Embers of Starlight

by Sonia de Leon

  Sam is originally from Colorado. His greatest wish is to follow in the steps of the men in his family and join the army. His father was Special Forces, and was killed in action last year. Sam missed too much school in the interim, and wasn't able to graduate. Understandably, his mother and sisters forbade him to join, so he relocated here to Seattle to live with his aunt and uncle while he finished school as a nineteen-year-old senior.

  “I'm sorry I called you a bastard.”

  “But I am.” His grin is unconvincing. He turns, arms still cradling our lunch. “Lead the way, Pop Rocks.”

  We eat lunch in his Challenger, as we do every day, listening to Plain White T's and Snow Patrol with the windows rolled down. A gaggle of popular girls pass his car.

  “Hi Sam,” the prettiest one purrs as she leans against his door. The rest of them echo her greeting, sounding like prerecorded messages. None of them greet me. I'm invisible to them.

  “I hope you don't have any sharp metal edges on those jeans. This paint job is original.” He doesn't look up from demolishing his second sandwich.

  “Oh, well all my edges are soft,” she murmurs in her best seductive voice. “I came over here to ask if you want to go to homecoming with me. Think about it, okay?”

  Samson doesn't respond, and shoves a handful of potato chips in his mouth, crunching them as obnoxiously as possible, some of them even flying out of his mouth. The girls walk away.

  “You are so irresistible when you spit your food out while you chew.” I grin. “Come on, she's pretty. Don't you plan on dating any girls?”

  “Two things. One, 'All my edges are soft,'” he mimics. He's silent for a beat. “I'm not . . . I don't want to go out with a girl just because she's offering me her soft edges. It's tempting. Because I like soft edges.” His eyes light up as he smiles crookedly at the thought. “And two, I'm nineteen, so unless she's already eighteen, I'm not going there.”

  “Well, I just happen to know that she is eighteen. Her birthday was the beginning of September.”

  He sighs and turns to face me. “She looks like she'd be a lot of fun. The wrong kind of fun. And I currently have no desire to be in a relationship. With anyone. My future is not going to be family focused. When I get into Special Forces”—he puts emphasis on the word when—“I'll be deployed back to back. It'll be dangerous. I don't want someone attached to me. I don't want someone at the back of my mind when I have to be focused on a mission.” After unscrewing the cap of his Coke, he takes a long swallow. “And as charming as my personality is—“ He burps loudly.

  “Irresistible, as I mentioned before,” I interject.

  “—irresistible, yes. My sisters and mother would skin my hide if I, uh, took advantage of any soft edges without having honorable intentions.”

  “That's a lot of big words for a future jughead.” I laugh.

  “Jarhead,” he says in correction.

  “Whatever.” I wave my hand dismissively. “You're a walking contradiction, you know. Damn their opinion when it comes to your career, but they'll be ever present in your potential relationships?”

  “I don't know.” Sam shakes his head. “I've seen all my sisters cry over guys. I've heard their stories. Eavesdropped more like it, so I heard details I shouldn't have. I promised myself I'd be better than that.”

  I tilt my apple juice in his direction, and he clinks the top of my bottle with his Coke.

  “I'll drink to that,” I say, before swallowing down the last of my juice.

  “And anyway, I won't be here long. Just long enough to get the last of my credits. I'll have them by January, then adios!”

  I ignore the small pain in my chest upon hearing his words. I've grown to enjoy his company. More than I'm willing to admit.

  He turns to me. “Do you want to go to homecoming? I'd go with you if you wanted,” he says.

  What a tempting offer. A school dance. A guy like him escorting me. But I don't know if my heart can handle a slow dance with him. It would mean something different to me.

  I shrug and shake my head. “Nah, I'm not into dances. I'd rather go to a concert.”

  “Done.” He grins.

  * * *

  “Best. Night. Ever!”

  I shout and twirl around before getting shoved into the backseat of Sam's Challenger. No, my fantasies aren't coming true. Sadly.

