Spring 2001 Charles River Review: Miranda

I am obsessed with the deaths of small animals, ones I intentionally killed and others I mistakenly murdered and still grieve for. I'm not alone. All kids kill. It's how we learn about life.

"No, I never killed anything," my boyfriend said last night. But then he paused, eyes unblinking and suddenly distant.

"Well, I've never told anybody this."

I looked at him and waited.

"I think I was about eight at the time." He paused again and looked away. "I was supposed to take care of my sister's rabbits," he said slowly. "I forgot to feed them."

I didn't ask any questions.

"But, I really can't remember what happened after that," he said.

I know what will happen now. He will resent me one day for dredging up a memory that would have been better left repressed.

He and I are in this together now, so I told him about Miranda, a name that will never go to any of my unborn daughters. Her death is our family secret, a kind of tragic initiation. We carry her dark memory just beyond the everyday workings of our psyches that are layered with the experiences that make us who we are.

It happened when I was nine, about the time most of us first kill, and I suppose there is some small comfort that I was pretty much on schedule. Actually, Miranda probably wasn't the first thing I killed, but she was the most memorable. You know what came before her. By the time most of us reach grade school, we've carefully toted home a puffed baggy from some neighborhood fair, exhilarated by a fish and the feeling of life in our hands. But then, five days, a full week, or a couple of months later, the goldfish is found stiff and gray eyed. It's a lesson in premature death, common to so many kids. I've never known a single goldfish grown old.

My four-year-old nephew is whining for a pet. He's not exactly sure what kind he wants, but he knows what he doesn't want. "No more fish," he told my sister. "They always die." He is scarred by something grander than a goldfish. My sister Kathryn won the black-and-blue Japanese fighting fish at a church fair. She installed the exotic in a bowl that sat on the gray marble vanity of the master bathroom, where it floated elegantly, propelled by long trains of gossamer fins. It was an unearthly addition to the household, like a water-bound hybrid butterfly and angel.

It seemed to have a good life in the Chan household. The fishbowl was outfitted with the requisite plastic plants, a footbridge, and a fake miniature scuba diver, spear in hand, that had absolutely no visible effect on the fish. The fish was alone, so it didn't have to fend off predators or compete for the generously bestowed food. Brandon and his two-year-old sister, Kendall, named him Peter Rabbit, and attachment was inevitable.

For my sister, it was the perfect family pet. No walking. No curbing. No expensive vet bills. And no noise. How simple and convenient! They could just go away and leave the fish to its own happy floating. A nightlight was kept on, just to reassure Peter Rabbit they were coming back. And so, before a long weekend away, it never occurred to anyone that Peter Rabbit might need a sitter. My sister made sure the water was clean and put a little extra food in the bowl. It was a lethal mistake. Peter Rabbit had never learned the concept of restraint. As best as we can figure, he ate himself to death.

Tears followed, along with the dreaded and impossible explanation of death.

They conducted a funeral service around the master toilet. My sister just didn't count on Brandon's later refusal to use that same toilet, on grounds he couldn't "go pottie" in Peter Rabbit's new home.

I don't remember much about the summer Miranda died except that we were punished again by the unrelenting South Florida heat that slows down every living thing. We couldn't beat it or bear it, so in August, we fled. We rounded up the wagons, rather, packed up the station wagon, and drove North. We sat by seniority, with the two eldest kids getting windows and the two youngest alternating weary stints in the back hatch. We traded Miranda, our pet gerbil, among us. She came against my parents' wishes. They wanted us to leave her in the shower, with her food, water, and one of those ubiquitous treadmills for entertainment. But we insisted, and four children whining in chorus can get just about anything.

Our first stop was the Cape Canaveral Space Center. We left Miranda's cage in the car and spent the afternoon exploring in the darkness of simulated galaxies and air conditioning. We emerged squinting and stumbling. A blast of hot air hit our faces as we opened the car door. Right then we realized what we had done. Ahhhh! Miranda was stiff. Her gerbil eyes were closed and her mouth slightly open. We sprinkled her with water and tried to trickle a few drops into her mouth. No response. My father, a heart surgeon, placed Miranda in the palm of his hand and palpated her heart with his index finger, as four weeping, traumatized children surrounded him. As he worked, my mother mulled on about how horrible a death it must have been.

"You baked her," she said. And we wailed.

"She's dead," my father quietly concluded, and he shrouded her gerbil body in paper towels, before interring her in a Florida garbage can.

In the years that have passed, I know we have been individually hit with that painful memory. The triggers are random and unexpected. Most times, I suppose, each of us chooses to keep it to ourselves, rather than verbally resurrect our collective guilt. Our greatest fear and annoyance is that our mother will bring it up.

"Poor Miranda," she'll simply say, and now that phrase from her can get just about anything from her adult children. That hot summer day, we didn't learn to appreciate life. We became acquainted with our ability to destroy.

I think about Miranda now, as I wage battle against the mice that have used the hole behind the dishwasher as a private highway into my apartment. I decided, after much philosophical consideration, that we could not peacefully coexist, so I called in the big guns and supplemented their professional hunting with evil glue traps. The other night, I returned home to find one trap upside down and a foot away from its original spot.

I called my boyfriend. No answer. Typical. Of course he wouldn't be around in a life-and-death situation. I stood in the kitchen with my back up against the corner. After several minutes of slow, fearful breathing, I approached the trap. Crouching down, I extended my arm and gingerly grabbed a corner with a paper towel to flip it over. There, in the middle, was the crescent form of a mouse about the size of my thumb. It was barely alive. I suddenly wanted, in a perverse sort of reversal, to save it. I yanked open the kitchen drawer and grabbed a butter knife. I tried to sterilize it under hot water, thinking I could gently pry the mouse off the sticky surface. Of course, that was impossible.

I dropped the knife and remembered what I had asked of the exterminator, a kindly man who wept when telling me of having just put down his old dog. I lowered the glue trap into a plastic bag, closed my eyes, and whacked it hard against the door jam. A quick way to end the misery, but not my own. As I carried the tiny mouse to the garbage bins outside, I cried, and thought how much it looked like Miranda.