Love Letters to the Dead (33 page)

I guess maybe even though you got older, you never stopped being the little girl who needed someone to take care of her. So you wanted your own little girls to take care of you. And when they couldn’t—how could they have?—you left them finally, for good.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s the same with my mom. Like she started her life so young that she never got to finish growing all the way up. And maybe that’s why she needed us—May especially—so much.

She called today, and Aunt Amy tried to hand me the phone. I’ve been avoiding Mom for almost three weeks now. I said that I’d call back later, but Aunt Amy insisted that I really needed to speak with her. So finally I took it.

It started out normal. “How are you, honey?” she asked.

“I’m actually pretty good, I guess.”

“Are you looking forward to summer?”

“Yeah. It’s weird that the year is almost over.”

Then she launched into it. “Laurel, the last time we talked, you mentioned that there was something—something that you’d told your sister … I’m worried about you.”

I wiped my palms on my dress. “I don’t really want to get into it on the phone, Mom.”

“I’ve been thinking about how you said you feel like I’m not there for you. And I know that you aren’t eager to take a trip out here. But it’s been too long since I’ve seen you. So I think that I’ll come back for a few months this summer. If not for good, then at least for a visit. I can stay with Amy.”

“Okay…” I said. I wasn’t sure what to make of this. “But you know I still have to be at Dad’s every other week. I can’t just ditch him ’cause you’re coming back.”

“Yes, I know, sweetie.” Then she said, “I can’t wait to see you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You too, Mom.”

I know Mom coming back is what I’ve wanted this whole time, but now that it’s really happening, I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s like I’ve finally gotten used to just being with Aunt Amy and Dad. But mostly, I am scared that she’s only coming back to try to get some story out of me. So that I can tell her the whole answer about what happened to May and confirm her suspicions that it was my fault.
Fine,
I keep thinking,
if she wants to know, I’ll just tell her this time. And then she can disappear forever.
I’ll feel like I am starting to get better, but with Mom, suddenly I turn into a little kid again, who got left behind somewhere.

Judy, you took the pills the studio gave you. The pills the doctors gave you. You started so young that you could never stop, and then you were gone. I can’t help but wonder if nobody ever really grows all the way up. I look at you in
The Wizard of Oz
, on that yellow brick road that you just hope will lead to home, and I know you always wanted to get there.

Yours,
Laurel

Dear Amelia,

This morning at school, something great happened. I saw Hannah standing with Natalie, getting books out of her locker. Hannah zipped up her bag, and then I watched her lean into Natalie and give her a kiss on the lips. Right there, in front of everyone passing, anyone who wanted to look. She grabbed Natalie’s hand and walked with her down the hall, as they weaved through the soccer boys staring, the science nerds pointing, all of them talking and whispering and saying what they would. Natalie and Hannah were beautiful, both of them, like their own constellation.

You once said that you thought people are too timid about flying their own Atlantics, and I think it’s true that all of our lives are full of oceans. For Hannah, the Atlantic was standing up to her brother. And I think that now that she’s on the other side of it, she’s realizing how brave she can be.

For me, maybe the Atlantic has been learning to talk about stuff, even a little at a time. But I think the thing that takes me the most courage is realizing that as many oceans as I might cross, the stupid simple truth will always be on the other side. May was here and then she was gone. I loved her with all of my soul, and she died. And no guilt or anger or longing changes that. There’s a new sadness now, as I open the fist I’ve been clenching shut and realize that there’s nothing there. I don’t know how to keep her anymore. Sometimes I’ll be doing something normal, like standing in the alley with my friends, or getting ready for bed, and suddenly the pain of missing her will come up and nearly knock me over.

But sometimes, there are things that help. Tonight was a good night. Sky came over and watched baseball with me and Dad. He liked it so much when I had Hannah over, I figured I’d try to do that kind of thing more. And he and Sky seemed to be getting along. I was more or less tuning out while they were talking about players and trades and stuff. It’s still early in the season, but I know that the Cubs are doing pretty well so far. In this particular game, however, they were losing by a lot, and Dad just shut it off all of a sudden and said, “What do you say we go out back and have a little ball game of our own?” It’s funny how he comes alive with other people around. Maybe he feels like it’s a sign that I’m letting him into my life, or that I’m not ashamed of our family. Or maybe it’s just been forever since the house hasn’t felt totally quiet.

It was sort of a crazy idea, because it was already almost dark out—the dead game time of dusk—but I thought, why not? So Dad pulled out his old gloves and bat and a wiffle ball, and he pitched for Sky and me. I kept missing, but Dad gave me more than three strikes, and finally I got a good hit. Then Sky pitched to Dad, and he hit the ball clear over the roof! He loved this so much. “Your old man’s still got it!” Dad told me as he ran around the yard, crossing the imaginary bases, and finally calling out, “I made it home!”

It was pretty much totally dark by then, so we figured it was a good note to end on. Dad went to bed, and he was in such a good mood, he didn’t even kick Sky out before he said good night. Sky came into my room with me, and we both sat down on my bed.

“Your dad is really cool,” Sky said. “We should hang out with him more.”

