Write My Name Across the Sky

by O'Neal, Barbara

  The words didn’t mean anything. I looked at her face, but it didn’t make sense. “No, she’s fine. I saw her this morning.”

  Mrs. Lachman nodded. “I know. She was fine this morning, but now she’s not. I need to take you home.”

  Asher stood beside me. “I’ll go with you.”

  I reached for his hand, and he gave it, and I stood in the hallway hearing words that made no sense. That very morning, my mother had been drinking coffee in the kitchen and smoking. I hated her smoking, hated it so much, the way it clung to the walls and my clothes, and I’d asked her a million times not to do it, and now, in middle school, I was very aware that people could smell it on me sometimes.

  When she asked for a hug that morning, I waved my hand in front of my nose. “No. You really need to stop smoking. It smells disgusting.”

  She leaned back, her foot on the chair. “Fine. I love you anyway,” she said.

  “Whatever.” I slung my pack on my shoulders and left. Behind me, my mother had called, “Have a great day, sweetheart!”

  When I got home with Asher and his mother, Willow was inconsolable, howling. She was the one who’d found Billie, overdosed on her bedroom floor, and called 911. Jorge, who was a young man then, had stayed with her until Mrs. Lachman arrived and Gloria could be called.

  Asher stayed with me through the whole crazy night. Social services wanted to take us at least overnight, but Mrs. Lachman wouldn’t let them. She called my father, who came over and stayed until Gloria arrived by air the next morning.

  What I remember is Willow, rocking on the floor, and Asher sitting down beside her, putting his arms around her and letting her cry. She cried and cried and cried and cried. I just kept thinking of Billie that very morning in the kitchen, giving me her little smile. Patient. Never minding.

  She loved me as I was. The recognition breaks my heart, coming so late.

  In the end, we all curled up on my bed, me and Asher and Willow. She slept between us, only nine to our much more mature thirteen. But over her head, Asher held my hand. “It’s okay, Sam,” he said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Of course it never could be, but it felt like it might be, if I could just reach out.

  Then and now. Reach out and let them in. Both of them.

  I just don’t know how. My mind keeps giving me ridiculous rom-com setups that are completely out of character, grand gestures of all kinds, but that’s just not me. I’m not a grand-gesture kind of person.

  I can only be myself.

  It takes some time to get myself dressed and together enough to go out, but I am stronger, and there’s no one here to stop me. I take a cab to Asher’s apartment and knock on the door, but he isn’t home.

  It’s only then that I realize I’ve left my phone behind.

  For a long moment, I wonder what I should do. It seems humiliating to wait, but I’ve come all this way. Like Gloria, I don’t want to run. I’m tired of running.

  Awkward as it may be, I sit down beside the door. To wait for him.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Willow

  Asher hid the paintings in the bookstore, of all places—a very good hiding place, since it’s a warren of aisles and dusty alcoves and so many books. It’s a bibliophile’s dearest dream, and I have trouble just walking through the aisles behind him, my eye caught by this or that.

  I take the paintings back to the apartment in my backpack, according to Gloria’s instructions, and Asher comes with me. We ride the train side by side, silently. “I don’t think I can stand for Sam to keep doing this to me,” I say at last. “I mean, I want to stay in New York, but if I have to deal with my sister all the time, I just don’t think I can face it.”

  “I get it,” is all he says. His fingers tangle and untangle in his lap.

  “You’ve put up with her shit forever, Asher. How did you do it?”

  He shrugs. “She’s never mean to me, well, mostly not. She saves that for you.”

  A wave of sadness crashes over me. “But why?”

  “Because she has to be mad at someone, and you will never leave her.”

  “I will leave her,” I say. “I’m tired of being her punching bag.”

  “You need to tell her that.”

  “I think I did.” The fight comes back to me in bits, the shouting, the splotchy color on her chest.

  “Then you have to give her room to figure it out.”

  “What if she never does?” I whisper.

  He smiles down at me, my big brother all my life. “She’s a pretty smart cookie.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Did you just say she’s a ‘smart cookie’?”

  He laughs. “I did.”

  Gloria has just come out of the shower when Asher and I arrive. Her hair is wet and slicked back from her face, and she’s cloaked in a dressing gown. I hug her hard. “Oh my God, I’m so glad to see you.” I breathe in her smell, the feel of her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “Well, for today. I’m not out of the woods by any means.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Leave that up to me.” She pats my arm. “Where’s Sam? I thought she’d be with you.”

  I feel a sudden hush over my nerves. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her. We had a big—”

  “Fight, I know. She told me.” G frowns.

  Asher comes out of her bedroom. “She left her phone behind.”

  “I think we have to find her.” I’m gutted by a hollow sensation, worry and anger and love all mixed together. “Shit. She does like to make it hard, doesn’t she?”

  His expression telegraphs the same emotions I’m feeling. We’re frozen for a moment.

  “What are you waiting for?” Gloria cries. “Go find her!”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Sam

  I’m bored waiting for Asher, leaning against his doorway. I pull my knees up to my chest and think of my dream of Brooklyn and boys and Asher cooking dinner.

