The Sky Above Us

by Natalie Lund

  If he could interrogate the dream, maybe he would know for sure that it was true, that what he was about to do wouldn’t be in vain. Concentrate on the medicine, he told himself, at once Randolph and Israel. He remembered a short chestnut horse then, with a small girl on its back, racing around barrels. Randolph knew the mare, Peonía. She had an upper respiratory infection the ranchers called strangles. She would die if he didn’t get antibiotics.

  He could see Lara for once: her olive skin, the silk scarves she always wore over her shoulders, the crooked tilt of her smile. Then Peter, with his strawberry-blond hair, skinny legs, knobby knees, and hurt blue eyes. Peter in his/Randolph’s imagination was running along a lake, flags streaming from his belt as he cradled a football in his arms. Or he was holding a bow, stretching it with all his might, trying to keep his chest flat, his elbow raised. His tongue stuck out as he aimed at the bull’s-eye.

  The heat in the car rose, accompanied by the terrible stink of melting plastic. The air was thick with smoke, burning his nostrils, his trachea. At the end, there was always a coughing fit that made him see stars, accompanied by a spasm in his abdomen, his body gasping, desperate for oxygen.

  Concentrate, Israel thought again. Randolph opened his eyes, despite the sting. In front of him, where the windshield should have been, there was a gaping hole, an image with no data. That, Israel/Randolph thought, is where I’m going.

  Israel woke to something bumping against his door, probably Izzy, collapsing onto his rug in her sleep. He wiped the sweat on his chest and neck off with his T-shirt and tried to breathe deeply until his pulse slowed.

  His sister didn’t stir when he unlocked his door. The moon from the window at the end of the hallway streaked her dark hair with silver. Her breathing whistled lightly out of her nose. She looked peaceful, curled up like a cat. He often felt so angry at this thing that she couldn’t control any more than he could control his dreams that he’d allowed himself to forget it had once been nice to be close to her. They’d crouched together at the beach, hunting for crabs with sticks; they’d traded turns on a bodyboard; they’d built sand forts and plotted attacks on them, on the same side, as they advanced with their shovel soldiers.

  Back then, before he’d had a locked door to keep her away, he’d wake from his nightmares with her breath hot on his neck and her arm slung over his shoulder. He’d felt safe. And he couldn’t remember when that feeling of safety had transformed into humiliation and irritation.

  Israel lay down carefully so as to not wake her. He put his arm on her shoulder and closed his eyes, willing himself to feel safe again, to feel peace, to feel anything but scared about what he was going to do.

  * * *

  • • •

  Israel woke to the syrupy smell of mandocas. After his dream the night before, he’d helped Izzy sleepwalk back to bed and had returned to his own. He’d managed to doze off, and those few hours dozing had been sweetly empty, like a parting gift from his body.

  Downstairs, his dad held tongs over a pan of oil, a white apron knotted over his work clothes as though those could get any dirtier. His mom was juicing limes. Izzy sat on one of the barstools at the counter, hugging one knee to her chest and dangling the other foot. Luna had wrapped her body around the legs of the stool. There was no trace of his parents’ disappointment about grades. What gift was this?

  “Buenos días, sleepyhead,” Izzy said. Israel studied her face, but there was no hint that she remembered him cuddling her in the middle of the night.

  “What are you doing home?” he asked his dad. “It’s not raining.”

  “Oh, perdóname, I’ll leave,” his dad said, pretending to untie his apron. Israel hadn’t seen him since the report card had arrived, but he seemed in a good mood. Lit with the sunlight from the kitchen window, the lines on his face had softened. Israel could as easily have been in the kitchen of his childhood as he was in the present.

  “He said he’d been missing mandocas and could stand to go in a few hours late,” his mom said. She wore jeans and a silk top. Her hair was tied back with a scarf, and she, too, looked like the parent of his childhood, baking tots in the kitchen after school.

  “Oh, you’ve been missing them, have you?” Israel said to his dad. “No one else mentioned them to you, like, a month ago?”

  “What? A man can’t miss the food of his homeland? I was a child once too.”

  Israel climbed onto the stool beside his sister. “Hey, I won’t complain. Just want credit where credit is due.”

  “Fine, everybody, it was Israel’s idea that I stay home for a morning to make mandocas.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Para mi preciosa.” His dad set the first plate of fried teardrop-shaped rings in front of Izzy. Israel reached for one and she elbowed him away, leaning forward over the plate so she could guard them with her arms.

  “Hey! I thought you only liked healthy food now.”

  She selected the smallest, palest one from her plate and handed it to him. It was too hot; he wrapped it in a paper napkin so he could hold it.

  “What are you two doing today?” his mother asked.

  Israel took a bite of the fried cornmeal dough. It was fine to answer with silence if his mouth was full. There was no way he could explain that he’d steal a plane, fly it through a hole in the world, and choose a different life. None of them would understand.

  “There’s a senior party at the beach tonight,” Izzy said.

