Splinters of Light

by Rachael Herron

  “Salt,” she’d said. “I think that’s what I forgot to put in.” She’d poked at the lasagna she’d made and pretended he hadn’t spoken.

  “Here,” he’d said. “I want to move into your house.”

  Nora had been noting the dates they had sex on her day planner. There were plenty of them, little blue Hs, circled at the top of the square that held the day. She didn’t want to forget a single time. But if she did, how would she know? It used to be that they’d drink a glass of wine and watch the lawn grow. Now they had sex and laughed and then gazed up at the long crack in his ceiling. Then they laughed more. Nakedness did that to old friends. Once Harrison had choked sobs into her hair, and once, after what had been possibly the biggest orgasm of her life, she had cried against his chest until the pillow had been as wet as the sheets below them. But mostly they laughed. That was the best part of it, even better than the actual sex. Naked, uproarious laughter.

  “Did you hear me?” Harrison asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “I want to—”

  “I heard you. I just don’t want you to say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” There were so many reasons, the primary one being Ellie. Not that Ellie didn’t love Harrison like a . . . She still hadn’t admitted (out loud) to Ellie that she and Harrison were . . . were doing whatever it was they were doing. She was still hiding him in plain sight. “Just no. I’m fine.”

  “But you won’t be.”

  There were grooves at the corners of his eyes, fine lines she’d never noticed before. “I know. Then you can help.” Even that hurt to say. “Not before.”

  “Let me help now.”

  “When it’s time,” she said.

  “How will we know when it is?”

  She’d watched a video of a forty-eight-year-old man who’d been diagnosed four years prior to the filming. His voice shook when he spoke, and his words trailed off before the end of his sentences. “It’s hell,” the man had said, “knowing that I’m leaving them. Knowing I can’t . . . What is it I’m saying?”

  “Knowing he can’t stay.” His pretty wife, a grim look belying her bright smile, filled in the gaps.

  In the kitchen, Nora had said to Harrison, “We’ll know.”

  Now the bargelike party boat ferried them the short distance from Pier 39 to the fake island. Ellie sat with Dylan, snapping selfies with no flash. Harrison sat on his own bench and sneaked peeks into the storage area. “Empty wine-cooler bottles,” he whispered at Nora. “People still drink those?” Luke stood next to Captain Mac, a hungover-looking young man who wore a captain’s costume that looked two sizes too big for his narrow shoulders. Mariana sat next to Nora on the flat bench seat.

  “This should be fun,” said Mariana brightly. “How are you feeling?”

  Nora took her knitting out of her purse. “If you’re asking about the functionality of my brain, it’s working. Firing on most of its cylinders.”

  “Most? How was yesterday? At the doctor’s office?”

  It was funny that she forgot random things—like the fact that she’d been making toast until she went to put the bread in the toaster and found cold, hard bread inside the slots—but she remembered every bit of that office visit. “Fine.”

  “Really?” Mariana looked so happy to hear it. “Really fine?”

  Nora couldn’t bring herself to tell her the truth: that she’d failed more tests than she’d passed. She’d screwed up the NYU story recall test and barely passed the Boston Naming Test. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. “Yep,” she said, patting her sister on the knee. She knitted another round.

  “God, that’s getting long. Is it a kneesock?”

  Nora decided right then. “Yes, it is.” It was easier to keep going than to decide to stop.

  The island itself rocked more than Nora thought it would. Given that it was really just a huge floating pad, it made sense, but the roll and sway underneath her was unnerving. Nora liked to keep the ground steady underneath her. Lately it was her full-time job. This island seemed treacherous. Islands should be moored with long earthen limbs dug deep into dirt below—they shouldn’t sway like a hula dancer.

  Before they were seated inside, the six of them trooped up the stairs of the lighthouse. Up top, a small beacon rotated and four or five other tourists snapped pictures of Ghirardelli Square. “If this is a real lighthouse, no wonder people crashed on the rocks around here,” said an old woman in a loud voice. “Imagine! I couldn’t put on my makeup in this light.”

  Well, maybe that was the explanation for the wandering eyeliner and the lipstick on the tip of the woman’s nose.

  “Let me get a picture of the birthday girl and the almost-birthday-girls.” Harrison, who always remembered to take photos of important moments, held up his iPhone.

  With her back to the lights of San Francisco, Nora wrapped one arm around Mariana’s waist, the other around Ellie’s. They felt too thin to her. She, on the other hand, had been putting on weight—thanks to the meds—and felt like the solid one. She smiled at the camera and felt her roots grow down, down, down, through the lighthouse, through the wooden floor of the barge, through the water, past the plants in the murk, and into the mud far below. Somehow, she’d hold them all in place, safely through the storm.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Mariana loved the dining room of Forbes Island. “We should have come here years ago,” she whispered to Luke. It was straight-up kitsch, but the best part was that it was completely un-ironic. The lighting was dim; the tables stood askew. None of the plates or silverware matched except in era (late fifties?), and the chairs creaked as they moved in them. Small hurricane lanterns flickered below the portholes over their heads. The waiter pointed out that down here they were actually below the waterline. When Mariana had walked to the strange ladies’ room earlier (located in a tiny room that used to be a berth, it still had a small bed, a fireplace, and an enormous stone bathtub), she could smell mildew. Imagine fighting wood rot on an island that was actually a boat. Mariana admired the chutzpah of the owner, who apparently still dropped by now and then, still treated like the captain he was.

