“Me too.” I sigh. Nothing like a good ol’ confession to derail the steadiest of trains. Lagan, the locomotive that lost his lungs. For a guy who rarely lacked words, when his sleezy uncle slipped his hands between Rani’s little girl legs, Lagan hid in her closet, staring silently. They were in the middle of a game of hide and seek. Lagan hid in shame when his cousin stopped seeking. He only came out when the room was empty. The game was over. Reminds me that we all fall down. Some more often than others. But in the end, we all fall sometimes.
“Rani doesn’t know. I haven’t told her. It happened when we were kids. It’s been so long. I don’t know that I have to tell her.”
I put my hand on his arm. “She knows you’re there for her. That you care. That’s all that matters.”
And that’s what I seem to know as true these days. Nothing gets our attention like the curveballs of life. I’ve been hit so many times, a soft lob is what throws me for a loop. But it’s weird how when others get a surprise pitch, I ache inside as if the wind struck me out too.
“You’re right.” Lagan speaks with a dose of renewed confidence.
“And you know what else?” I’m just chock full of good ideas today. Talk about a switcheroo of roles. “You can tell her. Someday. You have to tell her. Someday.”
Lagan lets out another huge sigh and sits down next to me. “You’re right. I know you’re right. Someday.”
We don’t talk much after that. I don’t know where Lagan’s mind drifts off to when he lays his head on my lap. I run my fingers through his hair and think of Rani, a girl he loves that I have never met. A girl who was touched where you’re not supposed to know touch so soon. By a man who isn’t supposed to touch you like that. A girl whose heartaches bring pain to this boy I love. Maybe someday our paths will cross.
A squirrel scurries into our willow cave, and another follows right on the tail of the first. Daydream over, the chase is on. I watch for a moment and even Lagan looks over, and we both laugh at the simplicity of life. Of how simple life can be.
“If all I had to do was chase you up a tree and nuzzle into the back of your neck to tell you how crazy I am about you...” His voice trails off. I wonder if he feels guilty about changing the topic.
I glance at my watch. “OMG!” I stand up in a frenzy. Lagan roles off my lap to the ground to his hands and knees. “Oops. Sorry.” I have got to remember to turn down that panic button when Lagan’s around. “I need to work on that.” I offer Lagan my hand, and he takes it and then pulls me to the ground.
“We can’t be having you looking all spiffy and clean. You need to look like you’ve been doing some work around here.” And with that, he smears some dirt on my cheeks and nose as I try to loosen his grip and break free. He has my good arm by the wrist, and I scoot back on my bottom to try to broaden the space between us.
“Truce! Mercy! Time-out!” Whatever it takes to say I don’t want to play. “I’m gonna get fired! My break was over five minutes ago!”
“You should have thought of that before you dropped me like a hot potato.” Lagan lets go, giving me a chance to get to my feet, but the chase is on. Those darn squirrels. Talk about bad timing for inspiration!
“I can’t climb trees!” I yell ahead of me, although this lanky-legged athlete is on my heels like there’s no tomorrow. I squeeze through a break in the wispy branches, but I feel Lagan’s arms around my waist just as I exit out onto the green landscape outside the willow. “Okay! You got me! You win! Game over! Let me get back to work now.”
“Not until I get my prize.”
“What is it with guys and their trophies?”
“A small prize will do.” Lagan locked his fingers cement themselves against my back, and I have no choice but to comply.
I bend down and quickly grasp an acorn, and then I turn toward my man as his strong arms embrace me. Face-to-face with no space between us, I see myself in his eyes.
“Close your eyes and I’ll give it to you.” His eyebrows raise, his dimple dances playfully on his cheek, and the twinkle of anticipation lights up his eyes.
“All right. Closing.” Lagan has his eyes shut, and I wiggle one arm from out of his grip, stand up on my tippy toes, and move my face close enough to inhale that sweet peppermint gum he carries almost as reliably as those Post-its.
I inhale deeply and then exhale slowly as I run the tip of my nose across his cheek, back toward his left ear. Down to his jawline. His lips spread into an unmistakable smile, and he licks his bottom lip. Perfect. I shove the acorn into his slightly parted lips, break loose, and run for my life!
