What Remains True

by Thomas, Janis

  Stop. Don’t think about Jonah. I can’t think about him. My boy, my precious baby.

  My cheeks are wet again. They’re wet all the time, but my mouth is always parched, like I’m emptying out all of the water in my body through my tear ducts.

  The sofa cushions feel like gelatin. I could sink into them, let them envelop me, suffocate me. Death by faux-suede couch cushions.

  I want a pill. Ruth only gave me one, wouldn’t give me another. She always did like to torture me, ever since we were kids. I need another one. Or two. One isn’t enough. One only takes the hard edges away from the world, blurs the lines a little bit. But two is better. Fuzzy-thought making. Three is when I threw up, but then I saw Jonah, so I need to take three so I can see him again. He was there.

  He was there.

  He wasn’t there. Jonah is dead.

  Ruth puts her hand on my shoulder, and I flinch. She removes her hand.

  “Where’s Sam?” I ask. He was here a minute ago, wasn’t he? I want to tell him about Jonah.

  No. I don’t want to tell Sam. I can’t talk to him, because then I’d have to look at him and I can’t look at him, not right now. I don’t know why. Jonah is in his face, or his face is in Jonah’s, the same nose, only bigger, the same jawline, only without the baby fat. I don’t think that’s the reason, but when I look at Sam, I start to feel like my insides are being run through a meat grinder.

  “He’s in the kitchen.”

  Good. Stay in the kitchen, Sam.

  “Daddy was a butcher.”

  “No, honey. Dad sold insurance.”

  “Daddy was a butcher who used the meat grinder every Sunday night, making sausages for the week ahead.”

  “What is that from?” my sister asks. My sister. I should have given her the stupid clock.

  “A story.” A story I used to read to Jonah.

  How can I still be crying? I’ll turn into a salt statue and the wind will blow through the windows Ruth opened and I’ll disintegrate. She’ll have to vacuum again.

  “I want another pill, Ruth. Please.”

  “Why don’t we wait until Eden gets home, honey. You can ask her about her day. Talk to her for a few minutes.” With unfuzzy thoughts. She doesn’t say it, but I know she’s thinking it. “Her first day back might have been hard.”

  “Back where?” I can’t remember where my daughter is. I have a daughter and a son. No, just a daughter now. Where is she? School. Yes, school. She’s in fourth grade. No, fifth. My daughter. Jonah was in kindergarten.

  Was was was was.

  “I want a fucking pill.”

  “Rachel.”

  I’ve shocked my sister. I said the f-word. Out loud. If I still knew how to laugh, I would. Instead I start to moan. It starts in my belly, and I feel it rise upward through my chest, into my throat. I open my mouth and let it out as a howl.

  “Jesus Christ, give her a goddamn pill!” Sam. I lower my head, clamping my mouth shut, and stare at the tea. I hate tea. I hate tea, Ruth. You know I do.

  I hear him, my husband, the man I promised to spend my life with. Till death do us part, we’d said. But until whose death? He’s still my champion, even now, telling meanie Ruth to give me a pill. Thank you, Sam. I can’t bear to look at you, but thank you.

  I see his shadow cross the room, hear the rattle of the pills as he hands the bottle to Ruth. His shadow moves beyond my sight line, toward the front door. I want to ask him where he’s going. I don’t care, though, so I don’t.

  Goodbye, Sam. I saw Jonah on our bed this morning.

  ELEVEN

  RUTH

  “Where are you going?” I ask my brother-in-law. I see the splotches of red on his neck and know he’s had some liquor.

  “I’m going to get Eden,” he snaps.

  “Do you really think you should be driving?” He stops at the front door and glares at me, and I know I’ve gone too far. But I can’t help myself. “Be careful.” I try for sincerity, but my words sound like a warning.

  “You too, Ruth.”

  He turns and walks out, slamming the door behind him. I close my eyes and breathe deeply.

