What Remains True

by Thomas, Janis

  I open my eyes and stare at the drab beige wall of my living room. I would give anything to go back to that moment, to change what I said to him.

  You bet it is, Jonah. It’s going to be the most beautiful butterfly in the world.

  EIGHTEEN

  SHADOW

  Dark Female is gone. I don’t know how long she’s been gone. I can still smell her scent, the sweet-pungent odor of her clothes, but it’s fading. She will come back, and I will hide from her angry eyes, but she’s not here now, so I can lie on my couch-room bed until I hear the shudder of her car outside.

  My master is on the couch, sitting on the edge of the cushions, his hands on his knees, like at any minute he’s going to stand up. But he doesn’t stand up, just sits there. The big black screen on the wall is alive right now. There are people on the screen talking to my master, but I don’t think he hears them. He is staring at the coffee table, the one with the scratchy leg where I chewed a long time ago. I don’t remember chewing it, but I remember that if I do now, I’ll get angry eyes and angry voices, not just from Dark Female, but from my master and my mistress, too. So I won’t chew it.

  My master’s eyes are so sad. I don’t want them to be. If his eyes are sad, that means he is sad, and I don’t like that. I know why he is sad, and why Little Female is sad and why my mistress is sad. I wish I could tell them that Little Male is here. He isn’t here with me now on my couch-room bed, but I know he is nearby, somewhere in the house. I think knowing he’s somewhere in this house, that he hasn’t gone to another place yet, would make my humans happy. But I don’t know how to tell them.

  I stand and pad over to the couch. I sit next to my master and nudge his hands with my head. His hands feel cold. Maybe because they were holding the glass on the chewed-leg coffee table. Now the glass is empty and on the table, but his hands are still cold. They don’t move. I feel them, limp on my head. I nudge them again. And then I feel my master pat me. He pats me with one hand. It doesn’t feel bad, but it’s not as good as when he strokes my fur or scratches under my chin. And then I feel his fingers scratch my ears, and I can’t help it, can’t control my tail, which thwack thwacks against the carpet.

  “Good boy, Shadow,” my master says. His voice is quiet and low and not a happy voice, but not a mad voice, and Good Boy is what he always calls me when I’m doing something right, so my tail thwack thwacks again.

  And then I hear a slight thump from upstairs and Little Female cries out, and even as my ears rise, my master is up on his feet and running to the stairs. I trot behind him and stop at the first step. I’m not allowed up, I know I’m not. I’m a Good Boy, and a Good Boy doesn’t do Bad Boy things on purpose. But I want to be up there with my humans and make sure they’re okay.

  I lift my paw and lower it on the first step. I feel my body start to shake with the knowing that I’m doing something that is a “no” thing. Then I hear another cry from upstairs, from Little Female, and the loud words from my master, not angry but upset, and the crying-sobbing sound of my mistress, and I keep going, up up up the stairs until I’m at the top.

  Little Male is sitting on the top step. He isn’t smiling.

  NINETEEN

  JONAH

  I like my house. And I love my family—Mommy and Daddy and even Eden, who lots of times said kind of mean things to me, but then she’d do nice things, too, like find my blue crayon when I couldn’t and give me her last french fry from her plate and make up funny songs to make me laugh when I was sad or had a cold or something.

  But now my house is full of sad. Mommy doesn’t look like Mommy anymore and Daddy looks like Daddy, but like he’s not all the way here, like he’s a picture instead of a person and someone left the picture out in the sun all day and it’s kind of fadey. Only Eden looks like Eden, but her thoughts are all kind of jumbled together and mad and sad and crazy, all at the same time. She thinks about how Mommy and Daddy don’t listen to her anymore, that no one listens to her anymore, and I want to tell her that I’m listening, but I don’t know how.

  There might be a way to tell her, kind of like showing Mommy the green light in her dream. I have to think about it some more.

  I still remember everything from before the bad day, but it’s getting a little bit smaller in my brain. But I like remembering before, because nobody was sad.

