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Fallout

Page 3

by Nikki Tate


  This Is How the World Responds

  I fainted when

  it sank in what Hannah had done.

  When a girl

  steps in front of a bus.

  Some people phone

  leave messages

  I heard what happened

  I’m so sorry

  If there’s anything I can do...

  Do what?

  Hand us fresh tissues

  when ours are so wet

  they shred?

  Do what?

  Pat our backs, nod sadly

  say, Tomorrow’s tomorrow will be

  easier.

  Or are you thinking of practical

  things:

  dusting the family photographs

  or maybe sorting through my

  sister’s clothes

  to see if something fits your daughter

  because obviously Hannah’s stuff

  won’t fit me.

  What a shame to waste such pretty

  things.

  Some bring

  food that freezes well

  lots of cheese and potato

  too many calories

  or sweet beyond belief.

  Others hide

  behind the safe walls

  of distance and time.

  I heard the news

  but thought it best to leave you

  alone.

  So many people know

  our business.

  So many forms to sign

  payment plans to think about.

  How can it cost so much

  to put someone in the ground?

  Don’t you know that sixteen-year-olds

  don’t have burial plans?

  What if we can’t pay?

  What should we do with her?

  Stash her in the basement

  until she gets fed up

  and moves on?

  In the recycling box

  a headline

  and a photograph:

  An ambulance

  pulling away from the curb

  the empty bus waiting for a

  new driver.

  I free the newspaper from the blue

  plastic box

  to save Hannah from strangers

  stop her from being shredded.

  She must not disappear

  with all the other news of the day.

  They lean back in their chairs.

  “Wow,” Maddy says.

  Ebony nods. “That’s a good one. Powerful. All these Hannah poems are powerful.” She takes a swig of coffee. “No offense, but I can’t decide if I wish I’d known her or I’m kind of glad I didn’t.”

  How am I supposed to take that? Maybe I should add a couple of lines to the poem.

  Then Ebony says, “Get rid of the first two lines. You don’t need them.”

  I reread the opening.

  I fainted when

  it sank in what Hannah had done.

  “She’s right,” Maddy says.

  The lines disappear with a strike of my pen.

  They say Hannah probably had a drinking problem. I think of this every time I pour myself anything stronger than a cup of tea with honey. Her secret drinking was only one of so many secrets. How could we not have known?

  Out here on the balcony of my tiny apartment it’s still muggy at two o’clock in the morning.

  There’s an empty garden chair beside me. I imagine David sitting there enjoying a beer. If I close my eyes I can almost hear his slow, steady breathing.

  David sitting in the empty chair may not be likely, but it is possible. I can’t say the same thing about Hannah. Why do I torture myself by imagining her beside me? I do it all the time. Sometimes Hannah laughs and goofs around and tells terrible jokes the way she used to. Sometimes she tells me about school, her return to riding, some new boyfriend. The details are different every time. It gets harder and harder to picture what might have been. Would she have gone to university to study sports medicine like she’d always planned? Might she have fallen in love and had a baby? Or bought a Great Dane? She always wanted a dog.

  “You want to hear a poem, Hannah?” I ask the empty chair. I raise my glass in her direction. “No, this time it isn’t about you. I wrote it a while back, before I left the coast. Yes, it’s about David. Too bad you guys never got along.”

  I speak softly, as if I really am confiding in my sister.

  Leave him, cut him loose

  send him

  into his bright future.

  Look at me. Twenty-five pounds more

  miserable, sucking back the booze

  lusting after double chocolate-chip

  cookies

  Extra Crisp potato chips

  whipped cream waffles and bacon

  sandwiches.

  Look at him, looking at me, thinking

  he’s stuck with twenty-five bonus

  pounds

  of difficult to swallow.

  Leave, and we can finish falling

  land where we will land

  broken or bent.

  I’m tired of trying to fit two huge

  truths

  that I killed her

  and that he knows I killed her

  into one relationship too small to

  hold all that sadness.

  And another truth,

  He was there too

  not answering his phone.

  He laughed

  when I laughed and said

  Not today, Hannah. Today you

  won’t take us

  away from each other, tear us from

  our place in the sun.

  The darkness presses close. Splats of warm rain smack my bare arms.

  “What do you say to that, Hannah? Is that what you had in mind when you walked away? Did you hate him that much? Did you hate me that much?”

  I flinch when a bolt of lightning crackles across the sky.

  Dripping wet, I retreat into the apartment and sink onto the mattress. For a long time I listen to the rain punish the world.

