by Julia Swift
“Did he see Dad? Did he try to help him escape?”
“He couldn’t have, there were too many people watching. One of the captors was injured and so a doctor was called. Turns out, the doctor spoke English. He had studied medicine at U-Penn. Philadelphia was their connection.”
“Did Dad give him a message? He must’ve tried.”
“There were always people around, he could only talk for a few seconds. He told your father he should say what they wanted him to say on camera, it would make it easier to be released. Your dad refused, he was not going to be told what to say or write. Ever.”
“The doctor helped him, right? I mean, he knew they were beating him to death.”
A lady and her tennis partner picking up their caffeine jolt stare at me.
“He couldn’t do anything. He’d be branded a traitor and shot.”
Someone actually had the chance to help, but didn’t. I want to throw the table across the room.
“Two days later, your father was moved again.”
“I’m glad he got away from that useless doctor.”
“Americans were moving into the area, trying to secure it. The rebels had to retreat, make sure no one could find him. This goes on two, three times. Your father’s more and more disorientated by this point.”
“The doctor saw him again?”
“No, it was the owner of the last place he was hidden who told me.”
“Another murderer.”
“He had no choice. He either hid your father or they killed his family. That’s how it is for a lot of people. The Afghanis do what they have to in order to survive. The next day the Americans caught the rebels by surprise, and in the chaos, there wasn’t time to move your father. That’s when they killed him.”
I’m nauseous. I don’t want to hear more, but I do.
“After the rebels fled, the owner was afraid if the Americans found him with your father’s body, he’d be arrested. But he also worried about your father not having a proper burial. For that to happen, he knew it was important your father be found. He waited until the middle of the night, then he went out and left your father in a spot where he would be discovered.”
“Don’t lie to me. I saw the pictures on the Internet. He was bruised, naked, left like an animal.”
“Beggars came by in the middle of the night and stole his clothes. I’m really sorry you saw that. It’s awful over there.”
I’m completely numb. My hot chocolate is cold.
“How are you feeling?”
“I better get this to Griff, he’ll be wondering what happened to me.”
Before I can get away, Bill hugs me. You know the kind of hug that a parent gives where they pat you on the back, maybe throw in a couple of rubs, thinking it’ll make you feel better. After what he just told me, there’s no chance that’ll happen. I don’t know what I expected to hear when he first told me he had news about my dad. Yes, I always fantasized about how Dad must’ve struggled to escape like three or four or a 100 times, or about how there would have been some final message Dad wanted me to hear, some nugget of ultimate truth.
As we walk back home, I realize Bill didn’t have to go to Afghanistan. He also didn’t have to talk to me. Talking to him now was the first time since Dad died I was allowed to ask questions, talk about it in a way I know Mom can’t. But that still doesn’t get him off the hook for going after Mom. Or does it? Maybe he’s not interested in her, maybe it was more that she can talk to him in a way that she can’t with people around here. Imagine being at work at the jewelry store in the mall and suddenly mentioning to your co-worker that you lost your husband in Afghanistan. Since we live so close to an Air Force base, lots of families have lost loved ones, too. But all they want to remember is how their son or cousin fought for our country. Dad wasn’t fighting for America. He was trying to find the truth.
Bill and I enter the house. In my room, I find Griff sitting on my bed, all packed up, playing a game on his phone.
“Hey, have you played Night Vision Battle Three yet?”
I hear grunts and groans of pain coming from the game. I can’t play war games. I don’t get how that’s fun anymore.
*
Griff and I head outside where Bill throws his bag in the trunk of the rental car. Mom watches from the steps.
“Will, anytime you want to talk, give me a holler. Okay kiddo?”
Bill tries to give me another hug. No way, not in front of the school. We shake. He approaches Mom.
“It was great to see you in your new place.”
“Thanks for coming on short notice. And good luck patching things up with Michele.”
Michele? His ex-wife. He’s definitely not going after Mom.
“Have a safe flight.”
Bill and Griff drive away.
“Straighten up your room before you go to school.”
“I thought I didn’t have to go today?”
Mom heads off to work. I check my e-mail and phone. Nothing from Sasha, but there’s an e-mail from Amber.
Will – I stopped by your locker first thing, but heard you were out sick. Don’t worry if I come down with the same thing, I won’t be too mad.
Everyone at school is still talking about what happened to you at the game store. Get me a draft of the story by tomorrow, we’ll publish it this week.
P.S. I had fun last night.
P.P.S. Your crying article ran today. Boy, did I misjudge you...
Oh no. Totally forgot about that one. I never got a chance to explain to Sasha about the fake tears. Is she going to think everything about me is a lie?
I start to write Amber a quick, impersonal e-mail telling her I can’t get her a draft, but then I see like 30 e-mails with my name in the subject header. I open one of them, click on a link to a webpage where my picture’s been uploaded and completely trashed, someone’s added crying noises, a diaper and fake tears cascading down the page.
