Breaking Shiva

Breaking Shiva by Anastasia Jill

Issue 2.15 | Fiction

Cover Art: L. Erickson

The first thing Kylie did was go through the woman’s fridge. Frosty green grapes rolled inside a plastic bag. And plums like frigid nipples sat upright on a porcelain plate. An assortment of Tupperware containers held various premade pastas. She imagined those noodles, soft and boiled on an adulterous tongue. Or perhaps al dente, coated in the sauce she saw sitting on the bottom shelf, sprinkled with fresh cheese and chased with an expensive glass of wine. No, no wine. Kylie noted there was no booze around. Instead, there were jugs of orange juice and sweating bottles of mineral water. A bowl of brown eggs guarded a crisp guard of lettuce, little knights protecting their wilting counterparts.

Kylie’s own fridge looked nothing like this, just beer cans, boxes of wine, and moldy pizza. She wallowed in pity—that’s what Shelby had said. Not just wallowed, but thrived in grief. Too needy for her strapping wife, who now found pleasure with Orlando’s answer to Martha Stewart. She tried not to be bitter. After all, she was the one who chose to break into the other woman’s house. She hoped to find a trace of said infidelity to . . . do what, exactly? She wasn’t sure, she realized, kneeling on the floor. Homemade jars of jam mocked her from the fridge’s bottom shelf. Their pink and purple hues, seeds suspended like embryos in the paste, perfect and perky in a way that didn’t seem real.

She shut the door.

None of this was real.

It couldn't be.

The living room was an echo of geriatric flair: antique end tables! Decades-old couches! Dusty curtains pulled straight from the rods of Grey Gardens! Everything was dust-coated but fancy, expensive, strong. Each decrepit piece of furniture cost more than anything Kylie owned. Library books with glossy covers and browning spines were stacked on the coffee table. Pictures with a jaundiced 90s sheen sat inside golden frames. A small shelf of rocks was flanked by candles and an assortment of cards celebrating a Bat Mitzvah. MAZEL TOV! Five silver corners stared at her, a menacing Star of David. Was David there? Did he know what she was doing?

Breaking into a stranger’s house was not holy or kosher.

Then again, Kylie reasoned, neither was cheating on your wife.

She took in the room around her. The chairs and tables were all sturdy, polished mahogany and feather-stuffed cushions and lace-stitched placemats at every spot. A porcelain statuette engulfed in coral, with glass bubble eyes and ruby painted lips next to a grandfather clock that worked as good as the day it was built. The only faults were the toys: catnip-stuffed fish and mice with feathered crowns, balls with jingly bells all strewn across the freshly steamed carpet. White, like liquid glue, and still not a speck of dirt.

Kylie ventured to the hallway. More beige and white and clean. Family pictures and signs that begged her to Live! Laugh! Love! The sterling sights made her mad, but there was nothing to break. Instead, she flicked the light on and off. On, off, on, off, on. It felt good to take something, even if it was just pennies and joules.

The single bathroom was bare but pristine—seafoam tile with white trim. Sink with a moist ring on the drain, like lipstick on a glass. Where the mirror should have been, a shadow of dust and grime. Surprising, given the state of the rest of the house. A renovation, perhaps. A new mirror on the way.

There were two bedrooms. The first held a bare twin bed and an old television set. The second was full, lived in.

Hers. 

The closet was stuffed like a mouth with crowded teeth: button-up sweaters, T-shirts from the nearby college, and pleated skirts with scrunched waists and patterns of flowers and birds. Worn black boots and dirty running sneakers. Dollar store flip flops that read “RELAX” on the dirty soles. A hamper of dirty laundry, a thong crumpled like a receipt on top. Kylie picked up the thong, held it in front of her face. The smell of urine and discharge made her nose feel grubby.

She finally found the cat, a loaf of pumpernickel bread dozing on top of the soft pink duvet. Despite its fervent rolling, there was no hair spread about. Even the blankets and pillows were arranged neatly on the bed, a perfect rectangular slat. And the dresser, devoid of dust, held a jewelry box, a bottle of perfume, a cardigan folded into a crisp little square and—

An urn.

Kylie hadn’t expected that.

Rather, a mahogany box with a wilted tree, leaves carved into hearts. Another Star of David was carved on the side. A bouquet of flowers in a vase and a cheap teddy bear sat on either side like dates, the ash box like a dash connecting the two. She thought of the bathroom mirror, the various displays—likely mirrors—covered in sheets.

Sitting Shiva.

The death was recent.

She opened the box and stared at the ashes. Off-white, almost pink. She expected them to be gray for some reason. The next steps felt as natural as revenge should: discarding the cremation certificate, opening the bag, sinking her fingers into the pulverized bone matter. Not quite like dirt but more like sand, coarse with fragments like seashell chunks. She dug through the ashes like a mound of dirt, feeling dirtier by the second until her hands were dredged in clay residue.

Her wife had been absent as of late, more so than normal. Shelby explained it away. “I have a friend whose mother just died.” Kylie thought of her wife bringing flowers to the younger woman, holding her close, indulging her tears. When Kylie’s own parents were killed, her wife scolded her, “I get depressed too. I don’t live like a goddamn slob.”

A surge of pain swept through Kylie, flash floods of boiled blood and wounded nerves. She tossed the vase against the wall, a cloud of ash following the glass. She tore the teddy bear and kicked the dresser twice, making it shake. The urn tumbled from the dresser’s edge, lid and container snapping in two. The ashes spread like baby powder in Kylie’s face, down her blouse, in her shoes.

She should have panicked. Instead, she dusted her clothes and hands clean. The pale carpet was now tinted. Chalky fingerprints decorated the dresser. Kylie should have cared. It was disturbing that she didn’t.

The ashes were hot on her fingers like pizza grease. She fantasized for a moment about staying as she was, getting caught like she’d hoped to catch Shelby and this other woman. This might not be her house. It could be anyone’s house. She broke in to find something—any concrete proof—and found nothing but ash.

She took one step back. Two. And then three. Footprints like chalky salmon followed her out of the bedroom and down the hall to the front door. The Star of David glared in the dying light from the open window. Kylie climbed back out, snaking around the front of the house. A flash of pink caught her eye from the nearby shrub.

Plastic flamingos stuck out from the flat lawn. Some pecked the grass. Others gaped at the sky. One lay flat and faded, unprotected and limp, its silver stakes nowhere to be seen. Kylie bent down, resurrecting it from the grass. It sank in her palms, feathers browning as she traced them. She caught her reflection in its glassy black eyes and stared. Hair, skin, and nose morphed into a demonic blob, a vain, jealous creature, pallid and sore.

She dropped the bird.

From the soil, it writhed in pain.

—

Anastasia Jill (they/she) is a queer writer living in Central Florida. They have been nominated for Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and several other honors. Their work has been featured or is upcoming with Poets.org, Sundog Lit, Flash Fiction Online, Contemporary Verse 2, Channel Magazine, and more.