Alma whoops with delight. “Way to trounce your fear, girl!”
An easy smile lifts the corners of my lips. “That’s a good way to put it.”
“Hey,” she says, pointing into the distance toward a guy walking a bunch of dogs. “Isn’t that Dave or Demeter or Dexter? The neighborhood new guy?”
I block the sun with my hand. Daniel’s right on time. Inwardly, I smile.
“Spill,” Alma says. “You’ve talked to him, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.” I have, just once—not that he remembers. Daniel’s from Michigan. He’s not in high school either. Graduated. And more than cute, if you like the hopelessly disheveled look, which I guess I do. I’m disappointed that he takes a left instead of a right and moves away from the house. I want him to see me up here and think I’m kind of badass.
Alma squints. “He’s easy on the eyes.”
“You must have Supergirl vision.”
“I do when I want to.” She pats my hand. “Just looking, by the way. I would never try to steal a guy you’re sniffing around.”
“Sniffing? I don’t sniff.”
“Yet,” she says. “Where there’s a yet, there’s hope.”
Daniel snaps the tangle of leashes as the dogs weave in four different directions. The fact that he can’t control his charges makes him that much more interesting.
Julie’s at the window now. “Holy shit, Linnea. WTF?”
I laugh. “The only way past a fear is through it, right?” A bee zips over, zags around my face. I backhand it away.
With a twisty wrist, Alma snuffs her cigarette out on a roof shingle. She turns away from me and exhales one last mouthful of smoke.
“Bum a smoke?” I ask.
“What?” The breeze plays her hair across her face, and she looks at me through it.
“A cigarette. For me.”
“Linnea—”
“I thought my mom already left. And yet, here you are.”
Julie sticks her head farther out the window. “But isn’t smoking like the worst thing … you know … for your …”
I lean over, surprised that the shift in weight doesn’t trigger an internal alarm. The cigarettes are under Alma’s knee. I grab a corner of the crinkly pack and slide it toward me. Alma is too stunned to do anything. I tap one out and bring it to my lips.
“A light?” I ask.
She sets her jaw and shakes her head.
“C’mon,” I say. “Don’t make me go back inside just for matches.”
“That’s fucked up,” Julie says.
Alma touches my knee, her voice soft. “You’re supposed to take better care of it.”
“It? You mean my heart? So you can smoke, and it’s okay—”
“It’s not okay,” Julie says. “It’s disgusting. She stinks.”
Alma glares at her.
“But it’s worse if I smoke,” I say, “because it’s not my heart. Is that what you guys mean? I’m supposed to take better care of it because it’s on loan?”
“Well, that’s a strange way to put it,” Alma says. She stands her lighter between us and picks at a loose roof shingle with her thumbnail.
Somewhere down the street a lawn mower starts. Chattering squirrels race up a tree. Kids shout playfully in a nearby backyard.
Julie takes a deep breath. “Yeah, that is a weird way to say it.” She extends her hand, and, after three heartbeats, I drop the cigarette into it. “Because when you borrow something,” Jules says, “you have to give it back.”
Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.
And maybe that’s what my dreams are trying to tell me.
2
MAXINE
Every day is the same.
I get up in the dark—sometimes after barely sleeping—and brew the coffee double strength. Once I’ve downed two cups, I wake the boys and get them ready for school. Then two more cups. After school for them and sometimes for me (depending on whether or not I bother going), the goal is to fill up the hours before bed in a way that makes my brothers think they’re in a normal family.
They always ask about Harper.
“Why won’t she come back?” one of them will ask through a square meal or toothpaste foam or a damp facecloth.
“Remember?” I’ll say, trying not to let my gritted teeth grind my words to dust. “She can’t come back, sweetie.”
“But why, Max? Doesn’t she love us anymore?”
“Of course she loves us. Loved us. But when it’s somebody’s time to go to heaven, they can’t come back anymore.” I don’t believe in a fated time to go, like a trapdoor on a calendar. And I sure as hell don’t believe in heaven. But I’m learning that part of parenting is leaning on the kindness of lies.
