Invisible (6 page)

He nodded, looked away, then back to me. “Let’s go outside,” he said.

“No.” I clutched at his hand. “She said Julie needed a transplant. That’s why I’m here. I’ll go now. I’m her sister. Maybe they don’t even have to test me.”

“Oh, Dana.” Joe looked miserable. I wanted to place my palm against his cheek and comfort him.

“Stop.” I pushed back my chair but Joe kept a tight hold on my hand.

“It’s too late,” he said.

“It’s not too late.”

“I ran into Martin. He’d just come from the hospital.”

My teeth chattered.
No
.

All around us, people moved and talked, leaned back to pour a beer, laughed and waved a friend over. It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be.

“Come on,” I heard Joe say. “I’ll drive you to the hospital. Frank and Peyton are there.” He pulled me to my feet and slid his arm around my waist. Leaning into him, I stumbled to the door that swung open into the dark and unforgiving night.

 [PEYTON]

T
HE TOP LAYER OF THE OCEAN IS CALLED THE SUNLIT
zone. Ninety percent of all marine life lives there. This is the only place where plants can grow and phytoplankton survive. They’re the bottom of the food chain and need sunlight to thrive. Other fish thrive on them
.

Animals that live here are transparent, like jellies, or camouflaged to mimic the play of light and shadow, like dolphins and sharks. Coral reefs flourish along the coastline, and many fish that live below swim up to feed among these densely populated waters
.

Out in the open ocean, away from swirling silt and sand, the sunlit zone stays a constant clear blue. Divers have to be careful. There are no landmarks and a person can get turned around. They can think they’re swimming up to where their boat waits, but they might be swimming in the opposite direction, away from the sun and down into the darkness. By the time they realize their mistake, it’s too late
.

•  •  •

Mrs. Stahlberg drove Peyton straight to the hospital. No one bothered to sign Peyton out, or told her to get her books from her locker. So she knew before Mrs. Stahlberg swept her crappy car up to the hospital entrance, her ancient freckled hands white-knuckled and her old-lady lips pressed tightly together, that it was already too late.

Her dad insisted on seeing her mom. Peyton couldn’t think about whether or not she wanted to, but he was gripping her hand so tightly, she thought her bones would crack. They stood there by her mom’s bed and looked down. The white hospital sheet was icy smooth and pulled taut to her chin; her body barely lifted it, she was so thin. Her face was waxy. Someone had combed her hair but it still looked terrible, fine and sparse and lying in pale wisps. This wasn’t her mom. Her mom had thick shiny hair that curled to her shoulders. Her mom had bright eyes. She sang in the shower and ate chocolate chip cookie dough right out of the bowl. She did crossword puzzles in red ink, and always, no matter what she was doing, stopped to smile whenever Peyton walked into the room. This wasn’t her mom. This was a
thing
.

Now they stood in the hall listening to people try to console them, her dad standing close, Peyton with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She was freezing. She had to get out of this place with its hushed voices, antiseptic smell, and surfaces that were shiny and dingy at the same time. Words skidded around her.

“… just stopped working … I’m sorry, we tried … sometimes these things happen.”

The ping of the elevator and tapping shoes, almost running. Her father’s hand tightened on Peyton’s shoulder. When Peyton looked up, she saw a woman striding toward her, a sweater pulled around her shoulders, her blonde hair mussed. For one heart-stopping moment, Peyton thought it was her mom alive and whole again, and coming to take her home.

But of course it wasn’t. This must be her aunt, looking exactly
like Peyton’s mom and arriving too late to do anything for anybody.

Despair swamped over her, a black tidal wave of sludge. Peyton couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to talk to this person. She didn’t want to listen to someone explain the situation to Dana, didn’t want to see the horror register on this stranger’s face, didn’t want someone to put their hand on her shoulder and introduce her and have Dana look at her and say something polite. The scream built up inside her, clawing at the sides of her throat.

