Through the thin door that doesn’t shield more than a breath of air, Faith’s not cursing out Stella. Instead:
“In order to be the man, you have to beat the man,” Faith repeats. “You’re the man, girl. Do the damn thing.” She thuds something against the wall, scaring us back slightly.
“I don’t understand,” Stella says, exasperated.
“She’s hyping herself up for a ring fight,” I say.
“Oh, God. She wants to be Rick Flair.”
I hold back a chuckle. “I don’t think so. She just wants to be in charge of her life. After everything she’s been through, she’s looking for an outlet to give her back the power.”
Stella’s eyes soften, understanding any miscommunication isn’t because Faith hates her, but possibly because she doesn’t and she’s clinging to anything she can to remind her she can have a say in her own life. And right now, that say happens to manifest á la Rick Flair.
“My MP3 player helps me. This is her thing. It’s incredibly weird and offensive, and has nothing to do with what kind of parent you are. Let her have it.”
She ruffles the curls that hang against my forehead. “You’re pretty great, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
Another thud startles us two steps back. Faith’s voice volume cranks to high. “I’m a stylin’ profilin’ son of a gun!”
Stella rubs the crease between her brows. “I’m gonna have to watch that damn documentary, aren’t I?” She sighs.
I smile. “Woo.”
NUMBERS AND DEATH
Salmon-colored poppies inconsistently situated on a pair of leggings Nell changed into after news of Ray’s death. Forty-seven on the front, bits of jade foliage positioned in between. Naima wondered, Why not forty-eight or fifty? Nell broke her thought into segments with a muffled whimper, and as she looked up, Naima accidentally stumbled into her gaze. It was there that she saw it: heartache mixed with disbelief. She quieted, directed Naima to the two men—a marine and a chaplain—standing guard near the driveway with Christian and his friends. With a silent nod, Nell pointed, and the movement of her shaking finger cut the air between them; this is when Naima remembered what she said to herself about Ray the day before she attempted to take her own life. I’ll always be a ghost to him.
Ray would tell her thereafter that people can change at the slightest crinkle in their world—just as he had after Josephine passed. But maybe he hadn’t changed for the better, if leaving was all he’d ever be capable of. Ghosts are all Naima believes she has left. She’ll wonder, if she’d caught the balloons when Nell struggled that day, or if she did what she did every year, or counted the hexagons again, or if she hadn’t been born at all, things would be different now. But she’ll never know what else to do, to fix a thing. That, to her, is worse than death. So she counts. And counts five more times.
Because when Ray died, he was on his sixth tour.
NAIMA
“Who was at the door?” JJ asks, coming down the stairs. I shove the balloon beneath the quilt but it flies out almost immediately.
“I got … a package,” I say.
“From who?” She sets an emptied laundry basket on top of the dryer and moves closer. She spots the balloon. “Where’d that come from?”
I hold up the yellow envelope that contains the letters and let her see for herself. She pulls the stack and reads Dad’s note, hand clamped over her mouth to hold back a wail. When she sees the letters addressed to me, her disappointment is clear. It’s a look of “What did you do now?” and I turn away because she’s right. What did I do now?
“You didn’t open even one?” she asks.
I shake my head, avoid eye contact.
I expect her to scold me, but instead she lays a hand on mine. “I guess we don’t all know how we’ll react until it’s our time to.”
I nod.
She wipes her tears away and straightens her posture as if to say moving on. “Reservations set for dinner at seven.”
She pauses for a beat, eyes a bit drearier than they’d been this morning. “Get ready in a bit, then.”
Her face remains unchanged, but she doesn’t ask about the balloon again as she goes to, mostly likely, tell Kam what I’ve done—er, not done. The thought of wasting the very thing that holds me back, more time, makes me ill. The balloon moves freely in front of me while the letters stay in the spot JJ left them. That’s where they’ll stay until my mind decides they can move. Not now, maybe not ever.
For now, I find my bandanna and tie it around my head. Searching the playlist on my phone, I press Play on an old Run-D.M.C. jam—“It’s Tricky”—to dance out the rest of my nerves. “There’s no better medicine than a good time,” Kam would say.
And so I turn the music up.
And let my arms flail
As the balloon rises to the ceiling
Where it kind of dances with me.
And in the weirdest way,
It does feels like Dad’s here.
Even though
I know
That’s not a real thing.
Is it?
Ugh. Never mind.
Dad
cell
January 22 at 10:47 AM
Transcription Beta
“So … I won’t be home like I planned. Something … came up. I can’t go into specifics, but I’m okay. It’s something I have to do. I’ve already talked to Nell, but she thought it’d be best if I told you myself. I know you’re going to be angry, and I don’t blame you. I promise—I’ll be home in time for your birthday. If you don’t want to talk directly, can you write me a strongly worded letter about how you’re feeling? Give me all you’ve got. I just need to know you’re okay. Please, Ima.” [lost signal]
Email Draft (Unsent)
To
___________________________________________
Subject
___________________________________________
A strongly worded letter
About how I feel
Could never do
The thing
I need it to
Like bring you
Home.
