Wednesday, November 29, 2006
November 29th: Truly I've been through the storm and the rain; I know everything about heartache and pain
I sleep for hours. I sleep until I can’t anymore. I sleep till nine o’clock on Sunday night. And when I wake up, I don’t have to remember. I don’t have that horrible moment of realization. I just know. Is that how this is going to work? Am I going to know, for the rest of my life, to see him lying there always, to never be able to forget?
I want to be able to turn it off. There are times to remember. But there are times I would give anything to forget.
I stumble downstairs. My mother doesn’t look up from her book. “Your dinner is in the microwave.”
“Thanks.”
“I made soup. I figured you were sick, so I let you sleep.”
I rub my eyes. “Kind of. I’m going to school tomorrow, I think.”
She slams her book shut. “You really think that’s a good idea?”
“I really think I need to.” I give her a tight-lipped smile. “I have to go back, you know? At some point.”
“I know,” she says quietly. She puts her book down on the coffee table and pats the couch cushion next to her. “Come here.”
I oblige, laying my head on her shoulder. She sighs. “He told me first. You know that? He came home for Thanksgiving and... He handed me an envelope, said, ‘You need to see this.’ And I opened it. I figured it was a bill or something, something that he needed help with... Money, something simple...” She bites her lip. “Test results. And he was this tall boy, this massive, broad-shouldered man, and he was towering over me looking like if I said the wrong word it would knock him over. And I just read them over and over, and then I said, ‘How?’ And he said he didn’t know. He didn’t know. And I wondered, how blind could I have been, that I didn’t realize he was so... How do you not know, Noah? How do you get that far gone?”
I sigh. “He was just... Living. When people will bend over backwards to get you whatever you want, you get used to asking.”
“Did you know?” she whispers, and then takes a heaving breath, like she can’t believe she just asked, like the question has been on the tip of her tongue for years.
I bite my lip. “I knew he was... I don’t know. I knew he was doing stuff he wasn’t supposed to, stuff that would get him in trouble if you ever found out. He wasn’t... I don’t know. He didn’t always have a girl over when you went out to dinner, he wasn’t shooting up in the bathroom every ten minutes, he just... I don’t know, Mom. I think it got worse when he went to college. More opportunity. Less people who know your mother. Everyone gets a little wilder. He just... Couldn’t afford to.”
She nods. “You aren’t...”
“What?”
She picks up my hand, grips it a little too tight. “You’d tell me, right? If you were... You know. In trouble.”
I look at her for a second. “Yeah. Listen, can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” she says softly, and sounds like she means it. Where did this woman come from? What happened to her when she left?
I sigh. “Would have cared if Nathaniel hadn’t wanted to be everything you wanted him to be?”
She inhales deeply and thinks for a moment. “I don’t know, Noah. I honestly don’t even know what I wanted him to be.”
“Football? The posters, the stuffed toys...” There’s a sharp pain in my chest. “The mobiles,” I continue. “You know. It kind of seems like you were... I don’t know. Trying to mold him into Jackson. Trying to make sure that he got where Jackson never got to go.”
She bites her lip. “Jackson went everywhere I ever wanted him to.” She smiles. “He went to school, he went to college. He went to your t-ball games. He went to the grocery store when I asked him to. And for some reason, he went to an HIV testing clinic, and maybe it changed our lives, maybe he had to cut some dreams short, but... He went. Who knows how many more families... You know.” She jerks her head toward the coffee table. “...would need these stupid books, if he hadn’t gone.” She tilts her head to rest on top of mine. “He went everywhere I wanted him to. And then sometimes, he went other places. But isn’t that what life’s about? Going where the wind takes you, sometimes, even if it’s a hurricane?”
“He was only twenty eight, Mom. He could’ve gone a lot further.”
She laughs softly, sadly, to herself. “I think he went everywhere he wanted to go.”
* * *
“How are you?”
She slams the door. “Noah, please.”
“What?” I put the car into gear and glance over my shoulder. “Am I not allowed to ask you how you are? Can you just make up a list of the things I’m actually allowed to say to you? So I can just pick and choose out of those? Because it’s really exhausting being scolded all the time.”
She curls a knee up to her chest. “Look, Noah, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you eat breakfast? We can stop somewhere?”
She massages her temples. “Noah, I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, so when you die, I’m supposed to feel okay, because you didn’t want to talk about it? Will you make sense? Give me like, two minutes of making sense. Hell, two minutes of having one consistent opinion. Is that good? Two minutes of not changing your fucking mind?”
“Shut up!”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m sorry. It’s just... You hate me, then you love me; you want to be with me forever and then you want me to go die in a ditch; you want me to be interested in your every waking breath and then you don’t want to talk about it. Can’t you just choose?”
She sighs. “I told you to shut up,” she says evenly, exhaustedly. “And I’m sorry if your life sucks and it makes you a jerk, but... Noah, for chrissakes, I love you, but I really don’t want to. This isn’t going to work. We can’t have this same fricking fight every damn day.”
“Then be nice to me.” An idiot cuts in front of me without using his turn signal. I honk my horn.
She looks over at me. “You really think that’s our problem, Noah? That I’m not nice to you? Do you even know why I’m mad at you this morning? Do you ever know why I’m mad at you?”
“No! Because you just... You’re so unpredictable. I can’t deal with that. I can’t deal with you having a new pet peeve every single day. I can’t deal with you blaming me when you don’t eat and then yelling at me when I ask if you did. I can’t deal with you... I don’t know. I just can’t deal with you, Julia.” I sigh. “We’ve changed, okay? It’s not just me. It’s you, too. And it’s not your fault, and maybe it’s partly my fault, but...”
“So what, we should just break up? After all of this? Is that what you want?” Her voice wavers. I bite my lip and stare intently out the windshield.
I sigh. “Julia, I have a lot going on. Okay? In case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t have time to fix this right now. So either put up with me and wait till I can, or don’t. Okay? You have to choose.”
“What, am I not worth the effort right now?” She sounds surprisingly bitter. She curls up so she’s staring out the window, turns her head so I can’t see her face.
“Julia, my brother just died. And I watched it happen. For a fucking year, I watched it happen. Okay? And my pregnant mother lost her stupid baby, and then she ran away, and then she came back. And I’m not even sure my father knows I’m alive half the time. And I am exhausted. Okay? I’m fucking exhausted, and I’m angry, and I’m sad as hell, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and I have less than half an idea who the hell I am, and it’s great that you think you love me anyway but for god’s sake, Julia, if you really loved me you would give me some space. I can’t fight with you. I can’t fucking add you to the list of things that are wrong with my life. There’s no more fucking room.”
“So you don’t care,” she says quietly, her voice shaking. “Is that what you’re saying? You don’t care about me?”
I sigh. “Julia, what I’m saying is that this isn’t about you Okay? None of it. This is about my family. I can’t get rid of them. I can’t just... Write them off the list. And I...” I pause. “Never mind.”
“No.” She turns her head, her jaw jutting out defiantly. “No, Noah, what is it?”
“Julia...”
“Just tell me. I’m sure it’s not as bad as what I’m thinking.” Her makeup is a mess. I bite my lip and turn into the school parking lot. She crosses her arms and sighs.
“Julia, we can’t. Okay? We can’t do this. I have things to deal with... That I have to deal with. And I want you to be there, but obviously that’s not working. So really, you can’t be there. You can’t. And I can’t be there for you. Okay? Because I know you’ve kind of got a lot going on yourself. So we just... We can’t. Not anymore.”
“That’s it? Two years... That’s how you’re going to end it?” She tries to raise her eyebrows, but she’s crying, so the effect is hardly the indifference she was aiming for. “Just ‘we can’t do this’, get out of the car, and go?”
“Julia, we have nothing in common!” I slap one hand on the steering wheel and pull into my parking spot. “Okay? Nothing. You want to talk about everything, you think sex is going to fix our relationship, you... I don’t even know. You have to have a reason for everything, and you can never make up your mind, and it drives me fucking crazy. And I don’t want to talk about anything, and every time we go to have sex I fuck things up, and I don’t want to think about things right now, much less analyze them, and I just... I need space, and you need someone to coddle you. I can’t fucking coddle you. I can’t.” I turn off the car. We both sit there for a minute before she unbuckles her seatbelt.
“I didn’t to be coddled,” she says quietly, sliding out of her seat. She picks up her backpack. “I just wanted to be important. I wanted to be somewhere on the list, Noah. Even if it was just in the margins.”
She slams the door.
I sit there until almost ten o’clock, staring out the windshield at the football field. I think I knew it would be over soon. I think I knew we couldn’t do this forever. But sometimes it doesn’t matter how long you’ve had to prepare. In the end, you’re still being crushed by the train.
* * *
“Noah. Welcome back, son.”
I bite my lip. “Where do I sign in?”
A clipboard is shoved into my hands. “Pick a line. I tell you, everyone here was devastated to hear about your loss. Especially... Where is he?” She sighs and turns to the woman in the office behind her. “Carol, do you know where Mr. Woon is?”
Carol shrugs. The receptionist turns back to me with a sigh. I hand her the clipboard. “Oh well. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you later. The football team would really like to do something for your brother. Ticket sales from a game or something. I don’t know if you had a charity in mind, something...”
I close my eyes for a minute and press my fingers into my eyelids. “You know what, I... You should really talk to my mother about that. I’m not really sure.”
She nods. “I’m sure Mr. Woon will want to talk...” She pauses, looking excitedly out the giant glass window that frames one wall of the office. “There he is. Ian! Come here!”
Suddenly there he is, this giant red-faced man, enthusiastically pumping my hand. “Good to meet you, son. We’re so sorry about your brother, he was one of the biggest names in Point Vale High history... But I’m sure you knew that.” He laughs, one of those big, booming, intimidating laughs that only the most arrogant men can pull off. He shoots me a toothy smile, then nods earnestly. “Obviously there is a lot of talk around school about what happened. I’m not entirely sure we should tell the students, although it is up to you. I just don’t think it would be appropriate for one of our most treasured alumnus to be dragged through the mud... Best to keep private matters private, right?”
I stare at him. “Um....”
“We were hoping to do a charity drive thing. Maybe game ticket sales, some sort of ice cream sundae dealie at lunch, whatever. I’d really appreciate if you picked something neutral, though. Nothing... You know... AIDS-related.” He says the word like it leaves a bad taste in it mouth. I’m starting to realize why so many of my classmates insist this guy is a jerk.
“I really have to get to class.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Boy, this school is very ready to rally behind you and your family. I would think you’d be more appreciative.”
“With all respect, sir, I don’t think Jackson would really have appreciated that you want to shove his illness into a back room somewhere.” I smile tightly. “Yeah, he did some stupid things, and he got AIDS. He did stupid things while he was here, too, but that didn’t stop people from idolizing him. He wasn’t a hero because he was healthy, sir.”
“I just don’t think it’s the best message to be giving to our students,” Mr. Woon says, pulling at his collar.
I shrug. “Then don’t sell football tickets and sundaes and use him to get your picture in the paper.”
“Mr. Fisher, that’s more than enough.” He says it in the smuggest way, like, Oh yeah, by the way, shut your mouth. I can get my picture in the paper without him.
I nod. “You know, I think so too, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really do have to go to class.” I smile sweetly and push my way past him. “I have to tell a few people about this horrible thing that happened to my brother. He was one of the biggest names in Point Vale High history, you know.”
I let the door slam behind me. I can’t stop shaking. But I feel okay. Maybe I’ll be the miracle, the guy who gets run over by a train and lives.
* * *
Geoff pulls me to the side the second I walk into class. We stand in front of the board he never uses, saying nothing, staring at the ground and scuffing our feet.
“Wow,” he says after a minute.
“I know.” I force a smile.
He doesn’t bother. “Noah... I’m sorry. I don’t think...” He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t think anyone expected this to happen so soon.”
“I know.”
“So what happened? I’ve heard about a hundred stories.”
I sigh. “He... I don’t know. I came late to school, and then I went home at the normal time, went in screaming at him for making me come, wandered into his room and thought he was sleeping – he was freezing that day, I guess, you know how he went back and forth... Anyway, I thought he was sleeping, cos he was under all these blankets, so I told him to wake up and stop being a lazy fuck...” I pause for a minute. He smiles wanly. “So anyway, I took the blankets off, but he was just laying there in the fetal position, you know?” I swallow the lump in my throat. “And so I tried to wake him up, and he wouldn’t wake up, so I thought he was unconscious, so I tried... I don’t know. I don’t know. They said he’d been dead since almost just after I left. His spleen had ruptured probably sometime that morning, and it all just leaked out into his insides, and he was really weak and all that, so his body went into shock really quickly, and he just...” I squeeze my eyes shut. “You know.”
Geoff nods. “Is there a funeral or anything?”
“I think I heard my mother talking on the phone about cremation. I don’t think she wants a service. If it were just family and crap, it would just be too depressingly like home, and if it were public... I don’t want to know who would turn up.”
He nods. “A lot of people who thought they loved him, but hardly ever talked to him.”
“And a lot of people he treated like crap, coming back to revel in his downfall.”
He laughs quietly. “Yeah. That too.”
“Anyway...” I clear my throat. “You know, I guess... Well, he really appreciated you being there. You know. Even though he was sick. And just treating him like he was a normal person, and not some leper or something. He needed that. He needed someone besides me.”
“I think if he’d asked, there would have been a lot of people who would’ve willingly reached out a hand,” Geoff replies, smiling sadly.
I shrug. “He didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t want them to remember him as this feverish, pale, skeleton of a person. He still wanted to be a hero. That was just about all of his glory days he had left.”
Geoff bites his lip. “It’s kind of ironic, right? He was hailed as a hero all this time, cheating on his girlfriends and punching kids for no reason. Just because he could throw a pass. People wanted to be just like him for what he did on that field, and it totally blinded them to who he was when the game was over and all the sweaty teenagers went home.”
I nod. “And then he couldn’t throw a tennis ball five feet, but he was humble and intelligent and understanding.”
“But nobody wants that for a hero,” Geoff finishes.
I sigh. “People suck, sometimes.”
“No kidding.” He smiles wanly.
“Anyway... Thanks.”
He nods. “Yeah. I’m just glad I got the chance.”
* * *
“I broke up with Julia.”
Eddy nods. “Well, I mean, you knew it was coming.”
“I guess.” I raise my eyebrows. “So I guess neither of us is getting lucky any time soon.”
He rolls his eyes. “I guess not.”
“Look, I’m sorry. About Saturday.”
He shrugs. “Dude, you’re not in the best place. I get it. I would have preferred you put a hole in the wall, but breaking my nose is totally another option. Just don’t do it again. Ever. Next time I will hit back.”
“Oh yeah. Right. I could totally take you.”
He laughs. “Yeah. Okay. You and your five feet of emo fury.”
“I’m five seven, first of all, and second of all, hi, you memorized the fucking When Harry Met Sally script.”
“That does not make me a pussy. It makes me a man who is secure enough in his masculinity to admit he likes a couple of chick flicks.” He flicks my head.
I flick back. “Yeah. Whatever. You’re still a virgin. And I could still take you.”
“Donkey piss. You fucking wish.”
I laugh. “Donkey piss? Since when is that a phrase?”
“Since now.” He tosses an eraser at my head.
“Yeah, don’t make me rebreak your nose, bitch.”
“Yeah, don’t make me laugh, bitch.”
I roll my eyes. “Have you always been this stupid?”
“Have you always been this ugly?”
I throw the eraser back at him, and the room is suffocatingly loud and Geoff is sitting at his desk reading the newspaper and everything is just how it’s supposed to be. Or as close as it will ever be. As close as anything will ever be again.
* * *
“Mom?”
She smiles up at me. Beams, really. She hasn’t looked this happy in months. Maybe years.
“What... What are you doing?” I say it slowly, cautiously, not entirely sure I want to hear the response.
Her grin grows. If that’s even possible. “Blair decided to go back to school.”
“See, that explains nothing to me. Seriously, Mom, what...”
“Today’s my trial period. Well, tomorrow too. She... I think Julia suggested it, tell her thank you for me. No, where was I? Oh. Blair’s going back to school.” She rocks the baby gently in her arms. “She hired me as a nanny. Isn’t that right, Bryan?” She smiles down at him. “He just came home this morning. She’s horribly tired, so she’s in on the couch sleeping.”
“Oh.” I blink a few times, letting it all sink in. “So you’re... I don’t know, taking care of him? While she’s at school or whatever?”
She nods. “She’s going to community college, so it’ll be when she’s in class or needs to study. Ten dollars an hour to spend time with this angel.” She beams at me. “Noah, you have no idea. This is exactly what I needed. I know he’s not mine, but...” She sighs. “I need this, Noah. I don’t know why. But I do.”
I smile. “That’s... That’s great, Mom. I’m really happy for you.”
She glances between me and the baby. “You want to hold him?”
I bite my lip. “I... I don’t really....”
She laughs. “You’ll be fine. Here.” She stands up, sidles up close to me, and passes him gently, positioning my arms. “Hold his head... Yeah. Just like that.” She smiles at us. “God, Noah, isn’t he beautiful?”
I stare down at him, this impossibly small, impossibly blond boy. His eyes open. He looks up at me, taking me in. I smile weakly. He squirms a little in my grasp.
I carefully hand him back to my mother. “He has really green eyes,” I remark, knowing she’ll know what I’m thinking.
“I know.” She nods slowly, looking down at him, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “He’s really something, isn’t he?”
Our eyes meet for a minute, and I know she’s thinking it, too.
Blair appears in the doorframe, rubbing her eyes. “Hey, Noah. How are things going, Mrs. Fisher? How’s Bryan?”
My mother grins at her. “He’s lovely,” she says softly. “He’s just lovely.”
* * *
“This is the culmination of all my hopes and dreams,” Eddy tells me, staring down at his lap. “Except that I’m holding a dead person. My hopes and dreams never really accounted for a dead person.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, first of all, it’s a freaking urn. Not a corpse. Second of all, if your hopes and dreams consist of sneaking onto school property in the dead of night, I fear for your future.”
He makes a face at me. “Yeah, okay. Where are we going to park?”
“I don’t think it really matters.” I pull into a space near the field. “This is good enough. Okay, I’m going to climb the fence and open up the crap gate at the bottom of the field. You know the one. Don’t drop the urn. My mother will freaking kill me. She already thinks this is a horrible idea.”
He opens his door. “The culmination of all my hopes and dreams could not possibly be a horrible idea.”
“Yeah. Okay. Because you’ve never had a horrible idea before.” I open my own door and hop out of the car. “Alright. I’ll just climb over here, you go wait for me down there. Got it?”
“Sir, yes sir.” He cradles the urn in one arm and attempts to salute.
“Alright. Let’s go, asshole.”
I jump onto the fence. It shakes beneath my weight, but the links are good footholds, and I’m over in a few seconds. I drop to the sidewalk and start down the bleachers onto the field. I wait for him by the gate with the pathetic lock. Everyone knows the lock doesn’t work, including the administration, but no one has the heart to change it. It’s sort of an institution, in a weird way.
“Come on,” I whisper when he shows up, pulling him through. “They actually do have security cameras. No one is watching, but still.”
He hands me the urn. “I’m not holding this thing anymore. I’m just here for moral support.”
I roll my eyes. “Alright. Should we start at the fifty, do you think?”
He shrugs. “I think end zone to end zone.”
I nod. We take our positions under the goal posts. I hand him the lid to the urn and stick my hand inside, running my fingers through the ashes. I sift what’s left of Jackson through my fingers and fight back the tears. A hundred yards, Noah. Three hundred feet. You run that far, and this is over. This can finally be over.
“One,” I whisper. “Two.” I grab a handful of ash, pull my hand out of the urn. “Three.”
We take off running. I let the ashes fall through my fingers and onto the grass, zigzagging back and forth across the field. I use a handful for every ten yards, sprinting over the twenty, the thirty, the forty, the fifty, and on and on and on and into the wind, into the end zone, into victory.
I want to be able to turn it off. There are times to remember. But there are times I would give anything to forget.
I stumble downstairs. My mother doesn’t look up from her book. “Your dinner is in the microwave.”
“Thanks.”
“I made soup. I figured you were sick, so I let you sleep.”
I rub my eyes. “Kind of. I’m going to school tomorrow, I think.”
She slams her book shut. “You really think that’s a good idea?”
“I really think I need to.” I give her a tight-lipped smile. “I have to go back, you know? At some point.”
“I know,” she says quietly. She puts her book down on the coffee table and pats the couch cushion next to her. “Come here.”
I oblige, laying my head on her shoulder. She sighs. “He told me first. You know that? He came home for Thanksgiving and... He handed me an envelope, said, ‘You need to see this.’ And I opened it. I figured it was a bill or something, something that he needed help with... Money, something simple...” She bites her lip. “Test results. And he was this tall boy, this massive, broad-shouldered man, and he was towering over me looking like if I said the wrong word it would knock him over. And I just read them over and over, and then I said, ‘How?’ And he said he didn’t know. He didn’t know. And I wondered, how blind could I have been, that I didn’t realize he was so... How do you not know, Noah? How do you get that far gone?”
I sigh. “He was just... Living. When people will bend over backwards to get you whatever you want, you get used to asking.”
“Did you know?” she whispers, and then takes a heaving breath, like she can’t believe she just asked, like the question has been on the tip of her tongue for years.
I bite my lip. “I knew he was... I don’t know. I knew he was doing stuff he wasn’t supposed to, stuff that would get him in trouble if you ever found out. He wasn’t... I don’t know. He didn’t always have a girl over when you went out to dinner, he wasn’t shooting up in the bathroom every ten minutes, he just... I don’t know, Mom. I think it got worse when he went to college. More opportunity. Less people who know your mother. Everyone gets a little wilder. He just... Couldn’t afford to.”
She nods. “You aren’t...”
“What?”
She picks up my hand, grips it a little too tight. “You’d tell me, right? If you were... You know. In trouble.”
I look at her for a second. “Yeah. Listen, can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” she says softly, and sounds like she means it. Where did this woman come from? What happened to her when she left?
I sigh. “Would have cared if Nathaniel hadn’t wanted to be everything you wanted him to be?”
She inhales deeply and thinks for a moment. “I don’t know, Noah. I honestly don’t even know what I wanted him to be.”
“Football? The posters, the stuffed toys...” There’s a sharp pain in my chest. “The mobiles,” I continue. “You know. It kind of seems like you were... I don’t know. Trying to mold him into Jackson. Trying to make sure that he got where Jackson never got to go.”
She bites her lip. “Jackson went everywhere I ever wanted him to.” She smiles. “He went to school, he went to college. He went to your t-ball games. He went to the grocery store when I asked him to. And for some reason, he went to an HIV testing clinic, and maybe it changed our lives, maybe he had to cut some dreams short, but... He went. Who knows how many more families... You know.” She jerks her head toward the coffee table. “...would need these stupid books, if he hadn’t gone.” She tilts her head to rest on top of mine. “He went everywhere I wanted him to. And then sometimes, he went other places. But isn’t that what life’s about? Going where the wind takes you, sometimes, even if it’s a hurricane?”
“He was only twenty eight, Mom. He could’ve gone a lot further.”
She laughs softly, sadly, to herself. “I think he went everywhere he wanted to go.”
“How are you?”
She slams the door. “Noah, please.”
“What?” I put the car into gear and glance over my shoulder. “Am I not allowed to ask you how you are? Can you just make up a list of the things I’m actually allowed to say to you? So I can just pick and choose out of those? Because it’s really exhausting being scolded all the time.”
She curls a knee up to her chest. “Look, Noah, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you eat breakfast? We can stop somewhere?”
She massages her temples. “Noah, I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay, so when you die, I’m supposed to feel okay, because you didn’t want to talk about it? Will you make sense? Give me like, two minutes of making sense. Hell, two minutes of having one consistent opinion. Is that good? Two minutes of not changing your fucking mind?”
“Shut up!”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m sorry. It’s just... You hate me, then you love me; you want to be with me forever and then you want me to go die in a ditch; you want me to be interested in your every waking breath and then you don’t want to talk about it. Can’t you just choose?”
She sighs. “I told you to shut up,” she says evenly, exhaustedly. “And I’m sorry if your life sucks and it makes you a jerk, but... Noah, for chrissakes, I love you, but I really don’t want to. This isn’t going to work. We can’t have this same fricking fight every damn day.”
“Then be nice to me.” An idiot cuts in front of me without using his turn signal. I honk my horn.
She looks over at me. “You really think that’s our problem, Noah? That I’m not nice to you? Do you even know why I’m mad at you this morning? Do you ever know why I’m mad at you?”
“No! Because you just... You’re so unpredictable. I can’t deal with that. I can’t deal with you having a new pet peeve every single day. I can’t deal with you blaming me when you don’t eat and then yelling at me when I ask if you did. I can’t deal with you... I don’t know. I just can’t deal with you, Julia.” I sigh. “We’ve changed, okay? It’s not just me. It’s you, too. And it’s not your fault, and maybe it’s partly my fault, but...”
“So what, we should just break up? After all of this? Is that what you want?” Her voice wavers. I bite my lip and stare intently out the windshield.
I sigh. “Julia, I have a lot going on. Okay? In case you hadn’t noticed. I don’t have time to fix this right now. So either put up with me and wait till I can, or don’t. Okay? You have to choose.”
“What, am I not worth the effort right now?” She sounds surprisingly bitter. She curls up so she’s staring out the window, turns her head so I can’t see her face.
“Julia, my brother just died. And I watched it happen. For a fucking year, I watched it happen. Okay? And my pregnant mother lost her stupid baby, and then she ran away, and then she came back. And I’m not even sure my father knows I’m alive half the time. And I am exhausted. Okay? I’m fucking exhausted, and I’m angry, and I’m sad as hell, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and I have less than half an idea who the hell I am, and it’s great that you think you love me anyway but for god’s sake, Julia, if you really loved me you would give me some space. I can’t fight with you. I can’t fucking add you to the list of things that are wrong with my life. There’s no more fucking room.”
“So you don’t care,” she says quietly, her voice shaking. “Is that what you’re saying? You don’t care about me?”
I sigh. “Julia, what I’m saying is that this isn’t about you Okay? None of it. This is about my family. I can’t get rid of them. I can’t just... Write them off the list. And I...” I pause. “Never mind.”
“No.” She turns her head, her jaw jutting out defiantly. “No, Noah, what is it?”
“Julia...”
“Just tell me. I’m sure it’s not as bad as what I’m thinking.” Her makeup is a mess. I bite my lip and turn into the school parking lot. She crosses her arms and sighs.
“Julia, we can’t. Okay? We can’t do this. I have things to deal with... That I have to deal with. And I want you to be there, but obviously that’s not working. So really, you can’t be there. You can’t. And I can’t be there for you. Okay? Because I know you’ve kind of got a lot going on yourself. So we just... We can’t. Not anymore.”
“That’s it? Two years... That’s how you’re going to end it?” She tries to raise her eyebrows, but she’s crying, so the effect is hardly the indifference she was aiming for. “Just ‘we can’t do this’, get out of the car, and go?”
“Julia, we have nothing in common!” I slap one hand on the steering wheel and pull into my parking spot. “Okay? Nothing. You want to talk about everything, you think sex is going to fix our relationship, you... I don’t even know. You have to have a reason for everything, and you can never make up your mind, and it drives me fucking crazy. And I don’t want to talk about anything, and every time we go to have sex I fuck things up, and I don’t want to think about things right now, much less analyze them, and I just... I need space, and you need someone to coddle you. I can’t fucking coddle you. I can’t.” I turn off the car. We both sit there for a minute before she unbuckles her seatbelt.
“I didn’t to be coddled,” she says quietly, sliding out of her seat. She picks up her backpack. “I just wanted to be important. I wanted to be somewhere on the list, Noah. Even if it was just in the margins.”
She slams the door.
I sit there until almost ten o’clock, staring out the windshield at the football field. I think I knew it would be over soon. I think I knew we couldn’t do this forever. But sometimes it doesn’t matter how long you’ve had to prepare. In the end, you’re still being crushed by the train.
“Noah. Welcome back, son.”
I bite my lip. “Where do I sign in?”
A clipboard is shoved into my hands. “Pick a line. I tell you, everyone here was devastated to hear about your loss. Especially... Where is he?” She sighs and turns to the woman in the office behind her. “Carol, do you know where Mr. Woon is?”
Carol shrugs. The receptionist turns back to me with a sigh. I hand her the clipboard. “Oh well. I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you later. The football team would really like to do something for your brother. Ticket sales from a game or something. I don’t know if you had a charity in mind, something...”
I close my eyes for a minute and press my fingers into my eyelids. “You know what, I... You should really talk to my mother about that. I’m not really sure.”
She nods. “I’m sure Mr. Woon will want to talk...” She pauses, looking excitedly out the giant glass window that frames one wall of the office. “There he is. Ian! Come here!”
Suddenly there he is, this giant red-faced man, enthusiastically pumping my hand. “Good to meet you, son. We’re so sorry about your brother, he was one of the biggest names in Point Vale High history... But I’m sure you knew that.” He laughs, one of those big, booming, intimidating laughs that only the most arrogant men can pull off. He shoots me a toothy smile, then nods earnestly. “Obviously there is a lot of talk around school about what happened. I’m not entirely sure we should tell the students, although it is up to you. I just don’t think it would be appropriate for one of our most treasured alumnus to be dragged through the mud... Best to keep private matters private, right?”
I stare at him. “Um....”
“We were hoping to do a charity drive thing. Maybe game ticket sales, some sort of ice cream sundae dealie at lunch, whatever. I’d really appreciate if you picked something neutral, though. Nothing... You know... AIDS-related.” He says the word like it leaves a bad taste in it mouth. I’m starting to realize why so many of my classmates insist this guy is a jerk.
“I really have to get to class.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Boy, this school is very ready to rally behind you and your family. I would think you’d be more appreciative.”
“With all respect, sir, I don’t think Jackson would really have appreciated that you want to shove his illness into a back room somewhere.” I smile tightly. “Yeah, he did some stupid things, and he got AIDS. He did stupid things while he was here, too, but that didn’t stop people from idolizing him. He wasn’t a hero because he was healthy, sir.”
“I just don’t think it’s the best message to be giving to our students,” Mr. Woon says, pulling at his collar.
I shrug. “Then don’t sell football tickets and sundaes and use him to get your picture in the paper.”
“Mr. Fisher, that’s more than enough.” He says it in the smuggest way, like, Oh yeah, by the way, shut your mouth. I can get my picture in the paper without him.
I nod. “You know, I think so too, sir. Now if you’ll excuse me, I really do have to go to class.” I smile sweetly and push my way past him. “I have to tell a few people about this horrible thing that happened to my brother. He was one of the biggest names in Point Vale High history, you know.”
I let the door slam behind me. I can’t stop shaking. But I feel okay. Maybe I’ll be the miracle, the guy who gets run over by a train and lives.
Geoff pulls me to the side the second I walk into class. We stand in front of the board he never uses, saying nothing, staring at the ground and scuffing our feet.
“Wow,” he says after a minute.
“I know.” I force a smile.
He doesn’t bother. “Noah... I’m sorry. I don’t think...” He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t think anyone expected this to happen so soon.”
“I know.”
“So what happened? I’ve heard about a hundred stories.”
I sigh. “He... I don’t know. I came late to school, and then I went home at the normal time, went in screaming at him for making me come, wandered into his room and thought he was sleeping – he was freezing that day, I guess, you know how he went back and forth... Anyway, I thought he was sleeping, cos he was under all these blankets, so I told him to wake up and stop being a lazy fuck...” I pause for a minute. He smiles wanly. “So anyway, I took the blankets off, but he was just laying there in the fetal position, you know?” I swallow the lump in my throat. “And so I tried to wake him up, and he wouldn’t wake up, so I thought he was unconscious, so I tried... I don’t know. I don’t know. They said he’d been dead since almost just after I left. His spleen had ruptured probably sometime that morning, and it all just leaked out into his insides, and he was really weak and all that, so his body went into shock really quickly, and he just...” I squeeze my eyes shut. “You know.”
Geoff nods. “Is there a funeral or anything?”
“I think I heard my mother talking on the phone about cremation. I don’t think she wants a service. If it were just family and crap, it would just be too depressingly like home, and if it were public... I don’t want to know who would turn up.”
He nods. “A lot of people who thought they loved him, but hardly ever talked to him.”
“And a lot of people he treated like crap, coming back to revel in his downfall.”
He laughs quietly. “Yeah. That too.”
“Anyway...” I clear my throat. “You know, I guess... Well, he really appreciated you being there. You know. Even though he was sick. And just treating him like he was a normal person, and not some leper or something. He needed that. He needed someone besides me.”
“I think if he’d asked, there would have been a lot of people who would’ve willingly reached out a hand,” Geoff replies, smiling sadly.
I shrug. “He didn’t want anyone to know. He didn’t want them to remember him as this feverish, pale, skeleton of a person. He still wanted to be a hero. That was just about all of his glory days he had left.”
Geoff bites his lip. “It’s kind of ironic, right? He was hailed as a hero all this time, cheating on his girlfriends and punching kids for no reason. Just because he could throw a pass. People wanted to be just like him for what he did on that field, and it totally blinded them to who he was when the game was over and all the sweaty teenagers went home.”
I nod. “And then he couldn’t throw a tennis ball five feet, but he was humble and intelligent and understanding.”
“But nobody wants that for a hero,” Geoff finishes.
I sigh. “People suck, sometimes.”
“No kidding.” He smiles wanly.
“Anyway... Thanks.”
He nods. “Yeah. I’m just glad I got the chance.”
“I broke up with Julia.”
Eddy nods. “Well, I mean, you knew it was coming.”
“I guess.” I raise my eyebrows. “So I guess neither of us is getting lucky any time soon.”
He rolls his eyes. “I guess not.”
“Look, I’m sorry. About Saturday.”
He shrugs. “Dude, you’re not in the best place. I get it. I would have preferred you put a hole in the wall, but breaking my nose is totally another option. Just don’t do it again. Ever. Next time I will hit back.”
“Oh yeah. Right. I could totally take you.”
He laughs. “Yeah. Okay. You and your five feet of emo fury.”
“I’m five seven, first of all, and second of all, hi, you memorized the fucking When Harry Met Sally script.”
“That does not make me a pussy. It makes me a man who is secure enough in his masculinity to admit he likes a couple of chick flicks.” He flicks my head.
I flick back. “Yeah. Whatever. You’re still a virgin. And I could still take you.”
“Donkey piss. You fucking wish.”
I laugh. “Donkey piss? Since when is that a phrase?”
“Since now.” He tosses an eraser at my head.
“Yeah, don’t make me rebreak your nose, bitch.”
“Yeah, don’t make me laugh, bitch.”
I roll my eyes. “Have you always been this stupid?”
“Have you always been this ugly?”
I throw the eraser back at him, and the room is suffocatingly loud and Geoff is sitting at his desk reading the newspaper and everything is just how it’s supposed to be. Or as close as it will ever be. As close as anything will ever be again.
“Mom?”
She smiles up at me. Beams, really. She hasn’t looked this happy in months. Maybe years.
“What... What are you doing?” I say it slowly, cautiously, not entirely sure I want to hear the response.
Her grin grows. If that’s even possible. “Blair decided to go back to school.”
“See, that explains nothing to me. Seriously, Mom, what...”
“Today’s my trial period. Well, tomorrow too. She... I think Julia suggested it, tell her thank you for me. No, where was I? Oh. Blair’s going back to school.” She rocks the baby gently in her arms. “She hired me as a nanny. Isn’t that right, Bryan?” She smiles down at him. “He just came home this morning. She’s horribly tired, so she’s in on the couch sleeping.”
“Oh.” I blink a few times, letting it all sink in. “So you’re... I don’t know, taking care of him? While she’s at school or whatever?”
She nods. “She’s going to community college, so it’ll be when she’s in class or needs to study. Ten dollars an hour to spend time with this angel.” She beams at me. “Noah, you have no idea. This is exactly what I needed. I know he’s not mine, but...” She sighs. “I need this, Noah. I don’t know why. But I do.”
I smile. “That’s... That’s great, Mom. I’m really happy for you.”
She glances between me and the baby. “You want to hold him?”
I bite my lip. “I... I don’t really....”
She laughs. “You’ll be fine. Here.” She stands up, sidles up close to me, and passes him gently, positioning my arms. “Hold his head... Yeah. Just like that.” She smiles at us. “God, Noah, isn’t he beautiful?”
I stare down at him, this impossibly small, impossibly blond boy. His eyes open. He looks up at me, taking me in. I smile weakly. He squirms a little in my grasp.
I carefully hand him back to my mother. “He has really green eyes,” I remark, knowing she’ll know what I’m thinking.
“I know.” She nods slowly, looking down at him, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “He’s really something, isn’t he?”
Our eyes meet for a minute, and I know she’s thinking it, too.
Blair appears in the doorframe, rubbing her eyes. “Hey, Noah. How are things going, Mrs. Fisher? How’s Bryan?”
My mother grins at her. “He’s lovely,” she says softly. “He’s just lovely.”
“This is the culmination of all my hopes and dreams,” Eddy tells me, staring down at his lap. “Except that I’m holding a dead person. My hopes and dreams never really accounted for a dead person.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, first of all, it’s a freaking urn. Not a corpse. Second of all, if your hopes and dreams consist of sneaking onto school property in the dead of night, I fear for your future.”
He makes a face at me. “Yeah, okay. Where are we going to park?”
“I don’t think it really matters.” I pull into a space near the field. “This is good enough. Okay, I’m going to climb the fence and open up the crap gate at the bottom of the field. You know the one. Don’t drop the urn. My mother will freaking kill me. She already thinks this is a horrible idea.”
He opens his door. “The culmination of all my hopes and dreams could not possibly be a horrible idea.”
“Yeah. Okay. Because you’ve never had a horrible idea before.” I open my own door and hop out of the car. “Alright. I’ll just climb over here, you go wait for me down there. Got it?”
“Sir, yes sir.” He cradles the urn in one arm and attempts to salute.
“Alright. Let’s go, asshole.”
I jump onto the fence. It shakes beneath my weight, but the links are good footholds, and I’m over in a few seconds. I drop to the sidewalk and start down the bleachers onto the field. I wait for him by the gate with the pathetic lock. Everyone knows the lock doesn’t work, including the administration, but no one has the heart to change it. It’s sort of an institution, in a weird way.
“Come on,” I whisper when he shows up, pulling him through. “They actually do have security cameras. No one is watching, but still.”
He hands me the urn. “I’m not holding this thing anymore. I’m just here for moral support.”
I roll my eyes. “Alright. Should we start at the fifty, do you think?”
He shrugs. “I think end zone to end zone.”
I nod. We take our positions under the goal posts. I hand him the lid to the urn and stick my hand inside, running my fingers through the ashes. I sift what’s left of Jackson through my fingers and fight back the tears. A hundred yards, Noah. Three hundred feet. You run that far, and this is over. This can finally be over.
“One,” I whisper. “Two.” I grab a handful of ash, pull my hand out of the urn. “Three.”
We take off running. I let the ashes fall through my fingers and onto the grass, zigzagging back and forth across the field. I use a handful for every ten yards, sprinting over the twenty, the thirty, the forty, the fifty, and on and on and on and into the wind, into the end zone, into victory.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
November 27th: and I know I've been a liar and I know I've been a fool; I know we didn't break yet, but I'm glad we broke the rules
“Dad?”
The porch light flickers over his head. He smiles weakly into his coffee.
“Dad...”
He shakes his head and sets the coffee down next to him on the stoop. “It’s cold out,” he says quietly.
I sit down carefully on the sidewalk in front of him. “I know.”
He stares at me, then looks down at his legs. “Blair had her baby yesterday. Julia’s sister Blair.”
“I know who Blair is,” he says softly, without looking up.
“Oh. Well, she had her baby. A little boy. He looks a lot like Julia, which is kind of weird. Except he’s got this crazy blonde hair. Blair says it’s his dad’s.”
“Mmm.”
“She named him Bryan Nathaniel.” I toy with the end of my shoelace. “He really is a beautiful kid.”
“You think I’m uninvolved,” he says evenly, still not looking up.
I yank at the end of the shoelace. The bow dissolves. “Sometimes.”
“I work, Noah. I’m good with color coding and filing and meetings. I can whip up a PowerPoint presentation in half an hour that looks like I’ve been working on it all month. I get promoted. I get raises. I work hard to get what I want, and I get it. I work. That’s what I do.”
“I know.” I tie my shoe in slow motion, my fingers tripping over each other in the cold.
“Jackson... He was born early, you know? More than a month. And that was almost thirty years ago. Medicine was good, but it wasn’t... They weren’t sure he would make it. They just didn’t know.” He stares at the cup in his hands like maybe it can tell him what to say. “Your mother was there all the time. He was her baby. He meant everything to her. Whenever they’d let her be there, there she was. She’d see him, and her face would just light up.” He smiles faintly, the corners of his lips twitching upwards in the dim light. “And then I would walk in, and the baby would start twitching around and crying pitifully, with this weak little scream, and... It was like everything I had ever been afraid of had come together to produce this four pound two ounce little boy that I was too scared to hold.”
He bites his lip. “He got stronger. He got stronger, and we got to take him home, and then he was crying all the time, but it wasn’t quiet, and it drove me crazy. He drove me crazy. I couldn’t keep him safe all the time. When I picked him up, he started screaming. I never got any sleep. When he wasn’t crying, I was wondering why he wasn’t crying. It drove your mother crazy. She told me to just go to bed. But I could never just go to bed. I’d sit in his room and watch him sleep. I was sure that if I was there, nothing could happen to him.”
“But you knew that wasn’t true. You had to have known.” I curl my knees up to my chest. My arms are covered in goose bumps.
“He started crawling and he was always banging into things, sticking things into his mouth, always getting into everything he wasn’t supposed to. He was just like any other baby, at that age, but he drove me crazy. I wondered how anyone could be that determined to die before they ever said a word. And then he did. He did say a word. He was nine months old, and I was away on business, and he your mother called me and said ‘He just said ‘dad’. He didn’t say ‘dada’. He said ‘dad’. And I spent the night in my hotel room staring at his picture and wondering what the hell I did right to make him like me.”
“Dad...”
He holds up a hand. “No. Listen. He learned to walk when he was almost a year old. I was there when he took his first steps. We had Tchaikovsky on the stereo and it was just me and him, and I was sitting there in the living room with him in my lap and he pulled away and I called to him to stay and he stood up – we’d seen that before – and went toddling off toward the stereo. And he grabbed the volume knob and twisted it, and the whole room just exploded with violin, and he turned back and smiled at me and.... I don’t even know. I just felt like I would do anything for him. Like I could do anything for him. And then the next day he scraped his leg and screamed bloody murder when I tried to clean it and wouldn’t look at me and I was a failure again, but...” He sighs, shrugging. “Damn it, Noah, I loved that boy. And I didn’t do anything right with him, but I loved him. And he got older, and I got busier, and he got taller, and I got tireder. He wanted to play catch when I wanted to take a nap. He wanted to watch football when I wanted to catch up on some work. I never made it to one of his games. I figured there would always be another one, and I could... I could always watch next week.”
I bite my lip, scrape my knuckles over the concrete. “He loved you. Okay? You’re his father. He had to love you.”
“I could have been there, Noah. I could have cleared my schedule. I could have made time for him. He was never a priority. And then he got older and... Maybe I would have known he was in trouble, you know? Maybe I would have known.” He sighs, folds his hands. “I never knew what to say to him. Every time he looked at me I was sure he was thinking that I sucked at this. That I was a sorry excuse for a father.”
“You try, Dad,” I say softly, examining my hands.
He laughs softly. “I do. I try. Because I stupidly think I can make this work. I think, ‘I can not screw it up this time. I can ask him about his day. I can. I can ask him about his day.’ And then I ask about one of your classes and you’re not even taking that class anymore. Or I think, ‘I can pull through. Ask him if he needs anything at the store. He’d appreciate that.’ And then I buy the cinnamon applesauce instead of the plain, the Maxwells instead of the Folgers, and you say, ‘Thanks, Dad’ but you don’t mean it, because you’re so afraid to break my spirit or something that you don’t seem to realize that I notice when you do that, Noah...” His voice trails off. After a moment, he clears his throat. “I’m trying. I don’t know if it’s enough, Noah. I don’t know if it’ll ever be enough. I want you to have everything you want. I want you to be happy, and I don’t think you’re happy, how could you be happy? This family is a shambles. I just...” He sighs. “I don’t know, Noah. I don’t know.”
“Dad... Your son just died. Maybe two of your sons just died, and your wife just left and came back, and I don’t even know what the hell is wrong with me, but... You don’t have to be the best fricking father. Okay? Nobody expects you to be the best fricking father right now. You’re here. That’s what we want. That’s what we expect. Okay? You’re here.”
He looks down at me. “I almost left,” he whispers.
“What?”
“A long time ago. It was a really long time ago.” He bites his lip. I wait for him to continue. After a moment, he does. “You were four. Jackson was out late and your mother was up worrying and yelling at everything that moved, and you were sick and throwing up all over the place, and... I came home from work and she told me no wonder our son had no sense of time, why wasn’t I home by midnight, how could I not even manage that, am I having an affair? And you came in dragging your teddy bear with your lower lip stuck out all pouty and crying, and she scooped you up into her lap and told me I might as well just move in at the office, she didn’t need me around here anyway. And I went into our bedroom and I packed a suitcase. And you came wandering in, sucking your thumb, in those stupid cowboy footy pajamas, and you looked up at me with these big eyes and said, ‘Are you going on a trip? Can I come?’” He smiles sadly. “And I couldn’t bear to tell you that you couldn’t. So I said no, I wasn’t going anywhere, and I unpacked my bag, and I stayed. I stayed for years, and there were a million more stupid nights like that, but I always thought maybe...” He pauses, laughs to himself. “I thought maybe you needed me. So I stayed.”
“We need you,” I say quietly, meeting his eyes.
He shakes his head. “No you don’t. You think you do. But if I left tomorrow it would probably take you a week to notice. I chose work over family... How many years ago? I can’t say I never looked back. I’ve looked back a million times. But then I always thought, ‘Look how far you’ve gotten. Would you really lose all of that for a moody teenager who won’t even talk to you most days?’ And I almost said yes. How many times have I almost said yes? But in the end I always say no.”
“Nobody blames you. You do the best you can.”
He shrugs. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? When I was younger, I swore that if I could just keep my family on its feet, as long as we stayed out of debt and could buy what we needed and sometimes what we wanted... I thought we could be okay. I thought okay was something you bought. It’s not, Noah. It’s something you earn, with all those stupid cuts and scrapes you clean and all those nights you rock those kids to sleep even though they’re screaming and crying and driving you insane. I didn’t earn okay. So I don’t get to keep it.” He stares at the last of the coffee dripping slowly off the bushes. “You’d think that if you missed out on all your kid’s formative moments, all those soccer games and birthday parties, the celebration dinners and the first words...”
“What?” I whisper.
He bites his lip and looks out at the sky. “You’d think you wouldn’t miss him all the time.” He runs his finger around the rim of his coffee mug. “That’s all.”
* * *
I don’t know how late it is. So late it’s almost early. I can see the faint fingers of sunrise grasping at the horizon. I forget how long I’ve been running. I could have driven. But I wanted to run.
It’s five miles from our house to the cemetery. I jog the first two, walk the second, and run the final mile, dodging through neighborhood streets with my sweaty hair slick against my scalp. All the lights are off in the houses I pass. But I keep running. My calves are burning. My chest feels like it’s being ripped open. But I keep running.
I hop the low fence by the roadside and stand for a moment, stooped over and gasping. I wait a moment to catch my breath. And then I’m off again. I stumble through shaky rows of headstones, my heartbeat drumming in my chest, my lungs grasping for each breath. I chase the moon as it weaves through the trees, counting rows silently as I jog by.
And then it’s there. Just a stone set in the ground, a name scratched into its surface. I collapse next to it, gripping the grass in my palms. I stare at the sky for a minute, take a few deep breaths. Orion’s Belt glares faintly back at me. It was the only constellation Jackson and I could ever find. We were hopeless with stuff like that.
I sigh, staring down at the grave. “I hate you. You stupid kid.” I shake my head, run my hand through my hair. “You know what? You could’ve done them. You could’ve been that miracle glue that kept us all from dying. But no. You fucked us over. Fuck you, Nathaniel. Why the hell would you die? Why the hell would.... Just why? You were all she wanted. She just wanted a chance. She just wanted a chance. You didn’t even give her a few minutes, just a few halfhearted kicks and then... I don’t even know. You were just gone. What sort of fucked up fetus just goes off and dies for no reason? Why the hell did you do that?”
The wind picks up, blowing my hair around, stinging my cheeks. “You were there last chance, kid,” I whisper, shivering. “For the love of god, you were their last chance. You’d think we asked you to save the world or something. We just wanted something new to look at. Something to remind us that everything in the entire world wasn’t fucking dying. Oh yeah, you did a fricking great job with that one.”
I reach out a finger, trace his name. “You could have done anything, kid! You could have been an astronaut, a writer, you could’ve made fucking pottery, I don’t care. You were my brother. I was going to teach you to ride your fucking bike. I was going to send your favorite toys to hell. I was going to be the one you came to when you needed wine so you could have sex with your girlfriend without crying. I was going to give you sixty bucks for no real reason. You were going to single handedly redeem my faith in the sanity of our family. Good fucking job, Nathaniel. Good motherfucking job.”
I bite my lip. “I was supposed to be your fucking hero, kid. That was the big plan. You were going to look up to me like nobody’s business. We pretended we were just humoring Mom, but you were sort of a big deal. You sort of meant everything, kid. You were supposed to live. You were supposed to be the one who lived. Was that too much to remember? I know your brain was tiny, but for the love of god, Nathaniel, it wasn’t that fucking hard.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve, staring off into the trees.
“He would’ve just been a picture to you. You know that? And I was always thinking that, What would it be like to have a brother who was only a scattering of photos? And then you died, and now I know. Now I have a pretty good idea.” I pick a piece of grass out of the ground and twirl it between my fingers. “And maybe you never really existed, but... I don’t know. Wasn’t it enough, that he was dying? Did you really have to die too?”
I stand up, wiping off my pants, and scuff my foot on his grave. “I guess you were just like him. And that’s all you were supposed to be. I just... There was more to him than the football or the dying.” I stick my hands in my pockets. “I wish people would remember that.”
The porch light flickers over his head. He smiles weakly into his coffee.
“Dad...”
He shakes his head and sets the coffee down next to him on the stoop. “It’s cold out,” he says quietly.
I sit down carefully on the sidewalk in front of him. “I know.”
He stares at me, then looks down at his legs. “Blair had her baby yesterday. Julia’s sister Blair.”
“I know who Blair is,” he says softly, without looking up.
“Oh. Well, she had her baby. A little boy. He looks a lot like Julia, which is kind of weird. Except he’s got this crazy blonde hair. Blair says it’s his dad’s.”
“Mmm.”
“She named him Bryan Nathaniel.” I toy with the end of my shoelace. “He really is a beautiful kid.”
“You think I’m uninvolved,” he says evenly, still not looking up.
I yank at the end of the shoelace. The bow dissolves. “Sometimes.”
“I work, Noah. I’m good with color coding and filing and meetings. I can whip up a PowerPoint presentation in half an hour that looks like I’ve been working on it all month. I get promoted. I get raises. I work hard to get what I want, and I get it. I work. That’s what I do.”
“I know.” I tie my shoe in slow motion, my fingers tripping over each other in the cold.
“Jackson... He was born early, you know? More than a month. And that was almost thirty years ago. Medicine was good, but it wasn’t... They weren’t sure he would make it. They just didn’t know.” He stares at the cup in his hands like maybe it can tell him what to say. “Your mother was there all the time. He was her baby. He meant everything to her. Whenever they’d let her be there, there she was. She’d see him, and her face would just light up.” He smiles faintly, the corners of his lips twitching upwards in the dim light. “And then I would walk in, and the baby would start twitching around and crying pitifully, with this weak little scream, and... It was like everything I had ever been afraid of had come together to produce this four pound two ounce little boy that I was too scared to hold.”
He bites his lip. “He got stronger. He got stronger, and we got to take him home, and then he was crying all the time, but it wasn’t quiet, and it drove me crazy. He drove me crazy. I couldn’t keep him safe all the time. When I picked him up, he started screaming. I never got any sleep. When he wasn’t crying, I was wondering why he wasn’t crying. It drove your mother crazy. She told me to just go to bed. But I could never just go to bed. I’d sit in his room and watch him sleep. I was sure that if I was there, nothing could happen to him.”
“But you knew that wasn’t true. You had to have known.” I curl my knees up to my chest. My arms are covered in goose bumps.
“He started crawling and he was always banging into things, sticking things into his mouth, always getting into everything he wasn’t supposed to. He was just like any other baby, at that age, but he drove me crazy. I wondered how anyone could be that determined to die before they ever said a word. And then he did. He did say a word. He was nine months old, and I was away on business, and he your mother called me and said ‘He just said ‘dad’. He didn’t say ‘dada’. He said ‘dad’. And I spent the night in my hotel room staring at his picture and wondering what the hell I did right to make him like me.”
“Dad...”
He holds up a hand. “No. Listen. He learned to walk when he was almost a year old. I was there when he took his first steps. We had Tchaikovsky on the stereo and it was just me and him, and I was sitting there in the living room with him in my lap and he pulled away and I called to him to stay and he stood up – we’d seen that before – and went toddling off toward the stereo. And he grabbed the volume knob and twisted it, and the whole room just exploded with violin, and he turned back and smiled at me and.... I don’t even know. I just felt like I would do anything for him. Like I could do anything for him. And then the next day he scraped his leg and screamed bloody murder when I tried to clean it and wouldn’t look at me and I was a failure again, but...” He sighs, shrugging. “Damn it, Noah, I loved that boy. And I didn’t do anything right with him, but I loved him. And he got older, and I got busier, and he got taller, and I got tireder. He wanted to play catch when I wanted to take a nap. He wanted to watch football when I wanted to catch up on some work. I never made it to one of his games. I figured there would always be another one, and I could... I could always watch next week.”
I bite my lip, scrape my knuckles over the concrete. “He loved you. Okay? You’re his father. He had to love you.”
“I could have been there, Noah. I could have cleared my schedule. I could have made time for him. He was never a priority. And then he got older and... Maybe I would have known he was in trouble, you know? Maybe I would have known.” He sighs, folds his hands. “I never knew what to say to him. Every time he looked at me I was sure he was thinking that I sucked at this. That I was a sorry excuse for a father.”
“You try, Dad,” I say softly, examining my hands.
He laughs softly. “I do. I try. Because I stupidly think I can make this work. I think, ‘I can not screw it up this time. I can ask him about his day. I can. I can ask him about his day.’ And then I ask about one of your classes and you’re not even taking that class anymore. Or I think, ‘I can pull through. Ask him if he needs anything at the store. He’d appreciate that.’ And then I buy the cinnamon applesauce instead of the plain, the Maxwells instead of the Folgers, and you say, ‘Thanks, Dad’ but you don’t mean it, because you’re so afraid to break my spirit or something that you don’t seem to realize that I notice when you do that, Noah...” His voice trails off. After a moment, he clears his throat. “I’m trying. I don’t know if it’s enough, Noah. I don’t know if it’ll ever be enough. I want you to have everything you want. I want you to be happy, and I don’t think you’re happy, how could you be happy? This family is a shambles. I just...” He sighs. “I don’t know, Noah. I don’t know.”
“Dad... Your son just died. Maybe two of your sons just died, and your wife just left and came back, and I don’t even know what the hell is wrong with me, but... You don’t have to be the best fricking father. Okay? Nobody expects you to be the best fricking father right now. You’re here. That’s what we want. That’s what we expect. Okay? You’re here.”
He looks down at me. “I almost left,” he whispers.
“What?”
“A long time ago. It was a really long time ago.” He bites his lip. I wait for him to continue. After a moment, he does. “You were four. Jackson was out late and your mother was up worrying and yelling at everything that moved, and you were sick and throwing up all over the place, and... I came home from work and she told me no wonder our son had no sense of time, why wasn’t I home by midnight, how could I not even manage that, am I having an affair? And you came in dragging your teddy bear with your lower lip stuck out all pouty and crying, and she scooped you up into her lap and told me I might as well just move in at the office, she didn’t need me around here anyway. And I went into our bedroom and I packed a suitcase. And you came wandering in, sucking your thumb, in those stupid cowboy footy pajamas, and you looked up at me with these big eyes and said, ‘Are you going on a trip? Can I come?’” He smiles sadly. “And I couldn’t bear to tell you that you couldn’t. So I said no, I wasn’t going anywhere, and I unpacked my bag, and I stayed. I stayed for years, and there were a million more stupid nights like that, but I always thought maybe...” He pauses, laughs to himself. “I thought maybe you needed me. So I stayed.”
“We need you,” I say quietly, meeting his eyes.
He shakes his head. “No you don’t. You think you do. But if I left tomorrow it would probably take you a week to notice. I chose work over family... How many years ago? I can’t say I never looked back. I’ve looked back a million times. But then I always thought, ‘Look how far you’ve gotten. Would you really lose all of that for a moody teenager who won’t even talk to you most days?’ And I almost said yes. How many times have I almost said yes? But in the end I always say no.”
“Nobody blames you. You do the best you can.”
