by Jay McLean
Just… stopped.
And I sat up in my seat, lifted the window shade and looked out at the wide-open sky and the pillows of clouds I seemed to be floating on. They were pink—the same shade of pink as the roses that lined Chaz’s porch—and this strange calm washed through me.
I’d never believed in God.
I’d prayed to one, but never truly believed that a higher power existed.
I’d joke in the past that Chaz was the only God I knew, the only saving grace I’d ever need.
And as I stared out the window in awe of how vast the world was, my beliefs didn’t change.
Chaz was the only higher power I needed to know, and it wasn’t Google who was going to help me get through this, who was going to help me process this new normal with Becca. It was Chaz’s guidance and the knowledge that I wouldn’t have felt peace in my heart, in my soul, if Chaz wasn’t the one offering it. Because she felt it, too—at peace—in a world above the clouds where her mind was as clear as her memories.
* * *
Becca sits on my closed toilet seat while I tend to her bleeding fingers. She’s smiling. I don’t know why she’s smiling, but I smile back because I don’t know what else to do or what to think or how to feel.
“Do you like my dress?” she signs, once I’ve applied the last bandage.
I stare at her, conflicted. A part of me wants to be just like her—to carry on as if nothing’s happened—but another part of me wants to shake her, make her wake up and deal with this. Mourn and grieve, and do all the things she should be doing. But then her emerald eyes lift to mine, clear of pain, of heartache, and I almost want to wait until Tommy gets here and sit them both down and treat her like I would him.
Tommy… he’s gone through way too much change in his six years.
“Do you?” she signs, her eyes wide, waiting for my response.
I push away all other thoughts. “I love your dress, baby.”
Her smile widens. “It’s your favorite.”
Grief can cause insanity, I tell myself. “I know. Thank you for wearing it.”
“Can we eat ice cream?”
“What?” I ask, tired and confused. I step back when she stands up.
“I C E C R E A M,” she spells out.
“I know what you said, but I don’t…” I don’t know why you said it, Becca. “I don’t think I have any.”
She nods, her lips pressed tight. “My dad will get me ice cream.” She walks out of the room on a mission to get to her phone.
Slowly, I follow after her. “When is your dad getting here?” I ask her back.
She stops mid movement, her shoulders lifting with each inhaled breath. Then she turns, her head cocked to the side. “I don’t know,” she signs slowly. “When did you call him?”
“I didn’t, Becs.” I approach her with careful, heavy steps. Did you?”
She looks at me a beat, as if coming to terms with her actions. Then her head moves from side to side and she steps away from me. Her hands come up between us, shielding her from me. Tears fill her eyes, and a moment later she’s on the floor, her hands covering her head, her body rocking back and forth like she’d done in the past when a nightmare had taken her down to the depths of her hell. Only this isn’t a nightmare. It’s real. And it’s happening right now.
“Becca.” I rush to her but I don’t dare touch her. I know enough not to.
For minutes, she stays that way, her cries silent, and her thumb between her teeth. Finally, she looks up, her eyes void of any emotion. She looks through me, her hands raised, shaking as she signs, “She’s dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead—”
I cover her hands to stop her from repeating the word, and I use my chest to cover her face, cover her pain. Then I find the strength to pull away and I kiss her. I kiss her, I kiss her, I kiss her, until the trembling stops and she kisses me back, her hands desperate as they wander over me. We stand together, our lips locked and movements frantic as we strip out of our clothes and make our way to the bedroom where we both know that we need the physical pleasure to take away at least some of the torment. And with tear-soaked eyes, and broken hearts, we do what we can to protect our broken, shattered souls.
36
—Becca—
crazy
'kreɪzi/
informal
adjective
1. mad, especially as manifested in wild or aggressive behavior.
My grandmother loved summer storms. From the very little, yet random things I knew about her, that was one of them.
One night during the summer I stayed with her, she jerked me awake just so we could stand out in the rain and listen to the thunder and watch the lightning turn the world white. “Some people believe that storms are God’s way of showing us his anger,” she’d shouted. “But I don’t believe it. God can never truly be angry. It’s just his way of reminding us that we exist, not just in ourselves, but as an entire race. That’s why the heavens open, Becca. So we can celebrate life together.” She danced in the rain that night, her bare feet stomping, splashing water around her while her laughter outweighed the claps of thunder.
I’d stayed on the porch, protected by the roof, completely mesmerized by her movements, her words. Just her.
I never got the chance to dance in the rain with her.
Never got the chance to celebrate life.
But I am now.
I spin in circles, my feet splashing, my head tilted back letting the rain pour down on me. Thunder cracks, and I flinch. But then silent laughter bursts out of me and I widen my spins, my arms slicing through the air, through the heavy sheets of raindrops.
My therapist says I control who I am and who I want to be. My mother was crazy. So was my grandmother. But my mother was crazy in the evilest form, while my grandmother was a million different shades of it in all the best possible ways.
If I got to choose which brand of crazy I’d end up being, I’d choose to be like Grams.
