A Map of the Known World

by Lisa Ann Sandell

  “It’s really beautiful, Cor,” my mom says. “You look so grown up.” She pauses, and I swear she looks a little misty around the eyes. “I can hardly believe it,” she murmurs, then shakes herself. “Anyway, what about shoes?” She wipes her hands on a dish towel and comes closer to rub her fingers against the smooth silky material.

  “Got them, too,” I tell her, marveling at how normal our conversation is. How good it feels to be talking with her like this, peacefully. I reach into the bag and grab the shoe box, sliding it out, and opening it to show my mother the gold slingbacks with the tiny heels and slender straps. I slip them on and suddenly feel very grown-up.

  “You’ll look gorgeous, Cor,” my mom says softly. “So mature.”

  This is it, I decide. Things are going so well; it is time.

  “Hey, uh, Mom, could I ask you something?” I begin as I slide my feet out of the shoes.

  “Sure,” she responds distractedly. She is holding up one of the pumps.

  My heart pounds like a jackhammer. “So, my art teacher, Ms. Calico, told me that she thinks my work is really good,” I say hesitantly.

  “Really?” she replies. “That’s nice.”

  “Yeah, well, she thinks it’s really, really good; she said she thinks I have a lot of potential.” My mother is paying attention now, looking closely at me, wondering where this is leading. I continue, “And, um, she wants me to apply for this summer art school that has a mapmaking course.”

  “That sounds great, Cor. That is really nice of her. Is it at the high school?”

  “Well, no, that’s the thing,” I hedge. “It’s kind of—well, it’s in London. But all the expenses are covered, everything but airfare, and I figured that I could use some of the money that Grandma and Grandpa gave me, and—”

  “London?” my mother interrupts.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is she kidding? Who does she think she is?” my mom thunders. “Trying to send my kid so far away, off to some foreign country?” Her face is growing red, and the crease between her brows has deepened.

  All of the lightness and joy drains out of me, as quick as a flash of lightning, leaving me burnt, empty, and hard.

  “What is wrong with you?” I hiss. “Why can’t you let me do something fun, something that’s good for me?”

  “It’s not safe for a girl your age to travel so far by herself,” she hollers. “And I will not have you talking to me like this. Watch your tone, Cora!” she warns.

  “You don’t want anything good to happen to me. You just want to control me!” A momentum to my rage is building. “You thought you could control Nate, but you didn’t know the first thing about him.” My voice has grown cold and quiet. “You’re wrong about everything. Everything.” Now I feel I am losing control, and my chest burns and tears are pricking my eyes. I can’t stop. “You didn’t know Nate at all, and you rode him so hard; you pushed and pushed him. He was an artist, he made things, and I bet you didn’t even know that! You just yelled at him all the time, and now you’re doing the same to me!” I scream.

  “You little brat!” My mom has her hands on her hips and her face is twisted into the angriest grimace I have ever seen. Like some ferocious creature, her eyes flash. “You don’t know a thing, not one single thing about your brother! How dare you! How dare you speak to me this way, and about your brother, when you don’t know a single thing! Get out of my sight!” she rages. “Get out! I don’t want to see you!”

  “With pleasure!” I spin around and run up the stairs to my room, which is starting to feel like a well-trod racecourse. I fall onto my bed in a flood of blistering tears. I don’t know where all this anger, this vitriol comes from. You’d think that after Nate died, Mom and I would have grown closer, that we’d have come together. But, no, we’ve dug a moat between us, and it goes deeper every day.

  “I hate her!” I scream into my pillow. I kick and ball my hands into fists, punching the mattress. I keep shrieking and crying into the pillow, possessed by a fit of temper stronger than the fiercest wind or the highest wave. I weep and rage until I am empty. Hollow. “I hate her,” I whisper over and over. Yet, I know it’s not true. We’re both marked, ravaged by this thing that happened to us.