He shrugs. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? When I was younger, I swore that if I could just keep my family on its feet, as long as we stayed out of debt and could buy what we needed and sometimes what we wanted... I thought we could be okay. I thought okay was something you bought. It’s not, Noah. It’s something you earn, with all those stupid cuts and scrapes you clean and all those nights you rock those kids to sleep even though they’re screaming and crying and driving you insane. I didn’t earn okay. So I don’t get to keep it.” He stares at the last of the coffee dripping slowly off the bushes. “You’d think that if you missed out on all your kid’s formative moments, all those soccer games and birthday parties, the celebration dinners and the first words...”
“What?” I whisper.
He bites his lip and looks out at the sky. “You’d think you wouldn’t miss him all the time.” He runs his finger around the rim of his coffee mug. “That’s all.”
I don’t know how late it is. So late it’s almost early. I can see the faint fingers of sunrise grasping at the horizon. I forget how long I’ve been running. I could have driven. But I wanted to run.
It’s five miles from our house to the cemetery. I jog the first two, walk the second, and run the final mile, dodging through neighborhood streets with my sweaty hair slick against my scalp. All the lights are off in the houses I pass. But I keep running. My calves are burning. My chest feels like it’s being ripped open. But I keep running.
I hop the low fence by the roadside and stand for a moment, stooped over and gasping. I wait a moment to catch my breath. And then I’m off again. I stumble through shaky rows of headstones, my heartbeat drumming in my chest, my lungs grasping for each breath. I chase the moon as it weaves through the trees, counting rows silently as I jog by.
And then it’s there. Just a stone set in the ground, a name scratched into its surface. I collapse next to it, gripping the grass in my palms. I stare at the sky for a minute, take a few deep breaths. Orion’s Belt glares faintly back at me. It was the only constellation Jackson and I could ever find. We were hopeless with stuff like that.
I sigh, staring down at the grave. “I hate you. You stupid kid.” I shake my head, run my hand through my hair. “You know what? You could’ve done them. You could’ve been that miracle glue that kept us all from dying. But no. You fucked us over. Fuck you, Nathaniel. Why the hell would you die? Why the hell would.... Just why? You were all she wanted. She just wanted a chance. She just wanted a chance. You didn’t even give her a few minutes, just a few halfhearted kicks and then... I don’t even know. You were just gone. What sort of fucked up fetus just goes off and dies for no reason? Why the hell did you do that?”
The wind picks up, blowing my hair around, stinging my cheeks. “You were there last chance, kid,” I whisper, shivering. “For the love of god, you were their last chance. You’d think we asked you to save the world or something. We just wanted something new to look at. Something to remind us that everything in the entire world wasn’t fucking dying. Oh yeah, you did a fricking great job with that one.”
I reach out a finger, trace his name. “You could have done anything, kid! You could have been an astronaut, a writer, you could’ve made fucking pottery, I don’t care. You were my brother. I was going to teach you to ride your fucking bike. I was going to send your favorite toys to hell. I was going to be the one you came to when you needed wine so you could have sex with your girlfriend without crying. I was going to give you sixty bucks for no real reason. You were going to single handedly redeem my faith in the sanity of our family. Good fucking job, Nathaniel. Good motherfucking job.”
I bite my lip. “I was supposed to be your fucking hero, kid. That was the big plan. You were going to look up to me like nobody’s business. We pretended we were just humoring Mom, but you were sort of a big deal. You sort of meant everything, kid. You were supposed to live. You were supposed to be the one who lived. Was that too much to remember? I know your brain was tiny, but for the love of god, Nathaniel, it wasn’t that fucking hard.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve, staring off into the trees.
“He would’ve just been a picture to you. You know that? And I was always thinking that, What would it be like to have a brother who was only a scattering of photos? And then you died, and now I know. Now I have a pretty good idea.” I pick a piece of grass out of the ground and twirl it between my fingers. “And maybe you never really existed, but... I don’t know. Wasn’t it enough, that he was dying? Did you really have to die too?”
I stand up, wiping off my pants, and scuff my foot on his grave. “I guess you were just like him. And that’s all you were supposed to be. I just... There was more to him than the football or the dying.” I stick my hands in my pockets. “I wish people would remember that.”
Sunday, November 26, 2006
November 26th (so late it's barely Nov 26th): catch me as I fall, say you're here and it's all over now
“When I told you where the car keys were, I didn’t mean you could stay out till four AM.”
It takes me a minute to place the voice, floating in from the living room. “Sorry, Mom.”
She appears in the dining room, shaking her head and clucking her tongue. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Noah. I worry about you. Did you call?”
“It was complicated.”
“I don’t care how complicated it was! I was about an hour away from calling the police! No one was answering the phone at her house, you weren’t answering your phone...” She sighs. “You’re it for me. You’re it. So you sure as hell had better bet that I will be up waiting for you to get home --”
“Mom, I’m not going to get AIDS!”
She steps back like I slapped her.
“Is that what you think? That if you keep constant tabs on me, I won’t be out till four AM and I won’t be having sex and I won’t be doing drugs and I won’t fall by the wayside and I won’t get AIDS and I won’t die?” I bite my lip and take a deep breath through my nose. “Look, Mom, I’m... I’m okay, okay? I’m not Jackson. And I know that sometimes you wish I was, and sometimes I wish I were, too, but... I’m not wild, and I’m not crazy, and I’m not out of control. I’m just me, and I’m not gonna get AIDS, nothing is going to happen to me.”
Her eyes are bright. “How do I know?” she asks softly.
I take a step toward her, reach out my arms. “Because I’m the good one, Mom,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around her. “Nothing is going to happen to me. Nothing. I’m the good one.”
“I don’t want you to be him,” she whispers back, sniffling into my shoulder. “I don’t want you to be like him. I want you to be like you.” Her voice cracks, and she dissolves into tears, and I rock her back and forth, back and forth, for I don’t even know how long. And slowly, the gash in my gut begins to mend.
* * *
She smiles through the window. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” She tightens her grip on my hand and holds her other up to wave. “He’s absolutely beautiful.”
“Julia...”
She bites her lip. “Noah...”
We look at each other for a second with forced, faint smiles, before we turn back to the window. “I’m sorry,” she says after a minute, her breath forming a layer of fog on the glass.
I sigh. “Me too.”
“Look, it’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. Okay? If... I don’t know. I was in a bad place last night, right?” She twists her hair in her fingers. “If Blair had come in the door, I would’ve blamed it all on her. It could have been anyone, okay? It’s not your fault. I don’t know... I don’t know, Noah. I guess that’s point.” She looks at me, her eyebrows raised hopefully. “Isn’t that the point?”
“I just... Julia...” I sigh. “I can’t. Okay? I can’t be responsible for making someone else better. I can’t be responsible for anyone else, because I... I don’t know.” I bite my lip and stare through the window. “I don’t know, Julia. And I’m not sure that really is the point. Because... Where do you go from there? What do you do? What sort of foundation is not knowing?”
“Noah....”
“No, I just... I just want something solid, okay? I don’t even know who we are, right now. Your sister just had a baby, and you haven’t been eating, and my brother just died, and my mother just came home, and I just punched my best friend in the face and... We’re not who we were. Okay? We’re not Noah and Julia anymore. We’re... You’re so fucking intense all the time, and I don’t know what to do with you, I don’t know how to be with you, because I’m so fucking angry and sad and I don’t know what I’m doing and I think I just lost the only sense of identity I’ve ever had because I can’t be ‘Jackson’s brother’ anymore... And we’re just...”
She stares at the ground. “You think we should break up.”
“I don’t know, Julia! I don’t know who the hell you’d be breaking up with! I need to figure out myself before I can figure out... This. Okay? I... I need to figure out... Things.” I reach out and lift her chin with one finger. “Okay?”
“But I love you,” she says softly.
“I don’t think you have any idea who I am,” I whisper.
She lays her head on my shoulder. “You hate the rain. And hospitals. And you say your mother, but you don’t really. Your favorite color is brown, even though I can’t fathom why, and your hair is always messy in the back. When you’re tired, you lean your chin on your hand. When you’re annoyed, you stare off into space and you think no one notices. You like sitcoms, but you still watch cartoons when no one is home. You can’t sleep without background noise, but not the TV because then you get caught up in whatever the hell is on, even if it’s just infomercials. And you look about five when you’re asleep, and sometimes you still suck your thumb, and you hate cats. Someday, you’re going to live in a city with underground transit, because you love the subway. You eat peanut butter on everything, even breakfast. You run almost every morning, even when it’s raining, even though you hate the rain. When you were little you had a turtle and your mom ran over it backing out of the driveway. And when your hair is wet it looks almost black but it gets lighter as it dries. You get carsick, but not airsick or bus sick, and when you eat cereal you always read the back of the box, even if you’ve read it a hundred times before. You used to chew on your pens, but then the cute girls next to you would never ask to borrow them, so you stopped doing that and now you just suck on the caps when you think no one is looking. When you’re stopping at a yellow light, you always tap the ceiling. You always check behind the shower curtain when you go into the bathroom. And you’re beautiful, and you’re smart, and you’re brave, and I love you, Noah Fisher, no matter who the hell you are.”
“You’re going to grow up to be your mother, with speeches like that,” I say softly, squeezing her hand.
“I mean it, Noah,” she whispers.
“I know.”
We’re silent for a moment. She moves her head off my shoulder and stares through the window again.
“He really is beautiful.”
“I know.”
“She loves him. You can tell. She loves him completely in spite of herself. I think she’s afraid she won’t be good with him. She’s good at everything she does. She hates trying anything new.”
His eyes meet mine. I wave. He cocks his head.
“He’s going to play the violin.”
She laughs. “Really? You’ve damned him to the violin already?”
“He’ll be good at it.” I bite my lip. “I have a feeling.”
Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn. Mrs. Gallagher smiles. “Sorry to break this up, but it’s late. We should be getting out of here.”
I nod. Julia waves through the glass, grinning. “Bye, gorgeous.”
“Good night, Nathaniel,” I whisper.
It takes me a minute to place the voice, floating in from the living room. “Sorry, Mom.”
She appears in the dining room, shaking her head and clucking her tongue. “Sorry doesn’t cut it, Noah. I worry about you. Did you call?”
“It was complicated.”
“I don’t care how complicated it was! I was about an hour away from calling the police! No one was answering the phone at her house, you weren’t answering your phone...” She sighs. “You’re it for me. You’re it. So you sure as hell had better bet that I will be up waiting for you to get home --”
“Mom, I’m not going to get AIDS!”
She steps back like I slapped her.
“Is that what you think? That if you keep constant tabs on me, I won’t be out till four AM and I won’t be having sex and I won’t be doing drugs and I won’t fall by the wayside and I won’t get AIDS and I won’t die?” I bite my lip and take a deep breath through my nose. “Look, Mom, I’m... I’m okay, okay? I’m not Jackson. And I know that sometimes you wish I was, and sometimes I wish I were, too, but... I’m not wild, and I’m not crazy, and I’m not out of control. I’m just me, and I’m not gonna get AIDS, nothing is going to happen to me.”
Her eyes are bright. “How do I know?” she asks softly.
I take a step toward her, reach out my arms. “Because I’m the good one, Mom,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around her. “Nothing is going to happen to me. Nothing. I’m the good one.”
“I don’t want you to be him,” she whispers back, sniffling into my shoulder. “I don’t want you to be like him. I want you to be like you.” Her voice cracks, and she dissolves into tears, and I rock her back and forth, back and forth, for I don’t even know how long. And slowly, the gash in my gut begins to mend.
She smiles through the window. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” She tightens her grip on my hand and holds her other up to wave. “He’s absolutely beautiful.”
“Julia...”
She bites her lip. “Noah...”
We look at each other for a second with forced, faint smiles, before we turn back to the window. “I’m sorry,” she says after a minute, her breath forming a layer of fog on the glass.
I sigh. “Me too.”
“Look, it’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. Okay? If... I don’t know. I was in a bad place last night, right?” She twists her hair in her fingers. “If Blair had come in the door, I would’ve blamed it all on her. It could have been anyone, okay? It’s not your fault. I don’t know... I don’t know, Noah. I guess that’s point.” She looks at me, her eyebrows raised hopefully. “Isn’t that the point?”
“I just... Julia...” I sigh. “I can’t. Okay? I can’t be responsible for making someone else better. I can’t be responsible for anyone else, because I... I don’t know.” I bite my lip and stare through the window. “I don’t know, Julia. And I’m not sure that really is the point. Because... Where do you go from there? What do you do? What sort of foundation is not knowing?”
“Noah....”
“No, I just... I just want something solid, okay? I don’t even know who we are, right now. Your sister just had a baby, and you haven’t been eating, and my brother just died, and my mother just came home, and I just punched my best friend in the face and... We’re not who we were. Okay? We’re not Noah and Julia anymore. We’re... You’re so fucking intense all the time, and I don’t know what to do with you, I don’t know how to be with you, because I’m so fucking angry and sad and I don’t know what I’m doing and I think I just lost the only sense of identity I’ve ever had because I can’t be ‘Jackson’s brother’ anymore... And we’re just...”
She stares at the ground. “You think we should break up.”
“I don’t know, Julia! I don’t know who the hell you’d be breaking up with! I need to figure out myself before I can figure out... This. Okay? I... I need to figure out... Things.” I reach out and lift her chin with one finger. “Okay?”
“But I love you,” she says softly.
“I don’t think you have any idea who I am,” I whisper.
She lays her head on my shoulder. “You hate the rain. And hospitals. And you say your mother, but you don’t really. Your favorite color is brown, even though I can’t fathom why, and your hair is always messy in the back. When you’re tired, you lean your chin on your hand. When you’re annoyed, you stare off into space and you think no one notices. You like sitcoms, but you still watch cartoons when no one is home. You can’t sleep without background noise, but not the TV because then you get caught up in whatever the hell is on, even if it’s just infomercials. And you look about five when you’re asleep, and sometimes you still suck your thumb, and you hate cats. Someday, you’re going to live in a city with underground transit, because you love the subway. You eat peanut butter on everything, even breakfast. You run almost every morning, even when it’s raining, even though you hate the rain. When you were little you had a turtle and your mom ran over it backing out of the driveway. And when your hair is wet it looks almost black but it gets lighter as it dries. You get carsick, but not airsick or bus sick, and when you eat cereal you always read the back of the box, even if you’ve read it a hundred times before. You used to chew on your pens, but then the cute girls next to you would never ask to borrow them, so you stopped doing that and now you just suck on the caps when you think no one is looking. When you’re stopping at a yellow light, you always tap the ceiling. You always check behind the shower curtain when you go into the bathroom. And you’re beautiful, and you’re smart, and you’re brave, and I love you, Noah Fisher, no matter who the hell you are.”
“You’re going to grow up to be your mother, with speeches like that,” I say softly, squeezing her hand.
“I mean it, Noah,” she whispers.
“I know.”
We’re silent for a moment. She moves her head off my shoulder and stares through the window again.
“He really is beautiful.”
“I know.”
“She loves him. You can tell. She loves him completely in spite of herself. I think she’s afraid she won’t be good with him. She’s good at everything she does. She hates trying anything new.”
His eyes meet mine. I wave. He cocks his head.
“He’s going to play the violin.”
She laughs. “Really? You’ve damned him to the violin already?”
“He’ll be good at it.” I bite my lip. “I have a feeling.”
Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn. Mrs. Gallagher smiles. “Sorry to break this up, but it’s late. We should be getting out of here.”
I nod. Julia waves through the glass, grinning. “Bye, gorgeous.”
“Good night, Nathaniel,” I whisper.
November 26th (later): The only thing you'll get is this curse on your lips -- I hope they taste of me forever
“Blair’s in labor.”
“Julia?”
“Noah.” She says my name like it’s the sum of every important word that has ever been spoken. Like maybe I’m the answer. Like maybe I can stop whatever it is she’s feeling and make sure that she never feels it again. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m just as lost and stupid as she is.
“Can I come over?”
She’s crying. There’s something so hopelessly sad about hearing people cry over the phone. Sobbing seems even more helpless stretched over miles of telephone wires, twisted apart and back together so quickly you almost, almost can’t tell. “Shhh,” I whisper, but it means next to nothing, and we both know it.
“My mother is here, Julia, she’s... She’s not really in a good place.” She’s completely crazy, and I have no idea what to do with her, and I don’t want ou to see her like this because then you’d think my family was falling apart without him and it can’t be so it’s not but you can’t think that.
Julia sighs. “I don’t want to be alone right now...”
She sounds so unbearably pitiful that I don’t know what to do. “Okay,” I say, as soothingly as I can manage, which isn’t very soothing. “Okay. I’m coming over there, okay? I’m coming over there. Just hang on. Just... Hang on.”
I hang up the phone and run into the kitchen. My mother is sipping coffee, staring at the microwave like she’s never seen it before. “I have to go. Can I have the keys?”
She stares at me. “You punched Eddy.”
“Yes, I punched Eddy. I broke Eddy’s nose. I drove him to the ER. It’s all very tragic. Keys. Where are the keys?”
“Noah, you can’t do that to people and get away with it.”
I close my eyes and count to ten. It’s one of those things people always tell you to do, but no one actually ever does. I can see why. I feel angrier with every number. On the count of ten, my eyes pop open. “Mom, my girlfriend’s sister is in labor. Julia isn’t taking that very well. At all. She hasn’t been doing all that well lately, and she’s all alone, and I need to get to her. With the keys. You can ground me later, okay? I just need the keys now.”
“She should be happy for her sister,” my mother says quietly.
“Mom...”
She shakes her head. “It’s not fair, Noah. I did everything right. I did everything right.”
“Mom....”
“I lost him. And I didn’t do anything wrong. He just... He just died. They have all these machines, they have all these pictures and tests and machines, but they can’t tell me why he died.” She runs her fingers softly over the numbers on the microwave keypad. It feels like she’s been thinking of these words for months, and she just now figured out what they meant.
“Mom, some people... I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know.”
She turns to look at me, a single tear creeping down her cheek. “He was so sick and you were so sad. I wanted another chance. I would’ve done it right, this time. I just wanted another chance...”
Our eyes meet for a second. She looks drained. She looks like she wants to collapse in a corner somewhere and cry until her body shakes and her chest hurts and she can’t stay awake to cry anymore.
“The keys are in my purse. On the counter.” She purses her lips and turns back to the microwave.
I hesitate for a moment. But only for a moment. I leave her watching her reflection, crying for all the things she never got the chance to try again.
* * *
I ring the doorbell and wait.
How much longer are we going to be able to do this? I wonder. How much longer is our relationship going to be based on a bunch of shouting matches and half-hearted apologies? If Jackson hadn’t been sick, would we have broken up by now? If he hadn’t died, would we have broken up two days ago? How much longer can we go on staying with each other out of guilt? Do we even like each other anymore?
I ring the doorbell again, peer through the window. There’s no frantic shuffling, no footsteps pounding down the stairs. “Julia?” I cup my hands around my eyes and look closer. Nothing. The front hall is deserted.
I try the doorknob. The door swings open immediately. I close the door cautiously behind me.
“Julia? Where are you?”
There’s a beam of light from underneath the bathroom door at the end of the hall. I walk towards is slowly, calling her name.
“Julia? Are you okay? Jules?” I knock on the door. I can hear her crying, sobbing frantically into the door.
I bite my lip. “Jules, let me in,” I say gently, as gently as I can. “Jules... Come on, baby, let me in.” We used to do that, the pet name thing. Somehow we grew out of it. It never seemed appropriate – So, babes, my little brother died. How are things going with that pregnant sister, honey?
She mumbles something.
“I will break down the fucking door, Julia. Do you want me to break down the fucking door? Your parents will kill me. They’ll kill both of us. Just let me in. Jules? Let me in.”
The doorknob gives, and the door swings open.
“Oh my god.”
She looks at me, biting her lip.
“Oh my god.”
She collapses into my arms, crying. “Shhhhh,” I whisper, running my hands through her hair. A few strands come loose. I shake them off my fingers and bite my lip.
“Shhhh. It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She pulls away, shaking her head, clawing at her scalp. “It’s not. Noah, it’s not going to be okay. It’s... I don’t know what to do!” She bites her lip and fixes me with the most unbearably earnest stare. “I just want to know what to do, Noah. I just want to know what to do.”
Her voice cracks, and she dissolves into sobs again. “I can’t do this.”
“Julia...”
She grabs her sweater off the floor and yanks it over her head. “For the love of god, Noah, you can’t rescue everybody. You don’t get to rescue everybody.” She shoves past me and down the hall. I chase after her, grab her shoulders, spin her around.
“Why?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes are big and bright and frighteningly sad. “Because everything has to be so fucking damaged to get your attention. And I wasn’t fucked up enough for you. I was never fucked up enough for you.” She rubs her eyes and bolts down the stairs, two at a time. I follow.
“Julia...”
She glares at me and turns on the treadmill. “What? What the hell do you want? You were going to get to be the hero. I was going to let you be the hero. I was going to be the one who showed you that you were just as big and brave as he was.” She cranks up the speed and her legs take off beneath her. She looks down at me, breathing hard, sweating, not saying a word.
“Julia...”
“No. I was going to let you fix me. And I knew you would. I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, because you’re always so fucking sure that you’re the one people need to rescue them. I was going to be the one you could actually save. That was going to be me.” She grips the bars on the side of the treadmill and gasps, still running. Her legs are a blur.
“But you don’t get to. You don’t get to save me. Because I’m done. I’m done competing with you to see who has the most damage. I’m done competing for your attention. I’m done always coming in second to somebody else. You don’t get to rescue me. Nobody gets to rescue me. I don’t fucking want to be rescued.”
That’s when she collapses.
* * *
“Hello?”
“Noah?” I hear shuffling in the background. “Honey, it’s Noah.”
“Hello?”
“Hi. Mr. Gallagher?”
“Yes. We called to talk to Juliana. Put her on the line.”
I bite my lip. “Sir...”
“Noah, I would really love to talk to you, but not right now. Put my daughter on the line, please.”
“Sir, she fainted.”
He must put his hand over the receiver, because I hear snippets of conversation in the background, but I can’t make out any words.
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
“Noah, are you still there?”
“Yes sir.” My voice gets high on the word “sir”. I swallow the lump in my throat.
“What happened?”
I glance at Julia, lying on the couch. “Don’t worry, sir, she’s fine, she’s just... She should probably talk to you about it. Actually, I’m sure she should talk to you about it. But later. Okay? How’s Blair?”
There’s more muffled conversation. “Is she conscious?”
“Of course, sir, I wouldn’t just leave her unconscious... She’s fine... She’s just really disoriented... She’ll be okay. She’s resting. Resting is good.” It doesn’t sound convincing. It doesn’t sound convincing at all. But what am I supposed to say? She is now, sir. You know, sir, you’re very lucky to have me as a part of your daughter’s life. Some other boyfriend might not drive her so completely insane, and then you wouldn’t be able to see all her ribs!
“Alright, son. You stay there with her, and we’ll call back in an hour. No baby yet.”
“Okay, sir. Thanks for the update. Bye.”
“Bye,” he grunts. The line clicks.
I walk over to the couch and kneel beside her. “You’re so much trouble,” I whisper.
She moans and squeezes her eyes shut, mumbling something inaudible.
“I love you even if you’re crazy,” I whisper. I reach for her hand and grip her freezing, bony fingers loosely in my own. “I’d love you even if you weren’t.”
I can’t help the feeling that I should have told her that a long, long time ago.
“Julia?”
“Noah.” She says my name like it’s the sum of every important word that has ever been spoken. Like maybe I’m the answer. Like maybe I can stop whatever it is she’s feeling and make sure that she never feels it again. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m just as lost and stupid as she is.
“Can I come over?”
She’s crying. There’s something so hopelessly sad about hearing people cry over the phone. Sobbing seems even more helpless stretched over miles of telephone wires, twisted apart and back together so quickly you almost, almost can’t tell. “Shhh,” I whisper, but it means next to nothing, and we both know it.
“My mother is here, Julia, she’s... She’s not really in a good place.” She’s completely crazy, and I have no idea what to do with her, and I don’t want ou to see her like this because then you’d think my family was falling apart without him and it can’t be so it’s not but you can’t think that.
Julia sighs. “I don’t want to be alone right now...”
She sounds so unbearably pitiful that I don’t know what to do. “Okay,” I say, as soothingly as I can manage, which isn’t very soothing. “Okay. I’m coming over there, okay? I’m coming over there. Just hang on. Just... Hang on.”
I hang up the phone and run into the kitchen. My mother is sipping coffee, staring at the microwave like she’s never seen it before. “I have to go. Can I have the keys?”
She stares at me. “You punched Eddy.”
“Yes, I punched Eddy. I broke Eddy’s nose. I drove him to the ER. It’s all very tragic. Keys. Where are the keys?”
“Noah, you can’t do that to people and get away with it.”
I close my eyes and count to ten. It’s one of those things people always tell you to do, but no one actually ever does. I can see why. I feel angrier with every number. On the count of ten, my eyes pop open. “Mom, my girlfriend’s sister is in labor. Julia isn’t taking that very well. At all. She hasn’t been doing all that well lately, and she’s all alone, and I need to get to her. With the keys. You can ground me later, okay? I just need the keys now.”
“She should be happy for her sister,” my mother says quietly.
“Mom...”
She shakes her head. “It’s not fair, Noah. I did everything right. I did everything right.”
“Mom....”
“I lost him. And I didn’t do anything wrong. He just... He just died. They have all these machines, they have all these pictures and tests and machines, but they can’t tell me why he died.” She runs her fingers softly over the numbers on the microwave keypad. It feels like she’s been thinking of these words for months, and she just now figured out what they meant.
“Mom, some people... I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know.”
She turns to look at me, a single tear creeping down her cheek. “He was so sick and you were so sad. I wanted another chance. I would’ve done it right, this time. I just wanted another chance...”
Our eyes meet for a second. She looks drained. She looks like she wants to collapse in a corner somewhere and cry until her body shakes and her chest hurts and she can’t stay awake to cry anymore.
“The keys are in my purse. On the counter.” She purses her lips and turns back to the microwave.
I hesitate for a moment. But only for a moment. I leave her watching her reflection, crying for all the things she never got the chance to try again.
* * *
I ring the doorbell and wait.
How much longer are we going to be able to do this? I wonder. How much longer is our relationship going to be based on a bunch of shouting matches and half-hearted apologies? If Jackson hadn’t been sick, would we have broken up by now? If he hadn’t died, would we have broken up two days ago? How much longer can we go on staying with each other out of guilt? Do we even like each other anymore?
I ring the doorbell again, peer through the window. There’s no frantic shuffling, no footsteps pounding down the stairs. “Julia?” I cup my hands around my eyes and look closer. Nothing. The front hall is deserted.
I try the doorknob. The door swings open immediately. I close the door cautiously behind me.
“Julia? Where are you?”
There’s a beam of light from underneath the bathroom door at the end of the hall. I walk towards is slowly, calling her name.
“Julia? Are you okay? Jules?” I knock on the door. I can hear her crying, sobbing frantically into the door.
I bite my lip. “Jules, let me in,” I say gently, as gently as I can. “Jules... Come on, baby, let me in.” We used to do that, the pet name thing. Somehow we grew out of it. It never seemed appropriate – So, babes, my little brother died. How are things going with that pregnant sister, honey?
She mumbles something.
“I will break down the fucking door, Julia. Do you want me to break down the fucking door? Your parents will kill me. They’ll kill both of us. Just let me in. Jules? Let me in.”
The doorknob gives, and the door swings open.
“Oh my god.”
She looks at me, biting her lip.
“Oh my god.”
She collapses into my arms, crying. “Shhhhh,” I whisper, running my hands through her hair. A few strands come loose. I shake them off my fingers and bite my lip.
“Shhhh. It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She pulls away, shaking her head, clawing at her scalp. “It’s not. Noah, it’s not going to be okay. It’s... I don’t know what to do!” She bites her lip and fixes me with the most unbearably earnest stare. “I just want to know what to do, Noah. I just want to know what to do.”
Her voice cracks, and she dissolves into sobs again. “I can’t do this.”
“Julia...”
She grabs her sweater off the floor and yanks it over her head. “For the love of god, Noah, you can’t rescue everybody. You don’t get to rescue everybody.” She shoves past me and down the hall. I chase after her, grab her shoulders, spin her around.
“Why?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes are big and bright and frighteningly sad. “Because everything has to be so fucking damaged to get your attention. And I wasn’t fucked up enough for you. I was never fucked up enough for you.” She rubs her eyes and bolts down the stairs, two at a time. I follow.
“Julia...”
She glares at me and turns on the treadmill. “What? What the hell do you want? You were going to get to be the hero. I was going to let you be the hero. I was going to be the one who showed you that you were just as big and brave as he was.” She cranks up the speed and her legs take off beneath her. She looks down at me, breathing hard, sweating, not saying a word.
“Julia...”
“No. I was going to let you fix me. And I knew you would. I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, because you’re always so fucking sure that you’re the one people need to rescue them. I was going to be the one you could actually save. That was going to be me.” She grips the bars on the side of the treadmill and gasps, still running. Her legs are a blur.
“But you don’t get to. You don’t get to save me. Because I’m done. I’m done competing with you to see who has the most damage. I’m done competing for your attention. I’m done always coming in second to somebody else. You don’t get to rescue me. Nobody gets to rescue me. I don’t fucking want to be rescued.”
That’s when she collapses.
* * *
“Hello?”
“Noah?” I hear shuffling in the background. “Honey, it’s Noah.”
“Hello?”
“Hi. Mr. Gallagher?”
“Yes. We called to talk to Juliana. Put her on the line.”
I bite my lip. “Sir...”
“Noah, I would really love to talk to you, but not right now. Put my daughter on the line, please.”
“Sir, she fainted.”
He must put his hand over the receiver, because I hear snippets of conversation in the background, but I can’t make out any words.
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
“Noah, are you still there?”
“Yes sir.” My voice gets high on the word “sir”. I swallow the lump in my throat.
“What happened?”
I glance at Julia, lying on the couch. “Don’t worry, sir, she’s fine, she’s just... She should probably talk to you about it. Actually, I’m sure she should talk to you about it. But later. Okay? How’s Blair?”
There’s more muffled conversation. “Is she conscious?”
“Of course, sir, I wouldn’t just leave her unconscious... She’s fine... She’s just really disoriented... She’ll be okay. She’s resting. Resting is good.” It doesn’t sound convincing. It doesn’t sound convincing at all. But what am I supposed to say? She is now, sir. You know, sir, you’re very lucky to have me as a part of your daughter’s life. Some other boyfriend might not drive her so completely insane, and then you wouldn’t be able to see all her ribs!
“Alright, son. You stay there with her, and we’ll call back in an hour. No baby yet.”
“Okay, sir. Thanks for the update. Bye.”
“Bye,” he grunts. The line clicks.
I walk over to the couch and kneel beside her. “You’re so much trouble,” I whisper.
She moans and squeezes her eyes shut, mumbling something inaudible.
“I love you even if you’re crazy,” I whisper. I reach for her hand and grip her freezing, bony fingers loosely in my own. “I’d love you even if you weren’t.”
I can’t help the feeling that I should have told her that a long, long time ago.
November 26th: It's the triumph of shame and disease
He’s dead.
My eyes pop open. I stare at the ceiling for a moment, the stripes of shadow and sunlight. This is the second day he hasn’t tossed and turned feverishly a few strides and a set of stairs away. This is our second day without him. He’s dead. This is the second day.
I glance at the clock. Eight thirty. I could still get dressed, shower, and make it to school in time for third period. I would go. I would go in a heartbeat, if it weren’t for the questions. The stares. The whispering. I don’t want to see Jackson reduced to, “That guy who used to play football for us who just died of AIDS”. I don’t want to hear what my peers have to say about him. I want them to hear what I have to say about him. That yes, he was lessened, that yes, he died, that yes, he was weak and tired and sick. That yes, he had AIDS. But I want them to understand that he hated who he was before. That he never liked himself before he got sick. That he thought he was arrogant, angry, asinine. That he didn’t think he deserved anything he had – the glory, the fame, the girlfriends and groupies and scholarships, the articles and awards. That when they were young, and his name was tossed around in every circle on the playground, he was different. That he changed when he got sick. That he didn’t die the boy who threw thirty yard passes, who ran victorious to the end zones of a dozen different fields, who left State Championships on the shoulders of his teammates. He was weak and he was tired and he was sick. He was lessened. He died. He had AIDS. And he was the most amazing person they never got to meet.
But they wouldn’t understand that. To them, he would still be the kid they heard about in the third grade, the hero with all the attitude and all the glory in the world. To them, he’s a myth, a legend, a trophy in a case. And so they whisper, they ask questions, they stare. They speak ill of the dead because, to them, he was never really alive.
* * *
“Noah, it’s time to get up.”
The bags under her eyes tell her story. I’m sure she was up all night crying, wondering what she’d done wrong. Besides leaving us. Besides everything. She wants a different excuse.
I roll over and groan.
“You don’t have to go to school, Noah, but you should at least get up.” She walks over to my bed, prods me with one hand. I don’t move. “Come on, Noah,” she says with a sigh. “It’s almost eleven.”
I roll my eyes and sit up. She pats my back and smiles tiredly. “I thought we could go out to lunch.”
“Mom...”
She shakes her head. “No. We really should. I looked in the refrigerator. You must’ve been eating crap. All you have is white rice and peanut butter. Who can live on white rice and peanut butter?”
Obviously no one, I almost say, but I think better of it. “Mom, I really don’t want to go out, okay? We have microwave popcorn and stuff, too. And eggs. I think there might be some ground beef in the freezer.”
She sighs. “Does your father not ever go shopping? Let’s just go out, Noah. Can we please just do the simple thing? For once in your life, can you do the simple thing?”
“Do you always have to make it about something else?” I glare at her. “This is about lunch. This isn’t about me doing the simple thing, or my father’s shopping habits, it’s about lunch. Just leave it alone, Mom. I’m not going out.”
She looks at me like I’ve just disappointed her in the most profound way possible. “Okay, Noah,” she says finally, dejectedly. She eyes me for a moment, then heaves a sigh. “Okay.”
I hate her. I hate her with such a blinding, overpowering hate. But somehow I still love her, and I want to love her, even though it’s killing me in a thousand different ways.
* * *
She’s curled up on the couch with A Family Member’s Guide to Chronic Illness: Coping and Hoping. I hate these books. I hate that she wants to repair us. That she thinks we need to be fixed. Maybe we just need time to change. Maybe we would be okay, if she would only let us. We would eventually heal ourselves, if only she weren’t so damned intent on finding the miracle cure.
I clear my throat. She looks up and sighs. “What?”
I hate that. I hate her impatience. I hate that everything always has to have a reason. I hate that she thinks everything can somehow to fixed. I hate that she goes to bed impossibly late and then complains about how tired she is. I hate that she’s always trying to pick out everyone else’s flaws.
“Are we having a funeral or what?”
She shakes her head and turns the page. “Noah...”
“It’s a question. It shouldn’t really be a hard question. He’s your son. You’re supposed to take care of him. You kind of insinuated that you remembered that.”
She doesn’t respond for a moment. I cross my arms and stare at her, waiting. Finally she sighs. “Noah, I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know what you want me to say.” She sounds completely defeated.
“What are you even talking about? I just want to know what we’re going to do about the body.”
She shakes her head. “Not now, Noah.”
“Then when the hell is a good time for you?”
Her shoulders sag. “I can’t do this right now.” She slams her book shut and stands up. “I’m going out to lunch.”
I follow her down the hall, through the dining room. “Mom, you can’t just come back and pretend you never left. You can’t just come back and pretend they never existed and you never abandoned us and everything’s fine! Everything is not fine.”
She sighs, grabbing her keys off the table. “Noah, for five minutes I want you to think about someone besides yourself. Is that possible? Can you do that?”
“Will you quit acting like I didn’t spend the past three months heating up his rice and changing his sheets?”
“Will you quit acting like you love him more than I do because you did?”
I stare at her for a minute. She stares back, her head bowed, biting her lip.
I sigh. “It’s not fair.”
“Did you really think it would be?”
I don’t know what I think anymore.
* * *
“Let me in.”
Obediently, I open the door. He nods at me as he walks past me into the house. “When are you coming back? Do you know?”
I shake my head. “Is everyone talking about it?”
He shrugs. “There are a lot of rumors. Everyone knows he’s dead, but there are about a dozen different thoughts as to why.”
“Like?” I’m not sure I want to know. I collapse into a chair. He pulls one out and straddles it backwards, like he’s in some horrible nineties teen movie.
He shrugs. “Some people are right, then there are the drug overdose people – they probably have the most votes – and the alcohol poisoning people – they come in second -- and the suicide people, the accidental death people, the mugging people.... The people who say he’s not dead, but those are mostly really weird types. Someone said random cardiac arrest, but he got shot down because everyone figured your brother would’ve kept in really good shape. Also one guy who insists Jackson is in the Witness Protection Program.”
I rub my temples. “That many people care?”
He nods. “The day after, they made an announcement in the morning – I knew already because Julia had called me, but I don’t think anyone else did. Nobody went apeshit or anything, but people definitely talked about it. Are still talking about it.”
I groan. “People suck.”
“No kidding. But I guess it’s kind of cool, in some ways. You know? People care enough to talk about it.”
I shake my head. “It’s like they’re intent on ripping away whatever dignity he had left. He gets to be a drug addicted drunken slob who killed himself.” I pound my fist on the table. “What the hell is wrong with people? Why do they always have to have explanations for everything? Can’t he just be dead? They didn’t even know him.”
Eddy bites his lip. “Look, dude, it sucks. I know. But they’re just kids. We’re all just kids, you know? We do stupid things sometimes. All the time. We put people on pedestals just for the fun of knocking them down.”
I sigh and stand up. “You can’t excuse them for dragging him through the dirt. He’s dead. They should be... I don’t know. They shouldn’t be talking about him at all. They don’t deserve to talk about him.”
“He was one of them, once,” he says softly.
My head snaps up. “What?”
He stands. “Your brother. He was an asshole when he was our age. He’s told you that how many times? You should be patient with them. They just need time to grow up, time to know --”
“He’s not like them.”
Eddy shakes his head. “Look, Noah, he... He made a lot of mistakes. Just... Remember that. Okay? People make mistakes. Everyone.”
“You didn’t even know him.” I shake my head, rub the back of my neck. “Eddy, you didn’t even know him. Don’t tell me what he was like. You don’t get to tell me what he was like.”
“Noah, he wasn’t motherfucking Jesus! He was a fucking human being!” His eyes are wide. He’s looking at me like I’m crazy. I wish he would shut the fuck up about Jackson. I wish everyone would shut the fuck up about Jackson. I wish everyone would stop fucking pretending that they knew so much about him, that they knew so much about what he was about.
“He was a good person,” I whisper.
“He became a good person. He was an asshole who talked about people in the halls once, too. He hurt people, Noah. He broke peoples’ hearts. He ridiculed people until they fucking wanted to die. He told you all that. He wasn’t some fucking hero! You were seven, of course you thought he was fantastic, but he wasn’t some great guy, he wasn’t --”
I punch him.
I do it without thinking, without feeling. One minute I’m listening and wishing that he would shut up, wishing to hell that he would just shut up, and the next instant my fist meets his face and I hear something crack and there’s blood all over his face, dripping down from his nose. I stare at it, mesmerized. I look down at my hand. Did I do that? Did I do that?
“Bloody hell, Noah, get a grip!” He puts a hand under his nose and rushes over to the sink. I keep my gaze focused on my fingers. I clench and unclench my fist. I just hit someone. I just hit my best friend. I just hit my best friend and he’s bleeding. The knowledge comes in waves. None of it seems real.
“I think it’s broken.” He looks up and glares at me. “Get in the fucking car, Fisher. I’m bleeding like a dead manatee.”
I nod numbly. He digs the keys out of his pocket, and I take them. We drive without speaking for a few minutes. Finally, at a red light, he jerks his head toward me.
“You’re more like him than you think you are,” he says quietly.
He’s wrong. But I don’t say so. We drive the rest of the way in silence.
My eyes pop open. I stare at the ceiling for a moment, the stripes of shadow and sunlight. This is the second day he hasn’t tossed and turned feverishly a few strides and a set of stairs away. This is our second day without him. He’s dead. This is the second day.
I glance at the clock. Eight thirty. I could still get dressed, shower, and make it to school in time for third period. I would go. I would go in a heartbeat, if it weren’t for the questions. The stares. The whispering. I don’t want to see Jackson reduced to, “That guy who used to play football for us who just died of AIDS”. I don’t want to hear what my peers have to say about him. I want them to hear what I have to say about him. That yes, he was lessened, that yes, he died, that yes, he was weak and tired and sick. That yes, he had AIDS. But I want them to understand that he hated who he was before. That he never liked himself before he got sick. That he thought he was arrogant, angry, asinine. That he didn’t think he deserved anything he had – the glory, the fame, the girlfriends and groupies and scholarships, the articles and awards. That when they were young, and his name was tossed around in every circle on the playground, he was different. That he changed when he got sick. That he didn’t die the boy who threw thirty yard passes, who ran victorious to the end zones of a dozen different fields, who left State Championships on the shoulders of his teammates. He was weak and he was tired and he was sick. He was lessened. He died. He had AIDS. And he was the most amazing person they never got to meet.
But they wouldn’t understand that. To them, he would still be the kid they heard about in the third grade, the hero with all the attitude and all the glory in the world. To them, he’s a myth, a legend, a trophy in a case. And so they whisper, they ask questions, they stare. They speak ill of the dead because, to them, he was never really alive.
“Noah, it’s time to get up.”
The bags under her eyes tell her story. I’m sure she was up all night crying, wondering what she’d done wrong. Besides leaving us. Besides everything. She wants a different excuse.
I roll over and groan.
“You don’t have to go to school, Noah, but you should at least get up.” She walks over to my bed, prods me with one hand. I don’t move. “Come on, Noah,” she says with a sigh. “It’s almost eleven.”
I roll my eyes and sit up. She pats my back and smiles tiredly. “I thought we could go out to lunch.”
“Mom...”
She shakes her head. “No. We really should. I looked in the refrigerator. You must’ve been eating crap. All you have is white rice and peanut butter. Who can live on white rice and peanut butter?”
Obviously no one, I almost say, but I think better of it. “Mom, I really don’t want to go out, okay? We have microwave popcorn and stuff, too. And eggs. I think there might be some ground beef in the freezer.”
She sighs. “Does your father not ever go shopping? Let’s just go out, Noah. Can we please just do the simple thing? For once in your life, can you do the simple thing?”
“Do you always have to make it about something else?” I glare at her. “This is about lunch. This isn’t about me doing the simple thing, or my father’s shopping habits, it’s about lunch. Just leave it alone, Mom. I’m not going out.”
She looks at me like I’ve just disappointed her in the most profound way possible. “Okay, Noah,” she says finally, dejectedly. She eyes me for a moment, then heaves a sigh. “Okay.”
I hate her. I hate her with such a blinding, overpowering hate. But somehow I still love her, and I want to love her, even though it’s killing me in a thousand different ways.
She’s curled up on the couch with A Family Member’s Guide to Chronic Illness: Coping and Hoping. I hate these books. I hate that she wants to repair us. That she thinks we need to be fixed. Maybe we just need time to change. Maybe we would be okay, if she would only let us. We would eventually heal ourselves, if only she weren’t so damned intent on finding the miracle cure.
I clear my throat. She looks up and sighs. “What?”
I hate that. I hate her impatience. I hate that everything always has to have a reason. I hate that she thinks everything can somehow to fixed. I hate that she goes to bed impossibly late and then complains about how tired she is. I hate that she’s always trying to pick out everyone else’s flaws.
“Are we having a funeral or what?”
She shakes her head and turns the page. “Noah...”
“It’s a question. It shouldn’t really be a hard question. He’s your son. You’re supposed to take care of him. You kind of insinuated that you remembered that.”
She doesn’t respond for a moment. I cross my arms and stare at her, waiting. Finally she sighs. “Noah, I don’t know. Okay? I don’t know what you want me to say.” She sounds completely defeated.
“What are you even talking about? I just want to know what we’re going to do about the body.”
She shakes her head. “Not now, Noah.”
“Then when the hell is a good time for you?”
Her shoulders sag. “I can’t do this right now.” She slams her book shut and stands up. “I’m going out to lunch.”
I follow her down the hall, through the dining room. “Mom, you can’t just come back and pretend you never left. You can’t just come back and pretend they never existed and you never abandoned us and everything’s fine! Everything is not fine.”
She sighs, grabbing her keys off the table. “Noah, for five minutes I want you to think about someone besides yourself. Is that possible? Can you do that?”
“Will you quit acting like I didn’t spend the past three months heating up his rice and changing his sheets?”
“Will you quit acting like you love him more than I do because you did?”
I stare at her for a minute. She stares back, her head bowed, biting her lip.
I sigh. “It’s not fair.”
“Did you really think it would be?”
I don’t know what I think anymore.
“Let me in.”
Obediently, I open the door. He nods at me as he walks past me into the house. “When are you coming back? Do you know?”
I shake my head. “Is everyone talking about it?”
He shrugs. “There are a lot of rumors. Everyone knows he’s dead, but there are about a dozen different thoughts as to why.”
“Like?” I’m not sure I want to know. I collapse into a chair. He pulls one out and straddles it backwards, like he’s in some horrible nineties teen movie.
He shrugs. “Some people are right, then there are the drug overdose people – they probably have the most votes – and the alcohol poisoning people – they come in second -- and the suicide people, the accidental death people, the mugging people.... The people who say he’s not dead, but those are mostly really weird types. Someone said random cardiac arrest, but he got shot down because everyone figured your brother would’ve kept in really good shape. Also one guy who insists Jackson is in the Witness Protection Program.”
I rub my temples. “That many people care?”
He nods. “The day after, they made an announcement in the morning – I knew already because Julia had called me, but I don’t think anyone else did. Nobody went apeshit or anything, but people definitely talked about it. Are still talking about it.”
I groan. “People suck.”
“No kidding. But I guess it’s kind of cool, in some ways. You know? People care enough to talk about it.”
I shake my head. “It’s like they’re intent on ripping away whatever dignity he had left. He gets to be a drug addicted drunken slob who killed himself.” I pound my fist on the table. “What the hell is wrong with people? Why do they always have to have explanations for everything? Can’t he just be dead? They didn’t even know him.”
Eddy bites his lip. “Look, dude, it sucks. I know. But they’re just kids. We’re all just kids, you know? We do stupid things sometimes. All the time. We put people on pedestals just for the fun of knocking them down.”
I sigh and stand up. “You can’t excuse them for dragging him through the dirt. He’s dead. They should be... I don’t know. They shouldn’t be talking about him at all. They don’t deserve to talk about him.”
“He was one of them, once,” he says softly.
My head snaps up. “What?”
He stands. “Your brother. He was an asshole when he was our age. He’s told you that how many times? You should be patient with them. They just need time to grow up, time to know --”
“He’s not like them.”
Eddy shakes his head. “Look, Noah, he... He made a lot of mistakes. Just... Remember that. Okay? People make mistakes. Everyone.”
“You didn’t even know him.” I shake my head, rub the back of my neck. “Eddy, you didn’t even know him. Don’t tell me what he was like. You don’t get to tell me what he was like.”
“Noah, he wasn’t motherfucking Jesus! He was a fucking human being!” His eyes are wide. He’s looking at me like I’m crazy. I wish he would shut the fuck up about Jackson. I wish everyone would shut the fuck up about Jackson. I wish everyone would stop fucking pretending that they knew so much about him, that they knew so much about what he was about.
“He was a good person,” I whisper.
“He became a good person. He was an asshole who talked about people in the halls once, too. He hurt people, Noah. He broke peoples’ hearts. He ridiculed people until they fucking wanted to die. He told you all that. He wasn’t some fucking hero! You were seven, of course you thought he was fantastic, but he wasn’t some great guy, he wasn’t --”
I punch him.
I do it without thinking, without feeling. One minute I’m listening and wishing that he would shut up, wishing to hell that he would just shut up, and the next instant my fist meets his face and I hear something crack and there’s blood all over his face, dripping down from his nose. I stare at it, mesmerized. I look down at my hand. Did I do that? Did I do that?
“Bloody hell, Noah, get a grip!” He puts a hand under his nose and rushes over to the sink. I keep my gaze focused on my fingers. I clench and unclench my fist. I just hit someone. I just hit my best friend. I just hit my best friend and he’s bleeding. The knowledge comes in waves. None of it seems real.
“I think it’s broken.” He looks up and glares at me. “Get in the fucking car, Fisher. I’m bleeding like a dead manatee.”
I nod numbly. He digs the keys out of his pocket, and I take them. We drive without speaking for a few minutes. Finally, at a red light, he jerks his head toward me.
“You’re more like him than you think you are,” he says quietly.
He’s wrong. But I don’t say so. We drive the rest of the way in silence.
Friday, November 24, 2006
November 24th: "It will all catch up eventually" -- well it caught up and honestly the weight of my decisions were impossible to hold
“You want coffee or something?”
She nods. “Coffee’s good. Two sugars.”
I pull down a can and heap it into a filter. “You can sit down if you want.”
“Sure.” She pulls out a chair and perches delicately on the edge. She looks like she’s never wanted to be anywhere less than she wants to be here.
“You came back.” I have too many questions. Facts are easier.
“Yes.” She clears her throat, crosses her legs. “Yes, I did. It was time.”
I pour the water into the coffee maker. “Why now?”
“Because I woke up one morning last week and asked myself, ‘What are you running away from?’ And for the life of me, I didn’t know.” She forces a smile. I flip the switch and squeeze my eyes shut.
“Oh.” I want to tell her. I want to tell her that she has the most spectacularly horrible timing, that this is a scene straight out of a movie, that things like this don’t happen to real people living real lives, that no one comes home the day after their son dies expecting to see him, that life is not really that ironic or cruel. Except it’s true, it’s all true – it defies all logic, all sense, everything I’ve ever learned about the way life works. This is a scene from a movie. It is not something that should be happening to us.
“So how’s your brother? Is he... Where, the hospital? I hate hospitals, you know how I hate hospitals, but I thought maybe we could go see him tomorrow, you could take the day off school and we could go see him.”
“He’s not in the hospital.”
She stares at me. “Noah, he’s very sick. He was very sick when I left, and it’s been more than three months, he must be... He must be very sick. He really should be in the hospital.”
“He’s not in the hospital,” I repeat.
She sighs. “Where’s your father? I need to talk to him.”
“He’s at work.” Where else would he be? He knows exactly what he’s running away from. And he knows exactly where to go.
“Fantastically irresponsible, as always,” she says, blowing her hair out of her face.
I bite my lip. “Mom, you just ran away for three months,” I say quietly. “He comes home every night. He makes eggs some mornings. He came home and did laundry once when Jackson was really sick. He’s trying. He’s trying to be responsible. You didn’t even try.” It’s not fair. But it needs to be said. She’s not being fair, either.
“Noah...” Her voice trails off. “You can’t understand this. You’re too young.”
It breaks. That thread of decency, respect, whatever it was that was keeping me from screaming it at her at the top of my lungs. It breaks, and I hate her in that moment. I hate her for not having changed when all I’ve done is change. I hate her for leaving. “Mom, I have spent the last three months taking care of my dying brother,” I say quickly, evenly, so earnestly that it feels like I’m peeling off my skin. “I have spent the last three months cleaning up your mess, his mess, our mess. I have spent the last three months watching him die, every minute of every day, just watching him get thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker. You went away. I grew up. I understand this perfectly. The going got tough, and you left. You left.”
Behind me, the coffee drips slowly into the pot. I close my eyes and listen to the sound.
“I’m back now,” she says quietly.
“You’re too late,” I respond.
She eyes me blankly.
“He’s dead, Mom.”
She shakes her head, her eyes suddenly doubtful. “Noah...”
“He’s dead, okay? You missed it. You don’t get to swoop down and fix this. He’s dead.”
Her face crumbles. Her jaw hangs agape, her eyes squint, her brow furrows. She shakes her head in despair and disbelief. “No,” she whispers after a moment. “No...”
I bite my lip and turn my back to her. I can’t watch this. I can’t watch her fall apart. Not again.
* * *
“When?” she says finally, swirling her finger in her coffee.
“Yesterday.” I bite my lip and stare at the table. “I came home and he was lying in bed. His spleen ruptured. He had lymphoma. Really aggressive, and he was too weak to really respond to treatment, so... You know. It was a matter of time.”
She shakes her head. “You can’t just say that. You can’t just... A day? I missed him by a day?”
I sigh. “Mom, it’s complicated. Okay? Can you just let it be complicated?”
“Noah, I left him. When he needed me. He’s my son.” Our eyes meet. Hers shine bright with tears, with guilt. “He was dying, and I left him. I left him.”
“You left me too,” I say quietly.
She looks at the ceiling and heaves a haughty sigh. “This is not about you, Noah.”
“Nothing is ever about me for you! I was there for him every goddamned day, Mom. I did everything right. I took care of him.” I shake my head. “You left. You left. I picked up the pieces. I glued back together your stupid fucking pieces. You can’t just run in here and say you’re sorry and expect everyone to mourn with you and give you back everything you broke.”
“Noah, my son died yesterday.” Her eyes are closed. She takes a deep breath. “Noah, my son died yesterday. And I never got to say goodbye. He died thinking I hated him, thinking I’d abandoned him, thinking...”
“You did abandon him!” I pound my fist on the table. Coffee splashes out of my cup onto the plastic tablecloth. I wipe it up with my sleeve. “You left. You left. You felt helpless and hopeless and sad. You were overwhelmed.” My tone is mocking, pitiless. She’s crying. I don’t care. “You have all these excuses for failing, but you failed, Mom. And it doesn’t matter how many flowery words you put around it, you failed.”
“I came back, Noah.” She bites her lip, shakes her head, her eyes boring into mine. “Noah, I came back. I want a second chance.”
“You don’t deserve a second chance.” I scoot back my chair and stand. “You left. He needed you. You left. You admit it. You admit that you left him. That’s great, that you can admit that. But you still can’t admit that you left me. That I needed you.” I shake my head, walk to the sink, splash what’s left of my coffee into the sink. “I am seventeen years old. I can’t cook, I can’t do laundry, I can’t take care of myself. I am pathetic and stupid and I needed you. And you let me down, you always let me down. You always let me down. And you haven’t changed, Mom. You never change..”
“You’re the strong one,” she whispers. “You’re the strong one, Noah.”
I turn around and stare at her. “Mom, I’m seventeen. I am young and I am stupid and I don’t know how to put things back together when you break them. I am not strong. And even if I were, I wouldn’t be strong enough. Not for this. Not for you.”
“I’m just trying, Noah. Baby, I’m just trying.” Her voice is hushed, scared. Like she doesn’t know if she’s sure she wants to be saying what she’s saying.
I sigh. “Try harder.” I slam my cup down and storm out the back door. I’m barefoot. I don’t care.
I run until my feet bleed. And then I ring her doorbell.
* * *
Her mother stares at me, speechless for once. My feet are cut and bleeding. I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes, the blue shirt with the coffee on the sleeve. I’m gasping for breath and I’m crying and I want to be invisible and I don’t know why I’m here except that I have nowhere else to go.
Julia comes padding out of the kitchen in sweats and a t-shirt, her hipbones sticking out over the drawstring waist of her pants. She looks at me like she’s never seen me before. “Noah?” Her brow furrows. “Noah, are you okay?”
“I need to talk to you,” I say after a minute.
She nods. “Okay. Are you barefoot? Did you run here?” She eyes my feet, torn up and bloody. “Mom, can you go get a towel? Noah, sit down. Over here, on the steps. Come on. Shhhhh. Why didn’t you put shoes on? Or take the car?”
I shake my head helplessly.
“Okay. Okay, come sit down. There. You okay?” She sits next to me. Her mother comes in carrying a wet dishtowel. Julia thanks her quietly and pulls one of my feet into her lap. “You could really have hurt your feet, running here... Horrible impact...” She clucks her tongue and lays the towel over my foot. It’s freezing, and then my entire foot is on fire. I grimace. She frowns at me. She looks like she can’t decide whether to be angry or concerned.
“What’s wrong, Noah?” she asks gently, massaging the bottom of my foot. My toes curl.
“She’s home,” I whisper. My lips are chapped.
She stares at me, dropping my foot. “Who?”
“My mother.”
Her eyes widen, but she nods. “How is she?”
“Exactly the same.” I give a tight-lipped smile. I’m still crying, so I doubt the effect is convincing.
She grabs my calf and lowers my foot slowly to the ground. Then she leans over and puts her arm around me, laying her head on my shoulder.
“Stay here,” she says quietly.
I shake my head, rubbing my temple with one hand. “I want to.”
“I miss you.”
“So does she.”
She sighs. “Why does everything have to be so hard for you?”
“I don’t know.”
She grabs one of my hands, rubs it between hers. “I want to fix everything for you. I would give anything to fix everything for you.”
“Nothing’s broken,” I whisper.
She looks up at me, her eyes sad. “I wish I could make you happy, then. I want to be the one who can make you happy.”
“You’re doing the best you can.”
She shakes her head, biting her lip. “It’s never enough.” She laces her fingers with mine. “I want it to be enough.”
So do I, I want to say. But I don’t.
* * *
She leans over and kisses me goodbye. “Good luck,” she calls after me.
