by Jandy Nelson
I’m staggering down the sidewalk, sun blinding my eyes, careening from car to telephone pole, trying to get away from the truth, from the frenzy of emotions chasing me down. How could she have done this to Dad? To us? She’s an adulterer. She’s that girl! And not in the good way, not in the badass way! And then, something occurs to me. This is why, after she died, Noah kept telling me I didn’t understand how he was feeling, that I didn’t know Mom like he did. Now I get it. He was right. I had no idea who Mom was. He wasn’t being cruel. He wasn’t hogging her. He was protecting her. And Dad and me. He was protecting our family.
I hear quick frantic footsteps gaining on me. I pivot around, knowing they’re his. “You were protecting us? That’s why you lied?”
He reaches for me but doesn’t touch me. His hands are manic birds. “I don’t know why I did it, maybe I wanted to protect you and Dad or maybe I just didn’t want it to be this way. I didn’t want her to be this way.” His face is flushed, his dark eyes storming. “I knew she didn’t want me to lie about her life. She wanted me to tell the truth, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell the truth about anything.” He looks at me so apologetically. “That’s why I couldn’t be around you, Jude.” How did Noah and I ever get so locked up in secrets and lies? “It was so much easier just to blend in than to be me, to face . . .” He’s stopped talking, but there’s definitely more and I can tell he’s gearing up to say it. I’m seeing him again like I did in the studio, like a figure busting out of rock. It’s a jailbreak. “I think I lied because I didn’t want it to be my fault,” he says. “I saw them together that day. I followed her and I saw them. And that’s why she got in the car. That’s why.” He’s starting to cry. “It’s not Garcia’s fault. I want it to be his so it doesn’t have to be mine, but I know it’s mine.” He’s holding his head like he’s trying to keep it from exploding. “I told her I hated her before she left, Jude, right before she drove away. She was crying. She shouldn’t have been driving. I was so angry at her—”
I take him by the shoulders. “Noah.” My voice has returned. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t.” I repeat the words until I’m sure he’s heard them, believes them. “It wasn’t anyone’s. It just happened. This terrible thing happened to her. This terrible thing happened to us.”
And then it’s my turn. I’m being shoved forward, shoved right out of my skin with just how terrible—Mom ripped out of my life the very moment I needed her the most, the bottomless unconditional shielding sheltering love she had for me taken forever. I let myself feel the terrible, surrender to it finally instead of running from it, instead of telling myself it all belongs to Noah and not to me, instead of putting an index of fears and superstitions between me and it, instead of mummifying myself in layers of clothing to protect myself from it, and I’m falling forward with the force of two years of buried grief, the sorrow of ten thousand oceans finally breaking inside me—
I let it. I let my heart break.
And Noah is there, strong and sturdy, to catch me, to hold me through it, to make sure I’m safe.
• • •
We take a long winding way home through the woods, tears streaming down my face, words out of his mouth. Grandma was right: A broken heart is an open heart.
“So much was going on then,” Noah’s saying. “More even than—” He flicks his wrist in the direction of Guillermo’s studio. “Stuff with me.”
“And Brian?” I ask.
He looks at me. “Yeah.” This is the first time he’s admitted it. “Mom caught us . . .” How could so much have happened to both of us in one week, on one day?
“But Mom was okay with it, wasn’t she?” I ask.
“That’s just it. She was totally okay with it. One of the last things she said to me was how wrong it is to live a lie. How it’s my responsibility to be true to my heart. And then I go and turn her life into a lie.” He pauses. “And my own too.” He grabs a stick off the ground and breaks it in half. “And I totally ruined Brian’s life.” He breaks the stick into smaller and smaller pieces. There’s torment in his face, shame.
“No you didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever heard of Google?”
“I did that once, twice actually.”
“When?” Twice. OMCG, only Noah. He’s probably never been on a social network in his life.
He shrugs. “There wasn’t anything.”
“Well, there is now.”
