Page 32 of Earthly Ties

“And I was your daughter! I was six! You must have seen how alone I was if Angel was pulling you everywhere.” My voice is hoarse, barely intelligible over the sobs wracking my chest. “You must have seen how she treated me. How Angel treated me.” Turning on my heel, I rush toward the door, only to be yanked right back to Esther, my chest aching. “I need to leave. I have to get out.” But I can’t, because Esther is stubbornly glaring at Angel as he talks himself into a misogynistic corner. I stare at her helplessly. Why isn’t she leaving? Can’t she feel my panic?

“And now he’s all alone! Oh, my precious son! Not even his horrible sister is left to care for him!” Mom has worked herself into one of her hysterics, reminding herself of all the imagined insults and slights she believes me to be guilty of.

Dad doesn’t respond as he flickers out of sight. Only a pale line shows his retreat behind Angel’s shoulder, as my brother’s rant about women in general becomes pointed and sharp and hateful about me, in particular.

“Esther, please,” I beg. Grounding myself as much as I can, I bury my face in the crook of her shoulder, whispering against her tattoo. Pain be damned, staying here is worse. “We need to go. Please, get me out of here!”

“That’s it. We’re done.” To my relief, Esther stands. My jaw drops as she pours her seltzer over Angel’s head. Her face is hard as Angel sputters into shocked silence, the fizzing liquid pouring down his face. “Learn some respect before you speak Lucy’s name again.”

“Thank you,” I whisper over and over again, hovering on her heels as she tosses some cash on the table and gathers her things. Not just for leaving, as desperately needed as that is. But no one has ever stood up for me before. Not like that. Not against Angel or my mother. Esther didn’t even know me, not truly, and yet she is defending me against the people who hated me most. And all I can do is hover close to her and thank her, which she’ll never hear.

Esther pauses as she hefts her backpack off the floor. “Here,” she mutters, setting the small stack of photographs on the table. On top is the photo of me and Dad, holding an infant Angel. “Not that you deserve these, but they were with Lucy’s things.”

Mom swoops back to encircle Angel in her arms. Apparently, the burn of Life is worth holding her precious son. “See what that horrible woman did to you? You should have known any friend of Lucifer’s would treat you like this! No one will ever be good enough for you!”

Relief washes over me as I’m pulled along with Esther up the stairs, leaving Angel alone in this Hell. When I glance back, he stares at the photos on the table, stunned silent and dripping in seltzer with two ghosts fighting over his soul.

My brother has no idea how loved he is.

Fourteen

Esther’s cursor hovers over the link to the virtual breakout rooms for the Diversity in Philosophy conference. Even if she has to attend virtually instead of in person (and pay for her own way after securing the grant), I’m proud of her for ignoring Gilda and registering for the conference on her own.

“Which one would I go to if I were there?” she muses, hands wrapped around her ombre coffee mug. Since she’s attending from home, and the camera hits from the waist up, she wears only her desk chair button-down. Committed to comfort, my East. “Should I prioritize my personal interest, networking, or something I would never normally pick?”

“You’re overthinking it, East. Just pick one that sounds interesting.” I peer over her shoulder, careful not to burn myself. “I’d pick the one about intersectionality if I were you.”

She moves her mouse between a few options, finally selecting a breakout session on queer theory.

“Fine, don’t listen to me,” I tease, floating behind her so I can “attend” too. “So much for compromise in relationships.”

Not that I would know anything about that. Haunting Esther is the closest thing to a relationship I’ve ever had. The only people I knew who had a healthy relationship were the Bergers; Cash adored his wife and kids. He was only a decade older than me, but in many ways, he became a father figure to me. Or perhaps an older brother figure is more accurate.

Admittedly, my experience with both fathers and brothers was not great. Perhaps Cash and I had a totally normal professor-student relationship, and I was just so attention-starved that it felt like more than mere academic mentoring. My chest aches with the memory of that disastrous interaction with Angel a month ago. “Who knew family relationships could get worse after death? Makes me appreciate Cash even more,” I mutter to myself. I wish Cash was a ghost, so I could apologize for not saying goodbye. Though if he is (doubtful), he’s Tied to his wife.

When we first met, I never trusted anyone who was too nice, and Cash was so earnest and enthusiastic. It took the better part of a year for me to finally believe that he wasn’t trying to sleep with me. It was only after I met his wife, who stopped by during his office hours one day. She was even more suspiciously kind than Cash, gushing about how she’d heard so much about me, and she was so excited to finally meet me.

If his wife was anything like my mother, she would have felt threatened. But the other Dr. Berger wasn’t—or at least she hid it well if she was. The few times I met her, she treated me with unearned kindness and inexplicable warmth. Even when her husband took a painfully awkward, traumatized, and insecure young woman under his wing, and mentored me into a somewhat functional, semi-successful adult.

My mother would have mocked her to her face.

I hope his family is doing okay. I sent flowers for the funeral, empty gesture as it was, but I didn’t reach out again. Figuring out who I would be without Cash’s advice to guide me was hard enough to process, let alone navigating a relationship with his grieving widow and their young children. Yet another regret I wish I could change. She probably had support, but why couldn’t I have just called her to check in? Why was I so stubborn, so reluctant to be known? Especially by someone who probably saw me as a friend?

“Hello, I am Esther Voigt, philosophy professor, and proud lesbian,” Esther mutters to herself as she types an introduction and adds a question in the chat of the breakout session. “I am curious how institutional theory influences, or doesn’t influence, lived reality, particularly from an intersectional perspective.”

“See? I told you you should have picked the intersectionality session,” I tease. Honestly, I’m impressed she’s making the effort to network remotely—even if she’s not wearing pants. Networking was always hard for me. Hell, all social interactions were impossible.

Angel and I weren’t allowed to have friends growing up. He had some kids he was friendly with at school, but he knew better than to let Mom find out; the first time he excitedly told her he’d made a friend, we moved schools. Again.

I never ran into that problem myself. I didn’t talk much as an adult, but as a kid, I rarely made a sound after Dad left. No more questions, no more singing, no more laughing. It was safer that way. I would answer when the teacher called on me, but I never spoke when I didn’t have to. I couldn’t, even when I tried. The counselor at my first elementary school called it selective mutism and suggested therapy. Mom put me in a different school instead and made a point to tell new teachers how painfully shy I was. I’m sure if I had a mother who wanted to hear me, I would have talked more.

Strange then, how comfortable I was teaching in a lecture hall in front of fifty students, or presenting at a conference. If talking to one person was hard, why was it so easy to talk to an audience? But there are rules to giving a lecture. Classroom etiquette is easier to navigate than small talk. I knew beforehand what I was supposed to say. I chose when I would be interrupted to answer a question, and the questions were always about the topic, never about me.

Esther’s phone rings. She mutes her laptop and turns off her camera, before she answers it. “This is Dr. Voigt.”

Must be Gilda calling. During my new-hire orientation, Gilda gave me strong “suggestions” on how to professionally answer the phone—no questions or weak greetings, and let the caller know what honorific to use. Apparently, I’d annoyed her whenever she called me during the hiring process. She must have done the same with Esther; Esther only ever refers to herself as Dr. Voigt when she’s talking to Gilda.

“Hello, Dr. Frederick. How are y—okay. I see. So, there’s—okay. A glitch with the registrar? Understood, but—Yes, I’d be happy to teach Lucy’s classes again this semester in that case.” Esther’s eyes roll so hard that her head tips back. “Oh, only two intro courses, plus a mid-level? Does that also include the Philosophy of Death? It does? How many—twelve students? Okay, that’s fine.”