We Speak in Storms

by Natalie Lund

  “Gretta, you said before that they’re always whispering about their regrets, sorrows, and goodbyes, right?” Brenna asked.

  Gretta dropped her cigarette and crushed it under her boot. “Yeah. But you can’t take them back in time.”

  “No,” Brenna said. “But I think we can help them face their pasts and make peace.”

  FACING THE PAST

  Facing the past? Making peace? We scoff at the idea. If it’s closure you mean, we all need it. So why them? Some fateful matching? When the next tornado comes, will more of us get a turn to help and be helped?

  Again, we tug at the threads of our memories. We try to separate ourselves. Who were we when we were fully ourselves?

  Andy, whose girlfriend’s skull was crushed in his lap by the steering wheel. Frances, who kept her pregnancy a secret from Donald because she wanted to graduate. Donald, who’d figured it out and already had a ring—a temporary dime-store bauble—in his pocket. Pamela, who’d asked her forever-crush to the drive-in for the first time. Ernest and his brothers, who came on foot from a nearby farm and watched from outside the fence. Harold, who had inherited his father’s failing restaurant. Trudy. Charles. Sandy. Celeste. The list goes on.

  We all wanted more time.

  But our jealousy is misplaced. As much as we’d like to visit our remaining families, we know that we’d curl up like dried worms on a sidewalk when we were no longer needed, just like them.

  We don’t belong with the living anymore.

  Brenna knocked loudly on Dot’s garage door. It was the first time she’d been able to borrow Golden Girl for a trip to the Cities since dropping Dot off at her house nearly a week ago.

  “Dot,” Brenna called, knocking again. Her heart thumped. What if she’d gone without saying goodbye? What if she’d already been pulled to the other side?

  But Dot slid the door open and shielded her eyes with the palm of her hand. Her lips were cracked with tiny dots of blood where the skin had peeled away. The whites of her eyes were streaked with red vessels.

  “Can I take you somewhere?” Brenna asked.

  Dot shook her head. “I’m not up to it.”

  “I think it could help you feel better. Maybe not immediately, but soon.”

  Dot squeezed her eyes shut as though the sun were giving her a headache.

  “Dot, I can’t pretend I understand how you’re hurting, but I think I know how to help you get back to where you’re supposed to be.”

  Dot looked at her dully but was silent.

  “You do know you can’t stay here, right?”

  “I know.” Dot seemed resigned to hear this, but relieved, too. Brenna reached for her hand and led her to the car. Soon she would lose Dot. Soon Dot would find her peace.

  * * *

  * * *

  Brenna drove Dot downtown. Once parked, she peered through the Fill Station window on her way to the library, trying to see her mom. When she remembered her mom kicking her out, and the girl who’d actually left that night, who’d spent the night in the Pontiac, she felt like she was remembering someone else’s past. Because of Dot, and Callie and Joshua, too, she was assembling a new self that was strong, brave, capable, and sure.

  Inside the library, a few perm-haired women sat in a circle, each clutching a book in their laps, an old man had a newspaper spread on a table in front of him, and another sat at the microfilm machine with a notebook.

  Brenna chose a computer in the back corner behind the magazine racks, where no one would see her talking to herself and think she was crazy.

  “I think if we can figure out where your parents are now, that will help. What was your father’s name?”

  Dot shuddered. “Richard Healy. Goes by Rich or Richie.”

  Brenna looked for death announcements first, and found one from Terre Haute, Indiana.

  Dot leaned in, trying to see the picture better. The man was nearly bald, and fat had gathered under his neck like a turkey’s wattle. His ears stuck out, one corner clipped like someone had bitten him in a dogfight. There was no family resemblance except in the eyes: dark and bright. Brenna glanced at Dot, whose lips were a straight line.

  She nodded. “That’s him.”

  “I’m glad he’s not hurting anyone else, but I’m sorry, too. I’m sure your feelings are complicated,” said Brenna.

