Nothing but Life

by Brent van Staalduinen

  I wonder if Mia only wants to hear the good stuff. The TV news stuff. That I’m grateful for the help. One day at a time. Community heals. #windsorstrong #istandwithwindsor #neverforgotten. The stuff that makes politicians feel better about taking money from gunmakers. That kind of thing. Or maybe she doesn’t — maybe she wants the truth.

  “Useless,” I say.

  “For real?”

  I nod. “It’s not their fault. People think you can fix anything if you talk about it enough.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  “I know.”

  Next comes the urge to call Mom. Surprising and not surprising all at once, out of nowhere but right inside me the whole time. I can feel the burner phone’s warmth against my leg. It would be so easy to tell her I’m all right. I left a note saying I was meeting Mia in the park, but she’ll have noticed I’m not home by now. She’ll be carrying the worry as fully as she does everything else.

  “What about your mom? Do you talk to her?” Mia asks, like she can reach into my mind with one of her strong, calloused hands and grab what I’m thinking. Turn it over. Inspect it for a while.

  “I can, but we don’t. Not much, anyhow. It’s hard for her. She gets torn between loving Jesse and what everyone thinks about him.”

  “Like you do, too.”

  “For her it’s multiplied by, like, a thousand. Because they’re married. And Jesse is just —”

  I pause, cutting off my own voice, feeling horrible about what was about to come out.

  “Just what?”

  “I was going to say just my stepdad, but —”

  “Jesse was more than that.”

  “Is more than that. He’s always been there, right from day one.”

  “I thought he and your mom got married after you were born.”

  “They did. They met while she was pregnant with me, though.”

  “By someone else.”

  I nod. “Jesse was on leave and met Mom, love at first sight, all of that. She told him about the baby. He said he was ‘so rocked by her’ he didn’t care. He didn’t drink for the rest of his leave so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.”

  “To respect the pregnancy. Wow.”

  “Right? That’s the Jesse I know. I know what happened at Windsor. I know he did it. But it wasn’t him. Mom has tried to tell that story. I’ve tried, too, but —”

  “No one wants to hear it.”

  “No one wants anything to do with it.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Thank you? You’re thanking me? For —”

  Well. That shatters me into a million and four pieces, and my voice hitches. I am that thin strand of cooling glass after all. Being thanked for sharing a bit of myself is enough to break me. It shouldn’t be. My glass core should be vaulted in tempered steel rather than this delicate, fragile thing we call a body. Not defeated by a simple thank you, much less being thanked for being honest about a guy who made everything so dark and wrong but who built me up with such strength and light. Like I could be anything else. Because of him.

  I open up for the first time since I was a kid. The flood we all hold back, every day, set loose on that balcony. Big and messy and raw. With the girl I’m crushing on resting at the railing beside me and watching the same city and not saying another word. Or doing anything you’d expect if you’ve watched anything on TV or online or in a theatre or anywhere at all. No hugs or kisses or attempting to say the right thing. You’d think it was an effed-up scene in the most effed-up, unsatisfying movie. Unless you were me, ugly-weeping for the mass murderer no one understands like you do. You’d be thankful for the space. And maybe a calloused hand on a shoulder. Warm and strong. Again.

  JUST FINE

  The next morning I sit at the kitchen table, staring at the massive breakfast Noor has loaded onto our plates. Eggs, beans, toast, fruit. Bowls of muesli and containers of yogurt, too. Noor and Mia eat like they’re bulking up, chatting between mouthfuls. In English now, maybe for my benefit. Memories of holds, pin-downs, wins, almost-wins. Gal eats slowly but steadily, in silence. Everyone is up early. Visiting hours still a couple of hours away. My stomach has shrunk itself to the size of a marble. Two sips of orange juice and I feel like I’ve feasted.

