Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me by Gae Polisner

Author:Gae Polisner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Part III

Moths, not butterflies, spin silk cocoons.

Butterfly caterpillars molt like reptiles.

LATE MAY

TENTH GRADE

“Jean Louise?” I startle at the light, at my mother standing in the doorway of my room. “Why are you wearing that?” I sit up, my mind racing. Dad’s blue robe. “Why do you have that lipstick on?”

I wipe drool from my mouth and try to gather myself. She’s not even talking about the robe.

On my bed is my history book. I meant to wash up, take the robe off and hang it back on her door, and study. My eyes shift to my desk, to the lower left drawer where I shoved the money, wrapped in a wad of construction paper.

“No reason.” I shrug, trying to breathe normally. “I just thought maybe…”

She walks to my bed and sits. She wears a turquoise kimono embroidered with chartreuse vines.

“You don’t need all that.” Her voice is dreamlike, her hair wet from a shower. “You’re beautiful just as you are.”

“Mom!” I stop her. I can’t stand it—her—any of it anymore. She has a pile of envelopes in her hand.

I close my history book, push it away, and stare at her.

“Yes?” She lifts her hand from the folds of the kimono, and I can see them, the words, the name, the dreaded purple stamp that’s coming in a week or two. A whole new pile. Return to Sender. No known addressee.

I turn away, tears stinging my eyes, and yank Dad’s robe off and throw it on the floor of my closet, and head to my bathroom to scrub off the makeup. I should have known better than to worry about the robe, about the money, about any of it. I should have known better than to hope for one normal moment with my mother.

“I’m going out,” I say, slipping on my sneakers.

“Jean Louise?”

I glare back at her.

“He’s dead, Mom! You know that, right? I know you like his books, and Nana kissed him. But he’s dead. Jack Kerouac, the author? He’s dead. I keep trying to tell you that. Why won’t you listen? He died, like a long, long time ago.”

She turns to me, a faraway look on her face. “Of course I know that. Don’t be silly, Jean Louise.”

As if I am crazy. As if she doesn’t still have the envelopes right there held in her hand.

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