by Kyla Stone
He gripped his arm and made a hitching, gasping sound in his throat, like he couldn’t talk, like he was in too much pain to talk. His head slumped over. His eyes were still open, but they weren’t looking at anything.
I froze. A cold, dull dread crept over me. “Dad? What’s wrong? Dad!”
But I already knew. I fumbled my phone out of my jacket pocket and dialed 911 with urgent, trembling fingers. I told the guy on the other end our address, barely remembering the numbers, the street name of the house I’d grown up in. I ended the call even though the 911 guy was still talking.
I stared at Dad with growing horror. He wasn’t moving. He was dead. I knew it. A fissure opened up inside me, a crack for all the bad things to fall into.
A dark moaning sound filled the room, sucking all the oxygen out of the air. Finally, I realized that terrible gutted sound was coming from me. I bent over, clutching at my stomach, unable to breathe.
I couldn’t stay there, not one more second. I fled. I ran away from my own father when he needed me most.
“Lux,” Lena says, pulling me back into the moment.
I stare at her, my eyes raw and burning.
“Just tell me the truth. Please.” Her face crumples, the hostility leaking out of her. “Can’t you give me that, at least?”
“You don’t know anything. You left, Lena. You don’t get to judge me. You weren’t even here!” I bolt from the kitchen, slamming my bedroom door so hard the whole house shudders.
I bang the bowl of soup down on my dresser, more hot liquid sloshing over the sides, and throw myself on my bed. I cover my mouth with my hands. Bite the skin of my palms to keep the scream inside.
Phoenix claws up the bedspread and races along the length of the bed, mewling frantically. Everything I can’t think skitters around in my head, crashing into the walls of my skull. My eyes throb in their sockets. Suffocating shame chokes my throat.
It’s my fault. I know that. The shadowy truth I can’t escape from, no matter what I do.
We both have our secrets, Dad and I. I have mine. Secrets so terrible I can’t speak them aloud, can’t even think them.
It’s Dad’s fault that Mom is dead.
But also, it’s mine.
20
Lena
I bring Dad his afternoon pills, watch him swallow them down, then make him a tuna sandwich with an apple for lunch. I rinse the dishes and scrub down the counters, even though they’re already clean. The thought of how scuzzy and crusted they used to be makes me cringe in revulsion. When I cleaned out the fridge last month, I found more than one container of left-over Spaghettios sprouting a nasty green-white mold.
If the kitchen does not glimmer and gleam, it is at least very, very clean. There’s comfort in these daily chores, action a refreshing release from having to think.
I’m meticulously picking lint from each plaid couch cushion when Lux prances into the kitchen around three. She hums and sways to the music piping through her earbuds. She digs through the fridge, grabs a green apple, a jar of peanut butter, and a knife from the drawer, rattling the silverware as she bangs it shut with her hip.
Lux looks haggard, like she hasn’t slept in days. Her skin is blotchy and gray. A blade of guilt slides between my ribs whenever I think about the fight we had two days ago. I went too far. I got upset and I said things …
I rub my eyes with the sleeve of my sweater. Lux has the uncanny ability to bring out the absolute worst in me. When she’s around, I say terrible things, even when I don’t want to. I always hate myself afterward.
“Hey,” I say. “Are you okay?”
She just stares at me, hostile, belligerent, not even bothering to take out her earbuds.
“Look, I’m sorry. I overreacted before.”
She rolls her eyes and heads back to her room without saying a word.
I can’t wrap my mind around the concept of my sister. Lux is a stranger to me, completely foreign, incomprehensible. Where is the little girl who loved stories, make believe and pretend? Who loved dancing and clomping around in Mom’s high heels and games of hide and seek? Where is the girl who’d grab my hand beneath the table when the yelling started, squeezing so hard my fingers went numb?
A memory takes hold of me. How she used to sneak in my room at night, how I’d be tucked in my bed under a pile of blankets when I’d feel her breath grazing my cheek. Half-asleep, I’d groan and lift my arm so she could scoot against me, a curled-up puppy, small and warm.
