If Birds Fly Back

by Carlie Sorosiak

  “Are you trying to make me barf?” Ray says, but eventually submits. Mouth reluctantly full, he asks me, “You okay, Linny?”

  I completely and suddenly clam up. I can’t tell them. I can’t. Not here, not now. It’s too complicated, too embarrassingly personal, but maybe I can abstract the situation?

  “Cass, remember when we were kids,” I slowly begin, “and our moms told us not to swallow watermelon seeds, because they’d grow inside our stomachs?”

  “No,” Cass says.

  “Well, my mom said that.”

  “Your mom is terrifying.”

  “Point taken. Anyway, I feel like that. I swallowed this thing, and I thought it wouldn’t grow into something, but—”

  “Linny,” Ray says, cutting me off, concern etching his face. “I know your parents are gynecologists, so they did they tell you that you can’t get pregnant from giving a blow job, right?”

  To our right, an elderly woman stops midbite and puts down her croissant to glare at us.

  I cringe. “That’s not at all what I’m talking about.”

  A stab of sadness flashes across Cass’s face. “Okay,” she says. “Then what are you talking about?”

  The shop feels very hot. Is the air-conditioning still on? “Okay, something’s happened with . . . Well, I found out a secret and I kept it from Sebastian, and he knows now.”

  “What is it?” Cass and Ray say simultaneously.

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you, but . . . it kind of affects his entire life.” And we broke up because of it. Somehow, those last words turn to thorns—won’t unstick from my throat.

  “Then why didn’t you tell him?” Cass says immediately.

  Because I thought it would destroy him, and it did anyway.

  “It’s complicated,” I say.

  Cass’s eyes widen. “You did sleep with him, didn’t you? Oh my gosh, you totally slept with him.”

  Ray reminds me of a deer that’s just been spotted by a hunter; if he stays perfectly still, maybe it will all go away. “Not that we’re judging you,” he quietly adds.

  “No,” Cass says. “We totally are judging you, and not because you lost your virginity. Because this is exactly what friends are for, Linny—you’re supposed to tell us things! We’re supposed to talk about things.” I’m not entirely sure we’re discussing sex anymore. Her voice is climbing a roller coaster; it hitches at the top. “Do you know what it’s been like for me? Do you have any idea? You think I want to talk just for you? What about me, Linny? Have you ever asked how I’m doing? It’s like you’ve completely forgotten that Grace was mine, too!”

  My stomach mirrors her voice as I go down, down, down—and then down some more—because I didn’t mean to forget. I was shoved so quickly into the hole that Grace left, I never stopped to truly consider that someone else was in the pit with me.

  I don’t know why it’s hitting me so hard now. All those parties she invited me to? Maybe she wasn’t just trying to get me out of the house. Maybe she was trying to preserve herself, our group, what’s left of us. She has a Grace-shaped hole in her heart, too, and she’s just trying to plug it up. When I couldn’t make room to care about her, she was still working hard to care about me.

  Even though I’m running over solutions to fix this, all I can come up with is, “Cass, I’m . . .”

  She explodes. “And what about Ray? You know, he and Lawrence had a fight last night, because Lawrence hasn’t told his dad that he’s dating a guy—but I doubt you would’ve asked about it. About any of it. Stop being so selfish, Linny.”

  I chance a look at Ray, but he won’t return my glance. Is it possible to feel any worse?

  “Whatever!” Cass yells. “I’ve already lost one of my best friends, so maybe losing another one won’t kill me.” She says to Ray, “I think we should go.”

  So we do. Most of the pastries are uneaten. The baker boxes them up and says, “See ya soon,” as Cass and Ray trail out the door in a different direction from me. It’s hard to image we’ll ever go there again.

  It’s so much easier in film. You don’t like a scene? Delete and rewind. In real life, you get dizzy on the spot and grit your teeth in aching silence. There are no do-overs, no second takes. You perform the scene and then live with the consequences.

  These are the consequences.

  I can’t stop hurting the people I love.

  THE LEFT-BEHINDS (SCENE 16, CONTINUED)

  CUT TO—

  Blackness.

