We Are Called to Rise

by Laura McBride

  Mrs. Monaghan has us take turns being line leader. All of our names are on Popsicle sticks in a jar, and when she pulls out the Popsicle stick with my name on it, I am leader. Then she puts my stick in a different jar, so I won’t get another chance for a long time. I gave her the Popsicle sticks. We have lots of them in our truck. I washed them before I gave them to her, but she still looked a little surprised when she saw them. I don’t think she had ever seen that many Popsicle sticks. I was real careful to give her the best ones.

  The leader gets to decide when the line is quiet enough to start walking and also how fast we walk down the hall. You can’t walk too fast or too slow, or you never get to be leader again, but it is still nice to walk exactly the way I want to walk, and everybody else has to do it. At our school, we are supposed to walk with our first finger in front of our mouth. This reminds us to be quiet. It’s hard in Mrs. Monaghan’s class, since we have to have our lunches and everything when we go, so Mrs. Monaghan says that only the kids who have a hand free have to do it, because it’s better not to drop your stuff than to put your finger in front of your mouth. But we still have to be quiet. The line leader has to stop if someone is not quiet, and wait, and not go again until it is silent.

  At my school, everybody is proud of how quiet the kids are in the hall. We have 742 students here, and everybody going to specials and lunch and things all day long, but the halls are quiet. The principal and the teachers and the lunch monitors are all proud of us, but one time, when the principal was showing the school to visitors, I heard a lady say, “My, why is it so quiet here?” And I could tell that she didn’t like it as much as the principal did. Well, I know what that visitor was thinking, because sometimes I have to be real quiet at home, and that’s a scary quiet, but being quiet at school is not like that. Being quiet is just something Orson Hulet Elementary School kids do.

  MY FAVORITE SPECIAL IS SCIENCE,

  because my school has a marine lab, and science class is in it. Some days I get to sit in the shark seat. That’s the chair next to the tank where our sharks live. Sharks don’t like to live in tanks, and they can’t breathe if they can’t keep swimming. That’s why our shark tank is round, so the sharks can keep swimming around and around without bumping into a corner. When the sharks get too big—as big as her tibia, Mrs. Jimenez says—then we have to give them to the Mandalay Bay casino, because they can’t live in our tank anymore. Anyway, our sharks always swim in the same direction, and they stare at whoever is sitting in the shark seat. Some kids don’t like this, but all the boys do, and that includes me. I know one shark remembers me and waits for me to come each Thursday. I always say, “Hi, Shark,” real quiet, when I first sit down. There are three sharks this year, but it is the biggest one that looks at me and stays even with my face when he swims around.

  There are other things I like in the marine lab. When I am in fifth grade, I am going to be a tour guide, so I can show the little kids who visit our school how to hold an urchin, and where the hermit crabs like to hide, and how a sea star eats. The first thing that we always have to teach someone who visits our marine lab is not to say starfish. Mrs. Jimenez says that a sea star is not a fish, so why would we call it one? Fish have gills and fins, and sea stars don’t have either.

  Sometimes Mrs. Jimenez tells us to get out our notebooks and our pencils, and draw what is new in a tank. I like it when she does this. One time the lionfish had a big bite out of his prettiest fin, and another time we found babies in the nonaggressive tank. Mrs. Jimenez likes us to draw the coral tanks too, but I don’t like to do this. It takes a long time for coral to change. Usually if there is anything new, it is some coral that has died, and that makes me feel sad.

  THIS AFTERNOON MRS. MONAGHAN MADE

  an announcement. She has three kittens. If any of us wants one, we can ask our parents and then we can have one. They’re too small, but Mrs. Monaghan doesn’t have the mother, so she has to find homes for them right away. She can’t take care of them when she is at school.

  I guess her husband is taking care of the kittens today. He’s a big guy, real tall, and one day he brought us popcorn. But he’s still scary. Mrs. Monaghan is small. Why would she have such a big husband? I can’t see that guy taking care of little tiny kittens. He might squish them and not even know it. I hope somebody asks his parents and takes those kittens home soon. I can’t have one. I can’t even ask my parents. My baba would go crazy if I asked for a kitten that would eat some of our food.

