We Contain Multitudes

by Sarah Henstra

  “‘It’s Mom,’ Sylvan told me. ‘Your mother, Irena.’

  “‘Hi, Irena,’ I said to her, as if she was my sister, or something, not my mother.”

  “Did it hurt her feelings?” I asked.

  “I think it scared the crap out of her,” Mark said. “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny at the time. It scared the crap out of me too, to tell you the truth, when I realized later what I’d done.”

  Sincerely,

  AK

  Saturday, May 21

  Dear Kurl,

  Shayna left today—up to Moorhead to stay with Gloria until further notice. Her room, full of the things she left behind, looks like a shipwreck. Apparently she phoned Gloria late last night, and then woke Lyle up and said Gloria wanted to speak with him, and by morning all the details had been worked out. Lyle is not particularly happy about the arrangement, but he says it’s the lesser of evils. Her school semester is a lost cause at this point, anyway. Better Gloria’s influence than Axel’s, he says.

  Yours truly,

  Jo

  Monday, May 23

  Dear Little Jo,

  A girl came up to me at the bus stop after school. She had more freckles than I’ve ever seen on a human face. Bright orange curly hair. “Abigail Cuttler,” she says, and sticks out her hand for me to shake.

  My bus arrived, and she asked if I minded waiting for the next one so we could chat a bit about you. “My correspondent, Jonathan Hopkirk,” she called you.

  So we stood in the bus shelter and she talked for a while, nervously and fast. She kept swallowing between sentences and her mouth kept making little sticky sounds like she didn’t have enough saliva. The whole thing was a confession, Jo. Apparently you haven’t written to her since the week before Bron’s party. “Three full weeks ago,” in Abigail’s words. And apparently she thinks it’s entirely her fault. Turns out she’s the one who saw the butcherboys slam you up against the lockers that day and went to the office and reported it. She didn’t just report that incident, she said. I guess you’d written her about some of the other times those guys harassed you.

  “I only wanted to be a good citizen,” Abigail said, “and not a harmful bystander. I felt like a harmful bystander reading his letters already, and then when I actually saw it happening with my own eyes…”

  And she stops talking finally and starts to cry a little, or starts to try not to cry, so I dig around in my backpack for a tissue to give her. What Abigail thinks is that you’re pissed at her. She thinks she destroyed your confidence in her. Her words: destroyed his confidence. I mean she is taking this really hard, and really personally.

  Jo, you and I both know who destroyed your confidence in whom, and we know it wasn’t Abigail Cuttler. So I try to explain some of this to her. I say it was my fault, not hers. I say it turned out I couldn’t be anywhere close to the person you wanted me to be. The person you needed. I say I couldn’t change who I am.

  Abigail acts completely confused by this. Her eyes get really round and she blinks a lot, which looks kind of extra-dramatic since her eyelashes are invisible. “Jonathan writes about you all the time,” she says. “I’ve never gotten any indication from him that he wants you to change who you are.”

  I mean she obviously doesn’t know anything about Bron’s party, or about any of the unforgivable stuff I did after she reported the butcherboys.

  “You’ll have to take my word for it,” I tell her.

  “He called you a marvel,” Abigail says. “He said he was trying every day to deserve you.”

  She’s still blinking really fast as she talks. Somehow it convinces me that she’s remembering the exact wording of the letter she’s quoting.

  “He said he was watching you create a new world in front of his eyes.”

  I mean it sounds like one of your letters, Jo. I almost recognize it. And I can feel my face getting hot. Listening to your words recited by this girl I don’t even know.

  “He was keenly aware that you were a gift to him, a temporary blessing he had to make himself worthy to receive.”

  I want her to stop talking, but I’m having trouble getting the words out. “That was before,” I finally say. “It’s ruined now. I ruined it.”

  She stops blinking and stares at me. “No,” she says. “You couldn’t have ruined it. No.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and I feel like I’m letting Abigail Cuttler down. Suddenly this almost feels worse than all the other horrible things I’ve done in the last few weeks. And now it’s me trying not to cry. I mean I can’t even look at her.