  Mia and I talked until well past midnight, then fell into a comfortable kind of quiet, watching the city and listening to a line of distant thunderstorms that never reached us. Then a quiet goodnight. Mia in the guest room and me on an air mattress on the living room floor, kept company by Gal’s snoring. No attempt to sneak into the guest room to try anything more than what happened on the balcony. Content to rest, knowing about the big day ahead and that we’d be facing it together. Neither of us with the desire to talk all night or make out or get into trouble. Smashing teenage clichés by the dozen.

  I can’t look at this food any longer. I stand and excuse myself to the bathroom, leaving my heaping plate untouched. I lock the door and lean against it, drawing a long, deep breath. To still myself against the nerves and energy that are building.

  Please come. I need you.

  “I know!”

  Jesse’s voice is a surprise. My response too loud, too sudden. I hear Mia calling to me down the hall and asking if I’m all right. Me yelling back that I’m fine.

  Come, Dills.

  “As soon as I can, Jesse,” I whisper. “Promise.”

  Noor has stacked clean towels on the vanity and triangled a couple of washcloths on top. A bowl next to the sink holds a motley assembly of wrapped hotel soaps and tiny shampoo bottles. There are a few new toothbrushes and travel tubes of toothpaste, all still in their packaging. Flourishes of unexpected hospitality. I run the shower full blast, steam quickly filling the small space, and step into the spray. It’s too hot for comfort, but it feels right, too, the scalding water scouring my pores. I changed after work yesterday but putting clean clothes on a dirty body is like painting an old wall without stripping it first. All grit and flaking paint.

  My clean skin feels like a kind of armour against the day ahead, too. I’m going back. Back to the hospital, where I was bathed in the sights and smells and sounds of an unimaginable aftermath. Where I really noticed the stains for the first time, the blood and the other things I can’t mention even to myself. The stains I know are still there, just under my skin. This time, I’ll arrive clean. Clean enough, maybe, to keep at least some of the worst of it from sticking to me again.

  When I emerge from the bathroom a short time later, my skin singing and red, Noor and Mia are in the kitchenette, scraping and rinsing and stacking the breakfast plates. Still talking as though they’re the only ones in the apartment. Gal is a shadow through the balcony-door curtain. There is the faintest smell of weed smoke. All is calm. I feel a sudden peace. And sudden hunger. I grab an apple and a small container of yogurt and sit at the table, watching Mia and Noor enjoy each other’s company.

  “So, what is the plan?” Gal asks when he comes in a few minutes later, closing the balcony door.

  “Aside from being at the hospital for visiting hours,” I say, “I don’t have a plan, not really.”

  Gal grabs an apple and bites into it, waiting for me to say more.

  “I was going to wait and see. I don’t know what to expect.”

  “Will they allow you to see him?”

  “I’m family, so —”

  “But not blood family.”

  The wind leaves me. That’s true. How, in all the time I’ve spent thinking about and agonizing over this, has that not occurred to me? Different last names. Nothing to prove that Jesse has been a part of my life from breath number one. No photos, appropriately linked ID, records of any kind, nothing the hospital would take as proof. Shit.

  “Well, we’re here now,” Mia says, stepping out of the kitchenette and wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Let’s just go. There’s no crime in trying.”

  “This is true,” Gal says.

  Noor says something about having to work
later and doing a dark load downstairs in the laundry room and us staying as long as we want, then disappears. She emerges carrying a cracked beige laundry basket filled past the brim with tumbled clothing. Grabs her keys and walks out. Mia stretches high and rolls her shoulders and walks down the hall to the bathroom. The dull hiss of the shower bleeds through the door.

  I dig the burner phone from my pocket to check the time. A splash of green. A text from Aunt Viv, timestamped early.

  — Good luck today. I hope you find some answers or closure or whatever

  — thx. still good on ur end?

  I wait a long moment for a response, but there’s nothing. I put the phone down to find Gal looking at me. His scars and his expression are impossible to ignore. Or to remain silent around. The ultimate truth serum.

  “I feel like I need to say something to Jesse, but I don’t know what.”

  “You will.”

  “There’s no playbook for this. I’m —”

  “You speak well. You are intelligent and kind. You love him, yes?”

