Who We Are Instead, page 4
After Mom’s death, Dad switched from long haul to short haul so he could be home on weeknights. Sometimes, I could see the long stretch of highway reflected in his eyes. I never asked if he missed the independence and loneliness of the road. I didn’t want to know.
I turn away from the window. My stomach rumbles. “We’re pretty much out of food.” I haven’t left the house yet to go to the grocery store. I haven’t wanted to leave him. That and Lux took Dad’s car on her great escape to who-knows-where. With the cupboards nearly bare, I’ve made toast and jam or oatmeal every day.
“Why don’t you run to the store?”
I don’t want to leave him alone, but the food will run out before the hospice nurse, Ellie Delmonte, returns. And I need to shop for a low-sodium diet per the doctor’s instructions.
Dad sees my hesitation. “I’m fine, Gingersnap. Look at me. I’m not gonna fall apart if you’re gone for an hour.”
I sigh. “How am I supposed to get there? Lux took your car.”
“Oh. I forgot.” He blinks a few times. “You could take the bulldog.”
Mom’s minivan, aka the bulldog. We loved Dad’s slang for the other vehicles on the road—school busses were cheese wagons, motorcycles were crotch rockets, tow trucks were dragon wagons, septic trucks were toilets on wheels, and a Mack truck was a bulldog. Lux, who always wanted a puppy, snagged the highly inaccurate nickname of bulldog for our greenish gray Honda Odyssey. It was Mom’s minivan, and it has sat in the garage for most of the last eight years. Like everything else of Mom’s, Dad refused to get rid of it. I could never drive it. “Yeah. I suppose I could,” I say slowly.
“My credit card is on top of my dresser, next to my wallet and keys.”
I watch him take his pills. The hitch in his throat as he swallows is barely visible through his rolls of fat. The thought of leaving, even for an hour, brings both guilt and relief. I should be here when it happens. I must be here. It’s my reason for being home in the first place. It’s my role, my duty to make things easier, to help him with the dying. Still, it terrifies me, the thought of entering the room one morning and finding him cold and rigid, his face locked in agony, the smell of death already infused in his pores.
Canned laughter floats from the TV. Dad’s watching old reruns of M*A*S*H. He sighs, closing his eyes as he sets the half empty glass of water back on the nightstand.
I gather the little plastic cups, crinkling them on the tray. “Nothing good on?”
“Is there ever?”
“I guess not. Is there anything else you’d like to do, Dad?” I don’t know my father well enough to know what he likes. He loved photography, once upon a time, but I haven’t seen a camera in his hands in years, maybe since he bought me my first SLR Nikon 35mm camera on my eighth birthday. Since Mom’s death, he’s either eating or watching TV or gone on a truck run. We’re like strangers, but intimate strangers who’ve survived a crash together. “You know, the hospice nurse said they have these volunteers who come in and spend time with you. They can talk, read, sing, even play the guitar. Would you like that?”
“Can’t you do all those things?”
I snort. “Not the guitar. You already know you don’t want me singing, unless you want your ears to start bleeding.”
He grins at me, a flash of his old self. “We don’t need anybody but us.”
“I thought you might say that. How about a book then?”
“I don’t really like to read. It’s hard on my eyes. But maybe you could read to me?”
“Oh. I guess I could.”
“I’ve been wanting to read this more.” He picks up the large book from the nightstand. A Bible.
My throat tightens. Mom used to read us the Bible around Christmas and Easter, and for a while when Gran died. It hadn’t done her any good. “What for?”
“There’s a lot of good stuff in here I didn’t know. It’s—comforting. I’ve been going to church, the one on the corner of Culver Street.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “For how long?”
“At least a year. There’s some real nice people over there. And I’ve been trying to read a few chapters every day. But now it’s hard for my eyes to focus on the words. You think you could read it to me?”
I sigh. What I wouldn’t give to be back at school, surrounded by all the things that make up my safe, predictable life, the routine of classes, hours in the dark room, dinners with Sarah or some of the other art majors. “I don’t know, Dad. Maybe later, after the store?”
