by Gregory Ashe
“Is that all?”
“What?”
“Is that all you want to say?” The rocker creaked against the floor, steady, like a heart pumping out the last of my blood.
I nodded.
She blew out a breath, ran both hands through her cloud of hair—it split between her hands, turning into cones on either side of her head, the whole effect so bizarre that I couldn’t stop staring at them. Like horns. Like she had these huge blond horns now.
“Well, the first thing I want to say is I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I am sorry. You’re right, that’s the first thing I should have said. And I am, I am sorry, I—”
She was crying, touching the insides of her wrists to the corners of her eyes. “Vie, honey, just stop for a second. I didn’t say that was the first thing you should have said—although, to be fair, it’s never a bad way to start. Especially with a woman.” She tried to smile. “Or, in your case, with a young man who just spent half an hour hammering on the door in the pouring rain. I’m saying I’m sorry. That’s the first thing I want to say to you. I’m sorry for how I treated you earlier. I know I’ve got a temper, but that’s no excuse.” She blew out another breath. “But since I don’t have the self-control God gave a skunk and I can’t even steer clear of your box of sticky buns, keeping my temper seems like a lost cause.”
She wiped her eyes again and then just watched me. And it took me maybe a hundred heartbeats to realize she was waiting. For me. She was waiting for me to tell her—
“Sara, it’s not—you don’t have to—you didn’t do anything.”
“I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I’m very sorry.”
And then more of that waiting. I was really sweating now. My armpits were goddamn rivers. I might as well have been in a swimming pool.
“It’s fine. It’s nothing. Just don’t cry, all right. It wasn’t anything.”
“It’s not nothing, sweetie.” She touched the corners of her eyes again. Her voice was a little steadier when she spoke again. “That’s going to be a long lesson for you, I think. Learning how people ought to treat each other. To tell you the truth, that’s the only thing I worry about with you. You’re plenty smart. If you don’t get yourself expelled, I expect you’ll go to college and do just fine. You work hard. You’re honest—until it comes to boys, I suppose, which is the same for any teenager, so I can’t fault you for that. But there’s a whole world out there full of people who will eat you for dinner, and they’ll do it in a way that makes you think they’re doing you a favor, and that’s what I worry about. I worry you’ll always think cruelty’s a kindness. And what am I supposed to do about that?”
I didn’t really understand what she was saying. Cruelty was cruelty; I wasn’t stupid. But I got the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to answer her question, so I stayed still and waited.
“Of course,” she said, and her tone dried out a little. “I suppose I also have to worry about your temper, don’t I?”
“Umm.”
“You know you can’t just hit things when you’re angry. Especially not things that don’t belong to you. I ought to make you pay for that mirror. And for the trash can. It wouldn’t even do for a sieve now, not after what you did to it.”
“I will. I’ll pay for it, with my own money, what I earn at work.”
“That’s good. That’s the responsible thing to do.” But her eyes cut left, and her next words went straight toward the door. “It could be a lot worse, sweetie. Someone could have been hurt. If you were an adult, they might have pressed charges. It doesn’t matter how big of a barn-ripper fight you’ve got going on with Austin, you can’t act like that. That’s got to go into your head right now, understand?”
“Yes. But I wasn’t. We weren’t. It wasn’t a fight, Sara.”
The rocking chair creaked forward, and her eyes finally came back to me.
“I mean, it wasn’t really a fight. Not completely.”
“I see.”
“It’s just—” The cut on the inside of my thigh stung. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”
“That is what every stupid boy has said about every stupid thing in every relationship since God put grass between his toes.”
“It was my fault.”
Sara snorted so hard that one of the cones of blond hair toppled, and she had to shake it out of her face.
“Austin’s mad at me. He’s right to be mad at me.”
“Sweetie, let me tell you something: anger’s a fire, and every fire has fuel. If he’s angry, it’s because something else got that fire started.”
“Yeah. Something did. Me. I got it started.”
She shook her head. “Anger always comes second. That’s what I’m trying to say.”
“He was mad, Sara. He was furious. And he’s right to be furious.”
The rocking chair clunked against the wall as Sara heaved her bulk out of the seat. She brushed at her shirt and plucked a half praline—from the sticky buns—and shook her head.
“I’m telling you, he was angry because he’s scared. Or hurt. Or something else. And if he was angry, he’s over it.”
Chewing my lip, I shook my head.
“Fine.” Sara shook the praline half at me like it was a yardstick. “But that boy called up here blubbering so hard I couldn’t even understand him.”
“That was Austin?”
“Yes, you great galoot. I had to unplug the phone for him to get the message.”
“That was him the second time?”
Her eyes slid toward the door again. “Then, when I finally managed to get him to understand that I wasn’t letting you take any calls, he drove over here and just about knocked down the door.”
