by Amy Reed
“Here,” she says, pulling a granola bar out of her Indian-print fabric purse. “See, I’m not totally useless.” She tries to laugh, but that just makes what she said even sadder.
We sit there in silence while I eat the granola bar. The woman across from us keeps sighing loudly, like she wants us to hear her, like she is trying to tell us something.
“Is Sadie okay?” Lark says, not looking up from her knees.
“I don’t know. We have to wait to see what the doctor says.”
“No, I mean in general. In Seattle. Is she okay?”
I don’t say anything for a while. I try to think of how to package my answer, how to best protect you. But then I realize that the granola bar didn’t make me feel better at all, it just made me hungrier, and I’m so tired and so frustrated and so sick of always thinking of you first.
“No,” I say. “She’s not okay.”
Lark is quiet for a moment, then says, “I got that impression.”
I feel anger welling up inside of me. I want to say, What, do you want a trophy? Should I congratulate you for noticing that your kid’s fucked up?
“She seems lost,” Lark says.
I want to say, Well, what do you fucking expect? But instead I just say, “Yes.”
“What is it like? What is her life like in Seattle?”
I stare at Lark, hard, until she finally looks up from her knees. She looks at me with such sadness, such regret, that my heart loosens a little. Your pain isn’t entirely her fault. Few things are ever entirely one person’s fault. She looks at me with yearning, with a real desire to understand. Sadie, it’s not just you who is lost. It’s not just you stuck in the middle of nowhere.
“She needs a mother,” I finally say.
Lark buries her face in her hands. Her body shudders as she weeps. I put my hand on her back and rub in slow circles the way I remember my mother doing when I was a kid and needed to cry. The lady sitting across from us looks up and grimaces, her face contorted in judgment. “What?” I say too loudly. She gets up in a huff and moves to a chair on the other end of the waiting area.
I don’t want to talk anymore. I want to be in the field with the sun on my back and the dirt in my hands. I want to feel my muscles burn at the end of the day, want the pure satisfaction of physical labor, my body telling me I’ve done enough, I can rest, I’ve earned it, I’m allowed to let everything go. I let Lark cry. I let the grumpy woman sit in the corner and judge us. I try to imagine what it would feel like to not care how they feel.
The doctor enters the waiting room and tells us to come with him. He leads us down a short hallway into an exam room, where you are sitting on the examination table, your bare feet dangling off the side, a Styrofoam cup of water in your hand. You are pale, but you smile when we enter. “Have a seat,” the doctor says, and Lark takes the chair closest to you, holding your hand in hers.
“We won’t know for sure until the tests come back in a couple days,” the doctor begins. “But I’m pretty certain Sadie has mono. She has a lot of flulike symptoms, her temp’s a hundred and two, but her lymph nodes are definitely swollen and her spleen is slightly enlarged. Those things usually don’t happen with just a flu.”
“Is that bad?” Lark asks.
“Well, she’ll get better, but it’ll take some time. Mono’s a virus, so no antibiotics are going to help. Unless she gets strep, too, which is highly likely. For now, she just needs a lot of rest. And ibuprofen for the fever. Drink lots of water and eat well. Popsicles are great for the sore throat. Gargle with salt water.”
“How long is ‘some time’?” I ask.
“She’ll probably start feeling better in three or four weeks, but she’ll need to take it easy for a couple months. Especially no strenuous physical activity, because of the enlarged spleen. It can rupture really easily if she’s not careful, which would be a real nightmare.”
“So no work at all?” I say, surprised at my own voice. “We work on a farm. That’s, like, what we do.”
“Unfortunately, no,” the doctor says. “She should really stay in bed until she starts feeling better. Another thing is that this is highly contagious. I understand that you live in a very close-knit community and share the same facilities and utensils with several people?” He looks at his clipboard as he says this, as if he doesn’t want to dignify the statement with eye contact.
