A Gift for My Sister: A Novel

by Ann Pearlman

  One of Aaron’s friends sings about a sparrow. His voice is alone in the void, just him singing about God looking after a sparrow so He looks after me, too. I don’t believe it, but I want him to keep making the sweet tones, lonely like a train whistle at night.

  Stuart, my ex-boss, tells me how sorry he is. Terribly sorry. He says it like he’s guilty, and that confuses me. “You didn’t make him die by firing me,” I say. “That much I know.” After that, Stuart leaves.

  Troy’s colleagues tell me how much he loved me. Tell me what a fine lawyer he was and what a fun colleague. I hear all that.

  Troy’s parents stand, arms hanging limply, their only child gone.

  I won’t hug anyone.

  I might make them sick. I might give them a horrible flesh-eating bacteria.

  Most leave.

  People tell me a list of ridiculous things: Time will make this easier. In a few years, my life will be as though this has never happened. The universe sent me Troy’s death as a learning experience. It will make me stronger. God wanted him more than I did. God doesn’t give us things we can’t survive.

  Some just tell me they’re sorry for my loss. That’s the best. But it doesn’t matter much either. Sissy tells me I’m strong. I’ll be okay after a while. I want to ask, how long is a while?

  Muddled piles of discarded scraps of lettuce and chaotically arranged bright orange cheese are scattered across the table. Naked pokey-looking grape stems lie there.

  Tara takes care of Rachel and Levy, tries to find a program on TV. Mom and Allie shift uncomfortably. “You know I have to go, right? In three days. I have to fly to Chicago,” Mom says.

  I think I nod.

  “I’m worried about you. I don’t want to leave you. I called Rosie.”

  Rosie is Mom’s friend. Rosie runs her husband’s legal practice and is his paralegal.

  “She’s pregnant and can’t put in the hours to run the practice. You could share a job with her.” Mom looks into my eyes to learn if she’s getting through to me. “You could work there until you pass the Michigan bar.”

  I nod. She’s bringing this up now because she doesn’t want to leave me unless I’m settled. She doesn’t want me to be alone with Rachel. “You think I should move back home and work with Rosie.”

  “It’s one of your options,” Allie says.

  Mom looks up at Allie. “You only have Marc here, now. You just moved here a few months ago. You don’t have a community here. At home you have us. And Marissa and Jennifer. Old friends.”

  That’s not Troy’s and my life. I don’t have that anymore. I don’t have my life anymore. We moved here from San Diego to be closer to our jobs and Mia.

  “It’s too complicated,” I say. “I can’t figure it out. What’s best, that is.” I realize my speech is disconnected but don’t know how to make it hang together any more than I can make sense of the words people tell me, or the hideous food.

  “Well, we’ll pack you up. Thank God this was just a rental. You can break your lease.”

  “We’ll drive you and your furniture back home,” Tara says. “If you want, that is . . .”

  I can’t stand the expression of worry on Tara’s face. That and her swollen lids and wet eyes.

  “I’ll help. I can stay and help every step of the way,” Allie says.

  “Allie will drive with you, in your car,” Mom says.

  “Smoke will drive a U-Haul with your furniture, clothes, toys, and stuff. That way you’ll have all your things.” Tara crouches in front of me, watching my face for an answer.

  “You can put them in my basement. Until you get an apartment,” Allie says.

  “We’re driving pretty much the same route on the rest of our tour,” Aaron says.

  “You and Rachel can stay with me,” Mom says. “You won’t be alone.”

  But I know that’s a lie. I’m alone, now.

  “At least until you get your own place.”

  It doesn’t make any difference. I don’t know if I say that in my mind or out loud.

  “We can’t leave you and Rachel like this. Here. Alone,” Mom says.

  Whatever you think is best.

  “You and Rachel will be with people who love you. And you’ll even have a job if you want one,” Allie says.

  I see her smile, how hopeful her eyes look. I notice her white teeth.

  How did it get like this?

  How did I get like this?

