Sam Moe

Obsesíon 

The two of you are alone in the dream; the otters have crawled to the shoreline, his mother’s cats disappeared into a field with hundreds of cows whose hides are illuminated by a full moon, you wonder aloud what month it is and why the clouds are such a deep shade of blush. He listens and says none of this matters, taking your face in his hands and when he is close enough to kiss—here is when you smell his cologne, a mixture of vanilla and sea salt, whiskey to wash down dinner, sugar crystals on his tongue but you wouldn’t know, you’ve never tasted his teeth, never held his jaw between your trembling fingers, but still, you know his mouth like it’s yours, every groove of his teeth, every cheek-bite scar—his body bursts into a pandemonium of rainbow parrots who float away like confetti into the clouds.

When you open your eyes, finally awake, your heart shakes. These days you’re not entirely sure you have veins, lungs, stomach. Everyone wonders why you bother hosting dinner, but there’s nothing else to do. Soon he’ll arrive in a company of your friends, arms heavy with grocery bags heavy with dollar-store candles, lighters. Someone has texted they will bring a rib roast, another will cook a bone stock, your best friend has gold foil from a chef she’s sleeping with and their love still turns your mind to soot, but like you said, none of this matters.

You cry in the kitchen. Light filters through the window and forms a glossy puddle on the counter. Hawks descend in the backyard and pick at a carcass with navy fur. Something about the closeness of the birds feels like love and this, too, twists your heart.

Your house belonged to your grandmother and the walls still smell of her shampoo: lilac and rosemary, sometimes citrus. The kitchen is crowded with too many cabinets and a clear blue fridge through which you can see many bins of tomatoes, whipped cream, red snapper you have yet to cook. Amaranth hangs from the ceiling, each stem a bright shade of crimson, leaves grazing the top of the fridge. Your cabinets are filled with unbreakable plates, also red, gold-flecked wine glasses, jars of pickled sugar beets. There are carrots of varying hues, cayenne pepper, cherry peppers, and radishes. Everything reminds you of water, blood. 

These mornings, you get out of bed late. You haven’t yet figured out if the nightmares are from eating too late at night, the abundance of caffeine, or the fact that all your family members have turned into wolves and walked into the woods without explanation.

Late nights you hear the women-turned-wolves howling music they loved from before: Julio Iglesias tangos seep through a semi-open window and when you open the front door there is a blue-grey sacrificial lamb resting on your doormat. 

Thank you, you whisper to the mist, the dew on the grass, your mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin, and sister observing you from the edge of the forest. Las mujeres with hungry hearts, as your father used to say, so they ate him alive and left you to grieve.

He never loved you, yet still, you feel yourself doubling over with pain. A moan escapes your lips. There is no reason for silence. Peel at the skin on your face, let your tears become so plentiful they form a new river where quickly the teenagers in town will throw rough-edged rocks, your tears will make everything smooth, the fishermen will adore you for the new salmon population. Bears will comb through the salmon and the river will lead to a sea where the men and women will gather their newly built boats, somehow each already coated in a thick layer of moss, they will throw their obsessive nets overboard, whisper confessions to tight-lipped mussels you’ll later purchase at a market.

The rain is starting soon. You wonder when he’ll get here, curious, as always, if this will be the last time.

In the dream you are a child again. Your best friend from when you were sixteen is there, but somehow she’s aged rapidly, into her late thirties, she wears a trench coat and shining leather heels. The dream-school is filled with confetti and streamers. Your best friend is slowly taking the other kids on a secret mission you are certain is dangerous but no one believes you.

Everything is crooked, sideways. The hallways are warped and the windows look out at a city you cannot name. There is a private detective who is working on the case and he asks you for a list of everyone who has gone with your best friend and you find you can’t recall their names. Somehow she manages to take someone else as the two of you are looking out the window at the sky. Light sparkles and flashes as fireworks appear across the sky with a message to the woman you once knew: Sandra, have mercy on me. You awake in a cold sweat, your cheek pressed to the kitchen floor. It’s impossible to understand if you lay down here to sleep on purpose or if you passed out when fetching a sauté pan from one of the bottom cabinets. Bits of food are stuck to your cheek and there is a misshapen cross imprinted on your cheek form the tiles.

In high school, you knew a woman named Sandra and the two of you were fast friends. You met in art class during your senior year of high school, both of you not yet eighteen, wrists coated in neon bracelets and an assortment of beads. She introduced you to her boyfriend at the time, who was almost forty. The three of you hung out at someone’s house but you can’t remember his name or the road there. Sandra would empty out water bottles on your way to the house, cutting a hole in their bottoms so she could turn them into makeshift crack pipes. You were so young and didn’t understand anything about drugs or sex; all you knew was school was lonely, your mother’s skin became sticky and damp and she turned into a sharp needle piercing your heart every time you went home, and everything those days was dried blood but you don’t want to get into that now.

