Love, Ish

by Karen Rivers

  “Hey,” Iris says, finally climbing up on the rock. “What are you doing?”

  “Me?” I go. “Um, just sitting here. What are you doing?”

  “This lake is a weird color,” she says, almost like I haven’t said anything. “I bet this water gave you that tumor. Mom and Dad should move. They should sue someone. It’s not right.”

  I look at the water, which looks the same to me as it always has, green and cool. I don’t mention the perchlorate. It seems kind of beside the point now. Water bugs skim the surface. From this angle, you almost wouldn’t know that the lake was shrinking, that it used to be huge and now it’s just basically a pond.

  “If it was the water, Tig would have a Brussels sprout, too,” I point out. “I mean, a tumor.”

  Iris frowns. “Maybe,” she says. “It’s not fair.”

  “What isn’t?” I say. “That I have Nirgal and he doesn’t? He doesn’t deserve it either! Why shouldn’t it be me?”

  “It just shouldn’t!” she says. “You don’t deserve it!”

  “Neither does he!”

  “But why you?”

  “I don’t know!” I shout.

  “That stupid factory! They’ve basically killed you!” she shouts back. “Don’t you get it? You’re going to die! Why aren’t you mad?”

  “I am mad!” I shout. “I’m mad at YOU!”

  I’m crying now. Why is she making me cry? She’s supposed to make everyone happier! It’s her job!

  “I’m sorry,” she goes, looking stricken. “I was just, I don’t know what I was thinking, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry, Ish.”

  “Whatever,” I say.

  “I was thinking out loud. I shouldn’t have said any of those things. You aren’t dying.”

  “You’re right, you shouldn’t have. I am dying. I guess I am. No one wanted to say it, so I guess I should thank you for being the first person brave enough to put it into words. But I hate you. I unthank you. I wish you hadn’t come home,” I lie. I’m crying so hard that my words come out like tadpoles stuck in mud, bubbles in between each sentence. I choke-­sob. She’s crying, too. Pity party on Lunch Island, table for two!

  “I didn’t mean that last part,” I say, hiccupping.

  “I didn’t mean that Tig should have a brain tumor,” Iris says. “I just wish that you didn’t. You call it Nirgal, huh?”

  I shrug and roll my eyes. I wouldn’t give my brain tumor to someone else, even if I could, but I wish it wasn’t mine. Duh. Of course I wish that. “Don’t ask me why I call it Nirgal, OK?”

  “OK.” She puts her hand on my leg. “I’m so sorry about your hair.”

  I nod. “Me, too!” I say. I try to slow my breathing back down to normal. I take her hand off my leg, gently. Then I wipe my eyes on my T-­shirt, which is mostly dry now. “I knew it would fall out, I just thought it would happen slowly, not all at once like that.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “It was like it just let go!”

  I giggle. Her face when she saw my hair in her hand! I mean, it wasn’t funny but it also sort of was.

  “Are you crying again?” Iris asks.

  “No,” I say. I shake my head. Suddenly, I’m laughing really hard. “I always hated my dumb hair.”

  “What’s funny?” Iris looks worried, but it’s too late, I can’t stop laughing. I think I’m going to pee my pants, that’s how hard I’m laughing. A bunch of geese fly by, honking, like they are laughing, too, and finally she joins in a little at first, then a lot.

  When we’re done, we sit quietly without talking and watch the sun setting behind the hills. It’s really pretty, but once the sun goes away the water turns black. It looks a little scary. It looks a little dangerous. Leeches, I think.

  “Come on,” Iris says. “I’ll give you a piggyback ride back to the house.”

  I climb on. “Are you sure?” I ask, as she wobbles around unsteadily. “I’m heavy.”

  “No, you aren’t,” she says. “You don’t weigh anything! You’re like a feather.”

  “Am not,” I say, but she’s sort of right. I can see all my rib bones now, jutting up under my skin. My hips pop up like fists. Yesterday, I tried to ride my bike around the lake like I used to, but it’s as if all my muscles just went away and left nothing holding up my bones. My calves are soft skin, nothing more. I don’t know where all my toughness went. I only made it a block before I got sick and had to come home, wobbling the whole time. “I am not a machine,” I murmur.

  “Of course you aren’t,” Iris says. “Machines don’t have hearts.”