  The flood of affirmation stuns me so much that all I can do is nod. These are not compliments. Gal is not a complimentary person. His words are always measured out as precisely as marijuana from a government pot shop. But I guess he’s seen something in me. Jesse would probably like him. Will like him. I can picture them sharing a joint in the park and trading bits of army wisdom. Hurry up and wait. Embrace the suck. Watch your six. Gotta live the dream, troop. They wouldn’t trade war stories, though. They’re not like that.

  “I have heard you speaking with him. In the forest.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wondered who would receive such careful words. But now I know your story.”

  “How much did you hear?”

  “Enough. I may be deaf in one ear, but my other hears a lot.”

  Have you ever been around a person but kind of tuned them out to background noise? Gal is like that. He’s a constant presence, but for some reason I never thought of him as an active one. Even after Pat’s attack. Gal was just there to help. More than convenient, to be sure, but I still haven’t allowed myself to think of him as having a part in this weird play I’m staging.

  “Thank you again for helping me the other day. When Pat ambushed me.”

  “He is a small boy with small ideas. It was necessary.”

  “Maybe, but all I did was tell you not to tell anyone. I should’ve thanked you. And trusted you.”

  A dismissive wave. “It was nothing.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Mia’s voice, sudden enough to make both Gal and me jump a little. She has padded to the kitchen, soundless in bare feet. Her hair is a wet, spiky mess. A small canvas bag, which I hadn’t noticed either on the drive or on our way into Noor’s apartment, rests under her arm. A change of clothing. Of course. She’s in fresh shorts and a new tank top, making me feel grubby by comparison. Me focused on the destination. Mia planning the journey.

  I hesitate, but Mia’s looking at me patiently, like I could admit I torture kittens and she’d still hear me out before passing judgment. So I tell her about Pat and his attack, feeling the tiniest bit embarrassed that I have that kind of story to tell at all. Another one to add to a pile that’s already too tall for someone my age. She glances down at the bandages on my wrist, now a couple of adhesive strips covering the lesions that haven’t fully healed. I must scratch them in my sleep. Her eyes narrow when I tell the part where Pat unzips his fly and pisses on me, where Gal arrives almost in time. Mia looks ready to run back to Hamilton to find Pat and put him down for me. Pin him. Grind him into his very own patch of the greasiest poison ivy.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  It should be obvious. Shame and pride and the last piece of embarrassing teenage guyhood I’d want anyone to know about. Bad enough that Gal had to rescue me. But I don’t say those things. I shrug.

  Then Mia does another unexpected thing. She steps close and puts one arm around me, the other holding her bag. It is the perfect pressure, soft but strong and warm. No one else gets these kind of hugs, I’m sure. My embarrassment melts into her and is gone by the time she releases me and nods at Gal.

  “Thanks for being there,” she says to him.

  Like claiming me in her own way. The good kind of possession.

  Gal’s face twitches into a scarred lightning smile before returning to neutral. He moves to the front hall and pockets his wallet and keys. Just as he bends to put on his shoes, Noor returns, nearly knocking the door into him. They perform an awkward dance in the tiny hallway, trying to manoeuvre around each other and uttering low words of apology in Arabic, back and forth. They both laugh, honest and unselfconscious. There is a moment of eye contact. Slight smiles are exchanged. A spark of something.

  I stare. I’ve never thought about his age. He’s Gal. Too wise and world weary to be bothered by the sudden pinch of attraction. Old. Scarred. Half-deaf and broken. I’ve only seen him based on his appearance and the history of violence he carries. I open my mouth to say something, maybe a too-late apology, but Mia nudges me before I can. Through her pleased, I’ll-take-credit-for-this-introduction look, her eyes tell me to keep quiet, to let the moment play out. Not about me. Right.

  The moment ends, transitioning back to our previously scheduled momentum. Mia and I move toward the door, to our shoes, and toward the big out-there questions that still need to be answered. Noor steps aside as we ready ourselves to go.

  “Good luck today,” she says.

  “Thanks.”

