Listening for Lucca

by Suzanne LaFleur

  “Are you all right?” Mom asked. “You look … greenish.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I just think I’m still not feeling too good.”

  “Probably the cleaning supplies. Go get some fresh air. We can worry about the cabinets later.”

  I walked slowly up to the fresh air of my window seat, even though I knew it wasn’t cleaning supplies making me sick. I gently set the report card on the shelf with the other abandoned things. Then I sat in the window, feeling the breeze play with the ends of my hair and my T-shirt.

  What would be the point of going into Sarah’s story again? There was nothing I could do for her. That had all been so long ago.

  I had to watch these things unfold, but there was nothing I could do.

  Nothing.

  The rest of the day was quiet. I didn’t hear from Sam at all, and I’d gotten used to hearing from him or seeing him almost every day. Was he with Morgan? He must have been.

  The gloominess of not being able to do anything for Sarah, or for my brother, clung to me like heavy, invisible clothes.

  I even started to feel a little sniffly.

  “Maybe you are still sick,” Mom said to me at dinner.

  “Just a summer cold. Let’s get her some extra vitamins,” Dad suggested.

  Lucca said, “Puh … puh—puh—puh.”

  We all looked at him. Could that be “puh, puh—pass the ketchup?” or “puh, puh—please?” or “puh, puh—potatoes?”

  Then he zoomed his fork around his plate. “Puh, puh, puh.”

  We got unexcited again.

  I was lying on my bed staring at the wall when Mom came up to the bathroom and started unpacking a drugstore bag. “It’s nice to see your door open for a change.”

  Hmm. I hadn’t realized I’d left my door open. Or even that I usually didn’t. It was true, though.

  “I got things for you. Come see.”

  What embarrassing things had she bought me from the drugstore?

  “Here.” She placed three tubes of lip gloss in my hand.

  “Why did you get so many?”

  “Because I didn’t know what you’d like.” She sounded sad, as if she thought she should have known what I would like. But how could she, when I didn’t know either? She watched me staring at the colors and, with a look of affectionate exasperation, picked one of the tubes back up to unwrap the plastic. “Try them.” She started unloading lotion and sunscreen from the bag into the medicine cabinet.

  I tested each color on the back of my hand. “I like this one.”

  “You do?” Mom looked at me with an expression so soft and pleased it made my heart ache. I regretted telling her I liked anything. I didn’t wear makeup. She did. I didn’t want her to think we were close now just because she’d gotten me some makeup.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  I shut the toilet lid and sat. She took the gloss from me and applied it to my lips.

  “I think it’s nice.” She handed me a small mirror from the counter. It was nice. But still …

  “Is this about Sam?”

  Mom waited a moment before answering. She looked almost hurt. “No, sweetheart. It’s about you. I just thought you’d like some lip gloss.”

  I rolled the tubes in my palm.

  Mom knelt in front of the toilet and pulled me into a hug. She felt like my mom, the one who used to do fun things with me. I didn’t hug her back, but just for a moment, I rested my head on her shoulder.

  I was in my room thinking and missed Lucca’s bedtime again. I was doing that a lot lately. When I tiptoed to brush my teeth, I overheard Mom and Dad whispering through the open crack of their bedroom door. Lucca wouldn’t be woken by it and I had to hold my breath to hear properly.

  “In the reasonable part of my brain, I know that nothing needs to be different and things might still turn out okay, but I can’t help feeling … disheartened.” Mom was sadder than she ever sounds when she talks to me about Lucca.

  With Dad always at camp and games and Mom scrounging to find time for her work and trying to fix up the house, things didn’t actually seem less difficult than in Brooklyn.

  Mom continued, “If he’s not going to talk … I wish I could go inside him, to hear his thoughts … to help.”

  “He’ll talk when he’s ready,” Dad said gently.

  I tiptoed on, extra quiet so they wouldn’t realize I’d been standing there. I shut the door to the bathroom and brushed my teeth, wondering about what Mom had said. If she got in Lucca’s head, she might see all his memories and she would know what I had done to him.

  I moved the toothbrush in very slow circles, feeling like there was too much saliva rushing into my mouth. Like that feeling you get before you get sick. I quickly spit and rinsed.

  Mom couldn’t really see Lucca’s thoughts. Or anyone’s. Normal people can’t do that. Only wackadoodles like me.

  I went back to my room and turned off the lights but sat up in bed with the sheet drawn over my knees. I didn’t feel like sleeping.

  I had hoped that by figuring out what had happened here, I’d also be helping Lucca. Now the report card … it confirmed that Sarah’s life was set in stone.

  A dead end.

  But …

  When I visited Sarah’s life, it was as if it was still present, still going on, on some level. Did that mean that there was something I could do?

  Could I go inside her and also safely be myself? Not just watch, but act? I had never been able to do that before; I was always frozen, just observing, while my body clung to my pen and wrote. Could I go one step further?

  And if I went within her, to use her body to be myself, I wouldn’t be able to talk to Sarah herself. I would have to talk through her, to someone else.

  To Jezzie? But I didn’t know what to do but threaten or scare her, and I wouldn’t be sticking around to follow through, so it would be meaningless.

