by Jenna Blum
“So, woman?” Kevin says, a little anxiously. “How do you like the man pad?”
“It’s nice,” says Karena. “Cute. Looks a little like a witch’s hat.”
“Witch hat!” Kevin roars. “Okay, now that I am totally emasculated!”
He makes a face.
“Although actually there is a witch living on the first floor,” he admits. “Mrs. Axlerod. She’s been there for at least a hundred years, cooking small children in her oven. I’ve been waiting patiently for her to go to that great broomyard in the sky so I can expand, but no such luck. Yet.”
“That’s nice, Mr. Wizard,” says Karena, patting Kevin’s thigh. “So I take it those are her flowers?”
“Naturally,” says Kevin. “I am far too manly to grow flowers. My tomatoes are in back.”
Karena smiles and they sit watching the breeze play in the leaves above the curb. A mourning dove coos from somewhere.
“So,” Karena says, “I’ll see you soon, like next weekend? Friday or Saturday?”
Kevin shrugs. “Your call, Laredo. I’m not the one who has a long-lost brother to catch up with. I’ll just sit pathetically by the phone.”
“Okay,” says Karena. “I’ll call you as soon as the dust clears a little. Let you know how it’s going.”
“Please do,” says Kevin. He takes her hand.
“Seriously,” he says, “not to be a downer or anything, because I know it’s like the miracle of Lourdes you guys found each other and you must be so happy. As you should be. But if Chuck starts to exhibit even the slightest weird behavior, if he says or does anything that makes you feel even mildly uncomfortable, I want you to call me. Okay, Karena?”
Karena glances in the rearview. Charles’s windshield is sheened with leaf shadow and reflected light, and she can’t see her brother.
“I will,” she says.
“Any time, day or night,” says Kevin.
“Okay.”
“I mean it, Karena. Or just come over. The door’s always open.”
“Okay, Kevin,” Karena says. She pats Kevin’s chest, which is puffed up. “Now, don’t get all moosey. I’ll be fine.”
Kevin nods.
“All right,” he says. “And I know you’ll have an amazing time catching up. I can’t wait to hear about it.”
He slips on his aviators and reaches down for his laptop bag. He and Charles have already dismantled the stand and the ham radio back in Austin.
“Welp, happy trails, Laredo,” he says. “I sure am glad I met you.”
“Oh, I am too,” Karena says. “I’ll miss you,” and she leans over so they can kiss.
Behind them, the horn blares.
“Sorry,” Charles calls through his window. “My elbow slipped.”
Kevin sighs.
“Why did we want to find him again?” he asks.
“Search me,” Karena says.
Kevin kisses his fingers, touches Karena’s cheek, and gets out. He goes around to the back for his duffel.
“See you soon, Laredo,” he says, slamming the tailgate, and in her side mirror Karena watches him walk back to Charles’s wagon with his laptop carrier slung across his torso, his bigger bag in hand. He leans down to say something to Charles, slaps the Volvo’s roof and walks up the path to his pointy-hat house. Karena waits until he goes inside, then looks ahead at the street. The sun shines dreamily through the trees, two kids circle a lawn on dirt bikes. Behind her, Charles remains invisible, though when the breeze shifts the leaves Karena can see the object hanging from his rearview, a dream catcher.
She takes out her cell to call him—Charles’s cell, Karena noticed when they exchanged numbers, is a pay-as-you-go model from a Walmart or gas station, which explains why she couldn’t track him through a standard carrier. As she dials, her own phone buzzes in her hand.
“Jeez, you kids,” says Charles when Karena answers. “Get a room.”
“Ha ha, you’re hilarious, Charles.”
“Sorry about spoiling the tender moment,” he says. “My elbow really did slip.”
“Mmm hmm. Okay, Charles. So, you ready to go?”
“Of course,” says Charles. “That’s why I’m calling, to see if we’re leaving or you’re going to run into Wieb’s for one more poke for the road. I mean, if you and Wieb want more alone time, I can go get an iced tea or something.”
“Charles.”
