by M Sawyer
She felt ashamed that Nolin had bought food. When would she tell Nolin she’d lost her job, that she’d fallen behind in the mortgage payments? Her lips bunched together at the thought. No. Nolin wouldn’t find out. She could stay, clean up, do whatever she needed to feel like she’d patched her wounds, and she’d leave. Melissa would solve her problems on her own. Besides, she told herself, she’d rather be homeless and starving than accept help from Nolin.
Still, that chicken smelled so good.
She closed the small book of poems she’d been reading and tiptoed to the door. Her mouth watered; her knees buckled in her pajama pants. The hollow of her stomach roiled with hunger. Part of her realized how far her ribs poked out as she rested her hands on her concave stomach.
Finally, she slipped out of the room and padded down the stairs. Nolin stood in the kitchen with her back to Melissa, carving the legs and wings off a rotisserie chicken and portioning them onto two plates, along with rice and some sort of vegetable.
Nolin looked over her shoulder at the stairway. How could she hear so well? Melissa hadn’t made a sound.
“Hi,” Nolin said.
Melissa cleared her throat, stuck her chin out slightly, and continued down the stairs, trying not to look around the living room. Nolin had cleared all the trash away, the piles and stacks Melissa hadn’t found the motivation to get rid of in years.
“I see you’ve thoroughly taken over my home,” Melissa snapped.
“I grew up here. It’s my home too,” Nolin retorted. “But you can have it. I’m done with it.”
Melissa rolled her eyes. Nolin slid the two plates to the edge of the bar in front of two of the stools. She sat and began picking at her chicken.
“Eat,” Nolin ordered.
“Screw you.”
“You need food.”
Melissa snorted. “I didn’t ask you to cook.” Still, Melissa approached the bar, eyeing the pile of chicken and steamed broccoli on the other plate.
Nolin took another bite of chicken, pressing her lips together in a thin line, just like Melissa did when she was biting her tongue, or annoyed. The light outside faded. The setting sun illuminated the room in a brief bath of orange and yellow. Nolin glanced at Melissa. Her eyes travelled to her rolled-up sleeves and narrowed slightly. Melissa followed her gaze to the downy hair covering her arms and blue veins shining through her papery skin. Melissa cleared her throat and yanked her sleeves down.
“What are you looking at?” she demanded. Nolin shrugged and turned back to her food, but her eyes weren’t focused.
“Eat,” she said again.
Melissa scooted her plate an inch away.
“Mom...” Nolin said slowly, without correcting herself. “You need to eat. You’re sick. If you don’t start eating more, you’re going to get worse.”
Melissa stared at the chicken getting cold on her plate. Her pale, dry lips pressed together. Nolin reached across the bar and scooted Melissa’s plate back to her.
Melissa’s arm shot out. The plate flew across the bar like a hockey puck and careened off the counter into the wall, breaking into three big pieces. Shreds of chicken and bits of vegetables scattered around it.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Melissa hissed. She glared at Nolin. Nolin glared right back, green eyes like steel. “You cannot come to my house and tell me what to do, do you understand me? This is my house. You do not give orders. I didn’t ask you to stay, and I certainly didn’t ask you to force-feed me. You are more than welcome to leave. In fact, I suggest you do.”
Nolin folded her arms over her chest, an action she’d probably learned from Melissa. A smile curled Melissa’s lips.
“Of course. You won’t leave until you feel you finally have the moral high ground and can walk out of here with your conscience intact. This has nothing to do with me. You just want to be rid of me.”
Nolin tightened her jaw.
Melissa went on. “Do whatever you feel you need to do. You abandoned me the moment you had the chance, and you’ll do it again as soon as you feel justified.”
She slipped off her barstool and marched up the stairs, but before she disappeared into her room, she threw a glance over her shoulder as Nolin bent down to pick up the pieces of the broken plate.