  It seems to run in the family. I remember a few months before Nate died, he and my parents had gotten into a screaming match, their voices flared like those little explosions that happen on the surface of the sun. A letter had arrived from the school saying that Nate had missed twenty-three days of school since the start of the semester, and my mom wanted to know what Nate was doing.

  “What do you think will happen to you once you’re kicked out of school? How are you going to live?” she’d shrieked shrilly. “Because I promise you, you will not be welcome in this house anymore.”

  “Good, I look forward to that day!” Nate had yelled back. “Then I won’t have to waste my time with so much useless crap!” As I spied on them from behind the railings at the top of the stairs, I saw tears streaming down Nate’s cheeks. Back then, I couldn’t imagine what my brother was doing during those twenty-three days of illicit freedom. Now, I would bet anything that he was in the barn, working.

  “You think you’re so smart,” my father had snarled.

  “No, Dad, but I know that school is a waste of time for me!” Nate had cried. Then he’d pushed past my parents and raced up the stairs, passing me without seeing me. I heard him stomping and rummaging around in his bedroom. I followed him, then stood in the doorway of his room.

  “Enjoy the show, Squirt?” Nate had asked, looking up at me with a scowl.

  I shook my head no. “Why didn’t you go to school, Nate?”

  “Sometimes the same things aren’t right for everybody, you know?” When I shook my head a second time, Nate closed his eyes and sighed. “Forget it. Just go to bed or something.”

  And later that night I’d heard Nate’s door open, his familiar stomping gait tamped down to be nearly silent; he’d headed down the hall toward my room, and then he’d knocked softly on my door.

  “Hey, Squirt, you up?” he’d whispered through the door.

  “Uh-huh,” I’d mumbled. My door opened, and Nate came in, dressed to go out.

  “I’ll be back. Don’t tell Mom and Dad, okay?”

  “Where are you going?” I’d asked.

  “Nowhere. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back before they wake up.” Then Nate had opened my window and pushed his legs, then his body, then his head through it. As he crouched on the roof, he stuck his head back inside the window. “Don’t worry about me, Squirt. And close the window behind me, okay?” Then he disappeared.

  I sigh and remember how afraid I’d felt. And how sad—sad for Nate, for our family, for myself. When there is no more poison left inside of me, I sit up and rub my eyes. My mother’s voice echoes in my head: You don’t know a thing, not one single thing about your brother!

  Who knew what? Did my parents know about his art? I was convinced after seeing the studio in the barn that I finally knew the real Nate. And now my mother has made me doubt it all over again. There is only one thing to do. I rise and move out into the hallway.

  I glance about furtively, and hear only the buzz of the television. I make my way down to Nate’s bedroom and stop in front of it. Gently, I push the door open and step inside, quickly, quietly shutting it behind me. I take a deep breath, then look around. Most everything seems the same, but there is an air of emptiness that leaves the room feeling cold and wrong. His bed is made, and his closet door is shut, all of the clothes and books and CDs and other assorted junk that had covered his floor and desk and chair and every available surface is gone. The place is too clean.

  But the dozens of posters still cover the walls. They’re posters of bands I’ve never listened to, movies I have never watched—bands and movies I am pretty sure most people have never heard of, but that look angry and alienating. I sit down on his bed, then flip onto my stomach, hanging my head over the edge, and pull up the
bedskirt to peer underneath. There is some sort of flat black case; it looks kind of like a skinny briefcase. I stretch my arm to try to slide it out from under the bed. Finally, I manage to pull it free and up onto the bed. Crossing my legs, I turn over the case and squeeze the clasp. Inside is a pile of papers tied together with a strip of black ribbon. I gasp. It is a collection of pencil sketches by my brother, and they are beautiful. At once delicate and strong, there are scenes of a mother and her son resting beneath a tree, a cat balancing on a fence post, a gang of little kids playing soccer in the street. So many tiny, ordinary pieces of life. I spread them out across the bedspread and study each one. Nate rendered these moments so intimately, so truthfully. The lines of his pencil brushed across the pages with sensitivity, with empathy. I can see that. Feel it.