Halfway through your senior year, your mother revealed she’d hired a private detective to follow you as you and Sandra glided across town. Your boyfriend was forty, over six feet tall with large scars on his hands and a heroine addiction. When at last your mother, the private detective, a police officer, and a housemaster from school met with you to reveal they knew what you’d been up to, you spit forth everyone’s names.

These are only half-names, nicknames, the detective said. Don’t you have anyone’s last names?

I’m all out of last names, you’d said. Can’t you accept what I’m telling you?

Mothers, teachers, exes, and some friends accused you of being on drugs. No one used words like grooming or safety. You never wanted to return home. 

When your grandmother passed away suddenly, your mother called you in tears. You barely understood what she was saying but you knew, in your soul, there had been a loss. 

Porque te lloras, you said quietly, but your mother could barely hear you over the sound of her own tears. They spilled into the backyard of the house you currently live in and turned the grass a shade of blue-green. Strange mushrooms began to grow, what is known as dead man’s fingers, but all the hands looked like your grandmothers and all their tendrils were clenched like fists.

When you returned to the house, you were no longer free. Soon your mother was walking into the woods, her body changing before your eyes, a single glance over her should and a don’t follow me before the transformation was complete.

You are thirty-three and the memories of your past still haunt you. Sometimes the waitresses you work with try to encourage you to host an exorcism and yes they’re kind, and yes their hair smells collectively like breaded calamari, fried peppers, and vanilla scones, but you know deep in whatever is left of your mottled heart, you could never banish your family to the ghost realm. You want everyone to be close, like scabs, constant little reminders of a history that will never allay. 

Dinner table coated in a tablecloth printed with roses and vines, everything is still too red. There are bowls of dried cranberry, pomegranate seeds, your ex-best-friend—named Ruby—has maroon nails the same color as your mother’s. You can always spot your mother’s wolf first, her teeth always tinted the exact hue of overripe gala apples.

Devon and her new obsession, Benedict, start working on the fridge. They lift sleek takeout boxes from white plastic bags, filling the fridge with bright greens and purples, until all the red disappears. Ruby watches from the kitchen table, head in her hands, eyes glazed over from boredom.

. You dream up intrusive thoughts about their relationship. His strong hands, still tan from a summer in the Keys, rip open the bodies of lobsters. Between all his knuckles are words in cursive. Each time you try to read them the words shift in meaning and contest. Rust becomes rutabaga which turns to relentless. You wonder at all the R-words in your lexicon and shiver. Your reflection catches you ruminating in the mirror and shakes her head; not now, she mouths. Not when you’ve come so far. So you shove your past away and try, for once, to forget about the men. Sandra’s face appears over your reflection in the double glass doors. One shake of your head and she floats away, easygoing as a billow of smoke.  

The men don’t forget about you. You see their ghosts across town, white-knuckles and jaws for hands. Their human mouths have turned to voids. They scream and they are so, so sorry. You will have none of it. You block their phone numbers, pretend you don’t see Sandra, now clean, in line at the grocery store. The two of you try to move on from your pasts. Only Ruby knows the true story. You ok? she mouths and you nod, the sound of the ice machine obscuring, but not completely eradicating, Devon’s question.

— Listen, all I’m asking is why stay? There’s so many ghosts here. I can feel them watching me when I’m in the bathroom.

The mirror ghost. You are reminded of your abuelitita, Wita, who instructed everyone to cover the windows and mirrors during storms to prevent el diablo from slipping through.

Devon’s slender frame and triple pierced ears glow in the lamplight. Her lips are plump from picking off all the skin then chewing the flesh until drawing bleed. She has long auburn hair and pupils so dilated you can barely see the crystal blue of her eyes. You wonder if she’s on drugs, contemplate asking her if you can have some. She leans over and kisses Benedict on the neck and you feel your stomach twist. You are not in love with Benedict, just jealous of other people’s happiness.

— I can’t leave her house, you explain, not wanting to get into the discussion of the wolves.

As if on cue they begin to howl the chorus of a familiar pop song; Benedict shivers.

— So weird, he says, emphasizing all his vowels. The two of you are from Boston and Devon is from New York City. Ruby is from a small town in Connecticut no one has ever heard of and each time she is asked where it is, its location and name change on the map.

Nothing stays steady in your life for long, and soon Hero arrives, your glittering sunshine obsession, his new girlfriend trailing after, juggling different desserts, so many cakes your head begins to spin. On the kitchen counter are lemon bar cheesecakes, blueberry soufflés, a Bundt cake coated in apple slices and alcohol, bananas foster and a tub of vanilla ice cream. You think, I don’t deserve this abundance, and he glances up, grins once, and you feel the bones of the house rattle in approval.

