Still Life with Tornado(11)
Chet arrived ten minutes later and the nurses let us have extra time in the room so he could force some tears and seem sad. The charge nurse on duty that day was Julie and she’s a dipshit and she came in and rubbed Chet’s back and I rolled my eyes and excused myself to the bathroom.
Did I daydream that charge nurse Julie and Chet had crazy hot sex right there, on top of dead Gram Sarah? I did. Those days I wished he’d fall in love with anyone—one of his younger coworkers, random waitresses at bars, my neighbor, another man, I didn’t care—and finally just get the hell out of my house.
But there was Sarah, on the way. And Bruce.
We agreed to stay together for the kids.
Downer
All I want to know is why Bruce said that. You can always come stay with me, no matter where I am.
Mom and Dad are normal-enough parents. They’re not cruel or anything. They took us to Mexico. I remember something happened but I forget what it was. I know it was bad. I know Dad was yelling. I know Bruce was yelling. I know Mom was yelling. I know I was crying. I know that sliding doors to the balcony are not soundproof.
But I don’t know why Bruce said that. I don’t know why he had to go that far—to Oregon or to You can always come stay with me, no matter where I am.
It wasn’t that long ago. I shouldn’t have forgotten it. It’s more complicated than that. I’m lying to myself but I don’t know why. On the mantel there’s a ceramic owl. I made it in the first grade and it’s my favorite thing I ever made even though I’ve made far better things. Dad wouldn’t stop praising me for the owl when I brought it home. It was when it all started—this talk about my talent and my prospects and my dad’s fascination with taking us to the art museum a few times a year. He said he liked art, but really he’d just researched it the same way he researches depreciation and deterioration of building structures. He learned the language of art but could only draw stick figures.
I look at the owl and wonder what part of it is part of the lie. I ask it, “Hey, owl, are you lying, too?” The owl can’t answer back, but if he did, I bet he’d say, “Hoo. Hoo.” That’s what owls say. It doesn’t need an explanation. But what Bruce said needs explanation.
? ? ?
I say I’m going out and Mom says to be careful and I walk up to Rittenhouse Square, go visit the big frog statue, and then sit on a park bench, listening to the conversations walk by.
Not one thing anyone says is original.
I wish I could talk to twenty-three-year-old Sarah again. Ten-year-old Sarah doesn’t understand my struggle. She hasn’t come to this yet. She hasn’t come to the place where my present means nothing but my future is all everyone talks about.
Twenty-three-year-old Sarah sits down next to me. She’s wearing a pair of shoes that look uncomfortable. You could never get me to wear those shoes.
“How’s things?” she asks.
“I don’t know. Good I guess.”
“How’s school?”
“I’m still skipping.”
“Bummer.”
“Not really. It wasn’t the place where I was going to make my masterpiece or anything.”
“Not everyone can be famous,” she says.
“That’s not even the problem,” I say.
She says, “You’re just going through a phase.”
“I’m not going through a phase,” I say.
“Okay, Umbrella,” she says, and smirks.
When she looks like she’ll walk away, I ask, “Why are you so sarcastic?”
“Because you’re a downer,” she says.
This is the third time today I’ve heard this. I consider that maybe I really am a downer.
“I want to ask you a question,” I say.
“You should call Bruce,” she says, and then gets up and walks north in her stupid shoes and doesn’t look back.
I sit for ten minutes. I think about how I’m a downer. I think about how I’m not a downer but something is happening here, even though I don’t know what it is. I think about calling Bruce, but I don’t even take my phone out of my pocket. Instead, I watch a homeless man draw on the sidewalk next to the fountain in Rittenhouse Square. I don’t go over to see what he’s drawing or even find a bench closer to him. I just watch him from over on the other side of the park.
I wonder if he’s ever been to Mexico. I wonder if he’s ever talked to his twenty-three-year-old self. I wonder if he has a brother who never calls anymore.
Twenty-three-year-old Sarah is sarcastic because she doesn’t take me seriously. I’m a sixteen-year-old girl. Silly and dramatic. Pretty much nobody on Earth takes me seriously. And yet, on the inside I know there is something wrong enough that someone should be taking it seriously. Maybe it starts with me. Maybe I have to take it seriously first.
The Snowflake
The homeless artist man sleeps in the doorway to a building that’s boarded up about four blocks from my house. I’ve seen him around since before I was ten-year-old Sarah. He never asks for money. Most homeless people here sit on upturned milk crates and say “Spare a quarter?” or something like that. Some of them have signs. HOMELESS VETERAN, ANYTHING WILL HELP—GOD BLESS, I NEED FOOD, HELP A BROTHER OUT?