  Chapter Nine

  Everything is poetry. If I am not onstage, I am practicing. I yell the words into the wind down at the lake. I whisper them into my pillow before I fall asleep.

  Normal is taking a long shower

  loud music cranked so high

  it’s louder than the water splashing

  but all you hear later is

  How about leaving some hot water for the rest of us?

  When you can’t be normal anymore

  your father pounds on the locked

  door

  calling your name

  calling your name

  calling your name

  panic stenciled over his heart

  not again not again

  Answer me or I’m breaking down

  this door!

  Stepping naked from the shower

  skin reddened from the hot water

  I reach for the towel on the back of

  the shaking door and

  yell back, Can’t I have a shower in

  peace?

  Step back into the steam.

  The burning rage of the water

  slices over my tender skin.

  I want to pull the words

  back.

  Can’t.

  The poems carry me through the aisles at the bookstore. They keep me company on the bus.

  I have measured my year in firsts

  the first time I came home—after

  Hannah died

  the scent of hospital in my hair

  the first bagel pushed into the toaster

  inedible

  tossed into the garbage despite a

  hollow ache

  that grew and grew and grew

  and grows even now

  I capture thoughts, single words and endless lines in small notebooks. I even write on the inside of my wrist.

  the first time I showered

  and wondered w
hether to leave

  enough hot water

  for her

  the first time we didn’t buy school

  supplies

  because she wasn’t here and I

  wasn’t going back

  the first Halloween without costumes

  shutting off the porch light

  closing the drapes

  and hiding upstairs

  my mother and I hushing each other

  as if somehow the ghosts could get

  inside

  and discover our stupid lie.

  I shout, weep, bleed the year in poems.

  The first Christmas

  her birthday

  the events getting bigger

  before I notice that

  Hannah is missing things

  she shouldn’t be missing.

  The first time it happened

  was last summer when

  I stopped, mid-sentence

  and almost said aloud

  Saturday won’t work—

  because Hannah won’t be here

  won’t be here to attend the funeral.

  Back when Hannah was so close to

  being here

  it seemed impossible she

  was really gone.

  There’s a huge crowd at Antonio’s when the first poet begins. It’s Sam, an old biker with so many tattoos it looks like he’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt under his leather vest. He’s a regular and does a lot of love poems that rhyme.

  When it’s my turn I do the poem about how the world reacts to a suicide. I’ve chopped the first lines and added three others.

  New friends are torn between

  wanting and not wanting

  to have known her.

  What will Ebony think? When I join her at the table she smiles.

  In the second round I let fly with “She Comes Bearing Gifts.”

  My sister had friends

  once

  lots of them

  before she stopped

  having friends, that is

  long before she stopped

  being.

  Jackie Lisa Tiffany Brandon

  Jordan, Max and Xan

  faded away

  when she stopped taking their calls

  never had them in

  never went out.

  Until that day

  when she met friends for coffee.

  How could such an ordinary thing

  be so heavy with the thousand hints

  we missed?

  What we wanted to see was

  what she wanted us to see.

  She was getting better

  she’d turned that corner into the light

  right into the coffee shop where

  oh, yes, her friends are waiting

  because that’s what normal girls do

  chat over lattes

  hold the foam add the whip

  skim mocha soy extra hot.

  Sometimes they give each other

  gifts, don’t they?

  Only for that extraspecial

  tell ya anything, hon

  never let you go, BFF.

  For her, the world

  the silver horseshoe earrings from

  Nana.

  A small gift the least you can do

  a thank-you

  for being there when it mattered.

  Jackie told me they were glad to

  hear from Hannah

  she seemed more like the old Hannah

  the can-I-have-a-bite-of-that?

  Hannah

  the you’ll-never-believe-what-he-

  said Hannah

  the Hannah we knew was in there

  somewhere, right?

  Jackie insisted she should have

  known

  was closest

  knew Hannah best—

  Didn’t we all think we knew her

  best—

  should have known that earrings

  were more than earrings

  that small gifts in the hands of

  someone on the exit ramp

  are not small at all?

  On the night the relatives start to

  arrive

  Jackie hands me the earrings.

  Nestled in their blue velvet box

  like tiny sleeping memories

  they curl tight into silver slivers

  so sharp they bite through my mask

  send

  hairline cracks pulsing through

  my carefully made-up calm.

  Chapter Ten

  Round three is brutal. I’m up last and have to listen to everyone else. When it’s my turn I clutch the mic and bring it close to my mouth. Too close. There’s a squeal of feedback.

