We Own the Night

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We Own the Night Page 14

by Ashley Poston


  “It’s summer, Grams.”

  She laughs. “I know, I know, sweetie!” Then she sits down beside me and grabs my hands in hers. She squeezes them tightly. They’re bony and cold, her nails long and the rings on her fingers glistening like sunlight reflecting on the reservoir. “You can tell me anything. I’ve still got some good ears on me, even if Doctor Darling doesn’t agree. Is it a boy? I’ll beat him up if Micah won’t.”

  “I don’t think he will,” I reply wryly.

  Her nose crinkles. “No, he never seemed the sort to fight for it, but now that William would. Always seemed the type. You can see the fire in his eyes.”

  “I don’t think Billie would, either.”

  “And why not?”

  “We’re not exactly talking right now. Not since . . .” I hesitate, not sure if she remembers the festival. I don’t want to alarm her if she doesn’t, and I don’t want to pretend like I’m dancing around her memories if she does. “We’re just not talking right now. We can’t. I mean—I can’t. It’s . . . it’s difficult.”

  I want to tell her. I want to talk like we used to, pour my heart out on the table and have her make sense of it all, jigsawing them all into a finished puzzle. But since her diagnosis, we haven’t. It’s been too strange, and I guess I just never saw the point when she would forget soon, anyway.

  I miss talking to her. I miss how she knew what to say and when to say it. I miss the way she knew my heart better than I did. I just miss her—wholly and without measure. And my heart has been breaking these last months as I watch her shrink and shrink and shrink until sometimes she looks like a stranger inside my grandmother’s skin.

  But at this moment—here, now—she’s my Grams, and I tip my heart out for her to puzzle back together.

  “I love Micah,” I begin, my voice cracking. “I’ve loved him for as long as I can remember, and I’ve tried to stop and I know he doesn’t like me but I can’t, and now he knows.” My eyes are beginning to burn with tears again. I blink, and they roll down my cheeks. They taste like salt. “Now he knows everything, and our friendship is ruined, and I don’t want that. I want to be his friend—I want to be his friend.” I’m sobbing now, and she holds my hands tighter.

  I wait for her to fit the pieces back together. To tell me something that’ll help me make sense of it all. To mend this. To make it disappear.

  I wait.

  She opens her mouth, beginning to say something, and then stops and furrows her brows. Confusion flickers through her dark eyes. My heart begins to tumble and tumble and tumble. Down, down, down into wherever memories eaten go.

  “Who?”

  My mouth opens, but I can’t say anything.

  She pats my hands. “Sweetie, don’t you have school?”

  A switch in me clicks. Grams isn’t there. My Grams. My best friend. She’s gone, never coming back. I wrench my hands out of hers.

  “I don’t have school anymore!” I shout.

  Her face breaks open in surprise.

  “I graduated! You were there! You saw! But no, you don’t remember. You don’t remember anything. I got into NYU, too! Did you know that? You sure as hell kept finding out! I worked my butt off to leave this town and I never will! I can’t! I’m stuck here because—with—”

  I try to leave, but she catches my arm. “Please, I don’t understand.” Her face is innocent, lost. Like a child.

  “Of course you don’t! I—” My words catch in my throat.

  Grams is crying.

  All the pent-up anger in me turns to ash. I quickly draw her into a hug, holding her so tightly I can feel her shake with sobs. I’m horrible. I’m terrible. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whisper, but I’m not sure that’s enough.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It takes only a few minutes to calm Grams down, and by the time Dr. Darling comes over, she’s already forgotten about the entire episode and is knitting in her recliner and watching Jeopardy. LD’s dad and I talk outside on the porch steps. He brings brochures for retirement homes. One of them is nearby, where I could buy a car and go see her every day if I wanted, but the one he recommends is a few hours away. Farther. I can’t go visit her every day if she goes there.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I mutter, staring helplessly at the brochures of smiling old people playing chess or wading in swimming pools. Between her health care and savings, she would be able to afford either of them.

  “It’s up to you, Ingrid. You’re being very brave, you know.” He pats my knee comfortingly. “Eula’s lucky to have you.”

