“Now, some honor roll guy might try to tell you
the names of the constellations.” He laughs.
“But you know me better than that, Daisy-brains.”
“Do I?” The question flickers from my lips.
“You know I’d never try some line on you.”
“No, you just trek me along a dark beach
until my feet are soaked!”
My giggle turns into a nervous shudder.
What I do know
is being here with Dave has managed to let me forget
my music school applications, my parents, Steven.
I’ve been following the music of the moment,
immersed in the exhilarating, terrifying improvisation
that is me tonight.
“Sorry about that.” Dave jumps off the picnic top.
I worry that time will start again. But no.
He slips off my Keds and sets them on the bench,
rubs my damp feet with his hands,
shrugs out of his dark hoodie
and wraps it around my naked toes.
“Aren’t you cold?”
I feel his answer
in the electricity that ripples through my body
as Dave lies down beside me on the rough tabletop.
He tangles his fingers into my hair,
turns my face toward his.
His kiss is softer than before.
This time, I push my lips against his,
relax the strong, controlled muscles of my face.
He exhales warm breath that curls around my cheeks.
I sigh, wanting only more,
more kisses that aren’t just dreams.
Dave reaches under my fleece,
toying with the waistband of my jeans.
Then his hands move higher,
sliding along my stomach, over my breast.
He sighs with a strange urgency,
and I feel a mixture of want and fear
as I close my eyes to the stars above us.
64
“Miller? Miller! Where the . . . ?”
Josh Belden is hollering from the shore.
“You’re my ride, man!”
“Keep your shit together.
I’ll be right there.” Dave sits up, shaking his head.
In the dark, I feel myself blush,
scramble to fix my fleece, reach for my shoes.
“Where is my other . . . ?”
Dave pulls his lighter from his pocket.
The small flame guides us to my left Ked,
fallen beneath the table.
“Let’s go.”
He takes my hand
and guides me back through the dark with such ease
I wonder how many girls have made this walk with him.
Right now, I don’t care.
My body is alive with feeling,
not thought, not plans, not worries.
I cannot make out Belden’s expression in the dark,
don’t know
if it’s surprise or maybe a quick congrats to Dave
for getting some from the trumpet girl.
“My car’s just up there.”
I turn away, the good girl in me afraid
that any more time with Dave
would certainly turn up the movie rating.
Blushing as I realize I don’t think I would mind.
“Hey, wait.” Dave pulls me back,
brushes his lips over mine.
“Uh, thanks,” I say,
now certain that being kissed that way has not made me
less stupid.
“See ya, Daisy.” Belden waves.
He and Dave get into the Fiesta.
In the Subaru, I clip my hair back into a ponytail,
don’t bother to check the time before I start the ignition.
65
Into silence so pure I can hear well-oiled hinges sigh
as the front door swings open, I creep
down the empty hall.
Is anyone in this house?
Have Mom and Dad already spirited Steven away?
No, they are sitting side by side on the living room couch, eyes furious.
“Do you know what time it is?”
Dad’s icy voice splinters the stillness.
“We called Justine. She said you left hours ago.
She’s on a date, but she said for you to call as soon . . .”
Mom clutches wads of tissues in each hand;
her skin is splotched from scrubbing at tears.
“Margaret-Mary Meehan. We were so worried!”
“Don’t you think we have enough on our hands
without you pulling something like this?”
Dad smacks his palms against his knees, stands up,
stalks to the stairs.
“Where were you?” Mom whispers.
They shouldn’t want my answer.
Anywhere but here.
Making out with a boy.
Somewhere I could make time stand still.
Beneath my fleece and jeans,
my skin is hot with the memory of Dave’s touch.
More intoxicated by my fleeting taste of freedom
than if I’d drunk a gallon of that disgusting beer.
I am flying above responsibility, above guilt.
My chilled fingers wad to fists.
“Oh, sorry, Mom.
Were you and Dad wanting to go out tonight?