  She doesn’t say anything. After a minute she just exits the bus shelter and walks away across the street.

  Jo, will you please write to Abigail again? It doesn’t bother me that you wrote to her about me. In fact I’m really glad you did, because now she’s someone you can write to who will understand what you’re talking about.

  You need someone, Jo.

  Sincerely,

  AK

  Thursday, May 26

  Dear Kurl,

  The dilemma I’m struggling with is that when I don’t write to you, Kurl—when I fight the impulse to write and force myself to do other things instead, like read or watch TV or ride Nelly randomly around town—I start feeling increasingly ghostly and unreal, as though I’m only half awake and may or may not have been dreaming the whole day. For example, I have been spending quite a bit of time over these last two weeks not fully believing Lyle’s revelations about my mother. I keep wondering whether I misheard—I was on Percocet, after all—or experienced a series of auditory hallucinations. Or maybe he lied about it all, for reasons that are currently unfathomable but will become clear at some point in the near future.

  So I keep asking him questions, even though I know it pains him to have to answer. “When did Mom get addicted to heroin?” I asked him, as he dressed for work this morning.

  I watched him wince a little, and then square his shoulders in a conscious decision to be honest and face this head-on. “She broke her leg,” he said. “One summer, when you’d just turned three. We played at a festival, and she slipped on some rocks at the river.”

  “Shayna remembers that,” I told him. “We found a photo at Gloria’s house of Raphael in traction.”

  “Yeah, well, it was a bad break,” Lyle said. “They gave her a ton of painkillers after her surgery, and she was still in a lot of pain after the prescriptions ran out.”

  “So it was Axel to the rescue?” I guessed.

  Another wince. Another shoulder-squaring. “Not right away. She shopped around, took whatever pills she could get on the street. I didn’t have the whole picture, of course. But yes, that was the year she starting playing at the Ace, so it wasn’t long.”

  Be real and be true. Remember I told you that that was Lyle’s motto? The truth is, I don’t think Lyle ever said those words, exactly. I think I may have invented them myself, and ascribed them retroactively to my father, deep in the fog of my Lyle-as-Hero fantasy. My beautiful, laughable fable of a life.

  Yours truly,

  Jo

  Friday, May 27

  Dear Kurl,

  I’m writing you again after a ninety-minute internal struggle not to write. Giving in makes me feel weak and pathetic on top of lonely and depressed. Bron came over after school this afternoon. She’s been stopping by to drop off your letters, and I’ve spoken to her out my bedroom window. But this time our front door was unlocked, so she came right up to my room without ringing the doorbell.

  “You know, before she started cutting class all the time, Shayna used to look for you at school every day,” she said. “She worried about you all the time. She’d drag me over to wherever she thought you might be skulking around at lunchtime, just to get you in her sights and reassure herself that you were still alive.”

  “What a burden I was,” I said. “She must be so fancy-free in Moorhead.”

  I’d taken my tent down last week and left it by the curb on garbage day, so
now there’s just a mattress on the floor. I’ve taken most of my posters down, too. I could see by Bron’s expression that my Inner Sanctum appears forlorn. Derelict. Woebegone.

  She sat in the desk chair in front of the window and snooped through my bookshelf for a few minutes. Then she said, “Listen, Jonathan, I need to apologize to you. That’s why I came over. For telling the cops that Kurl and Shayna were a couple, you know? I’m really sorry about that.”

  It hurt. Your name hurt. Why did I ever call you by the same name everyone else uses? I should have made something up for you, something private, like you did with “Jo.” Then I’d never have to hear it in other people’s mouths.

  I’d been playing a Prince record, and when it ended I went to put on another one. I pulled Dirty Mind out of its sleeve, but then realized I had no desire to play it. I put it back onto the pile, and then I picked up the whole pile. I asked Bron to help me bring all the records downstairs, back to Lyle’s milk-crate shelving. When she left, I made her take my turntable with her, suggested she donate it to Isaiah and Ezra or something.