  Iris wades through the water. I can feel the pull of it, the current she’s making with each step. I want to let go and just float on my back, just float away, but I keep hanging on. By the time we get back, I’m shivering.

  I go up to my room without saying anything to Mom or Dad or Elliott, who are sitting in the living room, watching a show, pretending to not be watching me. Yesterday, I saw Mom hugging Elliott and she didn’t push her away. Maybe this brain tumor is good for something, after all.

  I walk by Buzz Aldrin’s cage. “Squawk,” he goes. Then, “Houston, we have a problem.”

  “True fact,” I tell him. His feathers are patchy and sparse. He’s molting, just like me.

  “Ish?” Mom calls.

  “Come in and watch with us!” Dad says.

  I don’t answer or go in there because that way they don’t have to talk to me. They don’t have to think of what to say that isn’t, “You’re going to die.” If it’s true, then it must be what they are thinking all the time! Mom must be thinking about it while she works, spooning porridge into the old people’s mouths, helping them walk down the hall, pushing their wheelchairs outside for fresh air. She must be thinking how it isn’t fair that I’m not going to be an old person. Not ever.

  I crawl into bed, and I start dreaming before I’m even all the way under the covers, that’s how tired I am. That’s how hard it is now, to even just stay awake, even when I’m so mad. Even when I’m so scared. Even when I want nothing more than to not be alone.

  Chapter 19

  There’s an emergency.

  EMERGENCY EMERGENCY EMERGENCY

  I know it’s a dream, OK?

  At least, I think it is.

  I also know that my heart is racing: There is hardly any time. One minute, we are playing cards at the folding table, laughing, talking. The next minute, there’s a huge cracking crash and the whole wall of the dome has caved in. Sand is blowing everywhere. The air tastes like rust. Trying to breathe is impossible, the air is as thin and oxygenless as death.

  I’m struggling to get into my suit. Help, help, help, I’m thinking, but I can’t say it because it’s a waste of air and no one can help me. I don’t know where Gav and Tig went. They were here! Playing cards! Maybe they were sucked out of here so quickly, they had no time to react.

  The air is freezing cold and I’m shivering shivering shivering and I miss my mom and the soup she used to make when it rained. I frown. Why Mars? Why me?

  But also, why not me? Someone had to be first. I remember thinking that. My memory is foggy. When I was a kid, I had a brain tumor. Maybe that’s the thing. The problem. Maybe it’s back. I just can’t think. It’s frustrating. My head is colder than the rest of me, so I lift my hand up and touch my skull and it’s as smooth as an egg, hairless. Bald.

  The radiation on Mars would shrink that tumor to nothing, Tig was saying. When was he saying that?

  I guess that’s why I came. To shrink it. But I’m not a kid anymore. The suit is on now and my breathing is raspy against the ventilator.

  I should have stayed on Earth. I should have had a Cinnabon and liked it and been happy when The Gap had a sale.

  No, no. That’s stupid. I like being here. I like being first. It’s brave. I’m brave.

  I list all the female astronauts I can think of: Valentina Tereshkova, Samantha Cristoforetti, Liu Yang, Yi So-­yeon, Kalpana Chawla, Claudie Haigneré, Eileen Collins, Chi
aki Mukai, Ellen Ochoa, Mae Jemison, Roberta Bondar, Helen Sharman, Sally Ride. They were all firsts. First at something. Then I add Mischa Love. First woman on Mars. Girl, I guess. First girl on Mars.

  I have to be brave for this. For everyone else who will come after me. The protective panel has slammed down now. I am on the wrong side of it, so I’ll have to walk through this storm to the door and go back in. Easy. I can do it. I take one step. The wind is pushing me back so hard, I feel squashed. But I keep going.

  I have to be brave so that one day, someone will put my name on a list and memorize it. So I matter.

  I look around and then I see him: Tig. “Tig!” I shout. My voice is strangled in my throat and I’m choking on dust, and then there he is and he’s bald, too. Does he have a brain tumor? Was it the lake? It was our fault! We kept swimming when they said not to do it. He is coming toward me but he isn’t in a suit and he’s not going to make it. It’s too late. I try to tell him but I can’t, and the wind takes me and picks me up and slams me into a cliff wall. I’m on a cliff. I’m off a cliff. I’m falling. I’ve lost them all. I’ve lost everyone.

