The Brilliance of Fireflies

by Leslie Hauser

  THE

  Brilliance

  of Fireflies

  LESLIE

  HAUSER

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The Brilliance of Fireflies

  Published by Gatekeeper Press

  2167 Stringtown Rd, Suite 109

  Columbus, OH 43123-2989

  www.GatekeeperPress.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Leslie Hauser

  All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  ISBN (paperback): 9781642375916

  eISBN: 9781642375923

  Library of Congress Number: 2019930476

  Printed in the United States of America

  E-book by Bulaja Naklada, Zagreb

  For my mom.

  Your light is my strength.

  Chapter 1

  There are exactly thirty-seven wisps on this half-blown dandelion twirling back and forth between my fingers. I’ve counted several times because I need to know exactly how many chances I’ll have.

  When I was little, my teacher told me that, when you blow them into the air, dandelion seeds carry thoughts and dreams to loved ones. So, that summer when my friend Callie and I were ten, we hunted every dandelion in our neighborhood and sent a barrage of fluff into the blue Ohio sky. I aimed my hopes at Billy Martin, but now I wish I hadn’t wasted them on some boy I forgot about three months later. I wish I’d sent more thoughts and dreams to my family. I’d like to do that now, but how do you send a lifetime of thoughts in a single breath?

  I stare at the bald side of this dandelion head and wonder where the other wisps have traveled and if they’ve made any dreams come true. Does it still work if half the wisps have already been spent? I work this question like a math problem as I wait for my aunt or uncle to pick me up from therapy. They’re usually late; with six kids, the to-do list never ends. I feel bad that I’m one more responsibility for them. It’s one of the many unfair things about this situation.

  My phone buzzes in my back jeans pocket. Maybe they’re on the way. I tap the screen, and Callie’s name appears instead. How are u doing? There’s always a sad face these days. I haven’t seen an LOL or a laughing emoji in over two months.

  I text back, Okay waiting for my ride. Call u when I get home. I’m not lying when I say I’m okay. My aunt and uncle insisted I enroll in this teen therapy group. They said it would help me “process my grief and move forward.” I don’t know that I need help moving forward; time doesn’t allow for anything else. But I guess it’s helped to share a few things. They say I have something called “survivor’s guilt.” Maybe that’s true. It seems more like logic to me. I’m not the victim. I’m still alive.

  “Hey,” a timid voice says from behind me.

  I turn and see one of the girls from the group. She’s a sophomore at my high school. She lost her dad and little sister in a house fire.

  “Hey,” I reply. “What are you still doing here?” Session ended forty-five minutes ago.

  “My mom said she’d be late, so I stayed to help clean up. What about you?”

  “Same. My aunt and uncle are pretty busy. Sometimes they forget me.”

  She stares down at her purple Converse that match the new purple streaks in her hair. A few crickets chirp in the late afternoon air, and I continue methodically twirling the dandelion puff in my hand.

  “I felt bad for Jason in there,” she says in a near whisper as her eyes focus on the movement of my hands.

  “I know. He told me a couple of weeks ago that soccer was the only thing getting him through all of this.” Jason’s mom died of cancer a few months ago, and he tore his ACL last week. The moment he opened his mouth to share, a dam burst and unleashed a sadness he couldn’t seem to control.

  “Sometimes it just makes me sadder when I come here.” She stares off at the cluster of trees to our right.

  “Me too.”

  Her phone beeps. She checks it then puts it back in the tiny pink purse she always carries with her. I think it was her sister’s. “What’s with the dandelion?” She angles her head at my hand.

  I stop the twirling. “I don’t know. I saw it in the grass while I was waiting. One time someone told me that if you blow dandelion seeds into the air, they carry your thoughts to people you love.”

  “Really?” Her eyes widen then shift to the ground, scanning the grass around her. I bet there’s so much she wants to send to her dad and sister. And I know she worries about her mom now, too.