His new girlfriend, a graduate student named Rosemary, wears a multi-layer dress. She has high cheekbones and black hair. Her fingernails are painted black and the space between her thumb and forefinger on her right hand bears a jagged scar. When she catches you staring, she laughs.

— Kitchen injury, she says, as if accidentally slicing through the thin skin of your hand is absolutely hilarious.

— I didn’t know you were a restaurant person, Devon says.

This is a lie; every person at the table works in the restaurant industry and Devon knows where she works because the two of you stayed up late into the night several weeks ago, scrolling through Rosemary’s social media page and grabbing screenshots different images of her holding elaborate dishes. In some of the photos she is smiling, in others she is laughing. She seems like the kind of woman who never has migraines and all her family members are still alive, healthy. There are photos of her family on the edge of Cape Cod, shark fins cresting the water behind them, everyone tanned and covered in cotton beach towels.

Rosemary is easy to laugh. You wonder if she pushes her stress and sadness to the back of the mind like you try, desperately; every day you wake up and bargain with your ghosts. Her mouth reminds you of him, so you bite the insides of your mouth so hard they come close to bleeding.

— I’ll be right back. 

You excuse yourself to fetch more ingredients and Ruby follows, feigning a vague interest in the pantry down the hall where your mother has abandoned all her spices, pickled vegetables, and fruits soaking in brine.

Ruby closes the door behind her and pretends she isn’t there for you.

— Just getting some arctic supreme peaches while we still have them, she says by way of explanation. Her hair, you realize, is slightly tinged red.

Overhead, rafters obscure a series of half-working lightbulbs. In front of you, Ruby pauses, stares at the jar of peaches in her hand, unfazed by their bright blue skins and navy flesh.

— I’m sorry, she says, and you think immediately about wolves and hunger.

— It’s fine. I’m sure it won’t last.

Her eyes flit to yours, slightly watery, and you wonder if she will finally cry.

— I meant about your family. How they all died in a car accident.

— Oh, that, you reply, knowing very well they are still very much alive and screeching in the backyard.

— Not funny. 

She stiffens, smooths her button-up shirt into her pants, a bartending quirk.

— I guess that answers my next question.

— Which would be what, exactly?

But you already know. She wants to know if you’re still harboring too many emotions for a man who will never give you the time of day, a man who has seen the inside of your wounds but never once loved you. Hero and his messy brown hair in the morning, begging for coffee, head bent beneath the doorway, guilty at having fallen asleep with his arms around your waist, We’re just friends seeping out of his lips.

Of course, you’d replied. What else would we be?

— You know he’s just waiting for you to confess first, right? This is always how it goes, Honey. You can never admit when you’re in love with someone until they’re basically on the verge of abandoning you.

— No one has ever abandoned me.

— Hon. Are you being serious right now?

You stare at her now, an unwavering gaze, bangs you cut in the night with kitchen scissors, the rubbery feeling of someone else’s condom still twisting your insides up, he wasn’t very good but you were sad and the two of you were drunk so you thought, why not? But now it’s the next day and you still can’t remember his name.

Only Ruby calls you Hon. To everyone else you are Honey. To Hero, you’ve always been Azucar, but he’s refused to talk to you in Spanish since finding out your mother was a Spanish grammar teacher, anxious he doesn’t remember all the grammar of his youth. Por favor, you used to beg. Tú lo sabes bien, it’s not something you’d forget.

No me importa eso, he’d mutter before disappearing into another room.

The wolves approach the house. You can smell their hides, blood fresh on their tongues, you wonder if they’ve reached into your dreams again and pulled out one of the thousand farm animals your mind has conjured for fun.

A soft knock shocks the two of you out of your staring match.

— Don’t make a scene at dinner, Ruby hisses.

— What kind of a person do you think I am?

You reach out to grab her arm but she’s already gone, and in her wake lies a large auburn-hued hare, its ears pinned back like damp feathers, its pulse still as a marble statue.

The dinner table is set for fifty. You wonder aloud at who the other guests are but quickly, and without warning, the doorbell begins ringing and doesn’t stop, its sound buttery as wind chimes in rain.

There is the team of salad chefs from where you all work, Restaurante de Esmeralda, still in their black uniforms, last names printed on everyone’s left sleeve. Next arrive a sous chef and six friends in semi-tall hats, bearing different cassoulet dishes on trays: glazed chicken thighs, melted sharp cheddar, beans, duck leg and pork shank, every surface crisp, every sauce unbroken.

The bartenders enter singing and laughing, arms laden with chillers, bags of ice, boxes of champagne. There are bartenders of your youth, bartenders who work across town, bartenders who also bear mother-shaped wounds and scars in miscellaneous places, their shoulders and forearms tattooed with different sea creatures. Everyone’s uniform is crisp, shirts pressed, earrings golden and catching in the light like canary wings. 

