by Cecelia Earl
"Yeah." I hug her, talk into her hair. "Love you, Mom."
Hours later I'm making drinks and my tip jar is half-filled with dollar bills. There may even be a twenty dollar bill stuffed in there. Bart notices and winks at me.
"You're a fast learner, kid," he tells me.
"I have a great teacher."
I serve a few more drinks, earn a few more dollars. "Thanks, John," I tell a regular customer who stuffs another bill in my jar. "Enjoy your meal." He and his wife, Liz, follow the hostess to their table to eat.
"Coke, please."
"Coming right u—" It's Marc again. But he smiles and it's genuine and relaxed. Friendly. "Here you go."
"Thanks."
He sips his Coke and asks for another, clearly waiting for my shift to be over, which makes me nervous. But then, just before I'm about to clean up the bar as the last customer leaves, he leans up on his arms. "I'm taking off but want to meet for coffee tomorrow?"
"I have an early morning shift at Mocha Monkey. Want to meet me there when I'm done?"
"Yes."
I smile. "See you."
An hour later, I'm showered and lying in bed, scrolling through old texts from Jax. I send him a wordless message, with nothing but an emoticon of a yellow rose.
The next morning, Marc smiles at me across a Mocha Monkey table. The world outside the windows is bright as College Avenue buzzes by. I grab his coffee cup and pull a marker out of my purse. On the side I draw dots. Connect them.
"What's this?" he asks, examining my drawing.
"Huron's Suspenders."
"Ah, our latest constellation. Let me guess. Orion's Belt?"
I drop my lower jaw. "Cheater. You're not supposed to know their real names."
"We always knew their real names, Laine. How else would we have come up with makeshift ones?"
"Well, er, um." I drop the marker on the table. "You found me out."
"We found each other out."
"Something tells me we're not talking about the stars anymore."
"I'm glad we're still friends. This—" He motions between us. "—right now. I'm really glad."
I nod, grab his hand. "Yeah, me too. Thanks for the second chance."
"It's not even. You didn't need a second chance. You didn't lose me. We just changed, so our relationship had to change with us. 'S 'all good."
I'm distracted by the people passing by outside the window. A woman wearing a yellow hat. A child wearing a Packer jersey. A guy who resembles Jax. Even seeing someone his height stabs me through the heart.
"You flinched. You okay?"
I squeeze his hand, pull away.
"I'm always okay."
"So, you're a cheater and a liar, but that's okay. I accept you as you are."
"And I you. Just never buy me another flower."
He smiles and stands. "Ready?"
"I was born ready."
Only that's a lie too.
After he walks me to my car, I have to drive to the post office to deliver an envelope for my mom. One I don't agree with.
I'm staring at the mail slot, unable to open it. I don't know why I'm debating whether or not to mail the envelope. It's not like I have a choice. Mom wants to know who donated Dad's kidney. She wants to thank the family, let them know how sorry she is.
I try to think about what Jax's mom said, how she wanted to know that her husband's death gave someone else life, that it would be a blessing to her and give her peace.
But I can't stop thinking that I'll always think about that other person, always feel sadness and guilt about it. I don't want to think about someone else every time I look at my dad.
I don't know how long I stand there, weighing the envelope in my hand, and this decision in my mind, before I realize someone is standing next to me.
I look up. "It's you," I say.
Jax nods.
"What are you doing here?"
"Staying with my aunt and cousins." He holds up an envelope that resembles the one I've been staring at. "Mailing this for my mom."
"Same here."
He nods. Again. So much wordless communication.
"She wants to know who got Dad's organs. It's a request. In the envelope."
This time I nod. My mouth is so dry and my throat so closed up, I can't tell him I'm mailing the same request, only in reverse. In that moment, the coldest fear I've ever felt grips me. What if my dad got his dad's kidneys? Has he already considered that possibility? Is that why he's so distant, so angry with me? I'd be jealous, too, probably, at the unfairness of it all. His dad dies. Mine lives. And how unimaginable that mine gets life because of his dad's death?