  “Yeah, I think I already knew he was gone on some level, but I was kind of relishing the thought of scaring the bejeezus out of him. A good old-fashioned haunting, you know?”

  Brenna laughed. “It says he’s survived by his wife, Sherry. Is that your mom?”

  “No. That must have been after—” Dot swallowed. “Are there—are there other kids mentioned?”

  Brenna shook her head, and relief washed over Dot’s face.

  “Can we try my mom? Her name is Mildred Healy. Maiden name: Goddard.”

  Brenna typed it in with the word obituary. Nothing came up. She scrolled through a page of living Mildred Healys. “What about this one?”

  Dot shook her head.

  “This one?”

  Again, a head shake. Brenna changed her search, trying the maiden name. Then the hospital where she was born. Then Mercer High School. They landed on a picture of an elderly woman with a cribbage board. Brenna looked at Dot and then the woman. She was blocky, but with a long, elegant neck and a sharp chin—just like Dot’s. They both had small, pinched noses.

  “That’s her,” Dot said. But Brenna found Dot’s expression impossible to read.

  Callie drove to St. Theresa’s, thinking of Brenna’s words: I think we can help them face their pasts. She snuck by reception and peeked into the puzzle room. Mrs. Vidal was on the couch in the empty room, her face blotchy, her eyelids rimmed in red. Each time Callie had seen her since the day at the impound lot, she’d looked more and more ill.

  “Mrs. Vidal, what’s wrong?” Callie asked.

  “Oh, Callie,” Mrs. Vidal said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “I didn’t visit you and your mom today. I just—felt so tired.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “I just wanted to have something to bring you after all this time.” The woman’s fingers wrestled with one another, winding and unwinding. Her perm was unkempt and frizzy.

  “To bring me?”

  “A win-win: so that you’d get to stay in your house and it would be cared for.”

  Callie thought of her house and waited for the inevitable ache, but all she saw was her mother, years ago, stretched out on the warm floorboards and beckoning her to join. “Just because there isn’t any snow doesn’t mean we can’t do angels,” she’d said, making rainbows with her arms and legs.

  “What if the house were generating money?” Mrs. Vidal continued, tugging her messy curls. “Then it wouldn’t be a burden and you could keep it. Just think: it could be an inn again.”

  “I don’t know that we could take care of an inn, Mrs. Vidal. I have school and my dad has work.”

  Mrs. Vidal’s face fell. “Of course. Of course. How silly of me. I’ll think of something else. I have to help. I owe you that,” she said. She didn’t seem to recognize how poorly she was doing, that her time was nearing its end.

  “You have helped me, Mrs. Vidal,” Callie said gently. “You were there when my mom was sick, and you made me see that I could be there for her, that I could be strong enough to lose her. And I’m applying to register the house as a historic place because of you, so it can be preserved even after someone buys it.”

  Mrs. Vidal smiled weakly. “I helped with all that?”

  “Of course. Now let me help you.”

  “I just have too many regrets, Callie. I told Frederic I wasn’t well enough to go to Celeste’s funeral, but really I was ashamed. Like she’d judge me for even showing my face after treating her how I did.”
Mrs. Vidal put her face in her hands.

  “Why didn’t you talk to her after you”—Callie searched for the right words—“joined her?”

  “It’s not like here, Callie. There are no individuals; you can’t have a one-on-one with someone. Everyone is jumbled together, and all our thoughts and memories and voices are shared.”

  “Have you tried visiting Celeste’s grave and talking to her since you got back?” Callie asked. “Maybe she’s listening. You were.”

  Mrs. Vidal’s nervous fingers went to her hair again. Callie caught her hand and held it. “There may not be much time left,” she said, thinking of her parents when they’d said nearly the same thing to her.

  Mrs. Vidal looked at Callie as though she finally understood and nodded. The nod felt firm and final—as though it were the last thing she vowed to do.

