Kindred

by Stein, Tammar

  “Will you just settle down for a second?” I ask.

  “Miriam, you have been fucking with me and wasting my time—”

  I stop the tirade. “You know the weight loss that started before I left school?”

  He stops kicking at one of the mounds near me but doesn’t say anything. His hands are buried deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched forward. I notice absently that we’re wearing the same colors today, something that hasn’t happened since Mo came to Hamilton.

  “And all the times I run to the bathroom? The fact that I always look like crap? The fact that I have no energy?”

  “You’re bulimic?” he asks jeeringly, kicking at a loose rock.

  “No.” I say it quietly but it gets through to him. He can tell from my voice I have bad news, and he tenses, waiting. I take a deep breath. “I have a disease. It took the doctors a while to diagnose me, but it’s an autoimmune disease that has my own body attacking itself, cannibalizing my intestines and shredding them into a horrible bloody mess.”

  “God damn it, Miriam,” Mo says. “If you’re fucking with me again and this is some sort of trick …” His hand is out and curled into a fist, the muscles bunched tight in his arm. His whole body is coiled, ready to attack. He looks like he wants to hit me.

  “It’s not a trick,” I say, fighting a sudden urge to cry. “I have Crohn’s disease.” His fist uncurls, and some of the tension seeps out of his body. “I don’t know if you know much about it. I’d never heard of it until I was diagnosed. Because it’s an autoimmune disease and my own body for some reason has decided to attack my colon, the only thing to do is try and shut down part of my immune system.” I pause. “That’s a difficult thing to do. So far, it’s not working.”

  “Shit, Miriam,” he says. “Are you serious?” He rubs a hand across his face like he’s trying to wake up.

  “I haven’t been dieting. The pounds just fall off. I’m scared if I keep losing weight like this, I’ll disappear.” I cover my face.

  He squats down next to me and pulls my hands from my face. “Tell me,” he says urgently. Mo holds my hand and we automatically clasp our hands in our secret hold, where our middle fingers curl inside both our palms, sharing the warm space we make. I hold on to that contact, take comfort from it, before going on.

  “I know you’re wondering what that has to do with anything, but think about it,” I say, meeting his eyes, his pained expression. “It started after I botched my first mission. This is a disease that can be genetic, but we don’t have anyone in the family with it. I’m not doing a great job with Jason. And in the meantime, I just get sicker. I’ve already lost fifteen pounds in two months; my joints ache; I have a constant low-grade fever. I can’t sleep because of the cramping and the urgency. I’m tired all the time because my body is falling apart. And the thing is, if I can’t get this flare-up under control soon”—my voice rises alarmingly—“they’ll need to take out my colon.” My throat closes; I can’t get those ugly words out. “I’ll be a nineteen-year-old with a colostomy bag. I—”

  Mo doesn’t let me say any more; he grabs me in a rough, hard hug, smothering my face, my words, in his chest. Then he pushes me back a bit to look at me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” The look on his face is anguished and intense. Worry, love and rage flash in his eyes so quickly it’s hard to tell one from the other.

  “How could I? How can I ever tell anyone?” I start crying in earnest. “You have to help me, Mo. If I fail God on this, He’s going to punish me worse, I know it.”

  There’s a part of me watching this scene, weighing its effect on Mo. Is he buying this? Is it over the top? For this to work, he can’t have any doubts about whether this is God’s punishment or a life-sucks coincidence outside the realm of my mission. And if it’s the devil who’s doing this to me, I certainly don’t want Mo to know. It has to be black-and-white: God is punishing me for failing with Jason. Mo has to fully believe. That’s the only way I can help them both.

  “This is bullshit,” Mo rages above my head, his hands digging protectively into my back. “I thought you were supposed to be on the good guys’ side; what happened to fucking free will?”

  “I don’t know, Mo,” I say, my eyes closed, my forehead resting against his chest. His heart beats hard and fast. “The rules have changed. Just contacting me and getting me to try to change people’s minds—how is that not messing with free will? Don’t think I haven’t thought about this. Stopping Jason from going through with this nightmare—that’s the only thing I can do. Please, Mo, please say you’ll help me.” My heart is pounding as fast and as hard as his. He cannot know this is as much about him as it is about Jason and me.

