Emilia Came Home
Emilia came home that night, her mind full of ideas and plans and possibilities. She stared into the darkness of her room as she lay in bed, but saw only that classroom. And when she fell asleep, there was no room for nightmares.
In the morning, she headed to Tomás’s job. Carefully, she snuck up to the counter and shouted, “Boo!” so loudly, Tomás nearly dropped the case of display candy he was filling.
“What the hell?” he yelled as he fumbled with the box. Emilia laughed.
“Relax, I just came by for a visit. I miss you,” she said. It was true. She missed him and wished she could explain why she’d been brushing him off lately even though she wanted him close. She was sure he had noticed. But it was just that she didn’t want to talk about any of this, and maybe Tomás wanted her to, at least to him. How could she explain she just couldn’t? It felt impossible.
“Me too,” he said. He stared at his sister and smiled. “I don’t have a break for another couple of hours, but . . .”
“No, don’t worry. That’s okay. I just . . . I couldn’t stay home anymore.”
Tomás gave her a gentle look. “I think Ma and Dad got the message last night. I noticed he didn’t come over this morning, and she still went to work.”
She knew Tomás was trying to make it feel like a victory, but Emilia’s mood shifted as she thought of her mother on the phone that morning before she left. Ma had set up an appointment for Emilia to see a therapist in a few weeks. And she hadn’t even told Emilia. So it didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like the walls were closing in around her, like Ma was taking over, and Emilia was running out of time.
“Anyway, I was planning to go for a walk or something. But I thought I’d come see you first.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
“Also . . . ,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I have to tell you something. I . . . borrowed some money. Actually, I kind of took it when I did this.” Emilia reached for her hair.
“From my drawer?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask. I just, I got it in my head that I really wanted to look different and—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been bothering me this whole time.”
“Forget about it.” He looked at her so kindly, Emilia had to look away. A customer came up to the register then, and Emilia moved aside and wandered down the aisle.
Her brother was probably the kindest, most beautiful person she knew. She was relieved she told him about the money. She knew he knew anyway. And would never have brought it up unless she did.
It made her feel bad for what she did next: grabbed cans of spray paint in the utility aisle of the pharmacy and shoved them in the backpack she’d brought, along with a bag of votive candles. She walked to the art supply aisle next and grabbed as many little containers of glitter as she could.
When she went back toward the register, Tomás was ringing up a customer. Emilia lingered by the makeup and looked at a small palette of green eye shadow.
“Pretty,” she said when he was finished, and she came over to him. She placed the eye shadow on the counter. He didn’t meet her eyes, or notice the soft way she looked at him.
He shrugged.
“If I had your eyes, I’d wear this color,” she told him. “You have such beautiful eyes, Tomás. I’m jealous.” She smiled, but he still couldn’t look at her.
“Where are you going, anyway?” he asked. He sounded flustered, but Emilia didn’t pay it any mind. “I mean . . .”
She looked outside and pretended not to hear the question. “Anyway, I better go,” she said, trying once more to catch his gaze. When he finally looked at her, she smiled so big. She placed her hands on the counter and lifted herself to his height, leaning in to give him a small kiss on the cheek. It was impulsive and so much like how she used to be.
“See you,” she said.
He nodded. “See you.” His look was tender and his voice barely a whisper.
Outside, Emilia glanced back and saw Tomás staring after her as the doors swooshed closed behind her. She walked away, the green eye shadow now in her coat pocket.
* * *
*
Emilia carried the supplies on her back, the slight guilt and nerves she’d felt at the store quickly giving way to a growing sense of excitement. And in that moment, she thought she understood Ma better than she ever had.
In through the chorus room, and then up all the stairs to her old classroom, where she unpacked her new items.
Emilia walked around the classroom, touching the items she’d brought here already. She looked at Sam.
Finally, she popped open one of the many cans of paint she’d found in the janitor’s closet along with the ladder and got to work. With an efficiency that felt good, that made her concentrate and think only about what she was actually physically doing, Emilia opened the other containers, swirled and mixed, and then started painting the wall with the stiff paintbrush she’d found here, too. After every few strokes, she carefully blew small handfuls of glitter onto the wet surface and watched it stick and sparkle. With each area she covered, Emilia was mesmerized.
Yes, she thought. Yes!
She liked the way her arms started to ache. She liked the way her back cramped up. She liked not thinking of anything but this paint, this glorious paint, as the walls became dusted with more and more glitter.
For a moment, Emilia felt euphoric. She worried that maybe it was the paint fumes, but then she didn’t care. She wondered if she could die by paint fumes, but she decided she didn’t care about that, either. All she cared about were those sparkling walls, those walls she would picture tonight when she closed her eyes.
Emilia Tried Not to Look
Emilia tried not to look over at Ian’s house that night, New Year’s Eve, when she opened her window to set down a row of peanuts for her crows. But she did.
His window was bright. She could see his shadow. He flicked the light off and on. She didn’t return it.