  Now she clapped her hands. “Presents!” She’d been looking forward to this for weeks. It was the best idea she’d ever had for a birthday present, and the fact that Ellie was in on it made it that much better.

  She flagged down the waiter to clear their plates. The waiter clucked his disapproval at the basket of unfinished bread and clucked harder as he swept dropped salad off the tablecloth. “Thank you so much. It’s a celebration, you know. It’s all three of our birthdays! Well, it’s hers”—she pointed at Ellie—“and it’ll be ours in a few hours.”

  The waiter made a face that looked like he didn’t believe a word of that kind of coincidence and took the plates away, still grumbling.

  Nora, who’d been so quiet over the meal, so worryingly darkened like a shuttered room, brightened. “Presents! Oh, good!” She pulled out two envelopes and handed one to Mariana, one to Ellie.

  Opera tickets. Season passes, two each.

  Mariana looked at them blankly, turning them over and then staring at the front again. Ellie was doing the same thing with hers.

  “The four of you can go,” said Nora excitedly. “Together. Double dates.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Ellie.

  “It’s your new thing!”

  “What?”

  “You know how when someone gets really into something and has to drag everyone else along? I figure at least one of you will get really into opera because of this, and then you’ll get to spend the time together. It was that or seasons passes to Six Flags in Vallejo . . .”

  Ellie’s face fell. “Oh.”

  Nora slipped two more envelopes out of her purse. “Yeah, I got you season tickets for that, too.”

&nbs
p; Laughing, Ellie waved them in the air. “I love Six Flags.”

  “I know.”

  Mariana felt a sideways lurch in her belly. Luke tried to take her hand, but she pulled away from him. “You got tickets for yourself, too, right?” she asked. “For you and Harrison?”

  Ellie laughed. “Of course she did.”

  Nora’s wriggled her nose and then rubbed it. “They’re for you. And your dates.”

  Mariana watched Ellie realize what it meant. Her face fell below the waterline. “No way,” said Ellie.

  “What?” Nora looked honestly surprised.

  “I’m not doing shit without you.”

  “Honey, I’m not saying—”

  Ellie threw the envelope back onto the table so fast she knocked over her water glass. “I know what you’re saying and I hate it.”

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  None of them moved to right the glass, to stop the waterfall. The opera tickets were soaked.

  “Seriously? You’re playing the sick card again?”

  “Again?” said Nora in an aghast voice.

  Mariana wanted to put her hands over Nora’s ears. “Ellie. Stop it.”

  “She does it all the time.”

  Nora’s face was white except for two brilliant red spots shining at the tops of her cheekbones. “I would never play that card.”

  Ellie shook out her hands in front of her as if she’d been typing too long. “But you do. The other day you said, ‘Clean your bathroom because . . .’ and then you just walked away from me.”

  Mariana felt a wild rush of relief. “That’s not the same thing at all!”

  “Honey,” said Nora, leaning forward, “I didn’t mean . . . I don’t even remember that. I think I must have just wandered away, maybe I just forgot what I was—”

  “Whatever. You forgot. How much worse is this going to get? I know it’s rough on you, I know, I know, but how much of my life is going to be affected by this?” Ellie glanced sideways at Dylan as if she was embarrassed.

  Embarrassed? Maybe Ellie thought they should keep from being real in front of her boyfriend, but that was bullshit. Mariana would show her embarrassment. She stood, knocking over her chair, which crashed into a wicker loveseat behind them. “Your life?”

  “Mariana,” warned Nora.

  “Your life, little girl? This disease is taking everything from her, and you know that. You think it’s affecting you?”

  Ellie’s chin went up in exactly the same way it used to when she was learning how to be defiant, when she’d been learning exactly how far she could push either of them. “Yeah. I know it’s the wrong thing to say. We’re all supposed to be thinking about her. All Nora, all the time. And when they’re not thinking of her, they’re thinking of you. The twin. How can this affect one and not the other? Oh, how does the twin feel?” Huge tears welled in Ellie’s eyes, and Mariana felt her heart break in two, split right down the middle. The fake island pitched under her feet, and she felt like she might throw up.

  Ellie went on. “And I’ve been so quiet, trying to do everything right, trying to take care of everything. You know what? Every single night, I go through the house and shut things off.”

  “Oh.” Nora put her hand over her mouth. Her voice was muffled as she said, “Oh, chipmunk. You said it was okay.”

  “She leaves lights on all over the house, even though she’s always nagging me to turn them off. She never does. She opens the freezer door and walks away from it and when I get there, all the meat has defrosted. I check to make sure she leaves her keys on the hook when she gets home.”

  Mariana and Nora spoke at the same time:

  “I always leave them on the hook.”