  I know why my sister married Sam, with his movie-star good looks and easy charm. High school quarterback and homecoming king and wunderkind architect. He wasn’t like the other boys she dated, the losers and dropouts and potheads that mooched money off her and pushed themselves between her legs because she let them. Samuel Davenport was solid and successful and kind and attentive and so damned reliable. He always showed up. But I don’t trust him. He is still a man, and men are incapable of maintaining any of their good qualities for very long. I should know.

  There’s something going on with him, something I can’t define. Yes, he’s grieving. We all are, for goodness’ sake, but there’s something holding his attention that might be attached to his grief or parallel to it. I don’t know.

  What I do know is that he’s being completely unreasonable about the counseling issue. How could he not want to explore every possibility of healing his family? The desire to keep everything private is so typically male. It makes me furious that he is unwilling to do everything in his power to help Rachel. I’ve seen how he looks at her, the mixture of compassion and disgust. I can’t blame him for that, though. I must look at her the same way. Her grief has swallowed her and spit out someone who looks like my sister but who is unrecognizable in every other way.

  “Is he gone?” she asks, her voice a whisper.

  “Yes.”

  She raises her head. Beneath the fragrance of the shampoo and the soap I used to scrub her, I can still smell the faint odor of vomit and despair. She looks directly at me, but there is no warmth in her gaze.

  “You heard my husband, Ruth. Give me a pill.” Her countless tears have forged tracks down her cheeks. Her expression is haunted; the blue of her eyes has paled. I can’t bear to look at her, this woman who used to be beautiful and vibrant and alive. I keep my gaze steady so that she won’t know how hard it is for me to look at her.

  “Don’t you want to be here for Eden?” I ask as calmly as I can manage.

  “I was here for Jonah,” she says, then she mumbles something I can’t make out, even though I’m only inches from her.

  “Eden needs you, Rachel. You can’t ignore that.”

  “Silly Ruth. Silly, stern, serious Ruth. Socially inept Ruth. Celibate Ruth. No, celibate starts with a C, doesn’t it?”

  Her words are like a punch to my gut. Because they are true. Not silly, no. I have never been silly. But stern and serious and socially inept. Those are true. And celibate, yes. I haven’t been sexually active since my husband left me eighteen months ago.

  “Sad Ruth. Sad, single, submissive, superior, schoolmarm Ruth.”

  She is taking sick delight in her alliteration. I feel nauseated. “You’re being unkind, Rachel.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t sound sorry. She sounds like a teenager, the teenager she was a hundred years ago. Sorry, Ruth, I didn’t mean to ruin your sweater. Sorry, Ruth, I didn’t mean to steal your boyfriend. Sorry, Ruth, but not really sorry.

  She stands up suddenly and hurls the teacup across the room. It smacks against the wall and shatters, the remaining tea and scant tea leaves raining down on the carpet I vacuumed moments ago.

  I jump to my feet and tension courses through my system, causing all of my muscles to contract. I suck in a breath and blow it out between my clenched teeth, willing myself to relax. Tension triggers my fibromyalgia. And, of course, I’m out of my medication. The effects of last night’s dosage are starting to wear off—I can already feel the tenderness in my joints and the pull of fatigue and the way the muscles of my shoulder blades are starting to ache. Those muscles are always the first. I don’t know why. But soon the pain will spread in both directions, up to the base of my skull and all the way down to my toes, and I won’t be able to function, let alone take care of anyone else. I should have gone home for my refill when I went out for groce
ries, but I would have been gone twice as long. God knows what kind of shape Rachel might have been in if I hadn’t come when I did.

  When Sam gets back with Eden, I’m going to have to excuse myself and go home. But right now, I’ve got another mess to clean up.

  “Well done, Rachel.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the bottle of pills, twist off the cap, and shake one out onto my palm. “Here.”

  She snatches the pill from my hand and puts it into her mouth, swallows it dry.

  “You need to drink some water,” I tell her, but she is already moving away from me toward the stairs. “Drink some water before you lie down.”

  “I will,” she says, then turns to face me. Her expression is bleak. “I’m sorry,” she says, and this time the apology sounds sincere. “I’m going to be better, okay, Ruth? Just not today. I just can’t today. I just need some time.”

