by Sarah Allen
We get a refill on rolls and honey-butter and keep eating and talking. Everybody is so relaxed—the warm rolls are probably helping—and for a while I feel that vigilant guardian in my brain relaxing too. We talk about our trip so far, about whether we’re excited about school in the fall (me: yes; Ruth: meh). Darcy tells us about the summer internship she’s doing, helping with an art class at the local juvenile detention center, and also the sculpture project she’s working on.
“Oh, hey!” Darcy points at me. “My mom told me about your Instagram and I just kept staring at it all last night. I’m more a sculptor than a photographer, but seriously, you have such a different, unique eye for things. All your pictures are this almost strange, particular reminder of like, whoa, oh yeah, our weird world is kind of awesome.”
I sit still in my chair, a little stunned. That may be the best thing anyone has ever said to me. She sees what I’m trying to do. What I desperately wish everyone saw.
“Thank you,” I manage. “Wow.”
As in my conversation with Mom, the perfect words have been given to me to express something in my mind that felt unclear before. On this trip, the support and enthusiasm from Ellie and Eddie has felt almost surprisingly wonderful, but this feels like Darcy’s not only seeing and appreciating my pictures, but understanding them at the deepest level.
“I’m totally serious,” she says.
“Me too,” I say.
She smiles, then turns and says something to her mom. The dim lights and smell of barbecue float around me while my mind processes this, because Darcy has managed something kind of miraculous. Ruth is talking, watching things like they’re important, like she’s a little bit glad to be here. But there’s something else too. In only a few words Darcy has made me feel important. Like she really gets me, and she’s glad I’m here.
It all comes together in a very fragile and alarming thought: She’s made me feel how I’d want a sister to make me feel.
And I wonder if Ruth is thinking the same thing.
* * *
In the morning, I catch Ruth smiling while she puts on her makeup, and I see Dropkick Murphys playing on her iPod. Definitely a good sign. There’s something fascinating about watching her put on mascara. One of my favorite parts of playing pirates with her when we were kids was spending over an hour in the bathroom while she gave me thick black eyes and bushy eyebrows and a sleek goatee. After Mom had bought us those face paints, of course. I roll to my side.
“Morning,” I say. She clears her throat in acknowledgment. “Where is everyone?”
She sticks the mascara brush back in the tube and pulls out one earbud. “Ellie and Eddie went to see the campus with Darcy. They’ll come pick us up later for the aquarium.”
She’s talking. Complete sentences. No snips of sarcasm. She’s smiling. I need to thank Darcy one day.
I need to learn how to do whatever it is she did for Ruth.
My little pile of tattoo sheet and feather and concert program are still undisturbed on Ruth’s shelf. I point to the program. “So is the concert your favorite part of this trip so far?”
“Probably,” she says. “You? Camera still awesome as you hoped?”
“Oh yeah,” I say, trying not to sound like I want to fling my arms around her waist for asking. “It’s almost like the camera itself is better than my skill level, and I just hope I can get good enough for it.”
“Well,” she says. “What I know most about you is that you don’t give up, so I’m sure you’ll get there.” She pops her brow liner back in her bag.
Where’s pixie dust when you need it, because I’ve got everything else required to jump off this loft and float right up into the clouds.
Ruth tilts her ear toward the mirror and leans in. She’s trying to get a close look at her new tattoo. The swelling has gone down a little bit, I can tell.
“What did Mom say about that?”
It comes out before I think about it too much.
Ruth looks over at me with an eyebrow raised, a look somewhere between who cares and none of your business.
“Doesn’t matter,” she says.
I sit up and let my feet dangle over the ledge. “I mean, it kind of does.”
Something new and daring is trilling in my sternum and pushing me on. So often I don’t have the right words for things, and I’m not sure I do now, but in this moment I’ve got to try.
Ruth turns to me and folds her arms across her chest.
