Mirage

by Tracy Clark

  “Baby. Oh, girl. I’ve been out of my mind.”

  There are tears in his voice as my face presses against his chest. I hear Dom’s heartbeat. Do people know what a lullaby their heartbeats are? Life has many sounds and chords, but none are possible without the drumming of the heart. I lean into it like a baby in its warm, watery womb. It feels so good to be held.

  He pulls my head from his chest, and for some reason all I can think of is us in the mirror. The vision of his hands on my lips and wandering over my body. It’s surreal. I watch the trajectory of his eyes and notice them land on the large bandage on my left cheek. There is no narrowing of his eyes or fear that I’m forever changed. I’m grateful for that. But I’ve changed in ways he can’t see.

  “Nothing is more beautiful than you standing here. I thought you were dead,” he barely chokes out. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know,” I say. Because what else is there to say? It isn’t fair to blame him for my choices. I square my shoulders. “You know I can’t see you anymore.” I expected it to hurt the first time I saw him, I expected it to hurt to say those words, but I’m shocked that I don’t hurt. I’m ice‑cold. Numb.

  Dom steps back like I’ve hit him.

  “My father​—”

  He waves his hand. “It’ll blow over with your father. I just came from speaking with him. He’s still pissed as hell, but damn, he knows as well as anyone that you are your own woman. I’ve apologized for putting you in the situation in the first place. He knows you make your own choices, babe. Even when it comes to seeing me.”

  I pull away from his warm arms. “I can’t deal with you​—​us​—​right now. I have an emergency. I can’t find my grandmother. She’s vanished. I have to go look for her.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  I sigh. It’s exactly the right answer but also the one that will get me into trouble. However, I’m more scared for her than I am for myself. “Okay. Thanks. Let’s go find her.”

  We speed away on his motorcycle because that’s all he’s got and my car keys have been confiscated. The road leading to my house is paved, but that’s being kind. I wonder if they just poured concrete over the jutted dirt and called it good. The desert stretches out around us for miles. If she wandered off into the waving heat . . . I swallow hard and push the thought away. My teeth rattle over the bumps, each one making me grip Dom’s waist tighter. I want to close my eyes and lean into his back, but I’ve got to keep watch. “A bit more,” I yell to him. “Then we should turn around and check the other way.”

  As I’m about to tell him to do that, I see the flash of police lights ahead. My stomach churns like I’ve swallowed squirming parasites that live off stress. Dom must notice too; the motorcycle speeds up. I breathe a little easier as we approach, because my grandmother is standing next to the patrol car, speaking animatedly with one of the officers. Thank God she’s okay.

  Dom holds out his hand to help me off the bike. “What’s that on your grandma’s chest?” he asks as I swing my legs over the seat.

  It’s not clearly visible from where we’re standing, and the cop keeps blocking my view, but it looks like a large white paper hangs over her ample bosom. I run over to the other officer, whose face is pink with a sheen of sweat. “That’s my grandmother. Is she okay?”

  The cop nods and swipes his brow with his forearm. “Thankfully, yes. But she shouldn’t be wandering around out here alone. This is the desert.”

  “I know.” Oh God. I’m so busted. “I don’t know what she was thinking.”

  “Oh, I do,” the cop says in an amused voice. “We found her hitchhiking.” He points to the sloppily written sign on Gran’s chest, which I can now read: IHOP or Bust.

  Gran’s hands wave around as her prickly tone carries across the sand. “Unless you boys are going to take me out for pancakes with raspberry sauce, I’m not going anywhere.” You can tell this stalemate has been going on for some time, because the officer hangs his head in defeat. I’m guessing they don’t make a habit out of forcing little old blind ladies jonesing for pancakes into the back of their patrol car.

  I go in for the rescue. “Gran,” I say soothingly with my arm around her shoulder, “let me get you home. We can make pancakes there.” All eyes rove to Dom and his souped-up motorcycle.

  “You don’t have a car,” Officer Obvious states.

  “I’ll take her on the bike.” When multiple eyebrows rise, I realize how absurd it sounds. I put my hands on my hips. “What? I can ride it. I’ve done it before.”

