These Gentle Wounds (14 page)

My hand clenches around a section of the bunched-up comforter like it's a life raft. If I can hang on tight enough, maybe I can stay here where it's warm and safe. Where everything in the water is beautiful, and friendly, and not crying or praying. Where it's okay that I didn't run for help on The Night Before. Where it's okay that I didn't save the kids. Where it's okay that I didn't die.

Somewhere under the words of the poem I hear soft
shhh, shhh
sounds that make my breathing slow down and most of my tears go back to wherever it is in your body they live.

The arm around my shoulders tightens and then releases. I surrender and open my heavy eyes, which drop a fresh set of tears onto my shirt.

I want to apologize for acting like this, for being like this, but I don't trust my voice to work or my tongue to form any of the tangle of words that are bouncing around in my head.

Instead, I wait for her to tell me that I need to grow up, that I should have stayed in that car, that my father will be doing the right thing if he just tosses me into a hospital and throws away the key.

But here's the thing. She doesn't.

“You have your mom's eyes, you know,” she says, staring at the photo she's taken out of my hand.

I've heard that since I was a kid. That my eyes, which are the green of worn sea glass, are just like my mom's.

But for the last five years, everyone has expected me to hate my mom for what she did. Even Kevin. It's like his own feelings are so complicated he can't put them into words, which means we rarely talk about her. And when other people talk about her, there's always something snide and sharp behind their words.

Even when I've tried—just because it seems to be what everyone wants—I've never been able to hate her. Instead, I just miss her a whole lot. And thinking about Ms. DeSilva's words, thinking there might be something left of my mother in me, actually makes me try to smile a little.

“It's going to be okay, Gordie. I promise,” she says.

I want to tell her not to say that. She can't possibly know. But I want to believe her so badly that I'm shaking with it.

Nothing I could say will change anything that's happening, but I hear “It isn't fair” coming out of my lips.

Even I know it's the worst kind of whiny complaint and doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of anything. I've tried so hard to roll with the punches, but I don't understand why they keep coming. When does it all stop? When does it not have to hurt anymore?

I expect her to tell me more of the legal stuff, and how getting my mom pregnant entitles my father to all of the terrible things he's done and all he has yet to do, but she doesn't.

She just tightens her hold on me and says, “You're right. I know that. So much of what's happened to you isn't fair.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes as she rocks me like a little kid, back and forth on the bed.

“I bet you get angry sometimes,” she says.

What's really strange is that I usually don't. I leave all the anger for Kevin. Sometimes I feel like I'm a sponge, soaking up all the sadness for both of us.

I don't know how to say that to her, so I shrug.

“You know what, though?”

I shake my head, because I really have no idea about anything right now.

“I think you're very brave,” she says.

A laugh pushes out of me. Kevin is the brave one, not me. There's nothing brave about what I did The Night Before, or when I swam out of Mom's car and left the kids there. There's nothing brave about not being strong enough to keep myself from cracking into a million, sobbing pieces.

“I mean it,” she says and strokes my hair. “And some day you're going to realize it too.”

If she believes that, maybe she's the crazy one.

The room is silent except for the sound of the blood racing through my head, my shuddering breaths, and the squeak of the bed. Time passes.

“The law is very black-and-white,” she says in a far-away voice. “But the court is set up to look out for kids like you. We're going to take this one step at a time, together.”

I look up at her and blink to refocus my eyes.

“In the meantime,” she continues, “will you do me a favor?”

She removes her arm from my shoulder and I'm as cold as if I'd just stripped naked in the middle of an ice rink. She holds out a card to me.

“This is my business card. It has my cell phone number on the back. I want you to promise that if you need to talk, or if anything happens that you can't deal with, you'll call me.”

I take the card, and it feels a little like the way Kevin's hand feels on the back of my shirt when we're up on the walk.

“Sometimes people put a phone number in their cell and instead of listing a name with it, they put the initials I, C, E. ‘ICE,' for ‘In Case of Emergency.' Just think of me as your emergency number.”

I think it's kind of funny about the initials and all, but
really, it feels surprisingly good to know there's someone besides Kevin who gets what a mess I am and still gives a shit.

She takes my chin in one of her hands and looks right into my eyes. “I know it might not feel like it, but you're going to be okay, Gordie. Just hang in there for me. Promise?”

My eyes follow as she gets up and heads to the door. What I really want is for her to come back and put her arm around me and just let me cry some more, but saying that would make me sound like a nutcase, so I let her go.

