All These Lives (15 page)

There are five other people at tables—two women, another man, and a boy and girl around age nine and seven, respectively.

I run my right hand over my cast, feeling strangely self-conscious.

Once the introductions are over, I come back to stand behind Mom’s chair. Dad is chatting to the other man and Jena is, as usual, beside Mom. I notice she’s wearing two winter coats—hers and Mom’s.

“Oh, good man!” Gareth says. “He’s got more chairs. Danielle, I believe you know my son, Jack.”

I turn around and he’s standing there, a pile of chairs in front of him. His usually neat, academic hair looks like it’s fought and lost a battle with the wind, and his eyes don’t quite meet mine as he lifts a chair from the pile.

“Hi,” I say, holding my hand out to him. “I’m the Other Daughter.”

Everybody laughs, except Jena, because she doesn’t like the way I phrased that sentence (even though I’m only repeating what Dad said), and me, because it’s unfortunate to laugh at your own jokes, and Jack, because I think he understands that I’m calling a truce. We’re not at school. We’re in the awkward meet-the-family stage, where both of us have our relations to embarrass us, without me adding to it.

His hand wraps around mine, moving it in a surprisingly firm shake.

The laughter subsides as new conversations crop up and our hands untangle.

“Thanks for the chair,” I say as he pulls another one from the stack and sets it on the ground. It’s weird that he’s sitting by me almost voluntarily. It’s weird that Jena keeps looking over her shoulder, staring at us. It’s weird that Jack’s mom and my mom are talking, but not about me and how I’ve made her son’s life miserable for the past sixish years and, by the way, why has Jack done all the work for that math assignment he and your daughter have?

Talking is the perfect filler, for silence, averting questions, awkwardness. Now, if I could only think of something appropriate to say. So far, I have:

So, sexy beast, you couldn’t live a couple days without me, could you?

And:

Have I ever told you that you look adorable when your natural glow isn’t obstructed by the glare of the whiteboard?

And:

Personally, I think it’s still early on to meet the parents, but what do you think? Could you see yourself at Thanksgiving dinners’ forever-and-ever amens?

“So, what are you doing here?”

I’m pissed Jack beat me to it, especially since given enough time and with some luck, I might have come up with it myself. “We’re winter RVing,” I say. “Apparently, it’s the latest holiday fad.”

“I thought those were staycations … or something.” He stares down at his lap.

A feeling that is equal parts surprise and pride hits me. “Jack.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you just make a joke?” His lips tilt up, sheepishly. “I mean, practice makes perfect, but
bravo
!”

This time he laughs, a rich, deep sound that dances around us in the air, gentle, unobtrusive.

“Thanks. Well, I guess this explains why you weren’t at school Friday. I mean, I wondered where you were.” Pause. “My aunt and uncle own this place. They live round the back,” he says, pointing to
round the back
, which I assume is the second building Dad and I saw, coming in. “We used to come here all the time in the summers and even in winter. My dad’s a huge fan of ice-fishing.”

I note the similarity, for the first time, between Jack’s dad and the younger man, who must be his brother, sitting two seats from him.

“Are you?”

Jack shakes his head. “Not really. The most fun I have on these trips is trying to start a fire.”

I open my mouth to speak. “Without matches,” he says, before I can. His voice drops a little. “I guess Dad was in a nostalgic mood, so we decided to come out here for the weekend.”

My eyes wander across the table, where Gareth is talking animatedly, his laugh loud and strong. I wonder if he had an accident or something.

“Listen,” I begin, “I really have to apologize about our project. Only now that I see you do I remember that you wanted me to find pictures. I have this weird condition.”

“Selective memory?” Jena chips in. We’re sitting about five feet away from her, but I didn’t realize she was listening to our conversation. Thank God I didn’t say anything compromising. Or of an about-that-kiss nature.

Jack shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. And let’s not talk about school.”

Or the Kiss. Or the fact that the last time I saw you, you wrote me a note with a subliminally pissed-off message.

“Who’s talking about school?” Gareth has wheeled over so he’s next to Jack now. “We’re going ice-fishing! Who’s talking about school?”

“Nobody,” Jack says.

“
Who’s
talking about school?”

Jack grins. “Nobody,” he and Jena say at the same time, while I watch, mildly amused.

