The Body Farm by Abby Geni

Author:Abby Geni
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781640096271
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2024-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Mother, Sister, Wife, Daughter

Our father gave each of us a different reason for his departure. He told Katherine that he was taking part in a worldwide sailing race. He told Emilia that he was looking for treasure so our family could become even richer. He told Gracie, the oldest, that a dear friend needed his help on the other side of the ocean.

We knew better than to believe anything he said. Our father was a storyteller, a wishful thinker, a chronic promiser who never followed through. He loved nothing more than spinning a tale with himself at the center, believing in the moment that he was what he pretended to be: a treasure hunter, a rescuer, a good man. He pulled each of us aside, all seven of his daughters, and we listened stone-faced and only nodded. No matter how he dressed it up, he was leaving us.

We were stair-step in age: Gracie nine years old, Rosalind only three, with Carla, Dolores, Leah, Katherine, and Emilia in the middle. We lived in a big house—a mansion, really, though Mother said that word was vulgar—on the California coast. A private stretch of beach. Our own pier. Father moored his yacht there during the summers. He used to take us on day trips to the deep water, all seven of us armored in bulky life jackets, screaming and laughing as the prow sliced boldly through the waves, casting up cold shocks of spray. He taught us to fish, even Katherine, who was a vegetarian. He called us his brave girls, his amazons, the apples of his eye. That was something else he loved: giving out lavish compliments, as bright and insubstantial as fool’s gold.

We watched him sail away. It was early morning, and a brisk, steady wind blew off the ocean. We stood together on the western terrace, high above the water, huddled close for warmth. Rosalind, the youngest, cried. The sun was rising behind the house, throwing shadows across the beach. Father’s yacht cut a sharp wake across the gauzy surface of the sea like a run in one of Mother’s silk stockings. We watched him until he melted into the fog along the horizon, swallowed up by gray.

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People said that there were so many of us daughters because our parents kept trying for a boy. Perhaps this was so. We did not know; we never could get a straight answer from our mother or father about anything. Father would smile and tell us whatever we wanted to hear: that every one of his girls was worth a hundred boys, that you couldn’t have too much of a good thing.

Mother was more difficult. She faltered and trailed off. Her mind did not move in straight lines. “Well, you see . . .” she would say, leaning languidly against the arm of the sofa. “There are many things in this world . . . I suppose . . . Let me say that between a husband and his wife, decisions are sometimes difficult .

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