  Sam, Solei, her new boyfriend, and I have just rocked out in the front row of the pit section at a Killers concert, and we scream-sing along to their latest CD on the way home.

  The windows are down, and the chilly, late-fall air whips through my hair, tangling my strands. This is living. Being young, being free, and experiencing life with every cell in my body.

  Sam drops Solei and her guy off first, then brings me home. We live only two blocks from one another; something we discovered when he gave me a ride home the day I stupidly forgot my umbrella. What sort of idiot lives in Washington state, and forgets her umbrella at home? Me, that's who.

  He pulls into my driveway, and I immediately know something is wrong. My heart burns and my lungs clench. It's almost midnight, but the front door is wide open and every single light in my house is on. Most of the window shades have been ripped down, and bare curtain rods hang askew in the windows.

  “Oh no,” I whisper as I yank my seat belt off. I jump out of the car before it's even put into park, and race across my lawn. I vault up the stairs and fling the screen door open. Heavy footsteps pound behind me, and I turn, seeing Sam.

  “What's going on?” His brow is furrowed.

  “Please just go. You don't . . . I don't want you to see this,” I plead.

  Even though he's met my mother, and has even had dinner with us, I haven't told him about her rapidly worsening mental state. It's not only frustrating, but also embarrassing. I'm just a teenager for Christ's sake. I'm not supposed to be worrying about soon needing round-the-clock care for my mother. My biggest worries should be of boys, and whether or not my choice of outfit is Cosmo worthy, which it never is.

  “Did someone break in?” His gaze roams the scene of toppled tables and the scattered contents of drawers.

  “It's my mom. She's sick,” I say as I rush into each room on the first level looking for her. “Mom?” I begin climbing the stairs and Samson follows close behind.

  “What do you mean, sick?”

  “Mentally.” I leave it at that.

  I push against my mom’s bedroom door, but something is in the way.

  “Mom!” I pound on the door. “I'm here, let me in!” I push harder against the door, but can't get it to budge. “Help me.” Panic begins to build in my chest, and my voice shakes with the effort it takes to control my emotions.

  He puts a shoulder to the door and shoves his way in, the heavy antique armoire screeching across the wood floor.

  My mom is sitting on the floor, curtains in her hand and pooled around her. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused.

  I immediately kneel beside her. “Hey, what happened?” I speak as soothingly as possible.

  “I couldn't find you . . . and then . . . and then, I didn’t know what to do . . . and I thought, who do you call? And the only thing that came to mind was Ghost Busters”—she speaks without emotion or inflection—“but I don't have Ghost Busters number. So I . . . so I looked and I looked, and then the voices . . . they're so mean to me now. They said 'She left. She hates you. Her life would be better with you gone.' And they told me to hurt myself. First the curtains . . . to put them around my neck, but I wouldn't. I tore them down. Then the knives, to cut my wrists. They wouldn't stop. I couldn't get them to stop—“

  “Tula, you need to call 911 now.” Sam's voice echoes from the bathroom.

  “Hang on, mom.” I stand up and walk to the bathroom while she continues talking.

  “—so I took the pills in the container for tonight. I took the right day. But they wouldn't stop, so I took all the pills for tomorrow too, but they were still so mean—“

  The empty
weekly pill box, and several once-full prescription containers lie scattered across the countertop and bathroom floor.

  “The phone . . . where's the phone?” I shriek, running from the bathroom.

  I tear through the house, but can't find the cordless handset anywhere. Samson comes down the stairs, cradling my mother in his arms.

  “Get all the pill containers,” he orders. “We'll drive her ourselves.”

  I gather the containers into a plastic grocery bag and run out the door. I don't even bother closing or locking it behind me. Sam has laid my mother in the backseat, and I climb in with her. His car revs to life, and we whip through side streets.

  “Hey, mom. So what else happened?” I try to get her to start talking again. She's beginning to lose consciousness.

  Her eyes focus on me for a brief second, and she smiles. “Oh my Lorelai, how I do love you.”

  “It's me, mom. It's Talula, not Lorelai.”

  Her eyes close.