  Brussels sprout, I remember, opening my eyes, trying to slow my breathing and calm down so that my throat can open, so that I can breathe. It’s not real. It’s just the Brussels sprout.

  The house is still and dark and quiet. I get up out of bed. I’m still wearing wet jeans. I get changed into dry pajamas. My skin is red and raw where the wet jeans were rubbing it. I must have been kicking in my sleep. I put the wet clothes in the hamper and make my bed. Being the only one awake in a still house is so lonely. I walk around from bedroom to bedroom and look inside. Elliott doesn’t look tough when she’s sleeping. Dad sleeps with his mouth wide open. What if a fly flew in? He snorts and rolls over. Iris just looks beautiful. I sit on the edge of her bed for a minute, but she doesn’t wake up. She’s probably dreaming about normal things. Clothes and New York City and boys and happiness. Red, heart-­shaped balloons.

  I go downstairs into the kitchen and get a glass of water from Dad’s reverse osmosis pitcher. I don’t know if it tastes better than regular water, but it looks more interesting. I take tiny sips. The trouble with water is, it mostly tastes like whatever was last in your mouth. So, basically, it tastes like barf. Before chemo, I never knew it was possible to throw up this much! I would’ve thought you were lying if you said it was true. Now I know. My tongue wants to move out. It wants to go live in the mouth of someone who doesn’t always taste like regret.

  In the corner of the room, Buzz Aldrin is sleeping in his cage, with his feathers all puffed up. He looks almost cute. I walk over and look at him. He opens one eye and looks at me. “We have a problem,” he says sadly. “Houston.” Poor Buzz Aldrin. A clump of feathers is on the floor of his cage.

  “I love you,” I say to him. “We’re both patchy.”

  I open the cage door and put my hand out. He looks super suspicious, like, What are you doing, Ish? It’s the middle of the night! “Come on,” I tell him. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind! Or parrot-­kind, I guess. Do it for all the other parrots, Buzz.”

  He hesitates and looks around his cage, like he’s looking for someone to tell him it’s OK.

  “It’s OK,” I tell him. “Someone has to be first. Be brave.”

  Finally, he steps on to my finger. The weight of him is always surprising. He weighs as much as one of those rotisserie chickens that Mom buys when she’s too tired to cook. Except he’s alive, so the weight of him is different. It shifts and moves. I suddenly understand the phrase “dead weight.”

  Buzz Aldrin stretches out his wings and I can hear the plit, plit, plit sound of the feathers separating from each other. Then he pulls them in again.

  “You’ll see,” I tell him. “Just wait till you see those stars. This will be worth it. Once in a lifetime type stuff, I promise.”

  I push open the sliding glass door as quietly as I can and I step out onto the deck. I bet he’s never felt outside air before. That’s what I’m doing for him: I’m giving him everything, everything, everything. “Smell it,” I tell him. “Hold it in. See?” I take a deep breath and hold it in my lungs. I can imagine all my little lung fibers absorbing the oxygen. I can smell the trees and the water and the sky and the smell of the dry wood of the deck and the rubber of the hose coiled near my feet. Can parrots smell? I know that vultures can smell death from miles away. I don’t want to think about that. I close my eyes and exhale it all again. “Isn’t it great?” I ask him.

  “Rabbit,” Buzz Aldrin says, preening. I think he’s nervous. He pulls each feather through his beak, looking at me from under his wing. “Rabbit,” he says again.

  The trees and the lake and the night are all my favorites. They are everything that I’ll miss when I go to Mars. The night sky smells like that paint you use in kindergarten, the kind that you mix with water. Maybe it’s the dew on the pavement, or just the wet night touching the dry day, but I love the smell of those paints. In kindergarten, Mrs. Poppe moved our seats around every month. One month, I sat next to Tig. It was the best month. We had one project where we had to paint this huge chicken. It was for Easter. I don’t know what chickens had to do with Easter, to tell you the truth, but it didn’t matter. We made that chicken into a rainbow. Rainbow Chicken. We worked on it all day. It was an amazing chicken. A miracle chicken. A chicken of God, I guess. Or Jesus, at least.

