by Jude Watson
I started to choke. I choked and choked. I couldn’t breathe. Rosie came running to help.
There was nothing in my mouth to choke on.
I ran to the phone. I called her cell, my fingers stabbing the buttons. Her cell phone had no service.
For the next four hours, I kept dialing the number, over and over and over. I just sat on the couch, dialing, while Rosie peeked in the room at me, a worried expression on her face. She kept saying, I’m sure everything is fine, and I kept dialing, not even bothering to answer her.
The next thing I knew, my grandparents were at the door. They lived two hours away, and as soon as I saw them, I knew. I put my hands over my ears and screamed. I screamed and screamed.
I am still, somewhere in my head, screaming.
They tried to keep the details from me, but you find out. A bit here, a bit there, a question you don’t want to ask but do.
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about how it happened. Don’t think about it.
I turn on all the lights. Better.
I tiptoe out into the short hallway. The house is so quiet. Even the birds haven’t woken up yet. I push open the door to the kitchen. I know just how much to push the door so that it doesn’t squeak. I squeeze in through the gap.
I turn on the kitchen light and sit at the table. It’s an old wood table, with knotholes and wide planks. I put my hands on the wood. I stick my fingers in the knotholes. Sometimes feeling things helps. After Mom died, I couldn’t understand how a table could still feel so solid. I felt like the whole world was dissolving and I would fall through the edges of things. Nothing had seemed real.
I rest my cheek against the table. It is so strange to live without touch. Mom touched my hair as she walked by. She hugged me. She scratched my feet while we watched TV. She kissed my forehead. Shay doesn’t touch me much because I flinch when she does.
If only, I think, the missing her would go away. Then maybe I could figure out how to live with everything else. The fear that I’ll always be like this is the worst.
The door squeaks behind me. I don’t know how she does it. But Shay always knows when I’m up. I sit up straight, but I don’t turn to face her. I don’t want to see anyone, not yet, not while I’m afraid.
I hear her get out the milk and pour it into a pan. I hear her rummage for cups. I hear the paper rattling as she unwraps the chocolate.
By the time I can smell the milk, I’m calmer. Shay puts a cup down in front of me. It is a blue cup with a green dot on the handle for my thumb to rest on. It’s my favorite. I haven’t told her that, but she knows.
She breaks off a piece of chocolate and puts it in the bottom of the cup. She puts a spoon and a napkin near my hand. Then she pours the frothy warm milk into my cup. I watch the milk swirl around the chocolate. Within a few seconds, I can see curls of melted chocolate in the milk.
Shay pours her own milk. We stir, the spoons tinkling softly. We take our first sip. The warmth and the sweetness fill my mouth.
The first time Shay made me hot chocolate her way, I had been shaking and crying. It’s hard to describe the feeling—it’s panic and pain and rage all mixed together, and it sent me shooting from my bed without thought, moving anywhere to get rid of what I was feeling. She had put a hand on my shoulder, and I had jerked my shoulder away. She had asked me if I wanted to talk, and I had said no, said it very loud and very strong and very mean. I had told her to go away and leave me alone.
When she didn’t leave, when I heard her rustling around the kitchen, I didn’t turn around. I wouldn’t give an inch. I didn’t care what she was doing, I didn’t want anything she had to give. I almost didn’t drink what she put down in front of me. Then I had taken the tiniest of sips, resolving not to finish it, not to give her the satisfaction. But there was something about the way she sat there, sipping her own drink, that had calmed me. She hadn’t tried to talk. She hadn’t looked at me. She had looked out at the gathering light. I had finished the hot chocolate. I was suddenly grateful for the kitchen lights, the blue cup, the silence.
I didn’t know how to say thank you. So I washed the cups instead, and the milk pan. She waited at the table. And then we went back to our beds, where I guess we both stared into space until it was time to get up.
That had set the pattern. Shay doesn’t try to touch me. She doesn’t speak. She just comes and keeps me company until morning starts.
