Rachel
I turn down the lights in the bathroom. My head is throbbing. I run the shower water and step in before it’s warm. I smell like pond water. I hope Grandma can’t hear me and the retching that gets rid of the spinning. Then there’s sweat. I’m sweating — and I am dizzy. Sour acid’s on my tongue and lips. Not the water or the toothpaste I eat rinses the taste away. I keep retching until my throat and mouth are dry. I spit. I spit again. And I grab the bar of soap and scrub my skin.
I scrub off the smell, the color, the words.
I scrub between my legs until I am raw. I scrub between my legs like I am erasing what’s down there — what it makes me, what it might make.
“You, okay?” Grandma asks through the door. I keep my mouth closed. The nausea is filling me up again.
“Rachel?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m okay, ma’am.”
Grandma’s feet shuffle along the wooden floor. She’s at the front door, and then Drew is gone. I hear her bedroom door open and close.
I scrub. I scrub.
The water runs cold. I sit on the floor wrapped in a towel.
It’s hours later when I wake up on the cold bathroom floor from a nightmare that is a memory.
The broken lock on the door.
Small steps toward the sky.
The wet air.
Robbie’s face.
My mother’s hands.
It’s morning. I call this Day 1.
Nella
Day____. Too tired to turn the page. I cannot do it again. They’re mine. If people can’t see it — how can I keep them safe? In my mind is Charles all the time. All over again. He was so small. He hides in any of the places so good. He hides and we never found him. I should have took him that night — with me — he would still be alive. If I had taken Charles, he would be with me now. I will take the kids with me this time. They will go where I go.
Brick
“It’s next Saturday,” Brick said when Rachel opened her front door.
Brick had called every day of the last week, but she wouldn’t come to the phone. She didn’t come to work at the center all week. Her grandmother said she’d barely left her room because she was sick.
“Next Saturday?”
Even though the sun was before her, it looked like she was illuminated from behind. Her white dress blazed around her. And in her eyes, there was a hot blue spark.
“The amusement park?”
Brick took everything so literally. She’d forgotten. She hadn’t meant it so literally.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Where’s Jesse?”
“It’s just me.”
She surveyed him like he was a letter delivered without a stamp. “Oh.”
“Do you still want to go? You look like you’re still sick.”
“I’m better,” she said, tugging at her ear. “Yeah, let’s go.”
His heart lifted. “Should I wait for you here?”
“I just need a minute.”
Rachel
What I know is I am ready to go. It doesn’t take long to find the blue Seagram’s bag where Grandma put the two-thousand- something dollars she got for her coin collection. It’s in a box in the third drawer of her dresser along with stacks of letters wrapped with ribbon. Grandma asked the coin dealer for the money in twenty-dollar bills, because that’s the money she recognizes easy without her magnifying glass.
I count out fifteen hundred dollars and stick it in my jacket pocket. It’s a lot of twenties and makes a fat wad.
I have already packed. I am gone.
I put the Seagram’s bag back in the drawer. The letters look like they have been read over and over. Thinking they may be from Grandma’s secret lover makes me almost laugh out loud. Imagine: Grandma with a secret lizard and her naked picture shows.
I wonder who Grandma’s lizard could be. I look through the envelopes, all addressed to Grandma, and see on one letter after another my father’s name in the corner. I open the top one, the one that is most worn. I read:
Mama,
If you notice me there — graveside—don’t let Rachel know. It’s not fair to her. Let me stay gone. I can only tell her stories that she may not be ready to hear.
Thank you for helping my girl to grow up strong. The last school photo you sent, she looks sad. I hope she’s not as sad as those eyes say.
Does Rachel still love to read? Will you give her this book. Nella gave it to me the year Rachel was born.
I wish I could be there to help you through. To help Rachel through. You know I would of if I could. But I am best being away.
Roger
I look at all the other letters in the drawer and don’t care what they say. I put Grandma’s letter back and retie the ribbon. Then I take the wad of cash out of my pocket and put it back in the bag.