  Mommy used to read me books before bed. Sometimes she’d pick ’em and sometimes I would, and she’d climb into my bed with me and I’d scooch up next to her and put my head on her chest and she’d wrap her arm around me. I could feel her heartbeat and also I could kind of feel the air going in and out of her, and she felt warm and cozy and most times I’d kind of fall asleep while she was reading, but that was okay because I always knew the end of the story anyway.

  She’d make me macaroni and cheese out of the blue box because that’s the one I liked, even though she said it wasn’t as healthy as the kind in the orange-and-white box. And she let me put ketchup on it, too, which always made Eden make an ucky face. I remember how Mommy would sing songs when she was sweeping, not songs I knew, like “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round,” but songs with funny words like “Lay down, Sally” like she was talking to a dog or something, and sometimes Daddy would come in and start singing with her and he’d take the broom and set it against the wall and they’d dance together until she’d start to giggle and swat him away and tell him she needed to finish the floor.

  Daddy would take me to T-ball and he always wore the same color cap as our team shirts, which he called something else that starts with a J, but I can’t think of it now. And he’d cheer for me real loud and clap real hard and tell me I was doing great even if I didn’t make it to first base, or if a ball went right through my feet. And some days, when he wasn’t working, Daddy would take me in the backyard and practice throwing and catching with me, and after a while, after I caught lots of his throws and threw back to him as hard as I could, he’d get this big smile on his face and say, “That’s my boy,” which was funny ’cause of course I’m his boy, but the way he said it made me think it was kind of more special.

  One time we went to the beach, the whole family, even Shadow, where the waves were so big, and I was scared, but Mommy and Daddy held both of my hands, one of them on one side of me and the other one on the other side of me, and they’d kind of lift me in the air when the wave was high. Eden was bigger and she wasn’t afraid, and she got to play by herself in the water as long as she didn’t go too far out. But sometimes she’d come over to us and take Mommy or Daddy’s hand, and then it would be all four of us holding hands in a row, and we’d laugh and giggle as the water sprayed us in our faces. And Shadow would romp around us, and he’d make happy barks and bite at the foam. And I liked that, being all of us together. And when we got tired and hungry Mommy always had sammiches for us, baloney for me and Eden and turkey and something that looked like grass for her and Daddy, and dog bones for Shadow. And we’d sit on the big blanket with the stars and the moon on it and eat, not talking but just being happy.

  And I remember when I was playing on the jungle gym at school at recess and Joey P. started grabbing my foot, not being mean, just playing, and I fell down and my forehead hit the ground and split open and there was blood everywhere. Daddy was at a contention or something and Mommy was somewhere else, I’m not sure where, and Auntie Ruth had to come to the hospital. And she sat with me the whole time, holding my hand and talking to me all nice and calm and telling me I was a brave boy and she loved me and everything was going to be just fine, and this doctor had to stitch up my forehead and Auntie Ruth didn’t go away and didn’t let go of my hand, not one time.

  I remember all of those things, and everything else, too. Maybe ’cause I’m still here. Maybe when I go away forever, I won’t remember anything anymore, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Maybe it will be better ’cause you can’t miss something you can’t remember, and if you don’t miss it, you won’t be sad.

  I don’t know how
long I’m going to be here, but I’m starting to not like being here. At first it was nice ’cause I got to see everyone even though they couldn’t see me, and that made me feel all good and safe, ’cause I can still remember all the good stuff from before. But now, with the sad all big around me, I just kind of want to go. But I can’t. I thought about being way up in the sky, just like when I think about being nowhere and when I think about being with Mommy or with Shadow or whoever, and then I’m there. I wished for the sky, but I didn’t go to the sky. I didn’t even go to the ceiling. I just stayed where I was, but now I can’t remember exactly where I was when I wished it.

  I’m at the top of the stairs right now. I heard Mommy fall down and Eden call out something, but I didn’t make myself go there because I kind of didn’t want to see what was happening ’cause I know it’s all about the big sad thing. So I came here instead.

