The Last Leaves Falling

by Sarah Benwell

  Because I didn’t want to be that Sora. Because that Sora is weak and useless. Because you’re looking at me as though I have webbed feet and three heads. “I don’t know.”

  Would you have come, if you knew?

  “So, you’re a Tigers fan?”

  I nod.

  “Me too. Sort of. I mean, I like to watch occasionally.”

  He stands up to get a better view of my display. “So do you . . . I mean did you . . . did you play?”

  “Just for the school b-team. I wasn’t going on to be a star or anything.”

  “So did something happen?” Mai’s small voice jingles as she talks, almost disguising the weight of the question.

  I glance down at my legs.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she demands.

  My stomach lurches, but I have to tell them. Don’t I? They’ve seen my chair. They know.

  And they’re still here.

  I don’t look up, mumble to my lap, “I have ALS.”

  “What’s that?” Her voice is softer now, the jingling turned to velvet.

  Kaito sinks back down onto the bed, and they wait for my answer.

  I take a deep breath and force myself to look into their eyes. “It stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. And it means”—I have to push the words across my lips—“I’m going to die.”

  “You’re what?” Kaito mutters to himself, then louder, “I’m so sorry.”

  Mai just stares, her muscles tensed like a sika-deer waiting to run.

  And then she coughs politely and gets to her feet. “I’m sorry too. I just remembered that I have to be home early. I really have to go.”

  She does not even look at me as she strides to the door and slides it open.

  I stare after her. I hear her in the hall, thanking my mother, gathering her things.

  Kaito looks from the doorway to me, and back, unsure. Trapped.

  I release him. “You should probably go after her.”

  “Thanks, Sora. I am sorry,” he says, laying a hand on my shoulder. “I would have liked to stay.”

  And then he’s gone.

  • • • •

  I expect my mother to come in and lecture me about the proper rules of entertaining and of friendship, tell me how I embarrassed her and was not fair upon the others, that she expected better.

  But she does not. When my mother brings me my pills, she does not say a word. And I don’t know which is worse.

  29

  I sleep badly, drifting in and out of dreams of huge ice caverns that go on and on, where my wheels slip everywhere and I am alone. Completely, utterly alone. And I awake in the still-dark with an emptiness sitting heavy on my gut.

  I switch on the lamp and heave my body upright, out of bed. I have to apologize to them. Explain.

  But when I log in to the site, there is a message waiting for me.

  Dear Sora,

  I am so sorry that I ran out earlier. Please apologize to your mother, as well. I did not mean to be so rude, and I hope you are not terribly upset.

  I really didn’t mean to leave like that, but I was shocked.

  I think I understand why you didn’t say anything. I would want to forget too. But I wish that you had told me.

  I hope you can forgive me.

  Your friend, Mai

  p.s. Are you really going to die? :(

  I click reply immediately.

  Yes, I am.

  It’s okay that you left; I am not offended. Sorry, perhaps, that I did not warn you. It was selfish of me. Although I did try, I just couldn’t find the words.

  I understand if you don’t want to be friends with me after I lied, or if you do not want to be friends with a dead boy. But please, if it is the latter, do not tell me.

  Sora x

  I sit back, and sigh. There should be some kind of deal: I should get superpower-wisdom and empathy as an exchange for this body. I wish it worked like that.

  I don’t expect I’ll hear from her again, but at least I have apologized.

  Can’t sleep? Me neither.

  Of COURSE I still want to be friends.

  Can you promise me something, though?

  Really?

  Hi.

  What?

  Can we not do that again?

  If you have a secret like that, tell me. It’s what friends are for.

  No secrets. I think I can do that.

  Right. Let’s start with this: What is it you have, exactly? I know you said, but I forgot.

  Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

  I’ll be right back. I’m going to look it up. :)

  I wait, watching the cursor blink, ONoffONoffONoff, focusing on the rhythm instead of the words I know she’s reading. Progressive. Paralysis. Fatal. ONoffONoffONoffON.

