by Sarah Ockler
“I’ll get that, Jayne.” Red jumps to his feet, eager to prevent a complete meltdown.
Aunt Jayne waves his hand away. “Can’t we just have one normal dinner together as a family, please?”
She’s still unpredictable. Some days she clings to the word normal like it’s the big orange life raft that will save the family from despair. “Normal” people go on summer vacations. “Normal” people eat dinner together. “Normal” people do not spill soda on the floor or have dead children.
Other days, it’s like now. Like Matt just died all over again. Jayne took it harder than anyone, and right after the funeral, she basically locked herself in her room for weeks, barely eating, not talking. Mom and I were over there all the time last summer waiting for the day she’d finally come out of her room. After a while, she did. She went as far as Matt’s room, where she sat on his bed and smelled the clothes he’d left there on his last day, never washing them or changing anything in there. A few months later, we were all having dinner when Uncle Red suggested they donate some of Matt’s books and clothes. I tried to imagine what it would be like to see someone else in his clothes, like we’d be standing in line at the grocery store and suddenly, Hey, isn’t that Matt? No, it’s just the neighbor who bought Matt’s shirt, buying applesauce and English muffins for his mother. I couldn’t bear it. Apparently, neither could Aunt Jayne. Without answering, she got up from the table and retreated to her room. She didn’t speak again for days, not even to my mom, her best friend. It was like Matt’s death was about to swallow them all up like a big, sad whale, leaving behind a house full of sympathy flowers, chicken casseroles, and ghosts.
“Sorry, Mom,” Frankie says. Her voice is a whisper. “It was an accident.”
Jayne sighs, mopping up a spill that’s no longer there. “It’s fine, Frankie. Just try to be careful. This trip is hard enough without —”
“Hard enough?” Frankie suddenly finds her voice, shouting at her mother below the table. “I’m not the one who planned this — this — prepottemous vacation!”
Preposterous, Frankie. Preposterous.
Jayne is stunned as she rises from the floor, but she presses on, tears in her eyes as well as her voice. “I’m sorry, Frank, but you’re not the only one hurting here.”
Uncle Red seems frozen at the end of the table, powerless to stop the mother-daughter breakdown happening before us. I’m afraid to look anywhere but my empty plate.
Frankie slams her chair against the table and stomps out of the kitchen. Never leaving the last word to chance, she tosses a casual “Bitch!” over her shoulder and disappears upstairs.
“That went well.” Aunt Jayne wipes her hands on a dish towel and takes the same route as Frankie, slamming her bedroom door.
After a few moments of silence, me still looking at my plate, Uncle Red moves to clear the table and apologizes.
“This trip, we just thought — ah, forget it. I don’t know what to say, Anna. I’m sorry.” He crinkles his eyebrows to keep his own tears back. It’s really bad when dads cry. My whole life I’ve only seen my dad cry twice — once in the hospital and then at Matt’s funeral. No matter what Matt and my dad said — dads are supposed to be the strong ones. That’s probably why Red has so many lines on his forehead. All the hurt goes up there to hide.
He apologizes again and excuses himself upstairs, leaving me alone in the kitchen with the big, sad whale.
What are you cryin’ about? the whale asks. He wasn’t your brother.
I wait until there’s no sound coming from upstairs before heading up with my best-friend face to find Frankie. When I don’t see her in the yellow room with the twin beds — the room she always had as a kid and would be sharing with me on this trip — I know there’s only one place she can be. I walk to the end of the hall farthest from Red and Jayne’s room and open the old oak door that Jayne asked us not to disturb, heading up the narrow stairs to the attic room.
Frankie is facedown on the double bed, crying quietly into the soft white pillows where her brother slept every summer but the last. Hours earlier, she was at Breeze, larger than life with her virgin piña colada and freshly applied mascara. Now, hiding in the blue-gray room with its dusty ocean view, she’s a pale, broken flower that makes my heart hurt.
