by David Arnold
I unwrapped the ribbon, the paper, held the journal in my hands. It wasn’t leather-bound or anything, and some of the corners were already beginning to fray. He’s apologizing, I thought. This is his apology. But it was cheap in every way imaginable. A real apology cost something, because you had to stand there like an idiot and say it out loud for all the world to hear—I’M SORRY. And the world, as always, would respond with a resounding, “Yes. Yes, you are.” Dad wasn’t going there; I wasn’t sure he could. That kind of humility required a depth of love he had never been proven to possess.
“Of course, if you do plan on giving it to her one day, maybe you could avoid topics of, you know, tragic substance. Or at least despair.”
I looked up at him, wondering how it was possible I could be a product of this man’s loins. “And how do you propose I do that, Dad, seeing as how our family is prone to substantial desperation?”
He rolled his eyes and flared his nostrils. “I was kidding, Mim. Trying to lighten the tension a little. Of course, write what you want. Tell little Iz all about the atrocities of life. I just hope you’ll remember some of the good stuff, too.”
I looked at the journal and suddenly remembered that day long ago, reading a book at Aunt Isabel’s feet. “I can round off the sharp edges of my brain,” I said.
Only it wasn’t supposed to be out loud. Dad and Kathy looked at each other, their concern thick in the air. Suffocating, actually. Still holding the journal, I stood from the couch.
“Oh, wait,” said Kathy. “I got tacos.”
I looked at her, wondering what she’d actually said. Surely it wasn’t I got tacos. Surely, even she could understand how I got tacos was not the thing to say at the foot of this colossal conversation. Surely . . .
“You what?”
She blinked. “From the Taco Hole. I thought we could have dinner and . . . talk.”
Nope, I was wrong. She didn’t understand. She never would. I turned, walked from the room.
“Honey, where are you going?” asked Dad.
The real question wasn’t where, but when and how. I knew the where, because I’d already looked it up.
Nine hundred forty-seven miles away, I thought to myself. Nine hundred forty-seven miles . . .
CLEVELAND, OHIO
(947 Miles from Mosquitoland)
37
Best for Her
“FOR REAL THOUGH, you have to show me how you did that.”
I will ignore her. For all of eternity, if possible.
“Your haircut, I mean,” says Kathy. “You really pull it off.”
From my bag, I grab the makeup remover and wipe the war paint from my face. Beck and Walt are following behind us in Uncle Phil. Their trip back to Ashland Inn had turned up nothing. Beck’s phone was officially missing, most likely stolen by some disgruntled maid or maintenance worker. They’d arrived back at the house just as Kathy and I were exiting. I’d give a pinky toe to be with them instead, but leave it to Kathy to suck the fun out of a thing. Her one condition for allowing us to continue to Cleveland was that she would drive me the rest of the way.
“Still wearing those shoes,” she says. It’s her last-ditch effort to get me to talk, and I have to say, a rather predictable move. I don’t bite.
“You know—” she starts, then shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“I’m so sick of people doing that.” Honest to God, I had every intention of not speaking to her, but this is just too much.
“What?” she says.
“Starting a sentence, and then saying ‘never mind.’ Like it’s really possible for me to not sit here and try to figure out what you were gonna say, before you thought better of it.”
“Well, what I was gonna say was really not my place.”
“Ha! Right. Okay. Well, how about we go back in time so you can apply the same set of scrupulous principles to basically every decision you’ve made in the last six months.”
She takes a deep breath and rubs her belly, which seems to have grown considerably over the last five days. “You’re mad. I get it.”
“Mad? Kathy, my life was fine before you. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good. And then you came along and suddenly home wasn’t home anymore, it was part-time, like a hostel or something. Dad wasn’t Dad, he was Part-time Dad. Mom wasn’t Mom, do you know what she was? Gone. Along with my life, both of which you took from me, leaving this I-don’t-know-what . . . part-time shadow of myself in its place. Now you and my part-time dad are having a full-time kid. And you want me to be, what, part of the family? Thanks, I’ll pass.”
