The bird walks away and I’m bored again. I call Eric again but the line is still busy. I want to call Willa, but she’s at work until this afternoon. Maybe I’ll go for a walk. Maybe I’ll ‘forget’ Adolph on the picnic bench. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I’ve been planning for months, thinking about what I’ll do when I’m well again. I’m nearly there, and I’d much rather be doing than planning.
This is the start of summer. This is the beginning of me. I get to have my life back, to be myself instead of just another patient. Meira didn’t have that chance, and neither did so many other kids I met on the ward. I can’t waste this time.
As long as I’m waiting for Eric, I take out one of my notebooks and a pen. I’m not just planning, I’m promising. Every item on this new list of goals is a promise to myself, my family, and to my dead friends that I’m going to do something with the opportunities they’ve given me through sacrifice and encouragement.
This is going to be a long list.
*
Eric shows up half an hour late. There are no food wrappers in his car, so I can’t assume he went to get a bite to eat while I was at school. He doesn’t look bored, so he probably wasn’t just sitting around someplace, either.
“What took you so long?”
Eric shrugs and puts the car in gear. “Nothing.” He’s up to something. His cell phone is on the dashboard. I pick it up and check his call history.
“Put that down.”
“I tried calling you twice and you were too busy to pick up.” The last person Eric called was Celeste. The time signature on the call says they talked for over an hour.
“What did you have to say to that airhead that took a whole hour?”
“Give that back.” Eric reaches for the phone and I hold it out of his reach.
“Watch the road.” I want to see what prompted an hour-long phone call, so I pry into his text messages. The last one from Celeste says: Pink lace. I don’t understand it until I read Eric’s message before it. She was answering the question: Which panties do you have on?
“Jesus Christ, man, Celeste? Seriously? Of all the girls on this planet, you’re fooling around with that bitch?”
“Hey,” Eric barks at me. “We’re not just fooling around, and don’t call her a bitch.”
“She is a bitch. She used to hold me down at recess and spit in my eye.”
“That was like, twelve years ago, and she apologized. It’s not like she could kick your ass now.”
“That’s not the point. That chick has no soul, bro.”
“Did she not make you a Get Well card a week ago?”
“After calling me Make A Wish Boy for months and acting like I got sick on purpose to get attention.”
Eric shrugs awkwardly. “You make her uncomfortable.”
“I make her uncomfortable? Well, that excuses everything, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he says sternly. I dump his phone on the dashboard and look anywhere but at my brother. I’m disappointed in him. Eric’s such a good guy. It was okay to put up with Celeste when they were just friends, but she’s going to ruin him. She’ll suck his soul out like some freaky succubus and make him into a miserable, cruel person like her.
“You can do better,” I mutter.
Eric stops a little too suddenly at the stop sign. “Listen, asshole,” he says through clenched teeth. “I didn’t say anything bad about Willa when she was making you all emo and shit. You don’t get to judge me or Cee. I’ll knock your teeth in if you do.” He gives me a narrow look to let me know he means business. “I’ve known her since kindergarten—you’re not going to change my mind by insulting her.”
Oh, but I can try.
*
Elise calls after dinner. Mom beats me to the phone, so I hover around her and try to overhear the conversation. Mom tries to assert her personal space with a hand on my chest, but if she wants breathing room she can damn well put the call on speakerphone.
“Hi, sweetie, how was your day?” she coos at Elise while giving me warning eyes. I can’t make out Elise’s reply, but Mom rolls her eyes and says, “Yes, he’s right here.” She grudgingly passes the phone to me with the instruction to hand it back when Elise and I are done talking.
“Everything. Spill it.” Not that my sister needs much encouragement. Elise launches into an enthusiastic recap of her life since Monday. She likes her coworkers. Making macaroni and cheese for two hundred is really hard. She likes the girls she’s bunking with. The mosquitoes aren’t as bad as she imagined, but still really annoying.
“So how are you?” she asks when my hand is ready to fall asleep from holding the phone.
“Eric is pissing me off.”
“What’d he do now? I’ll help you plot revenge—just don’t tell him I was in on it.”
“He’s dating that infected gunshot wound of a human being.”
“I assume you mean Celeste.”
“Of course, Celeste.” Who else merits that description?
“You didn’t see this coming? You think he drives up to Ottawa every other weekend to play checkers with her? Come on, she has her own ringtone, for crying out loud.”
“But she’s such a bitch!”
“To you. To him, she’s pretty sweet.”
“I wouldn’t date someone who was mean to you.”
“You could try to get along with her.”
“No.” Basic civility is a stretch for Celeste and I. Interactions were manageable when she and Eric were just friends because we didn’t have to talk that much. Now that they’re dating and school is out, she’s going to be around more often. She’s going to be at family dinners and special occasions and I’m going to have to try exceedingly hard not to backhand her.
“You should try. He’s nice to Willa, even though he doesn’t really trust her.” Eric is nice to anybody who will feed him. He’s like a dog.
“What do you mean he doesn’t trust her?”
“He thinks she’ll leave you. Not that there’s any evidence that she would, but he’s wary. And still, he’s nice to her.”
