Truest (21 page)

“Strange? Clumsy? Gawky? Maladroit?”

“Yes,” I said. “Maladroit. Totally maladroit.” I shoved my shoulder into his. “
You're
maladroit, Hart.”

Silas grinned. “Hey, I thought you liked to con people into telling you their secrets. Get crackin' on these two! Come to think of it, I'm not actually sure that you've conned
me
out of any secrets this summer.”

“You told me about Laurel,” I said, resting my chin on his shoulder.

“Sort of. You kinda walked into that one.” Silas kicked off his shoes.

“True,” I agreed, then whispered in his ear, “So tell me a secret.”

“Okay.” Silas pressed his lips together and was quiet for a long time.

“You don't have to,” I started, but he said, “Sometimes she embarrasses me. Sometimes I'm . . . ashamed of her. When she showed up today? It's so obvious something's wrong. And that makes me ashamed of myself. I'm my sister's keeper, and I don't want to be.”

And for just one moment, I wondered how Silas would choose if it was Team West versus Team
Laurel.

I didn't want to know.

August arrived, and I spent the afternoon detailing a car on my own. Without Silas, it took almost twice as long. I called him three times, but there was no answer, and every time I got his voice mail I got more annoyed. He finally showed up just as I was waxing the hood.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Let me do that,” he said, reaching for my rag. I surrendered it to him easily, exhausted as I was. He stretched himself over the hood, all elbow grease and stony silence.

“Well?” I asked his back.

“I was at Papa and Oma's.”

“You could have called.”

“I was looking for that damn ballerina doll.”

“Which doesn't exist,” I added, pointed and cold.

He turned around, his eyes savage, and hissed, “Don't
ever
let her hear you say that.” I blinked at the severity in his voice, and he immediately softened. “Shit. West. I'm sorry. Shit. Shit, shit,
shit.
” He turned away from me.

I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my face into his back, breathing him in: soap and sweat and lumber. “What is it?” I asked.

“Laurel locked the door to her room, and Mom went ballistic.”

“Oh no.”

“She kept pounding on the door and shouting for Laurel to open up. We both did.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Nothing. No reaction. We didn't know—”

“What did you do?”

“Got Dad's power drill from the garage and took off the door handle
and
the lock.”

“And?”

“She was on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She looked over and seemed
surprised
to see us standing in the doorway. It was like she'd never heard us begging her to open the door, West! Like she'd never even heard the
drill.
”

“I'm so sorry.”

“And then Mom was bawling, and I was just so pissed at Laurel for doing this to us that I wanted to find that doll and rub it in her face till she
choked
on reality. I forgot about our
detailing and didn't call and didn't hear my phone and you had to do everything on your own, and I
hate
that I let Laurel get in the way of everything, but I don't know how else to
be
.”

He sat down then, completely spent, right on the driveway pavement with his long legs stretched out before him and his elbows resting on his knees. I joined him.

“I'm sorry,” he said again. “The car looks great. Nice work.”

I smiled.

“So, what's next?” I asked.

“Mom's been on the phone with Dad; they're talking about checking Laurel into a residential facility in St. Paul.”

“What do you think about that?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I really don't. Earlier this summer, after we first moved, there were lots of days when I thought she would be just fine and that it would all pass, but this week was terrible, West. Dad doesn't know what to do—if he should come home or whatever—but Mom said, ‘Too late now.' She's pissed.”

“You're sure it has nothing to do with him?” I asked awkwardly. I liked Mr. Hart.

“I'm positive. Laurel quit seeing her therapist because he kept suggesting that, remember?”

I nodded. “All summer, I've been wanting to help her,” I said, “but I never really knew how.”

Silas let out a giant breath. “I know, West. Same here.” He looked years older than his age.

“I saw inside your notebook once,” I admitted. “Earlier this summer. It was open on your bed, and I thought it was a letter, but . . . it was a prayer, wasn't it? A prayer for Laurel—about how she needed God.
You are exactly what she needs.
”

Silas looked up suddenly. His eyes were dark and intense.