  I chew on my bottom lip, trying not to cry. His words are lies. “I’m giving up on her though, aren’t I? I’m sending her away. She never sent me away.”

  “This is different, Ingrid,” he replies softly. LD has his soft timbre and his sincerity. I miss LD, and my heart hurts more when I think about all the stupid things I said to her. “You aren’t abandoning her. You’re letting her live her best life while you live yours.”

  “But she is my life,” I say, and then wipe the tears out of my eyes. “Thanks, Dr. Darling. I’ll—I’ll think about it and call you tomorrow.”

  “All right.” He stands, checking to make sure he has his wallet in his back pocket. “This is also her decision too, Ingrid.”

  I give him a blank look. “What do you mean?”

  “A few months ago we met and discussed the possibility of a retirement home. We visited both already, and I have her signature with whatever you decide.”

  “But I . . . I don’t understand.”

  “She didn’t want you to worry, so she contacted me directly while you were at work. She wants to go to the one in Omaha. She likes the pool there. And the bingo.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “She knew you’d never let her go if it were up to you. There’s a spot opening at the end of the month.”

  “And no one was going to tell me?” My voice cracked. “No one was going to—”

  “She said you were going to college. She’s very proud of you, Ingrid.” Then he says good-bye, gets into his Ford Focus, and leaves.

  College? No, that can’t be right. I’m not going to college. I never sent in my answer. I never told NYU yes. But then I think about the internship letter, and the thought of New York—of anywhere but here—and I am full of rage and hurt again.

  Because no one ever asked me what I want.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I don’t get much sleep.

  The brochure for the home in Omaha lays spread out on the table. I stared at it for so long I memorized all of the paragraphs, talking about aerobics classes and bingo nights. It looks like a nice place—everyone has their own small little bungalow and porch and front yard. There’s a community doctor, one of the best in the country, and other people like Grams. It doesn’t look like a terrible place to be, but it isn’t home. It isn’t this blue-vinyl house on the corner of Corley and Goldenrod. The Perezes don’t live next door. The bingo hall isn’t in the town hall.

  It’s not home.

  The next morning at work is the worst. I’m so tired I can’t even fall asleep. That’s the worst kind of tired, when you’re so tired you aren’t anymore. Heather doesn’t talk to me at all this morning, probably because of what happened yesterday with Mike. I’m sure she got a kick out of it. Instead, she rearranges the Skittles selection in the back for four hours until lunch.

  “I’ll be back in thirty,” she calls, which she’s never done before. She usually just leaves. I don’t know what to say in return, so I just don’t say anything, and I wait until she’s out of sight before I wander to the Skittles aisle. I grab a handful of red bags and dump them in the blue-bagged Skittles, but it doesn’t bring me the joy it usually does.

  So I put the Skittles back the way I found them.

  The bell above the door chimes as I finish redoing four hours of Heather’s life, and I round the aisle to the front.

  A flash of blue hair.

  The clip of boots.

  My heart skip
s.

  LD flips the Open sign to Be Back in Five! She dumps a greasy bag on the counter and calls out to me, “You’re not off the hook yet but I’m willing to negotiate.”

  I step out from behind the aisle sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. My jaw begins to wobble. Oh no—oh no, my eyes are stinging.

  She gives me a helpless look, and suddenly I’m running down the aisle and fling my arms around her. I bury my face into her bony shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m s-s-sorry.”

  “Shhhhh.” She rubs circles on my back. “I know. I know. Dad told me what happened.” She sets her chin on my head. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I m-m-made her cry,” I sob into her shoulder. “I h-h-hurt her. I d-didn’t mean t-to. I d-d-didn’t.”

  “I know. I know.”

  I don’t have to tell her the rest of it because she already knows. She knows I’m torn because I want to give up the rest of the time I have with Grams to make sure she’s happy and comfortable, but I know I can’t. I’m not that good of a person. I’m not that patient, I’m not that kind. There’s a bitter part of me that hates it here. And I’m afraid that someday I’ll hate Grams because of it, too.

