If These Wings Could Fly

by Kyrie McCauley

  “Hey, lovebirds!” Campbell yells, a beacon of annoying little sister if there ever was one. “Hot chocolate time!”

  “It’s hot chocolate time,” I whisper against his lips.

  “Then we should go,” he says, and straightens. “I don’t want to be on Campbell’s hit list.”

  “Pff, join the club. There are so many members.”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Liam’s eyes go to the branch just past my ear, and he reaches a hand out. There is an envelope tucked into the pine needles. It has a few drops of wetness on it. The front says in simple, nine-year-old scrawl: JOE.

  “Look,” I tell Liam, and open it up. A handful of peanuts fall into the snow, and I stoop to collect them again.

  “‘Dear Joe,’” Liam reads aloud. “‘I’m so sorry for the hunt. I hope none of your friends got hurt. Please stay close to the house so you are safe. Here are some peanuts. Thank you for the new marbles, I love them. Love, Juniper Barnes, age 9.’”

  Liam reads it again, silently this time, and then holds it up like it’s a precious ancient artifact. “Are you kidding me? Juniper writes letters to Joe?”

  “Yes. And he brings her presents.”

  “Presents?”

  “Feathers, marbles, an old button. She has a pile on her dresser.” I don’t mention the wallet, or the bracelet, or the ring. For some reason they feel beyond the reach of this conversation. Beyond cute and whimsical. More like strange and absurd. Impossible.

  “That is the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Right?” I return my focus to the conversation. “My bird guy said crows have been recorded doing this kind of thing before. They are smart enough for reciprocity. So yeah, Juniper feeds them—and writes notes—and they leave gifts.”

  We return the note to its safe hiding place in the tree, peanuts and all, and head inside.

  As we sip hot cocoa, I nudge Liam under the kitchen table.

  “This is the most normal day I’ve had in ages. Thank you for coming over.”

  “Normal with bird letters and presents?”

  “Normal for us,” I clarify.

  “Well said,” Liam tells me. He kisses me over our cups just as my mom walks into the kitchen, but she pretends not to notice. On her way back out of the room, she winks at me.

  Hello, Mom. I see you in there.

  She burns so much brighter when he’s not here.

  And just like that, the spell breaks. I hear a car rumbling outside. When I step to the window, I pray for a plow, which is the only vehicle I can think would find our road under inches of snow.

  It’s not a plow.

  He’s home early.

  Mom moves past me, stepping onto the front porch to greet him with a kiss and a cup of cocoa. He accepts both with a smile. Then he gestures at Liam’s car.

  “Back early?” I ask when he enters the house. His smile falters for just a moment, and then it’s back.

  We have company.

  On cue, Liam comes into the kitchen.

  “Oh, hello . . . sir.”

  Even as an afterthought, my dad seems to appreciate the show of respect. He steps forward and extends his hand. “Liam, right?”

  Liam nods.

  “Nice to finally meet you. Leighton’s told us so much about you.”

  Liar. I’ve only told Mom, and she told you.

  “You like trucks, Liam?” he asks, pointing to his pride and joy out front. “Mind giving me a hand cleaning out the snow?”

  “Sure, yeah,” Liam says, and they move outside. I want to hold Liam back, but I have no good excuse for doing so, and it would just make everything more tense and awkward.

  “He’s back really early,” I say to Mom.

  “Didn’t want to get snowed in away from home,” she says knowingly. “Especially since it’s a holiday weekend.” She expected him.

  “You could have told me,” I say.

  “So you could tell Liam to leave?” she says, her words sharp.

  Of course, I want to snap back at her. Of course I didn’t want them to meet.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, they come back in from the cold, shaking their shoes off in the mudroom. We are starting dinner, spaghetti boiling on the stove while Campbell and Juniper set the table.

  I catch the tail end of their conversation about college.

  “Those are excellent schools,” my dad says. “You must have, what, a perfect GPA? And you play ball?”

  “It’s pretty good,” Liam says. I can’t read his face, and I want to know everything that was said outside. “But I think Leighton’s GPA is just a little higher than mine.”

