The Waiting Sky

by Lara Zielin

  “Janey, give me the address already.”

  I file through the possibilities of what the FedEx might say. She’s lost her job. She’s depressed. She’s met someone and is getting married.

  “Janey,” my mom says after a moment, “don’t sit there trying to figure this out. Just give me the address.”

  My hands are shaking. My palms are so slick with sweat, I worry I’m going to drop the phone.

  Mom sighs. “I can hear you freaking out, you know. The way you’re breathing—you sound like you did that day at Dairy Queen when you thought you ate a cricket.”

  “I—I wasn’t expecting a crunch in my ice cream,” I say.

  “Janey, it was a cherry. In a sundae.”

  My head is starting to pound. “Mom, you can’t just say you’re going to send me something important and then not tell me what it is. Besides, a FedEx is, like, thirty bucks.”

  “Janey,” my mom says. “Please.” I’m not used to hearing her plead.

  “Fine,” I relent. “We’re at the Palomino Stallion Suites in Clarkstown.”

  My mom giggles. “That sounds like the name of a strip club.”

  I smile. “It kinda does, doesn’t it?”

  “Just don’t let any creepy men try to shove one-dollar bills into your panties.”

  “Mom!”

  “I sent your envelope to the Days Inn, but they’re going to run it over to you. You’ll have it this afternoon.”

  “We were at the Days Inn in the last town,” I say. My smile fades. “You promise me everything is okay?” I ask.

  “I promise, baby girl. I promise.”

  I close my eyes and want for all the world to believe her.

  21

  I step back onto the lawn of the church and stare at its dark, carved entrance. I don’t really feel like going back into the sanctuary and picking up more Bible pages, but I also don’t want to go back to the motel and sit around waiting around for my mom’s FedEx to arrive.

  Just then, Ethan bursts out the front of the church, carrying two empty paint cans. He pulls up short when he sees me. “Hey,” he says, “what are you doing out here?”

  Ethan’s shirt is soaked with sweat, and there’s a sprinkling of white plaster in his hair that makes it seem like he’s going gray. I want to tell him about Mom’s FedEx, but I’m not sure this is the best time.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I’m just taking a quick break before I go back inside to do more cleaning.”

  Ethan sets down the paint cans and wipes his forehead with his right forearm. “Never play poker,” he says, pulling a bottle of water from his back pocket and taking a swig. “You’re an easy mark.”

  “What?”

  “You get this V just above your eyebrows. It’s a sign you’re bothered by something.” He caps the bottle. “Care to share?”

  I want to rub out the V with my palm, but I don’t. Instead, I stare at him and wonder how we got here, with him grilling me for every detail in my life but never giving anything up himself.

  “Maybe you should go first,” I say, flashing back to my fight with Hallie. “Maybe you should tell me about how you drink now. Or about how you hooked up with Hallie. Are you throwing ’em back because she can drink, so you figure you might as well too?”

  Ethan pales. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “No. Who told you that?”

  “Hallie. Straight from the horse’s mouth. You got wasted with her, then hooked up.”

  Ethan grabs my arm and pulls me away from the church door. We end up back at the lilac bushes where I’d just taken the call from Mom. “If you’re talking about last night at the Pig & Spit,” Ethan says, his voice low, “then, yes, I had a couple beers. And yes, Hallie and I . . . got close. But it’s none—and I mean none—of your business, Jane. You hear me?”

  “How is it not my business?” I ask, trying to control the tremble in my voice. “You’re drinking now too, Einstein. Just like Mom. Don’t you get it?”

  “Because I had two beers at the Pig & Spit? Now I have a problem?”

  “Hallie said you were wasted.”

  “Two beers is a lot for me. Was I tipsy? Yeah. Does that mean I’m an alcoholic? No way. I’m careful about this stuff, Jane. You of all people should know that.”

  “You still hooked up with Hallie.”

  “Not because I was wasted. I like Hallie. I’ve liked her for a long time, actually. The moment was right, and I made my move. And not that you need to know any of this, but she called me on my cell a few minutes ago, and we talked. We’re going to try things out for real. See where they might head.”

