A Gift for My Sister: A Novel

by Ann Pearlman

  “I am. I have.” And then he falls asleep.

  When I go home that night, I see Rachel’s kiss still pressed in the glass, her lips smeared, and the imprint of her fingers. On the other side are Troy’s. His sweet lips still there, as though forming a kiss for the world.

  I’m too tired to cry. All out of tears. I’m too tired to talk. I fall asleep on my side of the bed, the covers over my head.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before I Was Alive, Where Was I?

  Tara

  SO AS SOON as I get to L.A., I visit Troy. It’s late at night, but I walk right in. He’s sleeping, and I’m careful not to disturb him. I sit in the chair next to him and listen to the machines. The monitors hum. The IV drips into his arm . . . drip, drip, drip . . . setting up its own percussion along with his breath. It’s as though I travel into his lungs with each intake.

  He looks awful. Now, Troy wasn’t a good-looking kid, but I still thought he was the cutest boy in the world. Sky and Mom were a duo, so close it was like they thought the same thoughts together and saw the same world. Maybe because they had gone through so much together when Sky’s dad died, and had that perfect life until then. Seven years of bliss. Imagine that. Seven years of just being a happy kid with nothing gone wrong. A mom and a dad who liked each other. They even told stories of going camping and to the Ice Capades. Imagine that.

  Not that I feel sorry for myself. It’s funny how bad things sometimes have good consequences. And me feeling left out was one of the reasons I played my piano so hard. I could accompany myself and I didn’t need them. Or any friends.

  But with Troy, I was just a kid. Ordinary. Not the kid whose cheating dad broke her mom’s heart and spoiled Sky’s life. Just a kid.

  And Troy paid attention to me. He liked to hear me practice. He tried to teach me to dive. He was a welcome relief in our family.

  He grew to be a more handsome man than he ever was as a boy, tall, with an easy smile and a nonchalant way about him. But maybe it’s just what I said before. I love him so much that he looks beautiful to me.

  That’s what makes it so hard to look at him now. His cheeks are sunken. He’s a peculiar color, something in between gray and blue. He sounds a little like Darth Vader when he breathes.

  I wipe away a tear. And just sit with him. I breathe with him, but he breathes too fast and I can’t keep up.

  And then he jerks awake.

  “How long have you been there?” He wets his mouth and purses his lips together in a gesture that I associate with him and welcomes me home, even to this miserable hospital room.

  “I don’t know. A while. I didn’t want to disturb you. Think I may have fallen asleep for a while.”

  “How’s the tour?”

  So I tell him about the tour. I tell him about Chicago and Denver and how cool it is being on the bus. I tell him how much work we’re getting done composing new songs, and how Levy is having fun. At least he’s with us. “Tomorrow, or maybe it’s tonight already, is the one in L.A.”

  “Is someone filming it so I can see it when I’m better?”

  “Someone always takes a video.”

  “I don’t want to miss it.”

  “I want you there. I want everyone there.” I think about my family—Mom, and Sissy and Allie, and Sky and Rachel and Troy—ready to come to my concert and that being stolen from me.

  He shifts his head to me, and I see how huge his eyes are. “What’s it like, Tara? Tell me. Being on stage like that.” That’s what I like about Troy. He simply asks what he wants to know about your life. He doesn’t hide or assume anything.

  “When you go out on stage, and the people are screaming and the lights are blaring so all you can do is hear them, can’t see them except as shadows, there’s this feeling.” I try to explain it. “Don’t know if there’s a word, it’s excitement—no, exhilaration. But, like, both sides of it at once—fear and thrill. The people are there for me. For Special and me. For us. And so I feel like I’m hot shit. Or extraordinary or great. But then I know I’m just me doing me. I don’t believe any of it is real. I’m merely little old Tara. But as soon as I play that first note, I become Li’l Key and Special and the crew and we’re, like, in our zone, doing like always. Each time a little different. Each time we hear something new. Pull out something new. The crowd provokes us, gets different juice from us.”

  He’s quiet except for his breathing, and for a minute I think he’s fallen asleep on me.

  “I got it. The same feeling as before a difficult dive, except with a crowd’s excitement, too. You don’t get to dive in a coliseum, after all.”

