The Cycle

For more information about Boar's Tusk, click here. 

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I watched as my sisters got dolled up. They put on pretty pink dresses that I could only wear on Sundays. Father sat at the kitchen table with a toothpick hanging from his lip. He was watching them too. His face wasn’t happy. His brown eyes looked tired. I don’t think today is the day. I tell myself, of course, yesterday wasn’t the day nor the day before…or the day before that. I dig my fingernails into my palm, frustrated.   

“Okay, we are off.” In her gaudy blue dress, my mother walked over to the table as my sisters giggled and ran out to the car. “Work hard for your father today,” she said as she kissed my forehead. The kiss was disgustingly damp and made my fingernails dig a little deeper.  

“Why can’t I go? I never get to go.” The words slipped from my lips. I wished I could reach out and swat them away as I felt the tension in the air rise. I heard the toothpick in my father’s mouth snap.  

Mom looked at me, a concoction of pity and disappointment on her face. “You need to help your father out around the farm today, you know that.”  

I didn’t say anything but lowered my head in understanding.   

“Edith, you are the oldest and so strong. I know it seems unfair, but your sisters would just be in the way.” Mom said and then promptly left.  

“Let’s get to work.” My father said while standing at the window, watching the car kick up dust on its way out. He reached for another toothpick, but his hand stopped halfway to the jar. Instead, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He slickly flicked one up and into his mouth. He lit it, and soon the kitchen was full of smoke. “You want one?” He held out the open pack towards me. I shook my head, and he closed it with his thumb and slid it back into his shirt pocket. “We’ve already wasted too much time this morning. The work isn’t going to do itself.”  

“I just need to use the bathroom first,” I said.  

As I went upstairs I heard him say “You may look like a man but you gotta piss every half hour like a woman.”  

As I looked into the bathroom mirror, I thought to myself, “I am a woman, you idiot,” but he was right. I did look like a man. I had his broad shoulders and square jaw. My face always seemed to be dirty. My large hands were cracked and tough to the touch. I picked up my brush and ran it through my long blonde hair. It was the same as my mom's and both my sisters. And yet, it wasn’t. It wasn’t as shiny as theirs. It wasn’t as pretty as theirs. It was filled with split ends, and the cut was unflattering. Mom cut mine herself, but they all went to a salon once a month. My stomach dropped and my heart skipped a beat when I saw tears starting to build in my eyes. No…stop…I can’t cry… I wiped the tears away and dug my fingernails into my palms again.  

“Will you hurry the hell up! For god's sake, Edith!”  My father's voice echoed from downstairs.  

I walked down, praying he couldn’t tell I was crying, but he didn’t even turn to look at me as he waited at the door. “Bout’ time. Now go clean the coop and feed those damn chickens.” He put another cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and took a drag before continuing. “When you're done with that, come help me finish the fence.”  

“Yes, sir.” I already had my overalls on over my plain white T-shirt. I slipped my muddy old boots on and went about cleaning the coop.  

… 

I had just cut myself on a piece of wire I was twisting around a post when our red sedan rolled up the driveway. For a moment, it was like time had stopped when they passed. I could see so clearly how they all laughed together. They all had curls that bounced with each bump they hit on the rough gravel driveway. The dust the car kicked up as it went by came flying into my eyes and mouth. I spit like Dad does, a huge wad of dirt and saliva.   

“Get a move on, would you? I would like to eat at a respectable time tonight.” Father yelled from three posts down.  

…  

I sat in silence at the dinner table, just like him, while my sisters and mom went on about the things they had done in the city. Everything I ate that night tasted like dirt.  

“Did you get a lot of work done today?” Ida, my sister, asked.  

“Of course she did! She is Daddy’s favorite worker bee. Ain’t that right?” My mom smiled brightly and placed a hand on top of Dad's.  

“Would’ve gotten a lot more done if she wasn’t busy crying and staring off into space.”  

Again, I dug my fingernails deep into my palms.  

