Far Away

by Lisa Graff

  “Where’s the mural?” I ask. Jax is behind me, scratch-scratch-scratching, but I don’t care if he’s freaking out. I’m freaking out. “In the picture . . .”

  It’s gone. The room is the same as the one in the photo, but the mural isn’t here. The wall is beige now, just like the other walls. The closet door is beige, too.

  Meg sinks onto the bed, toppling a pile of folded clothes. “Ashlynne doesn’t know about the mural?” First her jaw shakes, then it all turns to weeping—deep, uncontrollable sobs. It’s awful, watching her sob like that.

  I look away, to where the mural should be. “I thought—” I begin.

  When I catch sight of the look Grant shoots me then, I know I’m done talking. He is mad—but somehow when he sits down beside his wife, he’s nothing but gentle. “Megs,” he says. Just that. He puts one big arm around her.

  “CJ,” Jax whispers to me from across the room. I can tell he wants to leave, but I can’t. I don’t have anything to leave with.

  “There was an earthquake,” Meg finally squeezes out between sobs. “Will you tell Ashlynne that? A waste pipe in the ceiling burst. Back in August. We had to gut half this room, couldn’t save hardly anything. It was like”—she gulps down another sob, and Grant brings her in closer—“losing her all over again.”

  The only thing stopping me from crumbling to dust is knowing that if I give up now, that’s it. The last word I’ll ever hear from my mom is “Goodbye.”

  “But even the closet door . . . ?” I ask.

  Meg answers with another sob.

  “We’ve had enough,” Grant tells me. His voice is firm. “We don’t want what you’re selling. You can both leave now.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I say softly. Because I am. I’ve obviously done things all wrong. I know Spirit wouldn’t have wanted Meg and Grant to be so upset. I know I should probably go, like Grant asked.

  Only I can’t seem to make myself leave the room.

  I rub the spot on my wrist, where I found the octopus. Take heed. That’s what the message said. And “take heed” means to pay attention.

  So I look around—at Meg crying, at Grant comforting her, at poor Jax scratching in the doorway.

  I need to find a way to make this right.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. Because all I have to fix things is the truth. “I messed up. I . . .” Big gulp. Small words. “I lied.” I look down at my feet, but there’s no help there. I look back at Meg and Grant on the bed. “I don’t have the Gift. Ashlynne didn’t tell me anything at all. I’m sorry.” I have to say that part again, because Meg’s sobbing has grown even louder, and I want to make sure she hears. “I thought if I could see the mural, I could use it to pull back my mom. I thought the mural was her tether,” I explain. “If I don’t find something to pull her back, I’ll never talk to her again.” Meg’s face is wet with tears. Grant’s just looks like fire. I don’t dare look at Jax. “I thought Spirit was telling me to come here and—” But my voice breaks then, and I know I won’t say any more.

  “CJ?”

  When I turn to Jax in the doorway, he doesn’t look mad or disappointed. He looks like he feels sorry for me.

  “Come on,” he says softly. He gestures toward the door. “We’ll stop for pancakes or something before we head back.”

  I nod, because I don’t have any words to say back. But just as we’re heading out, another voice pipes up.

  “We could whip you up some pancakes here, if you’d like.”

  It’s Grant who says it. He still has his arm wrapped around Meg. I meet his eyes, surprised to find something forgiving in them.

  “You must miss your mom every day, huh?” he asks. And he doesn’t wait for any sort of response before he tells me, “I know how you feel.”

  * * *

  • • •

  “Here we go,” Grant says, flipping through a photo album. He’s being a lot friendlier now that he doesn’t think we’re trying to rob him. We’re back at the kitchen table—me, Grant, and Jax—and Meg is stirring up pancake batter at the counter. “I’m sure there are some of your mom in this one.” He pushes the album a little closer to me so I can see. It’s the old kind, with thin, filmy pockets for the photos to slide into. I glance at Jax to see if he wants to look, too, but he’s more interested in watching Meg stir.

