Ready to Fall

by Marcella Pixley

  They walk me up the snowy path to the porch, my dad and Luna on one side and Lydie and Soleil on the other. Dad hands his keys to Lydie and she lets us in. The door opens and we are warm before we even step inside. I am enveloped by the familiarity of this intimate space, filled with our breath and our sweat and the cells of our skin. But at the same time, this feeling of complete familiarity makes me want to cry.

  Grandma comes to the door.

  “Max,” she says. “I was so scared.”

  “I was scared too,” I tell her.

  We sit at the kitchen table and watch Lydie make us soup.

  We don’t say anything. We are too exhausted. The twins pull their chairs close and lean against me on both sides, two small, blond heads. I put my arms around their limp, warm bodies. Lydie doesn’t seem to mind the silence. She’s busy cooking for us: Carrots. Coconut milk. Ginger. Pepper. She finds our blender in the cabinet under the sink and sets it on puree. For a full minute, our kitchen is filled with whirring blades, and that horrible sound like bones grinding. Then she finds a saucepan. She lights the burner on the stove and puts up the soup. Lydie stirs and bustles around our kitchen, finding spoons and soup bowls, tidying up the counter and table while we watch, silently, too overwhelmed to speak or move. The soup warms. She adds butter and more ginger. Soon the kitchen smells orange and spicy. She pours soup into our bowls and joins us at the table.

  “Drink up,” she says. “It’s good for you. Here’s a fun fact. Most people know that carrots are good for eyesight, but did you know that carrots are also an amazing natural brain food? It’s true. Perfect for concussions.”

  “Huh,” says my dad. “That’s good to know.”

  He takes a sip and his entire body melts.

  “It’s wonderful,” he says, sighing.

  Grandma takes a sip. Then she looks up and smiles at Lydie.

  I take a sip in spite of myself. It is heavenly. I pick up the bowl with both hands and drink and drink until I am warm and orange on the inside, and I can’t help but close my eyes so I can taste it better, the way all things taste better with your eyes closed, buttery and thick going down.

  Dad raises the bowl to his lips and drinks until his bowl is empty.

  “Thanks,” he says when he is finished, and I know that he is thanking Lydie for more than the soup.

  “You’re welcome,” says Lydie. She washes the dishes and puts them in the drainer to dry. Then she comes back to the table and kisses me on the head. I don’t stiffen or move away. I let her do it. I don’t know why. Her lips are warm from the soup.

  “Get some rest,” she says.

  We nod, too exhausted to say anything. Dad starts to get up from his chair to walk her to the door, but Lydie pushes him down gently. “Don’t,” she says. “I’ll let us out. I’ll call you tonight to see how you’re doing, okay? Take it easy. And take care of each other.”

  She takes Luna by one hand and Soleil by the other.

  “Take care of each other,” says Luna.

  Lydie kisses Luna on the top of her head, smiles at us, and walks with the twins over to the front door. The door closes behind her, a soft, careful thump, much too soft to be final. Soon, I can hear the engine turn over, the sound of her car pulling off down the road.

  PAPER CRANES

  The first hours go by quiet as a cloud. Dad falls asleep on the couch. Grandma covers him with a quilt. He holds it to his cheek and curls toward the wall. Then she sits down in the armchair and falls asleep too. The discharge sheet says I’m supposed to rest my brain. No reading. No screens. I break the rules once, texting Fish that I’m home and okay, and then I wander through the house like a ghost, passing through one room after another, picking things up, holding them, and then putting them back. I do not feel tethered to the world. I have seen the inside of my brain and it is empty.

  Do you miss me? whispers the tumor, his voice still sarcastic but more distant now, an echo of smoke and shadows. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to block out his voice. I was the only thing left of her. Now that I’m gone you have nothing. And then a wisp of laughter. The last note, the tail end of it, rises and curls into the air so that it sounds like a sob, broken, plaintive, and desperate.