  Joshua still felt invigorated by his success with Tyler. It filled him, lifting and squaring his chest until he could imagine himself—not crouched like Nightcrawler—but Superman-like, cape swirling behind him. If he’d been able to stand up to Tyler, Joshua could certainly help Luke. The easiest thing, he decided, was to bribe Ruthie to cover for him and plant himself in Luke’s driveway after school—even if it took all night. He might not return to the house, but that was a risk Joshua was willing to take. He buttoned his coat up to his chin, crossed the street, and sat on the cold pavement with his sketchpad. He flipped it open to the sketch of his neighbor as Wolverine on top of the Pontiac. Inside the driver’s seat, he began to draw what he remembered of Eddie from the yearbook photo he’d seen—the light hair, the Ken-doll smile, the letterman jacket, and MERCER FIRE like a superhero’s emblem on his chest.

  Fifteen minutes later Luke rounded the corner in his gray jumpsuit. His hair seemed greasy, curling out from behind his ears, and his face was drawn, the pallor of his skin even more pronounced in daylight. He was walking slowly, the comic book hero depleted of his strength. How much time did they have left?

  Joshua tore the drawing out of the sketchpad and stood, brushing off the seat of his pants.

  “Hi, I made you something,” Joshua said. “As thanks.” The sketch wavered in the air between them, its soft crinkling betraying just how much Joshua’s hand was shaking. Luke took the drawing and unfolded it. In those seconds that the man looked at the drawing, Joshua’s heart was trying to force its way up his throat and past his tongue so it could flop onto the driveway at their feet.

  “This is me?” Luke asked, his voice soft, ragged.

  “How I see you,” said Joshua.

  Luke gave a sad smile. “I wish my father had seen me like that.”

  At the impound lot, Joshua had repeated Luke’s story to Callie and Brenna; he could be Luke’s voice again. “Maybe he still can.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The ancient tree that stood in Luke Senior’s front yard had lost its leaves early. No one had raked, so Joshua crunched up to the front door, Luke hanging back like a shy puppy. The cigar-smoking man Joshua had seen from the bus many times before answered the door. He was small with yellow skin, stretched earlobes, and a spine that buried his chin in his collar. He looked at Joshua, eyes beady like a frightened rodent.

  “Who are you, boy?”

  “I’m Joshua Calloway. Are you Mr. Winters?”

  The man didn’t answer, just narrowed his eyes, and Joshua saw Luke in the crinkle of skin.

  “That’s him,” Luke said from behind Joshua. The man’s head jerked like he’d heard something, and he looked over Joshua’s shoulder before fiddling with his hearing aid.

  “Would it be okay if I ask you a few questions about your son?” Joshua asked.

  The old man grunted but shifted in the doorframe and held the door open just wide enough for Joshua to enter. Mr. Winters tried to close the door after him, but Luke stopped it so he could squeeze through. “Thing keeps getting stuck,” the old man grumbled.

  Inside, the house was so humid, the floorboards and walls were slick. Damp spots like coffee stains spotted the ceilings. The warped doors hung on their hinges as though they were in a fun house. Joshua squinted at a wedding photo propped against the wall. The groom must be the man leading him through the house. Back then he’d been much larger, muscled and tall like his son, hair military short and face clean-shaven. There was something Wolverine-like about his face, something resembling Luke.

  On the mantel there was a graduation photo smoke-stained yellow. No mistaking Luke, mischievousness in the glint of his eyes and the way his lips were pressed together, as if he knew a secret about the photographer. Joshua glanced at Luke, whose face had since thinned, his eyes saddened.

  Joshua and Luke sat on the sagging tweed sofa, and Mr. Winters shuffled to and from the kitchen to deliver a warm can of Coke and a plate of crackers with a lump of canned tuna in the middle. The tuna smelled sharp, and Joshua had to resist the urge to plug his nose. Out of politeness, he took a cracker and tipped it—just barely—into the fish. Mr. Winters shoveled tuna onto a cracker and then munched thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling.

  “I had a dream Junior came back, that he was following me everywhere.”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. He’s here.”

  The man grunted. “How is he?”

  Not a Have you lost your mind? or How the hell is he here? Mr. Winters clearly knew the lore and believed it.