Kathy takes the next exit, and navigates a back road. For a moment, we sit in silence, avoiding the uncomfortable nearness of one another. “Whether you like it or not, Mim, this family needs you. Now more than ever. Izzie’s going to need a big sister. She’s going to—”
“I read the letters, you know. The ones Mom sent you, asking for help.”
Kathy stops talking, which is half the battle. The other half is to shame the shit out of her.
“She’s sick, right?” I say. “Is she dying?”
Silence.
I shake my head. “Whatever it is, she asked you for help. The least you could’ve done was put a damn TV in her room.”
“Do you still have them?” Kathy asks quietly. “The letters?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
Kathy glances sideways at me. The look of guilt.
“I’m not sure what you mean by that, Mim.”
“I mean three weeks ago, I stopped getting letters. Quite suddenly, actually. And wouldn’t you know it, every time I get home from school the mailbox is empty.”
“What are you suggesting, that I’m . . . hiding letters from your mother? Mim, I would never do that.”
“Right, okay. Just like you would never suggest I should stop calling her. Or keep me from visiting her.”
Kathy is shaking her head now, a look of confusion on her face, and I have to give it to her, I hadn’t expected such high-caliber acting. I pull out the sixth letter, the only survivor, and hold it up like an Olympic flame. “Look familiar? Here, let me refresh your memory.” I unfold the wrinkled paper, smooth it out in my lap, and clear my throat. “‘Think of whats best for her. Please reconsider.’”
My epiglottis is a hummingbird, my heart matching it beat for beat.
I suddenly remember Beck’s hmm the first day I met him. He saw the envelope with my mother’s PO Box address; then he saw this note and said “Hmm.”
Looking closer, the scrawl of this letter is so different from my mother’s familiar handwriting . . . I recall the first line of the first letter, the core of my epistolary snowball. In response to your last letter, the answer is no. I stare at the letter in my hands, as if seeing it for the first time: Think of whats best for her. Please reconsider.
“You wrote this,” I whisper. It comes out inadvertently, in a breath. Kathy is staring through the windshield, into the horizon, her mouth half-open. Her eyes are wet, and I don’t care. I want to hurt her, to punch her, to reach across the car and stick my fingers in her eye sockets.
“We asked if you could visit,” says Kathy. “When Eve said no, I was so mad I couldn’t even write straight.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I say. Terrified as I am to complete this puzzle, I have to see it through. “Why would you still have a letter you wrote to someone?”
She’s all out bawling now, rubbing her burgeoning stomach. “Oh, honey.”
And suddenly, I know the answer. “Say it, Kathy. Why would you have a note you sent to someone else?”
I need to hear it out loud. This thing won’t be a thing until I hear it.
Kathy wipes her face and puts a hand on my leg. “We love you so much, dear. You have to believe that.”
“Fucking say it.”
&n
bsp; She pulls her hand away, wipes old tears as new ones come. “She sent it back, Mim. Eve sent that letter back.”
All the air in my body escapes. At once, the crippling effects of my week’s diet and sleeping habits hit me fully. I am, 100 percent, exhausted. I’m beat. No, I’m beaten.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, a lie. I lean my head against the cool-paned window. “It doesn’t change anything.”
The interstate is long gone. We ride in silence through a winding labyrinth of back roads, staring idly at the tall Ohio corn. I focus on the only thing that might keep me from bashing my head against the dashboard: my friends. In the side mirror, I watch Beck’s lips moving. Walt is focused on something in his lap. I can’t even see his face, just his Cubs hat. He’s probably working out his Rubik’s Cube for the bazillionth time. God, I miss those two. It’s bizarre when I think about it. A girl can go her entire life without missing a person, and then, three days later—boom—she can’t imagine life without them.
“That’s what I meant about friends, Iz.”
Kathy looks at me quizzically. “What?”
My cheeks flush. Shit. “Nothing,” I say, staring out the window.
But it’s something, Iz. It’s a huge something.
38
Stick Figure Redemption
MAGNOLIAS!
