by Natalie Lund
Callie swallowed. She tried to say something, maybe about the loaned sweatshirt she’d forgotten at home, but she couldn’t find any words. The receptionist called her name and held out a phone.
“Dad?” Callie said, her voice a croak.
“It’s Toni,” her aunt said. “Your dad is at the hospital with your mom. I’m on my way to get you, okay?”
Callie nodded, numb.
“Cal?”
“Yeah. Okay. Is it—” Callie stopped herself. She felt the girl’s eyes on her and couldn’t speak it aloud.
Her aunt Toni understood. “No, no, hon. The chemo has just done a number on her kidneys.”
Callie handed the phone back to the receptionist without saying goodbye.
“I’ll write you a pass so you can collect your things,” the woman at the desk said, pity unmistakable in her downturned mouth and softened eyes. “Or I can have an office aide go get them for you if that would be easier.”
It was hard to care about her backpack. Someone would probably get it to her later. Her cell phone was the only thing of value, and it was in her pocket. Callie shook her head and sat down.
“Do you need anything, hon?” the woman asked. “I could get you some juice or a carton of milk or something.”
“No, thanks,” Callie said. So many adults called her hon now, like her own name wasn’t gentle enough, like she needed something sweeter to protect her from what was happening.
The girl with the boots reached across a table stacked with magazines and squeezed the wooden armrest of Callie’s chair. “You okay?” she asked, pushing the thermometer aside. Callie stared at the girl’s knuckles. She wanted to respond, to be polite, but if she opened her mouth, she knew she’d let the tears out.
Every Thursday during second-period study hall, Joshua went to the school counselor. The meetings were the vice principal’s suggestion, a result of the fainting incident. Secretly, he called Thursdays gay day, because someone, at least, was talking to him about it—even though she was being paid to do so. The counselor was a self-important, comically sincere woman. Big-bodied like him with blond bangs curled like it was the eighties. Her plump lips were always trembling because she’d brought herself to tears with some story about her own past. Still, she was a human talking to him at school.
Joshua spotted Callie and Brenna through the office’s glass window. Callie’s face looked paler than it had in pre-calc. Brenna had a thermometer in her mouth, but was bright-eyed and healthy-looking.
Joshua rapped on the glass outside the entrance.
“Hey,” said Brenna, the thermometer turning the word to marbles.
Callie’s eyes were glassy and distant.
“Is everything okay?” Joshua asked, pausing in the doorway.
Brenna took the thermometer out. “I was just getting out of class,” she said. They both looked at Callie.
She brought her balled-up hands right in front of her face like she was trying to keep something from coming out of her mouth. Her eyes slipped from Joshua’s forehead to his feet. It didn’t seem like she was ignoring him so much as she was trying to disappear, trying to be as unobtrusive and unnoticed as possible. Joshua had spent so many years wishing his body would go unnoticed. When it finally did, it wasn’t a relief; it was a new and different grief. Callie’s disappearance wouldn’t alleviate the devastation of losing a parent. That, Joshua knew.
“My father died when I was three,” he said. “I know that ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t feel like enough. Or that you’ve heard it so much, it’s probably just empty words at this point, so I won’t say it, but please know that I am.”
Callie’s eyes locked on him then, and, for the second time in twenty-four hours, Joshua felt seen.
“Adults act like I’m going to break,” she said, and Joshua wasn’t surprised. Each word quivered from her lips, sounding like it might shatter on the linoleum between them. “Most people our age just pretend I don’t exist anymore.”
“People pretend I don’t exist too, but probably for a different reason,” Joshua said.
“People are trash,” said Brenna.
The corners of Callie’s mouth lifted into a small smile.
“I know this isn’t the same thing,” Brenna said, “but when my parents split up, I didn’t want to talk or even think about it. So we can talk about something else if you want.”
“We were all at the tornado last night,” Joshua said. “That shit’s crazy, right?”
“Yeah.” Callie uncurled her fists and looked at her palms like she was just remembering they were there. “Did you guys see anything strange?” she asked. “Anything that—didn’t make sense?”
Could they tell her about the VW? Joshua looked at Brenna and tilted his head toward Callie. She nodded, sympathy plain on her face. They’d just met the night before, but they seemed to be on the same wavelength. Something Joshua hadn’t experienced with anyone but Ruthie.
“After we left last night, we found another car—an old VW bus,” Joshua said. “It looked like it had taken a beating too.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “Was there a driver?”
“Not that we saw. Why? What did you see?” Joshua asked.
But before Callie could answer, a dark-haired woman rushed into the office, smelling of fry grease and dish soap. She was visibly Callie’s relative: curveless, compact build and a small, upturned nose. Her hair, though, glittered with silver and she had dimples. At the sight of her, Callie stood like a robot, allowing herself to be hugged.
“It’s going to be okay. She’s fine,” the woman murmured as she signed Callie out of school. Callie turned back to them, her cheeks flushed. The words came out in a rush: “I saw a person in the Pontiac during the storm, and then I found footprints leading into the cornfield. I think there was someone out there—or maybe it was a few people. I heard whispering, ‘Find them. Save them.’”
