It was three weeks before the ball moved. In that time there had been plenty of yelling, plenty of fighting, but the ball never moved. I saw the girl looking at it from where I watched from my bedroom window. She was staring at the ball, she must have known where it came from, but she looked at it with the eye of a detective examining a chalk outline. She watched it for a good ten minutes, it got so that I half-expected the ball to roll into her hands of its own accord, or simply burst under that persistent gaze. Neither happened. Instead, she picked it up and looked up at my house and saw me, even as I sat peeking through the shades. Her feet went right up to the edge of the street, paused, and then continued to the sidewalk on my side. She was heading straight for my door. I made sure to get to the knob ahead of my parents and I opened it before she knocked. Her fist was raised, but she lowered it slowly and looked at me.
“Is this yours?” she asked, her eyes not leaving mine. I did not have the same constitution of gaze and so my eyes locked on that red rubber ball.
“Yes, yes it is. Thanks for bringing it back.” My hands reached out to take it but she stepped back.
“What’s your name?” she asked, her voice losing some of its edge.
“Daniel. What’s yours?”
“You have a nice name . . .” She said it with a smile. “Do you want to play?” I hadn’t really looked at her up until this point, but her question almost made me forget her lack of a response to mine. I gazed down at her face and realized that she was quite a pretty girl, but it was a fleeting thought as the chance to play with someone my age, in a neighborhood where I knew no one, overtook me. I nodded and there began a two-hour handball game and the closest friendship I ever had.
She never did tell me her name, but I found out nonetheless two weeks later. We were climbing the tree in my front yard, teasing each other about who could get higher. I was trying not to look down as she called out to me from above, when the front door to her house was thrown open. I nearly fell out of the tree, it was so loud. Her father came out in a roar.
“Lucia! What the hell are you doing in that tree! Get your ass home right now! Your mother needs help with the chores.” She didn’t object, didn’t say anything, actually, but I saw her hands tighten around the tree branch, her knuckles white.
Those knuckles were white again five years later when her mother died. She had slit her wrists in the bathtub. Lucia had found her there, her mother had a broken arm and bruises all over her body, it was the sight of a woman with nothing more to give. I think it might have been easier for Lucia if her mother was as brutal as her father; it would have made the years that followed so much simpler. As it was, Lucia’s knuckles were white all the more often.
In school she never spoke, she never let anyone talk to her or touch her but me. Of course at her house she didn’t have much choice, her father could do whatever he wanted, and he did.
The first time I saw her with a broken arm it was her fourteenth birthday. We had saved up our spare change and we were going to the drive-in to see The Dark Knight, they were going to play the first and second one together and we both loved Batman. Instead I walked with her for five miles to the hospital, I held her hand while they moved the bones back into place and those knuckles turned white again. It was only then, as she held my hand, that I understood just how tight that grip of hers was. Like a steel vise it was.
The next time her arm was broken I didn’t find out until much later. She hadn’t gone to the hospital, and instead she tried to set it herself, but she had done it wrong. So I made the walk with her all over again and watched those knuckles all over again, but this time she didn’t let me hold her hand.
By the third time she knew how to set the bone properly, she knew how to stitch up a cut too. But perhaps the skill she perfected the best was one of makeup, her black eyes and bruises never showed, she did a good job of that.
Meanwhile I was taking honors and AP classes, we were deep into high school now and hung out mostly on weekends, I saw her less and less as I saw more and more of the walls of a classroom, they reminded me a lot of the walls of my house. The same white paint, the same dull brown doors. My life with Lucia was kept very separate from my life at school, but one was rapidly taking over the other.
At the end of sophomore year I barely spoke with Lucia. We would smile at each other if we passed in the hallways or even across the street, but I was always going somewhere and she was always leaving somewhere else. Every time I saw her I looked straight through the makeup, and I started to not like what I saw. Looking back, I don’t think she had changed, not really. But I had, and I was the important one, right?
During the summer of that year, Lucia was caught shoplifting and went to juvie for a month. When she got out it was barely a day before her arm was broken and a deep cut lined her jaw. I thought about offering to walk her to the hospital, but I was working a summer job and she knew how to set it anyway; what could I do?
Then, a week before school started I found myself walking home late from work. I was counting my tips as I went along and looked up to find Lucia sitting on the ground in front of her house. She was fiddling with something in her hands, her fingers seemed to mimic the motions I made just moments before, the bills still parted between my thumb and forefinger.
It was almost nine and the street was dark and deserted. As I got closer I could see what she was doing by the light of a flickering streetlight.
She was holding a rope, one end was thrown up over one of the thicker branches of the great tree that towered over her dirt yard. This was one of the branches that melded into the roof of the house. The other end of the rope was what she was holding, her nimble fingers moving the rope over and over itself. She moved with a precision that said that it couldn’t have been her first time. Now, I don’t know much about knots, but I know a noose when I see one. She finished the final wrap and pulled the loop tight, her knuckles turning white as her fists clenched the rope.