“Are you mad I saw it? I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry about it.” There was a curious look on his face. “It was a prayer, but it wasn't for Laurel.”

“Who . . . ?”

“It was for
you.
”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“. . . did it work?” I asked, thinking how his poem had sunk its teeth into my heart.

Silas said softly, “You tell me.”

Later that evening, when it was just me and Libby alone in the living room, I made an announcement: “I like Silas Hart.”

“
Ob
viously,” she said, rolling her eyes in a purely twelve-year-old way.

“Are you still sending fan mail to Chuck Justice?” I asked her.

“Every week,” she said, grinning. “I slip the letters into Dad's stack of mail, and he pays for the stamps without even realizing.” It made me smile.

“What do you like about him?” I asked her.

“About Dad?”

“About Chuck, you goon,” but she was teasing me.

“Everything.”

“Yeah, but like what?”

“He's so cool. His songs and his hair and the way he likes cinnamon ice cream.”

“No one likes cinnamon ice cream.”

“Chuck does. I do.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever,” she said.

“Well, I guess you're perfect for each other then,” I mocked.

“We are,” she said seriously. “There was a quiz in the magazine you gave me, and it said so. What do you like about Silas?”

“Everything,” I said, copying her.

Then I squeezed her knee, where I knew she was ticklish, and we both giggled and batted at each other for a while till a pillow fell off the couch, revealing the glued-together paper dolls that had been hidden beneath it.

“Remember these?” Libby said, picking them up.

“Yep.”

I turned on the TV, flipping idly through the channels while, beside me, my sister worked carefully to peel apart the paper dolls. I don't know what she had expected, but the glue had dried and hardened, and it was an ugly process—shreds of each doll torn away and left clinging to the other. Libby tossed the finished product into my lap: a paper girl, her face and chest
torn off, with the boy's stomach still adhered to hers.

“Well, that didn't exactly work, did it?” I asked.

“It worked just the way I guessed,” she said, her fingertips playing with the scraps.

Mrs. Hart was at her parents' home for dinner when I traipsed over to Heaton Ridge later that week to listen to the radio with Silas. As soon as I let myself in, I heard it. Hysterics from upstairs. The return of the banshee. Only this time, there was another voice shouting too.

I barreled up the stairs and into Laurel's bedroom, pressing open the door that no longer had a knob. She was in the corner of her bed, the silver chenille blanket pulled up to her neck, weeping uncontrollably while Silas screamed at her.

“What?!” he roared. “This is absolutely ridiculous.
Ridiculous!
You are driving me insane, do you understand that?” He was pulling at his hair and looked a lot like a crazy person in that moment.

He started pacing, not far, just two or three steps in one direction and then back, fast, frenzied. Then he got in her face, put his hands on her mattress, and leaned into her, so that their faces were less than a foot apart: “What the hell do you want me to say to you, Laurel? That we are just ideas in God's head and when he sneezes we'll be gone? Is that what you want to hear? That you're the only real person and that your subconscious is the most brilliant thing ever because it's imagined an
entire life for you? Is that what you want? You want someone to corroborate your ideas? It's
fucked up
, Laurel! Do you hear me?” Spit collected at the corners of his mouth.

Laurel's eyes. They were scared. Wild and wretched.

“Silas, stop it,” I demanded. My head was spinning with all the noise.

Now Silas shouted in my direction. “Don't yell at
me
!” He pointed an accusatory finger at his sister. “She's the one who thinks there's a giant chicken in the sky puppeteering everything. She's the one who—” Laurel looked so bereft, so completely broken in the corner, that I flew at Silas, without really thinking what I was doing. He grabbed my wrists and held them tight. I twisted but couldn't get free until he released me. He didn't say anything, but the look in his eyes goaded me, dared me to try it again; he was high on adrenaline—and melancholia, which was stronger.

I glared at him as I rubbed my right wrist, which was red from his grip. But it gave me an idea.