  “I’m only taking this to keep it safe for you, so you don’t throw it out your window or something,” she said.

  But I know with absolute certainty I won’t be asking for it back.

  Yours truly,

  Jo

  PS: I wrote to Abigail, by the way. I assured her I’d forgotten all about someone reporting the butcherboys after the locker incident, that I wasn’t the slightest bit upset with her for intervening. I didn’t tell her this: If anything, I’m grateful to her, and you should be grateful to her, too, Kurl. It’s thanks to her that the school has a record of Dowell’s assault against me that day. If his parents have looked into filing a complaint against you, I’m sure they’ve come directly up against that. Any official investigation would result in a bullying charge on his academic record.

  Tuesday, May 31

  Dear Little Jo,

  It was good to see you at school today. You looked so different in jeans and that hoodie. I mean I’ve never seen you in ordinary teenager clothing before. It looked like you were wearing a costume. I’m aware how ironic it is to say that. Back when we first met—or when I first saw you in the hall at school anyway—I thought you were wearing a costume. Remember? And now you’re wearing ordinary clothes, and to me it looks like you’re wearing a costume again.

  I also noticed how you turned around fast and walked the other way when I came around the corner in the hall. It’s okay, Jo. I mean I get it. I swear I won’t try to talk to you if you don’t want me to, which you clearly don’t. I’m done causing you pain, Jo. That’s a promise.

  So today after school I was watching TV while Mark got ready to leave for work. There wasn’t much in the fridge so I made him an omelet, and I was worrying about it getting cold on the stove while Mark showered because he doesn’t own a microwave.

  Mark comes into the room and hands me a letter and goes, “Open it.”

  Of course I’d spotted the stack of mail in the hall as usual when I let myself in after school. But I’d only glanced through the envelopes for your handwriting, and this one was typed. I mean why would anything other than a letter from you have come for me at Mark’s apartment? Nobody except you and Bron even knows I’m living here.

  So I recognize the return address on the envelope right away, and I fold the whole thing in half to stuff it in my back pocket.

  “Open it now,” Mark says.

  “I’ll look at it later,” I say. Trying for casual. Trying for no big deal.

  Mark sits next to me on the couch. He picks up the remote control and switches off the TV.

  “I made you a mushroom omelet,” I say, “but it’s getting kind of cold.” I’m trying for a distraction now.

  Mark gets up and goes to the kitchen with the remote control in his hand so I can’t turn the TV back on. He comes back with the omelet. He sits down in his chair and eats it but doesn’t stop eyeing me the whole time. Then he puts the plate on the coffee table and says, “I want you to open that letter and read it to me.”

  By now I’m thinking, who cares about the stupid letter anyhow? It’s worse to build up suspense. I mean I didn’t even finish applying to U of M. I didn’t send in half the documents they wanted. It’s not like they’re going to want me based on my transcript all by itself. No way Khang’s recommendation letter could have been that good.

  So I pull the envelope out of my pocket and toss it over to Mark. “Read it yourself, asshole,” I say.

  The envelope falls on the floor halfway between us. The whole thing is getting more idiotic by the second. It’s like a farce.

  “I don’t read other people’s mail,” Mark says. And he smiles at me in that stupid, smug way he has sometimes, so I know he’s referring to our letters, Jo, yours and mine. He’s referring to Uncle Vik reading my letter to you. My love poem.

  It’s like a massive hole opens up inside me. A hole made of homesickness, so that I am actually feeling physically sick with how badly I want to go home.

  And you, Jo. I’m sick with missing you, with wanting you.

  A hole opens up, and I fall right down into the hole. My face gets red-hot. I feel the tears coming up in a rush. I turn away from Mark and press my hand over my eyes, but I’m basically bawling like a baby right in front of my smug asshole of an older brother.