I walk up the driveway and onto the porch. In the summer, there are fireflies everywhere. Jackson and I used to catch them, when we were younger, our parents looking onward with patient smiles. We always let them go.
But there are no fireflies tonight. Only the dim light from inside. I open the door. My mother is still at the table, staring forlornly into her coffee. She looks up when I come in. Her eyes are dry.
“I’m not a coward,” she says quietly.
I shake my head. I don’t want to do this again. I so desperately don’t want to do this again.
“No, don’t you shake your head at me. You listen. You listen, Noah Fisher, because you need to understand this. I love my son. I love all my sons. I love you until it breaks my heart in half, until it breaks everything in half. I would do anything for you. I would do anything for you, Noah, and don’t you tell me that I wouldn’t. Don’t you tell me how I feel. Don’t you tell me I don’t love you every bit as much as I love him.”
“You made him my responsibility,” I say, my voice trembling. “You made it my fault if anything fucked up. You left it up to me to take care of him. You said you felt helpless and scared, well... How the hell did you think I would feel?”
She sighs. “Noah, I never said I was proud of leaving. It wasn’t the noble thing to do. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing for me. Maybe not for you. But for me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is, Noah?” she demands, her voice harsh, her eyes flashing. “What the hell is your point?”
“I just want you to stop making excuses for yourself. There’s no excuse. There’s no fucking excuse.”
She sighs. “Noah, I loved him. Okay? I feel guilty enough for leaving him, for leaving you. But I loved him too. You act like you’re the only one.”
“I was the only one who showed it,” I say, shaking my head. “You don’t leave someone to die if you love them. You just don’t.”
“How do you know?” she screeches. She bites her lip, takes a deep breath. “For the love of god, Noah,” she continues, her voice trembling, “quit telling me what I feel. Quit telling me what is and isn’t possible. He was my baby. He was my son. I just wanted him to be happy. I wanted him to have everything he wanted.”
“He wanted you.”
She nods. “Coffee’s good. Two sugars.”
I pull down a can and heap it into a filter. “You can sit down if you want.”
“Sure.” She pulls out a chair and perches delicately on the edge. She looks like she’s never wanted to be anywhere less than she wants to be here.
“You came back.” I have too many questions. Facts are easier.
“Yes.” She clears her throat, crosses her legs. “Yes, I did. It was time.”
I pour the water into the coffee maker. “Why now?”
“Because I woke up one morning last week and asked myself, ‘What are you running away from?’ And for the life of me, I didn’t know.” She forces a smile. I flip the switch and squeeze my eyes shut.
“Oh.” I want to tell her. I want to tell her that she has the most spectacularly horrible timing, that this is a scene straight out of a movie, that things like this don’t happen to real people living real lives, that no one comes home the day after their son dies expecting to see him, that life is not really that ironic or cruel. Except it’s true, it’s all true – it defies all logic, all sense, everything I’ve ever learned about the way life works. This is a scene from a movie. It is not something that should be happening to us.
“So how’s your brother? Is he... Where, the hospital? I hate hospitals, you know how I hate hospitals, but I thought maybe we could go see him tomorrow, you could take the day off school and we could go see him.”
“He’s not in the hospital.”
She stares at me. “Noah, he’s very sick. He was very sick when I left, and it’s been more than three months, he must be... He must be very sick. He really should be in the hospital.”
“He’s not in the hospital,” I repeat.
She sighs. “Where’s your father? I need to talk to him.”
“He’s at work.” Where else would he be? He knows exactly what he’s running away from. And he knows exactly where to go.
“Fantastically irresponsible, as always,” she says, blowing her hair out of her face.
I bite my lip. “Mom, you just ran away for three months,” I say quietly. “He comes home every night. He makes eggs some mornings. He came home and did laundry once when Jackson was really sick. He’s trying. He’s trying to be responsible. You didn’t even try.” It’s not fair. But it needs to be said. She’s not being fair, either.
“Noah...” Her voice trails off. “You can’t understand this. You’re too young.”
It breaks. That thread of decency, respect, whatever it was that was keeping me from screaming it at her at the top of my lungs. It breaks, and I hate her in that moment. I hate her for not having changed when all I’ve done is change. I hate her for leaving. “Mom, I have spent the last three months taking care of my dying brother,” I say quickly, evenly, so earnestly that it feels like I’m peeling off my skin. “I have spent the last three months cleaning up your mess, his mess, our mess. I have spent the last three months watching him die, every minute of every day, just watching him get thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker. You went away. I grew up. I understand this perfectly. The going got tough, and you left. You left.”
Behind me, the coffee drips slowly into the pot. I close my eyes and listen to the sound.
“I’m back now,” she says quietly.
“You’re too late,” I respond.
She eyes me blankly.
“He’s dead, Mom.”
She shakes her head, her eyes suddenly doubtful. “Noah...”
“He’s dead, okay? You missed it. You don’t get to swoop down and fix this. He’s dead.”
Her face crumbles. Her jaw hangs agape, her eyes squint, her brow furrows. She shakes her head in despair and disbelief. “No,” she whispers after a moment. “No...”
I bite my lip and turn my back to her. I can’t watch this. I can’t watch her fall apart. Not again.
“When?” she says finally, swirling her finger in her coffee.
“Yesterday.” I bite my lip and stare at the table. “I came home and he was lying in bed. His spleen ruptured. He had lymphoma. Really aggressive, and he was too weak to really respond to treatment, so... You know. It was a matter of time.”
She shakes her head. “You can’t just say that. You can’t just... A day? I missed him by a day?”
I sigh. “Mom, it’s complicated. Okay? Can you just let it be complicated?”
“Noah, I left him. When he needed me. He’s my son.” Our eyes meet. Hers shine bright with tears, with guilt. “He was dying, and I left him. I left him.”
“You left me too,” I say quietly.
She looks at the ceiling and heaves a haughty sigh. “This is not about you, Noah.”
“Nothing is ever about me for you! I was there for him every goddamned day, Mom. I did everything right. I took care of him.” I shake my head. “You left. You left. I picked up the pieces. I glued back together your stupid fucking pieces. You can’t just run in here and say you’re sorry and expect everyone to mourn with you and give you back everything you broke.”
“Noah, my son died yesterday.” Her eyes are closed. She takes a deep breath. “Noah, my son died yesterday. And I never got to say goodbye. He died thinking I hated him, thinking I’d abandoned him, thinking...”
“You did abandon him!” I pound my fist on the table. Coffee splashes out of my cup onto the plastic tablecloth. I wipe it up with my sleeve. “You left. You left. You felt helpless and hopeless and sad. You were overwhelmed.” My tone is mocking, pitiless. She’s crying. I don’t care. “You have all these excuses for failing, but you failed, Mom. And it doesn’t matter how many flowery words you put around it, you failed.”
“I came back, Noah.” She bites her lip, shakes her head, her eyes boring into mine. “Noah, I came back. I want a second chance.”
“You don’t deserve a second chance.” I scoot back my chair and stand. “You left. He needed you. You left. You admit it. You admit that you left him. That’s great, that you can admit that. But you still can’t admit that you left me. That I needed you.” I shake my head, walk to the sink, splash what’s left of my coffee into the sink. “I am seventeen years old. I can’t cook, I can’t do laundry, I can’t take care of myself. I am pathetic and stupid and I needed you. And you let me down, you always let me down. You always let me down. And you haven’t changed, Mom. You never change..”
“You’re the strong one,” she whispers. “You’re the strong one, Noah.”
I turn around and stare at her. “Mom, I’m seventeen. I am young and I am stupid and I don’t know how to put things back together when you break them. I am not strong. And even if I were, I wouldn’t be strong enough. Not for this. Not for you.”
“I’m just trying, Noah. Baby, I’m just trying.” Her voice is hushed, scared. Like she doesn’t know if she’s sure she wants to be saying what she’s saying.
I sigh. “Try harder.” I slam my cup down and storm out the back door. I’m barefoot. I don’t care.
I run until my feet bleed. And then I ring her doorbell.
Her mother stares at me, speechless for once. My feet are cut and bleeding. I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes, the blue shirt with the coffee on the sleeve. I’m gasping for breath and I’m crying and I want to be invisible and I don’t know why I’m here except that I have nowhere else to go.
Julia comes padding out of the kitchen in sweats and a t-shirt, her hipbones sticking out over the drawstring waist of her pants. She looks at me like she’s never seen me before. “Noah?” Her brow furrows. “Noah, are you okay?”
“I need to talk to you,” I say after a minute.
She nods. “Okay. Are you barefoot? Did you run here?” She eyes my feet, torn up and bloody. “Mom, can you go get a towel? Noah, sit down. Over here, on the steps. Come on. Shhhhh. Why didn’t you put shoes on? Or take the car?”
I shake my head helplessly.
“Okay. Okay, come sit down. There. You okay?” She sits next to me. Her mother comes in carrying a wet dishtowel. Julia thanks her quietly and pulls one of my feet into her lap. “You could really have hurt your feet, running here... Horrible impact...” She clucks her tongue and lays the towel over my foot. It’s freezing, and then my entire foot is on fire. I grimace. She frowns at me. She looks like she can’t decide whether to be angry or concerned.
“What’s wrong, Noah?” she asks gently, massaging the bottom of my foot. My toes curl.
“She’s home,” I whisper. My lips are chapped.
She stares at me, dropping my foot. “Who?”
“My mother.”
Her eyes widen, but she nods. “How is she?”
“Exactly the same.” I give a tight-lipped smile. I’m still crying, so I doubt the effect is convincing.
She grabs my calf and lowers my foot slowly to the ground. Then she leans over and puts her arm around me, laying her head on my shoulder.
“Stay here,” she says quietly.
I shake my head, rubbing my temple with one hand. “I want to.”
“I miss you.”
“So does she.”
She sighs. “Why does everything have to be so hard for you?”
“I don’t know.”
She grabs one of my hands, rubs it between hers. “I want to fix everything for you. I would give anything to fix everything for you.”
“Nothing’s broken,” I whisper.
She looks up at me, her eyes sad. “I wish I could make you happy, then. I want to be the one who can make you happy.”
“You’re doing the best you can.”
She shakes her head, biting her lip. “It’s never enough.” She laces her fingers with mine. “I want it to be enough.”
So do I, I want to say. But I don’t.
She leans over and kisses me goodbye. “Good luck,” she calls after me.
I walk up the driveway and onto the porch. In the summer, there are fireflies everywhere. Jackson and I used to catch them, when we were younger, our parents looking onward with patient smiles. We always let them go.
But there are no fireflies tonight. Only the dim light from inside. I open the door. My mother is still at the table, staring forlornly into her coffee. She looks up when I come in. Her eyes are dry.
“I’m not a coward,” she says quietly.
I shake my head. I don’t want to do this again. I so desperately don’t want to do this again.
“No, don’t you shake your head at me. You listen. You listen, Noah Fisher, because you need to understand this. I love my son. I love all my sons. I love you until it breaks my heart in half, until it breaks everything in half. I would do anything for you. I would do anything for you, Noah, and don’t you tell me that I wouldn’t. Don’t you tell me how I feel. Don’t you tell me I don’t love you every bit as much as I love him.”
“You made him my responsibility,” I say, my voice trembling. “You made it my fault if anything fucked up. You left it up to me to take care of him. You said you felt helpless and scared, well... How the hell did you think I would feel?”
She sighs. “Noah, I never said I was proud of leaving. It wasn’t the noble thing to do. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing for me. Maybe not for you. But for me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is, Noah?” she demands, her voice harsh, her eyes flashing. “What the hell is your point?”
“I just want you to stop making excuses for yourself. There’s no excuse. There’s no fucking excuse.”
She sighs. “Noah, I loved him. Okay? I feel guilty enough for leaving him, for leaving you. But I loved him too. You act like you’re the only one.”
“I was the only one who showed it,” I say, shaking my head. “You don’t leave someone to die if you love them. You just don’t.”
“How do you know?” she screeches. She bites her lip, takes a deep breath. “For the love of god, Noah,” she continues, her voice trembling, “quit telling me what I feel. Quit telling me what is and isn’t possible. He was my baby. He was my son. I just wanted him to be happy. I wanted him to have everything he wanted.”
“He wanted you.”
Thursday, November 23, 2006
November 23rd: When the rain comes I sit home and pray, make it all numb, wish it away.
He’s going to work. His son just died, and he’s going to work.
I watch the car back down the drive. I wish he would stay. You’d think that he would stay. You’d think that this, at least, would be compelling enough to keep him home.
Obviously, you would be wrong.
Who am I to say anything, though? I wish I had somewhere to run away to. School is just as suffocating – his trophies in every trophy case, his name carved in every plaque. That’s your reward for Going Places – they ensure that you won’t be forgotten. But all I want to do is forget him. Here, I can see him everywhere – climbing up the stairs, huddled under blankets on my father’s chair, eating at the kitchen table. He’s left his mark over everything I own, everything I know. It’s all I see.
It’s not fair of him, to do this to us. To give us so much warning, and still die suddenly, still die when none of us were there. When I wasn’t there. We were supposed to have a tearful Hollywood goodbye, where we whispered all the words we were afraid to say and I cradled him in my arms as he finally surrendered to death. I was supposed to feel a tremendous emptiness the moment he was gone.
At least that is almost right. I feel tremendously empty. But it’s a void that’s been growing for a long, long time.
* * *
I pull open the refrigerator and stare blankly into the light. Three containers of white rice stare back at me. I should throw them away, but I don’t have the heart. I hardly have the heart to move.
I’m standing and staring when someone knocks on the back door. I glance over, through the windows. Eddy looks back at me. “Open up,” he shouts.
I sigh and slam the fridge door. I can’t deal with Eddy right now. I can’t deal with anyone. But I walk over and pull the door open. It seems like the only real choice. He’d stand out there all day if I didn’t let him in. That’s just how Eddy is.
“We’re watching it.” He barges right past me, not sparing me so much as a glance. “We’re watching it, and I don’t care where the hell you want me to shove it or what the hell you have to say. We’re watching the fucking movie.” He finally looks over his shoulder, already half way to the living room. “Follow me, idiot.”
“Eddy, he’s dead. You don’t always have to be funny. Sometimes you don’t have to be funny.”
Eddy sighs. “I’m not trying to be funny. Okay? For once in my life, I am being perfectly and totally serious. Oh, and this isn’t When Harry Met Sally. You haven’t seen this yet. I’ve been working on it for months.”
I stare at him for a moment. He’s insane. But I follow.
He pops the DVD into the player and waits. “You have no fucking idea how long it took me to make this thing. First I had to pirate like, a million DVDs, which is shameful of me and I am very sorry for. Then I had to monopolize your family photo trove, which was a lot harder, but you guys aren’t very observant. I put everything back once I’d copied it, and Jackson was good about letting me in while you were out crawling all over your girlfriend and the like – so yeah. It’s good. Trust me. It better be good. I shook heaven and earth to make it.”
“What the hell are you even talking about?”
He pushes play. “Watch.”
Jackson’s picture flashes onscreen – his hollow cheeks, thinning hair, sunken eyes. I pull my knees up to my chest and swallow the lump in my throat. “When he found out that he had cancer,” a voice in the background begins, “he decided to bring me here and gives me this big pink seashell and says to me, ‘Son, the answers are inside of this.’” The picture changes to Jackson running down the field at full speed, arms outstretched. It was one of my mother’s favorites. “And I’m all like, ‘What?’ And then I realize that the shell is empty and there’s no point to any of this, it’s all just a... A random lottery of meaningless tragedy in a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details – a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, those are good. The sky about ten minutes before it rains. A moment when your laughter becomes a cackle.”
The picture changes again. Jackson, surrounded by a gaggle of admiring aunts, his Coke held high above his head and the championship ring on his finger glittering in the sunlight. “If we shadows have offended, think but this; and all is mended that you have but slumbered here while these visions appear and this weak and idle theme no more yielding but a dream. Gentles – do not reprehend if you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck if we have unearned luck. Now to scrape the serpent’s tongue. We will make amends ere long else the Puck a liar call. So goodnight unto you all. Give me your hands if we be friends.”
Jackson staring at the camera, his eyes worried and wan, sitting on the bench at a game. They almost lost that game. Almost. He was the one who pulled it out, the one who led them to victory. It was always him. “I’d like to say a few words about a guy I know, a friend of mine. His name is Brian Piccolo, and he has the heart of a giant and that rare form of courage which allows him to kid himself and his opponent – cancer. He has a mental attitude which makes me proud to have a friend who spells out ‘courage,’ 24 hours a day, every day of his life.”
Holding onto that damn bike, grinning at me, his legs slightly blurry with the motion. “The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m not sure who the first person was who said that. Probably Shakespeare or maybe Sting. But at the moment, that sentence best explains my tragic flaw: my inability to change. I don’t think I’m alone in this. The more I get to know other people, the more I realize it’s kind of everyone’s flaw: staying exactly the same for as long as possible. Standing perfectly still just feels better somehow. And if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar. Because if you took that leap of faith, went outside the box, did something unexpected, who knows what other pain might be waiting out there?” Blowing out the candles on his birthday cake. He couldn’t be older than seven or eight. “Chances are it could be worse, so you maintain the status quo, choose the road already traveled, and it doesn’t seem that bad. Not as far as flaws go. You’re not a drug addict, you’re not killing anyone... Except maybe yourself a little. When we finally do change, I don’t think it happens like an earthquake or an explosion, where all of a sudden we’re another person. I think it’s smaller than that. The kind of thing that most people wouldn’t even notice unless they looked really really close, which thank god they never do. But you notice it. Inside of you, that change feels like a world of difference, and you hope that it is, that this is the person you get to be forever, that you never have to change again.”
When he first got sick, last year, the two of us dancing around his room, wild and stupid, in one of the moments between the first of nausea. I never knew there was a picture of this. I never knew anyone was watching us. “This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is ‘Andrea Chenier’, Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She’s saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died, saving her. ‘Look, the place that cradled me is burning.’ Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with hope, and that’ll change again. Listen... Listen... ‘I bring sorrow to those who love me.’ Oh, that single cello! ‘It was during this sorrow that love came to me.’ A voice filled with harmony. It says, ‘Live still, I am life. Heaven is your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god that comes down from the heavens, and makes the earth a heaven. I am love. I am love!’”
Me on his shoulders, running towards the camera, a football grasped firmly in my hands. “Once the game is over,” Eddy’s recorded voice says over the soft piano, “the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
The screen fades to black.
I stare straight ahead for a moment, not really looking at anything.
“I don’t know why I made it. I just thought of it, last summer, and... I finished it last night, after Julia called and told me about Jackson. The end kind of sucks, it was supposed to be longer, but --”
“No.” I bite my lip. “It was good.”
He meets my eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Really.”
* * *
Eddy leaves after lunch. I spend the afternoon on the couch, staring at the wall. My mother’s self help books sit forlorn on a bookcase. But I don’t want to know how to make the best of what I have. I just want back what I had before.
I finally turn on the television and turn up the volume. Canned laughter fills the room. Somehow, the house is still quiet.
I close my eyes and burrow into the couch. The sounds of strangers’ voices carry me off to sleep.
I almost don’t hear the doorbell. And even then, I almost don’t get up. Almost don’t walk over, answer the door. I almost don’t. But I do.
I stumble to the door and fumble for the key we leave on the top of the door frame. The doorbell rings again. “Just a minute. Jesus, get some patience.” I jam the key into the lock and twist. The door swings open.
Oh.
My.
God.
“Hi Noah,” she says quietly.
I close my eyes, press my palms against my eyelids. This isn’t right. This can’t be right.
“Noah?”
I open them again. There she is. On my porch. She looks thinner. Sadder. Our eyes meet. I shake my head and turn my gaze to the house across the street.
“Noah? Are you okay?”
I blink. “Yeah. Yeah, Mom. Come on in.”
I watch the car back down the drive. I wish he would stay. You’d think that he would stay. You’d think that this, at least, would be compelling enough to keep him home.
Obviously, you would be wrong.
Who am I to say anything, though? I wish I had somewhere to run away to. School is just as suffocating – his trophies in every trophy case, his name carved in every plaque. That’s your reward for Going Places – they ensure that you won’t be forgotten. But all I want to do is forget him. Here, I can see him everywhere – climbing up the stairs, huddled under blankets on my father’s chair, eating at the kitchen table. He’s left his mark over everything I own, everything I know. It’s all I see.
It’s not fair of him, to do this to us. To give us so much warning, and still die suddenly, still die when none of us were there. When I wasn’t there. We were supposed to have a tearful Hollywood goodbye, where we whispered all the words we were afraid to say and I cradled him in my arms as he finally surrendered to death. I was supposed to feel a tremendous emptiness the moment he was gone.
At least that is almost right. I feel tremendously empty. But it’s a void that’s been growing for a long, long time.
I pull open the refrigerator and stare blankly into the light. Three containers of white rice stare back at me. I should throw them away, but I don’t have the heart. I hardly have the heart to move.
I’m standing and staring when someone knocks on the back door. I glance over, through the windows. Eddy looks back at me. “Open up,” he shouts.
I sigh and slam the fridge door. I can’t deal with Eddy right now. I can’t deal with anyone. But I walk over and pull the door open. It seems like the only real choice. He’d stand out there all day if I didn’t let him in. That’s just how Eddy is.
“We’re watching it.” He barges right past me, not sparing me so much as a glance. “We’re watching it, and I don’t care where the hell you want me to shove it or what the hell you have to say. We’re watching the fucking movie.” He finally looks over his shoulder, already half way to the living room. “Follow me, idiot.”
“Eddy, he’s dead. You don’t always have to be funny. Sometimes you don’t have to be funny.”
Eddy sighs. “I’m not trying to be funny. Okay? For once in my life, I am being perfectly and totally serious. Oh, and this isn’t When Harry Met Sally. You haven’t seen this yet. I’ve been working on it for months.”
I stare at him for a moment. He’s insane. But I follow.
He pops the DVD into the player and waits. “You have no fucking idea how long it took me to make this thing. First I had to pirate like, a million DVDs, which is shameful of me and I am very sorry for. Then I had to monopolize your family photo trove, which was a lot harder, but you guys aren’t very observant. I put everything back once I’d copied it, and Jackson was good about letting me in while you were out crawling all over your girlfriend and the like – so yeah. It’s good. Trust me. It better be good. I shook heaven and earth to make it.”
“What the hell are you even talking about?”
He pushes play. “Watch.”
Jackson’s picture flashes onscreen – his hollow cheeks, thinning hair, sunken eyes. I pull my knees up to my chest and swallow the lump in my throat. “When he found out that he had cancer,” a voice in the background begins, “he decided to bring me here and gives me this big pink seashell and says to me, ‘Son, the answers are inside of this.’” The picture changes to Jackson running down the field at full speed, arms outstretched. It was one of my mother’s favorites. “And I’m all like, ‘What?’ And then I realize that the shell is empty and there’s no point to any of this, it’s all just a... A random lottery of meaningless tragedy in a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details – a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, those are good. The sky about ten minutes before it rains. A moment when your laughter becomes a cackle.”
The picture changes again. Jackson, surrounded by a gaggle of admiring aunts, his Coke held high above his head and the championship ring on his finger glittering in the sunlight. “If we shadows have offended, think but this; and all is mended that you have but slumbered here while these visions appear and this weak and idle theme no more yielding but a dream. Gentles – do not reprehend if you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck if we have unearned luck. Now to scrape the serpent’s tongue. We will make amends ere long else the Puck a liar call. So goodnight unto you all. Give me your hands if we be friends.”
Jackson staring at the camera, his eyes worried and wan, sitting on the bench at a game. They almost lost that game. Almost. He was the one who pulled it out, the one who led them to victory. It was always him. “I’d like to say a few words about a guy I know, a friend of mine. His name is Brian Piccolo, and he has the heart of a giant and that rare form of courage which allows him to kid himself and his opponent – cancer. He has a mental attitude which makes me proud to have a friend who spells out ‘courage,’ 24 hours a day, every day of his life.”
Holding onto that damn bike, grinning at me, his legs slightly blurry with the motion. “The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’m not sure who the first person was who said that. Probably Shakespeare or maybe Sting. But at the moment, that sentence best explains my tragic flaw: my inability to change. I don’t think I’m alone in this. The more I get to know other people, the more I realize it’s kind of everyone’s flaw: staying exactly the same for as long as possible. Standing perfectly still just feels better somehow. And if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar. Because if you took that leap of faith, went outside the box, did something unexpected, who knows what other pain might be waiting out there?” Blowing out the candles on his birthday cake. He couldn’t be older than seven or eight. “Chances are it could be worse, so you maintain the status quo, choose the road already traveled, and it doesn’t seem that bad. Not as far as flaws go. You’re not a drug addict, you’re not killing anyone... Except maybe yourself a little. When we finally do change, I don’t think it happens like an earthquake or an explosion, where all of a sudden we’re another person. I think it’s smaller than that. The kind of thing that most people wouldn’t even notice unless they looked really really close, which thank god they never do. But you notice it. Inside of you, that change feels like a world of difference, and you hope that it is, that this is the person you get to be forever, that you never have to change again.”
When he first got sick, last year, the two of us dancing around his room, wild and stupid, in one of the moments between the first of nausea. I never knew there was a picture of this. I never knew anyone was watching us. “This is my favorite aria. This is Maria Callas. This is ‘Andrea Chenier’, Umberto Giordano. This is Madeleine. She’s saying how during the French Revolution, a mob set fire to her house, and her mother died, saving her. ‘Look, the place that cradled me is burning.’ Can you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it, Joe? In come the strings, and it changes everything. The music fills with hope, and that’ll change again. Listen... Listen... ‘I bring sorrow to those who love me.’ Oh, that single cello! ‘It was during this sorrow that love came to me.’ A voice filled with harmony. It says, ‘Live still, I am life. Heaven is your eyes. Is everything around you just the blood and mud? I am divine. I am oblivion. I am the god that comes down from the heavens, and makes the earth a heaven. I am love. I am love!’”
Me on his shoulders, running towards the camera, a football grasped firmly in my hands. “Once the game is over,” Eddy’s recorded voice says over the soft piano, “the king and the pawn go back in the same box.”
The screen fades to black.
I stare straight ahead for a moment, not really looking at anything.
“I don’t know why I made it. I just thought of it, last summer, and... I finished it last night, after Julia called and told me about Jackson. The end kind of sucks, it was supposed to be longer, but --”
“No.” I bite my lip. “It was good.”
He meets my eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Really.”
Eddy leaves after lunch. I spend the afternoon on the couch, staring at the wall. My mother’s self help books sit forlorn on a bookcase. But I don’t want to know how to make the best of what I have. I just want back what I had before.
I finally turn on the television and turn up the volume. Canned laughter fills the room. Somehow, the house is still quiet.
I close my eyes and burrow into the couch. The sounds of strangers’ voices carry me off to sleep.
I almost don’t hear the doorbell. And even then, I almost don’t get up. Almost don’t walk over, answer the door. I almost don’t. But I do.
I stumble to the door and fumble for the key we leave on the top of the door frame. The doorbell rings again. “Just a minute. Jesus, get some patience.” I jam the key into the lock and twist. The door swings open.
Oh.
My.
God.
“Hi Noah,” she says quietly.
I close my eyes, press my palms against my eyelids. This isn’t right. This can’t be right.
“Noah?”
I open them again. There she is. On my porch. She looks thinner. Sadder. Our eyes meet. I shake my head and turn my gaze to the house across the street.
“Noah? Are you okay?”
I blink. “Yeah. Yeah, Mom. Come on in.”
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
November 22nd: Tell me all your thoughts on God
“Hello?”
“Come over.”
She sighs. “Noah, I can’t. I can’t just be there whenever you need me, whenever you call me.”
“Julia.”
“That’s not how it works, Noah. We can’t keep gluing us back together. There’s a point where it just doesn’t work anymore.”
“Julia.”
“It’s glue, Noah. It’s not a miracle. It’s fucking glue.”
“Julia.”
“What??”
“Come over.”
She’s crying. The gasping, shuddering exhalations are like thunder in my ear. Why won’t she just listen? Why won’t she just listen to me?
“Noah, I can’t. We can’t keep doing this. We can’t always do this. We can’t... We just can’t do this anymore, okay.” She hiccups. “Okay?”
“Julia, he’s dead.” My voice cracks. My chest aches. “Will you just come over?”
She doesn’t respond for a moment. Her breath is unbearably loud. “Noah, I... I’m so sorry. Noah, I’m so sorry.”
“Come over,” I repeat. I don’t know what else to say.
“Noah...”
“Julia, I need you. Isn’t that what you want? For me to need you?”
“Damn it, Noah.”
The words sting. How many times have I said that? How many times have I said it, so frustrated and heartbroken and alone, so helpless to give him life, always so fucking helpless?
“You can’t just snap your fingers and expect me to come.”
There’s a long stretch of silence.
“I’ll be there.”
Click.
* * *
I meet her on the front lawn. She slams the door of her father’s truck and runs. I grab her the second she’s close enough. She wraps her arms around my neck. “Oh my god, Noah...” she whispers. “Oh my god.”
I bury my nose in her hair and tighten my grip on her. I never want to let her go. “Don’t ever die,” I whisper back. “Please.”
* * *
She grips my arm as we walk inside. “What happened?” she asks softly, like maybe if she speaks too loudly the house will burst into flame.
“His spleen ruptured. They think he fainted. He was in bed anyway. Reading.” I stare at his door, glaringly white and closed. Something breaks inside me. I’m crying. I lean against the wall, dragging her with me, wrapping my arms around her again.
“Noah...” she whispers.
“And he was probably unconscious, you know, basically just sleeping or something, and his body went into shock, and he just... You know. Everything sort of shut down.”
You don’t expect someone who changed your life every time he breathed to just... Shut down. There’s supposed to be some world-stopping explosion, lots of colors and flashing lights. They said it didn’t take long, because his heart was so weak. His blood pressure dropped and he went unconscious and then he was dead. They said he probably had no idea. What if they were wrong? And does it really matter, if he knew in that instant that this was it, this was the final scene of his life? I wonder if it would have had any impact, to realize he was at the end of his life. Because, more than anything, it was just the end of his death.
“Noah, I’m so sorry,” she says quietly, laying one ear gently over my heart.
“So am I,” I whisper, my eyes still fixed on his door. Secretly, I expect it to swing open any second. It feels like he just took a nap. Like maybe he just forgot to get up. And he’ll remember soon. He has to remember soon.
* * *
She sits across from me, her legs crossed, sipping her coffee. “So this is his room.”
“It would have been.” I look around at the walls, the posters, the dreams. A fuzzy football lies forlorn on the floor. I reach out and grab it. Julia stares at me like she doesn’t know quite what to say.
“We all would have resented him, if he’d lived,” I confess, not looking at her. “Jackson, for being replaced. Me, for always having to be second best. My mother, for him not being who she wanted him to be. It wouldn’t have worked. It was the stupidest idea. We knew that. We believed that. And then he died, and we cried for days and weeks and months. And I wondered, how can you resent someone and with all your heart wish he’d never been and then cry when he isn’t? But he was my brother. He was always my brother.”
She doesn’t say anything. But I can feel her watching me.
“People are always saying that they didn’t love someone, they loved the idea of him. Or whatever. But he was never really more than an idea, you know? A fuzzy picture on a black and white screen. We never knew anything about him, so did we really love him? Or did we just like that he was alive? And that he was going to be alive for a long time? I think in some way, we just felt safe. Knowing that there was someone who would outlive us all. No matter what.”
“And then he didn’t,” she whispers.
“We built him up. We all wanted something from him. My mother wanted Jackson back. I wanted someone to disappoint them more than I do. Jackson wanted something to distract us from watching him die. I’m sure my father wanted something. Maybe just someone loud and boisterous to make him fade into the background.”
She nods. I bite my lip.
“He stuck it to all of us, I guess.”
“I guess he did,” she whispers.
I stare down at the football in my hands. I guess he did.
* * *
“I had this drum set, right? This shiny little piece of shit drum set, all my size and everything. I was seven, so everything was like, miniaturized. I loved that thing. I got it for Christmas, this totally ostentatious gift from my grandparents, and I made it my mission to learn the drums, right?”
She nods.
“So every morning, I would get up before school and practice. Every god forsaken morning. And on weekends, I would tiptoe through Jackson’s room while he was asleep and close the door and raise this huge, banging racket. For some reason I always felt like I couldn’t make noise while I was in his room, but as soon as I got in here it was all systems go. But that doesn’t mean anything. Anyway, he was seventeen, right? So of course he was stumbling in at three, four in the morning most Friday nights, after some wild post game partying.”
She forces a smile. She looks like she wants to cry. That makes two of us.
“He always wanted to kill me for playing that drum set. He’d come in here and holler at me like I was crucifying kittens or something totally heinous, screaming that he was going to throw my drum set out the window, all this shit. Well, my drums were my big thing, you know? So of course I told my mother that he was threatening me, and he would stop for that morning and go lay in his bed and moan till the afternoon, but the next weekend we’d go through the same thing, right?”
“Right.”
“So then, this totally random Friday, I come home and he pulls me aside and asks me to go test out his new football. Warm it up or something for the game. That was like, sacred to me. I couldn’t believe he was asking me to do it. So of course I get all enthusiastic, jump up and down, beg him to let me do it, and he tells me to go outside and use it for at least an hour. I can do whatever the hell I want, I just have to use it for at least an hour.”
She nods.
“So of course I went outside and did it. And then I came back in, and he was just sitting in the kitchen drinking soda. And so I tossed it to him and told him it was ready for him now and he said okay, thanks, and I went upstairs to do my first grade homework and then I was going to practice my drums before the game, right?”
“Right.”
“So I get all my homework done, and I go sprinting through his room to the rec room, all ready to play, and I just screech to a halt. Like, seriously. I’m running one second and the next I’m pretty much falling backward into his room like What the fuck?”
“What happened?”
“The bastard wrapped my drum set in fucking bubble wrap.”
She smiles. This time it looks like she means it. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. And so he finds me, about ten minutes later, sitting dumbfounded on the threshold between the rooms, and I look up at him all teary and go, ‘You ruined it!’”
“Aww!” She claps a hand to her mouth. I smile.
“And he’s like, ‘No I didn’t.’ And I say, ‘Of course you did, it won’t make a noise now, I can’t practice, you ruined it!’”
She nods.
“And he steps over me and walks over to the drum set and presses one finger against one of the cymbals. And the bubble wrap pops, right? And I just stare at him, while he looks at me like it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. So I’m like, ‘You did. You ruined it. I hate you.’”
“Aww.”
“I know. And he just grins at me and goes, ‘You pop all these bubbles, and it’ll make a sound again.’ And I’m still angry, all, ‘It’ll take hours to pop it all and it still won’t sound the same and I still hate you and I’m telling Mom.’”
“What’d he do?”
“He sat down and hit it with a drumstick. Hard. And three or four bubbles popped – the shit was layered, so you pressed in one point and a few would pop. And it was the weirdest snapping noise. It wasn’t very loud, but it was kind of great.”
She smiles.
“And so here he was, this huge football player slamming away at a drum set built for a seven year old kid that’s wrapped four inches thick in bubble wrap, and my mother shows up. She just stands behind me, staring at him like he can’t possibly be her son, and goes, ‘Jackson Andrew Fisher, I never... You fix this before you go to the game. And you owe me a dollar.’ That’s how we did things, when we were kids – if we were mean to each other, we owed her a dollar. It was a stupid system. Anyway, I look up at her and tug on her skirt and go, ‘No!’ And they both stare at me like I’m spouting nonsense. And I’m like, ‘I like it better now.’”
“Aww,” she says again, and smiles sadly. “That’s sweet.”
“She got rid of it. Put it in a cardboard box in the basement because I didn’t appreciate it enough. By the time I earned it back I was too big for it.” I stare down at my hands. “And I don’t think it ever really seemed weird to me until recently, like maybe the past two years, but I really did like it better.”
“Really?” She eyes me incredulously.
“Yeah.” I nod, biting my lip. “Really.”
* * *
“We would read the Dear Abby column whenever he would come home from college, right? I was maybe nine. I would always be the person writing in, and he would be Abby. He gave her the manliest voice, this barking raspy shit that made me pretty much pee my pants every time. He always said that he imagined Abby with emphysema and a penis.”
She laughs. “I can imagine him saying that.”
“He was really funny,” I say softly, swallowing the lump in my throat. “He was a really good guy.”
She nods, biting her lip.
“He’d always say that he was such an ass, that he didn’t know... You know. Why people had always been so good to him. But he was really charming.”
She nods.
“There’s a reason everybody loved him.”
“Noah...” She reaches for my hand. I shake my head and pull it away.
“He deserved to be loved.”
“I know.” She smiles at me like it’s killing her to even try.
“He meant everything to me.”
“I know.”
No, I want to say. You don’t.
No one could ever possibly know. No one.
Except maybe my mother. Maybe he meant as much to her. That was what drove her away. You can’t love someone that intensely for too long. Eventually, it drives you away.
* * *
“My mother told me to take care of him,” I whisper.
Julia shakes her head. “Noah, you went to school. You had to. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“She thought I would do a better job than she could, because I didn’t love him as much.”
“Noah...”
I shake my head. “No, I really didn’t. I didn’t love him much at all. We grew so far apart, you know? And Nathaniel, he just took a sledgehammer to what was left of our family. I hardly knew him. Neither did she, but she was his mother. So she loved him. I admired him, still. And I cared about him. And I loved him, because he was my brother. That was all.”
She bites her lip and looks down at the ground.
“But then she left, and he was my responsibility. And I had to get to know him, I had to take care of him, I had to learn to love him or I would have given up.”
She toys with a loose piece of the rug.
“Three months. That’s it. That’s how long it took. Three months of taking care of him, and I really loved him.”
She nods.
“More than she ever did.”
Julia looks up. “Is that really fair?” she asks softly.
“I knew him,” I say quietly, shrugging. “And I loved him anyway. I really, really loved him.”
“I know,” she whispers.
“He wasn’t good. She always wanted him to be so good. But he wasn’t. He was smart, and funny, and charismatic, and helpful, and he cared, but he wasn’t good. He was never good.”
She nods.
“She loved him in spite of that. I loved him because of it.”
She sighs.
“She loved him first. I loved him more.”
I don’t know why that’s so important. It just is.
* * *
It’s five o’clock. The sun is rising. Julia is leaning against one of the crib’s legs, running her fingers over the carved detail. I’m still clutching at the football. I don’t want to let it go.
“I should go home,” she whispers.
I nod.
“I told my parents what happened, but I doubt they expected me to be out till dawn.”
I nod.
“I love you, Noah. You know that.”
I nod again.
“I wish I didn’t have to go.”
Then stay.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
* * *
“Noah.”
I look up. My father is standing in the doorway, his eyes bloodshot. His voice is hoarse.
“We should talk about this.” He says it like he read it somewhere, this radical idea that when someone in your family dies, you should probably discuss that fact. “About Jackson.”
“Dad, please.” I’m too tired for this. I’m so incredibly tired.
He looks hurt. “Don’t you think we should talk?”
I sigh. “Dad, what do we even have to talk about?”
“What do you mean?”
I pause for a moment before I answer. Because I know I shouldn’t say it. But I’m too tired not to. “Dad, you don’t even know him.”
“Noah, that’s not fair.”
He sounds like he’s reading off a cue card. He sounds like that all the time. “Name all the foods he’s eaten in the past month. What kind of TV shows does he like to watch? What magazine subscriptions does he have? He always had the same blanket on top – which one was it? What was his favorite color? Band? Pair of socks? What size were his shoes? His gloves?”
My father stares at me helplessly.
“What color were his eyes, Dad?” I demand.
He shakes his head. “Noah...”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“They were green,” he says gruffly. “What was his first word?”
I shake my head. That’s not fair.
“What was it, Noah? Do you know?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “What?”
“Dad.” His lips tighten. He clears his throat. “It was ‘Dad’.”
“Come over.”
She sighs. “Noah, I can’t. I can’t just be there whenever you need me, whenever you call me.”
“Julia.”
“That’s not how it works, Noah. We can’t keep gluing us back together. There’s a point where it just doesn’t work anymore.”
“Julia.”
“It’s glue, Noah. It’s not a miracle. It’s fucking glue.”
“Julia.”
“What??”
“Come over.”
She’s crying. The gasping, shuddering exhalations are like thunder in my ear. Why won’t she just listen? Why won’t she just listen to me?
“Noah, I can’t. We can’t keep doing this. We can’t always do this. We can’t... We just can’t do this anymore, okay.” She hiccups. “Okay?”
“Julia, he’s dead.” My voice cracks. My chest aches. “Will you just come over?”
She doesn’t respond for a moment. Her breath is unbearably loud. “Noah, I... I’m so sorry. Noah, I’m so sorry.”
“Come over,” I repeat. I don’t know what else to say.
“Noah...”
“Julia, I need you. Isn’t that what you want? For me to need you?”
“Damn it, Noah.”
The words sting. How many times have I said that? How many times have I said it, so frustrated and heartbroken and alone, so helpless to give him life, always so fucking helpless?
“You can’t just snap your fingers and expect me to come.”
There’s a long stretch of silence.
“I’ll be there.”
Click.
I meet her on the front lawn. She slams the door of her father’s truck and runs. I grab her the second she’s close enough. She wraps her arms around my neck. “Oh my god, Noah...” she whispers. “Oh my god.”
I bury my nose in her hair and tighten my grip on her. I never want to let her go. “Don’t ever die,” I whisper back. “Please.”
She grips my arm as we walk inside. “What happened?” she asks softly, like maybe if she speaks too loudly the house will burst into flame.
“His spleen ruptured. They think he fainted. He was in bed anyway. Reading.” I stare at his door, glaringly white and closed. Something breaks inside me. I’m crying. I lean against the wall, dragging her with me, wrapping my arms around her again.
“Noah...” she whispers.
“And he was probably unconscious, you know, basically just sleeping or something, and his body went into shock, and he just... You know. Everything sort of shut down.”
You don’t expect someone who changed your life every time he breathed to just... Shut down. There’s supposed to be some world-stopping explosion, lots of colors and flashing lights. They said it didn’t take long, because his heart was so weak. His blood pressure dropped and he went unconscious and then he was dead. They said he probably had no idea. What if they were wrong? And does it really matter, if he knew in that instant that this was it, this was the final scene of his life? I wonder if it would have had any impact, to realize he was at the end of his life. Because, more than anything, it was just the end of his death.
“Noah, I’m so sorry,” she says quietly, laying one ear gently over my heart.
“So am I,” I whisper, my eyes still fixed on his door. Secretly, I expect it to swing open any second. It feels like he just took a nap. Like maybe he just forgot to get up. And he’ll remember soon. He has to remember soon.
She sits across from me, her legs crossed, sipping her coffee. “So this is his room.”
“It would have been.” I look around at the walls, the posters, the dreams. A fuzzy football lies forlorn on the floor. I reach out and grab it. Julia stares at me like she doesn’t know quite what to say.
“We all would have resented him, if he’d lived,” I confess, not looking at her. “Jackson, for being replaced. Me, for always having to be second best. My mother, for him not being who she wanted him to be. It wouldn’t have worked. It was the stupidest idea. We knew that. We believed that. And then he died, and we cried for days and weeks and months. And I wondered, how can you resent someone and with all your heart wish he’d never been and then cry when he isn’t? But he was my brother. He was always my brother.”
She doesn’t say anything. But I can feel her watching me.
“People are always saying that they didn’t love someone, they loved the idea of him. Or whatever. But he was never really more than an idea, you know? A fuzzy picture on a black and white screen. We never knew anything about him, so did we really love him? Or did we just like that he was alive? And that he was going to be alive for a long time? I think in some way, we just felt safe. Knowing that there was someone who would outlive us all. No matter what.”
“And then he didn’t,” she whispers.
“We built him up. We all wanted something from him. My mother wanted Jackson back. I wanted someone to disappoint them more than I do. Jackson wanted something to distract us from watching him die. I’m sure my father wanted something. Maybe just someone loud and boisterous to make him fade into the background.”
She nods. I bite my lip.
“He stuck it to all of us, I guess.”
“I guess he did,” she whispers.
I stare down at the football in my hands. I guess he did.
“I had this drum set, right? This shiny little piece of shit drum set, all my size and everything. I was seven, so everything was like, miniaturized. I loved that thing. I got it for Christmas, this totally ostentatious gift from my grandparents, and I made it my mission to learn the drums, right?”
She nods.
“So every morning, I would get up before school and practice. Every god forsaken morning. And on weekends, I would tiptoe through Jackson’s room while he was asleep and close the door and raise this huge, banging racket. For some reason I always felt like I couldn’t make noise while I was in his room, but as soon as I got in here it was all systems go. But that doesn’t mean anything. Anyway, he was seventeen, right? So of course he was stumbling in at three, four in the morning most Friday nights, after some wild post game partying.”
She forces a smile. She looks like she wants to cry. That makes two of us.
“He always wanted to kill me for playing that drum set. He’d come in here and holler at me like I was crucifying kittens or something totally heinous, screaming that he was going to throw my drum set out the window, all this shit. Well, my drums were my big thing, you know? So of course I told my mother that he was threatening me, and he would stop for that morning and go lay in his bed and moan till the afternoon, but the next weekend we’d go through the same thing, right?”
“Right.”
“So then, this totally random Friday, I come home and he pulls me aside and asks me to go test out his new football. Warm it up or something for the game. That was like, sacred to me. I couldn’t believe he was asking me to do it. So of course I get all enthusiastic, jump up and down, beg him to let me do it, and he tells me to go outside and use it for at least an hour. I can do whatever the hell I want, I just have to use it for at least an hour.”
She nods.
“So of course I went outside and did it. And then I came back in, and he was just sitting in the kitchen drinking soda. And so I tossed it to him and told him it was ready for him now and he said okay, thanks, and I went upstairs to do my first grade homework and then I was going to practice my drums before the game, right?”
“Right.”
“So I get all my homework done, and I go sprinting through his room to the rec room, all ready to play, and I just screech to a halt. Like, seriously. I’m running one second and the next I’m pretty much falling backward into his room like What the fuck?”
“What happened?”
“The bastard wrapped my drum set in fucking bubble wrap.”
She smiles. This time it looks like she means it. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. And so he finds me, about ten minutes later, sitting dumbfounded on the threshold between the rooms, and I look up at him all teary and go, ‘You ruined it!’”
“Aww!” She claps a hand to her mouth. I smile.
“And he’s like, ‘No I didn’t.’ And I say, ‘Of course you did, it won’t make a noise now, I can’t practice, you ruined it!’”
She nods.
“And he steps over me and walks over to the drum set and presses one finger against one of the cymbals. And the bubble wrap pops, right? And I just stare at him, while he looks at me like it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. So I’m like, ‘You did. You ruined it. I hate you.’”
“Aww.”
“I know. And he just grins at me and goes, ‘You pop all these bubbles, and it’ll make a sound again.’ And I’m still angry, all, ‘It’ll take hours to pop it all and it still won’t sound the same and I still hate you and I’m telling Mom.’”
“What’d he do?”
“He sat down and hit it with a drumstick. Hard. And three or four bubbles popped – the shit was layered, so you pressed in one point and a few would pop. And it was the weirdest snapping noise. It wasn’t very loud, but it was kind of great.”
She smiles.
“And so here he was, this huge football player slamming away at a drum set built for a seven year old kid that’s wrapped four inches thick in bubble wrap, and my mother shows up. She just stands behind me, staring at him like he can’t possibly be her son, and goes, ‘Jackson Andrew Fisher, I never... You fix this before you go to the game. And you owe me a dollar.’ That’s how we did things, when we were kids – if we were mean to each other, we owed her a dollar. It was a stupid system. Anyway, I look up at her and tug on her skirt and go, ‘No!’ And they both stare at me like I’m spouting nonsense. And I’m like, ‘I like it better now.’”
“Aww,” she says again, and smiles sadly. “That’s sweet.”
“She got rid of it. Put it in a cardboard box in the basement because I didn’t appreciate it enough. By the time I earned it back I was too big for it.” I stare down at my hands. “And I don’t think it ever really seemed weird to me until recently, like maybe the past two years, but I really did like it better.”
“Really?” She eyes me incredulously.
“Yeah.” I nod, biting my lip. “Really.”
“We would read the Dear Abby column whenever he would come home from college, right? I was maybe nine. I would always be the person writing in, and he would be Abby. He gave her the manliest voice, this barking raspy shit that made me pretty much pee my pants every time. He always said that he imagined Abby with emphysema and a penis.”
She laughs. “I can imagine him saying that.”
“He was really funny,” I say softly, swallowing the lump in my throat. “He was a really good guy.”
She nods, biting her lip.
“He’d always say that he was such an ass, that he didn’t know... You know. Why people had always been so good to him. But he was really charming.”
She nods.
“There’s a reason everybody loved him.”
“Noah...” She reaches for my hand. I shake my head and pull it away.
“He deserved to be loved.”
“I know.” She smiles at me like it’s killing her to even try.
“He meant everything to me.”
“I know.”
No, I want to say. You don’t.
No one could ever possibly know. No one.
Except maybe my mother. Maybe he meant as much to her. That was what drove her away. You can’t love someone that intensely for too long. Eventually, it drives you away.
“My mother told me to take care of him,” I whisper.
Julia shakes her head. “Noah, you went to school. You had to. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“She thought I would do a better job than she could, because I didn’t love him as much.”
“Noah...”
I shake my head. “No, I really didn’t. I didn’t love him much at all. We grew so far apart, you know? And Nathaniel, he just took a sledgehammer to what was left of our family. I hardly knew him. Neither did she, but she was his mother. So she loved him. I admired him, still. And I cared about him. And I loved him, because he was my brother. That was all.”
She bites her lip and looks down at the ground.
“But then she left, and he was my responsibility. And I had to get to know him, I had to take care of him, I had to learn to love him or I would have given up.”
She toys with a loose piece of the rug.
“Three months. That’s it. That’s how long it took. Three months of taking care of him, and I really loved him.”
She nods.
“More than she ever did.”
Julia looks up. “Is that really fair?” she asks softly.
“I knew him,” I say quietly, shrugging. “And I loved him anyway. I really, really loved him.”
“I know,” she whispers.
“He wasn’t good. She always wanted him to be so good. But he wasn’t. He was smart, and funny, and charismatic, and helpful, and he cared, but he wasn’t good. He was never good.”
She nods.
“She loved him in spite of that. I loved him because of it.”
She sighs.
“She loved him first. I loved him more.”
I don’t know why that’s so important. It just is.
It’s five o’clock. The sun is rising. Julia is leaning against one of the crib’s legs, running her fingers over the carved detail. I’m still clutching at the football. I don’t want to let it go.
“I should go home,” she whispers.
I nod.
“I told my parents what happened, but I doubt they expected me to be out till dawn.”
I nod.
“I love you, Noah. You know that.”
I nod again.
“I wish I didn’t have to go.”
Then stay.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
“Noah.”
I look up. My father is standing in the doorway, his eyes bloodshot. His voice is hoarse.
“We should talk about this.” He says it like he read it somewhere, this radical idea that when someone in your family dies, you should probably discuss that fact. “About Jackson.”
“Dad, please.” I’m too tired for this. I’m so incredibly tired.
He looks hurt. “Don’t you think we should talk?”
I sigh. “Dad, what do we even have to talk about?”
“What do you mean?”
I pause for a moment before I answer. Because I know I shouldn’t say it. But I’m too tired not to. “Dad, you don’t even know him.”
“Noah, that’s not fair.”
He sounds like he’s reading off a cue card. He sounds like that all the time. “Name all the foods he’s eaten in the past month. What kind of TV shows does he like to watch? What magazine subscriptions does he have? He always had the same blanket on top – which one was it? What was his favorite color? Band? Pair of socks? What size were his shoes? His gloves?”
My father stares at me helplessly.
“What color were his eyes, Dad?” I demand.
He shakes his head. “Noah...”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“They were green,” he says gruffly. “What was his first word?”
I shake my head. That’s not fair.
“What was it, Noah? Do you know?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “What?”
“Dad.” His lips tighten. He clears his throat. “It was ‘Dad’.”
Monday, November 20, 2006
November 20th: I was stuck in between you and a hard place -- we won't talk about the hard place.
I push open the door. “I’m home. And I brought a movie. And we’re going to have fun if it...” I hesitate. “We’re going to have crazy amounts of fun. You’re in, right?”
There’s no response. He’s not at the table, not in the dining room. I stick my head into his room. There’s a shadowy figure burrowed under a pile of blankets, painful shrieking sobs wracking his entire body. I walk over and crouch down next to the bed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask softly. “Jackson? What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t say anything. I reach up and fish beneath the blankets for his hand. He grabs me. His hands are always clammy, but today it’s worse. This is the worst he’s been in awhile.
“Jackson? You need anything?”
He takes in a deep breath. “Don’t leave me,” he whispers. He clutches my hand like it’s all he has, like it’s his only connection to life.
“Shhh...” I stand up, still holding his hands, and pull back his blankets. He gasps. He’s pale, paler than ever, too pale to really look alive. I push him carefully to one side of the bed and crawl in next to him. I yank the blankets up over our heads. We’re enclosed in darkness. His breath is excruciatingly hot.
“You were so annoying when we were kids,” he whispers. “When did you change?”
I laugh softly. “I’m still annoying.” I pull the blankets down a bit, to our necks. The cool air feels like ice on my skin. It’s perfect. I roll over to face him. He’s smiling faintly, his eyes not quite connecting with mine.
“You’ve been really good about this. About me being sick.”
“No I haven’t. Trust me.” I picture Julia, always somehow disappointed in me, always wondering what’s wrong.
“I don’t deserve you, Noah,” he says softly. “I didn’t care about anyone when I was your age. I deserve a brother who feels the same way I did. I deserve a brother who shows me just how screwed up and aggravating I was.”
I shake my head. “You already know how screwed up and aggravating you were.”
He sighs. “I guess you’re right. I learned my lesson a long time ago. And I guess that’s why... I just... I know that on some level I deserve something bad, but... I don’t deserve this, Noah. Nobody deserves this sort of death.”
“Does it hurt?” It’s the sort of primitive question you’re supposed to grow out of, but secretly no one ever does.
“All the time,” he whispers. “It hurts all the time.”
We’re quiet for a long time after that, him shivering and me sweating. Silently, I wonder how many more of these conversations we’ll get to have.
* * *
He’s exhausting to be with. Even when he’s sleeping. I don’t know how to be around him anymore. Looking at him makes you feel like you can’t talk about anything trivial. And looking at him reminds you that most things are trivial. Television, Christmas, projects – all the things we turn into a big deal that, in the end, don’t matter.
I’m sick of being reminded. I want to forget.
* * *
“Hello?”
“You’re coming over.”
I groan. “Eddy, it’s like, eight o’clock and I haven’t even thought about starting my homework.”
“You’re coming over, bitch. Homework be damned.”
I roll my eyes. “I can’t.”
“You don’t want me to come over there. Trust me.”
“Eddy, seriously, I can’t blow off another night of schoolwork. I’m so fucking behind. You have no idea.”
He sighs. “Alright. Then expect me in twenty minutes.”
“Eddy, do not come over.”
He hangs up.
People are so frustrating sometimes.
* * *
Eighteen minutes later, the doorbell rings. I sigh. Jackson stirs in his room, mumbling groggily. I tell him to go back to sleep.
I open the door. Eddy proudly holds up a bottle of vodka and grins devilishly. “For one night, you are not going to mope. Got it? You are going to dance around and break things, sure, but you’re not going to mope.”
I stare at him. “This is a bad idea.”
“How is it a bad idea? You’re tense. You need to untense. I have an untensing solution.”
“First of all, untense isn’t even a word, and second of all...”
“What? You don’t drink? Because I know you, Noah, and --”
“Eddy, it’s a Tuesday.”
He rolls his eyes. “Tuesday schmooze-day. Ooh, or Tuesday booze-day. That works even better. Let me in, Fisher. It’s fucking snowing.”
I sigh and step aside, slamming the door behind him. I pull Jackson’s door shut as we walk by.
“Coffee mugs, Noah. You need a coffee mug of this stuff.”
I stare at him. “First of all, no, and second of all... I don’t even know. Wait, are you drinking?”
He shakes his head. “I drove here. Driving drunk in the snow is probably not the best idea.”
“Because driving drunk not in the snow totally is,” I mutter, pulling a coffee mug out of the cabinet.
He rolls his eyes. “Shut up and drink. You’re being way too rational.”
“Rationality is usually considered a positive trait,” I remind him.
He sighs. “Drink..”
* * *
“Who the hell is that?”
I stare at my mug. I think it has Santa on it. Santa looks weird, when you think about it. There’s something really creepy about a fat bald man squeezing his way into your house once a year. People shouldn’t tell children such stories. It’s almost as bad as those seven horny midgets who made off with Snow White.
I look up at him. “What?”
He raises his eyebrows. “The doorbell just rang. Crap, dude, go answer your door.”
“Alright.” I stand quickly, sway, and sit back down. I try again, this time with better results. I stumble to the door and pull it open.
“Oh. Hi.”
Julia raises an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”
“I’m drunk,” I say candidly.
She nods. “Great. Just what I needed. Can I come in? It’s kind of snowy.”
I nod enthusiastically. “Eddy’s here. You and Eddy never talk anymore. You should talk to Eddy. He thinks you don’t like him but I think that’s not true. That’s not true, right?”