  “Nope. Except at the Olympics, I guess. But, you know, the audience, like, makes it easier because they hear and see what they came for. They project their wishes and needs on you. They’re ready for the party, and they’re the ones that help bring it on.”

  We’re quiet for a few seconds while the machines thump and wheeze. “Figure I’d ask you the same question. What’s it like being here? Being sick with this weird bacteria.”

  “Hmmm. You’re the only one who’s asked.” He stops to breathe. “I’m scared shitless. Terrified. But don’t tell anyone.”

  “Me, too, Troy.”

  “Nothing’s working and everything’s getting more difficult.” He gasps. “Each breath is a chore. Shit. I have to think, remember how to roll over. And I’m not sure what I dream and what’s real. You’re real, right?”

  I reach out and touch his arm. It’s cool and dry. “Feel that? I’m really here.”

  “Isn’t it night? How’d they let you in?”

  “I just walked in, came to your room. Lousy security, I guess.” I shrug. I don’t know what to say to him. I’m not prepared for this. Not even prepared for seeing him so sick, let alone him telling me he’s frightened.

  “You don’t seem terrified. You seem like you, except weak.”

  “I don’t have energy for my own panic. And I try to think good thoughts, positive thoughts like you’re supposed to, but these bleak ones go on anyway. So I lay here suffering about Sky and Rachel and feeling like I’ve let them down by being sick, and even more if I die and am not there to help Rachel grow. And I know Sky . . . She hasn’t gotten over, not really, her father’s death. All our dead babies. Her friend Mia’s death.” All these words at once exhaust him, and he closes his eyes.

  I sit. I’m here to listen, I guess.

  “You’ll take care of Sky?”

  The question surprises me. “I’ll try. But she won’t want me to. And she has Mom.”

  He shifts so slowly. I see how exhausting movement is.

  “I’ll try.”

  “Don’t let her make a monument out of our love by mourning. Help her to make a monument to our love by loving.”

  “No one can replace you.” The IV releases another drop. “I love you, Troy.”

  He nods. “You’re my little sister. How’s she doing, do you think?”

  “I haven’t really talked with her. She’s always here. Mom’s enjoying Rachel, but I thought I’d keep her with Levy for the next few days so Mom could focus on Sky and you.”

  “You’re generous.”

  He says this as though it’s a message not just about this act, but a bunch of them. A stance in my life. Generous as though forgiving.

  “I want to help as much as I can. Sky’s my sister, Rachel is my niece. I love them. It’s easy.”

  “Of course,” he says.

  “Sky would do it for me.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Sky complained about me to him when we were kids. But I know the bristly and off-handed way she treats me is her way of avoiding her feelings. I know this because of something that happened a long time ago. Before Troy, when I was six.

  Dad hadn’t shown up to pick me up for our usual weekend. I stood in the living room, looking out the window, then sat on the porch stairs, walked up and down the block, but no Dad. Mom was out on a date. Sky had to watch me until Dad came, then she could go to a
sleepover at Marissa’s. I waited, but no Dad. It must have been late spring or early summer, because I was outside. It got dark. Fireflies came out. I thought about getting a jar and catching some to amuse myself and so I didn’t look stupid sitting on the stairs, my cheek in my fist, staring endlessly into the road and jerking at the sound of any car.

  Sky made us breakfast for dinner . . . cereal probably, or eggs . . . and watched TV and talked on the phone with Marissa.

  I slumped back outside. Now even the fireflies were asleep. Maybe Dad got in an accident, I thought. I ran to tell Sky. “Maybe something happened to him? Maybe he’s in the hospital?” My excuses became reality. “What if Daddy dies?”

  Sky huffed with annoyance, got off the phone with Marissa, and called his number, but there was no answer. “He’s probably out with a woman.”

  “I’m scared,” I told her. I thought about playing my piano, but Sky hugged me tight to her. She rocked me like Mom used to. This was a surprising and remarkable gesture. Even though she was bony and it was hard to mold into her, she felt good. I ignored the pinchy bones and knobs of elbows.

  “I know, let’s go for a walk,” she said.

  “Really?” A walk in the dark. “What if Dad comes?”