  Dom laughs nervously. “What she means to say, officers, is that she’s ridden with me lots of times. Since she doesn’t actually possess a license for a bike”​—​he shoots me a look​—​“clearly she cannot drive her grandmother home. I think we should call your parents, Ry. Or maybe these fine officers won’t mind giving you two ladies a lift?”

  “I would like that young man to take me home on his motorbike!” Gran exclaims. When one of the officers starts to object, she holds up her hand. “Do not get on my nerves. I am a grown woman and I know my rights. I’ve been denied things because I am black. I’ve been denied things because I am a woman. And I’ve been denied things because I am blind. Damn it, I’ve been denied pancakes! By golly, you won’t deny me this.” She shoves past the officer toward the general location of Dom’s voice. “I can sit on the back for one little mile, yes I can.”

  Both officers shrug their shoulders, probably glad for the oddball situation to be over. But one guy gives me a stern look as he flips his notepad closed. “Keep a better eye on her from now on. Would you like a ride back to the house?” he offers.

  “No, thanks. I’ll walk.”

  Dom looks at me helplessly as one of the policemen gives Gran a hand getting on the bike. “I see who Ryan takes after,” Dom says to her. She wears a huge smile and claps like a little girl when he starts the bike up. Her plump cheek presses to his back, and she wraps her arms tightly around his middle. I watch the clouds of desert sand kick up as they putter slowly down the road, the wake of her laughter trailing behind. I walk through their cannon smoke of dust.

  Something rustles behind me, and I spin around.

  A tangle of sagebrush rolls past like it’s running from something. Each tumbling scrape on the dusty road is a whisper.

  How could you?

  My legs twitch with the urge to run, but the brush and the phantom voice are rolling toward my house. So I stand stone still, barely breathing, and wonder if I’m imagining the things I’ve seen and heard.

  How could you?

  I remain motionless, frozen with fear as the desert breathes, unfazed, around me, until the sagebrush and the voice fade to nothing in the distance.

  When I finally arrive at my driveway, lightheaded and jumpy, Dom is walking out the door with a miserable expression. His face is like a fierce angel from a painting​—​powerful, unyielding, but soft, too. He throws his leg over the bike seat. His tortured dark eyes smolder with cinders of a sad truth.

  “Your grandmother told me that if I really loved you, I’d be gone before your parents show up.”

  Gran’s right, of course. I’m already in enough trouble. It wouldn’t help for them to find him here. He sits on his bike, waiting for me to say or do something. I’m not sure what he wants from me until he softly clasps my hand and pulls me to him, burying his face in my hair. He inhales, breathes me in. “Real love doesn’t leave. It stays put.”

  My face stings where it’s pressed against his T-shirt. I feel a fight in me: my promise to my father versus the familiarity between Dom and me. Passion is there, like a coal buried deep in my stomach that refuses to burn to ash. But I don’t feel the pull to him that I should. Every memory I see of us together taunts me like a book I wish I could live in but know I can’t. There’s that drumming heart again, but it’s a melody I can’t appreciate the way I’m supposed to. I’m not crazy. I’m not. But I don’t understand why my emotions don’t match my memories.


  Why don’t I feel anything?

  Resigned not to hurt him any more, I decide I must tell him that we need a break. I need a break, until things are clear.

  Still resting against his chest, I open my eyes and yelp. It’s impossible that I will ever get used to her appearing. She shocks me, rippling mirage-like from the motorcycle’s round handlebar mirror. Electric currents of fear rove over my skin. Her eyes, my eyes, are full of pain, watching our embrace. I stumble out of his grasp. “You​—​you can’t love me anymore.”

  Dom holds up his arms in supplication. “What? You don’t get to tell me I can’t love you. I do. You know I do. More than anything, Ry. Besides my brother, you’re all I’ve got. We screwed up, made a colossal mistake. Don’t let it break us.” He pierces me with his astute gaze, perhaps seeing for the first time how altered I am. “Don’t let it break you.”

  Thirteen

  DON’T LET IT BREAK ME?

