Waiting (22 page)

An accident witnessed? You’re different on the inside.

Maybe there’s no cut someone else can see, but there’re always injuries on the inside.

Those take a long time to heal.

My mother and father, their wounds are huge, gaping, they drip—ooze. Their battle is with me, too, when I should be close to them, on their side.

That’s what I want.

To be with them.

Mom hasn’t touched me like a mom should, not once, since we found Zach.

Maybe I’ll never
get better from Zach’s leaving us.

Maybe I’ll carry all that around with me forever, hearing him, finding him, moving too slow, moving way too s l o w.

Maybe my curse will be memory forever.

Maybe what I’m
going through maybe all this I feel maybe it
is
part of repentance saying I’m sorry for not moving faster, opening the door faster, clawing my way to Zachy faster.

God knows I’m sorry.

Jesus knows I’m sorry.

No one no one could be sorrier than I am.

I stand on my own Golgotha and I’m all alone.

There’s a message
from Rachel when I get home.

“Hey, London. I’m calling you back. I’ve . . . I’m so glad you called. I’ve got stuff to tell you. We need to catch up. I can’t wait to talk to you.”

For a minute
—no, for lots of minutes, for hours, days, weeks, I hated (still hate?) Rachel for living and moving when everyone else got stuck here in this awful place called my home.

But I think, I think I can go on now, now that I’ve heard her voice on our answering machine.

My brother would want me to.

Still, I’m scared. Scared that we’re almost communicating.

I mean, we are, right? Sort of?

And I want to, right? Yes, no, maybe so.

Am I five? Oh, I wish I were.

I shower again.
Wash sand from my ears. Hear those words, “We need to catch up.”

Try to think how to save the call but keep Daddy and Mom from hearing it.

Wonder at Taylor.

Think of Jesse kissing me in that cool water as I tried to rinse the beach from my skin.

I get out of the shower, wrap in my terry-cloth bathrobe, lie down on my bed just to rest my eyelids, which are sunburned

after all.

“Hey, London,” Zach
says. He touches me. His hands are cold, way cold, and I push him away.

“What?”

He grins at me big. His eyes go squinty, disappearing. “I need you to do me a favor.”

I sit up, pulling the bathrobe tight, cinching the pink sash. My room is dim. I can hear someone in the house. Who’s come home?

Did they check on me while I was sleeping?

Daddy calls to Mom, “Eva, I’ve got the dressing for the salad.” Mom says, “Tell that daughter of yours to get up. We have work to do.”

“Did you hear that?” I say to Zach. “Mom mentioned me to Daddy.” I get to my knees.

“You’re dreaming,” Zach says. His breath is ice. “Listen to me. Look at me, London. Me. You need to choose.”

Choose?
I can’t look at him. I don’t know why. I try to. But I want to see that my mother isn’t mad anymore. I want to go to my mother, see if she’ll wrap her arms around

me, kiss my face, touch my hair, pet away a sadness that I feel growing within.

“If you don’t pay attention,” Zach says, “I have to go.”

My eyes burn. There’s salt water in them. And sand, too, maybe. He lets out a huge sigh. He touches my hand and he’s so cold. I want to say, “Heaven’s full of gold and light, right? So why are you cold?” I try to look at him, but now his face is too bright, and I squint too, like his smiley eyes.

“I would have named my daughter London,” he says, letting out a little laugh. “After you, sis.” And he’s gone with a second sigh.

When I open
my eyes, the house is dead quiet.

I lie there, tears leaking toward my ears.

My nose goes snuffy.

I remember Jesus.

He cried for Mary and Martha.

He cried when Lazarus died.

Has He cried for me?

I get up,
moving slow, and start to get dressed for evening at my house.

“This will be so much fun,” I say, dropping my bathrobe at my feet and walking to the St. Ives lotion. I slather it everywhere, standing in front of the mirror.

I’m losing weight. Still. The doctor said no more. But I can’t help it. Food is tasteless. “It would have flavor if Mom would eat with us.” And I know, soon as I say the words, what I’m saying is true. The only thing big on me anymore is my hair. It feels like a cape on my back, around my shoulders. And because I didn’t brush it or braid it or anything before I lay down, it’s frizzy. “I don’t care.”

When the lotion has soaked into my thirsty skin, I dress. Then I pack a bag. I’m having a sleepover tonight.

The front door closes and I hear Mom and Daddy—both home now (was Mom all along? Was he? Did they walk in together?)—voices low.

“Screw them,” I say. My hands shake as I put a set of jammies and tomorrow’s school clothes and a hairbrush and toothbrush and makeup in a bag. Underwear, different bra, schoolbooks. “What else do I need?”

Something for breakfast.

Attention.

My parents.

Zach back.

Two boys kissing me at once.

Rachel’s voice talking in my ear.

My brother, alive.

Someone at home talking to me.

My legs shake
as I walk, down the hall to the family room. Mom sits in her chair, Zach’s baby book closed on her knees. Daddy looks up from the newspaper.

“Wild Thing,” he says when he sees me. He gives me a sort-of smile. My heart leaps a bit, and I touch my hair.

He hasn’t called me that in a forever. He folds the paper, sets it aside. “We were talking about pizza for dinner tonight.”

I see Daddy not looking at my mother. So I do look. She stares out curtained windows. Her hands are fists. She hates me so much.

“Your mother isn’t hungry, though, so it’ll just be us.”

Dinner with my daddy.

He stands, not waiting to hear my answer, sees the bag in my hands. “Were you going somewhere?”

“I thought”—I have to clear my throat to pull out the words—“I thought I’d have a sleepover somewhere.”

“Whose house?”

I can hear the clock on the mantel. Smell my mother’s Shalimar. Feel the dryness of the bag in my hand. The weight of my books. My feet on the terrazzo floor. The way she looks away. I feel it all at once. “I hadn’t decided.”

Daddy comes to me, hesitates, runs his hand down his face like he is trying to change the shape. “Not tonight, Wild Thing.” His voice is low. “It’s you and me tonight.

Dinner and a movie.”

Tears spring to my eyes. “Really?”

This could be a dream.

A trick.

“Really,” Daddy says, and he starts to come to life.

So I
don’t
spend the night away.

I’m with Daddy. And while we don’t talk about anything, words come out of our mouths. And when it’s all said and done, he hugs me good night, in the darkness of the foyer.

“Sorry,” he says.

He’s not so tall and my head is next to his. “No,” I say. “I wanted to hug.”

“No, I mean about the other things.”

“Oh,” I say.

And when I head off to bed, it feels like I shed a second skin.

Choose.

What?

Who?

School has more
colors the next day.

I’m more alive.

I refuse to think anything but good thoughts, and when Taylor comes to the door to get me, not even beeping, I link my arm with his.

“Hey,” he says, and his face is surprised.

“Hey, what?” Can Mom see us from her bedroom?
Don’t think that. You don’t care. I do. You don’t.
I get in the car, sit in the seat my brother sat in for so many years (
Think only of yourself today, no Zacheus Lee Castle. Only
London Marie Castle.
), watch Taylor walk around the front of the car.

The morning sun slides at him sideways, and it seems his hair is blonder than usual. He looks at me through the glass and I can see I’ve made him nervous, and for some reason, that is so hot I can’t stand it. He’s not even shut the door when I crawl over the emergency brake to kiss him.

It’s a long, happy kiss. One that makes me lose my breath.

“Wow. Okay. Thanks,” he says when I pull away. His hand is on my waist, under my shirt a bit.

No more Jesse, maybe,
I think as I look toward the house then give the blind windows the finger just in case Mom’s home.