  And then something even worse happens. Mark comes over and puts his hand on my shoulder, and I am suddenly certain that he’s about to hit me. I mean I can feel him winding up. I can feel the punch coming at the side of my head.

  So I throw myself off the couch, onto the floor. I’m on the rug on all fours. I’m crawling away from him, cowering, crying and whimpering in a voice that doesn’t sound like my voice at all. Saying, “I’m sorry. Don’t. Don’t hurt me. Don’t, don’t, don’t. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  This is me being completely delusional. Because Mark isn’t coming after me at all. Mark has never in his life lifted a finger against me or against anyone as far as I know. He would never do something like that. He’s just sitting there on the sofa staring at me with a shocked expression on his face. He’s gone kind of gray. Stunned.

  It takes me a full two, maybe three minutes to get ahold of myself. Then I sort of just sit there on the floor with my back to the wall, wiping away tears and shaking all over. Looking at Mark while he looks back at me.

  I watch his face change from shocked to sad to furious to sad again. Neither of us says anything for a long time.

  Then Mark picks up the letter and comes over and holds it out to me. When I reach out to take it from him, he holds on to it for a second. He says, “He is not going to hurt you again, Adam. All right?”

  “What about Mom though?” I say, before I can stop myself.

  Mark jerks his head a bit. “He’s not going to hurt her either,” he says. “I promise you. We’re making certain, Sylvan and me.” He says they’re dealing with Uncle Viktor, that down the road we’ll likely be having a conversation about legal options but for now the objective is day-to-day safety. Stability. He says there’s lots of time and no need for me to think about any of it until I’m ready. “We got you, Adam,” he says. “All right?”

  “All right,” I say.

  He hands me the letter. “Now open your goddamn college mail.”

  So I rip open the envelope, and it’s an invitation to visit the campus to speak to the admissions committee. It gives some dates and times and a number to RSVP.

  Mark makes me call the number right away. He says to tell them I’ll be there next Wednesday. Then he calls Sylvan and tells him to book off work; we’re going on a road trip to Duluth, the three of us.

  It’s probably nothing. I mean they’ll probably just ask me why I didn’t bother sending in the Autobiographical Creative Essay part of the application. It’s probably too late to submit one even if I bring it to them next week.

  Sincerely,

  AK

  Su
nday, June 5

  Dear Kurl,

  I’d told Bron to take you to the memorial, not me. I’d been really clear with her about not wanting to participate. Nonetheless she showed up at my house at seven last night and marched up the stairs and burst into my room in a shimmery purple dress and said she wasn’t taking no for an answer. I looked out my window to make sure you weren’t sitting out there in the Escalade—I wouldn’t have put it past Bron to engineer a trick like that—and felt the usual mixture of relief and disappointment at your absence. Mostly relief, this time.

  “You have Prince in your blood,” Bron said. “It has to be you. My other friends don’t even get it. They’d be going for all the wrong reasons.”

  On our way out the door, she grabbed Lyle’s mando from its peg. She put it on the back seat of the car. “We are not discussing this,” she said. “This is not negotiable.”

  We parked at the Chanhassen Walgreens and walked the half mile or so to the gates of Paisley Park, which to our surprise were standing wide open. The Facebook event page had been very specific: They were not going to let us in; we would be holding the whole memorial right there in front of the gates. Instead there were already about fifty people inside, in the parking lot, and it was all set up like an impromptu festival: string lights, banners, flags, lawn chairs, coolers.

  Rich and Trudie and Scarlett were there, and a number of other musicians I recognized. More and more people arrived, I suppose as news spread online that they’d opened the gates for us. Bron said probably people were hopeful of being let into the building. She said even if they did open the doors, she wouldn’t enter.

  There were masses of flowers, ribbons, and stuffed toys. Everyone was singing “Happy Birthday” to Prince over and over, even though his birthday technically isn’t until Tuesday. There were lots of tears. Everyone wore purple, of course. I was glad Bron had made me wear a purple velvet bow tie and purple suspenders; anything else would have felt disrespectful.