Above Us Only Sky

by Michele Young-Stone

  “We’re going to meet her,” she told Freddie, “with or without you.”

  The Old Man added, “It’s time. We should’ve done this sooner. For this, I have regret.”

  Freddie had never gone against his mother, and he realized that he never would. He put his napkin beside his plate and cleared his throat. A change of heart. “I’ll drive.”

  “We are taking a rental car. Do you have a valid license?”

  “Of course.”

  “How do I know this?” the Old Man asked.

  My Oma reached for Freddie’s hand, feeling the striations on his fingertips. “Thank you.” He was a good boy. Always, he’d been a good boy.

  When Freddie called Veronica from his parents’ house, he locked their bedroom door to use the phone. He was prepared to face his estranged wife’s wrath. He could admit that he was a deadbeat dad, but he couldn’t deny his mother her wish to meet her granddaughter—not anymore.

  “You’re not coming here,” Veronica told him. “They’re not coming here.”

  It happened on this particular night, with so much at stake, that I felt my wings emerge once more, slicing like paring knives through my back. Outside, the crickets chirped, and inside, my invisible wings expanded, making a hushed sound that only I could discern. I felt this sensation like fingertips tinkling my flexed back. I stood near my mother, hoping she could sense them, the wings in the room. They were lush and majestic. I remember. Veronica told Freddie, “I am her mother. You can come, but this is on my terms.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling like that angel or fairy or butterfly Wheaton had mentioned when we were seven. God, I loved Wheaton. I don’t know how I would’ve survived without him.

  My mother complained to Freddie about child support, how she’d like to see some of that coming her way. I lit one of her cigarettes. My wings started to sag. I felt them pulling from my skin, at the itchy spot where my scars resided. It seemed like the wings wouldn’t be around for very long, like they were too miraculous for me to possess. Veronica continued her treatise, her conditions. “I’m not leaving her alone with them.”

  The lushness of my wings was devolving into weightiness, two fists pulling me down.

  My father never asked to speak to me.

  Veronica put the phone down. My knees buckled from the heaviness of my wings. She said, “They want to meet you because they’re old. Because they’re going to die one day. Because everybody dies.” It felt like there was a wet blanket draped over my shoulders, like the vinyl flooring and Styrofoam ceiling had conspired to come together and squash me like a bug. Veronica picked up her purse, and checking to see how many cigarettes I had smoked, said, “I’ll see you later.” I didn’t know where she was going.

  She hurried from the house, and I had no idea if she was ever coming back. I was sixteen. I wasn’t so old, but I was painfully sad. Wheaton was out of town. He never went anywhere, but on this particular night, he was gone.

  I heard the car start. I didn’t know Veronica’s friends or her boyfriends. I didn’t know what she did when she wasn’t working. Her life was work. Then she was backing out of our yard. I watched from the den window, where I saw the reflection of my wings in the glass. Somehow their presence only made me sadder. Ghostly wings are as useful as a ghostly girl.

  Wheaton had traveled across state to a cheerleading competition with his mother and sister. Even though he’d had no choice, I remember being angry at that moment. Everyone had turned against me. My mother was right: these old people wanted to meet me, but I didn’t know them. My father was only coming because they wanted him to. Did any of this have anything to do with me? I showered, letting the water beat down on my wings. I was still crying, trying to be hopeful, trying to think that someone gave a shit about me, but overwhelmed with an indescribable hopelessness, like a bottomless pit. I didn’t really have wings. Some doctor had put me under anesthesia and taken them. My parents had let him. I didn’t have much of anything. My best friend had visions. He could see this winged girl on the pier, but she wouldn’t make herself known to me. I got to my knees, pressing my hands against the algae-stained tiles, the water streaming over the back of my head, my forehead to the drain. I was not and never had been any better or any more special than anyone else.

  I didn’t try to kill myself. Not that night. Not ever. There are some accounts, police reports, that claim differently, but they are just wrong. I would never take my own life, but there was something that compelled me on that stormy night to venture to the pier. Maybe it was the weight of my wings, the distance between me and my parents, the desire to be free of this place, or the proximity of possibility. Maybe I was afraid that my grandparents would come and then they wouldn’t like me. I’d be a disappointment.

