Dive (17 page)

“I was getting a ride, V, ’cause I missed the bus, and you know how I hate to walk alone.” Eileen starts to whine. A picture flashes behind my eyes. In my mind I kick her.

I shake my head and look down the road, after the car. I can’t believe this. Why not? It’s not true.

“Why? Why did he wait so long? Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Are you kidding? He’s scared of you. He says you hate him.” She’s leaning forward. She’s too tall to be a liar.

“Sullivan is scared of me?”

“That’s what he said, V.” Those eyes, like puddles, so unlike Eileen.

“What?” My head hurts. Why did Sullivan ask me where Eileen was? And why does Eileen want to believe
him?

“You’re lying,” I finally say.

“What did you say?”

“You’ve been lying to me for weeks. Every time I see you with that stupid hat on, it reminds me. Where is the ratty thing today, anyway?” I say. “I have news for you, Eileen. I just figured out where
you
were the day Lucky got hit. So
that’s
why you’ve been such a nasty bitch—because you feel so bad for taking off when it happened, is that it? You didn’t come to
my
place that day. Did you jump on the bus? Is that it? Is that it?”

Eileen’s eyes are wet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you have incredible nerve, calling me a liar. And so sorry you don’t like my hat, like you are the fashion plate of the universe!”

“So you saw the whole Lucky accident, and you ran away. You’ve known for weeks . . . That’s it, isn’t it, why you’ve been acting like such a jerk? Why you’ve been avoiding me?”

Eileen straightens up. When she does, she’s taller than me. I’ve always hated that. “You’re the jerk, Virginia. I wasn’t even there. I went to the dentist that morning; don’t you remember? I wasn’t even near the bus stop.

Don’t you remember? Loretta told me. Loretta was there, on the bus. I called you from school, V, as soon as I knew.
You
didn’t go to school that day.” Her eyes fill, and Eileen starts crying. “I called you the second I heard. You were so upset I didn’t know what to say. Don’t you remember that, you jerk?”

I do. I remember. Sprawled across the floor the day Lucky got slammed, shaking so bad I couldn’t hold the phone, I couldn’t talk. Just before that horrible conversation with my mother. Something inside me drops, and I start crying too, standing on the sidewalk. “I’m sorry—I forgot. I forgot you called. I thought you just left. He asked me where you were.”

“Who asked you?” Eileen says, hugging me.

“Sullivan.”

“You’re kidding. What? What’s wrong with him?” She looks down the road, wipes her eyes. “And you thought I did? I can’t believe it. What’s wrong with him?” As I look at her, her eyes are no longer wet, but they’re not the same. “You tell me,” I say.

Rush

I remember the sheets. “Listen, I have to go.”

“Do you have to go
now? I
really need to talk to you.” Eileen looks at me. “Oh, it’s your dad, isn’t it? I’m sorry, V.”

I just nod. Maybe that’s enough communication for one day, I think, since I feel all weak—even my ears are weak, as the sound of Eileen’s voice wobbles in—like I might crumble into an irreparable pile of bones if I’m faced with any more
truth.

“I’ll call you later.”

“You what?” I say. Part of me doesn’t believe those words, since I haven’t heard them in so long.

“There’s some other stuff have to tell you,” Eileen says.

“You mean it?” Another part of me really wants to believe her.

“More than anything.”

But maybe, some other part says, it’s stuff I don’t want to hear. Maybe my ears
are
tired.

| | | | | |

Nobody else is home yet. I have time to wash the sheets, the blankets. But wait—where’s Lucky? Not in his waiting-to-go-out spot by the door. Why not? I call him. Nothing. He’s in front of Edward’s bedroom door. He’s chewing at his cast—there are white bits littering the carpet. Oh, poor dog. At least the cast is coming off in a few days. “Somebody around here hire a guard dog?” I say in my special canine voice. He growls.

I stop walking toward him. “Are you growling?” Yes, he is. He’s never done that. “What’s wrong?” I ask. Then I realize—it’s the blood.

My voice starts out normal. “It’s only me, Puppyhead.” My hand is in slow motion, reaching for the door. “If you bite me, I’ll lose my mind. Promise.” It’s a whisper. Lucky barks sharply as he rises and shakes himself out as if he’s fled the driving rain. He limps away. “So,” I say as my hand grasps the doorknob, “animals go crazy too.”

