One of Nine
The short essay was included in the Summer, 2023 volume of the Dunes Review. The essay was included the section of the magazine about suicide awareness. I am grateful to be included with so many other fantastic writers, writing about such an important topic.
One of Nine
A red fox stands in a field of white snow, its paws sinking into the drift, its fur matted with melting flakes. The fox leans its head to one side, ears perking up. It is still for a moment, and then dashes across the snow, so quick it leaves only the faintest of prints. In the distance a gunshot rings out and echoes first to silence then to the ring of a telephone.
Adults have a voice for telling secrets they don’t want you to hear. It is a hushed voice but never quite a whisper. A voice that doesn’t want to be picked up by the wind, tossed wildly to the wrong set of ears. The tone lowers, to signify importance, to signify the words have weight.
So, when I heard my aunt use this voice, barely audible from the next room, I had to listen. It was not polite, I knew, but the house was small, and I was curious.
This is what I heard her say.
“You know my brother Jim…the one who killed himself.”
And there I had an answer to something I’d always wondered. My mother, whenever talking about her family, used the same phrase, rote at this point. “I’m one of nine.”
One of nine. Not so unusual, our family was Irish Catholic after all. But I had only ever counted eight. Eight gathered for pictures at family barbeques or hovering around the drink table at Christmas parties. The equation was always the same, one mother, two uncles, five aunts. One of eight.
But at the same time, I had heard of Jim. Usually in that same voice, hushed and heavy. Just a little something here or there, nothing very interesting.
“Let’s bring out Jim’s only China.”
“Do you remember Jim’s old motorcycle?”
“I spilled ice-cream everywhere. I could see Jim trying to stay calm.”
Little things about this man, my uncle, that never spun together into a clear picture. None of these were ever said around my grandmother. There were no pictures of him in her home, though there was a picture of everyone else. One of every other child and grandchild. In mine, I am so young I’m still blonde, holding a rake next to an oversized pile of leaves. Around the pictures rim animals dance in the snow, a reindeer, a polar bear, and a fox.
I still do not know what Jim looked like. I picture him with russet hair and golden eyes.
Through that hush, I had finally heard the reason the numbering was off. I suppose I had known he was dead. If he had been alive there would have been more to say.
I listened closer to the door, but I did not hear any more. Jim had been brought up again only in passing. She had only wanted to know his rank. Another addition to the tapestry. He had been a sailor.
I sat on this, for a day or two, not wanting to tell my aunt I had been spying. But needing to know more, I finally asked my mother point blank about her brother.
“He was like our protector,” she said. He had driven, first a motorcycle and then a station wagon. He was already to take a joy ride, even when his sibling spilled ice cream in the backseat. Another puzzle piece fallen into place.
Jim, like my other uncle, had been in the navy. He had been stationed in Japan and met a woman. They got married and were going to have a child. They lost the child before he was born. My mother told these facts to me, distantly. She was not cold about it, not uncaring. Instead she was trying to understand something many years ago.
“We got one last letter from him,” she told me. “He was holding a fox in the snow.” The picture has since been lost.
In the end, he hanged himself from a phone line. I can picture it clearly, boot prints leading the pole, other than that the snow untouched.
My mother didn’t know what it was, the miscarriage, the loneliness, or just the wrong chemicals swirling around his brain.
My grandmother arranged for his body to be sent back home, but never spoke of it. Suicide was a sin. So, if it came up, she said it was an accident, far away. They are buried together, my two grandparents and their son, in a Catholic cemetery. My grandmother lied about the cause of death.
Though I do not know what he looked like, I can see Jim, trudging through a frosted field, huge boot prints next to the merest hint of paws. A gun is slung over one shoulder as he walks toward the body. He will take the carcass, snap a picture, and send it home enclosed in an envelope.
But still I pray, though I am no longer Catholic, that the body will twitch, the ears will perk up, and the fox will rise and sprint off into the forest, out of the snow.
A red fox stands in a field of white snow, its paws sinking into the drift, its fur matted with melting flakes. The fox leans its head to one side, ears perking up. It is still for a moment, and then dashes across the snow, so quick it leaves only the faintest of prints. In the distance a gunshot rings out and echoes first to silence then to the ring of a telephone.
Adults have a voice for telling secrets they don’t want you to hear. It is a hushed voice but never quite a whisper. A voice that doesn’t want to be picked up by the wind, tossed wildly to the wrong set of ears. The tone lowers, to signify importance, to signify the words have weight.
So, when I heard my aunt use this voice, barely audible from the next room, I had to listen. It was not polite, I knew, but the house was small, and I was curious.
This is what I heard her say.
“You know my brother Jim…the one who killed himself.”
And there I had an answer to something I’d always wondered. My mother, whenever talking about her family, used the same phrase, rote at this point. “I’m one of nine.”
One of nine. Not so unusual, our family was Irish Catholic after all. But I had only ever counted eight. Eight gathered for pictures at family barbeques or hovering around the drink table at Christmas parties. The equation was always the same, one mother, two uncles, five aunts. One of eight.
But at the same time, I had heard of Jim. Usually in that same voice, hushed and heavy. Just a little something here or there, nothing very interesting.
“Let’s bring out Jim’s only China.”
“Do you remember Jim’s old motorcycle?”
“I spilled ice-cream everywhere. I could see Jim trying to stay calm.”
Little things about this man, my uncle, that never spun together into a clear picture. None of these were ever said around my grandmother. There were no pictures of him in her home, though there was a picture of everyone else. One of every other child and grandchild. In mine, I am so young I’m still blonde, holding a rake next to an oversized pile of leaves. Around the pictures rim animals dance in the snow, a reindeer, a polar bear, and a fox.
I still do not know what Jim looked like. I picture him with russet hair and golden eyes.
Through that hush, I had finally heard the reason the numbering was off. I suppose I had known he was dead. If he had been alive there would have been more to say.
I listened closer to the door, but I did not hear any more. Jim had been brought up again only in passing. She had only wanted to know his rank. Another addition to the tapestry. He had been a sailor.
I sat on this, for a day or two, not wanting to tell my aunt I had been spying. But needing to know more, I finally asked my mother point blank about her brother.
“He was like our protector,” she said. He had driven, first a motorcycle and then a station wagon. He was already to take a joy ride, even when his sibling spilled ice cream in the backseat. Another puzzle piece fallen into place.
Jim, like my other uncle, had been in the navy. He had been stationed in Japan and met a woman. They got married and were going to have a child. They lost the child before he was born. My mother told these facts to me, distantly. She was not cold about it, not uncaring. Instead she was trying to understand something many years ago.
“We got one last letter from him,” she told me. “He was holding a fox in the snow.” The picture has since been lost.
In the end, he hanged himself from a phone line. I can picture it clearly, boot prints leading the pole, other than that the snow untouched.
My mother didn’t know what it was, the miscarriage, the loneliness, or just the wrong chemicals swirling around his brain.
My grandmother arranged for his body to be sent back home, but never spoke of it. Suicide was a sin. So, if it came up, she said it was an accident, far away. They are buried together, my two grandparents and their son, in a Catholic cemetery. My grandmother lied about the cause of death.
Though I do not know what he looked like, I can see Jim, trudging through a frosted field, huge boot prints next to the merest hint of paws. A gun is slung over one shoulder as he walks toward the body. He will take the carcass, snap a picture, and send it home enclosed in an envelope.
But still I pray, though I am no longer Catholic, that the body will twitch, the ears will perk up, and the fox will rise and sprint off into the forest, out of the snow.