All These Lives

by Wylie, Sarah

  “Are you all right?”

  I’m surprised he hasn’t gone back to his reading yet. “Perfect.”

  “How’s your sister doing?”

  Halbrook hates Jena. She used to forge notes all the time for fake track meets and sporting events. That’s not why he hates her, though. I think it has to do with the fact that she once did it for every student in his math class. It was only a joke, of course, but Halbrook isn’t exactly known for his sense of humor.

  My parents gave her the third degree when they learned of her activities. If she did something like that now, they’d be secretly delighted. We’re all searching for signs the old Jena still exists.

  “Perfect, too,” I mutter, feeling the desk beginning to imprint itself on my cheek.

  “And how’s your project coming?”

  Here’s a question for him: Why is he expressing teacherly concern over me instead of reading War and Freaking Peace?

  “You’ll be blown away,” I tell him, though Jack and I got next to nothing done during lunch on Monday.

  When he leaves the classroom again, I close my eyes and try to fall asleep. I dream Mr. Halbrook hovers over me, halo made of concern as his book sits unattended at his desk. I dream he and the rest of the world hesitate around me, pray for me and try to help, and yet I don’t let them.

  I wake up with a self-prescribed mandate for normalcy. Tomorrow, I will catch up on all the work I’ve missed. Tomorrow, I will bring my T. rex–sized bag of M&M’s and share with all my classmates, let them sift through the round nuggets of deception, trying to sort good from evil, peanut from peanut butter. Peanut butter is a wolf in peanut’s clothing. Shame on it.

  Focus, Dani.

  Tomorrow, when I return to popularity and humanity and normalcy, I will not give people any more reasons to wonder.

  Lots of people have sisters with cancer. Lots and lots of people. Some people have buried their sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles, and I have not.

  Some people have sat by their loved ones and watched them hack or hurt or throw up early, too early in the morning, so often that they can no longer fall asleep, and so, they now draw all over themselves and do strange voodoo, and I have not.

  Some people have gotten cancer and had to quit school and stay home to Be Sick, a full-time calling, but one that is thoroughly wrong for them since they are the strong ones and they win state soccer championships and so they can’t have cancer, and I have not.

  I should be grateful, ecstatic.

  Many people have died from car crashes, from infections, from drowning, from motorcycles, and I have not.

  I keep waking up.

  18

  Saturday morning brings my father standing over me, nudging me awake. Today is the makeup callback.

  I tell him I’d rather stay in bed and let it swallow me whole. He laughs and squeezes my shoulder. “Come on, sleepyhead.”

  Still asleep, I trudge into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. We use Colgate, not Whitaden, around here. Since I don’t want things to be awkward at the callback, I decide to forgo toothpaste and brushing entirely.

  Thanks to the bangs, the only visible reminder of the accident is the cast around my left arm. Mom spoke to Brody Richardson about my most unfortunate accident, and since they won’t actually be filming the commercial for another two months, they’re willing to overlook the broken wrist.

  I walk all the way across the hall. The door to Jena’s room is wide open, the torn pieces of paper still hanging limply there, skulls without bones and wordless warning signs.

  When I go in, there is no movement, no sound. Even though the door is open, her room is too warm, smells like sweat and dirty laundry. I see a lump in her bed.

  Finally, she turns from the wall to face me and I hear myself breathing again. “Where are you going?” she asks.

  I can only see her face; the rest is blanket.

  “The callback.”

  “Good luck,” she says. I nod, holding on to the doorknob. I mean to pull it toward me to shut the door, but I’m frozen.

  Something is wrong.

  “See you when you get back,” she says. I know that’s supposed to tell me she’s okay.

  I shut the door.

  “Hey, there you are!” Dad calls from the foot of the stairs. “I made you some coffee.”

  “Coffee stains teeth,” I say. “You’re trying to sabotage me, aren’t you?”

  Dad laughs, winking at me. “Don’t tell your mother.” I take the mug from him, bringing it to my lips.