I wish more than anything that Matt was here, that he was laughing with us in his old attic room, that it was all some big mix-up at the hospital like when they give people the wrong babies.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Perino? This is Peg over at Mercy General. I was shredding some old files and found some discrepancies. Yes, you know how these things happen. In any case, about a year ago, due to a paperwork snafu, we inadvertently gave you someone else’s bad news. Turns out Phillip was the one who died, not Matt. Matt’s been living with a family in Toledo. Yes, I’ve called them, too. They are flying Matt home tomorrow. No hard feelings, right? You know how these things happen. Buh-bye.”
I put my hand on Frankie’s back until the sobs go quiet and her breathing becomes long and even.
An hour later, we hear Red and Jayne head downstairs and out the front door, closing themselves in the car and setting out down the long driveway. Certain the house is empty, Frankie and I scrounge the kitchen for something to eat.
“I can’t believe she just freaked out like that,” Frankie says, pulling a fresh Diet Coke from the fridge. “And Dad didn’t even say anything!”
“I don’t think he knew what to say, Frank.”
“I think they’re gonna split.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Like, tonight?”
“No. I mean split up. Divorce.”
“What are you talking about? Your parents are fine. They’re just adjusting to the first night back since — well, it’s just hard for them.” And you.
“Please,” she says above the shhhhhp of her soda can opening. “At home, they don’t even sleep in the same room anymore.”
“But I’ve seen them.”
Frankie shakes her head. “They say good night and close the door, but Dad sneaks down to the den when he thinks we’re asleep. As if I can’t see what’s going on.”
Fear and sadness squeeze my insides as I replay my recent overnights with the Perinos like a movie, scrutinizing every frame in slow motion for a hole in the plot. Red put his hand on Jayne’s knee the night they told us about going back to California. Did she wince? I’ve seen them close the bedroom door as they wished us good night. Now I imagine them getting into their fake bed together. Lying next to each other, backs turned, careful not to let a pinky toe touch the other’s leg, waiting for us to fall asleep so they can stop the show.
I shake the image from my mind, feeling like I’ve barged into a room of adults engaged in Serious Conversation Not Meant for Young Ears.
There was a time when I thought Red and Jayne wouldn’t make it — right after Matt died. They’d been married for twenty years, but in just two days they forgot why. They barely spoke to each other — even when my parents and I were around. An all-out fight would have been better than the silence that engulfed them, but it didn’t come — not then. Quiet tension settled into the Perino house like drying cement.
A month passed, and they stayed together. Three months. Then six. His birthday. Christmas. Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. The first anniversary, just a couple of months ago. Talking. Eating together. Laughing sometimes. Every smile or joke starting a tiny crack in the concrete encasing them.
“But your parents are different, Frankie. I thought they — I mean, how come you never —” I can’t find the words to complete my sentence. Frankie sighs and traces the lip of her soda can, broken eyebrow hunkered protectively over her left eye, holding back the tears.
“The last time we were all in Zanzibar,” she says, “I didn’t get it.” Her voice is far away and thin, like a ghost howling from another dimension. It doesn’t matter that I’m right next to her — I could walk away and she’d keep talking.
“He was older,” she says
, playing with her bracelet. “I didn’t see the things he saw. I didn’t love the things he loved. I just didn’t get it, Anna. I thought I’d have more time. I thought he’d —”
Frankie has her reasons for not talking about Matt, and forgetting about them — even momentarily — is too much. She folds her arms around herself and sobs. I move closer, put my arms around her, and let go. Together we weep like we did in the weeks following the accident — big, shuddering sobs that claw their way out from the places inside where the light went out over a year ago.
I don’t know how much time passes, me and Frankie sitting without words, heads pressed together, short and synchronized breaths, but when we come out of our sad-trance, the soda is warm.
Frankie lifts her head slowly and wipes her eyes. I push her matted hair from her face.
“Hi.” She exhales. Her face is pale, eyes puffy, but that voodoo magic smile is waking up around the corners of her mouth.
“How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” I say.
Frankie laughs. “Eating and crying. What’s not to love?”
“Exactly.” I squeeze her hand.
