After a few moments pass, I get up and put the running shoes in my knapsack. It won’t free me.
But it’s all I have.
25
TWO DAYS AFTER NEW YEAR’S, COACH LEIGH drives us to an outdoor track and tells us to run five quarters. All-out, he says. Like your life depends on it. Like you’re running from the bogeyman!
He assigns us lanes and moves to the grassy center of the field. It is cold out and windy. The track is new and seems to go on forever.
“It’s a quarter-mile track, Evie,” Coach Leigh says. “Once around—all-out.”
I stare down the straightaway to where it curves, then down the back straightaway to where it curves again.
“That back straight’s gonna kick our butt in this wind,” Mira says. She strides out a few times, jogging back to the group. A few other girls do it, too. I can feel the burn to run in my hamstrings and deep in my throat. The track looks like it can go on and on. Maybe it can.
I am wearing sweats and the racing flats Coach Leigh gave me when I showed up this afternoon.
You planning on staying this time? he asked, holding them away from me. The others looked on, waiting. I had expected people to be crabby, but nobody was.
Yeah, I said.
I can’t hear you, Leigh said.
Yeah, I said louder. Yeah!
He handed me the running shoes. They are red and white with tiny metal spikes on the bottom.
The rest of your stuff is coming, he said. Just had to be sure of you first.
The others are wearing running suits with our school’s name on the back. The uniforms are red with white lettering. Beneath the letters, there is a foot with a wing.
When Coach Leigh blows his whistle, we take off, hitting the curve and dropping our shoulders the way he told us to. In the distance, I can hear Coach telling us to relax on the curve. Then he is saying Pick up the pace as we round it. I feel myself pulling ahead of the girl in front of me, then Leigh’s voice is fading as I move past more girls. In the distance, I can see the Rocky Mountains, Lulu’s smiling face, my grandmother holding Matt Cat in her arms.
By the time we hit the final curve, I am back again, the wind leaving me so quickly, my chest feels like it’s going to catch on fire. I can hear Leigh cheering, hear the others breathing hard behind me, hear our feet moving like two big feet—in unison, connected. When I get to the finish line, I can see my father, standing there with his bandaged arm and hospital gown. And beside him—two girls—Evie and Toswiah, blurring into each other. I want to keep running, past these ghosts, past everyone and everything, but there isn’t any more air left in me. Just a sadness. Newer than before. And deep as everything.
“Spider!” Mira grins between deep gulps of air. She bends over and puts her hands on her knees. “You run pretty fast, but that’s the last time you’ll ever beat me.”
We jog slowly, Mira keeping a few steps ahead of me. I can see Leigh, standing in the center, grinning.
Some girls jog past us, saying “Good running,” and slap me on the butt.
“Don’t listen to them,” Mira says, turning around and jogging backward. “They’re just like me—planning how to catch you next time!” She picks up her pace a bit and the other girls follow her. But I hang back, still catching my breath.
“Catch up to them, Spider,” Coach Leigh yells. “You got four more quarters to run.”
26
EVIE IVIE OVER. HERE COMES A TEACHER WITH A BIG fat stick. I wonder what she’s got for arithmetic! One and one? Two! Me and you. Who?
Sometimes I look at the girl sitting next to me in class and wonder what her secrets are. Maybe there are others in class like me. In this room. All over the world. Outside, it rains and rains. Our teacher is going on about the impact of air on blood—how the air changes it from blue to red. I want to raise my hand and ask, “Who would I be in an airless, empty room?”
But I don’t. And never will.
This morning on the radio a singer was asking her lover if he liked either or both of her. When I heard that line, I stopped brushing my hair and moved closer to the radio. The singer went on about how she’s different people at different times and kept coming back to the refrain—“Do you like or love either or both of me?” I stood in my bedroom listening to the song, feeling a smile coming on. I am Toswiah Green. I am Evie Thomas. And some days I like and love either and both of me.
