by Sara Shepard
I moved my hands and bent my knees. I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone, mostly Steven, was watching. “No looking!” Stella said. “Shut your eyes!”
So I shut my eyes. I heard “Rock Around the Clock,” a song that was always playing at Claire’s Galaxy Diner. Stella made little grunts to punctuate each hip gyration. I couldn’t help but laugh.
My father appeared in the doorway. “Summer?”
I stopped. “Oh. Hi.”
“You want to come up and see your grandma?”
I hesitated. Stella stopped dancing and immediately lit another cigarette. Her face was flushed and there was a crooked fuchsia smile on her lips.
I followed my father through the long, rose-carpeted hall again, this time to the edge of the casket, which was all ivory, like a birthday cake. No one was standing at it, so I couldn’t avoid seeing the person lying inside. There was the jut of her chin and the gummy slope of her profile. Her hair was very white. And then—so weird—a white satin blanket covered her from her waist down to her feet, like she was tucked into bed. The casket was lined, too, like a jewelry box. There was even a little pillow for her head.
I looked at her face last. She didn’t look like the woman in the pictures. The corners of her mouth turned down, her eyes were shut, and her skin was waxy. She looked more like a doll—an old-person doll—than a real human. I realized that all of the things just below our surfaces—blood vessels, twitchy muscles, layers of skin, cells—the things that were alive—were the things that made us look real.
All the floral arrangements around my grandmother seemed to have crept in closer, protective. When everyone left, when Lizard crept home for the night, my grandmother would still be lying here with all these flowers around her like guard dogs. What had my father murmured to her, when it was his turn to stand at her head? Had he explained what was going on inside of him? What he’d done to the snow globe? Did he say he was separated?
One of the flower arrangements spelled out the word Mom. I picked up the little card that was wedged into the bottom of the first M. It was stupid, giving cards at a funeral—it wasn’t like the dead person could read them. When I opened it, it said, Your loving son, Richard Davis.
I considered taking my grandmother’s hands, like Stella took mine, and swinging them back and forth. I didn’t want to be morose. I didn’t want to recoil from everything. Maybe my grandmother didn’t want to, either. But when I reached out, her hand was way too cold and solid and heavy. I dropped it and turned around fast, my heart pounding hard.
nine
That night, I stared at the way the light shifted on the flowered wallpaper, making each flower look like a macabre nipple. As I climbed out of bed, something moved on the floor beneath me. It was the unnamed dog, the one my father had picked up on the street. The Smitty dog. I had forgotten about her, since she’d spent all of her time outside with the other dogs. I wasn’t sure how she’d gotten in—I wasn’t even sure dogs were allowed in the house.
I felt the sides of the walls to get down the stairs safely. The dog followed me to the front door, where we both looked out the glass panels at the street. Light green pods covered our car. The moon was bloated and glowing. It didn’t take me long to get to the house at the end of the road. Most of the windows were dark and there was a nondescript Ford station wagon in the driveway. The same TV flickered.
The dog and I walked up to the same window I was at yesterday and looked inside. The TV cast ghostly blue shadows over the wood-paneled walls. An empty ashtray and a white coffee mug sat on the table. The TV was turned to that old PBS show The Joy of Painting, where the friendly, frizzy-haired guy blotted the canvas to create spiny trees and blurry clouds. I watched a shot of the canvas, then the painter’s lionlike face, then the palette.
“I thought I heard someone out here.”
I turned around, my heart leaping to my throat. Philip sat on the porch, hidden by the shadows. He looked at the dog curiously.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said back. “Summer, right?”
I nodded.
“I’m Philip,” he said. I almost said I know, but then he added, “What’s your dog’s name?”
“She doesn’t have one. My dad found her. She’s a Smitty dog.”
“Smitty dog?”
“Apparently it’s some local thing.”
He laughed and ducked his head bashfully. “Well, I’m not really a local.”
He wasn’t much taller than I was, but was wearing the clothes of someone who was about six-ten. His T-shirt fell past his crotch, and his shorts past his knees. He wore no shoes, only white gym socks.
“So you’re here visiting?” he asked.
“Yeah, remember, my grandmother died?” I reminded him. “We have to go to her funeral.”
“Right.” He scratched his nose. “Did you go yet?”
“No. Today we had to see the body.”
“What was that like?”
I paused. “She looked like she’d been in the freezer for a while.” I pointed to the window. “You watch The Joy of Painting.”
He brightened for a second, although his version of brightening was his mouth lifting just slightly, his muscles tightening. “You know it?”
“I used to watch it when I was little.”
“My dad used to paint along to the program,” he said. “He used to put his canvas right up against the TV and whatever Bob Ross did, he’d do, too. He wasn’t very good at it, though. All of his paintings just looked flat and empty.”
I wanted him to say more about his dad. When he didn’t, I asked, “So where are you from, if you’re not from here?”
“Michigan. You?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Brooklyn,” he repeated, nodding. Thankfully, he didn’t say Brooklyn in a tough-guy voice, as a couple of youngish older people at the wake today had done, as if everyone from Brooklyn were in the Mafia. Philip pointed off toward my house. “How are the old ladies?”
