by Erica Sage
THURSDAY
Something velvety, cool in my face. Then a prickle and a snuff of hot air. I opened my eyes, the sun too bright, my back stiff from the ground, from not shifting during the night. Hooves scuffed on rocks near my head, and dust blew into my eyes.
“Ninja.”
I sat up and spotted an alien-long shadow coming around from behind the tree.
Natalie walked past me, nudging something with her toe. A bottle clanked across the ground, and I panicked that Jack had left the empty wine bottle behind. But it was just a metal water bottle. She stood over me, studied me.
She handed me a protein bar.
I unwrapped it, took a bite. “Thanks.”
“Welcome,” she said, and we both ate our bars in silence.
My eyes felt swollen. I had a headache. From the sadness as much as from the wine I drank.
“I can’t believe you stole a donkey,” she said.
“His name’s Ninja.”
“I can totally see why.”
I stuffed the wrapper into my backpack and pulled my sweats from over my shorts. It wouldn’t be too long before I got hot. I kept my sweatshirt on.
“Did you bring an extra toothbrush?” I tried, hoping to break the tension.
“Look,” she said. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t even listen to you. I came to be a friend, and then I made it all about me.”
“I’m sorry about your sister.”
“I’m sorry about your brother.”
“I’m sorry you walked twenty miles for a tongue-lashing.”
“I didn’t walk the whole twenty miles. Give Ninja some credit.”
“We stopped for grass, by the way.”
“There’s grass?”
Natalie nodded.
“Where? I didn’t see any—“
“Never mind about the donkey,” Natalie said. “I need to explain my confession.”
I held up both hands. “No, it’s private. You don’t have to explain.”
“Nick, please.”
I had been selfish the night before, so consumed with my own burning fury. I’d been so caught up in the idea of helping Natalie that I hadn’t even done the bare minimum. I hadn’t even listened to her.
She was looking straight into my eyes. “I did heroin one time. But I did do it.”
I nodded. “So, then, can I ask why?”
“Gah, it’s just so gross.” She sighed. “I swore I would never tell a soul.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“I know. But, you know, it’s even hearing my own words.” Her face pinched. “This isn’t the first time my brother’s disappeared from rehab. He’s been in and out.” She looked off into the distance, seeing something in her own mind. “So, one time, I went looking for him. I knew where he stayed sometimes, when he was using. Murder Block.”
“What?”
“I’m not even joking.”
“And you went there?”
“Sh. It’s my story.” She smiled brief ly. “It was Fourth of July. And I knew where my brother stayed sometimes, in this camper a couple blocks up from the highway. So, on this particular day, I went to go find him. But he wasn’t there. One of the guys I’d met before was around, though. Big Rev.” She raised her eyebrows. “As in ‘reverend,’ yeah. He said I could wait for a while. I was really nervous, like sweaty and jumpy. Kids up the street kept lighting off fireworks, but they sounded like gunshots. All these people kept coming to the camper. Everyone was really nice. Asking me questions about school. Telling me stories. Except these two older woman shouted stuff about the ‘little white girl’ hiding out. But then Big Rev dismissed them and told me not to worry, they were just drunk. There was an older guy everyone was taking care of. He was in a wheelchair. This lady with marks all over her face kept getting in and out of cars. It was fascinating and horrifying. I was there for hours.” She looked away. “I didn’t go there to do drugs. I went there to find my brother.”
She stopped talking.
“It’s okay.”
“None of it is okay. I couldn’t save my brother. I can’t save him. But, that day, I thought I could maybe understand him better.” She bit at her lip. “I didn’t shoot up myself. Big Rev did it for me.”
I wanted to throw up, imagining this teenage girl putting out her arm.
“I kind of slept or passed out or whatever. I never found my brother. I got sick and threw up and then went home. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Do you understand him better?”
She shook her head. I had no idea what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I put my hand over hers and held on.
We both analyzed the dirt for awhile.
“Do you believe in signs?” she finally asked, her voice a little lighter.
I shrugged.
“I do,” she said.
“This does not surprise me about you.”
She smiled, taking it as a compliment, which is how I had intended it. “I’d written the confession, but I didn’t know if I should really run away. I mean, here I was going to look for my brother again, after what happened last time, right? But when the box was stolen, I knew it meant I had to go. Remember when you found me on the hillside?”
“You were running away then.”
“I was. But then you appeared over the hill and I thought, this is a sign too. I wasn’t supposed to go. There was something I was supposed to wait for. I even thought you might have some wisdom from God to tell me. Because that’s how I hear Him, mostly. In the words of others. And you and I’d been talking and really connecting, or so I thought.”
She’d thought right. I thought we had too. The words between Natalie and me f lowed, made sense, were easy. They actually felt like a bridge.
She fake-glared at me. “Don’t laugh. I’m not even done yet. And I’m not crazy.”
“I’m not laughing, I swear.” I was way crazier than reading signs. I was hearing the voices of people who weren’t even on earth anymore. I was hanging out with the dead. I was talking to stolen barn animals.