Chapter 26
NOLIN BIT HER lip. She wanted to scream at Melissa to pick up the broken plate, to wipe up the food mess, but Melissa’s feet were bare and so pale. Stepping on even the tiniest bit of the broken ceramic would slice her skin like paper. She watched her mother march up the stairs. Biting words perched on the edge of Nolin’s lips like a person about to jump from a ledge.
Melissa’s words stung. Nolin longed to fire back, to march upstairs, kick open the door, and throw those words back at her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t deny her mother’s accusations. Not one word. Her guilt burned like a brand.
After she dumped the mess into the trash, Nolin picked at the rest of her dinner. She didn’t feel like eating anymore.
Her arms and legs felt heavy, weighed down by an exhaustion that seeped into her bones, into the deepest parts of her mind. Part of her wanted to collapse on the couch and sleep for days, and another part wanted to go outside in the cool evening air and run until her legs gave out.
The exhaustion won. Nolin collapsed on the couch with one arm hanging off the edge, knuckles scraping the scratchy carpet. Her hair spilled over her face, catching in her eyelashes. She opened and closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep.
Please, I just want to sleep. I’m so tired. Just let me sleep.
Floating between waking and sleep, she drifted in and out of strange dreams of climbing up an endless tree that reached into the sky. The bark and branches scratched. Her arms and legs screamed with exertion, pushing and pulling her heavy, tired body up the trunk.
But she kept climbing because of what was below her. She wasn’t sure what it was, just that it was dangerous. She had to get away from it. No matter how her body ached, how exhausted she was, she couldn’t stop or slow down. The thing below could not get her.
She never found out what, exactly, it was.
***
Nolin sat up and craned her neck to peek out the window. Moisture gathered at the corners of the glass. Brisk spring air nipped at her nose and the tips of her ears, even inside the house.
How could she be so exhausted and restless at once? If anything, a night of fitful sleep had only worsened both.
Finally, she stood, slipped off the jeans and tee shirt she’d fallen asleep in, unhooked her bra and let it drop over her shoulders. Goose bumps erupted over her arms and legs, up and down her stomach. She quickly fished a sports bra, tee shirt, and running shorts from her backpack and wriggled into them before stuffing her hair into an elastic. The little loft in the mortuary was usually much colder in the mornings than this, but something about this heavy chill sank into her skin. She stepped into her sneakers and tiptoed softly to the front door to let herself out.
Biting morning air ran its icy fingers down her arms and legs; a different cold from the empty chill in the house, a more aggressive cold. She glanced down the road both ways before darting across the street and falling into a slow jog down the sidewalk.
Not a soul out except for an old woman in a kerchief walking an equally ancient-looking mini schnauzer. Neither acknowledged Nolin, who cut a wide berth around them. Her eyes darted from side to side, taking in the familiar houses. Nothing had changed. The same houses, the same porch swings and homemade birdhouses hanging from the same trees. The same types of flowers bloomed in the gardens. Nolin might as well have stepped back in time to her childhood, the morning of the day she ran into the woods.
She pumped her legs a little faster, settling into the familiar rhythm of feet landing lightly, the toe a fraction of a second before the heel, arms pumping and cold air rushing in and out of her lungs like waves on a glacier. Street running was never her first choice. She felt too exposed on the sidewalks, too easily watched. At th
e mortuary she’d run the familiar trails in the woods under the cover of trees, sometimes running off the trails to leap over logs and pick her way through the dense ground cover.
She didn’t dare run in these woods. The woods here were darker. If she felt watched and exposed on the roads, it was nothing compared to the invisible eyes of the woods.
She shivered and lengthened her stride.
Soon, she reached the end of the small town. The steady stream of yards and houses slowed to a trickle. The only things down that long road through the hills and trees were more hills and trees. That road that way was narrow and winding, edged with carrion and white crosses and flowers where people had died in accidents. She stopped and leaned on her knees to catch her breath. In the grip of her ribcage, her heart thudded. Veins popped along her forearms and hands, pulsing with the flow of blood, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh in her ears. Frozen sweat glued her tee shirt between her shoulder blades. The tips of her ears stung in the chilly air.