“He likes you. I think it made him happy, you being here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course.” He smiled.

I lay down on my pillow. Then I said, “So, my mom’s coming back. Next weekend. At least for the summer.”

“Oh, wow. Are you happy?”

“I don’t know. I want to be, but it’s like I don’t know if I trust it.”

Sky nodded. “I get that. When parents ditch out, it’s pretty hard to forgive them.”

He lay down next to me, and I reached out and let my hand fall onto his chest. “Was he good while he was around?” I asked. “Your dad?”

“Not really. He had his moments, but not so much.” Sky paused, and then he said, “I don’t know what will happen to my mom after next year, if I want to go away to college or something. I’m scared sometimes that I’ll turn out like him. Like I’ll always be the kind of person who leaves.”

I looked at him. “You’re better than your dad. But maybe it’s not your job to make up for him forever.”

His lip that falls a little crooked to the left straightened out when I said that. He was thinking about it.

We lay there next to each other on my bed, quiet for a while, looking up at the bumps in the ceiling that turned to shapes. I remembered lying in May’s top bunk and looking up, trying not to fall asleep so that I could see if she went out to fly.

“Look,” I said to Sky, pointing up. “That’s a face. She’s half girl, half ghost. You can see where she’s split—she only has long hair on the one side.” I pointed to the place where the paint gathered into tresses. “And there, that’s a hand. It belongs to a man living inside the wall. He’s collecting raindrops. He wants to come out and give them to the ghost-girl. She’ll fight off the spirit in her. And then they’ll go together and swim in that ocean”—I pointed—“over there.”

Sky laughed and nuzzled his face into my neck. I put my hand out and stroked his head. He seemed like a little boy just then, in a way that he never had before. Maybe because I felt stronger now, strong enough to hold him.

We didn’t kiss or anything else. We just lay together like that, breathing. I felt something between us shifting, like the hidden plates of the earth. You think you know someone, but that person always changes, and you keep changing, too. I understood it suddenly, how that’s what being alive means. Our own invisible plates shifting inside of our bodies, beginning to align into the people we are going to become.

Yours,
Laurel

Dear Elizabeth Bishop,

At school, everyone is buzzing with the energy of the coming summer, a week and a half away. I went up to Mrs. Buster’s desk today after class. I’d never really spoken to her voluntarily before. But there was something I had to tell her. “You know the assignment from the beginning of school? The letter?” I asked.

“Yes?” She looked surprised.

“Well, I’m still working on it.” And then I added, “Actually, I’ve been working on it all year. I have a whole notebook full of them. I just wanted you to know.”

“Oh, well, I’m really happy to hear that, Laurel.” She lit up when she said it, but then she kept looking at me in that way that she does, like she was waiting for something. Like she wanted me to say something about May. So finally I asked, “When May was in your class, what was she like?”

“She seemed like a girl who was struggling to figure out who she was, kind of like you are. She was very bright, in both senses of the word. I thought that she had a lot to offer. I think that you do, too.” She paused, and then she said, “I know what it’s like to lose someone, Laurel.”

“You do?” I asked.

“Yes. I had a son—he passed.”

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” I was searching for something better to say. It made my chest crush in to think of that happening to Mrs. Buster. “When—when did it happen?”

“He was young,” Mrs. Buster said. “It was a car accident.”

I stared at her big blue eyes, and they didn’t seem like bug eyes anymore. They seemed sad. It’s like all of a sudden she’d turned from a teacher into a person. I guess when you lose someone, sometimes it feels like you are the only one. But I’m not.

“I’m sorry about your son,” I said again. “And I’m sorry that I wasn’t nicer this year. I think you are a really good teacher. I loved all of the poetry you gave us. And I am—just really sorry—I wish there were something good to say. I guess there aren’t really any words for it, huh?”

“There are a lot of human experiences that challenge the limits of our language,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons that we have poetry.” She smiled. “Here.” She fished something out of her desk. “I wanted to give you this. I’d copied it for you at the beginning of the year, since you seemed to like Bishop so much. But then—well, maybe you weren’t ready for it yet.”

I took the poem. “Thank you,” I said.

Then she said, “I’m proud of you. It’s not easy, and you’ve done a great job this year.” She didn’t have to be that nice to me, but she was.

I thanked her again for the poem. I was anxious to read it, so I found a bench and sat outside before I went to lunch. It was your poem called “The Armadillo.” I loved the poem so much, it stopped my heart. And I knew why Mrs. Buster had given it to me. It was about a certain kind of beauty we aspire to and how fragile it is. The poem starts out talking about fire balloons that people send off into the sky.
The paper chambers flush and fill with light / that comes and goes, like hearts
as they rise toward the stars. When the air is still, they
steer between the kite sticks of the Southern Cross
, but with a wind, they become dangerous. The end of the poem shows the tragedy that happens.

Last night another big one fell.

It splattered like an egg of fire

against the cliff behind the house.

The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up

and up, their whirling black-and-white

stained bright pink underneath, until

they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls’ nest must have burned.

Hastily, all alone,