The boys are old enough to understand death. I’ve even talked to their teachers about it. It’s just that they don’t want to accept it, thanks to one of Race’s schoolmates, who told my brother about a movie where people crawled out of their graves. Hungry. And just in case Race might’ve dismissed this as make-believe, the lousy little snot said his grandmother knows it’s true because it’s in the Bible. “You just hafta believe enough, Max,” Race parroted. “You’re not supposed to forget.”
So my brothers have started dragging an extra plate out of the cupboard at dinnertime. They clang utensils against it. Float a napkin over it. And drop glances at it during the meal.
It kills me to see that empty seat. That empty dish. That motionless fork and knife. But the boys are too invested in it for me to sweep it all off the table with one quick arm and yell that Harper is nothing but bones by now.
Mom’s chair is empty, too. But that’s different. And they’re used to that, a year later.
And me? What am I used to a whole year later?
The days are all the same. One by one. Shuffling footsteps without a destination.
Sunday, 3:30. I’m drinking coffee and reading the boys’ spring break day camp schedule. They’re watching something on TV that Mom would’ve never allowed a year ago, something peppered with explosions.
SCHEDULE:
Monday a.m.
Tick, tock, campers! Go back in time to see what life was like for the first settlers in the Hill Country! (Including a horse-and-buggy wildflower tour!)
I should be grateful I don’t need to wash clothes by beating them with rocks in the crick, but I just can’t muster the enthusiasm. Vaguely, I wonder whether the time travel will include accurate history. As in native-peoples-brutally-wiped-out accurate. Since you can’t be taller than a fourth-grader to attend this camp, I’m thinking not.
There’s a knock on the back door. Shelby breezes in a second after the knock.
“How about waiting for ‘come in’?” I say, but I don’t mean it. Shelby walking in like she lives here is a whiff of normal.
She greets me with a side hug. “If I thought you might be doing something you needed privacy for, I would’ve. Something involving the f-word. Remember that? Fun?”
“Vaguely.” The last time I hung out with Chris was fun. Mostly, though, it’s the other f-word—forgetting—that is the only way I can get to fun.
There’s a muffled thud above our heads. Shelby points to the ceiling, quirks a brow, and mouths Mom? I nod.
I showed up at the hospital for Mom on Friday, as planned, but she refused to change into her street clothes. So I did what any loving daughter would do: I gave up and led her to the car in her bathrobe.
I wonder if it’s comforting for the boys to know she’s home, even if she’s mildly catatonic behind the closed door of Harper’s bedroom, wearing Harper’s clothes and muttering to herself in Harper’s mirror. I guess the hospital fixing her is too much to hope for. I know it must be worse for her—I know—but sometimes I hate her for leaving me with everything.
“Have I got the color for you,” Shelby says, all car-salesman smooth, rooting in her enormous pleather purse that smells like waiting room furniture.
“Does this have something to do with fun
?”
“I was just at the Estée Lauder counter.”
“I was thinking you look especially glam,” I say. She does, her wide blue eyes expertly lined and shadowed, her short platinum hair sleekly blunt against her shimmery jaw. “Don’t tell me—while the Estée elves were plying you with samples, you helped yourself to something with a price tag.”
She scowls. “Miss Morality all of a sudden.” She pulls out a shiny gold tube of lipstick and pulls off the cap with a pop.
“Just observing … not judging.”
“Pucker,” she says and cradles my chin in her hand.
I pull out of her grasp and glug the coffee down the drain. I don’t even like coffee. Harper did. Running a damp sponge over the counter, I slow down near a coffee ring stain on the old chipped white Formica, not sure if I caused it or if my sister did. Wishing I could say for sure it was hers.
“You’re pretty,” Shelby announces, like it’s a diagnosis. “It’s time for you to start acting the part.”
“Shel, you know I hate lipstick. It’s like eating crayons. Gradually.”
