A Breath Too Late

by Rocky Callen

  You pull it out and open it. I kneel beside you, watching how your shoulders shake.

  I gasp in a breath. Money. Pamphlets. A letter. And on top of it all …

  I see them.

  They have discolored with age. There are rips around the edges, but I recognize them.

  My shoulders tremble right next to yours, because I remember and I am ashamed that I ever forgot.

  * * *

  It was a Monday. I was twelve. August wasn’t able to come by to wrestle in the woods that day because I was sick. I didn’t like being sick, not just because I didn’t like the way my head ached and my nose was snotty and everything felt heavy, but also because it meant I couldn’t go to school. You stayed home to take care of me.

  “I’m old enough to stay home alone, Momma.”

  “I know, dove. You are a young lady now, but it would make me feel better to make sure everything is all right. Is that okay?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  You smiled and put the thermometer in my mouth.

  “I am glad not to go to work anyway. My feet are getting tired,” you said, pulling out the thermometer. Then as if forgetting, you jerked your face to me and said, “Just don’t … Just don’t tell your father that.”

  I blinked, not seeing how that would be something that would matter, but nodded. You relaxed and looked at the thermometer reading. “Oh, my little bird, you have a fever.” You pressed your lips to my forehead. “I hope you feel better. You have to rest today, but is there something you want to do? Something special? Something that would make you feel better?”

  The thought was unprovoked, but hit me all the same. I thought of sunlight and windshields and feet propped up on dashboards. I thought of cheering every time we saw a new town’s welcome sign. I thought of driving and having no destination and the freedom of just laughing and singing while strapped into seat belts. We were free and safe. I looked at you and you looked back, expectant and smiling. “I would like to go for a drive … like we used to.”

  Your smile faltered, even though you tried to keep it in place. You sighed and I saw how your shoulders fell. The excuse was coming. I looked away from you toward the window. You were about to say something and I cut you off as I mumbled, “Never mind.”

  “I—”

  “Just let me rest, Momma, okay?”

  I rolled away from you and buried my head in the pillow. No drives, or rolled-down windows, or treasure hunts, or climbing, or wide-open spaces where there was just road and us. Only here. Beer cans overflowing the recycling bin, and the smell of too much dust and too little air—everything stagnant and stuck and unmoving and trapped. My mattress pitched up as I felt you stand up and leave the room.

  Step. Step. Step.

  Always walking away. I hugged the pillow tighter, actually grateful that everything felt so heavy because then I felt like I could become one with the mattress and the pillow, and turn invisible. I wanted to cry, but I thought of Father’s belt. He wasn’t here … but what if he found out?

  I almost didn’t hear your steps as you came back into my room; I was so focused on not crying. “All right, my dove! Outta bed!”

  I looked up and saw you smiling with a small basket in your hand.

  “What do you mean?” I stared at you, confused.

  “Well, I think that my little bird asked for a drive, so we better get going.”

  I sat up, curious but hesitant. “What’s in the basket?”

  “Food…” You grinned. “And a treasure map.”

  The smile was involuntary, uncontrolled. I couldn’t hold it back even if I’d wanted to, and I didn’t want to. Despite the headache, I swung my legs out of bed and raced to the car. “I am going to beat you!”

  You laughed behind me, chasing me, but keeping your pace just slow enough so that I could win. I knew you did, but it didn’t make victory any less sweet. I opened up my car door and sat in the front seat. The sticky leather didn’t feel uncomfortable like it usually did. I rolled down the window and clicked on my seat belt.

  You scooted into your seat after putting the basket in the back seat. “So, where do you think the treasure map will take us?”

  I looked up and down the street. Left was school, but beyond it was where Father worked, and that didn’t feel like the right way to go to have an adventure. I pointed to the right. “That way!”

  “That way it is, my little bird.”

  I smiled as you pulled out of the driveway. It was too hot. My nose was snotty and my throat hurt, but it was perfect. We turned right and drove straight out of town.

  Blue Moon Mountain was almost an hour away. I squirmed in my seat until the car was parked in the lot and then we both flung off our seat belts as we stepped out. We used to come here all the time and set up a picnic off Sunrise Trail.

  “That way!” I grabbed your hand and we skipped through trees and past boulders, going up, up, up until we saw it. The ruins of a stone building. We pretended that the stone structure was our castle and we were the queen and princess who ruled over all the acres that surrounded us. I was a warrior princess because I didn’t want a prince to save me. I wanted to save us myself, and you let me. You would sit back and cry, “Oh no! Ellie! The dragon!”

  I would raise my stick in the direction of the creature and stab. It all felt right and safe and possible then. Our picnic was water and peanut butter and jelly for you and Pedialyte and a peanut butter sandwich (no jelly) for me. You even cut the crust off. Father didn’t let you do that, but you knew that was how I liked it best. I bit into my sandwich and I was happy. Just as happy as I was when I played with August or raised my hand at school, but for some reason, this was even better.

  “We should do this all the time,” I said. You paused before taking your next bite.

  “We should. I miss our adventures.”