Above her, wispy clouds glowed pink, then salmon, then orange. A bright sliver of sun peeked over the tip of the hill, its rays slicing the clouds like shining daggers. The white sun crawled over the edge of the horizon until its round base finally kicked off the tops of the trees and launched itself into the sky. The trees and lawns around her sparkled as the morning dew burned off in the warming sunlight.
Nolin decided to weave through the side roads, get a few more miles in before she ran out of excuses and had to return to the house. With a last glance at the colorful sunrise, she turned and bounced back into a comfortable, mindless pace.
People were starting to trickle out of their houses to retrieve newspapers, have a morning smoke, or let dogs out to squat on the lawns. Some of them looked at Nolin as she passed, their eyes meeting hers for a brief moment before flicking away. It reminded her of the teen group home she’d lived in where they weren’t allowed to make eye contact, but stayed isolated in their own little worlds while dozens of other bodies practically pressed into them in the overcrowded dorms and computer labs. If two sets of eyes ever connected, they’d dart away just as quickly.
She recognized a few of the people, though she didn’t know them by name. Several were a little more wrinkled than she remembered, hair dusted with a few more grays. One woman huddled on her front porch in a fuzzy pink bathrobe, hair dirty, gray bags under her eyes. She clutched a steaming blue mug, watching her white terrier sniff around the lawn. The dog looked up at Nolin and wagged its stumpy tail a few times before returning to its business. The woman’s eyes lingered on Nolin’s for a fraction of a second longer than the others. Nolin recognized her as Mrs. Carson, her sixth grade teacher. Recognition flashed behind the woman’s eyes, and she immediately switched her gaze to the terrier before taking a deliberate sip from her mug.
Nolin turned another corner instead of going straight back to the house. Her body still crackled with ragged energy that she knew she’d need to smooth out before she got back, or she’d be climbing the walls all day. She needed that delicious blankness, the smoothness of the mind that only came after a long run, a good day of shoveling snow, or digging up the mortuary flower bed.
About a hundred yards ahead of her, a tall, slim figure in a white tee shirt, shorts, and blue knit hat loped across an intersection. That easy, yet energetic, gait felt familiar. Then, Nolin remembered it from elementary PE ten years earlier. The figure casually scanned the road from side to side as he crossed and did a double take in Nolin’s direction.
“Nolin!” he called.
Nolin’s cheeks tinged red. She slowed to a bumpy jog, then stopped. Her legs twitched, unsure whether to run toward him or in the opposite direction.
Drew waved and jogged toward her. “Hi!”
“Hi,” she called back weakly. She took a few awkward steps toward him.
“It’s a nice morning, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah, it is.”
He stopped a few paces in front of her. She froze like a statue.
“You’re a runner?” he asked.
Nolin shrugged. “I usually run on trails. I don’t usually run on the road.”
He smiled, not breaking eye contact, unruffled by her awkwardness. “Well, I’ve got a few miles left. Join me?”
Nolin nodded nervously. She didn’t feel like going back to the house yet. He motioned for her to run beside him on the sidewalk while he ran on the shoulder of the road. He was fast for his gentle stride. His long legs covered so much distance, Nolin had to run faster to keep up.
“I’m training for a half marathon in August. I’ve never run one before, have you?” He wasn’t at all winded. His words ran smoothly between his quiet breaths.
Nolin shook her head, then answered “no” when she realized he was looking straight ahead at the road.
“I’ve done shorter races,” he continued. “They’re a lot of fun. There’s a full marathon next year through the canyon by Maxfield. I’m going to go for that too.”
