Letting Go of Gravity

by Meg Leder

  “Fuck that,” Charlie mutters.

  I look up, shocked.

  Dad stops midsentence, the confused look on his face evidence he didn’t hear exactly what Charlie said. “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” Charlie replies.

  Dad seems placated, but I shoot my brother a look, wondering why he’s being extra unpleasant today.

  “Hey, Mom,” Charlie says. “Don’t forget I need your keys.”

  She points toward her bag, holding her coffee mug close, like it’s the only thing currently giving her life.

  I straighten. “Wait, what? No. I need the car today, remember?”

  Charlie digs through Mom’s bag and pulls out the car keys. “Got ’em. Thanks,” he says.

  “But, Mom!”

  “You are my beautiful, smart, grown children. I trust you can figure it out between yourselves,” she says, heading toward the stairs again.

  Dad follows her out of the room, pausing only to give me a corny Dad thumbs-up before he leaves.

  “Charlie. I need the car.”

  “So do I.”

  “Since when? Your tutoring doesn’t even start until next week.”

  “Mom said I can drop you off today.”

  “But that wasn’t the plan.”

  He shrugs. “It is now.”

  “But, Charlie, I need the car. For job stuff,” I add, trying to sound reasonable.

  “But, Parker, I need it for life stuff,” he says, shoveling in more cereal.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Got a comic book thing,” he responds, but with the cereal he’s just jammed in his mouth, it sounds more like “Cottacommaboothig.”

  “I’ll drop you off there, then.”

  He swallows. “No can do. It’s in Louisville.”

  My hand falls on the table. “Louisville! That’s, like, two hours from here! How are you going to get back in time to pick me up at two?”

  “It’s actually an hour and a half,” he says. “Besides, you’re done at five.”

  “No. I’m done at two.”

  He shrugs. “Mom told me five. That’s when I’ll be there.”

  “But it’s orientation! I’m done at two. What am I supposed to do during those three hours, just sit around in the lobby? I was planning on hanging out with Em this afternoon.”

  “Can’t you hang out with her tonight?”

  “She has plans with her mom,” I say, trying to stay patient.

  “Maybe she can pick you up this afternoon instead?”

  “No! Her mom’s using the car today! That’s why I need our car, so I can go to her house when I’m done today at two,” I say, my voice breaking in frustration.

  “Geez, Parker. Relax.”

  The knot behind my chest tightens more.

  I try again.

  “See, here’s the thing. You know Em’s leaving on Sunday? And I’m not going to see her for, like, ten weeks? And then I’m leaving for Harvard and she’s leaving for John Carroll? So if you have the car, at least maybe you could try to get there earlier?”

  “But here’s the thing,” Charlie says, mimicking me. “This is one of my last free days? Because on Tuesday I start weeks and weeks of tutoring? Because I missed school this year?”

  “Why are you being so nasty today?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I HAD CANCER?”

  I flinch. “Fine. You take the car,” I say.

  Something flashes across his face, and I could swear he looks guilty, disappointed even. But then he breaks eye contact and nods. “Cool.”

  I focus on my bowl of HealthWheat, blinking hard, trying to push the disappointment of losing my afternoon with Em down deep inside.

  Dad and Mom both come back in the kitchen then, and I wonder if they were eavesdropping, waiting to reemerge until we figured out the car situation.

  “Everything settled?” Mom asks.

  “Yeah. Charlie’s going to drive me to my internship,” I say.

  “Good. Charlie, do what you can to pick your sister up as soon as you can today. Maybe you can get there a little earlier?” Mom leans down to kiss the soft new hair on Charlie’s head, and like every other time she’s done it since it started to grow back, I can see her marvel at its softness, its presence.

  He ducks out from under her.

  “Maybe I can get there by four thirty,” he offers.

  “That would be so thoughtful, thanks,” she says.

  Thirty minutes isn’t nearly enough to salvage my afternoon with Em.

  Dad hugs me so hard my shoulders wilt. “I can’t wait to hear all about your first day. Remember, Dr. McCullough, you only get one chance to make a first impression,” he says.