  She knelt down. “He’s not coming. Get it? He’s doing something else that’s more important to him.” She jabbed her temple with her finger as though pushing ideas into my brain. Her pupils were wide and the rim of her gray eyes surrounded them like a halo. “We’ll go to Magic Mountain.”

  “Wow. Okay.” This was a different sister. “You think this is okay?” I really was asking if she’d stay this nice.

  “Yes. I’m your babysitter. I can say. Scared of the dark?” she teased.

  A little, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

  There were heavy trees above us. The cool night air smelled of some sort of spring flower. We were out in the middle of the night, no one knowing where we were, and shivers fluttered my arms.

  We walked to the park and climbed Magic Mountain. Now I know it’s just a big hill where they dumped some dirt so kids could sled down it, but then it seemed huge, especially standing at the top with the park receding. The distant streetlights stretched the shadows from the slide and jungle gyms across the field below me.

  Sky was nonchalant.

  “You don’t care, do you?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You don’t care if Dad is in the hospital or dead. You hate him.”

  “I don’t hate him. He just doesn’t have anything to do with me. He’s not my dad. He’s yours. He married Mom and made a big mess of her life and left you both.”

  It’s true; I knew it then and know it now. I’m sorry I didn’t begin with more fun, love, ease. All that good stuff. I try to make it different for Levy.

  Sky lay back and said, “Look at the stars.”

  There was no moon, so they were as bright as they can be close to a big city and lavish across the heavens. I cuddled in close. “You’re so lucky,” I told her. “So pretty, and you have such cool friends and you get to go to parties and do what you want. Have sleepovers. I don’t get to do anything. Everyone bosses me around. I hate being the youngest.”

  “You’ll get to do all those things when you’re as old as I am.”

  “I wish Mom would have another baby. Then I’d be the big sister.”

  We gazed at the stars. Off in the distance, a dog barked.

  “You want to hear a big secret? A really big secret that I’ve never told anyone?”

  “A secret?”

  “You won’t tell anybody, will you?” She whispered in the dark, shushing the words so their substance grew.

  “I promise.”

  “I wish my dad was alive even if he didn’t show up. Even if he was unfaithful and fought all the time with Mom. I think you’re lucky.”

  I held my breath. And turned her admission around in my mind.

  “Don’t ever tell Mom.”

  I nodded my head. “Promise.” We lay on the top of the mountain looking at the sequin stars. Ruts from winter’s sledding poked our backs. “I love you, Sky.”

  “I guess you’ll be the youngest and I won’t have a dad. That’s that. It’s unfair.”

  “Yes.”

  “Unfair,” she said again.

  “You want to wait here all night and see the sunrise?” I asked.

  Sky tried to figure out if that were okay. Taking a walk in the dark was as exciting as she could get. Now that I was here, I wanted it all. If I were her age, I wouldn’t have hesitated. “Mom’ll be home. She’ll worry.”

  The stretching sky pushed down on my chest. I couldn’t imagine my dad really caring about me. Sky knew her dad loved her. That seemed better.

  But then this light came, a streak of yellow-orange-red fire in the dark. “Look.” I pointed to it. “What is that? Where’s it coming from?”

  “I don’t know,” Sky said. “Some reflection from somewhere.”

  “It’s on your hair,” I told her. “Your hair’s on fire.”

  She slapped her head and laughed. And pointed to me, “It’s down your nose, a stripe. Half of you is orange. Like war paint or Halloween. You should see how pretty you look.”

  “You, too.”

  We danced our hands in the smudge of light, watching them blaze. Watching the color change and flicker over our fingers. “Look. I have a red foot,” I squealed.

  “I like your orange eye and cheek.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Wishes do come true. We got our sunrise in the middle of the night. Maybe that’s why they call it Magic Mountain.”

  With her arms wrapping her knees, she looked just like Mom, but smaller.

  I touched her bright hair and my hand glowed.

  I laughed. And said, “We’re the Orange Sisters.”

  “The Orange Sisters,” we said together and high-fived.

  When we got back home, Mom was still on her date. And Dad had not called or come by to pick me up. In fact, he forgot me for the rest of that year. Maybe the one after that, too.