  But I sure would like a kitten. It could sleep with me and Tirana. And if it cried, I would take it oh so carefully next to me, and I would say, “It’s okay, kitty. I’m here. I will take care of you. Don’t be afraid.” And it would stop crying and snuggle up against me and fall asleep. And if my baba and nene were yelling, or if my baba pushed my nene, then the kitten would probably get scared, and I would have to keep it quiet, really quiet, but I would hold it so close to me, and so softly, and the kitten would not be afraid, and nobody would notice it but me. Also, I bet the kitten would like it when Tirana sings her baby silly songs, and when my nene hums while she is cooking, and the kitten could listen to my baba tell stories about his life not in America.

  Kittens are funny, too. They leap really high, and they love strings, so if I had a kitten, it would probably make everybody laugh. And when Baba laughs, we are all happy. But I can’t ask for a kitten. Just asking for it might make Baba mad. And that could hurt Nene.

  I bet Alyssa Button gets one of those kittens. Which might be good for the kitten, because Alyssa lives in a really nice house. I went there for her birthday party when all the kids were invited last year. Also, I can’t see Alyssa’s mom yelling “Yiii, better I should be dead!” like Nene does sometimes. That would be really scary for a kitten. But I don’t think Alyssa will love a kitten as much as me. I would love that kitten more than anything but Nene and Tirana.

  Jasmine Jacob wants to know how come Mrs. Monaghan has kittens but no mama cat. Mrs. Monaghan says she can’t talk about kittens all morning, but she tells us that the kittens showed up in the backyard, right next to her breakfast window, and she watched them for a whole day, but no mama ever came. The kittens were crying, and one of them finally came out from a bush, and Mrs. Monaghan realized they were going to get hurt if she didn’t help them, because her neighbor has a dog, and he can get in her backyard even though there’s a fence. She didn’t want to be eating breakfast and see something bad happen right outside her window.

  MRS. MONAGHAN SAYS “SOMETHING BAD,”

  but I know she means slaughter. I know all about slaughters. My baba saw slaughters in Albania. That’s why he hits my nene and makes bad noises at night. I don’t know why it’s my nene’s fault, because she was just a girl when my baba saw those slaughters, but my nene says that Baba can’t forget anything. I was born in Albania, but I don’t remember it. Tirana was born here, so she is full American, but Baba and Nene and me, we are legal Americans. Nene says it’s very important to be legal, and we are lucky. It’s better to be legal Americans than born ones, I guess, because she never says Tirana is lucky.

  My baba saw a slaughter right in the street in Albania, and he yelled at the policeman who did it, and he didn’t run away fast enough, so he got put in prison. He was in prison a long time, and when he came out, he was skinny like he is now, and his left arm didn’t work right anymore. Nene says he looked old. A lot older than plus-nineteen years in prison.

  My baba met my nene when he got out of prison. She knew she was going to marry him right then, because their families had agreed, and also because Baba had lost a lot of time to have me and Tirana, and in Albania, every man has the right to a family. The women have to do it.

  I wonder if they do it that way in Australia? Maybe that’s why Mrs. Monaghan is married to Mr. Monaghan.

  4

  * * *

  Avis

  JIM AND I ARRANGE to go to the city council meeting toget
her. Nate doesn’t know anything about Darcy, or about Jim having moved into a room at the casino. Nate has been focused on doing well at the police academy, on passing the exam, and we agree that it is better to wait until all of that is over to tell him.

  Not that a twenty-seven-year-old son will be upset about his parents’ separation.

  Jim stayed in the guest room the first couple of nights, but I finally told him he had to leave. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said, couldn’t stop imagining him and Darcy together, couldn’t stop wondering if he was having his regular Tuesday dinner meeting or screwing his director of community affairs. I tried not to do this, I tried not to torture myself in this way. I told myself that the affair was the symptom, not the problem, but it didn’t work. When push came to shove, this is where my mind stayed: on Jim’s naked body or on Darcy’s, on the image of Jim’s eyes crinkling up at something Darcy had said, on the sound Darcy might make in an intimate moment.