  I looked at you. “Why did we stop?”

  Your eyes took on a distant look that I recognized and I wanted to take my words back to keep you with me.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I am glad we could today.” I smiled at you and was surprised at the way you looked at me. It was different from happy or sad or amused. You looked thankful.

  “I am glad too.” You set down your sandwich, reached into the basket, and pulled out two sheets of paper.

  “Are we going to do homework?” I didn’t mind, because I liked homework.

  “No, I wanted to show you something.” You pulled the page out and started folding it, one fold, then another, then another. It wasn’t a paper airplane. Watching what you did, I tried to unlock the mystery.

  “Do you know why I call you ‘little bird’?” you asked.

  You called me that for a long time. I remember thinking it was weird in the beginning. Who calls their daughter “little bird”? Then after a time I got used to it.

  I shook my head and you continued folding.

  “Birds can look like such small and delicate things. But as tiny as they are, they were born to fly.” You finally stopped folding and put the little paper creature in your palm for me to see. It was white and delicate. Crisp lines created the bird’s head and beak and the sleek folds of its wings.

  I marveled at it. I snatched it away and cupped it in my hands. “It’s beautiful! I love it!”

  You smiled and started folding the other piece of paper. “You will fly away, my little bird.” I heard a hitch in your voice as you continued folding. “You will fly high and so far away.”

  I looked at your hands and the slight way they shook as they folded, and folded, almost with urgency. “What is that one for?” I asked.

  You finished and held the bird in the palm of your hand, bringing it toward me so that our palms were balancing the white birds side by side.

  Your words were so soft. “So will I.”

  There was hope there. Real hope. The kind that was overflowing with truth and urgency, intention and plans.

  We drove home late. You kept glancing at your clock
and swallowing hard. I played with the pair of white birds in the car as I watched the sun turn orange and dip toward the mountains on the horizon in the rearview mirror.

  I felt the squeeze in my chest as we got home. I didn’t want to go home and unlock my seat belt and walk into the house, but as we drove up the gravel pavement, I knew I had to. With a sigh, I got out of the car. You took my arm and hurried me inside.

  “Go wash your hands and face and get into bed.”

  “But why?”

  “Just do it!” Your words were harsh and I could tell you regretted it by the shape of your eyes, but you didn’t say sorry. I put our birds on the coffee table and bolted out of the room.

  I ran upstairs and everything was starting to feel too heavy again; our castle felt a million miles away. I scrubbed my face, but some dirt refused to come off my cheek. I left it there, dried off with the towel, and went to my room. I heard the growl of the engine just as I was closing my door. That familiar engine that pulled into the driveway behind your mismatched-door van and blocked it in.

  It took a while before I heard the squeal of the front door open. “Regina. Where did you go today?” The rumble of his voice, the calm before the storm, was a sound I knew by then. It was deceitfully soft, treacherously soothing. It could almost lull you to sleep if you weren’t careful.

  I heard your hesitant footsteps leave the kitchen and go to the door. “What—what do you mean?”

  “What do I mean?” I heard Father’s slow steps. “I mean, you left,” he said. “And I want to know where you went.”

  A pause. I hugged my pillow tight. Maybe you would tell on me? Tell Father that I wanted to go to the mountains? Maybe he would punish me.

  “I had to go to the store … to get Ellie medicine.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  The crack of palm to face was a loud one, and I knew the sound too well. I buried my head in the pillow. “Then why are there eighty-seven miles more on the odometer than there were this morning?”

  Another slap. “Oh, Regina. Why do you make me hurt you? Why do you lie to me?”

  I didn’t hear you cry. And it wasn’t until I heard the crash of glass that I bolted upright and stared at the locked door.

  Should I go see?

  I heard footsteps on the staircase, one pair, then the other. A shower turned on as the TV blared to life in your and Father’s room.

  The next day, I saw that there was no glass top on the coffee table, just the legs were left. That had been the crashing sound last night. You were already in the kitchen.

  “Are you okay, Momma?” I asked. You smiled and I saw there was a cut on your lip that was masked by red lipstick.

  “Of course, my little bird. Of course.”

  Father came down and sat at the table. I ate my cereal quietly, counting how many oranges were in each basket. It wasn’t until I was grabbing my backpack and leaving the kitchen that I saw what was in the trash. A pile of glass and two white paper birds. I didn’t reach in to get them.

  We never drove out to the mountains again.

  * * *

  There they are in that box.

  Two crumpled birds lying side by side on top of heaps of ones and twenties and fifties—money I know immediately that you must have been stashing away for a long time. You reach into the box and hold the origami birds, tracing the edges even though they are worn and might break. You take them in your ruined hands and press them to your heart. You start to speak, shaking your head from side to side with each word, and your chest creaks. I’m afraid your ribs may break.

  Your voice is as fragile as the tattered paper birds. “I never meant for us to stay in this cage, my little dove. I always thought that we’d leave it. Together.” You grit your teeth. “I just thought—I had time.”