“I wish Lux was here.”
“Well, me too, Dad,” I say, clipping the rise of anger at my sister’s name. I could use someone to help, to clean the filthy house, to keep me from feeling so totally and completely alone. “I hope she’s okay.”
“She’s okay.” He turns his head away from me. The TV blabbers in the background.
“Do you know where she is?” I ask carefully, watching my father’s face, the muscles ticking beneath the folds of skin.
“I don’t know exactly where she is. At a friend’s.”
“But—why is she there? Why isn’t she here with us?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me. She should be here. This is important.”
“She’s gone. She’ll be back.”
“Was she there—when you had the heart attack?” I chew on my lower lip, worrying a flag of loose skin. “Was she fighting with you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” With his face in profile, I can’t see his eyes clearly. I see only the flare of his nostrils, the tightening around his mouth.
“Did she do something? Is that why she’s gone?”
“It’s done. It’s over.”
“What did she do?”
“She didn’t do anything.”
“She screwed up again, didn’t she?”
“Lena, just leave it.”
But I can’t leave it. I can’t help myself. “How could she leave you? When you needed her most? What kind of person calls 911 and flees the scene?”
“That’s enough.”
I clench my jaw. “You could have died. You—”
“But I didn’t,” he says in a weary voice. “Now, please. I was thinking I’d like to look through some of those old photography books. Remember the ones I used to read to you?”
I take a breath, willing myself to calm down. Riling Dad up will only weaken him further. I speak as slowly and calmly as I can manage. “I think they’re still in the laundry room. I’ll get them.”
I walk downstairs to the laundry room. Something happened. I’m not sure what, exactly, but anything involving Lux tends to become an epic disaster. She did or said something terrible, I know it. Anger flares through my veins, sparking at the tips of my fingers.
I sink to my knees on the gray cement next to the cardboard boxes stacked in the opposite corner of the washing machine, furnace, and water softener. The boxes are labeled in my mother’s elegant script: Summer clothes—3T-5T, Toys, Dad’s tools, Photo albums—’04 to ’09, Lux’s Breyer horse collection.
My fingers tremble as I unstack the boxes, shove them aside. I’ve got to stay calm, compartmentalize my emotions. There’ll be plenty of time for anger later. I dig through the boxes, stopping when I see my name: Lena’s photos/negatives—2003 to 2009. I run my thumb along the black marker scrawl of my twelve-year-old hand. Beneath it is the box, Dad & Lena’s photo books. I yank the lid off and almost smile at the worn spines of books I haven’t seen in years: Time magazine’s A Year in Pictures, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. World’s Best Photography, Landscape Photography of Michigan, Photography magazine’s Faces and Places.
There’s a pile of ratty, half-finished crossword puzzle magazines heaped on a metal shelf beside the boxes. Maybe Dad will like those, too. I toss them on top of the other books.
Hefting the box in my arms, I go back upstairs, give Dad the books, and make us a quick breakfast using the last of the bread. I have to go to the store today. I have to drive my mother’s van. I don’t have a choice.
6
Lux
Snow spirals down, swift and furious, slapping the windshield of my car. I’ve got Lorde’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” cranked up loud on the radio. The heater is dialed as high as it will go. It’s Friday night, and me, Eden, and Simone are on our way to Jayda Washington-Clark’s party.
Eden sits up front with me, squeezing her diet Faygo orange pop between her legs while she fiddles with her phone. Simone’s in the back seat. She texts with one hand, balancing the French vanilla cappuccino we picked up at the gas station in the other.
I squint into the gloom, the gray sky turning a murky blue over the tops of the trees lining either side of the two-lane road. Our headlights glow like halos in the darkening night. I grip the steering wheel with Eden’s pink fingerless gloves. The silvery tank top and black mini are hers too, since I’m still crashing at her house. I left my own house with nothing but the clothes on my back. Luckily, I was wearing my jean jacket and the three-inch wedge heels that make me feel like I can pulverize whatever gets in my way. Which is how I feel right frickin’ now.
