The View From Who I Was

by Heather Sappenfield

  Chateau Antunes was constructed of stucco and stone and had a turret on one end, an observatory with a copper roof on the other. Part of that roof rolled back to glass beneath. On that one night a week when Dad was home, we could usually find him in there, leather recliner stretched out, gazing at the sea of stars, a highball glass balanced on his stomach, its amber liquid rocking on his breaths. And always, drifting down from the speakers, this same CD of a woman singing mournful songs in a foreign language.

  Star charts hung on the walls. A huge telescope stood in the room’s center. But Dad usually just lay back and gazed up. I guess he was fascinated by the atmosphere and the universe. Once, as we built a sandcastle on the beach in the Bahamas, one of our few memories with Dad, he said the sky was actually one big ocean, the universe beyond, too. Ocean upon ocean upon ocean.

  “What do you mean?” We were only nine but excited at this rare moment with him. We were the one building that sand castle, and Dad just knelt next to us. We squatted, gripping a red plastic shovel. Down the beach, three seagulls squawked to flight and hovered, wailing. Dad glanced at them and scanned the sky. We craned over our shoulder to look at the loud birds and tried to imagine them swimming through the air.

  “It starts with the sun,” Dad said. “Its energy strikes the earth’s atmosphere. That atmosphere moves and rushes in response. It becomes currents, which swell and thin, creating weather. This weather blows across the ocean, making waves. The waves roll onto the shore, finally depositing the sun’s energy as ripples in the sand. It’s a long, long journey.”

  His eyes slid across our cheek to the sea and then to someplace far away. We imagined it was to himself as a kid in Portugal. He would have been only a year older. The grown-up kneeling next to us transformed to a boy. He nodded, kept nodding, so lost and sad. We looked at the sun, then back at him, and he was Dad again.

  “Will you help me build my castle?” we said.

  He smiled so sadly.

  “Dad?”

  He rose, brushed sand from his knees, and walked away.

  A sort of shiver passed through us, a sensation like sound buckling air, and I was born. I watched him move away from us through her eyes, reasoning, doubting, judging what we’d done to make him leave.

  Now, at eighteen, we’d wander soundlessly down the long, plank-floored hallway from our bedroom, unable to sleep, and yearn to crawl into that recliner beside Dad. But he was made of sharp edges, so we’d just hover in the doorway, silent, and watch him scan that abyss. We imagined him drifting on that singer’s sad words, searching for an anchor.

  Sometimes we’d picture Mom, snoozing like a rock in their turret bedroom at the house’s other end, the fake fireplace that passes through to their bathroom blazing away. Usually, though, she’d be downstairs in the theater, curled in a recliner of her own, watching a movie, sleepless too.

  Now Corpse lay propped up in pillows, me hovering at her shoulder. Against her leg leaned our bible: the Schauberger book. Open in her lap rested the leather journal Gabe gave us last September, for our eighteenth birthday. On its tooled-leather cover, a giant oak stretched across a hillside. For four months we’d been scrimping on homework and writing in that journal instead. Like I said, we’d been a whiz in school, especially science. Lately we’d been fascinated by water, so most of the pages were about that. We’d also copied our favorite Dickinson poems into it: first from an online reproduction of those socially acceptable versions her friends had published, then, beside each, line-for-line, their original archived versions. We’d even tried to mirror Dickinson’s handwriting—her

  narrow dashes, her forward slant, her round loop for capital letters. Corpse ran her finger down the margins between those first published poems and their real selves, wondering.

  She turned to a blank page and scrawled orbits and breathe, below. Below that, home.

  Writing in our journal used to help, but now it hurt. Her pencil and the two fingers holding it were suspended over air. Her thumb tired fast. Typing would be nigh impossible.

  I’d been trying to puzzle out what I was. I’d always been our thinker, reasoner, doubter, but now I was out here. A spirit? A soul? That didn’t seem right. Was this permanent? She was nothing without me. I considered whether I was like Aladdin’s genie, released from the lamp of our body. Yet I was tethered to Corpse’s flesh, had found that when she slept, I could stay alert for only minutes after her. I wondered if I had the power to grant her wishes. What would those wishes be? Death was off-limits after her promise to Dad.

