Red Lightning

by Laura Pritchett

  *

  And wouldn’t you know it, but there is Kay, sitting in her chair, her seagreen eyes flaring at me. Is that possible? That I’m standing above her all of a sudden? Is that my voice? Did I really fling my drink into the grass? Put down the cup? Walk over here?

  Is that really her in front of me, working so hard to breathe? Is that her face, skin pulled so tight over bone? Are those her hands folded over her belly that once housed me? Are those her eyes, softening? Kay, Kay—

  Can you help me? Can you help me understand?

  Because I feel only half here, but I can’t find the other half.

  You birthed me. But you birthed an unwhole human. Where is the rest of me?

  Did you witness its departure? Can you help me get that part of me back?

  I’m asking you for real.

  I was hoping you might know.

  I keep sweeping my heart, looking for the missing piece. Which corner is it in?

  Tess, Tess— I didn’t, I couldn’t— Try to understand—

  Kay— And now you’re leaving? What gives you that right? You need to fix things first. You need to make some things right. Clean up your mess. Please help me find the missing piece.

  Tess, Tess—

  The missing piece. It’s there. I see it.

  If anyone can see it, I can. We had much in common. That’s how I know.

  You’ll find it sooner than I did.

  You’ll find it soon. You’re nearly there.

  PART IV

  * * *

  Air

  Chapter Fifteen

  I open my eyes to Libby’s face, and I gasp for air. My throat burns. I close my eyes to go back into the dark. Open them, blink, gasp. Our eyes meet across a great distance though she is right in front of me. Deepdoebrown eyes. She is saying something, and I hope her breath sends oxygen into my body. I gasp to suck in her air. I want her oxygen to fling itself into my body. I feel the ache of my heart and the thumping of my head. I feel my bones scratching to get out.

  *

  I open my eyes because some voice is demanding I do so. It’s a man this time, olive skinned, wire-framed glasses circling dark eyes. “You will wake up now, miss. You’re in the hospital. Can you hear me? Can you tell me your name? Wake up now.”

  I look at him and nod, but my mouth forms no words, and there is not enough air. My hands fly like birds to my face, but there are plastic tongs in my nose and he is guiding my hands back down. “Let that be,” he says. The side of my face feels bulky and swollen, my mouth feels like cotton. I close my eyes to calm the terror. My ears seek out noises to place me: a nearby motor clicking, the screech of a cart far away, the hiss of fluorescent lights, the burst of an intercom, a man’s voice, the squeak of a door, the boom of my pulse in my ears.

  He leans closer. “Wake up.”

  *

  Later, I wake. He is talking to me again, and I keep my eyes closed, but I hear fragments: “Could even be sepsis, from that infection in your mouth. We’ll have all the blood work back soon to confirm.”

  Then, to someone else, “Her blood pressure was low and her heart rate was up. We have the basic lab work, but we need the rest. It will be in soon.”

  Directed back at me: “Miss? Can you open your eyes? I wonder if you have had abdominal pain and difficulty breathing? Have you been vomiting? You are anemic. We have blood cultures pending. Can you understand me? Can you tell me your name?”

  *

  Later, I wake. I open my mouth, but the ache is too great. I close it gently. There are no words anyway.

  Again, the man is beside me. “I have you on a broad-spectrum antibiotic via IV. We need the cultures back before I decide what to do next. I also believe you’ve been hard on your body. General malnutrition.” When I look up at him, hazyeyed, he nods to a plastic bag hanging from a metal hanger. “Do you see that? That is what we call a ‘banana bag,’ which is vitamins and minerals.” He reaches out and turns my face toward him. “Your sister just left. She will be back. You’re going to feel better now.”

  I try to drift off, but he shakes me awake.

  His face softens. “Your sister is a friend of mine. She says . . . Well, I do believe that perhaps your life has not been so easy of late, miss. I do think that perhaps now it will get better.” It’s his tenderness that brings tears in my eyes, which he notes, and he reaches out to touch my shoulder.

  *

  Later, I wake. He is at the foot of my bed, talking with Libby. I close my eyes so I can just listen.