“Is he—I mean, did he—”
“No.” She waved the pecan menacingly. “And don’t even think about going downstairs. I told him you were grounded. And you are grounded, mister. You might be grounded until you’re a very old man. You’ll go to work, and you’ll go to school, and you’ll come straight home. Austin can drive you if you need a ride, but he’s not going to hang around and kiss you and tell you how pretty your eyes are because you are in trouble. Capital T.”
“He doesn’t say that. He’s never said that. About my eyes, I mean.”
“I live in this house, Vie Eliot. And you are too lazy to shut your door sometimes.”
Oh God. Sweet, merciful God. My face probably melted off.
“You’d think I told that boy you were being shipped off to Siberia, the way he acted.” Sara shook her head. “I told him you’re fine, and he looked at me like I was the biggest fool on the green earth. So I want you to tell me right now: is there something I should worry about?”
The cut on my leg throbbed with my heartbeat. I shook my head.
“You’re not thinking about hurting yourself? Nothing like that?”
“God, Sara.”
“Well, people do things when you don’t expect. I’m not smart, but I’m not so stupid that I don’t know that much. Would you tell me if you were?”
“I’m not going to do anything.”
But for a moment, my entire brain was bright with that table saw again: the whirr of perfect metal, the light on steel, the vibration in the plastic casing. Piece by piece. I could take myself apart piece by piece and I wouldn’t even feel it; I knew it like a lullaby. My finger first, sliding toward the blurred teeth. So perfect. My wrist. My elbow. I had to get an artery just to be sure. And then no pain, not anymore. It was in the basement. I could go down there when Sara was asleep. I’d smell the metal of Austin’s weights. I’d let the fluorescents flicker. I’d stand there, the cold seeping up through bare feet. And then, when I was ready, I could flip one switch, one simple switch, and it would start.
Sara harrumphed. “He’s standing out in the cold, and I think it serves him right for being a fool when I told him to get
in that fancy car and go home. But did he listen to me? No. You can have five minutes, but I swear, if you set one foot past the front door I will have you clean the deep fryers every day for a month. Do you understand me?”
I nodded. “Not one foot.”
“Not your big toe.”
“Not my big toe.”
“Not even a hair, Vie Eliot.”
“All right, all right.”
“Not even if he wants to—”
“Oh my God. Please, just, oh my God. I get it, I promise.”
“Then why are you still sitting on your bottom?”
I flew down the steps. My feet actually went out from under me when I hit the hardwood at the bottom, and only a quick grab at the banister saved me. Then, sliding, I crashed into the front door and yanked it open.
His hair was oh-so-short and neatly parted. The collar on his flannel shirt was nice and crisp. He had those boots on that I loved, the ones that were beaten to hell and that he rubbed beeswax into and that looked perfect with the rough denim of his jeans. Everything about him was perfect. Everything except his face. Everything except the fact that he was a wreck, a complete and total wreck, and anybody could see it.
“Are we in a fight?” I asked, and my voice buzzed up and down so that I could barely hear what I was saying.
“No. No. No.” He kept shaking his head. “No. We’re not. No.”
“Will you come inside?” I laughed, but it got all big and wet and bubbly in my mouth. “Sara said she’d kill me if I stepped past the door, so will you come in here?”
“She said she’d kill me if I went inside, but who the fuck cares.” He staggered over the threshold, arms clasping me to him, face buried in my neck. “Jesus, Vie. I’m so sorry.”
“You can’t be sorry. I’m the one who—”
Then he reared back and kissed me, and my knees exploded, and my head exploded, and for all I knew, the whole world had exploded and he was the only thing holding me up.
“That’s enough,” Sara said, the stairs groaning as she came down. “Austin Miller, I’m going to whip your bottom if I ever hear that language again, and if you don’t have the brains to remember that I told you to stay outside my house—”
Austin squeezed me once more and then darted backward.
“That’s better.” Sara looked at each of us and sniffed. “It would do you both a lot of good to have fifteen minutes apart.”
“We’re apart all the time,” Austin said, his cheeks pink.
“You’ve got four minutes, mister.” And then she dropped onto the sofa. Right there. Less than ten feet away. Watching us. “Three and a half, and I’m not going away, so you can both stop looking at me like that.”
“Uh, Sara—”
“You’re down to three minutes.”
“Look, I fu—” I swallowed it. “I messed up. I messed everything up. But the stuff about Emmett, I shouldn’t have—”
“I don’t care about that. How bad did you—” He dropped his voice. “Do you need stitches?”
The table saw’s whine whited out the inside of my head. I managed to shake a no. “That’s really hard for me. To let you watch. To let you be there. I freaked out today, and I know I promised I wouldn’t lie, but I freaked the fuck out.”
“Language. That’s another day on your grounding.”
Austin shot her an irritated look. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. Sometimes I just get so worried, and then after . . .” He didn’t finish, but his cheeks purpled with blood. The turquoise in his eyes had gone to the hard, dark chop of seawater.
“I’m sorry.”
“A minute.”
Austin shot her another angry glance.
“Don’t glare at me. I’ll call your father and tell him the kind of look you’ve got on your face.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow. We can talk tomorrow.”