What I did next was far less wise than letting that ball roll across the street. I yelled, I begged, I tore the rope from the tree and shook her, as if I could make all that pain leave her through sheer vibration. She didn’t speak, didn’t even notice my presence, really. Then, when I was all out of pleas, all out of words, she simply got up and went inside the house, leaving the noose in my hands.
The next morning I awoke to find a black Lexus parked across the street. I watched through my blinds as Lucia brought out a few bags of belongings and put them in the car. And with every suitcase that came out I saw those knuckles gripping the handle just as tight as could be. The car drove off and with it, Lucia. I didn’t see her again until school started, she had been taken by social services and placed in an orphanage. I looked to see if this might help things, return her to the girl I knew, but I didn’t understand that she had never changed, not really.
When school began again things were just as they were, except for two rather glaring differences. The bruises, breaks, and cuts were gone, true, but something else replaced them. As all that hurt healed on her skin it seemed simply to sink into her soul. That’s what I saw in her eyes, but by now, I didn’t know her. We had grown apart in all those years, and soon those occasional smiles as our paths crossed became one-sided, and soon they faded all together.
I was walking home one afternoon in March of our senior year when I saw police cars and tape blocking off my street. I was surprised but not worried; most of the houses on the street had been broken into at one time or another and I assumed it was just another one. I walked up to one of the officers and said I lived a few houses down and needed to get home. Rather than answer my question he asked if I was Daniel Shettler. I told him I was and he immediately led me over to one of the other officers. They exchanged words out of earshot and I began to get a cold feeling in my chest.
Had my house been robbed? Were my parents okay? These and a thousand other worries over my family and house raced through my mind as the men spoke. Then the police officer turned t
o me and said, “Son, I’m going to need you and your parents to come with me back to the station, I have some questions I need to ask you.”
Thus began a three-week investigation. That first night, I was questioned for more than an hour about my relationship with Lucia and her behavior. When I finally went home I saw on the news what had happened. Lucia’s father had been found stabbed to death in his house. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the previous day was Lucia’s eighteenth birthday and, due to her previous record in juvie, she had been released from the foster house.
After all those years of separation I still had some loyalty to her, so when I saw her two months later in a sterile white courtroom, I did find the decency to defend her. In the end she was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to five years in a private prison in Nevada. I can’t remember her face during the trial, maybe that’s because I didn’t have the courage to look her in the eye. Even as I defended her character, saying things I wasn’t sure I believed, I couldn’t look her in the eye. Instead my eyes were drawn to something else, those cuffed hands of hers, with the knuckles white and split, blood leaking out ever so slowly and casting a stark streak of color on those clenched fists.
The memory is a fragile thing and without reminding it tends to forget. So it was with Lucia. She was too far to visit, that’s what I always told myself. Yet if I wouldn’t walk across the street to see her, no drive would be any different. So my life rolled on, utterly uneventful as high school came and went. I attended Stanford and got a degree in business. Those five years passed without me ever realizing the significance of the number, and when they were up I found myself living alone in a small apartment in downtown LA. The downtown was the only desirable part, I actually lived in what most people would describe as a rather small dorm room, in fact it was half the size of my room at Stanford. Plus it was down the street from the building in which I was an intern, and since my boss knew this, I was constantly being called upon. I had just gotten a text to come in when there was a knock on the door. I began running through which excuses I had already given to the landlord but these all melted on my tongue when I opened the door.
Lucia had always been beautiful, even in a cast she could turn plenty of heads. But this was a kind of piranha gaze that many girls get for features other than their face, because she never smiled much. Even so, I was only ever drawn to her eyes, they always glowed with whatever emotion she was feeling and I had learned to read them like a mood ring. Now, though, I couldn’t see anything. She looked up at me, then down at my suit and tie and finally at my shoes, obviously worn but well polished. It was to them that she addressed her statement.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here, you obviously have . . .” And before I got a chance to speak, think, or even fully grasp her presence in front of me, she was gone. She ran down the hall, something slipping from her fingers as she did. It was a crumpled-up piece of paper, a little wrinkled red ball on the floor. On it was my name and address written in lovely script, not Lucia’s. It must have been how she found me. The ball was wrapped up quite a bit and it was clear she must have squeezed it very tightly indeed.
I thought about chasing after her, about taking her to dinner and explaining how sorry I was, but my phone beeped again and I knew I had to go into work. So I made the worst decision of my life, one in a long line, I think.
Two weeks after that there came another knock on my door, my heart lifted, I had been looking for Lucia every night since I last saw her, so I threw open the door. It wasn’t her, it was a young man in his early twenties, dressed in what an optimistic observer might call business casual. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Are you hurting inside? Are you looking for answers for everything that’s messed up in the world? Are you tired of the pain and suffering around you? I can offer you an answer, something more. I belong to a group called the Children of the Dawn, and we believe in a new day—” He was cut off with me slamming the door in his face; after all, wouldn’t you do the same?