  I hear, Blood work is in. The oral antibiotics now is fine. We can take out the IV.

  I hear, She must have been feeling quite terrible.

  I hear, The pain meds for her teeth are important. That must have hurt very much.

  I hear, Release as late today as we can manage; bring her back in the morning for a checkup.

  *

  I wake again to find the room empty, which seems a relief, and I stare at the ceiling until I hear a noise. “Is Kay sick? Did I somehow kill her?” The words fly out of me the moment Libby comes walking in the room, a handful of blooming purple alfalfa in one hand. She puts the bundle of blooms on the table next to me. It smells like only alfalfa can smell, the deep green, rich soil, hint of purple, and the opposite of what I feel, bonedry. “Don’t be scared. The noise you hear is the heart monitor. There’s also the IV pump for a bit yet. I’m sure your mouth hurts a lot. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk much. Kay is alive.”

  “Oh, Libby.” My tongue is thick and my jaw aches with the movement. “I’ve gone crazy, haven’t I?”

  She leans toward me and takes my hand. “How do you feel?”

  I brush her comment away with a lift of my hand, a small motion because of the tug of an IV. “I remember . . . sitting in the field, right near the old house. Remembering stuff about when we were young. I was sitting there, all these memories flowing into my brain, and I couldn’t stop them—”

  She reaches out to touch my forehead. “There I was, in the bathroom, getting hot towels, and suddenly you were at the doorway, asking questions and crying.” She turns away from me. “Ed and Amber had just gone home to do chores. It was you and me and her. Do you remember? That she said she was sorry?” Libby moves back some of my hair. “She’s at home. She’s got an infection in her PICC line. She won’t come in. She has a DNR. She’s ready. I’ve called hospice to go out to the farmhouse, to help her with the pain.”

  I close my eyes. “Oh, I shouldn’t have . . .”

  Libby’s voice gets thick, like her own throat is constricting. She turns away, wipes her face. “She apologized, Tess. I’ve never heard her say I’m sorry. But she did. To you, and to me. Tess, I think maybe Kay infected the PICC line on purpose. I saw a clamp. It wasn’t threaded right. I think she pulled off the cap.”

  The intercom in the hallway blasts a call. There’s the squeak of shoes, the murmur of voices. “Is there time? I want to tell her that I’m sorry too . . .”

  “Well, yes. When they discharge you. Which they want to do before three PM. There should be enough time.”

  “And they did some tests?”

  “You’re not so healthy at the moment. Good thing Dr. Lemon is my friend. He was very thorough.”

  “His name is Dr. Lemon?”

  “Everyone just calls him that because no one can pronounce his last name.”

  “What, one of those poor medical students who got assigned to NoWhere, Colorado, so that he can pay off his medical school bills?”

  She smiles. “Yes, actually. Yes.”

  “My mouth really hurts.”

  “The dentist left before you woke up. Do you remember? I think they went ahead and put you under so they could work with your mouth. What a mess. Whoever pulled your tooth left in two roots, Tess, which became infected. She cut your gums and scraped out the infection. Try to leave it alone. “

  “That’s why it’s puffy?”

  “Yes.”

  “It hurts.”
/>   “Yes. I imagine it does.”

  “I feel hard pokey things . . .”

  “Stitches. Leave them alone.”

  “Where’s Amber?”

  “At school.”

  “Not with Kay?”

  “No. I wanted her to go today. You can check her out for me when you leave here.” Libby leans over, takes my hand in hers. Our eyes, brown and deep and sorry, meet.

  I take this in. “But Amber, she’s okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “So, I spent one whole night here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’m just now waking up?”

  “You were pretty feverish.”

  “Is the fire still going?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it smoky out?”

  “Yes. The news says it has spread . . .” She bites her lip. “The remains of one human have been found, a man believed to be a Mexican national. The trees are too dry, the wind too fierce.”

  “Oscar?”

  “We think so.”

  “And Alejandra? Where is she?”

  “She’s safe, they’re all safe.” Then she glances around. “Don’t talk about it here—” But then she smiles. “You taught them Ed’s number?”

