IN MY MIND, THE STORY is about the duck, but from the very start the duck has already been beheaded. I assume there was a whole duck before that, body-and-head, his face alive, maybe even smiling like the duck in João Gilberto’s song. But that image was never relayed to me. Of that, I am sure.

I carry in my head a duck with no head, therefore with no teeth, and the more I think about it the more I realize the story itself is toothless.

THE STORY goes roughly like this: It’s the early 1970s in Brazil. My parents are newlyweds. My father brings a live duck to the apartment to be killed and cooked. My mother slices a knife through the bird’s neck. But as she kills the duck, the duck does not die. Instead, its body goes jumping around the apartment, spilling blood all over from where its head should’ve been.

Or, that’s the story as my mother used to tell me—before she lost her memory, before she lost my trust.

I was born after the flop, so I grew up hearing her rendition of it. And yet, I don’t endorse a single word I just told you. I don’t even know what the point of the duck story is. It may be a tale about life and death. Or victims and villains. Or maybe it’s just a housekeeping lesson.

I hadn’t thought about the undead duck, or my undead mother, in a long time, when this story resurrected and flooded my head with new questions. Fifty years after the failed slaughter, I found out that each person in my family has a different version of it. Between the birth of the anecdote and now, a lot has changed, including the anecdote itself. My parents divorced. My two siblings got married and left the house. I got married too, and left to the United States. A household of five split into five households. A story multiplied into five stories.

In common, the versions have only the absence: poor thing always lacks a head. If I try to picture a whole bird, my memory pulls lots of files but none from the duck_story folder: I see a duck shaped like a number two in a children’s book, a duck at a park, a flock of ducks in a painting hanging over striped wallpaper in a bar that smells like stale cigarettes, and then back to João Gilberto’s duck.

I GO BACK TO JOÃO GILBERTO because he was the sound of bossa nova, and bossa nova loves a version. The genre is itself the daughter of samba and jazz: a negotiation between two rhythms, two versions of the African diaspora. It’s a genre that invites improvisation, so no song is played the same twice. Each interpreter makes it a whole different animal. And João Gilberto’s songs are a wild animal. His guitar keeps a steady groove, hypnotic, repetitive even, while his voice floats freely over it. He sings behind the beat; he sings before the beat; he sings out of time. Harmony and melody don’t overlap. He thrives on dissonance. And yet, take any bossa, and João’s version is the most popular. Take, for instance, a quirky tune called O Pato: he made it into a standard, and he made it so that I can’t say the word pato without humming it.

I particularly like this song because the duck smiles. It brings me great joy to picture a beak full of teeth. I’ve often resorted to this image in sleepless nights, thick childhood memories dripping in clots from the bedroom ceiling onto my chest, while I try to focus on something that has no real impact in my life, like Wouldn’t it be nice if ducks had teeth?

The pato song has versions in Portuguese and English.

In the English version, the duck is a dancer. He meets a goose and a swan, and the birds decide to shake some ass. It’s a song about samba, and samba can be footwork—samba is body. In Portuguese, the duck is a singer. He meets the goose, the swan, and also a mallard (who’s omitted from the gringo version). The birds decide to belt out some notes. It’s an ironic tune, since none of them make a pleasant sound. It’s a song about samba, and samba can be irony— samba is head, too. But to call it just head, or to call it just body, is to describe the genre in a legit but incomplete way. Dance or song—samba can be both. True samba is both.

I’m interested in the idea of versions that complement each other. As if, to access the full truth, I have to combine them. I feel like listening to both songs, back to back. I step away from my desk to cook lunch and I put them on.

However: I’m then reminded it’s not the duck who’s smiling. It’s the mallard. A mallard and a duck have similar faces but different-sounding names. The fact that I mixed up the labels says something about the kind of listener I am.

The pato song has versions in Portuguese, in English, and one that only exists in my head.

Whether a dancing duck or a singing duck: no teeth. Whether a gringo duck or a Brazilian duck: no teeth. The only version in which the duck smiles is the one I made up. So here we are. I’ve just confessed to having twisted the song, and now I’ll ask you to believe in my version of the beheaded duck story.

MY MOTHER USED TO SAY I’m deceitful. “Just like your father,” she said. She said that even before the divorce.

Deep in my head, I trust my version of the duck story. It’s likely a legit yet incomplete retelling of the incident. But in my body, I still store that word, deceitful, and second-guess myself. When I least expect it, the word comes back to life, in the form of a stiff neck and a pinch of guilt. I’m forty but I still hear my mother’s voice from when I was fourteen. I so wish my own voice could prevail over hers.