  I wander into my dad’s bedroom. An empty bed with one pillow. A photograph of Mom on the dresser. I start opening drawers. Here are Dad’s white socks, rolled into tight balls. Here is a drawer filled with black T-shirts from various epic heavy metal rock concerts. Then I open one more drawer. Inside, there is a jewelry box. I lift the lid with trembling fingers. I find things Mom used to wear, a turquoise pendant, a charm bracelet. And then I see what I realize I’ve been looking for this entire time, tucked away. A small folded piece of paper with my name printed across the bottom in capital letters, the scrawl of a five-year-old boy. M A X.

  Carefully, I unfold the paper. I know what I will find there, but even so, my hands are shaking because I haven’t seen this since that first day when Mom came home from the hospital. I unfold it again and there is the picture of an orange boy riding on a purple dragon. I am flooded with the hopefulness and fear of that drawing, the heartbreaking promise of crayons and imagination, the blessing of tears, Grandma hugging me: It will be okay, it will be okay, Max, because we needed it to be okay even if it was only for a moment.

  I find a lighter in Dad’s sock drawer. It is exactly what I need. I come downstairs with the lighter and the drawing of the dragon in my pocket. Dad and Grandma are still asleep, Grandma in the chair and Dad on the couch, but Dad is facing outward now, the quilt crumpled in a heap on the floor beside him. I pick it up and cover him again. His hair is rumpled and his face is filled with shadows. He opens his eyes with a start.

  “Are you feeling all right?” he asks. “Does your head hurt?”

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” I say.

  I don’t tell him that what hurts now is the emptiness.

  I swing on Dad’s plaid jacket. I put the lighter and the picture of the purple dragon in my pocket. I know what I need to do.

  “Where are you going?” asks Dad.

  “Just into the backyard to get some air,” I say.

  “Don’t be long,” says Dad.

  “I won’t.”

  Outside, the sun glances off bare trees, shining through icicles. I watch the sky until the silence is broken by the sudden sound of a car engine and Smashing Pumpkins blaring from an open window. The rusted car swerves back and forth along our street and then lurches to a halt in front of my house. Oh my lord. It’s Fish.

  She shuts off the engine, leaves the keys in the ignition, leaps out the door, and runs into my arms.

  “I stole my mom’s keys,” she says. “She’s sleeping, so she doesn’t even know I’m gone, but I had to see you. I got here in one piece. No one pulled me over. It’s a minor miracle.”

  “You’re crazy.” I sigh, wrapping my arms around her. We hug for an eternity.

  “Tell me about your head,” she says finally.

  “I have a concussion,” I say. “I’m staying home from school for a few days, but I’m going to be okay.”

  “I was worried,” says Fish. “You kept talking about walruses.”

  “I thought I had brain cancer,” I tell her.

  Fish throws back her head and laughs, but then stops when she realizes I’m not joking.

  “You thought you had brain cancer?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Since the funeral. I accidentally invited the tumor to move in and it was a terrible tenant. A total pig. Peed on the walls. Broke a window. I couldn’t think about anything else.”

  “That’s weird,” says Fish.

  “Isn’t it? All this time, I’ve been worrying about dying instead of living. And then the doctor showed me the CT scan, and it turns out there’s nothing in there at all.”

  Fish reaches up and puts her hands on either side of my face. “Nothing but straw,” she says, pretending to pull a piece from my ear.

  “Maybe the great and powerful
Oz can fix me.”

  “I think he did already,” says Fish. “He fixed you so good, you ended up in the emergency room with a concussion. Which proves that while you may not have a tumor, you do have a nice juicy brain. And a heart. And courage. All we need are some ruby slippers and I’ll click my heels three times and everything will go back to normal. Mom will be sober and Dad will be home and everything will be peachy.”

  “But it doesn’t ever work out that way, does it?” I say.

  “Nope,” says Fish. “When I get home, Mom will still be drunk as a skunk and the house will still be a holy mess.”

  “At least we’ve got each other,” I tell her.

  “That’s a pretty good at least,” says Fish.