Some nights she came in long before midnight, when the house was too quiet. Even then, it wasn’t the creaking floors, the ping of the furnace, or even the shouting that got to us. It was when everything fell silent, as if we both knew the silence was the most dangerous of all.
Those nights when anxiety pricked us awake, Lux would ask me to draw the constellations on her back. I’d trace the shapes of Aquila the eagle and Capricornus the sea goat, the flying horse of Pegasus and the great bear of Ursa Major. She always knew the right answer, could always tell before I’d even halfway finished.
Where is that sweet, creative little sister? She’s gone. In her place, there’s a girl oozing defiance, cynicism, disdain. I can’t imagine screaming matches with my father, the drinking and the parties, taking off for days at a time, the insolence that seems stamped across Lux’s whole being. Are there no boundaries? No lines Lux is unwilling to cross?
My own world is black and white. There’s right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. There are no grays.
I sigh and glance at the clock. 3:30 p.m. The hospice nurse, Ellie Delmonte, will be here soon. I promised Eli I’d meet him at the park at 4:00. I’ve been putting it off for a few weeks now, but it’s already the second week of February. I can’t wait any more.
Restless energy thrums through me. It’s been so long since I’ve held my camera in my hands. I need this, I need it like breathing.
The thought of Eli sends a nervous flutter through my stomach. Eli gets under my skin in ways I don’t want to think about. He’s so cocky, so sure everyone loves him. I hate how often he’s right, how easy it is to let myself get carried along, taken in.
But I need to do this, for my art, for the competition. Eli and Hadley will both make gorgeous subjects. It’s just one afternoon. An hour of taking pictures, making small talk, then I’m done.
The promise of the photography competition is the only thing connecting me to my old life, to the normal, regular world I’ve worked so hard to build.
I can’t give it up completely. Photography is the only thing anchoring me to sanity. Focusing on my art helps me forget, filters out everything else.
The hospice nurse arrives promptly at 3:30 p.m. She sweeps into the living room, the fruity scent of orange blossoms wafting after her. She’s wearing dangling emerald tear-drop earrings, her fingers stuffed with vintage sterling rings, their stones as big as my knuckle.
She hugs me to her enormous bosom. “How are you doing, my dear?”
“Fine,” I say, barely able to breathe.
She asks me a few questions about how Dad’s doing, his sleeping and eating patterns and how he’s managing the pain. She notices my camera and asks about my art.
“My niece is an artist. Drawing mostly, but painting now, too. Everyone should have a hobby, preferably one less expensive than shopping,” she says, eyeing her rings ruefully.
I don’t tell her the truth—art isn’t my hobby, it’s my life. “Do you think it’s okay if I leave for awhile?”
“Of course! That’s one of the reasons I’m here. Go, have a wonderful time.”
When I hesitate, she shoos me away with her hand, the bangles jangling on her wrists.
I arrive at the park first and scout out a flat spot next to the river’s edge. The last three days have been sunny. The snow is mostly melted, the rocky ground still firm and relatively dry, not yet soggy with the warmth of spring.
Brokewater Creek is more like a river, wide and strong, snaking all the way to Lake M
ichigan thirty miles west. But here, by the park, the river is mostly shallow, muddy brown water rippling over sandbars and clusters of smooth stones.
I load a cassette of panchromatic 400 ISO film, attach my zoom lens, polarizer, and UV haze filter. The portrait lens is better, but Hadley will probably run around like a hooligan. I need flexibility.
I snap a few shots of the water, the way the sun strikes a spray of droplets into diamonds, a clot of brown and red leaves slick with snow, the glistening belly of an overturned rock. I already know I won’t use these.
I photograph faces, the geography of emotions, the hills and valleys of physical features, the ravine of the mouth, the caverns of the eyes, the well of an ear, the knoll of an eyebrow. The terrain of a face reveals layers of meaning and depth that a simple tree or bird or slope of earth never could.
“There you are.”