  “Our girl is smart,” Dad says. “She’s gonna do great at main campus next year.”

  “What, like state school? But Leighton wants—” I shake my head from behind my dad, and Liam stops short.

  They start talking about the football season, and how well the Wolves are doing. I keep listening, not for the words, but the tone. Football is a hard subject in this house. This calm moment could shift with no provocation, or at least, nothing I’ve been able to identify. Sometimes all it takes is one word out of place, an imagined slight, and it’s like the whole room changes, a string pulled tight across it. And after that, even the smallest motion can snap it, and unleash whatever he’s pent up for weeks.

  There’s nothing out of place at all, but the creature in my chest shifts and tugs at my insides, waiting, pacing. It’s inevitable that this house will break again.

  But when?

  Liam is still standing in the mudroom in his wet boots, and when my eyes meet his, he gestures outside.

  “I should go before sunset. This is gonna turn icy.”

  “Yeah, of course,” I say, relief making me answer too fast.

  “Sure you don’t want dinner?” my dad asks.

  Is there an edge to his voice? Did I hear that?

  “The roads could get dangerous,” I say, and look to Mom for help.

  “Why don’t you walk Liam out? But hurry back to help with dinner.”

  I tug on boots and open the front door and pull Liam along with me until we are crunching through the snow on the front lawn.

  “You could’ve grabbed your coat,” Liam says at his car door. But then he rubs up and down my arms with his hands to warm me, and I’m glad I left the coat.

  I glance at the house. Picture-perfect from out here: a family cooking dinner together. Juniper laughs. Campbell smiles, always despite herself.

  I smile at Cam’s smile and will the thing in my chest to quiet. Everything is fine tonight. Nothing jagged or sharp to cut that taut string.

  Not yet, warns the creature inside of me.

  “Today was fun. Impressive snowball-packing skills, Barnes.”

  I smile at him and wonder if my smiles all look as forced as Campbell’s smiles do.

  Liam begins to lean in to kiss me—I step back, my boot landing on a patch of ice, and I scramble to catch my balance. Liam’s hand finds my elbow, steadies me. “What’s up, Leighton? You’re all over the place.”

  “Sorry. Just. Not when he can see.” I nod at the house. I’ve never really dated before, and I don’t know what kind of reaction to expect after Liam leaves. And I want the space back between these things, enough space that I can enjoy hanging out with Liam and not have it associated with the tension I’ve been holding on to all afternoon.

  “Shit, sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “Not that kind of sorry. Just. I’m sorry you have to worry about every little thing.”

  We say goodbye, and I run back to the house, my arms frozen without Liam’s warm hands on them. The scene in our dining room is calm, normal . . . terrifying. I’m safe right now, but I’m about to fall. I know it, because the thing inside of me knows it, as sure as anything.

  It quakes in my chest, scared of nothing, because that’s all that happened today: nothing. But every good day here ends with the phrase that’s been thrumming through my
chest all afternoon.

  Not yet.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  NOT YET LASTS FIVE DAYS, AND then Mom’s cry wakes me in the middle of the night.

  Seconds later, the girls burst into my room. The door flies on its hinges, smashing against my wall. I am with them in a moment, noting how pale they are, how wide their terrified eyes.

  “What happened?” I ask, pulling them into the room. It’s 3:47 a.m. Witching hour.

  “I don’t know,” Cammy says, her voice cracking as she starts to cry. “It’s bad. I think he’s hurting her.”

  Juniper cries, too.

  “Okay, it’s going to be all right.”

  I shepherd them straight to the armoire. Part of me wishes it still locked just for some added layer of protection, but our grandfather was always terrified we’d get ourselves trapped inside someday, so he took the key away long ago.

  “Go in with Campbell, June Bug. Campbell, close the door. No lantern. Stay in there, no matter what. Do you understand?” Campbell nods.

  I’m nauseated at the idea of leaving the girls hiding alone in the dark. But then I hear her, again. Not a sharp cry this time, but a whimper.