  Who else would it make sense to talk to?

  Not a grown-up, obviously.

  Joshua.

  Maybe I could reach Joshua. I knew things about what he had gone through that no one else in the world knew. I had seen them through his eyes. I had been there.

  But what if, in slipping into Sarah as more than just an observer, I broke something? What if I got stuck there, if I couldn’t come back?

  I lay down, a feeling of resolve washing over me, and with it, exhaustion.

  Could I really do it?

  Tomorrow night I would try to see if I could put myself into Sarah. But for tonight, I would sleep.

  19

  I spent the next day nervously pacing, but Mom decided not to say anything this time. I walked circles in my room; I walked up and down the stairs; I walked to the window in Lucca’s room and looked out; I went outside and traipsed around the house.

  Another day without Sam. Was it Morgan? Had she told him to stop spending so much time with me? But I wouldn’t have been good company anyway. I was so focused on trying to think up how to visit Sarah and get all the way through this time.

  When evening finally came, I lay down in my bed. I left the light on, closed my eyes, and thought of being in Sarah’s body, a different body. Then I stopped thinking.

  That was when the lighting in my room changed, become softer.

  I opened my eyes.

  The wall color had changed, too; it was almost the color of my nightgown.

  I gasped and sat up. Wait. I wasn’t wearing a nightgown! Yes, here were my pink polka-dot shorts, my old T-shirt. The yellow striped wallpaper. I dropped back on the bed, sweating. But then I calmed down and felt a little excited: I had done it. For a moment, I had gone into Sarah without the pen, just on my own.

  My brief excitement faded; I hadn’t really liked the feeling of being in someone else’s body.

  What happened to me, the me-me, when I was inside somebody else?

  Over the next few nights, I got through enough so that I could see the old-fashioned, Sarah’s-time version of my room and give the fingers
of Sarah’s body a good wiggle, but then I would hear Sarah’s voice cutting through, flowing with a dreamlike quality that told me I had entered while she was sleeping. I would be there, too, still me, still thinking, but my hand knew it wasn’t connected to anything back in my own world, and I would feel for the bed beneath me in a panic, for the pajamas I was wearing, and fully come to in my own body, in my own time, my heart racing and my breathing fast.

  And the longer I spent there, the harder and harder it was to come back. When my mind went to look for my own body, it drifted, so familiar were the sensations of being within myself that I didn’t know how to call them up.

  Even so, after a few days, I decided that it was time. There was no more sense in practicing. I would have to take the plunge, go all the way in, and climb out of that bed in another time.

  Tomorrow.

  Sam had been playing with Lucca and asked me to go for a walk on the beach after.

  “Sure,” I said, though I was thinking less and less of things here, in my own time.

  “You’re all quiet,” Sam pointed out as we walked along.

  “Just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  I didn’t answer but watched the waves crest and fall, crest and fall.

  “Siena?”

  “I feel like I might not come back,” I whispered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Was what had happened with Kelsey going to happen again with Sam? Would he learn too much about me and want to run away?

  But he made me want to tell him things. He made me feel safe.

  I shook my head. “I just … have to go away a little, and I don’t know how easy it will be to get back.”

  “What do you mean, a little? Like a trip?”

  I shook my head again. “The ghosts—”

  “Siena, what are you talking about?” Sam hissed, seeming like he wanted to shout but unable to put the strength in his voice. He looked stricken.

  “The ghosts—”

  “Stop saying that!” Sam yelled, then lowered his voice. “You aren’t going to hurt yourself?”

  “No, nothing like that.” I sighed, wishing I hadn’t brought it up at all. Maybe this would be like Kelsey all over again. “Never mind.”

  I read Lucca his bedtime stories, Goodnight Moon and Frederick. He cuddled against me, and I enjoyed his warmth.

  Was I giving him up, to try what I was going to do? Could I get stuck if I was there too long? Would this be the last time I saw my own brother?

  But this had to help him, right? Even if I didn’t get back to see it? If I tried so hard to help Sarah and Joshua, wouldn’t that somehow fix things for my brother, too?

  I kissed him good night, tucked him in, and went back to my room and sat in the windowsill, waiting for Mom and Dad to come up to bed, listening for the house to be quiet. The sky deepened as I sat; the stars came out and brightened.

  My body—that wasn’t exactly me, right? The me-me was deep inside. That was the part of me that would go on the journey tonight. What would happen to my body while I was gone? What would hold me to it?

  Finally all the lights were out; the house grew quiet. It seemed like everyone was in bed.

  I climbed into my bed, too, and lay flat. I tried to breathe deeply, to relax my mind. I let my worries go, one by one. I tried to keep my mind present and let go of my body. I could do this. I was Siena, certain, and strong, and brave. I was.

  I blinked. I must have been dreaming, and this must be waking up.

  There was no use lying awake at night, in the loneliest hours of worry. Sometimes I could hear Joshua crying, or Mama crying. That was probably how I would end up, too, waking at night: crying.

  I held on tight to the sleepies, and drifted. Something was calling me back there, asking me to stay asleep.