I look up to see Eli trotting toward me, little Hadley bobbing along beside him, holding his hand. Hadley wears fur-lined boots, white tights, and an orange sweater dress. She’s holding the same red polka dot purse from the grocery store.
Eli’s dressed in loose stonewashed jeans and a gray waffle-knit shirt beneath his leather jacket. I try not to notice his broad shoulders, the curl of his hair over his collar, the way his dark clothes bring out the topaz of his eyes.
“Hi, guys. Thanks for coming.”
I glance at the sky. The daylight is just beginning to take on that glow around the edges that photographers covet, soft and golden.
“How’s the van?” Eli asks.
Last week, I picked up the Honda and switched out the loaner, but Eli was at lunch and I didn’t see him. True to his word, the final cost was almost a third less than the quote.
“Purrs like a kitten,” I say. “Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“I wanna swing!” Hadley chirps, gesturing her pudgy fingers back toward the playground. Her curls bounce in their pigtails.
“After pictures. That’s the deal,” Eli says, squatting down in front of his daughter. He takes the purse from her. “You want to smile and be in the pictures for Miss Lena, right?” She nods solemnly.
“Remember that cookie we talked about,” he says with a wink and turns to me. “She’s a ham for the camera. Since she was six months old.”
I kneel on the cold ground and squint into the viewfinder. “Hadley, do you want to go to the edge of the water and pick up a stone for me?”
Hadley obeys. I turn the front ring on the lens barrel until she comes into focus, the trees behind her blurring. I zoom in on her face, adjust the f-stop, and compose the image within the viewfinder.
Over the next thirty minutes, I take a few rolls of film, snapping wide shots of Hadley skipping toward the river, bending down, the rock in her hand, then closer shots as she examines stones glistening with jeweled water, her exuberant expression as she holds it up toward Eli to show off her prize.
I’m too aware of Eli ambling along behind me. It’s hard to focus for reasons that irritate the crap out of me. “Thanks for agreeing to this.”
“No worries. Hadley needed to get out of the house.”
The sun skims the tops of the trees, the light just about perfect now, though it’s getting colder. “Hadley, will you come sit by me for a minute?”
I photograph close-ups of Hadley, sharpening her face, blurring out the river in the background. The sun glitters in her saucer eyes, her thick lashes shadowing her round cheeks.
She sits patiently for about four minutes. Then she’s scooting back and forth on her bottom, begging Eli to let her swing.
“Can you wait just one minute more?” he asks.
“No!” she shouts.
“Hadley, that’s not okay. No yelling.”
“No!” she screams again, leaping to her feet.
“Five-minute time out,” Eli says. “Sit right there.”
“No! No! No!” Hadley tries to dash away, but Eli grabs her and sits her down. Her face scrunches up and she bursts into tears.
“Stop it,” Eli says, frustration lacing his voice. A few moms standing over by the slide glance our way. Eli’s shoulders hunch almost imperceptibly. “Please, Hadley. No screaming.”
Hadley tries to jump up, and Eli firmly, gently pushes her down again. She throws herself on the ground, flailing her arms, wailing as loud as she can.
The other moms purse their lips, shoot us judgmental glances.
“That’s it.” Eli pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling, his expression grim.
“What are you doing?”
“I downloaded this book, Happiest Toddler in the Neighborhood: How to Raise Cooperative and Respectful Kids. I’m still waiting on the cooperation.
And the respect. And the sanity.”
Hadley shrieks an ear-piercing scream. “No! No! I don’t wanna!”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I think I’ve got enough good shots. We can be done now.”
He chews on his lower lip, scanning his phone. “That’s great, but I can’t let her out of the time-out early. The author says that would just reinforce her bad behavior. Right?”
“No, Daddy!” Hadley wails. “Please! Me wanna swing!”
He looks at me. “Don’t ask me. I don’t know what your book says.”
“Daddy!”
“I mean,” I say over her shrieks. “Really, it’s our fault for asking too much of her.”
“Okay, great. I was thinking the same thing. Go ahead, Chipmunk.”