“I’ll be outside,” she told her dad, just managing to get the words out. He simply nodded, staring at Dana.

Outside, the cool spring evening washed over her. Shivering, she looked up at the sky and the stars twinkling there, desperate to see her mother’s face among them, smiling down and letting Peyton know she would be all right. Peyton looked and looked, saw only endless black and glittering pinpricks. She listened, heard only the far-off shriek of a train and knew she was well and truly alone.

Her dad didn’t talk on the way home. He veered the truck from lane to lane, leaving a trail of car honks in their wake. Peyton should have reached out and grabbed the wheel, but she decided she didn’t care. If they ended up smashed against a tree, well then, maybe that was the easier way.

Too soon, he bumped the truck up onto the driveway. A black SUV stood at the curb. Dana waited on the porch, her elbows cupped in her hands.

Her dad unlocked the front door. “I didn’t know.… We don’t have a spare room.”

He sounded uncertain, not at all like the father Peyton knew.

“I can get a hotel room,” Dana told him.

“We’ve got a pullout on the back porch,” Peyton said.

Her dad shot her a look, frowning. Peyton got it. What had
she been thinking, blurting out a stupid offer like that? She hadn’t been thinking. She’d just said the first thing that popped into her head, the thing her mom would have wanted her to say. Her mom was gone, but she was right there, too, opening Peyton’s mouth and putting in the words.

“That all right with you, Frank?” Dana asked.

He didn’t want her there. Peyton could see it in the way he squared his shoulders, could hear it in the long silence before he answered. “Sure,” he said at last.

He held open the door and Peyton pushed past him into the lingering aroma of burned toast from that morning, and overcooked coffee. She switched on the lamp, throwing shadows around the room. Dana walked straight over to the wall of Peyton’s school pictures. What did she expect to find there? Peyton’s mom wasn’t in any of them.

Her dad rubbed his face. He put his arm around Peyton and held her close. He smelled of motor oil and lavender, the comforting blend after he’d been at work all day. She pressed her cheek against the rough fabric of his shirt. Had she been the one to wash it, or had her mom? She had to remember. Her mom’s fingerprints were all over this house, tiny pieces of her that Peyton needed to collect and keep, all that was left.

“I could make some dinner if anyone’s hungry. How does spaghetti sound?” Dana asked.

Her dad’s arm tightened around Peyton. They hadn’t eaten spaghetti in two years. It had been one of the first things to go when her mom had gotten sick.

No one answered Dana. Peyton knew her mom wouldn’t have liked that. Her mom would have wanted Peyton to be polite. Despite everything, she would have wanted Peyton to welcome this stranger to their house.

“We don’t have spaghetti,” she said. “Mom couldn’t eat tomatoes.” If Dana had ever bothered to visit, she would have known that. There were lots of things they didn’t keep around anymore.
Peyton’s dad had insisted that if her mom couldn’t eat it, then neither could they. Peyton always felt guilty at school when she poured ketchup onto a plate of french fries. Ketchup. Why was she thinking of ketchup? It was all Dana’s fault, yanking Peyton’s mind from its regular tracks and steering it onto this random, alien terrain.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Oh.” Dana paused in the doorway. “Then I’ll put on some coffee.”

Her dad looked down at himself, as if surprised to find himself still in his work clothes. “Guess I’ll wash up.” He walked unsteadily away, brushing the doorway with his shoulder.

Peyton slumped into her dad’s favorite chair and wished she had a puppy, something soft and cuddly and always happy to see her that would curl up in her lap. Pulling out her phone, she studied the screen. Eric had texted her a million times. So had Brenna, and a bunch of other kids. Everyone knew. Everyone was talking and buzzing and wondering. Tonight, right now, all these kids would do their homework, watch TV, and go out for DQ or down to the lake, everything safe and normal for them. Everything just as it had been the night before and the night before that.

Dana came into the room. “I brought you some. I didn’t know if you liked coffee.”

