Jackal, page 17
There were studios and classes in Johnstown, but if Brittany wanted success, she’d have to get to a city. Farrah threw herself into the task. Brittany had to have all the classes, the cross-training, the hair and costumes. Farrah’s husband didn’t understand any of this “dance thing” but he knew it mattered to his girl, so he became a dance dad. He learned how to tie tight ponytails and break in toe shoes.
As her parents learned how to support her, Brittany learned something else. As she progressed in her dance skills and became more and more professional, she learned how spaces tolerated certain kinds of Blackness. Her mother’s office job, her father’s security job, and dance all loved the kind of Blackness that could be categorized, qualified, and controlled. Her mother could make sassy remarks, her father could be strong and stoic, and she could hold rhythm in tights that didn’t match her skin color while positioned all the way stage right. The only way for her to get closer to the center was to strive for whiteness, knowing she’d never attain it. What is a little erasure if it ensures excellence? It’s just a little bit of yourself. The bit that doesn’t fit.
“She’d make a lovely ballerina one day. Just work on her lines.” The woman who said this was so thin it was concerning. Her blond hair fell over her eyes, obscuring her expression. She swiped away her bangs like a habit. Though the blonde sat with the other mothers watching the classes change over, Farrah couldn’t identify exactly which child belonged to this woman. Honestly, she was too upset to look closely. There was no “one day” for Brittany. She was a ballerina at that moment.
“The teacher says her lines are the best in the class.” Farrah smiled to temper her anger.
“Hmm.” A wordless judgment from the woman shut down the conversation. Farrah was quick to scoop up her daughter and get her to the next class. Unfortunately, Brittany heard this slight woman and saw her full-toothed, condescending smile. Brittany had long suspected her brilliance, but never owned it. Teachers took notice, choreographers would give her extra turns and more leaps just to watch her do them. While a sullen mother’s comment should have easily rolled off her back, like most childhood traumas, it landed in her gut.
The girls in dance showed Brittany how to hide her food. How to measure herself. There was no talk of the consequences of this: the pain at night when she’d grow hungry or how she would get tired. But Brittany was ready to sacrifice anything to this god of dance. Her blood came at the end of the summer and by that winter, her body started to change. The thoughts in her head about what she ate and when and how much became constant. Farrah made sure Brittany had food, good food. She prided herself in the meals she made for her daughter. When Brittany restricted them, Farrah took it personally.
The fight that broke out between Brittany and Farrah was surprising because Brittany won. She did so using her mother’s logic: If she was going to win, she had to excel at walking the tightrope of success. If she was going to feel the joy of dancing, she’d have to fit into the role it asked of her. It didn’t matter what her genetics were or who her family was. When Farrah heard this coming out of her daughter’s mouth, she began to doubt if success and therefore happiness required this actual winnowing away of self.
“Don’t let anyone make you small,” Farrah said, knowing full well that that was far from a simple desire.
Brittany had imagined how she’d leave the town for years, but she never enacted her plan. She knew summer was the best time. There’d be no one keeping tabs on her in school. Dance had a lull before summer classes. Her preteen brain convinced her to buy a bus ticket and run to the city. Any city.
After months of saving up her allowance and packing her bag, after rehearsal Brittany did a test run to the end of her block just as the streetlights turned on. No farther. She was testing her resolve. Standing in the yellow light, she looked out at the dark path to the bus station and saw her carefully planned future: She’d arrive in New York City the next day, she’d get a room in a hostel, audition for dance companies, and build a life away from her family working as a waitress in a restaurant in Times Square. One day her family would see her on TV and all would be forgiven.
Even as she crafted that lie of a life for herself, she felt her heart ache. If she did this, she’d never get to share her joy with her mother and father. The woman who saw who she was on stage as a toddler and the man who worked hard to make her happy. What was any achievement without their smiling faces in the audience? Brittany turned back. She would have to wait her turn. Get to the city when she was supposed to. Have a name when it was her time. She headed home.
“Brittany Miller.” The shadows were out, and they called her name. The Fellow and I ensured she’d never have one.
I often focus on their hearts. I remember Brittany’s limbs. She did have good lines. In mourning her, I placed her body in an image of symmetry. I usually never touched them after. The Fellow’s son noticed. He didn’t say anything. So different from his father, he rarely spoke to me. He looked. Watched.
When the Fellow aged, his son kept our bargain. My New Fellow brought me hearts. I gave him purpose. He liked to watch me consume them. He studied the mechanics of me like he could figure me out. I often wondered if his heart could teach me his curiosity, but I knew better than to take his, even if offered. The Girls’ lessons had schooled me about men like him. No matter how I felt, the promise between us was tenuous, at best. He continued to keep his end of the bargain, and I’d keep mine.
Brittany’s heart taught me about hunger and how it is used to keep a body in check. If I was to ever be more than a shadow, I needed to eat and eat well.
Brittany Miller Scholarship Fund 2016
[A PHOTOGRAPH OF BRITTANY MILLER: Young ballerina in a pink tutu, matching tights and shoes. Hair in a tight bun. She’s mid-pirouette.]