I've had nightmares over Tammy's words, the psychiatrist on the transplant team, when she'd said it was a good time of year for traffic accidents. I think she'd even specifically mentioned motorcycle accidents as being a huge contribution to organ donations.
Someone had to die for my dad to live.
Another family had to lose for my family to keep my dad.
Could my second chance be at the expense of Jax's loss?
I can't possibly find out for sure. I can't possibly put this envelope in the mail slot.
Jax is bouncing. His toes are tapping. His whole body is a jittery ball of energy again.
"Here," he says. And he grabs Mom's envelope out of my hands, slips it in the slot, and it's gone.
I look up and he looks down. Wordless.
"Well, guess I'll head back."
I shift my weight. "Okay." I start to head toward the door.
"You know," he says, following me. "I think I understand."
"Understand?"
"Atheism."
"What? Why?"
"I don't feel anything anymore. Sometimes, late at night when I'm lying in bed, unable to sleep, I don't feel anything. The God I used to believe was there either left me, or never existed at all."
"No," I tell him, unsure why this is unsettling to me, since I've never believed, why his believing is so important to me.
"I see darkness," he says. "I’ve never seen that darkness before."
I think about how he'd said I was his sunshine, brighter, hotter. I remember the clouds covering the sky, hiding the sun.
"I thought I'd feel him. I thought he and I were so close that he'd be here for me, talk to me somehow." He opens the door to outside. "I thought I'd feel him," he repeats.
"Give him time," I say. I don’t know if I mean his God or his dad.
He gives me an odd look, like he's never seen me before.
"You still can't have it both ways." He's looking straight ahead again, that same stony look he'd had in church. "I saw you, you know. Before. Having coffee."
With that, he's gone. He walks off, hands in his pockets, and slips into the driver's seat of his car. It's hard to believe I'd once ridden shotgun next to him.
Harder than that to believe is our lips have kissed. That our voices said the word love to each other. That we once knew each other.
That we met only a month ago.
That again, everything has changed.
I lean against the glass door and tears drip down my cheeks. I don’t bother to wipe them away or to hide them.
He's doubting me now, doubting our time together and my feelings. On top of everything else, now he thinks I'm back with Marc? I can't even keep up with the issues piling up in my life. My mind reels.
I have to start checking some things off my To-Do list. I have to start removing the issues from this pile before my airway is completely blocked off.
Two days later, I stand in the hallway of West High School. Never before has a door seemed so intimidating.
It's a door, Laine. Open it. Turn the knob. Easy peasy.
And now I'm afraid of a door. This fear I've let seep into my core is showing up everywhere.
Here goes nothing.
"Ms. Fulton?"
"Are you questioning whether or not that's my name, Laine Carroll?"
"No, ma’am." I
swallow. "I'm here to turn in my speech for valedictorian."
She looks up from her desk where she's grading our final essays, red pen in hand—and being put to good use from what I can see. She looks . . . sympathetic, and not even glib about it. I clear my throat.
I've rehearsed what I plan to say.
I don't expect it to make any difference.
40
rightfully so
On another one of my short trips back to Milwaukee, I chance a visit to Jax's house, not sure if he's returned yet or not. He hasn't, his mom tells me.
"Do you want to come in?"
"Oh . . . no. That's okay."
"Are you sure? Maybe you want to talk?"
"I'm sure you're busy."
"That's not why Jax left. He said he wanted to give me time to be with family, to be alone, but I think he wanted to be closer to you."
"Me?"
She nods. I can still see the grief written in her eyes, in her withered smile, in the way her shoulders droop a smidgeon where they meet the air.
"He believed God sent you to him at a difficult time, you know. He didn't want that to mean he'd lose his dad, though, so he's conflicted, a little angry with God. It's normal, not a good thing, but normal. He'll find his way."
