If Birds Fly Back

by Carlie Sorosiak

  At first all Ana says is “Sebastian,” and I know from the way she breathes it. Just know. “Álvaro,” she says. “There’s been an accident.”

  Even if I watched a thousand movies in a row, those words—said about Álvaro—would still hit me like an asteroid to the chest. I recall how camels clamp their nostrils closed during sandstorms. But as far as I know, no animal can shut down its eardrums and block out sound. Wish I could have been the first. Didn’t hear “There’s been an accident.”

  Ana says, “I’m coming to get you.”

  The line goes dead.

  A THEORY ON DARK MATTER IN THE REAL WORLD:

  It exists.

  The waiting-room wall is becoming my best friend. It’s the only thing holding me up. Leaning against it, I survey the chaos. Emergency-room doors bang open and closed. Someone is screaming. The intercom crackles and pops.

  In Ana’s car, I made a list of everything I wish I’d said to Álvaro. I mentally crossed most of it out.

  Why didn’t you tell me?

  I think I might hate you.

  I will never forgive you.

  I want to hate him, after everything he did. I want to think he’s an asshat. I thought maybe he’d changed, that I should give him the benefit of the doubt. But who does that to a mother? Who does that to a baby?

  But what kind of son hates a father with Alzheimer’s?

  The list ended up being only one item long:

  No matter what, I’ll be there.

  Down the hall, Ana—still in blue scrubs—is speaking with a doctor who crosses his arms a lot. Definite arm crosser. Definite floor gazer. There’s nodding and more nodding. Every few minutes a different nurse’s aide pops up like a Whack-A-Mole. Offers me hot coffee or a copy of Us Weekly (magical cure-alls, apparently).

  But no one will tell me anything.

  Is he still in the ER?

  The ICU?

  ¿Está despierto?

  Can I see him?

  Hence, my friendship with the wall. I lock out my knees to keep from tumbling.

  Before too long, another nurse—one of Ana’s friends, I think—trots over from his station to rub my shoulder. “Might as well sit down, son. It’s probably going to be a while.”

  Son? Is he effing kidding me?

  Worst possible word to use.

  I shrug him off and decide to pull out The Left-Behinds. I grabbed it on the way out of the condo. Haven’t read more than the first page since Linny dropped it off, but I guess I’ve got nothing but time.

  So I start reading, right there against the wall.

  The script begins with two sisters together. It changes to two girls apart. The wings are cool, the writing’s good, but I don’t completely understand why Linny wanted me to read this.

  That is, until I flip to the last pages.

  THE LEFT-BEHINDS (SCENE 17, CONTINUED)

  GRACE descends onto the sand, yellow wings outstretched.

  LINNY

  (shocked)

  Am I . . . I must be dreaming, right?

  A shrug of GRACE’s wings.

  GRACE

  I’m not sure it makes a difference.

  LINNY stands up.

  LINNY

  You can’t be serious.

  GRACE frowns. Clearly, she isn’t following.

  GRACE

  Um—

  LINNY

  (fully shouting)

  You show up NOW after ALL THIS TIME, and it DOESN’T MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

  GRACE

  That’s not what I—

  LINNY

  (partly shouting)

  They’re not growing, Grace, okay? You got your stupid wings, and I’m stuck here. You left me, do you understand?

  GRACE is on the brink of tears.

  GRACE

  I’m not sure you’re the one who understands.

  LINNY

  Really? Oh, really?

  (inhaling sharply)

  You were supposed to love me most in the world, Grace, and you left me behind. You did it on purpose. That’s the thing. You knew you were abandoning me, and you did it anyway.

  The last three sentences are circled in blue ink, with stars around the words.

  Oh. Oh, Linny. I get it.

  Being left behind is one thing. Being left behind on purpose is infinitely shittier. All the things he’s missed. My first science fair. My prom. That time I built a rocket in the backyard. He’s missed all of it intentionally.

  This—this shit right now—is exactly what Linny was trying to avoid, and I’ve been a grade A asshat in return.