  “You’re both going?” she asked.

  Israel nodded, mouth still full.

  “Pórtense bien,” she said. Behave. “No drinking and driving.”

  “Of course not, mami,” Izzy said.

  She served them the papelón con limón, a sweet and sour concoction made with limes and the same panela as the mandocas.

  When the batches were finished frying, they all moved to the table. It was the first time the four of them had sat at the kitchen table together in months. Izzy told a story about a biology teacher at school who’d brought in a tapeworm from one of her cows so the class could see it. A girl in Izzy’s class—Israel had a feeling that it was actually Izzy—had joked she would steal it and swallow it to lose weight. But the teacher had thought she was serious and locked up the tapeworm in a metal locker.

  “It’s certainly the best-guarded tapeworm in Texas,” she said.

  Their dad kept leaning over the tabletop so he could hear her better, eyes crinkling in the corners from laughter. Their mom held a napkin over her mouth, pretending to be mortified, but she found it as funny as the rest of them.

  Israel waited for his future and grades to come up, but they didn’t.

  Too quickly, breakfast was over. Their mother was going shopping on the mainland; their dad had to check on the cabinet guys. Israel planned to go to Shane’s before the party. He might not see his parents ever again—these two people who’d worked so hard to build a life for them on this island. The thought felt like touching a hot stove. He couldn’t dare touch it again. He couldn’t say goodbye.

  “Gracias,” he said instead. His dad balled up the apron and tossed it at him. He brushed out his mustache with his fingers, hiding a smile. His mom ruffled his hair and kissed his forehead.

  Izzy didn’t move from her seat. She was chewing on an ice cube from her drink, petting Luna—who she claimed she didn’t like—and staring at him.

  “What was that about?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “I felt a pang just then. Before they left.” She patted her side as though he wouldn’t know she was talking about her twinsense.

  “Izzy,” he said warningly. It wasn’t about privacy this time. She’d try to stop him if she knew the truth and could even end up in danger herself. He was banking on her being asleep when he actually flew that night; she couldn’t sleepwalk forty-five miles to him.

  “Israel,
you can talk to me; I might be able to help,” she said. She wore pj’s—cotton shorts, a tank top that said SLEEP in cloud-shaped letters, and fuzzy striped socks. Even without makeup or her hair done, she was starting to look older and fiercer, a woman in a girl’s pajamas. But if Peter and OtherPlanes couldn’t do anything, what was she going to do to stop his nightmares?

  “Later, okay?” he said. “Tomorrow.”

  “We are twins,” she said. “We are made of the same DNA, we grew up in the same house, with the same family. And we barely know each other. Doesn’t that make you sad?” It did, of course, but he couldn’t let the sadness sink in or she’d feel that, too. If he was going to remember parts of the final moments of this life in the next, he was determined for them to be the smell of mandocas and his parents’ laughter.

  “Izzy, it’s been a good morning. Can we not fight right now?”

  “Doesn’t that make you sad?” she repeated, following him to the staircase.

  She was all spines to the world, but she had such a soft underbelly. She was easy to hurt, and that’s how he could protect her and his plan. “No,” he said. “Not at all. You just love too hard.”

  Her face crumpled and he turned away.

  Back in his room, Israel pulled out his iPad. He could leave her a message—something she wouldn’t see until long after he was gone, when she found the iPad in his hiding spot. He opened the voice memo app. He tried to apologize, but it didn’t come out right. He deleted the message and started over.

  Again, and again. And two more times after that.

  Why couldn’t he do this? Each time, his goodbye made it sound like he was leaving a door open for her to blame herself. Just the existence of a message would signal to her that he’d done it on purpose and there was some way she could have stopped it.

  Maybe it was far kinder to leave their relationship as is, to let her think that today was a normal day: He was her same prickly, private brother. The death of his body when he went through the doorway was simply an accident. She’d be resentful, maybe, but not regretful.

  He could imagine grown-up Izzy following her love of movies to study film in California. She’d trade slouchy shirts for high-waisted pants, red lipstick, and an asymmetrical bob. She’d simmer with artful moodiness, and all her student films would be bold, ambitious explorations of grief. Then, on to Hollywood, where she’d be a force, directing for the big screen.

  She’d be all right, and maybe, just maybe, he’d see her again one day.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CASS

  Eight days after

  “WHERE WERE YOU, Cassandra?” my mom asks as soon as I walk through the door. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, her laptop open and reading glasses perched on her nose, probably waiting for my dad to call.

  “I told you. Training for a new job at the theater.”

  “Where’s your uniform?”

  “Oh. Um, they still have to order it.”

  “Cass, you’re a terrible liar. You have been since you were little.” She beckons me to the kitchen table. “Sit. What’s really going on?”

  I sigh. “We went to see the pilot. The one who taught the boys how to fly.”

  “What?” She doesn’t anger often, but when she does, it inflates her like a balloon: her cheeks puffing, her eyes bugging out. “Why?”