“There’s a lake close by,” Jack explains, delving into the history of the thing and how wide and deep it is, etc., but I’m only pretending to listen. I always imagined, being the über-geek he is, that he’d have come from some really uptight, academic lineage, where his family ate together every night while watching CNN (I mean, if they owned a TV), and his parents still maintain that he’s too young for the birds-and-the-bees talk. Meeting the Penners, however, suggests an entirely different situation and a more troubling one, at that. It appears that Jack owes one hundred percent of his chronic geekiness to himself and no one else.

We all stand, feeding off Dad’s and Gareth’s enthusiasm, making plans to meet in an hour for the Great Ice-Fishing Escapade, after everyone’s dressed for the cold. Even Jena and Mom plan to go.

“Hey, Dani,” Jack says as I push my chair back and start to follow Dad. “You’re planning to come, right?”

Before I can answer, Jena jumps in yet again. “Of course she is.”

“Good.” And he actually seems to mean it. “I can show you how to light a fire. I mean, without matches. In case you ever need it.”

Jena stares at him, amused. Mom’s arm slithers around her, wrapping her in reality and dragging her away from me.

I follow.

26

Jena has decided that Jack is in love with me. I think she’s trying to get me back for attempting to set her up with Rufus.

She sits on the bed, her top coat unzipped. “Did you see how happy he was when you said you were coming fishing?”

“‘Happy’ is a strong word. I’d call it more ‘resigned.’”

Her expression falls slightly as she senses that my walls are up and she’s not nearly strong enough to climb over. Not even today when she is leukemia’s version of Superwoman.

She’s not ready to concede, though. She has other plans.

Today, we will act like regular sisters, gossiping about boys and crushes and sharing feelings. We will make up for months upon months of not talking about anything so we didn’t have to talk about It. We will make up for years upon years, the ones we might miss. Now is all we have. Let’s be sisters today.

“Jena? I need to take your temperature!” Mom calls from the front.

Jena pulls herself up, her bones creaking and howling and giving her away, even when her heart is strong and her will is kick-ass and her temperature is “Perfect! What did I say about God looking out for you, missie?”

Dad is not in the RV. When he returns a few minutes later, slightly on edge, and brushes his teeth while Mom is busy praising God and hugging Jena, I figure he’s a bonafide smoker once more, a backsliding, deceptive husband. Yet another statistic to add to our many.

I intentionally brush his shoulder as he advances from the bathroom smelling entirely too minty not to be suspicious. I mean, if Mom was concerned with anyone but Jena.

Insisting she doesn’t want to take any chances, Mom packs a bag full of medical supplies—in addition to your basic first-aid kit—and nearly forgets Jena. I remember, though, and walk behind her the whole way there.

The day passes in a bit of a blur. Unsuccessful attempts at ice-fishing (Dad). Questions about the legality of our activities (Jena). Then, of course, the starting of fires.

Technically, Jack starts all but three. Two sort of belong to Jena. I’m not particularly enthusiastic about the whole thing, especially since it’s too cold for them to last more than a couple of seconds anyway.

“Sure you don’t want to try?” Jack offers for about the sixteenth time this hour. Jack is different than I imagined. He’s confident when he knows what he’s doing. He also never gets too far away from his dad, helping him maneuver unleveled paths and hauling around stuff so Gareth doesn’t have to put anything on his lap.

“I’m positive.”

“Oh, come on,” Jena says, still looking smug over the fact that she successfully accomplished this one thing—the second fire on only her third attempt. “Once upon a time there was a chicken called Danielle.”

I glare at her. “She attacked a fool named Jenavieve.”

“There’s no need to name call.” My sister shrugs her weak shoulders, playing with a circle of snow she picked up from the ground beside her. “Whatever. Can I have another turn, Jack?”

Jena and Jack seem to have hit it off. Not in a romantic way, I don’t think, but in that way you act when friends or cousins come over and you haven’t had guests in a long time and don’t want them to ever leave. That’s Jena. Jack? Well, I suppose he’s happy just to be wanted. And, according to my sister, to be around me.

