by Meg Leder
Charlie takes a few breaststrokes through the water until he can stand, at which point, my just-barely-cleared-of-cancer-for-the-second-time brother thrusts his arms up, like he’s some avenging hero, like he’s back from the dead.
I’m going to kill him.
“Little sister!” he yells at me, taking big clumsy steps forward, almost losing his balance more than once, words slurred.
He pulls me into a wet, sloppy hug, but my arms are flat against my sides, and despite all the river water around us, I can smell the liquor on his breath.
Face flushed, he turns proudly toward Matty. “Dude, did you see that?”
In reply, Matty steps forward and shoves Charlie right in the chest—not hard enough to knock him over, but enough to make my brother stumble a few steps back in the water.
“What the hell, Matty?” Charlie yelps.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Charlie?”
“Matty, he’s pretty far gone,” Em says.
“Which makes what he did just then even more dangerous!” he snaps at Em, turning back to my brother. “I have watched you do increasingly dangerous shit for the past year. I’m not doing it anymore. I’m done.” Matty raises his hands and backs off, shaking his head.
Charlie sneers. “You were done a long time ago.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you don’t seem so bummed to be going to Europe without me. I think you’re relieved you don’t have to be reminded of your own mortality by being around me.”
“What the fuck are you even talking about?” Matty asks.
“Guys, guys,” Em says, holding up her arms and moving between them.
I turn toward Matty, my hand on his elbow. “What are you talking about? What stuff did Charlie do last year?”
Charlie sways in the current, nearly falling over, and Matty winces. Em slings Charlie’s arm around her shoulders, boosting him up.
Matty looks down at me. “I’m sorry, Parker. Now’s not the time. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Charlie’s face twists in a snarl. “I’m not sick anymore. I don’t need any fucking special treatment. Go ahead. Tell her. Parker loves ratting me out. You’ll be in good company.”
“Matty, please,” I say.
Matty looks exhausted. He and Em are usually the ones who diffuse our fights. He’s not used to picking sides. “Well, for starters, cheating on Erin. Smoking anything he can get his hands on. Last week, he was tripping on mushrooms when we were hiking at night at the gorge.”
“Mushrooms? What were you thinking?” I ask.
Charlie lets out an aggrieved sigh, ignoring me. “God, Matty. You’re making me sound like an addict. It’s a little weed. And I tried mushrooms. Once.”
My hand covers my mouth and I look at my brother, at the way his ribs are still showing because he’s so skinny, how there’s hardly any hair on his head to even be wet, the red raised scar from the chemotherapy port.
“You shouldn’t be doing any of that stuff!” Matty hollers.
“He’s right, Charlie,” I add, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.
Charlie scowls, pushing Em off. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need you guys.” He makes a crooked path toward the riverbank.
He stops before he reaches dry land, joining a group of guys drinking in the shallows, high-fiving one of them and accepting a plastic cup of beer. He looks back at the three of us, then takes a long drink, finishing with a smirk, a deliberate taunt.
“Jesus,” Matty says, and even though he’s not religious, right then it’s not a curse; it’s a plea.
He doesn’t deserve this from Charlie. None of us do.
My feet start moving, like I’m on autopilot.
“Parker, wait,” Em says from behind me, but I wade toward my brother, unable to stop.
“I can’t believe you,” I say as I get closer.
He pretends not to hear me.
When I reach him, I push against his chest harder than Matty did. “I can’t believe you.”
“Whoa,” he says as he spills his beer.
“Did you hear me? I can’t believe you.” I push again.
Words are building in me like a big wave, the one you watch for—with each second gaining momentum, power, the potential to destroy.
“Oh boy, here we go. Are you ready to go running back to Mom and Dad to tell them how horrible I am? That’s your thing, right? Telling on me? Go for it. Be my guest.”
I shake my head. “Do you know how hard it is to watch you be sick, Charlie? And this is how you take care of yourself?”
“Maybe instead of worrying about my life, you should get one of your own? How about that? Maybe you should try developing a spine.” He laughs, and it’s rusty and sharp, the type that draws blood.
I push forward anyway, pointing my finger at his chest.
“Do you know what Mom and Dad have given up for you? Do you know they’re tens of thousands of dollars in debt and had to take out a second mortgage because of your hospital bills, that neither of them write anymore because they’re too busy taking on extra hours at work?”
Charlie stares at me, his face impenetrable.
My voice wavers, and I realize I’m crying. “Do you know what Dad did when your cancer came back? Do you? He cried. The sound woke me up, and I came downstairs to find him sobbing in Mom’s arms.”
Charlie flinches, but I still don’t stop.
“Do you know how hard it is to let ourselves love you, when we’re terrified we’re going to lose you any moment? You can’t know! You can’t! You wouldn’t be doing stuff like that”—I point at the river—“if you did.”
Charlie is stone-faced now, practically sober. “Go on. Say it, Parker.”
“Say what?”
“It would have been easier if I had just died the first time, right? If you all didn’t have to deal with this? Didn’t have to pay my bills and change your plans and actually love me?”
“That’s not at all what I mean.”
“Sure, okay.”
I look away, folding my arms against my chest.