  I hold the gray box on my knees and then shift it closer to my chest.

  What did I do wrong?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Long Road Home

  Tara

  AFTER TROY’S DEATH, everything hangs. No one knows what to do. Sky just sits, not talking. She doesn’t tell us what she thinks. We suggest options, but she watches us as if our words don’t make sense.

  She doesn’t pay much attention to Rachel, just looks at her sadly. Sissy and Mom and Aaron and I try to fill in the gaps. Levy seems to be the only one who helps, because Rachel forgets and laughs when she plays with him.

  Sky stares at the window, the pattern on the carpet, Troy’s ashes.

  “Well, we have to get on with our tour. We have the Vegas concert in a day and then we’re back on the road two days after that.” I use Aaron’s voice when he’s being the boss and controlling the crew. “If you want to move, you have to be ready in three days.”

  Mom shoots me a look.

  “What? That’s what we have to do. People rely on me.” I meet her eyes.

  “What do you want?” Mom turns to Sky. “To stay here, or do you want to come home?” No one is pleading and suggesting anymore.

  “Whatever you think is best.” Sky stares at the box on her lap.

  “Well then. We’ll move you back to Ann Arbor. Back home.”

  And as if someone pressed a play button, we all started moving. As I help Sky pack, I think about my own opportunity with King. I pay attention to myself in the spaces between caring for my sister.

  The truth is, I wasn’t a virgin when I met Aaron that day at Habitat for Humanity. Nope. He knew that, of course. After we got to know each other, while he was still in prison, I wrote and told him. He wasn’t either. He’d done it with several girls. I hoped all that was that, over and done. I hoped after Levy was born I could feel safe. I don’t know why. My mother wasn’t safe after I was born. Now I know that nothing is ever over and done. The past is always the present. The past is the future. This is what happened:

  I was at Blue Lake, which is a music and arts camp. My teacher suggested I apply, and so I sent in a CD, and damn if I didn’t get a scholarship and get bounced up to the advanced class. When I told him, my father said, “Those lessons I got for you are paying off.” But he didn’t come and see me. Not any of my recitals or performances.

  I was excited about being with kids who were like me.

  But they weren’t. They went because they wanted to go to a camp. Or because their parents pressured them so they’d be accepted into advanced band or orchestra so they could get into top-notch colleges. Or to get the kids out of their hair so they could go off to New York, or Toronto, or Paris. The girls were all perfect, with manis and pedis and long glossed hair. More like Sky than me. I concentrated on the classes and swimming in the lake.

  Then I meet Horus. His name by itself would make him an outcast. He wore paint-encrusted clothes and granny glasses. Curly hair that made a messy halo. He was studying writing along with painting, and we had a composition class together where he sat isolated from the rest of us. We ambled side by side to the cafeteria for a lunch of baloney or peanut butter sandwiches and lime Jell-O. He put his head down and ate. I made patterns in green globs. One evening we ended up sitting on the edge of the lake. Turned out he was a scholarship kid, too, from Ypsilanti. He painted brightly colored, disembodied people. One painting was an arm, painted in super-realism, and a tree.

  “This place sucks, don’t you think?” he said.

  We were under
a small rise by the lake. The other students drifted up the hill.

  “I feel so fucking weird.” I talked to the clouds beginning to darken. “The other girls. Well, they’ve got it easy. A bunch of princesses playing with music.” I pulled up the hood on my sweatshirt.

  “I never pay attention. Besides, it doesn’t matter. I’m here to learn and we get the same benefit. Maybe our time here is more treasured.” He tilted his head, a smile at the corners of his mouth as though he knew something about me I didn’t.

  He studied me. I licked my lower lip. “What?”

  “You’d be kinda cute if you weren’t so square. You need to be messed up.” And then he took my hair out of its ponytail and ruffled it till it was sticking all over the place and pulled out my tucked-in shirt. “That’s better.”

  “You think I look too nerdy, huh?”