  Footsteps on the stairs alert me, and I stand up, smoothing my clothes and hair. Asher emerges from the stairwell, and I can see his glasses are smudged, his hair completely wild. I want to smooth it down, offer him a cleaning cloth. “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi.” He pauses, a few feet away.

  “I came to—”

  “Let’s go inside.”

  His face is the most beautiful, most dear, most amazing face I have ever known, and I stare at him for a long moment. “I love you, Asher,” I say. “I mean, not love you like a brother but love you, love you. I’m in love with you.”

  I’m trying so hard not to cry, but it feels like all the tears I’ve never shed are pouring out of me all at once. Not noisy but copious, pouring and pouring. “I am so sorry for all the awful things I said to you after the wedding. I didn’t mean them. I just panicked.”

  He’s just standing there, listening, and I can’t figure out what his expression means.

  “That’s all,” I say, dashing water from my jaw. “I just wanted to tell you the truth. I don’t know how to make amends or some big gesture, but I had to tell you what I really feel, because this past year has been absolute hell. I miss you every single minute, every single day.” I swallow, take a breath, and let it go. “It’s like the world has no color without you in it.”

  He is still just standing there.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll go. I just wanted you to know.” I start to duck away, but he catches my arm.

  “Sam.”

  I look up, and he takes off his glasses, and his big dark eyes are as wet as mine, and he bends in and presses his forehead to mine. “The first time I saw you was in third grade. You came into the classroom with a chip on your shoulder and your hair all limp and sat down beside me, and I knew you would be my friend forever.”

  He kisses me, very, very gently. “All those years, I dreamed so many times of you confessing something like that to me, realizing that you loved me as much as I loved you. When we finally got together at Tina’s wedding, it w
as such fucking magic. It was a thousand times more powerful than I thought it would be, and I thought about it a lot, let me tell you.”

  His hands are in my hair. Tears are still pouring out of my eyes, so many so many so many, and they’re soaking the front of my shirt, but I don’t care.

  “I just wanted to revel in it a little bit. But . . .” He straightens. “I’m not going to put up with that evil tongue. I don’t want to feel that way, and even if it means we have to walk away forever, I’m willing to do it.”

  I reach for him. Touch his face, hold his neck. “I know. I really do. I do know I have to make amends and I have to change my behavior, so I promise I’ll find a therapist and maybe some anger management or something. I promise,” I say again and bow my head, and now it feels like all of me is going to break into pieces, as if all the moments I never acknowledged are rising through me, and I bend into Asher’s chest and let them come. “I’ve just been so angry for so long,” I manage.

  He holds me, kisses my hair. “I know, Sam. I know.”

  After a long time, we go inside, and he pours me a tall glass of water. As he offers it to me, he says, “I was wrong to desert you. It wasn’t fair to abandon you the way I did. I knew you were lonely, and I knew you were struggling, but all I could think about every time we were together was how much I wanted to be with you. I couldn’t figure out how to be okay with that.”

  I drink the water, cold and refreshing. “You did the right thing. You were right. I was never going to get it as long as you were in my corner.” I laugh a little. “As it is, it took a near-death experience.”

  He smiles, wipes a tear off my eye. “Let’s call your sister. She’s looking all over for you too.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Willow

  It’s late when Sam comes in. Asher called to let me know she was all right, and I could finally let down my guard a little. Gloria is asleep in the other room, assuring me that she is not going to be carted off to jail anytime soon, though I’m going to be very curious to see how she manages that.

  But she’s Gloria. G-L-O-R-I-A. She can do anything.

  I’m in the parlor, watching it rain and listening to my mother’s best album on the very good stereo. Asher called to let me know Sam was with him, and I thought I would come in here and work on the piece for the contest, but I have to admit it’s not going to be finished in time. Just . . . no way. I should have been spending twenty-six hours a day on it if I really meant to enter, but between Gloria’s crisis and Sam’s illness, I’ve barely had three or four.

  And I could not have made any other decision. There will be other contests.

  New albums. Just because one release was a flop doesn’t mean they all will be. This is what I’m meant to do, and I’ll keep going, no matter what.

  I have all of Billie’s music on digital, but there’s a depth of sound to an album that’s worth the effort of a turntable sometimes. I’m listening to her sing another song about a woman losing a game to a man or being tricked by life, and I’m thinking of Josiah’s rich baritone singing the words to her famous song, as an offering.

  As if my thoughts have called him, my phone buzzes, and I see it’s him. “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey.” That bass rumble moves through my body, pools in the region of my heart. “I just wondered if you’re doing all right. If you want to work on the music some more?”

  I run my thumbnail down the seam of the pillow. “I’m good. I’m not going to be able to finish in time for the contest, but I don’t think it matters. This connection, I mean”—I feel my face get weirdly hot—“the music we can make, is bigger than a contest.” I pause, and when he doesn’t say anything, I add, “I mean, if you’re interested.”

  “I am interested. Let’s see where we can take this thing.”

  “Yes.” In the hallway, the door slams, and I look over my shoulder. “I have to go.”

  “Maybe we can jam a little tomorrow evening? You can come here if you like.”

  “Absolutely. Let’s do it. See you tomorrow.”

