Paint My Body Red

by Heidi R. Kling

  She assures me Ty wasn’t my fault. None of this is my fault.

  I try to believe her but I can’t.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Eventually, I pull myself together. Mostly.

  I figure it’s selfish of me to waste my last few days with Dad holed up in my room, so despite how shitty I feel, I sit next to Dad’s bed and—what else?—fight with him about college.

  Like Jake, he still wants me to go, but after everything we’ve just been through—after everything I’m still going through—I want to stay here on the ranch. I argue with words, he argues with type. So far, I’m losing.

  “Hey, Paige?” Anna calls, peeking through the door with a basket of dirty clothes in her arms. “You have any darks for this load?”

  “No, I’m okay. I’ll do my laundry later.”

  She squints. “You said that yesterday and the day before.”

  I shrug. “It’s fine. I have plenty of clean clothes.”

  “You have plenty of clean clothes because you haven’t stepped out of those stretch pants all week.”

  I shrug again.

  She looks back and forth between us. “Don’t tell me you finally got out of bed just to argue with your daddy over college again?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s he saying?” She walks over and reads the computer screen. Her smile grows bigger as she reads our conversation.

  “Looks like your dad makes a good case for school.”

  “Whatever. He didn’t go to college, and he’s done great.”

  Dad’s words flood the screen. Which is why you’re going, young lady! You want to make the same mistakes I made? You aren’t giving your future up for me.

  Touching Dad’s shoulder affectionately, she looks over at me. “You’re never going to win this, you know.”

  “I know,” I say. I’m so mad at myself for falling in love with this place, and I know I’m acting like a baby but I don’t care. I don’t know how I’ll survive this new tidal wave of emotions without them to lean on. Without the safety net of the ranch. I don’t want to be alone in a dorm room across the country while they’re here. My heart wants to stay with Dad, with Jake, with Anna, even without Scout. This is my home now. It’s all I have. I can’t say that without getting into everything else, though.

  And I won’t bring up Ty.

  I won’t look like even more of a mess.

  “You leave tomorrow for San Francisco,” Anna insists. “We need to pack clean clothes.”

  “I’m not going,” I try again.

  Bullshit, you aren’t, Dad types. He’s extra ornery today.

  Anna smiles again.

  I scowl at her. “Anna told me at the restaurant before the rodeo that I could stay.”

  “That was before your dad and Jake convinced me otherwise.”

  Grrrr. “I can just take a semester off? Start again in the winter?”

  Longer you stay the less likely you are to leave.

  “How do you know?”

  I just do.

  If you don’t go to college, I’ll never forgive myself, Dad writes.

  He’s laying it on thick. I don’t want to go. I really, really don’t.

  Jake said the same thing and he never left.

  Oh. So this isn’t only about me. Dad feels guilty for Jake staying on to help with the ranch, and he’s not going to let the same thing happen to me. But at least this is an argument I can make a decent point in breaking.

  “Jake’s happy he stayed on here,” I point out.

  He may not say he regrets it, but he’s wanted to get out of town since his daddy died, Dad types. I should’ve made him go, but instead I was selfish. I was selfish and I let him stay when he offered, because after losing you and your mama I couldn’t lose anybody else. I won’t make that same selfish mistake again. I may be locked in a body that can’t move, but I can still speak, and I want you to listen to me and listen good. You get up, take a shower, pack your bags like Anna says, and get on that plane tomorrow to say goodbye to your mama and close up that lid on California, you hear me?

  Close that lid on California. I wasn’t only going back to pack my bags for college. I was going to say my final goodbye to Ty.

  Because if you don’t, you won’t be able to start over here or anywhere, and that’s what I’d like you to do. Consider it my dying wish if you’d like.

  He puts a smiley face by that and Anna slugs him gently, “Gus!”

  I swallow back tears. This is too much.

  The ranch is the first place I’ve been happy since Mom dragged me away as a kid. This ranch restarted my heart. This ranch is what’s keeping it beating.

  Now he’s pushing me away like I pushed away Scout.

  I won’t survive another loss.