“Just checking . . . So can we go? I mean, I like the guy and everything, but I’d rather see where you live.”
“We’re mobile,” Karena says. “Unless you really do want something to eat or drink—are you hungry? I probably don’t have much at the house.”
“No, I’m good,” says Charles. “We’ll do whatever you want to do, sistah. Lead on. I’m in your world now.”
Karena smiles, although this last statement gives her pause as well as a thrill. She hangs up, waves so Charles can see her, then signals and pulls away from the curb. The yellow Volvo smoothly follows suit.
Because Karena has been away for a while and is distracted, and because she’s not that familiar with St. Paul, she can’t readily calculate the most efficient route home. She settles for the first way that comes to mind, taking Snelling to Lake Street and crossing the river. The Mississippi is wide here, and the sky opens up over the sluggish, powerful water, and Karena breathes a little more easily. She realizes one of the reasons she’s been nervous since they entered the city is she can’t see the whole sky. Now she notes the haze on the horizon, the Cu floating past—she will never look at clouds the same way again. Then they are on the other side, and the trees close back in.
Charles honks as they leave the bridge, and Karena holds up a hand in the rearview: What?
He points left, and Karena understand he means, Look, there’s the River Road! which they used to take to Uncle Carroll’s house. Actually, she thinks, and signals to turn. It’s a better way to go, and for sentiment’s sake Karena leads Charles past Carroll’s house, a tiny bungalow almost completely hidden beneath grape ivy, then takes Minnehaha Parkway up through the city. She creeps along like a geriatric, which is surely driving Charles insane, but Karena doesn’t want to risk even the slightest chance of losing him, getting separated by another driver cutting in or at a stoplight. She still can’t believe it, that Charles is here, actually here, after so many years. She keeps expecting to look in the rearview and see nothing, or a strange car, to find that Charles has slipped away. Yet every time she checks, the yellow Volvo is still right there, behind her.
42
“C ’mere, sistah,” Charles says.
He pats his chest and spreads his arms. They are standing on the curb in front of Karena’s house, where Charles has just parked his car. Karena hugs him willingly, happily, for a long time—a more peaceful embrace than the shrieking reunion back in Austin. Charles is so thin Karena can feel his ribs through his T-shirt, and he smells different, no longer like Irish Spring and fast food but salt and a whiff of patchouli. But he also just smells like Charles, a scent as familiar to Karena as her own breath. When they finally let go, Charles’s eyes are damp and red.
“It is so fucking good to see you, K,” he says.
“You too, Charles.”
He begins dismantling his laptop and ham and scanner, and Karena starts unloading everything else. There’s a lot. From the looks of it, as she suspected, Charles has been living at least part-time in his car. He has never been the most organized person, except when it comes to his data, so Karena collects armfuls of plaid flannel shirts and T-shirts, mismatched socks, a yoga mat—yoga?—and some bundles of what looks like brush.
“Charles,” she says, holding it up, “what is this?”
“Sage. You burn it. To cleanse places of bad spiritual energy.”
Oh boy, Karena thinks.
“Neat,” she says.
“What’re you doing, anyway?” Charles asks, backing out of the front seat.
“What’s it look like? Taking your stuff i
n.”
“You mean it’s not safe to leave it out here?” Charles looks up and down the tree-lined street. “Seems like a nice enough neighborhood.”
“It is,” says Karena, “but—I thought—aren’t you going to stay for a while?”
Charles shrugs.
“I don’t want to intrude,” he says. “I know you have your life.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Charles,” says Karena. “Of course I have a life. Now you’re in it.”
“Okay, but—”
“You just got here, Charles. Can we figure out later when you’re going to leave? Like give it a couple of days at least?”
Charles nods, and his eyes grow red again. “Thank you, K.”
“Forget it. Just help me move all your crap in.”