  “There’s got to be a million photos in here,” I say, scanning the pages. I’ve seen lots of pictures of my mom before, but now that I know there are new ones, it’s like learning there’s a sequel to my favorite book, and everyone’s read it but me.

  This album has photos of everything—people, buildings, weird close-ups of flowers and shoes and a bowl of pretzels.

  “Ashlynne took her first picture when she was three years old.” Grant taps the edge of one photo gently to make it even with the others. “We’ve got all her albums in the den. Must be about a hundred of them.”

  “Closer to two hundred, I’d say,” Meg calls from the counter. “Everyone’s eating pancakes, right?”

  And when I look over to shout, “Yes, thanks!” that’s when I notice Jax is no longer sitting beside me. At some point, he got up, super quiet, and now he’s standing beside Meg at the counter. He watches her measure out milk for the batter.

  “Got any ginger?” he asks her. I think it’s the first thing he’s said to either of them since we walked in the door.

  Meg startles a bit when he says that, like she wasn’t totally sure Jax could talk. But she just raises one eyebrow and says, “Ginger in pancakes?”

  Jax nods. “Fresh ginger’s best, obviously, but ground is good, too, if you have it. Just a pinch. And don’t, um”—he reaches one hand out to the bowl, then jerks back like he’s afraid to touch anything—“don’t overmix the batter. You’re actually supposed to keep some lumps in there.”

  Meg smiles and pushes the whole bowl his way. “Work your magic,” she tells him.

  While Meg searches the spice rack for ginger, Jax stirs. “Vinegar’s a good trick, too,” he says. “I know it sounds weird, but you don’t taste it. It just makes the pancakes extra fluffy.” The way he taps the spatula just so on the edge of the bowl makes him look like some sort of pro.

  Huh.

  I turn back to the photo album.

  Ashlynne was a very pretty teenager. Not a twig-tiny teen, I see as I flip the pages, but chubbier and tall, with dark skin like Grant and braids that swoop around her head. She’s probably only around Jax’s age in these photos, but she seems like she’s ready to take on the world.

  Even as I’m thinking that, Grant smooths a hand over the plastic pocket and says, “God, she was such a kid.” He keeps his hand on the page. Won’t move it.

  I’m trying to think of something to say when Grant tells me, “I didn’t talk to her for a whole year before she died. She was . . . I didn’t like her boyfriend. Her fiancé. And I got mad, and she said some things, and . . .” He darts his eyes over to Meg at the counter, who’s putting flour back in the cupboard, pretending not to listen. Grant lifts his hand and turns the page. “Ah!” His voice is suddenly clear of sadness. “Your mother!”

  Sure enough, there’s a photo with my mom in it. I recognize her right away.

  My mom looks young in an old way, just like Ashlynne, but very different, too. Where Ashlynne’s hair is carefully braided, my mom’s is wild. She’s got dark curls like mine, but hers are long and frizzy. In this photo her hair is in a high ponytail on top of her head, the curls sprayed out like she’s a feather duster. Her clothes are wild, too—a too-short teal sundress with bright-red shorts underneath and canary-yellow sandals. None of it matches, but somehow it works. My mom has one arm around Ashlynne, and she’s kicking toward the camera, like she thinks she’s a ninja or something, who knows.

  She looks happy. They both look so happy.

  Grant and I flip through the page
s some more, looking at photos. There are lots of my mom. Laughing, shouting. She was apparently in at least one school play, which I didn’t know.

  “There’s a truckload more photos in the den,” Grant tells me. “You want to look?”

  “Sure,” I say, rising out of my seat. “Jax, you wanna come?”

  Jax is heating up a pan on the stove now. “Nah, I’m good,” he calls over his shoulder. Meg gives us a thumbs-up. I shrug and follow Grant.

  Grant flips on the lights as we enter the den, and I suck in my breath. There are cardboard boxes piled up against every wall—dozens and dozens of them. A few have their lids cut open but most are taped closed.

  “These aren’t all filled with photo albums, are they?” I ask. I thought Meg was kidding about the two hundred thing.