  I reach up to touch her nose. “Long ago.”

  “Tess, there’s something serious I need to ask you. Alejandra said that you left in the VW to go tell a man named Slade that they were safe. I need to know who he is.” But then another nurse is there, wanting to draw blood, and then Dr. Lemon comes in, signing papers, so I look up at her and whisper, “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you later, I will.” Then there is a wheelchair, and papers, and bottles, and instructions, and eventually I close my eyes and let it all happen to me. The human heart-puzzle is a hard one to put together, especially when you’re missing a few pieces.

  *

  When Libby asks if I’m well enough to get Amber, I tell her that if I’ve got one ability, it’s that I can keep going when the going gets tough. I pull into the school parking lot and sit in the shade and make a list.

  —ONE: PICK UP AMBER AT SCHOOL

  —TWO: TELL KAY GOODBYE

  —THREE: TELL SLADE ALEJANDRA IS ALIVE

  —FOUR: BE WITH AMBER, ALEJANDRA, LUPE

  —FIVE: AFTER DOING ALL THE ABOVE, FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO. I CAME HERE FOR THREE DAYS AND AN EXIT PLAN. NOT SURE WHERE TO GO NEXT.

  I tuck the list in my jeans and walk into my old school, the HOME OF THE PIRATES flag flapping above my head as I do. Holymoley, you’d think things would change over time, but they do not. The same lost-and-found table right up front with sweatshirts and gloves and lunchboxes. Gym, library, classrooms, and worst of all, the lunchroom, stupid kickball and sit-ups, but most of all the eating itself, the people who weren’t there to sit next to, the shame.

  Somewhere down to the left, where the elementary school is, I hear music—kindergartners clapping their hands, and the teacher yelling, long-short-shortshort-long! To the right, in the middle school, there are the sounds of squeaky shoes on the basketball court. Then there’s a woman standing in front of me. “I’m sorry, but who are you? You can’t go in. Are you here to volunteer? Dropping off some cans for the food drive?”

  “I’m here to pick up Amber.”

  She looks me up and down, and I remember my middleschool manners and do the same. She clears her throat, rolls her eyes, a small moment of cruelty that she does on purpose. “Yes, Libby just called.” She glances at the clock, picks up the phone, says, “Amber is being checked out,” and soon enough, Amber comes walking up the hall, bright red backpack slung over her shoulder. She passes another girl in the hall, and she lifts her hand in a small wave, and the girl lifts her head, turns it slightly, rejecting it. I burst out in a sudden bark of a laugh. Such a small motion. Such a small heartbreak of a motion. Experienced by the both of us.

  Amber walks up to me, red backpack swinging behind her, because, like all of us, she must go on. “Hi, Tess. You were sick. Are you okay?”

  “Oh, okay,” I say. Because it’s just now hitting me: what I didn’t see at home, what Ed and Libby haven’t even seen. This kid’s life isn’t so easy here. Maybe compared to an immigrant crossing the desert, sure. But she’s a kid that gets teased: She’s too different with her beekeeping-hippie parents and no-sugar household and Buddhist stuff—and she’s bravely raising her chin to it all and pretending it doesn’t matter, but it does, it does, and the fact of this is hitting me hard. “Oh boy, okay.” I take the backpack from her, try to bring this moment back into focus. “Jeez, this weighs a ton.”

  “Our class won. Is your mouth okay? You just get out of the hospital?”

  “Won what?”

  “My class had the most food cans. For the food bank. How’s Kay?”

  “Libby sent me here. Kay is at home . . . It could be that . . . she’s getting worse and that it’s maybe happening faster than . . . Libby wanted you to be there.”

  Immediately tears fly into Amber’s eyes, and what a beautiful thing to see, emotion so fluid and immediate and unfettered.

  *

  On the way out, I glance over at the same spot on the sidewalk where I was just a few days ago. Me, sitting with Libby. All this, in a few days? It seems impossible. Impossible that here I am, again, walking to the same pickup truck, now with my daughter instead of my sister, and the whole world seems to have done one strange miraculous circle.