“Oh, Alfred, cut her some slack. She is tough for a girl.”  

My father’s chair slid back abruptly, making a horrible scraping sound against the wood floor. “I’m off to bed. Edith, you go on to bed too. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.” He stopped by the liquor cabinet and poured himself a whisky before heading up the stairs.  

“I wish I could help Daddy, but I’m not cut out for that rough work,” Karla said.  

The sight of Karla with her bright blonde hair, perfectly pointed chin, bright blue eyes, and dainty hands with pink painted nails made me so angry. I hated her. It was my chair sliding back this time that made a horrible screech. I didn’t mean to do it, but I heard it thud loudly as it hit the floor. “I’m going to bed.”  

The next morning I took a cigarette when he offered it to me. He gave me a rare smile and said, “Now don’t let your sister or mother see you smoking that.”  

We were out by the barn getting ready to milk the cows. We sat together against the barn and he lit the cigarette for me. It tasted horrible, but I liked how it made my head dizzy, yet clear. I felt good that day as I grabbed udder after udder and squeezed.  

The next day I smoked another cigarette and once again it helped the day pass. The day after, it took two. On the third day, I asked for three. “You got money to pay for all these smokes you puffing away at? Don’t get carried away now, we got church tomorrow and I don’t want you stinking up the place any more than usual.” Father said and then snorted at his own joke.  

I felt my face get hot, but damn that just made me want a cigarette even more.  

…  

At church the next day I kept catching the new pastor's son staring at me. He was a scrawny boy. His arms looked like the toothpick's father was always chewing on. Whenever I looked at him, he would turn pink with the goofiest smile I had ever seen and then look away.  

“I think he likes you.” Ida, sitting to my right, whispered to me.  

“What does he like about her… her huge biceps? Maybe he thinks she’s a boy….” Karla whispered back.  

It was true, in my church dress my mannish arms looked as if they were about to tear the sleeves in two. My huge calves looked unnatural coming out of such a girly dress.  

After the sermon, all the other girls were sitting around in the reading room gossiping. I tried to take part, but their circle conveniently didn’t have enough room for one more, so I stood on the outside of it. Mom had joined some of the other wives in helping to prepare for bible study. Father was chatting with the new pastor. His son, with his patchy facial hair and twig legs, stood next to them. He continued to glance over at me every so often. My father must’ve noticed this too. He said something to the boy and he turned pink again. The pastor nodded and my father gave the boy a not-so-gentle pat on the back that slightly lurched him towards me.   

He hesitantly walked my way. I started to feel butterflies in my stomach. Not because I thought he was cute, but because I hadn’t talked to many boys before. “Hi there…. My name is Adam.” He reached out his hand, which looked more like Karla’s than mine. I took it and shook his hand as Father taught me. His handshake was like a woman's. He winced a little bit when I gave him a firm squeeze. It felt awkward.  

“My name is Edith.” I suddenly became more aware than usual of my deep voice.  

“Your dad says you like to sing?” Adam said.  

This caught me by surprise. Did Father really say such a thing? I did like to sing. I thought I was pretty good at it, better than Karla or Ida, even better than Mom. “Yeah… I do… What about it?”  

“Um…well, my mom wants us to have a choir to lead in the hymns. She is looking for people to join.”   

…  

The seasons passed and finally, it was winter. The time of year when most of the work involved breaking the ice in the watering bins for the animals and cutting wood. I did join the choir after that day. After the first time, I was given compliments that I never imagined I could receive. “You have such a beautiful singing voice.” “You have real talent, you know.” “You could become a famous singer.” But none of the compliments mattered to me as much as the compliments from Adam. We started spending a lot of time together after church. He was a city boy and didn’t fit in with the country boys. He told me all about growing up in a city. How many things there were to do. About all the different kinds of people. He was kind too. He always told me how pretty I was. He told me how cool he thought it was that I could do all the farm work on my own. Before I realized it, I was falling for him.  