  “Honestly, because I needed some help,” I say. “I needed to face things, you know? See things differently.”

  “I could have helped you, honey.”

  “Could you have?” I say, more sharply than I intended. She’s always trying to keep me from making mistakes or failing, but I’m starting to realize that maybe I need to do these things—that I need to reach into the darkness—to learn things about myself.

  She looks hurt, her lip turning out, but I can’t stop myself. “You only see stuff with Dad one way. You think it’s your fault he’s not in our lives because you didn’t follow him, but he could have left the navy. Keeping up a relationship is on him, too.” I nod at the silent laptop to emphasize my point. “When was the last time you protected your own heart?”

  “Cassie, I think that’s a bit unfair. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

  “Well, tell me, then. I’m old enough.”

  She looks at the laptop like it might ring and rescue us both. “You’re right that I probably try to carry too much of this relationship. And you’re right that it hasn’t been going well.” Her voice wobbles.

  “Have you talked about . . . separating?” I barely get the word out.

  She’s silent but puts her hand on mine. The gesture tells me everything.

  Even if I saw it from a mile away—even if Izzy did too—I’m still shocked. “Why haven’t you?” I ask savagely, sliding my hand away.

  “We’re still working on it and thought maybe we should wait until you’re in college.”

  This infuriates me. They were going through the motions of being a couple—barely—for some arbitrary milestone? “Why? It’s not like it will be magically easier on me because I’m out of the house. You might as well not waste the time.”

  “It’s not a waste. There’s good between us,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. “A lot, actually.”

  Her sadness deflates me. “But will you be happier apart?”

  “I don’t know, Cassie.”

  I think of Shane, flying because he could, because his heart had already grown stronger. “You know what I learned today?” I say. “Shane liked to fly and was actually good at it.”

  Her eyebrows pinch together like she’s confused. “I’m glad, honey.”

  “I guess I’m trying to say: don’t wait to be happy.”

  She smiles weakly at this. “You’re so grown-up.”

  My phone rings, Janie’s name displaying on the screen.

  “I think she went back,” Janie says as soon as I answer. “I think she’s flying.”

  I look at my mom, and I can tell she’s worried, that she wants to say no to the question I haven’t asked yet. But she nods because she understands that this is what makes us good—any of us, all of us: the care we take of each other.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  NATE

  One day before

  NATE’S MOM’S EYES were glued to him during dinner. She spun her gold wedding band, working it up and down her finger to reveal a thin tan line.

  Eat, he told himself, but a moment later he realized his fork was still hovering in front of his mouth. His brain was a bat nest again: a million copies of the same thought flapping against his skull.

  I’m worthless.

  I deserve pain.

  Aaron was saying something about a customer who was trying to sue the restaurant where he worked because she’d burnt her mouth on a fried oyster. Their dad rubbed his arthritic knuckles and rolled his eyes at the tourist. His mother seemed to be waiting for Nate to do something. Laugh, he told himself. It came out in a rushed huff of air—not a laugh at all.

  “The fuck, Nate?”

  “Aaron,” his dad said warningly.

  “What are you doing tonight, honey?” Nate’s mom asked him.

  “There’s a senior party. On the beach,” Nate answered.

  “There won’t be any drugs or alcohol?”

  “No.” He caught Aaron smirking at him.

  “What time will you be home?” his dad asked.

  “I’m sleeping at Shane’s.” Another lie, of course, because he couldn’t say they were going to steal a plane so Israel could find a doorway to another life.

  Nate pictured the tear he’d seen, its rich, ripe darkness. It pulled at him—a magnet. What if—Nate wondered—he went instead? What if he disappeared inside? Everything would be so quiet.

  His mom leaned over the table and grasped his hand. Hers was warm, damp, and dotted with sunspots.
He could feel the cold metal of her ring, the lines on the inside of her palm. For a moment her touch grounded him and cleared his head. He could ask her for help, but what would he say? That his thoughts were too much? That they were hurting him? How stupid was that?

  His tongue felt like it was cemented to the floor of his mouth, his throat closing.

  “Be careful,” she said, releasing his hand, and the moment slipped away.

  At dusk, Israel and Shane carried the keg down to the beach and left Nate with the plastic cups. The dance team had arranged ten brightly colored coolers around the firepit as benches. Half of them were scrawled with the last names of well-meaning soccer parents—Turner, Freeman, Hastings, Guerrero, Tran.

  Seniors arrived in carloads, jean-shorted and with folding chairs slung across their backs. They unpacked hot dogs, bags of chips, and mixers onto three rickety card tables. They kicked off shoes and hopped from blanket to blanket, admiring each other’s tans, pedicures, new swimsuits, and mirrored sunglasses.

  Nate used to be like them: lost in his little life, unconcerned because the future was glittering and endless like the ocean. But now?

  There is no future.

  Marcus hauled the wood to the pit and handed Nate the lighter fluid.