  Those first days, I couldn’t get one single idea past these thoughts. I stumbled around our home, a place both our children had lived, and tried not to imagine my husband making love to another woman.

  I USED TO RELISH THE

  light in this house on a fall morning. It would slant in, bright and clear and cool, and the shadows of leaves would form charcoal lace on the walls. For years, I came back in the house about nine, after walking Nate to elementary school. I would walk home alone, the last mom to leave the playground. I would watch the children line up on the blacktop, and then wait—not rush off but instead stand halfway back from the children, always a little awkward at being one of the moms who stayed, who perhaps didn’t have any other life or loved this one more than she should. But I did love those five minutes before school started: when the children lined up, when the principal said good morning, when the loudspeakers crackled with instrumentation, and then, best of all, when seven hundred children, some wiggly, some tired, some born to perform, sang “This Land Is Your Land.” Day after day after day, and it always pleased me. It never felt old. I used to love to hear those voices and think—If ever I am too sick to do anything but lie in a bed motionless, I hope I remember this, I hope I hear these sounds, see these faces, smell this schoolyard smell, before I die.

  You see, it all mattered so much to me. Not even Jim realized how deeply I felt it. That was Emily, I suppose. To always know how quickly life could change, how quickly everything important could disappear, to always be trying to feel this unexpectedly beautiful life to its core.

  JIM LOOKS GOOD WHEN HE

  comes to the door to get me. This is not exactly helpful, but I am ready for it. He’s obviously in the better position here, and I learned enough from life with Sharlene not to convince myself that it might be otherwise. I am not pretending that he will miss me. Or that Darcy will have turned into a crone.

  “Hi, Avis.”

  I nod hello, suddenly unsure of how my voice will come out.

  “That dress looks really good on you.”

  I can’t help it. I appreciate that he is trying, I am glad my dress looks good, even while I want to hit him, want to scream, want to do something to change the path we are on. But I don’t reply. I pick up my bag and my sweater, and head for his car.

  I WAS YOUNG WHEN EMILY

  died. And in the dead center of grief, I discovered I was pregnant. Barely pregnant. It was just a question in my head—Is it possible?—but, of course, it wasn’t just a question. It was Nate, and before I knew it, before I could begin to let go of Emily, there was this new child, this little boy, this baby who gazed solemnly just as my brother Rodney had. And there I was again, right in the middle of life, whether I wanted to be or not.

  I didn’t want to be pregnant when I was pregnant with Nate, and then for years afterward, when I wanted another child—four more children, I wanted to drown in new children—I could not get pregnant at all. No reason for it. Nothing the doctors ever found. Just a woman meant for two children, one who lived and one who did not.

  WE MEET LAUREN OUTSIDE THE

  council room, as we have planned, and make our way to the seats reserved for visitors. We can see Nate sitting on the left with the other officers who will be sworn in this evening: three men and one woman. Lauren seems uncharacteristically anxious: it might be that her fair skin looks wan under the fluorescent lighting, but I wonder if she has heard something about Jim moving out of the house, if she and Nate somehow already know what has happened, and my heart beats faster. I realize how unprepared I am to tell my son and his wife about Jim.

  “Did you get to see Nate today?”

  “No,” she says without looking at me. “He already started training, and he came straight here from there.”

  “It’s a big day,” says Jim. “Nate did really well with this.”

  “Yes,” says Lauren. I am beginning to wonder what is going on. If Lauren weren’t so straightlaced, I would think she had taken something.

  “Lauren, we really appreciate all the support you’ve given Nate. Avis and I know that it hasn’t been easy. Since he came home this last time. Since he got out.”

  Lauren looks as if she might jump up and run, and normally I would catch Jim’s eye, try to figure out what he is thinking, but of course, I don’t catch Jim’s eye tonight. We are only pretending to be here together.

  “NATE, PLEASE. WHAT ARE YOU

  and Luke doing?”

  “We’re fighting, Mom. It’s fun.”

  It sounds painful. It sounds angry. They lunge at each other like mad dogs every time they meet. My friend Cheryl tells me that I am lucky my son has a good friend.