“Yes,” Lark says.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but it might be a good idea to quarantine her for a while. At least until she stops coughing for a few days in a row. Make sure she doesn’t share plates or cups or silverware with anyone.”
“Quarantine?” you say. “Like, be alone?” This is your worst nightmare.
“You don’t want to get all your, um, your . . . people sick, do you?”
“No,” you whimper.
“They might already be infected, actually. It’s pretty hard to avoid when you’re living so closely with such a large group.”
“Oh no,” you cry. “What if I got everyone sick?”
“Nobody’s sick, Sadie,” I say, glaring at the doctor. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine.”
Lark is by your side as we leave the room. She crosses her fingers as the receptionist runs her credit card. She sighs with relief when the card is approved. You sleep the whole way back, curled into the fetal position, trying to turn yourself into a baby, trying to go back in time. Lark stares out the window, her eyes distant and wet.
I can’t help but be reminded of a similar drive we took long before, in what now seems like another world, with me in the driver’s seat as usual and you curled up beside me, trying to make yourself as small as possible. But instead of sun and golden fields and blue sky, it was winter in Seattle. The road was a swamp of brown slush, and everything else was the gray and white of thick clouds and old snow. Everything around us, cold and lifeless. And you, groggy and fragile beside me, and for the first time in our lives, I could not imagine what you were feeling.
This was two years ago, the winter of sophomore year. There was no question it would be me who would take you. You never had to say I’d be the only one who would ever know. Not even the father, although you refused to call him that. You preferred “That Guy” or “Sperm Donor.” You refused to even call him by name. And as much as I tried to get you to talk about it, all you could do was pretend you had no feelings at all, like it was just as routine a medical procedure as getting your wisdom teeth out. You joked, “Oh, come on, Max, you’re not getting all pro-life on me, are you? Next you’re going to tell me you signed up for one of those camps where they pray the gay out of you.”
But the sound coming out of your mouth was not laughter. I could tell beneath it you were choking, you were gasping for air, you were screaming for someone to hold you. I tried, but you wouldn’t let me. You pushed me away and said I was being melodramatic.
“Just because you call yourself a feminist doesn’t mean this isn’t a big deal,” I said.
“This is only a big deal if I make it a big deal,” was your response. “I don’t want it to be a big deal. Therefore, it is not. It’s simple logic.”
But it was not, Sadie. It is never that simple with you.
You were so quiet on that car ride home. “Are you in pain?” I asked.
“They gave me good drugs.” Your voice sounded like it does when you’re drunk. After a minute, you said, “The snow is pretty. I like it when it covers everything, before it starts to melt. When it makes everything go away.”
I thought you fell asleep, but then I saw the slightest movement. You placed a hand on your belly, and suddenly your fingers seemed so thin and frail. You think your big sunglasses hide everything, but I saw the tears running past the rims and collecting on your chin, making a wet stalactite of sorrow. I saw your chin tremble as you held your breath. I saw you mouth the words, I’m sorry.
This, too, this sickness now—it is something some boy gave you. You will inevitably blame him, whoever h
e was. His mouth on yours. The invisible virus. Mono is not called “the Kissing Disease” for nothing. Sadie, there is so much pain passed between bodies. And you have felt it all.
Ἅιδης
HADES
There is always water on the way to the underworld, rivers with heavy names like Sorrow, Hate, and Lamentation. Even here, there is currency, an underground economy of coins placed in silent mouths, payment for safe passage across sad waters made of tears.
What do the dead say with money on their tongues? Are their words worth more than empty ones?
This is where you go when there’s nothing left for you in the sun, when your body has lost its value and all that’s left is your tiny speck of a soul, not nearly as valuable as you always thought it was. Not divine, not profound—just a small, flimsy thing to be piled in a cave and hoarded by a lonely god.
He had a family once. Maybe he wasn’t always so lonely. But, like so many of us, he lost a bet and his fate was sealed. For eternity, he will hold on to his dead, obsess over his macabre collection. It will tower around him—these souls, these coins—but he will always be lonely, buried in this darkness no one ever willingly visits.