“What the hell are you doing, Becca?” Josh shouts, standing just outside his apartment door. He’s wearing nothing but boxer briefs, exactly the way I’d left him in bed a couple of hours ago. He squints down at me through the darkness of the night. Another clap of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning. “Jesus Christ, you’re going to get yourself killed!”
I don’t know why he’s yelling at me. I’m just celebrating Grams’s life like she’d have wanted. I sign up at him, “Dance with me!”
He charges down his stairs, only slowing his steps when he’s a few feet away from me. He’s so beautiful, so graceful.
“Becca, it’s too dangerous to be out here,” he says, his voice laced with pity.
A gush of wind almost knocks me off my feet, but he holds me steady, saving me.
He’s always saving me.
Always taking care of me.
“I love you,” I sign.
“I love you, too, Becs. But we need to get inside.”
“Just dance with me,” I sign, pouting up at him. “One dance.”
He shakes his head.
I swing my camera behind my back, the strap spinning around my neck, and wrap my arms around his waist. Settling my hand on his chest, I let the wind control our movements. We sway together, awkward in our soaked embrace. But it’s perfect. Because it’s him and it’s me, and we’re dancing in the rain, doing what Grams would be doing. Until he grasps my shoulders and gently pushes me away. “I’m going to get sick, Becs. I can’t afford to get sick right now.”
I shove his chest. “So leave!” I sign and point to his door. “Go!” I turn my back on him and face the flowers lining the fence. Then I lift my camera, switching it on as I do. I bring the viewfinder to my eye and press down on the shutter. The shutter never sounds. I pull away and check the battery icon, but nothing shows on the screen. I switch it off and on again, my bandaged thumb slipping against the switch. I try again. And again. Nothing works.
Josh is standing beside me now, his gaze switching
from the camera to me. “Why won’t it work?” I sign.
He sighs.
“I wanted to take some photographs for Grams,” I tell him. “Summer storms are her favorite. Like this dress is your favorite.” I point to my dress. “Do you like it?”
“I love your dress, babe. I already told you that.”
“You did?” I sign.
His lips form a line as he nods once. Slow. Careful.
I frown and look down at my camera again. “Why won’t my camera work?” I sign.
Josh steps to me, his arms going around my shoulders. He brings my face into his bare chest while thunder cracks and lighting turns the world bright. “In all ways. For always,” he murmurs, but I don’t think he’s talking to me.
* * *
He helps me into his apartment, into his bathroom, and into the shower. He watches me, but not the same way he did in Portland. His eyes don’t wander my body. They don’t wander at all. They stare at my eyes, and they question. They question who I am, who he is, and who we are together, and whether it’s possible that his declaration to love me unconditionally is actually possible. I know that’s what he’s thinking, because I think it, too.
The shower acts like a cold one, the sprays of water blanketing me with the realization of what I’d done and the way I’d acted. Maybe I’m my own brand of crazy. And maybe after watching me Josh realized that. And as I step out of the shower and into his waiting hands—hands holding a towel he uses to dry me—I decide to give him the only truth, the only secret I’ve kept to myself. Not just because he deserves to know, but because after everything I’ve caused him to experience, he deserves an out.
I tap his shoulder and wait for him to look at me. “I can’t have your children, Josh,” I sign.
He freezes, his towel-covered hands on my leg. “What?”
I grab my phone off the counter. “Physically, I probably can. I just don’t want to.” I keep my features even, not willing to reveal any sign of the heartache it causes to tell him this. I don’t want him to know it hurts. I just want him to know.
Josh stands to full height, his breath leaving him. “Why not?”
I choose my words carefully, wanting to give him the truth, and not cloud the facts with my emotions. “I did this study in sociology in high school. Nature vs. Nurture. My research paper was on what would make a mother an abusive alcoholic. If it was how she was raised or what she was around. She had a perfect adult life, really. A decent job, decent social life. But she used to always tell me about her dad’s drinking. How he hit her mother in front of her. She told me that right afterward, they’d have sex in front of her to show her that that’s what love was. You fight and you love. I’m not saying it’s an excuse for what she did to me. I’m just saying I don’t want it to be an excuse for what I might possibly do to my children.”
“Becca.” He shakes his head, his eyes disbelieving. “You can’t live your life like that.”
I ignore his statement and add, “It doesn’t hurt to think about anymore. It used to. Then I met Tommy and saw how you were with him and I thought, at some point, if I didn’t physically have a child, then I didn’t have to worry about treating them the way my mother had, or the way her parents had treated her. But if I had my own…” I trail off, shrinking beneath his penetrating gaze. “We could still be a nice little family. You, me, and Tommy. But that’s all we’d ever be. Just the three of us. And if that’s not enough for you, I would understand, Josh. I wouldn’t stop you from walking away like I once did. You earned that right. And I’d let you go. Because it’s not fair that you should have to love me broken, especially when I can never make you whole.”
—Joshua—
Becca’s crazy.
And I know it’s wrong for me to say that, but if she thinks that her completely unselfish decision to not want to bear any children is going to make me leave her then yeah, she’s fucking crazy.
