Red Lightning (19 page)

“That's why it's puffy?”

“Yes.”

“It hurts.”

“Yes. I imagine it does.”

“I feel hard pokey things . . .”

“Stitches. Leave them alone.”

“Where's Amber?”

“At school.”

“Not with Kay?”

“No. I wanted her to go today. You can check her out for me when you leave here.” Libby leans over, takes my hand in hers. Our eyes, brown and deep and sorry, meet.

I take this in. “But Amber, she's okay?”

“She's fine.”

“So, I spent one whole night here?”

“Yes.”

“And I'm just now waking up?”

“You were pretty feverish.”

“Is the fire still going?”

“Yes.”

“Is it smoky out?”

“Yes. The news says it has spread . . .” She bites her lip. “The remains of one human have been found, a man believed to be a Mexican national. The trees are too dry, the wind too fierce.”

“Oscar?”

“We think so.”

“And Alejandra? Where is she?”

“She's safe, they're all safe.” Then she glances around. “Don't talk about it here—” But then she smiles. “You taught them Ed's number?”

I reach up to touch her nose. “Long ago.”

“Tess, there's something serious I need to ask you. Alejandra said that you left in the VW to go tell a man named Slade that they were safe. I need to know who he is.” But then another nurse is there, wanting to draw blood, and then Dr. Lemon comes in, signing papers, so I look up at her and whisper, “Don't worry, I'll tell you later, I will.” Then there is a wheelchair, and papers, and bottles, and instructions, and eventually I close my eyes and let it all happen to me. The human heart-puzzle is a hard one to put together, especially when you're missing a few pieces.

*

When Libby asks if I'm well enough to get Amber, I tell her that if
I've got one ability, it's that I can keep going when the going gets tough. I pull into the school parking lot and sit in the shade and make a list.

        
—ONE: PICK UP AMBER AT SCHOOL

        
—TWO: TELL KAY GOODBYE

        
—THREE: TELL SLADE ALEJANDRA IS ALIVE

        
—FOUR: BE WITH AMBER, ALEJANDRA, LUPE

        
—FIVE: AFTER DOING ALL THE ABOVE, FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO. I CAME HERE FOR THREE DAYS AND AN EXIT PLAN. NOT SURE WHERE TO GO NEXT.

I tuck the list in my jeans and walk into my old school, the HOME OF THE PIRATES flag flapping above my head as I do. Holymoley, you'd think things would change over time, but they do not. The same lost-and-found table right up front with sweatshirts and gloves and lunchboxes. Gym, library, classrooms, and worst of all, the lunchroom, stupid kickball and sit-ups, but most of all the eating itself, the people who weren't there to sit next to, the shame.

Somewhere down to the left, where the elementary school is, I hear music—kindergartners clapping their hands, and the teacher yelling,
long-short-shortshort-long
! To the right, in the middle school, there are the sounds of squeaky shoes on the basketball court. Then there's a woman standing in front of me. “I'm sorry, but who are you? You can't go in. Are you here to volunteer? Dropping off some cans for the food drive?”

“I'm here to pick up Amber.”

She looks me up and down, and I remember my middleschool manners and do the same. She clears her throat, rolls her eyes, a small moment of cruelty that she does on purpose. “Yes, Libby just called.” She glances at the clock, picks up the phone, says, “Amber is being checked out,” and soon enough, Amber comes walking up the hall, bright red backpack slung over her shoulder. She passes another girl in the hall, and she lifts her hand in a small wave, and the girl lifts her head, turns it slightly, rejecting it. I burst out in a sudden bark of a laugh. Such a small motion. Such a small heartbreak of a motion. Experienced by the both of us.

Amber walks up to me, red backpack swinging behind her, because, like all of us, she must go on. “Hi, Tess. You were sick. Are you okay?”

“Oh, okay,” I say. Because it's just now hitting me: what I didn't see at home, what Ed and Libby haven't even seen. This kid's life isn't so easy here. Maybe compared to an immigrant crossing the desert, sure.
But she's a kid that gets teased: She's too different with her beekeeping-hippie parents and no-sugar household and Buddhist stuff—and she's bravely raising her chin to it all and pretending it doesn't matter, but it does, it does, and the fact of this is hitting me hard. “Oh boy, okay.” I take the backpack from her, try to bring this moment back into focus. “Jeez, this weighs a ton.”