I didn’t think much of it at the time but a few months later I saw a commercial for their “religion” on TV, evidently they had evolved from a “group.” It seemed like they offered the universal hogwash that such things are known for, I half-expected them to offer free Kool-Aid at the end with a cheery, “But wait, there’s more!”
I had lost my tolerance for such things and decided to go out and look for Lucia again. You must understand that when I said downtown, it was a minor exaggeration. I lived one street over from the outer rim of downtown, but I still called it that since my side of the street faced the backs of those massive monoliths. However, behind my apartment, society digressed quite rapidly, and a line of abandoned warehouses lined the alley behind my building. They were drug-infested holes, as you might expect, and I was always sure to carry a pocket knife when going there. I assumed that Lucia would be living on the streets, so here was as good a place to look as any.
I walked for several hours, inspecting each warehouse carefully before moving on. I was hassled a few times but I was wearing ratty clothes and the only thing on me was my pocket knife. I eventually walked up on a group of homeless men and women huddled around a fire burning in a trash can. Opposite them was a miniature stage. A man stood on it, speaking to them.
“. . . but we aren’t just about giving you a home and community. No, we offer so much more. We offer a new life, one that frees you from the one thing that keeps all of you here, living like this. Pain. We offer you a cure from pain. This little black pill that I have with me tonight will take away pain, in all forms, both physical and mental. It lets me leave my old painful life behind me and start a new life, full of hope, as a Child of the Dawn.” He drew out a small black pill with a theatrical flourish that suggested he likened the action to turning water into wine. The people surrounding him let out a strangely synchronized gasp and the man threw the pill into the back of his throat and closed his eyes. When he opened them again the pupils of his eyes were smaller and the whites far larger. He took out a knife from his pocket and flicked open the blade. Then he slowly dragged it across the underside of his arm. No cry left his lips, no tear graced his cheek, no sign of anything whatsoever came from him. The audience gasped again and then they rushed forward, hands outstretched to take this wonderful gift. Dutifully he began handing out the pills, one to each person, saying, “Join the Children of the Dawn, you can find a new life at the ranch.” Each pill was accompanied by a large business card. On it was a picture of an immaculate valley with a large white ranch house in the center; the card read, JOIN THE CHILDREN OF THE DAWN, and an address was printed on the back.
I did not reach out to take the pill or the card, but both were thrust into my hands anyway. Soon enough I was back in my apartment, staring at them on my desk. Some part of me knew what I would find at that ranch, not a new life but part of an old one, one I needed to find. So I grabbed the card and that red crumpled-up paper and started what would be the longest hour-drive of my life.
It was morning when I reached the outer gates; they were opened by a young woman who did not question my entrance. What I saw around me was a world that one could find only in the pages of books. It seemed to be the very definition of idyllic, a little private valley with perfect gardens and great big oak trees. People everywhere all wearing white clothes, and all laughing and talking with such carefree abandon. I was stopped by a woman who gestured for me to park in front of the huge white ranch house. When I got out of the car, she said, “Welcome to the ranch, here is your guide, she will show you what a new life has to offer.”
She stepped aside and another woman stepped forward, one with the face of an angel and features I knew but did not recognize. She was clearly Lucia, but not as I had ever seen her. She seemed to almost glow with happiness and a smile stretched her cheeks in a way that seemed almost satirical when compared to her usual expression. But the most disturbing thing was her eyes, they were that full white that I had seen in the young man
just a few hours earlier. I could always tell her mood by those eyes, but now I saw only white, nothing of the girl I knew, or even of the woman I’d crossed paths with so briefly. She stretched out her hand and said, “You deserve a new beginning, so let me—”
“Lucia!” I practically wept as I called her name; she did not seem to know me, her face revealed nothing but surprise, and her eyes still less. “Lucia don’t you know me, it-it’s Daniel, your friend . . . Lucia don’t you know it’s me?” But the only response I received was her stepping back from me, concern glimmering on her face, but only in the faintest of ways.
So I did all I could think to, all I knew how to. I opened up my hand to reveal the little red ball of paper. It rolled out of my palm and down my fingers, slipping off them and landing on the gravel path. Lucia’s gaze followed its every movement, her eyes never changed, but her hands did. Her fingers slowly closed into fists, each finger tucking into place, and then she squeezed, the knuckles turning the same pale white as the building we stood in front of. Her eyes lost that white quality and instead they took on fear, anger, and distress.
I started to speak, but she turned and ran into the house. I went to follow her, but the first woman stopped me and practically dragged me back to my car and sent me back home, to my little apartment at the edge of downtown. I was not to return, since I had “disturbed the peace.”
A week later I received a letter. It stated, very simply, that Lucia had died of an overdose from an unknown drug, and closed with the barest of condolences from the city coroner’s office. Her will instructed that I receive any belongings of hers and handle her funeral. So today I stood alone while a priest spoke of how death was only a beginning. It didn’t feel like one, just an end, that came all too soon.
Spark a Story Page 10