“So wrong!” I hear behind me. And he strolls toward me, laughing and shaking his head. The game is over. For now.
“You said, ‘small.’” I remind him as I pick up my gardening gloves. “I’ll see you next month! I’ll W4U, okay. Gotsta get back to work.”
“I’m keeping it, you know.” I look up after I retrieve a rake that fell to the ground during our antics, and Lagan holds up the acorn between two fingers. “It was a gift after all. And a hint.” Lagan tucks the acorn into his inside jacket pocket.
“Whatever,” I say. Hint or no hint, I will see ya later. Before I get fired and there is no later to look forward to.
“Mine.” Lagan says, patting his chest where a bump outlines the acorn before bending down to pick up his bike.
And so am I, I think to myself as Lagan mounts his bike and rides off, leaving me under the willow, heart racing, mind swirling, lips longing. Can’t wait till next month.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
In early April, Lagan transfers from DePaul to Northwestern’s downtown campus to keep pursuing his pre-law degree. He also picks up a job as a paid intern at his uncle’s law office in the heart of the city. The funds help pay tuition, but leave little time to do much more than work or study.
We share our dreams under our springtime willow in the garden while new blossoms sail through the air to create a pink and yellow sprinkled blanket around us. He dreams about creating positive change in society through the government—if the people vote him in someday. I dream a writer’s dream. God knows I have enough material for a trilogy on pain. But I’d rather write make-believe tales, the kind with happy endings.
The scents of budding flowers and the earth after a rainfall remind me of second chances. Jesse needs a second chance more than anyone I know. Lagan and I brainstorm how to help Jesse move his mountains, both seen and unseen. I can’t lie. When I think for Jesse, I see a mountain fearfully higher than his secret mobility. His anger drives his every action.
“I’ll happily do the forgiveness thing—once I get my justice. Have to live up to my name after all.” Jess tells me this time and time again.
Jesse can practically run now. He doesn’t use his wheelchair at all, except when Dad’s around. Hiding his healed body from Dad frustrates Jess more than ever. But we both know his secret better creates the possibility of a stealth escape. Luckily, Dad works more hours than ever, giving us siblings plenty of time to breathe. Jesse even found a free online site that helps him prepare for his GED. He’ll get a high school diploma and then think about the next step: how to escape Dad or how to convince Dad to let him attend college. After telling Dad he’s been miraculously healed. Yeah. The details remain hazy at best.
Sitting under the willow on April 17, I tell Lagan my latest and greatest. “Jesse will be eighteen in a month. We’ll both legally be adults, and regardless of our financial stability, we could run away and start over. Just not sure how far we have to run in order to find safety beyond my dad’s claws. Across the ocean makes sense to me. Perhaps India in order to trace our roots and hopefully find our grandparents. Learn about what it was like for Mom to grow up in Kolkata. We can both work to that end, making due with our earnings, keeping life simple. Simply perfect describes any life absent of my dad.”
Lagan listens silently each time I mention leaving. Disappearing from his family, Rani, and life in Chicago is not a realistic opt
ion for him. I would never ask him to leave. How can I have both? I ask myself each time we meet. When Lagan tells me that his new college roommate is a medical student named Reggie, I come up with a perfect solution. Perfect if life were as black and white as a Shakespearian play.
“Maybe your roomie can drug us both, Romeo and Juliet-style, and we can wake up in a cemetery. Jesse could dig us up and then we could all run off to India together. Sound appealing?” Except the part about waking up in a coffin, I’m guessing.
“What makes you think just cuz he’s in med school he has access to illegal drugs? Or any drugs for that matter? You’ve been watching too many episodes of ER, haven’t you?”
“Haha. Very funny.” The last time Jess and I spent any significant time staring at the tube was the infamous snow day when he asked if he could wait for me. W4U.
Besides, Shakespeare just wrote about the classic catch-22. He never came up with any workable solution. Sigh. How could I think to take Lagan away from his loved ones? He actually has people other than me who love him. The price is too high. I cannot ask. I will not ask.
