The Six Granddaughters of Cecil Slaughter (30 page)

He will continue to tell anyone here who will listen
his
side of the story. His emotions will be most stirred when he speaks of the dog. About how he did nothing wrong with her. How much he cared for her. Cecilia will always take a distant second place in any feelings he has of regret, repeating only, “I
did
apologize.”

The police notified Celie first because they found her name and number in Cecilia's wallet on a card as to whom to contact in case of emergency. Upon hearing the news, quite expectedly, she broke apart, and at Cecilia's funeral she collapsed, for she saw that Adele, indeed, had died and recently, for there was just a wooden grave marker—no plaque yet. However, with better medication and new doctors she recovered within the year.

Joshua and Jeremy and their wives, having fled the country after the murder (this being easy to do since neither union had produced any children and adoption out of the question) to escape the reporters, the gossip, and to find some kind of peace of mind on a tour of Japanese temples, actually learned some things about generosity of spirit. For the first time they truly became Celie's brothers, and they finally
saw
her and they helped her.

Here, I cannot but think of Emerson's words: “Every earnest glance we give to the realities around us, with intent to learn, proceeds from a holy impulse, and is really songs of praise.” And I praise them for this.

When she got better, they gave her money to open up her own shop—
The Finest Linens to Dream On.
Joyce and Jocelyn frequent it often as do their friends and, of course, all of Celie's former clients.

Eventually, Celie's heart did dance—some.

As one might have easily guessed, Michael was inconsolable and filled with self-recriminations about how impotent he had been in not acting promptly—in doing
nothing.
He grew physically ill, as sometimes the anguished, stunned, and lovesick do. Soon he will die and find mind-peace—never to seek out Cecilia again. The good of heart do eventually come to a state of blessedness.

Everything here is rather balanced, religious, and just. Einstein spoke of
a spiritual force at work in the universe
and although he did not obsess on it, just went on with his work, he was right.

Once again, Cecily revised her play, about the poet and the critic, now adding how the poet kills the critic and then herself. She sends it to every theater company she can
think of, but unknown to her, no one wants any part of it. Never will.

She believes it is her finest work. Maybe it is, but I, too, refuse to read it. Clearly her determination to beat out Cecilia in terms of success did not stop with Cecilia's death. Instead it grew larger, into a singular obsession as cold as ice determined not to melt.

She even considers killing herself, thinking, “Maybe then I will become famous—after all, didn't Cecilia become even more so in death?” She thinks and rethinks this possibility as she will when she appears here in an old age and forever waits for fame to arrive.

Deidre wrote a couple of poetry books that were published by a small press—unknown to most. At her insistence, her husband threw a lavish party on the occasion of each publication. At both of the festivities she sat at a large, expensive, intricately carved oak table with long-stemmed yellow roses in a vase next to her—sent to her from herself. Her husband reluctantly hired violinists for quiet background music as she signed the cover page of each book for all her invited friends and relatives. She used a gold trimmed Mont Blanc pen. The hors d'oeuvres served were so delicious everyone commented that there would be no need for dinner.

Clearly Deidre could not find an independent self-path—the one she sought for about a month after the lunch with Cecily. Within a couple of weeks she was already stumbling on it.

After her first book was accepted, a feeling of entitlement and hunger for more attention grew within her like a tumor with an intractable appetite. It has made her spirit bone-thin and continuously famished.

Now, she always dresses in black, never hesitating to tell anyone who will listen, “It's in memory of Cecilia Slaughter.” Most just roll their eyes when they hear this, silently thinking to themselves, “Oh, please.” After the two published books nothing more will happen for her of a literary nature and she, too, will also begin to wonder if she needs to die so as to become famous.

Sometimes she meets with Cecily at a fancy downtown hotel bar to discuss the merits of artistic suicide and the various possibilities as to how to do it
—which tools
as Anne Sexton had put it. The two do, in fact, role play, maybe even believe, they are Sexton and Plath competing over the preferred method for a self-inflicted death and like them, they drink too much when they discuss the topic. The waiters watch—ignorant of the literary history the two are trying to recreate—finding them ridiculous, but fun for middle-aged women. They look forward to their return and serving them. They are big tippers.

Deidre, in death, will try to join the Plath-Sexton group—Lowell and Berryman will be there. Needless to say, they will ignore her.

Celine, now left with just too much family pain and loss, has added more men (and women) to her life and more flashy designer clothes to her closet, as well as more of the finest jewelry she can get Aaron and the others to buy her. She has the embalmed look—the stretched pallor—of a too-often-face-lifted bag woman, layered in lots of money. She pays and pays to get what she wants, like her father, and as with him, nothing is ever enough—or ever will be.

The most interesting thought Celine ever had was when she was six and wondered if her baby sister had been
accidentally dropped into the wrong family—which she was. Celeste was reborn into another family and renamed
Ida
after her new mother's mother. Ida, or
Idy,
as most people call her, goes through her life with a sometimes cacophonous sound in her head that she cannot place, but with which she has learned to live.

