A Constellation of Roses

by Miranda Asebedo

  The outside of the Jasmine Dragon, its sign lit up in yellow colored pencil.

  An empty motel room.

  A woman with two small children holding a Golden Corral menu.

  Charly with the twins, red plastic cup in hand.

  The Eastside Mall.

  Shane, leaning on the door of room 7.

  Two hands clasped together on the bus.

  Ember sitting on the front steps in one of her dresses, Bacon perched on the step above her.

  “There are a lot of places in this book. A lot of people.”

  “You didn’t have any right to go through it,” I tell her. “It’s private. That’s my life. Not yours.”

  “Everything about you is private, Trix.” There’s an acidity in her tone that I feel like I’ve been waiting for all this time.

  Finally, I am a burden. Finally, I am just what I expected I would be here. Not a McCabe, just Trix. Abandoned. Thief. Drifter.

  “How come we never knew about you? How come your mom never called us and asked for help if things were that bad? We were here the whole damn time. Your father should have met you before he died. He had a right, damn it. Connor had a right, and so did I. You shouldn’t be a stranger to us. You shouldn’t be some puzzle that I have to solve.” By the end of her rant she’s nearly yelling.

  “You?” I yell back. “You are mad at me? You just went through all my shit without asking, like I’m some kind of criminal. Like I’m some kind of thief because that’s what I am, aren’t I?”

  “It was an accident, Trix. But looking at these pictures kills me. I keep waiting for you to tell me what happened. I tried to tell you everything I knew about Connor so that you’d understand that he would have wanted you, that we want you. And now you’re skipping school and running off and not telling me where you’re going. I had no idea where you were almost all day yesterday. The principal called to tell me you skipped your afternoon classes. I’m supposed to be in charge of you. Ms. Troy is coming for a home visit any minute now, and what am I going to tell her?”

  “What exactly do you mean, what happened to me? All those years, what happened to me? Or just the last six months? I was alone. I was fucking alone. Where were you? Why weren’t you looking for me?”

  “We didn’t even know you existed. Suddenly Ms. Troy shows up at my door saying, ‘Oh, hey, there’s this kid out there and you’re her only family, but we can’t find her right now.’ Can you imagine how that felt? You think I don’t lose sleep wondering how many nights I was in a warm bed and you were out on the streets somewhere? But you won’t even tell me.”

  “Well, it’s not like I had any control over when they figured out you existed. You’re so quick to throw my mom under the bus, but did you ever think maybe Connor knew all along and he just never told you? But she used to sell herself for money sometimes, so maybe he was one of those guys.” I don’t really think he was a john, but it feels so good to see the shocked look on Mia’s face. Oh, no, her brother wasn’t perfect. No one perfect could make someone like me. “Do you want to talk about all of that, drag it all up? I can tell you everything, all the dirty details if it makes you feel better.”

  There’s a knock at the door.

  “Pull yourselves together,” Auntie commands. She must have come down the back stairs and been listening to our fight. “We’re not throwing all this away over one stupid cup of spilled tea.” She looks at me. “Answer the door. And try not to be an asshole.”

  I cross through the living room and open the door, my chest still heaving with anger. Ms. Troy is waiting outside on the front porch, the scent of roses in the early morning surrounding her. Her face is rounder, softer, than it was when I last saw her.

  “Trix,” she says, coming in and giving me a hug, not noticing the hurt and rage that are rolling off me in waves. “You look amazing. So good.” She looks around the farmhouse. “It smells wonderful in here, doesn’t it? Like walking into a giant muffin.” She laughs nervously.

  “Ms. Troy,” Mia says, coming in from the kitchen. Her face is flushed, but her eyes are dry. She smooths her cardigan and gives a big smile. “Come in, please. Have a seat in the living room.”

  “I think I hear the kettle,” Auntie says, darting a glance between Mia and me again. “I’ll go check.”

  “Yes, some tea would be nice. Thank you,” Ms. Troy says, sitting down on the couch. She keeps looking around the room, like something is wrong. Maybe she heard our fight.