“Let’s go,” I say as I grab Brick’s arm and lock the door to Grandma’s house behind me.
Brick
They arrived at Oaks Park at a quarter past twelve. It was crowded on one of the nicest Saturdays of August. Lots of sun, a cool breeze, a cloudless sky. Brick had enough for two unlimited ride bracelets, twenty-five game tickets, a hot dog or cotton candy, and two small drinks. The whole day would be his treat. He wanted to do the day proper: open doors for Rachel, give her his arm, ask her if she needed anything. Gentlemanlike.
AT THE GAME arcade Rachel took every risk. Instead of trading in game tickets she’d won, she tried for better. She tried for better every time. She wanted more — not reward but risk.
“You’re on a streak of bad luck,” Brick said when they were down to the last three tickets.
“I don’t think so. I can feel it. My number’s about to come in,” she said, even though she wasn’t playing a numbers game but darts. She’d missed the board completely twice. Her other throws hadn’t come anywhere close to the middle rings.
The man next to her had been doing reasonably well. She turned to him and said, “Here, take these. Win something.”
“Thanks,” he said.
He hit the bull’s-eye with the first dart Rachel’s tickets provided. He hit a second and a third. Each time he made a bull’s-eye he looked over to Rachel and she smiled. By the fifth, a crowd was gathering.
Rachel was the man’s loudest fan. No one was as loud as she was.
He made nine. One more bull’s-eye and he would win the big prize, the outsized blue bear pinned on the side wall. Bull’s-eye. The crowd cheered.
“Here you go,” he said, handing Rachel the bear. “For you.”
“No, thank you,” she said. “It’s yours. You won. Congratulations.” Brick and Rachel walked away.
But the man followed them. “No, it’s yours,” he insisted.
“I don’t want it.”
“Take it. Take it.” He threw the stuffed animal at Rachel. His movement was so sudden and the toy so large, it nearly knocked her down. Brick grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it behind his back. “Get lost.”
“Your girl, she’s a cocktease,” the man yelled as he walked away. “You can’t let her play with a man like that.”
Rachel’s cheeks were flushed.
“Are you okay?” Brick asked.
“It was nothing,” she said. “He — he can’t hurt me.” And then, “Come on. I want to ride that.”
“You look like you’re getting sick,” he said and placed the back of his hand against her forehead. “You’re burning up.”
All day she’d been excited like this, wildly impatient, like she’d been trapped in a husk she couldn’t cast off.
“I’m fine,” she said and took his hand, running toward the Haunted Kingdom ride. He knew he shouldn’t go with what she said. But he did. He followed her because he would follow her anywhere now. He wanted to make her safe. “Come on, come on,” she said. “It’s our first grown-up ride.”
AS THEY WAITED in line, Brick said in a blurt, “I’m sorry. If I caused trouble for you. And for Jesse.”
There was aband
on in her eyes. She didn’t respond.
“I just wanted to be sure you were okay. That night. It was important to me.”
Something changed in her face, in her eyes — the blue spark had burned low. “I’m leaving today,” she said. “I’m leaving Grandma’s. Don’t tell. Please.”
He should have recognized it. He wanted to ask so many questions: Where are you going? When will you come back? The normal questions. He wanted to know how he could make her stay. “Let me help,” he said.
“Just don’t say anything.”
“I won’t tell,” he said. “I’m good at not telling. Usually.” As the cart lurched forward through the cavernous haunted house, mechanical mummies with glowing green eyes lunged before them. The children in the carts ahead screamed at each turn. At least one behind them had begun to cry. Nothing startled Rachel. She wasn’t scared.
THERE WAS NO line at the Ferris wheel, and Brick held out his hand to help Rachel step up onto the carriage. When she still struggled, he lifted her like she was a child.
He climbed in after her. His legs leaned toward her side.
“Excuse me,” he said, “they don’t make these in my size.” He wanted to be a gentleman. He wanted to make her smile.
The operator pushed the safety bar onto their laps. It made a click sound, and he sent them into the air slowly.
“I feel dizzy,” she said.
