1972

1972

There came a time when it was clear to everyone that Etta was slipping away. She’d stopped cooking and stopped eating. She’d stopped doing much of anything by then. The house had a rank smell to it, like damp towels that had been left too long in the washer. She wandered the second floor some days, but others she didn’t leave her bedroom.

It was a tough time for Cecilia as well. She was wasting away, swimming in the clothes that had fit her earlier that year. She’d lost her appetite and stopped caring for herself in the way other fifteen-year-old girls knew how to do. She didn’t want to ask Henry for money to buy sanitary pads, so she started stuffing her underwear with socks during her period. There was never laundry soap in the house, so she let them pile up under her bed. When Henry found them, Cecilia was humiliated. He asked his sister to move in for the time being. She lived overseas and as far as Cecilia could remember, Henry hadn’t spoken about her before, so she figured things were desperate. They kept their distance from one another as best they could—Henry’s sister understood that the situation was delicate. She cleaned the house and bought groceries for the fridge.

One day, Cecilia overheard Henry’s sister suggest that Cecilia should move away to a boarding school. She didn’t think it was safe for her to be living with her mother anymore. Henry’s fist rattled the silverware.

“She’s her daughter, for God’s sake. Etta needs to be with Cecilia.”

“Henry. She doesn’t want to be. She doesn’t love that girl.”

Cecilia peered around the corner and watched him. He covered his face with his hand for a minute. And then he shook his head. “You’re wrong. Love doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

A few days later, Etta hanged herself from an oak tree in the front yard using one of Henry’s belts. It was a Monday morning and the sun was just coming up. They lived on the same street as Cecilia’s school. Etta was thirty-two years old.