  “Mom! Mom! Open your eyes!” She doesn't respond, so I do the only thing I can think of. I slap her. Hard. Her eyes flutter open for a second, then droop closed again. “Mom! Don't! You have to stay awake, you can't leave me like this! Mom!”

  Sam is speeding, and has us at the hospital within five minutes. It feels like a lifetime has passed. In five minutes, I have aged a hundred years. Everything begins to blur together at this point. Sam's Challenger roars up to the Emergency Room entrance, then the tires squeal as we skid to an abrupt halt. He is shouting, then pulling me out of the car. Uniforms come out, and everyone is talking too fast, too loud. Sam pulls the bag out of my hands and passes it to a nurse. More people come rushing out, and they have a stretcher. My mom's now-limp body is laid on the stretcher, and they're asking me her name, age, weight . . . I don't know, I don't know anything anymore. I'm rendered useless.

  They rush her through the doors and I try to go with, but they stop me and say that it's better for me to remain in the waiting area. Sam pulls me back against his chest and just holds me. I am numb. I'd pray if I knew how, but all I have left is hope.

  “Who's Lorelai?” he murmurs against my hair.

  “My sister. She's dead.”

  3

  TWO AND A HALF years ago my sister, Lorelai, and I had both signed up for a month-long wilderness survival camp. We were so excited to be spending the summer we turned fifteen in Canada, learning how to live off the land like our father’s ancestors. We were twins, but I had honey auburn hair and my dad's light brown eyes, while Lorelai inherited my mom’s blond hair and gorgeous baby blues.

  Unfortunately, I came down with mono, which turned into pneumonia, so I wasn't able to go in the end. My dad drove my sister across the border and into Canada, and we never saw them again. My father’s car was abandoned on Highway 16 with a flat tire. His body was found a short way into the woods, his wallet gone, and he’d been shot once in the head. My sister turned up two months later, an unidentifiable corpse, partially buried on the banks of the Red River, over 1,000 miles from where she went missing. Her remains had been saturated in a chemical used to speed up decomposition, and she was only identified by her favorite pair of fuchsia rain boots. The case was never solved, and I'm not certain much effort was put into it.

  My mother battled depression before this, but the emotional trauma of losing both her husband and daughter was too much for her to handle. She’s been in a downward spiral ever since.

  I relay this story to Samson, who listens without speaking. He is still holding me, and his arms tighten around my shoulders.

  He finally speaks, whispering, “How have you not gone completely insane?”

  “I couldn't. Who would take care of my mom?”

  In my mind, the answer was simple. I had no choice but to survive. My options were to either survive or fall apart, and I chose the path that would keep me living. I went to therapy every week for six months, then slowly weaned off. The nightmares still wake me sometimes.

  “Who is here with Genevieve Lyons?”

  I pull away from Samson and scrub my hands over my face, then turn to a nurse dressed in blue scrubs. “I'm her daughter.”

  “The overdose has put her in a coma, but she is stable, and we just need to wait and see how long her body needs to heal from the damage.”

  “How long do you think she'll be in a coma?”

  “It's hard to say, but thankfully she wasn't oxygen deprived for long. What we're concerned about now is simply her recovery, and making sure there is no permanent damage to the brain.”

  I nod, a quick shake of my head, and the nurse gives me more information I won't remember later. It's all too much for me to process right now.

  Sam drives me home, both of us silent. He pulls into my driveway, then picks up my purse from the floor and hands it to me. He shuts off his car, gets his cellphone from the glove box, and gets out. After walking around the front of the car, he pulls my door open, then guides me out. My mind is exhausted. It's almost three a.m., and the November night air causes me to shiver.

  My house is still lit up like a holiday tree, with the door wide open, and windows bare. We walk inside, then Sam walks through the first floor and shuts off all the lights. I just stand in the foyer, completely detached from the entire experience. He takes off my coat and hangs it in the closet, then grabs my hand and pulls me up the stairs to my room like a little child.

