Left

by Theanna Bischoff

  That’s how it all started, me going to Edinburgh. Summer decided I needed a bucket list, too. She made me list a bunch of places that I might like to go, and then we pulled one out of a bowl. I was pronouncing it wrong for awhile—Ed-in-berg, rhyming with Pittsburgh—before Sylvie corrected me—apparently it’s Ed-in-bruh. Who knew? There’s a lot of things I still don’t know. You were never big on travelling, and it wasn’t like I could just go off on my own after Summer was born. Maybe had none of this happened, we would have travelled together someday, you and me. I’d decided to go alone—but then, when I asked Josie if she’d help Cam with Summer while I was gone, she said, “What if I came, too?” Yesterday, the twenty-four-hour cancellation period on our flights ended. This means we’re actually going. Two whole weeks without Summer. If I think about it too much, I want to puke. Sylvie says it rains a lot in the UK. “Bring a raincoat,” she said. It sounded like something you would say.

  Dad and I decided it’s time to put your house on the market. It’s going to involve a lot of legal mumbo jumbo. I’ll let Dad take care of that. When I get back from Scotland, Summer and I will go look at some apartments, find a place I can afford without Dad’s help. Hopefully the landlord will let me paint Summer’s room orange. It’s her favourite colour, too, you know. Her room at her dad’s house is pink (gag). Maybe Cam and Jessica will work things out, now that I called it off with him. Or maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll have a baby. Or maybe someday, I’ll meet someone and have a baby.

  Maybe someday, Summer will have a sister.

  NATASHA

  JULY 6, 2002

  Natasha has seen Jason’s son in pictures, but pictures don’t do the little boy justice. The truck reeks of cigarettes. Jay has smoked on and off since they were teenagers. She and Josie have told him more than once that he should quit. Seizure risks are higher in smokers. She wrinkles her nose. It’s one thing if he inhales the toxins into his own body, but does he have to expose Finn’s tiny lungs to it?

  “Hi!” Finn chirps, from the back seat with a giant smile. And Natasha smiles back, a reflex, and doesn’t realize at first that they are driving.

  Jason says, “I need to show you something.”

  “Where? I have to—”

  Finn says, “Go, Daddy!” and Natasha’s eyes dart back to him.

  “I know you think I’m just this big fuck-up,” Jason says. The truck picks up speed. Whose truck is this, anyway? She thinks he’s a fuck-up? Maybe. He tends to make bad decisions, for sure. But Jay has always been family. “I don’t think that,” she sputters.

  “I grew up a lot, you know.” His eyes focus ahead of him, on the road.

  “I know,” she says. “You seem really upset. Is everything okay?”

  “When you have a kid, life changes. I pulled my shit together. Even Angie could see that.”

  “That’s good,” she says. With one more turn, he’s on the highway. The speedometer picks up. 80, 90, 100, 110. “Jason, I’m worried—”

  “Everyone could see it,” he says. “Except you.”

  Natasha’s throat closes. Her heart skips in her ears. Jason seems so agitated. Has he been having seizures again? If he’s smoking heavily, he’s increasing his risk. Maybe his neurologist changed his medication. Antiseizure meds can have behavioural side effects—restlessness, hyperactivity, agitation, psychosis…

  “I was always a convenience for you, wasn’t I?” Jason practically spits the words.

  “Daddy,” Finn babbles from the back, and he fusses, strains against the car seat straps that bind across his chest and up over his shoulders, reaches forwards. “Daddy.”

  Natasha’s throat is so dry. “Jay—” she says, but she doesn’t know what she really means. Does she mean stop? Does she mean please? Both?

  “Like when your dad knocked up your stepmom and you ran away from home and you wanted someone to listen. Or when you wanted to bitch about your loser boyfriend at Jo’s wedding. Or when you wanted your Internet fixed and your baby monitors installed. Jason will do it. Sure, why not?”

  “Jay—” she says again. He’s driving well above the speed limit. She’s never seen him so angry, something is really, really wrong.

