The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash

by Candace Ganger

  I choke on the silence. “No … no … she was fine earlier. I just saw her.”

  My heart is pounding so hard, it’s going to explode, I know it. I can’t speak. My tongue is glued down, pinned to the gum line. She continues talking, rambling, but it’s a fog. I swerve to the side of the road and flip on my blinker. After all these months of fighting this goddamned poison eating away at her organs, Nurse Kim tells me that’s not even what killed her—an aneurism did. A swift, uncontrollable force that sped through her brain and stopped her heart, almost instantly.

  “Wait, wait, wait” is all I manage.

  “Get here as soon as you can. We won’t move her,” she says.

  “Wait,” I say again. She’s silent, waiting for me to add something. “I don’t understand.”

  “Just get here.”

  I clutch the phone to my chest. The sound of the blinkers—bleep bleep bleep—is all I hear. I want to swallow. Why can’t I swallow? It hurts deep down in my throat, all the way to the back of my eyelids. I feel the tears stir, but I don’t cry. Instead, I twist the wheel and press on the gas, violently steering back onto the road without even looking to see if anyone is coming or going. The car veers into the other lane, crossing the yellow lines that are snow-covered and hidden. An oncoming car slows, nearly drives off the side to avoid me. I slam on the brakes, spin the car around with a loud, screeching howl, and drive in the opposite direction toward the nursing home. My foot is heavy on the pedal, but I don’t feel it; I don’t feel a damned thing.

  In about half the time is normally takes, I pull into the nursing home lot, askew, and fling my door wide open. I don’t think it shuts, and I don’t care. My feet have never moved so quickly before. At the entranceway, the slow automatic doors only fuel my fire, so I use my hands to pull them apart faster. There is no time to waste. (There is all the time to waste now.)

  In the doors. Past the front desk. Down the hall. There are voices and faces I’m sure I saw, spoke to, but if you asked me to recount them, I couldn’t. I am one solid motion, while everything else, especially time, has paused.

  Ma’s door is half cracked. I slow my pace and tip my head inside first. The room is quiet. I’m slow to approach. It feels as if she’s just napping, and I don’t want to wake her, so my steps are light. Her body is unmoving beneath the crisp linens I saw her alive in only hours ago. I breathe in the last scent of her I will ever have, the last sight of her I will ever have, but mostly, the last feeling of her next to me. No breathing machine, no tubes, no nothing. These are all the things Nurse Kim prepped me on months ago. To prepare me for this moment. But I’m not prepared. I could never be prepared for this.

  A small, rolled-up towel is stuffed under Ma’s chin to help keep her jaw closed while the muscles stiffen. Two thin strips of tape hold her eye lids shut, because Kim said when someone dies, their eyes may be open which is, I guess, not something I should see. She said this magical tape won’t pull off her lashes; it’s gentle, and I remember thinking, She’ll be dead—she won’t feel her lashes, but I’m glad to know they won’t come off when the tape does, now that I’m sitting here looking at them.

  The air is thin, feels like Ma’s not here anymore, even though I’m looking right at her. I pull the upholstered chair up next to the bed, squirt sanitizer between my palms, and rub briskly until dissolved. Careful with my movements, I grab ahold of her hand. It’s ice cold … lifeless. I hold her palm to the front of my mouth and blow warm air. Every part of me pretending just a little longer.

  “Bash,” Nurse Kim interrupts. She walks over and offers a hug. There are tears in her big, brown eyes. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I wanted to be here,” I say. “Why didn’t anyone call me sooner? It was just a couple of hours ago. She was talking, awake. I don’t understand. I don’t … understand.” I hear the words repeating, but can’t make them stop.

  “It just happened so fast, and she’s DNR so we couldn’t resuscitate.” I’m shaking my head. She says something about a blood clot, but it all sounds like TV static, and so I keep saying “I don’t understand” to connect the empty space in my heart to what they’re telling me.

  “I know it doesn’t make this any easier, but you knew this was going to happen soon anyway,” she says, patting my shoulder.

