“Then what’s wrong?”
I scramble to make something up, but something benign so she won’t worry. “Well, I think he wants to get serious already.”
She presses her lips into a straight line. “You’re too young for serious.”
“That’s what I figured.”
I wait for more. The parental wisdom I desperately need. I get silence.
As always when I’m in this room, my gaze is pulled to where Harper’s most alive, her Austin City Limits music festival wall. Pastel thumb-tacks hold up an official poster from every year of the four she attended, along with each of the wristbands, carefully cut off her wrist at the end of the weekend. And something I thought particularly weird at the time, the paper triangle from her first and last blue raspberry shaved ice of each festival. All pinned above her Yamaha electric piano.
I went with Harper to the last two ACLs and didn’t see why it was her idea of heaven on earth. She’d always been musical, which is why she stuck with piano lessons and I didn’t. True, some acts were great (like Louis the Child, the xx, Milky Chance), but still, I was never convinced trudging around with like a hundred thousand profusely sweating people in ninety-degree mugginess made the acts worth it. She promised I’d like it better my second year, when I wasn’t a music fest virgin. She was wrong.
So six months before she died, long before the artists were announced, she reserved only one early-early bird wristband for the following October’s fest. When it came in the mail last September, it blind-sided me. Holding the smooth fabric in the bowl of my hands, I couldn’t stop sobbing.
Thinking I could erase some of the pain, I threw the wristband away. And regretted it the minute the garbage truck drove off. Whenever I look at that wall, I can’t help but see the hole where that last memento should be.
“Ezra and Harper are made for each other,” Mom says finally. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah, Mom, I think.” Present tense. Her doctor said to go with it.
“She lights up for him.”
“That she did,” I mumble. “Does.”
“And he clearly adores her.”
“No doubt.” Mom is in a period of “traumatic bereavement,” not uncommon in the cases of untimely deaths of children. Her psychiatrist can’t tell me when the period will end, or even if it’ll end. But he said for there to be any chance of her coming back to us, I need to be patient with her.
“It would do your sister some good to be a little more serious. Ezra’s a good influence on her.”
The room feels stuffy. I wish I could open a window, but Ezra had to nail them shut when we discovered Mom had been crawling onto the roof to smoke.
“But you’re already serious enough.” Mom’s tone is of someone who hates math trying to work out a math problem. “So you should just have fun for a long while.”
I swipe a shiny protein bar wrapper from Harper’s duvet into the trash and take a seat on the bed.
Mom yelps. “I wish you wouldn’t sit on your sister’s bed.”
I hop up. That’s new. “Sorry.”
“It’s just that she has nothing left, and you have everything, so the least we can do is keep her bed nice.”
I don’t point out to Mom that she sleeps in it every night, since that might make her sleep on the floor. “You’re right.”
I look around for what caused the thud. It seems like it was a book after all. Journey through Chemistry. Harper hated chemistry, cracked up at how the publisher added “journey” to make it seem like an adventure. “If you hate it so much, why didn’t you turn the book in at the end of the year?” I’d asked. She rolled her eyes, as if explaining the obvious to her slightly (thirteen months) younger sib was such a chore. “Duh. I hated it so much that I had to keep it. To remind me of how nothing else will be that torturous. It’ll cut down on life complaining overall.”
“Is it okay if I pick that up?” I point to the book.
“Naturally.” She blinks fast. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
I scoop it up and hug it to my chest. I bring it up to my face, inhale through my nose. But it only smells like book. “Mom, we all miss her.”
She tenses up. “You have your whole life in front of you, Maxine.”
“And you still have Will. And Race.” I don’t add “and me,” because I don’t feel like any kind of prize.
Her voice is tight. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty? About not spending more time with the boys?”
“God, no. I’m not, Mom. I wouldn’t. I just … I just wanted to let you know that we love you. We all do.”
“You’ll all leave, eventually.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I slide the book onto the shelf, spine out.
Her eyes fill.