  Mo—my brother, my twin, my night and shadow—kisses my hair softly.

  “We’ll take care of this,” he says gruffly. “We’ll fix this together.”

  I sag a little and start crying in relief. Big messy sobs of release. He’s not going to the devil; I won’t fail again.

  I hope the angels are hearing this; I hope they’re here, watching what love can do. I want them to scurry back to Him, the Almighty, bearing the news that Mo is not perfect but that he’s mine. He loves me, and that has to count for something.

  “It’s okay, Miriam,” Mo says softly, holding me tightly. “I love you best of all.”

  Take that, I say silently to those jealous, perfect and awesome seraphim. Take that.

  After the tears and hugs finally end, I start telling him my ideas for the best way to stop Jason.

  Mostly I talk and Mo listens. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, to plan the best approach. The way I see it, if the two of us meet with Jason, then I could talk him out of it and Mo’s presence would help bolster my argument. I don’t want to get Mo into trouble. He hasn’t told me much of his conversations with the demon, but in case he promised him something, I don’t want Mo to break his word and end up double-crossing the devil—that would turn out badly. I also reluctantly realize that I don’t trust Mo to be convincing. He’d try, but I know he doesn’t believe in stopping Jason like I do, which is why I want to do the talking.

  Even now, as I explain what I think Jason might say and the best response to it, Mo sits next to me, pulling up clumps of grass with a vacant sort of look on his face.

  “Are you listening?” I ask.

  He shoots me a look. But as I pick up where I left off, I can tell his thoughts are wandering. It either means that I’m boring him—always a possibility with my brother’s short attention span—or that he’s figuring something out, planning, plotting something that may have nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Or everything.

  “We’ll go to his house tonight,” I say. I love my brother, but I have to be realistic. “We can’t waste any time.”

  We walk back to town together. Mo keeps glancing at me as he notices how slowly I walk.

  “You look like Gramma Birdie, walking like that,” he says.

  I save my breath and give him the finger. It makes him laugh, but I can feel the worry pulsing off him. I wonder how much of it is for me and how much is for what will happen when the devil realizes his disciple isn’t following orders. Then I feel a rush of shame at the thought. I’m worried for him too.

  Neither one of us has said this out loud, but if my Crohn’s disease is God playing dirty, hurting me for failing, what would the devil do to Mo? Even if I’m right in assuming that my disease has nothing to do with God, it’s unlikely the devil would refrain from punishing a wayward minion. This haunts me. I wonder if by saving Mo, I’ve doomed him as well.

  When we arrive back at my apartment, Mo is already jumping with excess energy. His muscles twitch like those of a horse plagued with flies. He’s got all his tics going—he’s chewing the side of the nail on his thumb, tapping his foot, drumming his fingers on the table in a quick, nervous beat. I can’t stand being around that.

  “I’m heading to the shower,” I say. I’m sweaty and gross after the long
walk, and I don’t want BO to drive Jason away before I get a word in.

  “That’s cool,” he says a bit distractedly, keeping up with a heavy metal band only he can hear.

  By the time I’m dressed after my shower, Mo’s gone.

  There’s a note written in Mo’s blocky print with directions to Jason’s house. My heart sinks when I read it. He says he promised to have dinner with some friends, so he’ll meet me at Jason’s house at seven.

  Of course I’m suspicious and uneasy, but there’s nothing I can do about it, and I decide that I have to trust Mo. Mo’s never broken his word to me. Twisted it, bent it, dodged it, sure, but never flat-out broken it. His feelings for me at the ruins were real, and I know that he loves me. I let that assuage my misgivings as I practice what to say to Jason when I see him tonight.

  Don’t worry, I tell my invisible, judging angels. He’ll come through for me.

  XXV.