  Sugeidi trod in, took the half-full glass of water from our nightstand, filled it at our bathroom sink, and set it back down.

  “Drink,” she said.

  “Sugeidi, I can’t,” Corpse said. “It makes me pee, and my feet are killing me.”

  “Drink.”

  Arguing with Sugeidi was like telling a tree to step aside. But the slow, steady way she moved around the house had always comforted us. Corpse took the glass, and for a minute there was only the sound of liquid rolling down her throat. Sugeidi folded back the blanket, once, twice, and unwrapped the gauze covering Corpse’s feet. Bloody blisters had formed on the soles, and the rest was patched purplish-blue. They, along with her hands, issued a monotonous ache. A croak caught in Sugeidi’s throat.

  Sugeidi had lived in Crystal Village for thirteen years. All four of her kids had moved to this tourist valley from Mexico for the high wages unavailable in Monterrey. She’d followed them. Her husband came too, but he was killed a year later in a hotel construction accident. I had a faint memory of finding her crying at the kitchen sink, our six-year-old self hugging her leg to comfort her.

  When we were little, she’d been our nanny too. I supposed she still was. Mom gave Sugeidi weekends off, and she stayed with Jesus, her oldest, in their double-wide at the trailer park. She was never much of a talker, we could always feel what Sugeidi was thinking. When she did talk, it was worth listening. English came hard for her, and she selected her words like she selected apples at City Market. Sometimes she’d say a thing, and we’d think That’s not right, but then we’d consider what the word really meant, see why she’d used it, and realize the many ways of moving through this world.

  That one croak she’d just made at the sight of Corpse’s feet was an entire lecture.

  In our bathroom she ran the tap. Corpse studied the pink beaded purse on our dresser. The one we’d left at the winter formal. Who had delivered it here? In it was our dead cell phone. She blinked at all the texts it must harbor.

  Sugeidi carried out the shallow plastic pan that the hospital had sent home with us, sudsy with baby shampoo. Corpse scooched up in the bed. Sugeidi set the pan next to her feet. Corpse lifted her feet, and Sugeidi laid flat a towel, then eased the pan on top. Corpse lowered her feet into the water, sucking air through her teeth. With a soft cloth, Sugeidi washed them while Corpse rocked back and forth, gnawing her lip. Then Corpse set her feet on the towel and Sugeidi dried them as gently as possible. Her gray-streaked hair was pulled into a ponytail at her neck’s base, and sweat beaded her brow.

  “Do we have to keep the house so hot?” Corpse said.

  “You need stay warm.”

  “But you’re sweating.”

  Sugeidi waved dismissal and set to rewrapping Corpse’s feet, careful of the sutures where her pinkie toes had been. I remembered her saying This little piggy go market, remembered one of her rare smiles as she said Wee, wee, wee, all way home. Those missing toes just about killed her, and before I knew it, Corpse, head tilted with listening, had reached out and petted her hair.

  Sugeidi froze. Corpse froze. Sugeidi brought the back of her hand to her mouth. After a minute, she resumed wrapping the gauze.

  She put things away in the bathroom. She stood in its doorway, rested her big knuckles on her stern hips, and gave Corpse a look. “Drink.”

  Corpse lay back. “
Okay.”

  Us giving in like that was rare, and Sugeidi almost smiled.

  “Sugeidi,” Corpse said,“where’s Dad?”

  Early each morning he’d come in and watched Corpse sleep, or at least he thought she was asleep. But we’d wake the minute he entered the room and she’d lie frozen, eyes closed, to keep him there. Coffee cup in hand, he’d lean against the wall and stare at her for half an hour, those chocolate eyes from the hospital gone. I’d hover near his shoulders, close as I dared, feeling Corpse longing to make him stay while I dreaded it. After dinner he’d stop in for maybe five minutes. He’d start fidgeting, rise, and say good night.

  “In he office,” Sugeidi said.

  Corpse pictured Dad at his wide, shiny desk, working away, financial news murmuring from the TV mounted on the adjacent wall. He’d gaze at our photograph, maybe miss us when we were right here.

