Page 82 of Wild Life

Apparently, my face had been all over the news for months, and my missing case had become high profile as “The American Researcher Lost at Sea.” Wild lore had developed that I had been snagged by mermen and brought to a secret island where I’d been kept as a sex slave. People were waiting for the sex-slave bat girl to do an interview or release a book, but I never fed the sensationalistic media beast. I ended up holing up in my office most of the time to avoid people at all costs.

“That man is a quack.” The doctor who’d taken over my care when I arrived in Washington was completely incompetent. I had known it from the second I’d caught him Googling rabies symptoms after he had found out I was a chiropterologist and had been in contact with wild bats, even though I had relayed to him none had ever bitten me and I was up-to-date on my vaccinations. He’d assumed it was the cause of my mental state until blood panels—that I had demanded—had come back as proof of his stupidity.

Then he’d doped me up on a bunch of antipsychotics and anxiolytics, which had left me dazed and out of my body. After discharge, I had continued them for a while to numb the pain in my chest, but I hated how I felt on them, like I was moving through molasses, slow and tired. So, I had weaned myself off of them and hadn’t taken one in weeks. I wanted to wallow in my heartache, not diminish it.

It was evident that, yet again, Aunt Sherri disapproved of my self-unmedicating. “Have you been meeting with your therapist?”

“Nope. Haven’t had time.” I was too busy with research on white-nose syndrome to talk about my feelings or be gaslit for leaving my heart on a deserted island. Plus, the therapist was friends with my aunt, so there was no way I was confiding in her.

“Maris, you had a mental breakdown and suffered trauma.”

I slammed my laptop shut and shoved it into my bag. Those familiar phantom ants crawled on my skin, begging me to get away from this intervention. “We’re done here.” I hurried to the door to leave.

“Don’t walk away while I’m speaking to you.” She remained seated, as if expecting me to obey.

I turned to her. “Then respect my boundaries. I told you never to talk about the island.”

She approached me like I was some curiosity for her to study. “What happened to you there? You haven’t told me anything. Eli told me you were raving about how you had fallen in love with some beastly man who paraded you around some sick bats.”

I shut my lids, and my life on the island, from start to finish, played in fast-forward motion, stopping on the last time I had seen Aleki.My Aleki.

My heart ached as if I was going to die right on the spot.

“His name is Aleki. He isn’t a beast, he is a good man. One who took care of me when I needed him most. One who I fell in love with.” I glared at her. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“There’s no need to be condescending.” The woman was cold as ice. Her niece was clearly in pain, and she wouldn’t break her tough exterior tofeelwith me.

“For my entire life, you’ve been a pillar. When I was younger, I idolized you as this larger-than-life-being because you were so strong, especially at a time when I felt so small and vulnerable. I had somehow tricked myself into thinking that I should be like you.Work hard, fulfill my duty, and never waste time on human relationships.I learned to bargain with my body to seek the comfort and security I needed but had never received as a child. I pushed away anyone who dared to ask me for more because I was afraid they’d leave me first. A circle my parents started but you continued with your emotional neglect when you took responsibility of me.”

Silently, she swallowed the words I pressed upon her—everything I had wanted to say for far too long.

It had been acceptable for her generation to raise children by any means necessary, even if it denied them basic needs like expressing emotions. Nowadays, that was considered a form of abuse based on how negatively it could impact kids. I was proof of that.

Sure, I had made the choice to sleep around to search for safety and had lived to tell my tale. What if it had taken a turn? What if I slept with the wrong man? Ended up in a physically abusive relationship or with a sexually transmitted disease? I could’ve really harmed myself, and while I would’ve been partly responsible, Aunt Sherri and my parents would have had to share the responsibility, too.

“After I washed ashore, I was forced to deal with the emotional neglect of my childhood for the first time. To truly be solitary and not feed the addiction I had learned…sleeping with men for the comfort I was starving for. But Aleki understood my loneliness. I had been alone in a world filled with people, while he had been completely alone.

“The experience showed me that no matter where I lived, I couldn’t escape the hurt inside. I learned I didn’t need to use sex as a bandage. Aleki gave me everything I needed to heal those wounds without expecting anything in return. And together, I think we cured each other. We fell in love, and I left him out of obligation. Obligation that you taught me. That I had to place duty above human emotion, like I was a machine. That education and work were more important than my heart.”

Aunt Sherri’s bland exterior morphed and her cheeks reddened. It was like watching a black-and-white TV show converted to Technicolor for the first time.

She threw her hands up, finally losing control. “You think I wanted this? To raise a child when I never had any interest in having one of my own?”

Her words cut me deep, but I was already numb. I had always known that I’d never been wanted—not by the people who had made me and not by my guardian.

“Sometimes you have to put your personal regards aside and fulfill your duty. My sister died, and I had an obligation to her. If I hadn’t stepped in, I shudder to think on what street corner you’d have been on by now. I sacrificed a hell of a lot for you, and you’re ungrateful for all the good things you received because of it, like a roof over your head and an excellent education.”

“I didn’t receive a childhood. I’m so thankful that you did take me in, but you couldn’t give me what a kid grieving her parents needed, and it festered. You can’t expect a kid to understand sacrifice and emotional repression. I needed warmth and happiness, but you weren’t capable of giving me those things. And now that you see how that affected me, you expect me to continue to fulfill obligations and repress my emotions, instead of allowing me to mourn another death in my life. This time, I won’t let you. I’m not taking the medication. I want to feel it. I want to feel the heartache of the loss of the love of my life.”

Aunt Sherri sighed, and I was suddenly greatly aware of how tired she seemed.

“I don’t know what to say, Maris. I tried with you. I was never cut out to be a mother.”

I approached her, lowering my voice.

“I know. Some women aren’t, and that’s as valid as some women adoring motherhood. We were both dealt shitty deals when Mom and Dad died. We burdened each other unintentionally. Now, we’re older.” I pulled at my cheeks so the skin was taut, as if giving myself a face lift.

She chuckled. I had never heard her laugh, and it was a nice sound.

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