I’d never leave her.
Sure, I’ve thought about what our children would look like; bright emerald eyes behind a sea of raven dark bangs. She’d be a girl, of course, because why the hell wouldn’t I want two versions of Becca in my life? And, yes, I appreciate her telling me how she truly felt. But did it change the way I feel about her? Not one bit.
“Will you come to bed with me?” I ask. “And stay in bed with me? I’ve spent too many nights away from you, woken up too many times and not had you there. Just stay and be with me, Becs. That’s all I want. Now and forever.”
37
Journal
My dad arrived at the same time Tommy came home.
The same time Sadie decided to pack her bags and leave the house.
If she’d been around this entire time, I didn’t notice her.
I don’t notice a lot of things.
I live in my own world, trapped in my own head.
Days pass.
Dad makes me eat.
Makes me shower.
Makes me sleep.
There are no summer storms.
And the storm that came took away her roses.
Now they’re dead.
Just like her.
And I don’t even have a camera to capture it.
To capture beauty in the face of death.
I should have captured her beauty.
I should’ve—
~ ~
—Joshua—
“She’s just not responding at all,” Martin says, his words as rushed as our footsteps.
I practically crash through the front door, past the living room and into the kitchen where Martin said Becca had been for the past two hours.
I’d spent the past few days with Tommy, who’d taken the news better than I thought, and meeting with my mom to organize the funeral tomorrow and all the other things I needed to do as Chazarae’s power of attorney. Mom mentioned she was surprised at how well I’d taken Chaz’s death. I was purposely keeping too busy to feel anything. At least that’s what I told her. I’ll never tell her the truth. I’ll never tell anyone. Besides, how do you tell someone that you truly believe a person who had so much to offer alive was better off dead? She was no longer that person we all wanted to believe she was. By the end, she’d lost the fight to fake it, and now—she no longer had to.
I’d checked in on Becca often since her dad got here, even had her stay with me at night. She’d been bad, but never like this. Never so out of it that she couldn’t acknowledge my presence.
She’s sitting on the floor, her knees raised close to her chest, wearing one of my t-shirts—a shirt so big she uses it to cover her legs. She’s not crying, but her eyes are glazed, not with tears, but with complete and utter misery.
Her hands are on her head, her eyes staring at nothing in front of her.
It hurts to swallow.
About as much as it hurts to see her like this.
Completely empty.
I step toward her, careful not to spook her, and that’s when I focus on the hundreds of pictures littered around her. Pictures of Chazarae, some of them together, some of her alone. Some I’ve seen before, most I haven’t.
Martin says, “She was up all night on her computer, and I heard the printer running but I didn’t…” He rubs his eyes—eyes tired and defeated.
“Becca.” I squat in front of her. “Baby, what are you doing?”
She doesn’t react. Not in the slightest.
“Daddy?” Tommy says from behind me.
My eyes drift shut. He shouldn’t be here. I told him to stay in bed.
“Is my Becca okay?” he asks, standing next to me, his hand on my shoulder.
He’s not wearing a top. Just pajama bottoms.
“Becca’s very sad, buddy,” I tell him.
Tommy nods, and then copies my position. Only he settles a hand on her knee, and I almost cringe, fearing her response. I know not to touch her when she’s like this. He doesn’t. But the response isn’t what I was expecting. For the first time, her eyes move. First to Tommy, then to
me, and even through her daze, through the tangled web of emotions that brought her here, sitting in the corner of the kitchen surrounded by painful memories, I can see the apology in her eyes. See the regret she feels that Tommy has to see her like this.
Her lips move, but her words are silent. Quickly, but carefully, I move Tommy out of the way and shift closer to her. “What is it, baby?”
“I want,” she mouths, rocking back and forth.
“You want…? What do you want?”
“I want,” she repeats, tears filling her eyes. She blinks once. Hard. And the tears fall, fast and free, giant droplets of withheld emotions streak down her cheeks and fall with purpose. “I want,” she says again, rocking faster, crying harder. She points to one of the many photographs on the floor.
Tommy’s the first to reach for it, the first to see the image of a woman with curly blonde hair, wearing a blue dress, carrying a toddler on her hip… a toddler with raven dark hair and eyes the color of emeralds…
“Is this your mamma?” Tommy asks.
Becca nods slowly, a silent sob filtering from her mouth and wrapping around my heart, taking away its pulse, its reason. It’s hope.
Tommy whispers, “You want your mamma?”
Becca nods again, covering her head as if to cover her shame that of all the things she could want, she could need, it’s the one person who tried to take it all away.
“Sometimes when I’m sad, I want my mamma, too,” Tommy says, his innocence defying all logic. “But most of the time, I want my daddy.”
Becca looks up, her eyes right on his, and her chest rapidly rising and falling with her breaths.
“Do you want me to sleep in your bed with you?” Tommy asks. “I can cuddle you. That’s what my daddy does when I’m sad.”
Becca nods again, her cries still silent, and takes Tommy’s offered hand to help her up. He keeps a hold of her hand all the way up the stairs and to her room.