The more I think about it, working on the game store article sounds like a much better idea than cleaning my room or going to school and dealing with Sasha.
*
I exit the train in Pacoima. I try to give directions to a guy who looks lost, pointing him toward his destination. He curses at me.
I arrive at the run-down apartment. When I knock on the door, no one answers. Sitting on the stoop of a building across the street, I wait from a safe distance in case Carlos comes home first. Today I don’t have backup. I jot down descriptions of the neighborhood, what I can remember from inside the game store. In the middle of writing, I look up and Ricky is walking toward me.
“Heard you were looking for me.”
I’m confused for a split second, then I spy Scar Boy watching from his window.
“I’m writing this article, and I thought it’d only be fair to get your side of the story.”
“Like an interview?”
“Yeah.”
“Not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna put anything in there that could identify you.”
“Guess it can’t hurt since print is pretty much dead. You want power, you need to invest in video equipment. People believe what they can see and hear.”
We walk around the corner and toward the train station, stopping at a Mexican pastry shop.
“Best donuts in L.A.”
I don’t believe him until I bite into a powdered donut with real strawberry filling on one side and butter cream on the other. He watches me scarf every crumb.
“My mom used to buy them on her way home from work in the morning.”
“Must’ve sucked having her gone at night.”
“Yeah, but she was mostly home when I was. She slept when I was at school, was around until I went to bed, and then one of the neighbors would stay with me at night, make sure I didn’t burn the place down.”
“You got a lot to burn in there.”
“She can’t throw anything away, never sure if she’ll have the money to get it agai
n.”
Does my mom do that now? I thought we were downsizing, but the house is pretty jam-packed with stuff. Is her stuff expanding?
“Sometimes when she’s not looking, I take a couple of things to a friend’s place, he has a stand at the Rose Bowl.”
“The football stadium?”
“They have a swap meet once a month and he sells whatever I give him. Then when she’s not looking, I slip the cash into her wallet.”
“Is this friend the same guy who was with you in the game store?”
“No. That guy, he sees no reason to ever leave Pacoima. He has his boys here.”
“You mean family? Brothers?”
“Yeah, but not by blood. Blood doesn’t mean as much to him as amigos do. His Dad was old-school. You did something wrong, he really beat it into you, never to do it again. He was always at my place. Kids didn’t want to come over because we had to be quiet so we didn’t wake up my mom. But he liked to hang out where it was quiet.”
“He’s the neighbor who took care of you?”
“Mom wanted to give him money, but didn’t have any. Didn’t bother him, just being able to stay there was enough. Sometimes even when she was home, he still crashed on the couch. I think she liked that there was another guy in the house, like a big brother.”
“He looked out for you, so now you look out for him.”
“Right.”
“Like the day of the robbery?”
Ricky tells me about Carlos robbing the family next door, how Scar Boy got his scar, why he feels like he should protect his big brother.
“How long do you plan on putting yourself in danger to protect him?”
“You got your story. So why do you care? You, Sasha – you’re safe. Back in your perfect world with your big houses and happy families.”
36
Sasha
I couldn’t wait to go to school today. Not to see Will or Lisa, but to sit in class and listen to the teachers and not have to talk, not have to act. After sneaking back into the house, I didn’t sleep well last night and when I woke up, my mom was looking at me as if she knew. I’m pretty sure I didn’t scream in my sleep. If I had, she’d have woken me like she usually does when my nightmares grab hold of me. Maybe she was standing outside my door making sure I was breathing. She hasn’t done that in a few months. She did that when I first got home from the hospital, like moms do with newborn babies. I thought I hated it, the invasion of privacy, but maybe it made me sleep easier. I’m pretty sure I’d sleep easier if she was listening at night now, but I can’t ask.
I haven’t had a full, deep breath since last night when Carlos came after me. If I was sure she wouldn’t call my mom, I would go to the school nurse. Maybe a day of sitting in classes, being my old self, can help me breath again.
I avoid the lawn at lunch. That’s where everyone hangs out to talk and eat, and I need to sit and think. I walk down the steps of the main building, all the way down to the bottom floor and find a corner and sit, alone. I have 50 minutes to finish my math homework. No problem. I whiz through the questions and figure out the extra credit. They make it hard assuming no one will get it, but I needed it today. I need the pat on the head from the teacher, good little Sasha. I need to recognize myself again.
The bell rings and kids flood the hall, even down here. I take a deep breath. I’m not ready to go up the steps and deal with people, but I have to if I want the pat on the head I know awaits me.
I spot a picture of myself on a classmate’s tablet as they read The Spectator on the stairs. I back up and look over her shoulder. Written by Will Decker. There I am, along with other people from the mini-mart. The article is about how people react to guys who cry. It says he put hot sauce in his eyes to make his tears flow. So everything he said from moment one was a lie. And everyone knows he duped me. Not that they didn’t already know last night at the party. Amber’s the editor of the paper. She knew all along. She could have said something, not that we’re friends, not that I would have listened if she tried to talk to me.