  That’s all I get out. I was hoping to thank her for letting us stay. Not a prepared speech, but for sure more than a single mumbled word. You do that when people offer something of themselves to make your life easier. I’ve been raised to make sure people know when they’re appreciated, and I can hear Mom’s and Jesse’s voices in my mind, telling me to say my thanks out loud. They’re both so big on generosity and gratitude. But once again I stumble on thanks. My new breaking word.

  I can see a weight in Noor’s eyes, a shadowed knowledge, and I wonder how much Mia has told her. Noor nods at me, smiles, and reaches out, pulling me into a wrestler embrace. Hard enough to squeeze some air from me. No pain, though. Just that core strength she and Mia share. She breaks off and holds me at arm’s length. Looks me up and down. Finds my eyes. The shadow is gone now.

  “Yeah, you’ll do,” she says. “You’ll do just fine.”

  NO ACCESS

  The long-term-care duty nurse sits back in her chair and folds her arms. She is all business. Short blond hair in a pixie cut. Pens secure in their sleeve pockets. A clip-on watch dangling from her shirt pocket, next to an ID card. LTC 102234 / S CRUMMEY, it says underneath a grainy photo of the nurse when her hair was longer and darker. I wonder what the S stands for. She’s dressed in purple scrubs that wash out her already pale skin, making the dark smudges under her eyes look like bruises. Teal running shoes fringed in neon yellow. No jewellery.

  She says, “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “But —”

  “Your student ID tells me you’re Wendell Sims, but you don’t have anything showing a relationship to the patient. Besides, he’s on restricted access because of who he is and what he did.”

  “I’m worried about him.”

  “Maybe so, but we have to think about his rights, too. You could be anyone. We’ve had a lot of gawkers. Not so many recently, but still.”

  Gal steps forward. “What if I told you I was his brother, and this young man is my nephew?”

  In the harsh lighting of the hospital ward, Gal’s accent and appearance seem more pronounced. The nurse tilts her head and sighs. Skeptical doesn’t begin to describe it.

  “And you have proof?”

  “Only my word.”

  “Do I need to call security?”

  I look down the hall, wondering which room Jesse could be in. But the doors all look the same to me. I see one with a small desk beside it, a bald sec
urity guy dressed in black seated behind. That has to be Jesse’s room. I want to run over and burst into the room, but the guard looks strong and fit. Not a chubby rent-a-cop, but someone who knows his job. I’d be on the ground and in cuffs in a heartbeat. But I’m so close. Too close to give up now.

  I turn back to the nurse. “Jesse is my stepdad. I came all the way from Hamilton to see him.”

  “Look, kid.”

  “His middle name is Dominic.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Her apology sounds so final. More than her previous threat to call security. Those were testing words. Not ending words, like these. So I list off every piece of information I can about Jesse. Date of birth. Our street address. His eye colour. And so on. As I speak, the nurse checks her computer records against some of what I’m saying. Confirmed. But when I describe Jesse’s scars, the horrific ones he brought home from combat, I see her weakening. Too much inside knowledge to ignore.

  “I know those scars,” she says.

  “You do?”

  A nod. “Very well. Too well. He’s been here a while. But we have protocols.”

  She doesn’t reach for the phone, though. She is softening. Looking for the final reason not to send me away. I take a deep breath. “I was in the school library.”

  “But that’s where he …” She can’t finish her own sentence. She gives me a long, searching look. Another person rendered speechless. The breath stolen from so many conversations.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my god.” Her eyes fill. She brings her fingers up to push the brimming tears away. “I’m so sorry.”

  I just nod. Me, too.

  “It hasn’t been that long,” she says, “but I guess we’ve all tried to move on, you know?”

  “I do.”

  I’ve reached her. I don’t say anything, but part of me wants to ask about her connection to the shooting. I also don’t want to. You worry how you could cut into a person by asking a question.

  Another nurse appears from somewhere down the ward and steps into the duty station. The two nurses could be twins, but the new one’s hair is a dark pixie, and her scrubs are aquamarine. She notices our nurse wiping her eyes. “Sarah? You good?”