When she left home at 17, pregnant, and holding only a bottle of whiskey,
the neighbors wondered what had gone wrong.
I think it was that her father was her first boyfriend.
When I see family pictures, I still get uncomfortable, his arm pressed against hers.
I only said it out loud once, to my cousin, her favorite son. We were six.
He slapped me hard across the face, open-handed, and then kissed me with tongue.
His name was also Edward, just like my grandfather.
She started drinking water exclusively from a thimble the day after he died.
It was all she would allow herself, even on Friday during Lent.
She didn’t start smoking unfiltered cigarettes in defiance of her parents.
He got her hooked after he fucked her on lunch break. According to my mother,
she never did anything but fill an extra fridge in her basement with tubs of
orange sherbet, cartons of Lucky Strikes, and white chocolate Whitman’s samplers.
We shared a cigarette at my grandmother’s funeral. Were you ever alone with him?
I do remember once he took out his teeth as a game, but I never spoke to him again.
She nodded. Good, she said, picking the tobacco off of the tip of her tongue.