The birds start to make a racket. The light starts out black and turns blue. I’ve never seen anything like it before. In Maryland, the day just gets lighter. Here, it gets bluer. I wonder where Emily is.
I drain the chocolate, feeling guilty at how good it tastes. And I wonder if I can stand one more death.
SIX
No news?
No news.
It goes on like that for days.
I have nothing to do but wait. Shay goes to work. There’s a line between her eyebrows now when she looks at me. I know that she wants to sit down and have a talk. I know exactly what she’s thinking, and it’s not because I can read her mind.
I do a lot of loud dishwashing, so Shay can’t start a conversation. I clean my closet and rearrange my bookshelves. I appear busy whenever she’s home, and I lay around when she’s gone.
I try to remember something else—anything else—about Emily.
I get nothing.
Sometimes all I remember is how much I wanted her to go away.
I do everything in a Novocaine-type way that I remember from the period right after Mom’s funeral. Someone dies, and for a while you do nothing. You don’t even notice anything except pain. You see strangers, people on the street, people passing in cars, and you feel like screaming at them. What are you doing? My mother is dead!
But then, incredibly, days follow each other, and there is life-stuff to do. My grandparents moved into the house so that I could finish out my freshman year. That was really nice of them. But the only bedroom they could use was Mom’s, so we had to pack some of her things away. They were careful to leave plenty of her things around—I’m sure that was Dr. Politsky’s advice, because she counseled us during the “transitions.” So they cleaned out drawers and closets, but they left Mom’s perfume bottles on the dresser and her jewelry in the little blue-and-white bowls she used to hold her earrings. That was nice of them, too, I guess. I guess I would have felt worse if they gave everything away, right away, or put things into storage. That came later.
So they moved in, and there were groceries to buy, and I had to show them where the recycling went, and how to use the washing machine, and which place had the good bread and which place had the good tomatoes. I had to do these things, so I did them. But I felt like everything was frozen, and every little act took way too much energy. I took tiny steps and moved in small ways. I tried not to speak.
My freshman year ended, and my grandparents decided that since I still wasn’t doing so well, they should move to my town permanently so I could finish out high school. But it didn’t matter if I stayed where I was. Nobody seemed to realize that.
Christmas was the worst. We put up a tree and we gave one another presents. When it got really unbearable, we mutually agreed without speaking that we would watch TV constantly instead of trying to communicate. And I slid, from December to January, into a black place that seemed worse than the first days after the accident.
It was a bad place to be.
Now reminds me of then, and that scares me. It should make me feel better, it should make me see how far I’ve come in only five months. I didn’t realize I’d gotten better, but I had. Instead it just shows me that I can slide backward so easily, right down the slope, back into where I was—a wasteland of ice.
“Hey,” Diego says.
“Hey,” I say.
This counts as a typical conversation with Diego. When I think of my cousin, I picture the back of his head. Usually because he’s heading out the door. I’ve lived here for almost five months, and he’s gone through a string of g
irlfriends, all of them named Jessica. Or maybe it just seems that way. Currently he’s engaged in marathon phone sessions with a girl named Marigold. Yes, Marigold.
I’m sitting between my bed and the wall. I heard the screen door slam, and I knew Diego was home from his summer job with a landscaping crew. I was hoping that he’d figure no one was home and leave me alone, but for some reason Diego always seeks me out to say hello before he disappears into the glow of his laptop. Shay probably makes him.
To my surprise, Diego crouches down beside me and slides into a sitting position. His legs are too long, so he props them up against the wall. He smells like freshly mown grass, and I see a few stray green spears on his bare shins. I notice that Diego is already tan. He’s got dark skin, inherited from his Spanish father, I guess. I never asked him about his father, and I haven’t asked Shay. No one in the family knows anything about what happened to Shay in Spain. They only know that she lived in Spain for a year and came back pregnant.
Shay told everyone she didn’t want to discuss it and didn’t want to answer questions. She instructed them that they were to accept and love her baby. Everyone in the family kept their mouths shut for once, and obeyed.