  She was right. I came to enough to know. I was saying over and over—praying over and over—Stay asleep, Sarah. Stay asleep. What I had to do was an odd mix of letting myself go and grasping onto myself just a little.

  Please stay asleep, Sarah. I need to borrow your body, but I’m trying to help you. I will give it back to you. This will help you, and Joshua, too.

  And the part of Sarah that usually took over as soon as I slipped in to share her memories, the one that directed all her thoughts and movements, seemed to stay asleep. I would make the decisions this time. I was ready.

  I started first by relaxing, just flexing my fingers, one at a time, like I’d tried to practice in those brief sessions earlier this week. It’s really hard to flex your toes one at a time, but I gave them a good wiggle. Next step: I climbed out of bed, standing on steady feet, but feeling shorter than in my own body. It felt odd controlling Sarah’s body so actively—it was familiar, from being in her memories, but it was definitely different from mine; her arms and legs didn’t reach as far as I was used to. Was the stomachache hers or mine? We seemed to share the same whirring feeling of anxiety.

  Our room was familiar, even though I think it took more footsteps to get across the floor. The doorknob seemed higher from Sarah’s perspective. The doorknob itself was different … an octagon of glass instead of round metal.

  I remembered which room was Joshua’s: the empty “guest room” in my time. I tiptoed across the hall and opened the door, slipped inside, and shut it behind me.

  He was sleeping fitfully, muttering.

  “Joshua,” I said, but my voice, or Sarah’s voice, I guess, was gruff from not talking for a long time. I cleared my throat. “Joshua.”

  He still didn’t seem to hear. I walked over and stood right at the end of the bed. I gave a hoarse, sharp whisper: “Joshua!”

  He jumped, sitting straight up in bed, gasping, frantically looking around. Then he realized he was in his own bedroom, recognized the outline of his little sister in the dark. His breathing slowed and he lowered himself back down to his pillows. “Go away!”

  “Shhh. Someone will hear you.”

  “Go away, go away!” He cried now, into his pillow. Then, in a weak whisper, “Go away, please, go away!”

  I didn’t think he was talking to his little sister anymore. To his memories? To things that were not here in this room with us, but far across the ocean?

  “I know … I know about William, the little girl and her family, the people without faces …”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw it, too.”

  “How could you have?”

  “I dreamed it.”

  He opened his eyes. They widened in surprise. “I can see your face! Clear as anything! My Little Bug … but you don’t talk like her.”

  “I … I’m not really Sarah. Not inside.”

  “Who are you, then?” Joshua sat up.

  “I’m Siena.”

  My name lingered in the air for a moment. It did sound strong, and beautiful.

  “Siena? What kind of name is that?”

  “Mine.”

  He closed his eyes; his brows scrunched. “It’s familiar, somehow.”

  We both thought for a minute.

  “Where did you fight in the war?” I asked.

  “Italy.”

  “You might have seen my name before, then. On a map. Or maybe you have even been there.”

  “Is that where you come from?”

  “No. I actually come from right here, like you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t explain it. I live years from now in this house, but I can see the past. I saw what you went through. You found the little girl in the ruined house and you carried her … carried her all the way to a doctor, but she died.”

  “Stop it. You can’t know that.”

  “But I do. You’re hearing me say it.”

  “Who knows what I’m hearing? I can’t trust what I see and hear anymore.”

  “The whole world changed on you. Probably there’s nowhere that feels safe.”

  I slid over closer to the bed and took his hand. He fl
inched at first. With our hands touching, I could feel us connecting inside, too. At first I felt scared, but I willed myself to relax so Joshua could, too. Something flowed between us.

  “It is like that,” he said. “Even when the memories aren’t active in my mind, there’s that fear. It’s always creeping, round and round my heart.”

  “I feel that way a lot, too.”

  “Have terrible things happened to you?”

  I thought about that. “No. I guess I just feel like I don’t know what’s real, because unexpected things happen to me, and where and when I’m from, you feel like something awful could happen at any time and you wouldn’t be ready.”

  “But I got ready. And it didn’t help.”

  I rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb, trying to keep him calm, to try to make him see that I understood.

  Maybe he was sick—but I felt the core of my being, in pulse with Sarah’s beating heart in the chest I visited, think of him gently, the way a sister treats her brother when he needs help. That was the connection I felt. Like when I had sat with Lucca earlier.

  “Why are you here?” When I didn’t answer, he asked, “What do you want?”

  “To help you and Sarah.”

  “Why? Why do you care?”

  “I just … do. I want you to be okay.”

  “But why?”

  “I guess it has something to do with me and Lucca.”

  “Who’s Lucca?”

  “My brother.”

  “His name is familiar, too.”

  “He doesn’t talk, my brother. It’s like there’s something in the way between us. I try and try but I can’t fix it. You and Sarah have the same thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you even noticed? Sarah doesn’t talk anymore!”

  “What do you mean she doesn’t?”

  “Jezzie took her voice.”

  “What did she do with it?”

  “She threw it in the ocean.”

  For the first time, Joshua laughed.

  “What?” I didn’t see it as something to laugh at.

  “How is that even possible? I always knew there was something wrong with that Jezzie. She must be a nutty spirit like you on the inside.”