Carlos, who sits directly in front of me, turns now and makes a face, then smiles. I look at him but don’t smile back, then, after a moment, I do. He puts a chocolate kiss on my desk and turns back around. When I pull the candy toward me, it is soft, already melting. Maybe my cooties are fading. The teacher’s voice changes and then she is talking about our hearts, how amazing they are, what all they do to keep us living. I press my hand to my chest. Seven months have passed since we left Denver in the middle of the night. My heart is still beating. I am no longer who I was in Denver, but at least and at most—I am.
27
MAMA SITS AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, READING the letter slowly, again and again, while Anna stands beside her, her arms folded, her bottom lip pulled beneath her teeth. It is Saturday morning. Outside, snow is falling. A thin layer of it is already on the ground. Our apartment and the world outside are silent. Downstairs, new neighbors are moving in. I have pulled my father’s chair back to the window and now watch a little girl skip from the moving truck to our front stairs. She looks up at the window and waves, then holds her dolls up for me to see. I wave back, press my face to the window and wait for Mama to start yelling.
“I’m going, Mama,” Anna says.
The little girl’s mother is carrying a stack of framed pictures. She steps carefully across the snow. She is tall and young-looking. When she looks up at the window, she smiles. Downstairs I can hear doors opening and closing. The little girl lets out a laugh now that fills the hallway. She has a sweet laugh. For over a year, we’ve been the only ones in this building.
On the mantelpiece, there is a Polaroid of me and Anna. We have our foreheads pressed together so that the picture is only of our profiles. But Anna is looking at the camera—sideways. I am looking at Anna and laughing. The picture is blurred because Anna held the camera in her own hand to take it. Too close, she said after it developed. But the blur is fine to me. That’s who we are here—ourselves, but just a little different.
When Mama looks up from the letter, I close my eyes. Please, God.
“I’m going,” Anna says again, her voice a little shakier than before.
“Of course you are,” Mama says. “Of course you are.”
Anna looks at me, then back at Mama, then at me again and smiles.
Now there are tears in Mama’s eyes. Tears that she wipes away quickly. When she stands, it is not to tear the letter into a million pieces and fuss at Anna about forging names, but to hug her, hug her hard and cry.
Who would I be in an airless room? Who am I now? A bug on the wall. Today I am the younger daughter. The quieter one. The one who will stay a while longer. Today I am Spider, Hey Evie, what’s up?, Daddy Longlegs, Ms. Thomas. Daddy’s daughter. A child of God. Silly. Pretty. Skinny. Some of these things—I’ll still be tomorrow.
In the hallway, I can hear the little girl singing Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Daddy’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. . . .
I raise the window a bit and stick my hand out. The snow melts as quickly as it touches me. Outside, the little girl twirls and twirls, holding her dolls high up. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, I whisper along with her. Daddy’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. . . .
28
MY FATHER PEELS BACK THE BANDAGES TO show me the scar running from his wrist to the crook of his arm. I close my eyes for a moment, resting my forehead against his shoulder.
“Daddy . . .”
“It’s all right now, my copper penny,” he says. “I’m here. I was gone for a while, but I’m here now.”
He presses the bandages back in plac
e and holds his arm up as we walk to the dayroom. When people pass us, I try not to stare. I want to see crazy close-up, though. Understand this thing that Anna says our father is. Because if it’s in him, it’s in me. His crazi ness—my inheritance. Some of the people shuffle when they walk, their heads hanging down. But the few people who pass us look regular, like anyone walking down the street—their backs straight, their steps as sure as mine. The hallways here are painted white and smell like medicine and pine cleaner. Muffled voices drift out of the rooms on either side of us. Otherwise, it is quiet. So much quiet in such a big space. When I look at my father’s face, the quiet is there, too—no, not quiet maybe. Something else. Peace.
At the end of the hall, there is a solarium. Ceiling-to-floor windows and plants everywhere. The room feels like springtime. Outside, though, the sky is gray. My father nods at a couple of people. They are dressed as he is—in loose-fitting sweats and pull-on sneakers.
“Hey Evan,” a pretty nurse says. “Is this one of the daughters?”