Outside, headlights roll across the lawn, announcing Red and Jayne’s ascent up the long driveway. Frankie and I drop our soda cans into the sink and head upstairs before her parents get inside, anxious to put this evening behind us. We change quickly, crawl into our matching twin beds, turn off the bedside lamps, and pull the sheets up to our chins.
Once Frankie’s asleep, my best-friend superstrength disappears. My breathing shatters, tears blur the stars in the overhead skylight, and all the old ghosts I tried to leave home float like dandelion seed wishes into our room.
ten
Frankie snores lightly beneath her yellow quilt, and I am consumed with thoughts of Matt. Of the first kiss. The shooting stars. The stolen looks over the family dinner table. Texting me quotes from his favorite books in the middle of the night. His hand brushing my cheek when no one was watching. The smell of his skin as he leaned in front of me to pay for our ice cream that last day at Custard’s.
If I’d known he was going to die, my last words to him would have meant something. They certainly wouldn’t have been my out-of-tune attempt at singing that old Grateful Dead song he loved so much. No, I would have told him how I felt about him, straight out. No more flirting, wild-eyed whispers in the grass outside. I would have looked at him harder to ensure his image was permanently seared in my mind. I’d have asked him a million more things so I could remember what mattered before I got in the car on the way home from Custard’s. Because after, nothing mattered.
We didn’t even have a chance to label it. Whatever it was we’d become in the last month before his death will remain a mystery. I could never ask out loud. I wondered alone in my bed at night what would happen if he met someone else at Cornell, or if Frankie freaked out about us and he decided it wasn’t worth it. But when you’re in the middle of being in love with someone, you just don’t stop to ask, “Matt, listen, if you die before you tell your sister about us, should I tell her? And by the way, is there even an ‘us’ to tell about?”
When it happens, you’re totally unprepared, fragmented and lost, looking for the hidden meaning in every little thing. I’ve replayed the events of that day a hundred thousand times, looking for clues. An alternate ending. The butterfly effect.
If Frankie and I hadn’t wanted ice cream that stupid day, he’d still be alive.
If I hadn’t gotten his heart all worked up kissing him every night since my birthday, he’d still be alive.
If I’d never been born, he’d still be alive.
If I could find the butterfly that flapped its wings before we got into the car that day, I would crush it.
“Can’t sleep?”
Aunt Jayne startles me from the dark corner of the deck where I’ve wandered absently with my ghosts.
“I didn’t think anyone else was awake,” I say, catching my breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to — I’ll just —”
“Anna, don’t go.” Jayne shakes her head. “It’s okay. I was just — remembering.”
“Me, too.” I immediately want to take it back, run into the house, and dive under my bed. “I mean, you know, the stories and everything.”
Aunt Jayne nods, the pale light of the moon falling around her hair like a halo, casting her in a faint blue glow.
“Sit with me.” She pushes out a chair with her foot. It reminds me of the old Jayne, the one who treated me more like a friend than a little kid. Before everything happened, she used to lie in the sun with us, trading iced tea for a bit of girl time. Of course, the gossip wasn’t as good back then. Frankie was still a virgin. Blue frosting didn’t make me cry. I wasn’t keeping secrets about one best friend from the other.
We sit for a few minutes, listening to the gentle rhythm of the waves against the shore. Shhh, ahhh. Shhh, ahhh. They seem slower in the dark, but louder.
“Frankie and Matt used to walk up and down this beach looking for sea glass,” she tells me. “It was a contest they had.”
“They used to bring some back for me. I still have it, actually.”
“Right, I remember the jars. Matt used to make things out of it, too. Frankie’s red glass bracelet. And the blue one he used to wear around his neck — do you remember?”
Rising. Falling.
I blink back tears and nod. “I don’t know what happened to it,” Jayne says. “I’ve tried to find it so many times — I’m convinced he just took it with him.”
I reach up and touch the spot above my collarbone where I sometimes feel the weight of the missing necklace, as though Matt had given it to me like he joked about. Nope, still not there. It was probably dragged off in the wreckage of the car with the loose CDs, the one sneaker, some overdue library books, and our ice-cream spoons — all the little bits and pieces left at the end of a whole entire life.
