Say that in a sheep voice

Star parties were a big deal on the commune. They’d bring out their drums and play beats for the stars. They’d eat organic treats and drink elderberry cordial. They would dress up.

It was all very special.

Jupiter had been around for a few months and visible every night. But cool things were happening with the moon and Pluto or something, so Jasmine called the party and the commune answered a bleating “Yes, please.”

Say that in a sheep voice.

My dad did.

It’s not that he didn’t like the commune people. He just thought they were flaky and he didn’t like that they would drum through the night during solstice or equinox or star parties.

There was something deeper going on, but I hadn’t figured it out. I had this feeling that Jasmine Blue hadn’t been very sympathetic after Letter N Day.

She’d never mentioned Darla once—nor my father, which was weird because he was still alive. In my seventeen years, thirteen without Mom, my dad and Jasmine Blue had never talked on the phone or seen each other even though they lived across the road.

Dad would pretend he didn’t know who I meant unless I said “Ellie’s mom.”

He would use the term himself, too.

“Does Ellie’s mom think it’s okay for you two to be walking on the road to Markus’s house at your age?” (We were twelve.)

“Does Ellie’s mom have a landline in case I need to get ahold of you?”

Jasmine made me keep my cell phone at home. Cell phones caused cancer. We were all talking into atomic bombs.

We all had our collective heads in the oven.

As Ellie and I cloudbusted for an hour, I watched cloud after cloud go by and saw each one as an oven. Sometimes the door was open. Sometimes the door was closed. Sometimes there was a pie baking inside. I thought of the pie as my future. I thought of the pie as an impossible goal. I knew from experience that microwaved pies tasted like shit.

When Ellie asked me a second time about college, I told her I just wanted some space. This was a lie. The real reason was tucked deep inside my brain and Ellie wasn’t going to find out. Especially considering that sometimes, it was hard to tell where Ellie stopped and where Jasmine began.

I went home and ate dinner. Chicken Alfredo and soggy garlic bread. Dad said he had to work, so I ate alone in the kitchen. Last day of school. Ever.

Being alone at the dinner table made me feel like I was in zone whatever. I had no idea who I was or what to think. I took a picture of the chair that Dad usually sat in. Its upholstery was falling apart and I’d asked Dad to replace it ten times by now, but he wouldn’t. I named the picture Ugly, Empty Chair.

When I was done, I wandered back to Ellie’s house. They’d already eaten dinner and Jasmine told me that Ellie was out with her chickens doing her chores. As I walked toward the chicken houses, I passed by the shed where the bat was. I wondered if it had disintegrated yet, in that confining jar we put it in. I wondered, if it was really God, then why were we ignoring it? I decided to ask Ellie about it when I found her.

But then, as I neared the chicken houses, I heard voices. It was Rick and Ellie.

As I got closer, I heard them yelling at each other. I stood outside and eavesdropped.

“But it sucks! You don’t get it!”

“I’m not getting pregnant, Rick.”

“Other girls let me do it all the time.”

“Other girls?”

“I mean before you.”

“Even more of a reason for you to wear one,” Ellie said.

“You just don’t get it.”

“I guess I don’t. But I know I’m not getting pregnant at seventeen. That, I know.” Her voice wobbled on “that.” Like maybe she was going to cry.

“I can pull out right before.”

That’s when I decided to walk in.

Ellie stood, leaning against a pitchfork. Rick had a bale of straw at his feet.

I said, “Hi there.”

Rick looked mad.

Ellie looked like she didn’t know what a woman was supposed to look like.

When neither of them answered me, I decided I really didn’t want to be there for this. Ellie would talk about it for hours later when we were alone, so I turned around and went home.

I figured maybe I had something better to do than just hang around at Ellie’s like a bad habit.

Dad was still sitting on the couch working on his laptop. I stared at the painting above his head—a huge canvas he’d painted—of a modest nude.

Woman. That’s what he titled the painting.

Throughout my life, whenever a TV commercial came on that involved a skimpily clad girl, he’d point to the painting and say, “Glory, don’t believe what you see.” He’d point. “That’s what a real woman looks like.” Or something like that.

I couldn’t remember how long he’d been saying this to me, but I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t saying it, so I bet it was since the very beginning. It was all he’d ever say when I’d turn on the TV. Wrinkle cream. Makeup. Clothing. Nail polish. Posh chocolates. Cars. Beer. Sofas. Shampoo. Toothpaste. Casinos. Gym memberships. Shoes. Pills. Diets. Cat food. Every commercial that tried to sell me the real world that wasn’t real, he’d point and say it.

The woman in the painting was fleshy and had hips. She was thick legged. Her breasts had real shape—not like Aunt Amy’s squishy softballs. She didn’t have ridiculously long eyelashes and she didn’t have tan lines. She just was.

“You need me?” Dad said.

“Just looking at the woman,” I said. I’d wondered for years if the woman in the painting was Darla, but I knew Darla didn’t look like her at all. Darla was skinny and had long hair she often tied into braided pigtails.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Never better,” I lied.

“You doing anything fun tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure. Fun.” I said, and went upstairs and made a pact with myself not to go to Ellie’s the next day. I remembered the line about habits. The first step to breaking one is admitting you have a problem.

I had other things to do. I’d taken so many pictures in the last week, I wanted to get them into my sketchbook.

I had three sketchbooks now—full of computer-printed digital pictures. I wished I could print real pictures but Dad still wouldn’t let me into Darla’s darkroom and the last time I’d asked, he looked so hurt I couldn’t bring myself to push it.

I’d named this sketchbook The Origin of Everything. Dad had given me a blank sketchbook every year for Christmas and my birthday since I started taking pictures. He showed me one he made back when he still cared about art. It was a mix of everything creative—pictures, drawings, ideas, writing. He said it would help me work out my feelings. I didn’t ask him why he didn’t keep sketchbooks anymore. It was obvious he wasn’t working out anything.

The Origin of Everything was almost finished. I only had a few more pages to fill.

I printed and pasted Empty Jar. Beneath it I wrote EMPTY JAR.

I printed and pasted Empty Bus. Beneath it I wrote NO SEAT BELTS.

I printed and pasted Ugly, Empty Chair. Beneath it I wrote NEEDS NEW UPHOLSTERY.

I printed and pasted a random picture of a group of seniors who’d asked me to take their picture the day before. I wrote THIS IS WHAT NORMAL PEOPLE LOOK LIKE.

When I slipped into bed, I thought about how even though Woman wasn’t Darla, she was somehow teaching me stuff all along. I still thought about the fight I’d heard between Ellie and Rick. I didn’t think about college or getting a job. I didn’t think about anything past tomorrow because anything past tomorrow was just like cloudbusting—it depended solely upon the person looking at the clouds and it could rain any minute.