  I sit down next to her, my hands clasped tightly between my knees.

  Ms. Troy opens and closes my file in her lap. She looks at me again, then at Mia, who comes to perch in the armchair diagonally across from us.

  She clears her throat. “I’ve talked to you several times on the phone, of course,” Ms. Troy says quietly. “And I’m so happy to hear that things are going well for you. Your school counselor reports that your grades are up. You’ve been working a part-time job. You seem to be making a real place for yourself here.”

  I nod.

  “I wanted to make sure you know that I’m so happy that things are going well this time, Trix.” She pauses again, adjusts the file on her lap, as if she is trying to find the words to say something uncomfortable. Finally, she says, “But I’m afraid I have some news.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. I know that touch. The Bad News Touch. “It’s about your mom.”

  My eyes feel hot. “My mom? Did you find her? Is she okay?”

  “No, Trix.” Ms. Troy purses her lips, pauses. “Your mother passed away.”

  Time slows down.

  There’s light and shadow, the rise and fall of my chest as I breathe.

  I hear Mia’s sharp gasp, the sound of Auntie murmuring a swear word from the kitchen. Then I feel Mia’s arms around me, she’s crossed the space between us, and she’s holding me, the scents of lemon and chai enveloping us both.

  “How?” I ask, my mouth moving without my brain. I untangle myself from Mia. I need to know.

  Ms. Troy looks at Mia, as if she’s not sure if she should say what happened.

  “Tell me.”

  Mia nods to her.

  Ms. Troy speaks. “She overdosed, Trix. Someone found her in a motel on Gage and Tenth.”

  “The Happy Host.” I know it. I’ve stayed there. Yellow wallpaper. Orange carpet. A little bodega just around the corner that sells sherbet the color of sunsets.

  “Yes. That’s the one.”

  “Was she alone?” Please let her not have been alone, I beg some unknown deity.

  “Yes. A maid found her.”

  Her words sink in. This would be the last chapter in my mother’s story. A cold, unforgiving end, alone in some cheap motel room. No one to cry over her. No one to say that they were sorry, or that they still loved her despite everything. Somehow when I look away from Ms. Troy again, the roses are still blooming outside the front windows. The wind rustles through their leaves, setting the flowers to nodding again. Everything else is still beautiful.

  “I’m going to my room now,” I announce, getting up from the couch.

  “Trix,” Ms. Troy says. “We need to talk about a few things—”

  “Trix,” Mia calls after me as I reach the staircase.

  “Let her go,” Auntie says, entering the living room with a tray of tea. “Give her a little time alone if that’s what she needs.”

  I climb all the way to the attic. My room is the same as I left it less than an hour ago. But I am not the same. I crawl into the bed, digging myself under a mound of quilts until I’m only a bump on the bed.

  There, in the darkness of my quilt cocoon, I wait for tears to come.

  But they don’t. I don’t feel anything. In fact, I’m so empty that it rings in my ears. A silence that is somehow loud. I pull the blankets tighter, but they can’t help me. The feeling of numbness stays, settling in like a hard frost, killing off everything it touches.

  Twenty-One

  414 Main Street. Rocksaw, KS. 66554.

  Send
.

  A message dings instantly in return.

  I climb down the back staircase. I hear Auntie and Mia murmuring in the living room. Ember should be in school.

  They won’t miss me till I’m long gone.

  I wait around the corner of Jensen’s Office Supply, in the alley, my arms crossed to ward off the chill. A yellow Camaro with black racing stripes prowls down the main drag slowly, as if looking for someone.

  I step out from the alleyway.

  The Camaro stops.

  The window rolls down.

  “There’s my girl.” Shane grins at me. “I knew you’d change your mind.”

  Seeing Shane is like finding a piece of myself that’s been missing, like going back in time before Ms. Troy arrived at the McCabes’ door with her Bad News Touch. My new world is crumbling, but my old one is there to bring me back to who I’ve always been. Trix. Abandoned. Thief. Drifter. All the dark, shadowy parts of me are fitting back together, making perfect sense in the way that they always have.

