Learning Not to Drown

by Anna Shinoda

  Chapter 51

  Thawing

  NOW

  The weather starts to warm in March, slowly, slowly melting down the huge snow walls. I can logically compartmentalize my emotions about Luke: anger, betrayal, grief, frustration, guilt. The emotions all combine and win over reason every time. At school, surrounded by friends, I’m okay enough. I make sure to do my homework and chores, but aside from that I don’t do much. I just let the heavy, heavy sadness hold me down.

  Toward the middle of the month, the whole school chatters about how Mandy showed up at a party with some guy she met in her weekend photography class at Pasadena City College. She broke up with Ryan by introducing her new boyfriend to everyone that night.

  After school that day I see Ryan sitting on the hood of my car.

  “Hey, Clare,” he says, jumping off and shoving his hands into his pockets. “I need to go snowboarding tonight. Half the mountain is lit and open till nine. You in?”

  My eyes widen. I haven’t been at all this winter. We’ve had feet and feet and feet of snow, but not once did it dawn on me that I should leave my room to go up on the mountain. Not once. What the hell is wrong with me?

  I could go up with him. Ride the mountain, just for a few hours.

  “C’mon, Clare. Please,” he says quietly. “I’ve got to get on a snowboard or a surfboard. I know you get that. And I want to go with someone who’s just going to be chill. So come with me.”

  “Okay,” I reluctantly agree.

  Being on the snow feels good. It takes a few runs for me to figure it out again, get comfortable enough to link turns easily. Ryan rides fast, taking jumps, going through trees, waiting for me at different points on the side of the mountain. There’s barely anyone else around.

  We settle on the ancient chairlift that will take us to the top again.

  “Have you ridden much this winter?” I ask. “No, just a few times. I got busy with other things.”

  He gives an unconvincing laugh. “Normally I would have been out every day. Guess I just got derailed.” He stops for a second, long enough that I wonder if he’ll talk about Mandy, but after a quick shake of his head, his voice lightens as he says, “But it feels awesome to be out here. What about you?”

  “I’ve been spending most of my winter thinking,” I say. Above his goggles, I can see his forehead raise a bit. The lift stops halfway up, causing our chair to sway lightly. I suck in a deep breath and admit, “It’s my first ride all winter. I guess I’ve been hiding. Just hiding from everyone. Trying to figure things out. . . .”

  “That’s good. I mean, you don’t want to make my mistake and let someone else figure things out for you,” he says.

  A clump of snow falls from one of the branches next to our chair and lands with a soft plop in the deep drift below. I love being in the treetops. I love that I can feel the cold creeping into the tips of my fingers and surrounding my toes. And I love feeling that Ryan can somehow understand the complexity of everything that has happened in the last nine months, without me really having to explain anything to him.

  “I should have been hiding on the mountain instead of in my room. If the snow is this good tonight, it must have been insane midseason.” I readjust the way my board rests on my foot.

  “It was.” Ryan zips his jacket up a little more. “After one of our really big storms, I went backcountry with a couple of guys that I surf with. They’re all really solid— they would dig me out of an avalanche, or dive into a riptide. They know I won’t bail on them, I know they won’t bail on me.” He pauses. Then adds, “It sucks when you think you have that trust with someone and then you find out that you don’t.”

  “And that maybe you never did,” I say.

  The motor of the lift starts to run, our chair slowly moves forward again.

  It’s weird how I know so little about Ryan that he’s almost a stranger, but at this moment I’m feeling more comfortable with him than any of my friends.

  I think of the beanie I knitted for him, shoved deep under my bed, and decide to give it to him tomorrow at school, even though on April first the no-hat policy returns. Maybe he can wear it next winter.

  It’s better out here, in the cold, under the unnatural fluorescent lights. Sitting next to someone else who feels heartbroken and betrayed. Maybe not exactly like me, but close enough.

  Chapter 52

  Sunlight

  NOW

  It’s April.

