The Barnes Family Reunion

Angel Leigh McCoy

“Hanging wouldn’t be so bad,” said my cousin, Wolf. “I read in a book that if your neck doesn’t break, the rope cuts off the blood to your brain. People think you die ‘cause you can’t breathe, but the truth is, you die ‘cause your brain can’t get any blood. You pass out pretty quick too, so it doesn’t hurt for long. Trouble is, it makes your face poochy and blue, and your tongue sticks out. So much for leavin’ a good-lookin’ corpse. Though, I suppose it’s better than blowing off your face with a shotgun.”

Wolf’s brother had used a shotgun. He was a mess.

My dad remarried. The wedding took place in our backyard, a year to the day after my mother went away, on my fifth birthday.

Every year, my stepmother hosted a family reunion on that date. She made coleslaw, potato salad, Jello salad, and fruit trays. She baked oatmeal-raisin cookies, sugar cookies and pies; and she decorated everything with “Happy Anniversary” banners. The invitations said, “It’s our anniversary,” and were signed, “Robert, Cindy and Jacob,” in my stepmother’s handwriting.

The entire Barnes family showed up to celebrate the anniversary of their wedding, of my birth, and of my real mother’s absence. No one ever mentioned my mom, not if I was in earshot, but they’d cast sympathetic looks at me while they talked behind their hands. Most of them thought she had run off.