Without another thought, I bypassed Silas and slapped Laurel—hard—across her left cheek. There was a harsh clap and a quick, stinging rip across my palm.

“What are you doing?” Silas thundered, grabbing my shoulders and yanking me away from his sister.

But the change was almost instant. Laurel's weeping simmered even as the star appeared on her cheek. “She said shock is good for her,” I explained, my shoulders still clutched by
Silas. “Like when she tripped over your guitar case.”

Although Laurel's bottom lip quivered, her banshee cries ceased.

“The skipping CD player,” I said. Then I jerked away from Silas. I joined Laurel on the bed, kneeling on the mattress, moving toward her. “Listen to me,” I said. “This is real life. Do you need me to slap you again to prove it?” She shook her head, still looking amazed.
“And so what if it's not?”
I said. “If this is a dream, then we're going to make it the best damn dream you've ever had.”

So began our last weeks of summer, Laurel's pilot light relit.

She was being social and sleeping normal hours. She opened the windows all throughout the house. She even went grocery shopping, on her own and unprompted, bringing home “what sounded good”: Lucky Charms, diced pineapple, cheddarwurst, and a tub of cookie dough that we ate with spoons. Laurel sat at the head of the table, laughing as Silas told jokes.

It galvanized him. He was full of plans for us—every day, a new adventure: swimming, hiking, riding every roller coaster at Valleyfair. We bought eighties prom outfits at a thrift store and convinced the photographer at a portrait studio that we
wanted
the photos to look awkward.

Mrs. Hart surprised the four of us with tickets to see
Carmina
Burana
at the Minnesota Dance Theatre.

“You clean up nice,” I told Whit when I opened the Harts' front door and saw him standing on the doorstep in a tie, holding a bouquet of white forget-me-nots.

“It's the khakis,” Laurel said, moving past me, taking the flowers, and kissing Whit on the nose. “These are my favorite!” she said of the flowers. Her dress was such a pale shade of pink that it seemed almost cream. The bustled hem hit right below her knee, and it looked like Aphrodite-turned-prima-ballerina had come down from Mount Olympus for the evening in her strappy copper heels.

I wore a lacy strapless dress and a pair of Laurel's boots. The heels on those suckers were at least three inches. “So this is what the weather is like up here,” I said to Silas as he joined us at the front door. Teresa had made him wear a blazer, and I wanted to fall at her feet in thanks. His hair fell into his eyes, and the jacket fit perfectly in the shoulders.

When he saw me, he lit up and shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

“I just can't believe I'm so damn lucky.”

I wasn't sure what to expect, but
Carmina Burana
was fascinating. From the first intense chords of “O Fortuna,” my pulse was racing as if there was a subwoofer inside me making my blood throb. The lighting, the orchestra, the dancers—everything was perfect and powerful, and the best part of it all was sneaking glances at Laurel. Her foot tapped along to the music, her eyes
were wild, and she leaned forward in her seat as if the stage was calling her home.

Afterward, as we'd walked through the parking ramp back to the car, she couldn't stop herself from dancing, her dress flowing around her like water as she moved. It made us all smile.

Silas drove his parents' car; I had shotgun; Laurel and Whit sat together in the backseat so close she was practically in his lap. Silas leaned over me and pulled a brochure out of the glove compartment. “What do you think about this, Laur?” he asked, handing it back to her.

It was information he'd collected on his college visit about the school's degree in dance. Laurel stared at it, chewing on the inside of her mouth the way her brother sometimes did.

“It's just an idea,” Silas said. “You can toss it if you want. Here, I'll take it back.”

He reached for it, but Laurel snatched it away. “Calm down, you spaz,” she said. “I think it looks awesome. I'm just thinking of how out of shape I am.”

“There are studios in St. Cloud,” I said. “And—it's not the same thing—but next week is the Green Lake street dance.”

“Street dance?” Laurel asked.

“Yeah,” said Whit. “We have it every year the Friday before Labor Day. You'll love it.”

