Splinters of Light (23 page)

Mariana had texted her a million times since bringing Ellie home (all of
those
had come through). She’d called her every day. Every night, Nora erased the messages without listening to them.

She’d never gone a day without talking to Mariana, except for the times Mariana had been overseas.

“You should call her,” Ellie said again. “Instead of . . . whatever you’re doing out here.”

“You know I love playing with the hose. And don’t worry. Your aunt and I are fine.” They weren’t. But Ellie didn’t need any additional worry. “Go in before I soak you.” She moved the hose threateningly.

Ellie gave that soft laugh. “Okay. I give. I’m going inside.”

Nora waited until the screen door slapped shut; then she turned and shot spray at the back fence. She wasn’t worried about losing the fence to fire, but it felt good to watch the water darken the wood, to directly affect something. To make something change, even if it was only from dry to wet.

“A
re you sure you want to do this?” asked Dylan. “You’re ready?”

Ellie sat on Dylan’s bed. Both his roommates were out with their girlfriends, and the apartment was theirs for at least another couple of hours. The timing was right.

“Yeah,” she said. “I want to.”

“I’m here,” he said, and his eyes stayed on hers. Clear. Dylan was so
clear
in everything. Sometimes Ellie felt like everything her mother did or said had layers of meaning Ellie couldn’t hope to identify, stratifications that were probably important but impossible to read. Dylan was sweet. Uncomplicated. He liked Ellie, his guitar, the city of Oakland, and his job at the pizza place three blocks away from the apartment. He didn’t like reality TV, women who pretended to be stupid just to get attention, and tarantulas. It felt like a rest to be with him. A mini-vacation complicated only by sexual tension.

But now she had to call her dad. Dylan nodded reassuringly as she held her phone to her ear.

Ellie’s dad answered on the first ring. Bad sign. He never answered her calls, always calling her back when he was in the car. He said it was so that he could fully concentrate on their conversation, but Ellie knew he did it because in the car he was away from Bettina and the kids, none of whom liked sharing their time with him.

“Kiddo! How’s it going over there?”

His tone was way too cheerful. “So you know,” she said.

“About what?”

He was
so
fake. Ellie looked at Dylan. He nodded. “About Mom.”

“Oh, yeah! She called me.”

Oh, yeah.
That old thing. That old life-threatening nightmarishly horrible
thing
. “When?”

A pause. “Not that long ago.”

“What does that mean?” Had he known for a day? A month? He should have
called
her; wasn’t that what fathers were supposed to do? He should have driven to her side the moment he heard—he should have wrapped her up in his arms, lending her fatherly strength and wisdom and hope.

“I don’t know. Not that long.” His voice changed, like he was looking over his shoulder. Probably changing lanes. “How you doin’ with it?”

“Me? Not good.” Ellie spoke briskly. “Mom’s losing her mind. She waters the house, but the houseplants inside are all dying. She’s not driving much because she can’t be sure she’ll remember where to go. She writes the date on her wrist. She gets stuck in one place and doesn’t move forever, not unless someone touches her or speaks to her. I do see her writing but—” Some of the rigidity left her voice. “I’m not sure . . .”

“Well, I know if anyone can handle a rough situation, it’s you. You’ve always been a strong kid.”

Rough situation.
This was a catastrophe of nuclear holocaust proportions. Ellie’s mother, whom she
loved
, was losing her fucking
mind
. All her brain cells just running out of her like radiator fluid had run from their old Civic. And her father thought it was rough?

Dylan put his hand on her knee and left it there. Ellie’s whole body was frozen except for that one warm spot. She leaned into him, hoping to steal more of his body heat. “Shit, Dad. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
When she’s gone. No,
if
,
if she’s gone.

“I know, Ellie-belly, I know. When your stepmom lost her mother last year, it wasn’t easy for anyone. Look. I’m happy to help out.”

A bright yellow hope rose in Ellie’s chest and she tilted her head so she could flash a quick smile at Dylan. “Yeah?”

“Sure. You need some money?”

The hope popped with a soft hiss. “No.”

“Does your mother need money?”

She had no idea.
“No.”

“I mean, she’s got good insurance, right?”