  “We are fine, Leighton,” Cammy says, pulling June in tight. “Please help Mom. Please.”

  I run down the stairs, but then when I hit the bottom step, I freeze. I wait. I listen.

  They are in the kitchen, but when I look around the banister, they are out of sight.

  “Please, stop,” Mom says, her voice a strained whisper. “Let me go.”

  The willpower it takes to not go to her is unprecedented. I pretend my feet are now a part of the stairs themselves and I couldn’t possibly lift them. I’m nothing but the carpet, the wall, the stair. Less than that. A hair on the carpet. A spot on the wall. A nail in the stair. I’m not even here at all.

  Because I can’t just go to her. If he is hurting her, my sudden presence could escalate everything.

  So I wait, and I sit on our narrow staircase.

  I press my feet against the cold wall, hard. It is fine. She is fine. It’s going to be fine. I repeat the mantra, with my eyes shut. I feel something give under the heel of my foot. A crack appears in the wall where I was pushing on it. It splinters up, past my toes. Past the nails on the wall where the pictures are no longer hanging. They litter the staircase like birds that just suddenly fell from the sky for no reason. The line on the wall continues to grow, even though I’ve stopped applying pressure. I stand to watch as it reaches the ceiling, and doesn’t stop. It turns outward, breaking the ceiling. The tiniest fracture line, but it’s splitting the whole room in half. Like the house was just waiting for the slightest provocation to fall apart.

  I’m still watching the line when they come into the living room.

  Mom isn’t crying, but I can tell that she was. Her face is puffy and red, and when she sees me standing on the stairs, she shakes her head. She doesn’t have to say a word to convey a message. She wants me to go upstairs, but I’m rooted in my spot. He catches the subtle movement, though. There. The glimmer of silver. Not the dull gray of his gun.

  He’s holding a kitchen knife.

  I think of the crawl space. The stupid crawl space. I feel like I’m already in it, walls closing in. Which is stupid, because if you are dead you can’t feel claustrophobic.

  “Let’s go back in the kitchen,” Mom says. Her voice is light, like there’s nothing wrong. But this isn’t her pretending everything is okay. This is her trying to convince him. He looks at me and sneers. His nose is running and his eyes look wild. Mom takes his hand, leads him into the kitchen. He places the knife on the counter.

  I step off the stairs. I follow. I’m so dumb, but I want to take her with me. I cannot leave her down here with him.

  “Let’s go to bed, Mom, it’s late,” I say.

  “She’ll go to bed when I fucking tell her to, Leighton. Get out of here.”

  I don’t listen. Instead, I grab Mom’s hand, and I try to pull her along.

  He charges at me.

  I am shoved against the kitchen countertop. The force of the impact knocks the wind out of me. When I turn around, he towers over me. Eyes bloodshot. How can he hate me this much?

  He spits in my face.

  Mom screams at him, pushes him away from me.

  Mom is crying, lifting me to my feet.

  “Go, Leighton,” Mom says, leaning in to brush my hair behind my ear and wipe off my face.

  She pulls me in tight. Whispers in my ear that everything is fine.

  I let go of her. I run away from the kitchen with its too-bright lights, where Mom is crying and the knife is on the counter and the gun is on the fridge. I run until I’m safe, tucked into the armoire with the girls, breathing harshly and choking on tears.

  A few minutes later, I hear the front door slam, and I burst from our hiding spot and down the stairs. I hear the engine rev on his truck a few times before he pulls away.

  He’s gone.

  Auburn, Pennsylvania

  December 6

  CROW POPULATION:

  56,221

  Chapter Forty-Five

  WHERE DOES IT HURT? MOM WOULD ASK.

  When I was four and I stepped on a piece of scrap metal in the yard and sliced the bottom of my foot open. When I was seven and woke up in the middle of the night, on fire with a fever. When I was eleven and couldn’t stop sobbing when I got my period the first time and thought that I was dying.

  This time it is Mom who fell down. Mom who is hurt. Sick, maybe.

  Confused.

  “Where does it hurt?” I ask her, searching.