Silas looked at me from the driver's seat, his dark eyes full of sparks, and started singing the familiar “one-two, one-two”
rhythm of “O Fortuna,” replacing the unknown foreign lyrics with “bum-bum, bum-bum,” until I looked the translation up on my cell phone. “The last line of the song says, ‘Fate crushes the brave,'” I shared.

“Not always,” said Laurel from the backseat.

When we got back to Green Lake that same evening, the four of us retreated to the Harts' den. On the couch, Laurel rested against Whit while she used the remote.

That left me and Silas to the papasan. It was big enough for us both, but just barely. He let his long legs stretch down to the floor, and I rested my head over his heart. “What's the movie, Laur?” Silas asked, and I grinned because—with my ear to his chest—the words sounded like a sort of purr.

“
Où Te Trouver
,” she said. “
Where to Find You.
”

The two boys groaned.

“Settle down!” Laurel told them. “There are subtitles.”

Only there weren't. Just a man with an exceptional beard speaking in rapid French to a beautiful woman. “Look at that thing,” marveled Silas at the facial hair. “I'll bet that guy's beard has a beard.”

“You're jealous because you can't grow any facial hair yourself,” his sister taunted from the couch.

“Of course I am!” he said, rubbing his jaw. Then he tilted my chin up to look at him. “Do you think I'm less of a man, West?”

“Yup.” I bit his finger.

“When God said, ‘Let there be light,' that beard appeared,” said Laurel, muting the film with the remote.

“You guys are so weird,” Whit said, but he looked happy with Laurel leaning back into him and the glow of the TV reflecting in his eyes. One of Whit's arms reached across Laurel from shoulder to shoulder, and she was holding on to that arm as if it were a buoy. It struck me for a moment just how much sadness was sitting on that couch—but how you'd never know it tonight.

Silas said, “That beard invented the wheel, jazz music, and emoticons.”

“It speaks fourteen languages well,” I said, laughing, “and one badly.” They all looked at me. “It keeps it humble,” I explained.

“That beard's hobbies are kicking ass and taking names,” Whit tried.

“That beard is a vigilante,” said Silas, my human thesaurus.

“It owns property in Spain.”

“It will stop global warming.”

“It exists in another dimension.”

“It has honorary degrees from Princeton and Yale.”

“That beard breastfed the sun, moon, and stars.” This was from Laurel, after which there was a moment of silence before Silas chimed, “Awkward.”

We were really, really tired. But we couldn't stop laughing.

The bearded Frenchman and the beautiful woman on the screen were sharing a kiss, and Laurel sat up and tugged at Whit, saying, “Come say good night.”

Whit, holding Laurel's hand, followed her obligingly but not before Silas pointed at him sternly and said, “No funny business.” Whit rolled his eyes.

“Can
we
get up to funny business?” Silas said once the other two had left.

I turned my head to face him. “Hypocrite,” I whispered, smiling.

“She left kinda fast, huh?” he said. “Should I check on her?”

“No,”
I insisted. “She's fine—and probably making out with Whit right now.”

Silas pretended to gag.

“You're too protective,” I said. “Take a break, Hart.”

He smiled. It was crowded in the papasan, but still we didn't move to the couch. “You're right,” he said, wriggling a little to get comfortable and resting his head against my shoulder. “Want to run away together?”

“Yes, please,” I said. “Where to?”

“Mexico is always good. And we have Papa Arty's truck.”

“I doubt the pickup would make it that far.”

“It could get there. Probably not back.”

“Then again, we wouldn't need to get back,” I said. He looked up at me and grinned.

Silas took my hand and said, “We'll drive as far as we can and hitchhike the rest of the way. We won't stop till we get to the beach. Somewhere near ruins. We'll build a little hut roofed with thatch and get jobs at a local resort so that we can buy loads of books. And every night, we'll watch the sunset turn everything to copper and then go to our little hut and make fun of that day's tourists.”

I leaned my cheek against his hair, which was curling slightly from the humidity outside. He smelled like shampoo and dryer sheets.

“I'm game,” I murmured. “Or we could go north too, you know.”

