Aunt Liesel by Derek Updegraff
Editor’s note: This piece contains subject matter that some readers may find troubling.
When I was a little kid, my great aunt shared my room. She was childless, so Mom claimed her. She slept in the bottom bunk. I was in the top. How long was she there for? I don’t know. Six weeks? Six months? It wasn’t a full year. Some of second grade and some of summer.
She would wake up every night, stand up, and not know where she was. She would stare at me for a while. She was a tall, thin woman. Even in her eighties she stood tall, no slouching, no humpback for her. She’d wake and stand and stare at my face, our heads right by each other.
In the beginning, I’d open my eyes and there she’d be, inches away, trying to figure out who I was and where she was. She’d call me Tommy, my cousin’s name, or she’d grunt or even shriek, and I’d say, “Calm down, Aunt Liesel. It’s me, Joe. You’re in my room.” Sometimes she’d settle down and go back to bed. Most of the time she’d do something else: go into the kitchen and start throwing out our food until Mom stopped her, try to turn on the tv and then scream in frustration until she’d break dishes, lamps, her own ceramic figurines until Mom stopped her.
Eventually I learned to keep my eyes closed. I’d hear wheezing, then smell her sour breath, feel hot spittle on my nose, cheeks, eyelids. Still I’d keep my eyes closed tight, hoping she’d leave my room, cursing her for not having at least one child to burden. Every once in a while, she’d kiss my cheek and crawl back into the bunk below. Sometimes she’d try to climb into my bed, but she’d get stuck on the bottom bar. Sometimes she’d stand so close her nose would brush against my cheek. A couple of times she kissed my nose but then opened her mouth and left her lips there, circling my nose, wet and clumsy like a fish chomping on a bottle. Still I’d keep my eyes shut, riding it out until she’d leave the room or go back to bed.
During the day she’d keep to my room, taking over my desk, using up my good markers with nonsense notes. Mom would bring her food, set plates down on the desk and creep backwards to the door. Sometimes Aunt Liesel would eat. Sometimes she’d emerge in the hallway, a burger in hand, a burrito in hand, and she’d hurl the food at Mom, shouting, “Goddamnit. What goddamn shit is this,” and rage back to my room and slam my door. And Mom would look at me and say, “Remember what she was like before this. Just cling to those memories. Ok?” And I’d say, “Ok.” But I didn’t have those memories.
Sometimes she’d ask us to leave her house. “Why are you still here?” she’d say. “Can’t you see Christmas is over?”
She’d wander the neighborhood, and we’d drive around slowly until we found her. We’d pull over and scoop her up, say things like, “There you are. It’s macaroni and cheese night, Aunt Liesel. Come on home.”
One night she did manage to climb my ladder and get into my bunk with me. I heard her creaking up the ladder, hoping she’d not be able to take each next step. But she made it up somehow. And she positioned herself next to me. And we were spooning, her on the outside. And I let her have that. She curved to me, poking me with her ribs. And she breathed onto my neck, and she kissed the back of my head, and I let her have that. I stayed quiet. I pretended I was being watched over by an angel who needed me to be still to give her this moment. But then she climbed over me, and she repositioned herself so that our stomachs were facing. We would have been hugging except I kept my arms pulled to my chest, kept them there in the prayer pose they’d been in, my fingers clasped. The tips of our noses touched, and then she inched herself up toward my pillow. My nose grazed her neck as she moved. Then my nose grazed her robe. And still I kept my eyes closed tight. And her hands must have opened her robe because the fabric brushed my cheek but then was replaced with her skin pushing against me, and a cold hand took hold of my lips, squeezing them hard so that my lips puckered, and she was forcing something into my lips, back and forth, but I clenched my teeth. My jaw wasn’t going to budge. But she worked on my mouth with her hand, trying to break through my teeth, a boney finger tapping, tapping, tapping. And something was sliding in and out of my lips but getting no further. And she whispered, “Baby needs the nipple.” And she hummed a tune I didn’t know. And her fingers gripped my lips so tight they were becoming numb, and she kept forcing her nipple between my puckered lips, and I felt her sliding in and out until I was finally numb to the feeling.
I didn’t move. I’m not sure why. Other than feeling like I’d already decided I was pretending to be asleep and needed to stick with it. And I didn’t want her to get in trouble. I just wanted her gone. Mom found us sleeping like that in the morning. I woke when Mom gently said to her, “Come on down, dear. Your bed’s down here.” And she tucked her in, then kissed me on the cheek and called me her sweet boy.
Derek Updegraff is the author of the fiction collections Pup! et cetera (2020) and The Butcher’s Tale and Other Stories (2016). His novel Whole, from which “Aunt Liesel” is an excerpt, is forthcoming in 2024. Originally from San Diego, he lives and teaches in upstate South Carolina.
22 September 2023
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