  I imagine I can hear Nate’s raspy voice snarling, “Hey, Squirt, what do you think you’re doing in my room? Get lost and stay out of my stuff!”

  I shiver, then get up and approach his desk. The computer was moved into my room, and there is a square space slightly darker than the rest of the wood where it used to rest. Again, the emptiness, the disuse gnaws at me. I begin to pull at the drawers, tearing at the contents with trembling fingers. In the first two there are CDs—The Velvet Underground & Nico, The Who’s My Generation, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue—pens and rubber bands. In the next one is a battered copy of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and a small wooden box. I pull it out and slide the flat top open to reveal a set of drawing pencils and a gummy eraser. I place the box on top of the desk; I will adopt its contents. I pull open the last drawer and find it empty but for a single, narrow strip of white paper.

  I pick it up and flip it over to find a row of photographs, the kind you could take in the booth in the mall. And there are Nate and Julie, making faces and kissing and smiling so broadly, I guess they must have been laughing uncontrollably. I trace my fingernail over their faces. He looked so happy. So filled with laughter and unburdened by the darkness that seemed to come over him at home, that had driven him out of the house and into his car that night. So many nights.

  How could Julie look so cheerful in these photos, so in love with Nate? They dated for almost a year. What had brought them together in the first place? And why did Julie break up with him? Did she know about his art? Did she know him better than we did?

  Why didn’t Nate tell us—tell me about it? Did Mom and Dad give him such a hard time that he felt he had to hide it? And how could he be so intent on destruction when he was creating such amazing art all the while?

  I move toward his closet and begin to rifle through it, pushing the clothing aside. The smell of him is overpowering, sweet, like gingersnaps mixed with patchouli and deodorant. I can’t believe that after so many months, his scent still lingers.

  One summer Nate and I—we must have been eight and twelve or so—set off for the Wyatt cornfields, where we liked to play hide-and-seek. We headed over there on our bikes, and it was late in the afternoon, maybe early evening. The sun was well on its way to meeting the horizon in a ball of pink-and-crimson fire, the sky still light in that dusky half-glow, in which colors seem richer, subtler.

  A group of neighborhood kids had gathered in the fields, and Benji Tuckerson was “It.” He closed his eyes and counted to fifty as we spread out and burrowed beneath the cornstalks, which were fully grown, sprouting a jungle of leafy foliage to camouflage us. I waited, crouched beneath the corn at the most distant corner of the field. I waited and waited. I listened to the shrieking yelps of laughter as other kids were discovered. I felt smug, congratulating myself for finding such a good hiding spot. I heard the singing of crickets. Still, I waited. Twilight was descending, and the sky turned indigo; I could see the evening star. Soon, the cries of other kids faded, and my chest began to feel tight with panic. Where had everyone gone? I wondered. Why hadn’t Benji found me? Why hadn’t I heard the game called? I stood up, and my legs shook from kneeling for so long. I started walking, but shortly realized that I wasn’t moving toward the barn. I became disoriented and frightened. The cornfield went on for acres, and I couldn’t see in the gathering darkness any longer. Tears began to fall from my eyes, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I was so scared, I began to run. Suddenly, Nate was there.

  “Hey, Squirt! Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes scrunched with worry. “I’ve been looking for you forever.” I just shook my head, sobbing now, and Nate picked me up, even though I was too old and far too big to be picked up. Then he carried me out of the maze of corn. “It’s okay, I found you,” he said. I buried my head in his neck and cried and breathed in his scent, suddenly relishing how safe I felt. How loved.

  Now, I sink to the floor, holding up one of Nate’s T-shirts to my face, clasping it to my mouth and nose. It was almost five years ago when I first started to miss him, when he first went away from me, when he marched off to eighth grade, grew some hair on his lip, and became a giant jerk. When Nate stopped being the brother I had always known and worshipped, the brother who used to take me down to the creek, balanced on the handlebars of his bike. The brother I used to follow bravely, happily, anywhere.

