by Natalie Lund
When the rain started, Celeste had to hold a tray above her head and run for the snack shack. The movie was only a few minutes in. Audrey Hepburn flapping out her white scarf and mincing down the empty street. Celeste would never return with our Cokes, popcorn, and elephant ears. We’d never lick the grease off our fingertips.
The Rock-a-Gals opened the back doors of the van and beckoned a few of us who were on picnic blankets to pile in. They had a tarot deck, and Kitty was reading the cards for Dorothy. We could tell Dorothy wasn’t paying attention, though, that her mind was far from swords, cups, wands, and that fool. She was probably imagining the show. We can imagine it too: stage lights on your face and a crowd at your feet that you can’t quite see but you can feel—their heat and anticipation, a yearning.
Dorothy sang, face placid, as though the sound of the storm was the applause. The song yawning out of her was huge and strong and new.
Kitty was the first one to see the tornado plotting its course for us. Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck, she said, and some of us thought holy, yes, meaning the song, before we saw the spinning beast for ourselves, before we screamed at Kitty to drive, before we squeezed our eyes shut, before we said our last prayers.
Joshua brought doughnuts to the first meeting of his group. He arranged the desks in an optimistic circle, wrote Welcome LGBTQ+ Alliance across the board, and was two doughnuts in when Brenna arrived. She was ten minutes late and looked worn-out, but she sank into a desk next to him and fished a bear claw out of the box.
“It looks like it’s just us two.”
She scanned what he’d written on the board and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “So why’d you want to start it?”
“I want to create a safe space and get to know people who are like me. It’s so lonely in a town like this for us. I mean, I learned that I was gay from watching a TV show and being like, ‘Oh yes, that’s what I feel.’ I had to watch YouTube videos to learn how to talk about it. I don’t want others to go through that. I don’t want them to feel so alone.”
Brenna nodded sympathetically.
“And I really thought they’d come if there was a place that offered a little comfort,” Joshua continued. “If I was brave enough to make it.” He scanned the empty desks. “Guess I’ll have to wait until college.”
Just then a boy, lean and sandy haired and wearing a letterman jacket, poked his head into the room. Joshua had seen him around before, one of the quieter popular kids, blushing at the attention of girls and grinning self-consciously whenever addressed by his teammates. Joshua wondered if Luke’s Eddie had been something like this boy: golden and beautiful. Not like him, fat and ginger with torn jeans and toe-holes in his shoes.
“Come in,” Joshua said with deliberate cheer. “I’m Joshua. What’s your name?”
“Beau,” the boy answered.
Brenna introduced herself, patting the desk next to her.
The boy sat, but his eyes darted to the door.
“Don’t worry; you’re safe here,” Joshua said, trying to sound welcoming, but there was part of him that was wary, suspicious of this gorgeous boy’s intentions. Joshua had been bullied too long to trust anything right up front. “Is there anything you want to talk about? Anything going on at home or school?”
Beau began to trace words carved into the desk. “Nothing is going on,” he said. His voice was surprisingly gravelly, like a smoker’s.
“Okay, I’ll share something, and if you think of something later, just let me know.”
Beau stiffened visibly in his chair, eyes on the hallway. Joshua looked over his shoulder.
Tyler.
He was lurking just outside the door, his face twisted like he’d sucked a lemon.
Beau’s chair scraped as he stood up. Wearing that jacket, Joshua knew, would make him a target for someone like Tyler. Brenna stood too, her lip in a snarl. Fear coursed through Joshua—for himself, and for his little alliance with its nervous new member. But something else flooded him too. It was bright, this new thing, and white-hot.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll handle this.”
Joshua walked out the door, and closed it behind him. “It’s important that you respect our privacy,” he said to Tyler. Joshua’s hands were hot, blood beating into them. He opened and closed his fingers, trying to relieve the pressure. He managed to keep his voice calm.
“Privacy?” Tyler snorted. “You’re meeting in a public school with the door open. You advertised the meeting with posters.”
“It’s important that we do,” Joshua said. “But our stories, our coming out, they belong to us. Does that make sense, Tyler?”
Tyler’s arms were locked tight across his chest, though he appeared to be leaning away from Joshua, like he couldn’t decide if he was being the aggressor or the casual passerby. His face was set in an expression of bored distaste.
“What’ll you give me?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m not even going to appeal to our former friendship, because clearly you don’t value it. I’m just asking you, human to human, not to out anyone you saw here today.” Joshua readied himself to be hit again, though this time with his arms at his sides and his eyes on Tyler’s face.
Instead Tyler took a step back, something cracking his expression—a small ray of understanding? Or regret? Or sadness?
Joshua stepped into the space that Tyler had surrendered. Tyler backed up again, putting his hands up like he expected Joshua to hit him.
“I’m not going to hit you, Tyler,” Joshua said. “But I will go to the principal, the police, and anyone who will listen to stop you from hurting anyone else.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Jeez. I won’t say anything.”
Joshua watched, bewildered, his once-friend back away. Had Joshua actually become that powerful? That strong? As the shock subsided, he felt a wash of pride.
And it felt better than he’d imagined.