  We stand there for a long while. I listen to her heart thrum and thrum, a steady cadence, a march of time. Our breaths draw together, inhale, exhale, and I concentrate on that instead of all the thoughts in my head, hoping that someone else can decide my life for me. That someone else can take the reins for a moment—a second—and let me ride shotgun.

  “Thank you,” I murmur, looking up at her. “I’m a horrible friend and I don’t deserve you. You’re brave and at least you try—you try. I feel like I . . . I feel like I haven’t even done that.”

  “Oh, Ingrid.” Her face, sharp cheekbones and soft eyes, are a constant in my life when everything that’s supposed to be constant begins to fall away. She was always here—even now, when Micah’s gone and Billie’s gone and Grams is going, she’s here. She bends down and presses her plum-colored lips to my forehead.

  “You’re so much braver than me,” she whispers against my hair. “I never auditioned.”

  I don’t understand at first. Never went to what? I pull away, rubbing the tears out of my eyes. But then I remember our argument in the diner. “But y-you said you bombed it?”

  “I was scared.”

  “That you’d fail?”

  “I was afraid I’d get in.” She rests her cheek against the top of my head. “I was afraid to leave.”

  I unfurl myself from her, giving her a curious look. “But you’ve been wanting to leave forever.”

  She looks away, somewhat ashamed. “I went to the audition. I had on my cute little black dress—the scoop neck with the sequins across the bottom, paired with my favorite teal Prada to match Vincenzo”—the name for her violin—“and oh were we a sight. It was the best day of my life, I thought. So I sat in the audience, and I listened to my peers play their auditions. I critiqued their concertos and their bravados. I sat through countless Vivaldis, Mozarts as flamboyant as the deaf bastard himself.”

  “It sounds like your kind of place.”

  She tilts her head. “Was it? I began to ask myself. Did I fit in here with these maestros? And I didn’t know, love. I couldn’t see a gangly girl from nowhere Nebraska sitting up on that stage, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t imagine how my music would sound against theirs, my Green Day against their Gustav Holst. We’d clash, like hot oil in water. I’d bubble and fizz and . . .” She laughs, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t understand, would you? You’ve never had reservations. You’ve always had your sights set just beyond that radio tower.”

  My shoulders stiffen. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s the tallest point, isn’t it? You’re always looking just beyond it. You’re fearless. You’d kill to leave if you could—and here you are, willing to stay for your grandmother. And I had the chance to leave and I . . . I just sat there when my name was called. I didn’t move. I listened to concerto after concerto and wished I were anyone besides Lorelei Darling.”

  The disgust in her voice makes me flinch. I take her hands and squeeze them tightly, and lowers her eyes to meet mine. “But you don’t want to play Mozart and Vivaldi the rest of your life, do you?”

  “I could’ve left town. I could’ve . . .”

  “You could’ve taken the easy way out,” I fill in, “and the LD I know never takes the easy way out. You’ll get out of here on the heartstrings of David Bowie and Glenn Frey, not some ancient musician in a wig.”

  “They did have pretty nasty wigs,” she agrees.

  “So let’s eat these greasy fries and figure out some other way to get you out of here—on your terms.”

  “And you?”

  I smile. I try to make it earnest. I try to smile without regret; push my own hesitation deep down in my stomach, because this part of my life isn’t about me. It’s about her. LD. The bravest, most beautiful girl I know. I squeeze her hands tightly. “I’ll follow you on Twitter.”

  We laugh and break apart.

  “Now,” I say, “let’s start brainstorming on how to get you and Vinchini—”

  “Vincenzo,” she corrects.

  “—Out of here.”

  “With a little practice, I’m sure I could give him another go.” She tears the greasy bag down the side to reveal a plate piled with soft, gooey fries, cheese, chili, chives, and bacon. Lots of bacon. I grab a fry and let it melt in my mouth, savoring the flavor as it curls against the back of my tongue.

  While it doesn’t soothe my soul, it’s the next best thing.

