The Year They Fell

by David Kreizman

  It was the dumbest, sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me. I took it all in and decided, if he’d made all of that for me, I was going to try to eat every bite of it. Plus I was starving. So I grabbed a fork and a spoon and I dug in. Some of it was burned and some of it was undercooked, but I didn’t care. I was on a mission. I attacked the bacon, then scarfed down a bagel and some apple slices. When I looked up from a big bowl of cereal, Archie was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. For some reason his worry was the funniest thing ever.

  I started to laugh. I tried to hold it back, but the cereal went flying out of my mouth and landed in a chunk on his glasses. That only made me laugh even more. Archie started to laugh, too. He threw a piece of toast in my direction. I picked up a forkful of eggs to throw back at him, but Archie held up a hand and reached for his sketchpad and a pencil. I’d never seen his hand move so fast. In just a few minutes he was done drawing. But he wouldn’t show the sketch to me no matter how much I asked. It wasn’t ready, he insisted.

  That night on the swings I saw the sketch for the first time. There I was in Archie’s hoodie, looking ridiculous and covered in food. My goofy smile took over my whole face. I looked happy. I was happy. It was exactly what I needed to see. It was exactly what I needed to hold on to.

  * * *

  I circled the block three times before I finally parked down at the end of the street. As I walked up to the small house, his lights were dim and I could see the TV flickering a Mets game through the window. One of his exterior lights was burned out so that the half of the yard near the driveway was dark. I stayed out of the light. As I headed toward the house, I tried not to look at the blue Mustang in the driveway, but my elbow brushed against Shirley’s mirror. I yanked my arm back. I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this thing. This tiny, cramped space where it all started. For a moment I was back there, in the passenger seat, his hand on my leg, his heavy body pressing against me, my head crushed against the window. A wave of dizziness hit, and my stomach rolled. I hadn’t let myself visit those memories in a long time. They were a weight tied to my ankle. They could always pull me back down if I let them.

  Not tonight. I wasn’t going to let that happen tonight. I walked up the steps to his house. My arm felt like it weighed a hundred pounds as I lifted it to knock on the door. I heard the TV mute inside and ice cubes rattle in a glass. Footsteps getting closer to the door, a lock turning. And then the door swung in, and he was standing there. Coach Murph was standing there. There were cuts on his face and a jagged scar over his eye that had only started to heal. He looked older. Tired. When he saw me, his face went blank.

  “JC…”

  “Is she home?” I asked. He shook his head, and I walked past him into the house, careful not to touch him. As I went by, I caught a whiff of the alcohol on him. Murph closed the door and followed me into the living room. I could see he was walking gingerly, favoring his ribs.

  “Jack did all of this to you?”

  He nodded. Being alone with him in his house, it was all I could do to stay in the moment. Don’t slip back. Don’t let him pull you under. The house felt sweltering. Oppressive. On the wall were photos of all the softball teams he’d coached. I saw myself at age eleven, age twelve, age thirteen … More dizziness. I was afraid I might pass out, fall to the floor in the middle of his faded rug.

  He saw me looking at the photos. “Those were some great teams,” he said. “I still think back to—”

  “Stop,” I snapped. “Just stop!”

  He held up his hands. “Why are you here? To see up close what your brother did to me?”

  My hands were shaking. I put them behind my back so he wouldn’t see. I thought about Archie’s drawing. Just pretend to be the way he saw me. “Jack is a good person,” I said, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “He is the best brother anyone could ever ask for. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He’s not going to jail.” My voice got stronger as I went along. “Jack is not going to jail. I don’t care what you have to do. Lie. Refuse to testify. Say you started the fight. Claim you pulled a weapon on him. Whatever it takes, you’re going to make this go away.”

  “Josie, I…” He took a step toward me and I backed away.

  It was terrifying, being this close to him again. I knew he could make me feel small and helpless again, like the kid I used to be. But I wouldn’t let him do that. Not again, not anymore. I twisted my heels and dug in my feet. “If this case goes forward, if you press charges against my brother, I will tell everyone what happened. I will tell your wife. I will tell your boss. I will tell the police. I will write a letter to every one of your neighbors. I will post it on Facebook and Twitter. The whole world will know what you did. What you are.”

  “I’m not. I never. I wouldn’t … Please don’t do that. Please.”

  He was begging me. Begging for his life. He was afraid of me. And seeing his fear made mine go away. “What have you told the police about Jack? What have you said to other people?”

  “I said I didn’t remember what happened. I told Christine it was a dispute over a parking space. She probably thought I was lying, I don’t know…”

  Now I walked toward him, and he seemed to shrink. He looked sad and pathetic. “Make it go away,” I said. “If you want to keep your life, you make this go away.”

  “I will. I’ll tell them whatever I have to. I promise. I promise.” He paused. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “You’re lucky he’s a good person.” I started for the door.

  “JC,” he called out, weakly. “What happened between us, I never meant to hurt you. You were a special young woman.”