  “Not anymore.” When he pushed me, my arm yielded under the motion and I rocked to the sandy grass. He leaned over and kissed me abruptly and briefly, before I could decide what to do, before I could push him away. I lay there, his dark eyes glinting at me through his glasses. And then I shut my lids, pushed my palms into the sand.

  I felt him hesitating, not sure what to do next, but I wasn’t going to stop him. He leaned over me, touched his mouth to mine. Tentatively. My lips parted and I tasted the texture of his tongue. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me to feel my flesh through our shirts, and my heart quickened.

  The bell clanged. We jumped up, walked to the flagpole. All the campers held hands around the circle and sang, Day is done. Gone the sun, while the flag was pulled down.

  The melancholy notes hung over the grass while he squeezed my hand. My palm was sweaty.

  “Hey. Let’s meet later. About midnight. Over by the boats.”

  “Even though I’m so square?” I laughed.

  There was no moon or reflected city lights; clouds obliterated the stars. I snuck out of my cabin, holding my breath, careful not to step on the squeaky board. I shut the screen door slowly so it wouldn’t slam. Once I was out and down the path, I saw the open field. Empty except for the trees and the flagpole. The lake was a void, the hulls of the boats humped logs. Horus was not there. I stood beside a canoe and listened to the water swish against the shore, feeling foolish and discarded.

  Then he was beside me and hugged me. “You smell like baby powder,” he said.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Reminds me of my brothers and sisters.”

  I leaned away, trying to see his eyes in the dark.

  “Like home, I guess.”

  A few hours ago we were comfortable and easy. Now, I was—he was—supposed to do something, but not sure what. This was too set up. I wasn’t timid about sneaking out, but now what? I was happy to simply be with him, and then he grabbed my hand. I touched the base of my throat.

  “You’re so fragile, so small.” He wrapped his fingers around my wrist.

  I hate the fact that I’m small. It makes it easier to be overlooked, not taken seriously, like I’m a toy.

  He kissed me and I pressed into him. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach his lips. That act, my yearning displayed by standing on my toes, made me confront my own vulnerability, and realize the risk I was taking.

  His arms pulled me to him, his hands slid over my back, my face, our mouths still together. My breast. I was surprised at the tingles his fingers produced. Now I take all those reactions for granted. But then it was as if I was studying myself. I didn’t stop him, maybe this was why I met him, the reason I stood in the dark on my tiptoes. So he slid his fingers under my bra, my nipples hard, my breath now gasping between my teeth.

  I wanted him to embrace me and comfort me, but I couldn’t name the pain that needed solace. It was a kind of home I’d never felt.

  “Horus?” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “Ohgod. Nothing.” I pressed closer and slid down his body to stand firmly on the sand, and my movement stroked him.

  “You feel so good,” I told him. “You, like, smell so good,” but I didn’t know if speaking would dissolve our mood.

  “You’re so sweet,” he said, as though I was a child and he’d been here before and knew exactly what was coming next. He accidently scratched me or poked me with my own bra buckle, so I unhooked it. Luckily my shorts were elastic and he slid them down to my ankles, trapping me, and I had to kick them off. He didn’t take off his T-shirt.

  It hurt, but not too much. I couldn’t spread my legs wide enough. I figured it would be easier with a stranger. Not be so scary. But why did he move so fast? And then it was over. Was this it?

  Afterward, he lay on top of me, not wanting to move. Perfect. His pounding heart felt like mine, like we only had one.

  We’d both done it. I guess that was what it was about. Mom said it makes you feel closer to each other. Afterward, I guess I did feel closer to him. But closer like we had done something wrong together.

  He looked down and saw the darkness of my blood. Black even in the night. “You never did this before?” he asked.

  I swallowed. “Could you tell?” I held my breath. “I mean, I’ve fooled around, but I haven’t done this.”

  “It makes me trust you more.” He stopped and thought. “You just wanted it out of the way?”

  “Something like that. This isn’t your first time?”

  “Nah. But it’s always new. Different,” he said.

  I wondered, was he my boyfriend now? “So?”

  “So.”

