The Other Side of Dark

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “Is she asleep?” Dad asks, and the voice murmurs, “Not yet.”

  This guy on the porch stares at me. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s staring. I feel it, the way words and ideas I need to know seem to sift through my skin and pour into my mind. He’s scared. I know that too.

  “Daddy, did they catch him?”

  “Don’t worry about that now,” he says.

  “But did they? I have to know!”

  “No,” he says. “They couldn’t find out who it was. There were no witnesses.”

  It’s harder and harder to speak. There’s a humming in my head, and it moves Dad farther and farther away. I whisper, wondering if my whisper is real or only in my head. “I’m a witness. I saw him, Daddy.”

  “Hush, Stacy,” Daddy says. “Don’t try to talk now. Go to sleep.”

  The sounds in my mind melt together and dissolve the words. I am so tired. I don’t ever remember having a dream in which I felt tired. I wonder what my mother will tell me about this dream.

  Chapter Two

  When morning comes, gray light poking around the edges of the venetian blinds, I wake and know this has not been a dream. As though a tape recorder were inside my brain, part of last night’s conversation comes through loud and clear.

  A picture appears. I am standing in our backyard. I’m listening, wondering what it was I heard. “Mom?” I call as I walk toward the porch steps. “Are you all right?”

  But the door suddenly slams open, hitting the siding on the house with a clatter, and someone races out. He pauses on the second step as we stare at each other. But I can’t see his face!

  “Show me your face,” I say aloud. “You’re someone I know. I remember that much!”

  The face is blank. But there’s something in his hand. It’s a gun. He points it at me. I can’t move. I can’t make a sound. I want to cry out, “Mom!”

  Mom.

  Some part of my mind has clutched and hidden what Dad told me about Mom; but now his words spill out, and I have to face them. I roll onto my stomach and cry, the pillow stuffed against my mouth. I cry until no more tears will come, and dry, hiccuping shudders shake my body. The soggy pillow smells sour, so I push it to the floor. I’ll never see my mother again.

  The door snaps open, and a tall, angular nurse, who matches the crispness of her uniform, strides to my bed. “Well, hi,” she says. “I’m Alice.” I can tell that she’s taking in the pillow on the floor and my swollen eyes, but she doesn’t react until all the temperature-pulse business has been accomplished. She checks under the bandage on my hip, makes a note on her chart, puts it down, and for the first time looks at me as though I were a person. “How about a shower before breakfast?” she asks. “It will help you feel a lot better.”

  “Yesterday I got kind of dizzy when I tried to sit up.”

  “That was yesterday, and that was the medication.”

  “Have I got out of bed to take showers before?”

  She smiles. “Every day, and I’m usually the one who’s given them to you.”

  My face is hot. I’m embarrassed that I blushed, but she doesn’t seem to notice. The shower does make me feel better on the outside. I hold my face up to the water, feeling its sting on my forehead and scalp.

  But nothing has helped on the inside. Maybe I can’t be helped, because a hollow has been carved in there, and inside that hollow there are no feelings at all.

  Alice, making sure I’m steady on my feet, leaves me to towel-dry my hair. She hums under her breath as she makes my bed.

  There’s a small mirror over the sink in my bathroom. I drop the towel and study myself in the mirror. It’s the weirdest sensation. I feel that I’m looking at Donna the way Donna looked when I was thirteen. The person in that mirror is different from the one I was used to seeing. The face is thinner with shadows under the cheekbones. I remember when my best friend, Jan, and I would stick our faces toward the mirror and suck in our cheeks and say, “This is what we’ll look like when we grow up and are beautiful!”

  I wonder how the eyes in the mirror can droop with so much pain when I feel absolutely empty inside.

  Alice brings me a short gown sprigged with blue violets. “The nurses thought you’d like something pretty,” she says, adding, “Norma picked it out.”

  I don’t know what to say. I think I mumble, “Thank you.”