He yawned a little. “Mmm, true. We could go to Alaska. You'd like it there. We'll get a cabin and read aloud by the fireplace. I like that idea.” His voice was starting to thicken with fatigue, and I heard Whit's car start out in the driveway. “We can pick blueberries.”

I craned my head back in order to look at Silas; his eyes were closed, and in that moment, he looked like a little boy.

“Blueberries?” I said—but very quietly.

He yawned again. “There are . . . there are blueberries . . . everywhere . . . in September.”

I didn't know if it was true or not, but I felt his breathing get slow and heavy, and his arm was hot against mine. I tried to picture us alone in a cabin, a fire blazing in the corner, listening as Silas read his poems. We're just kids, I reminded myself.

A few minutes later, as a reminder of that fact, Teresa
appeared in the doorway of the den wearing a robe. “Hey, you guys? It's getting late. West's parents just called—” She smiled down at her sleeping son, and I was grateful that he was cuddled up next to me so innocently, though I was terribly embarrassed that my parents had called—and probably woken up—Mrs. Hart.

“Silas,” I whispered, nudging his head with my shoulder.

His eyes fluttered open.

“I've got to go.”

“Mexico?” he asked groggily.

“Not tonight,” I whispered.

In the final days of summer, Silas and I took Laurel to Legacy House to meet Gordon. “Delighted to meet you, Laurel. Come sit, come sit. What business are you in, young lady?”

“I'm not sure,” she said, honestly, sitting on the couch beside me and twisting her fingers nervously in her lap, all while glancing around in awe at Gordon's many bookshelves. “I'm not usually sure of much,” she admitted.

Gordon smiled, lit his pipe, and I knew that he knew he was talking to the elusive “her.” “Occam's razor,” he said, as if offering her a gift. That wonderful, homey smell of cherry pipe tobacco filled the room again.

“What's that?” asked Silas, standing near the window.

“Essentially,” said Gordon, “it's a principle that says the simpler explanation is better than the complex one.”

“Why's it called a razor?” I asked, plucking a peppermint
from a small bowl on the coffee table in front of us.

Gordon opened his mouth to answer me, but Laurel beat him to it: “It's a philosophical term . . . a device that lets you ‘shave away' unlikely explanations.”

Gordon smiled. “We have a young philosopher in the room today,” he said, pleased.

Laurel smiled too, but only a little. “Philosophy was my gateway drug,” she admitted.
To what?
we wondered, the question hanging in the air like Gordon's pipe smoke.

“She's also a dancer,” I said to Gordon, then unwrapped my peppermint and popped it into my mouth.

“A philosopher
and
a dancer!” he exclaimed. “Nietzsche said he could only believe in a God who dances!”

“I didn't know that,” she said. “But I think he
does
dance though.” She waited another moment, staring off into the distance in thought, and then she said, “I'm sure he does.”

Afterward, Silas and I had Holy Communion with Laurel on the beach: grape Crush and Goldfish crackers and Silas's reassurances that it was not irreverent. We spread a bedsheet over the sand. A cool breeze came over the water from the southwest so that Laurel's hair blew out behind her like a bridal veil. Silas read a poem he'd written in his notebook:

“The low moon lags beside men out late
,

whose shadows stretch like secrets

down this ordinary street.

“Did you know?

There is a blood that works like bleach.

“What words work

if God cooks you breakfast
,

burns his fingers on the fish?

“The collision of common and celestial

holds her like a jealous palm.
”

“Silas, that's really good,” Laurel said as she leaned back on her elbows, looking out at the waves on the water.

“It's about you, Laur,” he said. He handed me the bottle of Crush and Laurel the bag of Goldfish. The bubbles of carbonation burned my throat as I swallowed.

“I know,” Laurel said, then tasted a cracker, God's body. “I am held by that jealous palm. I believe that. Right now, I believe that.” She closed her eyes, perhaps in prayer, and breathed in the scent of the breeze: algae and white clover that carried over the water onto this holy space.