Before Joshua could say anything, the relative took Callie’s arm. Callie looked back over her shoulder pleadingly, like she needed Joshua and Brenna to figure it out.
The whispers could have been the wind, he thought, but combined with the abandoned cars, and another tornado on October 7, it was all just too weird. Joshua vowed to find out what was going on.
TIME ISN’T SOMETHING
Time isn’t something we keep, and yet it’s all we have. Dates fold on top of one another like pleats in a paper fan. Today it is December 9, 2018; it is May 12, 1954; it is November 6, 1860; it is August 30, 1903; it is October 7, 1961. It is always October 7, 1961.
It is our curse, our purgatory, our blessing to spend this time watching the living. The young, the still-spinning, their lives unfolding where ours stopped. Teenagers with pitted faces, concave chests, coltish limbs, and smiles that could clear skies. We are drawn to some more than others. Those who speak to us. Those who dream us. Those who need us.
Callie’s aunt’s car smelled overwhelmingly of French fries. Toni owned a burger joint across the river and had brought lunch for Callie.
“I figured you’d be hungry,” she said, nudging the greasy bag Callie’s way.
Callie shook her head. Her aunt frowned but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t as aware as Callie’s dad was that she’d been skipping meals.
Toni looked a lot like her mom had before cancer. They both had round faces, dimples, and straight brown hair. But Toni was older and her hair was lit with tiny gray threads. Callie wondered what color her mother’s hair would be if it ever grew back in. She’d read that sometimes, after chemo, blond hair grew in black, or straight hair came back curly or soft hair became wiry. She tried to remember how her mother’s hair had felt when she’d clipped barrettes in it as a kid. This was something else—like her mother’s scent—that she’d never know again.
Callie pushed the thought away and tried to listen to her aunt talk about acute kidney failure, ho
w it had happened in less than twelve hours. It was amazing how quickly the body could short out. She’d seen videos of long-distance runners who were dehydrated. Their legs—so trained and toned—became like rubber, bending and wobbling. Their faces went slack as they veered off course and then collapsed. Callie had never run that hard. Her body had never said, This is all I can do. Her mind had never let go. Even her emptying was active, controlled.
Callie envied those seconds of giving in to the body, that sure silence and peace as a runner fell.
* * *
* * *
At the hospital, Callie slumped beside Toni in the waiting room. There were always the outdated magazines. TVs tuned to courtroom dramas and news stations. The smell of burnt coffee. At first she’d hated them, but now she preferred them to the alternative: the room where her mother was connected to machines, where Callie couldn’t escape the talk of cancer and death.
When her father came to get them, she studied his face for new information, but it was frozen: square, thin-lipped, creases between his gold eyebrows. He squeezed Callie’s shoulder before beckoning them down a hallway to her mother’s room.
Inside, her mother was attempting to tie on her green scarf, but her hands were shaking. Toni hurried over, took the ends, and made an efficient knot. Wet-eyed, her mother reached out for Callie, who tried to freeze her own face so she wouldn’t look sick, revolted. Her mother’s fingertips were ice-cold. There was a new machine, sitting to the left of the bed. It had a screen, what looked like wheels of blood, and tubes leading to her mom’s left arm.
“I’m sorry you had to miss school for this.”
Callie shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
“School is important.” Her mother’s voice was thin, but shrill. This was a lesson.
“I know. You’re right. School is important.”
“I can go home after the dialysis, but Dr. Kennedy is stopping by this afternoon.”
Callie nodded. She’d only met the oncologist once, a grandfatherly man with an easy grin. Not what she’d expected from a person who’d told her parents that chemo was only going to buy them time.
“Would you guys mind if I have a minute alone with Callie?” her mother asked. Toni nodded knowingly, and her father said something about needing a pop. Callie watched them leave, hoping desperately that they’d turn around and decide it wasn’t a good idea, that she wasn’t old enough to be left alone with a dying mother.
Her mother patted the bed, and Callie sat at the very edge, not wanting to find out if the rest of her mom’s body was as cold as her hands.
“I wanted to talk to you about what this means, Callie,” she said softly.
Callie looked at the walls, white with slate-blue trim.
“My kidneys can’t handle this chemo anymore, and Dr. Kennedy might want to try a different treatment to keep me alive a bit longer. But your dad and I are going to talk to him about stopping. I just want to feel a little better for a few days.”
Callie’s mom looked at the ceiling, and tears welled along her bottom lids. She patted her wrist, but someone had removed her watch Kleenex and she had to use her fingers to swipe away the tears. “I just want to feel a little better.” It sounded like a plea to someone. Callie wondered if her mother was talking to God. Her mother’s belief in God was as firm as her belief in the Storm Spirits. She’d sent Callie to the Catholic elementary school in town and expected her to attend youth group throughout middle and high school so that Callie would remain connected to her religious upbringing. But Callie had quit going. If there were a God, he wouldn’t be killing her mother. Of that, she was certain.
“So you’ll go back on the chemo after a little while?” Callie asked.
Her mother exhaled slowly. “I don’t think so,” she said, her voice choked.
