All That I Can Fix

by Crystal Chan

  She still had nightmares, too. One night I heard Mina yelling in her sleep, and I stumbled out of bed, when who did I bump into but Dad, who was also making his way into her room.

  “After you,” I said.

  “No, after you,” he said.

  So we went into her room together.

  “Hey, Min-o,” I said softly, turning on her bedside lamp.

  She murmured.

  “Honey,” Dad said, and touched her arm.

  “Ron-Ron?” Mina said. “And Daddy?”

  “What was your dream about this time?” I said, crouching at her bed, down by her feet.

  “I was . . .” She swallowed. “The gun . . .”

  “It’s okay,” Dad said, smoothing her hair.

  “I wasn’t strong enough,” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t strong enough,” Mina said, her voice thickening.

  “What are you talking about, honey?” Dad asked.

  “I didn’t know the gun would fly out of my hands like that. I couldn’t hold on to it, and it’s because of me that I shot you. I shot you, Daddy.” She started crying.

  I couldn’t blame her for being surprised at the gun’s power. As Mina cried, my hands tightened: I remembered what it was like to have the gun fire and fire and fire, having to grip that gun for my life, and each time the gun punched me in the palm of my hands, its reverberations lodging deep into my shoulders.

  Dad slid himself onto Mina’s bed and held her, supporting her with his good arm. “It was an accident,” Dad said.

  “A bullet doesn’t care about accidents.”

  Silence.

  “Honey, you can’t blame yourself for this.”

  “Guns can do so much,” she said.

  “Yes—” Dad said.

  “And you died. In my dream you died. You always die.”

  “Hey, hey,” Dad said. He started to rock her.

  “You still have it, don’t you?” Mina asked softly.

  Dad froze in his rocking.

  “Please?” she whispered.

  Silence.

  Dad still hadn’t moved an inch. “I’ll think about it, honey,” he said.

  I nodded my head slightly. Guns intensify it all. Hell yeah, that was true; I was living proof of that. And I wasn’t sure what Dad would do, but I did know by the way he was talking that he really would think about it.

  “Mina, my little girl,” Dad said, starting back up with his rocking. “No matter what, I want you to know that I’m here for you.”

  I gave a start and stared at him in the darkness. I was glad he couldn’t see the absolute shock that must have been on my face when he said that: I’m here for you. Is that not exactly what I’ve been telling George? Is that not exactly what we needed to hear from Dad all this time?

  Meanwhile, in that same darkness, Mina sucked in a breath. “Really, Daddy?” she asked.

  I don’t think he meant for me to hear, but I could hear Dad swallow hard. “Yes. I’m here for you,” Dad repeated. “I’m not going to leave you.”

  “Same here, Min-o,” I said. “We’re all going to stick together, okay? No matter what.”

  At that point Dad’s face turned to me. I couldn’t see his expression in the darkness, but I didn’t need to. I felt my shoulders square up. “So you go right on back to sleep, Mina, because we’re watching out for you,” I said.

  She didn’t have nightmares as much after that.

  • • •

  Dad still regularly went to his shrink sessions, and sometimes he and Mom went together; once, he let it slip that he had found some good medication, but I didn’t give him shit about any of it anymore. I mean, if you need it, you need it. I guess it was working pretty well, because after I replaced the carpet a second time, he came up to me one weekend morning as I was eating my cereal.

  “Ronney,” he said. He took a swig of his coffee. “That living room wall is really bad, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “It looks pretty good on the outside.”

  “But it’s all rotten on the inside.”

  “It’ll take a lot of money to fix it.”

  “It’ll be worth it.”

  Dad paused. “So we gotta rip it all out, huh?”

  I looked up from my bowl. “ ‘We’?”

  Dad shuffled his feet. “Well, if you want some help, that is. It’s a big project.”

  I looked at him, dumbfounded. “Yeah, it is,” I said. I scratched my neck, like I didn’t know what to do with myself. “Is your arm good enough?” I asked.

  “Is yours?”

  Ever since the tiger incident I was trying really hard not to hold my bad arm with my good arm, for obvious reasons. Dad was trying to do the same.

  “Wow,” I said. “I’m ready if you are. Thanks, Dad.”

  He didn’t say anything to that, but while he was taking another swig of coffee, his eyebrows lifted slightly, like he was smiling into his cup.