Finally, his window went dark.
A moment later, Emilia saw a car stop in front of his house. A BMW that she was almost certain was the one Anthony had shown up in once or twice before, in the past. His mother’s car.
Emilia watched as Ian came out his front door. He looked up to her window and met her gaze before getting in the car. And in the passenger seat, Emilia saw Jane.
There she was, with her white-blond hair. Somehow innocent and culpable. Ian got in the car, and a moment later, Emilia saw Jane look toward her window with a sad expression on her face.
Emilia stood there, waited for them to drive away. But instead she saw the passenger-side window open. Jane stuck her head out slightly, then the paleness of her hand flashed against the slate blue of early evening as she gestured for Emilia to come, come with us.
Emilia’s heart beat faster.
She hated them.
But she could go with them. She could. And maybe everything would be okay. Maybe everything could be okay. A betrayal, yes. Apologies. Forgiveness. Could it really be that simple? All she had to do was walk out there.
But walking out there felt like being naked.
Come with us.
The car waited. And waited. Emilia stepped away from the window so they couldn’t see her.
But she could see them. And she saw, too, the red taillights as they drove away in that car, without her.
“Emilia?” Tomás knocked on her door.
“Come in,” she said, and he came in carrying a wrapped shoe box, held it out to her.
“What’s this?”
“It’s for you. It was supposed to be for Christmas, but it wasn’t ready in time.”
Emilia took the box from him.
“Don’t shake it,” he said. “Be really careful with it.”
&
nbsp; Emilia carefully tore off the paper. She lifted the lid and looked inside.
“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to, if it creeps you out or you think it’s gross.”
She lifted the small figure out of the box carefully, studied it. “A bird skeleton?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Emilia stared at the skeleton.
Flashes of that day, her brother standing over her, came into Emilia’s mind. “Oh my god . . . I dug it up,” she whispered, seeing in her mind her small hands as they scratched at the dirt where Tomás had buried it. As they retrieved the dead bird.
Tomás nodded. “I was going to do this for you when we were little, but I couldn’t figure out how then. So I left it in the shed, in the box. And then I thought maybe it was just better if I didn’t. Anyway, I’ve been thinking of that day, Emilia. A lot. And you . . . and . . .” He looked at the skeleton. “I don’t know.”
Emilia picked it up, so gently, and looked at the delicate bird bones. “I was so sad.”
Tomás’s brown eyes were full of concern for her. “I know it’s years late, and strange. I guess I was a strange kid, to think of this.” He looked at the bones and laughed. Emilia wondered how long it had taken him to clean them up, to figure out how to put them back together.
“It’s not the best job. I think I got some of it wrong. But it looks . . . okay, doesn’t it?”
Emilia’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s perfect.”
Tomás wiped quickly at his own eyes. “Don’t make me cry.”
Emilia put the bird skeleton down on her desk and hugged him so hard. “Thank you.”
“There’s more,” he said, nodding toward the box. Emilia noticed something covered with tissue paper. She lifted the paper and gently took out the dress for a young girl.
She looked at Tomás, confused, then back at the dress, which looked like it had been carefully ironed.
She knew this dress.
“It used to be yours,” Tomás whispered.
“Oh,” she said, suddenly remembering opening this very dress on her eighth birthday. “I thought . . . I lost it. Or Ma had given it away.”
“I took it.”
Emilia looked at her brother. Was he trying to tell her what she’d wondered a few times over the years? “It’s okay,” she said.
He wouldn’t look at her.
“Tomás,” she said. Her heart ached as her brother sat next to her.
“You looked so pretty in it. I was so . . . I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice choking up.
She suddenly felt so undeserving of her brother. He was the one always putting himself and his feelings last, always watching out for her, but what had she done for him? She should have asked him if he was ever scared, up here by himself, all those nights she spent with her mother. Why didn’t she ever ask him? Now she was afraid to ask, afraid he’d say, Yes, I really was scared. And she was afraid to ask about all the things he’d had to keep to himself all these years, that she didn’t ask him about because she didn’t know if she should, or if he wanted to tell her. She’d ignored the way her clothes were sometimes hung just a little differently, or how her makeup disappeared from the bathroom they shared only to reappear there later. She always knocked on his closed door, never turned the knob in case he’d forgotten to lock it.
She didn’t want her brother to ever scramble or feel ashamed. She didn’t want him to feel found out.
And she didn’t want to tell him all the things she felt lately. How strange she felt. How scared she was at times, and numb other times. How time felt unreal and she sometimes felt like she was stuck somewhere between the past and the present. How she couldn’t even find the words to say any of this. Or how sorry she was for never thinking of him.
“I love you,” she said, her voice cracking. She could hardly get the words out, but she had to. “I . . . I’m here for you. And whatever you think is wrong, it’s not. It doesn’t matter at all. I’m so glad you took the dress, you understand? You deserved it, and so much more.”