  Good work, Sebastian. Good fucking job.

  I debate whether I should call her. (Con: I deserve a kick in the nut-sack. Maybe twelve kicks. Pro: Seeing her. Hearing her voice.)

  Decision made. No matter how much I effed it up, I hope she’ll understand why I’m about to tumble.

  I press Call, and when she answers, “Sebastian,” all the words congeal in my throat.

  “There’s been an accident,” I say eventually.

  “Are you okay?” Her breath is heavy. “What kind of accident?”

  I tell her that a nurse at Silver Springs heard a thud in the night. That she saw Álvaro faceup in a pile of papers in his room, body contorted like a bird that just flew into a windshield. “They think he slipped—hard—and hit the back of his head on his desk,” I say. “He lost a lot of blood, but . . . Well, they don’t know much yet.”

  “Is he . . . ?” She stops. “Do you think he’ll be all right?”

  “Maybe.” I don’t really say the word. More like vomit it. “Maybe. I hope so.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes, tops.”

  “It’s . . . it’s too far to bike.”

  “I’m taking my parents’ car.”

  “They’ll never let you out of the house at two in the morning.”

  “Who said I was going to ask them?”

  “Linny . . .”

  “What my parents think is seriously the last thing on my mind right now, okay? See you soon.”

  I hang up the phone and grate my fingers through my hair just as Ana finishes nodding at the doctor. Walking over at a remarkably slow speed, she presses her back against the friendship wall. Drapes a heavy arm around my shoulders.

  “He’s in the ICU. Jay says we should have the next update in under an hour.”

  “Why so long?”

  She’s back to her nurse voice. “The doctors need time. Álvaro has experienced a pretty serious head trauma. He was dead for two minutes. It’s now wait and see.”

  Dead. He was already dead.

  My heart constricts. Think I mean that figuratively? No. I mean a giant literally rips open my chest. Grips my heart in his meaty hand. Squeezes.

  Squeezes until no blood flows.

  Squeezes until Ana has to shake the breath back into me.

  She clutches both of my shoulders and says, “Look at me.” Clinical nurse no longer. “Whatever happens, everything will be okay. You are so strong, Sebastian. So strong.”

  Not true.

  I am a Lego set that someone has hammered apart.

  I am a tiny speck of space dust.

  “So strong,” she repeats. “And I’m so sorry things didn’t turn out like you’d hoped.”

  I’m still chewing on that thought fifteen minutes later when two things happen simultaneously.

  The first: a doctor with an unreadable expression emerges from behind the double doors.

  The second: Linny bursts into the waiting room. She’s breathless and wearing her reindeer pajamas, like on the Night of the Plastic Stars. As soon as she spots me, she runs. Literally runs across the room to my side. Out of her mouth flies: “Any news?”

  The doctor clears his throat. “Are any of you the family of Álvaro Herrera?”

  I clear my throat in return. “Me. He’s my dad.”

  “How old are you, son?”

  “Seventeen.”

  A pause. “Are there any
adult family members present?”

  Ana steps in before I lose it. “Tom,” she says, because of course she knows this asshat. “I’m his guardian. Is there news?”

  Dr. Tom’s eyes flicker from Ana to me and back again.

  Why isn’t he saying anything?

  Speak, damn it! Speak!

  And he does.

  And the words infiltrate the air.

  And I take one step backward.

  And Álvaro’s gone.

  A SECOND THEORY ON DARK MATTER, BASED ON CURRENT OBSERVATIONS:

  It can consume the entire world.

  41.

  Linny

  WHO: Álvaro Herrera

  WHEN: Three years, then a day, then forever

  WHY: Alzheimer’s. Confusion. Loneliness. All the sad things.

  NOTES: I don’t think he’s coming back this time.

  Even after Ana and Sebastian return home, I stay one, two, three hours. Leaving makes it real. Leaving makes it over.

  Slumped on a waiting-room couch, I contemplate forever, because that’s what’s getting to me—not that Álvaro died, but that he died forever. A resurrection happening twice in one summer is highly unlikely.

