Balance of Fragile Things

by Olivia Chadha

“Thanks,” she said to Katie.

  “Yeah, no problem. Joss thinks she’s already a professional journalist. It’s hilarious.”

  “Did you want to ask me questions?”

  “Nah—but I did want to see your brother. Is he around?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “Can you tell him his photo won for the inside cover for this year’s yearbook? He won a coupon and stuff.” When Katie smiled, her freckled cheeks blushed. She showed Isabella the photo, a close-up of a blue butterfly set against the gray-brown bark of a tree.

  Isabella hadn’t known he’d entered a photo in the contest. “Cool, I’ll tell him.”

  “And, um, you can ask him to e-mail me for the coupon.”

  “Sure. And thanks, Katie.”

  “Anytime.”

  As Isabella slid into her desk, she was happy to hear the bell ring and the teacher, Mrs. Saint Pharr, begin the quiet history lesson about the Civil War.

  Maija

  After the nurse checked Paul’s vitals and left the room, Maija took off her shoes and curled up as best as she could beside her husband. His hospital bed was meant for only one body, but she turned on her side. As she stroked his cheek, she whispered into his ear all the things she thought he’d want to know.

  “Izzy didn’t want to go back to the play, but that’s what you would’ve wanted. Vic is taking care of everyone; you’d be so proud. Your father and my mother are like a couple now. I am not okay. I can’t lie. I need you to come back. Please come back. You’ve been gone for five days, Paul. It’s not okay. You can’t leave me alone.”

  She looked at her husband closely and searched for a muscle twitch or flutter of an eyelid that would signal his comprehension. His long eyelashes were closed; his breathing was steady; his hands lay at his sides as they had for days. She waited for her miracle, but it didn’t come. She felt like a child foolishly waiting for a falling star, but she couldn’t turn away because as soon as she did, a comet might fly past. Maija wondered what it was like to be in a coma. Did he dream? Could he hear her? Was he trapped and voiceless? She pressed her hands to his chest and closed her eyes.

  Nothing.

  “We are working hard on finding who did this to you. Oma and Papaji have a plan, which means nothing will get it their way.” Maija sat up and stroked her husband’s forehead. She turned on the television and watched the news. The rains would be bad tonight, they said. Stay off the roads. When visiting hours were over, Maija went to the parking lot, ran to the car, and jumped in, soaking wet from the downpour.

  The Cutlass handled the rain fine, but it felt like driving a boat, with its bald tires and huge frame. It was quite dark, and the streetlights only made it harder to see because the rain caught the light and ruined visibility. Maija’s hands gripped the wheel as she drove. The Main Street sidewalk had washed out and was completely submerged. Somehow, in the darkness, Maija turned too early onto Maple and found herself on the long way home. The wind picked up, and the rain pelted her windshield as though determined to break through. Before she came to the Maple Street Bridge, which was a small creek overhang, she saw flashing lights and heard sirens. She braked, but the car skidded and fishtailed across the road before finally stopping mere inches from the police car.

  A cop waved to her, and she rolled down her window. “Ma’am, you’re gonna have to turn around, carefully. The bridge washed out. Sinkhole opened, we think. It took a huge part of the road with it.”

  Just then, another car came behind Maija, its headlights glaring. She covered her eyes against the light and then felt the jolt, which sent her body forward until the seatbelt abruptly stopped the forward trajectory. When the car stopped moving, she undid her seatbelt and got out, unhurt but shaking.

  “You okay?” The other driver rolled his window down. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Please, get back into your car. It isn’t safe here,” the police officer yelled. Maija ducked past the cars, lights, and flares and jogged between the pylons. She looked down into the bloated creek. Though it was dark, the flashing lights illuminated the crevasse and what was left of the bridge. She leaned in and saw a bumper of a car in the hole, sliding toward the dark water.

  “Ma’am. Get out of there.”

  “Sorry. I just wanted to see.”

  “It could have been worse. No one inside the car. Just parked.”