“Anna.” Jayne breaks the spell of the evening tide. “Can I ask you something in confidence?”
“Okay.” I’m not entirely sure where this is going. “I know I wasn’t myself tonight, and I’m sorry. Sometimes I just can’t predict what’s going to set me off. I’m working on it, truly. But is Frankie — how is she? Really?”
I look into Jayne’s earnest face and think about Johan. I think about all the glitter eye shadow, in-room cigarettes, failing grades, and slamming doors, and wonder how Jayne can really ask. Maybe she wants to hear a yes — permission to go on not noticing anything. But the severity of her face, the lines across her forehead and around her mouth, her knuckles white over her mug — she’s a blind woman seeking sight. Somewhere in the back of my head, I hear Dad, far away and sad.
As long as you’re around, Red and Jayne don’t really have to worry about Frankie — you’re doing it for them.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Jayne says. “I hope I’m not pushing. I just worry about you guys. Frankie doesn’t talk to me like she used to. My own daughter is a stranger to me.”
“Me, too.” My mouth is off doing its own thing again while my brain is half asleep. Stupid mouth. “I mean —”
“Tell me.” Jayne’s hand is suddenly firm on my arm. “It’s okay.” She looks into my eyes and gives me that moment, that one chance to tell her exactly how it is, how different Frankie’s become, her faraway mind trips, Johan, the twenty boys, A.A., the frosting-covered first kiss, the promise, how I can’t stop thinking about Matt — everything. I want so badly to tell her — the broken mother who after all this time might finally be able to fix all of us.
“Frankie’s — she’s managing okay,” I say, wanting to kick myself. All the things I could have shared, and that’s what comes out. Managing okay, like I’m evaluating her performance at the office.
“No,” Jayne says, pulling her hand back. “She isn’t. None of us is. Level with me, Anna.”
A combo punch of weird emotions rushes through me — a fierce and loyal need to protect Frankie, guilt over my inability to tell Jayne the
truth, and a lingering anger that no one seems to know or care about what I lost.
“Aunt Jayne, listen.” I’m almost flippant, as though spoon-feeding these observations to my best friend’s mom is too much effort. “Frankie’s still here. She’s not suicidal or on drugs. She can still laugh at things most of the time. But she’s not the same.”
“Anna, I didn’t mean to —”
“Come on, you’ve seen her. All makeup and attitude. And she’s not exactly an honor roll student these days. And look at what happened at dinner with you guys! Frankie knows he’s gone, Aunt Jayne. He’s just gone, that’s it, and nothing will bring him back.”
I’m shaking. My hand flies up to cover my mouth almost as soon as the words escape it; the weight of what I said suddenly pressing in on me. Mean, hurtful things I never should have said. I am officially the number one worst person in the universe, and Jayne’s frozen, confused face is all the punishment I can bear.
But then — a deep sniffle.
A smile.
A look.
An openmouthed grin.
Right here on the back deck in Zanzibar Bay, in the middle of the black night, the ocean our only witness, I vomited out the ugly truth and Aunt Jayne… laughed.
“Anna,” she says, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her sleeve, “that is the first time anyone has been completely honest with me since my son died.”
“Oh my God, Aunt Jayne, I’m so sorry. I don’t know where that came from.” I get up to hug her, hoping to shield my scarlet face from her eyes.
“Mmm-hmm.” She hugs me back. “And I didn’t even shatter!”
I pull away from her and drop into my seat, still shaking inside from my outburst and her unexpected reaction. She watches me and sips her tea, a lifetime of sadness behind her eyes — Matt’s lifetime. But she’s still smiling.
“Anna, you miss him.”
“All the time. I still can’t believe he’s gone.” The words come out in a whoosh, tasting funny in my mouth. No matter how many times I say them, they still feel like a garbled, impossible language. My chest hurts, and I have to hold my breath to keep from inhaling a deep sob.