Unlit Star

by Lindy Zart

  “Baseball?” I wipe tears from my eyes.

  “Yep. Baseball.” He closes the space between us, the bag dropping to the ground, and takes my face into his hands. “I'm going to make the time we have together unforgettable. I'm going to fuse you to me, so that there is no way of knowing where the separation between you and me begins—or even if there is one. I'm going to fill this summer with us, so that when you look back on it, all you remember is me, and when I look back on it, all I remember is you. I'm going to put as much life into now as I can. Like you did for me. Now it's my turn.”

  He presses his forehead to mine, taking slow, deep breaths. After an emotion-charged moment—a moment where I have a hard time breathing and his chest is heaving as he struggles to do the same—he pulls away. “And we're going to play baseball.”

  "I didn't know you could play with just two people."

  He hesitates, then states, "You can't. There are two teams. And they're waiting for us at the park."

  My first instinct is to ask who, my second is to say no, and then I decide to just say yes. "Okay." I take a deep breath. "Let's play baseball."

  He lowers the bag, removes a pale pink baseball glove from it, and hands it to me. "You can't catch any balls without a glove."

  It's ridiculous how this small gift makes me want to tear up, but it does. It's my first gift from Rivers—the first gift from anyone other than my mother, really. She was an only child and her parents passed away when I was young, so it's always just been us since Neil died. My chest squeezes at the looming day when it will only be her.

  "Thank you," I tell him softly, holding it close to me.

  He nods, not looking at me. "You need tennis shoes."

  I look at my bare feet and grin, wiggling my toes. "I'll be right back."

  He explains the basics to me as we walk. He tells me to hit the ball and run, to make it to home base when I get the chance. Anything personal is kept out of the discussion—anything that has to do with yesterday and the future is left unspoken. I know I can't pretend anymore, and I know we will have to talk about it, but right now, I am all right talking about baseball.

  I repeatedly catch him watching me as we make our way to the park. I'll glance up and his dark eyes are staring into me with yearning, grief, and pain in them. It is almost as though he is searching for the disease inside of me, and that he wants to find it and sear it from my brain with his eyes alone. The stricken look on his face is easily masked, but I continue to find glimpses of it each time I look up sooner than he gauges I will. And it breaks my heart, but I smile to cover it up. I feel that I will be smiling a lot in months to come.

  The park is only a few blocks away from where I live. This is the park I found the dying bird in—this is the park my brother died in. My footsteps slow as I take in the group of people I've been associated with most of my life, but still don't really know. Most of them are tossing a ball back and forth, some are talking, a few are looking our way.

  This is the park I will play baseball in.

  "Do they—" I start, unable to continue around the lump in my throat.

  He shakes his head, shadows flashing across his face. "No. They just know we're playing baseball. No one's going to say anything mean to you either, because if they do, I will pound them so bad into the ground that they will remain flattened there for all eternity," he declares heatedly.

  I laugh at the glower on his face. "My hero."

  He puffs his chest out. "That's right." He turns to the crowd. "Let's play ball! Del's on my team. Who else?"

  The sun quickly heats my skin, a layer of sweat adding slickness to my hands. I go up to bat, my hands shaking with nervousness. I swing and strike on the first two balls, glance over to see Rivers watching me from the sidelines, and blast the bat into the third ball, sprinting and whooping as I head for first base. Cheers are called as I run and I grin, exhilaration lightening my step and giving me energy to keep going. I make it to first and bounce up and down on my feet, posing to head for second base when permissible.

  I get out on third base, and I can't even care. I skip back to the bench, beaming at the congratulations I get from my teammates. I briefly wonder if I could have had more of this if I'd opened up during school. I sit down and open a bottle of water, guzzling it down. Rivers walks up to the plate and my stomach dips. I see the tension in his face and body, and realize how difficult this is for him.

  He's doing this for you.