After she leaves, I pick up the photo again. Staring into Mom's eyes is kind of like staring into a mirror, but at the same time I try to see something in there that says “I'm going to kill my kids,” and I just can't read that in her expression.

I give up and put the photo down, along with the business card.

Sarah's MP3 player is still on the bed, so I plug the headphones in and push them into my ears, finally getting them to stay and not fall out. I'm not sure I really want to listen to anything, but after a few minutes of spinning the wheel, I see a playlist with my name on it and curiosity gets the best of me.

I push “play” and the music starts. At first it makes me uncomfortable. It isn't like I haven't heard music in five years, it's that I haven't heard it being shot right into my brain like this. I squirm and sit on my hands to keep from ripping the headphones out. Then I can't help it. I have to reach up and take one of them out. I have to walk over to the door and open it and listen to make sure nothing horrible is happening downstairs. That I'm not making the same mistake I made The Night Before.

Everything downstairs is pretty quiet. All I hear is the soft murmur of voices. So I put the buds back in and sit down on the bed and close my eyes. I try to focus on the music. Sarah's music.

I don't know what I expected, but this isn't it. I thought flutes were supposed to be gentle and floaty. There is something gritty about this. These notes have teeth.

Sarah told me she learned to play from an old British guy that lived down her street who was in a rock band a long time ago. She stood and watched him playing on his porch one day and begged her parents to pay for lessons. It gave her something to do when they were fawning over Luke, she said. Playing took the place of parents, friends, everything.

There's a guy singing and his words aren't angry. But Sarah's flute behind him is. It makes sounds I'm not sure I've ever heard before. They're beautiful and ugly all at once. I let them wrap up around me and try to understand why she's so angry. I guess it's her parents, but really, I know nothing about normal families.

I let myself slip off into the middle of the songs. They circle around me and carry me to somewhere else. Listening to her play makes me feel like she's next to me. I wonder what it will be like to watch her show, to see her playing these angry and dramatic notes. I wonder what I'll see in
her
eyes.

I don't know how much time passes before I feel a tug on the wires going into my ears. I open my eyes to see Kevin sitting on the blue comforter. He leans over and gently pulls the headphones out.

The sudden silence in the room is like coming out of a spin.

“What are you listening to?” he asks. I can tell he's split between asking whether I've lost my mind and trying to hide his surprise that I'm listening to anything at all.

“Sarah's in a band,” I say. My voice is hoarse, like I've been screaming. “She wants us to come see them play on Thursday.”

I hope against hope we'll just sit here and talk about music, and plans, and whether he has enough gas in his car to get us there and back. That we can pretend that nothing else is going on. But I know that's impossible, given that I'm sitting here covered in old tears and teetering on the edge of crazy.

He picks the photo up off the nightstand and stares at it for a million years.

“You look like her, you know,” he says, not taking his eyes off it. I peer over his arm, trying to see her like he does. Then he crashes his shoulder into mine. “And you might be just as nuts.”

“She wasn't … ” I start, but I can't finish the sentence. I grab the photo out of his hand and put it back on the nightstand.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

“What? Sarah's show?” I'm only half being a smart-ass.

“No joke, Ice. I think we need some sort of a plan here.”

A plan? Plans are for people who have options, who can choose A instead of B. No one is letting me choose anything. I lean back into the wall and wipe my face off on the bottom of my shirt. I search my head for options. I can't find any. My hand starts jerking and since it's only Kevin, I let it. It feels like an out-of-control drummer is playing against my leg.

“Like, leaving?” I ask. It's the only thing we've talked about.

Kevin leans up against the other wall and wraps his arms around himself. “I don't know. I don't think leaving really makes sense.”

“We could hitch to Canada,” I offer. We're about twenty minutes from the border. Sometimes Jim talks about how he used to cross it for dinner. I always thought it was cool to imagine going all the way to another country just to eat.

Kevin runs a hand through his hair. “We have no money, Gordie. And no passports. What do you want to do? Live on the street?”

“Maybe if we ask Jim, he'll give me access to the money in the bank,” I say, but even as I say it, I know there's zero chance of that.

Kevin looks at me like I've finally lost it. “That's not happening. Wouldn't it just be easier to kill him?”

There's a challenge in his eyes. I think he actually believes that killing my father is a good option.