  Happy letters of acceptance arrive from UCLA, Pepperdine, CSULB, and Shithole State. It feels good. Good to be wanted. Good to have options, even after UC Berkeley regrets to inform me that I’m not good enough for their school. My future is becoming a reality. In the fall I will be out of this town, able to start fresh. I imagine meeting new people and the conversations being like talking with Ryan or Peggy. I’ll leave Skeleton here. He’s not allowed to follow me.

  For now I have to deal with the loud clanking of his bones that keep me up all night—he wants me to think about Luke, all the time. No matter how good I feel hanging out with my friends. No matter how hard I study. No matter how many times I try to have a normal conversation with Mom or Dad or Peter, Skeleton is there. And he wants to go to college with me.

  In the middle of the night, toward the end of April, I wake up to see Skeleton lying in bed next to me. His fingers draw in the air T R U T H.

  “Why are you here?” I ask him.

  T R U T H.

  “I know the truth. I know everything that I want to know about Luke, okay?” I say. “Can you please just let me sleep?”

  He pokes me with his pointer finger.

  “What more truth could there possibly be for me to face?” I ask him.

  Then a horrifying thought occurs to me: Megan’s Law. I’ve never even thought to look for Luke on the sex offender registry. I’ve never thought to look for the truth there.

  I’m trembling and afraid, but I get out of bed and walk to the family room, turning on every light switch as I go. I don’t care if Mom or Dad wakes up. I don’t care if they yell at me for being out of bed, or burning their money with the illumination.

  The computer is cold; it rattles and moans when I turn it on. Putting in passwords, watching as the desktop loads. Finally online.

  It’s existed for years. I never looked at it. It never even occurred to me. Why would I look up what sex offenders may live here?

  Search by name: Luke Tovin.

  There he is.

  His name. First. Middle. Last. His birth date. An incarcerated banner under his picture. He looks unusually calm in the photo. His eyes are those of the good Luke. His eyes say he is a good person and that we can trust him.

  The list:

  Sexual battery.

  Sexual assault.

  Assault with intent to commit rape, sodomy, or oral copulation.

  A black-and-white list, right next to his name. Right next to his birth date.

  I pull away from the screen, the glaring light. This can’t be him. It can’t. He couldn’t have done all of this. I look at his picture. Name. Birth date. My eyes flickering between the list and my brother’s photo, faster, faster. Back and forth. It is Luke. It is Luke.

  The proof is all here. Skeleton taps on the screen. Agreeing. It is Luke. Skeleton taps again at the list. He’s right. All of these charges can’t be from only one incident. My breaths move to the top of my lungs, and I can’t force the air down any deeper. Heart beating so fast. The screen is going out of focus. I push the chair back from the desk. I need space.

  “What are you doing, Clare?” Mom’s voice. I turn toward her, stand up. I am taller than her, bigger than her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Why would you lie? You said he was in jail for stealing. You said he wasn’t a bad person, he just made some poor choices. You said he wasn’t dangerous.” I don’t want to be crying. But I am. And spitting. And boiling. The room begins to move, Skeleton spins away, but Mom’s face is perfectly in focus. The vein is bulging under her
skin, bright blue, icier than the light in my nightmares. Her jaw starts to tremble.

  “YOU”—her voice is low and distorted—“are a nosy, spoiled brat. You think that you know everything? You think that I lied? How do YOU know that the people who accused him aren’t the liars? How do YOU know what is the truth?”

  “They couldn’t all be liars, Mom.” The anger manifests itself into my hands. They curl into fists. My fingernails dig deeply into my palms. “And you know that. You knew that. You knew what he was in prison for. You knew. And you kept welcoming him back into our home.” I say each word slowly, trying to keep my voice even, although it comes out wavy and thick. “‘Come on in. Steal from us. Break a few windows. Pick a few locks. Snort some cocaine off our bathroom counter. Beat up your father. Stick a fork into your brother’s arm.’” My voice cracks on the last words, my anger getting tripped up with a surge of grief.