His eyes widen but he doesn’t ask me what I know, so I don’t offer, figuring he wants to find out for himself. He’s increased his pace, though. Okay, he’s speed-walking now to The Oracle.
I stop. “Noah, I have something to tell you too.” He turns around and I start talking—it’s the only way. “I have a feeling after I tell you this, you’ll never speak to me again, so first I want to say how sorry I am. I should’ve told you ages ago, but I was too afraid I’d lose you forever if I did.” I look down. “I still love you the most. I always will.”
“What is it?” he says.
I am my brother’s keeper, I tell myself, and then I just say it. “You didn’t not get into CSA. What I mean is you didn’t apply. That day?” I take a breath and blow out the words from the darkest place in me: “I never mailed your application.”
He blinks. And blinks. And blinks some more. His face is blank and I don’t know what’s happening inside him, when all of a sudden he throws up his arms and jumps into the air and his face is awash in rip-roaring joy—no, ecstasy: This is ecstasy.
“Did you hear me right?”
“Yes!” he cries. Now he’s laughing wildly and I’m sure he’s lost all his buttons until out of his mouth flies, “I thought I sucked! I thought I sucked! For so long. I thought it was only Mom seeing them that made them any good.” He arches his neck back. “And then . . . I realized, it doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t?” I look for anger or hatred in his face, but there’s none. It’s like the betrayal hasn’t registered. He’s only elated.
“Come with me,” he says.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re on an abandoned construction site looking at a crumbling cement wall. On it, in a rage of colors, is . . . everything.
There’s NoahandJude spray-painted from behind, shoulder to shoulder, our hair braided together into a river of light and dark that wraps around the whole mural. There’s Brian in the sky opening up a suitcase full of stars. There’s Mom and Guillermo kissing into a tornado of color at The Wooden Bird. There’s Dad emerging from the ocean like a sun god and morphing into a body made of ashes. There’s me in my invisibility uniform blending into a wall. There’s Noah crouched in a tiny space inside his own body. There’s Mom’s car bursting into flames as it busts through the sky. There’s Heather and Noah riding a giraffe. There’s Noah and Brian climbing a ladder that goes on forever. There are buckets and buckets of light pouring over two shirtless boys kissing. There’s Noah swinging a baseball bat at Brian who shatters into pieces. There’s Noah and Dad under a big bright red umbrella waiting out a storm. There’s Noah and me walking along the path the sun makes on the ocean but in opposite directions. There’s Noah being held midair in the palm of a giant and that giant is Mom. There’s already me surrounded by Guillermo’s stone giants working on NoahandJude.
There is the world, remade.
I take out my phone and start snapping pictures. “So gorgeous, Noah. So, so gorgeous. And it will get you into CSA immediately! I’m giving up my spot for you. I’ve already sent an email to Sandy about it. We three have a meeting Wednesday morning. He’s going to die. It doesn’t even look like spray paint, I don’t know what it looks likes except incredible, so, so incredible—”
“Don’t.” He grabs my phone to stop me from taking any more pictures. “I don’t want your spot. I don’t want to go to CSA.”
“You don’t?”
He shakes his h
ead.
“Since when?”
“Since right this minute, I guess.”
“Noah?”
He kicks his foot into the ground. “It’s like I forgot how awesome it was before I cared if I was any good or good enough to get into some stupid art school. I mean, seriously, like who fucking cares?” The sun’s hitting his face. He looks clear, self-possessed, older, and for some reason, I think: We’re going to be okay. “It’s so not about that,” he continues. “It’s about magic.” He shakes his head. “How could I have forgotten that?” His smile’s as loopy as it was when he was drunk last night. I can’t believe he’s smiling at me like this. Why isn’t he furious with me? He goes on. “When I figured out you were going to Garcia’s”—Is that why he was going through my sketches that day?—“I knew everything was about to blow up, all my lies. And it’s like I blew up. Finally. I couldn’t just paint in my head anymore.” Aha! “I had to tell the truth out loud, somewhere, somehow. I had to let Mom know I heard her that day. I had to apologize to her, to Brian, to you and Dad, even to Garcia. I used the emergency money Dad left, bought all this spray paint, remembered this wall from running. I think I watched every video ever made on spray painting. First attempts have been painted over and over and—hey . . .” He tugs at my sleeve. “I’m not mad at you, Jude. I’m not going to be either.”
