Dive

by Stacey Donovan

  We get to the hall, unsteady in our high heels.

  “I can’t believe how much my shoes hurt. Do yours?” Eileen says.

  “Like they belong to somebody else.” My feet are numb.

  It’s my mind that aches, reeling, spinning. My own home movies, the shiny buttons, the Easter hats, my father’s grin. But it’s all fading, the edges tattered. Like those pictures in the basement, of my mother, fading.

  Where is my mother? “I’ll be right back,” I say to Eileen. “Hey, V.” Eileen grabs my arm. “I’m really sorry about everything—and your dad, I mean, I don’t know what to say.”

  Nobody ever does, and that’s not what matters anyway.

  “Just be my friend.” She looks like she might cry, but I can’t really tell. My own eyes are all blurred.

  I wander around the room. I see my brother, standing in the front by the coffin. When I’m ready, I say to myself. But I don’t see my mother or Baby Teeth.

  Where’s Eileen? Sitting on a chair, shoe in hand, she rubs her ankle.

  “Too much leaning,” she says. “Either I’m too tall for heels, or I’m just no good at this woman stuff.” She wipes her eyes and smiles. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  I smile in return and sit next to her. “I was wondering about that hat of yours . . .”

  She laughs. “It was a present, that’s why.”

  “That’s why what?”

  “You hate it as much as I do. From Grant—it’s the thought that counts, don’t forget.”

  “Anything you say.” We laugh.

  I’m looking at Eileen without knowing how to say what I need to tell her about Jane.

  “Just be my friend too, okay?” she says. What that means to me is that somebody tells the truth.

  I take a breath and feel almost giddy as I realize it’s only air, not fire. “I’m trying,” I say. “So where is he?”

  “Outside, I think. He dropped me off.”

  I stand. “Where are you going?” Eileen asks.

  I look around the room again. Baby Teeth and my mother appear, smiling, in the doorway.

  I walk toward them. So much seems to be happening. I exhale, wondering what is real. “What is it?”

  “Daddy said, when I forgot is when they would.” Baby Teeth wiggles a tooth. “Do you want to see?”

  Maybe people don’t really die at all, my mind says. Hush.

  “I knew I felt magic around—I should’ve known it was you. Dad’s right, I guess,” I say as I kneel and embrace my sister.

  When I stand, I begin to reach for my mother. What separates us is the darkness in her eyes. I can’t change that. I wonder if anyone can forgive themselves.

  I turn, my own eyes burning. Let the wind in, my mind says.

  “Where are you going?” Eileen calls. “You still haven’t answered me.”

  I will, and as I approach the door, I see Jane through the window, her hands filled with flowers. How I wish I could say without words what I experience. Because my eyes, on fire, see so much more than I understand.

  You know when you go to sleep and you have hopes? Baby Teeth said that a long time ago. I guess you can have them when you’re awake too. Because, surrounded by all these people, and the endlessness of everything I already remember, I am on fire. Unbelievably dreamy with hopes. And I wish I could feel this way forever.