends?) and her little house is so pretty. It’s surrounded by flowers and Steiger painted it before he left again. I pretend I’m just going to check on Delia, but I’ve got a boner. My boners always hurt so bad. It’s like their (sp)reaching out and they don’t get better until I put them in Delia until I’m with her. My heart even starts thumping and my head hurts a little sometimes. It’s like my whole body is messed up until stuff starts to happen.

But when I get in the house I already hear the noises. I don’t know why I keep going upstairs. I go into the living room and I can’t believe it. It’s Granger, my older cousin. He’s almost eighteen, and bigger than me and his pants are down and he’s on the floor doing it to Delia, and for a moment they don’t see me, and then they stop, and Delia starts laughing and Grange looks embarrassed and he gets mad and says, “Get out.”

But Delia says, “No, don’t tell him to get out. Let him stay. Keep going.”

Grange looks at her and she says, “Keep going, Grange.”

And then he does. He does it till he finishes and I’m hard and my head is spinning and then she tells me, “You might as well too,” and by now, I kind of have to, and so I get down on the floor and do it to her too, and when it’s done she laughs and goes to the bathroom and me and Grange sit in the living room not looking at each other, feeling really stupid.

He says, while the water’s running, “When she says do something, it’s like you have to. It’s like you’re under her spell.”

I don’t say anything. My underwear is sticking to me cause I’m still dripping and I feel more gross than I ever have before.

“You been doing to to her for a long time too?” Grange asks me. I don’t answer him. I get that the same way I need to not talk, he needs to talk.

Before the water shuts off, Granger says, “You think she’s doing it to all of us? All the guys in the family?”

“I don’t know, Grange,” I say.

“I kinda hate her,” Granger says.

You’d think that would make me stop, but I keep going to her and she keeps coming to me. Sometimes I see Granger coming out of Pamela’s house, and sometimes he sees me. And we just nod to each other. We’re both ashamed, but neither one of us can stop. I just want something normal with a normal girl who isn’t having sex with all of my cousins.

One day it isn’t Grange, but Byron who I find.

They aren’t on the floor. They’re in a bed and later on Byron tells me in a real quiet voice about how she really loves him and how she’s so innocent. That same night Delia visits me and says, “Don’t you tell Byron any different. He’s going to be my husband. I’m going to marry him. He’s going to make me a Strauss.”

This Sunday, after Mass, we all went to the house on Williams Street and Grandma Keller made us a huge German dinner. Its our farewell to Mary Anne, and there was all of this crying, and then the next morning, Aunt Maris came back with Grange because Uncle Bill couldn’t bear to drop her off at the convent.

Granger came up to me and said, “Nate, when we dropped her off, Ma asked when Mary Anne could call home and the Mother Superior said in a few weeks. When Mom said, what if she needs to speak to her mother, the old bitch just said, “I’m her Mama now.”

I looked surprised and Granger said, “I’m tired of feeling bad about what I do. I hate priests and I hate nuns and I hate God.”

I wonder if Granger really means that. For my sixteenth birthday, Steiger comes back and he says, he’s taking Delia with him. She goes into fits and starts screaming, but he doesn’t seem to care. They’re moving to Washington.

I keep looking to the house. There’s no Delia there. There’s no hold over me. I feel sane again. Uncle Steiger taking her away was the best present I could get.

”She’s coming back for me,” Byron says. “she’s coming back for me again, and I’m going to marry her.”