  “Where is she?” I ask. “Mom, I mean.”

  He glances up the stairs. “Asleep. You ready?”

  My fingers tingle and my heart sneezes. Dad acts appropriately enthusiastic as we walk to the garage and get into the car, but I still can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right. It’s nine a.m. on Saturday. The only way Mom is sleeping is if she’s sedated.

  But maybe she is.

  I fold myself into the car and try to shut off the crappy brain stuff—the fear, the thoughts. I delete all of it.

  Dad doesn’t try to make conversation. He presses play on the CD in the car, a Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, which my mother had to have left in there. His fingers drum on the steering wheel as he stares out of the glass, far into a darkness I can’t see.

  “Is something wrong?” I ask.

  “There’s nothing to worry about.” He gives me a tired smile. “I promise. Coffee makes me fidgety.”

  I don’t believe it’s just the coffee. “If they’re planning to put her down while I’m gone…”

  “What?” Dad frowns. “Dani, you can’t talk … You can’t say stuff like that. People will take it the wrong way.”

  “Which people?”

  “No, nothing … Everything is fine. Would I lie to you?”

  Yes. Grandma died peacefully in her sleep.

  “Listen, Dans, you have to start trusting people. It’s not you against the world, it’s us against the world. And I’m telling you—today, we’re covered.”

  Silence.

  “First, don’t ever call me Dans again. Second, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do,” he says. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Let’s focus on booking this commercial and giving your mom and sister some good news tonight, okay?”

  I don’t answer.

  “Okay?”

  I fiddle with the radio. All this wailing is giving me a headache. And not the kind that kills you, so what’s the point?

  “Okay?”

  A pop song fills the car.

  “Okay?”

  “Dad. For crap’s sake.”

  “O-kay?” he repeats, obnoxiously.

  “Whatever.” As his mouth opens again, I rush on. “I mean, fine. Sure. Let’s do this shit.”

  “Danielle!”

  The next five minutes are devoted to the in-car equivalent of me washing my mouth with soap. I try to point out that a) I’ve heard Dad curse before, and b) Mom isn’t here. So most likely, God isn’t either.

  “I’m not quite sure that’s how it works.”

  “How does it work?” My eyes widen and I turn to face him, attentive and questioning.

  He coughs. “Well, you know your mother’s the religious one, but I think God is … everywhere.”

  “Really?” If my eyes get any wider, they’ll fall out of my head. “Even in the shower and bathroom? Because that’s kind of creepy.”

  “Well…”

  “And if He’s everywhere, why doesn’t He stop bad things from happening?”

  Dad sighs. “I don’t know, Danielle. What do you think?”

  I think I’m starting to feel sorry for him. I lean back in my seat. “It doesn’t matter. What I think doesn’t affect His existence or nonexistence. He either does or doesn’t.”

  He turns to look at me. “That’s a good answer. Got any more of those?” His eyes travel back to the road
and I get the sense again that today is about more than a toothpaste commercial, and maybe Dad is using me as a buffer between him and the world. By the time we reach our destination, I’m slightly concerned about my breath situation. It’s a delicate mix of morning and coffee breath, with bias toward the former.

  There are only two of us auditioning today—a blond girl with glistening white teeth. Every time she smiles, it transforms her face, but she doesn’t do so often. I wonder who’s dying in her family.

  At first, I’m there just because I have to be. The first time I read lines, I sort of mumble them, barely trying to conceal my coffee-stained teeth and my irreverent apathy. But then I make the mistake of glancing up at my father, sitting with his hand propped under his chin, watching me.

  I thought I’d killed my conscience by now, but she shows up anyway.

  If I actually got this part, it would make what has been a universally crappy year for my parents, and Jena, slightly better.

  I jerk my chin up and attempt to project horizontally. To say my lines so these people can actually hear them.

  My plastic smile falters more than once, but the one on my father’s face holds it there. He was proud when I was sort-of-mumbling, practically sleeping up here, shaming his name and taking advantage of his goodness and his need to please Mom. He is still proud.