“Because Willa is nice to him, dummy.”
“You’re being stubborn.”
“You’re being stupidly optimistic about this.”
“Are you going to be this mean when I have a boyfriend?”
“Elise, we’ve talked about this: you’re going to become a nun.”
She whines my name over the phone and calls me a cheerless bastard. “It’s not a blank space down there, you know.”
“Don’t make me puke.” Though, it would be a hell of a lot easier on my stress level if it were a vacant lot between her legs.
“I have to go. We’re setting up to do several hundred freaking s’mores at campfire tonight.” I let her go with a reminder to take her Ritalin. God knows what sugary s’mores will do to her energy level.
Thursday
Willa picks me up from school after work. I just hobbled through my Soc final. The questions were pretty straightforward and I think I did okay. After I handed in the exam, Mrs. Hudson kept me back to comment on the term project.
“Since you were sick for the oral component, I based your mark on the written components alone, okay?”
“Sure.” That’s actually more than generous, because the only parts I contributed to the write-up were a paragraph about Ronald McDonald House Charities and the local center for bereavement counseling. Willa did the rest, and I didn’t even read it. The subject is too painful.
“Here’s the paper.” Mrs. Hudson hands me the stapled project with a red A on the cover sheet. Sweet.
“Thanks.”
“It was a very good assignment.”
I can only nod. Mrs. Hudson knows more about this paper than I do. I wish her a good summer and leave the classroom behind.
Willa is supposed to pick me up after work, but not for another twenty minutes. As long as I’m sitting here, I might as well look at the marks Mrs. Hudson made on the project—and just the margin
notes.
My paragraphs only got checkmarks. It was Willa’s work that Mrs. Hudson commented on. I try to stick to reading the red ink, but my eyes can’t help but drift to the type.
The more time goes by, the more I’m convinced that I never really knew my sister and that the memories I live with are just manifestations of my own issues. By wearing black I tell myself that I’m grieving my sister, but some days I’m just grieving the loss of everything that no longer fits into my perfect image of her. This urge to sanctify her, to tidy her life into a series of palatable facts, I think reflects my desire for order at a time when my life was falling apart. This, I believe, is what it is to grieve.
I close the cover on the project. I can’t read any more. It’s too personal, too raw. Too true. One day she and I have to have a real conversation about Thomasina…but not today.
When Willa pulls into the parking lot I put the paper away and offer a smile.
“How’d it go?” she asks of the exam.
“It was easy.” I lean across the bench seat and kiss her. She smells like love.
“Where’s Adolph?”
“I only have him to sleep, now. Dad says I can get rid of him by next week.” I get a high-five for that. I have other good news for her, too. My bloodwork finally reflects good kidney function. I’m pretty much done dialysis after next treatment, and they’re taking my Hickman out by the end of July, provided my kidneys keep their act together.
“Will they have to admit you for that?”
“No, it’s an outpatient procedure—if they don’t screw it up.”
“Congratulations.”
“You don’t sound so thrilled.”
“I’m trying not to get my hopes up.” I really shouldn’t, either. A lot could happen between now and the scheduled removal date that would necessitate keeping the damn thing awhile longer. Still, I have plans, and I really don’t want to let them float on ambiguous deadlines. I want to try weaning off the painkillers again. I want to cross the first item off my list: Be healthy.
“Let’s go to my house. I’ll make lunch,” Willa says. I agree, and because it feels dishonest to say nothing, I tell her that Mrs. Hudson returned our project.
“Did you read it?”
“Some of it.”
“Thoughts?”
“I need to read the rest.” I don’t bother to say that doing so might take a very long time, but Willa seems to understand. She takes my hand and says I can keep the paper for as long as I need it.
*
It’s three-thirty. Frank is due home shortly after four, and at the moment Willa and I are curled up in her narrow twin bed, wearing nothing but one sock and two smiles between us. Willa grudgingly admits that we should get up, but I’m not ready yet. We don’t get enough time to do this—spoon naked in her bed, talking of stupid things like what movies to see or whose relationships aren’t going to last the summer. I trace patterns on Willa’s ribcage under the thin sheet, feeling her skin pucker to gooseflesh. She insists I’m not tickling her. Her arm is drawn back slightly, running her hand over the outside of my hip and thigh. Occasionally her hand dips between us to play with the short hairs below my navel.
“Are you happy?” she asks.
“Very much so.”
“Me too,” she says. “Let’s try not to mess that up, okay?”
I kiss the back of her neck. “Go team?” Willa rolls out of bed and starts collecting her clothes. I subtly snatch her bra off the rug and throw it under her bed. I try to convince her that she doesn’t need one, but that alerts her to my scheme.
“Where did you put it?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Apparently she can’t take a joke or put on a different bra, because Willa picks up my hat and throws it out the window.
“Hey!”
“Do you really need it?” she throws my argument back at me.
“Yes. Go get it.”
“No one needs a wool hat in summer.” Willa puts on her shirt, sans bra. I can’t find it in myself to really care because all I can think about is my hat on the lawn.
“So go get it.”
“It’s on the front lawn!”
“So it is.” She sounds so annoyingly blasé.