  “Sugeidi, where’s home to you?” Corpse said.

  Sugeidi pressed her lips. She unfolded the blankets over Corpse’s legs and smoothed them flat.

  “Sugeidi?”

  She straightened. “Mexico es mi sangre, mi blood. But home es mi children. Y you.”

  “Sugeidi.” That child’s voice. I hated it. Corpse held out her arms, her one bandaged hand.

  Sugeidi hugged Corpse in her slow way, a thing she hadn’t done since we were in third grade. I drifted to the ceiling. Corpse smelled coffee and eggs in the gray cotton of Sugeidi’s stupid maid dress. I thought how we all knew she’d wanted to come help us dress for the winter formal, a thing Mom would never allow. It had been a Saturday, after all. I realized how she would not even have known the horrible thing we’d done until she’d showed up to work Monday morning. Corpse squeezed shut her eyes against how awful that must have been.

  “I’m sorry,” Corpse said. Sugeidi rocked her carefully.

  She’s our real mom, she thought, and it came to me why Mom had insisted, all these years, that Sugeidi keep wearing that dress. Why it made us so mad.

  Corpse whispered, “You’re my real mom.”

  Sugeidi held her at arm’s length. She shook her head. “You have one mother, and she die inside.”

  Corpse snorted. Mom was probably skiing with her girlfriends at that moment. No point asking where she was.

  “Oona.” We loved how Sugeidi drew out the Oo part of our name, made it sound like it could roll across oceans. “You heal her.”

  “What?”

  “Oona. Es time. Promise. Heal her. Y him. For you.” Sugeidi’s eyes darted to where I hovered.

  Corpse scowled and looked at the lumps in the blanket

  made by her feet. Weren’t people supposed to be worrying about us?

  “Me lo prometes,” Sugeidi said. “You are wise, strong.” She made a fist.

  Corpse laughed. “Promise you? I’m not wise! I just tried to kill myself!”

  “Sí. You know now.”

  “Know what?”

  Sugeidi looked out the tall window over our nightstand. “I watch birds … ” She seemed to search for words. “Se vuelan.”

  “What?”

  “Birds no fly. Birds adjust the air.”

  But Corpse had understood the Spanish. We’d read this same idea in our water bible. Had recorded it in our journal, and considered it long and hard because it had brought back that day on the beach with Dad. Had Sugeidi snooped in our journal? Corpse studied Sugeidi, knew she always underestimated her. She pictured Sugeidi sitting in front of her son’s trailer, rocking in a chair, head tilted back to study wings overhead. Maybe Sugeidi longed, just once, to soar.

  “Use you air. Promise, querida.”

  Sugeidi had called us “loved one” only once before, when we’d broken our leg six years back. Corpse heard a seagull’s squawk and felt a weird sort of dawning as she looked across ripples in long-ago sand. “All right,” she murmured.

  Sugeidi beamed and tucked Corpse’s hair behind her ear, a thing she had not done for years. She stood. “Drink.”

  Five

  From Oona’s journal:

  At 4°C, water is at its healthiest, most productive, most dense, most life-giving. Water is the only liquid that stops getting more dense as it gets colder.

  —Viktor Schauberger

  Gabe arrived in Crystal Village in sixth grade. From Truckee, California. Another ski town. There weren’t that many students in our grade, but enough that he and we only passed each other in the flowing halls. Maybe said “hey” once or twice. I remember him being new, more athletic-looking than the other boys, with intensity about his eyes. I remember hearing he was amazing at soccer, that he could juggle the ball a thousand times in a row. No kidding: a thousand. But that’s it. Nothing else. We played soccer too, but back then popularity was our culture.

  One day in mid-May of our junior year, we’d forgotten our Chemistry book. Again. Mr. Shaw, shaking his head, sent us back to our locker for it. We couldn’t seem to get organized, felt we were spiraling off in different directions and couldn’t gather ourself, couldn’t fathom what was happening. Four tries, it took, to open our locker. We pressed our forehead against the cool metal of its frame to keep from cracking. Glad that we were at the back of the school, in a hall leading only to Calculus.

  “Are you okay?” Gabe said.