“So, I stayed. But the confessions kept coming. And I knew I had to go. That was a sign. Or, that was a counter-sign. The universe redirecting me back up that hill to my brother.”
“A bad sign.”
“There aren’t bad signs, just signs.”
She kind of sounded like Jack on that point. No right or wrong. No good or bad. Things just were what they were.
“Anyway, you showed up last night after everything, and I realized I’d misread everything. I didn’t understand any of what I was supposed to do and not do.”
“After everything what?”
She sighed. “My brother wasn’t there.”
“I know. That’s why I came.” I told her about first going to Pastor Kyle, and how he knew her brother had checked out of rehab.
She nodded, sat thinking for a moment. Then she said, “I don’t see him often, ever since he was sent to this place. You know, it’s far away and my great-aunt won’t drive me down here. She’s old, you know?”
“I was under the impression you lived with your parents, who owned yachts and mansions, so no, I don’t know.”
“Right. Pastor Kyle is the only one who knows the deal. Both my parents are actually meth heads.”
“Are your parents in rehab?”
“Doubt it. Sometimes they show up at my aunt’s and ask for money. Sometimes they’re in jail. I don’t know.” She took a deep breath. “My brother really tried. He’s been in and out of rehab for like three years, and we write and stuff. But his letters got shorter and just off. So I suspected he’d left again. And then, yeah, he wasn’t there. But don’t worry, I won’t be going to search for him on Murder Block.”
“How can you just leave rehab?”
She teared up. “You just can. Because it’s a choice.”
“But how did Pastor Kyle know he left if you didn’t?”
“I have no idea
, but I intend to find out.”
“Maybe he’s friends with the Big Rev.” I squeezed her hand. “Men of God and all that.”
“Ha, yeah, right,” Natalie said. “So, do you think less of me now that you know about my sorry-ass life?”
“She didn’t mean that, Ninja!” I called over my shoulder. To Natalie, I said, “You are as cool as an Obama/Uncle Sam mash-up with a Rosie the Riveter attitude. There’s really nothing sorry about that.”
She laughed and nudged my shoulder. “Do you remember when I told you that when I was a little girl, I was scared and self-conscious all the time? I was the girl who didn’t even stand against the wall at dances?”
“You peeked through the wall from the other side.”
“I meant that literally. One time, I spent Christmas in an attic in some crack house, because everyone was freaking out that the police were coming, so they hid us up there. My brother and I just lay there on the f loor, peeking through this little hole in the ceiling, waiting for Santa to come because we knew he’d sneak us out in his sack of toys.”
We both laughed softly, a sad-funny laugh.
“I am Obama/Uncle Sam/Rosie the Riveter strong and interesting and cool—if I do say so myself.” She winked at me. “But, I am also scared and nervous.”
“At the same time.”
“Simultaneously, two opposite humans.”
Like Jack, who was and was not a Roman candle. “I get that.”
“Which brings me to what I want to say. When you showed up last night, and I freaked out on you like a crazy person and you freaked out on me like a crazy person? That was a counter-counter-sign. The sign I was meant to see.”
“I’m afraid to be implicated in this.”
“I recognized your crazy. When you were standing there, yelling at me, but really yelling at the universe, I knew that feeling. I knew maybe you’d understand why I would ever put a needle to my vein. What I did, it was pure stupid crazy, based on my own guilt. I survived, my brother didn’t, right? You survived, your sister didn’t. And all that grossed-outness and self-loathing. I get it.”
She was right. It drove me mad. It did.
Diana hadn’t had it that bad. She’d had food and clothing. She’d had two parents, and they loved her. Sure, she’d struggled with her identity—or rather, the world struggled with her identity. And yeah, she’d had some emotional things going on. But she’d been surrounded by people who loved her.
Natalie’s brother was born to drug addicts, grew up in a meth house, bounced around from crack house to crack house. He never had a Santa, or anyone else who could save him. Obviously worse off than my sister.
But then, Diana was ostracized and judged by half the planet. She could never be her full self, full-time. She was told the love she had for others was dark and deviant, that she was not entitled to inalienable rights. She’d been hiding in an attic too.
It wasn’t even fair to compare two people’s hurts. To say this was worse than that. It just was.
“You know how you said you talk to your brother sometimes, like a prayer?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I heard my sister last night, like a prayer.” I swallowed. “Like a reverse prayer.”
Natalie didn’t say anything, just reached out and took my hand. I held her hand in my lap, looked at her thin fingers, felt the warmth of her palm against mine.
She’d reached out. And I reached back.
I told her the story that no one had heard. Not my parents or my grandpa or Leah. I told her to be even. To find grace. To share my crazy.
The day before Diana came over, the day before she died, Leah stopped by the house. She’d come to talk to me, not my parents, she explained. She stood in the doorway in her skinny jeans, high boots, long sweater. Her hair was back, wisps in her face. But her face was wrong—it was tight and dark, not like normal. Still beautiful, but not eager to laugh, to joke, to say something self-deprecating that put people at ease, made you feel like you fit in and mattered.
