Soulstruck

by Natasha Sinel

  “What exactly does jump—”

  “Jump your bones,” I say. “Meaning I tried to get it on with you.”

  “Yeah, I know what it means but …” He pauses. Even if he tried to stop himself, he couldn’t. “But why bones? Why not body or flesh? It doesn’t make any sense. I wonder if it’s connected to the word boner.” I can sense him itching for Google.

  “I thought you wanted this as much as I did,” I say. “I thought you were into it. I’m so confused. And embarrassed. I have to go.”

  I start for the door.

  “I did want this,” he says. “I do—I just—”

  I turn to face him, tears stinging my eyes.

  “Rach, wait. Don’t cry.”

  I know that this is just him, that I need to be patient. I know I should stay and we should talk about it. I know all of this, but I’m embarrassed and hurt and I just want to leave. So I do, my boots clomping down the steep, uncarpeted stairs.

  Kyle is at the kitchen counter drinking milk out of the carton.

  “Hey, Rach, you leaving?”

  I grunt a yes, making sure he can’t see my watery eyes. Kyle is probably the only person in the world who’d have a clue what just happened up there in Jay’s room, but there’s no way I’d talk to him about it. I pull my phone from my pocket, wishing I could call Serena. She may not know what Jay’s deal is, but she’d say something to make me feel better. I can’t believe she doesn’t know what’s going on in my life. I ride home, tears from sadness and from the wind in my eyes mixing together as they slide down my cheeks.

  TWENTY-TWO

  People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

  —James A. Baldwin (writer)

  I must have fallen asleep when I got home from Jay’s because something tickles my arm and I jerk awake suddenly. Mom is sitting on the edge of my bed, her hand resting on my shoulder. She’s staring out the window, but she says shhhh automatically like she’s in a trance. Her bracelet bounces on my shirt.

  I haven’t seen that bracelet in ages. It brings back memories of when I was little. I close my eyes, and the image of an apartment we lived in overtakes me like a powerful smell—exposed brick clashing with drop ceiling tiles stained from the apartment above. Mom tried to make the place feel warmer by hanging colorful tapestries in blue, red, and gold, but it always seemed like just a brick wall, like we were living outside instead of inside.

  I was eight, I think, when I finally asked Mom the question that had been on my mind for weeks, since I’d found out that Rudy Clintock had two dads. Not only did I not have two, but I had none. It seemed like almost every kid had a dad—at the supermarket, the park, school, walking down the street. Everyone but me. The closest thing I had to a father or grandfather was Ron from the support group; he brought me candy and toys and called me sweet little one. But he was so old. And I knew the basics of how babies were made—the summer before, a survivor had come from California and stayed with us for three weeks. Her ten-year-old daughter told me that and other stuff I thought was really gross at the time. One thing that stuck with me was that a man’s penis had to go in a woman’s vagina to make a baby, and I was positive Ron hadn’t done that with Mom.

  “Mommy,” I had asked. “Why don’t I have a dad?”

  Mom had run her fingers through her hair, the bracelet jangling.

  “Remember I told you that your dad died before you were born, love.”

  “So he put his penis in your vagina?” I asked Mom finally, shifting so that she wouldn’t see my face turning red.

  Mom had burst out laughing. I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in so long, I started laughing, too. It was one of my favorite memories, Mom and I laughing over something funny I’d said, even though I didn’t really know why it was funny other than that I’d said the word penis.

  Then she explained egg and sperm, fertilization, embryos. And she told me that an egg gets fertilized by the sperm in the uterus and becomes an embryo. And that my dad died when I was still just an embryo. With all the scientific talk, I’d forgotten my original question. Maybe she’d intended to distract me from more questions about him.

  “So if a dad gives the sperm and then dies, there’s no way to have a dad at all? Couldn’t you get me a dad? Like, what if you got married?” My mind had started racing with images of this “new” dad. He’d swing me up onto his shoulders and we’d feed ducks at the lake. And I’d laugh and scream.