She closes her eyes and sighs. “How about I just come in?”
“Okay.”
* * *
“Did you just knock something over?” Jackson blinks rapidly and raises an eyebrow. “It sounded like something broke.”
I hold up a piece of Santa’s ceramic suit. “I dropped my mug.”
Jackson stares at me. “Noah, get a towel or something. You’re going to cut yourself.” He eyes the bottle of vodka on the table. “Are you drunk? Seriously? It’s Tuesday.”
“Tuesday booze-day,” I sing-song. He raises his eyebrows.
Julia rolls her eyes. “Noah, sit down. I’ll clean that up.”
Eddy pulls open the laundry nook and grabs a broom and dustpan. “Here.” He shoves them at Julia, avoiding her eyes.
“You got him drunk?” she hisses. I guess she thinks I can’t hear. Or doesn’t care if I do. “You are so stupid. God almighty, Eddy, do you actually have any functioning brain cells?”
“Julia...” Jackson says warningly. Because this is totally his business.
“No, she’s right. I am incomprehensibly dull. Whereas she is obviously very in control of everything she says and does. Because she is the perfect girlfriend – actually, she is the perfect person.” He pauses, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Oh my god, you’re Jesus, aren’t you?”
Jackson sighs and sits down on the floor in the dining room, watching quietly. I stumble over and sit next to him. Eddy and Julia bicker.
“You should be in bed. You’re sick,” I say matter-of-factly.
He nods. “I probably should. It’s kind of hard to sleep with all the noise, though.” He gestures toward Julia and Eddy, who are sweeping angrily. I’m not sure how one goes about sweeping angrily, but they’re doing a good job.
“Julia’s being a bitch,” I pronounce. She looks over at the mention of her name. “No, it’s okay. Because Eddy is pretty stupid, too. He should have known better than to get me drunk. I’m not a very good drunk. I don’t deal well with having lowered inhibitions. Evidently I say exactly what I’m thinking.”
They’re both staring at me like I have two heads. Which is a weird expression. I think if you had two heads, people would be more concerned than aghast. Or they would run. They probably wouldn’t just stare at you with their mouths open like you’ve just said something very shocking. So really, I guess that’s what they’re doing. Staring at me like I’ve just said something very shocking.
Nobody says anything, so I think I should keep talking. The silence is too awkward. “Julia, you really should try not to be so self-absorbed. People aren’t usually thinking about you. It’s not your fault. You should just stop thinking that they are. And you should really call before you come over, because it could have been a bad time. Actually, I think this is a bad time. Is this a bad time?” I mull it over for a second. I can’t decide.
She’s stopped sweeping. Her lower lip trembles a little bit.
“Anyway, it’s not all you. Eddy is admittedly not being very smart tonight. He did in fact call ahead, but I told him not to come over and he came anyway. He probably wanted to help, but really he just made me drunk and I’m not a very good drunk. So he probably made things not very good. He also tries to be funny a lot. Even when he’s not being very funny. You should stop that.”
Jackson puts a hand on my shoulder. “That’s enough, Noah,” he says gently.
But he has to take his turn, too. “How do you know what enough is? You obviously don’t like moderation much. Because if you liked moderation you wouldn’t have slept with every vagina you encountered in college. And you wouldn’t have used needles because people who use drugs in moderation usually don’t use things that require needles. So you probably know relatively nothing about moderation. Or when it’s enough. So I’ll decide when it’s enough.”
“You’re a weird drunk, dude,” Eddy says quietly. It doesn’t sound like a compliment.
“I think you’re all very weird, too,” I reply. “Eddy, do you have any friends besides me? Because you’re always around. And I like having you around some of the time, but not all of the time. Especially when you come over and get me drunk. I probably don’t need to be drunk. Being drunk does not suit me.”
He stares at me like he can’t decide what the hell he wants to say.
“I think I’m going to throw up.”
That’s the last thing I say for awhile.
* * *
My father gets home at midnight. Jackson is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, making idle conversation as I kneel in front of the toilet. Eddy and Julia went home. Eddy took his vodka with him. That’s probably a good thing. I wish I’d gotten some of my homework done. This was a pretty horrible booze-day.
He sticks his head into the bathroom. “Jackson?”
“Noah,” Jackson says helpfully. He’s tired, too. Even though he sleeps all the time. I wonder if it’s really possible to be tired when you sleep all the time.
My father stares at me for a moment. I wave. “Are you sick?”
“No, I’m bulimic.” I laugh. No one else does.
“We were watching TV and he felt nauseous. He’ll probably be fine. I bet he just ate something gross for dinner,” Jackson says with a nod. “He puts peanut butter on everything. It can’t possible be good for him.”
My father rolls his eyes. “Alright. Get to bed soon, Noah, okay? Oh, and did you miss school this morning? I got a call at work.”
“You know the office always screws up, Dad. They stuck me with ten absences my senior year, remember?” Jackson points out. It’s probably good that he’s talking. I probably shouldn’t do any talking.
My father nods and leaves the room, closing the door behind me. Jackson stares at me for a second.
“You really aren’t good drunk,” he mutters.
I cock my head to the side. Not a good move. The room spins for a minute, then settles down. “I think I just felt my brain slide to the back of my skull. Is that bad?”
He rolls his eyes. “No, Noah, it’s fucking brilliant.”
“Okay.”
He looks like he wants to kill me. Being annoyed makes him look stronger.
“You think you’re done?”
I consider it for a moment. “Probably.”
“Alright. I’m going to bed.”
“I think I’ll sleep in the bathtub,” I respond.
He stares at me. “I always thought you were the smart one,” he says, cracking the tiniest smile.
He’s gone before I can think of a response.
* * *
My head is pounding. It feels like someone’s hitting me with a hammer. Hard. With a really really heavy hammer.
I force my eyes open. Bad idea. I shut them again. Is this even my bed? I sit up slowly and bang my head on something. Ow. Because I really needed that. I lay back down and reach up above my head. What the hell? Is that a faucet? Oh, shit, I’m in the bathtub.
“Mother of god,” I mutter, rubbing my forehead. Ow.
I scoot further down the tub and try sitting up again. I cover my eyes and open them cautiously. The sun shouldn’t be allowed to be this bright. What time is it, anyway? I glance at my watch. Eight thirty. Oh, brilliant. Julia’s going to kill me. I wonder if she’d buy the excuse that I don’t have an alarm clock in my bathtub. Although really, who would make up an excuse that dumb?
After a few failed tries, I manage to stand up and climb out of the tub. I stumble out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. Jackson is sipping coffee at the table, looking miserable.
“You’re up early.”
I stare at him. “It is a weekday, right? Did you put me in the bathtub?”
He laughs to himself. “Oh yeah, Noah, my skinny ass carried your gigantic growth-spurting very asleep self down the stairs, into the bathroom, and dropped you in the bathtub. Without waking you up. And I didn’t break my back.”
“Huh.” I squint. Has this house always been this bright? It hurts my eyes even with the shades drawn.
He stares at me. “Oh god, Noah, really. You were that plastered? You don’t remember how the hell you ended up in a bathtub?”
“Dude, I spent the afternoon in bed with you. That sounds wrong. But I did. How the hell did I get drunk?”
He rolls his eyes. “Eddy brought some vodka over. And made you drink out of a fucking mug. Which you broke, by the way. You said positively horrible things to him, me, and Julia. And then you fell asleep in the bathtub, after I watched you throw up way too many times and explained away your sudden illness to our father.”
I blink rapidly. “Did you just make that up?”
“Yes, Noah. I’m that creative and deranged. I’ve actually been sitting here all morning coming up with these ideas. I called your school and told them you’d be coming in late. You’re welcome.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I have a hangover.”
“Wow, you’re perceptive. Go back to bed. I would recommend the couch or something this time. Something cushy.”
I sigh. “Yeah. Okay. What time am I supposed to go in?”
“After physics.”
I sigh. “Just in time for Psychology. Brilliant.” I stagger into the living room and collapse onto the couch. If I don’t die soon, I’ll be surprised.
* * *
“Where were you?”
I groan and lay my head on the table. “Unhhh...”
“Hungover?”
I nod miserably. “My brother says it’s your fault. Damn it, Eddy. There are people in this world who should get drunk on Tuesdays and then there are people who shouldn’t. Do I look like one of the ones who should? Really?”
He pats my head patronizingly. “There, there. Trust me, I realize that it was a bad idea. If you promise to forgive me my stupidity, I promise not to mention what you said to me.”
“Shit, what did I say?” I look up. Damn the sun. I shield my eyes. It doesn’t help much.
“You don’t want to know.” He takes a bite of his sandwich. I can smell the salami. My stomach turns.
“Ugh. What about Julia?”
“You called her a bitch.” I hate the sound of his chewing. “Among other things. Selfish. Et cetera. You really didn’t fare too well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you downright wasted before. Oh, and you told Jackson he has no sense of moderation and that’s why he’s sick and he has no right to lecture you. So yeah. Really not your night.”
I groan. “This is the worst morning after ever.”
“Just one bit of advice?”
I sigh. “What?”
“When I show up at your door in the future carrying excessive amounts of alcohol, kick me in the nuts and slam the door in my face.”
“Trust me, you don’t have to worry.” I massage my temples. “Oh, by the way, I totally slept in my bathtub.”
He laughs. “Are you serious? That’s just kind of pathetic.”
I sigh. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
* * *
“Julia, I’m sorry.”
She stares at me stonily and slams the door shut.
I run to the other side of the car and hop in the driver’s seat. “Seriously. I shouldn’t have been drinking, and I shouldn’t have said anything to you, and I should have given you a ride this morning, and I am a horrible person and I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head and stares out the window. I sigh.
Five minutes later, as we’re turning in to her development, she clears her throat. “You are a horrible, horrible person.”
“I know.”
“I’m so sick of being treated like the scum of the earth.”
“I know.”
“You make me want to cry. All the time. You make me feel insecure and stupid and needy and I’m so fucking sick of it, Noah Fisher. I’m sick of you making me feel horrible all the time.”
“I know.”
“And I want to forgive you, because I know with your brother things are hard, but how many times can you really expect me to set things okay? Things suck, Noah. And I can’t blame you, and that frustrates me. Stop frustrating me. You’re so fucking frustrating, all the fucking time!” Her voice is high-pitched, whiny. But it’s not her fault. I’d be whiny, too.
“I know.”
She sighs as we pull into her driveway. “I’ll call you tonight, probably. Okay? We need to talk. I need you to talk. I can’t do all the talking all the time. It’s too much, Noah. I can’t fucking do this all the time.”
“I know.”
She opens her door and hops out of the car, then looks back at me for a moment. “Noah...”
“What?”
“Be okay,” she whispers, and slams the door.
* * *
“Jackson, I’m going to kill you for making me go. For the love of god, I had the worst day.” I slam my backpack down on the table and sigh.
There’s no response. I roll my eyes and wander through the dining room. “Seriously. Julia may or may not break up with me, I’m pretty sure Eddy is upset and just not saying anything, and salami? Worst shit ever. Fucking salami. It smells like the devil in sliced sausage form.”
I stick my head into his room. He’s huddled under his blankets, as usual, a magazine lying on the floor by the bed. “Honestly. Do I not even get a hi? Are you asleep? Wake the fuck up. You’re always asleep.”
I stand there for a minute. A long, long minute. Still there’s no response. I walk over to the bed and shake him. “Dude, get up. You’re so lazy.”
Once again, he doesn’t respond. I bite my lip. “Jackson? Jackson?”
I pull the blankets back. He’s curled up in a ball, hugging his knees to his chest, his body eerily still.
“Jackson?” I shove two fingers against his neck. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I turn him over, grab his hands. He’s cold. Colder than anything. I try to pull them away from his legs, but they won’t budge. They won’t fucking budge. “Damn it, Jackson!” I yank at his hands. I can’t move them. He is the weakest person I know, the weakest person I have ever met, but I can’t get him to move.
I shake my head rapidly, pull my phone out of my pocket. My finger shaking, I dial 911.
“Point Vale 911, what is your emergency?”
I gasp. “My brother. My brother. He won’t freaking move. He’s really sick. He’s really sick, and he won’t freaking move.”
“Sir, I need you to stay on the line. Have you checked his breathing, sir?”
“He’s not fucking breathing. He doesn’t have a pulse. And he won’t move. I tried...” I gasp. “He’s stiff. I think he’s dead. He won’t freaking move.”
The operator mumbles something about calling an ambulance, stay on the line, keep talking. I have no idea what to talk about. I think he’s dead. Isn’t that enough?
* * *
“Ruptured spleen...”
“...AIDS...”
“Oh, that explains ... lymphoma ... late stages....”
“He bled out?”
“... realize it ... think he fainted ... into shock ...”
Shock.
That’s the word.
* * *
He had at least a week left. At least a week. Maybe two, three, four. He had weeks left. We had good-byes left. Touching conversations, stupid conversations, thoughtful conversations. We had things to say. We had at least a week left to say them.
I would give anything for that promised week. I would give anything to erase today.
We have had ten years to adjust to this. But it still came without warning. Ten long years of sitting on the tracks, still surprised when the train came hurtling toward us.
It crushed us without a second thought.
* * *
My father is crying at the kitchen table. I’m crying in Jackson’s bedroom. We can’t even grieve together. It would be embarrassing. We don’t know each other well enough.
I sit on the floor and rock back and forth. My thoughts are swimming. How can he be this stupid? He belongs with me. He fucking belongs with me. How can someone be right there and then just... Disappear? How is that possible? How is that real?
I was talking to him. I was talking to him. We had a conversation. He was drinking coffee. He was lecturing me. He was cracking jokes. He was healthy. He was healthy. As healthy as you can be, when you’re dying. How many times have I said that word, “dying”? How many times have I rolled it around on my tongue? I used it as an excuse, I used it as an insult. I didn’t know it would be like this. He’s been there since I was born. I was always “Jackson’s brother”. He was the star. He was the hero. He was dying. He was dying.
How did I not realize that before?
There’s no response. He’s not at the table, not in the dining room. I stick my head into his room. There’s a shadowy figure burrowed under a pile of blankets, painful shrieking sobs wracking his entire body. I walk over and crouch down next to the bed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask softly. “Jackson? What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t say anything. I reach up and fish beneath the blankets for his hand. He grabs me. His hands are always clammy, but today it’s worse. This is the worst he’s been in awhile.
“Jackson? You need anything?”
He takes in a deep breath. “Don’t leave me,” he whispers. He clutches my hand like it’s all he has, like it’s his only connection to life.
“Shhh...” I stand up, still holding his hands, and pull back his blankets. He gasps. He’s pale, paler than ever, too pale to really look alive. I push him carefully to one side of the bed and crawl in next to him. I yank the blankets up over our heads. We’re enclosed in darkness. His breath is excruciatingly hot.
“You were so annoying when we were kids,” he whispers. “When did you change?”
I laugh softly. “I’m still annoying.” I pull the blankets down a bit, to our necks. The cool air feels like ice on my skin. It’s perfect. I roll over to face him. He’s smiling faintly, his eyes not quite connecting with mine.
“You’ve been really good about this. About me being sick.”
“No I haven’t. Trust me.” I picture Julia, always somehow disappointed in me, always wondering what’s wrong.
“I don’t deserve you, Noah,” he says softly. “I didn’t care about anyone when I was your age. I deserve a brother who feels the same way I did. I deserve a brother who shows me just how screwed up and aggravating I was.”
I shake my head. “You already know how screwed up and aggravating you were.”
He sighs. “I guess you’re right. I learned my lesson a long time ago. And I guess that’s why... I just... I know that on some level I deserve something bad, but... I don’t deserve this, Noah. Nobody deserves this sort of death.”
“Does it hurt?” It’s the sort of primitive question you’re supposed to grow out of, but secretly no one ever does.
“All the time,” he whispers. “It hurts all the time.”
We’re quiet for a long time after that, him shivering and me sweating. Silently, I wonder how many more of these conversations we’ll get to have.
He’s exhausting to be with. Even when he’s sleeping. I don’t know how to be around him anymore. Looking at him makes you feel like you can’t talk about anything trivial. And looking at him reminds you that most things are trivial. Television, Christmas, projects – all the things we turn into a big deal that, in the end, don’t matter.
I’m sick of being reminded. I want to forget.
“Hello?”
“You’re coming over.”
I groan. “Eddy, it’s like, eight o’clock and I haven’t even thought about starting my homework.”
“You’re coming over, bitch. Homework be damned.”
I roll my eyes. “I can’t.”
“You don’t want me to come over there. Trust me.”
“Eddy, seriously, I can’t blow off another night of schoolwork. I’m so fucking behind. You have no idea.”
He sighs. “Alright. Then expect me in twenty minutes.”
“Eddy, do not come over.”
He hangs up.
People are so frustrating sometimes.
* * *
Eighteen minutes later, the doorbell rings. I sigh. Jackson stirs in his room, mumbling groggily. I tell him to go back to sleep.
I open the door. Eddy proudly holds up a bottle of vodka and grins devilishly. “For one night, you are not going to mope. Got it? You are going to dance around and break things, sure, but you’re not going to mope.”
I stare at him. “This is a bad idea.”
“How is it a bad idea? You’re tense. You need to untense. I have an untensing solution.”
“First of all, untense isn’t even a word, and second of all...”
“What? You don’t drink? Because I know you, Noah, and --”
“Eddy, it’s a Tuesday.”
He rolls his eyes. “Tuesday schmooze-day. Ooh, or Tuesday booze-day. That works even better. Let me in, Fisher. It’s fucking snowing.”
I sigh and step aside, slamming the door behind him. I pull Jackson’s door shut as we walk by.
“Coffee mugs, Noah. You need a coffee mug of this stuff.”
I stare at him. “First of all, no, and second of all... I don’t even know. Wait, are you drinking?”
He shakes his head. “I drove here. Driving drunk in the snow is probably not the best idea.”
“Because driving drunk not in the snow totally is,” I mutter, pulling a coffee mug out of the cabinet.
He rolls his eyes. “Shut up and drink. You’re being way too rational.”
“Rationality is usually considered a positive trait,” I remind him.
He sighs. “Drink..”
“Who the hell is that?”
I stare at my mug. I think it has Santa on it. Santa looks weird, when you think about it. There’s something really creepy about a fat bald man squeezing his way into your house once a year. People shouldn’t tell children such stories. It’s almost as bad as those seven horny midgets who made off with Snow White.
I look up at him. “What?”
He raises his eyebrows. “The doorbell just rang. Crap, dude, go answer your door.”
“Alright.” I stand quickly, sway, and sit back down. I try again, this time with better results. I stumble to the door and pull it open.
“Oh. Hi.”
Julia raises an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”
“I’m drunk,” I say candidly.
She nods. “Great. Just what I needed. Can I come in? It’s kind of snowy.”
I nod enthusiastically. “Eddy’s here. You and Eddy never talk anymore. You should talk to Eddy. He thinks you don’t like him but I think that’s not true. That’s not true, right?”
She closes her eyes and sighs. “How about I just come in?”
“Okay.”
“Did you just knock something over?” Jackson blinks rapidly and raises an eyebrow. “It sounded like something broke.”
I hold up a piece of Santa’s ceramic suit. “I dropped my mug.”
Jackson stares at me. “Noah, get a towel or something. You’re going to cut yourself.” He eyes the bottle of vodka on the table. “Are you drunk? Seriously? It’s Tuesday.”
“Tuesday booze-day,” I sing-song. He raises his eyebrows.
Julia rolls her eyes. “Noah, sit down. I’ll clean that up.”
Eddy pulls open the laundry nook and grabs a broom and dustpan. “Here.” He shoves them at Julia, avoiding her eyes.
“You got him drunk?” she hisses. I guess she thinks I can’t hear. Or doesn’t care if I do. “You are so stupid. God almighty, Eddy, do you actually have any functioning brain cells?”
“Julia...” Jackson says warningly. Because this is totally his business.
“No, she’s right. I am incomprehensibly dull. Whereas she is obviously very in control of everything she says and does. Because she is the perfect girlfriend – actually, she is the perfect person.” He pauses, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Oh my god, you’re Jesus, aren’t you?”
Jackson sighs and sits down on the floor in the dining room, watching quietly. I stumble over and sit next to him. Eddy and Julia bicker.
“You should be in bed. You’re sick,” I say matter-of-factly.
He nods. “I probably should. It’s kind of hard to sleep with all the noise, though.” He gestures toward Julia and Eddy, who are sweeping angrily. I’m not sure how one goes about sweeping angrily, but they’re doing a good job.
“Julia’s being a bitch,” I pronounce. She looks over at the mention of her name. “No, it’s okay. Because Eddy is pretty stupid, too. He should have known better than to get me drunk. I’m not a very good drunk. I don’t deal well with having lowered inhibitions. Evidently I say exactly what I’m thinking.”
They’re both staring at me like I have two heads. Which is a weird expression. I think if you had two heads, people would be more concerned than aghast. Or they would run. They probably wouldn’t just stare at you with their mouths open like you’ve just said something very shocking. So really, I guess that’s what they’re doing. Staring at me like I’ve just said something very shocking.
Nobody says anything, so I think I should keep talking. The silence is too awkward. “Julia, you really should try not to be so self-absorbed. People aren’t usually thinking about you. It’s not your fault. You should just stop thinking that they are. And you should really call before you come over, because it could have been a bad time. Actually, I think this is a bad time. Is this a bad time?” I mull it over for a second. I can’t decide.
She’s stopped sweeping. Her lower lip trembles a little bit.
“Anyway, it’s not all you. Eddy is admittedly not being very smart tonight. He did in fact call ahead, but I told him not to come over and he came anyway. He probably wanted to help, but really he just made me drunk and I’m not a very good drunk. So he probably made things not very good. He also tries to be funny a lot. Even when he’s not being very funny. You should stop that.”
Jackson puts a hand on my shoulder. “That’s enough, Noah,” he says gently.
But he has to take his turn, too. “How do you know what enough is? You obviously don’t like moderation much. Because if you liked moderation you wouldn’t have slept with every vagina you encountered in college. And you wouldn’t have used needles because people who use drugs in moderation usually don’t use things that require needles. So you probably know relatively nothing about moderation. Or when it’s enough. So I’ll decide when it’s enough.”
“You’re a weird drunk, dude,” Eddy says quietly. It doesn’t sound like a compliment.
“I think you’re all very weird, too,” I reply. “Eddy, do you have any friends besides me? Because you’re always around. And I like having you around some of the time, but not all of the time. Especially when you come over and get me drunk. I probably don’t need to be drunk. Being drunk does not suit me.”
He stares at me like he can’t decide what the hell he wants to say.
“I think I’m going to throw up.”
That’s the last thing I say for awhile.
My father gets home at midnight. Jackson is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, making idle conversation as I kneel in front of the toilet. Eddy and Julia went home. Eddy took his vodka with him. That’s probably a good thing. I wish I’d gotten some of my homework done. This was a pretty horrible booze-day.
He sticks his head into the bathroom. “Jackson?”
“Noah,” Jackson says helpfully. He’s tired, too. Even though he sleeps all the time. I wonder if it’s really possible to be tired when you sleep all the time.
My father stares at me for a moment. I wave. “Are you sick?”
“No, I’m bulimic.” I laugh. No one else does.
“We were watching TV and he felt nauseous. He’ll probably be fine. I bet he just ate something gross for dinner,” Jackson says with a nod. “He puts peanut butter on everything. It can’t possible be good for him.”
My father rolls his eyes. “Alright. Get to bed soon, Noah, okay? Oh, and did you miss school this morning? I got a call at work.”
“You know the office always screws up, Dad. They stuck me with ten absences my senior year, remember?” Jackson points out. It’s probably good that he’s talking. I probably shouldn’t do any talking.
My father nods and leaves the room, closing the door behind me. Jackson stares at me for a second.
“You really aren’t good drunk,” he mutters.
I cock my head to the side. Not a good move. The room spins for a minute, then settles down. “I think I just felt my brain slide to the back of my skull. Is that bad?”
He rolls his eyes. “No, Noah, it’s fucking brilliant.”
“Okay.”
He looks like he wants to kill me. Being annoyed makes him look stronger.
“You think you’re done?”
I consider it for a moment. “Probably.”
“Alright. I’m going to bed.”
“I think I’ll sleep in the bathtub,” I respond.
He stares at me. “I always thought you were the smart one,” he says, cracking the tiniest smile.
He’s gone before I can think of a response.
My head is pounding. It feels like someone’s hitting me with a hammer. Hard. With a really really heavy hammer.
I force my eyes open. Bad idea. I shut them again. Is this even my bed? I sit up slowly and bang my head on something. Ow. Because I really needed that. I lay back down and reach up above my head. What the hell? Is that a faucet? Oh, shit, I’m in the bathtub.
“Mother of god,” I mutter, rubbing my forehead. Ow.
I scoot further down the tub and try sitting up again. I cover my eyes and open them cautiously. The sun shouldn’t be allowed to be this bright. What time is it, anyway? I glance at my watch. Eight thirty. Oh, brilliant. Julia’s going to kill me. I wonder if she’d buy the excuse that I don’t have an alarm clock in my bathtub. Although really, who would make up an excuse that dumb?
After a few failed tries, I manage to stand up and climb out of the tub. I stumble out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. Jackson is sipping coffee at the table, looking miserable.
“You’re up early.”
I stare at him. “It is a weekday, right? Did you put me in the bathtub?”
He laughs to himself. “Oh yeah, Noah, my skinny ass carried your gigantic growth-spurting very asleep self down the stairs, into the bathroom, and dropped you in the bathtub. Without waking you up. And I didn’t break my back.”
“Huh.” I squint. Has this house always been this bright? It hurts my eyes even with the shades drawn.
He stares at me. “Oh god, Noah, really. You were that plastered? You don’t remember how the hell you ended up in a bathtub?”
“Dude, I spent the afternoon in bed with you. That sounds wrong. But I did. How the hell did I get drunk?”
He rolls his eyes. “Eddy brought some vodka over. And made you drink out of a fucking mug. Which you broke, by the way. You said positively horrible things to him, me, and Julia. And then you fell asleep in the bathtub, after I watched you throw up way too many times and explained away your sudden illness to our father.”
I blink rapidly. “Did you just make that up?”
“Yes, Noah. I’m that creative and deranged. I’ve actually been sitting here all morning coming up with these ideas. I called your school and told them you’d be coming in late. You’re welcome.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I have a hangover.”
“Wow, you’re perceptive. Go back to bed. I would recommend the couch or something this time. Something cushy.”
I sigh. “Yeah. Okay. What time am I supposed to go in?”
“After physics.”
I sigh. “Just in time for Psychology. Brilliant.” I stagger into the living room and collapse onto the couch. If I don’t die soon, I’ll be surprised.
“Where were you?”
I groan and lay my head on the table. “Unhhh...”
“Hungover?”
I nod miserably. “My brother says it’s your fault. Damn it, Eddy. There are people in this world who should get drunk on Tuesdays and then there are people who shouldn’t. Do I look like one of the ones who should? Really?”
He pats my head patronizingly. “There, there. Trust me, I realize that it was a bad idea. If you promise to forgive me my stupidity, I promise not to mention what you said to me.”
“Shit, what did I say?” I look up. Damn the sun. I shield my eyes. It doesn’t help much.
“You don’t want to know.” He takes a bite of his sandwich. I can smell the salami. My stomach turns.
“Ugh. What about Julia?”
“You called her a bitch.” I hate the sound of his chewing. “Among other things. Selfish. Et cetera. You really didn’t fare too well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you downright wasted before. Oh, and you told Jackson he has no sense of moderation and that’s why he’s sick and he has no right to lecture you. So yeah. Really not your night.”
I groan. “This is the worst morning after ever.”
“Just one bit of advice?”
I sigh. “What?”
“When I show up at your door in the future carrying excessive amounts of alcohol, kick me in the nuts and slam the door in my face.”
“Trust me, you don’t have to worry.” I massage my temples. “Oh, by the way, I totally slept in my bathtub.”
He laughs. “Are you serious? That’s just kind of pathetic.”
I sigh. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Julia, I’m sorry.”
She stares at me stonily and slams the door shut.
I run to the other side of the car and hop in the driver’s seat. “Seriously. I shouldn’t have been drinking, and I shouldn’t have said anything to you, and I should have given you a ride this morning, and I am a horrible person and I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head and stares out the window. I sigh.
Five minutes later, as we’re turning in to her development, she clears her throat. “You are a horrible, horrible person.”
“I know.”
“I’m so sick of being treated like the scum of the earth.”
“I know.”
“You make me want to cry. All the time. You make me feel insecure and stupid and needy and I’m so fucking sick of it, Noah Fisher. I’m sick of you making me feel horrible all the time.”
“I know.”
“And I want to forgive you, because I know with your brother things are hard, but how many times can you really expect me to set things okay? Things suck, Noah. And I can’t blame you, and that frustrates me. Stop frustrating me. You’re so fucking frustrating, all the fucking time!” Her voice is high-pitched, whiny. But it’s not her fault. I’d be whiny, too.
“I know.”
She sighs as we pull into her driveway. “I’ll call you tonight, probably. Okay? We need to talk. I need you to talk. I can’t do all the talking all the time. It’s too much, Noah. I can’t fucking do this all the time.”
“I know.”
She opens her door and hops out of the car, then looks back at me for a moment. “Noah...”
“What?”
“Be okay,” she whispers, and slams the door.
“Jackson, I’m going to kill you for making me go. For the love of god, I had the worst day.” I slam my backpack down on the table and sigh.
There’s no response. I roll my eyes and wander through the dining room. “Seriously. Julia may or may not break up with me, I’m pretty sure Eddy is upset and just not saying anything, and salami? Worst shit ever. Fucking salami. It smells like the devil in sliced sausage form.”
I stick my head into his room. He’s huddled under his blankets, as usual, a magazine lying on the floor by the bed. “Honestly. Do I not even get a hi? Are you asleep? Wake the fuck up. You’re always asleep.”
I stand there for a minute. A long, long minute. Still there’s no response. I walk over to the bed and shake him. “Dude, get up. You’re so lazy.”
Once again, he doesn’t respond. I bite my lip. “Jackson? Jackson?”
I pull the blankets back. He’s curled up in a ball, hugging his knees to his chest, his body eerily still.
“Jackson?” I shove two fingers against his neck. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I turn him over, grab his hands. He’s cold. Colder than anything. I try to pull them away from his legs, but they won’t budge. They won’t fucking budge. “Damn it, Jackson!” I yank at his hands. I can’t move them. He is the weakest person I know, the weakest person I have ever met, but I can’t get him to move.
I shake my head rapidly, pull my phone out of my pocket. My finger shaking, I dial 911.
“Point Vale 911, what is your emergency?”
I gasp. “My brother. My brother. He won’t freaking move. He’s really sick. He’s really sick, and he won’t freaking move.”
“Sir, I need you to stay on the line. Have you checked his breathing, sir?”
“He’s not fucking breathing. He doesn’t have a pulse. And he won’t move. I tried...” I gasp. “He’s stiff. I think he’s dead. He won’t freaking move.”
The operator mumbles something about calling an ambulance, stay on the line, keep talking. I have no idea what to talk about. I think he’s dead. Isn’t that enough?
“Ruptured spleen...”
“...AIDS...”
“Oh, that explains ... lymphoma ... late stages....”
“He bled out?”
“... realize it ... think he fainted ... into shock ...”
Shock.
That’s the word.
He had at least a week left. At least a week. Maybe two, three, four. He had weeks left. We had good-byes left. Touching conversations, stupid conversations, thoughtful conversations. We had things to say. We had at least a week left to say them.
I would give anything for that promised week. I would give anything to erase today.
We have had ten years to adjust to this. But it still came without warning. Ten long years of sitting on the tracks, still surprised when the train came hurtling toward us.
It crushed us without a second thought.
My father is crying at the kitchen table. I’m crying in Jackson’s bedroom. We can’t even grieve together. It would be embarrassing. We don’t know each other well enough.
I sit on the floor and rock back and forth. My thoughts are swimming. How can he be this stupid? He belongs with me. He fucking belongs with me. How can someone be right there and then just... Disappear? How is that possible? How is that real?
I was talking to him. I was talking to him. We had a conversation. He was drinking coffee. He was lecturing me. He was cracking jokes. He was healthy. He was healthy. As healthy as you can be, when you’re dying. How many times have I said that word, “dying”? How many times have I rolled it around on my tongue? I used it as an excuse, I used it as an insult. I didn’t know it would be like this. He’s been there since I was born. I was always “Jackson’s brother”. He was the star. He was the hero. He was dying. He was dying.
How did I not realize that before?
Saturday, November 18, 2006
November 18th: So forget about your hesitance, these words will walk you through
“What do you think he would’ve been like?”
Jackson throws the football up at the ceiling, catches it. “Quiet. Really curious. Always wanting to know what everything was like.”
“What about when he got older?” I stare at the walls, at the posters and the pictures and the dreams. The plans my mother had for him. She believed that maybe, if she pushed him towards it from the moment of his birth, he would grow up to be the man she wanted. “You think he would’ve been a bookworm? Or would he have been one of those kids who asserts from the time he’s four years old that he’s going to play in the NFL?”
Jackson shrugs. “I think he would’ve been a musician, right? Something really disciplined, like the violin or something. And he would tear down all these posters and put up shiny pictures of his violinist heroes, the really good ones, and he would sit right here, on the floor, with his leg curled under him, and he would play at all hours of the night.”
I smile sadly. “And Mom would come up and stare at him from the doorway and wonder why he wanted to play violin when you had never played any instrument in your life.”
“And when he got older, he would get a job and save up money to go to competitions all over the country, and he would be hugely successful, and he would miss all the Friday night football games. But his name would always be in the paper and Mom would sneak out to the garage the night before you put out the recycling and cut out all the articles about him and hide them where she thought no one would find them.”
“But one day,” I continue, “he would be looking through her closet trying to figure out what kind of coat to buy her for Christmas, and he would find one of her pockets had this huge bulge in it, so he would be all curious and dig inside, and he would find this huge stack --”
“Of articles, and they would all be about him --”
“And he would write this song --”
“For her,” he finishes.
We sit in silence for a moment. Then Jackson looks over at me, biting his lip.
“It would have been the saddest song.”
I stare at the ceiling. “It would have been beautiful.”
“Most of the saddest things are.”
* * *
“Jackson?”
I sit up. My vision is blurry. How long have I been asleep? My father stands silhouetted in the doorway, looking extremely exhausted and horribly confused.
“Dad? Sorry. I guess we fell asleep.”
He turns on the light. Jackson is lying on his stomach next to me, his legs twisted together, his arms stretched out in front of him, the football just out of his grasp. It is one of the saddest things I have ever seen.
My father stares at us for another long minute, then clears his throat. “It’s after midnight, Noah. You two should probably get to your own beds, don’t you think?”
I nod. Jackson shifts groggily next to me. Dad’s face is pale, worried. This isn’t where he wanted to find us. I know that. But the door couldn’t stay closed forever.
He turns away after a moment, and I scoop Jackson up in my arms and carry him downstairs to his room. My father looks on silently from the foot of the stairs. He looks like he has something to say, but he has no idea what it is.
I wish he weren’t always so worried about us. These past few months, his face has creased almost beyond recognition. The corners of his mouth turn downward in a constant frown. He’s aged ten years in the past three months. He looks a little sadder every day.
* * *
“Let’s cut school.”
Julia stares at me like I’m completely out of my mind. Maybe I am. “Noah, I don’t... My parents will kill me.”
I reach over and grab her hand. “Blair would never cut school, right?”
She smiles faintly. “Where would we even go? Honestly, Noah, I’m not sure...”
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go? Pick a place. Anywhere you want.” I smile. “Paris? Chicago? Chad? Just throwing it out there. Anywhere.”
“You would really take me to Chad?” she asks incredulously, biting back a laugh.
I grin. “Well, I mean, sure, but for now you should probably pick somewhere in town. I’m not sure my car is really prepared to cross the ocean.”
“Let’s go to brunch,” she says after a minute, giggling.
“Real brunch, right? Not sex brunch?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, real brunch, loser. Unless you want to have sex in the middle of IHOP.”
I laugh. “Not so much.”
* * *
She stares at the reduced calorie menu. I stare at her.
“This shit is all so gross,” she mutters. “If I get scrambled eggs, will you eat my pancakes?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Let me read this.” I grab it from her hands. “Julia, look at the picture. Without the pancakes you get like, one egg. And a surplus of green peppers. Eat your own pancakes.”
She sighs. “I love that you want me to be fat. I really do.” She rolls her eyes and closes her menu.
“Julia, the entire thing has less than 600 calories. I don’t think it’s possible to get fat eating that crap.”
“Noah, could you not belittle me? Please? I would really appreciate it.”
I sigh. “Oh, for the love of god, Julia...”
“What?”
Our waiter chooses that moment to come over. He looks at us and shakes his head. “Shouldn’t you two be in school?”
“We have the morning free, sir. Optional midterm review sessions.” Julia smiles cheekily. I roll my eyes.
The waiter sighs. “What can I get for you delinquents?”
He can’t be younger than thirty-five. I bet he’s bitter, being stuck working a menial job, serving kids squandering their education. Maybe he deserves to be bitter. Most people do, really. Almost everyone has something worth being bitter about.
“Crab and Shrimp Omelette, no tomatoes. And coffee.”
He doesn’t write anything down. I’m sure there will be tomatoes. “And for you?” he drones, glaring at Julia.
“Yeah, can I get the Garden Scramble? And can I have it without the pancakes? Or something?”
He stares at her like he can’t believe she would dare make his job this difficult. “Do you want sausage or something instead?”
“Do you have like, fruit?”
She says “like” a lot when she’s nervous. I don’t know why. I hate it. “Cantaloupe and grapes,” he responds, sounding bored.
She nods. “Can I have fruit, then?”
He nods. “Yeah. Sure. Substitutions are fifty cents extra. You want coffee, too.” It’s not a question. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have much of a choice. I wonder how long this guy will be working here.
As soon as he’s gone, Julia sighs. “People are so rude.” She glares at me as she says it. I roll my eyes. Her glare intensifies.
“Oh god, Julia, drop it already.”
She sighs. “What, you get to insult me and I don’t get to respond? How is that fair?”
“I never insulted you!”
“Yes you did. Before the waiter came.”
I stare at her. “Julia, you said I wanted you to be fat, I said you couldn’t get fat eating less than 600 calories, you said I was belittling you, and I was about to tell you to stop being paranoid when the waiter came. That’s it. No insults.”
“You think I’m paranoid,” she repeats dryly. “That sounds kind of insulting to me.”
I sigh. “Julia, you avoid food like the plague. You’re afraid to eat two pancakes with margarine spread and sugar-free syrup. You order off the low calorie menu even though you have no real need to be watching your calories. That’s kind of paranoid activity.”
“Oh, shut up.” She sighs. “You’re so stupid sometimes, Noah.”
I roll my eyes and don’t respond. We sit in silence for a moment before the waiter returns with a two lukewarm cups of coffee. I focus my attention on pouring in the exact right amount of creamer while Julia glares at something behind my head.
* * *
“How’s Blair?” I ask finally.
Julia looks up from segregating her Garden from her Scramble. “She’s alright. She’s due in not that long, you know.”
“Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?”
She shrugs. “I think a boy. I don’t know why. My mother really wants her to have a girl.”
“Maybe that’s why,” I say jokingly, but it’s not really a joke. “Has she decided to keep it?”
She nods. “I think she’s sort of gotten used to the idea. Although who knows, with Blair. She’s kind of unpredictable.”
I roll my eyes. “No kidding. Is she going to stay with your parents?”
Julia nods. “Until something better comes up, yeah. I’m not sure my dad is crazy about the idea of having a crying baby waking him up at all hours of the night, but... Who knows. I guess he would feel guilty about telling her she couldn’t stay.”
I nod. “Well, I mean, she’s his daughter.”
“I know. But she makes him miserable. She makes us all miserable.”
I bite my lip. “She’s family.”
“Yeah, but she’s a bitch. And she’s unpredictable and crazy and obnoxious.”
I shrug. “Family is important. Trust me, if something bad happened to her... You’d care. Even though she’s unpredictable and crazy and obnoxious.”
She sighs. “I guess. But... I don’t know. She makes me want to scream for hours and never shut up. And I don’t know why, really, she just... How can two people who were raised in the same setting by the same people be so incredibly different?”
“You’re not as different as you think,” I say softly.
She glares at me. “Trust me. We are. She’s an overachieving know-it-all bitch. I’m an excruciatingly average but generally nice person. We have almost nothing in common.”
I shrug. “You really want to know what I think?”
She nods carefully, like she’s not sure she does.
“I think no one really ever gets annoyed with people over differences. I think we get annoyed with people who exemplify the worst parts of ourselves.”
She raises her eyebrows. “So you think that I get annoyed with my mother because she’s talkative, and I’m annoyed with her because I’m so talkative? Because I’m not. I’m not talkative.”
I shrug. “I think you get annoyed with your mother because she always wants everyone to know what she’s thinking. And so do you. You just want everyone to somehow know by looking at you, whereas she’s more than happy to tell them exactly what it is that’s on her mind.”
“That’s a stupid ass theory, Noah Fisher.” She takes a tentative bite of a mushroom and wrinkles her nose. But she swallows.
“But my stupid ass theory aside, you and Blair really aren’t that different. You just like to play up your differences.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s a pretty stupid ass theory in and of itself.”
I take a sip of my coffee. “What can I say? I generally suck.”
She kicks me lightly under the table. “No shit.”
It sounds like she’s only half kidding.
* * *
“Dude, did you cut physics? Without telling me? Do you really suck that much?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Eddy, I cut the first half of the day as a personal insult to you. If you must know, I was at a dentist appointment. Or at least, so the front office thinks.”
He laughs. “You deviant. Where were you really? Julia?”
I nod. “We had hot sex on her kitchen table while her father read the morning paper. It was fantastic. Then we fell asleep nude in one another’s arms on the counter, until her cat came up and tried to nest in my face.”
He makes a face. “See, Noah, I told you a long time ago that you can’t just go sleeping in the buff in someone’s kitchen. It’s dining room or nothing. Where were you, really?”
I take a bite of my sandwich. “IHOP.”
“Now this I want to hear about.”
I sigh. “It wasn’t very interesting. I ate. She didn’t. She yelled. I didn’t. I tried to talk to her. She tried to avoid my questions. She told me I was stupid and annoying and belittling. We had the waiter from hell. It was like, the anti-IHOP commercial IHOP. The sort of experience that drives you away from breakfast foods forever.”
He raises his eyebrows and opens his Pepsi. “You poor thing.”
“Shut up. I seriously have no fucking idea what’s up with her. She’s fucking crazy lately.”
“Her sister’s about to have a baby,” he says helpfully. At least I assume he’s trying to be helpful.
I roll my eyes. “Wow, Eddy. I had no idea. Thanks for letting me know. Dude, seriously. She’s freaking me out. She cries all the time and she’s so fucking insecure it kills, and she won’t eat anything. I don’t know. It’s weird.”
“Well, I mean, okay, she’s got a sister who’s having a baby, so her house is crazy tense, and you’ve got a brother who’s dying, so your house is crazy tense, and all your crazy tension adds to her crazy tension to form this big super-tense mass of tenseness. And that is not good, Noah. Tenseness is not good.” He nods emphatically.
“Thank you for that brilliant explanation, Dr. Phil. Don’t quit your day job. Trust me, though, she’s way crazier than the current level of tenseness would call for. Like, seriously. She’s kind of scary crazy. I would worry about her if I didn’t have bigger things to worry about.”
He whistles softly. “See, Noah, that’s why she’s mad at you all the time.”
“What?”
“Do you even hear yourself talk? Jesus. I know Jackson is dying, and I know that’s obviously your main concern, and I know it’s a blinding sort of concern, but... I mean, she wants to be a priority, too. She wants you to have some level of concern for her, too.”
I stare at him. “Yeah, you have no girlfriend. Do you have any idea what you’re talking about? Not really.”
He holds up his hands. “Dude, I’m not saying I’m some sage who always knows what’s going on, but it must kind of suck to know your boyfriend always has something bigger and more immediately important going on. I mean, I know you do have something bigger and more immediately important going on, and she knows it, too, but you talk like you don’t worry about her at all. She’s just like, this hobby that you have, whereas Jackson is your entire life. And nobody wants to be a hobby. Nobody wants to be shunted like that when they’ve got some pretty big things going on in their own lives.”
“Dude, her sister is pregnant. Pregnant sisters really aren’t that big a deal. I mean, yeah, when my mother was pregnant that was kind of jarring, but it was so much worse when she wasn’t pregnant.” I picture Jackson and that football, curled up on the floor. I bite my lip.
“I know. But just... She doesn’t know how hard it is, okay? She only knows what you tell her, and you don’t tell her much.”
I sigh. “Eddy, can we just eat lunch? Please?”
“Alright.” He sighs and picks up his sandwich. “So, did you catch the Eagles game last weekend?”
Jackson throws the football up at the ceiling, catches it. “Quiet. Really curious. Always wanting to know what everything was like.”
“What about when he got older?” I stare at the walls, at the posters and the pictures and the dreams. The plans my mother had for him. She believed that maybe, if she pushed him towards it from the moment of his birth, he would grow up to be the man she wanted. “You think he would’ve been a bookworm? Or would he have been one of those kids who asserts from the time he’s four years old that he’s going to play in the NFL?”
Jackson shrugs. “I think he would’ve been a musician, right? Something really disciplined, like the violin or something. And he would tear down all these posters and put up shiny pictures of his violinist heroes, the really good ones, and he would sit right here, on the floor, with his leg curled under him, and he would play at all hours of the night.”
I smile sadly. “And Mom would come up and stare at him from the doorway and wonder why he wanted to play violin when you had never played any instrument in your life.”
“And when he got older, he would get a job and save up money to go to competitions all over the country, and he would be hugely successful, and he would miss all the Friday night football games. But his name would always be in the paper and Mom would sneak out to the garage the night before you put out the recycling and cut out all the articles about him and hide them where she thought no one would find them.”
“But one day,” I continue, “he would be looking through her closet trying to figure out what kind of coat to buy her for Christmas, and he would find one of her pockets had this huge bulge in it, so he would be all curious and dig inside, and he would find this huge stack --”
“Of articles, and they would all be about him --”
“And he would write this song --”
“For her,” he finishes.
We sit in silence for a moment. Then Jackson looks over at me, biting his lip.
“It would have been the saddest song.”
I stare at the ceiling. “It would have been beautiful.”
“Most of the saddest things are.”
“Jackson?”
I sit up. My vision is blurry. How long have I been asleep? My father stands silhouetted in the doorway, looking extremely exhausted and horribly confused.
“Dad? Sorry. I guess we fell asleep.”
He turns on the light. Jackson is lying on his stomach next to me, his legs twisted together, his arms stretched out in front of him, the football just out of his grasp. It is one of the saddest things I have ever seen.
My father stares at us for another long minute, then clears his throat. “It’s after midnight, Noah. You two should probably get to your own beds, don’t you think?”
I nod. Jackson shifts groggily next to me. Dad’s face is pale, worried. This isn’t where he wanted to find us. I know that. But the door couldn’t stay closed forever.
He turns away after a moment, and I scoop Jackson up in my arms and carry him downstairs to his room. My father looks on silently from the foot of the stairs. He looks like he has something to say, but he has no idea what it is.
I wish he weren’t always so worried about us. These past few months, his face has creased almost beyond recognition. The corners of his mouth turn downward in a constant frown. He’s aged ten years in the past three months. He looks a little sadder every day.
“Let’s cut school.”
Julia stares at me like I’m completely out of my mind. Maybe I am. “Noah, I don’t... My parents will kill me.”
I reach over and grab her hand. “Blair would never cut school, right?”
She smiles faintly. “Where would we even go? Honestly, Noah, I’m not sure...”
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go? Pick a place. Anywhere you want.” I smile. “Paris? Chicago? Chad? Just throwing it out there. Anywhere.”
“You would really take me to Chad?” she asks incredulously, biting back a laugh.
I grin. “Well, I mean, sure, but for now you should probably pick somewhere in town. I’m not sure my car is really prepared to cross the ocean.”
“Let’s go to brunch,” she says after a minute, giggling.
“Real brunch, right? Not sex brunch?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, real brunch, loser. Unless you want to have sex in the middle of IHOP.”
I laugh. “Not so much.”
She stares at the reduced calorie menu. I stare at her.
“This shit is all so gross,” she mutters. “If I get scrambled eggs, will you eat my pancakes?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Let me read this.” I grab it from her hands. “Julia, look at the picture. Without the pancakes you get like, one egg. And a surplus of green peppers. Eat your own pancakes.”
She sighs. “I love that you want me to be fat. I really do.” She rolls her eyes and closes her menu.
“Julia, the entire thing has less than 600 calories. I don’t think it’s possible to get fat eating that crap.”
“Noah, could you not belittle me? Please? I would really appreciate it.”
I sigh. “Oh, for the love of god, Julia...”
“What?”
Our waiter chooses that moment to come over. He looks at us and shakes his head. “Shouldn’t you two be in school?”
“We have the morning free, sir. Optional midterm review sessions.” Julia smiles cheekily. I roll my eyes.
The waiter sighs. “What can I get for you delinquents?”
He can’t be younger than thirty-five. I bet he’s bitter, being stuck working a menial job, serving kids squandering their education. Maybe he deserves to be bitter. Most people do, really. Almost everyone has something worth being bitter about.
“Crab and Shrimp Omelette, no tomatoes. And coffee.”
He doesn’t write anything down. I’m sure there will be tomatoes. “And for you?” he drones, glaring at Julia.
“Yeah, can I get the Garden Scramble? And can I have it without the pancakes? Or something?”
He stares at her like he can’t believe she would dare make his job this difficult. “Do you want sausage or something instead?”
“Do you have like, fruit?”
She says “like” a lot when she’s nervous. I don’t know why. I hate it. “Cantaloupe and grapes,” he responds, sounding bored.
She nods. “Can I have fruit, then?”
He nods. “Yeah. Sure. Substitutions are fifty cents extra. You want coffee, too.” It’s not a question. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have much of a choice. I wonder how long this guy will be working here.
As soon as he’s gone, Julia sighs. “People are so rude.” She glares at me as she says it. I roll my eyes. Her glare intensifies.
“Oh god, Julia, drop it already.”
She sighs. “What, you get to insult me and I don’t get to respond? How is that fair?”
“I never insulted you!”
“Yes you did. Before the waiter came.”
I stare at her. “Julia, you said I wanted you to be fat, I said you couldn’t get fat eating less than 600 calories, you said I was belittling you, and I was about to tell you to stop being paranoid when the waiter came. That’s it. No insults.”
“You think I’m paranoid,” she repeats dryly. “That sounds kind of insulting to me.”
I sigh. “Julia, you avoid food like the plague. You’re afraid to eat two pancakes with margarine spread and sugar-free syrup. You order off the low calorie menu even though you have no real need to be watching your calories. That’s kind of paranoid activity.”
“Oh, shut up.” She sighs. “You’re so stupid sometimes, Noah.”
I roll my eyes and don’t respond. We sit in silence for a moment before the waiter returns with a two lukewarm cups of coffee. I focus my attention on pouring in the exact right amount of creamer while Julia glares at something behind my head.
“How’s Blair?” I ask finally.
Julia looks up from segregating her Garden from her Scramble. “She’s alright. She’s due in not that long, you know.”
“Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?”
She shrugs. “I think a boy. I don’t know why. My mother really wants her to have a girl.”
“Maybe that’s why,” I say jokingly, but it’s not really a joke. “Has she decided to keep it?”
She nods. “I think she’s sort of gotten used to the idea. Although who knows, with Blair. She’s kind of unpredictable.”
I roll my eyes. “No kidding. Is she going to stay with your parents?”
Julia nods. “Until something better comes up, yeah. I’m not sure my dad is crazy about the idea of having a crying baby waking him up at all hours of the night, but... Who knows. I guess he would feel guilty about telling her she couldn’t stay.”
I nod. “Well, I mean, she’s his daughter.”
“I know. But she makes him miserable. She makes us all miserable.”
I bite my lip. “She’s family.”
“Yeah, but she’s a bitch. And she’s unpredictable and crazy and obnoxious.”
I shrug. “Family is important. Trust me, if something bad happened to her... You’d care. Even though she’s unpredictable and crazy and obnoxious.”
She sighs. “I guess. But... I don’t know. She makes me want to scream for hours and never shut up. And I don’t know why, really, she just... How can two people who were raised in the same setting by the same people be so incredibly different?”
“You’re not as different as you think,” I say softly.
She glares at me. “Trust me. We are. She’s an overachieving know-it-all bitch. I’m an excruciatingly average but generally nice person. We have almost nothing in common.”
I shrug. “You really want to know what I think?”
She nods carefully, like she’s not sure she does.
“I think no one really ever gets annoyed with people over differences. I think we get annoyed with people who exemplify the worst parts of ourselves.”
She raises her eyebrows. “So you think that I get annoyed with my mother because she’s talkative, and I’m annoyed with her because I’m so talkative? Because I’m not. I’m not talkative.”
I shrug. “I think you get annoyed with your mother because she always wants everyone to know what she’s thinking. And so do you. You just want everyone to somehow know by looking at you, whereas she’s more than happy to tell them exactly what it is that’s on her mind.”
“That’s a stupid ass theory, Noah Fisher.” She takes a tentative bite of a mushroom and wrinkles her nose. But she swallows.
“But my stupid ass theory aside, you and Blair really aren’t that different. You just like to play up your differences.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s a pretty stupid ass theory in and of itself.”
I take a sip of my coffee. “What can I say? I generally suck.”
She kicks me lightly under the table. “No shit.”
It sounds like she’s only half kidding.
“Dude, did you cut physics? Without telling me? Do you really suck that much?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Eddy, I cut the first half of the day as a personal insult to you. If you must know, I was at a dentist appointment. Or at least, so the front office thinks.”
He laughs. “You deviant. Where were you really? Julia?”
I nod. “We had hot sex on her kitchen table while her father read the morning paper. It was fantastic. Then we fell asleep nude in one another’s arms on the counter, until her cat came up and tried to nest in my face.”
He makes a face. “See, Noah, I told you a long time ago that you can’t just go sleeping in the buff in someone’s kitchen. It’s dining room or nothing. Where were you, really?”
I take a bite of my sandwich. “IHOP.”
“Now this I want to hear about.”
I sigh. “It wasn’t very interesting. I ate. She didn’t. She yelled. I didn’t. I tried to talk to her. She tried to avoid my questions. She told me I was stupid and annoying and belittling. We had the waiter from hell. It was like, the anti-IHOP commercial IHOP. The sort of experience that drives you away from breakfast foods forever.”
He raises his eyebrows and opens his Pepsi. “You poor thing.”
“Shut up. I seriously have no fucking idea what’s up with her. She’s fucking crazy lately.”
“Her sister’s about to have a baby,” he says helpfully. At least I assume he’s trying to be helpful.
I roll my eyes. “Wow, Eddy. I had no idea. Thanks for letting me know. Dude, seriously. She’s freaking me out. She cries all the time and she’s so fucking insecure it kills, and she won’t eat anything. I don’t know. It’s weird.”
“Well, I mean, okay, she’s got a sister who’s having a baby, so her house is crazy tense, and you’ve got a brother who’s dying, so your house is crazy tense, and all your crazy tension adds to her crazy tension to form this big super-tense mass of tenseness. And that is not good, Noah. Tenseness is not good.” He nods emphatically.
“Thank you for that brilliant explanation, Dr. Phil. Don’t quit your day job. Trust me, though, she’s way crazier than the current level of tenseness would call for. Like, seriously. She’s kind of scary crazy. I would worry about her if I didn’t have bigger things to worry about.”
He whistles softly. “See, Noah, that’s why she’s mad at you all the time.”
“What?”
“Do you even hear yourself talk? Jesus. I know Jackson is dying, and I know that’s obviously your main concern, and I know it’s a blinding sort of concern, but... I mean, she wants to be a priority, too. She wants you to have some level of concern for her, too.”
I stare at him. “Yeah, you have no girlfriend. Do you have any idea what you’re talking about? Not really.”
He holds up his hands. “Dude, I’m not saying I’m some sage who always knows what’s going on, but it must kind of suck to know your boyfriend always has something bigger and more immediately important going on. I mean, I know you do have something bigger and more immediately important going on, and she knows it, too, but you talk like you don’t worry about her at all. She’s just like, this hobby that you have, whereas Jackson is your entire life. And nobody wants to be a hobby. Nobody wants to be shunted like that when they’ve got some pretty big things going on in their own lives.”
“Dude, her sister is pregnant. Pregnant sisters really aren’t that big a deal. I mean, yeah, when my mother was pregnant that was kind of jarring, but it was so much worse when she wasn’t pregnant.” I picture Jackson and that football, curled up on the floor. I bite my lip.
“I know. But just... She doesn’t know how hard it is, okay? She only knows what you tell her, and you don’t tell her much.”
I sigh. “Eddy, can we just eat lunch? Please?”
“Alright.” He sighs and picks up his sandwich. “So, did you catch the Eagles game last weekend?”
Thursday, November 16, 2006
November 16th: And tell me, did you sail across the sun? Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded, and that heaven is overrated?
“Hey. How was school?”