  Somehow, this makes me more angry, not less. The idea of Hallie and Ethan as an item feels like I’m getting shoved to the back burner so Ethan can focus on his love life. Not that I need tons of attention—I don’t. But I could use a hand figuring out what to do about Mom. Which means more than just leaving her to fend for herself back in Minnesota, thank you very much.

  “Dammit, Jane,” Ethan says, squeezing the bridge of his nose, “I don’t understand what’s gotten into you. You’re running around making a big deal out of things that aren’t, and the things that are a big deal you just seem to ignore.”

  “Like what?” I snap.

  “Going to Al-Anon. Living with me. Seeing a counselor.”

  More lists. Inside, the black hole opens again, whispering to me that if Ethan can cut our mom off for not doing what he wants, he’ll cut me off, too. Like Mom said he would. He and Hallie will ride off into the sunset together, abandoning me in some run-down motel room.

  “She’s sending me a FedEx, you know,” I say. “I want to see what’s inside before I go doing anything super dramatic.”

  “A FedEx? Really? You’re going to put your life on hold for that?”

  “You say that like you already know what’s inside.”

  “I do,” Ethan says, gazing at the bright sky above us, like the package is there and he can already see it. “It’s a bunch of empty promises.”

  “No!” I cry, frustration making my head hurt. “That’s not true. She could write to say she got the Honda fixed. Or come clean about where all the money’s going. Or . . .” I let the words die on my lips. I can tell from the look on Ethan’s face I shouldn’t have said any of that.

  “You think the money’s going somewhere besides booze?” There’s a note in his voice that actually sounds like alarm.

  “No,” I say, waving the question away. “I just meant—”

  Ethan grabs my hands. “Don’t lie to me. Where is the money going?”

  My anger vanishes. All that’s left is cold fear.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. At least that much is true. “I don’t know where the money’s going. But it’s more than ever. She’d have to be drinking so much for all of it to disappear like that.”

  Ethan lets go of my hands. “She’s into something worse, then? Meth? Oxy?”

  I shake my head, wanting the idea to fly out of my brain, like a dog trying to shake off water after a bath. I don’t know the answer.

  I don’t want to know the answer.

  “Aw, Jesus, Jane,” Ethan says. I stare at the grass, mottled with sunlight and shade. “All this after what happened to Uncle Pete. I don’t get it. You’d think that would have been a warning.”

  It wasn’t a warning as much as a punishment, I think. My mom used to have Pete over for dinner when Ethan and I were little—but she told him never to come back after he broke into our apartment and stole our DVD player, hawking it for drug money. That was a few years ago, and up until he died, she’d just shake her head when she got a collect call from him. “I’m too busy trying to get by my damn self,” she’d say, slamming the receiver down. “I don’t have time to get taken advantage of.”

  When she got the news he’d passed—that he’d frozen, shrunken and cold in the back of his car, his frostbitten body black and decaying—she sat on the couch for an entire day sipping whiskey.
It was Pete’s favorite, she said, like she was drinking it in his memory, straight out of the bottle.

  After that, she blacked out so hard, she was in bed for nineteen hours straight. It was the first time I’d shaken my mom and wondered if she was dead. I remember the stabbing fear I’d felt as I’d gripped her shoulder and rolled her onto her side. My vision narrowed into two tiny pinpricks, focused on her face, pale and greasy and tinged with green. When she groaned and pushed me away, I burst into tears.

  “What if I leave Mom and she dies like Uncle Pete?” I mumble the question, almost asking myself.

  “Mom’s going to do what Mom’s going to do. Same as Pete.”

  “But Mom could have helped him.”

  Ethan shakes his head. “Uncle Pete didn’t want help. He probably just wanted money. Or another chance to steal stuff for drug money. I don’t know, but I’m guessing that if he was clean and needed food or shelter, he could have found it. It’s not always easy to get those things when you’re homeless, but I’ll tell you, it’s a lot harder when you’re not sober.”