  A month has passed since the funeral. Thirty-six days since the accident. I wonder how much time my sister needs to get better. I wonder if she will ever get better.

  “I know you do,” I tell her and watch as she slowly climbs the stairs, one hand clutching the railing to steady herself, the other cradling the monkey.

  I cross to the far side of the living room and kneel down on the carpet, my knees in full protest. As I carefully pick up the pieces of the teacup, I think of how a split-second impact can shatter everything.

  TWELVE

  SHADOW

  Little Male is sitting next to me on my bed. I have three beds. One is here in the food-smelling room, the room I like best because every now and then one of my humans drops something on the floor that tastes better than my food. Which is good, because sometimes my humans forget to feed me for a whole day, and if I didn’t get the dropped things I wouldn’t eat.

  One bed is outside on the hard ground next to the house. It’s old and smells like dirt and another dog, the before-me dog, and I can tell by his smell that I would have liked him even though his smell is old and tired.

  One bed is in the room with the couch that I didn’t chew because it tasted funny after my mistress sprayed something on it. Dark Female is in that room now, so I wouldn’t go in there, even if Little Male were not sitting with me.

  I sniff, but I still can’t smell him. His touch is different, too—his fingers are not fingers, but more like a gentle breeze ruffling through the fur on my neck. It feels good but different than it did before. Still, it is a kind of touch, and I don’t get much touching anymore.

  My master doesn’t look at me with angry eyes, but he doesn’t get on the floor and rub my body and scratch my backside and thump thump thump me with his hand and say, “Good boy.” He doesn’t pull on my rope with me pulling it the other way, me pretending to let him win and give over the rope, because a human could never get a rope from me if I didn’t want him to. But at least he doesn’t look at me with angry eyes.

  My mistress doesn’t play with me, either. She doesn’t see me anymore. I don’t think she really sees anyone.

  Little Female sometimes pats my head, but then water starts to leak from her eyes and she shoves me away like I did something bad, even though I don’t know what I did.

  But Little Male still loves me and thinks I’m a Good Boy. He’s telling me that now, and his voice is not a voice, but like the sound of the train whistle from so far away that none of the humans can hear it, but I can. Little Male giggles and says, “I love you, Shadow.”

  I hear my mistress climbing the stairs. If I was allowed up there I would go, too, just to lie beside her bed, even though I don’t have a bed in her room. I would lie down next to her just so she would know I’m there, even though I don’t think she would. But I’m not allowed to climb the stairs, and Dark Female is out there in the couch room and I don’t want to see her and her angry eyes. So I stay here in the food-smelling room, with Little Male and his whisper giggles and breeze touch, and hope my humans don’t forget to feed me, because I know Little Male can’t feed me even if he wanted to because his fingers are made of wind.

  THIRTEEN

  JONAH

  Shadow is sad, just like everybody, only he doesn’t cry with his eyes. But I can tell. He’s happy when I sit next to him. He knows I’m there, but he doesn’t start screaming like Mommy, or barking, or anything. He kind of tries to lick me, but I can’t feel his tongue like I used to, that big pink tongue that isn’t wet or drooly but kind of feels rough and tickly at the same time. But I know it means that he likes me there petting him, even if he can’t exactly feel my fingers.

  I wish I had real fingers so I could draw pictures. Maybe in heaven, if I ever go there, God will give me a great big pad of paper and some big fat markers. Mommy only let me use crayons, ’cause the one time she gave me markers I accidentally drew a big sun on the wall of my room that Eden said looked like someone barfed up yellow on the wall. Mommy told Eden not to say that, but then she was all mad ’cause the sun wouldn’t come off and she told me I could only use crayons from now on ’cause crayons you could wash off the wall.

  But I bet God would let me use markers, ’cause I bet you could wash heaven markers off the wall.

  I can hear Auntie Ruth in the living room. She’s talking to herself, but not like Mommy talks to herself. She sounds cross. She’s trying to be quiet, but I can hear her ’cause I can hear everything when I want to and nothing when I want to and that’s like a superpower, I guess.