  I force a smile.

  He chucks Charlie’s shoulder while Mom grabs her bag.

  “Hon,” Dad says, stopping her and leaning down to pick up a paper that’s fallen onto the floor. Even from across the room, I can see her neat red handwriting all over some poor college student’s essay.

  “Thanks. Dinner at six tonight, guys,” she calls over her shoulder as she shuts the door behind them.

  Charlie stands abruptly, dumping his cereal in the garbage and placing the bowl in the sink. “Leave in ten minutes?” he calls over his shoulder before jogging upstairs.

  I make myself eat more of the HealthWheat, despite the fact that it might be the worst thing I have ever tasted.

  I tell myself that if I can make myself finish the whole bowl, Charlie will come back and selflessly offer me the car, or Mom and Dad will come back with a set of shiny keys for a new car of my own, or my previously MIA fairy godmother will suddenly appear and conjure up a whole new life for me.

  But instead, Mustard the cat enters the kitchen and wraps himself around my legs. I can feel his throaty purr against my skin. He stops and licks my exposed ankle, and his tongue is all dry and scratchy, and then he stands on his hind legs, getting ready to jump into my lap, and I know he’s going to shed all over my pants.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I say, pushing the chair back, giving up on the HealthWheat. He lets out a crabby meow. “We can’t always get what we want.”

  I trudge upstairs to brush my teeth. If this is indeed the first day of the rest of my life, it’s off to a sucky start.

  Five

  AS SOON AS WE hit I-71, it’s clear Charlie’s mood hasn’t improved. He’s going well above the speed limit, his crappy jam-band music filtering through the car. It doesn’t help that Mom’s ancient Tercel has black vinyl seats and no air-conditioning, that even with the windows down, I feel like I might melt.

  “You’re going too fast,” I say, but Charlie doesn’t slow down. If anything, he speeds up.

  I lean over, turn down the music. “You’re going to get a ticket.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just turns the music back up.

  I grip the side of my seat.

  There’s sweat trickling down my back. I mentally curse my decision to wear the white oxford and dark pants instead of a dress. I’m going to be thoroughly drenched by the time I get there.

  Right then, Charlie slams the brakes, and the Tercel jerks to a halt behind a line of stopped cars in front of us, the seat belts yanking us back.

  Charlie barks out a curse.

  “God, Charlie! I told you to slow down!”

  He mumbles something that sounds like “sorry,” finally turning down the music, and I try to catch my breath.

  We’re stopped by the exit for the mall, and maybe it’s the near-accident moment we just had, but I’m hit with a sudden wave of nostalgia for the Delaney kids, which is weird, because they were pretty much the bane of my existence last summer.

  At first, the twenty dollars an hour Mrs. Delaney offered me to babysit her two sons seemed generous, extravagant even. But after my first hour with Todd and Ryan, I quickly came to the realization that two thousand dollars an hour wouldn’t have been nearly enough.

  They were, hands down, the worst kids I’d ever met. />
  Within the first week I watched them, Todd almost set the basement on fire (claiming he wanted to see if the fire extinguisher really worked), and Ryan intentionally locked himself in the bathroom for the better part of six hours. They both called me “Farter” instead of Parker, and the one time Emerson pinch-hit and watched them for me, she refused to talk to me for the next two days, accusing me of grossly misrepresenting what she was getting into.

  Even with all that, I realize I would have done it again this summer. Once I learned their MOs—the way Todd would get real shifty and secretive when he was planning something, and how Ryan started talking super loud when he was up to no good—I was a pretty good babysitter.

  But I have my internship.

  The internship I really, really wanted, the internship I beat out numerous other applicants for, the internship that’s currently making me nostalgic for two near-homicidal children?

  The line of traffic starts easing forward again, and for a while Charlie and I are both quiet.

  I sneak a glance at him, wondering if he’s thinking about Matty going to Europe—how Charlie was supposed to join him before he got sick again this past fall, how Em took his place instead, leaving us both without best friends for the summer looming ahead of us.