“I mean,” I say, stumbling on. “It matters that you did something that made Mom worried. That hurt her.” And me, I think. It matters that you hurt me.
Ruth takes a small step toward me. I’m tempted to pull my dangling legs up into the safety of my loft, but I stay still.
“Are you judging me?” Her words are quiet and dangerous as viper fangs.
“I…” Why am I doing this? It started out as such a perfect morning and now I’m ruining it. Now I’ve started, though, and I can’t stop myself. This is something bigger than me and I need her to understand. “No, I’m not judging. I just … aren’t there ways to … to do the things you want, to be yourself, without ignoring Mom and Dad? Without hurting them?”
Without leaving me behind?
Ruth boils me in another perfect pause before she takes two more steps forward. “You little prick,” she says. “You have no freaking clue, Miss Self-Righteous. I’m sorry we can’t all be as perfect as you. I’m sorry everything’s not always rainbows and glitter, that some of us actually have hard crap to deal with in our lives.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t even.” She jabs her finger at me like a cutlass. Now she’s close enough I can see the intensity in her face, but it’s not exactly what I expect. It’s that hurt and suffering I’ve seen before, whirlpooling and storming and battling behind her eyes. “Congratulations on living in a world where you can control everything that’s in your head, but don’t you dare look down on me for at least having some say about what’s on mine.”
My throat feels like cardboard. My whole face is burning and my hands and my stomach feel shaky. All over my skin feels tingly and I wonder if this is how it feels to go into shock. I feel too panicked and scared to be angry. My mouth is closed like it’s sewn shut.
In a movie, this is when somebody walks in, Ellie or Eddie or Mom, and there is a sweet but awkward scene where everybody talks things out and all the fights and problems are resolved. But not in real life. In real life, I stay frozen, staring between my feet that are still dangling off the ledge of my loft, until Ruth has decided she’s won, decided that I have been sufficiently shut up.
I know in my head that this really isn’t about me, that it’s a battle between Healthy Ruth and Sick Ruth. I know there’s that storm in her mind that I can’t see. I know all these things, but still it doesn’t change the freezing in my body, and I wonder, maybe, if that mental miscommunication is a tiny bit what she’s dealing with all the time.
How can a morning change so drastically, like the sudden snapping in half of a ship’s mast?
Ruth releases me from her glare, and I turn back to my pillow, barely mustering enough dignity to not pull my blanket over my head.
CHAPTER TEN
The nightmares started when I was seven. The story changed every night, but it always involved a horrible accident, someone in my family, and me—and it was always my fault. A car crash, a house fire. The part of me that knew I was dreaming would squirm and try to blink myself awake before the awful thing happened, but I never could.
One night the dream changed, just a little. This time the person with me was Ruth. She was hurt, bleeding badly. We were walking in a desert, part of a caravan of camels, and suddenly Ruth screamed and ran to me, her side oozing red. I had a special ointment, the only thing that could save her, in a pouch in my pocket. I’d found it by following a treasure map, and dug it up from deep in the sand. She screamed for me to help her, save her. She got close to me, showed me the hole in her side
. I pushed her away. She screamed and I pushed her again. We kept walking, my camels and I, and Ruth stopped following us. I kept walking over the dunes while her screams and cries echoed across the sand behind me. I did not turn around.
I woke up from that dream with the front of my T-shirt drenched and cold with sweat. There was already a puddle of tears on the pillow and a sob was building in my chest that felt too huge and throbbing for my seven-year-old ribs.
When I could move, I slid out of my bed, my arms wrapped around me, and scrambled to my parents’ bedroom. Mom had been sick all day and Dad was at a conference out of town, and when I opened the bedroom door, the bed was empty. There was a line of light under the door to the bathroom, and I heard noises of sick and smelled vomit.
I stopped, frozen with indecision. I desperately needed someone to hold me, to bring me back to the real world, but despite my terror I didn’t want to add more to my mom’s plate when she was already so sick. Even then I wanted to be the sunshine person. The person who made everyone else feel at peace, feel more happy. Storms always came, like sickness, but I wanted to be the person who made it all a little brighter, a little lighter.