  Hadn’t I been bracing myself for this? Yes and no. He was old, yes; he had an incurable disease, yes, but part of me still viewed him as invincible. All of me wanted him to be invincible.

  How long can I stay here? How long before reporters touch down like vultures on a fresh kill?

  Too many firsts tonight. I’ve never sneaked out in the middle of the night, never commandeered the family Volvo, never seen a boy cry right in front of me. It’s not the first time I’ve been in this hospital, though. I had a bone-breaking spree in the seventh grade: wrist, arm, and big toe in quick succession. (Blame it on soccer, which Mom insisted I play to showcase my well-roundedness.) Grace would try to sidetrack me from the pain, holding my face in her hands and demanding, “Hey, hey, look at me. Do not think about elephants,” and inevitably—for a few seconds, at least—I thought about elephants instead of my splintered bones.

  I would give anything for her to be here, for Álvaro to be here, for all of us to be thinking about elephants.

  The sun’s poking through palm trees by the time I peel myself off the couch. As I sag out of the hospital, my eyes wander across the emergency-room parking lot, and then in a jolt-to-the-heart kind of way, I realize I’m looking at Marla’s silver Honda—and Marla’s in it. Her hands are glued to the steering wheel, even though the car’s motionless. The way she’s crying and shaking, I’m surprised the car doesn’t move, surprised the continental United States doesn’t move.

  She sees me. For one shuddering moment, we lock eyes, and we are two people who’ve lost the same person—because it is a person who we’ve lost, not just a story in a journal.

  Mom and Dad jump all over me before I even turn my key in the lock. Mom’s in her monogrammed bathrobe, hair wet and tucked behind her ears. Dad looks uncharacteristically disheveled. He hasn’t even ironed his jeans. “Oh, thank God,” he says, pulling me inside. “You’re safe. Now we can ask where the hell you’ve been for the last four hours.” I’ve never heard his voice so strained. He’s angry, yes. But there’s another layer to it: fear. His face is beyond pale. “We thought you . . .,” he begins, but doesn’t finish.

  Thought I what? Disappeared like your first daughter? Guilt flutters through me like bats. I tell them to go find another cave.

  Mom sounds even worse—gravelly—like she’s been out-smoking Álvaro for the past eighty years. “I called everywhere,” she says, choking back a sob. “To think I’d wake up at two in the morning to see my child driving off! You know you’re not allowed to drive without our permission. And certainly not at two in the morning.” She leans in and attempts to catch a whiff of my breath, and I smell her sadness in return. Her nose twitches like a bomb-sniffing dog at the airport. “Have you been drinking?”

  “No,” I growl. Though, wobbly as I am, alcohol is the obvious assumption. “I’m going to bed,” I try to say, but the words emerge in a slow jumble: “I’m bed . . . going . . . to.”

  “Are you on drugs?” Mom exclaims, not fighting the tears any longer. “Or were you with that boy? That’s it, isn’t it? You were with that boy! If you end up pregnant—”

  I push between them and head toward the stairs.

  “Marilyn,” Dad says sternly to my back, “tell us what’s going on.”

  In the last four hours, I’ve changed. This girl standing in front of my parents is wilder, stormier, seems like she could light the room on fire. She’s sad and angry and tired of all this crap.

  It’s been two directors against one Camera Girl for too long.

  I begin with his name, Álvaro Herrera, but then I stop abruptly. Saying it feels too much like conjuring a ghost.

  “What?” Dad says.

  I try again. “Álvaro—he—it’s so weird, because I played dominoes with him a few weeks ago—but the hospital—I was at the hospital—we were friends—and then he was gone.”

  After a moment, Mom says, “Oh.”

  Dad takes a step toward me. His voice is noticeably softer than before. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Marilyn.”

  Mom wipes away a few tears from her eyes. “Me too. But that still doesn’t excuse sneaking out of the house at all hours of the night. You could’ve woken us up, told us what was going on.”