After school I head straight home. I stay far on the inside of the sidewalk, away from the cars and the eyes of the other kids.
At home, I grab a soda and some chips and rush to my room. I jump on my bed and pull up the blanket. I try taking a deep breath, sure it will work now, but no, air still won’t make it into my lungs. My mom enters. Did she see me struggling to breathe?
She doesn’t say anything, only looks at me in my bed with my chips, soda and schoolbooks all around me.
“Anything wrong?”
“Nope.”
“You look pale.”
She rests the back of her hand on my forehead.
“You feel clammy.”
I do? Is that a sign of a heart attack? Can heart attacks last 20 hours?
I have to control my thoughts, she’s staring at me hard trying to read them.
“Today’s Tuesday.”
“And?”
“The support group meets today.”
“Good for them.”
Mom sits next to me on the bed.
“Take a deep breath.”
No. I don’t have to say that out loud, she can see it in my face.
“Take a deep breath and you don’t have to go.”
Why? That’s not fair. I shake my head no. How come she always knows when something’s wrong? I hate that.
“I’m fine. If you just leave me alone, I can finish my homework and I’ll be fine.”
“Then tell me this, why have you gone out everyday after school since your accident, but today you want to hide in your bed?”
“Not everyday.”
“You think I haven’t noticed your little plan? Go out, live life, conquer your fear. If you had talked to me, I would have let you do more. It’s only natural after what you’ve been through to go through stages like this.”
Don’t parents know anytime they try to categorize our behavior as a stage we zone out?
“Like your pre-menopausal obsession with makeup?”
“Yes.”
That was mean. I’m sorry, but I can’t say so now. Without thinking, I try to take a breath and it gets stuck. She sees.
“It’s either group therapy or we get you checked out by the doctor, at the hospital.”
I can’t go back to the hospital and she knows it.
“You can’t go through life afraid of everything.”
“Worked pretty well for 15 years.”
“Maybe, but you won’t have a life if you can’t breathe. So come on, we’re going.”
I follow her downstairs and out to the pickup truck. I step in, but then I really can’t breathe. I open the window.
*
This time I’m the first one there. The grandmother stares at me, worried, as she enters. What’s with her? Then the guy who could only stare at my chest last time comes in, takes one look at me and sits as far away as possible. The freakishly thin guy tries not to look at me, but when the bored woman comes in, she stares right at me, smiling as if to say this is finally going to be interesting. I have no idea what they think they’re seeing. I’m just sitting here.
The therapist takes her seat, unaware of the commotion. She opens her note pad and starts.
“Okay, who would –”
She stops when she looks up and sees me. She rushes to my side.
“Sasha, breathe.”
I am, at least as much breath as I’ve been getting for the last 24 hours.
“Should I call an ambulance?”
The bored woman wants more drama.
“No.”
I’m not going back to the hospital. I’m not getting hooked up to all the machines so I can’t move with an I.V. in my hand they say doesn’t hurt, but it does. Now I’m breathing so loud it sounds like I’m panting. I’m embarrassed so I stop.
“Sasha, I won’t call an ambulance if you work with me. Try to breathe, slowly. In out.”
“Count to five.”
I’m not coun
ting, but everyone else in the group is and it’s helping, a little. I can feel my fingers again. I hadn’t even noticed I couldn’t feel them before.
“Count to five out loud.”
“One-two-three-four-five.”
“Slower. And tell me what happened.”
“Nothing.”
“Oh please.”
That was the freakishly thin guy, and I’d like to shove him onto a Ferris wheel 40 feet off the ground and shake it right now. I listened to him last time, and not just pretended, really listened.
“Forget about them, talk to me. What happened? Did you have a fight with your mom?”
“No.”
“Shouldn’t we tell her Mom? She’s a minor, aren’t you liable?”
The bored woman is hoping to be a witness in my therapist’s trial for murdering me by denying medical help.
“She’s talking, she’s breathing.”
I guess the grandmother’s right. But I still feel like my heart is trying to squeeze any oxygen it’s getting out to the rest of my body in painful spasms.
“I couldn’t sleep last night.”
“We’ll get back to that, but what happened right now, on your way here, maybe in the car? Did it remind you of your accident?”
“It’s the pickup truck, the same truck. My mom asked if it was okay if they kept the pickup I had the accident in because they couldn’t afford to get a new one. And I said yes, it was fine. And it was, fine.”
“But you’ve been in that truck for months. What’s different now?”
“It wasn’t me in the truck. It was the other me, the new girl. She doesn’t care about the accident. But now it’s me again.”
Okay, I know that sounded crazy, but they’re all crazy, too, right?
“So how did it feel today?”
Isn’t she going to ask me about the old-me new-me stuff? Did she miss the crazy part?
“It smelled like blood. Like my blood. And I kept seeing the frame crushing in on me.”
“And you didn’t tell your mom?”
“I didn’t want her to worry.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Aren’t they supposed to understand?
“Let’s talk about the accident.”