“I love you.” He said to me just about a year after we met.  

“I love you too.”  

…  

“I forbid you to go running off with that boy!” Father was beet red. His third whisky of the night sloshed around in his cup as he walked around furiously. Mom sat at the table sobbing.  

“Well, you can’t stop me. He asked me to marry him, and I said yes. That’s that.”  

My father slammed the whisky down on the table, the glass shattered, and my mom let out a whimper. “You are my goddamn daughter. I damn well can stop you.”  

“Fuck you!” I screamed at him. “Fuck you! Asshole! I’m not your daughter! And I’m not your son either! Treated me like a man my whole life because you didn’t get the son you wanted! I hate your guts!” The words I had been holding back for years seemed to be flooding out of my mouth. “I hate you too!” I pointed at my mom. “Looking the other way all these years while treating Karla and Ida like princesses!” Tears started to drip down my long nose.  

“Don’t you cry!” My father pointed his finger menacingly at me. “You know I can’t stand it when you fucking cry.”  

“I’m leaving!” I started to move toward the door with blurred vision.  

“Like hell you are!” Father grabbed me by the back of the hair and yanked me hard to the ground. Pain pulsated through my skull. Suddenly, he was on top of me, pulling his brown leather belt from the loop.   

“Stop!” Mom cried out.  

A surge of anger fueled me, and I pushed him off. He fell to the ground, his belt half on his blue jeans and half on the wood floor. I went for the door again, but heard him stand up. His belt was now in his hands. He went to swing at me, but Mom grabbed him by the arm. He quickly swung her off and she flew into the kitchen table. I turned and swung at him with everything I had.   

He hit the floor like a sack of grain. My hand ached almost as badly as my scalp. He was out cold, sprawled on the ground, and a little bit of blood trickled from his mouth. That was the last time I ever saw him.  

…  

Adam and I moved to Salt Lake City with his parents. And for a long time, I was happy. We didn’t have much. We both worked at a motel. I was a housekeeper and he was a bellhop. We went to my father-in-law's new church every Sunday. I still sang in the church choir. His parents were far better to me than my own ever were. Adam didn’t need much out of life. He just wanted to be loved. I thought at times his consistent and unrelenting love for me was suffocating. “You know how much I love you, right?” “Is everything okay? Can I get you anything?” “Whatever you want, I want.” The only thing we ever fought about was my nicotine addiction. “I don’t want to lose you.” I did eventually stop smoking when I got pregnant. I never really wanted kids, but all Adam wanted in this life was to have a family. It seemed selfish of me to refuse a man who was always giving his all to me. So, I conceded.  

Our first son was named James. Adam wanted to name him after himself and his dad, but I couldn’t stand the idea of him being named Adam Jones the Third. So we picked a different biblical name that we liked. James mostly looked like Adam, but the parts of him he inherited from me were all from my father. I couldn’t help but see him in James.  

I told Adam that I only wanted one kid. I insisted. I was exhausted from being a mother. It didn’t suit me. I wasn’t motherly in any sense. However, Adam wanted more. “James needs a little brother or sister,” and so I compromised, just one more, I told him. Then I found out I was pregnant with twins. James ended up getting both a brother and a sister. Adam was ecstatic even as he watched me go through hell in that second pregnancy. We named our daughter Kylie and our son Cody. Kylie was the spitting image of Karla. Cody was the only one that I found unfamiliar and I loved him for it.  

Two weeks before they were born, I got a call from my mom. Dad had died of a sudden heart attack. Adam kept waiting for me to have some kind of mental breakdown, but none came. I was even a little surprised by that myself, but in truth, I didn’t feel anything when I heard the news. I always imagined I would feel regret or anger, maybe even relieved. “I don’t care.” I had said to my mom and hung up the phone.   

