How to Make Friends with the Dark

by Kathleen Glasgow

  I jam my notebook and pen in a trash can. I start hustling, keeping my eyes on the exit doors at the far end of the hall. If I can just make it, if I just make it home, my actual home, everything will be all right, I can curl up in my bed, put my headphones on, wait for my mom to come back from driving the Bookmobi—

  In an instant, my face is wet.

  There won’t be anyone there. Of course.

  I should tattoo this on my freaking hand so I can remember it forever: it’s only me now.

  “Tiger! Tiger Tolliver!”

  Walrus Jackson catches up to me, holding his blue tie against his chest, breathing heavily.

  “Tiger, you run fast. You ever think about trying out for track? I think I’ll mention it to Coach Archer. Good Lord, I’m winded.”

  “Look at my boobs, Mr. Jackson. Do you honestly think running track is going to work for me? Listen, I’ve gotta go.”

  I think I see the smallest smile flicker at Mr. Jackson’s mouth. “Tiger, I’m not allowed to stare. At you. Or any girl. Moving on.”

  “Can I please just go? I really need to leave.”

  Mr. Jackson says firmly, “In a moment. Your care worker called me this morning to say you’d be back. I gather it’s not going well today? We should work out a plan for your return, I think. Take things slow. One step at a time. Do half days instead of full. Like that. How would that be? Here. This might be a good start.”

  He holds out a card to me. It says “Tuesday/Friday, 4 p.m., Room 322, Eugene Field, GG.”

  “GG? What is this?” I ask.

  “Grief Group. For teens. We’re trying to think of a better name.” He smiles. “I gather it was started before I got here, when there was some trouble. I run it now, though.”

  When there was some trouble. Walrus Jackson and I look at each other. He means when the three kids died by suicide. That.

  “How are you doing, Grace?” And because he uses my real name, I think he means Are you going to kill yourself, Grace? Are you going to wrist, hang, gun?

  We stare at each other for a long, long moment.

  Adults always say they want you to tell them how you feel, but when you do, they mostly just tell you to try to feel another way, one that requires less work from them. I bet in this Grief Group everyone says how they feel and Walrus Jackson tells them things like “Well, what if we try this?” “Or this?” They probably draw their feelings with crayons.

  It would be nice if once, someone would just say, “Girl, you are in the shit and you will not be getting out soon. So here’s how to make friends with the dark.”

  Kind of like how at my mom’s viewing, Mae-Lynn Carpenter said everything from now on was going to be a giant suck-fest for me. The Big Suck. At least she was honest.

  My voice cracks. “My mother dropped dead. That’s how I’m doing.”

  Walrus Jackson’s eyes get soft.

  I swear to God, there should be a manual for dying, or for death, and if I ever write it, Chapter One will be: Do NOT cry when someone else’s person has died, because then they will feel guilty, or mad. You lost nothing.

  My hands ball into fists behind my back, crushing the Grief Group card where Walrus Jackson can’t see.

  He takes a deep breath. “You’re welcome to join our group, Grace. I think it might help, but no pressure.”

  I spit, “Who are the other kids in the group? Because I’d like to know who else in this school is flailing around in a lava of grief, because I sure didn’t see any of them this morning, when everyone was whispering and giggling about this…this dress and my mom.”

  And, just like that, from the corner of my eye, I start to notice kids peering out the round windows of classroom doors at me, curious. I have to get out of here.

  I start walking before Mr. Jackson can say anything else, folding my arms tight against my chest, counting the big black and white tiles as I go to keep myself from crying again. If Mr. Jackson calls after me, I can’t hear it. There are too many waves crashing in my brain.

  I push open the double doors as hard as I can, the sunlight nearly blinding me. When I shade my eyes, hoping to see a magic path, or a beam of light telling me where to go from here, there’s Thaddeus Roach, leaning against the emptied Eugene Field fountain. He lifts his hand in kind of a sad greeting.

  “I thought maybe it might not work out, so here I am, just in case.”