  Mom hesitated.

  “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” I continued. “You should go out on dates.” At recess, Miss Lensner was always telling the other teachers on the playground about the date she’d gone on the night before. Usually they were “duds,” but once in a while, she’d say “this guy could be the one.” But it seemed like every man Mom knew was either married or old or so messed up by lightning, they weren’t options. No man had stepped foot in our apartment other than Ron, and the other survivors, and occasionally, the plumber or cable guy.

  Mom shrugged. “I don’t need anyone else. I have the survivors, and I have you.”

  Had I noticed then that I’d come second, after the survivors? Had I noticed that she’d said what she’d needed, but not what maybe I had needed?

  Then Mom said, “Your father and I were soul mates.”

  “What’s a soul mate?” I’d overheard Mom using the phrase before, but I’d never understood what it was.

  “It’s someone who is your other half, the person you’re meant to be with forever.”

  “But,” I said, “how do you know who your soul mate is? And what if your soul mate dies? Can’t you just get another soul mate?”

  Mom laughed, like I was being silly again. But I really wanted to know the answers. I stared at her until she looked at me. She spoke quietly.

  “I know who my soul mate is because the lightning showed me. And no, you can’t get another. You only have one.”

  I felt the sadness settle over us.

  I had one more question.

  “Can’t you love someone enough to be with forever, even if they’re not your exact soul mate? Like what if your soul mate’s dead, like yours, can’t you be with someone else who you love maybe second best?”

  “No,” she said, but her mouth didn’t close after she spoke the way it did when she was denying me candy or pop tarts.

  I think I knew right then that she was hiding something.

  I shift in bed a little and turn toward her, the bracelet clinking as she moves her hand away.

  “Hi,” Mom says quietly and kisses me on the cheek.

  I stretch and yawn.

  “I feel like we haven’t had much chance to talk. How’s school going?” Mom asks. She’s right. We haven’t really talked much lately about anything real. Not more than logistics—grocery lists, laundry—and notes left for each other: “I’ll be home at 9,” “the hall toilet is having issues, so use mine until we can get it fixed.”

  I’d fixed the toilet after watching a YouTube how-to, and I was pretty proud of myself. I hadn’t even needed any parts for it.

  “School’s okay,” I say. “World History is awful still, but the rest of my classes are okay.”

  Mom rubs my back, and her bracelet is cool on my neck when she reaches the collar of my shirt.

  “Serena still being a sell-out?” she asks. That’s what we started calling her. The sell-out who chose to ditch her best friend for the party kids.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Mom smiles weakly and shakes her head.

  “You and Serena were so close. I know you miss her. She must miss you, too.”

  “She dumped me. Because I hung out with her friend’s ex-boyfriend one night. It wasn’t even her ex-boyfriend, which I would never do. The whole thing is so incomprehensible. I still don’t get it.”

  Mom nods slowly.

  “What?”

  “I don’t get it either. It seems like that can’t be it. I just wonder,” she says. “I wonder whether maybe you did
the dumping without even realizing it.”

  Isn’t my own mom supposed to be on my side?

  “You didn’t make much time for her when Reed was here,” she says. I bristle hearing her say his name. “You can’t drop out of a friendship for a guy and then come right back where you left off. Friendships have to be nurtured.”

  “Okay, so it’s all my fault that she’s hanging out with all those shitbrains.”

  “That’s not what I said. I’m just reminding you that if you do work things out with her, you’ll know better about how to make it work. Friendships are more important than you can imagine.”

  I nod, wanting this conversation to be over.

  “So,” Mom says as she pushes herself off the bed and stands next to me. “How about some dinner for the two of us? Take out or go out?”

  “Go out.”

  She leans over and tickles my armpits. I scream and squirm and laugh.

  “I’m going to pee!”

