The Invisibles

by Cecilia Galante

  Except that he didn’t. He ducked his head down instead until his eyes were level with hers. “What’s your favorite first line? Like, of all time?”

  She felt a flutter of panic as the line she loved best emerged inside her head: “Don’t never tell nobody but God.” There was no way she could divulge that one. It was private, with a meaning known only to her, sacred by this point.

  “Um, ‘All children, except one, grow up,’” she lied. It was number eight in her book.

  “‘All children, except one, grow up,’” Theo repeated. “I like it. What book’s it from?”

  “Peter Pan.”

  “No way!” His eyebrows arched skyward. “I love that book! Well, I used to love it. My mother read it to me when I was little; the real one, a chapter every night. And I went through a serious, year-long period of wanting to be Captain Hook. Like, I made an actual hook for myself out of tin foil.” He stuck his fist out, pointing to the space between his first and second knuckles. “Kept it right in between there, even when I went to bed.” He smiled at her, as if they’d just shared something intimate. Which, she thought later, they had, in a way.

  He leaned in a little closer. “Why’s it your favorite?” His knee bumped hers under the table, and she felt a thrill of pleasure at the contact.

  “It says so much,” she answered. “Don’t you think? Just in those few words? Who doesn’t grow up? And why? What happens?”

  “Yeah.” Theo nodded, looking thoughtful. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yeah. It’s true.”

  “Okay, now you,” she said, desperate to steer the conversation away from herself.

  “Now me what? I don’t have first lines. I don’t think I even remember the last book I read.”

  “How about your favorite Springsteen song?” Nora prodded.

  Theo’s face lit up. “Oh, now that’s something I can do!” He rubbed his palms together greedily. “Just one?”

  “Just one.”

  “Song? Or album?”

  Nora shrugged. “Either, I guess.”

  “I’ll have to do an album. It’s impossible to narrow Springsteen’s songs down to just one.”

  “Okay.” Nora sat forward expectantly. A vein along one side of Theo’s forehead had started to pulse; she’d noticed it before, when he got excited about the movie, too. It looked like a fluid stream of jade beneath his skin, and she restrained herself from reaching out to touch it.

  “My top Springsteen album would have to be . . .” Theo sat back in his chair and locked his fingers behind his head. His face took on an anguished expression, as if Nora had asked him to donate a pint of blood instead of recall his favorite music. He rocked back on the heels of his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Okay!” The word came out of his mouth at the same time his chair clunked back down, and Nora jumped a little. He reached out and touched her arm. “Sorry. Top album of all time would have to be Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

  She watched his mouth as he talked, the way the lines around his eyes eased and tightened at the end of each sentence, and she wanted nothing more at that moment than to lean forward and press her mouth against his. Instead, she said, “Never heard of it.”

  He looked incredulous. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She shook her head and pressed a fingertip against a stray Rice Krispie. “Music’s not really my thing, I guess.”

  “Well, we’ll have to change that.”

  She looked up sharply then, as if he’d criticized her.

  “If you want to, I mean.” He shrugged and looked away.

  “Might be fun,” she said, hoping her voice sounded contrite.

  “Might be.” He grinned.

  Later he walked her back to the bus, which was where she had told him she would meet him earlier. No need to go into the truth about where she lived; no reason to add anything to the mix that might lead to unnecessary questions and spoil it. It had begun to drizzle, and the metallic smell of rain and asphalt mingled in the air. He’d gone back to talking about the movie, things she had already forgotten, lost and unimportant, but she nodded anyway, and said things like yes, yes, I know. She did not know, not really, was thinking only of the way his fingers felt against her arm when he had rested them there at Jitter Beans.

  “Anyway,” he said as they reached the bus stop, “I guess it wasn’t the best movie we could’ve seen, but now that we saw it, I’m kind of glad we did.”

  She stood facing him. Her eyes locked against his Adam’s apple, a miraculous thing, she thought, a small and perfectly astonishing thing. She wanted to press her lips against it, to hold the whole of it inside her mouth.

  “Maybe we can go see another one sometime.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, if you want to.” He laughed, a nervous sound. “Do you?”

  She stepped into him instead of answering, pressing her forehead lightly against the cotton material of his T-shirt so that he wouldn’t see her cheeks flushing hot, the violent quivering of her lower lip. It was too much, her wanting him. Him wanting her. Making friends at Turning Winds had been more than she’d ever imagined, but this was more than she’d ever hoped.

  He laughed again, the nervous edge gone now. “Is that a yes?” He rested his hand against her hair, sliding it down along the back of her head.

  She nodded, hoping he couldn’t see the splotches that were invariably rising along her neck, and took a slow, deep breath. She wouldn’t let him see her cry, no matter what.

  “Nora?” He stepped back, tilting his head down so that he could see under her lashes. “You okay?”

  She nodded, swallowing the knot, large as an acorn now, in the back of her throat. “I’m fine,” she said. “And yeah, I’d like to go. To the movies or something. Again. With you.”

  “Great.” He grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Me too.”