  Just hearing him defend himself made me want to pummel him. “I wasn’t a ‘young woman.’ I was a girl. A kid. I trusted you. And then I blamed myself, like I did something wrong. I hated myself all these years because I ‘let you’ do this to me … But it wasn’t my fault. It was you. It was all you. It didn’t ‘happen’ between us. You did it to me. It was sexual abuse and you did it to me.”

  He stood there with his battered face and his bruised ribs and his shabby house with old team photos on the wall. He was done hurting me. But I wasn’t done hurting him.

  I slid a hand into my pocket and touched the folded-up sketch I’d taken from Archie’s sketchbook. I looked Murph in the eyes. “I used to think that you’d ruined me forever. That I’d never get back what you took. And for a while, it seemed like that was true. But I’m getting it back now. Every day it feels like I’m getting more of it back.”

  Murph reached out like he wanted to hug me. Like we were going to just hug it out. Bygones.

  When he got close, I elbowed him as hard as I could in his injured ribs. He dropped to his knees. “Do what you have to do to get those charges dropped,” I reminded him. “And don’t wait. Jack and I have a trip to take.”

  I looked back at all the team photos, all the young girls smiling in their uniforms. I decided right then that as soon as I got back from the island and Jack was safe, I’d go to the police and tell them everything. I’d tell my story over and over again, as many times as I had to, to make sure nothing like that ever happened again.

  I left Murph reeling in pain as I walked out the door and slammed it closed behind me. When I stepped outside and saw the Mustang again, the rush of dizziness flooded in. I felt my lunch coming back up in a big way. I grabbed the driver’s side door handle to steady myself and was surprised to find the door was unlocked. I yanked it open and unleashed the contents of my stomach all over the front seat of Murph’s beloved Shirley.

  17

  ARCHIE

  You spend your whole life wishing for something, and then just when you get used to the idea that it’s never gonna happen … Holy crap! Josie Clay was my girlfriend! Well, maybe not quite my girlfriend. We never used those words, but we saw each other almost every day. Sometimes we talked or texted all night. I even liked taking care of her when she was sick. I don’t
think anyone ever did that kind of stuff for her. She wasn’t good at letting me help her, but she was trying.

  So why, when things were just starting to get good, was I about to possibly risk getting myself killed? Maybe I’d read too many comic books. “The Sunnies” even sounded like a team of superheroes: On a mystical quest to solve the mystery of their parents’ deaths. Was it sabotage? A government cover-up? But we weren’t the Avengers. We were five teenagers going to another country to throw around accusations about a government conspiracy. And getting on the same kind of plane that killed our parents.

  Between worrying about ending up just like my parents and trying to be a worthy non-boyfriend to the most amazing girl in the world, I totally forgot my eighteenth birthday until Josie surprised me in my bedroom with a party horn and balloons. She led me into the kitchen, where Lucas was waiting.

  “Happy birthday,” she said. “You deserve the best one ever.” She kissed me on the lips. It was the first time she’d done it in front of my brother.

  On every kitchen cabinet, she’d taped a picture.

  “The world has opened up to you today. What you see here are all the amazing things you can do now that you are OF AGE.” She handed me a cup of coffee as she identified each picture. “You can join the military, of course, but I am not letting you leave me. So instead I suggest you start by opening your very own BANK ACCOUNT! Once you have money in it you can buy a LOTTERY TICKET! Maybe VOTE IN AN ELECTION or SERVE ON A JURY! Hey, did you know you can skydive and bungee jump now?”

  “And then what do I do after lunch?”

  Lucas brought over a plate covered in aluminum foil. “I made angel food cake,” he said. “I know Mom made it for you every year on your birthday.”

  “She did.”

  “Angel food cake seems kinda lame to me,” said Josie. “It’s mostly air and there’s not even any frosting.”

  “That’s what I always thought,” said Lucas.

  “It’s my favorite, so it doesn’t matter what either of you think.”

  “I forgot candles,” said Josie. “But you should make a wish anyway.”

  “I already did,” I said. “A long time ago.”

  Josie went into the other room and came back with a wrapped present that she said was from both of them. From the way Lucas avoided eye contact, I wondered if she’d just let him in on her gift.

  “Happy birthday, bro,” he said, without much enthusiasm.

  I tore off the paper to reveal a beautiful box made of dark wood. I unlatched a gold clasp in the front and opened the lid. Inside were three tiers of professional sketching utensils. Row after row of different pencils of all colors and material, graphite sticks, charcoal. I ran my hand along the incredible set.

  Lucas heard his phone ring and headed back to his room without giving me a chance to thank him.

  I turned away from Josie so she wouldn’t see me getting emotional.

  “Do you like it?”

  “My mom bought me my first set when I was three. She told me she saw me drawing with crayons on her wall. She started to get mad, but then she saw that I’d drawn this great picture of her and Dad and me as a family, and it melted her heart. She took a photo of it and she bought me a sketchbook and some colored pencils.”