Did I leave you without a babysitter?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Her thin hands tremble as she wipes her eyes again.
“What do you mean, then?” I ask,
but don’t stay to hear the answer.
In the hallway, I pull my phone from my bag,
text Justine: “Home safe.
Sorry if my mom freaked u out.
More in the morning.”
My purple feet squish in my ruined shoes
as I follow my father’s path up the stairs.
66
My parents haven’t tried to bring Steven to church
in months of Sundays, long ago abandoning any notion
that faith could guide them to cure, or acceptance,
or even the ability to forgive themselves
for the life we live.
Now, from my bedroom window, I watch them,
Dad guiding Steven by the arm, ignoring
his repeated attempts to shrug out of blazer and tie;
Mom smiling, trying to keep her movements calm.
Even after the car has been out of sight a long time
I still stand before the glass,
my hair wet from a long shower
that didn’t quite manage to rinse away
the inky evidence of last night—
a memory that makes me shiver, makes me want.
67
“Justine’s coming for dinner,” Mom says
the second my family comes through the door.
“I invited her at church.”
“Seriously, Mom?”
I press my pale, purple feet
against the metal rungs of the kitchen barstool.
“What if Steven . . . ?”
“Dad will be here.
It might be nice for you to have some company.”
She opens her mouth
as if to say something more,
but her lips just close.
She goes to the fridge,
starts pulling out salad greens, lemons,
while I imagine the bitter taste of her unspo
ken words,
some promise about how, soon, invitations to friends
won’t have to be planned
around the availability of protection.
Another ironic magnet on Mom’s refrigerator is the old saw,
“If life gives you lemons . . .”
But what if you cannot divide your life
between the sour and the sweet?
What if you kiss a boy you loved as a child
but can no longer name the emotions you feel
as you press into his lips,
let his hot fingers roam, drink in only the desire
to lose yourself in anyone else?
What if the elation that fills your heart when you think
of not having to care for your brother
also stops it beating entirely—
from grief? From guilt?
From some other emotion you don’t know how to name?
“I don’t need company.”
I stalk past the family room
where Dad has planted Steven, now watching cartoons;
tiptoe up the stairs to my room,
where the history book open on my desk confronts me.
Are all people “created equal”?
Do they have equal rights to freedom?
Thanks, A-PUSH Civil War unit,
you blasted annoying class,
for shining a light on these questions that,
whether framed by race, religion, or ability
to communicate, seem reflected in Lincoln’s words.
I’ve learned about men whose sons and brothers died fighting for the Union.
Yet while they mourned, they were still opposed
to freeing the slaves,
could believe nothing more than that their loved ones
died in vain.
Who should sacrifice freedom so others can be free?
I doubt those early Americans ever imagined a scenario
of a family enslaved by a boy
who is himself a prisoner of his own mind.
What might freedom be for Steven?
Before my parents send him away, I want my brother
to tell me what he wants.
Like I want things I see on television movies,
where actors find resolutions that real people never see.
68
My phone buzzes.
“Ned asked me to the Black-and-White Dance!”
Justine texts.
“With pink flowers?” I text back.
“Hee-hee. Tell u more at dinner.”
I hesitate before typing my reply.
“You don’t have to come tonight. I’ll understand.”
There is no beat before her words fly back. “I’m coming!”
I dare anyone to try to tell me Justine isn’t brave.
I close the history book,
imagine choosing the blue or the gray uniform
of a Northern or Southern Civil War soldier—
simple, subdued colors that spoke volumes,
pitted brother against brother.
My heart weeps for those long dead,
those broken families,
as the ghostly Mason-Dixon Line
that divides my family’s house
from the rest of Jasper,
from school, from melody,
rises with sudden clarity in my mind.
I wonder if my parents see it?
If Justine feels her feet stepping over it
when she dares cross our threshold?
Whether Steven’s tripping gait as he makes his way
down our front walkway
is a struggle with this border?