  38.

  Sebastian

  “I am moved to believe that scientists who attempt to solve these mysteries will stumble upon additional conundrums. It is a perpetual spiral.” A Brief Compendium of Astrophysical Curiosities, p. 399

  Instead of returning to Silver Springs, I read Dr. Mangum’s book from cover to cover and flip through the TV channels. End up watching the weirdest stuff. At noon, I kid you not, there’s Sock Puppet Cinema on channel 7, followed by some cheaply funded documentary. A bearded ornithologist is drawling on about goose migration.

  It’s so effing boring.

  I watch the entire thing because Linny would.

  Turns out, scientists don’t know a whole lot about why birds skedaddle every year. It’s a genetic impulse. They might navigate based on the stars or magnetic fields. The guy massages his beard and explains, “The most important environmental cue is the scarcity of food.”

  I get that.

  But why do they fly back?

  If there’s enough food in their winter home, then why do these stupid birds travel another thousand miles to get back to where they came from? Why do they keep picking up and leaving, over and over again?

  More important, why am I getting so worked up about it?

  THE BIRDS CONUNDRUM:

  If birds fly back, then why couldn’t Álvaro return to my mother, to me? Why does one mystery end at the same time another begins?

  On-screen the geese are in a V formation, and the ornithologist is saying how they can only migrate by flocking together. How they wouldn’t survive alone.

  This is the type of thing I’d discuss with Linny, if she were here.

  But she isn’t.

  She isn’t here when Ana and I make coconut chicken. She isn’t pressing her nose into my book to ask what I’m reading. She isn’t resting her head on my shoulder, telling me she’s sleepy. She isn’t here to talk about how everything got so effed up. And it’s killing me. She stays away, like I told her to.

  Until she doesn’t.

  The day after we break up, the doorbell rings late in the afternoon.

  Ana answers in her scrubs and repeats what I told her to say in this situation. “Sorry, he’s not here.”

  Linny’s voice: “Oh.”

  I wonder what she’s thinking. Because of course I’m here. Where else would I be?

  “It’s not done yet, but could you give this to him?” Linny says. “I want him to know why I did what I did.”

  “Okay, sweetie,” Ana says. “I’ll give it to him.”

  I cave in to temptation. Rush over to the blinds. I want to see if she looks as sad as I feel. She does. Worse than I feel, if possible. She stays on the doorstep a few moments, even after Ana shuts the door.

  Linny’s head whips to the side, to where I am.

  Damn it. She must’ve seen the blinds rustle.

  I shrink back into the living room, where Ana gently sets a small stack of papers on the coffee table. “For you,” she says.

  I peer down at it. On the front page in large script, it reads:

  THE LEFT-BEHINDS

  by Linny Carson

  39.

  Linny

  WHO: Javier Rojas, a firefighter

  WHEN: Seventeen hours in 2015

  WHY: The Chilean government reported the tragic death of Javier, who rushed into a burning courthouse in Viña del Mar, attempting to save two judges. But really, he was alive; during the building’s collapse, a wooden board struck him in the temple, and
he escaped through the back exit in a serious daze. According to the news stories, Javier wandered the streets for seventeen hours, concussed, until he finally remembered where he was—and who he was—and walked back home.

  NOTES: Huh. Remembering who we are. Who ARE we without her?

  Eerie doesn’t begin to describe the feeling of coming back from Sebastian’s house and seeing Mom perched on the couch. Not scrubbing the tile. Not flipping through medical reports. Just . . . sitting, rigid and upright. She says nothing as I slip upstairs, says nothing as I shut my door to the world, says nothing as I notice that where the plastic stars once were there are now blank spaces on the ceiling, white paint flecks chipping, one or two falling like first snow.

  (Note to self: install padlocks on door.)

  Maybe I suck in a breath or clench my teeth or jam my fingers into fists. I don’t know. I can’t feel anything except the movement of my feet trouncing down the stairs.

  MomandDad are both in the living room now—Dad flipping through Scientific American, Mom still sitting, picking bits of lint off the pashmina pillows.