“QUIT PLAYING THE VICTIM,” my mother said.

MY FATHER TALKED ON THE OTHER SIDE of the line, while I fidgeted with my airpods box, opening and closing its lid: head on, head off, head on— My father was nostalgic that morning, a rare thing. He told me about his college days, the time he tutored rich kids in Latin and French to pay rent. Then he veered into a story about newlyweds, an apartment, a duck. “I’ve heard that one,” I cut him off, but he didn’t stop. As he spilled his memories on the phone, a completely new version of the duckicide emerged. I had never—I noticed then—heard it from someone other than my mother.

My father’s version went like this. He and my mother are newlyweds, and they live in an apartment. I’m there too, a little kid. And so is my father’s brother. My father has brought a live duck to be killed and cooked. He and my uncle slice a knife through the duck’s neck. But as they kill the duck, the duck does not die. Instead, its body goes jumping around the apartment, spilling blood all over from where its head should’ve been. My mother watches from a corner. This is the first—though not the only—time my father kills a duck.

(However: I can’t have been there. I was born sixteen years after my parents got married; after they’d already moved into a house.)

In my mother’s version of the story, the one I grew up listening to, she’s the one killing the duck. She and my father are newlyweds, and they live in an apartment. I’m not there, and it’s unclear who else is; my mother is the only one we see. My father has brought a live duck to be killed and cooked. My mother slices a knife through the duck’s neck. But as she kills the duck, the duck does not die. Instead, its body goes jumping around the apartment, spilling blood all over from where its head should’ve been. This is the first and only time my mother kills a duck.

(However: My father invariably did the cooking at home, and he loved a complicated kitchen task.)

The inconsistency between their accounts was small but important. Only a few elements misalign—the defining ones. For instance: whoever tells the story gets to kill the duck.

One of these versions had to be inaccurate. I decided to start a duckgate—to probe the story with my two siblings. They’re my senior by fifteen and twelve years, so they must’ve heard this tale many more times than I have.

I whatsapped my brother and gave him the general outline. Let him fill in the blanks. His answer came three hours later and it was vague, but like he was short on patience rather than memory.

His version swaps the apartment for a two-story house in the 1940s. A live duck has been brought to my mother’s childhood home to be killed and cooked. Someone, whose face we don’t see, slices a knife through the duck’s neck. But as they kill the duck, the duck does not die. Instead, its body goes jumping around the ancient house, spilling blood all over from where its head should’ve been. My brother’s rendition of it was roughly: “Yea I know this story, it happened when mom was little.” And then, “I didn’t live in an apartment as a kid.” And then, “I’m trying to put my kids to bed now.”

(However: he was born in an apartment.)

Next, I whatsapped my eldest sister. To my surprise, she didn’t have any recollection of the story. Not as a witness, not as a listener. Her head probably too full with her own divorce, which was unfolding just then. And was yielding stories as gross as the duck’s.

(How could she deal with our old mess, when she had fresh new mess to clean?)

“IT’S YOUR FATHER’S FAULT I’m so unhappy,” my mother said.

BOSSA NOVA IS, by definition, syncopated. Syncopation is, by definition, a misplacement. A note that falls not right on the beat, but just before it. Every element carefully placed so as to misalign. This is by design. In bossa nova, discordance is what holds the chords together.

IF EACH PERSON IN MY FAMILY WERE AN INSTRUMENT, playing their own version of the duck story, the band would sound fully dissonant.

But in the fifty years between the duckicide and the duckgate, there was no band. The instruments had never played together. I myself only listened to one version, over and over: the one Mom played. Or maybe it was the one I played. Who can say where the sounds inside my head come from?

MY VERSION OF THE DUCK STORY must be a mix of my imagination and my mother’s memory. As I heard it a thousand times, it took on a life of its own, years after the duck’s death.

In my mind, the apartment is starkly white, maybe waiting for the blood that is to come. (However: white is unlikely for my parents. I grew up in a house with patterned tile floors and pink toilets and green sinks.) A long corridor leads into a white room with a wash basin. My mother wears a checkered apron. (However: I’ve hardly seen her wear any apron. Or cook.) My mother cuts the duck’s neck without breaking it first, and that is what causes the zombie incident. When the headless duck runs for his life, she runs after it. Blood trails on the floor.

In my mind, the duck is stopped not by a collapsing nervous system, but by my mother’s agency. And here I run out of images. Did my mother grab the duck, throw a pillow at the duck, stretch her foot to make the duck trip up? Did she use her disappointed voice with the duck as she later so often, and so effectively, used with me? I know her disappointed voice can take over other bodies and infuse them with guilt. The duck, not wanting to be the villain in the story, resigned. (However: whatever.) In any case, the finally-quiet duck is missing from my imagination.

