CW: drugs/addiction

My cousin snorted a line in the bathroom at my aunt’s birthday party while we all cooed over the baby. He tells me this over Christmas dinner six months after the fact, hands me his vape under the table and laughs, apple cinnamon mist spurting from his nose. C’mon, you thought I could be sober for that?

He stabs his ham with a gilded fork, which is part of my mother’s good silver set—the same silver set that this same cousin climbed through the window for about three years ago when my dad forgot to fix the lock. Afterwards, everyone blamed each other for a while until they didn’t. 

He cuts into his ham while I bite down on the warm metal nozzle, stuffing granny smith cotton into my mouth before I almost admit that I used the bathroom after him: that I wiped the small mound of white powder off the whiter porcelain sink. That I turned on the faucet and made sure to dry my hands on the toilet paper, not on my aunt’s floral towels. I wanted to touch the baby—to poke her soft olive skin, to let her squeeze my thumb until her fingernails brightened like lightbulbs. 

In the living room, I found her shrieking and gurgling while my cousin blew raspberries into her belly. Her chubby infant rolls jiggled, almost like a lock.