  But I’m not ready, I want to tell her. “I thought I’d get to hold her hand when she took her last breath, that’s all.” I’m crying now; a dam burst out of nowhere. I hide my face in my palms. I’m the same lost little boy I was all those years ago when we left the Taylors. I didn’t know how we’d survive but she held me, told me we’d be okay as long as we had each other and now, I’m just as lost, only, without her.

  She wraps her arms around me and I hear her crying, too. “I know, honey. It’s never easy to let someone go. Especially someone like her. Take as long as you need. There’s no rush.”

  When she disappears, I slink back into the chair and grab Ma’s hand again, kissing her cold, thin skin, now wet with my tears. The glow of her tiny tree coats her face in a subtle glow. Her scarf is tilted, not covering the entire space of her mostly bare head, but in true Camilla style, she’s wearing her trademark red lipstick, probably thanks to Kim for my arrival. If I squint hard enough, it really does look like she’s sleeping. She used to look like this when I was little. All those times when it was too early for me to be awake, I’d tiptoe into her room, sneak under the covers, and pretend to sleep. Except I would just watch her. She’d play my game, pretend not to feel me next to her, and then wrap a warm arm around me, anchoring me into her space.

  I wish she would do that now.

  My drawing has come to life. Those early days after the diagnosis, when they said the chemo and radiation should get it all, we believed. Our hope faded, though, when we saw our belief wasn’t enough, that maybe it didn’t matter how much we hoped for the cancer to go away. All these things: Watching her hair slowly fall out, her appetite disappear until she was wafer thin, hearing her puke in the middle of the night, seeing the blood, the pain, feeling her agony, and there was nothing I could ever do to fix any damn thing. Part of me wants to bolt, forget chemistry, graduation, Kyle, even Birdie. Just run. Get out of this shit town and disappear until there’s nothing left of me to hide. The other part of me, the part Ma would want me to listen to, says stay here and be a man, the one she raised me to be.

  I stay for an hour, squeezing her hand, never feeling like she can still hear me from wherever she is now. Maybe that’s just something people say to make themselves feel better about death. But maybe not. I guess it gives me some comfort to think she’s looking down, telling me to sit up straight. So I do. Shoulders squared, I sit until I can stand without crying. On my way out, a new ornament catches my eye. Reminds me of Ma and me, chokes me up even more. I hold it in my palm for a moment, then let it drop.

  “Good-bye,” I say, with one last look. I don’t turn around again.

  I walk past the desk, where Kim has a box of Ma’s things gathered. She says, “Hold on,” runs down the hall, and when she returns, tosses the rest of her things—my stray drawings, the tree, and ornament, into the box. “She loved this stuff. So I left them there as long as I could.”

  After a moment of silence, she hands me a thick envelope. “I’m sorry to do this now. It’s the death certificate so you can register her death.” She cups her hand to the side of her mouth to keep her words between the two of us. “I paid the fee, Bash, so no worries. You’ll just have to go to the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages and—”

  My stare is blank. She pauses, lays her hand on mine. “I’m sorry. Forget it. I’ll call you in a few days, and we’ll deal with it then.”

  I shake my head, I think.

  “The funeral director says he can have the service ready a week from Monday. Ms. Camilla already had everything set up, paid for, so all you have to do is show up.”

  “I can’t.” I swallow another wave of tears, turning my head away so she can’t
see the pain about to erupt.

  “I’ll help any way I can.” She steps closer, finds my eyes. “Just tell me when you’re ready. An obituary she’d prewritten will be in Sunday’s paper, so if you’re not up to calling people, they’ll see it then.”

  “Tuesday—the service has to be Tuesday. She loved that song, ‘Tuesday’s Gone.’ It needs to be on Tuesday.” She nods with a sympathetic smile, pretends I’m not unraveling right here in front of her, and hands me that damn box. It holds what few things Ma owned: her gaudy jewelry and old makeup, some papers, my other drawings, and her colorful bandanna collection.

  With an aching heart, I plod to my car, where the door is, in fact, wide open. The cold air and snow have floated into the driver’s seat, soaking into the fibers. I brush the wet pile into the lot, sit on the soaked cushion, and slam the door. Then, I just … stare.