I shrug. “Umm... Fine. I guess. I mean, I don’t know... It was school.” I got into a huge fight with my girlfriend because she wants me to open up to her and all I want is for her to leave me alone.
“Huh. Much homework?”
“Not really. English paper due Friday, nothing else important.” Quit acting like you’re my mother or something. I have a mother. You drove her away.
He sighs, looks at the ground. “Noah...”
“What?” Oh, god, not another one of your bombshells. You don’t drop bombs on a city you just nuked. It’s a waste. Everyone’s already dead.
He bites his lip. “We should open the door.”
* * *
No one has been in his room since my mother left. It’s a shrine to the son she never held, the baby that was and then wasn’t, the child who never took a breath and still managed to disappoint her. We helped her paint it, all of us, an ultramarine shade straight out of a box of crayons. We helped her hang the posters of the men sprinting down the field clutching at leather balls, living Jackson’s dream. We helped her put together the crib, haul the changing table up the stairs, hang the mobile. Those two weeks haunt me, the sound of her voice reading the label on the paint – “Pregnant women should not use products containing chemical solvents as it may increase risk of birth defects.” She laughed when she read that. She laughed until she was crying, in this strange hiccupping mixture of the two, and then she was just crying, sobbing, and my father put his arms around her and held her for a long, long time. Her hands gripped her swollen belly like maybe she would suddenly feel him kick. But Nathaniel was long gone.
She gave birth to him a week and a half after that. We gathered around her, gripping her hands as she shook and cried in the hospital bed and strained to extirpate her second biggest disappointment. When he finally came forth, drenched in bloody fluids, he was the most eerie kind of still. A stillness so compellingly out of place, so grippingly wrong, that none of us dared look for too long. Except my mother. She clutched him to her chest and cried, while we looked on with our stony faces. We cried later, collapsing in stairwells and elevators, sprinting into bathroom stalls and locking the door just in time. We cried for a day, then a night, then a week. It’s been months now, and part of me is crying still.
* * *
We sit on the floor in silence. Jackson cradles a stuffed football as if it were a child. I wish I could take a picture of this moment. I wish I could take that photograph back in time, to when he was seventeen, and show it to him, and tell him, “Shape up, or this is your future. You will become this, a shivering shell of a man, rocking his hopes and dreams to sleep. Is that what you want? Is this what you want?”
A part of me knows that even that wouldn’t have saved him. A part of me knows nothing would have saved him. By some stroke of luck or God, this is what became of us. It was what we were destined to become.
“Do you believe in heaven?”
He’s still staring at the football, that fuzzy mess of a football, running his fingers lightly over the stitches. He’s trying to kill me. He is grabbing my gut and twisting and twisting and twisting and I am dying in a hundred painful ways.
“Do you?” Because that’s the more important question, anyway.
He looks up. He has the saddest eyes. This is what it looks like, to resign yourself to dying. This is what it looks like to have no hope left. I’m the one who looks away, now. I can’t look at him. You could fall into his eyes and never, ever come back out.
“I want to,” he says with a sigh. “Doesn’t everyone want to?”
I shrug. Not because I don’t know, or don’t care, but because I can’t talk, because then I will cry, and then he will cry, and I don’t want my last memories of him to be of him crying.
“I think there has to be something,” he says after a moment of my silence. “I don’t know why. I just... I don’t want this to be it. I don’t want this to be the end of me.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t.”
Our eyes connect. “Don’t... What? Want this to be it?”
“I don’t believe in heaven,” I say quietly. “I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in any of that shit. And I’m not saying it’s shit, I mean... I don’t know what I mean.”
He nods slowly.
“Would it be so horrible, if this were it?” I whisper. “You’ve lived a good life. You’ve cried and you’ve laughed and people have loved you. You’ve had everything and you’ve lost it all and you’ve lived and everyone dies, eventually, no matter how they go out, and... You’ve lived a good life,” I repeat, even though I’m not sure that makes sense, even though I’m not sure any of this makes sense.
He sighs. “I wish I could do it again.”
“I know.”
“If I could just be your age, if I could just... Listen, and not be so fucking headstrong all the time, not want to feel everything so much, not always have to be the one who knows what it’s like...” He drops the football to the ground in front of him and stares at it like it’s the sum of everything he hates.
“But you’re you,” I say softly, because that’s so important. He could never understand how important.
He shrugs. “Yeah. I’m this disgustingly skinny, disgustingly pale, can hardly walk or sit or stand or crawl, socially inept shell of a person. It’s not good to be me, Noah. People used to wish they were me. Now they don’t even want to touch me. I hate it. I hate it so fucking much.” He’s on the verge of tears. So am I. We both swallow them, for now.
“I wanted to be you,” I say quietly, staring at my hands, all the lines that are supposed to say so much but don’t have any of the answers I really need. “I thought you were the most amazing person. You were a hero. You were everything.”
He sighs. “Nobody thinks that anymore.”
“I do,” I say, so soft it’s barely audible.
The look on his face right now, that’s the image I want to keep. He looks like he just remembered how to hope.
Maybe he did.
I shrug. “Umm... Fine. I guess. I mean, I don’t know... It was school.” I got into a huge fight with my girlfriend because she wants me to open up to her and all I want is for her to leave me alone.
“Huh. Much homework?”
“Not really. English paper due Friday, nothing else important.” Quit acting like you’re my mother or something. I have a mother. You drove her away.
He sighs, looks at the ground. “Noah...”
“What?” Oh, god, not another one of your bombshells. You don’t drop bombs on a city you just nuked. It’s a waste. Everyone’s already dead.
He bites his lip. “We should open the door.”
No one has been in his room since my mother left. It’s a shrine to the son she never held, the baby that was and then wasn’t, the child who never took a breath and still managed to disappoint her. We helped her paint it, all of us, an ultramarine shade straight out of a box of crayons. We helped her hang the posters of the men sprinting down the field clutching at leather balls, living Jackson’s dream. We helped her put together the crib, haul the changing table up the stairs, hang the mobile. Those two weeks haunt me, the sound of her voice reading the label on the paint – “Pregnant women should not use products containing chemical solvents as it may increase risk of birth defects.” She laughed when she read that. She laughed until she was crying, in this strange hiccupping mixture of the two, and then she was just crying, sobbing, and my father put his arms around her and held her for a long, long time. Her hands gripped her swollen belly like maybe she would suddenly feel him kick. But Nathaniel was long gone.
She gave birth to him a week and a half after that. We gathered around her, gripping her hands as she shook and cried in the hospital bed and strained to extirpate her second biggest disappointment. When he finally came forth, drenched in bloody fluids, he was the most eerie kind of still. A stillness so compellingly out of place, so grippingly wrong, that none of us dared look for too long. Except my mother. She clutched him to her chest and cried, while we looked on with our stony faces. We cried later, collapsing in stairwells and elevators, sprinting into bathroom stalls and locking the door just in time. We cried for a day, then a night, then a week. It’s been months now, and part of me is crying still.
We sit on the floor in silence. Jackson cradles a stuffed football as if it were a child. I wish I could take a picture of this moment. I wish I could take that photograph back in time, to when he was seventeen, and show it to him, and tell him, “Shape up, or this is your future. You will become this, a shivering shell of a man, rocking his hopes and dreams to sleep. Is that what you want? Is this what you want?”
A part of me knows that even that wouldn’t have saved him. A part of me knows nothing would have saved him. By some stroke of luck or God, this is what became of us. It was what we were destined to become.
“Do you believe in heaven?”
He’s still staring at the football, that fuzzy mess of a football, running his fingers lightly over the stitches. He’s trying to kill me. He is grabbing my gut and twisting and twisting and twisting and I am dying in a hundred painful ways.
“Do you?” Because that’s the more important question, anyway.
He looks up. He has the saddest eyes. This is what it looks like, to resign yourself to dying. This is what it looks like to have no hope left. I’m the one who looks away, now. I can’t look at him. You could fall into his eyes and never, ever come back out.
“I want to,” he says with a sigh. “Doesn’t everyone want to?”
I shrug. Not because I don’t know, or don’t care, but because I can’t talk, because then I will cry, and then he will cry, and I don’t want my last memories of him to be of him crying.
“I think there has to be something,” he says after a moment of my silence. “I don’t know why. I just... I don’t want this to be it. I don’t want this to be the end of me.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t.”
Our eyes connect. “Don’t... What? Want this to be it?”
“I don’t believe in heaven,” I say quietly. “I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in any of that shit. And I’m not saying it’s shit, I mean... I don’t know what I mean.”
He nods slowly.
“Would it be so horrible, if this were it?” I whisper. “You’ve lived a good life. You’ve cried and you’ve laughed and people have loved you. You’ve had everything and you’ve lost it all and you’ve lived and everyone dies, eventually, no matter how they go out, and... You’ve lived a good life,” I repeat, even though I’m not sure that makes sense, even though I’m not sure any of this makes sense.
He sighs. “I wish I could do it again.”
“I know.”
“If I could just be your age, if I could just... Listen, and not be so fucking headstrong all the time, not want to feel everything so much, not always have to be the one who knows what it’s like...” He drops the football to the ground in front of him and stares at it like it’s the sum of everything he hates.
“But you’re you,” I say softly, because that’s so important. He could never understand how important.
He shrugs. “Yeah. I’m this disgustingly skinny, disgustingly pale, can hardly walk or sit or stand or crawl, socially inept shell of a person. It’s not good to be me, Noah. People used to wish they were me. Now they don’t even want to touch me. I hate it. I hate it so fucking much.” He’s on the verge of tears. So am I. We both swallow them, for now.
“I wanted to be you,” I say quietly, staring at my hands, all the lines that are supposed to say so much but don’t have any of the answers I really need. “I thought you were the most amazing person. You were a hero. You were everything.”
He sighs. “Nobody thinks that anymore.”
“I do,” I say, so soft it’s barely audible.
The look on his face right now, that’s the image I want to keep. He looks like he just remembered how to hope.
Maybe he did.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
November 15th: And I cannot close my heart to what it fears and needs to know: the hardest part of love is letting go.
“Noah, talk to me.”
I slam my locker. “Julia, trust me, you don’t want to talk to me. Just give me some space, okay?”
She looks exhausted. Horribly exhausted. She sighs heavily, like I’m too frustrating to even talk to, like she can’t believe I’m being this selfish and horrible.
“Noah, I’m trying to help you, or at the very least just there for you, and I’m trying not to slap you, and I’m trying to be loving and helpful and supportive, and all you want to do is mope around and act like a dick.”
I roll my eyes. “Hi, Julia. My brother’s dying. Did you miss that bit?”
“He’s been on the brink of death for months!” she hisses. “And yeah, it’s happening sooner than you would’ve thought, and yeah, that sucks in ways I can’t even imagine, but that shouldn’t affect you treating me like a human being.”
I sigh. “Look, I don’t like how I’m handling it either, but will you just give me two weeks? Two weeks to be a dick and to treat you like you’re not a human being and to hate on everyone and everything? I need that from you, more than I need you to do anything else.”
“You’re not the only one with a shitty home life, Noah,” she says sadly, like she can’t believe that I don’t understand her plight.
I start down the hall. She follows me. “Julia, your sister is pregnant. Okay? Your sister is pregnant. She is lucky. My mother would have killed to have your sister’s problem. The thing kicking around in your sister’s womb isn’t some curse that damns you to some ’shitty home life’. You are fucking lucky.”
She stares at me like she doesn’t know what to say. Her mouth hangs open. I keep going. “So, basically, I don’t really see how you can compare your sister’s fucking pregnancy to the fact that by the end of my month, my brother will be dead and I will never see him again and I already miss him so much I can’t breathe.”
“Noah, that’s not fair.”
“Jesus, I just want you to leave me alone and quit whining! Will you please just quit whining?”
“Oh,” she says, her tone scathing. “Oh, because your brother dying is the ultimate personal tragedy, right? All those AIDS-ridden orphaned children in Africa who are taking care of their AIDS-ridden orphaned siblings definitely pale in comparison to the fact that your brother fucked up and only lived to be thirty.”
“He’s twenty eight.”
She glares at me. “I don’t fucking believe you, Noah! Who the hell are you? Why the hell are you acting like this?”
“Oh, for the love of god, I didn’t know you were running for Jesus. Will you just shut up and quit being a bitch?”
She’s gone before I can take it back. I’m not sure I want to, anyway.
* * *
“Dude, calm down. The stress ball is your friend.”
I stare at him. “I just called my girlfriend a bitch, told her that her problems aren’t important, and I don’t even know what else. This is not my day. Week. Month. Year. Lifetime.”
“Noah, it’s kind of understandable for you to blow it. Forgive me sounding like I know what I’m talking about, but you’ve kind of got a lot going on.”
I sigh. “Eddy, honestly, I don’t even know. Maybe we should just break up. We don’t even make sense together.”
He pulls out our sketches and a pencil. His pencils are always disgusting, chewed to the point you don’t even want to look at them. But I look. I look for a long time before he sticks it behind his ear and sighs. “Noah, your mother just lost her baby and ran away, and your brother is dying of some sick kind of cancer or something caused by a brutal STD. Your father is never home, you have to clean up your brother’s vomit, and you spend the majority of your spare time watching sitcoms on the couch. Plus you’re in high school. Which already kind of makes life overly dramatic and stressful. So don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s kind of okay if you’re insane and none of your relationships make sense. It’s kind of okay if you’re kind of not okay. Okay?”
I stare at him. “Hi, Oprah. But yeah. Okay.”
“So let’s get to work on this rocket crap,” he says quickly. “I have this really awesome idea. It involves a dachshund, a spoon, and lots of Miracle Whip .”
Eddy can never stay serious for long. But maybe that’s alright.
* * *
“I didn’t think you would be speaking to me.”
Julia shakes her head. I hold out my sandwich. She sighs and pushes my hand away.
“Noah... We need to talk,” she says softly. She means it. When did she get so pale?
“I know. I’m sorry, okay? About what I said. But it wasn’t all my fault.”
She sighs. “It’s not that easy.”
She sits down across from me. Behind me, the art room door slams. I turn around and shake my head pointedly. Eddy understands. He’s gone in a second.
“Then explain it to me.”
She bites her lip and cradles her head in her hands. “Noah, you’re impossible to deal with. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. But you’ve just got way too much... I don’t know, baggage. I feel like you look down on me because I’m not as damaged as you. I feel like you’re always testing me, and I’m always messing up. I never know whether you really want me to go, or if you’re just seeing if I’m dedicated enough to stay. You can’t do this to me all the time, Noah. You can’t shoot me in the leg and slam the door in my face and expect me to bleed to death on your porch.”
“Okay, but what if there’s some huge torturous massacre going on inside? Maybe I shot you and slammed the door, but isn’t that better than having your skin peeled off with me?” The metaphor makes no sense, but I’m trying. I have to try.
She looks up at me earnestly and shakes her head. “Noah, did it ever occur to you that maybe if I’d wanted to leave, I would have left on my own?”
“Who the hell wants to be skinned alive?”
Julia sighs. “Someone stupidly in love.”
But I just shake my head. No one is that in love. No one.
I slam my locker. “Julia, trust me, you don’t want to talk to me. Just give me some space, okay?”
She looks exhausted. Horribly exhausted. She sighs heavily, like I’m too frustrating to even talk to, like she can’t believe I’m being this selfish and horrible.
“Noah, I’m trying to help you, or at the very least just there for you, and I’m trying not to slap you, and I’m trying to be loving and helpful and supportive, and all you want to do is mope around and act like a dick.”
I roll my eyes. “Hi, Julia. My brother’s dying. Did you miss that bit?”
“He’s been on the brink of death for months!” she hisses. “And yeah, it’s happening sooner than you would’ve thought, and yeah, that sucks in ways I can’t even imagine, but that shouldn’t affect you treating me like a human being.”
I sigh. “Look, I don’t like how I’m handling it either, but will you just give me two weeks? Two weeks to be a dick and to treat you like you’re not a human being and to hate on everyone and everything? I need that from you, more than I need you to do anything else.”
“You’re not the only one with a shitty home life, Noah,” she says sadly, like she can’t believe that I don’t understand her plight.
I start down the hall. She follows me. “Julia, your sister is pregnant. Okay? Your sister is pregnant. She is lucky. My mother would have killed to have your sister’s problem. The thing kicking around in your sister’s womb isn’t some curse that damns you to some ’shitty home life’. You are fucking lucky.”
She stares at me like she doesn’t know what to say. Her mouth hangs open. I keep going. “So, basically, I don’t really see how you can compare your sister’s fucking pregnancy to the fact that by the end of my month, my brother will be dead and I will never see him again and I already miss him so much I can’t breathe.”
“Noah, that’s not fair.”
“Jesus, I just want you to leave me alone and quit whining! Will you please just quit whining?”
“Oh,” she says, her tone scathing. “Oh, because your brother dying is the ultimate personal tragedy, right? All those AIDS-ridden orphaned children in Africa who are taking care of their AIDS-ridden orphaned siblings definitely pale in comparison to the fact that your brother fucked up and only lived to be thirty.”
“He’s twenty eight.”
She glares at me. “I don’t fucking believe you, Noah! Who the hell are you? Why the hell are you acting like this?”
“Oh, for the love of god, I didn’t know you were running for Jesus. Will you just shut up and quit being a bitch?”
She’s gone before I can take it back. I’m not sure I want to, anyway.
“Dude, calm down. The stress ball is your friend.”
I stare at him. “I just called my girlfriend a bitch, told her that her problems aren’t important, and I don’t even know what else. This is not my day. Week. Month. Year. Lifetime.”
“Noah, it’s kind of understandable for you to blow it. Forgive me sounding like I know what I’m talking about, but you’ve kind of got a lot going on.”
I sigh. “Eddy, honestly, I don’t even know. Maybe we should just break up. We don’t even make sense together.”
He pulls out our sketches and a pencil. His pencils are always disgusting, chewed to the point you don’t even want to look at them. But I look. I look for a long time before he sticks it behind his ear and sighs. “Noah, your mother just lost her baby and ran away, and your brother is dying of some sick kind of cancer or something caused by a brutal STD. Your father is never home, you have to clean up your brother’s vomit, and you spend the majority of your spare time watching sitcoms on the couch. Plus you’re in high school. Which already kind of makes life overly dramatic and stressful. So don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s kind of okay if you’re insane and none of your relationships make sense. It’s kind of okay if you’re kind of not okay. Okay?”
I stare at him. “Hi, Oprah. But yeah. Okay.”
“So let’s get to work on this rocket crap,” he says quickly. “I have this really awesome idea. It involves a dachshund, a spoon, and lots of Miracle Whip .”
Eddy can never stay serious for long. But maybe that’s alright.
“I didn’t think you would be speaking to me.”
Julia shakes her head. I hold out my sandwich. She sighs and pushes my hand away.
“Noah... We need to talk,” she says softly. She means it. When did she get so pale?
“I know. I’m sorry, okay? About what I said. But it wasn’t all my fault.”
She sighs. “It’s not that easy.”
She sits down across from me. Behind me, the art room door slams. I turn around and shake my head pointedly. Eddy understands. He’s gone in a second.
“Then explain it to me.”
She bites her lip and cradles her head in her hands. “Noah, you’re impossible to deal with. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. But you’ve just got way too much... I don’t know, baggage. I feel like you look down on me because I’m not as damaged as you. I feel like you’re always testing me, and I’m always messing up. I never know whether you really want me to go, or if you’re just seeing if I’m dedicated enough to stay. You can’t do this to me all the time, Noah. You can’t shoot me in the leg and slam the door in my face and expect me to bleed to death on your porch.”
“Okay, but what if there’s some huge torturous massacre going on inside? Maybe I shot you and slammed the door, but isn’t that better than having your skin peeled off with me?” The metaphor makes no sense, but I’m trying. I have to try.
She looks up at me earnestly and shakes her head. “Noah, did it ever occur to you that maybe if I’d wanted to leave, I would have left on my own?”
“Who the hell wants to be skinned alive?”
Julia sighs. “Someone stupidly in love.”
But I just shake my head. No one is that in love. No one.
Monday, November 13, 2006
November 13th: Get what you give, it comes around full circle. Oh, I paid the price.
Once, when he was fifteen, Jackson decided that he was going to teach me how to ride a bike. It was his big summer project, the thing he was going to do instead of doing his summer homework, and our mother couldn’t yell at him because he was doing something nice for me. Every day he’d take me out to the street in front of our house and would grip the seat and the handlebars and make sure the bike didn’t fall over as I pedaled slowly down the street.
We did that every day for a week. After that, he started letting go, running beside me, and grabbing the bike again after I’d ridden a few feet. He knew just how long to let me go before I would start to wobble. I trusted him to never let me fall.
Every day I rode a little further from the house. Soon I could go a good ten seconds before I would lose my balance. Not long after that, it was fifteen. Then twenty. But he was always there when the bike started to tip, ready to set me back on the right track.
And then one time he didn’t catch me.
I came home sobbing, my knees and elbows raw and bloody, Jackson trailing behind me with the bike. When my mother asked what had happened I said, “He let me fall.” Because that I was bleeding was infinitely less perplexing to me than that my brother, my brother who knew how to skateboard and use the stove, my brother who could pop popcorn so that it didn’t burn, my brother who was tall and funny and handsome and impossibly smart, had disappointed me.
But it was this same brother, this suddenly fallible brother, who carried me to the bathroom and sat me down on the counter and told me to bite my tongue as he poured peroxide over my scrapes and covered them with dinosaur band-aids. When he was done, he took out an extra bandage and put it on my left cheek, towards my ear.
“But I didn’t fall there,” I told him, pointing.
He shushed me and pulled out another, putting it on his own cheek. He lifted me off the counter and stood me next to him. He pointed to our reflections in the mirror. “See? We match. We’re cool.” He crossed his arms, stuck his leg out, and pouted into the mirror. I laughed and matched him.
“We’re cool,” I echoed.
That was when I knew he could make anything better.
That was when he became my hero.
* * *
I make him eat rice for dinner. There isn’t much he’ll eat anymore. Sometimes peanut butter sandwiches, sometimes toast. Mostly white rice. Not brown, not wild, just white. I sit and watch him pick at it, forcing myself to stay.
“I’m really not hungry,” he finally says, pushing his plate away. “I’m sorry.”
When he apologizes, his voice trembles. He means it.
I sigh. “You want toast or something?”
He shakes his head.
“Jackson...”
He sighs. “Noah, I can’t.” His voice breaks on the word. There was a time when he could do anything he wanted. He can’t even eat. It’s not fair. It’s so incredibly unfair. He saw the best the world had to offer and then he came back to this.
I grab his plate, walk over to the sink, and start scraping rice down the disposal. “Are you going to tell Dad?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he says, his chair scraping over the linoleum. “I don’t want to spend all my time arguing with him about what’s best for me, you know? And I don’t know if I can explain it to him.”
I turn off the water, toss the plate into the garbage can. “You have to tell him.”
“I know. I just... He’s doing everything he can, you know? I don’t think he’d understand why I’m not.”
I turn and look at him. “And you think I do?”
He sighs. “I think you want to.”
“I guess.” I walk back to the table, grab my own plate.
Jackson takes a shaky breath. “He used to be so fucking proud of me,” he says, in the saddest tone that I have ever heard.
“He still is,” I say softly, crumpling up the soggy paper plate and dumping it in the trash.
Jackson meets my eyes and shakes his head. “Look at me, Noah. I am a walking, talking reflection of all of my mistakes. Do you really think he’s proud to call me ‘son’?”
I bite my lip. “He should be,” I say softly.
He stares at me for a long moment, then turns away. You can see every bump and ridge in his spine. He looks so sick, so pitiful. I would give anything to let him be healthy. I would give everything to just let him live.
But there is nothing I can give, nothing I can change. No one should feel this helplessness; this incredible, unbearable loss.
* * *
“How is he?”
I shrug, putting the car in gear.
“Noah...” She sighs. “Why do you do this? Why do you shut yourself off?”
I glance at her. “Julia, honest to god, will... Never mind.”
She puts her foot up on the dash. “What?”
“Can we not talk about it?” I say, as gently as I can muster.
She sighs. “I just want to know how he is.”
“Why does it matter to you?” I adjust the rearview mirror impatiently. I wish she would stop. She never knows when to stop.
“Because it matters to you,” she says, like that explains anything at all. You can tell she rehearsed this conversation, thought about all of its possible directions and everything she might have to explain. This is the answer she practiced in front of the mirror. I hate that.
“Julia, seriously, can we talk about something else?”
“I just want to know how he is!” she squeals persistently, throwing her hands up in the air. She’s chewing gum. It’s seven o’clock in the morning. Who chews gum at seven o’clock in the morning?
I roll my eyes. “Julia, he’s dying. Okay? He can’t keep any food down. Last night he literally crawled upstairs at three in the morning to get me to build a fire because he was suddenly freezing cold. There aren’t enough blankets in the house to keep him warm, and you can see every single bone in his body through is disgustingly pale skin. His organs are shutting down. He never smiles anymore. I have two weeks, give or take a few days. I have two more weeks of him driving me crazy and then he won’t be around to drive me crazy anymore and I will die. I will die, Julia.” I’m crying. I wipe my eyes impatiently with the back of my hand. “Is that what you wanted to know?” I add, feebly, because the silence is so deafening that I can hardly breathe.
She doesn’t respond. I feel like the most horrible person. Yet somehow, I don’t care.
* * *
Geoff pulls me aside when I walk into class. “What’s the news?”
I wish everyone would leave me alone. I wish they would find somewhere else to get their news. I’m so sick of talking about it, thinking about it, having to live with it all the time. I’m so sick of being forced to acknowledge, every second of every day, that yes, my brother is sick, and yes, my brother is dying, and yes, it claws at my insides until I feel like I could die.
He stares at me expectantly. “Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He’s not getting treatment. Two weeks to a month,” I mutter. There is a lump in my throat so big I could die. So big I might die. And I don’t want to die, I just don’t particularly want to live right now.
“Two weeks to a month?” he asks quizzically.
I shrug. “Two weeks to a month,” I repeat. I don’t know what he wants me to say.
“Until?”
I can’t believe anyone could be this stupid. I can’t believe anyone could make me say this. Why is everyone so hell bent on making me say it? Why do I have to say it all the fucking time? “Til he dies,” I say softly. Til this is over. Til this ten year fiasco is over. Til I lose this huge part of me that I can never get back. I feel like I’m dying. I have to be dying. My tear ducts burn. I claw at my eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he says carefully, like he’s not sure what else to say.
“So am I.” You have no idea how sorry.
* * *
When I was six years old, there was an ice cream freezer in the cafeteria of my elementary school. Once a week, my mother gave me seventy-five cents to buy ice cream from the cart. Once a week, I enviously watched my classmates lick chocolate ice cream off of wooden spoons. Once a week, I snuck into my brother’s room and put seventy-five cents in the piggy bank on his dresser. I did it for months before I got caught. He asked what I was doing in his room. I told him I was just looking around. He told me to get out.
The next week, his room was dark. I crept in and dropped the three quarters into the piggy bank. They clinked against the bottom. Behind me, something shifted. I turned and peered into the darkness, but I couldn’t see anything.
The following morning I woke up and found three twenty dollar bills taped to my door beside a post-it note that read, “Don’t tell Mom.”
It wasn’t until years later that I realized it was more than six times what I’d given him.
I asked him about it when he came home for Christmas one year. “I only gave you maybe ten bucks. You gave me sixty back.”
“So?”
“So why?”
“Because good things happen to good people.”
Then why are you dying? I want to scream at him now. Because he’s a good person. He has always been a good person. Were you not good enough?
We did that every day for a week. After that, he started letting go, running beside me, and grabbing the bike again after I’d ridden a few feet. He knew just how long to let me go before I would start to wobble. I trusted him to never let me fall.
Every day I rode a little further from the house. Soon I could go a good ten seconds before I would lose my balance. Not long after that, it was fifteen. Then twenty. But he was always there when the bike started to tip, ready to set me back on the right track.
And then one time he didn’t catch me.
I came home sobbing, my knees and elbows raw and bloody, Jackson trailing behind me with the bike. When my mother asked what had happened I said, “He let me fall.” Because that I was bleeding was infinitely less perplexing to me than that my brother, my brother who knew how to skateboard and use the stove, my brother who could pop popcorn so that it didn’t burn, my brother who was tall and funny and handsome and impossibly smart, had disappointed me.
But it was this same brother, this suddenly fallible brother, who carried me to the bathroom and sat me down on the counter and told me to bite my tongue as he poured peroxide over my scrapes and covered them with dinosaur band-aids. When he was done, he took out an extra bandage and put it on my left cheek, towards my ear.
“But I didn’t fall there,” I told him, pointing.
He shushed me and pulled out another, putting it on his own cheek. He lifted me off the counter and stood me next to him. He pointed to our reflections in the mirror. “See? We match. We’re cool.” He crossed his arms, stuck his leg out, and pouted into the mirror. I laughed and matched him.
“We’re cool,” I echoed.
That was when I knew he could make anything better.
That was when he became my hero.
I make him eat rice for dinner. There isn’t much he’ll eat anymore. Sometimes peanut butter sandwiches, sometimes toast. Mostly white rice. Not brown, not wild, just white. I sit and watch him pick at it, forcing myself to stay.
“I’m really not hungry,” he finally says, pushing his plate away. “I’m sorry.”
When he apologizes, his voice trembles. He means it.
I sigh. “You want toast or something?”
He shakes his head.
“Jackson...”
He sighs. “Noah, I can’t.” His voice breaks on the word. There was a time when he could do anything he wanted. He can’t even eat. It’s not fair. It’s so incredibly unfair. He saw the best the world had to offer and then he came back to this.
I grab his plate, walk over to the sink, and start scraping rice down the disposal. “Are you going to tell Dad?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he says, his chair scraping over the linoleum. “I don’t want to spend all my time arguing with him about what’s best for me, you know? And I don’t know if I can explain it to him.”
I turn off the water, toss the plate into the garbage can. “You have to tell him.”
“I know. I just... He’s doing everything he can, you know? I don’t think he’d understand why I’m not.”
I turn and look at him. “And you think I do?”
He sighs. “I think you want to.”
“I guess.” I walk back to the table, grab my own plate.
Jackson takes a shaky breath. “He used to be so fucking proud of me,” he says, in the saddest tone that I have ever heard.
“He still is,” I say softly, crumpling up the soggy paper plate and dumping it in the trash.
Jackson meets my eyes and shakes his head. “Look at me, Noah. I am a walking, talking reflection of all of my mistakes. Do you really think he’s proud to call me ‘son’?”
I bite my lip. “He should be,” I say softly.
He stares at me for a long moment, then turns away. You can see every bump and ridge in his spine. He looks so sick, so pitiful. I would give anything to let him be healthy. I would give everything to just let him live.
But there is nothing I can give, nothing I can change. No one should feel this helplessness; this incredible, unbearable loss.
“How is he?”
I shrug, putting the car in gear.
“Noah...” She sighs. “Why do you do this? Why do you shut yourself off?”
I glance at her. “Julia, honest to god, will... Never mind.”
She puts her foot up on the dash. “What?”
“Can we not talk about it?” I say, as gently as I can muster.
She sighs. “I just want to know how he is.”
“Why does it matter to you?” I adjust the rearview mirror impatiently. I wish she would stop. She never knows when to stop.
“Because it matters to you,” she says, like that explains anything at all. You can tell she rehearsed this conversation, thought about all of its possible directions and everything she might have to explain. This is the answer she practiced in front of the mirror. I hate that.
“Julia, seriously, can we talk about something else?”
“I just want to know how he is!” she squeals persistently, throwing her hands up in the air. She’s chewing gum. It’s seven o’clock in the morning. Who chews gum at seven o’clock in the morning?
I roll my eyes. “Julia, he’s dying. Okay? He can’t keep any food down. Last night he literally crawled upstairs at three in the morning to get me to build a fire because he was suddenly freezing cold. There aren’t enough blankets in the house to keep him warm, and you can see every single bone in his body through is disgustingly pale skin. His organs are shutting down. He never smiles anymore. I have two weeks, give or take a few days. I have two more weeks of him driving me crazy and then he won’t be around to drive me crazy anymore and I will die. I will die, Julia.” I’m crying. I wipe my eyes impatiently with the back of my hand. “Is that what you wanted to know?” I add, feebly, because the silence is so deafening that I can hardly breathe.
She doesn’t respond. I feel like the most horrible person. Yet somehow, I don’t care.
Geoff pulls me aside when I walk into class. “What’s the news?”
I wish everyone would leave me alone. I wish they would find somewhere else to get their news. I’m so sick of talking about it, thinking about it, having to live with it all the time. I’m so sick of being forced to acknowledge, every second of every day, that yes, my brother is sick, and yes, my brother is dying, and yes, it claws at my insides until I feel like I could die.
He stares at me expectantly. “Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He’s not getting treatment. Two weeks to a month,” I mutter. There is a lump in my throat so big I could die. So big I might die. And I don’t want to die, I just don’t particularly want to live right now.
“Two weeks to a month?” he asks quizzically.
I shrug. “Two weeks to a month,” I repeat. I don’t know what he wants me to say.
“Until?”
I can’t believe anyone could be this stupid. I can’t believe anyone could make me say this. Why is everyone so hell bent on making me say it? Why do I have to say it all the fucking time? “Til he dies,” I say softly. Til this is over. Til this ten year fiasco is over. Til I lose this huge part of me that I can never get back. I feel like I’m dying. I have to be dying. My tear ducts burn. I claw at my eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he says carefully, like he’s not sure what else to say.
“So am I.” You have no idea how sorry.
When I was six years old, there was an ice cream freezer in the cafeteria of my elementary school. Once a week, my mother gave me seventy-five cents to buy ice cream from the cart. Once a week, I enviously watched my classmates lick chocolate ice cream off of wooden spoons. Once a week, I snuck into my brother’s room and put seventy-five cents in the piggy bank on his dresser. I did it for months before I got caught. He asked what I was doing in his room. I told him I was just looking around. He told me to get out.
The next week, his room was dark. I crept in and dropped the three quarters into the piggy bank. They clinked against the bottom. Behind me, something shifted. I turned and peered into the darkness, but I couldn’t see anything.
The following morning I woke up and found three twenty dollar bills taped to my door beside a post-it note that read, “Don’t tell Mom.”
It wasn’t until years later that I realized it was more than six times what I’d given him.
I asked him about it when he came home for Christmas one year. “I only gave you maybe ten bucks. You gave me sixty back.”
“So?”
“So why?”
“Because good things happen to good people.”
Then why are you dying? I want to scream at him now. Because he’s a good person. He has always been a good person. Were you not good enough?
Sunday, November 12, 2006
November 12th: You never let my heart go, so let this heart be still.
“Let’s go out.”
“Noah, I really... Look at me. I haven’t even taken a shower. Can we just stay here?”
I sigh. “We always go out on the weekends.”
“Well, could we not?” Her tone is sharp, stern. I feel like I’m being yelled at by my mother.
I stare at her. “Julia, what the hell is up with you?”
“Nothing. You know what? Whatever. We can go out. Whatever you want.” She rolls her eyes and shoves past me and through the door.
I turn and follow her. “No, because then you’ll be upset with me all night and I’ll feel guilty for making you go out.”
She turns her head and rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, Noah, I’m just plotting to make your life miserable. You caught me. God, you are just so brilliant. Maybe you and Blair should get together and have brilliant little babies!” She turns and sprints up the stairs.
“Is that what this is about?” I call up after her. “That Blair came over to talk to me?”
She doesn’t answer. I run up after her just in time to see her door slam shut.
I press my ear against it and knock. “Jules, come on. Do you really think that Blair... Jules, we were talking about you.”
“Oh, that makes it better. You were talking about me behind my back! Why didn’t you just say so?”
I try the knob. The door swings open. She’s sitting on her bed, her knees curled up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. I can’t see her face.
“Julia...” I bite my lip, kick the door shut softly behind me. “She’s worried about you. She’s just looking out for you. Okay?”
She shakes her head and sniffles. “Noah, it’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
“I don’t know,” she manages. “She just wants there to be something wrong with me because she doesn’t want everyone to be looking at what’s wrong with her.”
I sigh, taking a few careful steps forward, perching on the bed next to her. “Julia...”
She leans against me, laying her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her. “Shhhh.... You’re fine... Shhhh....”
I’m not sure whether I’m talking to her or to myself.
* * *
“H to the O to the L to the A. You’ve reached Eddy’s cell, and he is very proud of that accomplishment and waits with bated breath to call you back. If you have something important to say, leave a message at the tone complete with your NAME and NUMBER. Many thanks.”
“Hey Eddy. It’s Noah. You changed your message, dude. What happened to the Pig Latin? Anyway, sorry about yesterday. Seriously. Um, if you want to come over tonight, that’d be cool. We have major leftover Chinese. Just, you know. If you want. I was going to go out with Julia but she’s... Who even knows. Anyway, call me back. I’ll be here.”
* * *
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Eddy. You still got major leftover Chinese? I’m in a major leftover Chinese mood.”
I laugh. “Yeah. Sure. Come on over.”
“You want me to swing by and rent a movie or something?”
“If you want.”
“Alright. I’ll be there in... I don’t know. Half an hour ish. Leave the back door unlocked, I’ll just let myself in.”
“Cool. Bye.”
“Bye.”
* * *
I’m nuking the last of the Orange Beef when Eddy walks in, triumphantly holding up a DVD in each hand. “Fight Club or Meet the Parents. It’s impossible to not be in the mood for one of the other.”
I roll my eyes. “Whichever.”
“Fight Club it is. Second best movie ever. Screw Citizen Kane and all that jack. Honestly, who cares if Rosebud was a fucking sled? Who cares, Noah?”
“Evidently the American Film Institute, but you know, that’s cool.”
“Obviously, the American Film Institute is a crock. I mean, this is a soap salesman and an office employee who build a global empire to vent male aggression.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re reading off the back of the case, aren’t you?”
He laughs. “Shut up, Fisher.”
The microwave beeps. I take out the food and replace its lid, then grab the stacked containers and some spoons and start out to the living room. Eddy follows.
We sit down, spreading the food around us, and I pop the DVD into the player. We watch in silence for a few minutes. Then he reaches out, grabs the remote, and hits pause.
I swallow a bite of lo mein. “What?”
“When I told you you could call me, you know what I meant, right?”
I shrug. “... Sure?”
“Because I know we’re guys, and manly men, and all that, and we have our cool factors to worry about and all that, but...”
I nod. “I know.”
“Okay.” He hits play and tosses the remote back on the ground. “Just checking.”
* * *
“Hello?”
“God, did I wake you up? It’s eleven thirty!”
I shake my head groggily. “Yeah, I’m lazy. Eddy and I had a Chinese food and Fight Club extravaganza here last night. What’s up?”
“We’re going to brunch.”
That wakes me up. I laugh. “Julia, we’re under forty five. I don’t think we’re allowed to go to brunch.”
She sighs impatiently. “Yeah, well, we’ll walk on the wild side. Get your lazy ass dressed. I’ll be at your house in twenty. And Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“Brush your teeth.”
* * *
“You look respectable,” she says, nodding, sounding just the slightest bit surprised. “And you don’t even have bedhead. Consider me kind of freaked out.”
I roll my eyes. “I really pulled out all the stops. Khakis and a polo shirt? What? No jeans?” I clap a hand to my mouth in mock surprise. “I tell you, Julia Gallagher, you have made an honest man of me.”
She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the door. “Keep going, Noah, and I will smack you.”
I roll my eyes again. “Uh-huh. I’m kind of scared, now. Where the hell are we going to brunch, anyway?” I ask as I hoist myself into the front seat of her father’s pickup truck.
“We’re not.” She climbs in on the driver’s side and grins at me. “We’re going to the lake. I told my parents Blair was driving me crazy and I wanted to use the day to study for midterms.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I see no textbooks.”
“In the trunk. But I really don’t think we need to lug them inside, do we?” She backs out of my driveway and puts the car in gear. “Besides, you did your hair all nice and everything. I like it better messy.”
“And my hair is of utmost importance, of course,” I say, nodding vigorously.
She brakes at the stop sign and leans over to kiss me. “You’re of utmost importance,” she whispers.
She sounds like she really believes it.
I wonder how long that will last.
* * *
The leaves crunch under my feet. A cold breeze blows up off the lake. I put my arm around Julia’s shoulder and pull her towards me. “Can you believe this is where we did it the first time?”
“We planned it for almost a month,” she says shyly, giggling. “It was our six month anniversary, and Jackson got you a bottle of really bad wine...”
“Oh god, it was horrible wine. And we couldn’t find a corkscrew, so we made one with a paper clip...”
“And the cork crumbled and fell in the wine, and we didn’t have glasses...”
“So we were just drinking out of the bottle, and couldn’t fish the cork pieces out, so we swallowed this disgusting crap wine with cork swimming in it...”
“And we were both giggling like crazy...”
“And you didn’t want us to do it on your parents’ bed, because you said that would be gross...”
“So we ended up on the floor in the kitchenette, because that somehow seemed more sanitary?”
“Well, we were drinking the crap wine, remember, so it made more sense then...”
We laugh as she unlocks the door to the house. “No wine this time,” I note, pulling it shut behind me.
She kisses me. “But this time we know what we’re doing,” she murmurs, her breath hot in my ear. Her fingers play with the buttons at the collar of my shirt.
I run my own hands up her sides. “Mmm, speak for yourself. I’m just playing it by ear.” I kiss her. “We need to talk about something, though, after we have all the sex...”
“Shut up and kiss me,” she commands, rolling her eyes.
I do.
* * *
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I just...”
She shakes her head, pulling on her shirt. “Noah...”
“No, I just... I have a ton of shit on my mind, and I guess I should’ve talked to you before we made all these plans, but I really thought I was okay for this, and maybe I’m just stupid...”
“No, you said we needed to talk and I told you not to and that was stupid of me. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” She says it in a rush, and without looking at me. She buttons her jeans, staring out the window.
I sigh. “Julia, he’s really...” My voice breaks. I pound my fist against the wall a couple of times, swallow the lump in my throat, and try again. “Julia, he’s really sick,” I try again. That’s all it takes for the tears to blur my vision. I turn and face the wall, slam my head against the wood paneling. It thuds painfully. I bite my lip.
“I know,” she murmurs, her voice slightly closer. A moment later, her arms are wrapped around my waist. She rests her chin on my shoulder, presses her chest into my back. She’s crying. Her tears are wet against my neck.
“No, Jules, he’s... It’s...” I take a ragged breath, but my lungs still feel starved for air. “We’ve been waiting for something big, some pneumonia or cancer or something or... Or something...” I can’t say it. Once I say it, it will be the beginning of the end. The beginning of the dying, the real dying, the dying where you’re cramped up in a hospital room with people you don’t really care about offering to get you ice chips, the dying you see in movies and read about in books that doesn’t happen to your brother the hero, your brother the football star. The kind of dying you don’t talk about, because it’s too real, because it burns in every piece of you, and it makes parts of you hurt that you never even knew you had. “It’s here,” I gasp, but her body doesn’t sag with the weight of my words and I know she doesn’t understand.
“Noah,” she whispers, grabbing my hand on the wall, placing hers over it, lacing our fingers together. “Noah, please.”
And her voice is pleading, begging me for answers. How am I supposed to tell her that I have none to give? “His lymph nodes are swollen,” I say softly. “His lymph nodes are swollen. The doctors always guessed that when something big happened, it would...” I gasp for breath. My chest is burning. I squeeze my eyes shut. “They guessed he would starve to death. But they said he might... They said maybe it would be lymphoma.”
There it is. There’s the sag, the understanding, all the air rushing out of her body and hitting my ear. “What does that mean?” she asks softly.
“It means he needs... I don’t know. Probably chemo. Probably radiation. Probably all kinds of pills...” I shake my head. “But I don’t think he’ll take it.”
“I don’t get it,” she says softly, sounding somehow ashamed of her ignorance. Like she faults herself for not being able to read my mind, for not being able to understand what this means.
“He doesn’t want treatment, Jules. He says he’s done.”
I hear her breath catch. “But...” She grips my hand tighter, shaking her head against my shoulder. “But...”
“He says he’s done,” I repeat. “He’s giving up.” I feel like someone punched me in the stomach, over and over again, like maybe I’ll never get another good breath of air, like maybe my gut will never stop aching.
“Noah, I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her voice trembling.
“Why is this happing to me?” The tears are insistent, pressing against my closed eyelids, leaking through the corners. “How the hell can this be happening to me?”
She shakes her head silently. “Noah...”
I turn to face her, tangling myself in her arm. She frees her hand and wraps her arms around my neck and presses her ear against my heart. I sob into her hair, and she shushes me quietly, rocking slowly back and forth to the rhythm of my pulse.
“Nothing should hurt this much,” I whisper.
“I know.”
But she doesn’t.
* * *
Jackson is waiting for me when I get home. He holds out a cup of coffee and a carton of creamer. “Sit down.”
I nod. I take a seat across from him. He’s wearing a red t-shirt, and his skin is a frighteningly gray shade of pale.
“I want you to listen,” he says softly. “I want you to listen to me, to what I have to say. Because I know you hate me right now. I would hate me, too. I’m selfish and I’m stupid and I’m killing myself. I’m misguided. I know you want to tell me how misguided I am. But I want you to listen, first. I want you to listen to me.”
I nod, absently stirring my coffee.
“I spent the weekend talking to Geoff. Because I knew if I talked to you, you would change my mind. I needed an objective opinion. You’re not objective. You’re my brother. You want me to live, more than anything, and I know that. So I spent the weekend talking to Geoff.”
He bites his lip. “Noah, I’ve made some really stupid choices. I was a horrible person. I didn’t deserve this. But I deserved to be knocked on my ass. It happened to me in the worst way. Or one of the worst ways, anyway. And that’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. That’s the last thing I think about before I go to bed at night. I fucked up. And this is what happened to me.”
The spoon clanks against the edge of the cup. I pull it out and set it on the table, staring at the pool of coffee forming on the plastic tablecloth.
“I’m not proud. I don’t get to be proud. I don’t get to fall in love. I don’t get to have a family. I don’t get to have a job, or a car, or a life. I depend on my little brother to carry me to my bed every night. Sometimes I’m too weak to get out of bed once I’m in it. I’m cold half the time, burning up the rest, and I can’t keep anything down. I’m not proud. What do I have to be proud of? I don’t have friends, I don’t have a family, I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t have my dignity --” His voice cracks. He takes a deep breath and continues. “For a few years in high school, I got everything I wanted. And now I don’t get anything I want. I don’t get anything I want. I don’t get to live on my own terms. I don’t have any freedom, any independence. I feel like a child. I can’t do anything for myself. I have no dignity left. I have nothing left. And there’s nothing I can do, Noah. I made my bed, and now I get to lie in it all the goddamn time..”
He stares down at his hands, clenches and unclenches his fists. “My own mother can’t stand looking at me. Do you know what that’s like? To have this woman who’s seen you in every state of disarray say that you’re too disgusting to look at? It makes you want to put a bullet through your head. Because if your own mother can’t stand to be around you, who the hell can?”
“It was Nathaniel,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “What?”
“She was trying to replace you with Nathaniel. She was going to make him just like you. You’ve seen his room. The football mobile, the football mural, the football everything.” I sigh. “She thought maybe if she had Nathaniel, she could keep you alive in some way. And she wouldn’t lose you.”
He folds his hands. His knuckles are cracked and knobby.
“And then he died. And it was like she lost you twice.”
He sighs. “But there never would have been a Nathaniel, if it weren’t for me.”
I bite my lip. That’s true.
“Anyway, Noah... You see what I’m saying. I’ve lost everything to this disease. I’ve lost everything. And I’ve tried so fucking hard for you, you have no idea how hard...” His voice fades. He shakes his head. “Noah, I don’t want to die in some hospital, hooked up to some machine. This is happening to me, whether I want it to or not.” He sighs. “I just... I want to die on my own terms.”
I stare at him. Please keep trying, I want to say. Please keep trying for me.
He clears his throat and cradles his head in his hands. “Noah, I stopped by the doctor after I dropped Geoff off. Just to see.” His eyes are closed. “Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Extremely aggressive, fast moving, in its later stages.” He takes a deep breath. “With chemotherapy and radiation, my chances are maybe 25%. Even then I’d probably only have four to six more months. They said there’s really nothing they can do. If I just let it run its course, keep going with the meds I’m on... They guess I could have anywhere from two weeks to a month.”
I ache all over, in the most profoundly horrible way.
He sighs, his eyes flickering open, his gaze connecting with mine. “If you want me to try treatment, I will,” he whispers.
I stare at him. This is the most horribly selfish thing he could do. “Damn it, Jackson,” I screech, tears pouring down my cheeks. He can’t do this to me. He can’t do this to me.
“You have to tell me now. He says if I decide to seek treatment, I need to start it today.” His eyes glisten. This isn’t fair. This is so incredibly unfair. “Noah?”
“Don’t.”
It’s the hardest word that I have ever said.
“Noah, I really... Look at me. I haven’t even taken a shower. Can we just stay here?”
I sigh. “We always go out on the weekends.”
“Well, could we not?” Her tone is sharp, stern. I feel like I’m being yelled at by my mother.
I stare at her. “Julia, what the hell is up with you?”
“Nothing. You know what? Whatever. We can go out. Whatever you want.” She rolls her eyes and shoves past me and through the door.
I turn and follow her. “No, because then you’ll be upset with me all night and I’ll feel guilty for making you go out.”
She turns her head and rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, Noah, I’m just plotting to make your life miserable. You caught me. God, you are just so brilliant. Maybe you and Blair should get together and have brilliant little babies!” She turns and sprints up the stairs.
“Is that what this is about?” I call up after her. “That Blair came over to talk to me?”
She doesn’t answer. I run up after her just in time to see her door slam shut.
I press my ear against it and knock. “Jules, come on. Do you really think that Blair... Jules, we were talking about you.”
“Oh, that makes it better. You were talking about me behind my back! Why didn’t you just say so?”
I try the knob. The door swings open. She’s sitting on her bed, her knees curled up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. I can’t see her face.
“Julia...” I bite my lip, kick the door shut softly behind me. “She’s worried about you. She’s just looking out for you. Okay?”
She shakes her head and sniffles. “Noah, it’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
“I don’t know,” she manages. “She just wants there to be something wrong with me because she doesn’t want everyone to be looking at what’s wrong with her.”
I sigh, taking a few careful steps forward, perching on the bed next to her. “Julia...”
She leans against me, laying her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around her. “Shhhh.... You’re fine... Shhhh....”
I’m not sure whether I’m talking to her or to myself.
“H to the O to the L to the A. You’ve reached Eddy’s cell, and he is very proud of that accomplishment and waits with bated breath to call you back. If you have something important to say, leave a message at the tone complete with your NAME and NUMBER. Many thanks.”
“Hey Eddy. It’s Noah. You changed your message, dude. What happened to the Pig Latin? Anyway, sorry about yesterday. Seriously. Um, if you want to come over tonight, that’d be cool. We have major leftover Chinese. Just, you know. If you want. I was going to go out with Julia but she’s... Who even knows. Anyway, call me back. I’ll be here.”
“Hello?”
“Hey. It’s Eddy. You still got major leftover Chinese? I’m in a major leftover Chinese mood.”
I laugh. “Yeah. Sure. Come on over.”
“You want me to swing by and rent a movie or something?”
“If you want.”
“Alright. I’ll be there in... I don’t know. Half an hour ish. Leave the back door unlocked, I’ll just let myself in.”
“Cool. Bye.”
“Bye.”
I’m nuking the last of the Orange Beef when Eddy walks in, triumphantly holding up a DVD in each hand. “Fight Club or Meet the Parents. It’s impossible to not be in the mood for one of the other.”
I roll my eyes. “Whichever.”
“Fight Club it is. Second best movie ever. Screw Citizen Kane and all that jack. Honestly, who cares if Rosebud was a fucking sled? Who cares, Noah?”
“Evidently the American Film Institute, but you know, that’s cool.”
“Obviously, the American Film Institute is a crock. I mean, this is a soap salesman and an office employee who build a global empire to vent male aggression.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re reading off the back of the case, aren’t you?”
He laughs. “Shut up, Fisher.”
The microwave beeps. I take out the food and replace its lid, then grab the stacked containers and some spoons and start out to the living room. Eddy follows.
We sit down, spreading the food around us, and I pop the DVD into the player. We watch in silence for a few minutes. Then he reaches out, grabs the remote, and hits pause.
I swallow a bite of lo mein. “What?”
“When I told you you could call me, you know what I meant, right?”
I shrug. “... Sure?”
“Because I know we’re guys, and manly men, and all that, and we have our cool factors to worry about and all that, but...”
I nod. “I know.”
“Okay.” He hits play and tosses the remote back on the ground. “Just checking.”
“Hello?”
“God, did I wake you up? It’s eleven thirty!”
I shake my head groggily. “Yeah, I’m lazy. Eddy and I had a Chinese food and Fight Club extravaganza here last night. What’s up?”
“We’re going to brunch.”
That wakes me up. I laugh. “Julia, we’re under forty five. I don’t think we’re allowed to go to brunch.”
She sighs impatiently. “Yeah, well, we’ll walk on the wild side. Get your lazy ass dressed. I’ll be at your house in twenty. And Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“Brush your teeth.”
“You look respectable,” she says, nodding, sounding just the slightest bit surprised. “And you don’t even have bedhead. Consider me kind of freaked out.”
I roll my eyes. “I really pulled out all the stops. Khakis and a polo shirt? What? No jeans?” I clap a hand to my mouth in mock surprise. “I tell you, Julia Gallagher, you have made an honest man of me.”
She grabs my hand and pulls me toward the door. “Keep going, Noah, and I will smack you.”
I roll my eyes again. “Uh-huh. I’m kind of scared, now. Where the hell are we going to brunch, anyway?” I ask as I hoist myself into the front seat of her father’s pickup truck.
“We’re not.” She climbs in on the driver’s side and grins at me. “We’re going to the lake. I told my parents Blair was driving me crazy and I wanted to use the day to study for midterms.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I see no textbooks.”
“In the trunk. But I really don’t think we need to lug them inside, do we?” She backs out of my driveway and puts the car in gear. “Besides, you did your hair all nice and everything. I like it better messy.”
“And my hair is of utmost importance, of course,” I say, nodding vigorously.
She brakes at the stop sign and leans over to kiss me. “You’re of utmost importance,” she whispers.
She sounds like she really believes it.
I wonder how long that will last.
The leaves crunch under my feet. A cold breeze blows up off the lake. I put my arm around Julia’s shoulder and pull her towards me. “Can you believe this is where we did it the first time?”
“We planned it for almost a month,” she says shyly, giggling. “It was our six month anniversary, and Jackson got you a bottle of really bad wine...”
“Oh god, it was horrible wine. And we couldn’t find a corkscrew, so we made one with a paper clip...”
“And the cork crumbled and fell in the wine, and we didn’t have glasses...”
“So we were just drinking out of the bottle, and couldn’t fish the cork pieces out, so we swallowed this disgusting crap wine with cork swimming in it...”
“And we were both giggling like crazy...”
“And you didn’t want us to do it on your parents’ bed, because you said that would be gross...”
“So we ended up on the floor in the kitchenette, because that somehow seemed more sanitary?”
“Well, we were drinking the crap wine, remember, so it made more sense then...”
We laugh as she unlocks the door to the house. “No wine this time,” I note, pulling it shut behind me.
She kisses me. “But this time we know what we’re doing,” she murmurs, her breath hot in my ear. Her fingers play with the buttons at the collar of my shirt.
I run my own hands up her sides. “Mmm, speak for yourself. I’m just playing it by ear.” I kiss her. “We need to talk about something, though, after we have all the sex...”
“Shut up and kiss me,” she commands, rolling her eyes.
I do.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I just...”
She shakes her head, pulling on her shirt. “Noah...”
“No, I just... I have a ton of shit on my mind, and I guess I should’ve talked to you before we made all these plans, but I really thought I was okay for this, and maybe I’m just stupid...”
“No, you said we needed to talk and I told you not to and that was stupid of me. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” She says it in a rush, and without looking at me. She buttons her jeans, staring out the window.
I sigh. “Julia, he’s really...” My voice breaks. I pound my fist against the wall a couple of times, swallow the lump in my throat, and try again. “Julia, he’s really sick,” I try again. That’s all it takes for the tears to blur my vision. I turn and face the wall, slam my head against the wood paneling. It thuds painfully. I bite my lip.
“I know,” she murmurs, her voice slightly closer. A moment later, her arms are wrapped around my waist. She rests her chin on my shoulder, presses her chest into my back. She’s crying. Her tears are wet against my neck.
“No, Jules, he’s... It’s...” I take a ragged breath, but my lungs still feel starved for air. “We’ve been waiting for something big, some pneumonia or cancer or something or... Or something...” I can’t say it. Once I say it, it will be the beginning of the end. The beginning of the dying, the real dying, the dying where you’re cramped up in a hospital room with people you don’t really care about offering to get you ice chips, the dying you see in movies and read about in books that doesn’t happen to your brother the hero, your brother the football star. The kind of dying you don’t talk about, because it’s too real, because it burns in every piece of you, and it makes parts of you hurt that you never even knew you had. “It’s here,” I gasp, but her body doesn’t sag with the weight of my words and I know she doesn’t understand.