  Shadow is coming up the stairs even though he knows he’s not ’llowed. He stops and makes his head go sideways, and I know he sees me. I don’t put on a happy face like I usually do when I see him, because I’m not happy. I’m scared that I’m going to be stuck here with all the crying and sad people. I want Mommy and Daddy and Eden to be happy again. Even Auntie Ruth, too, but I’m not sure she was happy even before the bad thing happened to me. But she still smiled at me and patted my knee and played Candy Land, but not on the floor, at the kitchen table ’cause she said her knees told her she couldn’t play on the floor. I didn’t know knees could talk. Mine never did. But it was still fun to play with her, even if it wasn’t on the floor.

  I clap my hands for Shadow to come to me, but he doesn’t hear the sound of the clap because I can’t make a sound anymore. I hear the clap inside my brain, but not outside my brain. I wish there was some way I could make a sound that I could hear outside my brain, ’cause maybe then I could make Mommy and Daddy and Eden and Auntie Ruth hear me, and I could tell them not to be sad anymore.

  TWENTY

  EDEN

  My mom’s eyes are all round, not as shiny as they have been, but open really wide, and I think that might be worse than the shininess. She cries out and falls to the floor, and then I cry out, too, because I don’t want her to hurt herself.

  I run over to her to make sure she’s okay, but she bats my arm away, hard enough that it smarts. She shakes her head back and forth and starts to laugh, but not a happy laugh. It’s, like, a really mad, scary laugh that makes my stomach feel sick. I want to put my hands over my ears to block it out, but I don’t want to make her feel bad.

  “Mom, Mommy, are you okay?” I ask her, making sure not to touch her so she won’t bat at me again. She’s still laughing, but all quiet now, her shoulders hunching over.

  “The dry cleaners,” she says with a gravelly voice that doesn’t sound like my mom at all. I don’t know what the dry cleaners have to do with her falling down and her crazy laughing. I’m about to ask her when Dad comes running into the room. He sees me and Mom on the floor, and the crease in his forehead gets even bigger.

  “What the hell?”

  A part of me wants to tell him he has to put a dollar in the curse jar, but I’m smart enough to know that now is not the time for that.

  “She fell down,” I tell him. “And she hit my arm,” I add, which isn’t exactly true, but I just want to see if he’s listening to me. He doesn’t answer, so I guess not. I’m not surprised, but I kind of hoped he’d say something, you know, like a normal person would say when their kid told them her mom just hit her. Like, he’d say, “I’m so sorry, Eden. I’m sure she didn’t mean it.” And I’d real fast say, “Oh, no, Dad, she didn’t mean it at all, it was an accident, like it wasn’t even really hitting, she just batted my arm away,” and he’d be all relieved. But nope. He doesn’t say anything, just rushes over to us and puts his arm around my mom and scoops her up and over to the bed, totally ignoring me.

  “Rachel, Rachel,” he says. “What is it? Are you okay?”

  “You took it to the dry cleaners. You had it fucking cleaned, you bastard.”

  I am definitely not going to tell her she has to put money in the curse jar, even though the f-word is worth like five dollars, and she never says the f-word—I only heard her say it one time when she burned her hand really bad on the stove. But I’m not going to say anything to her when her eyes are like that, and I know, for sure, I like them better when they’re shiny.

  “Rachel, calm down,” my dad says, and he’s gripping her wrist really tight and his voice isn’t mean but totally intense. But Mom just kind of snarls at him, like the cat across the street does to Shadow when he’s out front.

  “Let go of me, Sam! What did you think, that I wouldn’t remember? That you could just have it cleaned and I’d fucking forget?”

  “Rachel!” My dad’s voice booms through the room, and I sit down hard on my butt and I feel that choking thing in my throat. Dad looks at me, kind of not at me but in my direction, and when he speaks to me, his voice is all calm, but like he’s working really hard to keep it calm. “Eden, please go to your room and shut the door, and I’ll be in to see you in a minute.”

  I gulp and nod and jump to my feet and race out the door toward my room. Shadow is at the top of the stairs, his nose pointed at my mom and dad’s room, like he’s going to go in there to make sure everyone’s okay. And I can’t let him do that, because my mom and dad are already mad enough and he’s not allowed upstairs and I don’t want them to yell at Shadow, because he’s a good boy.