  Maija doubled back to the hospital and drove a different route home. She was relieved when she made it home safely. But as she walked to bed, the ground beneath her feet felt unstable.

  Vic

  His father’s knife was heavy, cold, and well worn, like a rock tumbled against a creek floor. Vic let his eyes wander across the handle, where elephants danced tail to tail. But the longer he looked, the more impossible it seemed that the image carved into the handle was actually a pachyderm. The married couple riding the elephant looked more like tufts of hair or humps. The elephants looked boxy, as though the metal worker’s tool hadn’t been sharp enough to create a precise picture. Had they really been elephants at one time in this knife’s existence, and after too many hands touched it, they’d become squares with squiggly tails? Could he have simply thought they were elephants when he was young? He had a stuffed elephant toy someone had brought from India. It was decorated in beads and mirrors and smelled of mothballs. Maybe that’s why he thought they were elephants. Maybe they never really were. Memories were so easily distorted.

  He flicked open the blade and ran his finger softly down the edge. He accidentally drew blood. It was strange how sharp it still was. He’d seen his father sharpen it many times; Vic’s earliest memories of his father sliding the blade against the leather strap or the knife sharpener occurred when he was too young to see above doorknobs or onto countertops. He closed the blade and put it back into the pocket of his cargo pants.

  It was raining lightly, and Vic wore his camouflage rain slicker with the hood drawn tightly around his face. He was behind a wide hemlock about fifty feet from the entrance of the mineshaft. Vic looked through the binoculars at the cluster of birch that marked the entrance. The familiar tree trunks were now scarred with symbols and markings he couldn’t make out from the distance. Why couldn’t they have left the trees alone?

  Vic saw that the hatch was clear and decided that he had to go now if he was ever going to find his shadow box. He felt it was still in the mine. He descended into the hole, and when he reached the bottom, he knew it was no longer his space in any sense. Vandals had spray painted the walls with graffiti; empty bottles of Krylon littered the ground. Vic ran his hands across the primordial doodles of stick men and profanities. One of them obviously had a thing for the word shit because there were at least twenty versions of this word written in various fonts: Old English, cursive, block, and even letters engulfed in flames. The cavemen stick figures were more imaginative. Thankfully these idiots wouldn’t be representing the twenty-first century thousands of years from now. There’s no way this mine would last that long.

  Vic made his way through the dimly lit space and came upon a pile of garbage. Empty beer bottles, cans, magazines, and the remnants of his effects were piled carelessly in a corner. His heart sank when he saw the edge of his shadow box poking out from beneath a burned Batman comic book. He retrieved it, and, though the glass had red paintball splotches covering it, he was satisfied that the butterflies were still inside. And now that he had the box, he could take it and leave the mine.

  Yet he didn’t want to leave. Remembering the maps in his father’s office, he realized he wanted to go a little further, to see what was behind that wall. He moved faster than he’d ever moved underground. He was confident and surefooted, and when he came to the water that he’d slipped in earlier, he walked across it without acknowledging the cold. He ran his hand across the wall and realized it was quite corroded. He pushed on it, and a few bricks fell in. He pushed it again and a part of the wall collapsed completely.

  He swung the lantern into the hole. The air was stale,
and he held his nose. There was a lot of water inside, as much as he was standing in, and lined up against the wall he saw an army of rusted black metal drums. The drums were corroding, and one had tipped to its side. They each had the unmistakable skull and crossbones right in plain sight. Now he knew there was something hidden below. He had no desire to get closer to the drums and moved back toward the exit.

  About to leave the mine, shadow box in hand, he saw a clumsy silhouette descending the ladder. Vic hid behind the curve in the wall and watched. It was Joe.

  Vic watched Joe jump off the last wrung, take a can of spray paint from his jacket pocket, and start on the only wall that hadn’t been touched by his grime yet. Vic made out the words Die Mother and he assumed the next word that would complete the phrase. The sight of this made him angry. Something just snapped.

  He went to Joe and, with the precision and viciousness of a predator, said, “Put the can down. Now.”