I drape an arm around her; we’re the same height so we fit together like wild-haired rubber troll dolls. Since Harper died, I can’t full-on hug my mother. I learned that the hard way once; she nearly hit the ceiling when I embraced her and accused me of trying to drown her. Now she leans against me. I kiss her on the temple. Her skin is warm and soft.
“You take as long as you need,” I whisper.
We stay that way for a little while. She straightens up, her voice flattened under tears. “I’m tired now, okay, Harper?”
That shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.
“Of course, Mom. Let me help you get into bed.”
And I do.
Before I head downstairs, I sit at the computer desk tucked in the little nook behind the hall closet. Harper had set up this old beater desktop for the boys to play games on a few weeks before she died. It’s the perfect cranny for a work cubby, but I would’ve never noticed that on my own. Harper had a gift for showing people things they’d otherwise miss.
Three days after she died, I threw my laptop across the room when Shelby told me the pain would hurt less in time. “Like you would know!” I yelled. “Like you’ve ever felt this!”
Weeks later, I apologized to her for my computer violence, but she hugged me and said there was nothing to apologize for. “You could demolish a hundred laptops and I’d still be here.” I wonder what kind of friend I would’ve been if the tables were turned.
I didn’t have the money to replace my laptop, so I’ve used this clunky desktop for bill paying, which is getting more depressing each month. I keep hoping for a loaves-and-fishes miracle.
I bounce over to my e-mail to dilute the bill-paying experience. There’s the typical smattering of spam, something from Chris (subject: thinking of you), which I’ll read later. It’s sweet he takes the time to send e-mails when really we get along fine with texts. Kind of retro and romantic.
“Where’s Maxine?” I hear Race ask from downstairs.
“She’s with your mom, sweetie,” Shelby says.
“TV time is wrapping up!” I call out. “It’s bath time for urchins.”
Will groans.
Race says, “I’m not an urchin anyway. Am I, Aunt Shelby?”
Shelby murmurs something I don’t hear, but her tone is warm and full.
I’m about to close out of my e-mail when a message catches my eye. And my breath.
Subject: your sister’s death.
5
LINNEA
I’m underwater.
My lungs scream. My limbs flail. The water seals my eyes shut. Suddenly I remember I can’t swim. A memory that floods me with terror. But then I hear a voice. Garbled into nonsense by the water in my ears, but then clearer. Someone’s name.
“Linnea? Oh my God. Linnea?”
My name.
I try to open my eyes, but only one will obey. The other’s stuck.
“Can you hear me?”
Daniel? Where am I? I hurt, yet I’m floating too. Am I floating on air? On water?
“Can you hear me?” His voice tugs at me when I need to float. “You’re stung.”
I try to say something, anything, but there’s no room in my throat for words. Or for breath. I’m choking. Am
I choking on water? No, that can’t be. Only air touches my skin. Shit, I can’t breathe. I’m on the ground, outside my house. And I can’t breathe. I gasp.
“Yes, breathe,” he says.
My lungs are thick, heavy, useless. Wasps. Everywhere. I close the one working eye because it hurts to keep it open. My cheeks have turned into cannibal potatoes that have swallowed my mouth.
My heart lurches with the memory of tumbling off the ladder. A thousand pinpricks. My heart?
“Linnea!”
Daniel’s hands are on my hips. Patting, patting. Is that good touch? Bad touch? Why is he patting me like I’m one of the dogs?
“Linnea, where’s your phone?”
My fingers stretch and clutch, blades of cool grass between them.
“Linnea, what about your pen? Where do you keep the pens?”
My fingers go slack. I start to float again, since that’s when the pain floats too. Floats off and away from me.
“Shit,” he says. “Shit. I’ll be right back.”
And then there’s the sound of feet running and breath trying to squeeze into my chest.
I run my fingers over my scar. My heart beating. That’s all that matters. The heart. My heart.
“Linnea.” Daniel’s out of breath. “Goddamnit, I have to do this.”
Do what?