  “And these are just precollege,” Grant replies. “Vin kept all the later ones. That’s Ash’s boyfriend. Fiancé,” he corrects himself. Then he nods toward a row of boxes. “The albums are all labeled. Look for ‘high school.’”

  And we get to work.

  “You’re a lot like your mom, you know,” Grant says as we dig through boxes on opposite sides of the room. I wonder if I’ll get the chance to ask my mom about the school play. About Ashlynne. I wonder why Spirit sent me here, if it wasn’t for the mural.

  “Yeah?” I reply. I’m not surprised, exactly—Aunt Nic and my mom have both told me that before, how much we look alike—but it’s more real, somehow, when a stranger says it. “I have her hair, for sure.”

  “Right, but also . . . She was impetuous, your mother.”

  “Impetuous?”

  “Strong-willed. The kind of kid who’d steal a truck to drive two hours to lie to total strangers.”

  “I didn’t steal the truck,” I argue.

  Grant only snorts. “Just like your mom.” He pulls out an album, looks at the spine, then puts it on top of a stack on the floor. “I used to drive them around, sometimes.”

  I find one album labeled STREET SHOTS, then glance at the next one. ZOOS/MUSEUMS.

  “When I had someone in my limo finished early,” Grant goes on, “I’d pick up Ashlynne and some of her friends, drive them around in the back. They liked to go through drive-throughs or roll up at soccer games like little movie stars.” He chuckles. “Ashlynne had a lot of friends, but your mom stands out. Meg and I used to look at them, bouncing around like they owned the world, and think, ‘Those two are going places.’”

  I don’t know what it’s like to lose a daughter, but I know how it feels to miss someone, so my stomach goes sour again at the thought that I’m responsible for some of the sadness Grant’s feeling right now.

  “I’m really sorry for lying before,” I tell Grant again. I try to find the exact words for what I mean. “I didn’t think it would hurt anybody, I guess, to tell a lie about someone who had already died.”

  Grant is so quiet for so long that I figure he must be looking at an album. But when I glance over, he’s just staring into an empty box.

  “You okay?” I ask slowly.

  He shakes his head. “It can always hurt more, CJ.” That’s what he tells me.

  We’re quiet after that, just poking through the boxes. After a while the room is filled with the scent of fresh pancakes. Bacon, too. And something . . . cheesy, maybe?

  “Smells like your friend is a hell of a chef,” Grant says.

  “I guess,” I reply. “Jax was like a whole new person when he was cooking. Totally calm.”

  Grant turns to a new box. “That’s pretty common with people with anxiety. When they find something they’re good at, it’s easier to deal with the other stuff. That’s what it was with photography, for Ashlynne. People didn’t seem so scary to her, I think, when there was a lens between them and her.”

  I pull my head fully out of the box. “Jax has anxiety?” I ask Grant.

  “Doesn’t he?” Grant tugs at another album. “Seemed obvious to me. I’m not a doctor or anything, but that scratching reminded me of Ash, for sure. With her, it was hair. Once her mom found this bald patch . . .” He makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger, nearly the size of two quarters.

  It makes sense, I guess, about Jax. Only I wonder why he didn’t just tell me he has anxiety.

  I sit back on my heels, suddenly exhausted. I’ve only been through seven boxes, and there are about a million more. But Grant seems more energized than ever.

  “You want to hear my favorite story about your mom?” he asks as he dives into a new box.

  “Obviously,” I reply.

  “All right.” He examines the albums one by one. “It’s the dead of winter. I’m driving Ashlynne and Jennie June and some other girls around, and it’s maybe only eight o’clock but it’s dark outside, and the girls are just squealing in the back seat.” I watch Grant’s face as he talks, because I feel like this is a story I’m going to want to remember. “They must’ve been about eighth grade, not much older than you. Finally they tell me to stop in front of this one house, and all I gather is there’s some boy in there one of them has a crush on.”

  I can see it, as he tells the story. My mom, giggling over a boy. I smile.

  Grant adds another album to his pile. “So finally, I tell them, ‘Look, we can’t sit here all night, okay?’ But even as I’m saying that, your mom gets out and comes up and taps on my window.”