…  

After the twins, for the first time in my life, I stopped working. I sat around and played my role as the bored housewife. I started smoking again shortly after, it provided me with a much-needed change of mental state. Adam didn’t like it, we argued, but I won. Adam could feel something building in me before I realized it myself. He was constantly reassuring me that I was a good mother. I wasn’t though. He did all the cleaning, the cooking, and the childcare. The best I could manage was to slap together cheese sandwiches for lunch. I had never spent much time in the kitchen before and didn’t feel like starting now. James constantly cried. “He has big feelings.” Adam would always say. And he did. He was always getting angry. Unnaturally angry for being at such a young age. I can’t say he wasn’t a good big brother though. He would always get the twins snacks and make lunch for them if needed. He was mature and smart for a six-year-old.  

My days were filled with screaming kids and all I could do was scream back. Adam would get home and try to repair the damage. Then we would fight about money. I begged Adam to let me go back to work. I’m sure he could see that staying at home was slowly eating away at me. We found a cheap babysitter and I started working at the hotel again. They were happy to have me back. I was a hard worker.  

I felt better for a while after going back to work. It was a blessing to be away from my children and interact with other people. It was around this time that I kept having a recurring thought. I’m trapped and I always have been. I had never been free. Chained down by my dad, then Adam, and now my children. I want something else, something more.   

Our new assistant manager was always flirting with me when Adam wasn’t around. His name was Ronald, but he went by Ronny. He was the polar opposite of Adam. He confidently shaved his head bald, meanwhile, Adam was desperately holding onto his thinning hair. His big muscles filled out the leather jacket he was always wearing. He had a black Harley, something I never realized I wanted for myself. Ronny offered to take me on a ride one day. Adam was standing right there and I couldn’t believe he let me. The rumble of the bike, my arms wrapped around Ronny’s muscular body, the face in my wind and hair.  

Ronny continued to flirt and I started to enjoy it more and more. “I’m having a party this Friday, you guys should come.”   

I talked Adam into staying home with the kids. I could tell he was worried, but once again he said nothing. Then the next party came and again I talked him into staying home with the kids. He looked like he wanted to say something, but I think fear was holding him back. He probably knew he had already lost me. He was scared that if he said anything, that would be the end of it. He was right.   

At these parties, I realized that for the first time in my life, I felt free. At first, it was just cigarettes and beer that helped me achieve it. Then it was a little bit of weed mixed in. Then a little bit of coke. One night Ronny even passed over his blackened crack pipe. I resisted Ronny’s advances for a long time, but one night found myself asking Why? Scared to do something you want?   

I thought I would feel guilty about it, but when I saw Adam the next day, I felt annoyed instead. Ronny knew what I wanted and he gave it to me. Adam knew what he wanted and pathetically clung to it.  

…  

“It’s okay. We can get past this…Don’t do it.” Adam was on his knees, tears in his eyes, begging me to stay. I had come to resent everything about Adam. His stupid soft face, spineless demeanor, and that constant desperate look in his eyes.   

“I cheated on you and this is all you can say? God… Stop crying! I can’t stand it when you cry!”  

“I’ll do anything… I’ll be more adventurous… I’ll smoke more… I’ll drink more… Whatever you want!” Adam cried out.  

James, now seven, stood watching. He was crying, but he was always crying.  

“God why did I have to have such a crybaby for a son!”  

The sound of his tiny footsteps was all we heard for a moment. First, they pattered up the stairs and then creaked floorboards from above. I let out a long sigh and for a moment, I did feel guilty. “I’ll go talk to him,” I told Adam.   

I reached the kids' room and the door was slightly cracked. I peeked in to see the twins comforting James as he lay in bed, curled up in a ball. My hand reached out to push the door open, but it didn’t make it there. It felt heavy as if chains were beginning to be placed around it. My chest felt tight and my head spun. I took a step back and the chains were gone. The weight with them. My chest relaxed and my head was clear.  

I walked down the stairs. I passed Adam who was still sobbing and without a word I walked out the front door. The cold night air felt so refreshing. I pulled out a cigarette and took a few drags while gazing at the starry sky.