They make several trips, carrying in bag after canvas bag, box after box. And a Mexican blanket. A Lakota drum as tall as Karena’s waist. A case of green tea. Enough books to stock a small library: Juicing for Life, The Naturopath’s Guide to Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy for Dummies, Crystal Healing. Uh oh, Karena thinks. The other books are meteorological: Storm Chasing Handbook. Flora’s Tornadoes of the United States. Bluestein’s Tornado Alley. Weathering the Storm, The AMS Weather Book, National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather—when Karena picks this one up, several photographs of supercells scatter out of it. And there are stacks of the marbled black-and-white composition books Karena remembers from New Heidelburg. Charles’s ledgers, his data. She looks at the topmost one for a moment—mar-aug 2003 it says on the cover—and remembers the last time she saw one of these. Held it. Wrapped it in her jacket and set it against the stone lion. Karena chews her lips a moment, then hauls the ledgers up her front steps.
She has so often envisioned Charles in her house, what his reaction might be to this couch, that mirror, that the place has been practically decorated with him in mind. Yet now that Charles is actually here, Karena feels shy. She watches him wander around, exclaiming over her books and art, and she marvels at him, so the same and so changed. Time has been kind to her golden brother. It has erased the baby roundness from his cheeks, raised his hairline a little, shaded in his dark beard, etched lines in precisely the same places Karena has them: on the forehead, around the eyes. Other than this, he appears much the same—the main difference being, Karena thinks, that Charles is no longer prettier than she is. He is beautiful.
She gives him the tour, ending upstairs in the master suite. This is the part of the house Karena is proudest of. When she first bought it, from a German history professor and her aging but spookily beautiful mother, this second floor was a warren of rooms, full of light but cramped. Karena knocked out the walls, leaving the bathroom intact, and now there is nothing in it but space and her big white bed.
“This is freakin awesome, K,” Charles says, boggling around. “It’s like being in a big Cu!” and Karena has to laugh. She didn’t intend this effect, but with the soft gray carpet and cream-colored walls, she can see how he’d think so.
“I’m glad you like it,” she says, “since this is where you’ll be staying.”
“But isn’t this your room?”
“Not right now.”
Charles holds up his hands.
“Oh no,” he says. “No way. I’m enough of an inconvenience as it is.”
“It’s no trouble, Charles. Half the time I fall asleep down in my study anyway,” says Karena, and it’s true. “This way we’ll both have privacy. There’s a bathroom up here, see?”
Charles goes to look. “It’s amazing,” he admits. “I’ll agree, but only on one condition.”
“What’s that.”
“We’ll switch off. I’ll take it for a few days, then you. Okay?”
“Fine,” says Karena, to shut him up. “And guess what, you get to carry alllll the boxes up.”
“Deal,” says Charles, and hugs her again.
They troop back downstairs, defaulting to the kitchen like nervous guests at a house party. “I am actually kind of hungry,” says Charles. And no wonder: The clock over the stove says seven fifteen.
“Wow,” says Karena. “I had no idea it was so late. Where do you want to go, Mexican, Thai?”
But Charles holds up a hand and waves it, No no no no no, as he did on Marla’s birthday video. “Forget that,” he says, “I’m so done with road food, let’s stay in. I’ll cook.”
Karena laughs and leans against the counter. “You will?”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” says Charles serenely. “How’d you think I afford chasing, K? I have these things, they’re called jobs. I like restaurant work because I can move around, take time off. I can do short order, fine dining, you name it.”
He opens the refrigerator and peers in.
“Except I can’t do this,” he says. “Pickles, diet pop . . . and Jesus, what the freak,” he says, slinging a dripping baggie toward the sink. “I think it tried to bite me!”
“Okay, Charles.”
“No offense, K, but I’m scared. You eat like crap.”
“I don’t, actually,” says Karena, “under normal circumstances. But I was out all week chasing after you, so it’s not like I’ve had the chance to go to Lund’s—”
Charles slams the fridge and turns.
“Wait,” he says, “hold on.”
He rakes his hands through his wavy hair in the distracted, semi-agitated way Karena remembers so well. “You were looking for me? That’s what you were doing out there with Wieb? Not just chasing for the hell of it?”