  “Huh,” Charlie says. “Look at that.”

  I lean forward to see what he’s pointing at: bright-red capital letters spray-painted across the edge of the bridge: IS YR TIN CAN COMFORT PLUS.

  “Wow. That’s weird. What do you think it means?” I ask as we pass underneath.

  “Not a clue.”

  “And how in the world could someone paint that up there without getting caught?”

  “Maybe it was Spider-Man.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say.

  “Do you have a better theory? Seriously, painting that without falling into the traffic below? That takes some serious superhero mojo.”

  “And a total lack of concern for personal safety,” I add. “Plus, would Spider-Man really do something illegal?”

  “Maybe he got sick of fighting villains and rescuing people. Maybe, for once in his life, he just wanted to be someone else.”

  For a second I get it, but before I can agree, Charlie leans over and turns up the terrible jam-band music again, letting it fill up the space between us.

  Six

  AS CHARLIE PULLS UP to the Children’s Hospital visitor entrance, my breath sticks.

  Other than driving by on the way to Em’s favorite coffee shop, I don’t think I’ve been back to the main branch of Children’s Hospital since Charlie was sick the first time, when we were nine. When the cancer returned earlier this year, he went to Bethesda—it was closer, and since he was almost eighteen, his doctors thought he should transition to an adult cancer facility. And my internship interview (which I nailed, talking about Charlie’s history and how it was why I wanted to be a pediatric oncologist) was at the Liberty Campus in the suburbs.

  Up until this moment, I didn’t think it would be weird coming back here. In fact, the thought never even crossed my mind.

  But as Charlie slows the car by the front entrance, it’s a punch to the gut, my stomach literally turning at the sight of the blue-and-white logo of children holding hands, the pale tan color of the brick, even the shape of the font for the hospital’s marquee.

  And for the first time in years, I let myself think about that day in fourth grade when Charlie got the bloody nose.

  Em and I were sitting cross-legged in a line of girls on the blacktop during recess, each person braiding the hair of the person in front of her. Except my hair was too short and too thick to do anything with, so I was at the end, sitting behind Em, trying to tame her soft blond curls into a neat French braid.

  I don’t know how long we’d been at it when we heard shouting and then saw our teacher, Ms. Dros, running across the blacktop toward a group of kids circled around something.

  “I bet there’s a fight!” Emerson said, turning to check it out and disrupting her braid in the process. I carefully angled her head back in front of me. I wanted to make the best French braid ever, if only to make up for my own hair.

  But then I shot a quick glance over my shoulder, curiosity getting the better of me, and saw my brother bent over, his hands clenched around his face.

  I dropped Em’s braid, the strands unfurling like they were in slow motion.

  By the time I got over to the group, Charlie was going inside with Ms. Dros and Matty, and the playground monitor made me stay outside with the rest of the class.

  Caroline Bates, the class loudmouth, stood in the center of the lingering crowd, hands on her hips, telling everyone that Charlie’s nose had started bleeding for no reason at all.

  This I could imagine: bright-red life pouring out of his right nostril, down his Iron Man shirt, over his hands, just like last year when he tripped on the playground and fell on his face.

  But Caroline also said Charlie started bawling.

  This I didn’t buy for one single second.

  Charlie never cried.

  So when she took it to the next level and called him a crybaby, I called her a shithead, a word I’d heard Dad use only when he was super mad about work.

  Miraculously enough, I didn’t get in trouble. With all the chaos of Charlie’s bloody nose, no teachers heard it. And since everyone liked Charlie, no one tattled on me, not even Caroline, who seemed to know she was in the wrong.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Charlie.

  For once, I felt brave. For once, I didn’t cry.

  That afternoon, Mom took Charlie to the doctor, so I stayed at school with Ms. Murray until Dad could pick me up. She asked me to feed our class guinea pig and to help put star stickers on the tests she graded. She even let me get M&M’s from the vending machine in the teachers’ lounge.

