A List of Cages(73)

Julian’s either ignoring me or doesn’t hear me. Sitting in the center of his bed, body thrumming with tension and face furrowed with intense concentration, he leans over an open spiral notebook. His fingers run along the page, tracing the words like they’re Braille.

“Julian?”

Getting more agitated, he thrusts his finger into the paper.

“Julian.”

He keeps stabbing the page, starts whispering something to himself. I cross the room and grab his wrist. He goes still and looks up at me with eyes that are too huge for his face. I let him go, then sit on the end of the bed.

“Why didn’t she write titles?” he asks, looking back down at the notebook.

“What?”

“Titles. None of them have titles. I was always sure they meant something.”

I give a closer look to the neat round letters on the page.



1. ALMA, COLORADO


2. BRIAN HEAD, UTAH


3. VILLAGE OF TAOS SKI VALLEY, NEW MEXICO



“Who wrote this?”

“My mom. This whole notebook is full of lists. I always knew these cities, these lists, had to be important. She wouldn’t write them unless they were important. But you just have to guess at what they mean, you know?”

I nod, but I don’t know. I don’t know at all the pain of trying to know and understand someone after they’ve gone.

“I finally get what this one means.” He points to my laptop on the nightstand. A webpage is opened to a list of U.S. cities with highest elevation. “It looks like they’re all probably explainable. The movies are just Best Picture winners. The songs are number-one songs from different years.”

“So…that’s good, that you figured it out?”

“Good?” Such a venomous expression on Julian’s face is unnerving. “They’re just facts she recorded. They don’t tell me anything about her. She wrote all these lists, but they don’t mean anything!”

Suddenly and violently, he starts ripping the pages out of the notebook.

“Nothing means anything! People just go. They don’t finish.” He grabs the loose sheets, wildly tearing them into shreds. “We don’t die after we complete some mission, we just die.” He yanks the green cardboard away from the silver spiral till that’s all that’s left. “Do you know how I know?”

I shake my head.

“Because if they could have chosen, they wouldn’t have left me. I know them. They weren’t finished with me!”

He folds in on himself like a closing shutter. Surrounded by torn bits of paper, he begins to sob. It’s horrible to watch when you can’t do anything to fix it.

He goes abruptly silent, like someone turned off his voice, and he picks up one of the torn pieces with two fingers. “Oh no.”

He starts to cry again, bending till his face is pressed into the mattress.

He shoots back up and kneels, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

Then he collapses again.

It’s the kind of desperate thing I did when I was on the meds that made me so sick. Miserable and nauseated, I was in so much agony I didn’t know what to do with myself. Should I lie in bed? On my side? On my back? There was nowhere to go that me and the pain didn’t follow. I remember my mom watching, looking totally helpless because she couldn’t fix it.

“Stop, Julian. You’re going to give yourself a headache.”

He freezes, looking stunned. His crying becomes less hysterical, but deeper. My mom couldn’t fix me, but I remember she’d pet my back, and I know Julian’s father used to rub his head.

There are different ways to help people, Adam.

I extend my fingers like I’m playing the piano across his face.

Gradually, he goes quiet and turns to stare vacantly at the wall. “I know.” He sounds so tired. “I know if there was any choice at all, they wouldn’t have left me alone. They would have made sure I was taken care of.”

In a heartbeat, a thousand memories at once. All the times I knew things I couldn’t have known. All the times he was assigned to me.

“Julian,” I say, “maybe they did.”





EMERALD’S BACKYARD IS strung with paper lanterns and golden lights. There are tables covered with food, streamers, balloons, party hats, stacks of wrapped gifts, and an enormous cake.

The last birthday cake I had was the summer I turned nine, the summer my parents bought me the trunk and told me I was brave. It was always just the three of us on my birthday, never a party with other kids, since school was out. That year we wore hats and I opened gifts, then we walked along the rocky beach where I found the conch.

Emerald’s yard fills with people, too many to fit at the picnic table where I sit at the head. Everyone sings “Happy Birthday” and watches me open presents. Adam gives me a novel, and Emerald gives me a journal, and it’s overwhelming to have so much attention, but it’s not embarrassing, not really.

Later I say to Adam, “Fifteen seems a lot older than fourteen, doesn’t it?”

Tilting his head, he laughs. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

We listen to music and eat cake while the sun shines on everyone, making them glow like angels. Adam’s and Emerald’s faces are close together, whispering things I can’t hear. Jesse pulls out his guitar and asks me if I want to sing. I shake my head. Today I just want to listen. Charlie passes out popsicles. Everyone’s lips change color. The last day of July slowly fades, but everyone keeps talking and laughing like they could stay here forever.