“Our class won. Is your mouth okay? You just get out of the hospital?”

“Won what?”

“My class had the most food cans. For the food bank. How's Kay?”

“Libby sent me here. Kay is at home . . . It could be that . . . she's getting worse and that it's maybe happening faster than . . . Libby wanted you to be there.”

Immediately tears fly into Amber's eyes, and what a beautiful thing to see, emotion so fluid and immediate and unfettered.

*

On the way out, I glance over at the same spot on the sidewalk
where I was just a few days ago. Me, sitting with Libby. All this, in a few days? It seems impossible. Impossible that here I am, again, walking to the same pickup truck, now with my daughter instead of my sister, and the whole world seems to have done one strange miraculous circle.

I glance over at Amber before I pull out onto the road. “I guess you don't need me to tell you how stupid kids can be. That it gets easier. That middle school is the worst. Sounds like you know. But still . . . is it lonely? Is school . . . tough?”

“I don't care.”

I glance at her, raise an eyebrow, and because she doesn't add anything, I add, “When I was about your age, well, that was the first time I got called a slut.” I pull out of the parking lot, drive through
town, toward the highway. “But I wasn't, of course. Libby was older, and she'd come by and check on me at lunch. Libby was just born with the need to protect. I'm sorry if sometimes you feel alone.”

She's looking out the window, away from me. By now we're away from town, fields surrounding us in every direction, burnt yellow with the sun. Once in a while, there's a windmill and a stock tank and a couple of cows. Everything is so far apart here. Maybe that's why I became a
levantona
. Because I was used to driving long distances. We pass a piece of plywood leaning against a haystack that says WE HAVEN'T HAD ANY TRASPASSERS LATELY, and there's a skeleton propped against it.

“That's not funny,” I tell her as we pass. “You okay? Something on your mind?”

“Kay says that dying is part of living,” she says. “And that this culture is nuts. We're nuts because we're cowards. We spend zillions of dollars, and instead we should let death just happen. But she wasn't sure she'd be brave enough at the end.”

A snort escapes me. “That's true for most of us, I think.”

She clears her throat. “Hey, Tess? What about
your
friends? Do you have any? Would they come visit
you
?” She looks genuinely curious.

I turn to her, search her eyes for a second before I look back at the road. “Naw. At the moment, I have no friends.”

“Really? Are you done with your . . . work?”

“As a
levantona
? Yeah.” And then, because she doesn't look settled, I add, “I'm done with that life.”

“The fire.” She turns her body enough so that she's facing me. She sucks in the top of her mouth. “Instinct,” she says quietly.

I put on the blinker that takes us to Kay's house. Look at her, hard. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing.” She looks out the window, away from me, out the window into a field of green winter wheat.

“I'm not supposed to talk about it with you, Amber. Otherwise I would.”

“Fine.”

“No, wait. You're right. We're talking about something real here.” I reach out my hand to touch her shoulder, but she flinches away. “Amber? I'd like to talk to you more. I think I know what you're getting at. Trying to ask. But right now, well, we're here. Kay's not well. So let's take one thing at a time here. Kay is first on the list.”

“Okay.”

“I guess you haven't seen a dead body before. Except Baxter?” She doesn't respond, so I add, “It's gonna be weird, when she dies. Maybe it will be quiet and calm. But it might not be. It's okay—I'm sure you know this—but it's okay to decide not to be there.”

She shrugs, like she doesn't need to hear it, and her hands take to braiding her hair. She has an extra barrette she doesn't need, and so she hands it to me, and I twist my bangs back and clasp it together. “Seriously, Amber. I wish someone had told me this. The thing about seeing difficult things is that those images are with you forever. I'm not saying we should turn away from life. But I think it's okay—it's a good idea—not to see certain things if we don't need to. It's like stepping really far away from a dangerous horse so you don't get kicked unnecessarily. When you see something, there it is. In your brain. You wake up every single morning of the rest of your life with a certain image in your head . . . I guess I'm just saying to be careful what you choose to witness. Okay?”