  I can’t lose Dad, Anna, and Jake, and say goodbye to Ty all at once.

  He starts typing again. Listen, kid. I know I say a lot of things, and most of them you can ignore but one thing I’ve learned: We cannot control the wind, but we can adjust our sails.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  “I hear today’s the day,” Jake says the next morning. “You ready to head back to California, Cowgirl?”

  I can’t see Jake.

  I can’t say goodbye to Jake.

  It’s Scout all over again, but worse.

  It’s not like Ty, because I didn’t love Ty. Ty didn’t love me. Jake is pure and good, and I can’t lose him.

  Rolling over, I face the wall. Face the lavender buds that refuse to bloom. I decide to be angry instead of sad. It’s easier.

  “You win. You and Dad—the bromance from hell,” I say, my voice strained. I don’t want Jake to see how upset I am.

  “Oh, come on.” He pokes my back playfully. It’s obvious he doesn’t want me to know how upset he is either and is doing his best to keep things light, but I can hear it in his voice. The sadness. “Don’t pout now. You know it’s the best thing. You’d end up hating us if you stayed on, and you’d hate the winter. It’s very Shining-esque, you know. Lots of people acting crazy. None of that fancy food you like, just canned beans and no electricity. Really. Anna will probably get a knife and chase me around the kitchen threatening to put me in her stew. Truly, you’re better off up at your fancy-schmancy college. For safety reasons alone.”

  I sit up and face him. “You’re very funny. You and Dad ought to hit the comedy circuit together.” I swipe a tear off my hot cheek. Sad is winning. I can’t be angry with Jake.

  He pulls me in close and kisses my forehead, and I snuggle into his neck. “I’m going to miss you most of all,” I say into his soft skin.

  “I know.”

  He strokes my hair, clinging to a handful.

  “I’ll visit,” I whisper.

  “You might,” he says in a funny voice, like a dare.

  “And you’ll call?”

  “I could.”

  “And write?” The tears are really welling now. It’s a lost cause, me fighting these back.

  “I’m not much of a writer. More of a reader, really,” he says, still trying to be funny. Still trying to make me feel better.

  I pull away, my eyes pleading a case I’ve already lost. “Or I could just stay?”

  “Nope.” He kisses me. He kisses the tears off of my cheek. He hugs me tighter.

  “I hate you, you know.”

  “I hate you, too.” Grinning, he kisses me again, and then I bury my face into his chest the way Scout did with me. This is the thing about goodbyes, both the permanent and the temporary kind—they all really suck.

  I open my nightstand and hand him the journal I’ve been working on all summer with the note I left in the front for him. “So since you’re such a voracious reader…”

  “That I am.”

  “So. You know that thing about my past I keep trying to tell you but never did for a variety of reasons? This is it. I never wanted anyone to read it. I mean, it’s pretty awful, and I’m not proud of it, but it’s real and true and anyway�
� And anyway, it’s for you.”

  He starts to open the cover and I slam it shut, my hand lingering on his for emphasis. “To read after I leave. Long after my plane has taken off and to possibly never discuss in real time.”

  “Okay,” he says and sets it on the flower patch of my quilt. I tug at a loose yellow thread and sweep the tears off my cheeks that are starting to flow yet again. I hate goodbyes so, so much.

  “Take care of him, Jake. And call me right away if something happens.”

  “You know I will.”

  Ask me to stay, Jake, my eyes plead. Tell me you love me. Beg me not to go.

  He avoids my eyes, ignoring my pleas. “What time does your plane leave again?”

  “Five.”

  “So we should leave for the airport around two.”

  “Three hours early?”

  “Well. I wanted to stop off somewhere on the way.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere.”

  He looks coy. I’m intrigued.

  But unfortunately… “Anna and Dad said they wanted to take me, so…”

  “Oh.” He looks disappointed, and my throat tightens.

  “I know,” I say. “I want you to take me, too. But maybe it’s easier this way. Airport goodbyes are the worst.”

  “All goodbyes are the worst.” Jake kisses me softly on the lips and tucks the journal under his arm as he stands up to go. “You need to shower and pack and stuff, so I’ll let you get to it.”