  WHEN I ARRIVE AT JASON’S PLACE, a modest duplex in a tired complex close to the local paint factory, Mo’s not there. I wait a few minutes, but when he doesn’t show up, I wonder if this is his compromise. He won’t help stop Jason, he’ll just cease driving him on. It’s better than nothing, and I don’t blame Mo. He has his own demons to deal with, literally. I figure that as long as he’s not actively helping the devil, God will find a way to forgive the work he’s already accomplished on his behalf. Besides, like with any vice, it might take a while to fully disconnect. One step at a time.

  I’ve already forgiven him as I jog up the front steps to Jason’s home.

  I knock on the paint-chipped door. Jason’s visibly surprised when he opens it and sees me.

  “Hey,” I say. “Can I come in for a second?”

  He stands still for a moment, blocking the way, and then, with a characteristic shrug and rolling of his eyes, he shuffles aside to let me in.

  His place is dark, with a few low-wattage bulbs illuminating two sagging recliners in faded blue velour and a stained gray carpet. A pizza box, dirty cups and used napkins litter the coffee table, while a too loud television blasts out hard-core rap, the flickering screen full of nearly naked women gyrating near a hot tub.

  “Is your mom home?”

  “She’s working.”

  It occurs to me she must have a second job to help pay for tuition.

  “This will only take a minute.” I glance over at the TV. With a stony face, Jason digs out the remote from the cushions of one of the recliners and flicks it off.

  “Yeah?”

  I take a deep breath, priming myself for the fight to come.

  “I found this at work,” I say, pulling out the notebook. “You’re an incredible artist.”

  For a split second he stands amazed at the compliment. Then he realizes what I’m holding out to him, and the look vanishes, transmuting instantly into defensive rage.

  “That’s private, bitch,” he says, snatching it out of my hand.

  “That’s the second time today I’ve been called that.” I fight for the right tone. “I don’t appreciate it. And you shouldn’t have left something private in my desk if you didn’t want me to find it.” And I wonder about that. Perhaps he did want me, or someone, to find it. Perhaps he was looking for someone to stop him.

  He clenches his teeth, and I see the tendons in his jaws popping. He’s also clutching the notebook to his chest like a child with a blankie. He looks young but unpredictable. He looks dangerous.

  “I can’t say I liked the plotline much, but the illustrations were amazing.” I talk quickly but calmly, trying to change the mood between us. “I was thinking, if you’re interested, about seeing if Frank will let you do some illustrations for the columns instead of using stock photos. Or, if you wanted, maybe you could do a cartoon strip.”

  Jason glares at me and then spins away, stalking over to the crooked blinds on the window.

  “Take your sweet charity and shove it,” he says with his back to me. “No one wants to hear what I’ve got to say.”

  “It’s not charity,” I say. “And no one wants to hear what you’ve got to say because mostly you don’t say anything.”

  He swivels to glare at me.

  This isn’t going exactly as I planned, but at least he’s reacting with more than a grunt or two. And since being confrontational seems to draw him out, I let him have it.

  “See, that’s all you do. Glare. Roll your eyes. Sneer. It’s a nice repertoire you’ve got, but you can’t be too surprised people don’t eat it up.” It feels good to be blunt, to finally say what I’ve been thinking. I’m not scared of him anymore.

  He seems kind of surprised by that, but quickly recovers.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” he says, taking a menacing step toward me, pointing a finger at my chest. “So just take your skinny ass out of my house before I call the cops.”

  “Actually, I know more about you than you think.”

  “You talked to Frank, right? He told you he let me have the internship so that Principal Finely will owe him a big one, right? I’m just making sure that he earns the favor, that’s all.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Screw you. You don’t know anything about me. Now get the hell out of my house.”

  “Will you sit down and shut up for a second?” I say, losing my temper. “I just need to tell you something and then I’ll leave, okay? But I’ve come all this way, and let’s be honest, it isn’t because you’re so much fun to be around. So sit!”

  He sits on the edge of one of the recliners. I gingerly sit down on the other. It rocks a little, and I hold on to the armrests to keep my balance. The smell of stale pizza and cheap carpet deodorizer are making me queasy. I have one shot to convince him, and my nerves aren’t helping my roiling stomach.