  He is too. He's around people he hasn't seen since the beginning of summer, playing a sport he may or may not be able to play, and it's for me. What if he can't run? Can he? I don't know. Sure, he's walking almost as normally as he used to, but that's different than running. He is putting himself directly into a position to publicly fail to prove something to me. What is it?

  I get to my feet, moving to stand behind the fence, fitting my fingers through the brackets of the chain-link as I stare at his back. You can do this, Rivers. I know you can. As though he hears my thoughts, he looks over his shoulder at me, the intensity of his gaze stealing my breath. He presses his lips together and turns away, assuming the batting position. He swings and misses. His form is perfect, but his movements are slower than they need to be to hit the ball. He swings again and I can feel the frustration radiating off him in waves of discord, reaching out to those near, causing an uncomfortable shifting in those around him. I chew on my lip, wanting to help him somehow and not knowing how or even if I can.

  "Peanut butter!" I blurt out.

  Eyes turn my way, but the only ones I care about are dark brown and slowly find mine. He frowns at me and I shout it again, pumping the air with my fist. He stares at me for a moment in befuddlement and then shakes his head as he laughs, giving me a thumbs up sign as he turns back to the game. My face burns as I take my seat, not looking at anyone.

  "Peanut butter?" George Ronald asks, red eyebrows lifted in his freckled face.

  George is short, skinnier than any eighteen-year old boy should be, and a science nerd. I know he isn't good at sports, but I have to give him respect for being here.

  "Yes. He has an unhealthy obsession with it," I lie.

  He shrugs. "Okay."

  I hold my breath as the ball shoots through the air, squeezing my hands into fists in my lap. "Come on. You can do it. Come on. Hit it. Hit the ball."

  He not only hits the ball, he slams that ball over the fence located way behind outfield. I jump to my feet, screaming in jubiliation. Apparently my love for sports has finally bloomed. I understand now. I can feel the thrill of winning pulsating through me, the excitement I have for Rivers proof I have now converted into a fan of baseball. He doesn't even have to run. He can walk and make it. He just hit a homerun. He watches the ball until it lands, and then he looks back and grins at me.

  And he runs.

  His gait is not as smooth, nor as fast as it once was, but it is still a sight to behold. He makes it home and doesn't stop running until he is to me, sweeping me into his arms and spinning me around. I let my head fall back and laugh, holding my arms out wide.

  "We did it," he whispers against my neck, kissing me senseless to the catcalls of the other team members.

  We did. We did it. For each other—and we will continue to do so. This is what it is about; this is why he did this. He is my tether to this life and I am his.

  DEATH DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE.

  It takes young and old alike. It takes good people, bad people. It is vicious and it is peaceful. It comes to you in the night, it comes to you in the sunshine of day. It takes you in the form of drugs, murder, disease, and tragedy. It doesn't care what dreams you have, what goals you have set. It doesn't care who you love or who loves you. It doesn't care who you leave behind and it doesn't care who is torn apart when you go. I guess at least it's equally terrible for all.

  Death is not kind, to summarize.

  I am dying. I say it out loud, feeling my throat tighten. I say it again. I whisper it. I think it. I stare into my
eyes through the reflective glass of the mirror and say it once more. I don't think I will ever truly be able to accept it one hundred percent. Until I take my last breath, I think a part of me will continue to hold out for hope. I don't have it in me to just give up.

  “I am dying.”

  Tears burn my eyes and an emptiness floats through me. I touch my face, my hair, I hug myself. It is hard to believe I will be gone one day soon. My voice forever silenced. My eyes forever closed. My heartbeat stilled. How does that happen? How does a person just stop existing? It doesn't seem possible. No one would ever suspect there is a tumor growing inside my brain, a tumor that is steadily removing my life essence from me. I look like an ordinary, healthy, young woman. Nothing about my features hint at the destructive tumor taking over my brain.

  Diseases are like that—they destroy you from the inside out, never showing the inevitability of them until it is too late, until it has gone too far.