I can’t believe this. “Why? You should be. How can you not be?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m just not.”
He reaches for my hands, takes them in his. Our eyes meet and hold, and the world starts to fall away, time does, years rolling up like rugs, until everything that’s happened unhappens, and for a moment, it’s us again, more one than two.
“Wow,” Noah whispers. “IV Jude.”
“Yeah,” I say, the enchantment of him feeding my very cells. I feel a smile sweep across my face, remembering all the light showers, the dark showers, picking up rocks and finding spinning planets, days with thousands of pockets, grabbing moments like apples, hopping fences into forever.
“I forgot this,” I say, and remembering practically lifts me off my feet, lifts us both off our feet.
We. Are. Off. Our. Feet.
I look up. The air’s shimmering with light. The world is.
Or I’m imagining this. Of course I am.
“Feel that?” Noah says.
Mothers are the parachutes.
I did not imagine it.
For the record, woohoo! Not just art, but life—magic.
“Let’s go,” Noah says, and we’re running together into the woods like we used to, and I can see how he’ll draw it later, with the redwoods bowing, the flowers opening like houses for us to enter, the creek following behind us in winding wending color, our feet inches above the ground.
Or maybe he’ll do it like this: the forest a blur of green over our heads while we lie on our backs, playing Rochambeau.
He picks rock. I pick scissors.
I pick paper. He picks scissors.
He picks rock. I pick paper.
We give up, happily. It’s a new age.
Noah’s looking up at the sky. “I’m not mad, because I could’ve just as easily done it to you,” he says. “I did do it to you. Just in smaller ways. Over and over again. I knew how you were feeling at the museum all those weekends with Mom and me. I knew how left out you felt all the time. And I know how much I didn’t want Mom to see your sculptures. I made sure she didn’t. I was always afraid you were better than me and she’d realize.” He sighs. “We got all messed up. Both of us.”
“Still, CSA was your—”
He interrupts. “Sometimes it felt like there wasn’t enough of Mom to go around.”
This thought silences me and we’re quiet for a long time after that, breathing in the scent of eucalyptus, watching the leaves fluttering all around us. I think about how Mom told Noah it was his responsibility to be true to his heart. Neither of us has been. Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to know what that truth is?
“Does Heather know you’re gay?” I ask.
“Yeah, but no one else.”
I roll on my side to face him. “So can you believe how weird I’ve gotten and how normal you’ve gotten?”
“It’s astounding,” he says, which cracks us both up. “Except most of the time,” he adds, “I feel like I’m undercover.”
“Me too.” I pick up a stick, start digging with it. “Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people,” I say. “Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time.” Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.
He grins. “Each new self standing on the last one’s shoulders until we’re these wobbly people poles?”
I die of delight. “Yes, exactly! We’re all just wobbly people poles!”
The sun’s setting and the sky’s filling with pink wispy clouds. We should be getting home. Dad returns tonight. I’m about to say so when Noah speaks.
“That painting in the hallway of his studio. The one of the kiss, I just saw it for a second, but I think Mom made it.”
“You do? I didn’t know Mom painted.”
“Neither did I.”
Was that her secret? Another secret? “Like you,” I say, and something clicks into place, perfectly into place. Noah was Mom’s muse. I feel certain of it, and unbelievably without jealousy, understand it.
I flop onto my back again, dig my fingers into the loamy soil and imagine Mom making that incredible painting, wishing with her hands, being that in love. How can I be mad at her for that? How can I be mad at her for finding her split-apart and wanting to be with him? As Guillermo said, the heart doesn’t listen to reason. It doesn’t abide by laws or conventions or other people’s expectations either. At least her heart was full when she died. At least she was living her life, busting out of its seams, letting the horses gallop, before she had to leave.
