The Confusion of Laurel Graham

by Adrienne Kisner

  After four bird walks, that afternoon as I was leaving I found someone had slashed my fucking bike tires.

  “Seriously?” I said to my bike. “Are you ACTUALLY serious right now?”

  Jerry heard me and banged out of the Center. “Whoa,” he said. He glanced at me. “This isn’t right. I’m sorry, kid.” He went back inside, though that was the most sympathy I’d ever heard from him.

  “How’d they know it was your bike?” said Risa.

  “I always ride it. It’s the only lime-green one.” I looked over at the protestors. “I am the Laurelax. I speak for the birds. And my bike. Leave both the fuck alone.”

  “Language,” Jerry called from inside, but the reprimand sounded half-hearted at best.

  “This is a mess,” I said to Risa. “Guess I’ll walk home. I have spares at my house.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said. “I’m done here, too.”

  “Oh. Sure. Isn’t your bike here?”

  “Eh. I’ll get it tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Cool.” Words left my brain. We walked in silence past the hissing protesters, through the gate, through the field, until we reached the path.

  “We could take the sidewalk. It’s faster,” I said.

  “Are you in a hurry?” said Risa.

  “No. No, I am not,” I said. I smiled.

  We headed into the trees and followed the dirt path that wound its way up the side of the mountain and nowhere near my house.

  “How’s your gran?” said Risa.

  “Same,” I said. “Not great. Trapped in the body of a bird. I don’t know anymore.”

  “Ah,” she said.

  “How are you? How’s your family stuff?” I said.

  “Same. Not great. Mom and Dad still gone. Sister still in prison for another twelve to eighteen months. Don’t steal a car and then crash it and almost kill another person. Tip from me to you.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yeah. What’s really messed up is that our parents died in a crash, you know? I was only three, so I don’t really remember. She was eight. My aunt and uncle aren’t awful, but they don’t like us that much. They just hoped enough therapy would take care of our issues until they could legally stop. At least Mom and Dad had life insurance, so my aunt and uncle aren’t going into debt over us or something. Though, pretty sure most of my college fund went to big sis’s legal bills.”

  This was probably the most she’d ever said about herself, ever. I stopped walking.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “No. I am. I’m sorry I hated you because I thought you were out to get me in the Fauna contest. And I was always kind of mean because of that,” I said.

  Risa smiled. “Oh. I hated you, too, for the same thing. No biggie. Birdie Bros, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  A black-capped chickadee called above us and his mate answered. Wind rushed through the canopy and down over branches and limbs until it reached Risa and me in this strange clearing of new honesty.

  “I always thought you were cute, though,” I said.

  “I always thought you were dating Sophie,” she said. “And that you were both cute.”

  I grinned. “Never tell her that, she’d never shut up about it.”

  “Well”—Risa moved toward me—“you’re cuter.”

  “Definitely don’t tell her that. She’d really never shut up,” I said. I reached my hand out to hers. “It’s been a while since I had anyone to walk with me in the woods.”

  “Same,” she said.

  “We should do this more often,” I said.

  “I’m cool with every day,” she said.

  “Same.”

  We wandered like that, hand in hand, up the mountain to where the stone angels watched. Then along the creek to the river with its pale cement walls and chalky currents high from all the rain. Then to the end of my street, where there stood one vast elm that could hide two people sharing their first kiss.

  “This is where you live,” said Risa.

  “Do you want to come in?” I said.

  “Nah, gotta go Weedwack the yard. Tomorrow?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I watched her jog off toward town.

  As I got out my key to let myself in the house, I noticed a piece of paper sticking to the mailbox.

  Quit the school shit, it read. Or else.

  I stared at it, not quite sure what to do. Should I call the police? Should I text Mom?

  I went inside and tossed the paper toward the coffee table. It floated off toward the floor, where I left it. The house was empty (of course) and quiet. Safe. The people of Shunksville surely wouldn’t be violent, would they?