I was so relieved to see her. I hoped it meant she and my sister were getting back together. And not even for Diana. For myself. She was—and maybe is—the person I hold everyone up to.
I loved Diana, but she was way far out there on the crazy spectrum. Leah was a willing participant with a whimsical streak and an ability to balance that with a college degree and a job.
I wanted her around, and she hadn’t been around. I ached for her to come back into our lives. And here she was, and she needed my help.
“Your sister’s being really weird,” she said.
“My sister is always weird.”
“Ha, right, yeah, but … weirder. She wants to drive across the country. ‘Go East, Young Man,’ she keeps saying. I don’t even know what she’s talking about.”
She’d been asking Leah to get back together, and every day she called or texted with some new, far-fetched plan. Cool ideas, but erratic.
Leah continued, “She wants to take me fishing or golfing or scuba diving in Hawaii. Hunting, go-carts, horseback. Like adventure stuff.”
“That’s normal,” I said.
“It is, yeah, but quitting our jobs and crossing the country? That’s weird.”
“She used to want to join the circus. Weird is relative.”
“Nick, she put half her life on Craigslist. She’s really going. She really thinks I’m going too. And I’m not.”
She asked me if Diana was drinking—which she was; she’d always drunk heavily—or on drugs. I wouldn’t know that part.
“Just talk to her, will you? I know you’re her baby brother”—and that part stung—“but she respects the hell out of you.”
I would have done anything for Leah. I loved her, despite the near-decade between us. I promised her I’d talk to Diana, I’d text her when I did.
The day my sister shot herself, I had woken up late. I was playing video games. Diana interrupted me, and I was tired.
I’d been irritated with her for months. She’d been distracted every time we hung out. She’d stopped taking me cool places in favor of darting off with people I didn’t know. Leah had broken up with her, and it was her fault.
And the last time I’d seen her she’d been drunk. Breathing heavily in my face, telling me she loved me. Don’t worry, you’re fine. Like she always said.
And I hadn’t seen her since.
The day my sister died, we stood in the kitchen, and she was talkative, but not being funny. Just rushed, not wanting to hang out.
“What’s up with you driving across the country?” I’d asked.
“Oh, you know.”
“Not really. Leah just told me about it.”
She shrugged. “I’m not going to follow it anymore.”
“Follow what?”
“Kerouac’s path.” She held up her phone. “Have you seen the app?”
I had no idea who Kerouac was, what path or what app.
She pulled On the Road out from her purse and handed it to me. “There’s an app. You can do his whole trip.”
“Huh. But you don’t want to do that anymore?”
“No.”
“Because Leah said you were trying to get her to go. And selling your stuff.”
“No, I’m not going.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
“Okay. So everything’s okay? I tried to hand the book back.”
“You keep it.” She waved her hand at me. “I don’t want it. You can do it someday. Hit the road.”
“Okay.”
And it was. Because we did do a summer road trip thing every year. So what she’d said, that made sense.
I’d talked to her, like Leah had asked. And it was okay.
And because it was okay, I wanted go back to my game.
“I’m going to the gun range,” she’d said. “Leah and I are going.”
And I believed her.
I believed her because it matched Leah’s story, about the cool but erratic ideas she was ha
ving.
I believed her because I wanted it to be true, to have Leah back.
I believed her because I was tired and impatient. I was relieved she wasn’t asking me to go. Because I was also tired and impatient with her.
“I couldn’t get ahold of Dad.”
“Dad won’t care.”
“I know, but I need to borrow his gun,” she’d said.
“They’re in the case.”
“Yeah, but he moves the key.”
I scoffed. “No, he doesn’t.”
“You know where it is?”
Of course I knew where it was. My dad trusted me. He’d taught me to use the guns. I’d grown up hunting. He’d taken me to the range. Taken me to the woods. Diana had gone with us. If I’d been listening—if I hadn’t been tired and impatient and hopeful and lazy—I would’ve noticed this question was odd. I would’ve noticed.
I was being emotionally lazy. I wasn’t hearing the full truth. The truth means you have to do something, and I didn’t want to do something for her that day. I wanted to do the easy thing.
I walked back into my parents’ bedroom, and she didn’t follow me. Why didn’t she follow me? I went to the closet, slid open the door, and pulled out the Monopoly game. I lifted the lid, found the key amid the game pieces, and unlocked the case.
“Which one do you want?” I called out.
There were several guns. A shotgun, a .22, an antique handgun, a .38.
She didn’t answer.
Maybe she didn’t hear me. That’s what I want to believe. I want to believe she didn’t hear me ask that question. Because if she did, and she paused for those seconds, what filled that time?
Maybe she was reassessing. Maybe she was reconsidering. Maybe she wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t unlocked the cabinet and pulled out the .38. If I hadn’t grabbed the box of bullets.
I walked out of the bedroom. I had a gun in one hand and bullets in another, and I held them out to her.
And what was that look that passed over her face? Because there was a look.
Maybe it was disappointment that I didn’t see what she was going to do.
Maybe it was realization that now she had to do it. She had to take the gun, because it matched the story she’d just told me. And since she had the gun, she had to follow through.