Ellie hadn’t even thought about the insurance. She added it to her list of things to worry about—how could she have gone five months without thinking of it? Would her mother have to stop working? As far as Ellie knew, her mother’s columns were still being turned in on time, but how long could that last? What would happen if her mother lost her job? Was there something her father would have left her . . . ? No, they’d been divorced too long. Mom didn’t even get alimony anymore, just the auto-deposit child support. Holy shit.

“I don’t know anything about her insurance.” And that wasn’t why she’d called him. Jesus Christ.

“What else can I do to help? I’m going to be out that way in October.”

It was late August. “You live ninety minutes away.” The flatness in Ellie’s voice matched the stark expanse of nothingness
she saw in her mind—the drive to Modesto was unimpressive in every way unless you really had a thing for cows and dust. It wasn’t a difficult trip, though. Her father drove a BMW. It would eat up the miles just fine. He could be with her before Dylan’s roommates even came home.

“I know. I’m sorry it’s so far, babe.”

It wasn’t far. It was hardly any distance at all. He could . . . He should say . . .

Then he said it. “You can stay with us—you know that, right?”

She didn’t trust him this time. “Yeah?”

“I mean, I have to run it past Bettina, of course, but yeah, if that’s what needs to happen, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll have her call you. Or e-mail you.”

Ellie’s father sold roofing. He didn’t put it on the house or even handle the material himself. He bought and sold parts that turned into roofs, built by other men. She’d heard this tone of voice from him before, when she was his occasional passenger while they were on their way for a quick ice cream sundae.
Yeah, Jones has got it. I’ll have him call you. Wait—e-mail’s better for you, right? Great, we’ll do that. Take care, buddy.
His car phone would beep off and he’d quarter turn toward her. “That guy thinks we’re gonna go with him. I guess someone should have thought about that before he took the Hill subcontract, huh, Ellie-belly?”

Ellie had always thought it was funny, the way her dad said what people wanted to hear and then did his own thing. In a strange way, she almost admired him for it. He’d made a family, wasn’t happy with it, so he’d made another one that he liked better. She’d always thought, though, that dads would come to the rescue.

She’d never needed rescuing before.
Mom hit me,
she could say.
Right across the face. I said I understood, but I don’t. I don’t.

But her dad wasn’t the rescuing type, apparently. “So anyway. Talk soon?”

“Yeah, I gotta go, too, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you, babe—”

There could have been more words after those from her father, maybe better ones, but Ellie hung up before she could find out. Her fingers were so cold the phone slipped out of her hand, landing on the bed. She didn’t want to hold it anymore anyway. She wanted to lose herself: in a kiss with Dylan that made her eyelashes melt, in writing a story line about Queen Ulra that would somehow save her, in getting drunk, in smoking weed, in doing anything that took her mind off the solid lump of fear in her heart that felt like physical pain. Was it possible for a sixteen-year-old to have a heart attack? Her breathing came faster and the pain in her chest heated. Her dad wasn’t going to help. He couldn’t help. She, Ellie, would have to save them all. She didn’t even have her driver’s license yet. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with her
life
. But she would have to save them all.

N
ora was going to meet Lily at the parking lot of the Golden Gate and they were going to go yarn shopping at ImagiKnit after their walk. But after Nora had waited in her car for twenty minutes, she got a text.
Sorry, car won’t start. Again. I have to go shoot my mechanic aka my husband. I might need bail money later.

She decided to walk the span anyway. It had been too long since she’d walked the mile and a half across the water. The bridge was—always had been—one of her favorite things about the Bay Area. The way it was suspended between heaven and earth, the way it looked like it shouldn’t work but it did. Like a bumblebee, it defied laws of gravity and floated. The new Bay Bridge to the east with its stark white sailboat girders and fancy new palm trees couldn’t ever hope to compete with the sheer elegance and grace of the classically perfect Golden Gate.