Nolin smiled. She’d never met anyone so enthusiastic. It was refreshing. Her mind raced for something interesting to say. She was so accustomed to her comfortable silences with Rebecca, who said nothing unless she had something important to talk about. Nolin was used to spending her days alone in a silent graveyard with birds and graves for neighbors. Silence usually comforted her. Now the pauses in the conversation glared like blank pages. Nolin always got the feeling that normal people didn’t like silence and had to fill it with words or music.
“I’ve never thought about running races,” Nolin finally said. “I just run for me, to clear my head. I’ve never run with other people before.”
Drew nodded and grinned, carving deep dimples in his cheeks. “It’s a different experience, for sure. I love it. By the end of the race, you feel like everyone’s your friend. And running with someone is a great way to get to know them. If I learned anything from running cross-country in high school, it’s that. When you run with other people, you learn who they are. And you can’t help but like them.”
Nolin felt herself smile. Her cheeks ached. They weren’t used to working that way.
“Does it look different? The town?” he asked, looking over at her. Nolin glanced around at the houses, the trees, the cracks in the pavement.
“Not at all.”
“I bet it’s weird being back.”
She nodded. “It’s unsettling. It’s like it was waiting for me. Everything is just how I left it.”
He chuckled. “There’s nothing unsettling about this place. It’s the same people, same places, same everything. Nothing ever changes. That’s one reason I like coming home for the summers. It seems that everything in life changes so quickly. Here, it’s always the same.”
“Everything changes,” Nolin repeated, trying to remember how untethered and carefree she was only two days earlier.
She listened to the rhythm of Drew’s gentle breaths, in time with the beats of her shoes on the sidewalk. Again, her mind whirled for something to say. “I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this. Conversation.” Her cheeks grew hot.
“Why do you have to be good at it?”
“Well,” she went on, “isn’t that the main component of socializing? Conversation? The verbal exchange of ideas and feelings?”
Drew chuckled. “Do you always talk like a textbook?”
Nolin felt her cheeks grow warm. “I told you I’m not good at this.”
Drew chuckled again and reached out to lightly tap her elbow. “I was teasing. You just have a very formal way of speaking, that’s all.” His eyes flicked sideways at her, crinkled at the corners.
“Oh,” Nolin said. “I don’t pick up on teasing, I guess.”
“It’s okay, you’ll learn.”
Nolin studied his face. He looked straight ahead, that odd, resting smile still etched into his cheeks. She’d never seen someone look so content. Maybe he, like her, didn’t care to waste words either. He simply had more of them to share. His words weren’t pushing out the s
ilences, but just coaxing, gently easing her into a place where she’d have something to say.
“I don’t talk to people much,” she told him. “I live alone. I work alone. There’s just no need.”
“No pressure, Nolin. We’re just two people hanging out, on a run, just talking. It’s not hard. Just say what’s on your mind. You seem like you have a lot on your mind.”
“So I should just tell you absolutely everything I’m thinking?”
“No, just anything you want to say. And ideas or feelings you would like to exchange.”
Nolin felt a smile tug at her mouth. “You’re teasing me again.”
Drew chuckled. “See? You’re learning,” he said, punching her lightly in the shoulder. His touch felt strange. If conversation was foreign to her, touch felt downright unnatural, but not unpleasant.
Drew went on. “If there’s anything you’d like to say, say it. If not, we can watch this pretty blue sky together. It’s up to you.”
Nolin thought for a moment, rifling through her thoughts, testing their weight in her hands as if they were stones she were about to hurl into a serene pond. How far would the ripples spread?
She took a deep breath. “I probably talk like a textbook because I read a lot of textbooks.”
“There we go; this is a step. Textbooks about what?”
“Everything. A lot of biology. Psychology. Mostly my friend’s old college textbooks. They’re fascinating.”
Drew nodded, approving. “Excellent. What do you find fascinating about them?”
Nolin’s heart pounded, but not from the running. “I suppose I like the relationship between emotions and chemicals. Abnormalities. How much our personalities depend on a delicate balance of chemical reactions and electrical impulses in the brain. It’s really beautiful, actually.”