Coming up on Dew’s News: The introduction of Ivy Springs’ newest wrestling sensation.
Dr. Peterson is not happy with me. The strawberry cake pulled her down a spiral. I should’ve known; I felt it coming—an unleashing of sorts—because I’ve become so good at answering questions exactly how she’d want me to.
“By focusing so much on Naima’s pain, you’re avoiding your own,” she says. “This is the redirecting reaction we’ve discussed.”
I look down at my hands folded in my lap. “I don’t know what you mean,” I lie.
She leans forward in her rolling chair and removes her glasses. “I think you do.” She stands and takes the empty space next to me. “I’d like to try the exercise we’ve been avoiding.”
My body instantly tightens. The excuses were easy, in the beginning: “I can’t because I’m not ready. I don’t feel well. Let’s do it next week.” After weeks of intensive therapy and the start of this exercise I couldn’t finish, she and I both know it’s time.
She tells me to close my eyes and imagine a memory that’s caused unpleasant feelings. A situation that didn’t end well. My parents try to shove their way into the limelight, but I hold them back. Dig deeper. For something, anything, else.
“Tell me what you see,” she says, calm.
My eyes strain to stay closed. I pinch them tighter. “The lady comes to my school. She says my parents have died.” I pause, still blocking chunks of time from that day; the worst day.
“Go on.”
“I get in her car and she takes me to an emergency shelter. She says she will find a place for me to stay, and I ask her, ‘Forever?’ ‘That’s the end goal,’ she says, leaving me in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. I stand in the corner where it’s quietest but even there, it’s not so quiet.”
“How do you feel in
this moment, Dew?”
I choke on the words. “Scared. I want to go home. I want my mom to hold me. I want my dad to tell me it will be okay. No one tells me it will be okay. I’m alone. I play August Moon the whole night through, and pretend the day didn’t happen.”
My fists clench as tears fight their way through my lashes. She lays her hand on mine and tells me we’re going to begin the story again, only, I’m to edit the memory in a way that flips the script.
“Tell me what you see this time,” she says.
I inhale, deep, exhaling until my lungs deflate completely. “The lady comes to my school.”
“What happens next?”
I think. Try to summon a new ending, but I struggle. This is the part that always catches me. The part I don’t want to remember.
“Think, Dew. Who is your hero in this scenario? A caseworker. A teacher. A friend, maybe. Someone who enters this memory and saves you from feeling the pain. Who do you see?”
“The lady breezes past me. It’s not my fate that’s changed on this day. I look to the drop-off to see our car waiting for me.”
“Where are your parents?”
“In the car. Alive.”
“And what do you do when you see them?”
“I run to them and slide into the backseat. It’s warm. They turn to look at me, and I feel okay.”
She pats my arm and hands me a tissue. I’m calm now. A strange serenity flowing between my thoughts. In the silence before she summarizes my session sheet, I try to think of that day again, with the original ending; the one that hurts. But I can’t recall. My only feeling is the warm backseat and the twinkle in my parents’ eyes, and while still burdened with a deep sorrow, I also feel a little more okay.
I open my eyes to see Dr. Peterson’s smile. “I’m proud of you. I know that was tough.”
I nod.
She moves to her laptop and punches in her thoughts. “We still have work to do, but I think you just had a slight breakthrough. EMDR will hopefully help you ‘rewrite’ a lot of memories so they hurt a little less.”
I sit, quietly reflecting, wondering why it’s been so hard to confront this memory. She turns seconds later, before I’m directed out.
“But I also think, it’s time for you to visit your parents’ graves and say goodbye.”
I trip over my words. “I can’t.”
“You have to, to get past the rest of what’s holding you back.”
She urges me out before I argue, and calls Stella over to whisper about me.
Faith waits in her usual corner chair, her feather jacket draped over her shoulders like a shrug. She looks up from her phone. “I was hot.”
I sit next to her and pretend I don’t notice all the glue bits hanging off the cloth, or that I’m emotionally drained and seeing those glue bits might be the only redeeming thing about this day. “It is summer. I bet even Rick Flair wore a tank every now and then.”
She huffs. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Right, sorry.”
She redirects her attention to her phone.
“How’d it go today?” I ask.
“Meh.” She pauses. “Actually, not bad.” She pauses again, but doesn’t look up. “What about you?”
My shoulders are square, almost relaxed. “Same.”
Stella waves us over. “Sounds like you two worked very hard today. I’m so proud of you both.” She squeezes us, and though Faith tries not to smile, I see it, and I smile, too.
Stella glances at Faith repeatedly before finally getting a sentence out on our drive—the sentence she’s probably been practicing after speaking with Dr. Peterson.
“If you want to work on your swing, Rick taped a string in the doorway and practiced punching toward it until it didn’t move,” Stella says with a shaky voice. “So you don’t actually hit someone, you know? Takes a lot of practice. And hard work. But his daughter did it. You can, too.”
Faith looks up, beaming. “I can do that.”