“Noah,” she whispers, grabbing my hand on the wall, placing hers over it, lacing our fingers together. “Noah, please.”
And her voice is pleading, begging me for answers. How am I supposed to tell her that I have none to give? “His lymph nodes are swollen,” I say softly. “His lymph nodes are swollen. The doctors always guessed that when something big happened, it would...” I gasp for breath. My chest is burning. I squeeze my eyes shut. “They guessed he would starve to death. But they said he might... They said maybe it would be lymphoma.”
There it is. There’s the sag, the understanding, all the air rushing out of her body and hitting my ear. “What does that mean?” she asks softly.
“It means he needs... I don’t know. Probably chemo. Probably radiation. Probably all kinds of pills...” I shake my head. “But I don’t think he’ll take it.”
“I don’t get it,” she says softly, sounding somehow ashamed of her ignorance. Like she faults herself for not being able to read my mind, for not being able to understand what this means.
“He doesn’t want treatment, Jules. He says he’s done.”
I hear her breath catch. “But...” She grips my hand tighter, shaking her head against my shoulder. “But...”
“He says he’s done,” I repeat. “He’s giving up.” I feel like someone punched me in the stomach, over and over again, like maybe I’ll never get another good breath of air, like maybe my gut will never stop aching.
“Noah, I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her voice trembling.
“Why is this happing to me?” The tears are insistent, pressing against my closed eyelids, leaking through the corners. “How the hell can this be happening to me?”
She shakes her head silently. “Noah...”
I turn to face her, tangling myself in her arm. She frees her hand and wraps her arms around my neck and presses her ear against my heart. I sob into her hair, and she shushes me quietly, rocking slowly back and forth to the rhythm of my pulse.
“Nothing should hurt this much,” I whisper.
“I know.”
But she doesn’t.
Jackson is waiting for me when I get home. He holds out a cup of coffee and a carton of creamer. “Sit down.”
I nod. I take a seat across from him. He’s wearing a red t-shirt, and his skin is a frighteningly gray shade of pale.
“I want you to listen,” he says softly. “I want you to listen to me, to what I have to say. Because I know you hate me right now. I would hate me, too. I’m selfish and I’m stupid and I’m killing myself. I’m misguided. I know you want to tell me how misguided I am. But I want you to listen, first. I want you to listen to me.”
I nod, absently stirring my coffee.
“I spent the weekend talking to Geoff. Because I knew if I talked to you, you would change my mind. I needed an objective opinion. You’re not objective. You’re my brother. You want me to live, more than anything, and I know that. So I spent the weekend talking to Geoff.”
He bites his lip. “Noah, I’ve made some really stupid choices. I was a horrible person. I didn’t deserve this. But I deserved to be knocked on my ass. It happened to me in the worst way. Or one of the worst ways, anyway. And that’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. That’s the last thing I think about before I go to bed at night. I fucked up. And this is what happened to me.”
The spoon clanks against the edge of the cup. I pull it out and set it on the table, staring at the pool of coffee forming on the plastic tablecloth.
“I’m not proud. I don’t get to be proud. I don’t get to fall in love. I don’t get to have a family. I don’t get to have a job, or a car, or a life. I depend on my little brother to carry me to my bed every night. Sometimes I’m too weak to get out of bed once I’m in it. I’m cold half the time, burning up the rest, and I can’t keep anything down. I’m not proud. What do I have to be proud of? I don’t have friends, I don’t have a family, I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t have my dignity --” His voice cracks. He takes a deep breath and continues. “For a few years in high school, I got everything I wanted. And now I don’t get anything I want. I don’t get anything I want. I don’t get to live on my own terms. I don’t have any freedom, any independence. I feel like a child. I can’t do anything for myself. I have no dignity left. I have nothing left. And there’s nothing I can do, Noah. I made my bed, and now I get to lie in it all the goddamn time..”
He stares down at his hands, clenches and unclenches his fists. “My own mother can’t stand looking at me. Do you know what that’s like? To have this woman who’s seen you in every state of disarray say that you’re too disgusting to look at? It makes you want to put a bullet through your head. Because if your own mother can’t stand to be around you, who the hell can?”
“It was Nathaniel,” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “What?”
“She was trying to replace you with Nathaniel. She was going to make him just like you. You’ve seen his room. The football mobile, the football mural, the football everything.” I sigh. “She thought maybe if she had Nathaniel, she could keep you alive in some way. And she wouldn’t lose you.”
He folds his hands. His knuckles are cracked and knobby.
“And then he died. And it was like she lost you twice.”
He sighs. “But there never would have been a Nathaniel, if it weren’t for me.”
I bite my lip. That’s true.
“Anyway, Noah... You see what I’m saying. I’ve lost everything to this disease. I’ve lost everything. And I’ve tried so fucking hard for you, you have no idea how hard...” His voice fades. He shakes his head. “Noah, I don’t want to die in some hospital, hooked up to some machine. This is happening to me, whether I want it to or not.” He sighs. “I just... I want to die on my own terms.”
I stare at him. Please keep trying, I want to say. Please keep trying for me.
He clears his throat and cradles his head in his hands. “Noah, I stopped by the doctor after I dropped Geoff off. Just to see.” His eyes are closed. “Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Extremely aggressive, fast moving, in its later stages.” He takes a deep breath. “With chemotherapy and radiation, my chances are maybe 25%. Even then I’d probably only have four to six more months. They said there’s really nothing they can do. If I just let it run its course, keep going with the meds I’m on... They guess I could have anywhere from two weeks to a month.”
I ache all over, in the most profoundly horrible way.
He sighs, his eyes flickering open, his gaze connecting with mine. “If you want me to try treatment, I will,” he whispers.
I stare at him. This is the most horribly selfish thing he could do. “Damn it, Jackson,” I screech, tears pouring down my cheeks. He can’t do this to me. He can’t do this to me.
“You have to tell me now. He says if I decide to seek treatment, I need to start it today.” His eyes glisten. This isn’t fair. This is so incredibly unfair. “Noah?”
“Don’t.”
It’s the hardest word that I have ever said.
Friday, November 10, 2006
November 10th: And I'm dying because you're leaving hopes abandoned and my heart still beating. But I never gave up trying: I did everything for you.
“Noah.”
I shake my head. “Look, I don’t have to like it, okay? Just let me not like it. Quit trying to convince me that I should.”
He bites his lip. “It shouldn’t be a big deal,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me. Then, louder, “I’m almost thirty years old, Noah. This shouldn’t be a big deal. Something like this shouldn’t be a big deal...”
“Shut up.”
He stares at me. “What?”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.” My voice is ragged. He stares at me like I’ve never said something to preposterous in my life.
“Noah, what the hell are you talking about?”
I throw my hands up. “Are you stupid? Do you not see yourself? Jackson, you weigh like, a hundred pounds! You can hardly walk or breathe or anything else! I’m sorry that you’re almost thirty and I’m sorry that I’m seventeen and I’m sorry that you’re sick, but you’re sick. Most people your age aren’t dying, so they can go to the beach whenever they freaking want. I’m sorry that you fucked up your life and fucked up your health, and I’m sorry that you’re so miserable stuck here with me and my ‘pity party’, but honestly Jackson, I’m trying as hard as I freaking can to help you and I don’t think you even care.” I wipe my eyes vigorously with the back of my hand. Why the hell am I crying?
He stares at me blankly.
“Jackson, if you go, I will never freaking forgive you. I swear.” I mean it to sound tough, but my voice is trembling too much. I just sound pitiful, desperate. Well, maybe I am.
He sighs, his chest visibly jerking. “Noah, I’m going to die. And I’m going to die whether you’re taking care of me or not. And I do care, and I do notice, and I do wish that I knew how to tell you that without us having to have some huge fight. And I’m sorry that I’m so hard to deal with, and I’m sorry that I’m so stupid, and I’m sorry that I fucked up my life and don’t get to go to the beach whenever I want to.” He purses his lips. “Do you want to come with us?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Jackson...”
“I’m going, Noah. I’m going, because I’m so sick of not being able to do what I want. And I know it’s stupid and childish of me to not accept that I’m dying and I can’t do everything I want, but Noah, I can’t do anything I want. I gave up friends, football, jobs, girlfriends, a family of my own. I don’t have any of that. I don’t have any chance at any of that. I don’t get to go to the beach when I want, I don’t even get to go to the store when I want. And so today I’m screwing it, and I’m going to the beach for the weekend, because I don’t want to die wishing that I had screwed it more often.” He raises his eyebrows. “So are you coming or not?”
“Okay.”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “Good.”
* * *
“We’re going to the beach,” Eddy repeats.
“Yes.” I toss his duffel bag in the back of the minivan.
“Noah, it’s the middle of November.”
I shrug. “Lots of people go to the beach in the winter.”
“True. But most people do not go to the beach in the winter with their physics teachers.”
I roll my eyes. “Jackson is going with our physics teacher. I am going with Jackson. And you are going with me. So really, no connection. Don’t worry, dude.” I smile mockingly. “Your cool factor is perfectly intact.”
“Oh yeah. Because when people are all, ‘What did you do this weekend?’ and I say, ‘Oh, I spent it with my friend Noah at Geoff Berman’s beach house, but it was okay because I went with Noah and Noah went with his brother and only his brother really went with Geoff, so you know, my cool factor can stay intact, if that’s alright.’ You’re a moron, Noah. Why aren’t you taking Julia, again?”
I sigh. “Because teenage girls are rarely allowed to go on overnight, unsupervised trips with their boyfriends. One of those weird rules. Besides, you said you wanted to go.”
“I said I wanted to go back when I didn’t know my cool factor was at stake.” He grabs the cooler and hefts it into the trunk. “If this sucks ass or is in any way awkward, you’re doing my calc for at least a month. Maybe longer.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” I roll my eyes and slam the trunk. “I’m going to go see if Jackson’s got everything. You coming with?”
He shrugs. “I guess.”
We head inside. We find Jackson sitting at the kitchen table, staring intently at a glass of water.
“You ready to go?”
He shrugs listlessly.
“Jackson?”
He shakes his head.
“Jackson, you wanted to go to the fucking beach. Let’s go to the fucking beach.”
He swallows, his head jutting forward, looking like it’s the most painful thing he’s ever had to do. He turns his head, looks at me, his cheeks streaked with tears.
I take a step toward him. “Jackson?” I grab his hand. It tremors. I tighten my grip, but I can still feel it quaking. His palm is clammy. I swallow the lump in my throat. Something is wrong.
I crouch down and stare up at him, sandwiching his hand between both of mine. He’s crying too hard to speak. He keeps shaking his head, his whole body quaking with the force of his sobs. I want to hug him, but I feel like I could break him. So I settle for holding his hand.
Slowly, his other hand rises. It trembles in mid-air for a moment before moving to his neck. He runs his fingers down from his throat, stopping halfway to the base of his neck.
And then I see it.
“Damn it, Jackson!” I whisper hoarsely.
He shakes his head, wheezing, sobbing, his body trembling uncontrollably.
I stand up slowly, my knees threatening to give out. “Damn it, Jackson,” I repeat, suffocating on the lump in my throat. My reflection in the microwave door contorts, my face crumples. “Damn it. Damn it!” I drop his hand. His jerks keels forward suddenly, his ribs colliding with his thighs with a hollow thud. He buries his face in his knees. His spine threatens to cut open the skin of his back, row after row of tiny bones scratching against his skin. I collapse into the chair next to his, my chest aching in a million different ways.
The door hinges creak. I look up. Eddy is staring at the ground, his foot drawing shapes on the welcome mat, his teeth firmly implanted in his lip. Behind him, Geoff stands with his mouth hanging open, shaking his head side to side, his right hand fingering his earlobe.
Our eyes meet. He looks away immediately, turning his gaze back to Jackson sobbing into his legs.
“We’re staying home,” I say quietly. “Okay?”
He nods. But Jackson looks up, his eyes red and sunken and sadder than anything I have ever seen. “No. We’re going.” His voice is shaking. He sounds as scared as I feel.
“Jackson, we can’t.” I have to be the reasonable one. I have to be the one who makes sense. “You need to go to a doctor, you need to get started on treatment, you need to...”
He shakes his head. “Noah....”
“Damn it, Jackson, will you just be sane for five fucking seconds?” I squeal, my voice breaking.
“Noah, I’m a hundred fucking pounds. You can see through my skin. I can hardly walk, some days I can’t even move. I have no shirt on even though it’s snowing outside.” He’s crying again, silent tears this time, his eyes boring into mine. “I’m not going to get better. Not if I take one more pill, not if I take twenty, not if I go to the doctor every freaking second of every freaking day. Give it up. I’m not getting better, Noah. I’m not ever getting better.” His voice cracks. He buries his face in his hands.
“So what, you want to just pretend that things are okay? You want to just pretend that you’re fine so you can go to the god forsaken beach?”
“No!” He reaches out, grabs my shoulders. “Noah, for the love of god, just let me die.”
I jerk out of his grip. “Damn it.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, shaking my head, gritting my teeth.
“Go get your stuff out of the car, Noah.”
I look up at him. His eyes break my heart.
“Noah, go. Please. You shouldn’t come.”
I shake my head. “You’re the one who shouldn’t go,” I manage, my stomach knotting painfully.
“Please,” he repeats softly, biting his lip. “Please.”
I choke back a sob and stand, pushing past him and through the back door. Eddy follows without a word.
“Call me if you want,” he says, grabbing his duffel bag.
I nod.
“I’m sorry, dude,” he says quietly, then rushes away before I can respond.
* * *
The house is too quiet without him. I’ve gotten so used to his quiet rustlings, the sound of his breathing three rooms away, the thud of his spoon against the table through the paper plates. You can turn on all the televisions that you want, but somehow you can never really duplicate the noise.
My father’s car pulls into the drive at eleven o’clock. He walks through the living room in a daze and starts up the stairs, then does a double take. Our eyes meet.
“His lymph nodes are swollen,” I remark, returning my gaze to the television.
I hear Dad’s breath catch. “Damn.”
“He went to the beach anyway. I told him to stay home.”
I glance at my father. He picks up his briefcase and sighs, starting up the stairs again.
“I don’t think he wants treatment,” I say softly as he disappears.
His head pokes back through the door leading upstairs. “What?”
“He doesn’t want treatment.”
Dad turns and slams the door. When I go up to bed an hour later, his light is still on. The floorboards creak under his pacing feet long into the night.
* * *
“Hey,” I shout over the whir of the machine and the pounding of her feet.
She glances at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. My house is too quiet. Do you want to go do that outside?” I jerk my head toward the treadmill.
She stares at me. “Not really.”
I attempt a grin. “Why not?”
She shrugs.
“But you’re not going anywhere!”
She shrugs again.
Maybe that’s the point.
I shake my head. “Look, I don’t have to like it, okay? Just let me not like it. Quit trying to convince me that I should.”
He bites his lip. “It shouldn’t be a big deal,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me. Then, louder, “I’m almost thirty years old, Noah. This shouldn’t be a big deal. Something like this shouldn’t be a big deal...”
“Shut up.”
He stares at me. “What?”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.” My voice is ragged. He stares at me like I’ve never said something to preposterous in my life.
“Noah, what the hell are you talking about?”
I throw my hands up. “Are you stupid? Do you not see yourself? Jackson, you weigh like, a hundred pounds! You can hardly walk or breathe or anything else! I’m sorry that you’re almost thirty and I’m sorry that I’m seventeen and I’m sorry that you’re sick, but you’re sick. Most people your age aren’t dying, so they can go to the beach whenever they freaking want. I’m sorry that you fucked up your life and fucked up your health, and I’m sorry that you’re so miserable stuck here with me and my ‘pity party’, but honestly Jackson, I’m trying as hard as I freaking can to help you and I don’t think you even care.” I wipe my eyes vigorously with the back of my hand. Why the hell am I crying?
He stares at me blankly.
“Jackson, if you go, I will never freaking forgive you. I swear.” I mean it to sound tough, but my voice is trembling too much. I just sound pitiful, desperate. Well, maybe I am.
He sighs, his chest visibly jerking. “Noah, I’m going to die. And I’m going to die whether you’re taking care of me or not. And I do care, and I do notice, and I do wish that I knew how to tell you that without us having to have some huge fight. And I’m sorry that I’m so hard to deal with, and I’m sorry that I’m so stupid, and I’m sorry that I fucked up my life and don’t get to go to the beach whenever I want to.” He purses his lips. “Do you want to come with us?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Jackson...”
“I’m going, Noah. I’m going, because I’m so sick of not being able to do what I want. And I know it’s stupid and childish of me to not accept that I’m dying and I can’t do everything I want, but Noah, I can’t do anything I want. I gave up friends, football, jobs, girlfriends, a family of my own. I don’t have any of that. I don’t have any chance at any of that. I don’t get to go to the beach when I want, I don’t even get to go to the store when I want. And so today I’m screwing it, and I’m going to the beach for the weekend, because I don’t want to die wishing that I had screwed it more often.” He raises his eyebrows. “So are you coming or not?”
“Okay.”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “Good.”
“We’re going to the beach,” Eddy repeats.
“Yes.” I toss his duffel bag in the back of the minivan.
“Noah, it’s the middle of November.”
I shrug. “Lots of people go to the beach in the winter.”
“True. But most people do not go to the beach in the winter with their physics teachers.”
I roll my eyes. “Jackson is going with our physics teacher. I am going with Jackson. And you are going with me. So really, no connection. Don’t worry, dude.” I smile mockingly. “Your cool factor is perfectly intact.”
“Oh yeah. Because when people are all, ‘What did you do this weekend?’ and I say, ‘Oh, I spent it with my friend Noah at Geoff Berman’s beach house, but it was okay because I went with Noah and Noah went with his brother and only his brother really went with Geoff, so you know, my cool factor can stay intact, if that’s alright.’ You’re a moron, Noah. Why aren’t you taking Julia, again?”
I sigh. “Because teenage girls are rarely allowed to go on overnight, unsupervised trips with their boyfriends. One of those weird rules. Besides, you said you wanted to go.”
“I said I wanted to go back when I didn’t know my cool factor was at stake.” He grabs the cooler and hefts it into the trunk. “If this sucks ass or is in any way awkward, you’re doing my calc for at least a month. Maybe longer.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” I roll my eyes and slam the trunk. “I’m going to go see if Jackson’s got everything. You coming with?”
He shrugs. “I guess.”
We head inside. We find Jackson sitting at the kitchen table, staring intently at a glass of water.
“You ready to go?”
He shrugs listlessly.
“Jackson?”
He shakes his head.
“Jackson, you wanted to go to the fucking beach. Let’s go to the fucking beach.”
He swallows, his head jutting forward, looking like it’s the most painful thing he’s ever had to do. He turns his head, looks at me, his cheeks streaked with tears.
I take a step toward him. “Jackson?” I grab his hand. It tremors. I tighten my grip, but I can still feel it quaking. His palm is clammy. I swallow the lump in my throat. Something is wrong.
I crouch down and stare up at him, sandwiching his hand between both of mine. He’s crying too hard to speak. He keeps shaking his head, his whole body quaking with the force of his sobs. I want to hug him, but I feel like I could break him. So I settle for holding his hand.
Slowly, his other hand rises. It trembles in mid-air for a moment before moving to his neck. He runs his fingers down from his throat, stopping halfway to the base of his neck.
And then I see it.
“Damn it, Jackson!” I whisper hoarsely.
He shakes his head, wheezing, sobbing, his body trembling uncontrollably.
I stand up slowly, my knees threatening to give out. “Damn it, Jackson,” I repeat, suffocating on the lump in my throat. My reflection in the microwave door contorts, my face crumples. “Damn it. Damn it!” I drop his hand. His jerks keels forward suddenly, his ribs colliding with his thighs with a hollow thud. He buries his face in his knees. His spine threatens to cut open the skin of his back, row after row of tiny bones scratching against his skin. I collapse into the chair next to his, my chest aching in a million different ways.
The door hinges creak. I look up. Eddy is staring at the ground, his foot drawing shapes on the welcome mat, his teeth firmly implanted in his lip. Behind him, Geoff stands with his mouth hanging open, shaking his head side to side, his right hand fingering his earlobe.
Our eyes meet. He looks away immediately, turning his gaze back to Jackson sobbing into his legs.
“We’re staying home,” I say quietly. “Okay?”
He nods. But Jackson looks up, his eyes red and sunken and sadder than anything I have ever seen. “No. We’re going.” His voice is shaking. He sounds as scared as I feel.
“Jackson, we can’t.” I have to be the reasonable one. I have to be the one who makes sense. “You need to go to a doctor, you need to get started on treatment, you need to...”
He shakes his head. “Noah....”
“Damn it, Jackson, will you just be sane for five fucking seconds?” I squeal, my voice breaking.
“Noah, I’m a hundred fucking pounds. You can see through my skin. I can hardly walk, some days I can’t even move. I have no shirt on even though it’s snowing outside.” He’s crying again, silent tears this time, his eyes boring into mine. “I’m not going to get better. Not if I take one more pill, not if I take twenty, not if I go to the doctor every freaking second of every freaking day. Give it up. I’m not getting better, Noah. I’m not ever getting better.” His voice cracks. He buries his face in his hands.
“So what, you want to just pretend that things are okay? You want to just pretend that you’re fine so you can go to the god forsaken beach?”
“No!” He reaches out, grabs my shoulders. “Noah, for the love of god, just let me die.”
I jerk out of his grip. “Damn it.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, shaking my head, gritting my teeth.
“Go get your stuff out of the car, Noah.”
I look up at him. His eyes break my heart.
“Noah, go. Please. You shouldn’t come.”
I shake my head. “You’re the one who shouldn’t go,” I manage, my stomach knotting painfully.
“Please,” he repeats softly, biting his lip. “Please.”
I choke back a sob and stand, pushing past him and through the back door. Eddy follows without a word.
“Call me if you want,” he says, grabbing his duffel bag.
I nod.
“I’m sorry, dude,” he says quietly, then rushes away before I can respond.
The house is too quiet without him. I’ve gotten so used to his quiet rustlings, the sound of his breathing three rooms away, the thud of his spoon against the table through the paper plates. You can turn on all the televisions that you want, but somehow you can never really duplicate the noise.
My father’s car pulls into the drive at eleven o’clock. He walks through the living room in a daze and starts up the stairs, then does a double take. Our eyes meet.
“His lymph nodes are swollen,” I remark, returning my gaze to the television.
I hear Dad’s breath catch. “Damn.”
“He went to the beach anyway. I told him to stay home.”
I glance at my father. He picks up his briefcase and sighs, starting up the stairs again.
“I don’t think he wants treatment,” I say softly as he disappears.
His head pokes back through the door leading upstairs. “What?”
“He doesn’t want treatment.”
Dad turns and slams the door. When I go up to bed an hour later, his light is still on. The floorboards creak under his pacing feet long into the night.
“Hey,” I shout over the whir of the machine and the pounding of her feet.
She glances at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you. My house is too quiet. Do you want to go do that outside?” I jerk my head toward the treadmill.
She stares at me. “Not really.”
I attempt a grin. “Why not?”
She shrugs.
“But you’re not going anywhere!”
She shrugs again.
Maybe that’s the point.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
November 9th: Walk blindly for the light and reach for his hand. Don't ask any questions and don't try to understand
“I brought you a muffin.”
She sighs, throwing her backpack into the car and climbing in. “Noah...”
“It’s blueberry.” I hold it out over her lap. “I promise it’ll be fantastic.”
She takes it from me, gripping it gingerly between two fingers.
I glance at her as I put the car into reverse. “It’s not a bomb, you know.”
“I know.” She sets it in her lap, resting one finger on top to hold it steady. “It’s a quarter past seven. I woke up an hour ago. My mouth still tastes like toothpaste. I really don’t want a blueberry muffin. Why didn’t you ask if I wanted one before you brought it?”
I shrug. “It’s a muffin, Julia. My father had to bring muffins to the break room at work today, he left a few at home, I brought you one.” I brought you one because you spent half an hour last night cutting up your meal and then you scraped all those perfect pieces down the disposal. I brought you one because all you ever eat is lettuce and cucumbers and diet soda. I brought you one because if you eat one I won’t have to worry about you anymore. “It’s not a big deal.” Except that it kind of is.
She knows it, too. “Look, Noah, can you just ask next time? I’m really not a breakfast person.”
You used to be, I want to say, but there are too many things she could say back. So I stay quiet. When I park, she sets the muffin gently on a muddy island, underneath a tree. She looks up at me with a mixture of shame and spite and walks away without saying goodbye.
* * *
“Bottle rockets kind of suck,” Eddy notes, crumpling up a piece of paper. “Things that move kind of suck. Physics? Kind of sucks.”
“Duly noted,” Geoff remarks from his desk.
Eddy rolls his eyes. “So anyway. Newton’s Third Law. Had any brilliant ideas?”
“Eddy, we’re making a bottle rocket. Bottle rockets like, are the Third Law of Motion. In motion. And that was lame.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. Okay, genius punmaster, this is your project to do. I mastered Cedric. You get Chester.”
I kick him. “We’re not naming a freaking bottle rocket, dude. And we’re definitely not naming it Chester.”
“Noah, we’ve learned multiple times lately how wrong you generally are. So I would go ahead and say that both of the assumptions you just made are completely and totally inaccurate.” He puts down his pencil and glances at the clock. “But that’s okay. Because you have all day to reflect on how long you are. I’m sure by lunch you’ll be feeling more enlightened.”
The bell rings. I grab our sketches off his desk and shove them in my binder.
“Noah? Can I see you for a minute?”
I look up. Geoff is watching me expectantly. I nod. “Yeah. Give me a second.” I shove my binder into my backpack and hoist it over one shoulder. “What’s up?”
He looks at me. “I was over at your house last night. I guess you know that.”
I nod.
“Was he okay, when I left?”
I stare at my hands. “Well, I mean, he’s sick...”
“Noah.”
My head snaps up.
“He saw my ring and he commented on it and went to go get his from his room. He says he hasn’t worn it since high school. He tried to put it on and his finger couldn’t even hold it. It was shaking like a leaf. And then his whole hand started shaking, and...”
I bite my lip.
“He said he was fine, but I left not long after that and... I don’t know. He still had the ring in his hand, and he was still shaking, and I was kind of worried...”
I meet his eyes, expecting to call his bluff, but I only see concern, the same breed of hopeless worry that drew the lines in my mother’s face. The same overwhelming anxiety I see in the mirror every morning.
“He thought he was invincible,” I say softly. “He was the star.” I take a long, slow breath. “And now he can’t even lift the ring.”
* * *
“Hey.”
I look up, shoving my history book into my backpack. “Hey.”
“Look, I’m sorry I was such a bitch about the muffin.”
I shrug, slamming my locker shut. “Yeah. It’s okay. Just a muffin, right?” I zip up my pack.
“Noah...” She sighs. “I wish you never had to leave. My house is so much more manageable when you’re there.”
“Is your mother still pissed?” I grab her hand and start down the hall toward the art room.
She shrugs. “I mean, I think she’s just kind of shocked that I would ever tell her to shut up. And she’s really embarrassed that we fought in front of you. She loves you, Noah. You know that. She really wants to impress you.”
“I doubt she’d love me as much if she knew the intentions I have for her daughter,” I remark, raising my eyebrows.
Julia laughs. “Yeah. Probably not. Especially now, with Blair... I think she’d go crazy if she knew how highly inappropriate you really are.”
I grin, pushing open the door to the courtyard with my hip. “She’ll get over being pissed, you know? Just give her time.”
Julia shrugs, the door slamming shut behind her. “I just wish she weren’t so embarrassing and involved all the time.”
“I know. But trust me, over involved is better than under involved.”
She nods, staring at the ground. “Yeah. I guess. You must think I’m so stupid to complain about this.”
I shake my head. “We’re teenagers. We’re supposed to resent our mothers.”
She shrugs. “But my mother hasn’t really done anything for me to resent her for. I’m lucky.”
“Almost everybody’s lucky,” I remark, swinging my leg over the bench and sitting down.
She sits down next to me, curling her leg up to her chest and resting her chin on her knee. “How can you really believe that? With Jackson and Nathaniel and everything else?”
“Jackson is one of the luckiest people you know,” I say softly.
She glances at me, her brow furrowed. “But he’s dying.”
“But he had everything he wanted. For years, he had everything he wanted.”
She shakes her head. “He lost all of it.”
“But luck isn’t about how far you fall. It’s about how far you get before you do.”
* * *
“Hey, Noah.”
She’s sitting on the patio, sipping a glass of iced tea, a crossword puzzle balanced precariously on her belly.
There is nothing wrong with this picture. Except that it’s my patio.
I throw my backpack down near the door and collapse into a chair across from her. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to come home,” she says with a shrug. The pencil rolls from one end of the newspaper to the other, but doesn’t fall off.
“And why are you waiting for me to come home?”
She rolls her eyes. “Because whenever I see you at my house, you’re with my sister.”
“That’s kind of weird, because I’m only ever really at your house because of your sister. If we broke up, I probably wouldn’t even be over there.”
She sets down her tea on the side table and picks up the crossword. “When you’re done being an ass, I need to talk to you.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay. By golly, Blair, what in tarnation are you doing on my porch?”
She heaves a sigh. “There’s something wrong with my sister.”
* * *
By the time she leaves, it’s after six. Jackson is at the table when I walk in, staring at a cold piece of pizza.
“You know what’s disgusting?”
“Parasites account for point oh one percent of your body’s weight.”
He turns and makes a face at me. “Okay, I was going to say when the grease on your pizza gets cold and rubbery, but you know, I think you win.”
I laugh. “You want me to make you a sandwich?”
He grins sheepishly. “Yeah. I guess a sandwich would be good.”
I open the freezer and grab the bread. I’m looking for the peanut butter when he clears his throat.
“Did you talk to Blair?”
I bite my lip. “Yeah.”
“What did she have to say?”
I roll my eyes, finally locating the peanut butter behind the cooking spray. “She’s worried about Julia or something. She doesn’t know why she’s worried, but she says something’s weird and that I’m supposed to figure out what it is.”
“What is it?”
I glance at him over my shoulder. “What do you mean, what is it? How am I supposed to know? You know how Blair is. She just likes to make drama. She’s good with drama.”
“Cut her a break, Noah. She’s not half as evil as you make her out to be.”
I grab a knife from the drawer and stick it in the peanut butter. “What, did you guys have a nice heart to heart while I was at school? Are you a big Blair fan now? Because seriously, don’t be. She’s a bitch.”
“She screwed up her entire life, Noah. And she knows it. She’s living with it every second of every day.”
I turn around and lean against the counter. “What, do you relate?”
He looks up at me. His cheekbones actually cast shadows. His skin is almost translucent. He looks so sick. My heart breaks, a little bit.
He sighs. His entire body heaves. “How could I not, Noah?”
I shake my head. “Jackson, she’s pregnant. She’s not... You know...”
“Dying?” he suggests.
I shake my head, turning back around, grabbing a paper plate. “All I’m saying is that she’ll be fine, and she doesn’t have to be such a freaking paranoid bitch in the meantime.”
“She just doesn’t want Julia to fuck up like she did,” he says quietly.
My breath catches.
“She’s been through a lot, Noah, that’s all. She’s not proud of it.”
“I know,” I say softly, swirling the knife in the jar of peanut butter.
“She’s trying, okay? And maybe she’s trying too hard, but...”
I bite my lip. “She’s trying. I know.”
* * *
“Hey, I brought Chinese!”
Jackson crumples up his paper plate and throws it under the table. I follow his lead.
“You’re home early, Dad,” I remark, wiping my mouth.
His face falls. “Oh no, you didn’t already eat, did you? I knew I should’ve called, but I was in a meeting and just decided to do this spur of the moment and my cell was...”
Jackson turns around and smiles. “No, Dad, Noah and I were just totally contemplating making it a popcorn in front of the TV night, but Chinese sounds infinitely better than that.”
I nod. “Infinitely. I can hardly make popcorn in the first place. It always burns --”
“And then we get all these pieces with this brown film on them that tastes like burned ass,” Jackson finishes. “Really not a good thing.”
“Absolutely not a good thing. Did you get extra rice?”
My father sets the bag down on the table and grins. “Yep. And extra fortune cookies.”
He goes to the cupboard and takes down a glass. I stand up and peer in the bag, taking out the fortune cookies and what must be a dozen packets of duck sauce.
“Who actually eats duck sauce? Honestly, who?” I wrinkle my nose and throw a packet at Jackson. He rolls his eyes as it bounces off his shoulder and into his lap.
“Apparently we look like duck sauce people. Or at least Dad does,” he remarks.
“Who the hell are ‘duck sauce people’? I’ve never even seen anyone open a packet of duck sauce.” I shove the packets to the side and take out four containers of rice. “Rice people I can understand. I’m rice people. Rice is a good thing. Rice is a dietary staple.”
Jackson rolls his eyes and grabs a container. “Got anything else?”
“General Tsao’s Chicken... Beef Lo Mein... Orange Beef... Crap, Dad, three things? Really? There are going to be major --” Jackson shoots me a look. “God. Good thing we’re hungry.”
Jackson nods. “Noah, you want to get some spoons and plates or something? Or do you just want to talk about duck sauce?”
I shrug, pulling three sets of chopsticks out of the bag – the cheap wood ones with splinters still intact. I toss a set in front of him. “Spoons. What an American.”
My father walks over and sets three spoons and three paper plates on the table. “Do you guys want anything to drink?”
I hold up my Sprite. “I’m covered. Jackson’s got water. I think we’re good to eat.”
Ten minutes later, Jackson is still picking apart his white rice into individual grains, and I’m struggling to use chopsticks for the first time in my life. My father doesn’t seem to notice. “How’s school going, Noah?” He has rice stuck in his moustache.
“Not bad. We have a physics project that’s killing me... You remember Jackson’s friend Geoff from high school?”
Dad nods. “Didn’t he play football? He was a tight end, right?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. But he’s my physics teacher. He assigns crazy amounts of projects.”
Jackson rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
“Anyway, yeah... Other than that it’s not bad. I have a history essay due next week, but I have all weekend to work on it.”
He nods again. “Any big plans for the weekend?”
Jackson picks up a few grains of rice on his spoon. “Actually, I think Geoff and I are going to the beach.”
This is news to me. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Really?”
He glares at me. “Why would it not be a good idea?”
“Because it’s twenty degrees outside and you’re wearing a tank top!”
My father shoots me a look. “Look, Jackson, your brother is right. This is ridiculous. You’re really not well enough to go on a trip right now.”
“Will you stop it?” Jackson drops his spoon and crosses his arms. “I’m twenty eight years old, damn it! I’m sorry that I’m such a fucking disappointment and such a goddamned burden for the two of you, but I’m pretty sure I can decide whether I want to go to the fucking beach this weekend with my fucking friend or stay home with Noah and his pity party!”
My father looks like Jackson just reached across the table and punched him in the stomach. “We just don’t want you to get hurt, son.”
“Dad, I’m dying.” He shakes his head. “It’s too late to save me.”
“What if something happens while you’re gone?” I ask hoarsely. “What the hell are you going to do then? Who’s going to know what to do?”
“Noah, you’re seventeen. You’re seventeen. You don’t know what to do! You just guess and hope you get it right!” He sighs. “Look, I just want to go to the fucking beach. I want to be the kind of person who can go to the beach with a friend if he wants to without having to care what his little brother thinks.”
“But...”
He meets my eyes. “Noah, I gave up everything for this stupid disease. I am stuck in this pathetic shell of a body, living this pathetic shell of a life. I don’t want to feel like I’m dying anymore. I don’t want to live the life of a dying man.”
“Jackson, you need to be at home. You can’t...”
“I can,” he whispers. “Noah, I can.”
There is a tremendous determination in his tone. And that’s what makes me give up. This is one argument I know I’ll never win.
* * *
Dear Noah,
I need you to take care of him. Because I can’t do this anymore. It’s been eight months of watching him get worse and worse and never better. He can hardly walk. He can hardly move. I can’t watch him die. You can’t expect me to watch him die.
I failed you. I know that I failed you. I’m so sorry that I failed you. But I need you to not fail me. I need you to take care of him. You’re the son I can trust to always do the right thing. Please do the right thing. He needs you. He needs you so much more than you can know.
I love you.
-Mom-
I fold it up again into even thirds, on creases so worn they’re almost torn, and swallow the lump in my throat. She left us each a letter, when she left. She asked me to stop by Nathaniel’s grave on my way home from school that day. That’s where I found the envelopes. Jackson burned his right after he read it. I never found out what it said. But it was easy enough to imagine.
My mother died when Jackson got sick. I was eight years old. I had no idea what HIV was, what it would end up meaning. The older I got, the more I learned, the more I shared her dread. But I don’t think anyone ever dreaded what happened last Christmas quite as much as my mother.
Jackson was everything my mother ever wanted. He was strong and he was charismatic and he had so much potential. People loved him. People admired him. People wanted to be him. He was a hero and a star and an enigma in his perfection. He had everything anyone could ever want. And she shared in that. She relished in his success. He was her firstborn. And he was perfect.
I always wonder: if it had been me, would there ever have been a Nathaniel? Would there have been letters? Would she have taken a shoebox of memories on an unending road trip? Would she have spent night after night in my room, gripping my hand until my fingers swelled, her other hand glued to my heart to make sure it was still beating? Would she have gone quite as crazy, mourned quite as much, if it had just been me?
And I want to believe that it’s stupid to think that she wouldn’t have. But reality tends to bear little resemblance to what I want to believe.
She sighs, throwing her backpack into the car and climbing in. “Noah...”
“It’s blueberry.” I hold it out over her lap. “I promise it’ll be fantastic.”
She takes it from me, gripping it gingerly between two fingers.
I glance at her as I put the car into reverse. “It’s not a bomb, you know.”
“I know.” She sets it in her lap, resting one finger on top to hold it steady. “It’s a quarter past seven. I woke up an hour ago. My mouth still tastes like toothpaste. I really don’t want a blueberry muffin. Why didn’t you ask if I wanted one before you brought it?”
I shrug. “It’s a muffin, Julia. My father had to bring muffins to the break room at work today, he left a few at home, I brought you one.” I brought you one because you spent half an hour last night cutting up your meal and then you scraped all those perfect pieces down the disposal. I brought you one because all you ever eat is lettuce and cucumbers and diet soda. I brought you one because if you eat one I won’t have to worry about you anymore. “It’s not a big deal.” Except that it kind of is.
She knows it, too. “Look, Noah, can you just ask next time? I’m really not a breakfast person.”
You used to be, I want to say, but there are too many things she could say back. So I stay quiet. When I park, she sets the muffin gently on a muddy island, underneath a tree. She looks up at me with a mixture of shame and spite and walks away without saying goodbye.
“Bottle rockets kind of suck,” Eddy notes, crumpling up a piece of paper. “Things that move kind of suck. Physics? Kind of sucks.”
“Duly noted,” Geoff remarks from his desk.
Eddy rolls his eyes. “So anyway. Newton’s Third Law. Had any brilliant ideas?”
“Eddy, we’re making a bottle rocket. Bottle rockets like, are the Third Law of Motion. In motion. And that was lame.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. Okay, genius punmaster, this is your project to do. I mastered Cedric. You get Chester.”
I kick him. “We’re not naming a freaking bottle rocket, dude. And we’re definitely not naming it Chester.”
“Noah, we’ve learned multiple times lately how wrong you generally are. So I would go ahead and say that both of the assumptions you just made are completely and totally inaccurate.” He puts down his pencil and glances at the clock. “But that’s okay. Because you have all day to reflect on how long you are. I’m sure by lunch you’ll be feeling more enlightened.”
The bell rings. I grab our sketches off his desk and shove them in my binder.
“Noah? Can I see you for a minute?”
I look up. Geoff is watching me expectantly. I nod. “Yeah. Give me a second.” I shove my binder into my backpack and hoist it over one shoulder. “What’s up?”
He looks at me. “I was over at your house last night. I guess you know that.”
I nod.
“Was he okay, when I left?”
I stare at my hands. “Well, I mean, he’s sick...”
“Noah.”
My head snaps up.
“He saw my ring and he commented on it and went to go get his from his room. He says he hasn’t worn it since high school. He tried to put it on and his finger couldn’t even hold it. It was shaking like a leaf. And then his whole hand started shaking, and...”
I bite my lip.
“He said he was fine, but I left not long after that and... I don’t know. He still had the ring in his hand, and he was still shaking, and I was kind of worried...”
I meet his eyes, expecting to call his bluff, but I only see concern, the same breed of hopeless worry that drew the lines in my mother’s face. The same overwhelming anxiety I see in the mirror every morning.
“He thought he was invincible,” I say softly. “He was the star.” I take a long, slow breath. “And now he can’t even lift the ring.”
“Hey.”
I look up, shoving my history book into my backpack. “Hey.”
“Look, I’m sorry I was such a bitch about the muffin.”
I shrug, slamming my locker shut. “Yeah. It’s okay. Just a muffin, right?” I zip up my pack.
“Noah...” She sighs. “I wish you never had to leave. My house is so much more manageable when you’re there.”
“Is your mother still pissed?” I grab her hand and start down the hall toward the art room.
She shrugs. “I mean, I think she’s just kind of shocked that I would ever tell her to shut up. And she’s really embarrassed that we fought in front of you. She loves you, Noah. You know that. She really wants to impress you.”
“I doubt she’d love me as much if she knew the intentions I have for her daughter,” I remark, raising my eyebrows.
Julia laughs. “Yeah. Probably not. Especially now, with Blair... I think she’d go crazy if she knew how highly inappropriate you really are.”
I grin, pushing open the door to the courtyard with my hip. “She’ll get over being pissed, you know? Just give her time.”
Julia shrugs, the door slamming shut behind her. “I just wish she weren’t so embarrassing and involved all the time.”
“I know. But trust me, over involved is better than under involved.”
She nods, staring at the ground. “Yeah. I guess. You must think I’m so stupid to complain about this.”
I shake my head. “We’re teenagers. We’re supposed to resent our mothers.”
She shrugs. “But my mother hasn’t really done anything for me to resent her for. I’m lucky.”
“Almost everybody’s lucky,” I remark, swinging my leg over the bench and sitting down.
She sits down next to me, curling her leg up to her chest and resting her chin on her knee. “How can you really believe that? With Jackson and Nathaniel and everything else?”
“Jackson is one of the luckiest people you know,” I say softly.
She glances at me, her brow furrowed. “But he’s dying.”
“But he had everything he wanted. For years, he had everything he wanted.”
She shakes her head. “He lost all of it.”
“But luck isn’t about how far you fall. It’s about how far you get before you do.”
“Hey, Noah.”
She’s sitting on the patio, sipping a glass of iced tea, a crossword puzzle balanced precariously on her belly.
There is nothing wrong with this picture. Except that it’s my patio.
I throw my backpack down near the door and collapse into a chair across from her. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you to come home,” she says with a shrug. The pencil rolls from one end of the newspaper to the other, but doesn’t fall off.
“And why are you waiting for me to come home?”
She rolls her eyes. “Because whenever I see you at my house, you’re with my sister.”
“That’s kind of weird, because I’m only ever really at your house because of your sister. If we broke up, I probably wouldn’t even be over there.”
She sets down her tea on the side table and picks up the crossword. “When you’re done being an ass, I need to talk to you.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay. By golly, Blair, what in tarnation are you doing on my porch?”
She heaves a sigh. “There’s something wrong with my sister.”
By the time she leaves, it’s after six. Jackson is at the table when I walk in, staring at a cold piece of pizza.
“You know what’s disgusting?”
“Parasites account for point oh one percent of your body’s weight.”
He turns and makes a face at me. “Okay, I was going to say when the grease on your pizza gets cold and rubbery, but you know, I think you win.”
I laugh. “You want me to make you a sandwich?”
He grins sheepishly. “Yeah. I guess a sandwich would be good.”
I open the freezer and grab the bread. I’m looking for the peanut butter when he clears his throat.
“Did you talk to Blair?”
I bite my lip. “Yeah.”
“What did she have to say?”
I roll my eyes, finally locating the peanut butter behind the cooking spray. “She’s worried about Julia or something. She doesn’t know why she’s worried, but she says something’s weird and that I’m supposed to figure out what it is.”
“What is it?”
I glance at him over my shoulder. “What do you mean, what is it? How am I supposed to know? You know how Blair is. She just likes to make drama. She’s good with drama.”
“Cut her a break, Noah. She’s not half as evil as you make her out to be.”
I grab a knife from the drawer and stick it in the peanut butter. “What, did you guys have a nice heart to heart while I was at school? Are you a big Blair fan now? Because seriously, don’t be. She’s a bitch.”
“She screwed up her entire life, Noah. And she knows it. She’s living with it every second of every day.”
I turn around and lean against the counter. “What, do you relate?”
He looks up at me. His cheekbones actually cast shadows. His skin is almost translucent. He looks so sick. My heart breaks, a little bit.
He sighs. His entire body heaves. “How could I not, Noah?”
I shake my head. “Jackson, she’s pregnant. She’s not... You know...”
“Dying?” he suggests.
I shake my head, turning back around, grabbing a paper plate. “All I’m saying is that she’ll be fine, and she doesn’t have to be such a freaking paranoid bitch in the meantime.”
“She just doesn’t want Julia to fuck up like she did,” he says quietly.
My breath catches.
“She’s been through a lot, Noah, that’s all. She’s not proud of it.”
“I know,” I say softly, swirling the knife in the jar of peanut butter.
“She’s trying, okay? And maybe she’s trying too hard, but...”
I bite my lip. “She’s trying. I know.”
“Hey, I brought Chinese!”
Jackson crumples up his paper plate and throws it under the table. I follow his lead.
“You’re home early, Dad,” I remark, wiping my mouth.
His face falls. “Oh no, you didn’t already eat, did you? I knew I should’ve called, but I was in a meeting and just decided to do this spur of the moment and my cell was...”
Jackson turns around and smiles. “No, Dad, Noah and I were just totally contemplating making it a popcorn in front of the TV night, but Chinese sounds infinitely better than that.”
I nod. “Infinitely. I can hardly make popcorn in the first place. It always burns --”
“And then we get all these pieces with this brown film on them that tastes like burned ass,” Jackson finishes. “Really not a good thing.”
“Absolutely not a good thing. Did you get extra rice?”
My father sets the bag down on the table and grins. “Yep. And extra fortune cookies.”
He goes to the cupboard and takes down a glass. I stand up and peer in the bag, taking out the fortune cookies and what must be a dozen packets of duck sauce.
“Who actually eats duck sauce? Honestly, who?” I wrinkle my nose and throw a packet at Jackson. He rolls his eyes as it bounces off his shoulder and into his lap.
“Apparently we look like duck sauce people. Or at least Dad does,” he remarks.
“Who the hell are ‘duck sauce people’? I’ve never even seen anyone open a packet of duck sauce.” I shove the packets to the side and take out four containers of rice. “Rice people I can understand. I’m rice people. Rice is a good thing. Rice is a dietary staple.”
Jackson rolls his eyes and grabs a container. “Got anything else?”
“General Tsao’s Chicken... Beef Lo Mein... Orange Beef... Crap, Dad, three things? Really? There are going to be major --” Jackson shoots me a look. “God. Good thing we’re hungry.”
Jackson nods. “Noah, you want to get some spoons and plates or something? Or do you just want to talk about duck sauce?”
I shrug, pulling three sets of chopsticks out of the bag – the cheap wood ones with splinters still intact. I toss a set in front of him. “Spoons. What an American.”
My father walks over and sets three spoons and three paper plates on the table. “Do you guys want anything to drink?”
I hold up my Sprite. “I’m covered. Jackson’s got water. I think we’re good to eat.”
Ten minutes later, Jackson is still picking apart his white rice into individual grains, and I’m struggling to use chopsticks for the first time in my life. My father doesn’t seem to notice. “How’s school going, Noah?” He has rice stuck in his moustache.
“Not bad. We have a physics project that’s killing me... You remember Jackson’s friend Geoff from high school?”
Dad nods. “Didn’t he play football? He was a tight end, right?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. But he’s my physics teacher. He assigns crazy amounts of projects.”
Jackson rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
“Anyway, yeah... Other than that it’s not bad. I have a history essay due next week, but I have all weekend to work on it.”
He nods again. “Any big plans for the weekend?”
Jackson picks up a few grains of rice on his spoon. “Actually, I think Geoff and I are going to the beach.”
This is news to me. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? Really?”
He glares at me. “Why would it not be a good idea?”
“Because it’s twenty degrees outside and you’re wearing a tank top!”
My father shoots me a look. “Look, Jackson, your brother is right. This is ridiculous. You’re really not well enough to go on a trip right now.”
“Will you stop it?” Jackson drops his spoon and crosses his arms. “I’m twenty eight years old, damn it! I’m sorry that I’m such a fucking disappointment and such a goddamned burden for the two of you, but I’m pretty sure I can decide whether I want to go to the fucking beach this weekend with my fucking friend or stay home with Noah and his pity party!”
My father looks like Jackson just reached across the table and punched him in the stomach. “We just don’t want you to get hurt, son.”
“Dad, I’m dying.” He shakes his head. “It’s too late to save me.”
“What if something happens while you’re gone?” I ask hoarsely. “What the hell are you going to do then? Who’s going to know what to do?”
“Noah, you’re seventeen. You’re seventeen. You don’t know what to do! You just guess and hope you get it right!” He sighs. “Look, I just want to go to the fucking beach. I want to be the kind of person who can go to the beach with a friend if he wants to without having to care what his little brother thinks.”
“But...”
He meets my eyes. “Noah, I gave up everything for this stupid disease. I am stuck in this pathetic shell of a body, living this pathetic shell of a life. I don’t want to feel like I’m dying anymore. I don’t want to live the life of a dying man.”
“Jackson, you need to be at home. You can’t...”
“I can,” he whispers. “Noah, I can.”
There is a tremendous determination in his tone. And that’s what makes me give up. This is one argument I know I’ll never win.
Dear Noah,
I need you to take care of him. Because I can’t do this anymore. It’s been eight months of watching him get worse and worse and never better. He can hardly walk. He can hardly move. I can’t watch him die. You can’t expect me to watch him die.
I failed you. I know that I failed you. I’m so sorry that I failed you. But I need you to not fail me. I need you to take care of him. You’re the son I can trust to always do the right thing. Please do the right thing. He needs you. He needs you so much more than you can know.
I love you.
-Mom-
I fold it up again into even thirds, on creases so worn they’re almost torn, and swallow the lump in my throat. She left us each a letter, when she left. She asked me to stop by Nathaniel’s grave on my way home from school that day. That’s where I found the envelopes. Jackson burned his right after he read it. I never found out what it said. But it was easy enough to imagine.
My mother died when Jackson got sick. I was eight years old. I had no idea what HIV was, what it would end up meaning. The older I got, the more I learned, the more I shared her dread. But I don’t think anyone ever dreaded what happened last Christmas quite as much as my mother.
Jackson was everything my mother ever wanted. He was strong and he was charismatic and he had so much potential. People loved him. People admired him. People wanted to be him. He was a hero and a star and an enigma in his perfection. He had everything anyone could ever want. And she shared in that. She relished in his success. He was her firstborn. And he was perfect.
I always wonder: if it had been me, would there ever have been a Nathaniel? Would there have been letters? Would she have taken a shoebox of memories on an unending road trip? Would she have spent night after night in my room, gripping my hand until my fingers swelled, her other hand glued to my heart to make sure it was still beating? Would she have gone quite as crazy, mourned quite as much, if it had just been me?
And I want to believe that it’s stupid to think that she wouldn’t have. But reality tends to bear little resemblance to what I want to believe.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
November 8th: this shattered dream you cannot justify
We come down the stairs holding hands, giggling, shoving each other back and forth like a couple of middle school kids. Her hair is rumpled, my shirt is wrinkled, and neither of us cares.
Mr. Gallagher, standing at the dining room table, eyes his daughter suspiciously. After a moment, he shrugs. “Dinner should be ready in a minute.”
Blair raises her eyebrows, staring at Julia. “What were you and Noah up to, sis?”
Julia rolls her eyes. “Gosh, Blair, you look pregnant! And are you a college drop out? Because you just have that look about you.”
Blair’s eyes flicker. “That’s kind of amazing, because you have this weird look, too… But then, I could be mistaken -- there’s just so much of you to look at!”
Julia flushes. I put my arm around her shoulders protectively. Mr. Gallagher is glancing between his daughters like he doesn’t know where they came from. “Blair, why don’t you go and help your mother with dinner.”
“Dad, I really think you might want to talk to Noah and Jules about --”
He smiles tightly. “Go.”
I glance down at Julia. She bites her lip worriedly. “How was work, Daddy?”
“Fine,” he answers curtly, staring somewhere past her head. “We’re thinking about taking on a new partner. It’s a long time until we make a final call, of course.” He picks up his water glass and takes a sip of it. “Your mother is very upset with you, Juliana.”
She stares at the ground. “I know. I just… I was rude. I’m sorry.”
Her mother appears that instant, carrying a giant casserole dish. She shoots Julia a look as she passes, but says nothing. It’s one of the first times that I’ve ever seen Mrs. Gallagher have nothing to say.
“Let’s all sit down,” she says quietly, avoiding Julia’s eyes. She takes the lid off of the casserole and sets it on the table. “Noah? Pass your plate?”
I oblige, squeezing Julia’s hand under the table. Her fingers are clammy.
She holds a heaping plate of food out to me, and I take it and put it in front of me. It’s a mass of rice and vegetables and some sort of sausage. My stomach turns. My mother would have loved this. My mother could easily have made this.
I glance over at Julia, delicately cutting her sausage into quarters. At Blair, sipping her water silently and shooting her sister death looks across the table. At their parents, discussing what to do with their wayward daughters without ever saying a word. And then there’s me. The odd one out.
This is what a family should look like, I think, spearing a piece of sausage. This is what my family used to look like.
I want to know how to fix us. How to make us look like this again.
I look over at Julia. She’s still cutting – green beans, this time. I wonder if she’ll ever stop cutting up her food and put some into her mouth. I wonder if her family would notice if she did.
I avert my eyes, turning them to Blair. She meets my gaze, then looks guiltily down at her plate.
They think they’re the ones who need fixing,, I realize, taking a bite of rice. They really believe that they’re broken.
I want them to realize how lucky they are. They still have a chance.
* * *
Julia scrapes her plate off into the disposal. I gave up on watching her once she started cutting the quarters into eighths. Something about it made me feel sick.
“We can watch TV or a movie or something,” she suggests quietly. “I mean, if you want. You can go home if you need to.”
I shrug. “Whatever you want.”
She turns off the water and sticks her plate in the dishwasher. “I don’t care.” She wipes her hands on a dishtowel. “I mean, do you want to stay?”
“Sure.” I glance at the clock. “Just let me call Jackson, okay? Check in on things.”
She nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
I pull out my cell phone and wander down the hall. I duck into the laundry room. When we first started dating, in sophomore year, Julia used to volunteer to do the laundry every weekend and sit in here for hours, folding clothes and talking to me. She said she didn’t want her mother to know she was dating me, that her mother would want to meet me and then she would scare me away. It took me six months of secret conversations to convince her I was worth it. She doesn’t do much laundry anymore.
I pull the door shut behind me and dial my house.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me. I might stay here for awhile… Is that okay? I can come home, if you want.”
He laughs. “Quit worrying about me, Noah.”
“I’m not worrying,” I protest. It’s a huge lie, and we both know it. But we also both know that he doesn’t want me to stop.
“Alright, then. Have fun romancing the younger Gallagher, you hear?”
I smile. “Yeah. Okay.”
Maybe we’re not broken, either.
* * *
“They were on a break,” she remarks, laying her head on my shoulder.
I laugh. “I know! See, all this time you were wrong.”
She laughs. “Just because I haven’t seen every single episode…”
“Twice,” I finish. I can’t see her face, but I’m sure she’s rolling her eyes.
She sighs, elbowing me in the stomach as she rolls off of my lap onto the floor. She looks over at me, smiling faintly. “I miss you.” She grabs my hand and intertwines our fingers.
“Julia, I drive you to school and back every single day. We go out to eat every weekend. I’m over here tonight. How could you even have time to miss me?” I laugh.
She doesn’t. “Noah…” She purses her lips, staring at our hands. “You know things are different,” she says softly, almost too softly to hear.
I bite my lip, squeezing her hand. “I do. I know.” I lay my head back against the sofa, staring at the ceiling. “Jackson just… I mean… I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.” I sigh.
She sighs, unlacing our fingers and wrapping herself around my arm. She lays her head on my shoulder. “I just want you to be happy.”
I keep my eyes focused on the ceiling, tracing the room’s boundaries with my eyes. “I just want him to get better,” I admit, the corners of my mouth twitching.
Her body tenses. She sighs. “I wish I could do something,” she says into my chest, so quiet I can hardly hear her.
“I know.”
“I hate seeing you like this,” she whispers.
“I know.”
She sighs. “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
“He wasn’t a good person,” I say quietly, looking over at her. “He was a selfish jackass.”
She bites her lip. “I meant you.”
“But....” My voice trails off. I’m the lucky one, I want to say. But I know she would never get it.
* * *
It’s eleven o’clock by the time I get home. My father’s car still isn’t in the drive. I ring the doorbell. No answer. I test the door. It’s open.
“Jackson?” I close the door behind me and lock it, biting my lip. “Hey, Jackson, are you home?”