So I stood still for a minute, then took two steps toward my bedroom. No, I couldn’t—I was too scared. I took three steps toward the bathroom. Another retching noise, and I wanted to let loose the wail building inside me, but I didn’t want to make too much sound or Mom would hear. I didn’t know what to do.
“Olivia.”
A whisper from the bedroom door. I turned and saw Ruth. Her hair was in braids, and she was still young enough to be wearing her pink narwhal nightgown. I must have woken her up.
“I…” Speaking felt too much like crying, and I stopped.
“Come on,” she said, and motioned me to follow. I took in a couple breaths, trying to cool my burning face. I stepped toward her.
She put her arm around my shoulders and led me down the hall to her room. She opened the door and in the glow of the guitar-shaped nightlight, I stepped across her floor to the bed. She didn’t say anything, just pulled back her blanket, and I climbed in, pressing my back against the wall. Ruth slid in next to me and pulled the blanket over both of us. She settled her head onto the pillow, facing me. She put an arm around me and closed her eyes.
* * *
Late in the afternoon, I finally become bored with my National Geographic magazines. It hasn’t been the most eventful day of our trip, short of the morning’s explosion. I’ve come down for food, but otherwise stayed bunkered in my loft. Ruth has been on her computer all day, earbuds in. Still listening to Dropkick Murphys, which is good. Maybe, I think, loud, rambunctious music is a weapon Healthy Ruth uses to fight that swirling, tidal wave battle in her brain. And that’s much, much better than The Pit.
When Ellie, Eddie, and Darcy come back, they have a pizza for us. We load into Darcy’s car and eat our dinner on the way to the aquarium. Ruth and I don’t look at each other, but she and Darcy talk a little more about college and music. I listen to their conversation and feel somewhat calmer than this morning. I hope Ruth does too, and I’m glad right now she seems engaged.
As we drive, I look out the window for hypothetical pictures, watching the trees and redbrick churches, and by the time we stop, I’m smiling. I can’t help it. In front of us is a gray building about three stories tall. There are balconies and rounded outcroppings, and it would look like a hotel except that the bottom story is designed and colored to look like red rock and sand. There’s a fountain in the front and in the middle, two giant stone swordfish, taller than me by far, leap into the air, the blue paint gleaming. Over the entrance are the words, AN UNDERWATER ENTERTAINMENT ADVENTURE.
I don’t know exactly how my Something Old plan is going to work out, given that we’re not exactly where I planned and Ruth is probably still uber-mad at me right now. But I’ll do my best. I can’t replicate the photo from before, but I’ll still have a great Something Old picture to show Ruth when we get to the end of the Treasure Hunt.
I run over to the swordfish statue. I love how their bladed noses arch toward each other. I love the smell of the chlorinated water. I pull out my camera to take a picture. Not the best shot, but the light coming from the fountain looks pretty cool. I’ll try for some really good shots once we’re inside.
We walk through the sandy, cavernous entrance. A lady with tiny braids in her hair stands at the front counter and Eddie buys us tickets. The lights are dim and blue, making everything look submerged.
Past the lobby are three arched entrances, each bearing the sign of its respective exhibit. My eye is immediately drawn to the one on our right and my legs want to leap with the thrill of it. There’s a sign made to look like sea-worn driftwood painted with red letters that say SHIPWRECK.
“Let’s go there,” I say.
I look back at the group. Ellie is smiling at me, and nods. Ruth is on her phone.
We head right, past some swampy-looking trees dripping with moss, and under the stone arch into a dark hall. There’s only dim light, shimmering and blue, like waves. At the end of the tunnel is another arch, and through it I can see an aquarium wall and what may be, if my dancing heart isn’t playing tricks on me, a giant sea turtle.