It was the first time she’d admitted to feeling bad all day. Her face was red, and she kept wiping a thin film of sweat from her forehead with her hand.
“Hold my hand if you want,” Brick said and extended his hand. She took it without looking at him.
“Does this part spin too?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t think so, but I can make it rock.” Brick moved back and forth in his seat making the carriage swing.
“No, please stop,” she said, and he did. Her hand was still in his.
The last passengers climbed aboard. There was the click of their safety bars. Brick and Rachel were seated two carriages above the ground.
The Ferris wheel made a sound kicking into a higher gear. It began to spin.
The wheel spun so fast Rachel slid back and forth in the seat that was too small for Brick but too large for her. Her back, then her stomach pressed up against the seat and then the bar. She let go of Brick’s hand. She pushed at the bar. She tugged at her ear. “I think I should get out now.” She tried to stand.
“Relax. No worries. The ride’s almost over.”
“No, there’s too much. Too much pressure.” She jerked the bar to unlatch it. She covered her ear. “My ear. It hurts. It hurts.”
“Calm down, okay?” Brick said.
He tried to steady her busy hands by taking them in his own. He put his arm around her. His hand was firm on her shoulder.
“I have to stand up; I have to get up.” She grabbed her left ear and cradled it. She kept pushing at the safety bar.
“Okay, okay.” Brick stopped fighting her. Instead he pushed as hard as she did. Harder. The bar clicked and there was enough space for her to stand. She stood with her knees slightly bent and held onto the side of the carriage. “Thank you,” she said.
The operator waved at Rachel to sit down.
The wheel began to slow to a stop, Rachel was still standing and then suddenly stumbled. She would not have fallen far — their carriage was the next one to be unloaded — but Brick caught her. And it didn’t matter how far the fall could have been. It mattered only that it didn’t happen. Not this time.
In his arms, Rachel looked at Brick with a sadness that could not be measured.
“I know you,” he said. “You survived.”
Rachel
The pigeon man waves when we open the door. He shows us where he’s making the new roost. Robbie’s going to help. He says “p-p-p-please.”
It’s windy up on the roof. Robbie asks if we can go back inside. He knows we can’t go yet.
Mor rocks Ariel in her arms, and Robbie and I sit real close. Mor’s hair is messy, blown into her face, and tangled too. When she speaks, you can see the space for the tooth she lost in the fight with Doug. This is the third day this week Mor’s brought us up here. But today she tells us stories that we haven’t heard before.
Mor says there are things she can’t protect us from. And she makes us all stand, and we walk closer to the edge.
She says:
“There are the regular dangers like fire.”
She says:
“There are others I can’t know.”
We walk closer to the edge. Closer than we’ve ever been.
She says:
“You are my beautiful babies.”
She says:
“You are the most important things in the world.”
She says:
“I want to always be the best mother I can be.”
She says:
“We will always be a family this way.”
And I believe her.
We take small steps toward the edge. Closer. Closer.
The way people look at us. The things that people say.
She will protect us from these things too. We are closer still.
We fall.
Robbie, Mor, Ariel. Then me.
As a family, we fall.
Rachel
My hands shook as I told Brick the story. I can’t imagine a time I won’t cry.
“I saw your brother,” Brick said, “fall.”
He wiped my wet face with his hand.
“And your brother, Charles …” he said.
“My brother’s name was Robbie,” I said. “He was the one you saw.”
“Your brother Charles,” Brick said. “He’s the one you didn’t know.”
Brick told me the story of Charles and of the fire in which he died. All this time I never knew that Mor and Pop had a family before me. It made a kind of sense to me then. And maybe it was also relief. Not fire or secrets or silence could keep a family from being remembered. As long as there was someone left to tell.
“What your mother did,” Brick said without finishing the phrase. “Do you …”
“Love her?” I said. “Yeah. And I know she loved me.”
My mother was my mother and she still is. Pas på, she’d say. Pas på. And I did. There was just that one time. That one day she couldn’t protect me — not from the hurt and not from the words. It was just one day, but I think for Mor it seemed like Day 1.