  As he holds the car door open for me, he grins. “Looks like you’re coming to work with me.”

  For the first time in more than seven days, I feel a spark of happiness and relief. I jog down the front steps, dropping the crumpled GG card in the trash can on my way.

  7 days, 11 hours

  “I JUST HAD A FEELING,” Thaddeus says when we get in his car.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I kind of felt like I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. I’ve been feeling that way a lot lately. I just can’t imagine why. Hmm…” I pretend to tap my chin in a thoughtful manner.

  Thaddeus grimaces at me. “You don’t have to be funny, Tiger.”

  I shut my mouth and look out the window at the desert and the mountains, the bright, bright blue sky. I close my eyes and let the sound of the wheels on the road lull me. What if my sister doesn’t want to live here? Can she just take me back to Honolulu with her, no questions asked? Or anywhere, for that matter? I’ve never lived anywhere else or gone anywhere else. My mom moved here from Albuquerque, after whatever happened with Dusty Franklin, me squirming around in her belly, and that was that.

  It’s still weird to think about, that I have a dad. That he exists. That’s he’s out there.

  And that he never tried to find me.

  Before I know it, I’m texting Karen, the social worker.

  Hi. Did my dad even say anything? About me? When you told him?

  She answers right away. I thought you were at school today.

  It didn’t work out.

  Okay. And then: Dusty was somewhat confused at all the news. As you can imagine. He offered his condolences.

  Did he use that word, condolences? Or did you?

  It was his word. He was quite sorry to hear of your mother.

  My father, Dusty, used the word condolences. I like that. It makes me think he was a reader, at some point, like maybe we’ll have something in common someday, other than a few cellular similarities.

  Did he ask anything about me? Like what I’m like? Does he want to see me?

  Dot dot dot. Karen is typing.

  Texting might not be the most productive way to talk about this. In the long run, Tiger, therapy is probably warranted. For all of you. Whatever happens.

  All of us?

  You and your sister. And dad, maybe, someday. You’re going to have to learn to live together if this is going to work, Tiger. She’ll be here soon.

  My sister will be here soon.

  My stomach flip-flops. I’ve never had to learn to live with anyone but my mom, and it seems overwhelming and unfair that I have to learn how to live without her at the same time I’m learning how to live with a complete stranger, especially a long-lost, belly-pierced sister.

  Karen says, Talk to you soon. I’m with another client right now.

  “Client” stings, too. I slump lower in my seat. Thaddeus turns up the radio, some hip-hop station. I close my eyes. ’Cause when I was low you was there for me / And never left me alone because you cared for me…

  I grind my fists into my eyes. “Thaddeus, how much longer?”

  He says, “Here.”

  I take my hands away from my eyes, blinking. My head hurts so much now. I’m so tired. We’re driving down a long dirt road toward an enormous iron-and-wood arch with prancing horses. I sit up, my heart racing.

  I say, “Really? Here?”

  He stops at the gate, presses a code, and the gates p
art. Thaddeus pulls into the lot, parks the car.

  “Yeah,” he says, grinning. “Here. I love it. It’s my happy place. Come on, get out. It’s almost time.”

  Never in a million years would I have guessed that Thaddeus works at Randy Gonzalez’s horse ranch. There are a couple of long white trailers arranged around the lot, and some buildings farther down the road, next to a rambling, rose-colored hacienda.

  I get out of the car.

  Thaddeus stands next to me. “Listen,” he says softly.

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, so I wait, the warm desert air still and quiet. We stand there for so long, so quietly, that I start to get jittery. I’m getting my wet cement feeling back. The song on the radio about the singer’s mom made me sad and now I want to return to LaLa’s house, and retreat to my bunk bed. Sleep for a thousand more days.

  Then I hear it.

  It starts slowly, in the distance, an echoey sound like rain or soft thunder.

  The soft sounds of nickering, hooves in the dirt.

  Then they appear, stepping from a thunderous cloud of golden and shimmery dust, cantering by the fence in a tight herd, manes flying, the muscles of their bodies wild and rippling. A mosaic of coal gray, earthy brown, sleek white, jewel black. They’re like something from a fantasy book, a magical movie, a dream. The horses my mother had always loved.