  I don’t know how long I sit. Could be a minute, could be a day. It’s until my windows are coated with a thick avalanche of white. I’m shivering, but I don’t let myself turn on the engine. I want to be uncomfortable, to feel some kind of pain. Pain is better than this numb straitjacket. My tears have dried and frozen to my lashes, and though my heart hurts, I feel nothing else.

  When I counted change at the ice rink for hot chocolate, I’d forgotten all about the money I’d been gifted from the regulars at the skate club. It’s still burning a hole in my pocket, and I’ve got nowhere to be, so I drive to my usual place in a haze, the one where this oddball cashier who likes to look into my eyes and tell me the weirdest shit, Althea, doesn’t ID. I grab a few bottles of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes and then I drive. I’m not sure where I’m going at first, but the car kind of takes me where I need to be. As I approach Birdie’s house, I slow the car. Headlights off, I pull along the side of the road, almost in the ditch, where the wooden crosses are gathered.

  I unscrew the first bottle of whiskey and chug, coughing when the liquor hits my throat. From here, I can see that spot, the one where the Benz hit the kid, where people have been praying and leaving things. I light a cigarette, too. Everything burns. I ignore Ma’s voice in my head telling me to stop, because she’s not here anymore. That is the only thing I know right now.

  The lights are on in Birdie’s house, their Christmas tree gleaming in that big bay window that overlooks the whole yard and highway. It’s so perfect, makes me feel like the sludge I really am. I take another swig. A car whizzes by as it rounds the bend. “Slow down,” I whisper. I drink again, put the bottle down, and with a scorching fire in my throat, I step out of the car. My boots sink into the snow, leaving tracks, proof. My vision blurs, and I cross the road without looking, because who cares now?

  But I don’t stop at the crash site to pray, or whatever.

  I walk up to the front door, my balance off, and with my finger on the doorbell, I think, it’s now or never, you coward. Come clean. Like a man. My finger shakes. I can only imagine the look on Birdie’s face when I tell her the truth—that I was in that car with Kyle. That the moment she walked into the rink to start her job, I felt torn. Because even though I’ve been lying all along, I was too afraid to tell her I didn’t just feel guilty for the hit and run. I felt guilty for wanting to be with her.

  My eyes narrow in on the button with laser-like focus. But when it comes down to it, I can’t press the bell. I drop my hand. A few steps backward, I realize what I’m doing. Voices murmur from beyond the door, and I panic, tripping in the bush behind my feet. I crawl down the hill and run to my car before I’m seen. With the engine revved, I peel out onto the highway and get the hell out of there before anyone sees me.

  I don’t remember the drive home or the snow or the way any part of my body feels or just how slow my heart beats. I don’t remember Ma’s last words or the way Birdie looks at me or any damn thing. My eyes barely open, I haphazardly park over the sidewalk by my place, nearly grazing the car in my spot.

  “What the hell?” a voice says as I fall out of my car. I’m on the cement, in the snow, my hands holding me up on all fours, and Kyle walks over to help me to my feet. “Where have you been?” he asks. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours.”

  I say nothing, wave him off, and grab the bag of bottles from the seat. I feel my eyes closing. He holds me up, helps my flimsy body to the door. I kick in the weak-ass door and toss my bag of whiskey into the room by my bed and fall into the recliner. My arm covers my eyes. I can’t look at him, at anything.

  “Are you wasted?” he asks, breathing in my face. I ignore him. “Bash—I need to talk to you about Steve. It’s bad. We’re in deep shit now.”

  “What shit?” I ask, barely feeling the words leave my mouth. Everything is numb.

  “Skeevy Steve called Dad; the police arrested him but let him go—it’s worse than bad. It’s … what’s a word worse than bad?”

  “Gravvvve.” I let the word drag on the end, laughing to myself.

  His eyes are bugging out. “Yeah—grave—like the graves we’re gonna be living in.”

  “It’s okay,” I slur. “I’m gonna tell her everything.”

  “Tell who—are you listening to me?”

  “Kid’s sister. She’ll have to know. Because we talked about meat goats.”

  “Dude, you’re not making any sense. Why would you tell his—” He hesitates. “You son of a bitch. You know her? We made a deal.”