  “You don’t like putting yourself out there?” I said.

  “I thought I already did.”

  Then I got it. “We’re gonna have a good next week,” I said.

  He laughed as though he’d established power, but I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d won. I thought, Oh my God. I’m in that club with all my girl friends. I’m not a stupid virgin anymore.

  The next time, he took his time. My motions were almost as vigorous as his and afterward, he held me close. I realized something and tried to put it into words, but I didn’t have them then, or now. Something about what drives us, but not just us, the circling of the earth in the sky. The mighty force of sex and the subsequent vulnerability of love. I had the world before me. And the risk of tragedy.

  “I’ll score some rubbers. I didn’t anticipate this.”

  We’re safe. I’m about to get my period, I thought. We’ll be together for the week, I thought. And who knows? Ypsilanti isn’t that far away.

  He laughed and kissed my chin. Then my eyes.

  At breakfast, the next morning, Horus sat with one of the perfect girls. He leaned forward and said something, and she laughed. He didn’t see me, or didn’t acknowledge me. I don’t know which.

  That afternoon, I saw him strolling toward the office in his painted jeans. His head was down and he seemed preoccupied. The canvas with the clouds was under his arm, a duffle bag in the other hand.

  I thought of calling out to him and at least saying hi, but watched him walk away.

  That night, I heard he went home. I wondered if he was caught sneaking out and was expelled. I concentrated on my sloppy joe. Later, I heard there was an accident in his family and that was why he left.

  He never told me his last name. And I never told him mine.

  My period came the next week. I was okay. But I knew then that men were risky. What was he but a cute dude who had sex with me, and the next morning was with another girl. Just like my father. And then gone forever. Like Sky’s father. I focused on my music. I was awarded the solo piano performance in the final concert.

  And I learned that if I held myself back, it made them want me more. So I learned to move casually and leave quickly.

  That was the summer before I met Aaron. And when I met Aaron, he was in kiddie prison, he was safe. He wrote me lyrics, letters detailing how he wanted to take me to the zoo and the park, and take a canoe down the river. How he wanted to kiss me, undress me. All that. But he was where
he couldn’t cheat on me. It was a relief not to have sex and stir up vulnerability or face the possibility of actually gaining love and losing aloneness. “You’re a wimpy choice,” I told him before we started heating up.

  He was amazed that a white chick from Ann Arbor would find a black kid in prison the cowardly choice.

  “I, like, don’t have to worry about you cheating. I don’t have to worry if we’ll really work out. I fault myself for being such a chicken,” I wrote him in one of my letters.

  “I’m not exactly in my comfort zone, either. I never thought this would happen to me. Feeling connected with someone from a different world, as though we were one soul in another life somewhere, sometime. Feeling exposed. I’m not like this with other people. Only you. You could hurt me. You could actually devastate me.”

  I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I wrote him:

  “Don’t expect me to just stay home playing my keyboard all the time. I’m going to be hanging out with my friends.”

  He wrote back:

  “You do what you can. I’ll do what I gotta do. But don’t want to hear about you with no other man.”

  I have to remember that. He was safe for me. I was never safe for him. And it was never about sex. Not really. Not ever. That just brought us even closer. And with him, it was as though we always knew each other’s body and we were home at last. At last.

  He asked me to marry him when I told him I was pregnant. Me seventeen and not yet graduated from high school.

  “Don’t want to mess our good thing up with expectations,” I said.

  “You want to be my baby-mama, or you want to be my wife?”

  “I want to be my own baby-mama.” Didn’t want to rely on anyone or assume anything was permanent.

  I think about this while I box up clothes for my sister, and drive to Vegas with Levy sound asleep in the back. I have to remember who Aaron is, really is with me, because at the Vegas show, my dressing room is filled with six dozen orange roses. Each with a different card: Have a gr8 concert. Thinking about U. My unpredictable 1. I’m ready, r u? Looking 4ward to our music. U got the swag. What’s next? King doesn’t sign his name to any of them. He knows I’ll know they’re from him.