Charlie leans close, gets right in front of my face, and his face is so hard, so gaunt, he doesn’t even look human. His voice is low, casual. “It’s okay to just admit it, you know. Sometimes I wish you were dead too.”
As soon as he says it, he looks shocked at the words that came out of his mouth.
I can feel them hurtling forward, crashing into the soft spots of me, and I want to curl over, to crawl away on all fours.
“Go away,” I whisper.
“Parker,” he starts. “Come on, you know I didn’t mean—”
But I shake my head, cutting him off, hugging myself tighter, my voice louder. “I don’t want to look at you. Go away.”
For a second I think he’s going to argue with me, that he’s going to try to make it better, but instead he sighs, muttering, “Whatever,” and walks away, toward the group at the keg.
“What just happened?” Em asks, joining me. Matty’s not far behind.
I shake my head. “I can’t.” My breath hitches, and I hold myself tighter.
I hear Charlie call out, “Anyone have any bourbon?”
Em wraps her arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “He’s super drunk, Park. Whatever he said, he didn’t mean it.”
“He’s being a dick, Em,” Matty mutters, but she shushes him.
“That’s not helping right now.”
The three of us watch as someone lifts Charlie into a keg stand, and even from here I can see the outline of his ribs.
“I have to go. I can’t be around this,” I say, turning to leave.
“I’ll go with you,” Em offers.
“No. It’s your night. You should stay. I’ll be fine, okay?” I can’t meet her eyes. This night was supposed to be our last really good night, and thanks to Charlie, it’s ruined. “Matty, have a good trip, okay?”
He hugs me, and I can feel my sadness mirrore
d in him, even though he isn’t my twin.
“I’ll get him home tonight, okay?” he whispers.
And then Em pulls me into a hug, and it’s hard, the way she hugs, fierce and furious strength against the smell of her strawberry shampoo, and for a second I let my shoulders fall.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” I say against her hair.
“Will you promise to let me know if you need me? Like, seriously promise. Anytime, anywhere, okay?”
“I promise.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart,” I say.
“I’ll call you before I go tomorrow, okay?” she asks.
I nod and then I leave, finding my way to the path into the woods, back toward home, leaving everyone else behind.
Thirteen
THIS TIME, I SKIP over the creek with ease, which is ironic because both of my feet are already wet from trying to rescue my not-needing-to-be-rescued brother.
The moon is silvery from behind the trees, reminding me of nine-year-old Charlie staring at his stomach in the same light, the red spots all over his belly, and Charlie now, how he came up from the river like something from one of his zombie shows.
I don’t know why tonight surprised me. When Charlie went through remission the first time, not only did he come back from the hospital skinny and bruised and bald, but he came back mean. He got irritated with our parents, didn’t want to see Matty or Em, pushed away the hand-drawn cards from the kids in our class. Each time he found out he had to go back to the hospital for another stay, he cried hot furious tears and refused to talk to any of us.
He especially didn’t want to hang out with me.
I brought him stickers and library books. Em and I choreographed an elaborate celebratory dance routine. I told him about all the stuff happening at school, making sure it didn’t sound like too much fun without him. I explained how I was going to be a doctor when I grew up. I even let him watch whatever he wanted on TV.
Charlie responded by sulking. He picked fights. He told me he wished he didn’t know me.
Mom told me to give it time, that it was probably hard for Charlie to see me healthy when he’d been so sick, that he still loved me no matter what. Dad told me that Charlie was lucky to have a sister who was going to cure cancer, that he’d realize that when he felt better again.
But I knew what had happened. Using his twin superpowers, Charlie had sussed out my secrets: that his bald head scared me, that I didn’t like the way his medicine made him smell like chemicals, that I woke up every morning and felt a tiny kernel of ugly relief that my cells were okay.
So I tried harder.
I used all my allowance to buy Charlie a set of cool colored pencils and a big sketch pad. I made Mustard sleep in his room, not mine. I let Charlie pick the movie every Friday night. I asked Em and Matty to come over so we could replicate our game-night marathons but with Charlie this time.
After a few months, his hair began to grow back, a lighter brown like chocolate milk.
After a few more, he and Dad resumed throwing the baseball around in the backyard.
His weekly doctor checkups got changed to monthly ones, then every two months.
He caught up on all his missing schoolwork with his tutor, starting fifth grade with Em and Matty and me that fall.
He stopped scowling.
I stopped dreaming about the helium people.
Even now, looking back, I can’t say if things over the next years got easier, or if we just got used to it all: the fact of Charlie being sick, of Charlie having been sick.
By the time we reached sixth grade, Charlie had finished all his maintenance treatments. Our parents took us to a Reds game to celebrate the fact that his body was finally, finally cancer-free.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think we were.
I don’t mean any of us got cancer. No, it’s more like this: Cancer moved through our family like a river wearing away its banks. You didn’t notice it in the moment, but two years later, the essential shape of us was forever changed: rock worn away, movement altered, no going back to who we used to be.
I had become even more careful, a constant knot of worry in my chest.
Charlie, on the other hand, had become fearless.
He rode his bike with no hands, waving them carelessly in the air.