  I collapse on my bed, fully clothed, and Sam moves to sit in the cushioned reading nook my dad built into the dormer window. It's one of my favorite places to be, and when I close the green velvet curtain, I feel like I'm transported into whatever world I happen to be reading about. On both walls, are shelves full of books, and a small, swinging arm lamp lights the space for night reading. I've fallen asleep in that spot more times than I can count.

  I manage to give Sam a small, shaky smile, before pulling the blankets up to my chin. I tug at my jeans and pull them down my legs, then set them at arm’s reach for easy access in the morning. I can't stand having my legs encased in material while I sleep. It feels like I'm in a straitjacket.

  I don't ask him to leave, and I know he wasn't planning to. I'm grateful for his reassuring presence. He doesn't say anything, and only keeps his eyes trained on me. His expression is peculiar, one I haven't seen before. His eyebrows are furrowed with what would normally look like worry, but the gentleness in his eyes betrays something else . . . something . . . I immediately stop my train of thought, clamp my eyes shut, and turn away.

  * * *

  DARKNESS, FEAR, BLOOD. THE men kick her, then grab her by the hair and pull her head back. She doesn't cry out, but tears carve paths through the blood and filth smeared on her face. I can only watch. My body feels as if it’s frozen inside a block of ice, and I struggle to break free so I can help her. It's always the same. She sees me and smiles, her clear blue eyes peaceful and accepting.

  “Never be sad for me, Tula. Remember that you are alive because of the love of a thousand people.”

  I try to scream when I see the knife appear, but my open mouth is silent. It's only when I see her body—limp, exposed, and in a pool of blood on the cold ground—that my voice finally breaks through, and I start screaming . . . screaming . . . screaming . . .

  Arms wrap around me from behind. They've got me. I swing my elbow back and make contact, then hear a muttered curse. I am pinned facedown, and my throat is raw from the magnitude of my panicked shrieks.

  “Wake up!”

  I am momentarily confused, then realize that I'm in my bed, my face against the sheets. The weight on top of me is Samson, and his arms are wrapped around me. I am drenched in sweat, and my face is damp with tears. My emotional walls crack, then burst open as my body starts shaking. I gasp over and over, attempting to pull air into my lungs.

  Her voice seemed so clear in my head, saying the one thing that would always cheer me up. It was an inside joke for us. Our grandmother once read us a poem by a Native writer, and later we joked about the “
you are the result of the love of thousands” line.

  “Now all I can think of is our grandparents boning,” Lorelai had said, and we both dissolved into a fit of girlish giggles we couldn't recover from.

  I smile in remembrance, even as I continue to cry softly. Sam moves off of me, and pulls me with him to lie sideways on my bed. He holds me as I fall apart, and in that moment I know I will love him forever. Something like the piercing pain of a needle breaks through me, then passes into him as my soul is sewn piece by piece directly to his. I wonder if he feels it too.

  “I'm right here,” I hear him whisper, as he hugs me tighter to his chest.

  For now, my brain reminds me.

  My breathing slows, and the fountain of my tears reduces to a slow trickle. I register the fact that I am wearing only a T-shirt, and his jean-clad legs are spooning my bare ones. We fall asleep in a mire of what ifs and a tangle of sheets, temporarily cocooned from the ever-unfolding paths of our separate futures.

  * * *

  MY MOM'S RECOVERY TURNS into a bumpy labyrinth that has no end. After three days, she wakes from the coma. There is mild brain damage that results in aphasia, causing her to have difficulty understanding and processing speech, so she stays in a neurological rehab facility for a couple weeks of treatment.

  Shortly after coming home, she makes another attempt at ending her life, just before Christmas break. This lands her in the psych ward, under twenty-four hour watch, and with no visiting privileges. I don't want to be alone during break, so I consider taking a drive into Canada to visit my dad's family, but I can't stomach the thought of driving near Highway 16 on my own.

  Sam to the rescue. He invites me to spend the holiday break with his family in Colorado. We spend a week exploring Colorado and enjoying his family. It's cleansing to get away from my life, yet I feel terrible guilt at the same time, knowing I should be there with my mom, and feeling helpless because I can't be.