  • • •

  After looking long and hard, the authorities finally found the camel: It was in the backyard of Mr. Lulloff’s house, because Mr. Lulloff had decided he didn’t want the camel shot, like all the other animals had been, so he hid the camel in his basement. Only when he finally let the camel out to get some fresh air did some nosy neighbor report his ass. Mr. Lulloff brought out his gun when the authorities came by, telling them that there was no way they were going to shoot that camel, and that was when the authorities convinced him that a camel is a camel and is in no danger of being shot did Mr. Lulloff finally agree to let the authorities into his house and take the confused but grateful camel. I say “grateful” because instead of the pizza that Mr. Lulloff had been feeding it, the authorities had brought with them camel food, like hay, which was a good thing for everybody.

  And speaking of good things for everybody, that was the last of the animals—except for the monkey, which was seen just once and then never again—and the feds and the state warden and the media and all their pals finally packed up and left Makersville. Just for old times’ sake, and maybe to still feel special, people in town continued to greet each other with “What’s up with the animals?” even though no one ever had a good response.

  • • •

  It took a few days for Dad and me to rip out that wall and get the new wall installed. We had to get advice from the guys at the hardware store a couple times, but hell, it sure felt great to get it done. On the second day of wall installation, Dad was out on a quick supply run when the doorbell rang. I went to the door and peeked through the side window.

  It was Sam. He was looking down at the ground.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said, opening the door to a gust of cold air. “What’s—”

  “We’re moving.” He glanced up at me, and his gaze wavered.

  “Huh?” My heart flipped.

  “Nick convinced Mom that we needed to leave. So we are.”

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “When?”

  “I don’t know. But he told me it was going to happen soon. A different town. I don’t know where.”

  Silence.

  “Sam, this is great news,” I said quietly.

  Sam’s bottom lip trembled. He nodded and looked at me again.

  “This is what you’ve needed for a long time.” My voice was thick.

  Sam looked down at the ground again and whispered something.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Don’t be dumb. Of course you want to go.”

  His eyes flicked up to mine. “You can come with us?”

  I looked at him, and my heart crumbled. “No, Sam,” I whispered. “I stay here.”

  He turned away. And in that silence I could hear the years of shouting and screaming and hitting and hiding and smallness, and then also, like a balm, the times of Sam and me and potato chips and football and wall repairs and question marks and dinners and wooded areas and rescues and hope. />
  “Hang on a sec,” I said to Sam. “I have a poster I want to give you. Signed.”

  • • •

  “Soon” turned out to be sooner than soon: The very next day, Sam, Nick, and their mom were gone. Earlier, Nick had texted me while my hands were all mucked up with wall dust:

  Dad just left the house. Now’s the time. We’re leaving. Come outside, quick.

  Now?

  Now.

  I almost didn’t catch them at all, because I was an idiot and didn’t believe Nick’s “now” meant now and stopped to wash my hands. When I got outside, Sam’s mom was driving slowly past our house—inching, really—and I ran to the car. Sam was in the back seat and rolled the window down, and I walked beside the car and extended my hand out to him, into the car, and he took it, his tiny hand in mine. Tears streamed down his face.

  Sam’s mom rolled down her window. “I’m sorry, Ronney. We’d stop if we could, but—”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said. I was still walking beside the car. “You gotta go. I get it.” Nick nodded to me, gave me a thin-lipped smile.

  That was when I saw the John Lennon poster in the back seat right next to Sam. My eyebrows lifted.

  Sam saw me looking at the poster, then at him, and his face crumpled up again.

  “Hey,” I said, and I stopped walking. Sam’s mom stopped the car.

  Sam threw the door open and bear-hugged me.

  “You’ll be okay,” I said to him.

  “No I won’t.”

  “You shut that up,” I said. I looked at his teary face. “You’re a fighter. You’ll be okay. And do your homework.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Now go,” I said, my voice wobbling.

  Sam got back into the car and kept his hand extended out the window, as if to eternally take mine in his.

  Then they drove away.

  • • •

  The next day I was taking out the rest of the drywall that Dad and I had torn down, cleaning up, still thinking about how Nick and Sam and their mom were finally on their own. They’d be fine, I knew: They were all survivors. But I felt exhausted inside.