  Sam comes in as I’m hanging up. She looks pale but happy. “Is it all right if I join you?”

  “I don’t know. That depends on whether you’re going to call me a bunch of names or not.”

  She looks down. “Not.”

  “Okay, come on in.”

  On the stereo, my mom sings about dancing even when the world doesn’t dance with you. Sam settles on the couch. “I’m sorry, Willow. I didn’t mean any of that.”

  I shake my head. “You don’t have to apologize. I know you didn’t mean it.”

  “I am sorry, though. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve done that, just taken my anger out on you.” She swallows. “You are one of the best people on the planet. You’re good and kind and real and authentically, completely yourself. I don’t know anyone else like you.”

  I blink, feeling my soul rise and expand and fill the room, dancing like the little mouse in Angelina Ballerina. “Wow. That is by far the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “I love you more than anybody in the world. You know that, right?”

  My mom’s voice, bluesy and rich, weaves between us, binding us together, and I cross the room and sit down beside her, flinging my arms around her shoulders. “You have to stop yelling at me like that. It takes me days to get over it, and I think really hard about every single thing you say.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do. You’re my big sister. I look up to you. You’re the smartest person on the planet, so if you say it, it must be true.”

  She laughs. “I wouldn’t go that far.” But she lifts her arms and hugs me back and whispers into my hair, “I am so sorry.”

  I close my eyes and breathe in her smell. “It’s okay.”

  Our mom’s voice winds around us, drifts through the room on waves of color, a dusky purple, a waft of white.

  “Asher told me about the paintings. What’s going to happen to Gloria?”

  “I guess we’re going to find out.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Gloria

  One week later

  Dani’s husband has been involved in much sketchier deals than this one. I meet him at his club at 7:00 a.m. It’s a dying-world kind of place, all heavy woods and velvets and hushed quiet, the realm of kings.

  Matthew sits by a long window that overlooks the park. He’s wearing a well-cut black suit with a crisp white shirt, his white hair combed back from a face that’s stern but still very good looking. He stands when I approach the table and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Hello, Gloria. You look remarkably well.”

  I sit, adjusting the gauzy white scarf I’ve draped over a turquoise linen dress with buttons up the front. Men can never resist the suggestion of all those buttons. “You mean, considering everything?”

  He cracks the smallest of smiles. “Indeed.”

  We order coffee and an assortment of fruit and small, elegant pastries. The coffee arrives in a silver pot, and I pour out of habit, offering sugar cubes. He takes two, and I pour the cream.

  “Remarkable that you remember,” he says.

  “I never forget such important things,” I say with a wry grin. He flew with us a great deal, sometimes twice a week, for years. As I stir my own coffee, I ask, “You’ve spoken to Balakrishna?”

  “I have. He agreed to meet us here to spare you the embarrassment of being connected to Margolis, but he does seem to have a favor to ask of you in return.”

  On the way home from the train, I thought about Balakrishna’s passion for art and his love for my sister’s work. I started to wonder if there might be a way to make a deal, to give him a way to solve his part of the case while granting me my freedom. When Sam found correlations in old cases, my lawyer and then Matthew helped me work out the details.

  I shrug. “I’m in no position to refuse, considering.”

  “You brought the key?”

  “Yes.” I reach in my bag and pull out a medium
-size manila envelope with a heavy clasp that holds a key to a safe-deposit box in a very large, and therefore anonymous, bank.

  “Good.” He raises his hand and waves at someone, and I stand as he does, both of us waiting for Balakrishna. To my surprise, he’s dressed in a pin-striped suit, dark charcoal and pale gray, paired with a light-pink shirt. His shoes are expensive, polished.

  “Well,” I say under my breath.

  “He doesn’t look like an FBI agent.”

  I step forward with an outstretched hand, and he takes it, shakes as if man to man. “Hello, Mr. Balakrishna,” I say.

  “Adhita, please,” he says and rounds the table to greet Matthew. “Hello.”

  “Please sit down.”

  We settle, and a silence falls around us. “Would you like coffee?” Matthew asks.

  “Certainly. Thank you.”

  I guess he will take it black, but he surprises me and adds three cubes and a substantial amount of cream. Seeing me watch, he inclines his head. “I grew up on masala chai, which is very sweet.”

  “Ah.”

  He takes a sip of coffee, then reaches for his briefcase and withdraws a sheaf of papers. “This is our written agreement,” he says, placing it in front of me. “It grants full immunity from all charges stemming from this case, in return for the recovery of the lost Renoir.”

  Matthew takes it and reads the clauses, flips up the page, reads more. “Very good.”

  I sign where I’m asked, then pick up the envelope and place it on top. “Thank you,” I say.

  He inclines his head, all professional bearing, but I notice his hands are trembling slightly as he places the materials back in his briefcase. “I won’t keep you,” he says. “It has been quite interesting to meet you, Ms. Rose.”

  “You too.” Relief is pouring through me.

  “If you should ever consider selling the painting of Billie Thorne, I humbly request that you ask me first. Is that possible?”

  Whatever I thought the request would be, it wasn’t this. “I will, but I doubt my nieces would ever let it go.”