  I shut myself in my room for the rest of the day and for once was grateful when I heard Mom and Brad come in. Their voices carried and it sounded like they weren’t going out again. Eventually I got too hungry to hide and came down the steps.

  “There you are,” Mom said. I noticed the paper she held in her hand. “Laurel, we need to talk.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. Maybe they’d decided to go to Vegas. Fuck me if I’d be going with them. Although, that could net me several grebes or a blue-footed booby (not named Brad) for the life list. I wandered past her into the kitchen. A good toaster-oven English muffin pizza would hit the spot right about now.

  “You didn’t tell me you were going to be on the news. You didn’t tell me you were involved in blocking the new school.”

  “The interview wasn’t planned,” I said. “And I’m not blocking the new school.”

  “You went on the air and went on and on about how bad it would be if they built it,” she said.

  “I talked for about thirty seconds. That’s hardly going on and on. If you want that, I suggest you tune into Bill Andrews on Channel Four. Deputy Mayor Michael Ross will take care of your needs in that arena.” I slid the English muffins out of the bread drawer. I hoped the mozzarella I’d hidden in the back of the fridge hadn’t molded.

  “Laurel, look at me when I’m talking to you!” Mom’s voice rose. It’d been a long time since she’d been angry.

  Or wanted my attention, for that matter.

  I stopped my search for pizza sauce in the cupboard under the bread drawer and faced her.

  “Young lady, this needs to stop. I understand you were upset about Grandma’s house. But there are people in town who this affects. There are children…”

  “Mom…”

  “I’m serious.” Mom’s face grew redder and redder. “I’m a teacher, Laurel. My job depends on the actual presence of a school in which to teach. The new district will be letting people go. If it’s here, I’m in much better shape than if it goes somewhere else.”

  I considered this. I vaguely knew that Mom’s job could be in play.

  “Several of my colleagues have called and texted asking what game you are playing. They aren’t happy. My principal called. If I didn’t have tenure, I might already be out of a job. If the merger doesn’t happen, I’m gone. If it does, now I’m probably gone. Did you think about that?”

  “This isn’t a game,” I said.

  Brad shifted uncomfortably. I looked over at him, daring him to say something.

  “Are you trying to punish me for Grandma’s house? Because this will hurt you, too, you know. College costs a lot. And…”

  “Stop!” I said. “Just stop.”

  The little, positive voice inside me yelled to try to be kind. To understand where Mom was coming from. But the light that I tried to find at the end of any tunnel had flickered and dimmed. The little voice inside my head had grown hoarse from all the shouting. “You know what,” the voice said instead. “Fuck it.”

  “I…”

  “No! Not ‘you.’ Not right now. Shunksville needs the nature reserve more than it needs to house the school. I have the reports, Mom. There are better spots. Building on that cheap, available land would mean big trouble down the line. Combining th
e districts doesn’t even make sense. It’s all there, in the paperwork city hall doesn’t want you to see. That they have actively tried to hide.”

  “Maybe…,” Brad tried to cut in.

  “This isn’t about you, Mom. Not everything is, believe it or not. This isn’t about the house. Not really. And it’s not about me, either, only maybe it is a little because of who I am. I am the pond. I am the woods. I am an indigo bunting and last year’s fucking whooping crane. So is Gran. If you stopped looking at Brad for a second, maybe you’d notice that.”

  Mom just stood there, taking in my words.

  “And since we’re doing this here, in front of him”—I nodded over at Brad—“you might as well know this, too. Gran is in a coma because of me. I could have stopped it. I could have saved her, but I kept going. And it’s my fault. All my fault.” I started shaking then. A small tremor started in my leg and worked its way up all the way to my shoulders, as if I’d run five miles straight and my muscles had decided to rebel.

  “Laurel, there’s no way that’s possible.”

  “Yes, it is, Mom!” My voice shook now. “She was on the mountainside looking for a strange bird we’d heard call earlier. I saw her on the side of the road in the rain and I knew it was dangerous. I told her to get off the road but she didn’t listen. I knew, I knew, it was dangerous, but I didn’t go back. I let her stay. I let her stay.” My legs would soon give way. I could feel their wish to buckle to the floor right there.