  She glances at me from the corners of her eyes. The shyness doesn’t match her efficient look. “We’re all so glad that you recovered. We really care about our patients, especially the young ones. Especially you, Stacy. You’ve got most of your life ahead of you, and we—” She stops, and the briskness takes over. “Your sister’s going to bring some of her clothes for you.”

  “Don’t I have any clothes here? What did I wear?”

  “During the day we put you into cotton knit jumpsuits, which you could wear when the therapist helped you ride the exercise bike and use the other equipment.” She reaches into the small closet, pulls out a shapeless gray thing, and holds it up, its arms and legs dangling. It looks like an ad showing what happens when you use the wrong brand of soap.

  All I can say is “Yeech!”

  She laughs and tucks me between the stiff sheets, cranks my bed until I’m sitting upright, and hands me a hairbrush so that I can brush my hair.

  Breakfast is brought in, and while I’m munching through the eggs’ curly brown edges, a girl appears in the open doorway.

  She looks at me as though she were afraid of me, and for a moment I don’t know who she is.

  “Stacy,” she says, still in the doorway, “I’m Jan. Can I come in?”

  “Jan?” I know I’m sitting there with my mouth open, but it’s hard to believe that this tall auburn-haired girl in the pink, tailored shirt and tight jeans and makeup that looks like a cosmetic ad is my friend Jan Briley.

  Her knees seem a little stiff—or maybe it’s the jeans. She shoves a small package toward me, backs off, and perches on the edge of the armchair across from the bed. “It’s not much,” she says. “Just some lipstick and eye shadow and mascara and stuff I thought you’d need.”

  “Thanks.” This isn’t Jan. It can’t be Jan. I shiver and push the breakfast tray away.

  “You look—you look good, Stacy. How do you feel?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ll feel lots better when your makeup’s on and you’ve done something with your hair. Do you have hot rollers?” She looks embarrassed. Her fingers are white from gripping the arms of the chair. “Of course you wouldn’t have them here. I should have brought mine, I guess.”

  “It’s okay.” I look at her hair closely. “You never used to wear your hair like that. You used to wad it up in those big brown barrettes to keep it out of your eyes when we played baseball. Do you still play on the team?”

  “Team? Oh, no.” She gives a funny little laugh and says, “There’s a mirror in the package. Why not get it out?”

  “What for?”

  “So you can put on your makeup.”

  “Mom lets me—let me wear lipstick, but I don’t know what to do with the eye stuff.”

  “Oh. I didn’t think about that. I just take makeup for granted, like brushing my teeth or wearing shoes.”

  “How long have you worn real makeup?”

  “Well gosh, Stacy, for ages. After all, I’m seventeen.” She pauses. “And so are you.”

  I shake my head. “I’ve got to get used to that. I still feel like I’m thirteen. I feel like everything took place yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened—all of it. When they took you to the hospital and thought you might die, I wanted to die too. I couldn’t bear to lose you. And then last night your father called me, and I couldn’t believe it. I just sat right down on the floor and cried and cried, I was so glad you were going to be all right again.” Jan leans forward, forearms resting on her knees. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I can’t help it, but I feel as though she were one of
Donna’s friends, not mine. It’s hard to answer. “I haven’t remembered all of it yet.”

  “Oh,” she says, and looks relieved. I don’t know what I expected. Sympathy? Maybe even curiosity. This Jan doesn’t want to know what I could tell her.

  I have no idea what to say to her. I guess, from the way she starts squirming as though the chair had lumps in it, that she feels the same way. This is my best friend, Jan, to whom I told even my secret thoughts, and now I’m blank.

  But I make a desperate stab. “What are things like at school?”

  Jan sits upright, looking thankful, as though she’d just passed a math test she hadn’t studied for. “Oh, same old grind. Suzie—you remember Suzie Lindly—anyhow, poor Suzie got married last week to a guy who is really out of it. I mean totally out. Only everybody knows she had to.”

  “Why did she have to?”

  Jan blinks a couple of times, her mouth open. “Honestly, Stacy. You know. Because she’s pregnant.”