  I drunkenly point my finger in his face, try to shove him away from me so I can move to my mattress. “You made a deal. I wanted to turn myself in because I don’t have shit left to lose. Now, here we are, amigo. Just you and me and all my whiskey. Hey! That rhymes.” I slink down and sing in a low, piratey tone. “You and meee and alllll my whiskeeeyyyyy!”

  With fear in his eyes, he steps back, studying me, realization sparking as he twists a weirdly long beard hair between his thumb and forefinger. “Bash … is your mom okay? Is that where you were?”

  “Stop with all that. It’s not an imposition.” I mean inquisition, but my mouth isn’t connected to me right now.

  Wild Kyle looks like he wants to cry. “Did she … die?”

  I stop twitching, eyes closed, and I feel that sharp pang all over again. “Yeah.”

  He pauses. “That sucks, dude … you know,” he says, “Confucius would say, you’ll learn wisdom by three methods, and I feel like, and stop me if I’m wrong, this applies here.”

  I don’t stop him. Because I’m drunk.

  “First, by reflection, which is noblest. Second, by imitation, which is easiest. And third, by experience, which is bitterest.” He continues rambling for, I don’t know, seventeen hundred hours, but his words fade into the darkness, until I hear nothing, see nothing, feel the kind of nothing I need to.

  And it’s damn all right with me.

  birdie

  It’s been a few days since I’ve heard from Bash.

  Vi says my horoscope promises “a romantic encounter,” so naturally, I look to Chomperz, the only man currently in my life, for advice. The verdict’s in: He has no opinion on the subject and just wants a full bowl of Meow Mix, as opposed to the half bowl Mom’s been feeding him to “shed some pounds.”

  I catch Brynn with the door to her room open. She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed with the laptop’s glare reflecting off her eyes. With everything in this weird middle-ground where things aren’t better or worse, I decide it’s now or never. I knock on her door frame.

  “What?” she asks in a snotty tone.

  “Can I come in?” Head down, no eye contact.

  “Do whatever you want.”

  I walk to the edge of her bed, sit right on the ruffle’s seam. “What are you doing?”

  She doesn’t look up from the screen, continues typing. “Homework.”

  I’m silent, stewing. All I hear are her fingers against the keys—tap tap—fast, then slow. She finally looks up.

  “Brynn,” I start, “I just want to tell you … I want to say … well—”

  �
��It’s okay,” she interrupts. “I’m sorry, too.”

  She shuts the laptop, tosses it aside. Her hands are clamped together tightly, shaking and white-knuckled. She’s wrestling with something—something dark that’s rising to the surface. “Anyway, it was dumb. I didn’t love that jerk. I just wanted…”

  I grab ahold of her hands to make them stop moving.

  Her eyes meet mine, they’re filled with tears. “I just want someone to see me.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  “No way,” she says, wiping snot across her arm. “People see you, Birdie. I mean, why wouldn’t they? Look at you. Even with glasses, you’re sooo pretty, and when you talk and use words like, I don’t know, dead bodies, people listen. They wouldn’t listen if I said that. Mom would just make an appointment with Dr. Judy to ask me why I’m talking about dead bodies again.”

  “That’s because you’re really weird.”

  She purses her lips, shrugs, and eventually agrees.

  “Brynn, you see these things in me, but I feel like I fade into the background. The only thing anyone wants to talk to me about, ever, is school and graduation and grades. Like I’m only this one note and never the melody. Does that make sense?”

  “No. You’re more than the melody—you’re the whole song that plays on the radio over and over until people get sick of it. You’re, like, everything. Even that Bash guy at the rink noticed. I could tell by how he looked at you. I wish Jeremy—or anyone—would see me that way. With all of this crappy stuff happening, I needed you, and you haven’t been there. And … and I’m scared.” And the way she says it, the way her voice cracks, I realize that all these things I never thought I was, I am to her, and maybe Bash, too. Only, I didn’t see it in my before—just the after. I smile at the little brat.

  She looks up at me and smiles, too. Because through all the pain and arguing and fighting, we’re always going to be sisters. She’ll always be a constant in my life’s equation.

  “We don’t have to, like, hug,” she says, breaking through the silence.