  I stay.

  7 days, 11 hours, 50 minutes

  THADDEUS TAKES ME INSIDE one of the white trailers and plunks down behind a junky desk. He starts checking voice mails on a huge, blinking phone. He seems completely at home, whirling around on the rolling chair, taking notes, pressing buttons.

  I slink to the window. The glass is warm from the sun. I can see them from here, inside the circular white ring, pacing and prancing.

  The first time my mom stopped by the side of the road to show the horses to me, I was young and kind of scared. They seemed so big to me then. They liked my mom, letting her pet them and stroke their manes. Sometimes she’d lift me up so I could pet them, too. Their fur was warm from the sun, and velvety.

  These horses, the ones in the ring, they seem a little volatile. Pent up. They kick around the pen, snort, flick their tails.

  I feel a little more alive than this morning, watching them. They are ready to do something, to move.

  Two men and a woman enter the ring. They’re wearing boots and hats and have ropes and something that looks kind of like a whip.

  They work the horses, putting them through paces and exercises. Thaddeus makes phone calls and then fixes us coffee from a machine in the corner. He hands me a mug and stands next to me at the window.

  “Awesome, right? I love it here. So much better than the grocery store where I was before. I know working inside a stupid trailer isn’t the coolest, but I talk to people from all over the world on the phone and stuff. Mr. Gonzalez is kind of famous. Some of the horses are Arabians, which are pretty special. Did you know that?”

  I shake my head.

  He stretches and yawns.

  “I’m gonna go to the main house and get a sandwich. You wanna come, or should I bring something back for you?”

  “I’m not hungry. I’ll wait here.”

  After he leaves, my phone buzzes. Cake.

  What happened???

  I guess I wasn’t ready, I text back. Thaddeus brought me to work with him. At the ranch. With the horses.

  That’s cool. Hey, what’s your mom’s full name and her birth date? I’m gonna do some digging.

  Last year, Mom and I made her birthday cake together, a lumpy, three-layered thing, each layer dyed a different color: red, green, blue. It was delicious and disgusting at the same time. She’d eaten two pieces, one after the other, and then sighed happily. “I’m so old,” she said, touching my cheek. “Will you take care of your old mom someday? Make my tea? Put the blanket on my decrepit legs?”

  “Of course not,” I’d answered, cutting myself another piece of cake. “I’m going to be out with all my boyfriends, partying it up. I’m not gonna have time for old people like you.” I flipped my hair like Selfie Kelsey Cameron in zero p.

  My mom laughed.

  My mother’s birthday falls between Thanksgiving and Christmas and she likes to say, “I spend two months of the year gaining ten pounds and ten months trying to lose it.”

  I tell Cake the date, and give her my mom’s full name, June Frances Tolliver.

  And then I wonder: Is that even her real name? I mean, maybe it’s not.

  I know nothing about her childhood, except that she rode horses, and that later she went to college, and her parents died, and she became a librarian.

  I look back down at my phone. Cake is typing…

  Cool. Gotta go. Band prac. I’ll call you later.

  I sit at Thaddeus’s work desk and cruise the computer. His Facebook page pops open. Photos of boys, Thaddeus with them, making devil horns, playing guitars. A little girl with hair the same color as Thaddeus’s, in a yellow swimsuit in a pink baby pool. That must be his sister. The caption says, “Jax thins she’s a mermad.” I peer closer. In the background beyond the baby pool, beer cans are scattered in the dirt. A skinny black dog on a chain. Broken plastic toys.

  In the search box, I type Shayna Lee Franklin.

  Aloha, friends and lovers. It’s been real. About to fly into the great unknown. Adventure and new life await.

  My heart skips a beat. Photos of puffy clouds taken from an airplane window. A selfie of my sister in her seat, the blue sky and clouds behind her, her eyes wide, smudged with black liner. Red bandanna over her dark hair. Pink gloss across her lips. A half smile. She’s so pretty.