When the door opens, I understand. The air itself is an anchor, weighed down with the thick stench of dried blood. My throat closes. My nostrils burn as if the air itself is burning. What smells like this?

If metal burned, it would be like this. But no. Metal is cold. A dreadful edge, as if I’ve bitten something sharp and bitter, like a rotten pepper, wells up in my eyes. It’s the memory of the morning Lucky got hit. This morning my dad’s blankets were the brightest red. This afternoon they’re a dark, streaking brown. This morning the blood was warm. Now it looks like rust.

I don’t want to see this. The hot shock rushes through my limbs. I go numb. This is somebody else’s life. Stop—there must be a reason I’m here. But I don’t want to see this. But I don’t want Baby Teeth to see it even more. Okay. Before I know it, I roll it all into a big heap, I race through the hall, and throw it all down the basement stairs. I race down the stairs, spill detergent into the washing machine. I squeeze the stuff inside and shut the lid. I can breathe again.

| | |

I walk around the basement, shaking myself, just the way Lucky did, trembling my way back to life. The machine sloshes as it spins—it sounds like boots in a deep puddle. I notice that my mother has added more boxes to the piles of stuff she keeps everywhere. She can’t throw anything away.

I see some photo albums sticking out of a box. I lift one from the pile, and the faded black leather crumbles into uneven pieces. I open the book and see pictures of my mother as a kid. I think I’ve seen them before, among the piles in the den cabinet, but as I turn the page, I don’t recognize them.

In one picture, my mother and her sister are sitting on the steps of their Brooklyn brownstone. I’ve been there—it’s Pop’s old house. I recognize it by the building’s faded brick. They’re wearing black dresses and little black shoes. And both of them are wet, their long dark hair soaked and stringy around their shoulders. My mother is maybe ten years old. When is this? I keep looking. There’s something wrong here. It’s raining. Why are they sitting outside in the rain with no umbrellas? They look like the most miserable kids in Brooklyn.

I hear the phone ring upstairs. The washing machine spins. Good. Where are my siblings? I run up the stairs to answer. It’s my mother.

“Virginia, Dad’s better. The hemorrhaging’s stopped—for now.”

“Great! What”—I’m out of breath—“what do you mean, for now?”

She pauses. “All those drugs! Nobody can predict anything.”

“So are the doctors there? Is Dad awake?”

“No . . . the drugs . . .” Her voice trails off. “Is Edward there yet?” She pauses. How can silence be like a storm?

I finally say, “Not yet.” There’s something wrong, and she’s not telling.

“Okay, everybody stay home. Let Dad rest.” I can hear her sigh. “Your sister had chorus again, right? She’s a soprano, isn’t she?”

“Maybe, I’m not sure,” I say. Is this
my
mother?

“I think so. And send Edward out for pizza, or whatever.”

“I will.”

“So I’ll be home later; I’m going to wait for Dr. Sweeney again.”

“Mom!” I just want to say something.

“What is it?” I can imagine the expression on her face, same as the picture. The rumpled, sad mouth.

“What do you want for dinner?” I say.

“Oh, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.” She hangs up.

What did I want to say? Maybe yes, it does. The phone rings again.

“Hello,” I answer.

“Same to you,” Jane says.

“I was just going to call you . . .”

“Does that mean you can meet me?” she asks.

“End of the driveway,” I say.

“When? Don’t waste any time.”

“What? Five minutes.”

I write a note for Edward and Baby Teeth about Dad.

I wait five excruciating minutes before I walk outside.

“How’s your dad?”

“Better, supposedly. For now.”

“Oh good! Good good good!” she calls into the sky, but then she looks at me. “So what is it?”

“How do you know?” I mumble, already burning.

“Your face, V. What
is
it?”

Sometimes I hate when she calls me V. Again I can’t look into her eyes. “I have to go,” I say. It’s not even close to dark. What am I doing?

Jane just looks at me.

“I’m nuts.”

At least we laugh. “And nuts about you,” whispers from my mouth, in a voice that surprises me, low and urgent.