  Ten seconds later the bus pulled up. She waved from the window, and then, as the bus pulled out of sight, she turned around in her seat, leaned over her knees, and wept. She wept and wept until she could not cry any longer. And when the bus dropped her off in front of Turning Winds twenty minutes later, she knew that she had just traveled a distance no vehicle could ever take her.

  She was on her way to being loved.

  Which, after a lifetime of not being loved, felt like the first day of the rest of her life.

  Chapter 7

  Do you know anything about postpartum depression?” Nora asked as Ozzie sailed past another tractor-trailer. “You said that Grace’s husband told you it might’ve been connected to everything.”

  “I don’t know a whole lot.” Ozzie scratched her cheek. Her fingernails were torn and ripped, the edges raw. “I didn’t go through it with any of my kids, thank God. But I know it’s no joke. Your hormones just go completely off the reservation, apparently. I mean, some women can become homicidal.”

  “Homicidal?” Monica snapped back to attention. “As in . . .”

  “Yeah.” Ozzie’s jaw set. “You ever hear of Andrea Yates?”

  Nora bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood.

  “You don’t think Grace ever wanted to hurt . . .” Monica started.

  “I don’t know.” Ozzie’s voice was edged with a sudden harshness that made Nora’s arms prickle. “I would think anything’s possible when you’re in that state of mind. And Henry said the baby’s staying with the grandparents, right? That can’t be accidental.” She sped up, bypassing a blue Toyota in front of her and then settled back into the passing lane.

  “Do you have to keep swerving?” Nora asked.

  “I’m sorry.” Ozzie looked in the rearview mirror. “There’s some asshole in a silver Buick back there who has been driving on my tail for the last ten minutes. I’m just trying to lose him.”

  “Well, let him pass you.” Nora closed her eyes, trying to fight off the rising nausea. “I’m serious, Ozzie. You have to stop flinging the car all over the road.”

  “Okay.” Ozzie rubbed
the side of Nora’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe the baby’s with the grandparents just to give Grace and her husband a break,” Monica suggested. “I can’t imagine trying to deal with a suicide attempt and trying to take care of a newborn at the same time.”

  “Could be,” Ozzie said, glancing in the rear view mirror again. “God damn it.” She swerved across the lane, just missing a white Volkswagen bug. The woman in the driver’s seat slammed on her brakes and then gave Ozzie the finger.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ozzie muttered under her breath. “Back atcha.”

  Nora bit down hard on her tongue as the familiar, sour taste of bile pooled in the back of her mouth. “Ozzie,” she said, “I’m gonna . . .” She clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide and pleading.

  “Pull over!” Monica shouted. “Ozzie, pull over on the shoulder! She’s going to get sick!”

  Ozzie veered to the right amid a flurry of angry honks and screeches. Nora grabbed the door handle as the popping sound of gravel crunched beneath the tires, and then flung herself out as the car skidded to a stop. She made it just in time, stumbling into the weeds and then falling on one knee as she began to retch. Her whole body seemed to empty itself from the inside out, tears pooling in the creases of her eyes as it shook. A door slammed behind her, and then another, followed by the sounds of gasps and running. She could feel Monica’s cool hands as they reached down and pulled her hair away from her face. Ozzie grabbed her around the shoulders as Nora heaved again, steadying her so that she did not fall, and then it was over.

  “Okay?” Monica’s voice, just a few inches from Nora’s face, was a whisper. Nora raised her head. She tried to focus on the tangle of bushes that lined the overhead ridge, but everything looked blurred, as if the Earth were swaying in front of her. A smudged white line, like chalk, split the blue sky in two, and she searched for the plane in front of it. There was nothing.

  “Nora?” Monica’s mascara was smeared a little around the edges. “Honey? Are you all right?”

  For a split second, Nora wondered if either of them remembered the last time she had done this exact thing. They had been driving back from Max’s place after he had given them the Cytotec for the abortion. Grace had been in the back with Nora, holding her hand, her eyes closed inside her stricken face. Ozzie was up front, biting her nails and driving too fast. Monica was next to her, twisting the orange braid around her fingers. It was the smell, Nora thought later, that sterile, antiseptic smell from the rubbing alcohol Max had in the room, combined with the warm, salty scent emanating from a half-eaten bag of Doritos on the floor of the car that had turned her stomach. She’d called out, feeling the sourness pooling along the inside of her cheeks, and Ozzie had screeched to a halt.

  “Yeah,” she gasped now, still struggling to keep herself upright. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

  “Okay then.” Monica helped her back to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get you fixed up.”

  They put their arms around her—Ozzie and Monica both—and like a bridge carried her through the weeds back into the car.

  Nora listened to the dull roaring sound of the wheels as she lay in the backseat for the next forty-five minutes. They sounded like thunder in the distance, and sometimes, if she turned her ear just so, like something she’d heard once at the bottom of a body of water.

