Mirage(48)

Does this mean she doesn’t trust me now?

A wry laugh puffs from her chapped lips. “But God, you sure live the deep end of life’s pool. That’s something to respect.” Ayida wipes her eyes. She gives me a sad, knowing smile as Gran talks to me. There’s a long pause and a breath that seems to take more effort before Gran says, “My something true . . . you’ve got to live with integrity so you can die with integrity.”

Tears stream down my face. A braided knot twists in my stomach. I desperately want Gran to stay with me. I want to tell her all my truths, even the ones that might turn her away. The scary and confusing things I’m seeing, the visions inside my head that have no continuity, how nothing matches up, as though the puzzle pieces of two lives got scrambled and don’t fit together.

I’m the imagination of myself, like that paper said in the motor home.

Gran’s blind, but she sees more than anyone else. Right now it feels like she’s the only one who can help me.

My mouth opens to speak, but Gran doesn’t just look like she has her eyes closed. Her face has lost its expectancy. My heart stutters. Has she?. . . ?

Machines are still beeping, though. She’s simply fallen asleep. Her chest rises and falls slowly. The pauses between exhale and inhale are excruciating. Every gap extends. I find myself holding my breath until she takes another one. My body taps into an inexplicable knowing of how it feels to have your breath come slower and slower until that last one becomes a boulder you can’t push uphill anymore.

My dad falls wearily into a chair. My mom doesn’t move from the bed, just sits there staring at Gran’s face, her eyes replaying a lifetime of memories as she watches her sleep. We don’t know if she’ll ever wake again. Every so often, the corner of her mouth tips up into what might be a grin. I wonder if she’s dreaming or revisiting her own memories.

Memories are so much like dreams.

An hour passes. Maybe more. We are all suspended, not wanting to leave for fear she will tiptoe out of life behind our backs.

“Now sing me your song again, Ryan,” Gran whispers into the new night, startling my mother and me. My father was snoring softly a few feet away, but he wakes with a jolt at Gran’s voice and the mention of my name. Soldiers half sleep like that.

“My song, Gran?”

She answers so low, we have to lean in to hear. “The one you were humming to me just now.”

“It’s okay. She’s slipping away,” my mother chokes out in answer to my confused expression. She leans in and kisses her mother, leaving tears on her cheek. Tenderly, she wipes it into Gran’s skin. “It’s okay to go, Mama. Nothing to be scared of. It will be beautiful there.”

I’m sobbing. I can’t help it.

“Yes, it’s okay,” Gran adds. “Ryan is waiting for me.”

Everyone frowns and darts glances at me. Shivers roll over my mom’s skin, making her head shake.

Gran’s last breath is an exhale. It sounds like relief.





Twenty-Six


IT’S NEVER RIGHT to go to the hospital with four people and come home with three. Never.

A scream: It’s your fault!

Rattled to my bones, I yelp and stumble into Nolan’s side, and he looks at me like he wants to shove me across the room far away from him. His eyes are as accusatory as the voice. I don’t know if it’s the girl, who’s been abnormally quiet since our accident. It has her anger but feels more intimate. Like another part of me. My throat constricts with the tears I’m trying to hold back.

Wordless, everyone disperses with heads down to their own corners of the house. I go to my room and find myself staring at the white walls, the pinholes where the lights used to hang above my bed, the books on the shelves, and scrapbooks of pictures, which I hadn’t realized were tucked in with the books. Odd that I’d forget the scrapbooks were there, but I see now that there is one for each year. Yes, Joe and I made these together every summer.

Until this summer.

Life came to a halt this summer.

I flip through the years of us: me and JoeLo. God, our friendship was beautiful. I can see it in the way we make the same expressions. The way our bodies lean into each other with such comfort. We are brother and sister. Were . . .

My heart hurts.

Live with integrity; die with integrity.

Joe went and spoke to Dom after we fought. Proof of love. I need to apologize to him.

Dom’s origami tiger watches me from the dresser as I flip through the pages of another life. The paper tiger was supposed to be a message. I thought I understood the message when I decided to jump. But maybe Dom intended for me to hear a different roar. I pick it up. The delicate brushstrokes of paint speak their own message: that Dom cared enough about me to painstakingly make a reminder of how he sees me.

Saw me.

Could there be a message written inside? It seems a shame to ruin the tiger to find out. We stare at each other, this tiger and I.

I rip it in half.

Tumbling from its belly is a small memory card. The rumble in my chest is unwelcome?—?I don’t know anymore if it’s the girl who disturbs me or my own broken mind, but I do my best to ignore the feeling of eyes on me. I put the memory card into the laptop on my desk and press play.

Dom’s deep voice fills the room.



Dear Ryan, I made you this video to remind you of who I see every time I close my eyes. Who I dream of at night. Who I miss. You . . . in all your wild glory. You are the most beautiful creation.