  Joe jumped back and looked at the can, as though considering what he should do with it. Then he turned to Vic and said, “You’re on my turf.”

  “This isn’t yours,” Vic said.

  “If I say it is, it is. Got it, loser? Get out of here before I break something else.”

  Vic knew that diplomacy wouldn’t solve a thing. So, without pause, he curled his fist and slammed it into Joe’s jaw as hard as he could. This made him drop the spray-paint can, and Joe let out a sound somewhere between a squeal and a yelp. Vic went in for another punch and made contact with Joe’s nose.

  “Leave.”

  Joe grabbed the ladder and climbed out quickly. Without his backup, Joe was just a bit of thunder without the lightning. Vic rubbed his hand, already sore from the punches. Retribution was his, but he didn’t feel good for the blood that spilled.

  Later that evening, before leaving to visit his father in the hospital, Vic went into the backyard with a small garden trowel. He dug a shallow grave under the oak, revealing rich black soil. The butterflies were like brittle dried flowers with antennae and legs. His hand trembled as he placed them in their grave. Their secrets died with them. He wanted to say a few words, as a close friend would say at a funeral, but he couldn’t think of anything profound enough while he covered them with soil.

  “Sorry,” was all he could muster.

  Their existence and deaths would remain a puzzle. Whether their names were Karner, Melissa, or even Xerces was irrelevant. Vic didn’t want to jail them in a box. It was obvious now that these invertebrates did not belong here, and their presence was most likely the fault of his species. He decided to keep his blog going as long as he could as a way to connect with others with similar interests. One day, he hoped to visit the Presidio in San Francisco and see the Xerces habitat that had been destroyed.

  Paul

  Paul was trapped between a dream and his immovable body, and he wanted desperately to be either awake or unconscious. The coma held him hostage. His dreams and memories governed his mind. Over and over they played, never finishing, until finally, one time, the entire memory played clear through from beginning to end, and he began to understand the meaning.

  ~

  It was a dusty day. Kamal, though he limped, was fast; Paul tried to stay close, but the high grasses closed behind his brother’s back as he passed and made an impenetrable wall for eyes. His limp, a gift of the snakebite years earlier, gave him special powers. That’s what the elders said. That’s what Kamal told everyone. His dance with poison gave him immunity to other, less natural dangers.

  The shotgun bounced against Kamal’s broad shoulder as they led two bullocks to the last quarter of their land. The wooden plow had seen better days but still managed to cut the earth deep enough to sow seeds for the fall. Their family had one and a half hectares, which produced enough food to feed the Singh family and store some for the following year, but nothing more. There had been a drought in the village for the past few seasons, making the farmers anxious for the small harvest and even smaller meals. This, coupled with the pressure on Kamal and Paul to do all of the tasks Papaji used to do before his foot injury made it painful to walk, left the two brothers’ friendship strained.

  Here. Kamal handed Paul the shotgun. You carry it.

  But Papaji never—

  Time to learn. Can’t rely on others to help you forever.

  Paul lifted the heavy gun onto his shoulder and smiled to himself. They cut across the fields; the fall air was crisp and better to work in. Kamal led the huge bullocks to the rows they were going to sow. October was cool, the best month to sow the durum wheat. Kamal signaled to Paul to help him knot the harness on the bullocks so the plow would force a straight path that they would follow with seeds. Kamal lifted the harness and went in front of the bullocks to make certain they were secure.

  Bháí, tie the double knot so they can’t come loose, Kamal yelled to his little brother. The shotgun was unwieldy. Paul shifted it to his other shoulder, and as he did so he lifted the rope, and the shotgun discharged.

  He’d held it by the trigger. There’d been too many things in his hands. He’d felt rushed. The blast spooked the one-ton bullocks, and they ran in the direction they’d been aimed.

  They trampled Kamal.

  Paul’s hand got caught in the rope, and he was pulled behind the beasts as they ran a frantic course.

  Paul could not open his eyes; he felt his mother’s hands carefully wipe his face with a damp cloth. She dressed him in white cotton kaccha, slid his kara back on his wrist, combed his hair with the kangha and wrapped a turban around his long hair.