  I never told anyone Sky’s secret.

  Now I look at Troy, who seems to have fallen asleep, or maybe he’s just resting before he coughs out the next sentence, and I know how dismal it will be for Sky if Troy should die. I know better than anyone. Her childhood tragedy replayed through the generation like an inevitable curse. And last month her friend Mia died. A nightmare that recurs and, worst of all, there’s no waking. Just an endless reel of loss.

  “Troy,” I say, “you don’t need to worry about Sky. I’ll take care of her and the crew will help. They’re about nothing if they’re not about family. Family is all. So we’ll just scoop Sky and Rachel up into our crew and help them through.” Except for T-Bone, that’s all true. T-Bone is just into T-Bone and the women who rub up against him. “She’s got Mom and, like, all her friends, too. A huge extended family.”

  I don’t know he’s awake until he says, “That’s what I need to hear.”

  “But you’ve got to fight. Reach inside and grab your strength. Visualize.” I’m too young for this. Usually I think I can handle everything, but I’m too young for this. “I love you so much. I couldn’t have grown up without you in my family.” Tears run down my face, but I don’t want Troy to see me crying. But why not? He needs to know that he’s loved. “You know how important you are to all of us, right?”

  “Hey. Think about how important I am to me.” His voice falls off as though he’s asleep. And then he stirs and says, “I’ll miss myself.”

  I spend the day with Rachel and Levy while the crew sets up the concert. Sky and Troy’s rented condo in Venice is across a walkway from the beach, a view of the sea from the windows. The condo is on the second and third floors. I take the kids to the beach and we walk in the sand, feel the water on our feet. Rachel takes this all for granted, it’s her front yard, but this is the first time Levy has seen the sea. I show him how the water is salty, and tell him it’s so big it st
retches all the way to China. We walk along the shore and Levy notices my footprints in the wet sand. “Look,” he says, “you’re leaving marks.”

  “Yep, you are, too.” I point to his small imprints, his toes rounded like Aaron’s.

  “How’s it do that?”

  “You squash the sand down,” I tell him.

  He presses a foot down and carefully lifts it. Rachel follows suit. Then he walks looking backward, watching the pattern our steps make, evidence of the three of us, marching across the beach. He turns. “Look what’s in my foot, Mommy.” A stone is imbedded in the sand at the ball of his imprint. He reaches down, picks it up, and hands it to me.

  “Oh, it’s shaped just like a heart and it’s deep red, too.”

  He grins at me.

  I hand it back to him.

  “For you, Mommy. My foot found it for you.”

  When we walk back, the tide has washed our footprints away. “Where’d they go?” Levy asks.

  Rachel points to the sea. “Gone there.”

  “A wave made the sand new again,” I tell him.

  Levy’s lips turn down and then he smiles. “I’m walking in water,” he laughs.

  We keep making new footprints. Troy’s last words buzz in my mind. I imagine him laughing. I imagine him sitting up and eating his breakfast. I still haven’t seen Sky, but gave Mom a quick hug. She said she’d try to make the concert if Troy were doing better. Otherwise, she’d stay with Sky.

  “I understand.”

  Of course. This time, it’s what I would do, too. Troy’s illness and helping Sky is more important than my biggest concert, the culmination of all my hours and years of lessons and practice. The reward for Special’s and my work. There will be other concerts. Maybe even bigger ones. But, then again, who knows? Maybe I’ll get hit by a bus tomorrow and she will never have seen me. And Troy will recover.

  We walk along the boardwalk edged with palm trees on one side and shops selling beach clothes, T-shirts, medical marijuana, and tattoos on the other. A man in a green hat wears a sign, WORLD’S GREATEST WINO. JOKES AND SONGS. A little bit later, a man holds cardboard up with marker saying, KICK MY ASS FOR A DOLLAR. I’LL ALSO ACCEPT FOODWEEDBEER. We enter a restaurant with a red awning called Small World Books and Sidewalk Café. The kids swirl corn chips in mild salsa, dropping splotches of it on the table. Rachel hands a pacifier to the mom of a baby who dropped it. She does this almost solemnly, holding it so she hasn’t touched the sucky part.