  She is gone for quite a while, but just as I think that the words have scared her away, she says:

  Do you really have all that? Those symptoms?

  Some of them.

  I cannot tell her that the rest of them will come, in time. It is written, she will know, if she reads, but I cannot write the words. Not yet.

  She barely hesitates.

  Which ones?

  Do you really want to know? It’s . . . I am not a normal boy.

  Yes. I guessed that when you appeared in a chair with wheels. :p

  Okay . . .

  I give her a moment to change her mind, retreat.

  My legs don’t really work. And now it’s started in my hands, my arms.

  When you say “don’t work,” what do you mean?

  The muscles cramp, they weaken, and they waste away. They ache a lot, and I can’t move. It starts with shaking and weakness, and it just gets worse.

  So, it will get worse in your hands, too?

  Yes.

  So . . .

  What happens next?

  What do you mean?

  I mean . . . Oh, I don’t know. It isn’t FAIR. Why can’t someone ELSE be ill?

  Someone else?

  Someone old, who’s already done everything they want to do. It says it’s mostly old people, so why do YOU have to get it? )-:

  MOSTLY old, not only. Besides, how old is old? Our grandfathers? Our parents?

  But you’re . . .

  I know.

  Well, if not someone old, someone horrid then?

  Sometimes, I wonder the same thing. Not horrid, exactly, but the undeserving. Why should I be banished from the world when there are people who do not make the best of it?

  But I used to read a manga series where a boy is given powers to choose who dies, and I can’t read it anymore. I would not want that choice.

  It doesn’t work that way.

  How can you be so REASONABLE? It SHOULD. It isn’t FAIR.

  I know.

  But I’m still here.

  30

  DUDE!

  Hi Kaito.

  DUDE! DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE’S THIS GUY IN BASEBALL WHO HAD THE SAME THING AS YOU?

  It is two days since the awful dinner, and he has obviously been reading.

  HE’S REALLY FAMOUS, LIKE, THEY NAMED THE DISEASE AFTER HIM. AND HE WAS REALLY COOL.

  Lou Gehrig, of Lou Gehrig’s disease, was the first thing I discovered after diagnosis. He gave a famous speech. I tried to watch it, once, but I only got as far as “luckiest man on earth” before my stomach churned uncomfortably and my eyes were hot with rage and wet with tears. I turned it off.

  AND HE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE. ALS GETS EVERYONE: MUSICIANS AND SCIENTISTS, POLITICIANS AND PRIZE-WINNING ACTORS.

  Yeah?

  UH-HUH. SO I KNOW IT’S PROBABLY REALLY SCARY, BUT MAYBE IT’S SOME SORT OF SECRET SUPERPOWER, AND YOU HAVE TO ACHIEVE EVERYTHING BECAUSE YOU CANNOT FAIL.

  Right. I will conquer the world from my wheelchair, hooked to bags and beeping monitors. I will conquer the world with my magic laser eyes, the only thing left that I can move myself.

  But I do not tell him this, because below the bubbling scorn there is something els
e.

  I have friends who care enough to try.

  31

  The next day, when she asks how I am doing, I tell Doctor Kobayashi all about my friends.

  “That’s good,” she says. “I’m glad that you are sharing this. You’re not alone, Sora.”

  “I know.” And for the first time in a while, I really mean it.

  32

  How are you today?

  Ok, thank you.

  Really?

  “Yes,” I type, “I’m fine. Stop fussing.” But then I hear three words, and a promise: no more secrets. So instead, I answer:

  A little shaky, but yes thanks. I’m good.

  :)

  How are you?

  Oh, you know. I can’t stay long. My mother will be home, and today she’s testing me on college interview responses, making sure that I sound good.

  Have you told her yet?

  What?

  That you won’t be going to an engineering school.

  I couldn’t! You should see her face.

  I wish that I could tell her not to ruin everything. That she should live her life, not someone else’s. But I don’t know how.

  Thankfully, that moment, NoFace appears online. Maybe he will have something of use to say.