  “He doesn’t seem to be doing well,” Joshua answered truthfully, looking directly at Luke when he said it. Luke’s eyes dropped to his large hands, but he didn’t say anything.

  Mr. Winters looked at the ceiling again. “That boy always seemed a little off to me.” He sounded disgusted, cruelty flaring as red as the belly of a robin. Joshua winced. Luke grimaced like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Always running off with that Eddie kid. Sitting alone with him in the car. Like I didn’t know what was going on in there.”

  Again, Joshua was surprised. Luke looked surprised too, his head lifting with a jerk. “If you knew, why didn’t you stop him?” Joshua asked.

  Mr. Winters shrugged, popping the tab on his Coke. “He reminded me a lot of his mother.” Joshua followed Luke Senior’s gaze to the old wedding photo. In black and white, she’d been reduced to extremes. Skin and dress white. Hair black. Her lips the only gray.

  The man noticed Joshua studying the photo. “No, no. Not like that, not literally. I mean, happy.”

  Tears welled in Luke’s eyes, and Joshua smiled at him. This man knew his son was happy and wanted to preserve that—despite his beliefs. Why hadn’t he been able to make this known to Luke at the time?

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Luke Senior said, interrupting Joshua’s thoughts. Joshua prepared himself for questions about being gay, about how the sex worked or how one man could love another. But instead Mr. Winters asked: “Why didn’t Junior just stay inside the car with that Eddie kid?” He sounded angry and hurt and sorry, all at once.

  Joshua thought of the story Luke had told him about the tornado, about his unwillingness to settle for anything less than open, outright love. “He was being brave,” he said.

  “Brave?” Mr. Winters grunted. “Sounds like he was being foolish to me.”

  Luke’s jaw clenched. “He left Eddie because he was standing up for himself. For what he needed,” Joshua said.

  “Brave, huh?” Mr. Winters said again, but this time, the words weren’t meant for Joshua. He was looking where Luke sat on the couch—not focused on him exactly, not really seeing him, but aware, Joshua thought, that he was there.

  Luke’s eyes welled with tears. “Yes,” he said firmly, and Joshua saw a note of recognition in his father’s face. He’d heard.

  WE WATCH

  We watch the three who escaped us with anticipation, watch their drawn, nervous faces and the way they shift, bounce their knees, bite their cheeks as they embar
k on their journeys. We forget what it was like to occupy physical space, how the human body aches to express whatever is inside.

  We find ourselves rooting for them, though we’re not sure what we’re rooting for. For a storm to whip them back into the skies? For them to stay? For our turn?

  No matter what, we hope for happiness and wholeness. How can we not?

  It’s going to storm. Can’t you smell it? It smells like an ice rink,” Callie’s mom said.

  Callie checked her weather app again and shook her head. “Still no sign of a storm. More Gilmore Girls?”

  “I can’t take any more of that fast-talking.”

  “How about a story?”

  Her mom smiled. “I’d love that.”

  Callie smiled in return and began. “Back when Mercer was no more than a few farmhouses, there was a woman named Margaret Peterson.” Callie proceeded to tell the story exactly as her mother had when she was a child. “And when they died, they still came—”

  “To sit by her fire, eat her bread, and curl up under her blankets,” her mother finished, tears glittering in her eyes.

  “They’ll still come, Mom. I promise. I’m making sure the house will be preserved. I’ll get it on the National Register.”

  Her mother pulled the Kleenex from under her watch and blotted her eyes. “You’re a great kid, Cal.”

  “Preservation is important. Mrs. Vidal taught me that. And you did too. I mean, look at this room.”

  The living room was now as much her mother’s as it had been Margaret Peterson’s or Mrs. Vidal’s. She’d hung drapes that were heavy and rich—like an aging starlet’s. All the furniture was equally elegant and old: daybeds upholstered in champagne pink, lamps with stained-glass shades, end tables with curved legs and lacquered tops. Only the hospital bed—a great metal-and-plastic beast—seemed out of place.