  Looking at my reflection, it is hard to imagine it is there. There are no signs of it in my visage. A lot of the time I can pretend it isn't true, but then I feel it—a twinge of impermanence, a tug of fatality, a whisper that my time is numbered and that it is running out. More and more I am feeling it. Death is quietly telling me to prepare those around me, that it will be here for me soon. And that is what I have been doing, or trying to do, even though I have continually mucked it up.

  When I was a child, I liked to create. I was told by many I was unique. I liked that word. I liked how it was spelled and I liked how it sounded on my lips. At a young age, I decided I wanted to be that. It helped that I had the right personality for it.

  It could be with paint, fabric, Legos, my hair—anything. Colors called to me, clashing designs, and the need to make something original out of something plain and uninteresting. Hence my inclination to dye my hair different colors and wear clothes not generally worn by the students of Prairie du Chien High. Interior design was what called to me the most, when I decided I needed to be responsible and make a college decision.

  I'd decided to attend Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design just a few nights before I ended up in the emergency room. I don't know if I believe in kismet, but it is sort of ironic how life works out, and death. All of my plans altered in one afternoon, all of my goals stamped out, and just as suddenly, another opportunity appeared with a new life and new plans. I do think I was there to see him. What would I be like now if I hadn't found a ray of hope in a smothering hole of despair? It came in the form of Rivers Young. He was my light and I was his. I pray that light continues to burn long after I have been snuffed out. Because, all of this, this dying business, it has to be for something. And I have told myself it was him. It is him. I made it be him.

  I wonder if I will see my half-brother Neil. When I close my eyes for the last time, will he be waiting? Or will there be nothing at all? I like to think I'll be with him, in some form. He was my best friend, the one I looked up to, until he was abruptly snatched away with a playground fall hard enough and at just the right angle to snap his neck. I went through the pain of losing a loved one. I know how hard it is. I saw my mom go through losing a child. And now she will lose one more.

  Death came for Neil at such a young age—he was only eight. Maybe it felt bad for me so it decided to come a little later. I shake my head, knowing my thoughts aren't making a lot of sense. I wonder if that is from the disease spreading through my brain, or if it's just because I am dying and I know it. I was told it would start to affect my thoughts and motor skills as it grew. It scares me. I don't want to turn into someone I am not. I don't want to lose myself, not until all of me is gone.

  When I go, I want to go as me.

  Eighteen years. Eighteen years I was given. Did I make the most of them? Of course not. Not until I found out about the tumor. We always think we have more time and that is the wrong way to think, because time is something we never have enough of.

  I imagine my death will be uneventful. I'll pass out or fall asleep and I just won't wake up. So for me, it won't be too bad, but what about the ones I'll be leaving? What about Rivers? What about him losing you? The thought is enshrouded in a powerful ache that throbs where my heart is. I turn from the mirror, leave my bedroom, and walk down the stairs of the home I used to avoid and now understand.

  One day my ghost will linger here as well.

  I find her in the living room, an open photo album in her lap and multiple others sprawled out on the floor around her. Her hair is pulled away from her face in a loose ponytail, cutoff jeans and a pale blue top adding to her seemingly young and vulnerable stature. She looks up when I enter, and tears are shimmering in her eyes. I pretend I don't see them, smiling brightly as I sit beside her on the floor. She immediately reaches out for my hand and holds it. I can see her struggling to be strong. So I tell her she doesn't have to be anymore.

  “It's okay to cry, Mom.”

  A broken sob leaves her and the hand clutching my wrist begins to shake. “If I start, I don't think I will ever stop.”

  “You'll eventually get tired of it and find something else to do.”

  She laughs, wiping tears from her eyes. “Want to look at them with me?”

  I glance down and see a photograph of a toddler and a chubby baby sitting on a brown couch, both brown-haired and golden-eyed. My heart squeezes. “So we can both become blubbering messes?”

  “Do you have better plans?”

  I scoot closer to my mom until my arm is resting against hers. “I really don't. Let the waterworks begin.”