  I slide the mouse across the screen and click on “add contact to conversation.”

  Hi Kaito!

  Hey, don’t you think she should tell her mother that she’s going to be an artist? That it’s her DREAM and her DESTINY?

  HI!

  OH, I DON’T KNOW, DUDE, I’M THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK.

  See, it’s not so simple ;)

  MAYBE HE’S RIGHT, THOUGH. I ENVY YOU, MAI.

  Really?

  YEAH. YOUR PASSION. ALL I WANT TO DO MOST OF THE TIME IS HIDE. I DON’T WANT TO DO ANYTHING.

  *siiiigh*

  Oh, she’s back. Speak to you later?

  Mai does not come back online tonight. I picture her sitting at a kitchen table, leaning her chin in her hands and trying to look interested, reciting key-word phrases and practicing her eager smile while her mother looks on.

  • • • •

  Mama has not mentioned the dinner party once since it occurred. Instead, she just looks at me sadly and asks whether there are any books I’d like to read this week, and would I like chicken for dinner?

  I’m sure she’s noticed the clatter of my spoon or chopsticks as it shakes against the bowl. I think I’ve seen her gaze flit to my trembling hands and back, but she says nothing.

  I want to ask her what is wrong, but it is not my place as the son. Instead, I try to cheer her up. “I’ve been reading up on fairy tales,” I say as we sit over a meal.

  “That’s nice.”

  “I thought I’d surprise Ojiisan and Bah-Ba with a story over dinner.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Maybe the one about the demon in the crockpot, or else the story of the little peach boy.”

  Mama does not answer.

  “Maybe I’ll mix the two up, throw them both into a tale at once.”

  Three more days until our trip, and I’m getting nervous. I love my grandparents, but . . . Once, we would all have sat upon a picnic rug, in summer, watching the butterflies and letting ice cream dribble down our chins. And now it’s almost winter and everything’s changed; I cannot trace the familiar patterns we have drawn before.

  I wish that I could just turn back the clock, just for this trip; to morph into the growing young man that they used to know. And I wish my mother would snap out of it; answer me, look at me, even. Tell me everything will be all right.

  But I don’t know that it will, and my mother does not lie.

  33

  I’M ENVIOUS! I WISH I COULD GO ON VACATION, INSTEAD OF GOING TO SCHOOL.

  Me too! How long will you be gone for?

  One week.

  Oh! A whole week! That’s forever!

  Nah. I will be back before any of us even realize.

  :) Have a great time!

  DON’T DO ANYTHING CRAAAZY!

  Like what?

  OH I DON’T KNOW. HIKING THROUGH THE HILLS WITH NOTHING BUT A CHOCOLATE BAR TUCKED INTO YOUR POCKET. OR STAYING UP ALL NIGHT TO LEARN THE WALTZ.

  That actually sounds like fun.

  HAH! SEE, IT’S HAPPENING ALREADY. YOU’LL COME BACK A CHANGED MAN, ABE-SAN.

  And that is it. My mother folds my clothes into a bag, locks the door, and we are gone.

  34

  My grandparents live in Sakyo-ku, a northern ward of Kyoto, filled with tall forests and mountains.

  We sit in an empty train carriage, my chair rattling against the windows. I stare out through the glass and watch the concrete-cable sprawl soften into green. I imagine standing up and striding out across the hills, flying out across a bright blue sky.

  Mama stares out of the window too, but I do not think she’s watching. Her eyes don’t flit from tree to tree.

  Finally, the Tannoy announces our destination and we step off the train. I breathe deep. I like the air up here; it is not so dry as in the city, and it is sweet and fresh.

  The stationmaster nods as we go by, as though we are old friends. It is like that everywhere. As Mama pushes my chair up the hill to Bah-Ba’s house, people greet us with “good afternoons” and “pleasant walks.” It is strange, after the busy disregard and scorn of businessmen, and I have to struggle not to set my jaw and look away, to answer in kind.