“Kill him.” I roll the words around in my mouth. It would end this whole thing once and for all. But as much as I might want to, I know I wouldn't be able to do it. Not because murder is wrong or anything as moral as that. What's keeping me from committing patricide is actually far more selfish. “We can't,” I mumble. “You're too close to eighteen.”

I can see in his eyes that he doesn't get it.

“If we got caught, they'd send us to different prisons. I'd never see you again,” I explain.

Kevin squints, staring at me. I can see him fighting against a smile as he shakes his head.
“You
are
nuts. You know that, right?”

I know he's just kidding, but then his body tenses and he slaps the wall hard enough to make me jump. “Damn, I don't know what to do.”

“I don't know either,” I say. My voice sounds small and far away, like it's coming from under water. I'm suddenly so tired, all I want to do is sleep for a long, long time. “You don't have to do anything,” I add, but the words take so much effort that I'm not sure I've even said them until he replies.

“Right. It's much better to sit here and just let everything go to hell?”

“It isn't your problem,” I mumble, and I'm not at all surprised when his response is, “Since when?” I don't remember a time when Kevin hasn't been looking out for me.

Taking a breath feels like too much work. I don't want to think about anything except the notes of Sarah's flute calling to me. But Kevin wants to act, to keep me safe, and he isn't going to give up until he's confident he can do that. I just don't feel like being his cause right now.

My hands shake as I put the headphones back and will myself to let go, to leave my brother and float away to a place where there are no lawyers, no evil parents, and nobody I have to let save me. A place where there's only Sarah, and her flute, and her kisses, and her questions.

Twenty

I'm not sure who first looked at a lobster and thought it might be food. I don't know why anyone ever thought that algebra was important. And I'm seriously trying to figure out what drugs have been dumped into the water system to make anyone think that my spending a “trial” week with my father is a good idea.

Ms. DeSilva says she tried to fight it. She says we got unlucky with the judge we were assigned, who is all about the rights of biological parents. She says I'm not being sent there tomorrow because I'm being punished. She says it's the law. She says it'll be okay.

Jim says he's sorry. Kevin doesn't say anything at all; he just keeps cooking things that foam and smoke and make us stay clear of the kitchen. When I look in the mirror, all I can say is “Fuck,” over and over.

We're off school for two days of teacher training, which gives me too much time to stare in the mirror. I can distract myself for a few minutes by thinking about Sarah, or skating, or classes, but there's nothing strong enough to keep the
realization of what's happening from lurking around the corners of my thoughts like a ghost.

I swear Jim's grandfather clock is ticking too fast. The hands spin around the dial, counting down my time. My fingers drum against my jeans as I try to figure out how to slow it all down.

“Knock it off,” Kevin says, throwing a pillow at the back of my head. “You're wigging me out.”

I don't turn around. He's just going to have to deal with it.

It's Thursday night and if I had my way we'd be getting ready to go to Sarah's show, but all of a sudden Jim decided to get all parental and tell us we had to stay home.

Yeah, that worked out well.

Kevin pulls on the back of my shirt and sighs. “I can't take this anymore. Come on.”

He's holding out the key to the window like it's a biscuit for a dog. I should be offended, but suddenly I want to get outside more than anything in the world.

I follow him through our room and out to the walk. If I had any doubts about how freaked out he is, it's clear now. He isn't even bothering to make sure I'm pinned to anything.

I pull myself up so I'm standing on the wall. I can feel how the breeze would carry me. How it would feel to slip off the edge. If I jumped, it wouldn't matter anymore if I was normal or not. It wouldn't matter if I was still a freak. I'd just be the kid who jumped off the roof. Maybe everyone would even forget what Mom did and this would be the new big Maple Grove story.

I throw my arms out wide and close my eyes. I already feel like I'm in flight.

“Ice?”

I try to ignore him. I'm feeling so much lighter already. All I need to do is take one more step.

“Sure, let's do it,” he says, pulling himself up next to me. The breeze is blowing his hair back and I don't recognize the expression on his face.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Is the altitude making you stupid?” His voice is calm and matter-of-fact, like he's giving me a hard time for not blocking an easy shot. “We're brothers,” he says, as if that makes everything simple and clear. But then I guess it always has.

I want him to leave, so I ask a question I know he doesn't want to answer. “Why didn't you ever tell Jim about the things my dad did to you?”

His eyes flash. “Why?”