  I hold out the dandelion puff. “Here. You can have this one.”

  She looks up. “Don’t you want it?”

  I, too, have a ton to say to my mom and my dad and my brother Connor, but there’s such sadness in her eyes—not just now but always. It’s a haze, almost as if her brown eyes are covered in all that ash that stole her happy life.

  I take a step forward. “It’s okay. I’ll find another one.”

  She takes it from my outstretched hand. She inhales as much air as she can and closes her eyes. When she opens them, she blows with all her might. Her breath has so much force behind it, the seeds shoot off into the air, scattering like shrapnel.

  Shrapnel.

  An image of my dad and Connor flashes in my mind. Every hair on my arms bristles and my muscles clench. The whole world seems to freeze, and I can’t breathe.

  A moment later, a pair of headlights frees me of my paralysis. My uncle’s black minivan stops in front of us. “That’s my ride. Are you sure your mom’s coming? We could give you a ride home.”

  “No, thanks. My mom is having one of her days, but she said she’d be here in twenty minutes. I figure it won’t be more than an hour.” She bites her lip and shrugs.

  “Okay. See you Friday.” I wave and walk to the car.

  As soon as I slide open the door, shouts and squeals bombard me. “Gimme it!” my four-year-old cousin Christian yells at his twin sister Chelsea. She sits in a car seat next to his, holding a tan stuffed dog and wearing a devilish grin.

  “No! You keep throwing it at me!”

  “IT’S MINE!” Christian screeches as his tiny hands form fists and his chubby legs shoot straight out in front of him.

  “Kids! Enough!” my uncle Jim yells over his shoulder. “Chelsea, it’s his toy. Give him the dog.”

  “But Daaaad! He keeps throwing it at me!”

  “Chelsea.” Uncle Jim aims his scary parental tone directly at her.

  “Fine,” she grumbles. She throws the stuffed dog at Christian and whips her head toward the window so fast her two blond braids smack her in the face.

  I start to slip into the way back when Uncle Jim says, “Emma, could you sit between those two, please? They’ve been at it all afternoon.”

  “Sure.” I squeeze myself between the two car seats. “Hey guys.” I smile at them while I dig around for the seat belt, but neither pays me any attention. Christian sings and trots his stuffed dog up and down his legs, and Chelsea has moved on to a book.

  Up front, my fourteen-year-old cousin Joey complains, “Dad, I was supposed to be at practice ten minutes ago. You made me join this stupid summer camp here, and now you can’t even get me there on time.”

  Uncle Jim glances backward, then in a hushed voice, but one that I can still hear over the talk radio, says, “Look, Joey, you know
why we had to spend the summer in Ohio. So it was either play soccer here or not at all.”

  “Well, fine, then you could at least get me there on time. I’m already an outsider, and this only makes it worse.”

  “I’m sorry. Your mother forgot about Emma’s therapy, and Aunt Jules has the other car, so we had to pick up Emma.”

  I shrink in my seat, and my chin falls to my chest. Chelsea leans over and hands me one of her fruit snacks. I know they love me and want to help. And that just makes it all worse.

  After we drop Joey off at soccer practice, it’s off to the YMCA and swim practice for Chelsea and Christian. I stay in the minivan and group-text with Callie and a few other friends. The thread dead-ends quickly, though. I didn’t go to cheer camp with them this year, so they don’t want to talk about it around me. The only thing I’m really doing this summer is therapy, and that’s not something anyone seems to want to discuss. We can’t even talk about next year because I still don’t know where I’ll be when school starts. So all that leaves is “how are you doing” texts and the occasional piece of gossip.

  After a few brief messages back and forth, I mess around liking people’s photos online until the lesson is over. The kids return as dripping sponges, so I help dry them off before they get in. Christian insists on holding my hand the whole way home while he tells me about his jump into the pool, over and over like a record skipping.