  “You made good time,” I say, getting in the passenger side of his car. It’s all black leather upholstery and smells faintly of cigarette smoke.

  “Anything to bring you home,” Shane replies. He leans over as if he’s going to kiss me, his breath smelling of mint. I take him in, a face that was once so familiar I could have drawn it in the pitch dark. His time in prison has made him older, harder. There were only traces of a boy when I knew him before, but they are completely gone now.

  I put a hand up to stop him from getting any closer because as much as I love seeing him again, it aches, too. “Hey, hold on. We’re not together. You dumped me, remember?”

  He laughs, opens his eyes, and reaches over to tug up the sleeve of my sweater, kissing my scars instead. The touch is familiar, intimate. “I’m sorry,” he says against my skin. His lips twist into a smile even as he says it. He’s happy. Happy to see me. Happy to kiss me, even the darkest, most shameful parts of me.

  I take a moment, breathe deep. “I am, too. But we’re still just friends.”

  “Friends.” Shane groans as if he’s been wounded.

  “Charly says you did really well while you were in. You got your GED.”

  “Yeah, I was a real model of good behavior.” He cracks a grin at me. “Except for the whole getting locked up in the first place part.”

  He could always make me laugh, even when things were hard.

  “Where’d you get the car?” I ask, pulling my hand away to gesture at the Camaro.

  “Borrowed it from a friend.”

  “You’ve made some new friends since we last saw each other. All your old ones were shitty and broke.”

  “Mmmm, but the old ones are the best,” he says, reaching over and taking my hand again. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too, Shane.”

  Shane fills the drive back to the city with funny stories: guys he met in prison, how excited Charly was when he showed up at her door, the other men in the halfway house where he’s been living. Everything about him is easy. And that’s what I need right now. I don’t tell him about Mom. I don’t tell him about the McCabes, or Jasper, or the group of friends I made in Rocksaw. No, let them wait. This moment is just for us, for what we used to be together.

  When we get to the Starlite, I have this strange butterfly feeling in my stomach. Even after nearly two months away, after the news Ms. Troy brought to the farmhouse door, I half expect to see Mom sitting outside room 7 in one of those rusty wrought-iron chairs, smoking those cigarettes she stepped out to buy.

  But she’s not. She’s dead in some morgue. She’ll never sit here again.

  There’s a churning nausea in my gut that follows the butterflies. I push away another image, this one of her on a motel-room floor, alone. Her dark hair unfurled over the cheap, threadbare carpet around her. No, no. I can’t think of that now. I force myself to smile at Charly where she stands in the parking lot waving at us.

  Shane squeezes my hand. “It feels like stepping back in time, doesn’t it?” he says. “But things are going to be better than they were before, Trix.” Shane’s promises are familiar, comforting. I lean into them.

  I get out of the car as Charly throws her arms open wide, running to meet me. “Trix!” she exclaims. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  I hug her back. “I missed you too, Charly.”

  “Come inside!” she says, herding me to a familiar room. “We have to catch up. I got your old place, room seven.”

  Shane closes the door behind us and shuts the blinds. He locks the door and turns on the radiator heater, which rattles and moans. I look around. Room 7 is the same as I left it. The worn coverlet on the bed. The hot plate. I wonder if my secret jar of cash is still in the toilet tank.

  “Shane tell you about his big plan?” Charly asks, flopping into the only armchair.

  Shane shakes his head, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I haven’t said anything yet.”

  I look back at Shane. “What plan?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I’m still thinking about it. I met this guy while I was doing time. He can get me into that upscale mall on the East Side after closing. There’s a jewelry store. I’d be in and out in a few minutes. Split it fifty-fifty with the guy. But it would be more than enough to get us out of here if you still wanted to come.”

  My heart seizes in my chest. I am silent for a moment, trying to find the right words. But this is Shane, and they don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be real. So I let it all out. “Are you fucking serious? You just got out of jail. What are you doing? Trying to get back in?”