  “He is a good brother to you,” my mother snaps back. “Remember all the letters. Remember holidays and bike rides and swimming in the lake. Remember him scaring off the kids that picked on you. You owe him so much. Remember that, before you go accusing me of doing something wrong. I ALLOWED him to be a good brother to you.” The vein grows. Blood pumping away from her heart.

  “No, Mom. You aren’t hearing me. It doesn’t matter that he was good to me. He was hurting other people. And you knew how he was hurting them. How could you, Mom? How could you keep letting him come home when you knew that he could do this?” I point at the computer screen. “What about me? What about Peter? What about every single person who got hurt by Luke because you were so busy keeping him free? Who protected the rest of us while you were protecting him?” The words are coming out fast. I am distorted and ugly, feeling the skin around my eyes and mouth, swelling, reddening. Fat, hot tears blur my vision. She shakes her head at me. No. No. No. She needs to hear me. “How many girls got raped because you needed to have your son home?”

  She crumbles, limb by limb. I lunge forward to try to grab her, to keep her from falling. I am not fast enough. Her body thuds as it hits the floor, her robe bleeding into the carpet, her face protected by aged hands.

  She’s sobbing.

  And I realize: I’ve never seen my mother cry before. Not at funerals. Not in the hospital. It snaps my brain.

  I didn’t have to accuse her. I wanted Luke home too. But that was before I knew what he was capable of. And she had to have known. At some point she must have believed he wasn’t innocent. At some point she chose him over everything else, everybody else. Skeleton stomps his foot, points at Mom, and raises his hands into the air—Do something to help Mom. Don’t leave her crying like this. “Mom,” I say softly. “Mom. You can’t change him. It doesn’t matter how many times you let him come home. You can’t change him.”

  I can’t change him either.

  My fists are soft open hands now. They sail gently to Mom’s back.

  “Come on, Mom,” I say quietly. “Come on. I’ll help you back to bed. I’m sorry. Okay?”

  “You should be sorry.” Her face twists from her hands, the veins larger, icier, her eyes sunken deep behind swollen lids. “Get away from me. Go to bed.”

  Dad peeks out their bedroom door. Baffled and half-dressed, he stumbles across the room and wraps Mom in his arms, shielding her from my eyes. And Peter’s. I don’t know how long Peter has been standing in his doorway. Maybe the whole time. He takes a few steps toward me, his eyes soft with compassion, with worry. But I turn and run. He doesn’t follow.

  With my room shut tight, and my desk chair angled under the knob in a desperate attempt to bar it, I lie on my back on my bed, staring at the door. Skeleton lies beside me, reaching out to hold my hand.

  “Leave me alone. Leave me alone.” I push him away. Pull my covers over my head.

  I looked for proof. I found it. There is no way to turn around. Ever.

  With the sunlight coming in, dancing for a second on the windowsills before being sucked away into the eggplant walls, I wake. Flip, flip, flip, through the motions and emotions of the previous night. Mom can’t change Luke. Compassion will not cure him. Luke is responsible for changing his actions in order to change his world. A single beam of light falls on my right arm, and tingling warmth awakens the skin. Luke is responsible for changing his actions in order to his world. I’m responsible for the actions I take to change my world.

  I dress quickly, put a hat on my head. Leave the house without a word.

  In the hardware store I pick up all the supplies I need, bring them back. Lean my chair against the knob, once again barring my door.

  I mask off the ceiling line and trim with tape. Dip my brushes into the bucket of primer, first cut in the edges, then roll the middle of the walls. But white is too sterile, too clean and cold for my room.

  A second coat. This one light green, the color of new apples. Sunlight bursts in through the open window. Reflects and brightens, refreshes and renews.

  I shake, just a little, as the job is done. Shake because I’m not sure what this means. I’m not sure what Mom will say or do. I’m not sure of the punishment. Shake because I’m surprised at myself. Happy with myself.

  I refuse to continue to let the sunlight be sucked out of my life.

