Marilyn, Forty-Nine, No Dependents
“Negaholic” by Jennifer S. Lange
Marilyn wrestles a shopping cart from a tangle of them and wheels past the fifty percent-off New Year’s champers. Anxiety feasts on her, chews on her toes, laps her up.
Cory loved zebra cakes and before she can ask herself if he still does, she throws five boxes of them into her cart. At the deli counter, Marilyn orders ham and cheese sandwiches, lettuce yes, tomatoes no, Cory had strong feelings about mayo, loved it or hated it, she can’t remember.
“Mayo,” she tells the girl. “On all of them.”
Usually budget-conscious, Marilyn at the grocery store an hour before her son and his pregnant wife arrive buys randomly, lavishly. She buys two bouquets of yellow roses, dethorned and top-heavy, their buds pursed like disapproving mouths.
Marilyn in her apartment ten minutes after Cory texts that he’s not ready to see her tosses the roses into the trash and chokes down all three sandwiches even though she hates mayo.
***
Marilyn sleepless in bed watching Ancient Aliens opens Facebook and sees a wall slathered with images of Cory’s new baby girl.
The second the lights go on behind plastic blinds, Marilyn borrows her neighbor’s car and drives to the animal shelter. She chooses a ten-year-old black and white terrier named Richard, the least dog-like name she’s ever heard.
Twenty-nine years ago, Marilyn peed on a stick she had stolen from Walgreens and knew she was going to have a boy. She wanted to name him Adam, same as her grandfather, but her mother called it a sacrilege.
Cory and his wife have named their baby Jasmine. In photos, she has the blurry features of any newborn but with Cory’s king-sized ears.
***
Like a baby, Richard is not housebroken. He pees behind Marilyn’s recliner no matter how often she takes him out. When she yells at him, he looks up at her without blinking, as if to express regret for her reaction, as if he is saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Marilyn on her knees answers the phone when her sister Deb calls and regrets it immediately. Deb has seen the baby, held the baby, changed the baby’s diaper, and must tell Marilyn all about it. As Marilyn presses a rag into the warm puddle of Richard’s mistake, she wonders how long it will take Deb to teach the baby to call her grandma, to recoup what she’s owed.
Back at the shelter, Marilyn points at a muddled gray and orange cat with a belly so large it skims the ground. The kid working the front desk says, “You know she’s pregnant, right?”
Marilyn shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
***
Marilyn feet up on her recliner scrolling Facebook, liking every one of the pictures of Jasmine, answers the door eventually.
Her neighbor unhooks the prettiest kitten from Marilyn’s curtain and cradles it like she would a newborn. When she asks what the kitten’s name is, Marilyn looks into the animal’s urinal-blue eyes and says she hasn’t decided yet.
“They’re not for sale,” Marilyn tells her. “Can I borrow your car?”
In a KFC parking lot off the interstate, an old man is tenderly scratching a green parrot under its chin. The parrot leans into the man’s finger and makes a sound like purring.
Marilyn gives them a moment to say goodbye before loading the bird into the backseat.
***
Marilyn with a heating pad against her lower back Googles “sad animals” and clicks on a story about pet snakes released at the edges of the Everglades. After they eat everything in sight, they slip into suburban ponds and suck down koi until animal control imprisons them.
Marilyn sells her couch to make space for a terrarium.
The majority of Marilyn’s fixed income becomes fixed on the animals, on food for Richard and the cat and her seven kittens, on the parrot, who turns out to be a picky eater, on frozen mice for her new boa constrictor, on bedding and litter and a pumice stone for the parrot’s beak. Marilyn survives on zebra cakes and the sunflower seeds that the parrot rejected, but at least she’s too hungry to check Facebook.
***
Marilyn, frayed. Marilyn molting like a lonely parrot, Marilyn as weak as a bladder and as stupidly reckless as a kitten balancing on the rim of a boa constrictor’s cage dials Cory’s number.
In the first ring, Marilyn hears her mother in the delivery room reminding her that it’s not too late to give him up. In the second, the nurse whispering that the milk of sinners is too thin which is why Cory won’t latch. In the third, Marilyn begging Deb to take Cory just for an afternoon that stretches into a weekend, a week, six months, a year, another. In the fourth, the parrot’s purr, the fizz of Richard’s urine hitting carpet, the pure mewls of month-old animals, boa constrictors the consistency of the tires on her car reversing out of Deb’s driveway, a car that smells like Hennessy and diaper cream and mistakes.
Marilyn in her apartment an hour after the call goes to voicemail shoves her phone under the recliner. She opens the parrot’s door and scratches him like the old man did. She sings out Richard’s name and the dog canters over, attracted to the crumbs that stick to her sweatshirt like hitchhiking seeds. When she sits against the recliner, Richard does, too, his haunch pressed against hers. The kittens follow, swatting at dust motes and tumbling, trustingly, into Marilyn’s lap.
About the Author
Joanna Theiss is a writer living in Washington, DC. Her short stories and flash fiction have appeared in journals such as Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, Bending Genres, The Dribble Drabble Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Fictive Dream. Before devoting herself to writing full time, Joanna worked as a lawyer, practicing criminal defense and international trade law. Links to her work are available at www.joannatheiss.com, on Twitter @joannavtheiss and Instagram @joannatheisswrites.
About the Artist
Jennifer S. Lange is a self-taught artist creating illustrations for books, games, posters, and worldbuilding projects. Her work has been shown internationally and in online exhibitions. Jennifer lives in northern Germany with her partner, and a lot of cats.