  It was near the end of February in their senior year when Theo asked her to meet him at his house one Saturday. Despite the fact that they had been dating for almost nine months, Nora always insisted that they meet at his house or somewhere downtown. Even though she had finally told him the bare minimum about Turning Winds, the place itself was off-limits when it came to anything social. Having a boy over to a group home was just weird. And if she was being perfectly honest, she didn’t want to share him—or their time together—with anyone else, even The Invisibles.

  It was an unusually mild day for February, the third one in less than a week. Single-digit temperatures had climbed up well into the thirties, and while there was no chance the balminess would last, the respite had raised everyone’s spirits. Nora had unzipped her winter coat on the walk over and shoved her hat deep into her front pocket. She would take her sweater off too once she got inside Theo’s house, but she was a little worried about the dampness under her arms. Had she used deodorant this morning? She couldn’t remember. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe they’d just go down in the basement again and play air hockey with Theo’s little brothers, who without fail jumped all over her when she walked into the house, eager to start a game.

  Theo, though, met her at the door, his winter coat already zipped, dark brown gloves on his hands. “Hey.” His whole face seemed to brighten when she came into his presence, something Nora never failed to notice, and something of which she would never tire. “You up for a walk to the pond today? I really want to show you something.”

  “Sure.”

  He slid his hand in hers, by now a natural, unconscious gesture, and led her down the front steps. He lived in a well-developed wooded area just outside of Willow Grove. A long dirt path wound its way through the development and into a section of woods, ending at a small pond bordered with cattails and scrub pine. Today the path was wet and muddy, the weeks of snow long melted. Dirty slush edged the sides, and tire tracks were filled with icy water. They hopped and dodged their way through it as best they could, laughing as they emerged at the end, breathless and mud-spattered.

  It wasn’t her first trip to the pond; Theo had taken her two weeks after their initial date to the movies, and almost every weekend during that summer. They would sit on a large, flat stone beneath one of the pine trees and kiss until their lips were numb. More and more frequently, she would let his hands wander beneath her shirt, and once or twice, she had allowed her own fingers to drift along the inside of his waistband and then a little farther down until Theo’s breath caught in his throat, and he clenched handfuls of her shirt along her back. Pictures of Daddy Ray sometimes filled her head during these moments, and she would have to squeeze her eyes shut and force herself to breathe, but there was no denying the immediate pulse of physical pleasure in her own body that always accompanied the ugly pictures, and along with the obvious sensations in Theo’s, she had tentatively decided she wanted more. She wondered if he had something like that in mind today. She hoped he did.

  Today, though, Theo tiptoed to the edge of the pond where the ice was already beginning to crack. Alarm shot through Nora just as a first line came to her: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” The line was from Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude; she had read the book just last year, during a long, rainy week. Despite the beauty of the first line, the book’s strange, ambiguous ending had left her brooding for weeks afterward.

  “Don’t go any farther,” she warned as Theo began to tap the ice with the toe of his shoe. “It’s dangerous.”

  “It’s all right.” He pressed down again. “I was just here yesterday. Some parts are thin, but it’s okay around here.”

  “You’re not really thinking of walking on that, are you?” She shoved her hands inside her pocket. Overhead, a crow floated against the white sky, the only blemish in a sea of pearl.

  “Well, maybe not right there, exactly.” He drew his foot back as a section of ice splintered beneath it. “Or there.”

  “Theo!”

  But he had already hopped over to another section of the bank and was testing the ice again with his shoe. “It’s much thicker in this spot.” He beckoned to her with a wave of his hand. “Come on, Nora. Please. It’ll just take a second.”

  “What’ll just take a second?” She moved toward him slowly, her heart thumping in her ears. “For us to fall through the ice and drown?” She thought about something Grace had said once, during an Invisibles meeting, when the topic of how they’d want to die if they could choose such a thing
came up. Monica and Ozzie had both opted for a gunshot to the head, while she herself had decided that an overdose of sleeping pills would probably be the most painless way to go. Grace, though, had said she’d prefer drowning, optimally beneath a sheet of ice, so that her body could move seamlessly from a state of frozen inertia to one of burning joy.

  “Burning joy?” Ozzie had echoed. “What the hell are you talking about? When does anything like that come in?”

  “When you get to heaven,” Grace answered impatiently. “Obviously.”

  Nora didn’t know if she believed in heaven, but she remembered thinking that the idea of moving between two worlds in such a way sounded lovely. Like being asleep one moment and waking up, singing, the next.

  Theo cocked his head, hand still outstretched. “Do you really think I’d let something like that happen?”

  She didn’t answer. The obvious response was no, of course he would never let something like that happen. Still, things happened anyway, whether you wanted them to or not. Didn’t he know that yet?

  “You don’t even have to step on the ice,” he said, pulling her in next to him. “Just come here. Just listen. You won’t believe it.”

  She followed his lead, getting down on her knees on the edge of the bank, and leaning the side of her face as close to the ice as she dared. He was stretched out several feet ahead of her, his palms pressed against the glassy surface and his right ear an inch or so above it. His eyes were closed and the edges of his nose had begun to turn pink. “Just wait,” he whispered. “Hold on.”