Even the god of darkness can be afraid of the dark.
When we get back, you go straight to bed. You sleep through my packing, adding your own soundtrack of wheezy, poisonous breaths. Lark brings a wheelbarrow, and we carry all my stuff around the lake. You get to keep the trailer, and I’m stuck in the half-built yurt at the end of the trail where, until now, your mother was carrying on her affair with Marshall.
When we get there, I can’t help but look for signs. I feel a sick compulsion to find something, anything—messed-up sheets, stray hairs, a condom wrapper. But it’s spotless. They removed all evidence they were ever here. There’s just a folded cot against the wall, a rickety dresser, a little table and chair, some hooks on the wall. The only sign of life is a small crystal hanging in front of the window, spreading rainbow polka dots of afternoon sun through the room like a disco ball.
“It’s not as nice as the trailer, I know,” Lark says. “But better this than getting what Sadie has, right?” I nod. “I’ll go get you some sheets and blankets and a lantern. The cot’s really comfy, actually.” She doesn’t mention how she knows that.
Lark leaves me to my new house, and I put my clothes away in the dresser, set up the cot by the window, wipe it down with a wet cloth, doing everything I can to push the thought of bodily fluids from my mind. The two small windows have thin screens stapled across them, with no glass or shutters or curtains. The walls are an octagon of naked beams and particleboard. There is no electricity. The canvas roof is missing, with only rafters and tarps keeping the elements out. A porch hasn’t been built yet, and there’s just a wobbly crate as a step. The only shade is inside the yurt, but it’s so stuffy it’s no relief. This is a skeleton of a home.
I look across the lake at what used to my home with you. It is so strange to see it from this perspective, surreal almost, like I am living in a mirror. I look to the right and see Dylan’s small cabin, with nothing outside but a chair on the porch and some empty beer bottles. Everyone is gone, out in the fields or doing other chores. It feels like a ghost town. And I am the ghost.
I sit in the doorway with my feet on the crate, trying not to feel sorry for myself. But I don’t know what else to feel. I suddenly feel so lonely, like whatever anchor was keeping me connected to the earth has come loose, and now I’m floating away, but nobody even knows I’m gone. Home isn’t here, not in this half-built tent, not in this place full of friendly strangers. Home isn’t even in Seattle, not at my parents’ house, not in that place full of unsaid things. I wonder if it’d be different if this isolation were what I was raised to be used to. Like you, who has felt like an alien in your family since the day you were born, who’s never felt like you were at home anywhere. Maybe you’re the lucky one for not having expectations.
When we were kids, you always said you were jealous of my family. You’d stay over at my house as much as you could. We’d fantasize about my parents adopting you, of us being sisters, of you never having to see your dad and step-mom and half brother again. But that all stopped last year. Suddenly your house became the better place to stay.
With you around, I don’t have to think about these things. But without you here taking up space, without your voice and your needs and your big dramatic feelings, all that’s left is me. Everything around me is quiet. The only things to hear are the thoughts inside my own head.
So I take a nap. I lay out a towel and stretch out on the cot and try not to think about what else has happened on it. I trust sleep to silence me for a little while.
I wake to the dinner bell ringing in the distance. I feel sticky, and for a moment I don’t know where I am. “Sadie?” I say, but you are not there.