  When we get home, it’s a running of the bulls as Chelsea and Christian charge inside. Uncle Jim and I trail after them into the kitchen where Aunt Kellie chops tomatoes at the island my dad recently built out of reclaimed wood.

  My aunt cranes her neck to kiss my uncle. “Did we get everyone taken care of?”

  “Yes. Jules texted and said she’d pick up Joey on her way home from wherever she is,” he says, picking up the open beer bottle on the counter next to my aunt’s wine glass. “How are the others?”

  “I checked in with my mom, and she says they’re doing fine. She’s sending them next door for a few hours this evening so she can have dinner with a friend.”

  Christian runs in circles around the kitchen and back and forth to the living room. My uncle barks at him to slow down then says, “Thank God for your mom. We never could have brought them all here for the summer.”

  Aunt Kellie nods. “I know.” Christian whizzes by her, and now it’s her turn to yell at him to go upstairs and change his clothes.

  I stand paralyzed next to one of the cream-colored barstools as the mixture of voices and movement swirls around me. Normally, I would come home and charge down the hall into the kitchen, either exasperated at one of my brother’s annoying habits or chattering about something one of the girls said or did at cheer practice. I’d march over and taste the lasagna meat without asking then lift the knife out of my mom’s hand and finish cutting the tomatoes.

  Now, I’m a spectator in my own home. The rooms are all the same. The granite countertops and dark wood cabinets in the kitchen haven’t changed. The pale blue sectional and the coffee table are still right across the way in the living room. And that one throw pillow in the armchair still has Connor’s red Kool-Aid stain on it. The house is the same, but it’s no longer my home. I feel like a permanent visitor now, and I’m still not used to it.

  “Hi Emma.” Aunt Kellie finally notices me and saves me from an oncoming swell of emotion. She wipes her hands on a green dish towel and opens her arms for a hug. “How was... therapy?” There’s always a pause before “therapy.”

  “It was fine. It was good.” She releases me, and I nod my head enthusiastically to assure her that I’m fine. That’s a survivor’s skill I’ve mastered that puts everyone at ease.

  “I’m glad it’s going well,” she says. She stares at me for a long moment with wistful eyes. Christian crashes into her, and it vanishes. “I told you to change your clothes,” she says to him.

  “No!” Christian purses his tiny red lips and crosses his arms.

  “One. Two...” My aunt starts the countdown, and Christian runs out of the room.

  She returns to her cutting board to work on a bell pepper. “Dinner will be ready in about an hour. Sorry it’s a little late tonight. Is lasagna and salad okay?”

  “Yeah, it sounds good. Can I help with something?” I take a tentative step forward.

  “Oh no, that’s not necessary. Your uncle will help with the salad, and I’ll have Chelsea and Christian set the table. You just go on upstairs and rest.”

  Rest. That’s what everyone thinks I should spend all my time doing. It’s all I’m allowed to do. I know they care, but after more than three months, I’m really as rested as I can get. I want to do something. I need to do something. But there’s no convincing them, so I head upstairs.

  My bedroom is the same pink it has been since I was a little girl with the same distressed white furniture set. We were going to remodel it last summer, but my parents wanted to save up for a big trip to Greece—to my dad’s family home on Corfu—this summer. The trip sounded cool, but I was upset I couldn’t redo my room and that I’d miss some of this summer’s fun with my friends. Now, that seems pretty stupid. I’d give anything to go to Greece with my family.

  There’s not much to do in my room anymore. With all the hours I’ve spent up here, I’ve straightened all my drawers, reorganized my bookshelf, and cleaned out my closet. Next to my dresser, I spy the white wicker basket full of laundry my aunt has done for me. I’m not allowed to do laundry anymore either. So I put those clothes away then flop down on my bed. I sink into the puffy plaid comforter and close my eyes.

  I doze off but am awakened when Joey storms down the hall and screams, “I said I don’t know where Aunt Jules went!” and slams the guest bedroom door. Uncle Jim yells at him to come downstairs while Christian crawls up and down the staircase barking like a dog.