  I wore a vintage lavender nightgown purchased at the Goodwill. I was barefoot, my hair pulled back in a ponytail. Later, when the police asked me why I went to the pier at midnight, I had no answer for them. I’m still not certain. Something pulled me there. When I stepped off my front stoop, the stars were like a map to the sea. I don’t think I ever looked down at the sandspurs, tufts of brown grass, or briars but walked, a straight shot, to the pier. It felt good to have direction.

  The rest is murky like Florida’s stormy coast that night. I remember two lights blinking and swaying with a gale-force wind blowing out of the east. My nightgown clung to my breasts and legs, ballooning out behind me. The concrete felt good on the bottoms of my feet. I thought I saw the ghost of the girl, but I was squinting my eyes, wishing I had Wheaton’s gift of sight, wishing that I understood my destiny. Did I even have one or was everything random? I had the distinct feeling that Freddie was probably telling his parents that he hardly knew me, that I wasn’t worth their time or trouble. I remember thinking that my grandparents would hate my thick dark hair, my combat boots and black eyeliner. I wouldn’t be the girl they hoped to see. My eyes were green with an orange starburst. My mother’s were brown. My father’s were a beautiful bright blue. Where did I come from? Who wanted to claim me? I think that if Wheaton had been home on the night of May 15, 1989, I would’ve gone to him. I would’ve told him my insecurities, and he would’ve said, “You have to have faith, Prudence. Wait and see what happens because something is going to happen.”

  But Wheaton wasn’t there.

  I did not jump. I know that I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that.

  The salty spray and driving wind slicked my hair back. I licked the spray from my lips. Dear Prudence, let me see you smile. I started crying again, but the wind whisked away my tears. Did Freddie care about me? Did Veronica? Would I ever be whole again? I don’t remember if I pulled my nightgown overhead or if it tore free. I remember the darkness, whitecaps on the water, an eggplant sky. I was perched on the ledge. I was careful, wiggling my toes. I remember thinking that I wouldn’t fall because the wind was blowing against me, blowing me back toward the safety of the pier’s walkway. It was nice up there. I was naked, licked clean by salt. My invisible wings expanding, growing, spreading, how they did that first time in the audiovisual room. Not heavy but pulsing. I wasn’t going to jump. I’ll admit that I did want to fly. I recall the wind spinning me up, tornado fashion, hurling me like a speck, and for a second, I thought I would drop safely, disappointingly to the pier, but my wings caught the wind. I ascended—for a second or more. For two seconds. Maybe three. I thought I would fly away. But these wings I carried were only ghost wings. I plummeted, dropped forty feet, my heels striking the water’s surface. I submerged into the bottomless deep.

  For a little bit, all was dark, murky, like that whole night. Below the surface, I awoke to luminescent jellyfish with tentacles like fingers, holding, caressing me. All around, there was luminescent plankton like stars. An octopus pulsed past. The jelly tentacles clung to me, the surf like boiling stew. Anemones and silver fish ripped past, then brighter fish, orange and green zip lines, the waves
like puppet masters, maneuvering my arms and legs, lifting me up and dropping me down. I swallowed the sea and it likewise me. The puppet master left me pressed against a barnacle-­covered piling. My body was limp, my strings cut. The barnacles scraped and sliced my skin, glowing now like the jellyfish. Then I saw the winged girl swimming toward me. She was real. I could see her. I had told Wheaton that she was mine. She belonged to me. Maybe I was dead. With black hair floating and wings enormous, she came. I reached for her hand and caught it. She grabbed back. Her fingers were rough, striated, how I remembered my father’s hands. She was holding tight, pulling me away from the piling, but I didn’t want to go. Her mouth was open. Her eyes were green with orange starbursts. Like mine. I knew her. That’s the last I remember.

  11

  Prudence

  On the night that I tumbled off the pier, I thought I had died. When I saw the ghostly girl beneath the waves, I thought I was in another world. But I did not die. My savior was a homeless man curled up under one of the benches halfway between the beach and my falling-off point.