I wonder if even Diego knows the story. In a way, his father is even more of a mystery than mine.
Diego gives me a sidelong look. He is incredibly handsome. He’s got those dark eyes that stupid girls call “soulful.” No wonder he has a string of Jessicas.
I guess I’m staring, because Diego inches back a little, like I have something contagious. Then he drums his fingers on the floor.
“I got something for you,” he says. He sounds nervous.
“Okay,” I say cautiously.
He slides a book over. He was keeping it hidden by his side. I lean over and read the title: Psychic Power Points: How to Nurture, Develop, and Utilize Your Own Hidden Intuitive Abilities.
My blood pounds in my head. I can feel my face turning red. I didn’t know that Diego knew about me. His big-mouth mother must have told him.
By the way, your cousin Gracie is going to move in with us. We’ll have to feed her, clothe her, give up our summer porch, and include her in dinner-table conversation. And did I mention this? She’s a wacko.
I slide the book back across the floorboards at him with such force it hits his leg harder than I meant it to. He looks at me, shocked. He’s pissed off, too, I can tell. We stare at each other for a minute. After having basically no contact except “please pass the salt” for five months, it’s hard to handle our first fight.
“Don’t tell me,” Diego says with a twist to his mouth. “You’ve read it already?”
“This,” I say, putting my fist on the book, “is none of your business.”
“Okay,” Diego says. He’s nodding, but I can tell it’s not because he’s agreeing, he’s just trying to figure out the next thing to say. “That’s fine. Nothing about you is my business, right? Except that you live in my house and are in my face.”
I draw up my knees against my chest. For some reason, what he says hurts me. I didn’t think I knew Diego well enough to allow him to hurt my feelings. “It’s not my choice, in case you haven’t noticed,” I throw back at him.
“Gracie,” he says in a nicer tone. It’s weird to hear my name come out of his mouth. He never uses my name. He just says “hey.”
“What I mean is,” he continues, “ever since Emily disappeared, you’ve been holed up in here, and it’s obvious that you’re spooked about something.”
“Maybe I’m spooked because she disappeared into thin air?” I suggest.
“Mom thinks you might know something about it,” Diego says, which makes me furious again, just when I’m starting to calm down. “I don’t mean you’re hiding something,” he says quickly. “She thinks maybe you saw something…I mean, in your head.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Whatever.” I can’t tell whether Diego doesn’t believe me, or whether he really doesn’t care. “But if that’s true, I thought maybe if you knew how to access that, you could learn something that could help Emily. Or not be scared anymore, at least.”
My head jerks up. Scared. How had Diego known that?
Diego sighs, like this conversation is just too heavy for him to process. He gets up and walks out. No doubt Marigold is panting for his attention. After I’m sure he’s gone all the way down the hall, I pick up the book.
When a kid disappears, your town gets smaller. Neighbors bring things and leave them on the doorstep. People tie yellow ribbons on trees. Posters go up in every shop. Strangers hit their knees at night with one name on their lips. In every gaze, there is that awareness, that shock that a kid has been lured and taken, in the middle of a slow summer day. Your town becomes better than it was, and everyone says, how could it happen here? Forgetting the things that happen all the time—the divorces, the dad who hits mom, the depressions, the alcoholics who send their kids to school with a bag of popcorn instead of a sandwich. It happens everywhere, but suddenly, how could it happen here?
I think of the strain on the faces of Emily’s parents. I think of how that phone sat on the cushion. How Emily’s mother’s hands kept kneading the material of her pants. How Emily’s father’s broad chest seemed to have caved in.
I think of Emily against that white background, sweaty and scared.
I look at the book in my lap.
I don’t want to open myself up to this darkness, this dread. I don’t want to see any further, any deeper, than I already have.
But since I can’t do nothing, this is the least I can do.
SEVEN
The next morning is Saturday, Diego’s day off. He’s at the breakfast table, chomping his way through Shay’s homemade granola, when I stop in front of him. I put the book down on the table.