  I am decent in my second-last take, try to go one better for the last, and then I’m done.

  Still smiling, I excuse myself and find the nearest bathroom. What was supposed to be a few minutes of (mainly) self-congratulations takes a sharp turn.

  My chest starts to hurt. I pull down the cover and collapse on the toilet seat.

  I think, I am on five lives and that’s too much. But that’s not it.

  My palms sweat, my fingers shake, my eyes well up.

  I don’t know why and I can’t stop it and I hate that I’m sitting on a public toilet doing this and is God here watching creepily or am I alone and make it stop.

  It doesn’t.

  And then I realize what it is.

  I just know. Like the time Jena wandered off during our family hiking trip when we were nine. Though I couldn’t explain it, I’d just known she was by the lake, and that was where we found her. A twin thing, I suppose.

  I run from the bathroom and find my father, who is making some pleasant conversation with a suit. I want to say, “It’s too late for flirting, even with a deceptively well-dressed cameraman. And FYI, I said to go for stage moms. Nothing about cameramen.”

  I don’t say that.

  Dad starts to introduce the man. “Dani, this is Brod—,” but I cut him off.

  I grab his arm and clutch it. The words are poison. They come up with blood and guts and acid and, “I think Jena’s dead.”

  19

  If you want to see your father flip out: an exercise in self-expression, honesty and “psychological unlocking”

  by Danielle Bailey

  If you want to see your father flip out, then borrow his car and take it for a ride late at night, all without telling him. Oh, and spill blue smoothie on his leather passenger seat.

  Things you might hear include: “What the hell, Fallen Child! This smoothie isn’t even blueberry. It’s blue for nothing.”

  Or “If I had known you were the one driving it, I’d have called the police sooner.”

  But if you want to see your father’s face crumble and see him dizzy (but standing tall, strong, taking it like a man), if you want to prick every one of his molecules and make them bleed, then just tell him your fraternal twin is dead.

  He might not have much to say for a minute, but when he gets it together, he gets it together. Let him lead you outside and calmly call your mother. She won’t pick up her damn cell phone or the house phone, and you will curse her. Curse her curse her curse her because where the hell is she?

  Your father drives drives drives down the slippery highway and doesn’t say one word. Not one. Well, he says a few. He asks how you know and you tell him you just do. You felt it. Then hug yourself and let noisy tears fall, detouring to the tip of your nose before suicide-jumping off it.

  Every time he starts to say something about how things will be okay and how he loves you and he’s sure it’s nothing, he stops. He doesn’t know things will be okay. It doesn’t matter that he loves you. It is not nothing.

  You know this and have known this for many years, but today, right now, he’s just figured it out. He knows nothing.

  Maybe he thought he would save your sister, your mother, and you.

  Today he knows he is, for lack of a better, more dad-friendly word, a fool. He cannot. And God willnot.

  Five minutes away from your house, your mother calls. You hear her voice through the cell phone, falsely cheery, weak, and so guilty. She was just in the shower. Jena is asleep.

  Everything is still the same.

  Your father apologizes to you after he hangs up, even though you both know that it is really you who ought to apologize. You accept it anyway.

  Somewhere deep inside he is very, very angry with you. Why did you pull the rug out from under him?

  He tap tap taps all the way home.

  Instead of coming in with you, he goes around the outside of the house and has his first cigarette in many, many months.

  Feel proud.

  This is how to see your father flip out.

  There are other ways, of course, but this is the easiest.

  On Monday after school, I refuse to answer a single one of Harry-with-an-i’s questions. For the first fifteen minutes, she prods and pokes, trying to wring words of any kind out of me. But when I’m confident she’s ready to give up, she just starts rambling on about personal release and the freedom in documenting one’s thoughts, and then she pushes a pen and notebook in front of me. Finally, when I hand this in at the end of the session, she has only one thing to say: “Why is psychological unlocking in quotation marks? Sure you don’t need me to explain it to you again?”