Shaking my head, I said, “Sara said I can’t. I mean, you can’t come over, and I can’t go out.”
“But tomorrow is—”
Saturday. The pink-and-white swirl of a candle. The flame swelling around a black wick. Wax on the buttercream. Wax on my cheek just below my eye. Wax on my shoulder. Wax on my back. And then—
“You just mind your own business, Austin Miller.” Sara was on her feet, bumping me away from the door and swinging it shut.
“Hold on. That’s not fair. Tomorrow is—”
Saturday.
“Everybody knows just perfectly well what tomorrow is, Austin. You go home. Right now. I really will call your father, and I think he’ll have plenty to say to you about all this.”
“At least let me say goodbye,” I said.
“You’ve said goodbye to that boy a million times. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. There. All done.”
“Call me,” Austin shouted.
Then the door clicked shut, and Sara turned the bolt and set her back against the wood like she thought Austin might try to break it down. She looked at me, and the expression was surprisingly frank.
“You don’t even think of sneaking out.”
I nodded.
“I mean it. Trust goes both ways.”
I nodded again.
“No phone, either.”
“I know.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you’ve got any homework, on account of how your day ended. But Lord knows they’ll be sending plenty of it home next week. Why don’t you go up to your room for a while?”
“Do I have to stay in my room?”
“Nine days out of ten I can’t get you to budge, and the one time I say you should go to your room, you assume it’s a punishment.”
“Is it?”
“Will you just get out of my hair? I’m no good at this. I’ll make dinner, and you can wash up.” The collapsed blond hair swung into her face again, and she shook it out of her way. “And you can mop the floor.”
I was having a hard time not smiling. “Ok.”
“I mean scrub.”
“Yes, Sara.”
“Don’t you laugh at me, Vie. I’ve got a whole basement that needs work. You’ll be sweeping up spiderwebs until you’re an old man, so don’t you dare laugh.”
A whole basement, and the spotlight in my head only showed one beautiful circle, a white circle cut out of all the black, and at the center of the spotlight, the teeth glittering and silent and waiting.
“No, ma’am.”
But halfway through Sara’s cooking, the phone started ringing again, and even from upstairs I could tell that Sara was upset. Pots banged against each other. Water roared in the sink. Something—the flour canister, I guessed—toppled over like a bass drum. The whole thing sounded like the symphony of a woman looking to beat the hell out of whatever got in her path.
The house creaked and shifted as Sara crossed the room beneath me. I cracked the door, and when her head appeared at the bottom of the stairs, she pointed an enormous, gravy-covered spoon at me.
“I have to go into work.”
“That’s all right. I can warm up something.”
The spoon wavered. Gravy beaded along one side, and the drops quivered, as viscous as Elmer’s glue. Sara said she wanted her meals to stick to my ribs; looking at the gravy, trembling as she waved the spoon at me again, I figured it was definitely going to stick to something.
“All you have to do is take the chicken out of the oven.”
“Thank you.”
“The oven mitts are in the bottom drawer.”
“I know.”
“And there’s a packet of Country Time. It’s the raspberry one; that’s what you like, isn’t it?”
“I like it fine.”
“You and Austin drank a whole pitcher last time he was here. I thought you might like that to drink.”
“Yeah, sure.” I took a step out onto the landing. Sara’s spoon trembled again. She fumbled it in a quick rotation to keep the fat gobbets of gravy fr
om falling. Sara threw a series of rapid glances at the front of the house, with a few in my direction. “Is everything all right?”
“You don’t go outside, all right?”
“I’m grounded. I get it.”
“Not one foot.”
“I said I wouldn’t.”
“I mean it, Vie. If you do, I’ll—” She waved the spoon, seemingly unsure how to finish, gravy splattered the stairs. “Oh Lord.”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“I want you to promise.”
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“And you keep the door locked. Don’t let anybody in. Not even Austin.”
“Sara, what’s got you so upset?”
“Well, Kimmy just about cut off her hand, and Joel and Miguel ruined an entire container of ground beef because they wanted to see if they could make blue-cheese-and-vinegar burgers after I told them to do no such thing and—”
“Well, go.”
“Promise me right now, Vie. Promise me you won’t sneak out while I’m gone.”
“Yeah, I promise. Will you go? Kimmy’s freaking out, and you can’t leave her with Joel and Miguel. They’ll probably try to see how far she can squirt her blood or mix her severed finger into the fries or something like that.”
“Lord, Lord, Lord, they will.” Sara whipped around, the spoon whistling a trail of gravy behind her, and then she froze. “You promised me, Vie Eliot. I know you. That ought to mean something to you.”
“I’m not leaving this house unless it’s on fire, Sara. You need to run.”
“Not even then. You stay where you are until a fireman carries you out.”
And then she sprinted out of sight, and a moment later, I heard the front door crash shut. And then the bolt went home. And then the distant spin of her tires. And then the wind rocked the house, and then nothing.