Love Letters to the Dead(24)

When Jason went for one of his workouts, which Hannah says take at least a couple hours, we decided to take Hannah’s grandma’s old van and practice driving. Natalie and Hannah both turned fifteen at the beginning of the year and have their learner’s permits. Natalie went first. She rolled the van down the dirt road, and Hannah stood up and stuck her head out of the sunroof and screamed, “Woohoo!” which I guess made Natalie want to go faster, so she did. The thing is, she went off the road when she swerved to miss a bird. Probably the bird would have flown away at the last minute, but I guess Natalie got nervous. So the car wheels stuck in the soft sand. Natalie revved the gas harder, but the wheels just spun farther into the ground.

Hannah kept saying, “We have to get it out. My brother can’t know.” She sounded terrified. She yelled for Natalie to push the gas harder, and Natalie was all shaky because Hannah was so upset, and then Hannah made Natalie and me get out, and she went behind the wheel and tried to make the car go herself. Natalie and I pushed from outside, but it wouldn’t move. It wouldn’t move at all. Hannah started crying, and she yelled at Natalie, “Why did you do that? Are you stupid?” Natalie’s cheeks and her chest turned red. I know it’s because she was trying not to cry, too. Eventually there was nothing to do but to walk back and tell Jason, who by now would be done with his workout.

Hannah told us to wait outside when she went into the kitchen. But we followed her and watched from the hallway. Jason wasn’t just angry. He was really, truly mad. His face was red, and he was screaming. He called Hannah a lot of bad names. I’ve never seen Hannah like that before. She laughs at everything and does whatever she wants, like she’s not afraid of anything. Like nothing can hurt her. But this was different. She was crying and she kept saying, “Please, Jason.”

I kept trying to think of a way to protect her, but I was scared frozen. Natalie must have felt the same. She kept whispering that she hated him, and that she wished she could punch him in the face, and those kinds of things. Finally Natalie went into the kitchen and stood next to Hannah. Hannah looked at her like she wished she would disappear. But Natalie said, in a very soft voice, “Please don’t get mad at her, it was my fault.”

Jason glared, but his voice got a little calmer as he said, “Like hell it was. That’s her dying grandmother’s car.” Then he threw his drink across the counter and he told Hannah, “Clean it up,” and he walked out. I guess he went to go get the car out with the tractor hitch.

We didn’t feel like staying in the house anymore after that, so what we did is we stayed in the barn that night. We got supplies while Jason was gone—flashlights and sleeping bags and Doritos and a bottle of this red wine that we took from her grandparents’ cabinet, because Hannah said that it had been there for years. It tasted old, like shoe leather and fall leaves and dusty apples. Hannah sang songs, Patsy Cline and Reba McEntire and Amy Winehouse. Natalie and I closed our eyes and listened. Sometimes Natalie sang along. When we were falling asleep in the loft, I heard Natalie whisper, “I’m sorry.” And she held Hannah, I think, all night. The hay in the barn smelled sweet, as if it were still growing in the rain.

I understood then, at least a little bit, why Hannah always has a boyfriend or sometimes more than one. I think she needs people to love her and give her attention. Her grandparents don’t seem like they can be there for her, and her brother is terrible to her. I want her to see that Natalie could love her for real. I think that deep down, Hannah must know that, but I’m not sure if she can imagine what it would be like. Maybe part of her would rather have Natalie as a best friend, because best friends don’t break up or anything like that. And even though it shouldn’t be this way, a relationship like theirs still makes you different in some people’s minds. Maybe Hannah isn’t ready yet to stand up for it. Because once you’re afraid of one thing, you can get scared of a lot of stuff. In school, the teachers tell Hannah, “Don’t waste your talent.” But she doesn’t turn in her papers or anything. She acts annoyed that they care about her, like she doesn’t trust it. Even if she can laugh at everything and have as many boyfriends as she wants, I think Hannah must be afraid like I get afraid, the way I did when I heard the river yesterday, the way I do when I don’t even know what the shadow is, but I feel it breathing.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear Amelia,

I have to tell you about Halloween. My costume was a big hit! Everyone at the party truly loved it. I explained to all of them that I wasn’t dead, only somewhere still circling in the air.

Natalie was Vincent van Gogh, which meant she taped a bandage over her ear to make it look like it was cut off and splattered paint all over her clothes. Hannah was Little Bo Peep, which meant she braided her hair in pigtails and wore a tight blue dress. Hannah’s boyfriend, Kasey, was a sheep, because she made the costume for him. He looked pretty funny with his little fuzzy cotton ears and his neck and shoulders that are so big they blend into each other. When we walked in tonight, to the house that he shares with four other guys, Hannah jumped on him, and he picked her up. He called Hannah “Jailbait” as a nickname, like “How’s my little Jailbait?” which made his friends laugh. Hannah laughed, too, although Natalie did not.

Some other people at the party dressed up as characters from Candy Land—Queen Frostine, Princess Lolly, and Lord Licorice. I thought this was the coolest. Kasey and his friends knew how to throw a party right. Even though their house is pretty dirty, it wasn’t just the typical college guy party with a keg of beer. For Halloween, they’d made it special. There were bowls of M&M’s everywhere, and hot chocolate that was spiked. I kept looking around for Sky, wondering if he’d come, wondering if one of the people behind the masks across the room was him, but when I checked the way they walked, none of them were right. I decided I needed to distract myself from looking for him, so I went bobbing for apples. May and I used to fill up a washtub and put apples in it and practice, any time of year. I was always great at it, even when I still had my baby teeth.