  “Oh.” I feel myself blushing again, and I’m mad at myself for being so dumb, for being a little kid.

  Jan takes a deep breath and picks up speed, like a train making up time after almost getting derailed. “And Bick is quarterback and is the big thing in the sports section of the newspaper each weekend and has a ton of colleges wanting him next year.”

  “Bick—that skinny guy in ninth grade?”

  Jan rolls her eyes. “He’s no longer skinny, needless to say, and he’s a senior and really something to look at. I dated him a couple of times.” She smiles, and I can see that she’s waiting for me to be impressed.

  But I giggle. “I’m sorry, Jan. All I can see in my mind is gawky, skinny Bick who likes to make those awful loud burps while we’re eating lunch. Remember, he sent you a note in study hall one day and got yelled at by Mr. Hadley, and you said you’d rather drop dead than have anything to do with Bick?”

  There’s a long pause. Finally her voice comes out as tight as a stretched rubber band. “I’d forgotten. That was such a long time ago.”

  We stare at each other for a few moments until I stammer, “I guess it was.” Desperately I blurt out, “Well, tell me about yourself.”

  “Sure. B.J. talked me into joining the camera club. You remember B.J., don’t you?”

  “The quiet girl with the blond braids.”

  Jan laughs. “No more braids, and B.J. really blossomed. We’re all jealous. Anyhow, I went into photography in a big way and got some black-and-whites and one color shot accepted for the yearbook last year. So I’m on the staff this year, and B.J. and I are saving our money for a camera trip in Yellowstone Park in July. B.J. says—”

  “Sounds like B.J.’s a good friend.”

  “My best. She’s so much fun, and—” Jan stops. “Of course, you’ve always been my best friend, too, Stacy, and when you get back to school—”

  We just look at each other. I don’t feel jealous because this Jan is another person in another world. This isn’t my comfortable, forever-and-ever best friend, Jan. Besides, the hollow place is still inside me. I can’t feel anything at all.

  Jan jumps to her feet. “I’ve got to leave pretty soon. Let me get some makeup on you first.”

  I’m still clutching the package. “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to. Really. You can use the little hand mirror to watch.”

  She has taken the package out of my hands and tears it open, so I don’t object. I just let her smear on creams and oils and all sorts of stuff, obeying directions as she tells me to close my eyes, open my eyes, and hold my mouth just right so she can add the lipstick. She gives me instructions as she goes, but it’s hard for me to pay attention. I keep thinking about the Friday nights when she’d stay over at my house or I would at hers, and we’d put on our pajamas and sit on the bed eating cookies and cheese puffs and all sorts of junk while we watched TV and rolled each other’s hair. I wish she’d go away.

  Finally she steps back, stares at me and gasps, “Stacy, you’re really beautiful! Look in the mirror. Look at yourself.”

  Dr. Peterson comes into the room, stands at the foot of the bed, and studies me so appreciatively that I don’t have to look into the mirror.

  “Seventeen, going on twenty-six,” he says. He’s not talking to me. It’s to someone else who’s sitting here, someone I don’t even know.

  I introduce him to Jan, who beams at him like a beauty contestant meeting the judge, grabs for her handbag, and says, “I know you’re busy, and I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Stick around if you like,” he says.

  But Jan squeezes my hand and rolls her eyes upward in a way I remember, meaning, “Isn’t he gorgeous?” and backs through the door, saying to me, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I can’t help giggling, but it surprises me by sounding like a sob.

  “Don’t cry,” Dr. Peterson says. “One thing I learned when I was married is that crying does ugly, smeary things to a woman’s mascara.”

  “I don’t know anything about mascara.”

  “Well, you’ve got plenty of it on.”

  For the first time I look into the little mirror and feel even more alienated than before from the body I’m in.

  “Want to wash your face? I can wait.”

  “Yes.” I start to climb out of bed, then change my mind. I kind of like the way that girl in the mirror looks. Maybe I can save it for just a little while. Maybe I could get used to looking like that. “Never mind,” I murmur. I tuck the blanket around my hips and sneak another look in the mirror.