  I glance over at Amber before I pull out onto the road. “I guess you don’t need me to tell you how stupid kids can be. That it gets easier. That middle school is the worst. Sounds like you know. But still . . . is it lonely? Is school . . . tough?”

  “I don’t care.”

  I glance at her, raise an eyebrow, and because she doesn’t add anything, I add, “When I was about your age, well, that was the first time I got called a slut.” I pull out of the parking lot, drive through town, toward the highway. “But I wasn’t, of course. Libby was older, and she’d come by and check on me at lunch. Libby was just born with the need to protect. I’m sorry if sometimes you feel alone.”

  She’s looking out the window, away from me. By now we’re away from town, fields surrounding us in every direction, burnt yellow with the sun. Once in a while, there’s a windmill and a stock tank and a couple of cows. Everything is so far apart here. Maybe that’s why I became a levantona. Because I was used to driving long distances. We pass a piece of plywood leaning against a haystack that says WE HAVEN’T HAD ANY TRASPASSERS LATELY, and there’s a skeleton propped against it.

  “That’s not funny,” I tell her as we pass. “You okay? Something on your mind?”

  “Kay says that dying is part of living,” she says. “And that this culture is nuts. We’re nuts because we’re cowards. We spend zillions of dollars, and instead we should let death just happen. But she wasn’t sure she’d be brave enough at the end.”

  A snort escapes me. “That’s true for most of us, I think.”

  She clears her throat. “Hey, Tess? What about your friends? Do you have any? Would they come visit you?” She looks genuinely curious.

  I turn to her, search her eyes for a second before I look back at the road. “Naw. At the moment, I have no friends.”

  “Really? Are you done with your . . . work?”

  “As a levantona? Yeah.” And then, because she doesn’t look settled, I add, “I’m done with that life.”

  “The fire.” She turns her body enough so that she’s facing me. She sucks in the top of her mouth. “Instinct,” she says quietly.

  I put on the blinker that takes us to Kay’s house. Look at her, hard. “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing.” She looks out the window, away from me, out the window into a field of green winter wheat.

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it with you, Amber. Otherwise I would.”

  “Fine.”

  “No, wait. You’re right. We’re talking about something real here.” I reach out my hand to touch
her shoulder, but she flinches away. “Amber? I’d like to talk to you more. I think I know what you’re getting at. Trying to ask. But right now, well, we’re here. Kay’s not well. So let’s take one thing at a time here. Kay is first on the list.”

  “Okay.”

  “I guess you haven’t seen a dead body before. Except Baxter?” She doesn’t respond, so I add, “It’s gonna be weird, when she dies. Maybe it will be quiet and calm. But it might not be. It’s okay—I’m sure you know this—but it’s okay to decide not to be there.”

  She shrugs, like she doesn’t need to hear it, and her hands take to braiding her hair. She has an extra barrette she doesn’t need, and so she hands it to me, and I twist my bangs back and clasp it together. “Seriously, Amber. I wish someone had told me this. The thing about seeing difficult things is that those images are with you forever. I’m not saying we should turn away from life. But I think it’s okay—it’s a good idea—not to see certain things if we don’t need to. It’s like stepping really far away from a dangerous horse so you don’t get kicked unnecessarily. When you see something, there it is. In your brain. You wake up every single morning of the rest of your life with a certain image in your head . . . I guess I’m just saying to be careful what you choose to witness. Okay?”

  She nods, and I can tell her objection has softened, and then I can feel her mind working out what I’ve just said. “Have you ever seen a dead person?”

  I breathe out. I want to tell the truth. But if I do, I put the same kind of image and knowledge in her head that I’m asking her to avoid. Middle Way. That’s what Ed was saying the other day. I go for a half-truth. “I saw a human skeleton once. In the desert. It really bothered me, and it still does. I was curious, and so I stared at it for a long time. Which is maybe normal, or good, or a bad idea, or who knows. But it’s true I wish that image wasn’t in my head.” A flash of other images comes flickering by, the other things I wish I could expel: Me getting fucked by men who didn’t care, Lobo saying Te voy a matar, pinche culero, that red barrette in black silky hair, and that infant baby, ready to be born.