“What’s the agenda for tonight?” Simone asks, leaning forward between the front seats.
“What else?” I say, thumping the steering wheel. “A whole night of dancing our asses off with hot guys! Or in my case, one very specific hot guy.”
Eden giggles.
“Ugh. Spare me the details, please.” Simone pretty much hates the male species. Scratch that. She’s got a ton of guy friends, but she’s not interested in taking it to the next level. I’ve seen boatloads of guys hit on her. She’s never returned the favor. She always keeps a pink can of Mace in her purse, and she’s not afraid to use it. It’s right next to her inhaler.
Eden, on the other hand, is nearly as guy-crazy as I am. While I’m currently attached, Eden is free to play the wide-open field. But she’s too embarrassed to even talk to most of them.
“You think Dominic will be there?” Eden asks.
“You know he will be.” Dominic Harris is the high school quarterback for our lousy football team, the Wildcats. He’s your typical jock through and through. Eden’s been half in love with him since freshman year. “You actually going to talk to him this time, Skittles?”
Eden shrugs. Of course she won’t.
“Rumor has it he just broke up with Jayda,” Simone says, snapping her gum. “He’s a free agent.”
“This is your chance. Talk to him.”
Eden blushes. “Well, maybe. He’s just so . . . hot.”
“I’ve seen better,” Simone says.
“Seriously?” I say. “And who would that be?”
“His chin looks kind of like a butt. Which: meh.”
My phone rattles in the console’s plastic cup holder. A text.
“Want me to get that?” Eden asks, already reaching.
“No!” I know exactly who it is. I have zero desire to get reamed out by Lena right now. Or ever. I take a hard curve in the road. The wheels of the Honda Accord drift across the icy road.
“Lux, can you slow down please?” Eden grips the side door handle. “You’re going twenty over the speed limit.”
“So?” Jayda lives ten miles outside of Brokewater on a long-ass country road surrounded by deep forest and the occasional farmhouse. There are no streetlights, no stoplights. There are no other cars even on the road.
“But it’s snowing.”
I grin at Simone through the rearview mirror. Eden’s always so serious about everything. She needs to lighten up. Just a bit. This is southwest Michigan. Every year, we get pummeled with lake effect storms curtesy of Lake Michigan. We know how to deal with a little snow. I jerk the wheel and veer the car into the oncoming lane, then turn the wheel again and swerve back.
“Stop it!” Eden shrieks.
I step on the gas pedal and do it again.
A car appears over the curve of the hill ahead of us. I slide into his lane. The car honks and flashes his lights.
“Lux!” Eden pounds on my arm.
My pulse hammers against my neck. Adrenaline flushes through me and I’m alive, so alive. A hundred times better than last week, when I could barely drag myself off the floor for four damn days. But that’s over. Done and gone. Tonight, I’m free. Free to party. Free to chill the hell out. Free to be wholly, 150% alive. And what better way to feel alive than a good old-fashioned game of chicken?
The other car—some kind of boring beige Toyota—lays on the horn. He heads into the right lane, trying to avoid me. “Kiss my sweet ass!” I yell, sliding back over to match him.
He swings to the left. Only thirty yards away now.
“That’s enough!” Simone says in her throaty voice, leaning so far forward she must not be in her seatbelt.
But I’m in complete control. I have perfect depth perception. I can tick off the seconds until impact, grid the distance between the two cars, measure the space like a straight crease on an unfolded piece of paper. “Wuss!” I crow, cranking the wheel to block him again.
Simone grabs the wheel from me, jerking the car back into our lane. Only she overcorrects, and the Honda skids. A dull roaring fills my ears. Eden screams. My heart jackhammers against my ribs. We slide across the icy road, almost weightless. I slam on the brakes, but it’s too late.
The wheels can’t catch enough traction to stop. The backend of our car swivels, our headlights flashing across the oncoming car, the looming trees. We slip slide across the ice, plowing straight into a snowbank.
