My eyes meet Norma Alvarez’s beside me. She’s one of the immigrant girls I passed each morning on the entry steps. When she smiles, I smile back. She waves to a man and woman on the lawn. They sit amid maybe forty friends and family. On the woman’s lap is a little girl in a frilly white dress.
I notice the police officers who entered Dr. Bell’s office after Tanesha attacked me. They stand, uniformed, to the side on the wide sidewalk between the seats and the lawn. Today must be a reprieve from deportations.
Dr. Bell strolls down the aisle between our rows to a podium at the front. He lowers the microphone, mugging a face, and the audience laughs. “Welcome,” he says, “to the graduation of the class of 2014.”
Whoops rise behind me. I turn, knowing from rehearsal where to find Gabe. His grin is so big and his eyes shine so brightly, I can’t help but grin back. I hold that image, spread my hand on my black-robed thigh, and study my missing fingers.
Dr. Bell’s words are murky from where we sit behind him. The audience bursts into applause, and a woman I recognize as the famous ski racer giving the address to our class steps to the podium. I try to hear her words too, but they slip from my grasp. My mind has such a hard time focusing on anything lately. I couldn’t take my AP exams, barely made it through the rest of the school year. Mr. Handler says that’s normal. That I’ll heal.
My brow sears from the eight hundred eyes. They see my suicide. They see Ash’s and deem me responsible. That verdict spreads to Dad’s crash. Even Tanesha dropping out seems my fault. Their judgment is like a downpour that drenches every part of me.
I search for Ash’s parents but don’t find them, realize they have no child. No reason to be here. I wonder what they’re doing at this moment to keep from breaking down. My parents came so close to just that. I hunch forward in shame. The ski racer stops talking, and applause rises like the waves on those Portuguese rocks that cut me like glass.
Clark steps to the podium. He’s valedictorian, and I’m glad. “Thanks for pulling out of the race,” he said on the last day of Bio, but his closest competition had turned out to be Tony Rodriguez, who moved through each day in such silence that people forgot he was there. Clark’s going to CU, like Mom, and plans to study astrophysics. His voice soothes me, and I straighten. The audience laughs once, twice, three times. I smile for Clark and wish I could understand his words.
Two students approach the podium next and introduce Mr. Bonstuber as Teacher of the Year. He wears a navy blazer that flaps out from his narrow frame as he approaches them. “I’m not sure if this is an honor or a curse,” he says. His German accent fills the amphitheater. “Though I speak in front of your children every day, public speaking is my greatest terror.” The audience laughs politely.
What is a person’s greatest terror when they’ve twice shaken hands with death? I look out furtively and realize, for me, it’s always been the same. Having no home. No people to make me strong.
My eyes travel to Mom and Sugeidi. I sigh. Perhaps they are enough. There’s Gabe too. And now I have Tia Célia. I say a prayer for Dad. Mom gives a little wave, leans to the side with a sly smile, and there, in the row behind her, are Angel and William.
William wears that short-sleeved Oxford shirt and tie. Angel waves, and her face transforms in that way I love as she smiles. We’ve texted, but I didn’t expect this. I find Mr. Handler at the end of the row behind me. He gives a thumbs-up to Angel and William. William chuckles, his whole body shaking.
Dr. Bell is at the podium again. “Todd Adams,” he says. Todd, at the end of my row, walks to the podium, and there’s polite applause as Dr. Bell hands him his diploma. I remember sitting next to Todd in kindergarten, how he’d hold his pencil all wrong and Ms. Miller would correct him. His face would look pulled tight with a string. I’ve hardly talked to Todd since, yet I hold this intimate scrap of his history.
“Brian Alonzo,” Dr. Bell says. Brian plays soccer with Gabe, but that’s all I know about him. A rowdy contingent, spilling off one of the closest blankets, hoots and whistles. A stout, gray-haired woman, his grandma probably, pumps her fist.
“Norma Alvarez,” Dr. Bell says, and her people applaud timidly. The little girl in the white dress stands and yells, “Norma!” Norma looks embarrassed as she approaches the podium, wiping her cheeks.
Her empty chair beside me is a chasm. Those eight hundred eyes are eight hundred pounds pressing me down. My chest is tight. I glance back at Gabe, and he nods. My eyes skid over Manny in the same row, watching us.
“Oona Antunes,” Dr. Bell says like a verdict. There’s silence, and my legs will not lift me. Guilt’s weight and all those eyes paralyze them. Though Crystal Creek shouts, this audience’s silence roars in my ears.
Gabe appears, helping me stand. I take two wobbling steps. Applause takes over the amphitheater. Though I work against it, there’s that bob in my step. Dr. Bell hands me my diploma, and the cheering grows louder, almost wild.
I look out and see all the people in the auditorium rising to their feet. I look from Gabe to Dr. Bell, who nods. I realize there’s clapping behind me and see my fellow graduates standing. Even Manny. Even Brandy, though her claps are slow. The immigrant girls bawl. Mom bawls and Sugeidi glows. Angel and William wear amazed expressions. I see the doctor and nurse who I thanked. I see the two paramedics. I see the owl-eyed bus driver. All those cheers rise beyond a spiraling bird, and I hope Dad and Ash can hear. My eyes trace the valley’s ridges, ending in its jagged line of peaks: my pulse. I hear the creek’s rush join this cheering sea of people who know my history, and care.
“Home,” I say, and though I cannot hear myself, my heart listens.
End Note: Viktor Schauberger
Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) was an Austrian forest warden, naturalist, philosopher, and inventor. Descended from a long line of foresters from the northern Alps, he was fascinated by creek and river flow and the patterns of nature. An eco-technology pioneer, Schauberger controversially asserted that humanity must study nature and learn from it rather than try to correct it, hoping to liberate people from dependence on centralized power resources that were inefficient or polluting. His theories contradicted established scientific theory, which he felt viewed nature as something to be exploited for the imagined benefit of humanity. He was often ridiculed, even after his theories were proved successful. Thanks to Gill
& Macmillan Publishers for permission to quote from Callum Coats’s Living Energies, the source of all Oona’s journal entries in this novel attributed to Schauberger.
Acknowledgments
Many hands helped shape this book. First, I must thank my princesses: Sue Staats, Loranne Brown, and Nancy Stebbins for always ensuring my words toe the line. Ditto to Rick Attig, especially for calling me on the realities of the male experience. Thanks to all the folks who helped me with details of culture, medicine, language, and law. Each day, I thank my writing family at Pacific University. Thanks to Bri Johnson for her fabulous insight and representation, and Brian Farrey-Latz and Sandy Sullivan at Flux for honing Oona’s story into its final shape. Thanks to the Mr. Bonstubers, the Ms. Summers, and the Mr. Handlers of the world who dedicate so much time to teens. Most of all, thanks to Ross and Sydney for their patience and support on this long journey.
About the Author
A Colorado native, Heather Sappenfield lives in Vail and is passionate about three things: her state, especially its mountains; science, physics in particular; and the ways people attain a sense of belonging in this mobile-techno world. She left a perfectly stable job as a high school English teacher to pursue a writing career. After earning an MFA from Pacific University, her fiction started getting published and winning awards. In her spare time, she can be found in Vail’s back bowls, teaching people to ski in winter, or on her mountain bike in summer. She has mad love for trees.
rom Who I Was
The View From Who I Was Page 24