  We’re quiet for a few minutes until Ethan clears his throat. “I’m sure to you the Pete stuff makes it seem like Mom might meet the same end. It’s hard to think about, I know, but if she decides to go down that road, you can’t stop her.” His straight-lined jaw flexes—like he’s chewing on his next words, softening them before they come out. “Jane, it’s going to kill me if you go back there. I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty. If there’s guilt here, it’s mine. For leaving you with her. But, cripes. Think about this. Mom’s not just losing one war, she’s probably starting a second with a new drug. And she’s about to take you down into the trenches with her.”

  His face is lined with pain, and in that second, I wish I could make all Ethan’s hurt go away. The words I’ll stay are right there on the tip of my tongue.

  I forgive you.

  I’ll stay.

  Until I remember that there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be here if Ethan hadn’t left Mom and me in the first place. Maybe things would have turned out differently if he’d stuck around. It’s possible Mom wouldn’t be this bad off if she’d just had a little more help. Like Uncle Pete, who, for all we know, could have been trying to get his life back together and we just ignored him.

  Besides, what if I fall and need help getting back on my feet? Would Ethan just leave me, too? Not that I’m looking to get hooked on drugs, but life can get tough in a thousand other ways, and you need people who will stick by you. Even if I move down here, I’m just not sure Ethan will be there for me.

  “I just—I should probably get back to work,” I say.

  Ethan’s face crumples, and my heart constricts. He’s really trying to help me. But then he takes a breath and nods, like whatever I’m going to do, I’m going to do and he can’t be bothered with it. “Fine by me,” he says.

  We stand there for a moment until Ethan walks back to the paint cans by the church’s front door. He picks them up like they weigh a thousand pounds. I watch him carry them to the Dumpster halfway down the block. When he chucks them in, I step out from behind the lilac bush and head in the opposite direction.

  22

  Thank God I have my camera with me, I think, as I walk down Jersey Street. Nothing sounds as good as putting my lens between me and the world for a while. I’m sick of seeing things without a filter.

  I’m headed south, toward where we found Danny. There’s no sidewalk, so I walk against the traffic, not that there’s much of it. A baby-blue pickup truck grinds by, and the driver lifts his hand off the steering wheel as he passes. I wave back.

  Once I cross the tracks, the cars are practically nonexistent, save for the rusted ones on blocks behind the pole barns and outbuildings. I hear a dog bark and the high-pitched whirr of a cicada, but other than that, it’s quiet.

  About a half block up, I spot an ancient chain-link fence and, just beyond it, cracked blacktop and a leaning basketball hoop. As I get closer, I see that what was once a paved and painted court has been damaged from years of neglect—not from the recent storm. I snap a few photos of the threadbare basketball net and the shattered backboard before I note two peeling park benches in the distance. There’s someone sitting on one of them.

  I’m about to turn and leave when the person stands and, to my surprise, calls my name. I squint into the sun and try to make out who it is. It’s not until he’s much closer that I realize—it’s Victor.

  His black hair is tucked under a Nebraska Huskers baseball cap, and he’s wearing aviator sunglasses. He’s pale like Hallie, and I’m going to guess more than a little hungover like her, too.

  “I figured it was you taking pictures,” he says by way of greeting.

  “I’m a little bit tired of cleanup patrol in town,” I lie, “so I thought I’d take a break and come down here.”

  Victor nods and watches the sky for a second. I wrestle with what to say, since I’m not exactly sure how much of last night he remembers. “I guess they’re predicting more big storms tomorrow,” he offers after a bit. “South of here, though. Oklahoma.”

  “How do you feel about that?” I ask, realizing too late I sound like a lame therapist. He turns to me and I can see my reflection in his sunglasses.

  “I think you know how I feel.”

  Obviously he remembers a lot about last night.

  “If you’re worried I’m going to tell anyone what you said—”

  His mouth quirks, making his scar jump. “Shit. What I slurred to you is the worst-kept secret in the chasing world. Everybody knows I lost it last year. Everybody knows I’m holding my dick in my hand. They just don’t talk about it to my face.”