  “Why did you do that?” I exclaim. “Do you have any idea how much those meant? How much . . .” I falter, raise my hands to the back of my head because I genuinely fear it’s about to roll off.

  “Darling,” Mom says, slowly crossing her legs. “You’re obviously going through—” She glances at Dad for the right word, but when his lips remain motionless, she pushes on. “Let’s call it a phase. Even so, you can’t just decide to desecrate your ceiling without asking our permission.”

  “But it’s my room.”

  “And our house.”

  I flinch.

  Tenting Scientific American in his lap, Dad asks, “What are we talking about?”

  Huh. Mom acted alone. Have things actually changed since he found Sebastian and me in my closet? “Marilyn glued some cheap plastic stars to her ceiling,” she says. “Completely destroyed the paint job when I took them down.”

  “Why?” Dad says.

  “That’s a good question, Marilyn. Please tell us what you were thinking.”

  “No,” Dad says, inching forward on his chair, “I mean, why’d you take them down?”

  She waves her hand dismissively and digs into me again. “I’m sorry if you find our rules too restricting, but throwing fits doesn’t change anything. Like it or not, you are going to follow the rules, because they’re there for a reason. They are there for structure. You need that now more than ever. . . . You know, when you’re thirty-five and a successful doctor, you’re going to think: ‘Thank God my parents had rules. Thank God my parents wanted more for me than I wanted for myself.’” She drags in a breath. “It’s probably best if you go to your room.”

  Me too. I think it’s best if I never come out again.

  But for some strange reason, my legs don’t move. My lips do. “Why can’t you see that I’m not happy? That you’re squishing me, just like our clay people. Just like Grace. And now she’s probably never coming back!”

  What did I just say?

  I slap both hands over my mouth, trying to prevent any other words from seeping out. But it’s too late—I let out a long, sad groan, and my words form fists that smack me silly, straight into a wall of pulverizing sadness. For the first time this summer, I wonder if I’ve been living in black and white on purpose, if living in a colorful world means fully accepting that she’s gone.

  You know that rule I have about not making waves? Well, pretty sure I’ve just initiated a tsunami.

  I said Grace—out loud, to them.

  I brace myself for the impact, but the strangest thing occurs: gruff words blast from MomandDad—and they’re not directed at me.

  Dad exclaims, “This is exactly what I’ve been talking about, June,” and Mom pushes back, “Eric, not now.” Almost forgot, MomandDad have names. Almost forgot they were capable of fighting. Usually if they do, it’s about little things: Dad forgetting to empty the recycling bin, Mom leaving the downstairs bathroom light on until it fizzles. On the subject of me, they’ve been unanimous for as long as I can remember, and especially since Grace left. To hold this family together. Now their voices rise to screams.

  In my mind, I can see the rope fraying between them, getting more and more slack until it drops to the floor in a resounding thud. MomandDad sever into Mom and Dad, two separate and distinct people, who continue to explode several feet from each other, enough sparks flying that the carpet might go up in flames.

  Dad’s aging a year a minute as cryptic phrases fly from his mouth: “You should have gone, June. You should have been there. We should have both been there. . . .”

  Mom’s removing the bobby pins from her bun, all the while shouting, “That was not what was best for them, Eric, and you know as well as I do that structure is best. What kind of mother would I be if . . .”

  Whoa. Hold up. Gone where? I try to get in a word, but Mom and Dad edge me out, the creases in their foreheads so deep, you could row canoes through them. A million thoughts dart through my mind, but foremost is what Sebastian said when he and I were in my closet, about opening the box.

  I’m unhappy to report that the cat is dead. None of us are breathing.

  Mom starts tearing up suddenly, and then the real tsunami hits—she sobs, her whole body convulsing and making noises like something is dying inside of her, which I guess it is. I quickly scan the room for glass objects, because it looks like she wants to break something. Dad crosses his arms over his chest, as if he’s trying to fold himself up and disappear.

  I’ve never seen them like this. Never.

  Not even right after Grace left. They were breaking down then, too—they were just breaking down together.

