The Astonishing Color of After(97)

I have the thought that if this chunk of moon just tips forward the slightest bit, I might find myself tumbling down into that emptiness to be scattered among the constellations.

The sound of flapping turns my attention upward.

There’s the bird, soaring, bright as a flame. Just like that night in Jiufen, she circles and she dances. She winds through the sky, tracing the stars, connecting the dots. She dives and skims so close to my patch of moon that I’m certain she’s seen me. She knows I’m here, knows I’m watching.

In that moment, I think of a poem I found in that Emily Dickinson book, and it’s like I can hear someone reading the words to me:

My cocoon tightens, colors tease,

I’m feeling for the air;

A dim capacity for wings

Degrades the dress I wear.




A power of butterfly must be

The aptitude to fly,

Meadows of majesty concedes

And easy sweeps of sky.




So I must baffle at the hint

And cipher at the sign,

And make much blunder, if at last

I take the clew divine.



I try to feel what she feels, my mother, the bird, sailing across that sky with her eyes closed, so certain of every turn and every angle that she doesn’t need to see. I inhale deeply, try to catch the scent of her.

Here is my mother, with wings instead of hands, and feathers instead of hair. Here is my mother, the reddest of brilliant reds, the color of my love and my fear, all of my fiercest feelings trailing after her in the sky like the tail of a comet.

I hear that musical, sunny voice, so far away and quiet.

“Leigh,” she calls out to me.

My name echoes across the sky. Leigh, Leigh, Leigh.

My mother says, “Goodbye.”

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

The bird rises higher and higher. She turns and arcs.

I watch as she bursts into flames.

My heart seizes. My breath stops.

She burns like a star.

The wind comes, just a breeze at first, growing into an insistent gust. Then the storm returns, just as wild and furious as before. I try to find something to grab on to with my hands, but there’s nothing. The ground is too slick. The wind slides me right off, tossing me over the edge.

A scream tears out of my throat, but there’s no one to hear.

I’m falling. I’ll be falling forever. There’s no end to this.

I crane my head around to watch that star. That bird. My mother.

Her light flickers out, and then there’s only ash and night.

Cold, inky black swallows me up, and there’s nothing left to see. Nothing at all. No galaxies. No constellations. Just me and the abyss.





96





TWO POINT FIVES DAY


Two Point Fives Day. How did we end up on that couch? Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe we were two magnets the universe had been drawing together all this time.

Axel’s house was empty that day. There was only him and me, and we filled the space with our laughter, let our relief spill everywhere. Relief at being friends again. Relief that we were together and alone for the first time in forever.

Why weren’t we at my house?

We made popcorn and poured melted chocolate on top, drizzling it in the shape of a star again and again until fudgy brown blanketed everything. When Axel tasted the first piece, it made such a mess he had to lick the chocolate off his lips. I watched the way his knuckle brushed at the corner of his mouth, the way his darting tongue caught the candy.

He held the bowl out to me, and our fingers touched. The electricity crackled between us pyrazolone orange; he must’ve felt it, too.

Where was my mother?

Down in his basement, we sat shoulder to shoulder, and I could feel the slight shifting of his body with each breath he took. We drew each other’s feet. It was all so achingly familiar. That scar on his ankle where he’d gotten stitches as a little kid. The way he liked to flex his toes, tap them in time to his music.

I turned to a fresh page and changed my perspective to get his legs, too. I wasn’t sure I had ever sketched those strangely perfect knees.

We were inches apart, both too close and too far.

My mother, making her way up the stairs.

I fumbled with my stick of charcoal and ended up dropping it. That was how it started. It fell into the crack between the couch cushions, between us. We reached for it at the same time, bumping knuckles and bumping heads.

“Ow,” he said.

“Are you okay?” I automatically reached a hand toward his temple, toward where I imagined to be the source of his pain.

My clumsy fingers knocked his glasses askew, left his forehead smeared and ashy.

“Hey,” he said, but he was laughing.

“Hey yourself,” I said, grinning.

He wiped the charcoal off and reached for my face with soiled fingers, seeking revenge. We were laughing together then, a sound so musical and warm my ribs stretched with happiness.

My mother, trying to write a note.

I grabbed his wrists to stop him from getting the soot on my face, and we ended up in some kind of arm-wrestling situation. He was the stronger one, so I leaned toward him to gain the advantage of weight— And ended up bumping into his face. My nose against his nose. My lips brushing his lips.

I yanked back like a spring released.