  He sits on the side of the bed. “Do you want to talk to me?”

  “About what?”

  “About what you remember.”

  I know I’m scowling, screwing up the muscles in my face until they hurt, trying, trying, trying so hard to think. “I don’t remember enough.”

  “Don’t work at it so hard. It will all come back to you.”

  “What if it doesn’t?”

  “I think it will. You said you saw him—the guy who shot you.”

  “I didn’t think that you heard me.”

  He doesn’t answer, just shifts his weight, making the bed wobble, and waits for me to go on.

  I hug my knees against my chest. “I can’t see his face, but I know his name. It’s somewhere in my head!”

  “Take it easy. One thing at a time.”

  “If I could just remember, I could tell the police. I could identify him. What if he gets away?”

  “It’s been four years already since the crime took place. A little more time won’t matter. Why don’t you talk to me about the way you feel? You’ve had to make a lot of mental adjustments in the past few hours.”

  “I don’t want to talk about anything.”

  “I’d like to talk about your mother.”

  “No!” I sound so angry I’m surprised, because I don’t feel angry. I don’t feel anything. I’m a robot with nothing inside but gears that make me move and talk. I try to soften my voice and add, “I can’t. Not yet anyway.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Peterson says. “I’ll be here when you want me.”

  My breath comes out in a long shudder. “I want to go home.”

  He smiles. He has a nice smile. It melts across his face, matching the deep syrup of his voice. “Pretty soon,” he says. “We just have to make sure you’re over the infection and the anesthetic and all that stuff.”

  In spite of the way I feel, I can’t help reacting. “Doctors don’t say things like ‘all that stuff.’ ”

  “Oh? What do doctors say?”

  “You know. All sorts of professional things that nobody can understand.”

  He stands up, pats my hand, and moves toward the door. “Okay. There must be a medical book around here someplace. I’ll look through it and find something that sounds good.”

  The door plops shut behind him, and the room settles into stillness. I remember in Grandma’s house how she’d go through the living room and dining room every evening, pul
ling down the window shades against the dusk, one by one shutting out the night, shielding the house, enclosing it in a white-fringed safety. My mind is doing the same thing. I know that thoughts should be racing through my mind, tumbling over each other. I should be rolling in memories, wading through pain to all the new things I’ve seen and heard. But bit by bit my mind is shutting itself in, shielding itself from everything but one thought: Who was the person I saw on our back stairs?

  It’s his turn to die.

  Chapter Three

  A reporter comes to my room.

  But Donna arrived first with a suitcase filled with blouses and jeans and underwear and a pair of brown sandals, so I’m sitting in a chair, dressed in jeans that are too loose and short and a T-shirt that’s definitely too snug and sandals that actually fit.

  “I had to guess on sizes,” Donna said as she tugged at the belt that keeps the jeans from falling around my hips. “I didn’t realize that you’d grown so tall and that you’re so slender. I guess I keep thinking of you the way you were when you were thirteen.”

  “That makes two of us,” I answered. I wish Donna hadn’t helped me get dressed. I felt the same way I did last year—no, the year I was twelve—and took swimming lessons and all the girls had to change clothes together in the dressing room. Some of them were starting to grow breasts, and I’d sneak little looks while I was trying to keep my own chest covered, feeling miserable, hoping no one was looking at me.

  I know, Donna’s my sister. But in a way she isn’t my sister. She’s a grown woman, with a baby growing inside her, and it makes her so different I really don’t know her at all.

  There’s a quick knock at the door, and it opens before either Donna or I can answer. A woman steps in and takes in Donna and me and everything around us with a glance that sweeps the room like a vacuum cleaner.

  Seemingly satisfied, she looks directly at me. “Hi!” she says, and her grin is broad and full of teeth. She’s skinny, with frizzy blond hair that sticks out in every direction. Loose strands straggle over her eyes and fly away from her forehead. Straps for her handbag and camera case are tangled on her left shoulder.