  This lasts for an eternity (the crying, the wish to be anywhere but here), but then Mom declares through a sob that she’s very busy—she has articles to peer review—and without another word retreats upstairs to her bedroom, her hair unraveled at her back. Dad’s hair looks different too: thinner, patches of white cresting his temples. How long has he had a bald spot, and why have I never noticed?

  I collapse onto the bottom stair and inhale gulp after gulp of air. (Well, at least one of us is breathing.)

  “I have to—” Dad begins, and stops. His hands travel to his pockets. “Have to . . . see about . . . yeah.” Then he leaves me on the stairs, and moments later I hear the roar of his Volvo driving away.

  And again, it’s my fault. Everything breaks in my hands.

  Dad doesn’t come home for three hours. When he returns, he spends another fifteen minutes puttering around the garage, the car doors opening and closing. Through my bedroom window I see him finally cut across the yard, swiping yellow dust off his hands. I don’t question it. I don’t want to know where he’s been, what he’s doing. I’ve had enough complexity to fill several lifetimes. Instead, I lie on my bed, look up at the blank ceiling, and write a film in my head: The Girl Who Built a Time Machine to Erase Her Mistakes. (It’s a short movie. I don’t succeed.)

  So I lift Hector from his terrarium and let him crawl around my floor, leaving a trail of turtle poop on the white carpet. I think about Hector’s family, wonder if they’re missing him—if they’re falling apart, too.

  Five minutes later, there’s a knock at my door. So light, it’s like rain falling. I pretend I’m asleep.

  THE LEFT-BEHINDS (SCENE 17)

  MIAMI BEACH DAY

  We see from LINNY’s perspective as she opens her eyes. The mostly blue sky blinks in and out of view.

  She is lying in the sand near the boardwalk and sits up to see . . .

  . . . she is completely—and rather frighteningly—alone. The sand is black, the sea white.

  Then:

  LINNY

  (to no one)

  How did . . . how did I . . . ?

  We hear the flutter of wings from above.

  And see a break in the clouds.

  40.

  Sebastian

  “A
lthough we can only infer its existence, we know that dark matter neither emits nor absorbs light.” A Brief Compendium of Astrophysical Curiosities, p. 211

  In my dream, Álvaro is dark haired again. Leading me through a swamp of paper. Gone are his orthopedic shoes. I wear knee-high boots to wade through the swamp.

  The angrier I get, the higher the paper tide rises. Eventually we’re floating on our backs like starfish. Above, no sky. Solo blanco.

  I sit up and tread paper, furious. “Did you know all along?”

  He’s four feet away and drifting farther. I wonder if he hears me.

  “When you first saw me,” I say, louder this time, “did you know I was your son?”

  Álvaro shrugs. Paper ripples above his shoulders. “I don’t know.” Still on his back, he removes a cigarillo from his pocket. Lights up. I notice the skin around his neck is beginning to pucker. “How can I know? Everything slips. I hold on to nothing.”

  I shake my head, fuming. “How can I believe you?”

  I tell myself it’s okay to yell at him because 1) He’s young now, and 2) He looks healthy. Yelling at an Alzheimer’s patient is unacceptable, but this floating man’s not even sick.

  “Do you know what you’ve done, Álvaro? Do you have any effing idea?” I pound the floating papers, but they sink.

  Álvaro’s voice chokes through smoke. “Any idea of what?”

  I feel a faint suction from below.

  Oh no.

  I try to grasp something. Anything. But the papers sink. Fifteen feet away, Álvaro’s skin turns transparent.

  His hair goes white.

  His body crumples.

  In one fluid motion, the papers absorb him. I swim over. Try to part the swamp. I hold my breath and dive under. But suddenly whatever’s tugging him tugs me.

  It has my feet.

  It pulls me into the deep.

  I wake up.

  I’m lying on my back like in the dream. My cell phone’s buzzing beneath the couch pillows. Groggily, I answer.

  I’ve watched enough movies with Linny to know this is what they say: “There’s been an accident.” It sounds so removed. To someone, somewhere in the world, an accident has occurred.