  The air was crisp, like snow was going to come soon, and my mind slowly drifted to the things that the house needed for winter. I was wheeling the garbage out to the curb, because it was a Thursday, a garbage day, and the wind had picked up again; if it got any stronger, stuff would start blowing around. I shivered because I was only in my flannel shirt, and I heard a voice behind me.

  “Ronney?”

  I turned. “Yeah, Dad?”

  “Need some help?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, and we loaded the drywall into the trash cans.

  “You want to go ice fishing this winter?” Dad asked.

  “Fuck no, it’s cold,” I said.

  Dad laughed. “We’ll have heaters in the shelter, Ronney.”

  I thought about that. “We won’t fall through?”

  Dad grinned. “Not because of the heaters. The ice is too thick. Now, if you decide to walk into the fishing hole, all bets are off.”

  I thought about the two of us drinking hot chocolate and huddling around the heaters, with our fishing poles dangling over a patch of dark, inky water.

  “What would we do?” I asked, despite myself.

  “It’s a lot like regular fishing,” Dad said.

  “You mean you’ll eat a worm?” I asked.

  Dad laughed again, and his laugh was loud and free. “Maybe.”

  “In that case, why not?” I asked.

  Dad put his arm around my shoulder as we headed back to the house, and our feet matched each other’s in unison.

  • • •

  The next day I went to visit George. Her father opened the door, and I even smiled nicely, asked if George was home. He grinned at me like I was some awesome superstar kid, now that my family was in the papers, and went to get George. We sat in the sunroom, which was warm and appropriately sunny. She looked tired, but there was a light in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before.

  “How’ve you been sleeping?” I asked.

  George made a face. “Getting better. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

  I waited.

  She leaned over and plucked a white flower off of a nearby houseplant, then rolled the stem between her fingers. “My classmates—you know, the valedictorian-track ones—wanted to know what happened at the competition.” She gave a little snort. “When I wouldn’t tell them, they thought that I must have gotten the full-ride scholarship and didn’t want to say anything, like, rub it in their faces. Some kids thought that by not saying anything I was still rubbing it in their faces, and they started talking about me.”

  “Kids can be fuckers.”

  George looked down at the flower that she was rolling between her fingers. “People can be superficial, you know? I mean, it’s just grades.”

  I stared at her. “Whoa. Wait. This is coming from George?”

  “There’s always going to be someone better than you. Sometimes a lot of someones,” George said, looking up. “But I’m not going to let a lost scholarship ruin me.”

  My face must have gone slack, because when she looked at me, she started laughing. “Here, let me show you something.” George stood up and took me by the hand to her bedroom. Over her bed, where her Twenty Steps to Be an Architect sign had been, was a new sign:

  TWENTY-ONE WAYS TO KICK ASS AT LIFE, NO MATTER WHAT

  The moment I saw that new sign, I hooted and gave her a huge high five. Then I froze. “Wait. So this means you’re not going to be an architect?”

  “The tenth percentile means the tenth percentile,” George said, looking away. “Maybe I’ll be something else.”

  “Maybe you were with inhuman brainiacs and you shouldn’t judge yourself against them.”

  “Maybe I’ll keep an open mind about things,” George said. “Lots of twists and turns to life—you gotta keep going, right?” George said, blushing a little.

  I shook my head with admiration. “Balls of steel, woman.”

  George gave me a pointed look and a devilish grin. “I think you mean ‘ovaries.’ ”

  “What?” I asked. Heat instantly inflamed my face.

  “Ovaries of steel,” she said, nice and slowly, lingering on each syllable. “Ovaries, Ronney. You know.” George pointed to her abdomen.

  “Um . . . yeah . . .” I fidgeted and scratched the back of my neck. I had no idea what to say, and I sure as hell couldn’t look at her.

  George threw her head back and laughed.

  When my face no longer felt like a furnace and George’s laughing died down, she hugged her arms across her chest. “I just . . . wish I hadn’t lost friends over this stupid scholarship.”

  “They weren’t friends.”

  She sighed. I knew that sigh. It was an I wish this had never happened, but I’m not running away sigh. And there was that look again, one I never thought I’d see in George’s eyes: the look of a fighter.

  “Sometimes you just have to go through the shit,” I said. “No other way around.” I paused. “So you and Jello are doing better?”