  We flinched.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He looked at us with such honest concern. Our brows pinched so close it hurt, and we sensed that craving exactly this was key to our problem, except we had no idea how to accept kindness. The Corpse part of us longed for Dad, then Mom, and I almost gagged. We were seventeen and that was so uncool. We tried to pry our eyebrows apart but couldn’t, and then burst into tears. Gabe drew us to him, awkwardly at first, but within minutes we melted. Or she did; I squirmed. Our forehead rested against his shoulder as if we’d been doing that for years. We actually shuddered as we cried. His T-shirt got soaked.

  After we cried ourself out, he stroked our hair. Ash came around the corner and gasped. Gabe and we pulled apart.

  “Mr. Shaw is pissed,” Ash said, and she lingered there, watching. So Ash.

  “Thanks,” we said over Gabe’s shoulder, still looking at him, and wiped our nose with the back of our hand.

  “You gonna be okay?” Gabe’s voice was so tender, we bit our lip. We nodded and sniffed. He touched our arm, smiled a little, that one cheek dimpling. “See you,” he said.

  We watched him walk down the short hall to the classroom, the letters CAL on the wooden hall pass poking out of his back jeans pocket. We’d only noticed him on the soccer field, where he scored or assisted goals so remarkable they launched entire stands of fans out of their seats and into cheers.

  Ash was beside us in a second. “What was that?”

  We glanced where Gabe had gone. “Nothing.”

  “Right,” she said. “Better hope Tanesha doesn’t find out.

  “Tanesha?”

  “Are you blind? She’s loved him for years. You look like hell.”

  We retrieved our Chemistry book, ran our thumb over the print where we’d pressed our forehead against the locker, and closed the door.

  After that, we and Gabe would see each other in the halls or the Student Union, and he’d nod to us and we’d nod back. Ash would elbow us in the ribs and we’d say “stop.” Usually Tanesha and her sidekick Brandy were somewhere nearby, watching.

  He and we didn’t run in the same circles. We were popular, and Gabe was, well, Mexican. Not an immigrant like Sugeidi; that was a whole different social group. He was part of the Hernandez family, who’d lived in the area since before the U.S. stole it from Mexico. Chicano, I guess, since Gabe’s best friend Manny wore a T-shirt that said “Chicano Power” a lot. At Crystal High, Chicanos and Mexicans usually ignored each other, sometimes clashed. Gabe’s family owned a respected stone masonry business. When we
asked later, he joked there was probably some Ute Indian in his blood too.

  His dad had torn his family apart by falling in love with his mom and leaving Crystal Village, following her to Truckee. Gabe’s parents fought mostly. One day, he and his dad returned from work and school to find nothing but a note on the kitchen table and an echo when they called her name. Gabe said moving back to Crystal Village just about killed his dad. He kept hoping his wife would return, but he didn’t want Gabe to be raised by just him, alone. He wanted Gabe to understand family.

  After a while, Ash’s elbow stopped jabbing us when we saw Gabe, but we and he still watched for each other, and we couldn’t forget how our body had fit against his.

  Believe it or not, we’d never had a boyfriend. A couple dates, sure, but dating always seemed pointless. Everyone said Oona Antunes was stuck-up, but there just wasn’t anyone we were interested in.

  With two days of school left, we and Ash had walked out the building’s front doors after the dismissal bell, everyone rowdy with end-of-year frenzy, and there was Gabe, just ahead, with his friends. Tanesha moved in a swarm of girls several paces in front of us. Gabe and his buddies were walking slower, so we caught up to them as we passed into bright sunlight.

  We studied the spread of his gray T-shirt over his powerful shoulders, his black hair curled just at the ends, halfway down his neck, the swale where that T-shirt wrinkled as it met his jeans, and we thought how we would not see him again until August.

  “Gabe?” we said.

  He turned. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” we said.

  We realized we were like a rock in a stream and moved out of the way. Ash had been whisked along and waited a few steps down. Ahead of her, Tanesha scowled at us.

  “I’ll see you later,” we called to Ash.

  She scowled too, but she headed to her Audi.

  “Gabe,” Manny Martinez yelled. “You coming or what?”