  But, oh, Nate was sweet too. Square faced, square jawed. He loved to hook his “beltseat” by himself, and to eat at “Boowga King,” and to play “sowca” in the “pawk.” If I had known how long he would carry around that dirty one-armed rabbit, I would have put more care into making it. Jim’s dad taught Nate to kick rocks when he could barely walk, and for years, he kicked a rock “fo Bompa” everywhere he went.

  SOMEONE ASKS US TO RISE

  for the pledge, and the city council meeting begins. The swearing in of the newest police officers is the third item on the agenda, after the approval of last week’s minutes and someone’s report about a parking lot. I am relieved that we will not have to wait through the seventeen-point agenda. I recognize two of the citizens in the area reserved for people who want to speak: they are always speaking on Channel 4, exercising their right to comment on city affairs. Seeing them makes me feel uneasy. I wonder where they live, wonder if either one knows my brother, Rodney, wonder if Rodney has ever sat here and commented with them. How could taking a stand on a traffic sign change or an equipment purchase possibly seem worthwhile to them? Are they here because the room is cool in the summer and warm in the winter? Does one hear voices, telling him to do this? Is this the only place where anyone ever pretends to listen?

  I move over one seat from Jim so that I can get a better view of Nate. My son is tall and fair haired and well built. Every tour in Iraq left him a little more muscular, a little more tanned. Sitting in this public room, in his starched, new uniform, he looks like a movie version of a young police officer.

  I smile. Nate needed those good looks when he was a kid. Needed something to offset the tipped-over chairs, the too-loud whisper, the overzealous romping, the forgotten homework. Oh, he was a boisterous child, a child given to moving too fast, hitting too hard, whirling around right when someone was passing by with a fragile school project. I always imagined people wondering where we had gotten him: I, who am dark and quiet, and Jim, who is dark and thoughtful. Thoughtful. Well, I am not sure that is the right word for him anymore.

  EDNA NEAL ELEMENTARY

  opened the year Nate started kindergarten, and we were there for the first day of the first new school built in Las Vegas in a decade. It was exciting. I had just given up a job at Jim’s hotel, just realized that I m
ight not have another child and had better make the most of this experience before Nate got any older, and so I didn’t really know the other mothers in the neighborhood. But we were all there, walking out our doors at eight thirty, headed to the school. Some of the women pushing strollers. New backpacks, new shoes, little girls with ponytails and red ribbons, little boys with scalped haircuts. I fell in next to Cheryl and Julie, who would become such dear friends, all of us kindergarten moms—Julie, like me, taking her first to school, and Cheryl taking her last.

  I am not sure what we were expecting. Streamers and a band, I suppose. There were news trucks. I remember that. Seeing the news trucks, and saying to one another, “Oh, this is fun,” and then walking around the back, to the kindergarten doors, and seeing hundreds of parents and their children. Fifty-seven five-year-olds waiting for one startled teacher to open up one brand-new classroom.

  That was the beginning. The beginning of decades of that sort of madcap growth. They couldn’t build schools fast enough, they couldn’t hire teachers fast enough, for all those families moving to Las Vegas from all over the world. We complained about it, and laughed about it, and juggled zone changes and schedule swaps and double sessions and year-round calendars, for all the years our children were growing up. There were kids who changed schools nearly as often as Rodney and I had, yet they lived in the same house the whole time. This was part of having a child here, just like endless sunny days, and belly flops in backyard pools, and kids who didn’t even notice when the women on the billboards were naked.

  TO MY RIGHT, LAUREN FIDDLES

  with her bra strap, and I notice that she has a dark bruise on her shoulder. I see a bit of it when she pulls on the fabric of her blouse, and after I have seen it, I recognize the full mark under the light-colored cotton. It’s a deep, fresh purple, no green. I try not to think the next thought, the one that wonders how she got it, the one that thinks of Nate, of how Nate has been these last months. I don’t want to think this thought right now, at the very moment when Nate is about to achieve a dream he has had since he was eleven years old. I don’t want to think this thought at all.