  Inside my pocket, the blue woman is kneeling on her shard, whispering to the orange boy, stroking his head. I put my arm around Fish and we walk together into the backyard. The sun slants through the bare branches, casting long shadows on the snow. I clear snow off the bench in the fallow garden. We sit side by side. A crow lands in the stone birdbath and then takes off, screeching. I reach into my pocket. Fish puts her head on my shoulder.

  “Remember I told you I used to have a sketchbook filled with dragons?” I say.

  “And I told you mine was filled with unicorns.”

  I kiss her head. “That’s how I knew I was going to like you. Well, today I found a drawing I hadn’t seen in eleven years.”

  “What was it?” says Fish.

  I take the drawing out of my pocket and Fish and I unfold it on our laps like a map. We peer at it together. It feels right, somehow, looking at it with her, as though doing this now throws me back in time to comfort myself when I was five. Here is the purple dragon. Here is the orange boy. Here are the letters M A X scrawled across the bottom, the long hard marks of a desperate hand.

  “Oh, Max,” says Fish. “This is who you were.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Hello, little Max,” says Fish.

  “Hello,” I say.

  She runs her fingers across the face of the orange boy, across the back of the dragon, and then she traces each letter: M A X.

  “She had just come home from the hospital after a double mastectomy. This picture was supposed to make her feel better.”

  “I bet it did,” says Fish.

  “I found it in her jewelry box.”

  “It must have been precious to her,” says Fish.

  “I’ve always wondered where it went.”

  “What are you going to do with it?” Fish asks me.

  “Burn it,” I say.

  “But then you won’t have it anymore,” says Fish.

  “I know,” I say. “But it belongs to her and she should have it.”

  “You’re brave,” says Fish.

  “No I’m not. I’m scared of everything.”

  “It takes bravery to let things go. Can I burn a picture too?”

  “Sure. We can help each other.”

  “But what if mine gets mixed up with yours and your mother ends up with both of them? I don’t think she would like me very much if she saw what I’ve been drawing.”

  “She would love you,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” asks Fish.

  I’m sure, says the blue woman standing on her tiptoes and spreading her arms wide.

  “I’m sure,” I say.

  Fish takes her sketchbook out of her shoulder bag and opens to the page with that horrible drawing of herself and The Monk, the one with the handcuffs. “We were no good together,” says Fish. “We played head games. On again. Off again. Never exactly boyfriend and girlfriend, but not just friends either. He comes on strong. I pull away. He gets jealous. I get mad. He gets hurt. I feel guilty. We get back together, and then it starts all over again. But I’m done with all that. I’m ready for something real. Do you really think your mom’s going to like this picture?”

  “She’ll like that you’re being brave,” I say.

  Fish puts our drawings together and folds them into a single paper crane. We each hold one wing. I flick the lighter. The flame is blue and bright. The purple dragon and the orange boy smile at me. So do the twisted Fish and the twisted Monk and all their pain, the blue flame coming out of the dragon’s mouth. They wave to us. Goodbye goodbye. I let the paper crane catch fire. Then I shove the lighter back into my pocket and we wait together. There it goes. The pictures burn together and curl and turn to ash. They blend and blur. Orange boy. Handcuffs. Dragon. It doesn’t take long. We blow out the flame before it burns our fingers and all that’s left are two charred corners, which we blow into the air. There is a breath of wind. The trees wave goodbye. The last shards of paper rise into the perfectly blue sky. They swirl in the air and vanish.

  SHARD

  On Monday I stay home from school while Dad is at work. I follow the doctor’s advice: no reading, no screens, and no stress allowed. Instead I do quiet things with Grandma. We play gin rummy. We make rubber-band balls. We water the plants. When we’re tired, we take naps on the couch.

  Just before dinner, the dean of students calls and says he wants to speak to both Dad and me. Dad puts it on speakerphone so we can hear together. The dean’s voice is low and serious. He says he didn’t call over the weekend because of the accident, but someone in the community saw me drinking downtown with a member of the faculty. Administration also knows that I was out late with several boarding students who were caught breaking curfew.