  Only a handful of restaurants stay open off-season, and most of them are in Provincetown or Orleans, but since it’s already late, we go to The Wicked Oyster. I’m relieved that Mom is willing to loosen up on her desire to stay out of Wellfleet as much as possible. Going there is always “too much water under this bridge,” she usually says. And then I get frustrated because she’s always so cryptic, and she never shares what water she’s referring to.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been the best mother lately,” Mom says, her eyes darting toward the front door every time it opens.

  “No, Mom, I’m fine.”

  “I’d always wanted more for us.” Her voice catches for a second and I worry she’s going to cry. “I was so selfish dragging you around, changing schools practically every year, living in those awful apartments.”

  We hardly ever talk about life before coming here. When we do, she always gets sad and regretful, which always makes me sad. So I’m determined to lighten things up.

  “Mom, how else would I have learned to fix a toilet or kill a cockroach? Come on, you’ve allowed me to learn some incredibly valuable life skills.”

  Mom laughs, and that’s what I need.

  “I love you, Rach.”

  “You too, Mom.”

  The door squeaks open behind me. Mom’s eyes flick up and then quickly back to me and they hold something now. Anxiety, fear, nervous energy.

  I hear the voices of two men behind me talking about the Bruins, a corner shot in the last twenty seconds.

  Instinctively, I turn. Mom kicks me under the table. I snap my head back around and smother the word “Ow!” when I see the look she’s giving me.

  “Hold on,” one of the men says.

  Even though her face is calm, I can practically see Mom’s pulse jack-hammering underneath her necklace. She smiles. It’s her “beautiful Naomi” smile that makes people stop dead in their tracks. That smile is usually reserved for high-stakes moments like parent-teacher conferences and getting out of parking tickets.

  “Naomi Ferguson,” one of the men says. “Wow. I’d heard you’d moved back a few years ago, but I haven’t seen you in all that time, so I figured it must’ve been a rumor. Yet here you are!”

  He’s big and bulky, brown hair braided down his back, with wispy curls by his ears. The other man is shorter, wiry, bald—the shaved kind, not the hair-loss kind.

  Mom stands and gives them each a quick kiss and hug.

  “It’s been a long time,” Mom says in her charming Naomi Ferguson voice.

  The big guy puts his hands on Mom’s shoulders and looks at her like he’s in a bakery choosing which cupcake he wants out of all the perfect cupcakes. The other guy stands back and watches.

  “This is my daughter, Rachel,” she says. “Rachel, these are my old friends Tommy McKee and Rafe Zamora.”

  “Who you calling old?” Mr. McKee says. He’s the big one with the braid, Mr. Zamora is the shorter bald one.

  “Beautiful like her mother,” Mr. McKee says. People like to say stuff like that, but I know it’s just words. My mom is Naomi Ferguson, the most beautiful woman in any room. I’m just an imitation model, same basic parts, but Mom was painstakingly handmade and I was assembled by a factory machine.

  Mom pushes a piece of hair behind my ear, something she’d do when I was a little girl and people would comment on how I looked like her.

  “I know it’s been a few years, but I’m sorry about your father,” Mr. Zamora says quietly, looking down at his hands.

  Mom clears her throat.

  “I heard you were good to him. Thank you,” she says.

  He shrugs. “I did what anyone would do.”

  I see Mom’s face change like he’s said something offensive. “I did what anyone would do.” Right. Except for Mom. She didn’t do it. She didn’t take care of her aging father. The people of the small town had done it for her. I wonder if that’s what Mr. Zamora has implied. Because I’m pretty certain that’s how mom took it. I wonder if that’s why she feels so uncomfortable in town, knowing she’ll see the people who watched out for her father because she hadn’t been here to do it.

  Mr. McKee keeps shaking his head back and forth, his big smile never disappearing.

  “It’s been, what—almost twenty years since you left?”

  “Something like that,” Mom says, then looks down at her plate. “Eighteen, I think.”

  “So you’re living in your dad’s old beach house?” Mr. McKee asks, and he looks around as if he might pull up a chair and sit down. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “We’ll leave you to your dinner, though,” Mr. Zamora says.

