“What?” I press.
“Mom, you don’t do that stuff forme,” she finally says.
My initial response is anger, a crackle of sudden, frustrated defiance. I flash back to long nights in the desert, hours spent hauling cold flesh from place to place until the sun comes up. I recall meeting every imaginable variety of ghoul, from desperate scientists at underfunded testing laboratories, to thrill-seeking creeps who seem a little too excited about cutting open a real body.
I remember avoiding the cops.
Most of all, I remember the smell.
I can never tell Marlo what really pays for this lifestyle, but for the briefest moment I actually want her to know—want her toappreciatethe sacrifices I’ve made.
Just as quickly as these emotions arrive, I push them away.
When it comes to fame in the digital age,fake it till you make itis the modern gospel. Every successful lifestylecreator started with some other source of income, posting luxury content well before they were earning enough money to attract much of anything. A few had wealthy family members; others toiled away in the background, working some other, less savory job whenever the cameras were off.
A collaborator of mine used to sell anonymous feet pics.
I just sell feet … and legs, and arms, and eyes.
The goal is, of course, to eventually makefamemy only gig, a self-sustaining ecosystem of celebrity. Every new comment, like, or follow is one step closer to that goal, but until then, the butcher keeps chopping.
Instead of anger, I come back at Marlo with a solemn statement of fact. “When I was growing up, I didn’t have anything like this,” I remind her. “Not a lot of pools in the group home.”
This seems to get my daughter’s attention, her eyes finally moving over to meet mine. She’s still mad, but at least I’ve made contact.
“What about when your parents came and got you?” she asks.
I hesitate. “They didn’t have a pool, either,” I finally say.
Marlo ponders this for a moment, then nods with a peculiar sort of satisfaction. “Okay.”
Now that I’ve broken through the hard shell, I center my thoughts in preparation. I want to imbue this next statement with as much weight as I possibly can, giving Marlo’s feelings a reverence and respect that was never given to mine. “I’m really, really sorry,” I tell her, meaning every word as I dredge them up from the absolute depths of my soul. “I should’vecome out here sooner. I know I’ve been working late, and I need to be more focused during family time.”
Marlo’s face softens. She stares at me for a moment, then scrunches her nose.
“Were you crying?” my daughter asks.
In the filing cabinet of my mind, a manila folder is unexpectedly knocked loose. Photos spill everywhere as I’m confronted with images from the past, the vicious loop of family trauma swinging back around and striking me with yet another haymaker over a decade later. I remember all the times I came home to find one—or both—of my parents justbawlingtheir eyes out with no rhyme or reason.
It was a household of constantly heightened emotions, the floor absolutely covered in eggshells.
“Nope,” I tell Marlo flatly. “You wanna show me whatever you were working on?”
Finally, a smile. Marlo climbs to her feet, goggles strapped to the top of her tiny head. She takes one of her small plastic nose clamps and places it over her bridge, then walks over to the pool’s cement edge.
I stand up and follow her. “You really need all that stuff to cover your eyes and plug your nose?” I ask.
“Duh, mom.”
“Just wondering.”
“You bought them,” she reminds me.
I stroll over to the opposite side of the pool, standing across from her now. “You don’t wanna get too used to all that gear, though,” I inform her, a gentle suggestion. “You know,sharksdon’t need goggles and nose plugs.”
“I’m not a shark,” she replies bluntly.
“You don’t wanna be a shark?”