I hear all of the reasons he doesn't want to tell me in the tone of that one word. But he doesn't go away; he just teeters a little on the wall.

“Look. I didn't see my dad all that often back then, and … ” All of his bravado seems to leak out with his next words. “Your dad threatened me. What do you think Jim would have done? He would have gone ballistic and called the cops.”

“Maybe they could have protected you.”

Kevin's eyes narrow. “Yeah, and they would have split us up, and then where would you have been? What do you think he would've done to you?” He crouches down and sits on the wall, pulling on the leg of my jeans. “Sit down.”

The lights of the nearby houses are sparkling, calling to me, but I want to hear what he has to say, so I do it.

“And now … ” Kevin wipes the back of his hand across his forehead and starts ticking reasons off on his fingers. “It's too late. We were too young. It was too long ago. We can't prove anything. Talking about it would just cause even more problems. Besides,” he says, lowering his voice, “my dad doesn't need to know about all that.”

I grip the brick under my leg and run my fingers along the edge of the wall. It sucks that my brother went through all of that for nothing. He got hurt and now that I'm being sent back there … it doesn't mean anything.

“You shouldn't have kept quiet just for me,” I say. Thinking of what would have happened if Kevin and I had been split up as kids is threatening to send me somewhere else. I wipe my suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans.

He sighs. “Maybe we should go to Canada after all. What do you think?” He's trying to smile, but it's forced. His hands are clenched in front of him.

I watch as his knuckles turn white with pressure and say, “It could be like those road movies. We could get motorcycles and ride through the desert together.”

I hope he'll smile a real smile, but he just looks at me. “I'll kill that bastard if he hurts you,” he says softly, like it would be no big deal. Like it would solve all the problems in the world.

There's nothing I can say to that, so I watch as the streetlights flicker into life and let the silence hang around us.

“Have you talked to Sarah?” he asks, breaking the quiet. The question feels bigger than just a couple of words.

“About what?” I ask sharply. Thinking about her makes me feel guilty, since I promised her we'd be at the show and we aren't.

“Hmm,” he says. The sound of it hangs in the air between us, fluttering like a moth.

Kevin wraps one arm around his legs and looks out somewhere in the distance. I can't tell what has his attention.

“After Mom did … what she did, all I wanted was the chance to talk to her one last time,” he says. “You know, to see if there was something I could have done. At least to say goodbye.”

His eyes are so dark and piercing when he turns to look at me that I jerk back, and he has to reach out and grab my wrist to keep me from tumbling off the wall. He doesn't let go.

“Do you think it would have made any difference?” This is the first time we've really talked about That Day in years.

He shrugs. “Maybe not. But maybe it would have helped me.”

I shake my head. “I was there, and it didn't help.”

He tightens his grasp on my wrist. “That's not the same and you know it.”

I try to shrug off both his hand and the uncomfortable somersaults in my stomach. Something moves out of the corner of my eye and I look down to see my other hand thrashing away.
Great. That's a new one.

Kevin doesn't know that I've turned the ringer off on the house phone. Regardless of the fact that I'm trying to pretend I don't care, everything in me is screaming to talk to Sarah. To see her. To hope she can think of some way to get me out of going tomorrow. To hope she can give me the courage that enabled her to run away.

But I know I wouldn't be able to hold it together with her. She makes me feel exposed in a way I don't feel with anyone else. Normally, I like it. But I can't imagine what she'd think if she knew I was just going along with this without putting up any real sort of fight.

“Ice.” Kevin's voice is harsh. He thinks I'm off somewhere, only I'm not lucky enough for that to be true.

“Sarah should just forget about me.” The thought makes me sadder than I thought was possible.

“Like that's going to happen,” he says sarcastically. “Have you forgotten Mom? You know better than anyone that it doesn't work that way.”

I can't imagine Sarah thinking of me in the same way I think about my mom. I can't imagine she'd let me haunt the edges of her thoughts until I was somehow a part of her. But I like that maybe I won't be able to forget her now, that maybe in a really small way, she's a part of me because she's a part of my memories.

I stashed the bird charm in my nightstand so that I know something will be here, waiting for me to come back. But maybe she will be too, and I don't think she'd want to remember me as the kid who jumped off the roof.

I shrug. “I'll see her in school on Monday, anyhow.”

The muscles in Kevin's hand relax and then clench again. “Monday. Yeah. Sure, you will.”