Her face instantly breaks into a dazzling smile. She scrambles to her feet and scampers off toward the playground.
“I’m supposed to ignore it and stay calm,” he says wryly, running his hands through his dark hair. “It’s a little difficult when the perfect mommies over there are taking in the whole show, probably thanking their lucky stars their own husbands aren’t stuck with all the parenting duties. I’m screwing up, scarring her for life as we speak.”
“Just start her therapy savings account now and you’ll be good.”
He laughs. His features are so open when he laughs, there’s none of the false charm and bravado from earlier. My stomach tightens. Something inside me wants to keep that soft, easy expression on his face, wants to see it directed at me.
“Seriously though,” I say. “Forget those supermoms. They’re just the queen bees from high school, version 2.0. They get off on feeling superior to everybody else.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
We follow Hadley up the hill. “I am right. Trust me, I know these things.”
“Thanks for that,” Eli says, nudging my shoulder with his.
My cheeks flame. He’s too close. I raise my camera, hiding my face. “Your turn.”
I snap a few shots of Eli leaning against an old maple tree, the rough bark a sharp contrast against his olive skin and gold-flecked eyes. He stares straight at me, eyebrows cocked, a cheeky grin spread across his face.
I try to focus on the composition, the shapes, lines, textures, and shadows of the image in my viewfinder, but it’s not working. My pulse quickens, palms sweating.
Dad always said, “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.” He sounded like Mom when he talked like that—like art had a soul, like its purpose wasn’t just to be, to exist, but to bring something out of you. Right now, I’m not sure I can handle what it feels like.
The wind picks up, whipping a few strands of hair into my face. I smooth them back, tucking them behind my ears. “Okay, I’ve got enough,” I say, my voice cracking.
His smile only widens. “You sure about that?”
“Yep. Used up a whole roll.”
He pushes himself off the tree trunk and ambles toward me. “I didn’t know film still existed. That camera looks ancient.”
“It was my dad’s,” I say, gripping it tighter. Dad never used a digital camera, and he didn’t want me to either, although I do occasionally for school projects. “Dad thinks Photoshop is cheatin
g. Art is made when it’s just the camera, the photographer, and the subject. That’s what he likes to say, anyway.”
Eli nods. “I get that. Technology doesn’t always change things for the better.”
“It’s not about better or worse, really. Digital is fine. I just like the darkroom. I like physically developing the film and making the prints. It’s peaceful. Everything goes calm and still.” “Daddy!” Hadley yells.
“Unlike now, right?” Eli winks at me. He jogs over to the playground and puts Hadley on the swing, curling her fingers around the chains. “Hold on tight.”
I take a few photos of them from different angles. “Hadley is about the prettiest little girl I’ve ever seen.”
“Thanks. It’s hard to pick out which features came from where. Nyah’s from the Dominican Republic and I’m half-Indonesian, half-Argentinean. I think my great-grandmother was Armenian or something.”
“She has your eyes, and your smile.”
“Thanks, Freckles,” he says, that same magnetic smile playing across his features. “How sweet of you.”
I blush. Again. I stare at the ground and kick at the mulch. Eli pushes Hadley higher and higher. She shrieks and thrusts her legs at the sky.
“I heard about your dad,” Eli says after a few minutes. “I’m sorry.”
I stiffen. It’s still hard to talk about. “Yeah. Well, we’ve been waiting for it for awhile now.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier. I know it’s not the same, but Petulu, my grandfather, died in a motorcycle accident when I was thirteen. He lived with us. It was awful. I’m not sure what’s worse, dying suddenly without a chance to say goodbye or having to deal with a slow, painful death.”
I look at him, but he’s focused on pushing Hadley. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’ve had both. It’s hell either way. It’s like asking if you would rather die by fire or freezing to death. You still die. The outcome’s the same.”
“By fire. Freezing is slower. It can take days. Parts of your body die and turn black while the rest of you is still alive. All you can do is wait and watch it happen, and you know what’s coming next.”