“Well, there’s only one, now. But she’s okay.”
“I know Stella a little. She came over once.” I got a look at his eyes. They were dark and deep-set, so lovely.
“My grandmother is having a twenty-one-gun salute at her funeral,” I offered.
“Really.”
“And Aunt Stella, who you met, is living on another planet,” I went on. “And then Samantha…maybe you know her…she’s downright mean.”
“She’s all right. I was like that, too, when my mother was sick.”
The smell of pine was suddenly sharp in my nose. “Sick?”
“She had cancer,” he added.
He arched his back and looked up at the sky. I looked up, too. I thought that outside New York City, the sky would be perfect and bright and informative, with a legend key telling me which constellation was which. But tonight’s sky was murky and dense, the same sky as Brooklyn.
Philip shifted his weight. “Want to see something? It’s behind my house.”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
He thought for a moment. “Yes. You do.”
I followed him into his backyard. There were flowers planted neatly along the sides of the house, and a bag of Kmart-brand soil propped up at the back. At the back of the house was a huge garden. Everything was in bloom, dewy and green.
Philip pushed past some branches. We were behind the garden now, among a thick patch of trees. The air smelled earthy, like plants and soil and water. The light hit Philip dramatically, bouncing off the angles of his face, making him look romantic, like he was sitting for a portrait. I was hesitant to look at him directly, for fear he’d think I was staring.
“Check it out.” Philip pointed to a small patch of dirt on the ground. About twenty plants were in neat rows. Behind them were small stones. Each stone bore a name. Clara. Jezebel. Rufus. Clive.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“They’re graves,” he answered.
“Of…people?”
He snorted. “No. Of birds. See? There’s a drawing of one.” He stooped down and wiped some dirt off one of the headstones; sure enough, there was a crude drawing of a sparrow. “There are hunters out in these woods. They’re hunting for deer, but a lot of times they miss and get a bird. They never collect them. These graves were here when we moved in, though. My mom and I just continued the tradition. Every time we find a bird, we bury it with the rest.”
“Really.”
“Uh-huh.”
I looked at the names on the headstones. Laila. Tristan. Penelope. Penelope was one of my father’s favorite names—it was what he wanted to name me, in fact, but my mother had staunchly refused. “So is your mom…better?”
“She eats now. She didn’t eat for a while. Everything tasted like metal.”
“Why?”
“Chemotherapy.”
“That must’ve been…” I floundered for a word. “Sucky.”
“I’d say it’s okay, but I’m sick of saying that, especially when it’s not true.”
I thought for a moment. “Maybe you could say some random word instead. Like pickle.”
“Pickle, huh?” He settled against the tree, curling his legs under him, gold stitching along the toe-line of his socks. I leaned up against a different tree about three feet from him. The rough bark cut up my back but I was afraid to move. Philip stared at me for a long time. It didn’t feel like an assault, though, just benign curiosity.
“Are your parents getting divorced now?” I blurted out.
He raised an eyebrow. “Why would they be divorced?”
“Someone told me the other day that marriage doesn’t work. That when something goes wrong, people usually bail out.”
Philip scratched his head. “Really?” He sounded hurt, maybe even worried. I sucked in my stomach, wondering why I’d said something so mean. He’d probably hate me now. He’d probably throw a rock at my head.
“Brooklyn’s near the Bronx, right?” he said after a moment.
“Yeah. Close enough.”
“My mom grew up in the Bronx. I bet she’d like to meet you guys. To talk to someone about it.” He glanced at me. “It’s not like she and my dad come from the same background. He grew up in India. And he’s Sikh.” His laugh was bitter, embarrassed. “But you probably don’t know what that is, right?”
I wiped my hair out of my face. “No, I do. A neighbor of ours, Mr. Saluja, is that. Sikh, I mean.” It explained, of course, the turban Philip’s father wore—it was a religious thing, a religion completely different from Christianity or, more importantly, Islam. Something else occurred to me—Steven knew what it meant to be Sikh, too. He used to shovel Mr. Saluja’s front walk.
“Why did you show me this?” I asked, gesturing to the graves.
He blinked. “I thought you’d like it.”
“I do.” It was warm inside my jeans pockets, the denim all soft and worn-out.
“I’ve never shown it to anyone before.”
“Why?”
He paused, considering. “I don’t know. Most people don’t deserve to see it.”
And I do? I thought, astounded.
The night seemed to grow darker, quieter, more serious. Philip let out a breath, sort of a sad laugh. Then he stepped forward. In one fluid motion, he touched my hand, and then kissed me. His lips were a quick bloom on mine and then gone. My veins filled with hot chocolate, and for a moment the world went white.
I must have had a startled expression on my face because Philip broke away fast. “Sorry. I don’t know why I just…” He trailed off and stared at the ground.
No, I liked it, I protested in my head. But I felt like I was underwater. If I opened my mouth, I’d drown. There were locusts or crickets or some chirping creatures back in the woods. I clenched and unclenched my hands, wondering if Philip had really kissed me just now, or if I’d dreamed it all up.
Suddenly I took a deep breath. “My mother left us a year and a half ago. We don’t know where she is.”
