Still Life with Tornado(6)

Mom comes out of the bathroom.

“Are you on drugs?” I imagine she asks.

I get asked this question a lot. For the record, no. I am not on drugs.

I say, “I’m thinking about taking a trip somewhere.”

“School, Sarah.”

“Maybe just a weekend thing.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe I could go out and see Bruce.”

She looks concerned. We don’t talk about Bruce. I don’t see what’s so scary about him.

? ? ?

When Dad gets home I’m still standing at the top of the steps in the dark.

Since I don’t say anything to him, he’s the first one to speak. “Holy shit, Jesus Christ, what the f*ck are you doing up here in the f*cking dark? Christ! You scared the shit out of me!” That’s what he says.





Shitty Hair



I’m at the bus stop again. This isn’t the same bus stop as the other day. Philadelphia has a lot of bus stops.

I was thinking last night about our trip to Mexico when I was ten. It’s the last time I saw Bruce. I don’t remember some things from that trip. I remember the fish. I remember the food. I remember the flight home—me and Dad in two seats up front so Dad had extra legroom, Bruce and Mom in two seats a few rows back even though Bruce needed leg room, too. Maybe the answer to why Bruce left us is still there in the airplane. Maybe if I find ten-year-old Sarah the way twenty-three-year-old Sarah found me, I can ask her.

? ? ?

She’s on the bus, sitting in the long backseat, so I sit next to her when I get on.

I say to her, “Did you know that there’s no such thing as an original idea?”

She says, “Okay.”

I say, “I want to have original ideas.”

She says, “We have original ideas all the time. Whoever told you that is full of shit.”

I used to have quite a swearing habit. I tell her that one day she won’t swear as much. She laughs like I’m not real. Which is ridiculous because she’s the one who can’t be real. I am the dominant Sarah. I am sixteen.

I say, “Do you remember the trip to Mexico?”

She holds out her arms and shows me her tan and the speckled evidence of peeling skin on her shoulders. “It was a month ago.”

“Do you remember how you drew things in the sand and the water washed them away?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“That’s what original ideas look like.”

She stares at me for a while and frowns. I think she’s going to say something about Mexico or the sand washing away the things she drew. Instead she says, “Why don’t you wash your hair?”

I say, “Don’t be mean.”

“I just don’t want us to have shitty hair,” she says.

I say, “Do you remember Bruce?” It’s a stupid question, so I rephrase it. “I don’t mean do you remember him, but I mean do you remember if he was nice or not? Did he ever feel like a brother?”

“He’s a great brother. He takes me out for ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s when Dad works late,” she answers. Ben & Jerry’s closed years ago. “Hold on,” she says. “Did he die or something?”

“He didn’t die,” I say.

She looks sad. “Did he come back yet?”

“No,” I say. “It’s been six years.”

“Do you remember that thing he said to me in Mexico?”

I don’t remember what Bruce said in Mexico. I suddenly feel stupid. Like maybe I’m going crazy beyond sitting next to myself on a bus. Ten-year-old Sarah has freckles and her face is browned. She seems happy enough to be riding the bus with me even though the bus smells like farts. I don’t want to ruin her day. I don’t even know if her day is real. I don’t even know if my day is real. I say, “Can you tell me what Bruce said so I know I remember it right?”

“He said ‘You can always come stay with me, no matter where I am’ and he was crying,” she says.

“I remember him crying,” I say. “But I don’t know why he was crying.”

“I do,” ten-year-old Sarah says.

People on the bus think ten-year-old Sarah and I are sisters. They smile as if I’m taking her somewhere educational or something. They are happy with us. They don’t think we’re skipping school. They don’t visit other ideas. They just think about themselves, mostly.

I get off the bus at the art museum and she follows me.





MEXICO—AGE TEN—OUR Family Mexico Getaway



All inclusive. These aren’t words that a ten-year-old understands. What a ten-year-old understands is: This was not the New Jersey seashore. The water was a different color—any color, but in this case, it was turquoise. There were colorful fish in the water, not pink plastic tampon applicators or cigarette butts. Mom and Dad let me eat all the tortilla chips I wanted, even for breakfast. I lived on perfectly uniform triangles of corn for the whole week. Mom and Dad drank fruity drinks all day and were generally in a good mood.

For Mom, it was easy to be in a good mood while all-inclusive in Mexico. She was a night nurse. Twelve-hour shifts in the emergency room from seven to seven. The only thing that bothered her was the sun because she considered herself a bona fide vampire. She had great stories from her vampire shift. Things happen in the emergency room in the middle of the night.