I step more quickly down the dark hall and through the entrance. We enter a room shaped like the hull of a ship. The walls above and below and all around are made mostly of thick glass, making everyone in the room a fully submerged participant in this underwater kingdom, this living Atlantis.
What I saw is a giant sea turtle. I crane my neck a little bit to see him past the rock he’s hiding behind. A stingray as big as me swims so close I gasp and step back, but then step immediately forward again and watch the ray glide like a magic carpet over to a bed of algae. Fish are everywhere, some small and flashing colors any artist would be proud of, as well as giant sluggish things that look more like big rocks than fish, their faces in a perpetual scowl. Some of them look like they could swallow me whole, even if their size is distorted by the water.
Between my feet, the glass flooring reveals the underwater world and sandy floor below. Another huge ray sleeps in the sand, partially covered. Without taking my eyes away, I pull my camera from its case and focus in on the stingray. I bend down close to try to minimize distortion from smudges and glare from the glass. A spiky pink sea urchin by the ray’s left eye completes the frame like it’s a still life. I click. Another fish gets too close and the ray skitters up and away, leaving only a puff of sand behind him.
There’s a short lady wearing round-framed glasses and an employee polo shirt standing by the entrance, and I step over to her when none of my group is watching.
“Hi,” I say. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” she says. “That’s what I’m here for!”
“So,” I say, “which is the oldest animal here? In the aquarium?”
She bites the inside of her cheek for a moment. “Hmm, good question.” She looks around for a second until she spots what she’s looking for. “That guy right there, I’m pretty sure.”
I look where she’s pointing and it’s my good friend the sea turtle again. He moseys slowly along the glass, following some yellow fish.
“Awesome!” I say. “Does he have a name?”
“Oh yes,” says the lady. “We call him Ned.”
Camera in hand, I look for Ruth. She’s looking down between her feet at a thick patch of pink coral. I keep one eye on her and one on Ned as he swims over our heads, and I try to triangulate myself between them to get a shot of both of them together, maybe even looking at each other. I try not to get too close so Ruth doesn’t notice I’m kind of following her.
She groans, looking hard at her phone like it’s just insulted her. Ellie notices too. “Everything okay?” she asks.
“It’s nothing,” says Ruth.
“You sure?” says Ellie.
Ruth glances at me, then looks back at Ellie. “It’s nothing, just this songwriting conte
st I submitted to. I didn’t win.”
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry, Ruth,” Ellie says. “That’s got to be discouraging.”
“It’s whatever,” says Ruth.
Ellie looks concerned, but lets it drop. I watch Ruth walk toward the glass, not seeing the stingray swimming right in front of her.
I take a couple of steps closer to her. Ellie, Eddie, and Darcy have meandered to other parts of the room. The shimmering reflection on the floor is like walking on light waves.
These are the kinds of Ruth situations I’ve always been terrible at, even before Ruth got sick. The knowing-what-to-say part. The comforting part. I can never get the tone right, like a singer always slightly off-key. I try, but can always tell I come off like a trite, ignorant cheer captain instead of someone who really cares. It seems like this should be such an obvious thing, comforting my sister. But somehow for me, knowing exactly what to say to make her feel better is like a bird knowing how to breathe underwater.
But I have to try.
Another step closer. I want her to know that I don’t care about our dumb argument anymore, and I’ve put it behind me. That there will be more opportunities. That she should always keep working on her songs and her own things no matter what, because they’re amazing.
Great. Even in my own head I’m a dumb cheerleader.
“Hey, um, I had no idea you were sending your songs to contests and stuff. That’s really cool. You’ll get the next one.”
“Right,” she says.
“Seriously.”
“It’s your fault, you know,” she says, but her voice is soft, not mean. Like she’s trying to joke. “Always talking about the job you’re gonna have, the magazines you’re gonna work for. Always reading National Geographic, practicing on Instagram and stuff. I have to keep up somehow, right?”