Of all trees in all places at all times, it had to be magnolias, here, now. And in droves. Lined in perfect symmetry on either side of the lengthy driveway, the Mississippi state trees stand tall like a hundred marines at attention. Kathy’s PT Cruiser rolls between them; through the passenger window, I observe the immaculate lawn, an abundant deep green, each blade trimmed with purpose and care. Like an arrow, the driveway leads straight and true, its tip piercing the heart of an old stone mansion. Or manor, rather. A stately manor: no shutters, no gutters, simple angles. This place would fit nicely in some boring BBC period piece. In fact, I wouldn’t be one bit surprised to see Keira Knightley frolicking around in the fields, wrapped in a shawl, crying a little too passionately for the death of her sister’s husband. (They were secret lovers, see. God, Keira, just give it a break.)
We pass a sign written in colorful rainbow:
SUNRISE MOUNTAIN
REHABILITATION CENTER:
HOLISTIC CARE FOR SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND DEPRESSION
My misplaced epiglottis suddenly seems more misplaced than usual. “What are we doing here?”
Pulling into a wide parking space, Kathy shuts off the engine. “You wanted to see your mother.” She checks her makeup in the rearview mirror, then opens her door and slides out. “You coming?”
I flinch as the door slams. For a moment, I consider just living in the belly of the PT Cruiser. I could eat here, sleep here, raise a family. Anything to avoid stepping outside, facing this scene.
Suddenly, Kathy’s words from Principal Schwartz’s office ring in my ears: She’ll beat this disease. Eve’s a fighter.
I am a child. I know nothing about anything. And even less about everything.
Walt raps on the passenger-side window, grinning like a maniac, pressing the Reds program against the glass.
“Look!” he yells. “Just like your stick figure book!”
In something reminiscent of a preschooler’s homework, Walt has drawn the most glorious stick figure diagram in the history of stick figures, or diagrams, or basically anything ever. It’s a thousand times better than my “stick figure book.” Not one bit anemic. Three figures stand in front of explosive fireworks. Each one has multiple arrows pointing to various objects on, or around, their bodies. The figure on the left is taller than the others. He’s standing next to a truck, and has something draped around his neck. Above his head, written in all caps, it says MY FRIND BEK. Little arrows indicate the truck is UNKLE FILL, and the object around his neck is CAMRA. The figure on the right has giant muscles. Above his head, it says WALTER. An oblong object in his right hand is labeled MOWNTAN DO, and a square in his left hand is marked COLOURFUL CUBE. The figure in the middle is me. Above my head, it says MY FRIND MIM. I have crazy big shoes, labeled SHOOS (X-TRA STRAPS). I’m wearing sunglasses, labeled accordingly, and a backpack, labeled BAKPAK. On the ground next to me, there’s a stick labeled MIM’S SHINY—my lipstick.
We’re holding hands, smiling from stick ear to stick ear.
I read once that the Greek language has four words for the word love, depending on the context. But as I step out of the PT Cruiser and tumble into Walt’s perfectly huggable arms, I think the Greeks got it wrong. Because my love for Walt is something new, unnamed, something crazy-wild, youthful, and enthusiastic. And while I don’t know what this new love has to offer, I do know what it demands: grateful tears.
I cry hard.
Then harder.
Then hardest.
Behind me, Beck’s voice is a salve. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Beck, and we tell each other stuff.”
I pull back from Walt, wipe my eyes. “What?”
“Umm. Hello? She’s pregnant?”
I grip my backpack, and tilt my head, and—damn it, there’s my cute face again. It will be my undoing. “Oh yeah. That.”
“Oh. Yeah. That. Mim, that is pertinent fucking info. Also, it explains a lot.”
“Such as?”
He looks up at the top of the mansion’s high stairs, where Kathy has just walked through the double-door entrance. “Such as a certain disdain for a certain stepmother, for which a certain someone snapped at a certain someone else when that certain someone else brought it up in the back of a certain truck. You know of which certain instance I’m referring to, certainly?”
I hold back a smile. “You know—I think my best course of action is to just let the ridiculousness of that sentence marinate.”