  He rolled over to pull his coat tighter where his zipper was broken, and seeing something in the distance, crawled out from beneath the bench to try and make out what it was. At one time, he’d worn glasses for astigmatism, but hadn’t worn them in many years. Reportedly, he saw a giant bird perched on the ledge. Then he rubbed his eyes and saw a person standing there. He claims that I stepped off the edge. Hearing the splash, he went to the pay phone at the pier’s entrance and called the operator. He told her, “At first, I thought I saw a bird, but then it had arms and legs.” The operator notified the Coast Guard and the police, and they notified the local hospital.

  Coast Guard helicopters were dispatched to search the choppy water. Because of the dangerous surf, I was presumed dead. I don’t remember being pulled from the water or flying in a helicopter to the hospital in Jacksonville. “She’s not a bird,” the Coast Guard men joked, but I was surprisingly easy to spot beneath their searchlight. Covered in bioluminescent plankton, I was a five-point star. Jellyfish tentacles were strung across my arms and legs.

  When I woke in the hospital, I was examined by a smiling nurse and an icy doctor, who only made contact when he shined a light in my eye. At two a.m., I told the nurse my name and phone number. They telephoned Veronica. My next visitors were policemen. They told me that committing suicide was illegal, not just with the Catholics but also with the local government. At five a.m., I saw Veronica. She was pale, the crunchiness washed clean from her hair. Already she’d telephoned Freddie, who was still in Brooklyn. My room had its own phone, and while the nurse checked my temperature, Veronica was on with Freddie again. She told him that I would be okay, whispering, “I don’t know what happened.” She felt guilty, I think, for telling me that my grandparents only wanted to meet me because they were old.

  Freddie wanted to talk to me. Veronica handed me the phone. I remember telling him, point-blank, “I didn’t jump off the pier. I fell or something.”

  He said, “We’re coming to see you. We’re driving.”

  “I’m going home tomorrow.” I started to tell him our address.

  “Honey,” he said, his voice cracking, “I know where you live.” He said, “I love you very much.” I refused to cry. Then he explained that my Oma had a propensity toward blood clots, so they’d have to stop every two or three hours for her to stretch her legs. He said, “I’m sorry that I didn’t call on your birthday,” and then he started crying. “I love you so much, little bird.” He was crying so hard that it sounded like he was hyperventilating. I was callous, a little satisfied by his tears. He could cry, but I wouldn’t.

  The nurses were kind. They told me, “No more night swimming.” They laughed a lot, squeezing my forearm, feeling sorry for me. Then a social worker came to interview me. I didn’t mention my wings. I had learned from Wheaton not to say anything surprising or unusual, lest I get thrown into some institution like the Gardens. Instead, I told the social worker that I’d gone for a walk. I wanted to see what it felt like to stand over a dark ocean. I was pensive because I knew that my grandparents were coming. It was windy. I slipped. Basically, everything was true, except that I wanted to see what it felt like to fly. Maybe, for those three seconds, I did fly. Like Freddie and the Old Man’s old man, I was an optimist. I was born with wings. How could I be otherwise?

  On the afternoon of May seventeenth, a Wednesday, I was released into Veronica’s care. I pretended to sleep on the car ride home. When we pulled into the driveway, Wheaton was waiting. I emerged from the car, stiff and bruised from the water forcing me into the piling, and Wheaton grabbed hold of me, pinning my arms to my sides, squeezing me harder than he ever had. I didn’t think he was going to let go. Already, he was counting, murmuring, “You don’t want to die,” making sense of what had happened. You don’t want to die is five syllables thumb to pinky. You don’t want to die is much better than You want to die, which would leave you one shy, hanging on the ring finger. He said another five syllables, “Don’t ever leave me,” and stopped squeezing.

  We spent the rest of that evening hand in hand sitting on a blanket watching sandpipers dart through the surf. Veronica packed us a picnic dinner. Wheaton never asked if I was trying to kill myself. I’m certain he knew the answer. He said that Tammy had come in second place in her cheerleading competition and he reminded me that I was his best friend. I already knew. I told him that he would always be my best friend, and we lay back, our faces to the waning light, digging our heels in the sand. Wheaton said, “I know that your grandparents are going to love you.” It was only thirteen syllables, but it was the exact right thing to say.