  You have a beetiful soul, Shay!!!! Love you!!!!!

  The universe works in mysterious ways, babe, we’ll miss you on the beach!!!

  Come back soon and tell us all about your adventure.

  A beetiful soul. My sister has a beetiful soul.

  I type, How long does it take to fly from Honolulu to Tucson?

  Eight hours and ten minutes, one stop.

  Shit.

  Thaddeus slouches back into the room, holding a paper plate with a sandwich and some potato chips. He holds out the plate to me, but I shake my head. “Skin and bones,” he mutters. “You’re gonna turn into skin and bones soon, girl.”

  He glances at his computer, sees that Facebook is open. “Oh, wow. Is that new?”

  “Yeah, she’s on her way here. Pictures from the plane and everything.”

  He blinks. “It’ll be okay.” He gnaws on a potato chip.

  I look at the way he sits on the other chair, slowly and carefully. Think of his little sister, Jax, in her dirty backyard, in her pink baby pool.

  “Thaddeus, what happened? I mean, like, after the thing. To your back.”

  His voice is low and he keeps his eyes on his plate, pushing chips around with a finger. “My stepdad tried to say I fell down the stairs of the apartment building, but doctors can figure that stuff out, you know? They aren’t stupid. He was always, you know, like, hitting me and stuff. Mostly when my mom wasn’t there. He’d say I fell out of bed or something. He got sent to jail. He and my mom weren’t married then, anyway, and they sent her to rehab, because she was all strung out. They both were, all the time. And the state took me away. My mom gave me up. Then they got back together and had Jax.”

  His voice is shaking.

  “Like, when I said I had problems, earlier? I can’t be touched a lot, because my brain thinks somebody’s gonna hurt me again. Does that make any sense? It’s why school doesn’t work for me. Too much shit, and shouting, and calling me poor and all that crap, you know? Makes me mad, and then shit happens. Oh, no, please don’t,” he says, turning to me, pleading. “I’m sorry I said all that. Please don’t do that.”

  I take big gulps to sto
p crying. “I was trying to be quiet about it,” I say. “I’ve gotten really good at the silent cry since…you know. I could probably win a silent crying contest.”

  “Again with the jokes,” he says. “You don’t have to joke about sad stuff.”

  I ignore what he said, wiping my face with the dirty sleeve of my dress. “How can you go back and see him, though? I mean, doesn’t that kind of kill you?”

  He shrugs. “My little sister. I just go up, you know, keep an eye on things. My mom doesn’t make great life choices, is the only way I can put it.”

  Thaddeus starts moving papers around the table. I look at the soft tangles of hair against his stooped back, the way his skinny legs are bent awkwardly. How am I only just now seeing that Thaddeus’s entire body is kind of twisted? No wonder he smokes pot. He must be in so much pain, inside and out.

  Yeah, he’d get picked on in school, for sure. I know exactly which group he’d be in, and what would be done to him. The only reason I’m safe is Cake, and her coolness.

  “Aren’t you afraid of him, Thaddeus? Aren’t you afraid he’ll do something again, like, to her? I don’t know if I’d be able to do that. See someone who’d done that to me.”

  Thaddeus rolls his chair next to mine and scrolls around my sister’s Facebook page. Beaches with red-and-gold skies. Digging money from a stained and crinkled waitress apron, looking tired. Standing in a line of pretty girls with glossy faces and minidresses, bridesmaids holding colorful flowers.

  When he finally speaks, his voice is mild. “I love my sister more than I’m afraid of him. Sometimes you’d do anything to protect your family. It’s just something you know, deep inside.”

  Hundreds of Shayna Lee Franklins, scattered all over the blue-and-white page.

  Legs stretched out, gritty with sand, toes buried. A selfie, her face sunburned and smiling. Tiny shells on a string around her neck.

  A living, breathing, magical sister.

  7 days, 21 hours

  THAT NIGHT, FROM THE lower bunk, Sarah says softly, “You going to your family soon?”