  You open a bright blue-and-orange card and stare at its sparse prose as if it is an incantation. I peer over your shoulder and see it is a graduation card. Addressed to me. You had bought this before I died. I skipped over the little poem centered on the card—I never read those impersonal words—and went straight to your handwriting in gold Sharpie. You knew how I loved that gold ink. We fly today, my dove! We are free.

  You tear it in two.

  I stare. I stare even as it no longer sits in your hands. We were going to leave. Together. We were going to take this money and your minivan and we were going to leave Father and this damn house and this too-small life behind after I graduated. You had planned that all along.

  And it is then that I want to disappear. I don’t want more answers! I don’t want to see any more because this hurts too much to hold. My hands are bleeding from its edges. My heart is splintering into pieces and I won’t ever find them all.

  You pick up a letter in the little box and unfold it. As I look over your shoulder, I see it isn’t a letter at all. It is sheet music, and fluttering up and down the bars are notes, and crammed into the space between are lyrics. My name is in curling script across the top.

  Your voice is a shiver in the dark. “I wanted to sing for you.” You wipe your nose on your sleeve and give a half-hearted laugh. “You and your loud, blaring music. You’d probably hate all my songs.” You fold the sheet music back into its neat little square. “But … they were still all for you.”

  I think of the hurricanes that couldn’t steal your voice. I think of our home that never heard your songs. I think of how even the delicate notes of your humming were stolen by open windows. You said you used to sing because it made you feel strong and then in the quiet, in secret, you wrote your songs for me.

  Your finger grazes the edges of one of the birds. “I was never brave enough to do so many things.” You are trembling and I can’t do anything about it. You are trembling and I just imagine all the nights I went to sleep thinking I was entirely alone and yet I had someone writing me songs that one day she would sing to me, one day when we were free.

  I want to hear all your songs.

  We sit like that for a long time. Tears and tattered edges.

  You hadn’t been weak all these years, even though I thought you were. You had been planning and that was what those beautiful secret eyes were all about. A box hidden in your daughter’s mattress, stuffed with money and a pamphlet for trailers in Tennessee because you knew I loved the mountains, and two little birds that were made on a sunny day when the world was bright and full of possibility, and songs to make us strong for the journey as we kept our promises that we would fly away. But I left you.

  I left you because I had forgotten. But you never did. You kept a treasure chest of hope by me so that I would be safe. You kept my door locked, your head down, your face painted, and your whimpers low because you were waiting for the moment … the right time.

  The tears build in my eyes as I reach for you.

  For our birds.

  For the hand that reached over cut tablecloths.

  And when my fingers slip through yours, earthquakes of pain and sorrow erupt inside of me. I shake in the dark so far away from you, yet I’m right here with the house as our only witness.

  “I am sorry too, Momma. I am so sorry.”

  We are daughters of regret and shame and secrets, and we cry together until the clock chimes six a.m.

  22

  August,

  I leave Momma’s side and return to yours. The sky has started to bleed out its colors into the night. You are staggering with a beer in your hand. It pains me to see you so unsteady. I remember when we ran these same streets as children, every step purposeful and sure. We would always run to our sanctuary or to our bridge that went high over the river.

  That is where you are walking now. I move in lockstep with you, wishing I were solid so I could grasp your hand and hold it in mine. But I can’t, so I settle for staying close by your side. Minutes pass in solemn silence and then we step over the boundary between the Real world and the one we created together.

  * * *

  “Hurry up!” I yelled over my scrawny twelve-year-ol
d shoulder. You were a few yards behind and I grinned like a wild woman at you. “Slowpoke! I win!” I drew out the I so that it would last. I drew it out until I crossed the threshold of the barn bridge and halted, my belly heaving in huge breaths. Sweaty and reddening, you slowed down to a walk before getting to me.

  “You are a cheetah.”

  “And you’re a … what? A sloth?”

  You glared at me with your customary I-am-pretending-to-be-offended glare. I smiled back with my I-know-I-whipped-your-butt smile.

  It took you longer to recover your breath.

  Mondays. I loved Mondays. Father worked late, which meant I could pretend with you longer. I could run and be wild and free. We walked over to the barn bridge window and peered over the edge. “Ever think about jumping?” I asked.

  You reeled. “From up here? Don’t be ridiculous! See those rocks? That current? You jump from here and you’re practically asking to kick the bucket.”

  “I guess I am just too reckless,” I said, turning away from the window and toward the wood planks.

  “Uh, yeah,” you said as we both pressed our backs to the barn wall and slid to the ground.

  “August?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “We are … good … friends, right?” I asked, hesitation in my voice. I didn’t want to go home, but I had to soon. I didn’t like leaving you in the woods alone.

  “The best,” you said, and that made me grin.

  “The best,” I repeated under my breath.

  “Yeah.” You shifted and pointed to a wooden beam. “See, I’ll show you.” You took your Swiss Army knife out of your pocket—the one you were grounded for having a month ago—and started carving into the wood. A&E BFFS.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel very official.”

  You blinked at me and then shifted onto one scraped knee. You winced a little before smiling. “Ellie Walker, I, August Matthews, ask for your hand in holy best friendship.”