  George nodded. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “We’re better.”

  I looked into her eyes. God, she was beautiful. “You’re happy?”

  She nodded again and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  I took a long, slow breath. “Good,” I said, and dammit, I meant it. Then I remembered something. “Thanks so much for that photo of the cookie house,” I said. I hesitated. “I have something to give you, too.” I dug around in my pocket and brought out my lucky Thursday medallion. “Here,” I said, holding it out to her. “This is for you.”

  She cocked her head. “What is it?”

  “I’ve carried this around for a while,” I said. “You never know when you’re going to need a little bit of luck.”

  Her fingers closed around it.

  She shook her head and gave me an unguarded smile. “You’re so strong, Ro
nney, dealing with all kinds of things. I always wondered how you did it. Now I guess I know, at least a little—you’ve got a whole lot of strength, resilience, and a lucky coin. You’re really incredible.”

  I took her hand. She gave me a surprised look.

  “You’re really incredible too,” I said. My heart started to pound. Her hand was so soft.

  “Ronney—I’m seeing Jello,” she faltered, but she didn’t pull her hand back.

  I will never be able to hold her hand like this, I thought as I held her hand. This may be exactly how Jello holds her hand all the time and doesn’t even think about it. And it’s true: I’ll be there for her; it’s certainly not how I want it to be, but it doesn’t have to be perfect in order for it to be good. Maybe even very good.

  That’s what I was thinking as George stood there and looked at me hesitantly. A couple moments later her look deepened.

  Then, before I could stop myself, I leaned in and kissed her.

  Her lips were soft, warm.

  It was heaven on my lips when she kissed me back.

  Let me repeat that: George was freaking kissing me.

  I can’t tell you how badly I wanted that kiss to go on forever, but at some point I pulled away and said thickly, “So go ahead and see Jello.”

  “Okay, I will,” she whispered, biting the lip I had just kissed. Her eyes were sparkling.

  I gave a small smile. “Put Ronney in any situation, and he’ll know what to do, eh?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” George said softly. “I stand by that.”

  And it was a Thursday.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This was a story six years in the making. I could not have pulled it off without the following support: Jennifer Ung, my editor, who is heroic in so many ways; Tina Wexler, the best agent and ally I could ask for; Silvia Gomez, who saw a squirrel falling from a tree in a windstorm; Stacy Jaffe, who lovingly encourages me onward; Timothy Smith, who will always have my heart; Zachary Lulloff and Karen Brailsford, my dear spirit friends; J. Michael Sparough, S. J., my (sneaky) mentor and guide; Regina Rodríguez-Martin, who strengthens; Allen Ellis DeWitt and Max Kowalski, who gave just the right critiques at just the right time; Miriam Busch, whose fire, brilliance, and generosity propelled me on; Kathi Appelt, my deep friend; Ben Jaffe, Rick Lulloff, Richard Snyder III, Gabe Figueroa, and Raul Esparza, for their invaluable advice on guns and gun ownership; Mike Pelko, who inspired Ronney’s voice; the Cenacle Sisters and Bob Raccuglia, whose help makes this all possible; Ephathatha, who will always be with me; the YMCA treadmill, on which I imagined a small boy keeping pace with me; Esther Hershenhorn, Deborah Doering, Susanne Fairfax, Erica Hornthal, Emily Kokie, Matthew Ganser (“Dr. Pain”), Karen Bruno, Tom and Kristin Clowes, Colleen Berry, Joe Metz, Amber Evey, Beth Miller, Tim Schmidt, Monica Martinez, Emanuele Solomon, Juan Carlos Linares, Susann Revelorio, Mara Anastas, Liesa Abrams, Chriscynethia Floyd, Sarah Creech, Vanessa DeJesus, Nicole Russo, Catherine Hayden, Lauren Hoffman, Amy Hendricks, Chelsea Morgan, Christina Pecorale, Emily Hutton, Michelle Leo, Anthony Parisi, Janine Perez, Anna Jarzab, Kristin Reynolds, Brian Luster, and finally, my mom, stepdad, brother, and dad; finally-finally, to J. D. Salinger; and finally-finally-finally, a thanks to the squirrels, who needed to step out of the spotlight (although you know I will always love you).