“It says that psychics can get flashes from touching things that a missing person owned,” I say. “I’ve never actually tried to get the visions. I’ve always tried to avoid them.”
He nods slowly, still chewing, his liquid eyes on my face.
“I was wondering if you’d give me a ride to Emily’s house,” I say really fast, before I lose my nerve.
He stands up, still shoveling the last of his cereal in his mouth. The spoon hits his bowl with a loud clang. “Let’s go.”
Diego must have taken a page from Shay’s rule book, because he doesn’t say anything on the drive to Emily’s. He’s probably waiting for me to say something. I’m sure an apology is in order, for example, but I’m too nervous to give one, and I’m not sure what I’d be apologizing for, anyway. For hitting him with a book? For moving into his house in the first place?
We don’t have to knock on the door. It opens immediately, and Mrs. Carbonel practically grabs us by our collars.
“Do you know anything?” she asks.
Quickly, we shake our heads. The disappointment on her face is so painful to see that I actually take a step back. Her eyes have purple smudges under them, and her hair is completely matted on one side. Mrs. Carbonel always looked a little sad to me. Now she looks insane. She was always thin, but her khaki shorts are hanging off her hips. I think she’s wearing the T-shirt she slept in. It looks creased, and there’s a stain on it that looks like coffee.
She steps away from the door listlessly, as if it doesn’t matter why we’re here now. She goes right to the sofa and sits. The phone still lies on the cushion next to her.
“I was wondering if I could see Emily’s room,” I say. I’ve been trying to think of a reason the whole way over. I don’t want to tell Mrs. Carbonel why I want to. I can’t imagine what she’d think if I told her the truth. I can’t imagine how furious she’d be at me. I would be furious at me, if I were her.
“Why?” Mrs. Carbonel asks. I’m not sure if she really is interested in the answer. Even though we’re in the room, she’s busy listening to something else going on in her head. I know that look. The world isn’t real to her now. It won’t be real to her until he
r daughter walks through the door.
I’d thought on the way over to say that I wanted to borrow something of Emily’s, something to remember her, but suddenly, that seems really stupid. It would seem like I was thinking she was dead.
Then I thought I’d say I’d left something of mine in her room. But suddenly that seems awful, too. How could I be thinking about a missing T-shirt or a CD when Emily is gone?
So instead I just stand there like an idiot.
That’s when Diego steps in. “Gracie misses Emily,” he says. “Would you mind if she just spent a little time in Emily’s room?”
Mrs. Carbonel’s eyes fill with tears. “Oh, sweetheart.” She leaps up from the sofa and hugs me. She rocks me back and forth. “Oh, sweetheart,” she says again, this time into my hair. “Of course you miss her, too.”
Mrs. Carbonel hugs me really hard, so hard I can feel her breastbone. It almost hurts, but I don’t move. I hug her back, swallowing against a huge lump in my throat. The only thing that keeps me from crying along with her is not wanting Diego to see it. I wish I could pass just a little relief from my body into hers, but I don’t have any to give.
Mrs. Carbonel turns away, rubbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Go ahead,” she says.
“Can I make you some tea?” Diego asks. His mother’s son, that’s for sure. If I leave him in the kitchen too long, he’ll be baking muffins.
I walk into Emily’s room. I’ve been here plenty of times. Without Emily, it’s just a room. A bed with a pink quilt. A dresser, a chair, a bookcase.
What should I pick? I’m not sure it matters. I pick up her hairbrush and put it down. I open the closet, but nothing seems right. I run my fingers along her clothes.
I move to her dresser and pick up a bracelet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear it. Then I see a framed photograph. It is of Emily at the beach, probably taken just this past winter, because she’s wearing a jacket and a bright striped wool scarf that I recognize. She’s grinning at whoever is behind the camera, and somehow I know it’s her father, on one of the weekends they spend together, because there is something a little too giddy about her smile. The light is just perfect. It’s one of those shots, one out of twenty-six on the roll, that you just get right. The light in Emily’s eyes, the light on the water, the striped scarf against the gray sky and rocks on the beach.