  Unsure of how to respond, I watch heat waves shimmer above the blacktop.

  “What you did last night was nice,” Victor says after a second. “Helping me. Listening to me. In case I forget to say it later, I’ll say it now: thanks.”

  The heat waves look like water. A mirage. “Except what will you do?” I ask. “The way you painted it, if you chase, you’re screwed. If you don’t chase, the team is screwed.”

  “Hell of a dilemma, isn’t it?” Victor’s gaze is back on me. “Sorry if you told me last night what you’d do. I don’t remember.”

  The mirage is widening, glimmering like a lake. I watch it, thinking the answer is so obvious in Victor’s case. Leave. Live your life. The Torbros will be fine.

  The same thing I’d do in my own life if it didn’t mean everything would come crashing down on my mom. I can’t set myself free if it means she might die. I flash back to the Bible pages I cleaned up, of how they all said the opposite through the story of Jesus. He died so you might live. I live so my mom might not die. Amen and amen.

  “I keep going over the options,” Victor says, when I don’t speak. “And maybe it’s not as bad as I think.”

  “How?”

  “Let’s say, for example, that I leave the team and we lose the bet. The terms of the bet are that Alex gets Polly’s schematics. Even with blueprints, it’s going to take him at least a month to build a prototype of her. The Blisters will be lucky if they get her out in the field this season. Even if they do, there’s no guarantee she’ll actually get data. In that time, I could build something else. I’m not a one-trick pony.”

  “But the funding—it’s all based off Polly,” I say.

  “And we’re still pulling numbers from her. We have the working machine, not the Blisters. If I had to, I could get Mason up to speed on her for the rest of this season. It wouldn’t be a picnic, but it’d be doable. So, to me, Polly’s the easy part.”

  “Then what’s the hard part?” I ask.

  “Stephen. The fact that the side of the van says Tornado Brothers. The fact that Stephen thinks I should just . . . get over this.”

  I try to stop my brain from connecting more dots between me and Victor, but I can’t. The way I bend and twist and adjust so my mom can have an easier time of it—it’s the same way Victor
’s putting Stephen’s life ahead of his own.

  “Truth is,” Victor says, “I got into this thinking I could protect Stephen. But if I don’t get out of the field, I’m afraid I’m going to really hurt someone. Really fuck up in a way I can’t take back. Or run from.”

  “So, Stephen should understand that, right?”

  “Maybe. Probably. But the big question is, will I still walk away if he doesn’t?”

  My throat is suddenly on fire. I swallow a few times to cool it down.

  “You okay?” Victor asks.

  I stare at him. It’s the same. His situation and mine.

  “Look,” Victor says, pulling off his sunglasses and gazing at me with his dark eyes, “I didn’t mean to get all heavy with this stuff. Ethan’s mentioned some shit about your mom, drinking and whatnot, and I’m sorry if I put you on the spot last night. You acted like a real pro, though, and I appreciate it.”

  “Forget about that,” I say. “What about you? What will you do?”

  Victor smiles. “Leave. Stephen might never understand it. I’m his big brother, after all. The one who’s supposed to be looking out for him, the one who’s supposed to know what’s best. Except that’s not true anymore. He’s making too many excuses for me, and he just doesn’t need me. He’s got a whole chase team behind him now. If I let him down, I guess I feel like I could live with his disappointment a lot easier than I could live with physically hurting someone. Or even killing someone.”

  Above us, a cluster of starlings darts across the sky. “When?” I ask after the birds have fluttered into the distance. “When will you take off?”

  “I don’t know. It’s probably like a Band-Aid—better to rip it off and be done with it. I just have to talk to Stephen first. So, if you would, don’t go telling anyone about this until I have a chance to talk with him.”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  My cell buzzes, and I pull it out. It’s a text from Max. Where r u? Can I c u later?

  “Pressing business?” Victor asks.

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”