Jane must be surprised too, because when she breathes, it’s more like gasping, as if she’s forgotten how to, or there’s no air in the air when she does. After I say it, I’m able, though I can’t believe it, to look into her eyes. It’s like looking into the sun. Blinded.

“I have to go to the woods,” I say, the words inching into the air.

“What about me?” she says.

“You have to come too.”

We begin to walk along without speaking. There’s nothing else to say anyway. We know what we’re going to do. We’re going to touch each other, and there’re no words for that. I can hardly breathe, and my new problem, every time I’m with Jane, is with me now. I struggle to keep my legs moving, concentrating on lifting each foot. But still I stumble, thinking she’ll call it off any minute. I think she trips a few times herself. It’s like we’re drunk, the way we walk. Or dreaming. Dive, I think to myself, or sink. I didn’t forget.

I know a secret place in some woods near my house. I go when I want to be alone, just to sit with the old willow trees. Nobody has ever come along. It’s hard to get to, since there’s no path, but not impossible. Only for everyone else.

When we enter the woods, I walk in front of Jane since I know the way. Hearing her steps behind mine, just hearing her breathe, makes me dizzy. When we turn into the thicket, her hand reaches out, but so barely it nestles against the small of my back. Her touch streams along my spine, and a blazing chill rushes through me. I’m burning.

I don’t know I’m running until we reach the clearing, the secret clearing that hides under those willows that must’ve been there forever, the way their branches spread through the air and reach the next tree. I don’t know I’m running until I’m panting, like an animal, for God’s sake, until she catches up with me and reaches for me and I say, I can’t believe I have time to say, “I love you,” before her mouth covers mine and my arms find a place around her, pull her against me and we fall, in one big moment, under the trees.

My hands rush over Jane as if they don’t belong to me. Each time I touch her somewhere, and I have to touch her everywhere, she murmurs, the urgency of desire, the surrender to the hands that take us. My hands, so familiar, become strangers as they amble over her. The curves, the incredible softness as my hands ease beneath her shirt, the trembling breath.

And how simple it is, how natural. I know how to touch without ever having touched. I know without knowing. What have I been so afraid of? Not this part. The part when the sound of her voice plunges into my heart; the mention of her name like a dagger in my chest is what frightens me. So this is love? My hands ache with joy, wanting to linger around her lips, my arms ache from holding her so tightly, my chest aches, as if I am underwater, as if I have dived into a pool and rise, laggardly, unbreathing, to the surface. Suddenly, Jane slips her hand between my legs. I might dissolve in the deepening pleasure. So this is love.

Danger

I watch my father breathe. That’s all he does, so that’s all I do. I can’t imagine anything more mind-boggling than dying. Everyone, the one who is doing it, as well as the ones who are watching it, can do nothing else. We’re at the hospital.

He can’t move. He can’t open his eyes. He’s in a coma. A thick, transparent tube pumps blood into him; a skinny blue tube pumps protein. Another, a catheter, removes bodily waste. Nothing in his body is working except the tubes. And the respirator, which helps him breathe. The respirator mask covers most of his face.

It requires his entire body to breathe, and each time he exhales he looks like he’s sinking. It sounds like he’s sucking the air from the air. I catch myself holding my own breath as I watch him. Desperation, I guess. It’s incredibly hard for him to breathe at all. So why should I?

My father’s heart is electronically hooked up to a video monitor. Small white suction cups cover his chest, and wires connect to the monitor that blips green across the screen as his heart beats.

We watch it from around the bed. It’s amazing that a few wires can turn a body inside out, make it possible to watch what’s actually happening beneath the flesh. I look at the monitor, although I don’t want to. I think the next blip will be the last. I look. I can’t help it.

I wish my dad would wake up. This room is like ice. Even my hands are numb, I realize, as I smooth the blankets around my dad’s feet. “Are you cold?” I say to Edward. But as he shakes his head, it’s like a dream, as if he hasn’t moved at all. I slip my hands around one of my father’s. His hand is cold. Tears rise in my eyes. I’m talking, silently, to him. I’m saying, I will always remember you, and, all the stuff you told me about birds I won’t forget, and I could even tell you what the flowers that are blooming now are called. I’m already remembering, isn’t that something? I say, I love you, Daddy.