I
know
the dead cannot influence what happens to the living, but sometimes I cannot help but reflect on the irony of this and wonder—who would not?—if Grandmother Idyth finally took possession of one small thing—the dead baby Celeste, making sure she was given safe passage to another life and a variation of
her
name. I muse on this, then let it go.

I do not know of the inner workings of everything. I may never. Nor am I sure anyone completely does or should—even Lao Tzu. With this he would agree. Here, it is more about acceptance of what is and what you do thereafter.

As for myself, I have grown tired of the intricacies, intimacies—the interminable detailings—of stories, even my own. I have quit my memory's mind-search for Wyatt. Suddenly, it became easy, like deciding to uncage a rare bird—free its beauty from my stare—and watch it fly away.

I have little need for things to work out differently than they do. Now, I just look at a situation, see it as it is, without wishing it were otherwise. I am finding that peace that the desperate living and the restless dead long for. Some others here are finding it, too. Who they are or will be, I dwell on less.

However, even here, people do surprise you. Who would have guessed that Great Aunt Eva would suddenly
turn toward Adele,
see her
as her little girl with the dazzling, golden blond curls, her bright young face and dark eyes all sparkle and reach out to her small and lovely and hopeful child.

Eventually my mother passed from her above-the-ground existence and was lowered into the space next to me. I was pleased by the simplicity of her casket—its lack of adornment, its dull finish. I thought it would be ornate, like the one they placed me in, except more so. When I saw it, I was encouraged. Yet, when I turned toward her, she turned away and this is how she has stayed.

I am surprised that I have so little to say about this—a result of the place of peaceful indifference that I am finally able to more fully embrace.

Soon all above-the-ground life intrusions—all fightings, all frettings, all lovings, all hatings, all collectings of material possessions—no matter how luxurious—all gossip, all wrong-spirited hopes, and all convoluted talk will evaporate.

All that will be left, all that will be salvaged, as testimony to the existence of the Slaughter family will be the fragile—and yes—temporal legacy of a few poems.

While they still exist, I hope you will choose to read them.

As I rest.

ceci slaughter

Eventually the scars become glitter

on the skin—small stars. The damage

caused by what or who, a journey

into a hidden solar system—night-

mares (spectral horses galloping

through a galaxy of terror). My bed

is placed toward the door under

a crossbeam in the ceiling, crosswise

over the floorboards, in the direction corpses

are carried out—feet first.

The rays of the moon fall across

its sheets—always messed.

Each morning they invite all

spirits to come in and rest.

I would like to sleep now—dream less,

but someone has hung a blackbird's

right wing on the closet hook

and no matter how I try not

to look at it—I look.

c. slaughter

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the generous editors of the publications in which the following poems and chapters, or versions of them, appeared:

P
OEMS

“The Bells XI” is reprinted from
The Note She Left
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2008. This poem was first published in
The Kenyon Review.

“The Crosses V” is reprinted from
The Note She Left
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2008. This poem was first published in
New England Review.

“Widdershins I” is reprinted from
The Note She Left
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2008. This poem was first published in
Boulevard.

“Flowers” is reprinted from
Harriet Rubin's Mother's Wooden Hand
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1991. This poem was first published in
Poetry.

“Widdershins II” was originally published as “Widdershins IV” and is reprinted from
The Note She Left
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2008. This poem was first published in
Boulevard.

“Trichotillomania” is reprinted from
Harriet Rubin's Mother's Wooden Hand
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1991. This poem was first published in
Shenandoah.

“No Sad Songs Sung Here” was originally published as “Pity Song in Solo Voice Without Accompaniment” and is reprinted from
Self/Pity
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2005. This poem was first published in
New England Review.

“The Interior Of The Sun” was originally published as “The Interior Of The Sun II” and is reprinted from
Mother In Summer
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2002. This poem was first published in
The North American Review.

“The Devil's Legs” is reprinted from
Confession
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1997. This poem was first published in
Poetry East.

“Yom Kippur Night Dance” was first published in
Fifth Wednesday Journal.

“The Sin-Eater Of The Family” was originally published as “Widdershins VI” and is reprinted from
The Note She Left
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2008. This poem was first published in
Boulevard.

“Confession” is reprinted from
Confession
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1997. This poem was first published in
Boulevard.

“Nijinsky's Dog” is reprinted from
Confession
by Susan
Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1997. This poem was first published in
The American Poetry Review.

“The Lovers” is reprinted from
Confession
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1997. This poem was first published in
Poetry.

“Knowledge,” which appears in the chapter, “The Lovers,” is reprinted from
The Note She Left
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by Northwestern University Press, 2008. This poem was first published in
The Kenyon Review.

“Mania” is reprinted from
Incontinence
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1993. This poem was first published in
Prairie Schooner.

“Small Green” is reprinted from
Harriet Rubin's Mother's Wooden Hand
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1991. This poem was first published in
Poetry.

“Mens Rea” is reprinted from
Confession
by Susan Hahn. Reprinted with permission of author. Published by the University of Chicago Press, 1997. This poem was first published in
American Voice.