  “She always leaves them on the hook.”

  It was a thing her sister did, like Windexing when she was stressed, like always having a craft of some sort in every room to work on when she had downtime. Nora never lost her keys, ever.

  “She doesn’t. Not anymore. I couldn’t find her keys when I was going to bed, so I looked around the house, but they weren’t there. I finally found them outside. In the car.”

  Mariana’s body physically hurt, as if she’d suddenly contracted a high fever. Her eyes burned.

  Nora, still with her hand over her mouth, said, “I left them in the car?”

  “With the door open. It was running. In the driveway. Almost out of gas. You seriously don’t remember me telling you that?”

  Nora shook her head.

  Ellie echoed the motion. “I can’t believe you don’t remember me telling you that.”

  “Don’t get angry with her!” Mariana wanted to haul Ellie out by her ear, pull her up the steps past the stupid, foul-smelling waterfall, and leave her out in the cold to bark with the angry sea lions. “You don’t get to get mad at her. It’s a disease.”

  Ellie grimaced. “That’s the worst part. I can’t get mad. I’m not allowed to. I can’t get mad at anyone but myself for being such a terrible person that I wish this had never happened because it’s ruining my life.” Oh, the sound of the disapproval that dripped from Ellie’s voice. It was viscous, a toxic yellow tinge to the words.

  “Don’t you dare talk to her like that.” Mariana, still standing, touched Luke’s shoulder. He said nothing but raised his hand to touch her fingers. Open hands cling to nothing.

  Nora kept her eyes on Ellie as if she’d never seen her before. Pain swam in her eyes, and Mariana felt like she could drown the child. Happily. If Nora cried, she would drown Ellie like a kitten in a sack.

  Tell her, Nora. Tell your daughter she doesn’t get to act like a child even though she is one, tell her she doesn’t get the luxury of being an insolent teenager with an attitude, tell her that she lost that right with your diagnosis.

  Tell her.

  Mariana remembered suddenly the fort they’d built in second grade out of three pallets they’d found behind the diner their mother was working at. It had been so simple to lean the pallets together against the wooden fence near the Dumpster, and just like that, a tiny place with walls, just for the two of them. There had been nothing comfy about the space, the ground just dead grass, no roof over their heads, but that made it easy to watch the clouds sail overhead. They’d read books out loud to each other, taking turns one chapter at a time—Freckle Juice and The Giving Tree. It had felt like home, that tiny fort. Safe.

  Mariana’s heart ached.

  Ellie scowled.

  Then Nora said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re scared. I’ll buy a ticket for myself to the opera and to Six Flags.”

  “I’m not going without you,” said Ellie with a catch in her voice. “You can’t make me.”

  “I won’t try.”

  “I’ll probably hate the opera anyway. In case you’re wondering, which apparently you’re not.”

  Dylan, in his first non-mumbled sentence of the evening, said, “I love it. Rigoletto is great. And The Barber of Seville is hilarious.”

  They all stared at him. He raised and then dropped his shoulders. “My sister’s a professional singer.”

  It was the first thing Mariana had heard about the kid’s family, and she liked it. “Good. That’s great.”

  “I want to get tested,” said Ellie.

  “No,” said Nora. “I won’t have you possibly ruin your whole life before it’s even started. No way.”

  “For my birthday gift.”

  Mariana clapped her hands. “Jesus Christ, not now, Ellie.” She tried a smile, and it didn’t wobble overly much, so she continued. “Can we just try to have a nice time?”

  She could almost see her niece contemplate the question. She could almost see her need to say “no” wriggle under her skin. Then Ellie inhaled sharply and said, “Okay. Yes.”

  She didn’t apologize, but Mariana didn’t want to, either. So she said
, “Now my present for Nora.”

  “Our present,” corrected Ellie, and she was right. This present was from both of them. Ellie had done an amazing job, actually, collecting the names and e-mail addresses, sneaking into Nora’s computer when she was in the bathroom or drinking tea in the garden, copying and pasting them into one long list. But it had been Mariana’s idea. A good one, for once. Something she could give her sister that she needed, that wasn’t wrong or inappropriate.

  Luke righted Mariana’s chair and held it for her as she sat. The waiter poured more water and offered desserts. “One of everything,” said Mariana.

  “Ma’am?”

  Hearing it made her want to push nonexistent reading glasses down her nose to look at him. “We’ll take one of every dessert you have. This is a celebration, and we’re going to goddamn well celebrate. Put a candle in each one of those suckers, too. Do you sing here?”

  “Sing?”

  “The birthday song?”

  The waiter just blinked.

  “Never mind,” said Mariana, sighing. “We’ll do our own singing.”

  As the waiter trundled away, Ellie said, “Dang. That was fun to watch.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry.” It was a real apology. Mariana could hear it.

  She felt her own anger deflate like a balloon. “I know. Me, too.” She pulled the bag up from underneath the table. “You have your half?”

  Ellie nodded.

  Nora, who had just been watching them, leaned forward. “What’s going on?”

  “Remember when you said you didn’t want to have a big party?”