My father smiles and introduces me. I move a step closer to him, holding on to his good arm. Feeling proud to be one of his daughters, even here. I am nearly as tall as he is. Maybe this happened a long time ago.
We find wicker chairs by the windows and sit facing each other. My father looks at me for a long time, his gaze so intense, I look away, bend to scratch my ankle even though it’s not itching.
“Doctor says the surgery was successful,” he says. He holds his arm out and makes a fist. The bandages are as white as the walls. “The bowl went . . . went through some nerves when I did what I did.” He looks off, away from me. “I’m glad I’m here now.”
“Yeah?”
He looks at me and smiles. “Yeah.”
“Are you glad you’re alive?”
For the quickest moment, his face crumbles, but he catches it and nods. “I am so glad I’m alive, Evie. So glad we all are.”
We get quiet again. At practice, Coach tells us to run for our lives. One day I might tell him that I’ve already done that, watch his face get that puzzled look it gets when one of us makes a crack that he doesn’t understand. My whole family, Coach, I might say. We’re all runners.
“You have every right to be mad,” my father says now.
“I’m not mad.”
“How could you not be, Evie? You have so many things to be mad about.”
“Like us leaving Denver?”
My father nods. “Us leaving Denver. Coming here.” He holds up his bandaged arm. “This.”
I stare down at my hands. I wasn’t mad. I couldn’t be. All this time I’d been thinking about all the stuff we’d lost—our friends, Grandma, our names, some stupid old clothes. But my father—he’d lost everything. Everything he’d ever known. The morning the lieutenant pinned that medal to his chest, Daddy had looked over at us and grinned. Grinned like the world was complete. Like he had found perfection.
“You wanted to save our lives,” I say finally.
“That’s what I wanted,” my father says. “But what about what you wanted, Evie?” He looks around the solarium, takes a deep breath.
I shrug. “It goes somewhere, Daddy. It goes out of me. I used to be mad about everything. I used to hate this place and all the people in it. I’d stand in the middle of the school yard and just . . . just shut every single part of me . . . off.”
I lean closer to him, gently touch his bandages. I want to ask him about right and wrong. When do you know what’s what. I want to believe he did the right thing. When we were little, my grandmother used to always say In all your getting, get understanding. I want to get understanding now.
There is soft music being piped in around us. Daddy listens to it for a moment, his eyes closed, his head moving the tiniest bit.
“I don’t know what I want, Daddy. Not yet. Not anymore. I have some new ideas, though. Big Evie Thomas ideas.”
Coach Leigh says he thinks I’m gonna break records one day. He says my running reminds him of some of the greatest quarter-milers that ever hit the track. You got a lot of practice ahead of you, he says, smiling. And a lot of promise, Spider. When he says this, I get a feeling so deep—like I can do anything. There is a fire inside of me. It burns and burns.
Anna says she believes there’s a reason for everything that happens—even us coming here. Some mornings I think about what Lulu used to say about God having set our stage long before we were even in this world. I think about my own stage—how in the middle of the play, God said Cut!
I think in the middle of everything, God changed His mind. And, maybe, just maybe, came up with a better idea.
I smile and take my father’s hand, thinking My life is a rewrite. I hope this is the last revision.
“Daddy,” I say, “tell me about when you first knew you wanted to be a cop.”
My father looks at me. He seems confused for a moment, but then his smile comes. Slowly. But it comes. The old smile. Daddy’s smile. It creeps up from his face like all those memories of our days before here and all those sweet promises—a lot of promise—of what’s ahead of us.
Me and Daddy stare at each other for a long time—two old, old buddies who knew each other when . . .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks so much to all the people who read this in its many stages and gave me amazing feedback, including Juliet Widoff, Toshi Reagon, Catherine Gund, Jill Harris, Catherine Mckinley, Gloria Fisk, Stacey D’Erasmo, Stephanie Grant, Teresa Calabrese, and Nancy Paulsen.
And thanks to Linda Villarosa for helping me with research.
Hush Page 9