I walk into the kitchen. The light is on. A pizza box is on the table. I open it, grab a slice, and wander through the dining room, into the front hall. “Jackson?”
I poke my head into his room. He’s not there. I cross the hall, check the living room. Not there, either. I climb the stairs, swallowing a mound of pepperoni and cheese and mushrooms, my heart sinking with every step. “Jackson?” I call again.
“In here.”
I walk down the hall, into the room that used to be him, the one where my father has slept since the stairs became too much. He’s sitting on the bed, his back to the door, wearing shorts and a tank top. There’s fresh snow on the windowpanes. His bony shoulders sag with the weight of the things he’s seen.
I mosey to the other side of the bed. It’s littered with photographs and newspaper clippings. A football sits idly on the night table alongside two championship rings. He clutches a framed photograph in his trembling hands. When I approach, he holds it out to me. It’s the team shot from his senior year, the one for the yearbook where all their uniforms are clean and all their bones are intact. Jackson kneels in the front, his neck impossibly thick and his shoulders impossibly wide. His hair is thick and shiny. I feel sick to my stomach. My fingers trembling, I swallow the last of my pizza and hand the photograph back.
“That’s how they remember me,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I was the star.”
I close my eyes.
“I had it all. I had the glory. I had the scholarships and the talent and the attitude.” He pauses. “I had it all,” he repeats, hushed, like he can’t believe he’s talking about himself.
I open my eyes and meet his gaze. He stares at me, looking so earnest and weary and sad.
“I was invincible.”
I look away.
“What the hell happened to me, Noah?” he whispers. “I was invincible.”
Mr. Gallagher, standing at the dining room table, eyes his daughter suspiciously. After a moment, he shrugs. “Dinner should be ready in a minute.”
Blair raises her eyebrows, staring at Julia. “What were you and Noah up to, sis?”
Julia rolls her eyes. “Gosh, Blair, you look pregnant! And are you a college drop out? Because you just have that look about you.”
Blair’s eyes flicker. “That’s kind of amazing, because you have this weird look, too… But then, I could be mistaken -- there’s just so much of you to look at!”
Julia flushes. I put my arm around her shoulders protectively. Mr. Gallagher is glancing between his daughters like he doesn’t know where they came from. “Blair, why don’t you go and help your mother with dinner.”
“Dad, I really think you might want to talk to Noah and Jules about --”
He smiles tightly. “Go.”
I glance down at Julia. She bites her lip worriedly. “How was work, Daddy?”
“Fine,” he answers curtly, staring somewhere past her head. “We’re thinking about taking on a new partner. It’s a long time until we make a final call, of course.” He picks up his water glass and takes a sip of it. “Your mother is very upset with you, Juliana.”
She stares at the ground. “I know. I just… I was rude. I’m sorry.”
Her mother appears that instant, carrying a giant casserole dish. She shoots Julia a look as she passes, but says nothing. It’s one of the first times that I’ve ever seen Mrs. Gallagher have nothing to say.
“Let’s all sit down,” she says quietly, avoiding Julia’s eyes. She takes the lid off of the casserole and sets it on the table. “Noah? Pass your plate?”
I oblige, squeezing Julia’s hand under the table. Her fingers are clammy.
She holds a heaping plate of food out to me, and I take it and put it in front of me. It’s a mass of rice and vegetables and some sort of sausage. My stomach turns. My mother would have loved this. My mother could easily have made this.
I glance over at Julia, delicately cutting her sausage into quarters. At Blair, sipping her water silently and shooting her sister death looks across the table. At their parents, discussing what to do with their wayward daughters without ever saying a word. And then there’s me. The odd one out.
This is what a family should look like, I think, spearing a piece of sausage. This is what my family used to look like.
I want to know how to fix us. How to make us look like this again.
I look over at Julia. She’s still cutting – green beans, this time. I wonder if she’ll ever stop cutting up her food and put some into her mouth. I wonder if her family would notice if she did.
I avert my eyes, turning them to Blair. She meets my gaze, then looks guiltily down at her plate.
They think they’re the ones who need fixing,, I realize, taking a bite of rice. They really believe that they’re broken.
I want them to realize how lucky they are. They still have a chance.
Julia scrapes her plate off into the disposal. I gave up on watching her once she started cutting the quarters into eighths. Something about it made me feel sick.
“We can watch TV or a movie or something,” she suggests quietly. “I mean, if you want. You can go home if you need to.”
I shrug. “Whatever you want.”
She turns off the water and sticks her plate in the dishwasher. “I don’t care.” She wipes her hands on a dishtowel. “I mean, do you want to stay?”
“Sure.” I glance at the clock. “Just let me call Jackson, okay? Check in on things.”
She nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
I pull out my cell phone and wander down the hall. I duck into the laundry room. When we first started dating, in sophomore year, Julia used to volunteer to do the laundry every weekend and sit in here for hours, folding clothes and talking to me. She said she didn’t want her mother to know she was dating me, that her mother would want to meet me and then she would scare me away. It took me six months of secret conversations to convince her I was worth it. She doesn’t do much laundry anymore.
I pull the door shut behind me and dial my house.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me. I might stay here for awhile… Is that okay? I can come home, if you want.”
He laughs. “Quit worrying about me, Noah.”
“I’m not worrying,” I protest. It’s a huge lie, and we both know it. But we also both know that he doesn’t want me to stop.
“Alright, then. Have fun romancing the younger Gallagher, you hear?”
I smile. “Yeah. Okay.”
Maybe we’re not broken, either.
“They were on a break,” she remarks, laying her head on my shoulder.
I laugh. “I know! See, all this time you were wrong.”
She laughs. “Just because I haven’t seen every single episode…”
“Twice,” I finish. I can’t see her face, but I’m sure she’s rolling her eyes.
She sighs, elbowing me in the stomach as she rolls off of my lap onto the floor. She looks over at me, smiling faintly. “I miss you.” She grabs my hand and intertwines our fingers.
“Julia, I drive you to school and back every single day. We go out to eat every weekend. I’m over here tonight. How could you even have time to miss me?” I laugh.
She doesn’t. “Noah…” She purses her lips, staring at our hands. “You know things are different,” she says softly, almost too softly to hear.
I bite my lip, squeezing her hand. “I do. I know.” I lay my head back against the sofa, staring at the ceiling. “Jackson just… I mean… I don’t know. I don’t know what I mean.” I sigh.
She sighs, unlacing our fingers and wrapping herself around my arm. She lays her head on my shoulder. “I just want you to be happy.”
I keep my eyes focused on the ceiling, tracing the room’s boundaries with my eyes. “I just want him to get better,” I admit, the corners of my mouth twitching.
Her body tenses. She sighs. “I wish I could do something,” she says into my chest, so quiet I can hardly hear her.
“I know.”
“I hate seeing you like this,” she whispers.
“I know.”
She sighs. “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
“He wasn’t a good person,” I say quietly, looking over at her. “He was a selfish jackass.”
She bites her lip. “I meant you.”
“But....” My voice trails off. I’m the lucky one, I want to say. But I know she would never get it.
It’s eleven o’clock by the time I get home. My father’s car still isn’t in the drive. I ring the doorbell. No answer. I test the door. It’s open.
“Jackson?” I close the door behind me and lock it, biting my lip. “Hey, Jackson, are you home?”
I walk into the kitchen. The light is on. A pizza box is on the table. I open it, grab a slice, and wander through the dining room, into the front hall. “Jackson?”
I poke my head into his room. He’s not there. I cross the hall, check the living room. Not there, either. I climb the stairs, swallowing a mound of pepperoni and cheese and mushrooms, my heart sinking with every step. “Jackson?” I call again.
“In here.”
I walk down the hall, into the room that used to be him, the one where my father has slept since the stairs became too much. He’s sitting on the bed, his back to the door, wearing shorts and a tank top. There’s fresh snow on the windowpanes. His bony shoulders sag with the weight of the things he’s seen.
I mosey to the other side of the bed. It’s littered with photographs and newspaper clippings. A football sits idly on the night table alongside two championship rings. He clutches a framed photograph in his trembling hands. When I approach, he holds it out to me. It’s the team shot from his senior year, the one for the yearbook where all their uniforms are clean and all their bones are intact. Jackson kneels in the front, his neck impossibly thick and his shoulders impossibly wide. His hair is thick and shiny. I feel sick to my stomach. My fingers trembling, I swallow the last of my pizza and hand the photograph back.
“That’s how they remember me,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I was the star.”
I close my eyes.
“I had it all. I had the glory. I had the scholarships and the talent and the attitude.” He pauses. “I had it all,” he repeats, hushed, like he can’t believe he’s talking about himself.
I open my eyes and meet his gaze. He stares at me, looking so earnest and weary and sad.
“I was invincible.”
I look away.
“What the hell happened to me, Noah?” he whispers. “I was invincible.”
Sunday, November 05, 2006
November 5th: wish I could tell him what's on my mind, what's wrong with me
“Hello?”
“Hey. Is Jackson there?”
I freeze for a moment before I remember. Geoff. Of course.
“Yeah. Sure. Give me a minute, okay?”
“Alright.”
I put my hand over the receiver and walk through the dining room into Jackson’s room. He’s lying on his bed, hidden under the blankets, flipping through Newsweek. Silently, I wonder why he cares about thwarted terror plots and received threats. He’ll be long gone before any of it takes affect.
The second the thought is over, I feel guilty. Who am I to say he won’t survive? But looking at him, who could really say anything different?
I smile at him, holding up the phone. “Geoff Berman teaches my Physics class? He saw you at the grocery store the other day, and he asked if he could call.”
Jackson looks immediately panicked. “He saw me?”
“Jackson, dude, he didn’t care. He asked me what was up and I told him and he was really good about it. He’s fine. He just wants to talk to you.”
He closes his eyes. “Noah, I don’t want… They’re not supposed to see me now.” He sighs, like he can’t believe he has to explain this to me. “This isn’t how I want them to remember me,” he whispers.
I toss him the phone, shaking my head. “Then you explain that to him.”
Jackson opens his eyes and glares at me for a moment, then picks up the phone. I turn and storm out the door, slamming it behind me. Then I walk back a few steps and press my ear against it. “Hey? Geoff?”
I hold my breath. Not so much because I’m afraid he’ll hear as because I’m afraid he’ll hang up.
“Yeah, I’m back home.” He laughs. He sounds healthier when you can’t see him. “I hear you’re teaching down at South. Yeah, man. I never pegged you for a teacher type.” He pauses. “Yeah, didn’t you like, fail physics?”
I smile. Maybe this will be okay. I cross my fingers, both hands, like maybe that will help.
“Yeah. You can say it. I know I look like hell. College, you know? I guess this is what happens… Yeah. I mean, I’ll be the first to say I deserved it. You coast for that long, you’re eventually going to crash.”
He’s never said that before. That he thinks he deserved it. All this time, I thought I was the only one that horrible. I bite my lip.
“Well, yeah. It was sex or drugs or something. Isn’t that sad, when you don’t know? When you actually were so fucking out of line that you have no idea how you got HIV? I hate it. I can’t believe I was ever like that. I’m surprised anyone put up with me.”
I’m not. He was cocky. He was arrogant. But he was a success, and people will do anything to be near to that. Like maybe they can have a little piece of the glory for themselves.
“Yeah. I’ve been really lucky so far, I haven’t really had any major complications… I mean, I can’t keep anything down or anything, and I’ve got this wicked fever all the time, but no cancer or anything like that… Yeah. The doctors say at the rate I’m going, I’ll just starve to death. My heart will give out or something.” He pauses. “I know. I just figured after awhile that there was no real use complaining. I mean, I’m dying, you know?” He breathes in so sharply I can hear it through the door. “I’m not going to dance around and celebrate my AIDS – this isn’t fucking RENT…” He laughs. “But yeah, I guess I just want to… You know. I don’t want to spend all my time feeling sorry for myself.”
There’s a long silence. Then, “Yeah, I guess it’s been hard on him. My mom actually skipped town in August… Yeah. Well, she got pregnant, like, the second I went full on AIDS, and the baby turned out to be stillborn… A boy. Nathaniel. Yeah. So she had a really horrible time with that. She wouldn’t even let them induce labor and get the thing out of her, she… Yeah. Two and a half weeks. She kept acting like she was still pregnant, the whole time… Like, talking about the baby and painting his room and everything. And then he was born and she left.”
He sighs. “Yeah, I mean, Noah’s kind of stepped up since then. I feel so stupid for making him take care of me. Like, that’s so not the place of a seventeen year old kid, right? But if he didn’t, I don’t know what the hell I’d do. He’s a good kid, right? He’s just… You get the feeling he thinks he can make me better. Right? Exactly. I mean, I guess I’ve been positive for most of his life, so he probably sees this differently than everybody else… I always wanted to be someone he looked up to, right? One of those really cool older brothers who did everything right. But I didn’t do anything right.”
When did I start crying? I rub my eyes, my teeth digging even harder into my lip.
“But yeah, sorry, I’m totally babbling… I know you don’t mind, but still. It’s depressing. I know that. Did you catch the Eagles game last night?”
A minute later he’s laughing, talking football. He sounds comfortable. I smile, standing up. My legs are numb. I rub my calves, stumbling to the living room and collapsing onto the couch. I grab the remote, turn on the TV. The National Geographic channel flickers on with a documentary about sting rays. It’s eight o’clock, time for Friends. But I leave it on.
Jackson walks in half an hour later, still shivering and dragging his blankets but somehow looking happier and healthier than I’ve seen him look in months. He sits next to me on the couch, hands me the phone. His hand is hardly shaking.
“Thanks.”
I glance at him. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You really watching this?”
I shrug. “Is that okay?”
He’s silent for a moment. “Yeah. I guess.”
I look over at him. He’s staring at the wall, smiling faintly. For once, I believe it.
* * *
“Hey. You want to come over tonight?”
I put the car in reverse and back down the driveway. “Julia, can we please not start this?”
“No, just for dinner or something. My parents miss you. Even Blair misses you.”
I roll my eyes. “Liar. But yeah. I’ll come over.”
She smiles at me. “Alright. Thanks. I figured we could watch a movie upstairs or something, afterwards. If you don’t have a lot of homework. Or something.”
I put the car in drive and shrug. “Yeah. I’ll let you know.”
I glance over at her. She’s staring out the windshield, biting her lip, curling her hair around her finger. “Blair’s thinking about giving it up for adoption.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Wow. She dropped out of college for this kid and she’s not even going to keep it?”
She shrugs. “I think she’s scared. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing. My parents really want her to go back to school, too…. It’d be really hard for her to do that with a baby.”
“Does she want to go back to school?”
She turns her head, stares out the window. “I mean, I guess so. I think Blair just wants to make my parents happy. I think that’s all she’s ever wanted.” She sighs. “She’s had a really hard time with this whole thing, being a disappointment and all that.”
I nod. “Yeah. It must be hard and shit. To be so used to pleasing them and then suddenly be seen as this major fuck up.”
“Do your parents not see Jackson that way? Like, the perfect child who fell from grace?”
I switch lanes and sigh. “I guess. But he never wanted to be the perfect child. I think he always kind of wondered if they’d love him as much if he fucked up completely. That’s kind of how he got here.”
“And what was the answer?” she asks quietly.
“That they didn’t really care if he fucked up, as long as they could still pretend he didn’t.”
I’ve never thought of that before. But it’s true.
* * *
Eddy walks into physics and drops a paper on my desk. “Print out from the IMDB. The speech. It’s ‘hour and a half’. You lose.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re pathetic. Are your Wednesdays really that lonely?”
“Yes.” He grins at me, taking his seat. “You’re just mad because you were wrong.”
“I have bigger things to worry about.” I say it jokingly, but we both know it’s true.
* * *
“Hey, Jack. It’s Noah. I won’t be home for dinner tonight – I’m going over to Julia’s. I’ll have my phone on, so if you --”
“Noah?”
I lean against the wall. “Hey! You heard the message, right? Is that okay?”
“Sure. Have fun.” He pauses. “I might go out with Geoff somewhere, anyway. Or we’ll order in. Whatever. Can you do me a favor?”
I nod. “Yeah. Shoot.”
“Stop by the store on your way home and buy me a TV Guide. I’m sick of nature documentaries.”
I grin. “Yeah. Okay. Call me if you need me.”
There’s a long pause. “Love you.”
“Yeah. You too.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
If he weren’t dying, he never would have said that, I tell myself. And if he weren’t dying, you never would have said it back.
I pocket my phone and bite my lip.
Maybe it’s not so bad that we’re changing. I just wish it hadn’t taken this to make us change.
* * *
“Noah!” Her arms are around me before I’m even in the door. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. I kept telling Juliana to ask you over, but you know her, pigheaded as anything…”
Behind me, Julia groans. “Mother, please be normal. Please.”
I laugh, pulling away. “No, I’ve missed being over here. I’ve just been busy. You know how it is.”
“Well, it’ll be good to have you around. Maybe we won’t have so many leftovers. Juliana won’t touch her food most nights, it’s crazy, I tell her to eat it but you know, it’s the pigheaded thing again, all she wants is her rabbit food – salad and carrots and the like. Now, Blair is supposed to be eating for two but it’s more like one and a half, except that I wake up and all the Oreos are gone! I know it’s not this one, because I mean, look at the chicken legs.” She nods emphatically in Julia’s direction. “Don’t even get me started on my husband, I tell you, he’s a marvelous person but he just refuses to take more than two helpings, he always wants to put it in the fridge, and I say but Frank we have a whole refrigerator full of leftovers already! and he just looks at me. Just looks!” She shakes her head in amazement. “I tell you, Noah, I need your appetite around here more often. You got that? And I’ll give you some food to take home to your brother, I saw him at the market yesterday and he needs to be eating more. He looks like a skeleton! Julia was with me, weren’t you Julia? Didn’t he look like a skeleton? Maybe your father can bring some to work for lunch, too. I’ll give you some stuff.”
I nod throughout her speech, but not much of it processes. Beside me, Julia is quickly turning red. Nothing and no one can embarrass her as quickly as her mother.
Mrs. Gallagher looks at us as if she’s just realized we’re standing outside. “Come on in! Sorry, I didn’t realize you were still out there, you must be freezing, I know it snowed last week. Did you have to drive in the snow, Noah? Do you have chains? Julia, we should really buy him some chains, he drives you to school every morning for nothing, it’s very nice of him.” She blinks. “Oh! Come on in!” She herds us into the house, shutting the door behind us.
“Blair! Noah’s here!” she shouts up the stairs. A few seconds later, Blair appears at the top, her dark hair pulled back and her impossibly huge belly pushing out from under a black maternity top. She stares at me with minimal interest, pulling up on the waistband of her jeans.
“Good to see you, Noah,” she says, sounding like it’s anything but.
Mrs. Gallagher shepherds us all into the kitchen, clicking her tongue all the way. “Noah, you have to taste this. It’s divine.” She sticks a spoon in one of the pots on the stove and shoves it in my mouth. It’s burning hot. I smile at her in what I hope is a charming fashion and give her a thumbs up.
She glares at her daughters. “See, he likes the food. Why do you two not like the food?”
Blair raises her hand. Blair is the type of person who takes school with her everywhere she goes – even, apparently, after dropping out of school. “I like the food.”
Her mother rolls her eyes. “Okay. Then eat more of it! Cut it out with the Oreos.” She glances at me. “I told you already, didn’t I, that she eats us out of house and home with her Oreos? It must be three packages a week! I tell her not to feed the baby all that junk, to feed the baby some of the million leftovers in the stove, but no, she feeds the baby Oreos.” She throws up her hands. “See, I try to be a good mother, and this is what I get! You see what I get, Noah? You see? Ingrates, the both of them.”
Julia squeezes her eyes shut and massages her temples. “Mother…” I recognize the tone. It’s not a tone you want to mess with.
But her mother obviously doesn’t have the same reason to fear. “Oh, Juliana, you’re the worst of the lot. Noah, I tell you, I don’t know what to do with the girl. She picks at her salad like I haven’t just put this beautiful feast in front of her, like some brown lettuce is the best thing in the house to eat. Now, how grateful is that?” She turns her attention to her younger daughter. “Juliana, I bet Noah would love to come over here more often and eat this food. I bet he gets stuck with peanut butter sandwiches at home. Am I wrong? Am I wrong, Noah? Do you not eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches.”
Julia shoots me a look. I consider lying. But sucking up to the girlfriends’ parents is sometimes more important than sucking up to the girlfriend. “Yeah. Lots of peanut butter sandwiches.”
Mrs. Gallagher shakes her head sadly. “See, Julia, this is how people who don’t have mothers have to live! Peanut butter sandwiches! I’m sure he--“
Julia’s eyes flash. “Mother. Do you have any idea how rude that was? His mother isn’t dead for chrissakes, and I’m sure he’s eating just fine.” She takes a shuddering breath, like she’s trying to decide whether to say something.
“Juliana, what’s gotten --” her mother starts, waving her hands helplessly about her head.
Julia grabs her wrist. “Will you just shut up?” she screams.
Her mother’s eyes well up with tears. Blair looks on with an amused, somewhat victorious smile. She’ll be the favorite again for awhile. Julia bursts into tears and runs down the hall, her feet thundering as she sprints up the stairs.
Mrs. Gallagher shakes her head, burying her face in her hands. Blair is beside her immediately, her smile gone, suddenly soothing and warm. She glares at me, like this is somehow my fault. I shake my head and turn to follow Julia.
“Tell her to get a grip,” Blair calls after me. “Tell her to stop being such a drama queen.”
It might just be me, but I detect a hint of jealousy in her tone.
* * *
“I’m so sorry, Noah. She’s such a bitch sometimes, I just can’t get her to be quiet, and she never knows what she’s talking about, and…”
I wrap my arms around her. “Shhhhhhh,” I say into her ear. “Shhhhh. It’s okay. I’m okay.” She sobs into my chest, her body leaning limply against mine.
“But she said you didn’t have a mother… She made it sound like your mother didn’t care about you, Noah, and she does, and I know you think she doesn’t and I don’t want you to think that and I don’t want anyone else to think that ever and I just wanted her to be quiet, Noah, I just wanted her to be quiet…” Her voice cracks and collapses into tears.
I shift my weight slowly from one foot to the other. “Shhhhh. I don’t care about your mother, Julia, okay? I don’t.” I kiss the top of her head. She leans back, wraps her arms around my neck. I kiss her forehead, her nose, her lips. “Shhhh…”
She pulls me back to the bed, shoving me down, kneeling on top of my chest. She kisses me, her teeth knocking against mine, biting my lip. She unbuttons my shirt quickly, opens it up, pulls her own shirt over her head.
“Should we be doing this? Here? Now?” I go to sit up. She pushes me back down, pulling a condom out of her back pocket. She leans forward, pressing her breasts against my bare chest.
“Shhhh,” she whispers into my ear. “Will you just shut up?”
She kisses me again, and I’m quiet.
“Hey. Is Jackson there?”
I freeze for a moment before I remember. Geoff. Of course.
“Yeah. Sure. Give me a minute, okay?”
“Alright.”
I put my hand over the receiver and walk through the dining room into Jackson’s room. He’s lying on his bed, hidden under the blankets, flipping through Newsweek. Silently, I wonder why he cares about thwarted terror plots and received threats. He’ll be long gone before any of it takes affect.
The second the thought is over, I feel guilty. Who am I to say he won’t survive? But looking at him, who could really say anything different?
I smile at him, holding up the phone. “Geoff Berman teaches my Physics class? He saw you at the grocery store the other day, and he asked if he could call.”
Jackson looks immediately panicked. “He saw me?”
“Jackson, dude, he didn’t care. He asked me what was up and I told him and he was really good about it. He’s fine. He just wants to talk to you.”
He closes his eyes. “Noah, I don’t want… They’re not supposed to see me now.” He sighs, like he can’t believe he has to explain this to me. “This isn’t how I want them to remember me,” he whispers.
I toss him the phone, shaking my head. “Then you explain that to him.”
Jackson opens his eyes and glares at me for a moment, then picks up the phone. I turn and storm out the door, slamming it behind me. Then I walk back a few steps and press my ear against it. “Hey? Geoff?”
I hold my breath. Not so much because I’m afraid he’ll hear as because I’m afraid he’ll hang up.
“Yeah, I’m back home.” He laughs. He sounds healthier when you can’t see him. “I hear you’re teaching down at South. Yeah, man. I never pegged you for a teacher type.” He pauses. “Yeah, didn’t you like, fail physics?”
I smile. Maybe this will be okay. I cross my fingers, both hands, like maybe that will help.
“Yeah. You can say it. I know I look like hell. College, you know? I guess this is what happens… Yeah. I mean, I’ll be the first to say I deserved it. You coast for that long, you’re eventually going to crash.”
He’s never said that before. That he thinks he deserved it. All this time, I thought I was the only one that horrible. I bite my lip.
“Well, yeah. It was sex or drugs or something. Isn’t that sad, when you don’t know? When you actually were so fucking out of line that you have no idea how you got HIV? I hate it. I can’t believe I was ever like that. I’m surprised anyone put up with me.”
I’m not. He was cocky. He was arrogant. But he was a success, and people will do anything to be near to that. Like maybe they can have a little piece of the glory for themselves.
“Yeah. I’ve been really lucky so far, I haven’t really had any major complications… I mean, I can’t keep anything down or anything, and I’ve got this wicked fever all the time, but no cancer or anything like that… Yeah. The doctors say at the rate I’m going, I’ll just starve to death. My heart will give out or something.” He pauses. “I know. I just figured after awhile that there was no real use complaining. I mean, I’m dying, you know?” He breathes in so sharply I can hear it through the door. “I’m not going to dance around and celebrate my AIDS – this isn’t fucking RENT…” He laughs. “But yeah, I guess I just want to… You know. I don’t want to spend all my time feeling sorry for myself.”
There’s a long silence. Then, “Yeah, I guess it’s been hard on him. My mom actually skipped town in August… Yeah. Well, she got pregnant, like, the second I went full on AIDS, and the baby turned out to be stillborn… A boy. Nathaniel. Yeah. So she had a really horrible time with that. She wouldn’t even let them induce labor and get the thing out of her, she… Yeah. Two and a half weeks. She kept acting like she was still pregnant, the whole time… Like, talking about the baby and painting his room and everything. And then he was born and she left.”
He sighs. “Yeah, I mean, Noah’s kind of stepped up since then. I feel so stupid for making him take care of me. Like, that’s so not the place of a seventeen year old kid, right? But if he didn’t, I don’t know what the hell I’d do. He’s a good kid, right? He’s just… You get the feeling he thinks he can make me better. Right? Exactly. I mean, I guess I’ve been positive for most of his life, so he probably sees this differently than everybody else… I always wanted to be someone he looked up to, right? One of those really cool older brothers who did everything right. But I didn’t do anything right.”
When did I start crying? I rub my eyes, my teeth digging even harder into my lip.
“But yeah, sorry, I’m totally babbling… I know you don’t mind, but still. It’s depressing. I know that. Did you catch the Eagles game last night?”
A minute later he’s laughing, talking football. He sounds comfortable. I smile, standing up. My legs are numb. I rub my calves, stumbling to the living room and collapsing onto the couch. I grab the remote, turn on the TV. The National Geographic channel flickers on with a documentary about sting rays. It’s eight o’clock, time for Friends. But I leave it on.
Jackson walks in half an hour later, still shivering and dragging his blankets but somehow looking happier and healthier than I’ve seen him look in months. He sits next to me on the couch, hands me the phone. His hand is hardly shaking.
“Thanks.”
I glance at him. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You really watching this?”
I shrug. “Is that okay?”
He’s silent for a moment. “Yeah. I guess.”
I look over at him. He’s staring at the wall, smiling faintly. For once, I believe it.
“Hey. You want to come over tonight?”
I put the car in reverse and back down the driveway. “Julia, can we please not start this?”
“No, just for dinner or something. My parents miss you. Even Blair misses you.”
I roll my eyes. “Liar. But yeah. I’ll come over.”
She smiles at me. “Alright. Thanks. I figured we could watch a movie upstairs or something, afterwards. If you don’t have a lot of homework. Or something.”
I put the car in drive and shrug. “Yeah. I’ll let you know.”
I glance over at her. She’s staring out the windshield, biting her lip, curling her hair around her finger. “Blair’s thinking about giving it up for adoption.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Wow. She dropped out of college for this kid and she’s not even going to keep it?”
She shrugs. “I think she’s scared. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing. My parents really want her to go back to school, too…. It’d be really hard for her to do that with a baby.”
“Does she want to go back to school?”
She turns her head, stares out the window. “I mean, I guess so. I think Blair just wants to make my parents happy. I think that’s all she’s ever wanted.” She sighs. “She’s had a really hard time with this whole thing, being a disappointment and all that.”
I nod. “Yeah. It must be hard and shit. To be so used to pleasing them and then suddenly be seen as this major fuck up.”
“Do your parents not see Jackson that way? Like, the perfect child who fell from grace?”
I switch lanes and sigh. “I guess. But he never wanted to be the perfect child. I think he always kind of wondered if they’d love him as much if he fucked up completely. That’s kind of how he got here.”
“And what was the answer?” she asks quietly.
“That they didn’t really care if he fucked up, as long as they could still pretend he didn’t.”
I’ve never thought of that before. But it’s true.
Eddy walks into physics and drops a paper on my desk. “Print out from the IMDB. The speech. It’s ‘hour and a half’. You lose.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re pathetic. Are your Wednesdays really that lonely?”
“Yes.” He grins at me, taking his seat. “You’re just mad because you were wrong.”
“I have bigger things to worry about.” I say it jokingly, but we both know it’s true.
“Hey, Jack. It’s Noah. I won’t be home for dinner tonight – I’m going over to Julia’s. I’ll have my phone on, so if you --”
“Noah?”
I lean against the wall. “Hey! You heard the message, right? Is that okay?”
“Sure. Have fun.” He pauses. “I might go out with Geoff somewhere, anyway. Or we’ll order in. Whatever. Can you do me a favor?”
I nod. “Yeah. Shoot.”
“Stop by the store on your way home and buy me a TV Guide. I’m sick of nature documentaries.”
I grin. “Yeah. Okay. Call me if you need me.”
There’s a long pause. “Love you.”
“Yeah. You too.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
If he weren’t dying, he never would have said that, I tell myself. And if he weren’t dying, you never would have said it back.
I pocket my phone and bite my lip.
Maybe it’s not so bad that we’re changing. I just wish it hadn’t taken this to make us change.
“Noah!” Her arms are around me before I’m even in the door. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. I kept telling Juliana to ask you over, but you know her, pigheaded as anything…”
Behind me, Julia groans. “Mother, please be normal. Please.”
I laugh, pulling away. “No, I’ve missed being over here. I’ve just been busy. You know how it is.”
“Well, it’ll be good to have you around. Maybe we won’t have so many leftovers. Juliana won’t touch her food most nights, it’s crazy, I tell her to eat it but you know, it’s the pigheaded thing again, all she wants is her rabbit food – salad and carrots and the like. Now, Blair is supposed to be eating for two but it’s more like one and a half, except that I wake up and all the Oreos are gone! I know it’s not this one, because I mean, look at the chicken legs.” She nods emphatically in Julia’s direction. “Don’t even get me started on my husband, I tell you, he’s a marvelous person but he just refuses to take more than two helpings, he always wants to put it in the fridge, and I say but Frank we have a whole refrigerator full of leftovers already! and he just looks at me. Just looks!” She shakes her head in amazement. “I tell you, Noah, I need your appetite around here more often. You got that? And I’ll give you some food to take home to your brother, I saw him at the market yesterday and he needs to be eating more. He looks like a skeleton! Julia was with me, weren’t you Julia? Didn’t he look like a skeleton? Maybe your father can bring some to work for lunch, too. I’ll give you some stuff.”
I nod throughout her speech, but not much of it processes. Beside me, Julia is quickly turning red. Nothing and no one can embarrass her as quickly as her mother.
Mrs. Gallagher looks at us as if she’s just realized we’re standing outside. “Come on in! Sorry, I didn’t realize you were still out there, you must be freezing, I know it snowed last week. Did you have to drive in the snow, Noah? Do you have chains? Julia, we should really buy him some chains, he drives you to school every morning for nothing, it’s very nice of him.” She blinks. “Oh! Come on in!” She herds us into the house, shutting the door behind us.
“Blair! Noah’s here!” she shouts up the stairs. A few seconds later, Blair appears at the top, her dark hair pulled back and her impossibly huge belly pushing out from under a black maternity top. She stares at me with minimal interest, pulling up on the waistband of her jeans.
“Good to see you, Noah,” she says, sounding like it’s anything but.
Mrs. Gallagher shepherds us all into the kitchen, clicking her tongue all the way. “Noah, you have to taste this. It’s divine.” She sticks a spoon in one of the pots on the stove and shoves it in my mouth. It’s burning hot. I smile at her in what I hope is a charming fashion and give her a thumbs up.
She glares at her daughters. “See, he likes the food. Why do you two not like the food?”
Blair raises her hand. Blair is the type of person who takes school with her everywhere she goes – even, apparently, after dropping out of school. “I like the food.”
Her mother rolls her eyes. “Okay. Then eat more of it! Cut it out with the Oreos.” She glances at me. “I told you already, didn’t I, that she eats us out of house and home with her Oreos? It must be three packages a week! I tell her not to feed the baby all that junk, to feed the baby some of the million leftovers in the stove, but no, she feeds the baby Oreos.” She throws up her hands. “See, I try to be a good mother, and this is what I get! You see what I get, Noah? You see? Ingrates, the both of them.”
Julia squeezes her eyes shut and massages her temples. “Mother…” I recognize the tone. It’s not a tone you want to mess with.
But her mother obviously doesn’t have the same reason to fear. “Oh, Juliana, you’re the worst of the lot. Noah, I tell you, I don’t know what to do with the girl. She picks at her salad like I haven’t just put this beautiful feast in front of her, like some brown lettuce is the best thing in the house to eat. Now, how grateful is that?” She turns her attention to her younger daughter. “Juliana, I bet Noah would love to come over here more often and eat this food. I bet he gets stuck with peanut butter sandwiches at home. Am I wrong? Am I wrong, Noah? Do you not eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches.”
Julia shoots me a look. I consider lying. But sucking up to the girlfriends’ parents is sometimes more important than sucking up to the girlfriend. “Yeah. Lots of peanut butter sandwiches.”
Mrs. Gallagher shakes her head sadly. “See, Julia, this is how people who don’t have mothers have to live! Peanut butter sandwiches! I’m sure he--“
Julia’s eyes flash. “Mother. Do you have any idea how rude that was? His mother isn’t dead for chrissakes, and I’m sure he’s eating just fine.” She takes a shuddering breath, like she’s trying to decide whether to say something.
“Juliana, what’s gotten --” her mother starts, waving her hands helplessly about her head.
Julia grabs her wrist. “Will you just shut up?” she screams.
Her mother’s eyes well up with tears. Blair looks on with an amused, somewhat victorious smile. She’ll be the favorite again for awhile. Julia bursts into tears and runs down the hall, her feet thundering as she sprints up the stairs.
Mrs. Gallagher shakes her head, burying her face in her hands. Blair is beside her immediately, her smile gone, suddenly soothing and warm. She glares at me, like this is somehow my fault. I shake my head and turn to follow Julia.
“Tell her to get a grip,” Blair calls after me. “Tell her to stop being such a drama queen.”
It might just be me, but I detect a hint of jealousy in her tone.
“I’m so sorry, Noah. She’s such a bitch sometimes, I just can’t get her to be quiet, and she never knows what she’s talking about, and…”
I wrap my arms around her. “Shhhhhhh,” I say into her ear. “Shhhhh. It’s okay. I’m okay.” She sobs into my chest, her body leaning limply against mine.
“But she said you didn’t have a mother… She made it sound like your mother didn’t care about you, Noah, and she does, and I know you think she doesn’t and I don’t want you to think that and I don’t want anyone else to think that ever and I just wanted her to be quiet, Noah, I just wanted her to be quiet…” Her voice cracks and collapses into tears.
I shift my weight slowly from one foot to the other. “Shhhhh. I don’t care about your mother, Julia, okay? I don’t.” I kiss the top of her head. She leans back, wraps her arms around my neck. I kiss her forehead, her nose, her lips. “Shhhh…”
She pulls me back to the bed, shoving me down, kneeling on top of my chest. She kisses me, her teeth knocking against mine, biting my lip. She unbuttons my shirt quickly, opens it up, pulls her own shirt over her head.
“Should we be doing this? Here? Now?” I go to sit up. She pushes me back down, pulling a condom out of her back pocket. She leans forward, pressing her breasts against my bare chest.
“Shhhh,” she whispers into my ear. “Will you just shut up?”
She kisses me again, and I’m quiet.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
November 4th: A bad time, nothing could save him
He was ten years old when I was born. He had ten years of being the favorite, ten years of being the best, ten years of being glorified twenty four hours a day. He was more than old enough to resent me. But I was always too young to notice. He was ten years older, ten years bigger, ten years wiser. He was my hero before he was a football star. He was my hero afterward.
I wish he would realize he’s still my hero now.
* * *
Julia smiles up at me and raises her eyebrows mischievously. “Hey.”
I grab her hand and pull her inside, pushing the door shut with my foot. “You’re gorgeous,” I murmur, kissing her forehead. “Jackson’s in his room – let’s go upstairs.”
“Mmm.” She kisses me. “Damn it, Noah, I miss being with you.”
I smile. “I’ll race you upstairs.”
She grins at me and takes off running, giggling all the way to the stairs. She turns to look back at me. “Come on, lover.”
I roll my eyes. “Someone’s desperate.”
She laughs and takes off running. This time I follow.
* * *
“What’s wrong with you, Noah?” she asks, her knee curled up to her bare chest. She doesn’t sound angry, just worried.
I shake my head, pulling on my shirt. “You think I planned this? God, Julia. I knew this was a bad idea.”
Her expression hardens. “Why, because you can’t stand touching me?”
“That’s not what I meant!” I shout. Her eyes glisten with tears. I shake my head, rubbing my eyes. “Look,” I say quieter, “I just have a lot on my plate. I can’t… It’s too hard to explain. Just believe me. Please just believe me.”
She shakes her head, biting her lip. “Just try. Try to explain.” She has that tone again, desperate for answers.
I throw her clothes onto the bed. “You should go.”
A tear forges a path down her cheek. She leans forward and grabs my hand. “Noah…” Her voice breaks. She doubles over, pressing her head against her legs, hugging her thighs, sobbing. “I don’t know how to help you!” she wails.
I close my eyes, lean against the wall. “Julia.”
“What?”
I sigh. “Get out.”
Two minutes later she’s gone. I slam the door behind her, slide down the wall, and cry.
* * *
“Noah.”
I stick my head into his room. “We’re out of coffee. I’m going to the grocery store. You need anything?”
He’s crying. I wish everyone would stop crying. He sticks his head out from under the pile of blankets. “I threw up,” he says, his voice so full of shame it’s painful to hear.
I massage my temples. “Where?”
He jerks his head toward the other side of his bed. “Over there,” he says exhaustedly.
“Okay,” I sigh. I walk over, pull back the blankets. He gasps, then whimpers. He’s wearing at least four shirts underneath his sweatshirt, at least three pairs of pants, I don’t know how many socks. Within seconds, he’s shivering.
I scoop him up in my arms, carry him down the hallway to the living room. I lay him on the couch, handing him the remote. He immediately curls up, burying his head between his knees, shivering so profusely that most people would think he was faking. I know better. I run to fetch his blankets, then pile them carefully over his shaking skeleton. He murmurs his thanks, tears still trickling down his cheeks.
Silently, I gather the cleaning supplies and go to his room. I scrub the carpet until my knuckles are raw. A part of me knows it will never be clean again.
* * *
He’s watching a documentary on sleepwalking. I sit down in my father’s chair, yank up the footrest. “Why did Julia leave here crying?” he asks after a moment.
I sigh. “I don’t know.”
“You guys have been dating for like, two years, right?”
I nod.
“Then I’m guessing she’s worth keeping.”
I clear my throat. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Just call her, Noah.” He meets my eyes. He looks a little sadder every time I see him.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He laughs. He’s never sounded more tired. “Nobody ever does.”
* * *
“Julia, listen to me.”
She slams her locker. “You know what? I don’t want to.” She zips her backpack and starts down the hallway.
I grab her arm. “Jules, you said you wanted me to explain. I want to explain. I’m trying to explain.”
She yanks away and turns to face me. “Noah, you kicked me out of your house. I don’t even care about you trying to explain. I don’t even care. I just wanted to talk to you, and you screamed at me and kicked me out of your house.” Her eyes fill with tears. “Damn it, Noah, do you know how humiliating that was for me?”
I close my eyes and sigh. “Jules, I was just… I was upset with myself, and…”
“I don’t even know you anymore,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “And I don’t think I want to.”
She turns and walks away, staring at the ground.
* * *
Eddy grins at me. “Okay, while you were getting your freak on, I was producing a masterpiece.”
“I didn’t --” I start, but he shushes me.
“Look.” He produces a paper bag from behind his back and pulls something out. It’s teal, with a yellow racing stripe. There are straws, a balloon, plastic bottle caps… I stare at it in awe.
“Cedric the Wonder Car, ladies and gentlemen. That may or may not be the sound of angels’ wings flapping in the distance.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You made this.” He nods. “You’re serious.” He nods again, grinning devilishly. He looks incredibly pleased of himself.
“Bow down to your new god, Noah Fisher.”
I shake my head in amazement. “You’re my hero, dude. Even if you are a virgin.”
He grins. “Yeah. I know.”
* * *
When I get to our lunch table, Julia is there.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised to see someone in my life.
“Don’t say anything,” she warns me, her eyes flashing. “If you say anything, I swear you will never hear my voice again.”
I nod obediently. I say nothing.
“I know you have a lot on your plate. It sucks. I’m sorry. It must be really hard for you, with Jackson being mainly yours to deal with now that your mother is gone.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell her that Jackson isn’t some burden I have to carry, but she shoots me a warning look. I’m silent.
“And I don’t care that we don’t have sex, Noah. I already told you it’s not about sex. We’re seventeen. We probably shouldn’t be having sex in the first place. But…” She sighs. “I mean, having a lot on your plate doesn’t have anything to do with your libido. At least I don’t think it does. I hate that you can still joke around with Eddy and do fine in school and eat and sleep but you’re too stressed out to sleep with me? Is that it? I mean, I want it to make sense. Is that what it is? Just a yes or a no.”
I swallow. “No.”
“Okay. Okay, then what could it possibly be? Jackson’s been sick all year, Noah. And I know the whole thing with your mother was really hard but how could that affect you like this? I don’t get it. Help me get it.”
I bite my lip.
“You said you can’t stand touching me? I know you didn’t just say that. Why would you say that?” She’s about to cry again. I hate that she cries all the time. Not because it’s unjustified – she has every reason – but because I don’t know what to do to make it stop. “What does that have to do with anything? Why can’t you just explain that to me?”
I shake my head. “Julia…”
She uncrosses her legs and leans forward. She heaves a sigh. It’s like the weight of the entire world is on her shoulders. “Just say something. Please. Just try. Just try…” Her voice catches and breaks. “This time,” she finishes. “Please.”
“My hands,” I say feebly. I close my eyes. “I…” But I don’t know what to say. “I can’t explain it to you, Jules, I can’t even explain to myself…”
She shakes her head. “Okay.”
I meet her eyes. “Okay?”
She nods. “Okay.”
She looks anything but.
* * *
“You want to come over?” I wind the phone cord around my finger. “I’m sick of this house, but I can’t really leave.”
Eddy laughs. “And you don’t even have a cool ankle bracelet. What is with this injustice?”
“No kidding. So, you coming? We can order pizza. Or something. Watch manly movies. Eat pork rinds.”
“Promise me no pork rinds and I’m there.”
I laugh. “Yeah. Okay. No pork rinds.”
“Alright, Fisher. I’ll be there in twenty. Order the pizza. I’ll pay half when I get there.”
I know he won’t. But that’s okay.
* * *
“See, you’re so wrong that you think you’re right. I’m not sure it’s possible to be so wrong. You’re actually wrong to the point of delusion. Which is impressive, but doesn’t change the fact that you’re wrong.”
I shake my head. “It’s amazing how you say so little with so many words.”
“Noah, this is kind of serious. He says ‘hour and a half’. I promise. He says it very clearly. ‘I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.’ He enunciates and everything. It’s pathetic that you don’t realize this. It’s even more pathetic that you try to argue with me about it. You will remember I know everything about this movie. You will remember I memorized the script when I was twelve.”
I take a bite of pizza. “He says ‘half an hour’. But that’s okay. It’s a very long script, Eddy. It’s very easy to mix up the words,” I say mockingly. “Especially when it’s the only thing you’ve ever read that wasn’t required for school.”
“Okay, first of all, the Berenstain Bears were my bitches when I was a kid, and second of all, that’s the best part of the entire movie. I took care to memorize it right. Hour and a half.” He picks off a piece of pepperoni and shoves it in his mouth.
“You know I’m right.”
“Did you memorize the script? Noooo. Am I right? Yessss.” He grins. “It’s all very simple, Noah. Even you must get that.”
I throw a napkin at him. “Whatever. Virgin.”
“Whore.” He throws it back. “Did you have fun last night? I never asked.”
I shrug. “We didn’t… You know.”
He raises his eyebrows and takes a bite. He chews thoughtfully for a moment. “Let me get this straight. You had a hot girl, right?”
“Right.”
“At your house, right?”
“Right.”
“She was ready, willing, and able, right?”
“Right.”
“And you didn’t sex her up?”
I glare at him. “Correct.”
“Are you mentally stable? Honestly?” He stares at me incredulously. “You are aware that you are the stupidest person alive, right?”
I sigh. “Right.”
* * *
Jackson staggers to the chair, dragging his blankets behind him like a three year old. He collapses and pulls them up to his chin, avoiding my eyes.
“You know what’s sad, Noah?”
Your eyes, I think. But I know better. “What?”
“Everything.”
And I realize that’s a better answer than I ever could have given.
I wish he would realize he’s still my hero now.
Julia smiles up at me and raises her eyebrows mischievously. “Hey.”
I grab her hand and pull her inside, pushing the door shut with my foot. “You’re gorgeous,” I murmur, kissing her forehead. “Jackson’s in his room – let’s go upstairs.”
“Mmm.” She kisses me. “Damn it, Noah, I miss being with you.”
I smile. “I’ll race you upstairs.”
She grins at me and takes off running, giggling all the way to the stairs. She turns to look back at me. “Come on, lover.”
I roll my eyes. “Someone’s desperate.”
She laughs and takes off running. This time I follow.
“What’s wrong with you, Noah?” she asks, her knee curled up to her bare chest. She doesn’t sound angry, just worried.
I shake my head, pulling on my shirt. “You think I planned this? God, Julia. I knew this was a bad idea.”
Her expression hardens. “Why, because you can’t stand touching me?”
“That’s not what I meant!” I shout. Her eyes glisten with tears. I shake my head, rubbing my eyes. “Look,” I say quieter, “I just have a lot on my plate. I can’t… It’s too hard to explain. Just believe me. Please just believe me.”
She shakes her head, biting her lip. “Just try. Try to explain.” She has that tone again, desperate for answers.
I throw her clothes onto the bed. “You should go.”
A tear forges a path down her cheek. She leans forward and grabs my hand. “Noah…” Her voice breaks. She doubles over, pressing her head against her legs, hugging her thighs, sobbing. “I don’t know how to help you!” she wails.
I close my eyes, lean against the wall. “Julia.”
“What?”
I sigh. “Get out.”
Two minutes later she’s gone. I slam the door behind her, slide down the wall, and cry.
“Noah.”
I stick my head into his room. “We’re out of coffee. I’m going to the grocery store. You need anything?”
He’s crying. I wish everyone would stop crying. He sticks his head out from under the pile of blankets. “I threw up,” he says, his voice so full of shame it’s painful to hear.
I massage my temples. “Where?”
He jerks his head toward the other side of his bed. “Over there,” he says exhaustedly.
“Okay,” I sigh. I walk over, pull back the blankets. He gasps, then whimpers. He’s wearing at least four shirts underneath his sweatshirt, at least three pairs of pants, I don’t know how many socks. Within seconds, he’s shivering.
I scoop him up in my arms, carry him down the hallway to the living room. I lay him on the couch, handing him the remote. He immediately curls up, burying his head between his knees, shivering so profusely that most people would think he was faking. I know better. I run to fetch his blankets, then pile them carefully over his shaking skeleton. He murmurs his thanks, tears still trickling down his cheeks.
Silently, I gather the cleaning supplies and go to his room. I scrub the carpet until my knuckles are raw. A part of me knows it will never be clean again.
He’s watching a documentary on sleepwalking. I sit down in my father’s chair, yank up the footrest. “Why did Julia leave here crying?” he asks after a moment.
I sigh. “I don’t know.”
“You guys have been dating for like, two years, right?”
I nod.
“Then I’m guessing she’s worth keeping.”
I clear my throat. “Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Just call her, Noah.” He meets my eyes. He looks a little sadder every time I see him.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He laughs. He’s never sounded more tired. “Nobody ever does.”
“Julia, listen to me.”
She slams her locker. “You know what? I don’t want to.” She zips her backpack and starts down the hallway.
I grab her arm. “Jules, you said you wanted me to explain. I want to explain. I’m trying to explain.”
She yanks away and turns to face me. “Noah, you kicked me out of your house. I don’t even care about you trying to explain. I don’t even care. I just wanted to talk to you, and you screamed at me and kicked me out of your house.” Her eyes fill with tears. “Damn it, Noah, do you know how humiliating that was for me?”
I close my eyes and sigh. “Jules, I was just… I was upset with myself, and…”
“I don’t even know you anymore,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “And I don’t think I want to.”
She turns and walks away, staring at the ground.
Eddy grins at me. “Okay, while you were getting your freak on, I was producing a masterpiece.”
“I didn’t --” I start, but he shushes me.
“Look.” He produces a paper bag from behind his back and pulls something out. It’s teal, with a yellow racing stripe. There are straws, a balloon, plastic bottle caps… I stare at it in awe.
“Cedric the Wonder Car, ladies and gentlemen. That may or may not be the sound of angels’ wings flapping in the distance.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You made this.” He nods. “You’re serious.” He nods again, grinning devilishly. He looks incredibly pleased of himself.
“Bow down to your new god, Noah Fisher.”
I shake my head in amazement. “You’re my hero, dude. Even if you are a virgin.”
He grins. “Yeah. I know.”
When I get to our lunch table, Julia is there.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so surprised to see someone in my life.
“Don’t say anything,” she warns me, her eyes flashing. “If you say anything, I swear you will never hear my voice again.”
I nod obediently. I say nothing.
“I know you have a lot on your plate. It sucks. I’m sorry. It must be really hard for you, with Jackson being mainly yours to deal with now that your mother is gone.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell her that Jackson isn’t some burden I have to carry, but she shoots me a warning look. I’m silent.
“And I don’t care that we don’t have sex, Noah. I already told you it’s not about sex. We’re seventeen. We probably shouldn’t be having sex in the first place. But…” She sighs. “I mean, having a lot on your plate doesn’t have anything to do with your libido. At least I don’t think it does. I hate that you can still joke around with Eddy and do fine in school and eat and sleep but you’re too stressed out to sleep with me? Is that it? I mean, I want it to make sense. Is that what it is? Just a yes or a no.”
I swallow. “No.”
“Okay. Okay, then what could it possibly be? Jackson’s been sick all year, Noah. And I know the whole thing with your mother was really hard but how could that affect you like this? I don’t get it. Help me get it.”
I bite my lip.
“You said you can’t stand touching me? I know you didn’t just say that. Why would you say that?” She’s about to cry again. I hate that she cries all the time. Not because it’s unjustified – she has every reason – but because I don’t know what to do to make it stop. “What does that have to do with anything? Why can’t you just explain that to me?”
I shake my head. “Julia…”
She uncrosses her legs and leans forward. She heaves a sigh. It’s like the weight of the entire world is on her shoulders. “Just say something. Please. Just try. Just try…” Her voice catches and breaks. “This time,” she finishes. “Please.”
“My hands,” I say feebly. I close my eyes. “I…” But I don’t know what to say. “I can’t explain it to you, Jules, I can’t even explain to myself…”
She shakes her head. “Okay.”
I meet her eyes. “Okay?”
She nods. “Okay.”
She looks anything but.
“You want to come over?” I wind the phone cord around my finger. “I’m sick of this house, but I can’t really leave.”
Eddy laughs. “And you don’t even have a cool ankle bracelet. What is with this injustice?”
“No kidding. So, you coming? We can order pizza. Or something. Watch manly movies. Eat pork rinds.”
“Promise me no pork rinds and I’m there.”
I laugh. “Yeah. Okay. No pork rinds.”
“Alright, Fisher. I’ll be there in twenty. Order the pizza. I’ll pay half when I get there.”
I know he won’t. But that’s okay.
“See, you’re so wrong that you think you’re right. I’m not sure it’s possible to be so wrong. You’re actually wrong to the point of delusion. Which is impressive, but doesn’t change the fact that you’re wrong.”
I shake my head. “It’s amazing how you say so little with so many words.”
“Noah, this is kind of serious. He says ‘hour and a half’. I promise. He says it very clearly. ‘I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.’ He enunciates and everything. It’s pathetic that you don’t realize this. It’s even more pathetic that you try to argue with me about it. You will remember I know everything about this movie. You will remember I memorized the script when I was twelve.”
I take a bite of pizza. “He says ‘half an hour’. But that’s okay. It’s a very long script, Eddy. It’s very easy to mix up the words,” I say mockingly. “Especially when it’s the only thing you’ve ever read that wasn’t required for school.”
“Okay, first of all, the Berenstain Bears were my bitches when I was a kid, and second of all, that’s the best part of the entire movie. I took care to memorize it right. Hour and a half.” He picks off a piece of pepperoni and shoves it in his mouth.
“You know I’m right.”
“Did you memorize the script? Noooo. Am I right? Yessss.” He grins. “It’s all very simple, Noah. Even you must get that.”
I throw a napkin at him. “Whatever. Virgin.”
“Whore.” He throws it back. “Did you have fun last night? I never asked.”
I shrug. “We didn’t… You know.”
He raises his eyebrows and takes a bite. He chews thoughtfully for a moment. “Let me get this straight. You had a hot girl, right?”
“Right.”
“At your house, right?”
“Right.”
“She was ready, willing, and able, right?”
“Right.”
“And you didn’t sex her up?”
I glare at him. “Correct.”
“Are you mentally stable? Honestly?” He stares at me incredulously. “You are aware that you are the stupidest person alive, right?”
I sigh. “Right.”
Jackson staggers to the chair, dragging his blankets behind him like a three year old. He collapses and pulls them up to his chin, avoiding my eyes.
“You know what’s sad, Noah?”
Your eyes, I think. But I know better. “What?”
“Everything.”
And I realize that’s a better answer than I ever could have given.
Friday, November 03, 2006
November 3rd: twenty five hours, eight days a week
“Talk to me. Please, please talk to me.”
She walks past my car with her head bowed. Her eyes refuse to meet mine.
“Julia, I don’t know what to say to you. I’m such a stupid fuck up. But I love you. I love you. Julia…”
She keeps walking. I open my door and jump out, jogging up to her. She walks faster.
“Please listen to me. Please, please listen to me.”
She turns around. She’s crying. It’s seven fifteen in the morning, and her makeup is already ruined. And it’s my fault. Everything is my fault. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. Her white sleeve. She looks down at the black smear and shakes her head, sobbing. She turns around and runs toward her car, parked on the curb.
I run after her. I’m faster. I catch her and wrap my arms around her. She buries her face in my chest and mumbles something. I kiss the top of her head. She turns her head so her cheek rests over my heart. “You don’t get it, Noah. You have no idea….” She sniffles, pulling herself away. I reluctantly let her go.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to have the right answer. I wanted to have an answer. I wanted to be able to explain. And I said the stupidest thing, and I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry….” Now I’m about to cry. I want her to get this. I want her to know what I’m trying to say without my having to say it, because I know if I try again it will just make everything even worse.
She shakes her head, wipes her eyes. “Noah, nobody deserves this many second chances….” She closes her eyes and sighs.
“I know.” I really do.
She looks helpless. Utterly helpless. Her shoulders are slumped forward, her face is streaked with mascara, and her white turtleneck is stained. She looks like she wants to disappear. She looks scared. She looks nothing like Julia. She hasn’t in awhile.
“Come over,” I say, for no real reason but that I know it will fix things. Maybe just for a day, maybe just for a minute. But I want so horribly to be the one who can fix things. I clear my throat. “Tonight. Come over. Please.”
She stands up a little straighter and nods. “Noah, I… I want us to be okay.”
But we aren’t okay. I think we forgot how to be okay. I wonder if we’ll ever remember.
I grab her hand as we walk back up her driveway to my car. She stares at the cobblestone beneath our feet, like maybe the answers are in the cracks. I always feel like she’s looking for the answers. I want to help her look. But I don’t know the question.
* * *
Geoff pulls me aside as Eddy and are leaving physics. He waves Eddy on and motions to the desk nearest his. “This will just take a minute.”
I sit down.
“I saw your brother yesterday at the grocery store. I didn’t know he was back in town. He always said he was never coming back.”