He skateboarded down the hill standing on one leg.
He tackled his opponents on the football field so savagely, he was routinely benched.
And then there was the day in sixth grade when he fell in the creek.
Thanks to a record foot and a half of snow overnight, we had a rare day off school. Charlie, Matty, Em, and I immediately bundled up and ventured outside, heading to the park, where we could sled down the big hill.
After an hour, our cheeks wind-burned, ice crystals frozen on all our eyelashes, I wanted to go home. But Charlie insisted we trek to the waterfall at the end of the creek, so Em and I trudged reluctantly behind him and Matty, already imagining the hot chocolate we’d have when we got home.
When we found the boys, they were investigating a freshly fallen tree. It spanned the width of the creek, a good six feet above the water below, a makeshift bridge.
“I dare you to cross it,” Charlie said to Matty.
“No way,” Matty said, and I felt relieved, because it wasn’t safe. It was way too high and icy.
But then Charlie shrugged and stepped forward instead, carefully placing one foot in front of another on the log bridge, snow crunching under his bulky snow boots, his gloved hands balanced out like he was a tightrope walker, a confident grin on his face.
“Charlie, come back!” I yelled.
“Relax, Parker,” he called.
“Charlie, maybe she’s right,” Matty said.
“I’m fine, halfway there!”
Em took my hand. “He’ll be fine,” she said.
I started to believe her. So much that I let myself turn away for just a few seconds. I was leaning down to grab a tissue from my pocket when I heard Matty yell and Em gasp and looked up to see Charlie’s arms pedaling in the air, his eyes startled like a deer’s, and then his body toppling backward, disappearing from my view.
The moment after Charlie fell, everything around me froze except for the snowflakes, still slow and lazy. An electric-blue current of fear started crackling around the edges of my vision.
I scrambled to the creek’s edge, Matty and Em behind me, convinced Charlie had split his head open or broken his leg or worse, only to find him lying like a snow angel in the creek, one foot and his hat in the water, ice creaking underneath, a smile as big as the moon.
He started laughing.
In that moment, I wanted to push him off the bridge myself.
I watched Em and Matty ease themselves down the bank to pull Charlie up, and as soon as Matty had secured my brother’s mittened hand, I turned and marched home, ignoring Em’s calls to come back.
Watching him tonight at the river—fearless, reckless—reminds me of watching him that day.
Except worse.
Just then something behind me crashes through the bushes, and my heart jumps so far up in my throat, I nearly lose my balance.
When I look behind me, I don’t see anything, but just in case, I pull out my key chain and open the scissors on my Swiss Army knife, the one my dad gave me for Christmas last year, holding the tiny blades extended at my side and feeling marginally more prepared to defend myself against whatever huge ravenous bear or murderous yeti is stalking me.
I walk for a few more minutes, just starting to feel okay again, but then a stick cracks over my right shoulder, and without thinking about poison ivy, I immediately run through the brush on my left, dodging branches and roots. It’s a miracle I don’t trip.
I run and run until I reach the road.
I bend over to catch my breath. It’s longer this way, but at least I’ll be on the road, where there are occasional cars and streetlights, and hopefully, no mo
nsters.
I start the long walk home.
Fourteen
BY THE TIME I reach the covered pedestrian bridge that crosses Fosters Road, I’ve missed my curfew by almost an hour, a first for me. I must have run farther south than I thought.
I don’t mind, though. I love the bridge. The way the arches curve and the spire reaches toward the sky . . .
I squint, wondering if I’m dreaming it or if there really are spray-painted words across the arch. THOMAS: CALL YOUR WIFE PLEAS.
It’s just like the tin-can message, the one about the stars.
“Spider-Man,” I say under my breath.
And then I hear it, a hiss coming from above me, over my right shoulder, a tense “Shhh.”
I grip my tiny scissors tighter and look up.
A few feet into the bridge rafters—a boy: legs hooked around a beam, knuckle-clenching a spray paint can with one hand, his face hidden in the shadow of his sweatshirt hood and the eaves of the bridge.
He raises a finger sternly toward the direction of his lips, then points ominously toward my feet.
There, sniffing around and looking like it is in no hurry at all, is a big-ass skunk.
I suck in my breath and take a step back. The skunk jerks its head toward me, black beady eyes watching, tail twitching.
When I was in eighth grade, a skunk died under our front porch and it took three weeks for the smell to fade—you’d smell it when you opened drawers, turned on the AC, opened your backpack at school. Even our food tasted like skunk.
This is so not good.
“Don’t move,” Spider-Man whispers.
I look up, but he’s pressed himself farther into the dark, making it even harder to see his face.
I slide my pocketknife back in my bag. Maybe if I back up slowly.
As soon as I move, the skunk hisses, a noise full of irrational hurt feelings and potential mouth-frothing rabies, and I jerk to the side, banging my knee on the edge of the bridge in the process and stifling a yelp.
“I told you not to move!” the boy says in a loud whisper.
Jerk.
“I hit my leg,” I say as I ease back carefully against the bridge. My whole shin is throbbing, and when I look down, blood is welling up around the tender spot where I slammed it on the bridge.
