The Survival List

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “Talley!” I’d cried. “I can see the molecules with my naked eyes! I CAN SEE MOLECULES WITH MY NAKED EYES!”

  “Oh, Sloaners,” Talley had said.

  “What?” I’d asked.

  “Nothing.”

  She didn’t set me straight, and now I wondered: How many other things had Talley just let me go on believing?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  WHILE I’D BEEN OUT WITH ADAM, ONE OF AUNT ELISE’S neighbors had made a grocery run for her, and the kitchen was now well-stocked. I told Aunt Elise I was happy to cook for us. I’m not a gourmet chef or anything, but I can make simple things, like pasta, or chicken cutlets. Aunt Elise sat on a stool by the kitchen island and told me where to find everything—the baking sheet for the oven, the silverware, the plates. Her plates had tiny butterflies on them, like the wallpaper in the powder room, and the tattoo on Talley’s hip bone. “Did you know Talley had a butterfly tattoo?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I saw it that last night at the hospital when we were . . . when we were saying goodbye.”

  Aunt Elise closed her eyes a beat longer than a blink and nodded.

  “Talley was into the butterfly effect. You know what that is, right?” Aunt Elise nodded. “I figured that was why she got it. But maybe it was something about your butterflies.”

  “When Dana and I were younger, our mother told us this story about kids in the Holocaust. My grandmother—your great-grandmother—was a survivor.”

  “I know. Talley actually talked about it a lot. When she was a kid, she used to write Hitler’s name on the bottoms of her shoes, so she stepped on him as she walked. The ink wore off, and she wrote it again and again.”

  “Oh, my mother would’ve been so proud of that act of rebellion,” Aunt Elise. “I can picture her telling her friends what a little spitfire her granddaughter was, and maybe even writing ‘Hitler’ on the bottoms of her own moccasins, too. She always wore Minnetonka moccasins because they were so comfortable.” She paused. “I haven’t thought about those moccasins in a really long time.”

  I ran a finger along the edges of a tiny butterfly on one of Aunt Elise’s plates. “What was the story your mother told you?”

  “Oh, right. She’d heard that when the war ended and the American troops liberated the concentration camps, they found images of butterflies that children had scratched onto the walls. I don’t think they had pencils, so they’d scratched with sticks, or maybe their own fingernails.”

  I felt a chill rise up my back from the phantom sound of the children scratching pictures of butterflies into the walls of the barracks using their fingernails.

  “The kids were gone so there was no one to explain why they’d done it,” Aunt Elise said. “Either they were sent to the gas chamber, or shot, or they starved to death. The Americans called a grief expert to come examine the drawings, and her theory was that the kids had known they were trapped, and they’d known they were dying. They comforted themselves thinking their souls would become something like butterflies, light and free. Of course no one knows for sure if that’s why they drew what they did, but Dana started her butterfly collection after that.”

  “Wait,” I said. “My mother collected butterflies?” It was a revelation for a split second, but as the words left my mouth, I realized that it actually wasn’t surprising at all. I’d grown up in a house filled with random little butterfly knickknacks. They’d always been there, and when something is always there, you don’t necessarily realize its significance—the trivet that we put out on the dining room table when the casserole dish was straight out of the oven, the bookends on the wall unit in the living room, the light-switch cover in the downstairs half bathroom, that sort of thing.

  Why hadn’t I thought of them when I’d seen Talley’s tattoo? Maybe because I was so used to seeing them. Or maybe because Talley’d never seemed particularly interested in them. We’d never talked about them the way she talked about the butterfly effect.

  “Did you tell Talley the Holocaust butterfly story when she was here?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “She had to have known it, though,” I said. “Mom must’ve told her. Talley was already seven when Mom died, which is on the young side for that kind of conversation, but not too young. It’s gotta be why she got the tattoo. She never would’ve gotten one otherwise.”

  “Sometimes people surprise you,” Aunt Elise said. “I once dated this guy who was the most uptight person I’d ever met in my life.”

  “Not more than my dad,” I said.

  “Oh, this guy makes your dad look like the most laid-back guy on the planet, so imagine my shock when he took off his shirt and there was a tattoo of a tiger stretching across his chest.”

  “Yeah, but Talley was staunchly opposed to tattoos,” I said. “Dean wanted her to get one years ago. She refused because Jewish people had been forced to get tattoos during the Holocaust. But the tattoo on her hip was a butterfly, so it makes total sense.”

  “How so?”

  “Whenever I was having a hard time about something, Talley would remind me that other people had it so much worse. It could be so annoying, because when I was upset, all I wanted was for her to agree that in that moment, my life sucked, too. But she was right, the way she always was. I mean, can you imagine how lucky those butterfly kids would’ve felt to have suddenly woken up and had my life—or Talley’s life? It makes it sort of ironic that she died the way she did, because her life wasn’t as hard as those kids’ lives.”

  “I have a couple things to say about this,” Aunt Elise said. “Number one, having perspective is nice, and it’s certainly something to strive for, but hardship is relative, and everyone has bad days. It’s not a contest to see who is having the hardest life.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “And number two, depression isn’t about whether you have a hard life or an easy one. It’s an illness, and illness comes with pain. People who are suicidally depressed, like Talley was, are in a tremendous amount of pain, and they don’t see an end to it. They don’t necessarily want to die, but they think that dying is the only way out of suffering.”