She nods, and I can tell her objection has softened, and then I can feel her mind working out what I've just said. “Have you ever seen a dead person?”

I breathe out. I want to tell the truth. But if I do, I put the same kind of image and knowledge in her head that I'm asking her to avoid. Middle Way. That's what Ed was saying the other day. I go
for a half-truth. “I saw a human skeleton once. In the desert. It really bothered me, and it still does. I was curious, and so I stared at it for a long time. Which is maybe normal, or good, or a bad idea, or who knows. But it's true I wish that image wasn't in my head.” A flash of other images comes flickering by, the other things I wish I could expel: Me getting fucked by men who didn't care, Lobo saying
Te voy a matar, pinche culero
, that red barrette in black silky hair, and that infant baby, ready to be born.

I pull up to the house, and before we get out of the truck, we turn to each other. I'd like to hold her hand, but she is holding herself apart. She is drawing into herself, pulling inward. I put my hand out, trying to bring her back, but she turns and walks ahead of me toward the house. If only I could protect her from the sorrow that's heading our way. That's something I'd like to do.

Chapter Sixteen

Kay has sunken into her bones. Her skin is gray, her body is ready.
Libby is sitting in a chair near her head, Ed is at her feet, and they both have hands on her, heads bent, Ed murmuring some kind of Buddhist death chant. Kay's hands are placed over her stomach, and one of Libby's hands is moving slowly back and forth over them, soothing, the other on the crown of her head, soothing there as well.

“It's time to say goodbye to grandma.” Libby says this to Amber in a quiet voice.

Amber reaches out for my hand, then. It surprises me, but I have the presence of mind to give her hand a small squeeze of thanks. We walk to the bed together. We can't see Kay's face until we get close, but once I do, I can see that death is near. Her eyes are open, and she's not tracking. There is a thick liquid in her mouth that puffs and bubbles with every breath. Her jaw makes a small circle, and I wonder if the woman in the desert did the same thing. It's these details that break your heart.

Libby swabs out her mouth and puts her hand on her forehead. Amber lets out a little moan, and Libby whispers to her, “I just had the
hospice worker leave. The time has come. It will be easier for her to go if you're brave and peaceful now. It will help
her
be brave and peaceful. Hearing is one of the last things to go. So tell her anything you want to tell her.”

Amber looks uncertain for a moment but then leans over Kay and puts her hands on Kay's cheeks. “Goodbye, Grandma. I wish your soul peace, I really love you, I am really glad you were my grandma, you were pretty much the craziest orneriest grandma anyone could have. I sort of doubt that if there is a God that he's going to put up with you, actually”—and here Ed chuckles sadly—“but I'll miss you, and you should know that. I won't ever forget you.”

Ed leads Amber out. They've both said their goodbyes, and I know Ed is protecting Amber from the last bit, too. I turn to Libby. “Is she in pain?”

“I hope not. There's morphine to help—”

“Oh man, I can't—”

“You can.” She gives me a hard look, tilts her head toward Kay.

I open my mouth, close it. Look at Libby, and I know, in that instant, that she will never forgive me, nor will I forgive myself, if I do not find some words. I clear my throat. Try again. “Kay. Mom. I just wanted to say goodbye. I just want to wish you peace too.” I glance over at Libby, who looks relieved. Yes. I am doing this right. “Mom, I'm going to get my life together.” There is no change in her expression—just the deep huffing and gurgling of her breath. “Mom. If you get a chance, tell Baxter hello. Tell him thanks for coming over to hang out with us.
He
was the guardian angel.” I look around the room. I don't know what else to say. “Mom, I'm sorry I was a bitch sometimes, and I often feel that I can't forgive you for being a bitch sometimes. But we should try, huh? For each other? I think we got hard because there wasn't much to soften us up. I'm sorry. Maybe you set something in motion, but I'm the one who kept it going. I kept it
going.” I look at Libby, and she is crying softly. “And no matter what, I won't forget you. You're pretty unforgettable.”