  I press my palms to the floor, soaking in every word.

  “So I roll the window down, and as soon as I do, your mom reaches in and blasts the horn, and I swear suddenly every house is lit up, everyone comes to their windows to see what’s going on. And I’m trying to figure out what to do, when the lady whose house we’re in front of comes storming down the driveway and starts shouting. ‘Is there a problem here?’ Something like that. This lady is mad. But your mom, she just stands her ground—like she’s so threatening, this little girl, and she says, ‘Yeah, there’s a problem. I asked your son to the school dance and he didn’t give me an answer yet!’” Grant hoots with laughter at the memory.

  I wait for him to finish, but he doesn’t. He thinks the story’s over.

  “Well?” I say at last.

  “Well, what?”

  “Did the boy go to the dance with my mom? What was his name? What did he look like? Was he nice? Did they date?” I need more.

  “I don’t remember,” Grant says, shaking his head. Then he sees my face and frowns. “That’s not the answer you wanted, is it?”

  “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I can ask her myself, when I figure out how.”

  “You really think this tether thing will work?” Grant says.

  “All I know is, I asked Spirit for help, and they’ve been trying to tell me something.” I pick up one more album, then another. Not what I want. “So as long as I don’t mess up again, it’ll work.”

  Grant makes his way through a whole new box before he asks, “Will you promise me something, CJ?” His voice is deep and quiet, like fog on a cold morning.

  “Yeah?”

  “If you do get another chance to talk to your mom? You take it. You talk to her every minute you can.”

  “I will,” I promise. Then I rip open the lid of the next box. The album on top is labeled HIGH SCHOOL. “I think I found one.”

  Grant rushes right over and plops down on the floor beside me, and as soon as I open the album, a photo slides out. Lands right in my lap.

  It’s my mom—I can tell that much immediately. She’s out of focus, but her curly hair gives her away. She’s standing in a park or a yard, and there’s this huge structure behind her—red brick with these strange bits of bent metal cropping out of it. They look like long, thin flower stems, but with bulby caps at the end.

  “I remember that thing,” Grant says, pulling the photo closer. “Oh, wow. That’s a trip.”

  “What is it?” I ask.<
br />
  “Well, it used to be a barbecue pit.” He passes back the photo. “Then, if I remember right, your mom decided the barbecue pit was too ugly to exist, so without even asking her parents she filled it up with cement and built this weird mushroom sculpture inside it, right in their backyard.” That’s what the bulby flowers are, I realize. Mushrooms. There were some in the mural, too, on top of the dune. “I only saw it once. It was bigger than it looks in this photo. I’m pretty sure she made the whole thing out of aluminum cans and old bottles. Man, that thing was rough.” He laughs.

  I rise up on my knees. Suddenly I understand why Spirit led me here. Why they dropped this photo literally in my lap.

  “Is it still there?” I ask. If anything will pull my mother back to Earth, it’s this sculpture. I know it. I can feel it. There’s no mistake this time. This is my mother’s tether. “The sculpture didn’t burn down, did it? With the rest of the house?”

  Grant tilts his head then, like he doesn’t understand the words I’m saying. “What do you mean, burn down?” he asks me. “Your mom’s house is right where it always was. I drove past last week.”

  Every inch of my skin is tingling when I get it. Of course. The mural isn’t here anymore because the pipes burst and ruined it.

  The pipes in the wall.

  Spirit’s been trying to send me more signs this whole time. There is much more they need to show me, I realize, than a closet door.

  SIX

  JAX WASN’T JOKING about the vinegar in the pancakes. They are definitely the fluffiest I’ve ever eaten. The coffee, however, remains undrinkable. Meg and Grant help me pick out some of the best photos of my mom so they can make copies to send me later. When we finally head out to the truck, around ten thirty, I’m half sad to leave.

  The other half of me, though, is itching to get going.

  “You’re quite the cook, young man,” Grant tells Jax, reaching through the truck window and across my lap to offer Jax a handshake. Then he focuses on me. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you to check out the house?”