To compensate for the gaps, my version has an extra detail. One that always felt the most true about this anecdote. In my mind, Mom was alone in the apartment. Maybe so early on in the marriage, the kids hadn’t come yet. A day-after-the-honeymoon kind of story. Dad had brought home the duck, then left. Left the slaughtering to her. Which would be typical of him, savage him, who came from a poor and rural background. Also: typical of him, selfish him, always leaving the heaviest burdens to her. Had she paid attention to the red flags, she would’ve ended this marriage right then, on duck day, decades earlier than she actually did.

There’s a version of my father that I only know through my mother. In her accounts, my father was often a villain. Often, I heard her say about him: savage, selfish. Only I can’t be sure she used those words in her duck story, too.

“IT’S YOUR FAULT I’m so unhappy,” my mother said.

FUNNY THAT BOSSA NOVA is considered easy listening—smooth music that doesn’t demand attention. Funny because, to those who dare pay attention, the genre spills complexity all over. Take this old João Gilberto trick: when playing his guitar, he often left out the tonic, or the defining note in a chord. Meaning, he played the C chord without the C. Precisely because it’s the fundamental note, it is implied.

So, here’s bossa nova reminding us that the elements we leave out are sometimes the ones that define our stories.

As João Gilberto once told the NYT, “I refine and refine until I can get back to the simple truth.”

He believed in reaching the truth by omission. Yes, he thrived in dissonance.

MY FAMILY IS DISSONANT. My father says he killed the duck. My mother says she did it. My brother says someone killed a duck, though not our parents. My sister says nobody killed no duck. To me, my mother killed the duck and claimed she was tricked by my father. In every story the duck is the victim; except in mine, where the victim, according to my mother, is herself.

But isn’t every family dissonant—every family a symphony of legit yet incomplete tales?

Perhaps, I’m not obsessed with finding the most accurate version of the duck story. I’m obsessed with finding out that my mother’s version is inaccurate.

I defy Mom’s narrative: where she leaves gaps, I want to find bridges. I comply with Mom’s narrative: I accept, and repeat, that every story has a villain and a victim.

I’m not looking for the truth; I’m looking for a liar. I want to name the villain.

“I COULD’VE gotten a divorce earlier, but you were too young,” my mother said.

AFTER MY PARENTS DIVORCED, some thirty years post-duck, my father moved back to his birthplace and bought a small farm just outside the city. There, he made a clearing between the cashew trees and coconut palms, and built his house the way he wanted it: with a hammock always ready for a nap, a fridge full of beer, and plants and animals meant to become dinner. Among them, some pigs, some sheep, and twenty-two ducks.

I love to call and listen to his farm stories. Before, I didn’t call or pick up his calls for ten years. Because before that, Mom said he tried to steal our inheritance. Mom said he didn’t pay a single bill. Mom said he might be flirting with the cleaning lady. Mom said he might be having an affair. Mom said he might be buying other women trips to Europe. When Mom suggested I cut contact with Dad, I complied. Ten years was what it took me to notice all the howevers gushing from those stories. Those stories were ugly, but mostly they were implausible.

Now, I want to make up for the time lost. I want to create my own version of my father.

The other day, he was about to turn eighty. I called, wanting to know his birthday plans. “I’m putting down a pig and a lamb,” meaning he was having a barbecue. I don’t know many people who’ve killed their own meals, not even in the duck era: in 1970s Brazil there was the option to get pre-cut chicken from a chain supermarket and pay with a credit card. In all my thirty years living there, I’ve seen more apartments than beheaded ducks. I’ve seen more chicken nuggets and skyscrapers and mobile payments than I’ve seen livestock. But clearly I don’t know all the versions of my own country.

As my father told me about the barbecue, I remembered learning that the cry of a dying pig is one of the saddest sounds there are. I couldn’t picture my father, a gentleman with the sweetest eyes and his usual beret, inducing this sound. I asked him if he’d kill the pig himself.

“No, there’s a guy called Seu Zé, who comes and does the work. He leaves all the meat cleaned and cut for me.”

Seu Zé—I could almost see this guy. I never met someone at a networking event who said, “I kill pigs.” Yet, my imagination was quick to produce a pig killer for me. I imagined Seu Zé a small guy with leathery skin, who smiled easily but never wide. He looked 180 years old, but was just over fifty. I imagined Seu Zé not being scared of the pig’s cry, while not being oblivious to it either. Neither a victim nor a villain—just a man. I couldn’t imagine the pig’s cry.