  Aunt Kellie calls upstairs, “Dinner’s ready!”

  Sometimes all their commotion is too much for me; I’m used to my quiet family. So I play the trauma card and ask if I can eat in my bedroom. This elicits more sad head tilts, but no one puts up a fight. I know they’re sad already, and I hate to add to it, but I need a break from all the craziness.

  In my room, I pick at my dinner and decide to sift through some of the many boxes of photos that have been dumped in my room. I’m supposed to choose some to keep with me, and the others will go into storage or with Uncle Jim and my other aunt Jules, since they’re Mom’s brother and sister. They’re also going to send my dad’s pictures to Grandma Connie out in California. I think I’m supposed to sort through and find those, too. Even though Uncle Jim said it’s still possible I can stay here with Callie’s family and finish high school, it’s a pretty sure bet that I’m headed to Michigan to live with Uncle Jim and Aunt Kellie. I think I heard them say once that Aunt Jules was technically given custody of me, but she lives in Paris. It sounds cool, but I think it would be a disaster for both of us. From what Mom said, Aunt Jules can barely take care of herself.

  I lift the lid off one of the white banker’s boxes and grab a few pictures. There’s one of my dad and me at Kings Island. He sits next to me on the cars ride. I smile at my silly painted face. I refused to wash it off when I got home that day, and my dad bet me I wouldn’t make it to the morning. My face itched so badly all night, but I wasn’t giving in. As soon as my dad put the five-dollar bill on the kitchen table at breakfast, I dashed upstairs to wash it off.

  I put down that photo and the next is one of my parents in Sandusky at my grandparents’ lake house. This was taken before Connor and I were born. I laugh out loud at Mom’s ripped jeans and rainbow scrunchie. I think this picture was taken when they were first dating. Mom and Dad loved that lake house. I only remember being there once. I wish Grandma and Grandpa hadn’t sold it so I could have gone there more when I was older.

  The last picture in my hand is of Connor and me celebrating one of Mom’s birthdays. Connor is sticking out his tongue and has one arm around Mom while the othe
r one waves in the air. Connor was such a ham, always in some silly pose for the camera. Recently, he had started to grow out of that, and it made me sad. I liked goofy Connor more than too-cool-for-school Connor.

  I return the pictures to the box. I’ve tried dozens of times, but I can never choose any. I want them all. There are no memories that are more important than any of the others. I dig my hands down into the box then pull them up, letting pictures slide through my fingers like sand on a beach. Each snapshot is a tiny moment in our lives, and they all matter.

  I close up the box and finish the lasagna and salad. I take the empty plate downstairs, but I stop in the hallway right before I get to the kitchen because I hear Uncle Jim talking to Aunt Jules, who must have returned from whatever today’s excursion was.

  “So you already booked the flight?” Uncle Jim says in his judgmental voice.

  “Yes,” Aunt Jules responds.

  “And that’s it?”

  “What do you mean, ‘And that’s it’? That’s where I live.”

  “I know.” Uncle Jim sighs. “But with all that’s happened, and the fact that, you know, Alice and Peter named you guardian, I thought you would put a little more thought into it.”

  “I have. And we all know I’m not cut out to be a guardian. I’m not sure what Alice was even thinking. You and Kellie are much more suited for this.”

  “Maybe Alice was thinking you’d be good for Emma.”

  “Well then... well, that sounds about right.” She chuckles. “Alice always had some crazy ideas and schemes.”

  Uncle Jim joins in the laughter. “Like road-tripping to Dad’s funeral.”

  “Oh my gosh! That seemed like such a bad idea. But you know, I think it helped us all get through it.”

  “Yeah.” Uncle Jim exhales. “Alice always knew how to make everything better.” I can feel his sorrow all the way out here. There’s a long silence, and I imagine my mom’s siblings holding onto each other, wiping away another round of tears.