My body snaps forward, jerking against the seat belt. A burning pain slashes across my neck. Simone lets out an “oomph” sound as her body bangs into the back of my seat. Eden’s opened pop bottle splashes liquid all over her thighs.
The other car roars past us in a blare of horn and a spray of sleety snow.
For a second, we all just sit there, breathing hard.
“What the heck?” Eden yelps.
“Not cool, Lux.” Simone rubs her shoulder.
I whip around and glare at her. “We were winning. I was fine. Then you had to go and twist the wheel on me. That was not cool!”
“You could have killed us.” Eden’s face crumples.
“Sorry about your pants. But that was Simone. Not me.”
“You’re too much sometimes, Lux,” Simone says. Her eyes are watery, her breath wheezing in her chest.
“Gah! You guys are the wettest blankets I’ve ever seen. The epitome of party poopers. It’s called fun.”
“If you call being stuck all night in a snowdrift while we miss an epic party fun.” Eden reaches into the glovebox for a handful of old Taco Bell napkins and dabs at her wet jeans.
“We are not stuck. In fact, we can—”
Simone starts coughing, one hand fluttering at her throat, the other shoved in her purse, searching.
“You okay, Jellybean?” I ask, twisting around in my seat.
She nods breathlessly, grabs the inhaler and brings it to her mouth. We watch her suck in her asthma medication. After a minute, her breathing sounds normal again. Simone’s allergic to practically everything. She carries her inhaler around like an accessory. “Code red averted,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Can we please get out of here?”
I turn back to the front and check out the snowdrift our front wheels are currently buried in. The snow is mounded three feet high. Just beyond it, a line of thick, bristling pine trees. “We might have to do a bit of digging first.”
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
“It won’t take long, I’ve got the shovel in the back and—what’s that?”
Something dark moves just to the right of the snowbank. Just outside the glow of the headlights, stark trees stoop, huddled against the onslaught. I shove open the car door, a blast of frigid air striking my bare skin. I glance up at the sky. Thick clouds block the light of every star, the snow swarming down like confetti. Even the moon is only a dim shadow of itself. It feels like being cut off from the whole world, the entire universe.
“It’s just a trash bag,” Simone says. “Get in here and shut the door.”
She’s right. The trash bag is half buried in the gray, slushy snow at the edge of the road, black plastic flapping in the wind. But there’s something else. I clomp through the snow in my three-inch heels, sucking in my breath as I sink ankle-deep. Snowflakes flutter against my face, landing on my eyelashes, my cheeks, my nose.
“Lux!” Eden yells.
“I saw something move.”
“Whoop-de-freaking-do,” Simone says. “I’m freezing my ass off!”
“Hold on a sec.” It’s twilight now, making it hard to see the details of the bag. I bend down, balancing precariously, and reach inside.
I feel something small, furry, and stiff. I pull it out. My stomach drops.
“What is that?” Eden’s voice goes high, hysterical. “Is that what I think it is?”
I hold the little body in my hands. The yellow glow of the headlights reveals the spiky black and white fur, crusty with ice. Its eyes are closed. A kitten. Dead.
Tears collect at the corners of my eyes, hardening into crystals in my eyelashes. Who could do this? Who could stuff a litter of tiny, innocent creatures into a bag and leave them by the side of the road to freeze to death, like nothing, like trash? I imagine them alone, abandoned, waiting for their mother to come back to them, waiting for the rescue that will never come.
I can see them, confused and hungry, making sad little mewling sounds. Crawling together for warmth as the freezing temperature sucks the life out of them. Each one going slowly cold and stiff without warmth, without life. Suddenly I’m weeping, sobbing, gasping for breath. It hurts. It hurts so much, holding this tiny lifeless kitten in my hands.
Simone climbs out of the car. “This sucks, Lux. I get it. But we’ve got to go. Your lips are blue. Literally.”
“No. We can’t just—we can’t leave them. We have to bury them.”
Simone throws up her hands. “Where? How? The ground is frozen, in case you haven’t noticed.”
