You Monster by Kate Faigen

Superheroes, ghosts, and members of The Beatles were buzzed on birthday cake and chocolate bars. The kindergartners pounded their little fists on the dining room table, eager to paint pumpkins, the final activity of the party. Susie, dressed as Dorothy Gale, had turned five the previous night—October 30, 1986.

Susie’s mom wore an all-brown getup, complete with homemade Toto ears, a little tail, and furry fingerless gloves for paws. She’d been planning the mother-daughter outfit for months. They’d take a polaroid together—Dorothy on Toto’s lap—and for the rest of her life, Susie could look at that photo and remember that her mom cherished her beyond belief. That’s what kept Susie’s mom afloat, kept her spirit flickering.

In the kitchen, Susie’s cousin Joy weaved in and out of the parents picking at charcuterie. A freshly minted teenager, Joy showed up without a costume, instead sporting her new peach-pink minidress and high-top sneakers. She rested her cup of Sprite in her upturned palm like a cocktail, popping her hip as she introduced herself to adults.

When the kids abandoned their pumpkins for party favors, Joy sauntered over to the dining room table where Susie was still painting; her brow furrowed in concentration, tongue sticking straight out of her mouth. Joy grinned—the pumpkin’s orange flesh was covered in wobbly red and green stripes: a cute attempt at Christmas decor.

Joy sang quietly as she snuck up behind Susie’s chair. “1, 2, Freddy’s coming for you.” Louder: “3, 4, better lock your door.” Susie turned with a jolt, smudging a stripe. “Birthday girl!” Joy hugged her little cousin, the coveted sister she never got. “Your pumpkin looks like Freddy KRUEGER!” 

Susie didn’t know who Freddy Krueger was, but the gravelly, unfamiliar voice that Joy used made her cry instantly. 

In seconds Susie’s mom was there, her maternal reflexes working at record speed. She wrapped Susie in her arms, cradling her head and rocking her as a mother does. “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything’s okay.” Meanwhile, she shot daggers at Joy, who stood shell-shocked. 

“What did you do?” she mouthed viciously. “What did you say to her?” 

Joy backed up slowly, her knees hot and wobbly. With three older brothers, Joy was no stranger to the wrath of a pissed off parent, but it was rarely, if ever, directed at her. This moment with her aunt—with whom she shared the bloodline’s only known blue-gray eyes—twisted her stomach, snatched her words.

“I didn’t,” Joy managed. “Nothing.” But no explanation would do. Susie was crying at her fifth birthday party, and all was wrong with the world.

“You monster,” Susie’s mom said to her niece. Like it was the surest she’d ever been of anything in her life. “You’re a monster.” 

***

Susie set her Chardonnay down and reached for the last photo album in the box, lifting it carefully with freshly manicured nails (crimson, for Christmas). “One more?” she asked Joy.

“Open it up, girl,” Joy responded, hoisting a stale remnant of the cheese plate into her mouth.

As Susie thumbed through years of mischief, school dances, and holidays, she noticed an overturned polaroid stuck to the bottom of the box. She grabbed it and beamed, her heart inflating.

“Look,” she turned to Joy. “How great is this? My mom as Toto!”

There it was. Joy nodded dutifully, sucking a bit of Gouda off her forefinger. “I remember that,” she said. “Your birthday party.” 

Susie examined the polaroid, noticing the red tint to her face, the puffiness. “Was I crying or something? I look like I’m in fuckin’ distress,” she laughed.

Upstairs, Joy’s two kids were huddled on their bedroom floor in sleeping bags: their Christmas Eve ritual. Joy crossed her right leg over her left, then uncrossed it before standing up and walking over to the tree. She straightened out a CD on top of a large present pile. Everything else was impeccably placed. 

“Hmm,” Joy said with her back turned. Tell the truth, she thought. Susie will think it’s hilarious. Then: “Your mom said something to me.” 

Joy paused. Her bitterness—still boiling after seventeen years—was too powerful to overcome. “She said something, you know, harmless. And for whatever reason it made you cry.”

“What’d she say?” Susie asked, averting her eyes. Any story about her mom that she hadn’t yet heard, the chance to know her a little bit more, was like oxygen to her brain, a lifeline.

Joy walked back to the couch. Twisted a chunk of hair around her finger. Smiled. “Oh, it was silly.” Now the retelling was effortless, like she had lived this version all along. “I was the only one who showed up without a costume. You know me. I must’ve worn some skimpy thing. She told me I looked like a monster.”

“Huh.” Susie sat back. “That doesn’t sound like her.” She looked into her cousin’s eyes, scanning for a hint of unsettled sadness. “Not in a mean way, though, right?”

Joy picked up Susie’s Chardonnay and took a nice sip, raising her eyebrows in exaggerated delight. “Oh,” she said, waving her hand. “No hard feelings. Haven’t thought about it since, really.”

After Joy saw Susie out, crawled into bed and shut her eyes, it hit her that one day, the kids in sleeping bags across the hall would become adults, and they’d look through photos as she had tonight—maybe at Christmas, maybe just because—and they’d have the chance, many chances, to tell stories about their mom.

The guilt nagged her. She’d tarnished someone’s legacy, even just a tiny bit.

But what was Joy to do? Surely, she was no goddamn monster.

Kate Faigen works as a copywriter in Los Angeles. You can find her on Twitter: @k8faigen.

8 July 2022