  On June 3, 1989, Veronica gathered dishes and opened windows to air out the smokiness. She wanted to impress Freddie and the in-laws she’d never met. One day earlier, she’d had her hair cut into a bob. No more hairspray. She looked good, better than the Barbie she’d become.

  I didn’t want to alter anything about myself before I saw my dad or met my grandparents. In a way, I wanted to be at my worst. I wore jean shorts and black boots with the tongues turned down. My Pixies T-shirt was torn Flashdance-style at the shoulder. I wanted them to like me for who I was. I couldn’t pretend anymore, and I was too exhausted to be nervous.

  Freddie drove the rented Oldsmobile across the bridge separating our island from Saint Mark’s. This would’ve been his first time in Los Vientos, so I imagine he saw the shabby billboard proclaiming “Welcome to Los Vientos Beach,” with “Welcome to” crossed out and the word SUCKS spray-painted in all caps. (We always met in Saint Mark’s.) Freddie and my grandparents would’ve seen the neon pink and turquoise Bunny Motel, and possibly the Bunny’s resident nudists, Earl and Liz—a Los Vientos treasure. They would’ve passed Big Sal’s, serving “All-You-Can-Eat Hotcakes” and “Pig-Happy Barbeque,” and the Dunes Smacker, a hole-in-the-wall frequented by the pier dwellers.

  Driving even farther, they would’ve seen our concrete pier. It was the pier, the one I’d fallen from. I’m sure that Freddie slowed down, hoping I hadn’t tried to kill myself, hoping that I wasn’t going to do anything irrational. He’d told his parents nothing about my recent hospitalization. He hadn’t wanted to upset them. I understood. I didn’t particularly want them to know.

  Past the pier, there were rows of squat homes, some coquina, some wood siding, others cinder-block, and then there was our house, and then there was me waiting on the front porch with Wheaton while Veronica was indoors dusting, wearing a real apron. The Oldsmobile turned up our driveway, which was no more than scrub grass and gravel. Veronica peeked through the blinds. I didn’t know what to do, where to put my hands or how to pose, but I stood tall, my hands at my sides like I was ready for the firing squad. Freddie was out the driver’s door fast, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He opened his mother’s door while the Old Man, who was just sixty-eight in 1989, said, “Is this the place?”

  My Om
a told Freddie, “Enough with the smoking.”

  I looked at the Old Man and he looked back, each of us examining the other.

  “Who are you?” he said, walking toward me. Freddie was still helping Ingeburg because her legs were stiff from the drive. Her varicose veins mapped the life of a woman who’d spent too many years on her feet. If you followed the blue veins north, they expanded into stretch marks, a gift from Freddie. If you followed them south, they led to hammertoes. There is something surprisingly beautiful about my Oma’s imperfections, the black hairs growing above her lip, her chipped tooth and scarred lip. She is a testament to living. I watched her grab the cigarette from between Freddie’s lips and drop it to the cracked walk.

  “Who are you?” the Old Man said again, his voice gruff. He pointed at me. “Are you Prudence Vilkas?” Veronica was still watching from between the blinds.

  “I am Prudence Vilkas,” I told him. We faced one another. His hair was streaked gray. His eyes, the same blue as my father’s, were familiar. The Old Man lit a cigar, puffing away, and squinted. “Come here, woman!” he said. He was not talking to me. I looked to my Oma, who was clutching her purse, getting her bearings, the sandy earth foreign beneath her orthopedic shoes. She didn’t respond to the Old Man. He raised his voice. “She’s got the baby’s eyes.” Then, comprehending that I was standing right there in front of him, he said, “You have my sister’s eyes, the youngest sister’s eyes. We called her Little Bird.”

  I hadn’t felt my wings move since my late-night swim, but I felt them now. They swelled like two helium balloons, like I was going to lift off. Veronica was still indoors, while Freddie was walking my Oma step by step to the Old Man’s side.

  The Old Man said, “My sister’s eyes have shooting stars like yours.”

  Freddie said, “You mean the orange starburst?”