  The dean tells Dad how serious this all is because they need to be able to trust their students to represent the school both on and off campus.

  The review board has taken actions to make certain that none of the individuals involved in this event will repeat their mistakes.

  Dr. Cage has been fired.

  The boarding students who broke curfew have been issued demerits.

  I will be issued a behavioral warning.

  If I ever break the code of conduct again, my financial aid package will be revoked.

  Dad assures the dean that this will never happen again. He explains how important Baldwin is to both of us. Then he thanks the dean for calling, apologizes again, and hangs up.

  Dad exhales and looks at me for a very long time.

  My stomach feels like lead.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Dad. “I know.”

  “I got everyone in trouble. I got my favorite teacher fired. This is horrible.”

  “It is,” says Dad. “It’s horrible.” And then, instead of telling me how disappointed he is, he grabs me and hugs me hard.

  * * *

  Later that night I call Fish on the phone and tell her about what the dean said, how if I break one more rule they might take away my scholarship. Fish fills me in on what happened to our friends. The Monk dropped her off before they headed back to campus so no one knows she was involved, but the others were caught coming in late. This morning the dean called them into his office one at a time and doled out the punishments. Ravi, Smitty, and Griswald all got warnings for breaking curfew, and since he was the one driving, The Monk was put on probation, which means they are going to watch him like a hawk and from now on, no more driving on or off campus. “Can you believe that?” she says. “No more Lady J. No more late-night adventures. It’s the end of an era.”

  I ask her why she didn’t tell me sooner.

  “I didn’t want to stress you out,” she says, “and I figured bad news could wait.”

  When I ask about Cage, she sighs and says he’s gone already. Just like that. They replaced him with this young guy who doesn’t believe in being critical. Who are they kidding? No one can replace Cage. I feel so terrible. I’ve ruined everything for everyone. But Fish tells me to stop worrying and try to get some sleep. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she whispers into the phone, her voice soft as honey. “I’ll call you every night.” Fish recites my favorite lines from Hamlet into the phone. “Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
/>   But how can I sleep when I feel so guilty?

  At about midnight, Grandma wanders into the room and sits on my bed.

  “Why aren’t you sleeping?” she says.

  “I’m thinking about what an idiot I am.”

  “Stop it,” says Grandma. “You’re not an idiot.”

  “I got my teacher fired. I got all my friends in trouble. How am I ever going to fix this?”

  “You can’t. But you can apologize. And hope they will forgive.”

  “How can I apologize to Dr. Cage? They fired him. He’s gone.”

  Grandma smiles at me. “You’ll find a way,” she says. Then she tucks my blankets around me. “You should get some sleep,” she whispers. “The doctor said that rest is the most important thing for you right now.” She kisses my forehead and turns off my light.

  * * *

  The days pass. Fish keeps her word. She calls every night. Tuesday turns to Wednesday and Wednesday turns to Thursday. All I do at home is think about her face. I draw pictures in my sketchbook. I imagine how it would feel to touch her. Sometimes I touch the drawings instead. Finally it’s Friday morning. Time for me to go back to school. I come down the stairs all dressed and ready. Dad is still in the shower. Grandma is waiting for me at the kitchen table, an angel with white hair and a white nightgown. She smiles when she sees me.

  “Hey there, early bird,” she says.

  The kitchen smells like heaven. She has set a place for me with a glass of orange juice and a whole plate filled with matzo-meal latkes and grape jelly. It’s been a long time since I was hungry. She watches me the way only a mother or grandmother can watch you eat, without wanting a bite for themselves, just watching you chew and swallow because they made it for you, and they want you to love it.

  “There is something secret about this breakfast,” says Grandma, smiling.

  “You made it yourself,” I say.

  “That’s not it!” says Grandma, and she is so pleased with herself, she looks like she is going to burst into blossom. “You have to finish your breakfast to know. You have to eat everything.”