  We get to the top of the hill, Mama puffing with the effort, and there it is. Bah-Ba and Ojiisan’s house, a two-story drafty wooden building, postcard perfect, set against the trees. Ojiisan is sitting on the porch steps waiting.

  “Daughter!” he calls out when he catches sight of us. “Grandson!”

  He strides out, kisses Mama on the cheek, and takes her place behind my chair.

  “How is my favorite boy?”

  I search for the horror in his eyes, but it is not there. I see nothing but happiness. “Well. Thank you, Ojiisan. And you?”

  “Grand, Sora. Just grand. Let’s get inside, your grandmother is in the kitchen. She’ll be so pleased to see you.”

  “Um . . . Ojiisan?”

  “Yes, my boy?”

  “How am I going to get inside?” I nod toward the four wide steps leading up to the front door.

  “Easy!” he says.

  I am worried that he’s going to try to lift me. My grandfather is big and strong, but he is old, and I would not want to break him.

  “When I heard you were coming, I made you a little something. Wait here.”

  He parks me at the bottom of the steps and disappears around the side of the house.

  “Mama?”

  “I don’t know.” She looks as puzzled as I am.

  There is a clattering and Ojiisan grunts.

  “Perhaps I’d better go and see,” says Mama.

  She follows after him, and moments later they return, carrying a huge sheet of wood between them. It has square holes cut into each corner.

  “Careful, careful,” Ojiisan directs as they lay the thing flat, up the steps. “A ramp!” he pronounces, and then he’s off again. This time, he returns with an armful of thinner planks that look as though they have been sanded smooth.

  “I was not sure whether you were still up on your feet,” he says, “so I thought I had better build something to hold on to. Just in case.” He winks at me, and in seconds he’s erected the finest-looking ramp in history, with a guardrail on each side.

  He steps onto it tentatively. It creaks, but it does not give. He walks halfway up and bounces.

  “Right. Let’s get you inside.”

  My grandmother, a tiny woman, is standing on a stool beside the stove when we walk in.

  Ojiisan coughs.

  “Oh!” she exclaims, startled off her stool. And then she sees us. “Azami! Sora! You’re here!” She wipes her hands on her apron as she crosses the room. She does not have to bend down far as she kisses the top of my head. “Look at you!” />
  I blush, although I know she’s only saying that because she has to. I look terrible.

  “You look tired, Azami.”

  “I’m fine, Mother. It is only that hill.”

  My grandmother draws her lips tight, as though she’s trying not to say something. And I picture my mother’s face, worried, willing Bah-Ba not to push the question any further.

  “Bah-Ba,” I say, to distract her, “where am I going to sleep?”

  When I was young, I used to love pulling down the ladders that led to the attic space. Bah-Ba would roll out a mattress up there, beneath the skylight, and every night I’d fall asleep flying with the stars.

  I won’t be climbing any ladders this time.

  “I’ll make you up a bed down here,” she says, smiling.

  “Come on, Champ, let’s leave the women to finish dinner and discuss their women-things.”

  As Ojiisan wheels me out onto the porch, I imagine Mama resting her head on my grandmother’s shoulder and letting out a sigh. I imagine whispered, sorrowed voices, sympathy, Oh my, how frail he looks, and I can’t do this, Mama.

  But then Ojiisan sits on a tree-stump stool beside me, pulls my head out of that room and into something else, out here. The boys’ club.

  “I am glad you’re here, Sora.”

  “Why?”

  He waggles his bottle-brush brows mischievously and beneath them his eyes gleam. “I think we have a bakeneko.”

  “Oh!” I gasp, playing along. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  I scan the yard. “I do not see it.” But I imagine a shape-shifting monster-cat prowling through the trees, and shudder.

  “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  “I suppose not. So, what makes you suspect one?”

  “Your grandmother keeps hearing noises. Yowling in the kitchen after dark. But when I go to look, there’s nothing.”

  “Okaaay.”

  “And there are the bones.”

  “Bones?”

  “Yes. On the porch. Once or twice a week your grandmother or I will come out here to drink our morning tea, and there they are. Bones.”