  I scoff. Actually scoff at my parents. “Could I? Could I really have done that?”

  “Don’t take that tone—” Mom begins.

  I bat back at her. “You just don’t get it, do you? I can’t say anything, in any tone, because I have no voice in this house. I can’t even—I can’t even breathe without asking your permission.”

  “That’s not true,” Mom says quietly.

  “Oh yes, it is! God. I don’t even want to be a doctor!”

  The room, the house, the world shakes. This is what I’ve been avoiding all summer. For your entire life, Linny.

  Mom laughs the saddest laugh. “Of course you do.”

  “That’s what you want, not me.” I say it forcefully, clearly articulating each word. “And Grace didn’t want it, either.”

  Jeez, this girl is a forest fire. Where has she been for the last sixteen years?

  I’m tired of being stuck in black and white, of hiding in my closet instead of being out in the world, of downplaying how much I want to be me—the true me, not some cardboard cutout of the girl my parents want. Maybe it’s time to flip around the camera, take a good look at myself. Maybe it’s time to stop being one leg of a tripod and start standing on my own.

  Is this how Grace felt?

  Clearly, Mom and Dad are stunned. Mom’s hand flies to her mouth, then migrates to the rest of her face, patting it, perhaps checking to see if she’s dreaming, while Dad hangs his head—in worry, disappointment, disgrace?

  Dis-grace. I have become like her.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” I say, already halfway up the stairs, “I’d like to be alone.”

  THE LEFT-BEHINDS (SCENE 17, CONTINUED)

  GRACE swipes a tear from her cheek.

  The beach feels very quiet and still.

  GRACE

  (barely audible)

  I don’t think you need them.

  LINNY

  What?

  GRACE

  Wings. You never needed them.

  LINNY

  (exasperated)

  Then how am I supposed to fly after you?

  GRACE

  (gently)

  What if you aren’t supposed to?

  LINNY

  But everything feels so—so—I don’t know. Colorless. It’s like you’ve taken all of it with you.

  GRACE blinks once. Laughs.

  GRACE

  Then I guess you aren’t looking very hard.

  42.

  Sebastian

  “It is thought by some that, 13 billion years ago, the universe underwent a dramat
ic change. The fog cleared, allowing in ultraviolet light. What may have caused this alteration is unknown—but its impact is abundantly evident.” A Brief Compendium of Astrophysical Curiosities, p. 189

  When my abuelo died, neighbors swamped us with lasagna. Meat lasagna, vegetable lasagna, tofu lasagna. This is different. A quarter of Miami knows Álvaro died—all the major Latino news stations are flashing his face across the TV—but no one knows to bring us lasagna.

  For two days, Ana keeps asking me if I’m okay.

  Translation: how does it feel?

  On my eleventh birthday, Mom gave me an iguana. I named him Mr. Spock and spent two months’ allowance buying him a plastic igloo and miniature palm trees for his cage. Three days after my birthday, I woke up to find him belly-up. Little iguana legs stiff. Eyes forever open.

  It feels like that.

  Only a billion times worse.

  And rationalizing the biological aspects behind it doesn’t help. Yeah, yeah, I understand the cycle of life. From ashes to ashes. All that shit. But how can someone die when everything between you is even more unsettled than it was before? How can someone die when you just realized you love them? If you don’t know if they love you back?

  At the beginning of the summer, I had a three-step plan:

  Step 1: Fly from LA to Miami.

  Step 2: Get to know my father.

  Step 3: Glue all my broken pieces back together.

  I did the steps, but mission not accomplished.

  Words, still inside me.

  Pieces, still broken.

  I think the only person more obliterated by Álvaro’s death is Mom. I called her the morning after it happened, my throat Sahara dry.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, and I told her. For the next sixty seconds she didn’t say a word, just sobbed quietly into the receiver. Then, in a spluttering voice: “I’m so-so-so sorry, Sebastian. For everything. For not telling you.”

  “I could’ve handled it,” I said, 100 percent positive it wasn’t the truth.