  In the rearview, she can see Finn fussing in his car seat. Could she pull the door handle and leap out? How fast are they going? If she jumps, she leaves Finn behind. Is Jason going to hurt her? Is he going to hurt his son? She has known Jason her whole life. He would never hurt his child. Not intentionally. But he’s clearly unstable right now. Finn is not safe. Maybe this outburst is part of a prodromal phase, the period leading up to a seizure. If he has a spell while driving, it could be deadly for all three of them. The speed he’s going at alone…

  Her heart thuds faster and faster. Where are they going? West, she thinks. Her hands have formed fists. She uncurls her frozen fingers and realizes that one of her hands is inside the pocket of her running jacket, and before her run she’d slid a slip of paper inside, the fortune from the cookie she’d broken in half at her lunch break with Pav. It read, It is not what they take away from you that counts. It is what you do with what you have left. Not really a fortune. Pav had joked that he would have preferred his cookie to say You will live a long time and be very rich. But she’d liked her little quote, and so she’d held onto it and tucked it inside her jacket. Now, she closes the fingers of that hand around the small slip of paper.

  “I have to make sure he grows up in the right kind of world,” Jay rants. There’s something in the road. Garbage? Roadkill? He swerves to avoid it, turning the truck sharply to the right, sliding her up against the passenger door.

  She forces herself to speak. “I’m sorry if—if I hurt you, in some way.”

  He doesn’t look at her, keeps his eyes on the road. Small flecks begin to speckle the windshield. It’s raining. “Oh now you’re sorry,” he says.

  “I am,” she says. “I never meant to take you for granted. Maybe it came across that way, but I’ve always thought of you as…as family.”

  Jason scoffs. “Family. Yeah.” And he turns off the main road. Maybe if she just keeps talking. Sometimes that works when Josie is upset—just talk and talk, in a calm, logical way.

  “Do you remember that time, in the ravine?” she starts. Does he remember his first seizure? Of course he does! What a stupid thing to say! “I was so scared. I thought—I thought you were going to die. I didn’t want to lose you.”

  Jay glances at her.

  “I still think about it, you know, and maybe—maybe I have taken you for granted, maybe—you know, that’s my fault, for not seeing—I mean, until you came over for the monitors, I didn’t know how—how you felt about me.” Her mouth moves faster than her brain can catch up. “I didn’t realize…”

  Finn starts crying, and Jason’s voice changes. “It’s okay, Buddy! We’re going for a drive! We’ll be there soon.”

  There? Where is there? Where are they going?

  Jason glances up at the rearview. “I’m a race car, Buddy! Zoom! Zoom!”

  And the little guy quiets, looks out the window, inserts the nipple end of his blue soother in his mouth, but upside down.

  Natasha keeps going. “I’m so messed up right now, because of Greg. You know what that feels like, right? When you and Angie—”

  Jay snaps, “Don’t!” He glances in the rearview. “That’s his mother. Just shut up. Shut up!”

  She presses her lips together. How far are they? He’s going 120, 130. She can’t see anyone else on this rural road. She squeezes her fist around the fortune. She can feel her fingernails digging into her palm, her heart throbbing.

  How long do they drive for? Twenty minutes? Thirty? The clock in the truck is broken, hours ahead. She has no idea what time it really is. She doesn’t dare look at her watch. She feels frozen in the seat. Her headphones dangle around her neck.

  If she starts talking again, will he snap? But it’s too quiet. “I’m sorry,” she blurts, “I just mean—” What does she mean? Don’t
cry, don’t cry. “It’s all a façade,” she says, and she means this, she’s not just telling him what he wants to hear. “Maybe I make it look good on the outside, but really, I’m just as broken as everyone else. Probably even more. I’m sorry I haven’t been a better—” The tears come, streaming hot down her face, and she puts her palms to her cheeks, covers her eyes.

  The truck veers and then squeals to a stop, jolting Natasha forward, thrusting her hands forward onto the dash. Her wrist stings with the impact. Finn wails. Jason pushes the driver side door open and leaps out, slams it behind him, and Finn stops crying suddenly. In the rearview mirror, his eyes are wide. A thin line of drool dangles from his bottom lip onto his shirt.

  Rain splatters hard against the windshield. Natasha watches Jason’s blurry figure pace away. Where is he going? She cranes her neck slightly to look at Finn while still watching Jason as he moves further from the truck.

  “It’s okay,” she whispers to the little boy. “You’re okay.” Finn looks a lot like Jason. No question of who his father is. He looks a lot like Josie, too.