“But it’s Seduction after Dark.”
“Looks like orange.”
“You used to be daring, Maxine.”
“I’m feeling judgment,” I warn.
“Just observing.” She plunks the uncapped lipstick down on the counter. It looks like a tiny, poised missile. “Okay, well at least let me do something about those bags.” She goes back to digging through her purse.
I look around. “What bags?”
It’s telling that I think grocery bags.
“The ones under your eyes.”
“How do you know I’m not perfecting those for a makeover photo shoot? The before part, naturally.”
“Ha. You’re exhausted, Max. I get it. But until you can get beauty sleep, you’ve got to rely on Products.” (Yes, she says it capitalized. Products possess divinity for Shelby.)
I sit at the kitchen table, anchor my elbows on a sticky placemat, and prop my chin in my hands. Shelby squeezes my shoulders, causing the chair to wobble against the linoleum. I feel the exhaustion draining from my limbs as I sit still, but it doesn’t leave me entirely. It pools somewhere around my heart.
“Don’t,” I say, “unless you want me to fall asleep right here.”
“You have kolache-sized knots in here.” She digs into the back of my neck with an expert knuckle.
“By design. Tension keeps me awake.” I grab her hand. Shelby’s planning on going to massage school. While I may need a massage, I don’t have time for one. “When you have to get your practicum hours or whatever, I’ll be a guinea pig for you. But I’m good for now.”
“Lawd, let me help you, girl.” She frees her hand.
“You help me plenty,” I say. “You bring the normal.”
“Hey, I know!” She releases my hair from its ponytail and lifts sections of it away from my scalp. “I’ll do something about this listless hair.” She keeps sectioning, which feels like a mini-massage.
“It’s clean. Volume is a luxury I don’t have.”
“Think maximizer and chunky auburn highlights,” she says.
Race pads into the kitchen. “Shelby!” He grabs her waist and squeezes, even though his arms don’t reach all the way around. He’s five, which is a developmental world away from Will’s eight. So Will is much harder to distract.
She ruffles his hair fast, like she’s determined to create static. “You being good for your big sister?”
“Watch out,” I say to Race. “Before you know it, you’ll have chunky auburn highlights.”
He squirms out of the hug and looks up at Shelby. “Did you bring me something?”
“Race,” I say, “don’t be rude.”
“Of course I did,” Shelby says. “Don’t I always?” She snatches the lipstick off the counter. “A special crayon. Goes on extra thick.”
“Cool! Do I have to share it with Will?”
“I think I have something in here for big brother.” She digs in her purse again and comes up with an elegant box of eye shadow in bruised sunset colors. “A tiny box of paints. They work best if you mix them with water.”
I cringe at the thought of wet eye shadow streaking the walls. But seeing Race’s delight at the “gifts” changes my cringe to a laugh. “Remember, that stuff stays on paper only. And tell your brother dinner will be ready soon.”
He sniffs the air. “I don’t smell anything.”
I stand up. “That’s because it’s still all up here, wise guy.” I tap my temple and wink. Glad he’s small enough that I can still do this, I scoop him up and plant a kiss on his cheek. The kind that makes him wipe it off. And to think a year ago I thought little half brothers were pesky cohabitants I had to steer around. To think a year ago I was annoyed their totally out-of-the-picture father never gave us a break from them.
Clutching his spoils, Race runs out of the room.
“How’s Will?” Shelby asks.
“You know … the same.” I bite my thumbnail. “Has nightmares sometimes.”
I don’t look at Shelby, because I don’t want to see how bad it all is, reflected back to me. Dinner. That’s something to do.
I open the fridge and hope for inspiration or ingredients. Nada. Just cold and empty. I knee it shut and am faced with one of the pictures magneted to the front. Harper and Ezra, last year’s prom. She wears a stunning satiny one-sleeve royal-blue dress and a dazzling smile. Her dark brown hair is loose and wild and ridiculously lush, whatever the polar opposite of “listless” is. She has her arm around Ezra in this effortless, relaxed way, and although she’s looking at the camera, he’s looking at her. She’s so unselfconsciously alive in the photo that I always lapse into present tense when I look. I correct myself: Wore. Was. Had. Loved.
