Thus, in a sudden strange twist of reason, she resolved to emulate Sasha, learn from her and hopefully channel her sophistication. First step: veganism. She did a quick library search on the lifestyle and diet. The basics were hard to swallow. No animal products. Period. Reba decided it might be worth it to be connected to a cause, to truly stand for something, but all of the animal kingdom seemed radical. So she chose cows. No yogurt or cheese, butter or beef. She’d save a cow with each declined bowl of ice cream—and did so for nearly three weeks.
Then Valentine’s Day arrived, and Sasha reminded her that dairy cows were sucked of their mother’s milk for the production of chocolate. Sasha and her boyfriend attended a PETA “Veggie Viagra” event, while Reba stayed home.
The sadness had returned stronger than ever that night, gnawing on her insides. The hungry wolf, her daddy had called it. In bleary binges, he’d described it to her and Deedee when they were girls: how it crept after him in the daylight shadows and shredded his nights to jagged fragments. Then he’d pour himself another amber glass, sip, smile, and playfully make them swear not to mention it to their momma. They’d agreed but kept their fingers crossed behind their backs. It didn’t matter either way. Momma brushed it off, “Nothing but boogeyman tales. You know better than to take anything he says seriously when he’s in one of his moods. Now go to bed and sweet dreams, my girls.”
After Daddy’s death, Reba discovered his medical records while helping to clean out his office. He’d had years of electroconvulsive treatments for severe depression, and up until the very week he died, he met each Thursday with a clinical psychiatrist at the Medical College of Virginia. Dr. Henry Friedel notated that predeployment, her daddy had suffered from chronic sadness, anxiety, and feelings of hopelessness; food binges followed by periods of no appetite; insomnia; inability to make decisions; unresolved guilt; extreme high-low mood swings; and an altered sense of reality. Reading his symptom list, she’d buckled: they could’ve been her own. Dr. Friedel further noted that all these preexisting symptoms were withheld from army recruiters and, thus, exacerbated by combat conditions.
Alongside the file was a volume of handwritten notes from her daddy’s sessions. As she was lifting it into the brown packing box, a page came loose from the metal prongs and slipped to the ground. Though it was his private business, Reba’s curiosity got the better of her and she’d read:
February 28, 1985
In addition to the patient’s previous complaints and aforementioned clinical treatment, Mr. Adams continues to suffer from insomnia due to night terrors and waking flashbacks related to his active duty service in the Vietnam War. In discussion, he continues to focus on the Sõn Tinh District woman and her teenage daughter whom he claims to have raped while under the influence of psychotropic agents, which he had obtained illegally from local Vietnamese. Mr. Adams states that he later stumbled upon a black wolf devouring the women’s ravaged bodies. (I have still not established if the wolf is a factual experience or more likely, simply represents the manifestation of his subconscious guilt.) Particular patient attention is focused on the company insignia carved on the victims’ naked chests. Mr. Adams cannot recall if these acts of mutilation were perpetrated by himself or his fellow soldiers, nor can he ascertain if he was instrumental in their deaths. However, the deliberation of this point remains the central focus of our discussions and fuels his anxiety, guilt, drastic mood swings, and resultant autophobia. He vacillates between rationalization and self-incrimination.
Today, Mr. Adams once again described in meticulous detail the order from his chain of command to attack and kill all Viet Cong within the small village. When asked how he felt about the assassination of civilian men, women, children, and elderly, Mr. Adams stated, “They said we had to wipe them out for good. We were following orders. I was trying to be a good soldier. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be home with my family.” When asked if rape was ordered by his chain of command, Mr. Adams became extremely emotional and erratic and required an IM dose of an anxiolytic. The session concluded early. I have prescribed him lorazepam and scheduled an additional consultation for Tuesday, March 5.
Reba stuffed the page back in the volume and immediately wished she could turn back time—snatch the page from the floor with closed eyes. She didn’t want to know her daddy’s secrets. Her own memories were dark enough. She’d packed the files down deep in the box and double-taped it shut with duct tape, hoping to seal in the past and bury Daddy’s wolf for good.
But alone in her dorm room that Valentine’s, she could hear its lonesome howl reverberating through her skin, so she went to the neon-lit campus minimart and bought a pint of milk and the biggest box of cherry bonbons on the shelf. “He’s a lucky guy,” the student cashier had remarked. Reba had nodded and smiled, “Yes, he is.” She went home and ate the whole box herself, comforted by row upon row of cherry chocolates and the thought that the cashier imagined she had someone wonderful to share them with. She drank the milk straight from the container. As a forbidden fruit, it tasted even sweeter.
Later, when the jug began to sour in their trashcan, Sasha asked what the smell was. “Soy milk,” Reba replied. “I think it was a bad batch of beans.” Sasha had studied her for a moment, then shrugged, “I had that happen once. Buy the organic kind next time. It’s always good.”
Just like that, it had begun. So trivial at first. Yet over a decade later, Reba was still lying. The problem was that her lies didn’t stay contained to a jug. They cultivated like mold and grew on various parts of her life, rotting the fruits of her labors.
But fabrication seemed the easiest path to reinvention. She could forget about her family and childhood: her daddy’s hysterical giddiness followed by deep spells of despondency; the smell of whiskey on his breath during nightly prayers; hiding in the closet, the lace of hems of church dresses tickling her nose; Daddy limp on the floor, rope burns purpling his neck; the sound of sirens and her momma’s tears; the anger and guilt she felt standing over his grave because he’d taken the easy road out, because he’d left them all alone.
She needn’t be that Reba. All it took was a story, and her family was as perfect as her momma pretended them to be. Daddy was a Vietnam hero, not the haunted man who put on a smile like a colorful tie until the knot started to choke.
She never understood why her momma made up so many excuses for him. If she’d acknowledged his illness to her daughters, maybe they could’ve helped him, saved him from hurting himself. Maybe the three of them could’ve loved him enough to make him well. But whenever Reba tried to place blame, she remembered when Daddy’s voice growled through the walls, her momma’s soft cries, shattered glasses, and the smell of pecan pancakes in the morning. Momma always made pecan pancakes the morning after one of Daddy’s bad nights. They covered up the stink of bourbon in the floorboards. Cloyingly sweet, she and Deedee would eat heaping piles, eager to please, as if they were their last meals. Momma pretended for the same reasons Reba did—it felt nice to believe the lies. The only thing Reba knew for certain was Momma loved Daddy, and love could make a person turn a blind eye to just about anything. It terrified Reba to be so handicapped.