  I’m already broken. Mashed up, like I’ve been pushed through a steel strainer. The cuts aren’t just on the outside. I’m cut on the inside, too. I’m afraid of my own reflection. I’m afraid I don’t know what’s real. I’m afraid to touch the shiny brass knob on the front door for fear the surface will become a face. I close my eyes and turn the knob, envying Gran’s blindness. I can’t tiptoe through life wondering when my ghost will appear.

  But you will.

  The words ring out loud, spoken as a bitter promise, but I don’t know if they’ve come from me or her. I will myself to stay calm. If I react, if I stumble every time I hear her voice or see her face, people will feel like they have to follow me around with their arms outstretched.

  Gran is slumped in a large chair in the living room with the sun on her back. Tufts of hair escaped her loose bun during the motorcycle ride and hang like streamers around her face. I move behind her, gently pull the soft strands back and tuck them in, hoping she doesn’t feel my hands shaking. I need to touch something real. It’s a few moments before I trust my voice to speak. “You want me to make pancakes, Gran?”

  “No need. We just ate breakfast,” she says, as if I’m silly to offer. It’s late afternoon, with the sun baking the desert into a hard crust outside, but I don’t correct her. All the excitement has probably worn her out, created a swirling dust devil of thoughts in her head.

  “Did he go?” she asks, and I think I’ll never know how her brain slides so quickly from muddled to lucid, though more and more I know how she feels. Honestly, I was hoping she’d forget the whole episode so my parents would never have to know I lost her for a while. Wouldn’t have to know they can’t trust me.

  “Yeah. He left.”

  “What’s troubling you? Speak on it.”

  Besides almost losing her to the desert, hearing whispers on the road, and seeing the face of a ghost? I tell her the only thing I can. “I’m not sure about anything anymore. Even Dom. He’s . . . intense.” I haven’t moved from behind Gran. Seems easier to talk freely from behind her.

  “Mmm-hmm.” She chuckles. “Like a certain girl we all know.”

  She pats my hand, which is now resting on her shoulder. “Only boy a girl like you is safe with is Joe.” This makes her erupt into laughter, bobbing forward, slapping her knee. Laughter is pushy, tickling you from all sides, until you’re infected with it. It feels good to laugh. Yet the thought that burrows in my brain, waiting for the laughter to subside is: A girl like me?

  “That’s a good sound.” My mom’s voice comes from behind. She plops her straw bag on a chair and kisses both Gran and me on the cheek, then gives me an appraising look. “Might want to throw a wrap over that hair,” she says. “You haven’t let it go so wild since you were a small thing.”

  I touch my hair self-consciously, unable to remember the last time I looked at it. Mirrors haven’t exactly been my friend.

  “We’d better head out soon for Dr. Collier’s office. Besides, I don’t think any of us want to be here when your father gets home. They raised prices again on aviation fuel. This world is conspiring to drive us out of business.”

  “What would we do then?”

  “Oh, honey, I’m sure we’d figure something out, but I don’t want to think about what that would do to your dad. That place saved him.” Ayida grabs Gran’s hands and helps her up. “C’mon, Mama. Let’s get you ready to go.” Her eyes narrow. “You look tired. What excitement have you two had today?”

  My stomach clenches.

  “Ryan played me a song on the piano.”

  My mother’s eyes widen. “Did she, now? You finally wore her down, eh? Extraordinary.”

  “It was that, yes,” Gran says with an ill-omened tone.

  After a bit of fussing over what to bring to entertain Gran during my appointment, we head to one of the only psychiatrists in this small, impoverished desert town. Dr. Collier opens the door and asks my mother to speak privately.

  “Are we here about me or you?” Gran asks the question so loud, it’s like she thinks the answer is stowed in my ear.

  “Me,” I grumble while pretending to read a tabloid. I hope the specter doesn’t make an appearance during my appointment.

  My turn comes, and I perch myself on the edge of his couch. His eyes take in my body language. He must notice that I look like I’m ready to spring.

  “Make yourself comfortable, Ryan.”