  Squirt, which he had always called me with affection, became a weapon, inflicted with a spike of malice. “Get out of my way, Squirt,” came to be the best I could expect from him. That turned into “Get out of my way, loser.” Then just “Move.”

  When he died, I felt like someone had taken a softball and punched it through my stomach—my gut—because I knew then that the older brother I used to idolize would never, ever come back.

  I set the T-shirt down on the floor beside me and begin to dig deeper, moving boots and sneakers, which do not smell nice, out of the way. At the back is a cardboard tube. I draw the plastic cap from one end and crawl out of the closet. I hold the tube up to the light, peering into it, trying to see what its contents are. There are several papers rolled up inside it. Probably more posters, but I snake two fingers down into the tube, tapping on the other end, to try to shake them out, anyway.

  Finally, I manage to snag them, and slide them out slowly. The paper is grainy and rough, not poster material. With shaking fingers, I unroll them and let out a low whistle when I see the delicate blush of pigment. Subtle splashes of color and fine black lines. It is a series of watercolor paintings, of tree branches, birds, flowers. And Nate’s spidery signature marks the lower corner of each piece.

  Not in a million years, not in ten million years, would I ever have expected this. He was great. He could have been truly great.

  I gather all of the drawings and the watercolors and the wooden box of pencils in my arms and move to the door. The knob is warm and cool at once. I pause and look around the room. Could it be? Could he be here with me? Not since he died have I ever had the sense that he was nearby. I don’t know if I believe in heaven or any kind of afterlife. But I do know it makes me very sad to think Nate is just lying in the ground, being eaten by worms and maggots. But not sensing his presence makes me sad, too, and so usually I try not to think about it. Yet, with a doorknob feeling hot and cold at the same time, I start to wonder if maybe Nate is here and, if he’s here, maybe he’s glad I’ve found his artwork, glad his secret is finally out in the open, and that I can finally know who he really was.

  As I poke my head out into the hallway, I can hear my mom’s voice coming from the den. She is probably yelling at my dad about me. And my father is probably just sitting there, taking it. Silent. Absent.

  I smuggle all of Nate’s things into my room, hide the drawings and paintings under my bed, and tuck the pencil box away into one of my desk drawers. I pull out my history book and get ready to do the assigned reading before I go to bed. The Civil War. It used to feel like a civil war was being waged inside the walls of this house when Nate was alive. At first, my parents tried to cajole Nate into behaving. As he grew more reckless, more angry, more defiant, finally, they took to screaming at him, doing battle with him every chance they had. And
Nate almost seemed to relish in fighting back. Their sparring would usually drive me into my bedroom, to take cover under my covers. It was bloody. And it was awful.

  Now, my mother ceaselessly tries to engage my father, but he is unwilling to be drawn into a fight. The house is much quieter, but the silence is worse.

  I snap the book closed. I can’t concentrate. All I can think of is Nate and how angry at him and at my parents I am. How sick of all this anger I am. It’s poison. My body feels like it is humming; I can’t sit here any longer. For the second time tonight, I check to see if either of my parents is up and moving around the house. The hallway is silent and empty. Suddenly, I feel possessed by a wild recklessness. I don’t care if they do catch me. I am going out, and no one is going to stop me.

  I fling open the garage door and run outside. The air is cool and clean. I hop on my bike and start pedaling fast. Faster. I am soaring down the streets of Lincoln Grove, onto the county road, and letting my body lean into each curve, I make my way in the growing darkness to the creek. When I reach the spot, I throw my bicycle on the ground and sprint to the weeping willow tree. There, I fall down, hugging the tree’s broad trunk for support.

  “I can’t do this.” Sobs are filling my throat, filling the night. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t.”

  What a waste. What a terrible waste. He died and I never really got to know him. I never got to know what he did, what he could do. He will never get to show everybody what he could do. I don’t even think he knew what he could have done. My gut burns with the same fiery pain I felt on the night he died.

  A tempest is raging inside of me, outside of me, and I feel the sky might fall down, come crashing about my head. The ache inside of me keeps me rooted to the ground, to the base of the willow tree.