He throws one arm around me, one around Walt, and leads the way toward the stairs. It’s a communal walk, full of life, love, and the pursuit of Young Fun Now. I am—north to south, east to west—globally slain.
“So you like the drawing, Mim?” Walt asks, cradling the program like a newborn.
Beck leans into my ear. “He worked on it the whole way over here. Kid was beyond pumped to show you.”
This Walt-Mim-Beck mobile sandwich makes me wonder if there’s some kind of reverse Siamese twin operation. Or . . . triplets, as it were. “Walt, it’s an absolute masterpiece. I love it. Every twiggy inch.”
We’re forced to let go of each other, as simultaneous stair-climbing is basically impossible, not at all conducive to Siamese triplets.
“So,” says Beck. “Brother or sister?”
I don’t answer at first. I can’t. I’ve written the word, probably said it hundreds of times in other contexts. But never out loud, as it applied to me. I look Beck in the eye, and say it. “Sister.”
“Nice. They have a name picked out?”
“Isabel.”
Beck stops three steps short of the landing. I look back at him, and see something lighter than a shadow pass over his eyes. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Uh-uh. Out with it, Van Buren.”
He takes one more step, pauses, runs his hand through his hair. “Last night, at the hotel—you may have mentioned her name.”
“What?” I look to Walt, as if he might offer some assistance. And by assistance, I mean resuscitation. CPR. The Heimlich. Those electric pads that literally shock your life back into its skin. Walt has his head buried in the Reds program. Probably not the best candidate for electric shock, come to think of it. “When?”
“During your . . . I don’t know what to call it . . . episode?”
Sometimes my brain hurts. Not a headache. A brainache. Chalk it up as just another in a long line of Mim’s medical mysteries, but right now, my brain hurts like hell. I take the last three steps, imagining my blackout and the host of private thoughts I might have announced
: internal monologues, theories meant for no one but me, words that put the utterance of my unborn sister’s name to shame.
And then Beck’s hand is in mine, and my brainache subsides. (In place of the pain, curtains rise on a lavish Broadway song and dance, Rodgers and Hammerstein in their prime.)
At the top of the stairs, we are greeted by a rainbow-colored sign next to the entrance.
THIS IS YOUR NEW BEGINNING
PLEASE CHECK ALL NEGATIVITY AND SELF-DOUBT HERE, AS YOU WILL HAVE NO NEED FOR THEM INSIDE. FROM THIS POINT ON, YOU WILL LIVE YOUR LIFE.
“What a shame they didn’t remind me to breathe my air,” says Beck, opening the door with a half smile. But it’s not his signature half smile, all cute and coy. This one is different, lackluster. Supremely lacking in luster. “Mim,” he starts. And suddenly, my arms are around him, because I don’t want him to finish that sentence.
They aren’t coming inside, because this isn’t for them.
This is my wooden box.
It’s a deep, powerful hug, and Walt turns around, because even he understands there’s nothing romantic or funny about it. My mouth, just inches from Beck’s ear, whispers the familiar line on its own.
Beck kisses me on the cheek, and responds beautifully, simply, “Yes, Mim. You are.”
And I think of all the times I thought I wasn’t okay, and all the times maybe I could have been, if only I’d had a Beck Van Buren around to tell me otherwise.
He steps back now, throws an arm around Walt. “We’ll be starting a New Beginning when you get back. Right, Walt?”
“Hey, hey, I’m Walt.”
“Damn straight,” says Beck, winking at me.
An image: my two best friends with their arms around each other, so different and so alike, colorful and puzzling and alive, clicked into place like Walt’s cube. I tighten my backpack, wondering if I’ll ever again have friends like these.
“Damn straight.”
39
Sunrise Mountain
SUNRISE MOUNTAIN REHAB slaps me in the face with its unapologetic frontier motif. Standing between a butter churn and a rodeo saddle, I’m thinking it should apologize—to me, yes, but not exclusively. This place owes an apology to all those who have had the misfortune of setting foot inside its hellish doors.