Nora zipped her Windbreaker to her chin as she walked briskly through the heavy fog. Ellie called this “disappointed tourist weather.” Visitors hoped for clear days to walk across the
bridge, but Nora knew what they really wanted was the view from Hawk Hill in Marin or Fort Point, down below. They wanted the photo of the bridge itself, which they couldn’t get from the span no matter how hard they tried. As Nora walked, she wove through dozens of couples taking photos of themselves standing in front of metal girders. She darted around school groups clumped like flocks of chickens in front of the rails. They’d get home, download their cameras, and flip disappointedly through the images on their computer screen.
You didn’t get that shot of the bridge, Harold? I can’t believe you didn’t get that shot.
Maybe they wouldn’t even be able to identify where they’d been when they took that picture—nothing visible behind them but the gray fog, as thick as upholstery fabric.

The fog comforted Nora. She liked the way it became sodden only after prolonged exposure. She didn’t feel the dampness until she pressed her finger against the fabric of her running pants and felt the wet sponginess. Her hair got heavier with it and she could feel the moisture collect on her eyelashes.

She stopped midspan and looked up, but the tower tops were gone, lopped off by the lowering cloud. The ends of the bridge were missing, too. The only things that existed in the whole world were this section of the bridge, the cars that whooshed by in both directions, and the people who clicked and snapped their way past her. The water below was almost invisible, the same non-color as the fog.

Nora wrapped her hands around the wet red rail and held on until the metal slowly—so slowly—warmed under her hands. She liked the feeling of it, her hands growing colder as she put her own energy into it. Her hands lost, what, one degree? The iron absorbed it, impervious. The bridge sucked it out of her, but she didn’t mind giving it away. Everyone else only leaned against the metal as they posed in front of the gray blanket of fog. They weren’t giving it anything, like she was.

“Ma’am, can you tell me about how your day’s going today?”

Nora jumped. “Excuse me? Fine.”

To her left was a police officer. He was tall, with a wide mouth to match his wide chin. “Whatcha planning on doing tomorrow?”

What was this? “I’m . . . not sure.”

“I sure would love it if you turned around so we could talk.” His badge read Briggs, and his dark eyes were kind. “Nothing bad will happen if you let go of the rail, I promise. I’m here.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

Another voice, female, came from her right. This police officer was short, wearing a pink lipstick that didn’t suit her complexion. “We just want to talk. We’re not going to hurt you.”

She hadn’t imagined they would. “What is this about?” Maybe she matched the description of someone wanted. Wouldn’t that be something, if they’d confused her for a bank robber or a . . . Nora couldn’t think of anyone else the police might be looking for. Was that a symptom of the disease, that she couldn’t? Or did it just prove that she was basically—and boringly—law-abiding?

The male officer said, “What if we talk about what you’re doing tomorrow. And hey, if you don’t have plans, let’s make some, huh? We can help. Hell, you can always come back another day, right?”

Nora released the rail, suddenly realizing that she was freezing. Shivers racked her and she rubbed her hands together. “Seriously.” Her teeth clacked. “What is this about?”

There was a gentle touch at her elbow. The woman officer said, “Come with us for a second. We’re just going to talk.”

A cluster of people stared at the trio they made. Several phones were held in the air, as if something interesting was happening.
“A jumper,”
someone hissed to someone else. Nora twisted her head to look around, to see if she could spot the person they were talking about, but Officer Briggs guided her forward, his hand in the middle of her back, as if he were guiding her firmly from a dance floor.

“Oh,” she said, the realization dull and painful, like a hangover. “You thought
I
was going to jump.”

The female had a small computer tablet in her hand. “May I have your name, ma’am?”

“Nora Glass. I wasn’t going to jump.” She looked over her shoulder again. “I don’t even think I could from here. Don’t you have that safety barrier?” No, maybe they hadn’t built that yet. She couldn’t remember . . .

“Date of birth?” Officer Briggs smiled at her. “You don’t have to give it to me—it’s just something I gotta ask.”

“You don’t have to—I don’t need—” Nora didn’t know what she needed. Sunshine winked off his badge. When had the sun burned off the fog? She hadn’t noticed it happening. “What time is it?”

“Four fifteen.”

Nora had gotten to the bridge at twelve forty-five. She and Lily had planned to meet at one. It didn’t take more than an hour to walk the whole bridge, round trip. “God. I got stuck again.”