May 17 is three weeks away, and when it comes, I’ll leave campus, take the “L,” then transfer to the bus that takes me a few blocks from the garden. Midterms are underway, and I cannot focus. I am so anxious to see Lagan. This past month proved the longest time period without Dad’s wrath, and my lips look almost normal. Almost pretty.
Jesse asks me when I return from class on April 24 when my next work day is.
I tell him tomorrow night. “Why?”
“I just want to know when you won’t be around. I need some space.”
“I won’t bug you about your anger anymore.” I feel a need to apologize. “I told you I dropped it.”
“That’s not the problem,” Jesse reassures me with a smile. “I just need a few uninterrupted hours.” The fire in his eyes seems ignited with a new idea.
“Dad’s not working late tomorrow night.” I point to the calendar to remind him.
“I know.”
Wait. “Jess? Are you gonna tell him that you’re walking? Talking?”
“If you must know...” Jess pauses for a split second. “Yes. I plan to tell him. And I don’t want you around to feel his back hand when it starts flying.”
“Jesse.” My lips are quivering. “What if? What if he doesn’t know how to handle the news? What if he hurts you? Badly? I’m scared, Jesse. Just wait a few weeks. You’ll be eighteen. We’ll run away as legal adults. Dad won’t have any rights on us then.”
I beg Jesse to reconsider, but he’s made his mind up. He wants to take his chances. Just not with me around. If I couldn’t study before, now my mind spins a whirlwind of horrific outcomes all leading to Jesse being hurt by Dad so badly that his progress returns to square one. Learning to walk again. And talk again. Dad could do that. He’s that evil.
I’m trembling inside my sheets at night. Maybe I should call in sick. Stay close by when Jesse tells Dad. I toss and turn late into the night, aware of the hurt and pain that wall us in and threaten to lock Jesse in for years to come. I have no plan to stop him.
I talk to the gardener, hoping sleep will eventually find me. I talk to the gardener without words. Like truckloads of coal, I carry my load back and forth, a miner familiar with the darkest of caves, and lay them at his feet. First, doubt. Then fear. Then anxiety. Then repeat. I’m searching for that place of still. Where my heart no longer threatens to leap off a cliff. So here I am. Again and again.
I awake sweaty and exhausted. When did sleep find me, I wonder? I dodged the demons of possibility all night. Jesse’s demons. They taunted me with images of his falling from the roof. Broken fingers clutching to the list that pushed him over. Bloody knees from crawling across the floor. I take my shower before the sunrise, my pounding heart still fighting to find still.
Jesse lies in bed when I begin my morning chores, Dad already off to work for the day. My little brother with the big plans is not in the mood to help me today. Perhaps he hasn’t slept well either. I hug him tightly, his head turned from my face. Just as I reach his bedroom doorway, I hear Jesse’s first words since last night: “You’re right.”
“What?” My hand catches the doorframe as I catch a curse before it leaves my lips. “What did you just say?”
“I said, ‘You’re right.’ In fact, you’ve been right all along.” Jesse swings his legs off the side of the bed and sits up, then stares at his hands, cracking his knuckles like a boxer about to enter the ring.
Dropping my bag to the floor, I return to Jess’s bedside, giving him the green light to say more. I’m still not sure what we’re talking about, but I know my brother well enough to wait it out.
“Fire.” Jess says a word—the one word that has penetrated my life most deeply. If hell is made of fire...
“I’m gonna set the house on fire.” Jess lays out his plan like he’s reading the directions on the back of a Betty Crocker cake mix. “I’m gonna burn Dad’s perfect world to the ground for all the times he burned you. And Mom. And me.”
“Jess.” I actually don’t know what to say. I close my eyes and envision the bed sheets below me engulfed in embers. Orange dances in my eyes. And maybe I imagine it, but a sensation of heat rises over my ears. Wallpaper peels, spreads out, and patterns erase like a fading dream. Tea kettles blacken, melt, and vanish. And just before Jesse and I flee the house of fire, I rip up the list. Then every list ever written. Into hundreds of pieces and throw the shreds up into the air. Lashing flames lick them up before one scrap hits the ground. Then we run. And run and run. Never looking back.