  It must be a miracle, he heard her say. God has taken mercy on me today.

  Paul drifted back away. The next time he opened his eyes, he could hear the bháíjis playing their harmonium and tabla around the Granth Sahib while the readers took turns with the prayer. Then they all began to sing Ardas, and he knew what had happened.

  All alone in the haveli he stood from his cot, wearing the clean white clothes meant for the recently deceased, and walked toward the voices like a phantom. Villagers stood in mournful angles around the dry funeral pyre and body. The holy men sang loudest with Papaji and Bebbeji. Paul stared at his brother’s body.

  His mother had prepared her dead son’s body like she had his own. Paul learned later that Kamal’s back had been broken like a stick, his body crushed.

  An auntie pulled him to the front of the gathering and wiped his face—told him it was improper to cry. The guru says, everyone wishes for a long life, and yet no one wishes to die. Shh, shh, bachchá.

  When the song was done, Papaji said a few words about his son’s work ethic and strong heart. The words were sufficient. The dead needed help in their passing, the living needed help with the new absence. Papaji brought the oil lamp from inside the house and held it out to Paul.

  You are now the oldest, the only. You must light the fire.

  Paul stared blankly at the flame. He was too young to take the place of eldest. His head throbbed a silent blinding rhythm. Papaji took his son’s hand and pulled it toward the flame. He couldn’t light his brother on fire. It wasn’t in him to do so, even if ceremony expected this of him. He held the lamp in his hand, balanced it between his forefinger and thumb, and bent close to his brother’s face. It was foreign, stone, strangely cold and yellow. The beating Kamal had taken distorted all elements that were supposed to be his: His face was swollen and sunken at the same time, his body bent toward the left.

  This is not my brother, Papaji. Where is Kamal?

  He is gone, puttar. My son is gone. It’s not him anymore. Light the flame.

  Paul bent toward his brother’s chest and listened for a heartbeat, but instead of a thump, his ear was greeted by questions. If the body was not his brother’s, then where had he gone? An auntie prayed aloud, asking that Kamal be reincarnated into someone with faith. Perhaps his life would then be better the next time around. A claustrophobic weight pressed against Paul’s heart. When he tipped the oil on the branches, he released
the tears that the elders told him were inappropriate. If not now, when was it best to cry? he wondered.

  The flames took time to catch, but when they did, everyone stepped back except for Paul, who watched his brother slowly burn to the ground. It took hours before he was no more than a skeleton in the cinder. Paul collected the ashes in an urn and poured his brother into the canal. He was eldest now, the only, but he knew he’d never fill his place. There had already been the heavy question of his origins that plagued his every move. He knew that when Papaji had sent his mother ahead, many months had passed before he reunited with her. She’d accepted Papaji’s love tensely, and, less than nine months later, Paul was born.

  Over time, Paul began to believe the look on his mother’s face. She did not see him anymore, only the possibility of losing him. To her, he was vulnerability. It was her expression that Paul walked away from years later when the vacancy in her eyes became a vortex, a void.

  He left before he lost himself in his empty reflection.

  ~

  Each time he felt closer to the waking world, the hooks of unconsciousness would sink deep into his lids and pull straight down. It was a wicked battle, but Paul’s will was strong. He opened his eyes, just slightly, at eight o’clock that evening. Paul was certain of two things: that he was still alive and that he was thirsty. His family was gathered around, and Isabella was the one who noticed. A half hour later, he smiled at the joyful faces surrounding his bed and moved his pinky finger just so. His return to life was going to be a slow process, but he was thankful to be back.

  The doctors told him and Maija that there was no telling what memory he had, what he would regain, and what portions of his personality he might have lost forever. Paul was frightened by the idea of having lost his past, not because he was attached to memories but because he wouldn’t know which memories he would have lost and which ones he might need to seek out. The situation was completely out of his control, but he recognized his family members and remembered his address, and the doctor said that was a good beginning.