  “I know all that,” I said. “I’ve spent so much time in front of my computer, reading every single thing I could possibly find out about it. But Talley was also someone who was always talking about perspective, and it’s hard to match that up with . . . with the decision that she made. Because even if she was sick, it was a decision.”

  “Sloane—”

  “No, really.” I could feel myself losing my grip. No matter what Aunt Elise said, nothing changed the fact that Talley made a decision. A series of decisions: she picked up the bottle, she put pills on her tongue, she swallowed them down. They were all volitional acts. “I don’t understand how she could do that to me. She left me. Didn’t I mean enough to her? Didn’t she love me?”

  “Oh, honey,” Aunt Elise said. “She loved you so much. She loved you beyond measure. But sometimes people who are considering suicide think the people they love would be better off without them.”

  “I just can’t believe that Talley thought that,” I said. “She was so smart. Her IQ was in the 99.999-whatever percentile. She was brilliant. She was beautiful—”

  “People don’t always suffer on the outside,” Aunt Elise said. “Those who are hurting really deeply often look exactly like those who aren’t. You can’t tell what’s happening inside just by looking at someone.”

  “I know,” I said. “When I got here, to California, and I was walking through the airport, I was thinking about how normal I must look on the outside, and how nobody passing by me knew anything about what had happened to me. I’m sure bad things had happened to some of them, too, but I couldn’t tell. Everyone has so much inside them. Everyone has hardships we can’t see.”

  “Yes,” Aunt Elise said. “And no matter how smart she was, or how beautiful she looked on the outside, Talley had hardships, too.”

  �
�The last time I saw her, when she was on that hospital gurney, I couldn’t believe how small she looked,” I said. “But she’d been that small all along. She’d held so much inside her one small body. All her thoughts, and everything she read about in books, or online, or whatever. All these survival stories. She never forgot anything. She loved trying to help and be part of making things better. But not everything gets better. Not everyone survives. Like those kids in the Holocaust. That’s why Talley got that tattoo. It’s a piece of the puzzle she left behind, just like those kids left behind those butterfly drawings. And that’s why—” My voice broke.

  “Sloane, it’s okay,” Aunt Elise said.

  “It’s not,” I said. “And Talley knew it. That’s why she didn’t survive herself. Because bad things kept happening to other people, and it was too much for her. She just couldn’t take it.”

  Aunt Elise hobbled off her stool. The crutches clacked to the floor, but she steadied herself with the countertop.

  “Talley was so busy caring about everyone else,” I said. “It must have felt so lonely. I should’ve shown her I cared as much as she did. But I didn’t. I was too busy caring about the wrong things and having fun with my friends.”

  “You’re supposed to have fun with your friends.”

  “No, I’m not—not when there’s so much suffering, and especially not when my sister was among the sufferers.”

  Aunt Elise had reached my side of the kitchen island. She kept one hand on the countertop, but she draped her other arm around me. I didn’t deserve to be hugged; I hadn’t hugged Talley when she’d needed me. Not even a hug goodbye. I’d paused in her doorway, and then I’d left her. But Aunt Elise was holding so tight, after a while I couldn’t help but lean into her, and then I couldn’t tell if she was holding me up as I cried, or if I was holding her up as she stood on her one good leg.

  “I should’ve stayed home with her that day,” I said, but I said it so softly, I didn’t think Aunt Elise could hear me. My voice was muffled by my own tears.

  The timer dinged, but neither one of us moved for what felt like a very long while. When I finally let go, I made sure Aunt Elise had steadied herself back against the counter, and I brought around her crutches. She hobbled to the table. I took the chicken out of the oven. But it had burned, and neither of us was much in the mood for dinner anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  AUNT ELISE AND I LAID LOW ON MONDAY. SHE TAUGHT ME some yoga moves. Given her leg situation, she had a modified yoga program. She could sit in a chair and do upper-body work. I followed along, rolling my shoulders, bending from side to side, stretching my back. “Now close your eyes,” Aunt Elise said. “Pay attention to your breath. Inhale through your nose. That’s it. Exhale slowly through your mouth . . . good. Inhale again, slowly. You can lengthen the inhale by counting to three in your head. Now exhale to the count of three. One. Two. Three. Good.”

  Later on, I called Juno to see how her first day at the Hogans’ was going. We’d texted a little bit before then. Juno had written that all’s swell, but when she picked up the phone, it sounded like she was in the middle of a zoo, or maybe the aftermath of an explosion.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Totally under control. Don’t you worry,” she said. In the background, someone was making siren noises, and someone else screamed.

  “You sure about that ‘under control’ thing?”

  “Ha, ha,” she said. “The things I do for you. I’m only in this mess because you said you’d be here with me.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about that stupid guilt trip I just pulled,” she said. “It’s only five more days.”

  “Four and a half,” I said.

  “The good news is these kids totally distract me from thinking too much about Cooper. Although I still think about him, and what he and Audrey may be doing together right about now . . .”