She couldn’t stand the thought of him here by himself, crying himself to sleep, in the dark, alone, misunderstood each night, for how long? Years? Why hadn’t she been certain sooner?
“I’m sorry,” she managed. “I’m sorry.”
Tomás shook his head, crying. “Stop,” he said. But he pulled her in and cried harder as she hugged him back.
She wanted to say more. She wanted him to say more. But he just held on to her and said, “No more apologies, okay?” before she could utter another word.
She nodded, swallowed the rest of her tears, and held on to him, hoping he understood in her hug the things he did not want her to say aloud.
He pulled away, wiped the tears from his face. And she got up and carefully placed the dress next to the bird skeleton on her desk. They were beautiful. Like her brother. She knew exactly where each belonged.
Emilia and Tomás sat on her bed for a long while, staring at those items in a silence filled with their memories and an understanding of the unspoken words between them.
The First Day Back
The first day back at school after winter vacation, Emilia said a quick goodbye to Ma and Tomás before either of them realized they hadn’t heard the beep of Ian’s car. She rushed out of the house into the January cold and began walking to school.
She’d dreamed of the attack again last night. She kept seeing Jeremy Lance’s face. So, so clearly. And then she’d see him in jail, pounding on the concrete walls. Screaming.
Emilia felt weak as she walked, and the images kept running through her mind.
“Emilia.” She jumped and turned toward the street quickly. It was Ian, calling out to her from his car. “Emilia, please talk to me,” he said again as he continued driving next to her slowly. “Look, it’s freezing. Come on,” he said. “Okay, okay. We don’t have to talk. Just, please, let me give you a ride at least.”
She looked over at him. Ian. Why couldn’t things be okay between them so she could tell him what was going on? Her face felt frozen and her legs unsteady, and she was struck with that strange sense of déjà vu she’d felt so much these days.
“I promise, just a ride to school,” he said, his face kind and gentle, and, oh, how she missed him.
Emilia got into the warm car without a word. She wanted to ask him where he went the other night, with Anthony and Jane. If he’d had fun without her. If he’d talked more about her. What did they say? What did they think? She wondered if someone like Jane was easier to deal with than someone like Emilia.
She wanted to reach over and kiss him. And hit him.
Emilia blinked away her tears.
Don’t think about it, she told herself.
They drove through the same streets, the same way to school as always. For a moment, if it weren’t for the miserable pain in her heart and the dread in the pit of her stomach, she could pretend she was popping a piece of gum into his mouth and wondering about Bazooka Joe.
She wondered if that pack of gum was still in the glove compartment.
What would he say if she started talking about the Challenger explosion, if she reached over and unwrapped a piece of gum? If she asked him about Bazooka Joe’s eye? Would he play along with her? Would he pretend these last few weeks had never, ever happened?
Don’t be stupid, Emilia.
They passed the elementary school. Jeremy Lance’s face loomed in her mind again.
Emilia closed her eyes, and memories of being dragged, by her feet, flashed into her mind. She saw his sneakers. His legs.
It wasn’t him.
And yet, her mind kept flashing Jeremy’s face each time she looked at the guy in her memory.
She shook her head, trying to shake the image of him away. She looked outside and focused on the sky, and a part of her stirred. She remembered being
up there.
I used to fly.
It rushed back so quickly, the feeling of the wind under her, the sound of flapping in her ears. The view from up there, dizzying, twirling, going higher and higher. Her mouth felt strange to her. She touched her lips, half expecting to actually find a beak.
She remembered being a bird.
I was a bird, she thought. I really was one. I remember.
She was wings and feathers and beak. She could fly away from here and from conversations she didn’t want to have. Her hollow mouth wouldn’t need to form human words. She could make it cease to function, and her ears go deaf, and she would be in her own cotton-lined world. She could sink into the soft silence so easily and refuse the outside world. There were ways to refuse it. She remembered now, how to be in it but not be a part of it.
“Emilia,” Ian said from somewhere far away.
“What?”
“Did you hear anything I said? Are you . . . are you okay?”
She looked at Ian, and she wasn’t sure she felt real.
Are you okay? Are you okay? She had to get used to that again, over and over.
Are you okay?
Am I? Yes. I can function the way I’m supposed to. Tell him, Emilia.
“Emilia?”
“Did I tell you my dad’s back?” she blurted out suddenly. She laughed softly.
“What?”
The car was warm. “He’s back,” she repeated. Her words sounded strange to her own ears. “And he thinks he can just come back into the house like nothing has happened. Like he doesn’t owe us some kind of explanation.”
“What? When?” Ian kept looking from her to the street ahead.
“And did I tell you Jeremy’s not the guy who attacked me?” she said, letting the words she’d been holding back just flow from her mouth. She looked at the sky. “Yeah, it was someone else. Some guy named Carl Smith.”
“Emilia . . . what the hell are you talking about? What’s going on?”
The Fall of Innocence Page 20