I hear a rustling. The air hits my skin differently, pockets of breeze in the damp stillness. And then there’s a sound like a tiny cork being popped out of a tiny bottle, and a sound like Daniel sucking in his breath.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel says. “I’m really, really sorry.”
Sorry for wha—
The pain starts small but fierce—a mean, confident puncture—and gathers momentum, little fists inside my skin punching up my thigh and into my hip. A flower of space opens petals in my chest, rinsing my lungs with air.
“Linnea?”
My throat loosens. And I can open both eyes now.
“That’s better,” he says.
Daniel is kneeling beside me in the dark, the porch light behind him. His face is twisted with panic. Did I do that to him?
“I must’ve dropped my phone out here,” he says. “I can’t find it. Where’s yours? I’ll call 911.”
“No!” I manage to say.
“But you were almost—”
“Please,” I plead. “No ambulance.”
“Okay, your mom then.”
“Oh, God, that would be worse.” She’d never leave me alone again. Never let me go downtown, never mind to Chicago for school. She can’t know.
“Dad?” he tries.
Anonymous sperm bank donors aren’t dads. But I don’t share that fact of my existence with people I just met. “My mom’s away for work. She can’t afford to get turned around.”
“I don’t know …”
I struggle to hike myself up on my elbows. “I’ll be fine.” The porch light looks good on Daniel, making his face one of summits and hollows. “See? I’m better already.”
“Well, at least let me help you inside,” he says, brow furrowed. “Make sure you’re really okay.”
“Deal.”
“Hornets are the worst,” he says once I’m on the couch, throw pillows that he adorably fluffed up for me propping me into a stiff right angle. He insists I recline and elevate my feet. “You didn’t stand a chance.”
“So does that mean I can’t say, ‘You should see the other guy’?”
There’s his smile again. “How you feeling?”
“Good. See? No paramedics needed.” I try to display an optimistic smile, but my cheeks are still puffy enough that it feels unnatural. Not only am I gritty with dirt (the couch will have to be steam cleaned), but there are red welts up and down my arms, my calves, I bet on my thighs under my capris too.
“Do you have any baking soda?” he asks.
I snicker.
“What’s funny?” he says. “Did my northern accent show?”
It does, but that’s cute, not funny. “Baking soda is one of the things I’d never run out of.”
“You like to bake?”
“Something like that.” I look down. My neck kills when I do. I point to my restaurant tee. “I work here. Desserts.”
He smiles. “Cool. You’re looking better, by the way.”
“Better than what? Wait, don’t answer that.” I try to discreetly readjust on the couch so I’m not so stiff-looking. But then I feel like I’m getting ready to model lingerie. “What are you making with baking soda?”
“You’ll see,” Daniel says. “Point me to it.”
“In the pantry.” I point to the door with the ceramic four-leaf clover on the wall above it the size of a head. Mom’s idea of luck.
“Is this part of the deal?” I say. “You bake something now?”
“If you tried my cooking, you’d rather take your chance with the wasps again.”
He opens the pantry door, ducks inside. It seems surreal, this guy I’ve admired mostly from afar, in my house. Oh my God. He’s the first guy-guy I’ve ever had in my house. Like a guy-I’m-interested-in guy and not a repair guy or please-sign-for-this-delivery guy. Dating is pretty low on the priority list when you’re told your heart won’t make it to prom.
I’m afraid to look around the room and see, like, a bra draped over a chair. Or a paperback with a windblown couple on the cover, man baring oiled pecs, woman barely containing trembling cleavage. Not that I’m a drape-bra-on-common-area-chair sort of girl, even when Mom’s away, but romance novels …
What does make me cringe is one braless chair in particular: a ratty recliner, stuffing spilling from a seam like sneaky laughter no matter how many times I’ve sewn it. The same ratty recliner I wouldn’t let Mom give away because I spent the first two months post-op in it, streaming cheesy rom-coms and napping during The People’s Court, and so I swear it’s good luck. Well, if it’s not the furniture that carries the luck, it’s the heart-shaped stone I slipped into a tear in the arm.