  “Baby…”

  “No! It’s true and it’s my fault and you can hate me. Hate me for that. But the fucking school shouldn’t take out the nature reserve. If I hadn’t killed Gran, she would say the same thing to you over and over until you couldn’t ignore her!”

  That was it. That was all I had. I stumbled away from her and practically crawled up the steps to my room. I slammed my door, not because of my rage at Mom and fucking Brad, but at myself. Because the truth of what I’d done crashed down around me. I curled into a ball and rocked back and forth until the shaking let up and I fell asleep. Usually I dream about common grackles or sometimes house sparrows.

  This time I dreamed of lightning.

  FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY

  JUNE 28

  The day began with Mom shuffling outside my door. I heard her there, making noise. Maybe she was hoping to wake me up. Or possibly she was willing herself to knock on her awful daughter’s door before telling me she hated me and wanted me to move out to the woods, though at this point the woods were too good for me.

  Whatever her motivation, she moved on after a few minutes and left for work.

  I texted Jerry and told him I wasn’t feeling well.

  I got up and moved stealthily through the house, in case Mom had staged an ambush to punish me for causing her and Gran all this torment. My head throbbed, my chest pounded, even my feet burned when flesh touched Teva. The walls of the box inside me strained, the one with the accumulated knowledge of my active participation in Gran’s ruin threatened to burst and course through my blood like non-eco-friendly poison. I forced a smile onto my face. Sometimes smiling alone could put you into a better mood.

  My face ached.

  I had to get out of the house. The fragrant breeze brushed my cheeks. It should have been pleasant but felt like razor blades in the moment.

  I biked to the hospital but couldn’t go in. I biked to the Nature Center, but then Jerry would know I’d faked being sick. I biked to the library, to the river, to the stone angels on the top of the mountain in the cemetery. They stared at me with empty, accusing eyes.

  Nowhere in all of Shunksville wanted me. What I’d done to Gran pushed against the seams holding my body together. Muscle and bone and skin flexed, as alive as Gran was almost gone. Life continued as if to spite me, me who had selfishly left my one vital organ unattended and then she’d gone and gotten so terribly hurt.

  I couldn’t bring myself to text Sophie, killing her joy at art camp. And what would Risa think? I biked home. In our front yard, where my bird feeders belonged, stood a white board tied sloppily to a wooden stake. STOP was all it said. I pulled it out of the ground and tossed it into the recycle bin out back. I found someone had toppled our garbage cans as well. Fortunately my recycling efforts meant there wasn’t a lot to scatter, but the message was clear. The front and back doors had brown smears all over them.

  I put on Mom’s thick yellow gloves and scrubbed the doors with bleach. I deserved this. Really, I had done this to myself. Maybe not for the school; that was right. But for Gran. If she had been here, I was sure she would have stopped the development of the nature reserve in its tracks. Then she would have taken on the haters and we wouldn’t be dealing with this. Maybe this bleach was strong enough to clean off the truth of what I’d done. The fumes burned my eyes.

  After I was done, I searched around the house for my feeders, but they were gone. I wondered if Gran’s were still at her place. Mom would be home soon, so I’d have to go to bed to hide from her. But I vowed to check it out tomorrow.

  An oriole called overhead and another responded from across the street. They probably wondered where their easy dinner had gone.

  “Sorry, birds,” I said. “This is all my fault.”

  I fell into my bed. I, unlike the birds, had no need to eat. My stomach was stuffed with the guilt of all I’d broken.

  FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY

  JUNE 29

  NOTABLE LOCATION: THE HOUSE THE CITY OWNS

  The house was quiet when I woke up the next morning. The Grahams were great at avoidance, so Mom had probably gone to one of her summer jobs without leaving a note. Brad might have gone to cut down trees or tell people about bands they’d never heard of, or whatever it was that hipster lumberjacks did.