Give the gift of continuing dance education with a charitable donation toward the Brittany Miller Scholarship Fund. Founded by the Miller family in 2013, in remembrance of their daughter, Brittany, the fund hopes to give students opportunities in the community and beyond. Your generosity is critical in ensuring this support. Donations go directly to scholarships, travel costs, and dance supplies. With your help, we can make dance education accessible for all.
UPDATE: Due to unforeseen financial difficulties, this will be the final year of the Miller scholarship. In three short years, the fund has helped 15 local dancers pursue their dreams both here at home and abroad.
THIRTEEN
“What were you doing out there?” The detective sitting across the table from me leans back in his plush gray office chair. He’s getting comfortable, and he wants me to do the same. That’s what this room is supposed to do. It’s filled with familiar trappings: The white table between us and the speckled linoleum flooring are the same as at the high school, the gray paint is the same color as the walls at the DMV. The chairs are like ones from an office. But, the uniformed man in front of me never lets me forget that, while the placard on the door says Interview Room #2, this is an interrogation.
He waits for my reply. I finish my third bottle of water since they found me in the woods. They offered me trail mix, but I only want to rehydrate. My eyes land on his face. He looks like a carbon copy of most people in this town. Fleshy and, if you don’t know any better, soft. Round features, rounded edges in his haircut. If you get close enough, you can sense power lurking underneath.
“Looking.” The end of the word hooks in my throat, making me gag. I swallow. “For Caroline.” I make a pathetic attempt at chewing my saliva to keep my jaw busy and my mouth shut. Both of us know what we saw in that tarp. “Why wasn’t the—that area part of the search?”
“It was today. Anything particular lead you that far out?” His practiced even keel begs me to add my own emphasis.
“A feeling.” That’s not a lie.
“Search and Rescue caught a scent, pulled us that direction for over an hour.” He shuffles a crisp manila folder between his hands, debating whether he’s going to set it down between us. No label on the tab. Another school supply.
“There was…” I struggle to keep the image of what was in the tarp out of my head. “Was that—what was that?”
“Those canines track death, Miss Rocher.” It’s not an answer, just more information.
“Do I smell like death?” is all the rebuttal I can muster. I press the back of my hand into my nose and inhale. A short sniff proves I smell the way I know I smell. Earth and salt and stress.
He looks back at me, eyebrows raised. “Not me you should be asking.”
“What was in the…the…?”
“You don’t know?”
I feel the urge to speculate, but think better of it. I start to think better of all of this. I’ve been easygoing, easy to work with and easy to trap. They have my fingerprints and my DNA from the wedding.
“Human?” I ask.
“I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you that it’s of interest.”
“Am I? If you think that I have anything to do with this, you’re wrong. There are other girls who went missing like Caroline—dig into them.”
“What are their names?”
Of all the names I’ve learned, the person that’s been kept from me rings loudest. Kylie and the mothers won’t tell me where she is. Maybe he can.
“Farrah Miller’s girl,” I start.
The detective’s hardened visage cracks. “Don’t tell me Farrah put you up to this.” His voice gets low. “I worked that case—her daughter’s case—it was awful. Terrible. But it’s closed.”
If he wants facts, I can give them to him. “Someone is taking girls. They are abducting Black girls, ripping out their hearts, and dumping them in the woods.”
“Stop.” He opens the folder. “I thought I’d heard everything, but this is…this is sick.”
“I know! But it’s true.” I beg, “Her daughter, Brittany—”
“Your prints are at the scene.” He lays photos from the folder in front of me. They’re of the intestines in the tarp.
“I was the one that found ‘the scene.’ ”
“Both scenes.”
“Like I said, I found them. Of course my prints are there.”
He leans back in his chair, taking the photos with him. Too used to searching for clues, my eyes follow them. His head tilts. He noticed that. I’m reminded of what Doug said to me. They are looking for the path of least resistance. And right now, I am standing in the middle of it. Like an idiot.
“Am I being accused of something?” The phrase sounds better on TV than it does coming out of my mouth.
“I’m giving you the chance to do the right thing. We are going to do our due diligence here.” He stands. “Are you sure you don’t have anything you want to tell me?”
“Yeah. I won’t be in here again without a lawyer.”
Out in the waiting room, every face I glance at has eyes on me. No question about being watched here. I’m the girl who found a death-tent in the search for a missing child. As much as it makes my insides hurt, I search my memory of the scene for something, anything, that tells me who or what was in that tarp.
I wait for my mother to gather me from the station. I know I have done nothing, but I also know people have been detained and convicted for less.
I do my best not to sprint when Mom comes to pick me up. For the second time in days, she’s arrived in her pajamas to grab me from the police station. Just like before, our drive home is silent. I lock my gaze on the world outside my passenger window like one of the bits of nature we pass could pull me out of this car. Out of this reality.
Driving back up the mountain, I realize how flat the town is. In both height and feel. There are no towering skyscrapers here, nothing is more than two or three stories. And the color seems dimmer. I know I found this place dull, but has it always been this hazy? It feels like I’m watching this world through a fog.