  “Are you…leaving?”

  “I got to feed the horses and get to a few things.”

  “Now? But you were planning on driving me, so I thought you’d maybe have a little more time to hang out.”

  He looks at me one more time—a familiar look, but one I can’t place right away. His sky eyes are red and stormy.

  “Okay. Just say…g-goodbye before I go, okay?” I manage to choke out.

  He looks at the antique door handle. He looks down at the journal. He looks anywhere but at me.

  This is it. I’m not going to see him again. I dive out of my bed and throw my arms around his neck. We hold each other tight. “Thank you, Jake,” I whisper into his neck.

  “Do good, Cowgirl.”

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  After a tearful, terrible goodbye with Dad and Anna, who promised to call and Skype, who I promise to visit, I fly back to San Francisco as planned. As much as I hated not seeing Jake again, I sort of appreciated it. I couldn’t say goodbye to Jake in front of my dad and Anna. I just couldn’t. I’d be a basket case, and I probably couldn’t get on the stupid plane.

  I wonder where he was planning on taking me. Maybe I’ll never know.

  SFO is so different than the morning I left. First of all, the sky is bright and sunny. “Looks like you brought Wyoming with you,” Mom says, cheerfully pulling me into her arms. “You look fantastic, honey.”

  “Thanks,” I say, “I don’t feel fantastic.”

  “Well, goodbyes are always hard. I don’t have to tell you. But I’m glad you’re back home.” She squeezes me again.

  She looks good, too. Happier. Less severe. Maybe our break was good for the both of us, and time does have a way of healing things on its own, somehow. Look at me sounding like a genuine cowgirl. “How’s Phil?”

  “He’s okay, considering. I think the ceremony will be good for him. Closure, you know?”

  “That’s what Dad said, too.”

  “He did?” She arches a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

  “Yeah. He said he wanted me to come here and close the lid on my past so I could move freely into the future.”

  “Jesus,” she shock-laughs. “When did he become a philosopher?”

  “Probably when he began dying?”

  She sobers at that.

  “I think he’s made peace with it,” I say. “We all have. Saying goodbye to him was rough, though. Especially when I’m not sure I’ll see him again.”

  I swallow back emotion. I miss him already. Miss them all. Being with Mom, being back in California, feels foreign now. This airport is so big. So busy. I miss Jackson. Jake.

  “I wanted to stay, you know. I begged,” I admit. I need her to know.

  “I heard.”

  “But in the end Dad wouldn’t let me.”

  “I know.” She patted my arm. “Your Dad’s been emailing me…if you can believe that.”

  “Wow. Though I’m not totally surprised. He wanted a united front on Team Get Paige To College.”

  “Yes, well, he wants the best for you. We all do.”

  “I know,” I said. “It was just so hard to leave. I was…I was happy there.”

  She smiles at me, her eyes shiny. “I’m so glad, sweetie. You needed it. I’m so glad you were able to reconnect with him. And you know? He apologized for past…mistakes. With me. And I forgave him.”

  “Wow.”

  It looks like I wasn’t the only one who changed on the ranch.

  “I know,” she says. And it seems like she does.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  The next morning, shortly after dawn, we bury Ty at sea.

  They have these funeral boats on the coast, just regular boats, but you’re allowed to sprinkle ashes off of them. We invite a few of Ty’s friends from school, some family. Ty’s mother flies in from New York to attend. Instead of dresses and suits and ties, we wear black sweaters, pants, and shoes with soles that won’t slip on the wet deck. We all wear black sunglasses like Ty’s to fight the glare off the sea.

  The morning is cool and foggy. I read a Lord Byron poem that Ty liked. The irony of Ty admiring Lord Byron when he was alive doesn’t escape me. When I finish, a seagull flies over the boat and lets out a horrible squawk. I jump along with the rest of the passengers, then spend the rest of the funeral trying not to toss my cookies.

  A few days later, I’m on the couch sifting through boxes of photo albums and framed photographs when Mom comes and sits by me.