  “I just want my M&M’s.”

  They are all peanut this time.

  * * *

  “What if I cut my hair?”

  I am sitting on the carpet in Jena’s room, running my fingers through my bangs. I should be doing homework and she should be napping, but since Saturday’s freak-out, the hallway between our rooms feels like the English Channel. All the corners in this house are too far away.

  “How short?” she asks.

  “Short.” I hold my fingers about an inch apart.

  She is lying on her side facing me, and she cringes. “It takes a certain bone structure to pull that off. You don’t have it.”

  I kick the foot of her bed. “Then I’ll dye it, go lighter.” We’ll look like twins.

  There’s a family portrait in the dining room where we are wearing all white, a “natural” moment of familial bliss that was totally choreographed by Mom. Jena and I are seven and I am missing a front tooth, and she’s been caught mid-blink, but it’s the one picture that always makes people ask if we are identical.

  “Please God, don’t. The Baileys have endured enough hair catastrophes.” Namely hers, she doesn’t say, and we laugh.

  “Keep your hair, Backup.” And when she says that, I stop laughing, and I’m suddenly sure I don’t want to keep my hair.

  We are silent, except for her breath, always so loud. My soundless breath is a betrayal.

  Then she says, quietly, “I need you to look like Dani. Please don’t touch your hair.”

  And I know I won’t.

  20

  I wake up thinking about the time I broke my arm, when I was ten.

  It was Jena’s idea for us to build a tree house because, even then, Mom’s constant hovering was cramping her style. Although, of course, back then my mother hovered for different reasons. Or a different brand of the same reason, since she’s always been afraid. I think that week she’d read about some kid who was stolen while his mother was waiting in line at the bank. In the weeks that f
ollowed, she barely let us out of her sight. Mom quizzed us on emergency phone numbers, pulled the plug on sleepovers, and checked on us multiple times during the night. It was good practice, I guess, but sometimes we just wanted to be left alone.

  From all the way across the hall that summer morning, I could hear the muffled sounds of drawers opening and shutting, and Jena’s window sliding up and down. Up and down. When I went into her room, Jena’s first words to me were an order. “Shut the door.” Her eyes followed my hands as they wrapped around the knob and the door snapped back into place. My sister had always been bossy, and if you didn’t know much about us, you probably assumed Jena was older.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m building a tree house,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I stood there, staring at her. She’d spoken about a tree house before, but I hadn’t expected her to build one. The last I knew of it, we were trying to convince Dad to help us make one. Maybe in the fall, when he had some time off work, he’d said.

  Jena didn’t like to wait. A small pile of resources was building up in front of her closet door now. Books, old crosswords and Archie comics, and the small radio that used to be Grandpa’s.

  “So where will the tree house be?”

  “I’ll show you,” she said, and walked toward her window, slid it up, and then motioned for me to come on. It was the huge oak tree just outside her bedroom, the one Dad sometimes frowned up at and mentioned something about hiring people to trim or remove it altogether. He told Mom he didn’t like the way one branch was leaning, and she mostly just acted uninterested and said there was a lot that needed taking care of, when he had time.

  My sister had draped a bedsheet from a branch above the leaning one, so the cloth hung down like a curtain, forming the “walls” of the tree house. The leaning branch itself was the floor, where Jena planned to sit.

  “I’m taking stuff up there now,” she said, starting to fill an enormous tote bag with the radio and books that had been in front of her closet door. “Wanna come?”

  At first, I just watched her. Her hair had been pulled back into a messy ponytail, and it went down just past her shoulders, frizzy and thick, the color of hazelnuts. Then, slowly, she went through the window, holding the frame around the glass for support, and cautiously stepped onto the tree’s nearest branch. It was a sturdy branch, in no danger of breaking. And Jena had excellent balance. If Mom had been willing to take her to gymnastics—Jena wanted to do gymnastics, but Mom wanted her to compromise and take dance, so my sister decided on soccer—she might have had a promising competitive career.