  RADIO NITEOWL

  SHOW #163

  JULY 16th

  NITEOWL: Good evening, Owlers. You’re listening to 93.5 KOTN. Sorry about my sudden absence last week. I had a . . . well, life happened. Things. I don’t want to go into it, but I never got the chance to thank all of you before for being there for me, for sticking with me. Thank you—for everything. You’ve been . . . you’ve all been so swell. This week’s topic is actually one requested by an anonymous caller, since summer is coming to a close soon and all you high school graduates will be leaving for greener pastures . . . how to say good-bye. (pause) I’m not very good at good-byes. So, I want to ask you all, my friends, my listeners. How do you say good-bye? Caller One, you’re on the air. Please no cursing or lewd speech. How do you say good-bye?

  CALLER ONE: Uh, hi—I, um, I wasn’t good at it, either. So I just never did—it was stupid. I’d just say ‘See you later’ or ‘Call me.’ I thought I’d have ample time, you know? But then something happened and . . . and I never got the chance to tell her good-bye. I never got the chance.

  NITEOWL: I’m so sorry . . .

  CALLER ONE: Me, too. Just—just when you think you shouldn’t say good-bye, say it anyway. Tell them good-bye and that you love them, because when you’re sitting by their grave and repeating it over and over, it doesn’t do any good because tombstones can’t talk, and the person under your feet is long, long gone. And the good-byes then bury you, too.

  NITEOWL: I . . . yeah. Thank you for your honesty.

  CALLER ONE: I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to get serious. I’m such a jerk. Just say goodbye to them—and thank you for listening, Niteowl.

  NITEOWL: Thank you, too—and good-bye!

  CALLER ONE: (laughs) Peace!

  NITEOWL: Caller Two, how do you say good-bye? Or do you have a story where you had to? Or didn’t?

  CALLER TWO: Wow, talk about the depression zone. Like, I don’t think I could say good-bye, either, like not in person. I’m really bad at stuff in person. But I could say it in a text or like Twitter or something.

  NITEOWL: So you’d say good-bye on Twitter? Isn’t that impersonal?

  CALLER TWO: I don’t think so? Isn’t saying good-bye impersonal over the radio to someone you’ve never met?

  NITEOWL: Point. I’m curious, if you could only tweet one good-bye,
and one good-bye only, and it’s the last thing you’d ever say—and it has to be under one hundred and forty characters—what would it be?

  CALLER TWO: I’d apologize to this guy I met at this Con. I’d say something like “Devin009, I’m sorry we didn’t try.”

  NITEOWL: Maybe Devin009 is listening.

  CALLER TWO: Well, if he is, then I’m glad he heard it.

  NITEOWL: Thank you for your insight—Caller Three, what would you say?

  CALLER THREE: Dear Nolan, (censored) (censored) (censored) (censored)(censored)

  NITEOWL: That . . . certainly shows the diversity of the word. Caller Four!

  CALLER FOUR: Let it be.

  NITEOWL: I’m a fan of the Beatles myself—Caller Five, you’re up!

  CALLER FIVE: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

  NITEOWL: (laughs) No, not the betrayal! Stay shiny! Caller Six, can you top that?

  DARK AND BROODING: Why would you tweet the last thing you’d ever say? And why would it be a good-bye? It seems kind of stupid.

  NITEOWL: Well, then, if you wouldn’t tweet it, would you just tell them in person? Are you one of those people who’s okay with saying good-bye? Who knows what to say?

  DARK AND BROODING: Depends. Am I saying it to my mortal enemy or my wife?

  NITEOWL: You have a wife? I mean—I’m sorry, that was super rude. I didn’t mean to assume—

  DARK AND BROODING: It is rude. And just for that you have to answer your own question. How would you say good-bye?

  NITEOWL: I don’t—that’s why we’re doing this show! Because I don’t know how.

  DARK AND BROODING: I’m sure you have an inkling.

  NITEOWL: I . . . well . . .

  DARK AND BROODING: What you say doesn’t have to be perfect, you know. Just say what you feel.

  NITEOWL: But . . . I . . . my . . . (clears throat) When I was little, my Grams used to come and tuck me in. She’d kiss me good night and whisper, “I love you to the moon and back.” So, that’s what I’d say.

  DARK AND BROODING: That’s specific—who’s this good-bye to?

 

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