  “I brought you some tea,” she says.

  “Thanks.”

  It’s not Anna’s or Jake’s tea, but I take it. She sits beside me in white flowing yoga pants and a long, silky cardigan sweater. After a few quiet sips she points to a photo. “I like that one.”

  It’s our holiday photo from last year: me, Mom, Phil, Ty. We’re on the beach in Hawaii where they got married. We’re all wearing white and smiling.

  “Maybe we got married too soon,” she says, stroking the photo.

  “Why do you say that? I thought you and Phil were happy?”

  She keeps her eyes on the photo. “Putting two teenagers, virtual strangers, under the same roof. It wasn’t smart. I should’ve been smarter. If I had, maybe—”

  “Me and Ty weren’t your fault. It was our fault.”

  “I should’ve said something. Done something to stop it. I’m the adult. I’m your mother for god’s sake. I’m so sorry, Paige.”

  I stare at the photo. At Ty in his open necked Polo and white flowered lei. “One of the things I learned on the ranch is that things happen. Bad things. Good things. And we can’t do anything to stop them. Sometimes life just has to play itself out.”

  She starts to cry, then. Really cry. Deep, terrible sobs. I know she’s crying over so much more than Ty. It’s me, too, and Dad—and maybe blaming oneself for all of life’s storms is something I inherited.

  “He never…hurt you, did he?”

  “He did. But I’m okay. I really am. Turns out between you and Dad, I’m made of pretty tough stock.”

  Her crumbling face pulls itself back together. Nodding, she straightens out her silk pants, running her palms across the wrinkles.

  “If I believed it about that girl in Brooklyn, I never would’ve let him move in here.”

  “I know.”

  “Doubting the innocence of a dead boy. Does that make me a bad person?”

  “It makes you human, I guess,” I say.

  “Some secrets go with us to our grave,”
is her reply.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Even though I haven’t heard from Jake, Wesleyan itself is exactly as I’d hoped.

  Under looming brick buildings with a history that has nothing to do with me, leaves melt from thick waxy green to blood red. Umbrellas crowd rain-soaked sidewalks as summer fades into fall. It’s easy to disappear in this atmosphere of bright eyes and new books that creak when you open them.

  Mom escorted me to the East Coast not long after Ty’s burial, and we spent a few days in a hotel, shopping for matching sheets and comforters for my dorm bed, fluffy towels for the communal shower, and textbooks for my first semester classes. My roommate is Karen, a quirky, quiet girl from the Midwest, who reads a lot and raises rabbits back on her farm.

  “The classic odd couple,” Mom said when she met Karen and eyed the wall full of bunny posters. “That’s the beauty of college.”

  When Mom left, we both cried, but it was different than the other goodbyes. It felt normal. Mothers drop their daughters off at college every fall. Something about the normalcy makes me feel better about it all.

  Life here is simple: I get up each day, shower, eat breakfast in the dining hall, go to classes, eat lunch, go to classes, go back to my dorm room, eat dinner, study, watch a little TV (Karen and I like those When Animals Attack shows), and go to bed—rinse and repeat.

  Karen’s a nervous talker and babbles on and on about her bunnies when we run out of things to talk about: Florence the Brave won a blue ribbon in the state fair, she’s worried about the upcoming winter because her mother won’t let them inside until it’s actually freezing so she’s saving up to buy them an outdoor heater, et cetera. She doesn’t ask me much about myself, and aside from a few easy comments—I’m from Wyoming (sort of true), I’m an only child (technically true)—I keep quiet.

  Classes hold my interest. African-American women’s literature and creative writing are my favorites. I’m on a major Toni Morrison bender and recently developed a healthy green tea addiction. My life at Wesleyan is purposefully simple and exactly what I need, ironically what I assumed my ranch stay would be. Aside from the literature, which I’m scarfing up like cows on fresh grass up on the mountain, my new life is intentionally, forcefully, drama free. I like being only responsible for myself. For getting myself up, to the dining hall, to class, and completing assignments. I don’t party. I don’t socialize much at all outside of Karen, but that’s fine with me. I want quiet.