A hospital bed was installed in Callie’s living room in place of the sofa and coffee table. There was a blood-pressure monitor where there’d once been a lamp, and a CPAP machine to help her mother breathe while she slept. Aunt Toni bought a walker and it sat, unfolded, beside the bed, though her mother never used it. Callie had become an expert at maneuvering her mother’s weight onto the toilet, at lowering her underwear and helping her wipe—all things she’d never imagined doing before that day in her mother’s bedroom. Now she would do it over and over. Because it was for her mom.
Callie began to mark time by the arrivals and departures of hospice care workers. Nurses to begin and end the day. Aides in between. A new doctor who would visit three times a week. A bereavement specialist named Deb who helped her father “make a plan.” The house, which had once felt unnecessarily large, now felt crowded with strange people and machines, cramped with the nearness of death.
Callie spent the mornings with her mother in the hospital bed, which was wide enough for both of them. Their father had set up the TV so they could watch Gilmore Girls. Her mother slept—the CPAP whirring—through most of it. Occasionally she woke enough to remove the mask and ask, “Who’s that man with the ball cap?” “Why is that old woman so mad?” “Can you check the weather, love? It feels like a storm is coming.” Callie checked, but saw nothing but a cool, crisp fall ahead. “For once, I agree with your father. The weathermen are wrong,” her mom said before sinking back into sleep.
* * *
* * *
One morning, while her mother slept, Callie managed to complete the form she’d found online for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. She wrote about the house’s history and significance, about Margaret Peterson and Lincoln, the stories her mother and Mrs. Vidal had told.
Around lunchtime, Callie peeked into her dad’s office to ask if she could scan the illustration of Lincoln in front of their house for the application and saw her dad slumped in his offic
e chair, eyes almost closed, watching family photos cascade across the laptop screen. To the right she saw the bills stacked neatly beside the keyboard. Registering the house wouldn’t erase those bills, but it would ensure that, when sold, the house would be protected from damage and destruction, and that, Callie knew, would make her mother happy.
She stood there for a moment, watching her father, and froze as a photo of Niagara Falls—she and her mother hunched together—flashed across the screen. Callie was grinning and her mother’s mouth was open, the name David on her lips.
Breathless, Callie backed out of the room. She jogged downstairs, flung open the door, and stepped onto the porch. It was only outside, breathing the crisp, fall air, that she began to cry until her throat felt raw and her eyes burned. There was no way she was going back inside, but she needed to move, to warm herself. So she ran in what she was wearing—house slippers, a long-sleeve T-shirt, flannel pajama pants—to the canal. Everything was gray: the sky, the water, the ground. A mile in, the crowding trees cleared for an abandoned city golf course so overgrown, it looked like a prairie laced with broken concrete cart paths and errant cornstalks. A mile farther was the tree with the heart-shaped knot that her father always managed to reach first.
Running, Callie became the rhythm of breathing and footfalls. She became the twinge in her knee or the dull ache along the arch of her foot or the heaviness knuckling her sternum. Being a body and its pains was fullness, awareness—not emptiness. She’d been wrong, which meant that maybe she was wrong about other things too. Like God. Maybe there was a house with many rooms in heaven, a replica of her house, and her mother would wait for her there. Maybe it wasn’t stupid, but beautiful, to believe that.
* * *
* * *
Back at home, Callie stood in the kitchen and regarded the contents of the fridge. Bodies need fuel, her father had said. There were Gatorades at the back, the blue kind that had once been her favorite. Callie opened one and sipped it. She felt something lurch inside her—hunger. She swung open a cabinet. Her mother hadn’t made granola in months, but there were a few granola bars. A little stale, but passable. Callie took a tentative bite, swallowed, and waited to see if her body would reject it. Instead of nausea, she felt ravenous. She took another bite and another until the bar was gone.
Callie showered, checked on her mother, who was still asleep, and waited on the porch for Joshua and Brenna. They hadn’t promised to come, but she sensed that they would. Elbow-nudging each other, sparring with sharp jokes. Callie couldn’t offer them any more friendship than she could offer Leslie, but there was something about the experience they shared that was enough for them to show up for her. And it was enough for her to show up for them too.
But it was Leslie who turned onto Main, walking slowly and alone, her curls pulled back in an elegant braid, wearing a tweed coat, and with a tote bag over her shoulder. They hadn’t spoken since the pizza party nearly two weeks ago. Leslie blanched when she saw Callie, her fingers going to her teeth. It was Leslie’s tell. She chewed the tips when she was nervous—each finger had a tiny pink callus like a crown.
Callie wasn’t sure what she felt about seeing her old friend walking toward her house. There wasn’t room for resentment or anger. And she’d felt affection when she’d recognized her in the distance, acting in such familiar ways. But had she actually missed Leslie over the past few days? No. Too much had changed.
“Hi,” Callie called out as Leslie crossed the street.
“Hi.” Leslie was out of breath. “I have your assignments. I was just going to leave them so I didn’t interrupt.” In other words: Sorry I arrived when you were here. It occurred to Callie that Leslie didn’t know what else to say in the face of real loss.
“It’s not a problem at all,” Callie said.