I asked my father about the sound. He confirmed it’s sad, and said he faded to a far corner when Seu Zé arrived. As he told me this, his voice, too, faded into a sad, sad note. I couldn’t hear selfish or savage in that voice.

“What about the ducks, do you handle them yourself?” I asked. “No, I no longer kill; I now have them killed,” he said.

“Seu Zé, I suppose.”

“No, it’s someone else,” he said, without giving me the name of the duck killer. A detail I only noticed when we hung up. The stories in my family always have a victim, but they leave the villain open to interpretation.

“I COULD’VE gotten a PhD, but your father wanted us to move elsewhere,” my mother said.

IT TOOK ME A LOT of time and therapy, but I howevered my father out of the villain’s role. Now, I need to however myself out of all the blame my mother sliced through me.

THERE’S A GREAT IRONY in my attempt to sort out a memory about a duck. Whereas my father now has a lot of ducks, my mother no longer has a memory.
She has advanced-stage Alzheimer’s. She’s left with a handful of recollections, which she repeats with an astounding consistency, down to the smallest specifics. They’re mostly stories of how people hurt her. Or so I’ve been told, since I cut off contact after years of microabuses.

Still, curiosity kept pecking at me, so I called my sister: could she probe the duck story with Mom?

Mom’s answer was fuzzy. “Oh, I’m not from here. I don’t know anything about ducks.” It was an odd answer, but the dementia isn’t to blame. My mother was being true to character: she’s always had a witty way to evade a topic. Her sentences feel solid, but here and there she skips a note. We the audience nod along, as we don’t realize we’re half listening, half guessing.

Like João Gilberto, my mother thrives in dissonance. She avoids letting text and subtext align too neatly. Tom Jobim, the father of bossa nova, said of João’s style: “He was pulling the guitar in one way and singing the other way, which created a third thing that was profound.” My mother is great at creating a third thing in the listener’s mind and not taking responsibility for it.

Her reaction to the duck question, for instance, seems straightforward. But, to those who dare pay attention, it’s vague to the point of ambiguity: she may be either from out of town or from outer space. (I can’t think of many duckless places on this planet.) With her calm voice and strong statements, my mother never sounds confused, while often being confusing.

“I NEVER SAID that. Avemaria, I’d never say a thing like that,” my mother gasped, every time.

AFTER I HUNG UP with my sister, I stood in the middle of the kitchen shaking my head. Frustration flooded my brain. A cauliflower lay on the cutting board, waiting to be sliced and steamed. I punched my knife in to cut it in half. I knew Mom said, in her original version of the duck story, that she had to kill the bird. I also knew she said my father was selfish and savage. What I didn’t know, wasn’t sure, was if she said those things together.

The two halves of the cauliflower toppled over, each to one side. I plunged my knife in, dissecting the first half. Maybe Mom didn’t say the words outright, but implied them. Like this was such a fundamental truth about my father—selfish, savage—it went without saying. It was the tonic of her story: she’d married a villain.

I moved to the other half. But what if Mom neither said nor implied any of it? If she was evasive in her original version, like she was just now, I may have filled in the gaps with my own image of her: a woman who enjoys the role of victim so much, she’ll make anyone into a villain.

My knife worked in hypnotic thumps, finding and chopping the smaller stems. I sorted the florets. I pushed the bruised ones to a corner of the cutting board and left the fresh ones in the center. Bruised, fresh, fresh, bruised, bruised, fresh. Then, I tipped the board and, mindlessly, swept its whole surface with the neck of my knife. I scraped it all into the steamer basket. I couldn’t tell if Mom used the duck story to paint my father as selfish. Or if I used the duck story to paint my mother as self-absorbed. “Fuck,” I looked down. Inside the basket, bruised florets and fresh florets were jumbled again.

JOÃO GILBERTO IS NOT EASY TO FOLLOW, at least not to me. If I first know a version by any other interpreter, I can’t sing along to João, his phrasing throwing me off at every turn. I know that’s precisely the point of him, of bossa nova, of jazz, of music, of memory. I know, and it makes so much sense in his voice. However: not in my voice. I don’t thrive in dissonance.

I circle and circle the duck story, until I lose my head. I stand in a pool of dark red and I don’t know whose blood it is. Blood often signals an end, but not this one. This blood denies me closure; denies me what I most want. I want to erase the syncopation, to sanitize all the versions of the duck story, to make them all align—

with mine.