  Normally sleep made things better. But sleep had done nothing to improve my mood, mostly because the truth was out now. Mom knew it was my fault. The worry about paying for college didn’t matter now, since she’d probably already disowned me. Worse still was the fact that I now knew it to be true. Saying it out loud made me realize the dark reality of it all.

  I’d killed Gran. Slowly. In the worst way possible. She was stuck in a lifeless shell, trapped in a way I knew she’d never have wanted to be. Her house gone to the city to pay for the care I made her need.

  Fuck. The house. The city closed on it, or took it, or whatever they were going to do with it today. I needed to feed the woodpeckers.

  I pulled on a pair of jeans and my “That’s Hawkward” T-shirt and didn’t bother with my hair. I grabbed my bag and clipped it to my bike after I’d changed my tires. Hopefully people wouldn’t get in the habit of slashing them, since it’d cost too much to replace them again. My phone, which I’d left in my jeans overnight, buzzed with the last of its battery.

  Busy today? texted Risa.

  Phone dying. Going to Gran’s. Woodpeckers, I replied. The screen went blank. I sighed. I’d have to charge it later.

  I reached Gran’s yard. The grass was too long, the garden weedy. I hadn’t done a good job mowing last time. Still, tomato plants climbed and I could see the sweet corn had somehow started to grow. Had Gran planted that? Had I? Did seeds somehow fall on their own and wait for their chance? It didn’t matter. The squirrels would probably rejoice.

  I walked over to the bench and threw open the top. It banged against the side of the house with such force that paint flaked away at the corners. Gran would be so pissed about that; only, no, she wouldn’t because I’d put her in a coma. The city would be tearing the house down anyway, so what’s a few old paint chips?

  “Hey,” said Risa behind me.

  I looked up, startled.

  “Sorry,” she said. She smiled shyly. “I figured when you quit texting that your phone had died, and that I’d find you here. Is that okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Great. Now Risa would know I was awful, too.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I…” No. I sucked. A lot. I found the new bottle of Squirrel
Fire™ that Gran had bought but never gotten to try. I grabbed the bag of suet. “I need to feed the woodpeckers.”

  “Oh, be careful with that stuff. Did you read the directions?”

  I glared at her.

  “Did I do something wrong? I thought…”

  “No. It’s not you. Trust me. It’s alllll me,” I said, unscrewing the top of the squirrel repellent.

  “Laurel, seriously, be careful with that stuff.”

  “Risa, I killed my grandmother. Maybe that’s why we can’t find the bird. She doesn’t want to be found. She’s just been trying to tell everybody what I did. I saw her on the road that day. She was probably looking for the fucking mystery bird. I could have made her get into the car with me but I didn’t. And then someone else hit her because it was raining. And my mom is marrying fucking Brad”—I poured Squirrel Fire™ all over the suet—“even though she’s known him for like a day. And she is mad at me for speaking up against the school even though it’s the worst idea ever. Oh my god, you have it so much worse than me and I shouldn’t even be complaining and do you see that?” I gestured with the Squirrel Fire™ and some sloshed onto my hand. “That fucking squirrel is watching me. It knows, too. It knows I’m such a fuckup.” I mushed the suet around to make sure it got good and coated. If it was the last shitty thing I did at that house, at least I’d feed the woodpeckers.

  I hadn’t cried before then. Not in the hospital over all those weeks, not over Mom and what’s-his-beard, and not over the pond and woods and house. But now the tears of true frustration came in front of Risa and the squirrels. I sniffed as I poured the suet feeders. I couldn’t see very well, so it kept falling.

  “Let me help you, please,” said Risa softly.

  “I can’t even do this right,” I said. A sob flared from deep in my chest. I reached up to wipe the tears.

  “Oh god, don’t do that,” Risa said.

  Pain. Sizzling, horrible, blistering pain scorched my eyes and nose and mouth.

  “What…,” I gasped.

  “Is the house open?” said Risa.

  I coughed.