We pull into the driveway, and she turns the car off. Like the detective, she waits for me to answer. Unlike him, she doesn’t need to ask me any questions.
“Mom, I…” As a child, I developed a nasty habit of lying. About anything. Stupid things. It took me years to learn how to get away with it. One night, after I’d barely made a dent in a massive helping of peas, I scraped them off my plate and hid them under the raised lip at the bottom, making a small mashed disc. Then, while cleaning, I swiped it all into a paper towel and carried it to my room. The next day, as I walked to school, I dumped the remains in my neighbor’s flower garden. While that was overkill, I’d convinced myself. That was key. Consequences followed. Deer were drawn to the peas. The neighbors weren’t able to get rid of them for years. Later, I’d move on to lying about if I’d finished my homework, how I sliced open my arm, if I went to that party in the woods, why my grades were slipping in college, why my fiancé and I broke up.
“You said you were staying here to help Melissa,” my mother starts. “Is this helping her?”
“Yes.” I feel my face flush.
“It does not look like it.” She shakes her head. “At the police station again, Elizabeth, what will people think?”
“I don’t care about gossip.”
“When your name is in other people’s mouths, they twist it up. They make you into something you are not. When people take you outside yourself, that is when trouble comes.”
“Trouble is already here!”
She meets my eyes. “Do not raise your voice at me.”
“I’m not. I’m…” Breathe. The dark of the car closes in around me. The need to escalate sits beyond my fingertips. If I’m not careful, I will yell again and she’s not who I want to shout at. The skin on my wrist pulls tight as I curl my hand into a fist.
“There’s something wrong. I’m trying to help.” The words aren’t enough. I want to scream that something is wrong and if no one fixes it, everything I’ve learned, everyone I’ve spoken to, every story I’ve heard would all be for nothing.
“Elizabeth”—her concern calms me—“I know it was hard for you to come back here. You do not like coming home.” She lets out a decided breath. “But this is unacceptable. Get things in order and make a plan.”
“I am.” It’s a struggle not to scream.
“No. A plan to return to your life.” After years of avoiding my mother, finally she is the one who is asking me to leave.
I reach up to turn on the light of the car. “It’s too dark.” As my fingers slide to find the button, I feel them tremble with frustration.
“Elizabeth?” She wants an answer.
“I will. I will.” I repeat the lie, so I believe it. “Mom, did you ever…” With all the mothers I’ve spoken to in the last few days, I’ve had no time for my own. “Hear anything about the woods?”
“Elizabeth, I am trying to have a serious conversation with you—”
“Anything about girls—Black girls going missing?”
My mother holds her hand up to silence me. “Elizabeth, I have not heard of such things here and I do not need to now.” She gets out of the car and I follow her. “I learned the lessons my mother taught me: Do not go seeking the devil and he will not find you.”
I didn’t sign up for an impromptu sermon. “I’m not looking for the devil.”
“You doubt,” she replies. “Doubt can open a door in you for anything to walk through.” Despite the differences between my parents, they both agree that doubt is the greatest enemy. For the Catholics, it’s Doubting Thomas. For my father’s Evangelical church, it’s the trail of an altar call. Both seek to obliterate this evil spirit. I admit, that is exactly what doubt feels like: a tightening in your chest, a restless mind, a shadow in the corner of your eye.
“This isn’t about God.” I sigh.
“Everything is, Elizabeth.”
I think of the entrails. If I concentrate, I saw intestines, lungs, liver. No heart.
“How big is a child’s liver?”
“Elizabeth—”
The organ was dark, shiny, and approximately the size of my two fists put together. “How many fists?”
She gives me a withering look. “No more than five inches.”
“Thank you.” So if those organs aren’t Caroline’s, what or whose are they?
In the quiet of my room, all that Mel said finally has time to revisit me. She left me alone in the woods. Something broke then. I want to sleep. No, I want to be numb. I end up counting the hours until dawn. I work with the uncertainty named by my mother. My test isn’t one of faith. It’s of myself. Not if I should stay or go, but what to do next.
I look at my heavy suitcase in the corner. The bag I strained to lift days ago. I roll out of my bed like a cat. I open it. Beneath my jeans I feel a hard, cool roundness. This is just to sleep. To take the edge off the day. I reveal a pile of tiny glass bottles. Keeping liquor in small containers means I can ration it. Control it. I grab two. Three. The vodka burns down my chest like the bitter medicine that it is. I lie back down and wait. I wait for swimming drowsiness to come. As it does, a stray thought floats to the surface: What if I only get away with how much I lie because of how much my mother lies to herself?
FOURTEEN
I can’t pinpoint when I started to dream, but before I know it, I’m in it:
It’s hard to know it’s one because the vision itself is dark.
Pure darkness.
My eyes attempt to penetrate the black surrounding me. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. There’s ground under my feet, but it’s more of a suggestion than anything I can stand on. I test my luck. The thin layer supports me.
I look around. Nothing.
I wait.
And wait.
While I’m still waiting, I explore. I walk. The void stretches out in front of me. I keep going.