“Should I order pizza?” Shelby asks.
“Absolutely.”
She opens the junk drawer and paws through it for the right menu.
Race patters in again. “Will wants to know what we’re having—he said he’s flamished.”
“Pizza pie!” Shelby says proudly, like she invented it.
“Cool!” He turns to leave and deliver the news, but stops and calls over his shoulder, “Don’t forget to get half with mushrooms. For Harper.”
And he runs back out.
Shelby blankets me in a look I wish I could shrug out of. One part helplessness, one part pity, it says, Shit, it really is as bad as all that.
Yes, and tomorrow will be more of the same.
Trying to fill emptiness with nothing but two hands and one heart.
3
LINNEA
I’m alone. Finally.
I’m sitting on the roof, relishing the lightness of the air on my skin. The tarry shingles retain the day’s heat, even though the sun is sinking. I have a Bic lighter in one pocket of my capris and a pack of Mom’s super-secret-stash cigarettes in the other. I’m trying to talk myself out of lighting up.
Mom thinks she’s hiding her occasional habit from me, and I wouldn’t tell her otherwise. I get it: this year has been über-stressful. There were times in the early months after my surgery where she’d run out for groceries and come back with few items but with more energy and a whiff of ashtray. It didn’t take me long to discover her hiding place—a box in the garage marked 2013 tax receipts. (The giveaway? The top of that box was less dusty than 2016 tax receipts.)
Smoking is the worst thing for any heart, and I don’t have just any heart. Mine had to be coaxed to work with a circulatory system it just met. Before today, I had never even thought about smoking. Before today, I had never craved a cigarette, the sharp, burned bitterness crouched on the back of my tongue like a dare.
Julie was expected at home for Sunday night dinner with her parents, and though that’s a standing family-only thing, she called them and asked if I could come too. I think she was worried about leaving me alone. I hated disappointing her, but alone was exactly where I wanted to be. I thought abo
ut studying for the GED and got as far as de-flouring the damn book. I couldn’t make myself care about the causes of World War I with a war raging in my head.
Alma had to visit her great-grandmother in San Antonio and invited me to come along. That was harder to turn down; I feel more comfortable around Alma’s family. Julie’s mom and dad treat me like I’ve got a stress fracture running through me instead of a surgical scar, and any second the fissure will erupt, leaving me to crumble before their eyes.
Alma and I drove down to San Antone last November to celebrate the last two days of Día de los Muertos with her great-grandmother, and though I thought it would be creepy and morbid, it was exactly the opposite. It was this cool space where art and memory and faith intersected and let you feel sadness right alongside joy. When we got there, Señora Gutierrez took one of my hands in both of hers, held my gaze for a long while, and then beamed at me like she had seen my alma (my soul) … and had approved.
There were three small altars set up in her home: for her husband, one of her sons, and one granddaughter. After I’d added the biscochitos I’d made to all that she’d already arranged (stuff like photos, handwritten poems, candy, bread … you know, the ingredients of a life that seem ordinary when you look at them from one direction, spectacular from another), she asked me to help her light candles for the loved ones she’d lost. I was surprised by all the beauty waiting in the small places: the soft scratch of the wooden match against the box, the wick catching like a sudden bloom, the tremulous quiver of the new flame. Then we lit a candle for the heart donor (her idea), and she said a prayer for the donor’s alma in Spanish that was more beautiful to me for not being translated, and then she turned to me, laughed gently, and told me I needed to eat more. And since Alma’s grandparents own two restaurants in San Antonio, that’s not hard to do when I’m there.
But as fond as I am of Alma’s whole family, I get the sense I’m supposed to be on my own today.
Borrowed Page 2