Leslie held out the homework. “I color-coded the assignments. I thought it might make things easier.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you have anything I should bring to school?” Leslie asked.
“No.”
Leslie nodded.
Callie nodded back, and then realized how goofy the two of them were—bobbing their heads like a pair of pigeons. Callie giggled, and Leslie’s face flushed—embarrassed or still angry. But then she started laughing too.
“How are you?” Callie asked when they’d stopped.
Leslie shrugged. “I’m okay.” There was a silence. “Hey, look, I should get going.”
“You can stay,” Callie offered, warmed by the nostalgia of laughing with her old friend, “and do your homework here. My mom is asleep.”
Leslie smiled, her lips snagging on her braces, and shook her head. “My mom is expecting me.” But that smile, Callie thought, contained forgiveness—for Callie’s behavior at the birthday party—and acceptance that even though they wouldn’t be the kind of friends they’d once been, that was all right. As Leslie turned and walked away, Callie sank back onto the steps to wait for Joshua and Brenna, lightened by relief.
As they walked to Callie’s house, Brenna and Joshua crossed paths with the curly-haired, sour-faced girl Brenna had seen Callie with at school. Today the girl’s energy was less sour, and she smiled when Brenna nodded at her.
As usual, Callie was waiting for them when they arrived. Brenna sat on the porch steps and pulled out a cigarette. Joshua nudged a bag of French fries toward Callie. She shook her head, but as soon as Brenna grabbed one, Callie reached for the bag, taking a few. It was the first time Brenna had seen her eat. As she did, Callie’s cheeks bloomed pink. Only her eyes—puffy and red—revealed her grief. Brenna thought of Dot, how dreadful she’d looked at the concert.
“Have you guys seen Mrs. Vidal or Luke lately?” Brenna asked.
“About a week ago,” Joshua said.
“Was he okay?”
Joshua shrugged. “He said he was fine, but it looked like maybe he was sick.”
“I saw Mrs. Vidal a week ago too,” Callie said. “She looked like she had a skin rash and was shedding or something.”
“Dot said she felt like something was pulling on her constantly. Weighing her down. She seemed desperate.”
“What do you think it means?” Joshua asked.
“I don’t know. But I know someone who might. Do you have time for a quick field trip?” Brenna asked.
Callie shrugged. “I guess I need something to do while my mom sleeps. And it’s not going to be homework.”
She disappeared into the house to ask if she could borrow the car.
“Shotgun,” Joshua said when she reemerged with the keys.
“Um. No,” Brenna said. “It goes by seniority.”
At that, Joshua took off running to the car. Brenna was just a few steps behind, but he boxed her out and grabbed the passenger door handle.
“Asshole,” she said with a laugh.
“Hate the game. Not the player,” Joshua said.
Brenna pretended to sulk but couldn’t hide her grin as she climbed into the back seat. In the rearview mirror, she could see that Callie was smiling too.
* * *
* * *
Brenna was worried about bringing Callie to a graveyard, but the girl appeared unfazed. Maybe she’d started to come to terms with her mother’s imminent passing?
“That’s Celeste Vidal,” Brenna said when they arrived before My Sky’s stone.
Callie bent down over the stone, as though wanting to read something carved behind the letters. “I can’t believe she lived in my home,” she said.
A small, wiry figure approached from the distance then. Brenna recognized the wild hair before she saw the empty coat sleeve pinned at the elbow.
“Callie, Joshua, this is Gretta,” Brenna said. “She was at the drive-in that night. One of the only survivors.”
Gretta pulled her hand out of her pocket and made a smoking gesture. Brenna patted he
r jacket and found one of Manny’s packs, which she tossed. The woman stuck one cigarette in her mouth, then took another and tucked it behind her ear. Normally, Brenna would have been annoyed—she was too broke to hand out cigarettes—but it was Gretta. Somehow, everyone in town owed her for being the voice of the survivors, for always telling their stories.
“What are ya up to?” Gretta asked, allowing Brenna to light her cigarette.
“I was showing Callie Celeste’s grave. They grew up in the same house.”
“And?” Gretta asked.
“And?” Callie repeated, unsure.
“You’re not just here because you lived in the same house. Let’s see: another tornado, that car, the whispers. She came back, didn’t she?”
Callie shook her head. “Not Celeste, no. Her mother. And two others, too. They’ve been trying to help us.”
“But they’re not doing well anymore. It’s like they’re falling apart,” Brenna said.
Gretta blew smoke and appeared to be mulling over the information. “What’d you say they were whispering again?”
“‘Find them. Save them,’” Callie said.
“And have you?” Gretta pointed her cigarette at Brenna, an indictment. “It sounds like they found you instead.”
“And saved us,” Callie said. “Or me, anyway. Mrs. Vidal helped me face my future.”
Joshua was nodding, and so was Brenna. Dot had given her a future packaged as a small lavender notebook.
“Dot said she felt like she was being pulled from the other side. It must be because they don’t belong here.” Brenna knew it was hell when you didn’t belong. She had a feeling Joshua and Callie did too. Now they belonged together.
“So we have to help them somehow,” Callie said.