  “Owww!”

  “Turn it down!”

  Not a good start. I hope the crowd remembers enough of the poem from the last round that this one will make sense. It’s risky to continue a story from one poem to another. Each should stand alone—but these are part of a series and I don’t dare change the plan now.

  The relatives arrive

  trailed by small bags.

  Bump up the stairs

  trundle down the hall

  into the den

  the family room

  my room

  any room

  but her room.

  They come in clumps

  mother father brother

  cousin uncle aunt grandmother

  fold their arms around me

  because now, after her death

  suddenly it’s okay to touch the one who

  doesn’t like to hug.

  They ask, without asking

  What the hell happened here?

  Is it true what I read about the

  bottle of booze?

  Is it true she didn’t look back when

  she stepped

  out

  into the road?

  They came because

  that’s what happens

  when someone dies.

  They gather to tell stories

  slide trays of food into the fridge

  because food poisoning at a time

  like this

  would be unfortunate.

  Who would attend the funeral?

  Unspoken questions like

  Should there be a funeral?

  lurk in the corners

  inhabited by God.

  Nana’s God

  who apparently doesn’t admit

  that some of his fallen angels

  jumped.

  What about the casket? she asks.

  Open or closed?

  The guest list? How public

  do we want to make this thing?

  This thing?

  Hello?

  But how can I say anything

  when she sees the blue velvet box

  on the kitchen counter

  folds her polished fingernails

  over its curved lid and

  hands shaking

  stares as if it might

  reveal secrets

  only she can understand.

  Tears wobble, glassy and fragile

  on her lower lids.

  I reach out.

  Touch her hand.

  The next morning I jolt awake. Someone is pounding on my apartment door.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” Ebony says when I let her in.

  “Easy for you to say.” Last night the judges didn’t like the “Relatives” poem and I didn’t make it into the fourth round.

  She grins and holds out a travel mug full of coffee. “This should perk you up.”

  “Smells good,” I mumble. Ebony did well last night. She’s third overall in the standings. I’m hovering in and out of fourth place. After last night, I’m out, though not by much.

  “If you have a good week, you’ll make it,” she says.

  “Maybe.”

  “You don’t work today, do you?”

  Ebony asks.

&
nbsp; “No.”

  “We should do something fun.”

  A strand of hair falls into my eyes and I push it away. How can I be so tired?

  “Fun? Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Hunt for treasure at the thrift store?”

  I sigh. “I should try to write.”

  “You should try not to write,” she counters. “Even I don’t write all the time. I know, what about—”

  The phone rings.

  “Sorry—I should—”

  “Do you want me to go?” she asks.

  “It’s okay,” I say and pick up the phone.

  “Hey, Tara—”

  “David!”

  Ebony’s eyebrows shoot up.

  “Hey—it’s been a while.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  God. How awkward can a conversation be? “Where are you?”

  “Vancouver, of course. Where else?”

  Where else. “So, what’s up?” I ask.

  “Not much. You?”

  “Work. Slams. Are you still playing soccer?” I know he is. I follow the team online. He’s still one of the best in the league.

  “Yeah. I had three scholarship offers for this year.”

  “Nice. Are you accepting any of them?”

  “South Carolina. Full ride.”

  “Wow. Congratulations!” I hope I sound more excited than I feel. South Carolina. That’s a long way from everywhere.

  “So, anyway, I mostly wanted to call and say hi—you know, see if you’re doing okay.”

  My throat closes and I can’t speak. I turn away from Ebony.

  “Tara? You’re doing okay, aren’t you?”

  I hear the terror in his voice. It’s what we all feel when someone doesn’t pick up the phone or when a silence goes on for too long. I clear my throat. “Sorry.

  I’m—I’m fighting off a cold. I’m fine.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “You?”

  “I’m doing okay.”

  “Good.” Did we really miss curfews because we couldn’t stop talking? “David, I have to go. My friend’s here and—”

  “No problem. I just wanted to say hi.” He sounds relieved.

  “Thanks for calling. Talk to you soon.”

  We both hang up. We won’t talk again for a long time.

  “Aw, honey—come here,” Ebony says, her arms wide. I fall against her, sobbing. She pats my back.

  “Oh god—I’m sorry,” I say, gulping back tears.

  “No apology needed. Go wash your face. Let’s go to the farmer’s market.”

  Grateful not to be in charge, I head into the bathroom to pull myself together.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Have you ever had Maya’s samosas?”

 

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