  “Everywhere,” she says. She is hunched over, curled in upon herself, facing the kitchen floor. Her tears don’t even touch her cheeks: they fall straight from her eyes, into air, onto the linoleum. I can hear the crows on top of the house. On the mailbox. On the street.

  Cawing.

  Like a chant.

  I want to help her, to comfort her. I lean in closer, to remind her that she’s safe now, he’s gone.

  But she already knows, because those are the words she is whispering.

  He’s gone. He’s gone. Why is he gone?

  And then I realize that she doesn’t hurt everywhere because of him grabbing her face, calling her ugly names, holding a knife against her throat, telling her she’s better off dead than without him, telling her that he’ll take her to hell himself.

  She hurts because he left.

  She hurts because she wants him to come back.

  Where does it hurt? I ask myself this time.

  Everywhere.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  I WAKE UP WITH A STOMACHACHE. Mom and my sisters are all in bed with me, Campbell stretched across the foot of the bed. We are like Tetris pieces, fitting together just right. I untangle myself and go to the window, steeling myself for the image of his truck parked outside.

  It isn’t there. I guess he stayed at the office again, which is nothing more than a trailer in a lot, surrounded by the few work vehicles that Barnes Construction still owns. It must have been freezing.

  The thing in my chest is unusually quiet. No pounding heart. No flutters of fear. Just an aching sadness that I can’t quite place.

  I hear the bed groan behind me, and Mom climbs out, settling Juniper back to sleep with a murmur and a soft kiss.

  “Coffee?” she asks, dark circles under her eyes. She borrows a brush off my nightstand and tugs her hair into a messy French braid that curls down the side of her neck, her breasts, her ribs.

  “Yeah,” I say, and we sneak out of the room together.

  I watch her as she brews it, and pours it, and as she sits at the table across from me, pushing the milk over to my side. I don’t know what I’m looking for—some kind of sign that this is it. The morning after when she says enough.

  I don’t see any sign.

  “Remember malaphors?” I ask.

  She’s silent a moment, and I wonder if she heard me, or if she�
��s too buried in her thoughts. But then she shifts, sips her coffee, and looks up, bright blue eyes as clear as ever.

  “Let’s burn that bridge when we get to it,” she says.

  “Don’t judge a book by another man’s treasure,” I counter.

  “A bird in the hand is worth two birds with one stone.”

  I smile. It was a game we played when I was younger. We’d try to find the best nonsensical combination of idioms and metaphors. Mom was always brilliant at it. And Dad liked to lose to her. He liked how clever she was. Now our cleverness irritates him. It’s like he thinks we are mocking him, all the time. Like the town. Like his father.

  “Scaredy-cat got your tongue,” I say.

  “Sleep with the fish out of water.”

  “Home is where the crow flies,” I say. Home. It feels like I’ve sworn in front of her.

  “Mom . . .” I start. “You need a restraining order. We need a restraining order.”

  “Leighton, don’t start.”

  “Mom—” My hands are shaking. Hot coffee drips all over my fingers.

  “I know last night was scary, but he’s been under a lot of pressure. You know construction work slows and stops in winter, and we have a lot of bills. We could lose the house, Leighton.”

  “You could make him leave.”

  “This is his home. He grew up here. Let’s go stay with Nana for the weekend. We’ll let things blow over.”

  “Forget things blowing over. Things have blown up.” I stand and start to walk away. I’ve never been this mad at her before.

  “I’m gonna take the girls to see Nana. What are you going to do?”

  I ignore her and stare out the window at the snowy lawn.

  “Leighton, I don’t want to make any rash decisions. This is my marriage.”

  “You sound ridiculous.”

  “I’m still your mom. This isn’t your decision. It’s not your job to take care of the girls, either.”

  “Well, somebody has to do it.”

  These words have teeth, and we fall silent after I say them. Mom turns away, but not before I see the hurt on her face. I feel shame like a splinter inside of me, embedded in my skin, and I hate that I feel guilty for causing her any pain, when she overlooks mine so easily.