"You're not angry?"
"I'm sad. Very sad. I have to pray a lot. We all have moments when we have to overcome the darkness."
"I think he's angry with me."
"No, he's not." She shakes her head, tips my chin up with her fingertip. "Don't lose faith in him. He hasn't in you. Not really. If you can give him time, you'll see."
I nod. "I can. I will."
"Thank you. That's twice you've brought me peace." She smiles. "You see? We all need each other, whether we know each other well or not, we need each other. Always."
"Thank you," I tell her. I needed her too. I don't voice it the way she did, but she helped me more than she probably knows. Looking over my shoulder at her hovering in the doorway, though, I wonder if maybe she does.
In my dream that night, in the bed next to Mom's, I see that same woman sitting on Betty's bench in front of the hospital. She's not alone, but it's not me sitting beside her. Where her arm is draped over the back of the bench, where the plaque used to be, sits another woman, older but resembling her. The younger woman who I'd met is laughing. As I look closer I can see it's because the older woman is sticking her tongue out and touching her nose with it. Watching them fills me with a joy I've never experienced before, a little bit of that bliss I saw on my dad's face in the dream when I'd been barricaded by a pane of unbreakable glass, on the outside looking in. "That joy," someone whispers—maybe Betty, "is love. Unending love."
When I wake up, a twinge of that joy stays with me, tucked inside a pocket of my heart. I sketch a picture of one of Jax's faces, add a tongue touching the silly face's nose. Without hesitating, without fear, I send it to Jax.
Not thirty seconds later, my phone rings, because he's calling me.
"How did you know?" he asks.
"Know what?"
"That my dad often did that with his tongue to make me laugh. Nobody else in our family could quite reach, but his tongue, well . . . . It was funny." He stops short. I'm not sure if he's mad at me or not. "How could you know?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Then, why?"
"Why did I send you that picture?"
"Yeah."
"I had a dream. It was in a dream and it made me laugh, even after I'd woken up. I wanted to send you something to maybe make you smile."
"You did. And I think you pulled the curtain back on a little bit of the darkness."
"I'm glad," I tell him.
"Me, too," he says.
We hang up, but hanging up doesn't feel as final as the last couple of times we'd parted ways.
Maybe there's hope yet.
A week passes, and we don't speak or text again, but for an E-vite, I send him to my graduation ceremony and dinner that May's family is throwing for the both of us. I included my brother and mom in my E-vite too, but I don't expect any of the three to show up. None of them respond anyhow.
I almost skip the whole thing. Dad won't be there, so it's more bitter than sweet to be going myself.
But, then. I can't seem to stop time, rewind time, fast-forward time. I have no influence whatsoever on the clock.
May tells me there's a chance I'll be named valedictorian, so I can't skip out.
"The chance is fat," I tell her.
"'And tomorrow is another day, '" she says, in this Scarlett O'Hara voice she's perfected—and pulls out a lot too often.
"That has no relevance on this conversation whatsoever."
"I know," she says, laughing. "I just like saying it."
And yet, it's true. Tomorrow comes, and another tomorrow, and another tomorrow. Those days just keep on a-coming.
So here it is.
It's graduation day.
I can't even believe the calendar actually fell on this day. I crossed it off prematurely just in case.
No such luck.
I glance around me at all the seniors cloaked in blue graduation gowns. I smile seeing all the yellow rose boutonnieres, my gift to anyone I could think of who'd ever helped me out over the years. I'd tied a note with a ribbon to them: Forever grateful for all your help during our four years at West High School. Laine Carroll
I'd spent my final night as a high school student alone in my house. I could've gone to grandma's or May's. Even Marc invited me out for a late-night coffee. In fact, he'd invited me with an empty coffee cup via a poem he'd written on its side. Affectionate and sweet, not romantic. He's wearing one of my roses now. I'd met him before the ceremony to personally pin it on him.