“It’s the perfect plan, really.” Jesse’s words tell me this daydream is about to become reality. “You leave the house. Don’t show up to work. Take nothing with you. Not even the shoes you usually wear every day. You can’t let anyone see you either.”
“When?” I know now where he’s going with this. “Because...” And I know he’s right. The only way we can truly escape Dad is death. Or rather, the appearance of. But I can’t leave without saying goodbye. And Jesse knows this.
“I was gonna say now. I’m ready. I was ready yesterday. Heck, the day Mom died. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?” Jesse shakes his head and punches his hand. Time is something we can never take back. But we have tomorrow, if—and that’s a huge if—we can pull this off.
“Give me one day. Let me have one last day at the garden. And say my goodbyes.” Really one goodbye. “And then. Then we can...” And my voice fails to say the word go. Because I’ve seen these crossroads a million times. In and out of my dreams. Lagan and I never had a fighting chance at happily ever after. The fight has always been between Dad and me. Jess and Dad. And even when we win, we lose. I lose.
“One day.” Jess’s words linger in the air as I head out the front door. I have one last day to live. To love. Then to let go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
During the commute to campus, I change my mind and stay on the train as it heads downtown. I don’t know Northwestern’s campus at all, but I know Lagan is there, somewhere. I can’t waste my last night alive staring at a whiteboard of quotes by Thoreau and Emerson. Our own Walden Pond awaits out there, wherever Jesse and I decide to run away to.
Why would anyone attach the word good to bye puzzles me. Angers me. And then saddens me. Because, ultimately, this sucks. But maybe it’s better this way. Jesse decided the when so I wouldn’t have to.
As soon as I exit the “L,” I walk several blocks, following signs pointing to NU’s downtown campus. Finding a courtesy phone inside the Northwestern Medical School Library, I stand nearby to wait my turn. A short blond chick has the receiver to her ear. I can’t hear her conversation, but anyone a mile away can see her chomping on bubble gum like it’s going out of style.
I dial Lagan’s number from memory in my head. Over and over again, so I won’t forget it. After that winter snow day, when the boys snow-piled on top of me, and we feasted on cookies and cocoa, I le
arned all of Lagan’s numbers—home, dorm, and cell by heart—for such a time as this.
As I wait in line for the blond, who leans against the wall like she’s settling into a nice long chat with an old friend, I force myself to stay calm by thinking about the snowball fight, the ridiculous tackle, hands colliding in warm dishwater, and my first fingertip-delivered, peppermint kiss. Jesse’s words, “Don’t take anything with you,” bring on new meaning when I think about the kiss I will never know, because my lips never healed in time. Running the back of my index finger along the scabs of my bottom lip, I clear my throat loudly, hoping bubble-popping blondie takes a hint.
She’s still chatting a mile a minute. I have no choice but to continue waiting. I rewind to the winter scene in my mind, Jesse and I dressed from head to toe in snow gear. Jess’s legs strong and ready to live again. Silently planning who would make the first brave move to the front of the house, we stood motionless, dazed and confused by deep slopes of snow mounded up against the siding.
“Step on top. Think light!” Jesse muffled the words from under his scarf-covered mouth. “Try to step over it.” But the moment he took his third step, he sank. Right to the ground.
I wanted to laugh. But I knew I was next. And there was no way around it. If I wanted to play, I had to go through it.
“Through,” I said as Jess plowed onward. “That’s the only way to get there.” And even as blondie hangs up and saunters off, I stare at the phone for a second before picking it up. Because I know it like my frostbitten fingers on that winter snow day. There’s no way around this. Jess’s plan is foolproof and the best shot we have of being truly free from Dad and his iron clutches. Through. I have to go through with it.
“Hello?” Lagan’s voice works like a tranquilizer, sending a wave of peace straight into my pounding heart.
Followed by a second set of waves, and in flood the how’s: How much do I tell him? How much is safe for him to know? How much will help him to let me go?
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