Philip turned his head a fraction, saying nothing.
“And then a couple months ago,” I continued, “we were eating dinner, and my dad took a snow globe that was sitting on our dining room table and threw it against the wall. And then he got up and picked up the biggest piece and drove it right into the center of his palm. Then he couldn’t get it out. It was stuck in there somehow. It just kept bleeding.”
“Was he…okay?” Philip’s voice was small and tentative.
“I guess. It’s healed and everything. The doctors said it was because of stress, but I don’t know. It was…awful. I’m kind of afraid he might do something like that again.”
I was afraid to say anything else for fear I’d either start crying or tell him the rest—that we took him to the emergency room, that he was screaming and crying the whole time, that he was in the psych ward for three days, that I had to visit him there. How I was certain that it was my fault, all of it, and if only I would’ve done something differently, it never would have happened. How, even deeper, I felt so angry, anger I had no idea what to do with or where to put.
I shut my eyes. “Pickle,” I recited. “Pickle, pickle, pickle.” I opened my eyes again. “I think it works.”
I looked at him and smiled. He smiled back, but it seemed weak, watered-down. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. Perhaps terror. Or disgust. Everything inside me felt like a garbage can tipped over, strewn on the forest floor. Kiss me again, I begged him silently. Please.
A twig snapped. I looked over and saw a shadow in Philip’s driveway. It moved toward us quickly. Steven.
“Oh,” I whispered.
“Who’s that?” Philip asked.
“My brother.”
I took a step toward him. Steven stood with his hands on his hips. “What do you want?” I called to him, my voice trembling.
“Come here,” Steven said, his voice a threat.
I glanced back at Philip. He stood in front of the bird graves, as if guarding them. The wind smelled like bug spray. The creek rushed angrily behind us.
“Get over here, Summer,” Steven repeated, impatient.
“I’m fine.” The words dissolved in the air space right outside my mouth. “Nothing’s wrong. We’re just hanging out.”
“Come. Here.”
Philip cocked his head, like a dog that heard a strange noise. “Maybe you should go.”
Steven’s shoulders were squared, his legs spread apart. He reminded me of the two-story cowboy statue we saw in front of a restaurant called Round ’Em Up Corral. It was somewhere on the highway, on the way in, and featured an all-you-can-eat buffet for $5.95.
I took a few steps more toward him. “Just stop it,” I hissed. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Do you know who you’re talking to?” Steven answered, not quietly at all.
“Do you?” I asked. Steven blinked. “You don’t! You don’t know anything!”
“Summer.” He wrapped his hand around my wrist, guiding me backward.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because…” He let out a small whine. It was a noise like a little kid would make, frustrated when he didn’t get his way. “You know why.”
I tried to shake him off, but he wrapped his arms around my waist and covered my mouth. I made a muffled cry, vaguely afraid. My brother’s body felt solid and warm, and for a second it was like we were embracing.
Steven continued to hold me to him, his breath hot on my neck. Tears sprang to my eyes. And then he released me, just like that. I spun across Philip’s yard. Ten feet away, Steven looked smaller. He held his arms out, staring at them as if he couldn’t believe they were his. And Philip was gone. I couldn’t feel Philip’s lips on mine anymore. When I reached for the memory, I saw my grandmother’s dead face instead. The world smelled like driveway tar, thick and black, a smell I’d always hated.
“Summer.” Steven listed toward Philip’s mailbox, a cheap steel rectangle on a tattered post. “It’s just that—”
/>
“Go away,” I said through my teeth.
He took another step, but I turned around and wheeled back for Stella’s house. “Just don’t,” I screamed over my shoulder, my voice piercing through the woods.
ten
It was raining at the cemetery, big fat drops plopping on the gazebo roof, on the crumbling headstones, on the threadbare mini American flags around the various grave sites. We huddled under an umbrella near the open plot, waiting for everyone to arrive from the funeral home.
Steven sniffed behind me. Last night, when I slipped back into the house, I found everyone in the kitchen. “Are you okay?” my father asked. “We couldn’t find you.” He was crying. In front of everyone, like he always did. Huge tears ran down his face. I hated him for crying. I hated that Samantha was standing there, an entertained little smile on her face, taking it all in. She’d seen where I’d gone and told Steven, I figured. She’d ruined everything just because she could.
And I hated that I said something to Philip. It seemed as if the whole world had heard. I was certain my father would next turn to me and say, So you’re sure I’m going to pull another snow globe incident again, huh? Some daughter you are.
I hated all of them last night. After I kicked my shoes off, I sneered at my blubbering father. “Steven’s going to join the Marines,” I spat, tasting acid in my mouth. “So you’d better do something soon if you want to stop him.”
And then I went upstairs. Steven slid in well after I’d shut myself in my room, gotten into bed, and pulled up the covers. I heard his every step on the creaky, warped wood. He paused at my room, as if he wanted to say something, but then he didn’t. Seconds later, the door to his room scraped shut.
One of the biddies that was at the wake floated over to us now, a crooked umbrella over her head. “It was a lovely service,” she croaked to my father, taking his hand.
“Yes. Absolutely,” my father answered. “Beautiful.”