  I scoot my butt back, like, half an inch, unaware that I’m fiddling with one of the bandages on my arm until he looks down at it. He notices everything. “I know it’s protocol to go through this, but we’re all wasting our time. I’m not mentally ill. It was a stupid mistake. Stupidity isn’t an illness.” I clear my throat.

  “I’d like to talk more about what happened the night you returned from the hospital. Your mother indicated that you had some kind of episode?”

  Memory of my bedroom full of eyes bears down on me. My face flushes, making my cheek throb. This office is too hot. My mind squirms under his scrutiny. I feel like a bug that’s been pinned to a board while it’s still alive.

  “I was tired.”

  “I’m sure you were. You’d been through quite a lot.” He jots something down on a yellow legal pad. “You mentioned seeing eyes. Your parents said you wanted them to stop watching you?”

  “I’d been sleeping. I had a bad dream, and I think I woke confused.”

  “You were dreaming that eyes were watching you?”

  I swallow loudly. “Yes.”

  “You were standing and fighting with your eyes open,” he says in that question-but-not-a-question way. I don’t confirm or deny. He forges on. “And during your episode when you were on LSD, did you see eyes then, too?”

  “Eyes . . .” I start to say yes, but that’s not the whole of it. I saw a girl in the mirror. She saw me. We fell into each other.

  I’d never been in a fight before that.

  “You fought the eyes?” the doctor asks, scribbling.

  I hadn’t realized I’d spoken that out loud. “I was on drugs,” I stammer. “Seeing things. Isn’t that normal when you’re on LSD?”

  Dr. Collier scratches his head with the tip of his pen and smirks. “It’s possible that what you experienced in your bedroom was what is known as a flashback. This can sometimes happen after taking psychedelic drugs. It’s very important to let someone know if it continues, Ryan. You have nothing to be ashamed or afraid of.”

  You do. Yes, you do. Be afraid.

  My head snaps up. Her threat echoes so loud, I wonder if he’s heard it too. I glance at the window. His gaze follows mine. There is no face in the glass, just the frozen arms of a cactus outside. My heart thrums in my ears.

  Be afraid, she says again.

  He has no idea about my fear.

  “And how are your emotions? Would you say you’re feeling the normal range of emotions?”

  “I’m not feeling much. My emotions are . . . deadened.”

  You should be dead.

  Inside my sneakers, my toes are curled so hard th
ey hurt. My hands are shaking bad enough that I stuff them under my legs. The voice has cast a spell on me. The rest of our session is like a bad date. There are too many questions on his end, too many one-word answers on mine. I figure the less I say, the better. Ayida bookends my appointment with another five minutes alone with the doctor, and then we’re on our way home to make dinner. Gran has fallen asleep in the backseat. My mother is as rigid and silent as a tombstone.

  Nolan is relaxing in front of the television, drink in hand, when my mom and I walk in, supporting Gran by her arms. She’s a little wobbly from waking up, tipping like she’s boozy. “Can we ride the motorbike again?” she asks through a yawn. I bite my lip, but my mom seems to take this as a dementia moment and answers, “Not just now, Mama. We need to make dinner.”

  We settle Gran in a chair by the kitchen table and get to prepping food. The doorbell rings, and I offer to get it so my mother won’t have to.

  Avery smiles and leaps on me for a tight hug. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since the night of the LSD. “You’re okay!” she squeals, then pulls back to look me over, taking in my bandages. “Are you okay? How bad is it?” she asks, pointing at my face.

  “I don’t know yet. It hasn’t been unveiled.”

  “Well, what’s a few scars as long as you’re alive and well, right?” She bounds through the front door and hones in on the savory smell of caramelizing onions wafting from the kitchen. “I wanted to wait until things settled down before coming over,” she says.

  “Probably a good call,” I say as my mom sets another place at the table.

  My dad picks at slices of roast chicken faster than I can cut it. My mom shoos him away, but I can tell by her playful smile that she doesn’t mind. There is warmth in gathering around the island, preparing dinner together. Family is the blanket that wraps us, even in dark times. I’m grateful for it. It’s the first time I truly relax since I came home from the hospital.