  “Archie, I’m sorry—”

  “No, it’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

  It was everything I’d ever wanted. But even as I hugged Josie and tested out my new drawing set, I was distracted. It was my eighteenth birthday. When Josie had put together her list of things I was now old enough to do, she’d left out the only one that mattered to me, the one I’d sort of been waiting for since I was four years old.

  I’d started to wonder about my birth mom not long after Lucas was born. I mean, Lucas was Mom and Dad’s real son. When they brought him home from the hospital, nobody whispered or asked questions. Everyone who came to visit talked about how much Lucas looked like them, how he had Mom’s eyes and Dad’s crazy cowlick. I was different from them. And skin color was just the most obvious way. I was a duckling living with a family of swans.

  When I’d sit in my room sketching or tell Mom how I didn’t want to go the school dance or watch the Super Bowl, she would kiss me on the head. “I love you, Archie. But sometimes, I really don’t understand you.”

  And even though she was the most patient and loving mom, I’d think, “Is there someone out there who does understand me?”

  In the eight months since the crash, I honestly hadn’t thought about my birth mother. I’d always assumed that when I turned eighteen I’d sit down with Mom and Dad and together we’d make the decision about whether or not to find her. While Josie was cleaning up the kitchen, I went into my room and opened a desk drawer. Under a pile of comics, I found all the information I’d printed out and saved when I’d heard they were changing the state adoption laws. Now when an adoptee reached age eighteen, he could file a request online for his original birth certificate, including the name of his biological mother. If she’d already given permission, he’d be able to reach out to her, even meet her face-to-face if he wanted. All I had to do was fill out a form and make a payment, and the birth certificate would be on its way. I was logging onto the website for the state registrar when Josie came into the room.

  “The last time I read the computer over your shoulder we almost had a moment.” When I didn’t respond she looked closer at what was on the screen. I heard a little gasp.

  “You’re eighteen,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, you’re going to try to find her? The woman who gave you away?”

  The woman who gave me away. That was one name for her. Bio parent. Birth mother. “I don’t know,” I jabbered. “I mean, I don’t know anything about this person. She could live in a van and roam the country, kidnapping dogs and babies. She could be a serial killer or even one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey.”

  “None of them are black,” Josie pointed out.

  “She’s like this total stranger even though at one time I was inside her body. I have half of her DNA.” I stared at the instructions on the screen. “Thirty-five dollars plus shipping. It could be here even before we go away. It’s insane. I don’t know. I mean, my mother…”

  Josie leaned down and kissed me. “I think you should put in the request.”

  * * *

  I drove Lucas back to Aunt Sarah’s a few days before we had to leave. As usual, he played his music loud the whole way. When we got there, I popped the trunk and kept the engine running.

  He sat there staring at me. “You’re not even coming in?”

  “I don’t feel like getting into a whole thing with Aunt Sarah,” I said.

  “You mean you don’t want her knowing you’re going to the island where Mom and Dad died.” I had never actually told Lucas our plans. I didn’t think he needed to know. I said it was a school trip. “You don’t think I heard you and Josie talking about it for weeks? Or when I’m in the house do you just forget I’m there at all?”

  “Did you and Sam get in a fight?”

  “This has nothing to do with Sam. This is about you lying to me.”

  “If you knew we were going, why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because I wanted to see if you would. I kept waiting for you to ask me to come with you. But that was stupid. I’m not one of The Sunnies. Of course you wouldn’t ask me.” He turned away from me and looked out the window.

  I turned the radio down. “What’s going on? What’s this about?” I asked. I really didn’t have time for this. I wanted to get back home to see if the delivery guy had arrived with my birth certificate.

  “They were my parents, too. You don’t own them dying just because you were first.”

  What was he talking about? If anyone “owned” them as parents it was Lucas. He was the favorite. He was the real son.

  When he turned back to look at me, his eyes were red and watery. He dragged his sleeve across his runny nose. “Forget i
t. Just forget it.” Lucas kicked open the door and stepped out of the car. Then he ducked his head back in. “You know you’ve been a shitty brother since they died, right?”

  “What?” I climbed out of the car and walked around to his side. “That was harsh. Do I not make you dinner when you’re home and drive you around when you need rides?”

  “I don’t even … Just fucking go, okay?”

  “What did I do so wrong?”

  “Okay. You’re right. You didn’t do anything wrong ’cause you didn’t do anything! You didn’t come in my room, you didn’t even ask how I was feeling. You sent me off to live here most of the time so you wouldn’t have to deal. You barely looked at me.”

  This didn’t make sense. That’s not how it was. I made sure he was fine. I would’ve gone into his room. I wanted to, but he was always … busy. He had so many friends … “You were okay. I saw that. You didn’t need me.”

  “I was okay? I was starting eighth grade and Mom and Dad died in a plane crash!”

  “Well, I mean—”

  “You didn’t even tell me they were dead until the next morning. I sat in my room that night playing Fortnite and my parents were dead and you didn’t even bother to let me know.”

  “No, I … I didn’t know how to tell you. And I thought I’d give you one last night before you knew.”

  “It’s not about that night. It’s about every night since.”

  “I would’ve said something.”