  Chapter 53

  Clarity

  NOW

  I push my furniture around, rearranging it to sit exactly where I want it to be. The wide-open window allows an early spring breeze in. I would love to spend the day in my new room, but the paint fumes are a bit much, and there are more hours of daylight to enjoy.

  On my way out I stop at the pile of mail on the counter, unsorted but with a letter addressed to me on top.

  The pre-stamped envelope. Luke’s prisoner number printed clearly under his name. I’m not sure I want to read it, but I tuck it into my pocket and head out the door.

  It’s easy to find the trail Luke showed me on the day he came home last summer; hard to believe that was less than a year ago.

  I stop at the bush, pull out the jar of vodka. Inspect it, almost choke from smelling it, then tip it over and watch every last bit of it drain out.

  At the top of the trail, I look over the valley, admiring the slowly melting snowcaps in the distance, smiling in disbelief at the waterfalls that were only trickles during the summer.

  I could burn the letter. Put it into one of Mom’s roaring fires, unopened. I could drop it over this cliff and watch it fall through the air, getting smaller and smaller, until it completely disappeared.

  Skeleton points at the letter, now in my hands. He’s curious to read what Luke has written. I’m curious too.

  But I don’t open it yet. Looking over the valley, the snowcaps white against the bright blue sky, sitting on this rock, I feel that peace is possible. Why read the letter? What am I looking for? An explanation. An apology. A bit of hope that he is the good Luke, instead of the bad. But is an explanation or an apology, or a tiny crumb of hope, enough when the truth tells me that his past indicates he will continue to steal, continue to assault?

  Curiosity takes over. Skeleton and I open the letter together, read it word by word.

  Dear Squeakers,

  Ma and Pop tell me that the college acceptance letters are pouring in. Congratulations. I’m proud of you. Maybe that doesn’t mean so much coming from me, but I hope the sincerity of it somehow comes through on paper. Congratulations. I mean it.

  Listen, Clare, I’m kind of hoping that you will write me, occasionally. I’d really love hearing from you, especially since Peter and my friends never write. Only Ma and Pop. I don’t know what I would do without them.

  Don’t give up on me. Please. What I did was wrong. I messed up so big, but I need you to keep believing in me. Sometimes I think that it is easier for me to be here, because at least in prison I understand how it all works. Outside I do things I can’t explain. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’ve done. I know that when I get out next time, I’m going to do things right.

&
nbsp; Squeakers, I’m still your brother. I need you to write. Please. Maybe send some photos of us at Granny’s last summer. I think of that trip all the time. It’s one of my favorite memories. I love you and miss you. I need you, Squeaks. Maybe you could come and visit. It’s so lonely here.

  Love, Luke

  I lower the letter and look out at the valley. If it were a cloudy day, I wouldn’t be able to see the crystal clear water hopping from rock to jagged rock, the green treetops etched into the backdrop sky, the fingers of snow reaching down the shady valleys. But it’s not a cloudy day. I can see every detail.

  I fold up the letter, place it in my pocket. Start my walk home on the muddy path, with Skeleton clinking close behind.

  In through the front door, Mom is giving me the silent treatment. I say hello; she shakes her head, the bulging vein a permanent part of her brow.

  Dad catches me in the hallway. “I see you painted your room.”

  “Yes, I did,” I say.

  “Your mother is very angry about it. You should’ve

  asked her if you could paint it first. You know, this is our house, not yours,” he says.

  “So you don’t like the color,” I say, taking a step to the side, preparing to walk around him into my new sanctuary.

  “No, I didn’t say that. I said that you should have asked us first,” he says, blocking the hall with his body.

  “You apologize to your mother. Or I’ll ground you.” “I think you are asking the wrong child to apologize.”

  Will my parents never get it? “Dad, it’s just paint. I didn’t steal anything. Or rape anyone.” I stand up taller. “And

  I’m not going to. Ever. Painting my room isn’t a gateway

  to violent crime.”

  He has no response. I spin on my heel and go back

  to the living room. Mom can be silent all she wants. I