“But you won’t stay alive without it,” Callie said.
“Sweetie, I won’t stay alive with it either.”
Callie felt a cavern open up inside, like her blood was echoing against stone walls. They’d talked about this before—or, rather, her mother had talked and Callie had half listened. At some point, her mom had said, they’d decide to stop treatment. At some point, enough would be enough. At some point, but not today.
“You know I want to spend as much time with you and your father as I can, right? I don’t want you to think I’m giving up on you—” Her mother let the tears fall. “But I just—” She was inhaling raggedly, trying to catch her breath.
Callie wanted her to stop talking, wanted everyone to just stop talking. She wished she could be a little kid again, clapping her hands over her ears and humming at the top of her lungs when her mother told her to go to her room.
“I don’t want you to be mad when I’m gone, because I made this decision—”
Callie shook her head, like she was trying to get water out of her ears. Then don’t do it, she wanted to say. Keep fighting. Instead: “Mom, stop. Please. I won’t be.”
Her mother swallowed, wiped her eyes again, and took a deep breath. “Do you have any questions? About what it will be like when I’m off the chemo?”
Callie couldn’t think of any, except How long? And there was no way she could ever let her tongue say those words.
“It doesn’t have to be about cancer, either,” her mother said. “We can just talk. About boys or youth group or cross-country or whatever.”
Callie knew her mother wouldn’t let up until they talked. She searched for something to say that wasn’t about cancer, but all she could think of were the whispers she’d heard and what Joshua and Brenna had said about finding another car. She wished they’d had a chance to finish their conversation. Her mother, the devoted Mercerite, might have insight, but she also might freak out that Callie and her dad had been in so much danger.
“Have you seen the news today?” Callie asked. “About the tornado last night?”
Her mom raised her bare brows and shook her head. “A tornado? Was anyone hurt?”
“No.”
Her mother patted the bed again, beckoning Callie to lie down. “Wasn’t it the seventh yesterday?”
Reluctantly, Callie lay down shoulder to shoulder with her mother. “Yeah, and it touched down near the old drive-in.”
“That’s unbelievable! Why didn’t you guys wake me up and go to the basement?”
“Dad and I weren’t home,” Callie said quietly. “I was practicing.”
“You were driving in it?” Her mother touched her chest—like she was checking for her heartbeat. Callie knew it was building inside her—the energy for a lecture and the fear of leaving her daughter, who clearly had so many lessons left to learn.
“We were totally fine, Mom. But maybe you can tell me the story of the whispers.”
Her mother’s hand fell to her side, relieved by the change in subject. “You already know this one, don’t you?”
“Yes, but tell me again. Please.”
Callie’s mom reached over and pushed Callie’s bangs off her forehead. Callie felt an ache settle into the back of her throat, a heavy knot that she couldn’t swallow away.
“My friends and I went to the field one anniversary to do a séance. I was always wanting to talk to my aunt, to see how alike she and my mom were. Anyway, it started to rain, and our candles went out. We took shelter in the car, and I thought I heard voices whispering around us, but no one else heard them.”
“What’d they say?” This, too, was part of the script.
“It sounded like, ‘Tell them we’re okay,’ but it was a hundred voices talking at once, so it was hard to understand.”
“Why do you think you’re the only one who heard?”
“I don’t know. Maybe those girls weren’t there for the right reasons. They just wanted a scare. And I wanted to listen. It was when your grandparents were going through their divorce, you know. My mom was always
grieving her sister, my dad was tired of fighting, and I was looking everywhere for answers.”
Callie shivered at this. Was she looking for answers too? “Did you find them?”
Her mother looked at her with pity. “No, honey. But I realize now, it gave me some comfort. The idea that the departed are out there watching over us and whispering makes me think that, when I’m gone, I can still—you will still—” She blinked rapidly, tears rolling off her cheekbones onto the pillow.
“I know, Mom,” Callie said softly. And, in spite of everything, she, too, allowed herself a brief flare of hope.
On the bus, Joshua took out his sketchpad and flipped to the white tornado car he’d drawn at lunch. It looked bare—without the expression he’d envisioned in Mrs. Crawley’s class. It needed something, someone. He thought about what Callie had said, and drew the outline of a person in the driver’s seat with the lightest strokes. He left the face blank.
The bus stopped to pick up the middle schoolers down the street from the high school, and Ruthie climbed on. She smiled at Joshua wryly before sitting beside a neighbor girl. They turned onto Orange Street, passing an old man who always sat on the steps, smoking a cigar, his shoulders hunched to his ears. To Joshua, he never seemed to age and yet had always been ancient. When Joshua and Ruthie were little, they’d waved madly out the bus windows, seeing who could get him to wave back. Neither of them won.
Just as Joshua returned to his sketch, the brown plastic seat back slammed into Joshua’s spine—someone’s knee on the other side—causing his pencil to dig into the page. He leaned against the window, trying to hold his body away from the seat. He’d taken the bus since he was in kindergarten; knee jabs weren’t new, especially in Mercer’s old buses where the plastic had softened or torn away to reveal the fabric beneath.