  I remember sitting on the comfy couch there, legs propped up on the coffee table.

  It was pretty much the best day of my nine years to date.

  When Dad and I got home that afternoon, Charlie looked pale and worn-out. He didn’t react when I whispered to him about calling Caroline that word, didn’t laugh when I told him my new favorite knock-knock joke, didn’t want our cat, Mustard, to sit with him.

  He only wanted to curl up on the couch, his head in Mom’s lap while she stroked his forehead.

  Mom said the doctor thought it was probably sinus issues or allergies, but that they should keep an eye on Charlie just in case.

  I didn’t know what that “just in case” meant, but over the next few weeks, as I watched my brother, my heart started to worry, flitting nervously in my chest.

  Charlie was constantly tired. He didn’t want to play catch with Matty, said his hands hurt.

  He turned down dessert, went to bed early.

  He got another bloody nose, this time in the middle of Sunday breakfast, when Dad was making pancakes. Mom put both her hands on his neck under his ears, felt the space there tenderly, frowned, and made an appointment to take him to the doctor the next morning.

  That night, when I made our secret knock on the wall, the one we gave each other every night before we fell asleep, Charlie didn’t respond.

  I got up, creeping carefully to his room. When I opened the door, he was sitting up in bed, the moonlight coming in from the window, sheets tangled around him. He was staring at his bare stomach, his Iron Man T-shirt wrinkled up in his grip, his hair pressed down on his forehead in sweaty curls.

  “Charlie?” I whispered, my heart in my throat.

  When he looked up, his eyes were wide and animal, and I could see the tracks of tears down his cheeks. I got closer and saw red mottled spots all over his chest and called out, my voice breaking with fear, “MOM!”

  A week later, Charlie was diagnosed with cancer, specifically high-risk acute lymphocytic leukemia.

  The doctors at Children’s Hospital said it probably had been in Charlie for a while, but the bloody nose was the first visible symptom. They also said Charlie
had an 85 percent survival rate, and Mom told me that was good.

  But everything I saw wasn’t good.

  Charlie cried on a regular basis: when he had to go to the doctor, when Mom and Dad made the decision to take him out of school, when he had to get what I later learned was his first spinal tap.

  Our cat, Mustard, began pooping in the middle of the dining room floor.

  I started dreaming about helium people, variations of the same dream over and over: shadowy winged creatures with their hearts throbbing on the outside, trying to pull Charlie away from me, my bare feet curled against the dirt with the effort of trying to hold on. I couldn’t tell if I wanted them to go away, or if I wanted to join them. But regardless of what I wanted, every time, the helium people won, Charlie’s hand snapping out of mine, my eyes shooting open.

  My parents tried to explain what was happening, that some of Charlie’s cells were growing too fast, like the dandelions in the backyard, that Charlie was going to go to the hospital to get medicine to stop the weeds so they didn’t take over all of him.

  I pulled dandelions from the grass when no one was looking—from our backyard, on the edges of the playground, along the sidewalks in our neighborhood. I smashed them in my pockets, letting the yellow pulp stain my palms.

  Mustard kept pooping on the floor.

  A few weeks after Charlie’s bloody nose, Grandma and Grandpa Rose picked me up from school.

  “Your mom had to stay later with Charlie today and your dad’s at work,” Grandpa Rose explained. “But we thought we could get some ice cream.”

  That afternoon, we played Uno and I won, and then we watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, my favorite movie. For dinner we went to Frisch’s, and Grandma Rose let me bring home a slice of pumpkin pie in a plastic to-go container for Charlie, since it was his favorite.

  But right before I went to bed, the phone rang. Grandpa’s voice got quiet in the kitchen, and then Grandma Rose sat down and told me Charlie was going to stay in the hospital, that my parents were going to sleep over with him.

  “Will they be home tomorrow?” I asked.

  Grandma Rose shook her head. “Your parents will be, but Charlie’s going to stay there for a while so he can get better. There are no germs there, and the doctors can take very good care of him.”