At dinner, I sit with Beverly and Simon and their seven-year-old son, Micah. I have never met such a well-behaved kid in my life. He sits there, calmly eating his food, listening to us talk as if he’s actually interested. During a lull in the conversation, he announces, “I love kale!” and I can’t help but laugh my amazement. They tell me how they met in college in Colorado and ran a vegetarian restaurant for a few years before coming here. We don’t talk about much of importance, but it’s nice to have a conversation without some kind of drama attached to it. I realize that it’s the first real conversation I’ve had with anyone besides you since we got here, not counting that awkward exchange with Lark at the clinic. I look around the patio and realize I haven’t really talked to any of these people yet; I don’t even know most of their names, even though we’ve already been here well over a week. Up until now, you have required all of my attention. We’ve worked by ourselves in the fields rather than join the others. We’ve stayed isolated on our remote edge of the lake. The only social contact we’ve had is at mealtimes, and even then you always choose the least crowded table, and we always leave as soon as Doff announces the next day’s assignments. All this time, we’ve been surrounded by all these nice people, and we know none of them.
I want to stay. I want to play board games and try Ezra’s homebrewed beer with the others after dinner. But I make you a plate and fill a thermos with tea. I rush off without saying goodbye.
“Hey, Max!” I hear someone yell after me. I turn around and see Maria waving. “Where are you going? Don’t you want to hang out?”
“I have to take this to Sadie,” I say, holding up the food and tea as evidence. “I’d love to, I really would.”
“Okay,” she says. “Tell Sadie we all hope she gets better soon. And one of these days I’m going to kick your ass at Scrabble.” She turns and runs back to the house, long skirts flowing behind her, and I want to follow her. I want to let her kick my ass at Scrabble. I want to throw this food in the bushes and forget about you for one night. I wasn’t brushing Maria off, but I have enough experience to know how people give up after you’ve turned them down enough times. People at school who have invited me to do things, guys and girls who have asked me out on dates—after the second or third declined invitation, they all give up. I have plans with Sadie, I’d always tell them. I’m doing something with Sadie. Sadie, Sadie, Sadie.
As I walk the path to the trailer, I realize I’m nervous. About what, I don’t know. Nervous to see you? Nervous about you seeing me?
When I knock on the door, you don’t respond. I open it slowly and step inside. It is stuffy and smells like sweat and bad breath. I open the windows and prop the door open. “Sadie?” I whisper. You don’t move beneath your pile of blankets. I set the plate and thermos down on what used to be my bed.
“Sadie.”
“Mmmmm?” you mumble into your pillow.
“I’m going to take the beanbag chair,” I say. “And a couple of pictures. Okay?”
“Mmmmkay.”
“How are you feeling?”
You roll over onto your back and look at the ceiling.
“
I brought you dinner,” I say.
You don’t respond.
“You’ll never guess where I’m staying,” I say. You remain still, but your eyes shift to finally look at me.
“Why aren’t you talking?”
You point to your throat, then motion like you’re strangling yourself.
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry. Do you want some tea?”
You nod and sit up. I hand you the thermos. You try to open it, but you’re too weak, so I do it for you. I pour you a cup. I sit on my old bed as you take little careful sips.
“Can you talk at all?” I say.
“Yes,” you croak. “A little. But it hurts.”
“Do you need some more Advil?”
You nod. The open bottle is sitting on the bedside table within your reach. I move to get it for you, but something stops me.
“It’s right there,” I say.
“Oh.” You reach over and get it yourself.
I look around the room as you take the pills. Everything is in the same place as it was before, but it seems like everything has changed.
“I miss you, Max,” you say, your voice surprisingly normal despite the pain you claim to be in.
“I miss you, too.”
“I hate being stuck in here. It’s like I’m in prison.”
“It’s a nice prison, though.”
“I guess.” Your eyes drift off to somewhere in the distance.
“It looks weird from the other side of the lake,” I say.
“Will you bring me some new books tomorrow? I’m so bored.” You are staring at your wrist, poking it with your finger.
“They couldn’t have put me any farther away,” I say.
“I think my wrists are losing weight.”
“Guess who’s my new neighbor?”
“Is that possible? Can wrists even lose weight?”
“Sadie, are you even listening to me?”
You look up like you finally just noticed I’m here. “Huh?”
“I’m staying in the yurt next to Dylan,” I tell you. “We’re, like, next door neighbors.”