Peyton didn’t. Like she could be won over with coffee, but she found herself reaching for the cup. It smelled good, like it always did first thing in the morning. She took a sip. Dana had stirred in milk and sugar, and it was delicious going down, warming and rushing right to her head.

The bathroom pipes clanged as her dad started the water.

Dana turned on the floor lamp and sat down on the sofa opposite. “Our shower did the same thing when I was growing up. That’s how my mom used to wake me up for school, by turning on the water. It was almost as bad as when she came into my room, switching on the lights and belting out that awful tune.” She
scrunched her face up in thought. “I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.”

Peyton examined the woman sitting there; the stranger who looked so much like her mom, and sounded so much like her, but wasn’t. Peyton set her stupid cup of coffee down, directly on the wood where it was sure to leave a circle. “ ‘Lazy Mary, Will You Get Up,’ ” she said coldly.

The corners of Dana’s mouth curved up. “Don’t tell me that’s how your mom wakes you up.”

“She did,” Peyton said, clearly. She marked this moment. She claimed this memory for her own. “She doesn’t anymore.” Peyton stood. “And that’s
her
cup.”

Dana glanced down at the white porcelain cup she was holding, the pink tulip painted on the side just visible between her fingers. “Right.” Slowly, she leaned forward and set it down on the table.

Peyton left her there, walked down the hallway and into her room. From behind the closed bathroom door came the groaning of the pipes and the tapping of the water, and the raw sound of sobbing. She’d never heard her father cry. The noise was wretched, animal in its confusion. She wanted it to stop. She wanted to pound on the door and yell at her dad that he was only making everything worse, but of course she didn’t. Instead, she turned on her bedroom light and stared unseeing at the walls, a kaleidoscope of color and alien images. This strange new world spread out in all directions. She couldn’t tell if she was swimming up or down or even sideways.

People came by all the next morning, drinking gallons of coffee and talking in hushed tones. Everyone hugged her, studied her, said lots of sad things. Pretending she was okay made her bone-freaking-tired. Around noon, the house grew quiet. Dana disappeared
somewhere, the grumble of her car moving away from the curb and fading into silence.

A little while later, her father appeared in her bedroom doorway.

“Hey, I have to go to the funeral home.” His voice was gravelly, like a stranger’s. He cleared his throat like he, too, knew it sounded weird. “Would you like to come?”

“Do I have to?” Her jeans were ripped at the knee, the threads unraveling. She picked at them, rolled the softness between her fingers. She couldn’t bear to be around Mr. Ewing, the smarmy funeral director. She couldn’t bear to pretend to be interested in something she wasn’t.

“Of course not. If you want, you could stay here and pick out something for your mom to wear.”

Like
funeral
clothes? She clutched her iPod. She wanted to blast the music, drown all this out. But her dad looked so lost. “No problem.”

“I won’t be long. Then we’d better go see Grandma.”

She waited until he was gone.

Her mom liked sweaters. She had one she always wore when it was just the two of them lounging around, watching TV and gossiping, while her dad worked late or went out with his buddies. The blue color exactly matched her eyes. So what if the cuffs were a little frayed and there was a bleach splotch on the side? It was a tiny stain. No one would notice.

Peyton pulled open the middle drawer in her parents’ bureau and stared down at the neat stack of cottons and wools. Outside, up close by the eave, a bird cooed. The back door banged open and the cooing stopped. “Hello?”

Peyton lifted up things, moved them aside. She ignored the rustling from down the hall. The Christmas sweatshirt, the red one with the lace across the collar. The black velvet one with rhinestone buttons. The lime green cardigan she always wore on
St. Patrick’s Day, the one she swore gave her good luck. Peyton ran her hand across its softness, fingering the pearl buttons. No blue sweater with the white mark shaped like Alaska.

Cabinet doors opened and closed. Curiously comforting sounds that took her a moment to place: not her mom, but Dana, putting away groceries.