  I grab his collar and yank him down the hall and into my room. He weighs a ton, but he comes easily, like he’s really glad to see me and glad I’m bringing him with me. My dad might be mad when he finds Shadow in my room, but I’m just going to tell him I was scared and having Shadow with me made me feel better. I think that might make Dad feel kind of guilty, so he won’t yell at me or Shadow. But you know what? I don’t even care if he gets mad at me. In fact, I hope he gets mad at me, because then he’ll have to talk to me.

  I shut the door behind me and pull Shadow over into the corner of the room where my beanbag chair sits. I fall heavily upon it, and Shadow nuzzles into me and licks my face. I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight and pretend I can’t hear the muffled, angry words of my parents from down the hall.

  Shadow trembles, and I rub the fur on his back and tell him what a good boy he is. I think about what Aunt Ruth said, right after the accident, about how Mom and Dad should “just put that mutt down.” Thinking about her saying that makes me shudder, because I know what it means. Mary Pickle’s parents had to put down their dog because it bit a little kid. Aunt Ruth said that to my parents because she thinks what happened to Jonah is Shadow’s fault. But I know better.

  Feeling guilty, I press myself against Shadow. He’s making whiny noises in his throat, and he keeps pointing his nose toward the wall. At first I think he’s looking in the direction of Mom and Dad’s room, you know, because he’s worried about them, but then I realize that he’s looking at my bed. And the way he’s frozen, with the hair on his neck kind of standing up, makes me feel goose bumps on my arm. But I don’t feel scared, just, like, weird.

  “Jonah?” I say, and I have no idea why I say it. Jonah is dead. He can’t hear me. He’s in heaven. But I say it again anyway. “Jonah?” And then I feel really stupid for calling my brother’s name out loud, and I’m really glad no one else is here to hear me say it. Well, no one except Shadow, and he won’t tell on me.

  My eyes start to sting, and I realize I’m crying. Again. Shadow stops looking at my bed and starts licking my cheeks, mopping up my tears. I try to make them stop. I’m so tired of crying all the time. But the thing is, I miss Jonah a lot.

  When he was here, he kind of bugged me, you know, like little brothers do. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t mean to. He would try to get me to play with him, and he’d get all pouty when I wouldn’t, and he’d always want to show me things, like the totally disgusting bugs he’d find, and his drawings, which were silly st
ick people and stuff, but only because he was little, and how high he could jump and how fast he could run and the LEGO towers he built, which were kind of crooked and ugly-looking. And I would, like, be totally bored and sometimes I’d say mean things and his mouth would start quivering, but he didn’t give up. There was always something he wanted to show me, because I was his big sister and he wanted to impress me. And sometimes I’d say nice things, not just to get him off my back, but because he was just a little guy, so the things he did were actually kind of good. But I didn’t really do that very often.

  Jonah had this way of giggling with his whole face and these really big dimples in his cheeks and he was really cute, which also kind of bugged me, ’cause everyone was always saying how cute he was and they never said that about me anymore.

  When Mom and Dad brought him home from the hospital, he was just this tiny little thing wrapped in a fuzzy blue blanket and he was, like, totally bald and cried all the time. My mom told me I was a big sister now, and that a big sister was a very important job and I had to take it very seriously and she knew I would be great at it. And I felt kind of proud, you know, that she thought I’d be great at it. And Jonah, when he could talk, he would say things like, “Eden, you’re the best big sister ever.”

  I feel really bad and awful, because I was not the best big sister ever. Not even the second or third best sister ever. I was a totally sucky big sister, and I know I’m not supposed to say suck or sucky or anything like that, but it’s true.

  There were some times when I was nice and I meant it, too. Because he really was sweet and always trying to make me smile, and when he fell down or got sick, or the time he got stitches in his forehead, I would make up silly songs to get him to laugh. His favorite was the one about farting, and he asked me to sing it to him all the time, even when he wasn’t sick or hurt or anything. And I’d always do it, too, just because I liked the sound of Jonah’s laugh, until Mom would make me stop because she said, “Fart is not an appropriate word.” And Jonah and I would laugh even harder, sometimes till we started farting ourselves, and Mom would throw up her hands and make a kind of mad face, but she was laughing, too.