  “What I’m about to tell you is really hard to believe. I hope it helps that you know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe it.” I pause for a second, take a deep breath and plunge in. “I saw you in a dream.” My voice shakes a little as I say this, and my armpits are wet with sweat. “Before I ever met you, I saw you in a dream, and in my dream I’m supposed to keep you safe.”

  Jason’s eyes flicker to and away from me; he shifts his weight to the back of the recliner.

  “But after I had the dream, which was before I ever met you, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do for you,” I say, leaning forward. “Then, after I met you, you didn’t seem to want or need any help. I was lost but I didn’t know what to do. But then, once I found your notebook, I knew. And I know something else. If you do this, you will get caught and you will go to jail. For a long time. For the rest of your life.” My hands dig into the worn upholstery. “I saw it all, Jason. I promise I’m telling the truth.”

  He seems to be listening to me, but at the mention of the notebook his eyes narrow and I know he doesn’t believe me. I swallow back the tears stinging my eyes and clogging my throat. Knowing I have no other choice, I tell him about Tabitha.

  It doesn’t take long to tell, my pathetic tale of failure and doubt. I simplify things and say it was another dream, a terrifying one. I tell him how I met Tabitha and still, idiotically, hesitated. I tell him about that afternoon, the brewing storm, my growing panic. And then of the botched rescue, the exploding building and Tabitha permanently disfigured, all because of me.

  “I heard about that girl,” he says quietly. I had forgotten that the incident made national news. For a split second I’m grateful to the obnoxious, unkind media for giving me credibility with Jason.

  “I can’t fail again. My dreams are real. Maybe it’s God trying to tell me something.” I can almost hear the angels snickering. I ignore that and continue. “This is about you,” I say, “but as awful as this sounds, it’s just as much about me. I’m already paying the price for failing once.” I don’t go into the details. “I can’t fail again. You can save both of us.” I’m trying to give him power, to share the gift for making a difference.

  Our eyes meet.
For the first time, Jason looks me straight in the eyes. His are a pale golden brown that’s almost the color of caramel, with thick, dark lashes. It makes me sad that I never noticed.

  “I know you’re angry, Jason,” I say. “You have every right to be. But high school sucks for a lot of people. The point is that you get through it and then leave it all behind. You go to college somewhere where there are people who you like. People who don’t live for money or clothes or status. With your talent, you could easily get into an art school.”

  “My mom—” he begins.

  “It doesn’t matter what your mom plans for you,” I say fiercely. “It’s not up to her. After high school you move out; you’re an adult and you make your own decisions. I understand she has dreams for you. Big dreams. But it doesn’t matter. You can’t live the life she always wanted.” He turns his head away. “Tell her that she needs to run for office. Tell her you’ll vote for her.” He gives a watery chuckle.

  “I mean it, Jason,” I say. I feel a rising excitement. He wipes his eyes roughly and I know I’m connecting. He’s listening. This is going to work. The words come out so easily, the right words. I’m full of inspired happiness. “You’ve got to start dreaming big. Your own dreams. You’ve got talent to spare. Now you need a little inspiration.”

  He breathes heavily. He looks at me, a look of suspicion that’s holding back the floodgates of hope. It makes my heart catch. He swipes at his nose, and then, just as he’s about to say something, there’s pounding on the door. We both jump and turn in surprise. A deep voice shouts: “POLICE!! POLICE! OPEN UP!” We gape at each other and stand up, but apparently not fast enough. Police break down the door. Three of them rush in, shouting: “POLICE! HANDS UP IN THE AIR! HANDS UP IN THE AIR! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND! DOWN ON THE FUCKING GROUND! GET DOWN!!!”

  I’m frozen in utter shock, and Jason lurches, as if to run away. Weapons drawn and pointed, the police come charging at us. They shove us to the floor. I sprawl facedown on the grimy carpet. I feel a knee between my shoulder blades and a rough voice asking me something. With my face mashed flat, I’m not sure what he’s asking for, but suddenly one of my arms is bent behind my back and cold metal cinches my wrist. Just as I think of moving my other arm, it’s yanked behind me and fastened in the handcuffs too. Hard, impersonal hands touch me everywhere, and seconds later I hear the same rough voice say, “Girl’s clear.”