  Josie. Beautiful Josie, who always loved her brother, even when the two were squabbling. Timid, sunny side up Josie would never let anyone else speak negatively of her twin, despite his shortcomings. But then, Josie loved everyone with fierce loyalty like that. At Jo’s wedding, the priest had read that traditional Corinthians verse and Natasha had thought, gag, how cliché. But how else to describe Josie? Love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

  Had she loved Greg this way? Always patient, always kind? Or had she been too focused on her own needs, her own wants, her simmering resentment? At once, she is flooded by a memory of Greg in bed beside her, his bare shoulder and the slope of his back. Oh, to wrap her arms around him, to sidle up close, to breathe him in. To trace each of his lines and curves, every freckle, every scar.

  Natasha can no longer see Jason—he has moved too far away, and the rain streams too heavily. She could outrun him, easily—on her own. But she doesn’t know where they are, and she cannot leave Finn behind. Could she make a break for it with Finn? In the rain? They can’t be too far from the highway—she could find help, they just have to get away first. Where the hell is Jason?

  She doesn’t think. She unstraps her watch. She almost never takes her watch off anymore, even to shower. If someone finds it, they’ll know she was here, right? She reaches up, pinches a piece of hair, about a quarter of an inch thick, twists it around her index finger. Grits her teeth and pulls. Gasps a little as the strands rip away from her scalp. She can hear her own rapid breath. She twists the dark strands around the strap of the watch. She doesn’t need to be doing this, right? He’s not actually going to hurt her. He would never.

  Still, she nudges the floor mat up with her sneaker, then bends forward, places the torn pieces of herself on the dirty floor of the truck. Covers them up.

  Should she wait? No, she should not wait. She doesn’t know what the hell is going on with Jason but it’s not good. This could be her only chance.

  She leans back in the truck, tries to reach—maybe if she unbuckles Finn inside the truck, lifts him to the front, or maybe gets him to climb forward, she can just open the one door and run. She tries to lean between the console, reach across for Finn’s buckles. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” she whispers.

  There’s no way she’s going to be able to reach.

  Has Abby noticed that she’s gone? Abby, Abby, Abby—her heart pulses Abby’s name with each surge against her ribcage. She has to get back. Abby needs her. And she needs Abby. She thinks of all the nights she snuck into Abby’s nursery, lifted her sweet-smelling baby sister from her crib and rocked her, stroking the soft fluff along Abby’s downy head. Abby’s tiny metronome heart against hers.

  Now! She leaps from the truck. Her feet hit the ground. The rain pounds hard against her head, her back. She fumbles with the truck handle, slips, pulls again. There, it’s open! Finn reaches for her. She gropes at his buckles, successfully undoes the one that crosses his chest, but the one that buckles between his legs is tighter. She can’t breathe. Almost, almost!

  “Don’t touch him, you slut!”

  Jason shoves her roughly in the side, away from the vehicle, and she slams hard onto the gravel. Heat rips from her wrist up her elbow. Is her arm broken? The skin on her palm and wrist has been torn away and blood has sprouted in the raw pink flesh. She reaches and touches her elbow and feels a sticky wetness there. Her heart screams inside her, trying to escape, pushing out of her ribcage, pushing pushing out, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing—

  He takes a step forward. “Girls like you…”

  From inside the truck, Jason’s son starts to cry.

  SUMMER

  WHILE MY MOM AND AUNTIE JOSIE AND MY GRANDPA AND UNCLE Greg and Auntie Sylvie set everything up for the annual balloon release in memory of my Auntie Natasha, Finn and I sit on the grass in the park near my house, which used to be Auntie Natasha’s house. I ask Finn, “Do you think it’s possible to miss someone you never met?”

  Finn brought his skateboard and tried to teach me some tricks, but I sucked at it. Finn is really good at sports. He’s starting at my school in September. Celeste is probably going to have a crush on him, except I might have a crush on him first.

  Finn reaches into the bag of Doritos he brought with him, takes a few chips, then offers me the bag. “I don’t know,” he says. “I miss my Dad. He was really fun. My mom only talks about the bad stuff. I think sometimes she’s glad he’s dead.”