  Then she stops talking to herself and comes into the kitchen holding broken pieces of a cup in her hands, but all careful, like she’s afraid they’re gonna cut her. She dumps them in the trash, then smacks her hands together, not like clapping, but like trying to get the itsy-teensy pieces of cup off them. Shadow lifts his head, ’cause sometimes people clap when they want a dog to come, but Auntie Ruth gives Shadow a really mad look and he puts his head down.

  “Stupid damn dog,” Auntie Ruth says. “They should have put you down.”

  I don’t know what she means. Put you down. But I know the d-word is a curse, ’cause Daddy said it one time and Mommy made him put a dollar in the curse jar. And I know that if Auntie Ruth used a curse, then the rest of what she said is probably very bad, because Auntie Ruth never, ever uses curse words—at least that’s what Mommy always said. Whatever it means, I know Shadow is upset. He’s shaking just a little bit, so I try to cover my whole body on top of his and give him a hug. I know he can’t exactly feel it the way he could before, but I think he kind of feels something ’cause his body stops trembling.

  I hear Mommy upstairs in her bed, but I wait till Auntie Ruth leaves the room before I go to her so that Shadow won’t be alone with Auntie Ruth saying bad things to him. As soon as Auntie Ruth goes back to the living room, I wish myself upstairs. I kind of fold myself into the wall so I don’t surprise her like I did before, but she’s asleep. I can tell she’s sleeping because her mouth is open and she’s snoring a little bit, so I move closer because I know she won’t see me if she’s asleep. She’s holding Marco, and that makes me happy, but also sad ’cause I can’t hold him myself.

  When I’m right next to Mommy, I put my hand on her forehead, like she used to do with me when I had a cough or a tummy ache or a sore throat, or when I was just saying I had one ’cause I wanted to stay in bed. I can’t feel her skin under my fingers, but for just a tiny bit, I can hear her sleeping thoughts.

  She’s in a tunnel, a really long one, with water covering her feet, and there’s really bright light coming from both sides of the tunnel and she doesn’t know which way to go and she’s really, really upset, but then I think maybe she feels me because her sleeping thoughts whisper and they sound like they’re talking to me. Which way should I go? And I don’t know which way she should go, but I kind of know that it doesn’t matter which way, it only matters that she goes, so I kind of try to put myself in the tunnel with her, but I can’t, and she’s still asking the question, so I think of my favorite color, green, and with all my might I think of making the light on one sid
e of the tunnel green. And then it is green, so bright, like the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz or something, and Mommy sees the green light and starts walking that way and I can tell she feels not happy, not really, but better than when she was just standing there.

  And then I feel like maybe she’s going to wake up and I don’t want to make her scream, so I take my hand that isn’t really a hand away from her forehead. She makes a funny sound, like a kitty cat or something, and she moves her head, then rolls over, but then she starts snoring again, so I know she’s still sleeping.

  I don’t know how I got into Mommy’s dream. I have to think about that. I have to think about why I’m still here and not in heaven. What I’m supposed to do before I can go.

  I watch her for a few more minutes, but I don’t touch her forehead again.

  FOURTEEN

  EDEN

  I swallow huge gulps of air. My heart is racing, and my lungs feel like they’re going to explode. I started running at Chestnut Street, two whole blocks back, and I haven’t stopped once. I’m not looking behind me anymore, either, because I know that Jonah isn’t there. But it’s like I have to make myself not look back, because it’s the knowing he’s not there that’s the awful part. And the shame of remembering that when he was there I wanted him not to be. But when I’m running, I can’t look back, so I keep going even though my side is on fire and my backpack weighs a ton and I’m probably going to have a heart attack and die right here on the sidewalk.

  I see my dad’s car coming toward me down the street and I stop and bend over, clutching my stomach and forcing myself not to throw up, which I really think I need to do. Dad slows down, then does a U-turn and pulls up to the curb next to me. A part of me is happy to see him, but another part of me, a bigger part, wants to be mad at him and yell at him and ask him why he didn’t pick me up from school, why he made me walk down the street by myself, checking for Jonah until I had to start running.