“So people will see.”
“And then the sky will fall.” Willa laughs at me and rattails my bare ass with her sock. I should really consider pants….
“You’re getting it back,” I tell her.
“Bite me.” Willa leaves the room, still doing up her jeans. I scramble into my pants and follow her.
“Your brother is going to be home soon,” I hiss.
Willa turns on the landing and affects a horrified gasp. “Do you think he’ll realize you had cancer?”
“Shut up.”
Willa laughs and heads down the stairs. “My brother’s seen you puke. Your bare head isn’t that big of a shocker, really.”
Back right up. “When did he see me puke?”
“That time you were high. He came with me to the hospital to visit you. You insisted your face was bread, puked all over yourself, and then clung to me like a baby koala for half an hour.”
“Oh God.” What must that man think of me now? He’s probably going to sit his sister down soon and advise her not to date a glue-eater like me.
“Go get your hat. You can be out there and back in less than five seconds.”
“You threw it out there.”
“I have no recollection of that whatsoever.”
“Willa.”
“And you can’t prove it, either.” She smirks and smacks my ass. “Go get it.”
I peek out the window before opening the door. None of her neighbors are out in their yards. The street is quiet of traffic. I don’t see anyone on the neighboring porches or walking past the windows.
I dart out the front door, cross the lawn, and grab my hat. As I straighten up I realize that in my search for people, I completely missed the pickup truck parked behind Willa’s car. It’s empty. Frank Kirk is home, and I have no idea where he is.
“Everything okay?” he says from behind me. I whirl around and find him at the side of the house, coiling the garden hose.
“Uh…fine.” I sound guilty. I remember too late that I don’t have my hat on, and jam it down past my ears. “See you inside.” I rush into the house and shut the front door behind me. Willa is already puttering in the kitchen.
“Your brother is home.”
“Oh. Good.”
“He saw.”
“Is the sky still in place?”
“Smartass.” I pick up a wooden spoon off the counter and smack her bum with it. Willa just bends over and gives me a taunting look, daring me to do it again. I put the spoon back on the counter before Frank can catch me in yet another compromising position.
“Help me cook?” she says.
“Please.” By the time Frank comes back in, we’re quietly peeling vegetables for dinner. He looks at me strangely, and I just know he’s going to mention my hat or the stupid fluff that is my hair. The man uncaps a beer and asks me very seriously, “Are you making a salad?”
“Uh…yeah.”
Frank makes a disgusted sound in his throat and walks away muttering about ‘damn rabbit food.’ Willa gives me a smug smile that reeks of I told you so.
God, I hate it when she’s right.
Epilogue
Easter, One Year Later
I hold my hands out like a tightrope walker and place one foot directly in front of the other, trying to stay in the exact center of the brick pathway. Jem waves his fingers with mine and rests his chin on my shoulder. He keeps trying to tangle my feet so I’ll step off the path. I don’t think anyone would accuse us of taking the labyrinth behind the church too seriously, but it does feel good to walk it.
Jem and I stopped coming to St. Paul’s for the youth group meetings a while ago, but sometimes on Sundays we’ll drive out to Perth and walk the long, winding line together.
On damp days like this, there’s no one to bother us or tell us to smarten up.
I take a leap from the path into the flower at the center of the labyrinth. Jem is quick to join me, scooping me up in a bear hug and growling playfully into the crook of my neck.
“Your cheeks are cold.” I cup his face between my mittens to warm him up. He’s so cold and rosy that I can barely make out his freckles. “You should have worn a hat.”
Jem makes the customary face he does every time someone suggests that he wear a hat. The guy has a drawer full of them but after a year of toques, he’s sick of them. He insists that having long hair is an appropriate substitute for proper winter apparel—his hair stretches down to his shoulders now, flaming red and slightly curly at the ends. Call it an extreme overreaction to having once been bald. Jem hasn’t had a haircut since he was seventeen.
“Put your hood up, at least.” He does, grudgingly, and we backtrack through the labyrinth.
“Mom wants me to cut it for grad photos,” he says. I can hear the eye roll. Picture sessions at school start in two weeks. Elise signed up for the very first slot, and has been wondering aloud whether a graduation cap will make her ears look big for the camera.
Jem and I are both graduating a year late. Our families want to make a big deal of it, but truth be told, we’re just kind of over high school. Plans have been made, and now we’re just biding our time, waiting for the fall to start school.
Frank practically hovered over me while I applied to universities. I only applied to culinary school on a whim, but Frank found the acceptance letter in the mailbox. He wouldn’t let me not take it.
Jem is moving to Ottawa too, to study Economics. He got into other schools, but his brother and sister are going to be in Ottawa, and so that’s where he wants to be, too.
“You could tie it back for the photos.”
“That’s what I said.” Jem pulls me close. “Let’s go home.” He cups my equally rosy cheek. “We’ll warm you up.”
*
Tonight, I’m having Easter dinner at the Harpers’ house. Frank and Doug are both going to Oma’s house for dinner, so I prepare a vegetable dish for him to bring. All my brother has to do is throw it in the oven for a half hour before he leaves—practically idiot-proof.
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