  I think part of me remembers Auntie Natasha. My mom says when she was pregnant, Auntie Natasha would read me Dr. Seuss. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Is that her voice saying those words in my head?

  Finn pulls a clump of grass out of the ground, then scatters the blades. “He was really good at computers,” Finn says. “And he loved nachos. And music from the ’80s. When he picked me up for dinner, he would play ’80s music on a CD in the car and have a smoke when we were driving. He had a whole bunch of ’80s CDs. My mom would have killed him if she knew he smoked in the car with me in there.”

  I roll over onto my belly on the grass. “My Auntie Natasha loved ’80s music, too. I guess that’s from when they grew up. CDs are so old school.”

  Here comes Aunt Sylvie. She’s not technically my real aunt, but then, neither is Auntie Jo. A family doesn’t have to be blood. You can have blood family that’s not good for you, and you can have people who are not related to you, but who love you more than anything. Auntie Jo and Uncle Greg love me as much as Auntie Natasha would have. That’s the truth.

  “Hey, guys,” says Sylvie. “What’re you guys talking about?”

  “Music,” says Finn.

  “From your generation,” I add. Is it weird that I love Sylvie? Because I love Auntie Natasha, too, even though we didn’t meet, and my mom says Auntie Natasha and Uncle Greg were each other’s destinies. But isn’t everything that happens to you your destiny? So was it Auntie Natasha’s destiny to end up with Uncle Greg if it was also her destiny to go missing? How does that work?

  “Oh yeah?” Sylvie says, grinning at us and sitting down on the grass beside Finn. “Us old fogies, hey?” Sylvie is older than my mom but I think younger than Uncle Greg, but also Uncle Greg’s hair went super grey so he looks older than he is, which is forty. We had a big fortieth birthday party for him and I did the invitations on my computer. I asked my mom for a picture of him from when he was a teenager, cuz I thought that would be funny to put in. But it had Auntie Natasha in it, and I had to crop her out, and that felt weird.

  “Do you love ’80s music?” Finn asks her.

  Sylvie shakes her head. “No, but I have weird taste in music. I love classical stuff, no lyrics. Bach, Beethoven.”

  “Boring!” I say, and roll onto my back. The sun is so bright. I put my hand up over my eyes.

  Sylvie laughs. “Which one of you is t
he ’80s fan?”

  “Neither,” says Finn. “My dad was. And Natasha. We were just saying how weird it was that they both used to keep CDs from the ’80s in their cars.”

  Sylvie’s eyes get really big. “Like burned CDs?”

  “What’s a burnt CD?” I ask.

  “Like, homemade,” Sylvie says. “Ones where you make the playlist.”

  “Oh,” says Finn. “That’s what my dad had, yeah.”

  The sun is making black spots in front of my eyes. I should ask Finn to borrow his baseball cap.

  “I’ll be right back,” Sylvie says, getting up. “Stay here.”

  Where else would we go? I roll over onto my stomach and push up onto my elbows. Hey, there’s my dad! This is the first time my dad has come to a memorial for Auntie Natasha. I see him across the field. He goes to where my mom is and starts tying strings onto balloons with her. I like it when they get along. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I want them to get back together. That’d be totally weird. But maybe they could be friends.

  Sylvie is talking to Reuben and they look over at us, and Reuben shakes his head and Sylvie nods and crosses her arms. Reuben looks over at me and Finn. He’s like, staring at us. He takes a step forward.

  But now here comes my mom, with a big fistful of orange and white balloons tied to ribbons. It’s time for the balloon release! There are so many! Could we ever get so many balloons that it would lift my mom right up off the ground? She hands me and Finn each a handful. I hold onto mine and look up at the bright orange and shiny white dancing against the pale blue sky.

  In three days, I am going to be eleven, which is the age my Auntie Natasha was when my mom was born. My mom says we can get a kitten! Finally! Another thing crossed off my bucket list. I picked an orange tabby one from the SPCA website but he’s not old enough to come home with us yet. He has to stay with his mother another couple weeks.

  This is the first time I’m going to be away from my mom for two whole weeks when she and Auntie Jo go to Scotland. I’m happy for her but also it makes my tummy feel like flies are buzzing around in there. My mom says it’s okay to have both feelings, and she’s happy and scared about it, too. We’re going to Skype each other every day.