  We start with Neil's baby album. He was an ugly baby—all rolly fat with smashed in facial features and a bald head—and I tell my mom so, which makes us both laugh. We laugh harder when she agrees. I make a comment about mothers supposedly thinking their babies are beautiful no matter what and she says that that is a lie, but they do love them no matter what.

  “He made up for it as a two-year old,” I murmur, staring at a little boy standing in a sandbox with the sun haloing him and dirt covering any piece of skin not clothed. A wide grin shows gaps and teeth. I can't help but smile back.

  “He did. He was such a shit though,” she muses. I look at her in surprise and she laughs again, shrugging. “He was. He used to scream every time I bathed him. He liked being dirty. He liked to eat dirt too. I would find dirt in all his orifices." She pauses. "He refused to eat anything but peaches and peanut butter sandwiches until he was six.”

  "He loved peanut butter almost as much as I do," I muse, feeling a sweet clenching in my chest—the bittersweet memory of a young boy with a contagious laugh and fierce stubbornness.

  I touch the shiny cover of the film, thankful for this moment and the way my mother is opening up to me. She used to keep this part of herself locked away. I am guilty of this as well. I didn't talk about Neil because it hurt and that was wrong. I don't want the same to happen with me after I am gone. I don't want to be thought about, but never spoken of. I want to be remembered, not hidden away like a dark, sad secret. I don't want the ones that love me to hurt when they think of me—I want them to smile.

  I take a deep breath and look at my mom. She looks back, silently waiting.

  “I don't like to think of myself as a coward, but some things even I shy away from—most notably, the subject of Neil, and the strain between us.” I swallow. “I should have talked to you. I shouldn't have pushed you away. I always thought I had forever, that I had time to fix us, but I have realized that none of us have that.” I inhale slowly. “I don't want to go and I am sorry that I am. That sounds so lame, but I don't know how else to say it.”

  Her lower lip trembles and tears are trailing down her porcelain cheeks. “You make me so proud, Delilah. You always have. Even when I didn't understand you, I admired you. You're so brave, such a brave young woman.” She takes a stuttering inhalation of air. “You're not supposed to be trying to make me feel better, you're not supposed to be comforting me. I should be the one to do it. I'm the mother—”r />
  “You're the mother who lost a son and will soon lose a daughter,” I remind her quietly. “I'm not happy about this. In fact, I'm a little hateful, a little depressed, and yes, selfish. I want to have my life. I want to have my wedding and my kids and my career. I want grandchildren. I want ice cream and movies and music. Peanut butter. I want the sun and the stars, sunrises and sunsets. I want the scent of rain around me and the cold of winter, the warmth of a blanket. I want love and laughter. I want to create something amazing and have it be in someone's home. I want to grow old and fat and say whatever the hell I want without caring how others react. I want that sense of entitlement to be bat shit crazy that seems to come with old age.

  “I want so many things that I will never have, but...” I wipe tears from my eyes, seeing them mirrored in the blue eyes focused on me. “But I have so much now. I have to remember that. You're the one who has to keep living. You...and Monica...and...and...Rivers.” Pain lacerates my heart and I talk around it. “You're going to need each other. You're going to have to be strong for each other. Promise me, okay? When one of you falls, the other two will be there to help them back up.”

  “I want the same for you. I would give it to you if I could. I promise you. Of course I promise you,” she says, enfolding me in her arms. “You're just starting to live. This isn't the way this is supposed to happen. I'm supposed to go first. I'm not supposed to see my children die.” Her voice cracks as she tightens her hold on me, her tears wetting my shoulder.

  I am openly crying as I confess, “I always thought you were comparing me to Neil, that you were trying to use me to fill the hole he left within you instead of really seeing me, but I realize now that that was never true. You were trying to hold on to me because you couldn't him. You were trying to keep me safe because you weren't able to with him. You can't control the world around you, Mom, but you can take comfort in all that you have. You have me, always. And Neil. You always have us. Don't forget. I'm not really going away.”