  Sure, I’ve stolen more wallets than I can count. Pocketed candy bars and phone chargers. Gift cards and chewing gum. But this is different. This is even bigger than the house he got shot trying to rob. And there is someone else involved. If life has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t trust just anyone. Especially when there’s money involved.

  Shane’s eyes narrow, and I know I’ve struck something in him. “I’m a nineteen-year-old with a prison record. Who do you think is going to hire me?” he scoffs. “And it’s just an idea. I don’t need you to approve. I can do it on my own.” He is shutting me out, like he did the day when I tried to visit him in prison and he told me to run away and never come back.

  I close my eyes briefly, remembering the robbery he attempted alone, the one where he nearly died. How I spent a year blaming myself because my gift could have hidden him, could have saved him. When I open my eyes again, Shane’s gaze is burning into me. And though the rest of him has aged, his features harsher than before, these are still the same dark eyes of a boy who used to bring me Coke-and-cherry slushes from the QuikMart late at night when I was alone. And lonely.

  “You can’t go by yourself, Shane.” And as I say it, I know it’s wrong. It’s everything I’ve been trying to change about myself for the last two months. But look how that’s ended for me. Shane. Shane is home. Shane needs me. It feels good to be needed sometimes.

  “Sure I can. I’m a big boy.” He shows me the biceps he’s been working on in the training yard.

  Charly rolls her eyes.

  “Come on,” he says. “We’ll talk about it later. Are you hungry? Let’s order a pizza from Sal’s. Ham and pineapple. And then we can catch up.”

  The time passes quickly. Hours seem like minutes going by in flashes of my old life. There are stories that I can finish word for word before Shane tells them: the morning when the buses were running late so he hot-wired a car to get me to my Spanish test on time; the summer afternoon when Charly and I nearly got arrested for hocking pickpocketed wallets; the night when we slit the tires of that john who tried to back me into a dark corner before Shane rescued me. I recall, my voice sounding strange and distant, as if it belongs to someone else, the time the three of us snuck into the West Side City Pavilion long after midnight and skated on the freshly smoothed ice, the air crisp and cold and perfect in a world that was so deeply scarred.


  Later, I’m drunk on vodka. Charly started making drinks around five o’clock, pouring them with her typical heavy-handedness. Everything is better than I remember it. We laugh louder, longer, with more abandon. We’re happy again. Just the three of us, like the old days, lounging and watching mindless TV to forget everything bad that’s happening around us.

  Shane is shirtless sitting next to me on the bed, and Charly lounges in the chair by the door, her legs thrown over one cheaply upholstered arm and her red cup pressed to her lips. When I think Shane’s watching the television and not me, I stare at all the small white scars from the birdshot he took in the gut two years ago when he broke into that house without me. That guilt, buried deep, emerges again, and I wish that I could have been there to protect him with my gift, to keep him from harm. How differently my life might have turned out.

  But I stare too long, and Shane sees me looking. He smiles at me, putting his arm over my shoulders and leaning his cheek against the top of my head. “See if you can find something good in all of those. Maybe the Little Dipper or that guy with the bow and arrow. What was his name?”

  “Orion. The hunter.”

  “Definitely. Look for him. Sounds manly.”

  The vodka hums through my fingertips as I trace his scars like he used to follow mine. “I don’t see Orion. I think at best you’ve got Ursa Major.”

  “Bears are good. Very macho.” He chuckles deeply, and it vibrates through both of us. “Maybe I should get the outline tattooed so it connects them. Been a long time since I got one done. Remember when you drew the feathers? One for you, one for me, and one for Charly?” he asks, touching the three feathers on his neck.

  “I sketched them out on that napkin in Golden Corral and you swore that you were going to get them tattooed on you. I couldn’t believe when you actually did it.”

  “I always do what I say I’m going to do.”

  His words echo in my head. I told Ember that I was going to stop running away. But I’m here. I’m a liar.

  While the laugh track on the TV sitcom plays, I wonder what Ember is doing right now.