— Que gusto de verlo, one of them says, pressing a silver wine key into your palm as a gift.

— Come through the middle hallway, we’ll put the champagne in the tub, Devon instructs.

You are concerned at the team seeing where you live, witnessing the love and anger soaked into your grandmother’s walls, the hole in the wall from someone’s fist, the hungry and impatient wolves outside.

— Ruby, are all these people doing here? We’re not going to have enough places to sit.

— Quit making a fuss, we’ve got plenty of chairs in the back. don’t you remember the parties your grandmother used to host? She’d invite half the town.

Of course you remembered. Back then, you and Ruby were teenagers, experimenting with metallic eye makeup and crimped hair. You had dreams of working as artists, the restaurant gig a surprise one muddy summer, and before you knew it you were in love with the fast pace and the free food bestowed upon you from flirtatious chefs.

Next come dishwashers and servers, their no-slip shoes squeaking across the hardwood floor, everyone tracking in mud and what appears to be a bit of blood, likely from your mother’s recent meal. The servers have their hair tied in buns even though they’re not on the clock, strands slicked back with a layer of glaze. Behind marches a group of hosts in floor-length dresses and suits with ties. They are polite, everyone shaking your hand, you are quickly exhausted by the parade.

Hero holds the door. You wait in the foyer, hoping for a minute alone with him, to tell him—what? You’re terrified of being alone but you know even if you were to fall in love you’d always be lonely, terrified of matches and birthday candles, centipedes missing half their legs, the blue-bodied sapphire spider out back who only makes aqua-hued webs, surviving on a diet of crispy beetle bodies. Terrified of the surf which ebbs and flows each day, the oncoming eclipse, of bones and teeth and spoons and heat. Add, too, the fears of your dreams. The feeling of Sandra haunting you as strong as the presence of your family out back, circling, waiting for dinner to start, just waiting for the day you leave the back door ajar.

Last come the executive chefs with their stainless-steel cookware and their plastic seafood bins. They carry expensive knives in blocks of wood, summer crab and moon shrimp, irresistible gemstone casserole and jewel-toned tuna roe. Quickly, jars of ingredients line the countertop; cumin, lime zest, salmon silk confetti, cinnamon, and dozens of different seeds. The kitchen fills with heat, the scent of sweat and oil, and underneath all the commotion, the laughter and thin sounds of metal against bone, you can hear your cousin howling at the edge of the house. It is unclear if she is protesting the festivities or delivering a warning. Back when she was a human, the two of you fought. She never learned about your past, only knew Sasha was hated by your mother and therefore hated you, too. 

Part of the dream floats to the surface of your mind: the detective was capable of performing some kind of magic, sending bursts of glitter, petals, streamers, and balloons into the sky. You recalled hearing Sasha’s voice in your head, so loud and clear it was as if she lay next to you in bed, whispering: This detective is going to be a problem.

— Are you doing okay? 

Ruby appears at your side, one damp hand on your forearm. She’s been stirring a large pot of gazpacho, beads of sweat formed across her forehead.

— I think I need a minute away.

— Don’t be gone too long or the others will start to gossip about you.

You head towards the pantry again, the only place you find you can catch your breath. Your mother’s neat handwriting lines every seed drawer, the tops of jars, and clear boxes bursting with dessert flowers. Soon you’re soft-hearted, trailing the tips of your fingers across every surface, wanting to consume her script though through osmosis.

This time, when there’s a knock at the door, you don’t turn around.

— I’ll be out in a minute, Ruby.

The room fills with the scent of nutmeg and paprika and you know it’s Hero, likely come to gather flowers for his mother’s pear galette recipe.

The two of you turn to face each other. When at last, he reaches out to touch you—after months of feeling starved of love, days you slept too late and woke to a damp pillow again, your mother clawing at the back door for leftover ribeye fat, his girlfriend’s name a burn on your tongue, the stories you told about the two of you in your head, the times you imagined kissing in the rain even though he hated storms, his agony over your family, after you tried to crack his geode heart and failed—your body turns to pale pink feathers, a short beak, two shining coals for eyes.

Upon touching your jaw—after lying in bed all day with Rosemary, the record player skipping beats, Fleetwood Mac distracting his every thoughts, days of sunshine and holding her hand for the first time at brunch, missing Honey’s grandmother’s cooking, the funeral with empty caskets, large grey dogs gathering outside every house you entered, emptiness, emotions, the weight of the past—he is no longer a man but a teal-grey wolf with such hunger and attitude it takes everything in him not to react.

You float to the tip of his nose, resting your small feet for a moment; his yellow eyes focus on your frame. Seconds pass by and with a quick jaw snap, he swallows you in one bite, your bones crushing together in the column of his throat.