“Charles, please. Why would I ever go chasing for the hell of it?” Karena snorts. “Of course that’s why I was out there. After the call from the hospital—”
Charles grows very still.
“What hospital,” he says.
“The hospital in Wichita. You gave them my name.”
Charles props himself against the stove.
“They called you,” he says. “And told you what?”
“Nothing. To begin with. But when I got there, that you’d had a panic attack and had been released. What?”
Charles is shaking his head.
“That distresses me,” he says. “That distresses me deeply. I give them your name because they made me, they essentially bullied me into it. We need a family member, sir. We need an outside contact. And then when I do, very much against my wishes, they call you? They interrupt your work, your life, to drag you all the way down to Kansas? I am so sorry, K. I am so, so sorry.”
“That’s all right, Charles,” Karena says. “It turned out fine. I got a story from it, for one thing. And more importantly, here you are.”
“True,” says Charles. He scrapes his hair back and blows out air.
“Still. What’d they say that made you go chasing?”
They stare at each other, Karena’s slate-blue eyes meeting Charles’s brown.
“Nothing,” she says again. “I . . . was just worried.”
“Well,” says Charles. “No need. It was just a stupid thing, I had a little freak-out. See, this is what I mean about the medical empire. They’d use a bomb to kill a mosquito. I knew I made a mistake going there. I never would have except . . . well, anyway. I am so done with the empire.”
Uh oh, Karena thinks again.
“So that happened,” says Charles. “Okay. Let’s not let this spoil our time together. So you were out chasing, huh? That explains why my twindar kept going off all the time.”
“Mine too,” says Karena. “I kept missing you by inches. We drove right past you before that wedge.”
Charles’s grin, which has been starting to widen, fades.
“That was you?” he says. “That red Jeep out there was your red Jeep? Jesus, I’m going to skin Wieb for getting you so close. What was he thinking?”
“The question is,” says Karena, “where the hell did you go?”
“Dropped back south,” says Charles, “then over to Pine Ridge—the reservation. I’ve got a friend there,
Eddie Black Cloud, who I hung with for a couple of days. Then decided to come visit you—but we can talk about that later. Jesus, K,” he says, “that wedge was insane. Even I wouldn’t chase that thing.”
“Well, thank goodness,” Karena says. “It was awful.”
They look at their feet for a moment, positioned the same way on opposing tiles, then look up at the same time and say, “Let’s get pizza.” Then laugh.
“Jinx,” says Charles. “Buy me a Coke. Actually, no, don’t, I don’t drink that crap anymore. Can we get veggie, please? And whole wheat crust?”
“Whatever you say,” Karena says, “whoever you are.”
She calls in the order, bemused, and she and Charles set the table in the dining room as if they’ve been housemates for years. Karena doesn’t have to tell Charles where the silverware is, which plates to use, which napkins. He just knows. He dims the chandelier too, and says, “Candles?” while Karena is turning from the buffet with Grandmother Hallingdahl’s candlesticks in her hands. She sets them on the table, smiling, and says, “I bet you forgot about these—” But Charles is regarding the little pewter horses with a tragic, fixed expression, and Karena winces. Of course. They remind him of Siri.
They pull out chairs and sit. Charles steers the horses around with a finger.
“How was it at the end?” he asks, not looking at Karena. “Did she ask for me?”
Karena sighs. By then, Siri wasn’t capable of speech, just of raspy breath that went on and on, issuing from her skeletal throat, the skin around her mouth swollen and chapped from the tubes.
“She wasn’t herself by then, Charles,” she says.
Charles positions the horses at right angles, nose to nose as if they’re kissing.
“And Dad,” he says. “Jesus, K, you let him marry the Black Widow?” He makes the horses gallop away across the place mat, whinnying in terror.
Karena remembers standing beside Frank at the wedding, one side of the New Heidelburg Lutheran church choked with the Widow’s multitudinous offspring, on the other just her. The strained smile for the photographer, Karena wanting to whisper in Frank’s ear that he’d better get a food tester.