"And I didn't even need to kiss anybody else to get your undivided attention this time around," he'd said.
"Go right ahead," I told him, focusing on pinning the stem to his jacket and not the skin on his chest.
"Why'd you give a rose to Lucy?"
"Oh, well. I figured Lucy Fox helped me in one way or another."
"How so?"
"I haven't figured out yet, but I'm sure in the years to come, it'll dawn on me. Then I'll wish I had thanked her when I had the chance."
"You're crazy."
I nod and laugh. "Tell me about it."
The time comes for Ms. Fulton to announce her choice for valedictorian. I know it was supposed to be equal part student vote and her decision, but I didn't even bother to bring my speech. She may have looked at me in a kinder way than ever in my four years as her student. She may have even been impressed, or touched, or both, by my speech, but there's no way that was enough to change her mind about me completely.
May sits three rows ahead of me. She turns around and grins, gives me a thumbs up. I smile and blow her a kiss.
Ms. Fulton takes the stage and taps the microphone. "Graduates. As you sit here before me, I can't help but remember you as freshman. You were impulsive and loud. Disobedient and lazy." We laugh. Well, some of us do, and most of the parents. "But now, you have grown up, matured into responsible, polite, and hard-working individuals. It's the change that makes the journey worth it. I hope you've realized that. As we studied literature together, I hope one theme stuck out: change over time. The characters always changed throughout the course of a novel. And, graduates, you are much more than a two-dimensional, fictional character. So much more. And that's why, I've decided to award the honor of being this class's valedictorian to a student who changed more than I ever expected. Though I stated seconds ago that you've all become hard-working individuals, and it may have seemed I found independence the admirable trait in that sentence, that is not true. What I find admirable is a person who can work with others, for others. A person who can lead and be led. A person who can offer aid, but who can also ask for help. A person who is humble, who can ask forgiveness. A person who is modest and can communicate gratitude. Parents, families, and students, I am proud to announ
ce we have such a student among us today. An ambitious young woman whom I have no doubt will find success no matter the endeavor she embarks upon. Graduates, I present your valedictorian, Miss Elaine Carroll."
The applause, stomping, and cheering is deafening. So much so that I'm momentarily deafened, and maybe have a slight heart attack. The people around me are clapping me on the back and fortunately pushing me sideways out of our aisle. If not for them, I may never have moved.
"Here, Laine." Ms. Fulton hands me a piece of paper. "I brought a copy of your speech." She winks at me. "I figured you may have doubted me even while I was finding my faith in you."
I grab her hand and hold on. "Thank you. Thank you for everything."
She squeezes my hand and then forces me to let go. "All right. You're on."
I stand before the microphone, staring out at the faces before me.
This is the moment I've been waiting for. My moment.
No.
"Fellow classmates," I begin. "This is our moment."
After the ceremony, after I find May through all the high fives I receive, after she tells me to meet at her house, I walk alone to my car.
I parked out of the way, on the far side of the makeshift parking lot of what is really a soccer field across from the stadium where we'd had the ceremony. It's quiet and peaceful here, close to a grove of trees. I pull the graduation gown over my head since it's eighty degrees and I'm sweating.
Then I notice there's an odd-shaped bag lying on the trunk of my car.
I walk slowly toward it, curious if my mom or brother showed up after all. There were a lot of people and a good chance I'd missed them in the stands.
I move the handles out of the way and unzip the top of the bag.
There's a bowling ball inside.
A yellow bowling ball. And on the top is a silly face etched into the swirling sparkles.
"Jax?" I whisper. "Jax?" I say with more confidence.
He rounds the trunk of a tree, about twenty feet away. He doesn't approach, but leans against it, a shoe box in his hands. He holds up the box. "Got you your own shoes, too. I know how grossed out other people's feet make you."
"Yeah?" My eyebrows are raised. My heartbeat is accelerating. "Want to go bowling?"