At some point, I’m not sure when, I give in and agree to light a fire. Except I’m really particular about it not burning out. So as soon as a tiny blue flame appears, and Jena and Jack ooh and ahh over the little creature, I bend over it, fencing it in with my hands and urging it to last just a little longer. I even—and I’m not proud of this—feed it the sleeve of Dad’s coat, the one he let me wear because he got too hot and I try to help out where I can. For a second, it appears to work, but then Jena is yelling.

“Oh my God, Dani, what are you doing? You can’t do that.”

Jack is equally stunned. “That’s really dangerous … and isn’t that your dad’s?”

I stub the sleeve into the ground to put out the fire. Then I go back to hovering over my flame, willing it to live and to resist the cold, the force of the wind, the pull back into the earth where it melts and it’s like it never existed.

But slowly, surely, it dissolves, eating at itself, growing smaller and smaller. I can’t fan it back to life. Do I leave it and let it die? Or fight fight fight to make it burn?

In the end, it doesn’t matter.

I can’t do anything. Nothing to save it.

Jack and Jena are no longer saying anything, just watching me.

I try to pull my throat out of my stomach. “Well,” I say, but my voice comes out like more of a whisper. “That sucked.”

“Yours lasted the longest,” Jack offers.

“I try,” I say, flopping down to the cold ground, holding the burned sleeve of Dad’s coat out to Jena. “Can I say you did this? I mean, I doubt he’ll disown you, in your condition.”

“I think,” Jack says, “that we should attempt some ice-fishing. I’m not very good, but I’ll show you guys.”

“Sounds like a plan, Jack.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Let’s ice-fish.”

And we do, except we don’t catch anything. Jena starts to cough and the tip of her nose, plus the bit between her nostrils and her upper lip, reddens. I’m glad Mom’s pills are at the bottom of Bag Three. I watch Jena closely, trying to determine if she’ll need me, need my life today. Mom wants us to hurry up and get inside please. Dad makes his apologies and we round up to leave.

“Dani?” Jack stops me as I turn to go. “I’m glad … I mean, I had a good time today. You’re … your family is nice.”

“I’ll tell them.” I smile, feeling relieved for him that it’s just me he’s talking to, and not a real girl. I mean, a girl he has a chance with.

“Well,” I say, hoping Jack understands that I’m saying goodbye.

“Um, about Thursday,” he begins,
clearly
not understanding. He shifts the cooler he’s holding from his left hand to the right. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude in the note,” he says. I fight the urge to tell him that he wasn’t, I’m just observant. “It just bothers me when people pretend like everything is okay when it’s not.”

His tone suggests that statement is not exclusively directed at me. “If that’s supposed to have some deep and profound meaning, I don’t get it.”

He seems to consider whether or not to say more. “My dad,” he says finally, staring at the handle on the cooler. “It’s been more than a year since the accident, and I don’t think he’s talked about it once.”

My eyes travel to Gareth, who is several feet away from us, laughing about something with his brother. “Maybe it was traumatizing.”

“Well, he acts like it was no big deal, like it never even happened. He doesn’t like me to know when he’s in pain. I guess he thinks it makes him weaker or something.”

All I can think is that Jack shouldn’t be telling me this. We don’t even really know each other.

“And then,” he continues, “he gets all ambitious and wants to go ice-fishing. In the fall, he wanted to take his wheelchair on one of the easier trails we used to hike. We didn’t even make it halfway.”

His voice is soft and sad and pricks my fingers and throat.

“He tries to hide it but it makes him really frustrated and depressed.” Jack sighs. “Sometimes I think it would be easier if we were all more honest about what we can and can’t do. It’s not a sign of failure if you can’t do something.”

I’m staring at Gareth again and thinking about his strong hands, the square, muscular shape of shoulders that act as arms and feet. What can’t he do? “What can’t
you
do?”

Jack considers the question for a second. “Um, well,” he says, “no matter how precise I try to be, visualizing the trajectory and path of a basketball, I can never seem to get it into the hoop. At least not without a couple of misses first.”

I decide not to inform him that I have no idea what
tra-jeck-to-ree
means. “That’s terrible, Jack. How can you even look at yourself in the mirror?”

He grins. “And most people think I’d be good at video games, but I’m not. I’m awful, actually.” A short laugh escapes him. “And sometimes I write down stuff to say to you in the margins of my Spanish notebook, and I can never remember it.”