Except, no.
Sorry.
How could it have been okay for her to break Dad’s heart like that? To break all the promises she made to him? To break up our family? Then again, how could it not be okay if she was being true to herself? Argh. It was right and wrong both. Love does as it undoes. It goes after, with equal tenacity: joy and heartbreak.
Her happiness was his unhappiness and that’s the unfair way it was.
But he still has life and time to fill it with more happiness.
“Noah, you have to tell Dad. Right away.”
“Tell Dad what?” And there is our footstep-less father looking down on us. “This is a sight for sore eyes, sore, tired, traveling eyes. I saw you two running into the woods hand in hand when I drove by in the cab. It was like a time warp.”
He joins us on the forest floor. I squeeze Noah’s hand.
“What is it, son? What do you need to tell me?” Dad asks, and my heart spills over with love.
• • •
Later that evening, I’m sitting in a chair as Noah and Dad move swiftly around the kitchen making dinner. They won’t let me help even though I’ve promised to retire the bible. Noah and I made a deal. He’ll stop jumping off cliffs if I stop bible-thumping and suspend all medical research, effective immediately. I’m going to make a giant-size, paper flying woman sculpture out of each and every bible passage. Grandma’s going to love it. It’s the first idea I put in that blank idea pad I’ve been carrying around since I started CSA. I’m going to call the piece: The History of Luck.
When Noah told Dad the truth about Mom and Guillermo hours ago in the forest, Dad simply said, “Okay, yes. That makes more sense.” He didn’t burst out of granite like Noah or have oceans break inside him like I did, but I can see that the storm in his face has q
uelled. He’s a man of science and the unsolvable problem is solved. Things finally make sense. And sense to Dad is everything.
Or so I thought.
“Kids, I’ve been thinking about something.” He looks up from the tomato he’s chopping. “How do you feel about moving? Not out of Lost Cove but to another house. Well, not to just any old house . . .” His smile is ridiculous. I have no idea what he’s going to say. “A houseboat.” I can’t decide what’s more amazing: the words coming out of Dad’s mouth or the expression on his face. He looks like the unicycle-riding super-kook. “I think we need an adventure. The three of us together.”
“You want us to live on a boat?” I ask.
“He wants us to live on an ark,” Noah answers, awe in his voice.
“I do!” Dad laughs. “That’s exactly right. I’ve always wanted to do this.” Really? News to me. Um, who is this man? “I just did some research and you will not believe what’s for sale down by the marina.” He goes to his briefcase and pulls out some pictures he must’ve printed from the Internet.
“Oh wow,” I say. This is no rowboat. It is an ark.
“An architect owned it previously,” Dad tells us. “Renovated the whole thing, did all the woodwork and stained glass herself. Incredible, isn’t it? Two stories, three bedrooms, two baths, great kitchen, skylights, wraparound decks on both floors. It’s a floating paradise.”
Noah and I must register the name of the floating paradise at the exact same moment, because we both blurt out, imitating Mom, “Embrace the mystery, Professor.”
The name of this houseboat is The Mystery.
“I know. Was hoping you wouldn’t catch that. And yes, if I weren’t me, if I were you, for instance, Jude, I’d be certain it was a sign.”
“It is a sign,” I say. “I’m in and I’m not even going to mention one of the thousand potential hazards of houseboat living that have flown into my head.”
“What kind of Noah would I be?” Noah says to Dad.
“It’s time,” Dad says, nodding at us.
Then, unbelievably, he puts on some jazz. The excitement in the room is palpable as Noah and Dad continue chopping and dicing. I can tell Noah’s painting in his head while Dad rhapsodizes about what it will be like to dive off the deck for a swim and what an inspiring place it would be to live if only anyone in the family had artistic inclinations.
