The Unremarkable Heart

way she catalogued the black-clad rebels she saw in her office at school: drug addict, whore, probably pregnant within a year. She could already see the paperwork she’d have filled out when she called the young woman to her office and politely forced her withdrawal from classes.
    June had always dismissed these children as damaged, halfway between juvenile delinquents and adult perpetrators. Let the justice system deal with them sooner rather than later. She washed them out of her school the same way she washed dirt from her hands. Secretly, she thought of them as legacy children – not the sort you’d find at Harvard or Yale, but the kind of kids who walked in the footsteps of older drug-addled siblings, imprisoned fathers, alcoholic mothers.
    It was different when the errant child, the bad seed, sprang from your own loins. Every child had tantrums. That was how they learned to find limits. Every child made mistakes. That was how they learned to be better people. How many excuses had popped into June’s mind every time Grace was late for curfew or brought home a bad report? How many times did June overlook Grace’s lies and excuses?
    June’s grandmother was a woman given to axioms about apples and trees. When a child was caught lying or committing a crime, she would always say, ‘Blood will out.’
    Is that what happened to Grace? Had her bad blood finally caught up with her? It was certainly catching up with June now. She thought of the glob of red phlegm that she’d spat into the kitchen sink six months ago. She had ignored the episode, then the next and next, until the pain of breathing was so great that she finally made herself go to the doctor.
    So much of June’s life was marked in her memory by blood. A bloody nose at the age of seven courtesy of her cousin Beau, who’d pushed her too hard down the slide. Standing with her mother at the bathroom sink, age thirteen, learning how to wash out her underpants. The dark stain soaked into the cloth seat of the car whenshe’d had her first miscarriage. The clotting in the toilet every month that told her she’d failed, yet again, to make a child.
    Then, miraculously, the birth. Grace, bloodied and screaming. Later, there were bumped elbows and skinned knees. And then the final act, blood mingling with water, spilling over the side of the bathtub, turning the rug and tiles crimson. The faucet was still running, a slow trickle like syrup out of the jar. Grace was naked, soaking in cold, red water. Her arms were splayed out in mock crucifixion, her wrists sliced open, exposing sinew and flesh.
    Richard had found her. June was downstairs in her sewing room when she heard him knocking on Grace’s bedroom door to say good night. Grace was upset because her debate team had lost their bid at the regional finals. Debate club was the last bastion of Grace’s old life, the only indication that the black-clad child hunched at the dinner table still belonged to them.
    Richard was one of the debate team coaches, had been with the team since Grace had joined back in middle school. It was the perfect pursuit for two people who loved to argue. He’d been depressed about the loss too, and covered badly with a fake bravado as he knocked first softly, then firmly on her door.
    ‘All right, Gracie-gray. No more feeling sorry for ourselves. We’ll get through this.’ More loud knocking, then the floor creaking as he walked toward the bathroom. Again, the knocking, the calling out. Richard mumbled to himself, tried the bathroom door. June heard the hinges groan open, then heard Richard screaming.
    The sound was at once inhuman and brutally human, a noise that only comes from a mortal wounding. June had been so shocked by the sound that her hand hadslipped, the needle digging deep into the meat of her thumb. She hadn’t registered the pain until days later when she was picking out the dress Grace would be buried in. The bruise was dark, almost black, as if the tip of June’s thumb had been marked with an ink pen.
    The razor Grace used was a straight-edged blade, a relic from the shaving kit that had belonged to June’s father. She had forgotten all about it until she saw it lying on the floor just below her daughter’s lifeless hand. Grace didn’t leave a suicide note. There were no hidden diaries or journals blaming anyone or explaining why she had chosen this way out.
    The police wanted to know if Grace had been depressed lately. Had she done other drugs? Was she