I found it (the stone, not the chair) at a farmer’s market in Austin a month before the heart dropped into my life, when I was so sick I needed a wheelchair to go short distances. The last place I wanted to be was one mobbed with sunshiny people taking life for granted, but my friends were right: it was good for me. I got to snark on the vegan cupcake baker’s sloppy deco job. I got to watch Alma hit on a (strangely receptive) guy whose girlfriend came charging over from the goat-milk soap tent. And I got to discover this stone at the Rock Lady’s booth.
Thanks to the forevers of sand and water, the rock is naturally heart-shaped—subtly rounded and sloping—not fake pointy like Valentine’s candy and emojis. The Rock Lady wouldn’t take any money for it. “The luck will be strongest when it’s a gift,” she said, pressing it into my palm and closing her fingers around it. She recognized I was in need of luck. If the wheelchair didn’t give it away, the oxygen tank sitting on my lap like an obedient spaniel and the cannula softly whistling into my nostrils sure did. Even though she was old and old people are supposed to have poor circulation and therefore colder extremities, her hands were warm against my cold one. But if she noticed, she didn’t flinch.
After the surgery, I must’ve pulled that stone out from its hiding place a hundred times a day to warm it between my palms, to memorize its bumps and grooves and smooth spots. As if getting to know that heart could help me get to know the stranger’s heart in my chest.
“I need a bowl and spoon,” he calls.
“Bowl in cupboard to left of fridge, spoon in drawer to right of stove.”
I prop myself up on my elbows for a better view. I watch the ropy muscles move under his shirt as he reaches into the cupboard and slides open the drawer. Does that make me a perv? Redirecting my attention, I glance down at my legs. Despite the fact that I can’t pinpoint when I last brought a razor into the shower, they don’t look overgrown. Maybe I have the mercy of mud to thank for that. I run my fingers through my hair in an attempt at tidying and come a
way with some mesquite leaves. I stuff them behind a cushion.
I hear the water run, hear the spoon against the bowl. I hear him hum softly. A tune I can’t identify.
Daniel comes back over to the couch, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. He proudly lowers the bowl, showing me the white gluey paste inside.
“Oh, yum,” I say. “Is this the starter, or are we going right into the entree?”
“It’s a poultice. It soothes the inflammation and draws the stingers out.”
“What? They leave their stingers behind?” I’d like to crawl out of my skin now, please.
“Imagine how pissed at someone you’d have to be to die inflicting pain on them.”
“I hope I never am.”
He sits in the ratty recliner (cringe!) at the end of the couch and points at my socked feet and says, “May I?”
It’s such an old-fashioned thing to say that I can’t help but say yes. Though I’m not 100 percent sure what he’s asking permission for.
He sets the bowl down on the ottoman near his knee, gently takes my left foot in his hand, rests the heel on his palm. He spoons out some muck from the bowl and dabs it on a welt above my anklebone. The white paste is cool, soothing. Using his fingers, he rubs little circles of it into my skin, transferring the warmth of his hands along the way.
My leg muscles relax. He finds another wasp wound higher up on my shin and then one lower, on the side of my leg, and takes care of those too. If only my brain could relax in the moment half as much as my leg.
To break the ice, I say (after rehearsing it three times silently first), “So, which saying do you not imagine having a use for?”
He looks up at my face almost as if he’d forgotten anything above my leg existed. “What’s that?”
“Before you had to take the dogs home, you were saying you found one Texism that …” I lose energy. Or nerve. Good icebreakers don’t require backstory.
“Oh, yeah!” He plunks the spoon in the bowl. “Promise you won’t, you know, think less of me for it.”
“Cross my heart.” As I cross it, I feel bee stings under my shirt. Those I will have to poultice on my own.
“Okay, you were warned. Here it is: ‘He’s so ugly his mama takes him everywhere she goes just so she doesn’t have to kiss him goodbye.’”
Borrowed Page 4
