Kit is a bisexual mom with a good husband, a wry sense of humor, a mild porn addiction and a dead sister. She's devoted to her three-and-a-half-year-old baby girl. Whisking Gilda from one playground to another, giving her constant attention at home, she's hard-pressed to think of anything but Julie, who died while Gilda was still in her womb.
"By the time I lost her, drugs and risky sex – my kind of mourning – were off the table. By then I had an accidental baby on the way and a sweet, trapped husband, his once-promising life hitched to mine."
Kit and Julie grew up with a very permissive mom. When they were headed out the door, she never asked where they were going or what they were planning to do. Instead of warning them to be careful, she'd say things like 'have fun but don't get too attached.'
Coming home from a mega-church during their mom's Jesus period, they stopped for gas at a truck stop. Every man in the place ogled the teenage girls when they went inside getting snacks. Kit remembers being creeped out and when they return to the car their mom made it even worse. "She said we should try to remember that this kind of attention was a good thing, that the men who wanted to fuck us could keep us safe from the men that wanted to hurt us."
A few years older than Julie, Kit tried, but feels like she failed, to keep her sister safe. It was Julie's natural talent that prompted them to start a band called 'You Are the Universe' with their friend Yes. Drugs were everywhere and it was so easy for Kit to try anything and everything 'without getting attached', she didn't realize that Julie was sinking into addiction.
While Big Large, a young guy who was very protective of them, was shepherding them through a 'magic cactus' trip, they became mesmerized by the big pink rug in the middle of his living room. Kit remembers the incredibly deep connection she felt with Julie. "The four of us are together on the rug, but only Julie and I are in the rug."
Every week since Gilda was born, Kit has gone to see her 'sliding fee scale therapist' to work through her grief. Occasionally, she slips in some truth like "I feel Julie's death in my shoulders", but mostly she lies to him.
Her best friend, Pete takes her on what is supposed to be a cathartic trip to Montana. He says it's to help him get over his break-up with his boyfriend, but she knows it's mostly about his concerns about her extended grief. "Pete's river has disturbed me, kicked up the muck at my dark bottom. My good-enough therapist says grief is multi-faceted. Crying is therapeutic, but I almost never do it."
Kimberly King Parsons writes Kit's soul-searching narrative with a very original voice. Her metaphors and descriptions jump off the page.
Kit streams porn on her cell whenever she has a moment alone, men with women, women with women, threesomes are her favorite. She loves hot music "with a pulse so indelible and filthy it stays with you forever." One of her favorite musicians "is a woman who is not exactly subtle. She squats at the intersection of sexy and scary."
You cannot help but yearn for Kit's redemption from grief, hoping she'll do what Julie said she would, go on "living her lovely life." As for the prescient perception of death, I cannot give that away, except to say that it involves the big pink rug. But I promise you, the last chapter will blow you away.
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