There’s a track on Miles Davis’s iconic album
called “Blue in Green.”
I blast it through my earbuds, straining to find
in the trumpet’s probing, rising-and-fading,
dissolving-and-emerging trail
over the piano’s soft chords, bass’s warm thrum,
a path to join black and white—
to envision a world that doesn’t have two sides.
Is there a way to tear down the fence, mend the divide between
daughter and parents,
autistic and “normal,”
silence and music,
home and life?
69
I don’t come downstairs until our softly modified
doorbell rings,
announcing the arrival of Justine.
We eat sautéed shrimp over capellini pasta, on square
blue plates Mom found at an Italian import store
that almost perfectly match
the tiles in the kitchen backsplash.
Dad tops off Mom’s wine.
I watch jealously.
I am cold sober as the pebbles on the bottom of a lake,
pushed and pulled by a current,
not responsible for their direction
or if they bruise the soles of some barefoot girl
walking, jeans rolled up,
beside some boy.
Late-afternoon sun fills the room with a surreal haze.
Justine and I clink our water goblets, twist our forks
through strands of boiled semolina, tender seafood,
while Steven eats his room-temp macaroni and cheese;
and the words from our mouths are about
the gorgeous colors of the fall leaves,
the “we never make it to the lake enough in summer”
that makes me think again of Dave.
70
Do they not care where I was last night?
I am still waiting for an inquisition at least as intense
as when I ask to borrow twenty dollars;
some kind of admonishment, or punishment,
as if I weren’t a third adult in this house
but the actual teen that I am.
The one time that maybe they would be right
to stop me . . . they don’t.
Instead, Dad leads Steven to the family room television
while Justine and I help with the dishes.
And the only question Mom asks is,
“Do you girls want dessert?”
“Oh, that’s all right, Mrs. Meehan,” Justine says.
“Yeah,” I add hurriedly.
I don’t want Mom to thank Justine for coming over,
say she understands her nervousness.
I’m not ready for anyone to know
my parents’ new plan for Steven.
“It’s still early.
I was thinking Justine and I could go to the mall.”
“That’s a half-hour drive. Don’t you have to practice trumpet later?” Mom says.
“Suddenly, you want to involve yourself in my practice schedule? You haven’t even asked me
where I was last night!”
I throw the dish towel onto the countertop,
grab the Subaru keys from the hook by the refrigerator.
“Let’s go.”
Justine’s eyes widen, but she goes to get her coat.
I don’t turn around to check my mother’s expression,
like I didn’t turn around
after I told Dave I couldn’t go to The Movie House.
71
“Are we really going to the mall?” Justine asks
as I idle at the four-way stop
where Broad Street crosses Main.
“It’s probably too far.” I think guiltily of my trumpet,
despite the scene I made at home.
I drive past Bouchard’s and d
own the steep hill
to Jasper’s humble downtown:
a block-long strip featuring a grocery store, a gas station,
the town library,
and a surprisingly large Walgreens.
“Let’s go here.”
We pass Ashleigh Anderson and our Evergreen Wolves quarterback exiting as we enter.
As contrary as we are proud, Jasper folks enjoy a bargain
as much as they dislike a chain store.
The result: Sunday shopping at Walgreens is so common
I am surprised
not to see half of my class wandering the aisles.
“So . . . this is just a little retail therapy.”
Justine gives me one of her
if-she-wasn’t-my-best-friend-I’d-think-she-was-angry
“fess up” looks.
“It’s been a long week.” I try not to sound too dark,
too selfish. “You never finished telling me
what happened with Ned.”
Our heads bent together,
since you never know who’s in the next Walgreens aisle,
she whispers, “He said he knew the dance wasn’t until
next month, but he had such a great time at dinner
and . . . I told him yes.
Oh, and that I was glad he asked early,
so I have plenty of time to shop for a dress!”
I should be happy for her, but all I can wonder
The Sound of Letting Go Page 10