  “I miss him,” I tell Buzz Aldrin. “Tig, I mean. And the chicken.” I carefully walk across the deck to the wooden chair and I sit down.

  Buzz Aldrin’s feathers are ruffling in the stirring air. He shifts his weight and I put him on my shoulder. Together, we watch the moon making a path over the water. The path basically leads from our deck steps right to Lunch Island. Lunch Island is almost exactly the same size and shape as Big Joe. Big Joe is a Martian Rock. When Tig and I named Lunch Island, we had a big fight. He wanted to call it Big Joe, but I said that name was already taken. I didn’t want any Earth stuff to be the same as Mars stuff. I needed it to be different. All the best stuff had to be reserved for Mars.

  Tig will go to Mars. He’ll see Big Joe. He’ll see that rock shaped like a crab. He’ll go into the cave behind it and see what’s in there. He’ll find the Mars lady from the photos. Maybe she’ll be me.

  “It’s not fair,” I tell Buzz Aldrin, but I think he’s gone to sleep again, nestled into my neck. The truth is that I’ve always been jealous of Tig because he’s a boy and I’m not a boy. It would be easier to be a boy, I think. Boys just decide to do a thing and then they can do it. They don’t have to be the first male anything, they just do stuff. There’s a lot less pressure on them, if you think about it. A lot less gravity. All this time, both of us have been talking about going to Mars and when he says it, people say, “That’s great! That’s amazing!” And when I say it, they go, “Gosh, won’t you be scared? Won’t you miss everything?” And, worse, they don’t believe me.

  They always believe him. Because he’s a boy.

  It makes me hate him just a little bit, just like I hate Elliott a little bit for being so cute when she was a toddler, for being the one my parents picked, only to find that I was also coming along for the ride.

  Maybe there’s something wrong with me that I feel this way. Maybe that’s why the Brussels sprout started to grow.

  If I were a boy, I could just have a brain tumor and deal only with that. I wouldn’t have to care that my hair was falling out. I wouldn’t have to care that it would make me look like a boy because I’d already be a boy.

  I start to cry, and Buzz Aldrin wakes up and squawks.

  “Shh,” I tell him. “You’re just a bird. You don’t understand.”

  Buzz Aldrin stares at me.

  “I’m going to die,” I explain to him.

  Iris said it, so it must be true.

  They must know it’s true.

  Someone, somewhere said it was, and now it is.

  When I first got diagnosed
, I asked the doctor if I was going to die. He had a long beard and crooked teeth. His hair was tied up in a bun. He blinked at me, silently, like a snake. There was no tick tick. Then he said, “Not if I can help it!” in this upbeat way that doctors have when they talk to kids.

  Now, replaying it in my head, I run it through my mental decoder and I hear what he was really saying, which was “Yes.”

  “I don’t want to die,” I tell Buzz Aldrin and he squawks again, like he’s agreeing with me. “I’m not done here yet! Plus, I’m scared.” For a second, we stare into each other’s eyes, mine blue and his pink. In between us, there’s purple. “Do you see it?” I say to him. He winks. I’m sure, he winks. “The thing with dying,” I say to him, “is that you have to do it alone. No one goes with you. You’re all by yourself.”

  He squawks. Once, twice. Then suddenly he spreads his wings. He squawks again, like he can’t believe this, and then before I can do anything to stop him, he’s flapping hard.

  Then he’s flying away.

  He’s soaring up there—he’s way faster than I would have thought he could be—getting smaller and smaller, just a white splotch in the sky, smaller than the moon but bigger than the stars.

  “Buzz Aldrin!” I call, but I know he’s not coming back. He’s never coming back.

  My hand is shaking like crazy. What have I done? I let Buzz Aldrin go! I miss him so bad and so instantly, my stomach hurts, but it isn’t my stomach, it’s my heart, it’s everything.

  I bend double, thinking that I’m going to throw up, but I don’t. I just sit like that for a while, looking at the light starting to spill onto the boards of the deck, the light from the rising sun making puddles of gold around my feet, bathing them in all this warm goldness that feels like it’s sinking into me and making me sleepy again. The sun is so pretty when it rises. I’ll miss this: the golden light of Earth. The latest pictures from Mars say that the light there is more green than gold. I don’t know how I feel about that.