I attempt a smile. “Yeah. I guess everyone says that.” I laugh weakly.
He shakes his head, biting his lip. “Jacks was one of my best friends in high school. We were both on the football team. Obviously he was better than I was – I was second string – but…” His voice trails off.
“He’s sick,” I say abruptly, because I know the question’s coming.
Geoff nods. “I know this is kind of personal, but –“
“He has AIDS,” I interject, because I know that’s coming too.
His entire body collapses. His shoulders slump, his chin falls, his eyes close. All the tension goes out of his face, replaced by such an incredible sadness that I don’t know what to do. I see my mother’s face on Christmas, her ear pressed against the bathroom door, her eyes welling with tears. There’s no surprise to the expression. Just a misery too absolute to look at for too long.
I stare at my hands. I don’t know what to say. That’s my problem: I never know.
“He looks horrible.”
I know that’s exactly what you’re not supposed to say. Not to the family. Not to someone whose every waking moment is spent denying that fact, looking for the tiniest improvement in appearance or demeanor, the tiniest bit of hope. But there’s something so refreshing in hearing it. All day long, I hear I’m sorry and He looks a little better and He’s put on a bit of weight this week. There’s something relieving about the truth. Some element of Thank god I’m not the only one who thinks so.
I nod. “It’s been almost a year. Since it went full blown, I mean. Last Christmas.” I pause. “He’s lost a lot of weight. He actually isn’t doing all that bad, except that he’s lost so much weight…. And the fevers.” I know that there’s nothing good about this. I know that Jackson is dying. I know that he’s not dying slowly. But I want to see if I can make it sound better. I can’t.
Geoff sighs. “Do you think he’d mind if I called him? We haven’t talked since high school, I… I don’t know if that would be weird.”
I shrug. “I think he’d like that, actually. He’s kind of lonely. Here.” I scribble our number on a piece of paper.
He smiles faintly and nods. “Alright. Tell him I’ll call. It’ll probably be a couple days.”
“Sure.” I get up, grab my backpack.
As I’m walking out the door, he calls after me. “Noah?”
I turn my head, lean against the doorframe. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I bite my lip. “Me too.”
* * *
“What the hell did Geoff want?” Eddy asks when I sit down at our table. No one ever comes back here to eat – it’s just this random picnic table situated in this random grassy area near the art room. We found it sophomore year. It’s a good place to get away from the noise.
I shrug. “He asked about Jackson. They were football buddies or something.”
Eddy raises his eyebrows. “Sucks. Does he even know?”
“Know what?” I know what. Eddy knows I know what. But I want him to have to say it.
“That Jackson is sick.” He takes a bite out of his sandwich.
I nod. “Saw him yesterday at the grocery store.”
“Huh. I got a 64 on Ackerman. Way better than I thought.”
Eddy has an uncanny ability to change the subject. That’s probably one of the reasons we’ve been friends for so long. I need him to shut me up. “Wow. Not bad.”
“No kidding. How’s the girlfriend?”
“I told her I couldn’t stand touching her.” I stare at some trees behind his head and sip my Sprite.
He whistles. “Mother of pearl. You’re stupid, Noah Fisher. You’re really, really stupid.”
I sigh. “No shit. But I went to her house this morning and apologized and invited her over tonight. She said yes.”
Eddy grins. “Someone’s gettin’ lucky,” he says in a sing-song.
I kick him under the table. “Jealous?”
He laughs. “Are you kidding me? You’re getting laid. I’m so jealous I could die. You know what this means, don’t you?”
“What?”
“I’m watching you-know-what,” he says, in the most scandalous tone he can manage.
I laugh, shaking my head. “You are aware that your obsession with When Harry Met Sally only hinders your quest to get laid, right?”
He rolls his eyes. “The ladies love my sensitive side, Fisher. You’ll notice I don’t have fights with my girlfriends.”
“Jennifer Talbot, freshman year. Who else have you ever gone out with?”
He raises his eyebrows. “I got all sorts of play back in Michigan.”
“You moved here when you were eight!”
Eddy grins. “I was young and studly. Now who’s jealous?”
I kick him again. “Virgin.”
He kicks back. “Idiot.”
I’m not going to argue with that.
* * *
My father’s car is in the driveway when I get home. My stomach flops. What’s wrong now?
I walk slowly up the drive and through the back door, fighting the urge to vomit. My father has the sliding doors to the laundry nook open. His brow is furrowed as he scans the instruction manual for the washer. I wander over, trying to be casual, still trying not to throw up. “What’s up?”
He blinks. “You’re home. Do you know how to work this thing?”
I stare at him. “Yeah, I’ll do it. What are you washing? Why are you home? Where’s Jackson?” Maybe he stained his shirt. But why would he come home for staining his shirt?
“Sheets. Thanks, son.” He closes the book and walks off absentmindedly, ignoring my other two questions.
“Why are you home?” I try again, as he fills up the coffee pot.
I see his body tense. “Your brother is having a hard day. You’re not going out, are you? I really need to get back to work.”
Damn it. I nod. “No, I’m not going anywhere. You go. Is there anything I should do?”
He sighs. “I don’t know what to do,” he says softly, and it’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever heard my father. My stomach tightens its knot.
I turn back to the laundry. I don’t want to know what I’m washing and I don’t want to know why. I want my mother to be here, doing the laundry that stinks of Jackson’s illness, fixing things, taking care of her sick son. That’s what my mother would have done. That’s what my mother always did.
We never realized how much we needed her until she was gone.
* * *
Jackson is in his room, barely visible beneath what seems like a hundred blankets. He peeks out from under the pile when I walk in. “Hi, Noah.”
“You can’t get up.” It’s a guess. But it doesn’t take much to guess.
He closes his eyes but doesn’t answer. Which is an answer in itself. I take a long, shaky breath and lean back against the wall.
“Damn it, Jackson,” I mutter. Then louder. “Damn it, Jackson!”
His eyes are still closed. His brow furrows. Once again, he doesn’t respond.
“Where did you go?” I’m so frustrated with this not answering. Not just now, but always. There are so many questions and never any answers. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re so fucking selfish. This isn’t just about you, Jackson, this is about all of us. You fucked it up for all of us.”
“Noah.” It’s a faint whisper, barely audible. “Noah.” Slowly, a bony hand appears from beneath a pile of blankets. His eyes are open now, sunken and pleading.
I walk across the room slowly, biting my lip, and crouch down next to his bed. “I hate you, Jackson,” I manage, my voice cracking.
I grab his hand.
“I know,” he whispers. “I do, too.”
She walks past my car with her head bowed. Her eyes refuse to meet mine.
“Julia, I don’t know what to say to you. I’m such a stupid fuck up. But I love you. I love you. Julia…”
She keeps walking. I open my door and jump out, jogging up to her. She walks faster.
“Please listen to me. Please, please listen to me.”
She turns around. She’s crying. It’s seven fifteen in the morning, and her makeup is already ruined. And it’s my fault. Everything is my fault. She wipes her eyes with her sleeve. Her white sleeve. She looks down at the black smear and shakes her head, sobbing. She turns around and runs toward her car, parked on the curb.
I run after her. I’m faster. I catch her and wrap my arms around her. She buries her face in my chest and mumbles something. I kiss the top of her head. She turns her head so her cheek rests over my heart. “You don’t get it, Noah. You have no idea….” She sniffles, pulling herself away. I reluctantly let her go.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to have the right answer. I wanted to have an answer. I wanted to be able to explain. And I said the stupidest thing, and I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry….” Now I’m about to cry. I want her to get this. I want her to know what I’m trying to say without my having to say it, because I know if I try again it will just make everything even worse.
She shakes her head, wipes her eyes. “Noah, nobody deserves this many second chances….” She closes her eyes and sighs.
“I know.” I really do.
She looks helpless. Utterly helpless. Her shoulders are slumped forward, her face is streaked with mascara, and her white turtleneck is stained. She looks like she wants to disappear. She looks scared. She looks nothing like Julia. She hasn’t in awhile.
“Come over,” I say, for no real reason but that I know it will fix things. Maybe just for a day, maybe just for a minute. But I want so horribly to be the one who can fix things. I clear my throat. “Tonight. Come over. Please.”
She stands up a little straighter and nods. “Noah, I… I want us to be okay.”
But we aren’t okay. I think we forgot how to be okay. I wonder if we’ll ever remember.
I grab her hand as we walk back up her driveway to my car. She stares at the cobblestone beneath our feet, like maybe the answers are in the cracks. I always feel like she’s looking for the answers. I want to help her look. But I don’t know the question.
Geoff pulls me aside as Eddy and are leaving physics. He waves Eddy on and motions to the desk nearest his. “This will just take a minute.”
I sit down.
“I saw your brother yesterday at the grocery store. I didn’t know he was back in town. He always said he was never coming back.”
I attempt a smile. “Yeah. I guess everyone says that.” I laugh weakly.
He shakes his head, biting his lip. “Jacks was one of my best friends in high school. We were both on the football team. Obviously he was better than I was – I was second string – but…” His voice trails off.
“He’s sick,” I say abruptly, because I know the question’s coming.
Geoff nods. “I know this is kind of personal, but –“
“He has AIDS,” I interject, because I know that’s coming too.
His entire body collapses. His shoulders slump, his chin falls, his eyes close. All the tension goes out of his face, replaced by such an incredible sadness that I don’t know what to do. I see my mother’s face on Christmas, her ear pressed against the bathroom door, her eyes welling with tears. There’s no surprise to the expression. Just a misery too absolute to look at for too long.
I stare at my hands. I don’t know what to say. That’s my problem: I never know.
“He looks horrible.”
I know that’s exactly what you’re not supposed to say. Not to the family. Not to someone whose every waking moment is spent denying that fact, looking for the tiniest improvement in appearance or demeanor, the tiniest bit of hope. But there’s something so refreshing in hearing it. All day long, I hear I’m sorry and He looks a little better and He’s put on a bit of weight this week. There’s something relieving about the truth. Some element of Thank god I’m not the only one who thinks so.
I nod. “It’s been almost a year. Since it went full blown, I mean. Last Christmas.” I pause. “He’s lost a lot of weight. He actually isn’t doing all that bad, except that he’s lost so much weight…. And the fevers.” I know that there’s nothing good about this. I know that Jackson is dying. I know that he’s not dying slowly. But I want to see if I can make it sound better. I can’t.
Geoff sighs. “Do you think he’d mind if I called him? We haven’t talked since high school, I… I don’t know if that would be weird.”
I shrug. “I think he’d like that, actually. He’s kind of lonely. Here.” I scribble our number on a piece of paper.
He smiles faintly and nods. “Alright. Tell him I’ll call. It’ll probably be a couple days.”
“Sure.” I get up, grab my backpack.
As I’m walking out the door, he calls after me. “Noah?”
I turn my head, lean against the doorframe. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” I bite my lip. “Me too.”
“What the hell did Geoff want?” Eddy asks when I sit down at our table. No one ever comes back here to eat – it’s just this random picnic table situated in this random grassy area near the art room. We found it sophomore year. It’s a good place to get away from the noise.
I shrug. “He asked about Jackson. They were football buddies or something.”
Eddy raises his eyebrows. “Sucks. Does he even know?”
“Know what?” I know what. Eddy knows I know what. But I want him to have to say it.
“That Jackson is sick.” He takes a bite out of his sandwich.
I nod. “Saw him yesterday at the grocery store.”
“Huh. I got a 64 on Ackerman. Way better than I thought.”
Eddy has an uncanny ability to change the subject. That’s probably one of the reasons we’ve been friends for so long. I need him to shut me up. “Wow. Not bad.”
“No kidding. How’s the girlfriend?”
“I told her I couldn’t stand touching her.” I stare at some trees behind his head and sip my Sprite.
He whistles. “Mother of pearl. You’re stupid, Noah Fisher. You’re really, really stupid.”
I sigh. “No shit. But I went to her house this morning and apologized and invited her over tonight. She said yes.”
Eddy grins. “Someone’s gettin’ lucky,” he says in a sing-song.
I kick him under the table. “Jealous?”
He laughs. “Are you kidding me? You’re getting laid. I’m so jealous I could die. You know what this means, don’t you?”
“What?”
“I’m watching you-know-what,” he says, in the most scandalous tone he can manage.
I laugh, shaking my head. “You are aware that your obsession with When Harry Met Sally only hinders your quest to get laid, right?”
He rolls his eyes. “The ladies love my sensitive side, Fisher. You’ll notice I don’t have fights with my girlfriends.”
“Jennifer Talbot, freshman year. Who else have you ever gone out with?”
He raises his eyebrows. “I got all sorts of play back in Michigan.”
“You moved here when you were eight!”
Eddy grins. “I was young and studly. Now who’s jealous?”
I kick him again. “Virgin.”
He kicks back. “Idiot.”
I’m not going to argue with that.
My father’s car is in the driveway when I get home. My stomach flops. What’s wrong now?
I walk slowly up the drive and through the back door, fighting the urge to vomit. My father has the sliding doors to the laundry nook open. His brow is furrowed as he scans the instruction manual for the washer. I wander over, trying to be casual, still trying not to throw up. “What’s up?”
He blinks. “You’re home. Do you know how to work this thing?”
I stare at him. “Yeah, I’ll do it. What are you washing? Why are you home? Where’s Jackson?” Maybe he stained his shirt. But why would he come home for staining his shirt?
“Sheets. Thanks, son.” He closes the book and walks off absentmindedly, ignoring my other two questions.
“Why are you home?” I try again, as he fills up the coffee pot.
I see his body tense. “Your brother is having a hard day. You’re not going out, are you? I really need to get back to work.”
Damn it. I nod. “No, I’m not going anywhere. You go. Is there anything I should do?”
He sighs. “I don’t know what to do,” he says softly, and it’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever heard my father. My stomach tightens its knot.
I turn back to the laundry. I don’t want to know what I’m washing and I don’t want to know why. I want my mother to be here, doing the laundry that stinks of Jackson’s illness, fixing things, taking care of her sick son. That’s what my mother would have done. That’s what my mother always did.
We never realized how much we needed her until she was gone.
Jackson is in his room, barely visible beneath what seems like a hundred blankets. He peeks out from under the pile when I walk in. “Hi, Noah.”
“You can’t get up.” It’s a guess. But it doesn’t take much to guess.
He closes his eyes but doesn’t answer. Which is an answer in itself. I take a long, shaky breath and lean back against the wall.
“Damn it, Jackson,” I mutter. Then louder. “Damn it, Jackson!”
His eyes are still closed. His brow furrows. Once again, he doesn’t respond.
“Where did you go?” I’m so frustrated with this not answering. Not just now, but always. There are so many questions and never any answers. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re so fucking selfish. This isn’t just about you, Jackson, this is about all of us. You fucked it up for all of us.”
“Noah.” It’s a faint whisper, barely audible. “Noah.” Slowly, a bony hand appears from beneath a pile of blankets. His eyes are open now, sunken and pleading.
I walk across the room slowly, biting my lip, and crouch down next to his bed. “I hate you, Jackson,” I manage, my voice cracking.
I grab his hand.
“I know,” he whispers. “I do, too.”
Thursday, November 02, 2006
November 2nd: Love, a reaction to some soft skin. What about trust?
“Turkey.”
“Ankara. But what I don’t understand is why.”
“Chicks are weird. They think babies are cute. Have you ever looked at a baby? Babies are not cute. Venezuela.”
“Caracas. What do babies have to do with her ditching my ride?”
“Do you not listen to me? Chicks are weird. Georgia.”
“Impossible to pronounce. Starts with a ‘t’.”
“Tbilisi.”
“Right.”
“Estonia.”
“Addis Ababa. And I know chicks are weird, Eddy, what I want to know is why she’s being weird about me. And why now. To my knowledge, I’ve done nothing wrong lately.”
“First of all, it’s Tallinn, and second of all –“
“It’s what?”
“Tallinn. The capital. Addis Abada is… Lemme check… Ethiopia. Anyway, second of all, you can’t make sense of women. That’s the whole point of women. Brazil.”
“Brasilia. Since when did there have to be a point? Is there a point to men?”
“Our point is to be perfectly sensible and follow all general reason. Malta.”
“Valletta. You give the worst advice ever, by the way.”
“Thank you. Somalia.”
I lay my head on the table. “Mogashidu,” I sigh.
“Mogadishu. And you can’t rest now, dude. There are a lot of countries in the world. And Ackerman doesn’t really care if you’re having trouble with your woman. Trust me, this thing is brutal. Zambia.”
I sit up slowly and roll my eyes. “Lusaka. It’s really that bad?”
“Are you kidding me? Most people would kill their grandmother to pass this thing. Rwanda.”
“Kigali. And that’s kind of sad.”
“It’s ten percent of your grade. Even I studied. I’m pretty sure I failed anyway. Oman.”
“Doha? I still think it’s a pointless test. Does she not think we have enough on our plates?”
“Doha is Qatar. Oman is Muscat. Liechtenstein.”
“Vaduz,” someone says from behind me.
I turn around. Julia grins at me. “Studying? I took it last period. The thing ate me alive.”
I bite my lip. “That’s reassuring. Watch you get like, a ninety-six.”
“Are you kidding me? Even Blair only got an eighty-nine. This test just isn’t meant to be passed.” She plops down on the bench next to me and wraps her arm around my waist. “Sorry about this morning. Don’t even ask. My parents are crazy.”
I glance at Eddy, who shrugs. “No, I get it. I just… You know.”
She smiles at me. “Yeah. I know.” She lays her head on my shoulder. “You want to come over tonight? Blair has a doctor’s appointment and my parents are going with her.”
This isn’t the kind of question a seventeen year old boy should ever have to seriously think about. And a few months ago it wouldn’t have. But now…
“I can’t.”
Eddy kicks me under the table. I wince and rub my shin. “Jackson needs company. He gets really lonely at night.”
Julia pulls away from me, suddenly indignant. “So do I.”
Eddy rubs the back of his neck and looks down at the table. I turn my gaze to Julia. “He’s sick, Jules.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t freaking ‘Jules’ me. He’s fine all day while you’re at school. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Please come over, Noah…” She grabs my hand, her eyes pleading.
“You can come to my place. We can watch a movie or something.”
She drops my hand. “I don’t want to watch a movie, Noah. I...” She looks over at Eddy and closes her eyes, sighing. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Don’t you want a ride home?”
She stands up and stares at me. “I don’t want to be near you if you don’t want to be near me,” she spits, and she’s gone before I can say anything else.
Eddy looks up, his eyebrows raised. I shake my head and bury my face in my hands.
“Kenya,” he says quietly.
* * *
“You’re home.”
There’s no expression in his voice. It’s just an observation. I want him to be happy to see me. I gave up sex for you, I want to tell him. You owe me more than a halfhearted “you’re home”.
“Hey,” I respond, because that’s easier to say.
He attempts a smile. “You look beat. Hard day at secondary education?”
I shrug. “Impossible World Studies test.” That much is true.
“How’s Julia?” He shifts slightly in his chair at the table, staring down at his white rice. He moves it with his fork, biting his lip.
She’s mad at me because we hardly ever have sex anymore, I want to say. And the sicker you get, the less I want to. And I don’t know why. I want you to explain it to me. Because you’re my big brother, and you’re supposed to know everything, and I want you to tell me why.
“She’s okay,” I say instead, because it’s easier.
He puts down his fork. “If you want to go out with her tonight or something, you can. I think I’m going to bed early anyway.”
“Are you sure you’d be okay?” We both know what I really mean. Are you sure you won’t die?
He nods. “Yeah, I feel pretty okay today. I think maybe the new meds are kicking in.”
He’s lying. I’m sure he’s been picking at the rice since lunchtime, and the dark circles under his eyes are huge. His entire body is slick with sweat. More than anything, I want him to be feeling “pretty okay”. I want the new meds to kick in. But he isn’t, and they’re not. I’m terrified that something will happen while I’m gone, and he’ll die, and I’ll feel guilty forever because I snubbed my dying brother to have awkward unwanted sex with my high school girlfriend.
I shrug. “I have a ton of homework. I should probably stay home.”
He glances up at me. He knows I’m lying, and I know he does. Just like he knows that I know he’s lying when he says he’s feeling pretty okay. We don’t really lie to protect each other. We lie to protect ourselves.
* * *
“Hello?”
“Don’t hang up.”
She sighs. “Why shouldn’t I?” She sounds like she wants to punch me. Maybe she should.
“I’m stupid. I am the stupidest person alive, and I’m a liar, and if you hated me I wouldn’t blame you. I’m a horrible boyfriend. I’m a horrible person. I’m a jerk. I’m a huge jerk. There is no logical reason you shouldn’t hang up on me. Please don’t.”
“Then tell me. Tell me why you don’t want to come over. Tell me why you never want to come over.” She sounds like she wants to cry.
I bite my lip. “I do want to come over. I do want to come over, all the time. I want to be with you all the time. But I…” I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know how I can ever possibly say it.
“You what?” Now she just sounds desperate. Like if I can explain this to her, it will change everything. Like the next words I say have the power to make everything okay.
I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know, Jules. I…”
“You have to know, Noah,” she says softly, pleadingly. “This isn’t about you wanting to be with me all the time. I want to know what it’s about. I want to know how to fix it.”
“I can’t stand touching you,” I blurt out. But that’s not it. That’s not it at all.
The line clicks before I can retract it, before I can explain. I don’t even bother calling again. I know she won’t answer.
* * *
“How do you get a girl to forgive you?” I ask Jackson when he stumbles in. Seinfeld is on. “The Wizard”. I can’t pay attention. I can hardly even breathe.
He collapses into my father’s chair. “What did you do?”
“I said something stupid. Worse than stupid. Such an incredible kind of stupid that I’m pretty sure it would be considered an insult to stupidity.”
Jackson closes his eyes and leans back in the chair. “You really want to hear my advice? I’m about to sound like an adult and everything, so you might want to take note.”
I smile in spite of myself. “Yeah, okay.”
He breathes slowly in and out, his chest jerking. He stretches out his legs. “I am an expert on stupidity, Noah. When I was your age, I was the stupidest person I knew. I was the guy at the party who said the most incredibly asinine things to and about everyone, and did the most asinine things. I kissed other girls in front of my girlfriend. I hit on my best buddies’ girlfriends. Sometimes I would just knock a guy’s cup up into his face just to see if he would say anything. And that’s the thing. Nobody ever did. They just let me be stupid. They laughed about it, or they cried about it, or they went home and complained to their mothers about it, I don’t know. But I could be as much of a stupid jerk as I wanted to be. And nobody ever told me to stop. Nobody.”
I stare at my hands. I know what’s coming.
“And when I got to college, I was with a ton of guys just like me. A ton of guys who were used to being able to do whatever the hell they wanted and getting away with it. And when you hit on their girlfriends, they hit you. And when you got in their faces, they got right back in yours. And suddenly I wasn’t the stupidest one anymore. I learned to keep my mouth shut. I was still stupid, but I was quiet about it.”
Just say it, I want to tell him. Just say it.
“And you know what, little brother?”
“What?” I used to hate it when he called me that. Now, for some reason, it feels good. Like, Thank god. You remember who I am.
“I don’t regret the stupid things nearly as much as I regret not apologizing.”
It’s not the ending I expected. And it’s not the answer I hoped it would be.
“Does that help?” he asks, maybe a little to eager, his eyes popping open.
I smile at him. “Yeah,” I lie. “Thanks,” I don’t.
“Ankara. But what I don’t understand is why.”
“Chicks are weird. They think babies are cute. Have you ever looked at a baby? Babies are not cute. Venezuela.”
“Caracas. What do babies have to do with her ditching my ride?”
“Do you not listen to me? Chicks are weird. Georgia.”
“Impossible to pronounce. Starts with a ‘t’.”
“Tbilisi.”
“Right.”
“Estonia.”
“Addis Ababa. And I know chicks are weird, Eddy, what I want to know is why she’s being weird about me. And why now. To my knowledge, I’ve done nothing wrong lately.”
“First of all, it’s Tallinn, and second of all –“
“It’s what?”
“Tallinn. The capital. Addis Abada is… Lemme check… Ethiopia. Anyway, second of all, you can’t make sense of women. That’s the whole point of women. Brazil.”
“Brasilia. Since when did there have to be a point? Is there a point to men?”
“Our point is to be perfectly sensible and follow all general reason. Malta.”
“Valletta. You give the worst advice ever, by the way.”
“Thank you. Somalia.”
I lay my head on the table. “Mogashidu,” I sigh.
“Mogadishu. And you can’t rest now, dude. There are a lot of countries in the world. And Ackerman doesn’t really care if you’re having trouble with your woman. Trust me, this thing is brutal. Zambia.”
I sit up slowly and roll my eyes. “Lusaka. It’s really that bad?”
“Are you kidding me? Most people would kill their grandmother to pass this thing. Rwanda.”
“Kigali. And that’s kind of sad.”
“It’s ten percent of your grade. Even I studied. I’m pretty sure I failed anyway. Oman.”
“Doha? I still think it’s a pointless test. Does she not think we have enough on our plates?”
“Doha is Qatar. Oman is Muscat. Liechtenstein.”
“Vaduz,” someone says from behind me.
I turn around. Julia grins at me. “Studying? I took it last period. The thing ate me alive.”
I bite my lip. “That’s reassuring. Watch you get like, a ninety-six.”
“Are you kidding me? Even Blair only got an eighty-nine. This test just isn’t meant to be passed.” She plops down on the bench next to me and wraps her arm around my waist. “Sorry about this morning. Don’t even ask. My parents are crazy.”
I glance at Eddy, who shrugs. “No, I get it. I just… You know.”
She smiles at me. “Yeah. I know.” She lays her head on my shoulder. “You want to come over tonight? Blair has a doctor’s appointment and my parents are going with her.”
This isn’t the kind of question a seventeen year old boy should ever have to seriously think about. And a few months ago it wouldn’t have. But now…
“I can’t.”
Eddy kicks me under the table. I wince and rub my shin. “Jackson needs company. He gets really lonely at night.”
Julia pulls away from me, suddenly indignant. “So do I.”
Eddy rubs the back of his neck and looks down at the table. I turn my gaze to Julia. “He’s sick, Jules.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t freaking ‘Jules’ me. He’s fine all day while you’re at school. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Please come over, Noah…” She grabs my hand, her eyes pleading.
“You can come to my place. We can watch a movie or something.”
She drops my hand. “I don’t want to watch a movie, Noah. I...” She looks over at Eddy and closes her eyes, sighing. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Don’t you want a ride home?”
She stands up and stares at me. “I don’t want to be near you if you don’t want to be near me,” she spits, and she’s gone before I can say anything else.
Eddy looks up, his eyebrows raised. I shake my head and bury my face in my hands.
“Kenya,” he says quietly.
“You’re home.”
There’s no expression in his voice. It’s just an observation. I want him to be happy to see me. I gave up sex for you, I want to tell him. You owe me more than a halfhearted “you’re home”.
“Hey,” I respond, because that’s easier to say.
He attempts a smile. “You look beat. Hard day at secondary education?”
I shrug. “Impossible World Studies test.” That much is true.
“How’s Julia?” He shifts slightly in his chair at the table, staring down at his white rice. He moves it with his fork, biting his lip.
She’s mad at me because we hardly ever have sex anymore, I want to say. And the sicker you get, the less I want to. And I don’t know why. I want you to explain it to me. Because you’re my big brother, and you’re supposed to know everything, and I want you to tell me why.
“She’s okay,” I say instead, because it’s easier.
He puts down his fork. “If you want to go out with her tonight or something, you can. I think I’m going to bed early anyway.”
“Are you sure you’d be okay?” We both know what I really mean. Are you sure you won’t die?
He nods. “Yeah, I feel pretty okay today. I think maybe the new meds are kicking in.”
He’s lying. I’m sure he’s been picking at the rice since lunchtime, and the dark circles under his eyes are huge. His entire body is slick with sweat. More than anything, I want him to be feeling “pretty okay”. I want the new meds to kick in. But he isn’t, and they’re not. I’m terrified that something will happen while I’m gone, and he’ll die, and I’ll feel guilty forever because I snubbed my dying brother to have awkward unwanted sex with my high school girlfriend.
I shrug. “I have a ton of homework. I should probably stay home.”
He glances up at me. He knows I’m lying, and I know he does. Just like he knows that I know he’s lying when he says he’s feeling pretty okay. We don’t really lie to protect each other. We lie to protect ourselves.
“Hello?”
“Don’t hang up.”
She sighs. “Why shouldn’t I?” She sounds like she wants to punch me. Maybe she should.
“I’m stupid. I am the stupidest person alive, and I’m a liar, and if you hated me I wouldn’t blame you. I’m a horrible boyfriend. I’m a horrible person. I’m a jerk. I’m a huge jerk. There is no logical reason you shouldn’t hang up on me. Please don’t.”
“Then tell me. Tell me why you don’t want to come over. Tell me why you never want to come over.” She sounds like she wants to cry.
I bite my lip. “I do want to come over. I do want to come over, all the time. I want to be with you all the time. But I…” I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know how I can ever possibly say it.
“You what?” Now she just sounds desperate. Like if I can explain this to her, it will change everything. Like the next words I say have the power to make everything okay.
I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know, Jules. I…”
“You have to know, Noah,” she says softly, pleadingly. “This isn’t about you wanting to be with me all the time. I want to know what it’s about. I want to know how to fix it.”
“I can’t stand touching you,” I blurt out. But that’s not it. That’s not it at all.
The line clicks before I can retract it, before I can explain. I don’t even bother calling again. I know she won’t answer.
“How do you get a girl to forgive you?” I ask Jackson when he stumbles in. Seinfeld is on. “The Wizard”. I can’t pay attention. I can hardly even breathe.
He collapses into my father’s chair. “What did you do?”
“I said something stupid. Worse than stupid. Such an incredible kind of stupid that I’m pretty sure it would be considered an insult to stupidity.”
Jackson closes his eyes and leans back in the chair. “You really want to hear my advice? I’m about to sound like an adult and everything, so you might want to take note.”
I smile in spite of myself. “Yeah, okay.”
He breathes slowly in and out, his chest jerking. He stretches out his legs. “I am an expert on stupidity, Noah. When I was your age, I was the stupidest person I knew. I was the guy at the party who said the most incredibly asinine things to and about everyone, and did the most asinine things. I kissed other girls in front of my girlfriend. I hit on my best buddies’ girlfriends. Sometimes I would just knock a guy’s cup up into his face just to see if he would say anything. And that’s the thing. Nobody ever did. They just let me be stupid. They laughed about it, or they cried about it, or they went home and complained to their mothers about it, I don’t know. But I could be as much of a stupid jerk as I wanted to be. And nobody ever told me to stop. Nobody.”
I stare at my hands. I know what’s coming.
“And when I got to college, I was with a ton of guys just like me. A ton of guys who were used to being able to do whatever the hell they wanted and getting away with it. And when you hit on their girlfriends, they hit you. And when you got in their faces, they got right back in yours. And suddenly I wasn’t the stupidest one anymore. I learned to keep my mouth shut. I was still stupid, but I was quiet about it.”
Just say it, I want to tell him. Just say it.
“And you know what, little brother?”
“What?” I used to hate it when he called me that. Now, for some reason, it feels good. Like, Thank god. You remember who I am.
“I don’t regret the stupid things nearly as much as I regret not apologizing.”
It’s not the ending I expected. And it’s not the answer I hoped it would be.
“Does that help?” he asks, maybe a little to eager, his eyes popping open.
I smile at him. “Yeah,” I lie. “Thanks,” I don’t.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
November 1st: Do you think that we could be these people that lose everything?
November was the end of our hope. The chill of winter had invaded our home, glazed over our eyes, and settled into our bones. We slowly forgot how to be warm. That was the least of the forgetting. By the time the leaves turned in October, we were starting to forget what she looked like when she was upset, what her voice sounded like on the phone, the warmth of her hands. By November, we needed photographs to get a clear image, her perfume to remember her scent. She had been gone since August. By November, we knew she would never really come home.
Jackson’s fever hit midway through October. There were days of chills, whole weeks of watching him shiver and struggle for warmth beneath three blankets, lying in front of the fireplace. It had always been my mother’s job to replace the firewood, but this winter it was mine. Hauling those logs inside, with just a bit too much groaning and gasping, forced him to see that I was useful, that I was helpful, that I cared. I wanted him to feel like he wasn’t alone. But we both knew that he was.
Then, just as quickly as the chills had begun, they would stop. Jackson would roam around the house in his boxers, his forehead slick with sweat, his impossibly pale skin stretched taut over his rib cage. He would leave his shirt off, pull on jeans, and go stand in the snow. It was the crazy sort of thing he always would have done before, only then he would have been smiling and throwing his head back and shivering and grinning through the camera lens at my mother in all his bizarre glory. This winter, it was only a desperate effort to soothe the fire always burning on the surface of his skin. This winter, he had no mother to snap his picture and beg him to come inside. He had only me, standing in the kitchen window, trying not to let him break my heart.
If there were anyone to blame for all that had happened, most people would call out Jackson. Because it was his recklessness, after all, that had started this fateful toppling of dominos. Maybe he would be easier for me to blame if he hadn’t suffered a dozen times more pain than the rest of us. Maybe some people would blame my mother and the selfishness she showed in a time of crisis, a time we all needed her the most. But so much that happened was beyond her control, and while Jackson may have hurt the most, it was my mother who really lost the most. And so, if the blame must be cast, there’s only one real choice. Because when you think about it, we were fine. We were dealing with things. We were coping, in our own individual ways, with our own individual problems. We were coping. And then he disappeared.
That’s why I blame Nathaniel. Out of all the people who have since vanished, or tried to, he was first. And maybe, if he hadn’t, we could have steadied ourselves and resisted the urge to fall.
* * *
“Really, though. I don’t understand why colleges do that. Like, ‘We’ll make it easier for you to get in, but you have to make us your first choice school first. And then if you don’t get in, sucks to be you, doesn’t it?’ It’s like college admissions offices around the country are plotting for my failure.” She stabs a tomato wedge with her fork and holds it up to the light. “These are gross,” she mumbles, plucking it off and putting it in the ashtray, along with a pile of olives and her cup of ranch dressing. Lately, “gross” seems to apply to more things than not.
“I don’t know. I think it makes sense. If they’re committing to you early, they want you to commit to them… Earlier.” I hold up a french fry and cock my head expectantly. Do you want this?
She shakes her head, shooing my hand away, and stabs a piece of lettuce with her fork. “I guess you’re right. But do you want to apply to your first choice school? Even if it’s a reach? Or should you apply to a school that’s still sort of a reach, but you have a better chance on getting in and not humiliating yourself and ruining your opportunities?”
I take a sip of my Sprite. “Your first choice, I would think. If you’re pretty sure you can get in, you don’t really need the extra edge that you get from early admissions.”
She nods slowly and puts her fork down. “Whatever. I’m so sick of this college shit. Higher learning is for wusses. I can work at McDonalds. Burger King. Wendy’s. Maybe a T.G.I. Friday’s, if I really apply myself.”
I laugh. “Julia, to be honest, I think you’re at least good enough for an Applebee’s.”
Her face breaks out into a grin, and she claps her hands in mock excitement. “You really think so? Screw college, dude, I’m all over the Applebee’s.”
I smile back at her. “Seriously, though, you’ll do fine. Whatever school you apply to. You’re wicked smart, you know. I know you know that.”
She shakes her head. “There’s just a ton of competition, Noah. So many people who want the same thing I do. People who are ‘wicked smarter’ than I am.” She sips her Diet Coke. “Maybe I should aim lower. But then my parents will think I’m aiming below my level, whatever that means, and…”
I know what she’s thinking. When you’ve dated a person for two years, you learn to read between the lines of everything she says and does. When Julia talks about her parents being disappointed, she’s thinking about Blair. When she bites her lip, she has bad news. When she wears a turtleneck, you aren’t allowed to kiss her. And when she orders a salad and a diet soda and only eats five leaves of lettuce… I’m not entirely sure what that means yet.
“Babe, your level is spectacular. Your level is fantastic. If your level were a kindergartener, it would be the kid whose parents started him a year late so he would have a better chance at spending three years on varsity, and it would beat up all the other levels on the jungle gym. Your level is something to aspire to.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Flattering, but what the hell does that mean?”
I roll my eyes. “It means that you don’t have to stay there all the time. You can come visit the lesser beings every once in awhile. Like Einstein. And Darwin. And da Vinci, if you really feel like stooping low.”
She kicks me under the table. “Maybe Blair’s that smart. I’m not. Really, Noah.” Her expression turns earnest. “And I can hardly concentrate on school anymore, because I’m always thinking about how I have to not fuck up, that I have to be the one to get it right. And if she could screw it up, then anyone could. She’s the smartest person I know, Noah…” Her voice fades. “I… I don’t know. And I’m so stupid, to be complaining with this, especially to you, I’m so sorry…”
She actually sounds like she means it when she says she’s sorry. Of all the apologies I’ve heard lately, hers is the only one I believe.
“It’s fine,” I say softly, putting my hand over hers on the table. But the word has lost its meaning. Ever since Nathaniel stopped moving on the ultrasound, I’m not sure anything has been fine. I’m not entirely convinced things will ever be fine again.
* * *
When we found out about Jackson, eight long years ago, my mother took to reading self help books. We still have shelves full of them, lining the walls of the living room. For eight years she read, and for eight years, she shared with me the tidbits she found most helpful. “Everyone has their own way of coping,” she told me one morning as I stirred creamer into my coffee. “Some people paint, some people jog, some people swing dance. It’s good to have something positive to turn to when you have something to cope with. Something that helps you relax.”
Since she left, I’ve watched sitcoms. Mostly reruns – Friends, Seinfeld, Malcom in the Middle. They’re a mindless chatter in the background, a meaningless distraction. The house is too quiet since she left. Jackson is too sick to talk much, and my father never knows what to say. So I let the laugh tracks keep me company, keep me connected. Sometimes it’s almost enough.
At eight o’clock, TBS is rerunning “The One With All the Haste”. I pick up my coffee and turn up the volume. My father isn’t home yet. We need the extra noise.
Jackson stumbles in half naked, every ridge of his spine visible. This is a warm day. “Haven’t you seen this like, three times?” He smiles wanly, but his eyes turn down at the corners. I never know the right answer to his questions. I want to.
I shrug. “Maybe.” A safe enough response, but it still feels wrong.
He collapses into my father’s recliner, then reaches over and fumbles for the remote. His knuckles are red and swollen, and his fingers can’t get a good grip. He finally manages to grasp it, but his arm shakes as he brings it to his lap. I bite my lip. This is the arm that threw a perfect spiral fifty yards to win State Championships. There’s nothing different. This is the same arm. But it’s too hard to believe. My brother, who could bench press his current weight by the time he was eleven, meets my eyes. He looks at once humiliated and proud. I’m still strong, his eyes insist. You’re still strong, mine agree. Only one of us believes it. The other one is dying.
He flips through the channels, stopping on National Geographic. He smiles weakly and settles back into the chair, his bony legs curled up to his concave chest. “Kodiak bears,” he tells me, pointing to the screen. “They live up in Alaska.”
I knew that, but I don’t want to tell him. For some reason it seems important. That’s the way it works, I guess – little things start to mean more when you know that there aren’t many of them left. When he was eighteen, I thought he would live forever. He’s twenty eight now. I wonder if he’ll live another month.
It’s been almost a year now since the letters changed. Last Christmas, HIV became AIDS and never turned back. His appetite was the first thing to go. My mother made him eat Christmas dinner, even though he insisted he couldn’t, and he spent most of the night retching in the bathroom. The first week of the new year, Mom announced that she wanted to have another baby. By February, she was confirmed pregnant. No one ever said that the baby was her “way of coping”. No one ever said that the baby was her effort to replace her eldest son. No one ever said anything. No one had to. We all knew.
In the chair next to me, Jackson’s head slumps to the side. His breathing is still shaky, even in his sleep, as if it takes too much energy for his body to pump the air in and out. It’s exhausting just to watch him breathe, to see how hard he has to try. I glance at the clock on the cable box -- it’s almost nine. I silently rise from my position on the couch and walk over to him, scooping him up in my arms, carrying him up the stairs. I do this every night. Jackson must know I do it, but we never talk about it. He doesn’t want to admit the extent of his weakness. I don’t want to admit that it’s more of an effort for me to look at him than to carry him. He’s our hundred pound reminder of everything that fell apart.
* * *
“Eggs?” My father holds up the spatula in one hand, somehow managing to look simultaneously proud and sheepish. “I got up early… Thought you might like some breakfast before you went for your run.”
I rub my eyes. “I… Yeah, sure.” I always run on an empty stomach, but he doesn’t need to know that. I grab a plate from the cabinet and hold it out. He takes it from me and empties the frying pan onto it, humming. He hands the plate back to me with a smile.
I shove a fork into the fluffy yellow mess and sit down at the table. “Thanks, Dad. This is great.” I meet his eyes and smile.
He beams back at me. “Really? I know your mother used to make you boys breakfast. I can’t do this every morning, but I thought maybe once a month or something it would be a nice little treat.”
I force myself to keep smiling. “It’s great, Dad. Thanks.” He turns around, looking pleased with himself. My smile collapses. My stomach is in knots. He’s trying so hard… I remind myself. But that’s the thing. He’s trying too hard. Like he wants to make sure we remember it, when everything is over. “The rest of them went a bit crazy, but the father? He was amazing. So thoughtful. You could tell he really cared about those boys.”
I know that’s not his motivation. I know he’s just trying because he’s a good father, a good person. But a part of me still resents him for taking so long to realize that we’re worth trying for.
* * *
“Hello?”
“Noah?”
“Julia? What’s up?”
“Nothing. I don’t need a ride this morning, okay? I’m running late.”
I bite my lip. “Hey, it’s Monday. The whole point of Monday is to run late. I’ll be there at seven fifteen.”
“No you won’t,” she replies before I can hang up. Her tone catches me off guard. It’s terse, at best. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
There's a click from her end before I can say anything else. I dial her number and let it ring ten times before I give up.
* * *
I wait for her on the front steps. She finally jogs up at seven forty, six minutes before classes start. She’s sweating like it’s August and her cheeks are bright red. When she sees me, she shoots me a look.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m waiting for you. Because I care about you, and care that you get here. Is that okay? And honestly, shouldn’t I be the one asking that question? Did you run here?”
She closes her eyes and sighs. “Noah…”
I grab for her hand. She jerks away. “Noah, please.” There’s no gentleness to her voice. She wants to kick me. Maybe kill me. She runs up the steps and into the building, leaving me behind.
* * *
“I don’t think this is going to work.”
Eddy pinches the balloon shut and glances at me. “Did I ask for your opinion? Sit there and look pretty.” He stares at the blue orb for a minute before letting it go. It buzzes a few feet to the left and flops to the ground pathetically in front of another group. They shoot us a dirty look.
“This assignment sucks,” he pronounces, staring forlornly at the pathetic selection of materials spread out in front of us. “I think this thing is physically incapable of movement. There must be some sort of reward for creating something like that. It’s freaking groundbreaking.”
I shrug. “Maybe if we stare at it really hard, it will transform itself into a wondrous vehicle. I’m thinking Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Eddy shrugs. “It could work. Fantasmagorical thoughts on the count of three… One, two, three.”
I stare at the aluminum can and thread spool catastrophe and issue a psychic plea for it to grow some dignity and get us a passing grade. Despite my best efforts, it remains a spectacular heap of garbage.
Across from me, Eddy sits back on his heels and sighs. “I think we pissed off our fairy godmother. Why the hell did you have to break that glass slipper?”
I pick up the can and throw it at him. He ducks, and it goes flying through the air. Without looking up from his newspaper, Geoff catches it and throws it back. “Kindly keep your materials to yourselves, boys.”
Geoff is the teacher everyone gets at least once – the young guy who likes hair gel a little too much and insists on the first day of class that you call him by his first name (“Mr. Berman is my father"). He “teaches” from his desk – if you can call it that – and rarely puts down the paper long enough for you to see his face. We learn nothing. It’s fantastic.
I glance up at the newspaper. Geoff told us on the third day of school that his roommate is the one who actually pays for the paper, so he doesn’t get it until his roommate is done with it. It usually takes a couple of days. Personaly, I wonder how he can really learn any news that way.
I scan the headlines. It’s the Saturday sport’s section. The front page is a mess of high school football victories and upsets. My throat gets tight. Jackson’s senior year, his name was always somewhere on that first page. I was eight years old. His local celebrity was my ticket to birthday parties, long weekends at classmates’ beach houses, genuine third grade stardom. My mother kept all the clippings in a shoe box on the kitchen counter. When she left, the box went with her. I think she knew then that she would never see her eldest son again.
Our lives have changed a lot, these past ten years.
Jackson’s fever hit midway through October. There were days of chills, whole weeks of watching him shiver and struggle for warmth beneath three blankets, lying in front of the fireplace. It had always been my mother’s job to replace the firewood, but this winter it was mine. Hauling those logs inside, with just a bit too much groaning and gasping, forced him to see that I was useful, that I was helpful, that I cared. I wanted him to feel like he wasn’t alone. But we both knew that he was.
Then, just as quickly as the chills had begun, they would stop. Jackson would roam around the house in his boxers, his forehead slick with sweat, his impossibly pale skin stretched taut over his rib cage. He would leave his shirt off, pull on jeans, and go stand in the snow. It was the crazy sort of thing he always would have done before, only then he would have been smiling and throwing his head back and shivering and grinning through the camera lens at my mother in all his bizarre glory. This winter, it was only a desperate effort to soothe the fire always burning on the surface of his skin. This winter, he had no mother to snap his picture and beg him to come inside. He had only me, standing in the kitchen window, trying not to let him break my heart.
If there were anyone to blame for all that had happened, most people would call out Jackson. Because it was his recklessness, after all, that had started this fateful toppling of dominos. Maybe he would be easier for me to blame if he hadn’t suffered a dozen times more pain than the rest of us. Maybe some people would blame my mother and the selfishness she showed in a time of crisis, a time we all needed her the most. But so much that happened was beyond her control, and while Jackson may have hurt the most, it was my mother who really lost the most. And so, if the blame must be cast, there’s only one real choice. Because when you think about it, we were fine. We were dealing with things. We were coping, in our own individual ways, with our own individual problems. We were coping. And then he disappeared.
That’s why I blame Nathaniel. Out of all the people who have since vanished, or tried to, he was first. And maybe, if he hadn’t, we could have steadied ourselves and resisted the urge to fall.
“Really, though. I don’t understand why colleges do that. Like, ‘We’ll make it easier for you to get in, but you have to make us your first choice school first. And then if you don’t get in, sucks to be you, doesn’t it?’ It’s like college admissions offices around the country are plotting for my failure.” She stabs a tomato wedge with her fork and holds it up to the light. “These are gross,” she mumbles, plucking it off and putting it in the ashtray, along with a pile of olives and her cup of ranch dressing. Lately, “gross” seems to apply to more things than not.
“I don’t know. I think it makes sense. If they’re committing to you early, they want you to commit to them… Earlier.” I hold up a french fry and cock my head expectantly. Do you want this?
She shakes her head, shooing my hand away, and stabs a piece of lettuce with her fork. “I guess you’re right. But do you want to apply to your first choice school? Even if it’s a reach? Or should you apply to a school that’s still sort of a reach, but you have a better chance on getting in and not humiliating yourself and ruining your opportunities?”
I take a sip of my Sprite. “Your first choice, I would think. If you’re pretty sure you can get in, you don’t really need the extra edge that you get from early admissions.”
She nods slowly and puts her fork down. “Whatever. I’m so sick of this college shit. Higher learning is for wusses. I can work at McDonalds. Burger King. Wendy’s. Maybe a T.G.I. Friday’s, if I really apply myself.”
I laugh. “Julia, to be honest, I think you’re at least good enough for an Applebee’s.”
Her face breaks out into a grin, and she claps her hands in mock excitement. “You really think so? Screw college, dude, I’m all over the Applebee’s.”
I smile back at her. “Seriously, though, you’ll do fine. Whatever school you apply to. You’re wicked smart, you know. I know you know that.”
She shakes her head. “There’s just a ton of competition, Noah. So many people who want the same thing I do. People who are ‘wicked smarter’ than I am.” She sips her Diet Coke. “Maybe I should aim lower. But then my parents will think I’m aiming below my level, whatever that means, and…”
I know what she’s thinking. When you’ve dated a person for two years, you learn to read between the lines of everything she says and does. When Julia talks about her parents being disappointed, she’s thinking about Blair. When she bites her lip, she has bad news. When she wears a turtleneck, you aren’t allowed to kiss her. And when she orders a salad and a diet soda and only eats five leaves of lettuce… I’m not entirely sure what that means yet.
“Babe, your level is spectacular. Your level is fantastic. If your level were a kindergartener, it would be the kid whose parents started him a year late so he would have a better chance at spending three years on varsity, and it would beat up all the other levels on the jungle gym. Your level is something to aspire to.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Flattering, but what the hell does that mean?”
I roll my eyes. “It means that you don’t have to stay there all the time. You can come visit the lesser beings every once in awhile. Like Einstein. And Darwin. And da Vinci, if you really feel like stooping low.”
She kicks me under the table. “Maybe Blair’s that smart. I’m not. Really, Noah.” Her expression turns earnest. “And I can hardly concentrate on school anymore, because I’m always thinking about how I have to not fuck up, that I have to be the one to get it right. And if she could screw it up, then anyone could. She’s the smartest person I know, Noah…” Her voice fades. “I… I don’t know. And I’m so stupid, to be complaining with this, especially to you, I’m so sorry…”
She actually sounds like she means it when she says she’s sorry. Of all the apologies I’ve heard lately, hers is the only one I believe.
“It’s fine,” I say softly, putting my hand over hers on the table. But the word has lost its meaning. Ever since Nathaniel stopped moving on the ultrasound, I’m not sure anything has been fine. I’m not entirely convinced things will ever be fine again.
When we found out about Jackson, eight long years ago, my mother took to reading self help books. We still have shelves full of them, lining the walls of the living room. For eight years she read, and for eight years, she shared with me the tidbits she found most helpful. “Everyone has their own way of coping,” she told me one morning as I stirred creamer into my coffee. “Some people paint, some people jog, some people swing dance. It’s good to have something positive to turn to when you have something to cope with. Something that helps you relax.”
Since she left, I’ve watched sitcoms. Mostly reruns – Friends, Seinfeld, Malcom in the Middle. They’re a mindless chatter in the background, a meaningless distraction. The house is too quiet since she left. Jackson is too sick to talk much, and my father never knows what to say. So I let the laugh tracks keep me company, keep me connected. Sometimes it’s almost enough.
At eight o’clock, TBS is rerunning “The One With All the Haste”. I pick up my coffee and turn up the volume. My father isn’t home yet. We need the extra noise.
Jackson stumbles in half naked, every ridge of his spine visible. This is a warm day. “Haven’t you seen this like, three times?” He smiles wanly, but his eyes turn down at the corners. I never know the right answer to his questions. I want to.
I shrug. “Maybe.” A safe enough response, but it still feels wrong.
He collapses into my father’s recliner, then reaches over and fumbles for the remote. His knuckles are red and swollen, and his fingers can’t get a good grip. He finally manages to grasp it, but his arm shakes as he brings it to his lap. I bite my lip. This is the arm that threw a perfect spiral fifty yards to win State Championships. There’s nothing different. This is the same arm. But it’s too hard to believe. My brother, who could bench press his current weight by the time he was eleven, meets my eyes. He looks at once humiliated and proud. I’m still strong, his eyes insist. You’re still strong, mine agree. Only one of us believes it. The other one is dying.
He flips through the channels, stopping on National Geographic. He smiles weakly and settles back into the chair, his bony legs curled up to his concave chest. “Kodiak bears,” he tells me, pointing to the screen. “They live up in Alaska.”
I knew that, but I don’t want to tell him. For some reason it seems important. That’s the way it works, I guess – little things start to mean more when you know that there aren’t many of them left. When he was eighteen, I thought he would live forever. He’s twenty eight now. I wonder if he’ll live another month.
It’s been almost a year now since the letters changed. Last Christmas, HIV became AIDS and never turned back. His appetite was the first thing to go. My mother made him eat Christmas dinner, even though he insisted he couldn’t, and he spent most of the night retching in the bathroom. The first week of the new year, Mom announced that she wanted to have another baby. By February, she was confirmed pregnant. No one ever said that the baby was her “way of coping”. No one ever said that the baby was her effort to replace her eldest son. No one ever said anything. No one had to. We all knew.
In the chair next to me, Jackson’s head slumps to the side. His breathing is still shaky, even in his sleep, as if it takes too much energy for his body to pump the air in and out. It’s exhausting just to watch him breathe, to see how hard he has to try. I glance at the clock on the cable box -- it’s almost nine. I silently rise from my position on the couch and walk over to him, scooping him up in my arms, carrying him up the stairs. I do this every night. Jackson must know I do it, but we never talk about it. He doesn’t want to admit the extent of his weakness. I don’t want to admit that it’s more of an effort for me to look at him than to carry him. He’s our hundred pound reminder of everything that fell apart.
“Eggs?” My father holds up the spatula in one hand, somehow managing to look simultaneously proud and sheepish. “I got up early… Thought you might like some breakfast before you went for your run.”
I rub my eyes. “I… Yeah, sure.” I always run on an empty stomach, but he doesn’t need to know that. I grab a plate from the cabinet and hold it out. He takes it from me and empties the frying pan onto it, humming. He hands the plate back to me with a smile.
I shove a fork into the fluffy yellow mess and sit down at the table. “Thanks, Dad. This is great.” I meet his eyes and smile.
He beams back at me. “Really? I know your mother used to make you boys breakfast. I can’t do this every morning, but I thought maybe once a month or something it would be a nice little treat.”
I force myself to keep smiling. “It’s great, Dad. Thanks.” He turns around, looking pleased with himself. My smile collapses. My stomach is in knots. He’s trying so hard… I remind myself. But that’s the thing. He’s trying too hard. Like he wants to make sure we remember it, when everything is over. “The rest of them went a bit crazy, but the father? He was amazing. So thoughtful. You could tell he really cared about those boys.”
I know that’s not his motivation. I know he’s just trying because he’s a good father, a good person. But a part of me still resents him for taking so long to realize that we’re worth trying for.
“Hello?”
“Noah?”
“Julia? What’s up?”
“Nothing. I don’t need a ride this morning, okay? I’m running late.”
I bite my lip. “Hey, it’s Monday. The whole point of Monday is to run late. I’ll be there at seven fifteen.”
“No you won’t,” she replies before I can hang up. Her tone catches me off guard. It’s terse, at best. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
There's a click from her end before I can say anything else. I dial her number and let it ring ten times before I give up.
I wait for her on the front steps. She finally jogs up at seven forty, six minutes before classes start. She’s sweating like it’s August and her cheeks are bright red. When she sees me, she shoots me a look.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m waiting for you. Because I care about you, and care that you get here. Is that okay? And honestly, shouldn’t I be the one asking that question? Did you run here?”
She closes her eyes and sighs. “Noah…”
I grab for her hand. She jerks away. “Noah, please.” There’s no gentleness to her voice. She wants to kick me. Maybe kill me. She runs up the steps and into the building, leaving me behind.
“I don’t think this is going to work.”
Eddy pinches the balloon shut and glances at me. “Did I ask for your opinion? Sit there and look pretty.” He stares at the blue orb for a minute before letting it go. It buzzes a few feet to the left and flops to the ground pathetically in front of another group. They shoot us a dirty look.
“This assignment sucks,” he pronounces, staring forlornly at the pathetic selection of materials spread out in front of us. “I think this thing is physically incapable of movement. There must be some sort of reward for creating something like that. It’s freaking groundbreaking.”
I shrug. “Maybe if we stare at it really hard, it will transform itself into a wondrous vehicle. I’m thinking Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Eddy shrugs. “It could work. Fantasmagorical thoughts on the count of three… One, two, three.”
I stare at the aluminum can and thread spool catastrophe and issue a psychic plea for it to grow some dignity and get us a passing grade. Despite my best efforts, it remains a spectacular heap of garbage.
Across from me, Eddy sits back on his heels and sighs. “I think we pissed off our fairy godmother. Why the hell did you have to break that glass slipper?”
I pick up the can and throw it at him. He ducks, and it goes flying through the air. Without looking up from his newspaper, Geoff catches it and throws it back. “Kindly keep your materials to yourselves, boys.”
Geoff is the teacher everyone gets at least once – the young guy who likes hair gel a little too much and insists on the first day of class that you call him by his first name (“Mr. Berman is my father"). He “teaches” from his desk – if you can call it that – and rarely puts down the paper long enough for you to see his face. We learn nothing. It’s fantastic.
I glance up at the newspaper. Geoff told us on the third day of school that his roommate is the one who actually pays for the paper, so he doesn’t get it until his roommate is done with it. It usually takes a couple of days. Personaly, I wonder how he can really learn any news that way.
I scan the headlines. It’s the Saturday sport’s section. The front page is a mess of high school football victories and upsets. My throat gets tight. Jackson’s senior year, his name was always somewhere on that first page. I was eight years old. His local celebrity was my ticket to birthday parties, long weekends at classmates’ beach houses, genuine third grade stardom. My mother kept all the clippings in a shoe box on the kitchen counter. When she left, the box went with her. I think she knew then that she would never see her eldest son again.
Our lives have changed a lot, these past ten years.
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