“I’ve been thinking, maybe we should work on your wrestling name, something that’s more you. And I can have my seamstress create a jacket unlike anyone else’s. Don’t be a recycled version of someone else. You deserve something special and unique. Like you.”
The air between them grows thin. “I’m not good at any of it,” Faith says. “I just think wrestling’s cool.”
“You’re great at throwing random fits,” Stella jokes. “WWE would be thrilled to have someone like you.”
“I concur,” I say. “You were born for this, Faith. I’ve never seen you so lit up before. My mom used to say—” I stop myself, glancing at Stella. “Never mind.”
“What would she say, Dew?” Stella asks with the same warm smile my mother would’ve offered.
“Chase light like a firefly in darkness,” I say. “That’s what she would say.”
“Sounds like she was a great mom.” Stella reaches over and squeezes my hand.
It stings and heals all at once. “She and Dad would’ve liked you and Thomas.”
“Found it—found my new name,” Faith blurts out.
“Well?” I ask, relieved at the distraction. “What should we call you?”
Her hands spread wide, a fist nearly knocking the tip of my nose, letting the jacket drop from her shoulders as if she’s been reborn. “Faith ‘the Conniption’ Brickman: Greatest Wrestler You’ve Not Met Yet.”
And just like that (but not so quickly, actually), we went from three separate pods within a larger pod to a family, and all that was needed was a little good-fortune cake.
NAIMA
“More breadsticks?” the waiter asks. He looks from the empty basket to my plate that’s covered in all six of them.
“Please.”
Kam laughs, scraping the last bit of Alfredo sauce from his plate. “You’re gonna turn into a breadstick.”
“I hope so.”
“Let the girl eat what she wants,” JJ says, dipping into her salad. “It’s her day.”
“I didn’t say it’s a bad thing. I’ve been storing carbs for years. Grandma might say it’s made me more a loaf. Get it? Instead of aloof.” His chin is perched out with a smile.
The waiter grabs the breadbasket, obviously uncomfortable. “I’ll bring more bread.”
“No, baby,” JJ says, shaking her head at Kam. “Just no.”
“That was wrong,” I say. “You need to work on your granddad jokes. You’re scaring away the workers.”
“I’m funny. Like the one about not making my own sandwich because I hire contractors to do it. You two just don’t appreciate sophisticated humor.”
“Like the knock-knock joke where I said, ‘Who’s there?’ and you disappeared, then ran back in to tell me it was a ding-dong ditch?”
“What’s wrong with that joke?”
“First of all, it’s not funny. Second, it’s not funny.”
JJ laughs. “Third, it’s not funny.”
He slumps. It’s not that we’re not close, Kam and I. Sometimes, he reminds me too much of Dad. He feels it, too. His posture practically shouts, I am a third wheel!
“Ray thought I was funny,” he says.
There’s a lingering silence as he drags his fork in the air like a magic wand, maybe wishing for Dad to be here with us. JJ grabs his hand, gently changing the tide. “I hate that shirt,” she says. “Why do you still wear it?”
He chuckles, pulling at the fabric. “Because it gets a rise out of you.”
She smiles and the corners of his lips pull upward as their hands intertwine. I stare at the empty chair next to me, remembering the nights Dad would swordfight me with his fork for the last breadstick, swallowing the lump that’s formed in my throat.
The waiter returns with a fresh stack of bread. I pull the first breadstick from the top and lay it in front of the empty seat. Six breadsticks for the four of us. Like always.
Would you rather give up breadsticks or give up sleep?
We eat and we laugh and JJ tal
ks of the 5K she’s training for and Kam talks of a new development in Clifton he wished he could take over. We don’t talk about how much it hurts to pretend we’re not hurting.
After dinner, we stop by the grocery store—the one with the giant mural of a garden on the outside wall—in the next town over so JJ can pick up the cake she ordered—a time-honored tradition I’ll inevitably complain about (another time-honored tradition).
“Be right back,” she says.
Kam and I stay behind. I want him to let it be silent, but he’s not one to keep quiet. JJ says it’s a way of managing his own anxiety. Like the quiet will swallow him up, and to prevent it, he talks.
“How are you really doing?” he asks, soft.
“I don’t know,” I say. I find a piece of bread between my teeth and obsess over trying to unstick it with the tip of my tongue.
He clears his throat. “Dinner was good. Loved my Alfredo. Cooked to perfection.”
I say nothing.
“Weather was nice today. Little humid, but nice.”
With a sigh, he goes for it. “So you got some letters from Ray.”
I say nothing.
“He must’ve really wanted you to read them if he kept them all that time.”
Time. Time. Time. Time. Time. Time.
He elongates the last word, until it soaks into the air. I think about the letters.
Kam adjusts. “Put any thought into what you’ll say at the memorial?”
“I’m not speaking.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
He processes. “Might make you feel better. To talk about it.”
I hold my tongue. “It’d make me feel better for Dad to be alive, in this car, with us.”
His head drops. “I know, babe.”
With an awkward shift, he does it—he asks the thing you shouldn’t ask. “Are you taking your medication?”
“YES!” I snap.
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