  “Ugh, Juno. Don’t even go there.”

  “I can’t help it. I was just thinking that—” She cut herself off. “Oh, God.”

  “What?”

  “Something crashed,” she said. She started panting and I could tell she was racing back to the other room. “I shouldn’t have left them alone. But they’re eight years old. They should be able to stay alive without me for five minutes.”

  In the background, the kids started screaming. Screaming never bodes very well. Then again, if you’re screaming, you’re definitely alive.

  “What’s going on in here?” I heard Juno ask, and then there was the chatter of all three kids answering at the same time.

  In the harshest voice I’d ever heard her use, Juno said, “That’s enough! No killing! Are you listening to me? Everyone be quiet and listen. No killing is a rule in this house!”

  There were mumbles, and I imagined the kids reluctantly assenting to the no-killing rule.

  “I’ll tell you something else,” Juno went on. “I am on the phone with Sloane—”

  “HI, SLOANE!”

  “No, don’t say hi yet,” Juno said. “Sloane just heard you through the phone trying to kill each other.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  Juno cut off whatever kid was talking (it was one of the boys—either Thomas or Theo). “I’m going to set a timer for five minutes. If you can be quiet and sit with your craft books for that long, then you can say hi to her. Sloane, you still there?”

  “I’m still here. I’m amazed that you’re actually setting rules. I thought your family didn’t believe in them.”

  “We believe in implicit rules,” she explained. “My mom never had to tell me not to defenestrate Eddy.”

  “Way to use an SAT word in a sentence,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what was just happening here. The boys were trying to shove Melanie out the window. We’re on the ground floor, but still.”

  “You probably shouldn’t leave them alone again,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m not. I’m standing window guard while they’re crafting. They can talk to you in . . . oh, four minutes and twelve seconds. If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Good, because this is the first time they’ve been quiet all day—because I dangled the reward of talking to you. They love you so much. They can’t wait till you’re back.”

  “Maybe I should come back early,” I said.

  “Really? I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

  “I’m not kidding,” I said. “At least I don’t think I am. I don’t want to hurt my aunt’s feelings. Then again, it’s hard to have a houseguest when you’re not feeling like yourself, so maybe she actually wants me to leave, she’s just too polite to say so.”

  “I doubt that she wants you to leave,” Juno said.

  “Yeah, me too,” I admitted. “It’s just so hard. I realized something about Talley last night, and I’ve been trying to figure out what it means.”

  “Has it been five minutes?” came a shout.

  “It’s been three minutes and four seconds,” Juno said. “But if you start fighting again, I reset the clock. Sorry, Sloane. You were saying?”

  “I think the list was . . . oh, I don’t know what it was. But it got me out here, and I met my aunt, and where the rest of it is concerned, I just feel like there’s nothing left for me to do in California, and it’s making me miss Talley even more. I want to come home. My dad will be disappointed in me for leaving Stanford, but I’m not even at Stanford, so that shouldn’t be the deciding factor.”

  “You give the word and I’ll switch your ticket,” Juno said.

  “Is it expensive to switch a ticket?”

  “Oh, Sloane, you know I don’t care about that. Maybe I’ll even upgrade you to first class on the way home.”

  “No!” I said. “Promise me you won’t do that.”

  “What was that? I can’t hear you.”

  “Juno, please. I mean it. That would make me insanely uncomfortable.”

&
nbsp; “All right,” she said. “No first class. But even if it costs something to switch the ticket, don’t worry about it. I checked my credit card statement online this morning, and you haven’t spent anything.”

  “I’ve only been here three days.”

  “People can spend a lot of money in three days. I thought the purpose of this trip was to indulge yourself.”

  “You know that wasn’t the purpose.”

  “I know. I just want to make things as easy on you as possible, even if you don’t let me upgrade you to first class. Maybe business . . .”

  “Not a chance,” I said. “But I am going to think about coming home early, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course it’s okay.”

  “Thanks, Ju. I’ll call you back in a bit.”

  “It’s been more than five minutes!” one of the boys called. “I watched the clock!”

  “Oh, sorry, kiddo. Sloane can’t talk right now,” Juno said.

  “Sure I can,” I told her. “Put them on.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  FOR THE NEXT FEW HOURS, I WEIGHED THE PROS AND cons of staying versus leaving, finally resolving to go home. I’d call Juno after dinner and ask her to switch my ticket to tomorrow, Tuesday, which meant I’d be able to babysit with her on Wednesday. She could handle one more day without me, and I’d deal with Dad when I got home.

  But I couldn’t just show up at home. What if I startled him so badly that he had a heart attack? (These are the things you have to think about when you only have one parent left and no more sister.) I’d call him before I walked in the door, maybe on my way home from the airport, and tell him it was just too hard. I’d been too homesick. And if he was disappointed, so be it. I was disappointed in him, too.

  There was the matter of Aunt Elise, though. We’d just found each other. Plus she had a broken leg, and I’d been helping her out. But she’d been alone this whole time, not counting the past three days, and she had neighbors who were willing to help. Did it really matter if I left Tuesday or waited till Sunday? She was going to be alone again either way, and at least she was on the mend.