  “Yeah, but then come have a drink with us. It’ll be like the good old days.” Mr. McKee laughs. “Except now we can legally drink beer.”

  He winks at me.

  Mom laughs. “Another night, for sure.”

  “Rafe and I are here most nights. Right over there,” he says, pointing at the bar, “is where we bachelors hang out.”

  Mr. Zamora smiles. His bald head makes him look like a tough guy, but his face looks sweeter when he smiles.

  “It was nice to see you, Naomi,” he says, quietly. He nods at me. “Rachel.”

  They move on to the bar and greet the bartender. Mr. McKee yells at him to change the damn channel. Mom sits back down. Her hand is shaky as she reaches for her glass of wine.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

  —Buddha (sage)

  At two o’clock that night, I wake to the sound of Mom crying. Next to her low, raspy rumble of a laugh when she’s with the survivors, it’s the most familiar sound I know. Mom sniffling and crying. I get up and knock on her door. When I was little, she’d take me into bed with her and wrap her arms around me like a teddy bear. I’d feel her tears on my hair, the fast rhythm of her heart against my back. I used to think of Mom as two separate people—daytime Mom, who was lovely and confident, filled with laughter and strength; and nighttime Mom, who cried herself to sleep, the tears making a river of sadness run through the middle of her bed.

  “Mom?” I say softly as I open her door. “Can I come in?”

  She sits cross-legged on her bed, and I stifle a gasp when I see what’s on her lap—the red leather LOVE NOTES box I’d seen in the garage. The lid is off and inside is what looks like a stack of letters. Next to the box, I see the envelope I’d held—the one that says NAOMI in blue pen on the front. The top of the envelope is sliced open now, and I can see the fold of paper inside.

  She must have gone in and found the cardboard box after I told her about wanting to move into the garage. I wonder whether she’d been able to tell that I opened the flaps. It feels like a rock has settled inside my stomach when I realize that I’ve lost my chance to see what was in the red box, to read what was inside the envelope.

  How many minutes have I spent thinking about my father, Mom’s soul mate? After everything with Reed, I’d started to doubt Mom. It was like some fairy
tale, the soul mate who died before they had a chance to really be together. It seemed like a convenient story for Mom to tell me as a child to gloss over some other horror. I’d seen movies; I’d read books. The child conceived by rape or incest whose mother tells her that her father was actually a prince from another land. Lately, my cynicism has gotten in the way of my trust. I want to know what’s in that box.

  “Did I wake you up?” Mom sniffs.

  “No, I just couldn’t sleep,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

  As I sit on the bed next to her, she turns a photo over, then puts it and the envelope into the red box, then closes the lid. She takes a tissue and wipes her eyes.

  “You know how wine loosens my tear ducts,” she says now, attempting a smile. “Just looking through some old things.”

  Mom puts her hand on my knee.

  “But I’m okay,” she says. “Sometimes, when I run into someone from back then … it just brings everything back.”

  “The men at The Wicked Oyster?” I ask.

  Mom nods. “They were part of the crowd I hung out with here.”

  Mom hugs the red box to her chest.

  “What’s that?” I ask, seeing something shiny on her nightstand. It’s a small scallop shell. A loop of fishing line is threaded through a hole in the bottom. In the dim light, the shell seems to glow, like when the bay sparkles in the sun. It’s like most dry scallop shells—faded purple and bone, the inside a deeper shiny purple.

  “We found this,” Mom says, picking it up. “The two halves were still together even though the scallop was long gone. We broke it apart and each kept a half. Like those heart friendship necklaces. We laughed so hard because we knew it was such an unoriginal gesture of young love, but we did it anyway. I wonder if … Here. You should have it,” she suddenly says. “Maybe it’ll bring you luck.”

  She puts the necklace over my head and slides the fishing line through the hole in the shell so the knot is at the back of my neck. The shell rests in the spot between my collarbones.

  “Thanks,” I say, closing my hand lightly around it. “I love it.”