Rachel
The park’s almost empty on a cool fall afternoon. We’ve gone to sit by the lake at Laurelhurst Park on Brick’s last day in town. Tomorrow he’s going home to Chicago.
“Take this. It’s a nickel from the year my dad was born,” I say, handing it to him.
“It’s worth a lot of money, isn’t it?” he asks. “I can’t.” He reaches over to give it back.
“I don’t need it for remembering him,” I say. “You take it. A going-away present. It’s worth five hundred dollars. Sell it and keep the money. I have what I need.”
“Thanks,” he says very softly.
We sit for a long time. Just sit there quietly. Brick flips the nickel in the air absentmindedly again and again.
A flock of birds — both ducks and swans — circles near the water’s edge to eat the bread crumbs and cakes an old woman throws nearby.
“I hope you find your mom,” I say.
I’m not sure that Brick has heard me, because he takes a long time to respond.
“Me too,” he says finally.
“Don’t worry. You will,” I say. “You found me.”
Brick puts his arm around me. When he looks at me, it feels like no one has really seen me since the accident. In his eyes, I’m not the new girl. I’m not the color of my skin. I’m a story. One with a past and a future unwritten.
Brick flips the coin in the air again and again.
“You know what these are good for?” he says holding the nickel in his hand.
“What?”
“Wishes,” he says. He stands then and throws the nickel into the lake.
When the coin lands in the water, it startles the feeding birds. Some squawk and swim away. Others take flight, including one awkward-looking swan that runs across the water.
“Look,” I say.
The swan takes one step. Three steps, four. It dips its head and then its wings catch the wind. It’s hard to tell: Is it still running or is it flying now? It’s on top of the water and in the air — like it’s in two worlds at once. The swan flaps its wings again and again, three times, four, and then it’s aloft. We watch it fly. Away.
“Hey,” Brick says finally. “What did you wish?”
“I can’t tell you,” I say. But I think, If only Robbie had been a bird. If only we had been a family that could fly.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Barbara Kingsolver, my hero. Thank you to Neltje, and the Jentel Artist Residency Program, where I found my voice, and thank you Mary Jane Edwards and Lynn Reeves too. I am grateful to have spent time at the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, Hedgebrook, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Ucross Foundation while working on this novel. For continued encouragement of my work I thank the New York Foundation for the Arts, Elizabeth George and the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Associated Writing Programs, the Bronx Writers’ Center, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, the Lois Roth Endowment, Lorian Hemingway, Leigh Haber, the folks at Bread Loaf, Thomas Kennedy, Rowan Wilson, Helen Elaine Lee, Maurya Simon, George Hutchinson, Martyn Bone, Dorothy Allison, Maxine Clair, Whitney Otto, and Michael Pettit for his belief in what I thought was unbelievable. Thank you to my agent, Wendy Weil, for championing my work, and to my editor, Kathy Pories, for helping me find the story’s shape, and to my copyeditor, Bob Jones, who helped me hone the details. Thank you to great teachers Beverly Belanger, Jeannette Swenson, Michele Stemler, Karla Hoffman, Jeff Ditzler, Carolyn Gratton, Sam Freedman, Vicki Schultz, Alan Isaacs, John Rickford, Bill Hilliard, Alex Knowles, Hettie Jones, and Joan Silber. For vision and inspiration, thank you Honorée Fannone Jeffers. Thank you to my friends for your support and encouragement over the years: Rayme Cornell, Fanshen Cox, Laurie Katz Braun, Marla Mervis, Victoria Platt Tilford, Michael Siebecker, Reg E. Cathey, Alicia Lowry, Adrienne Flagg, Brooke Campbell, Marty Hughley, Douglas Light, Murad Kalam, Jeffery R. Allen, Nova Ren Suma, and big big thanks to trusted readers Kylie Sachs, Mary Thamann, Ryan Canty, Sandy Ray, and Beena Ahmad. Thank you to Rosemary, Loretta, Michael, and Mark, and always always always Darryl E. Wash — this is for us.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Page 17