It seems insignificant. The act of getting through three days. But I know how quickly tides can turn and decisions can be made.

“I'll see her,” I say, because sometimes when you say something it makes it more real.

“Just be careful,” Kevin says into the wind. When I look at him to ask him what he means, he's already pulled himself off the wall and is standing at the window, waiting to guide me in.

Big surprise. I can't sleep. The room feels too hot, and now it's too bright even though the sun is barely up. Besides, I'm not even sure I want to sleep. It would just make the time go faster and that's the last thing I want. But flopping around in bed isn't helping either so I get up and pad downstairs in the half-light, my bare feet slapping against the wooden steps.

I walk through the living room, looking for something new to capture my mind, but nothing ever changes in this house.

In the corner of the kitchen is a wooden broom. I take it back into the living room and lay it on the couch. As quietly as I can, I move the coffee table to a safe place.

I pick up a piece of paper, crumple it up hard, and throw it onto the floor. I can almost hear the roar of the crowd as I stand in front of it, imagining that I'm in goal at the end of some championship game.

Sliding on the wood is kind of like being on ice. I hold the broom in front of me, batting the paper puck back and forth. It's freeing to be in goal without the weight and constriction of padding. I make save after save, over and over, although on one I come close to taking out the lamp standing at the side of the room.

I think about all of the years I wanted to hate hockey because my father loved it. But I never succeeded. When I'm on the ice, my body listens to me. It does what I need it to do. When I'm on the ice, I usually don't spin. I don't shake. When I'm on the ice it's like I'm moving so fast the memories don't know where to find me.

I wish I could live there.

“What are you doing?” The whispered words come at me out of the dimness and I glance up to see Kevin standing in the doorway to the den with his arms crossed, looking tired and annoyed.

“I couldn't sleep,” I say as I pull myself out of my goalie's crouch.

Kevin runs a hand over his eyes. “Yeah,” he says and comes over on unsteady legs, like he's trying to walk on ice in sneakers. He sits on the couch.

I flip the paper up in the air, juggling it with the broom, which is actually harder than juggling a puck with a stick. Kevin reaches out a hand and catches it. I stand, staring, while he flattens the paper out and reads it.

His face breaks into a huge grin and he laughs. “And everyone says I have anger issues.”

I shrug. Yeah, so I'm using one of my father's legal letters as a puck. That doesn't mean anything.

I lean the broom against the coffee table and sit down next to him on the couch. I remember what Sarah said about everything being easier to talk about and wonder if she would still say that if she knew my brother.

I turn sideways on the couch so that I can lean back against the arm and draw my knees up.

When my brother finally talks, I expect him to say something about my father. Maybe even something about Mom. But that isn't what's preying on his mind.

“You're really into her. Sarah.”

We stare at each other while I let his words sink in. Between other brothers, this might be a casual comment. A congratulatory one, even. Kevin's tone says otherwise, and the silence that was already uncomfortable has just gotten all jagged. I look away and pull at a loose thread hanging from the edge of my shirt. It feels like if I pull hard enough my whole life will unravel.

I roll Kevin's words over in my mind, trying to figure out his agenda. If he didn't already know how I felt, he wouldn't have said anything.

“Yeah.” I look at him, daring him to find fault with my answer.

Kevin clenches his hands into fists, like he's testing out his muscles, and then releases them. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” I say. “Why?”

“And she knows everything?” he asks. His brown eyes get even darker.

I pull the blanket off the back of the couch and wrap it around my legs. I know he likes to make me uncomfortable as a joke, but something about this feels different. Something about his voice sounds wrong.

“So she knows how you just zonk out sometimes? And the pens? I'm sure that doesn't bother her. Have you told her about the spins?”

It doesn't matter whether or not she knows. I know whatever is going on with him isn't about her. That makes it worse. Way worse.

His voice, suddenly, is my father's voice. My father telling Kevin that he'll never amount to anything. Telling him he should be grateful to even have a place to stay.

My chest gets tight and I cross my arms and duck my head. Kevin always says not to show it when you're afraid—that way no one can use it against you. But this is him, and when I look up, his eyes narrow.

The sides of the room start to close in around me. Like a box. Like the car. Like a coffin.

He doesn't stop. “How about … ”

I press my arms against my ears so I can't hear him anymore.

Kevin can be many things. Angry. Protective. Stubborn. But he isn't cruel. Not to me, anyhow. Not ever. But now his face is hard as stone.