CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)(33)

“Sorry,” I said, leaning over to haul away the offending handbag. “You weren’t waiting up for me were you?”

My father yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Never. Why would a father be waiting up for his teenage daughter to walk through the door?” He took note of the time. “It’s early.”

“Yeah. I was tired.” I looked around, noticing that the house was unusually quiet. “Where are the girls?”

“Your Aunt Bonnie came by and took them to her place to spend a few nights there. She was disappointed you weren’t around.”

Bonnie was my dad’s older sister. She’d never married or had children and worked as the head nurse at the prison. Bonnie meant well and had always done whatever she could for us, especially after our mother died, but she had a stern, no nonsense kind of personality that was a little tough to take sometimes. Hanging out with Aunt Bonnie was like being subjected to a non-fun Mary Poppins.

“I’ll call her next week or something,” I said, feeling bad for having unfriendly Aunt Bonnie thoughts.

My father was staring at me in that parental way; half love and half anxiety.

“Sit down, Erin.”

I sat. I crossed my arms. I uncrossed them. “What’s up?”

My father’s knees popped and creaked when he leaned forward. He grimaced. “How are you and young Mr. Gentry getting along these days?”

“We’re good. Con’s going to apply to ASU next year.”

“Really?” His eyebrows shot up. “I would think an arrest record would interfere with college plans.”

“It was a mistake, Dad.”

“A mistake,” he muttered. “Erin, a mistake is forgetting to buy milk at the grocery store. Not committing grand theft auto, drag racing and destroying both public and private property.”

I couldn’t argue with him there. In truth I was having trouble with the idea that Con and I had reached something of a fork in the road. I wanted to go one way and something pulled him in the other direction. Adults who thought they were being helpful would just shrug and say that this was just part of growing up. They would say most girls did not get to live forever with the first boy they kissed.

“Erin?”

My father was peering down at me worriedly. It must be hard, I thought, to bring people into the world and watch them evolve into something completely separate from you.

“You okay?” he pressed.

“I’m fine, Dad,” I said, trying to keep the waver out of my voice.

He still stared at me. “Don’t feel guilty,” he finally said.

“About what?”

“Anything. Don’t feel guilty about making plans or leaving people behind.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I know it’s on your mind, worrying about what will happen to all of us when you go away to school. You can’t worry about that, honey. I’ll tell you something I learned a long time ago. It’s that none of us can stop the universe from spinning. All we can do is stand in the light for as long as the sun shines.”

I swallowed painfully. I was thinking of my mother. I had never had the guts to ask him why she did it. Instead I’d asked Aunt Bonnie. Her face had dropped into uncharacteristic grief as she pulled me awkwardly into her arms. She told me that my mother loved me and that she had fought a battle every day, a battle with herself. Then she lost one. And that was all there was.

A tear, unwelcome, squeezed its way out of my eye and fell down my cheek. “What happens when the light burns out?” I whispered.

My father kissed the top of my head. “That’s the thing,” he said. “Some lights never really go out.”

Before I headed off to bed I told my father not to fall asleep again on the couch. His back bothered him whenever he did. He waved me away with a yawn and told me I didn’t need to worry about him.

When Con had dropped me off I thought I was tired but now I was far too awake. I reached for my phone to call Roe but then remembered she was floating around somewhere in international waters with poor cell reception. So all I did was send her a picture of a brilliantly illustrated rainbow with a heart imbedded in the arch. She would receive it eventually.

I opened my window and gazed at the house next door. It was dark so either Con had gone to sleep or else he’d gone out again. There was a slight breeze blowing. Not a storm wind, just enough movement of air to ease the nighttime heat. I leaned out and breathed deeply as the soft wind lifted strands of my hair and played with the flyaway ends. Again I wished I had gone with Conway. The only peace I knew lived inside his arms.

When I took the old scissors from their hiding place it wasn’t because I was feeling the itch again. There was no relief in holding it, only a vague sense of disgust. I pushed the sleeve of my sweater up over my elbow and examined the damaged part of my arm. A week had passed since the last cut but that tender skin between wrist and elbow was slow to heal. I touched the tip of the blade to the scabbed red line. I wasn’t even trying to recall why it should feel good. I was just trying to understand how I could have ever thought it had.

What have I done to myself? What am I doing?

I didn’t hear a sound. Or see a movement. There was no reason to look up but when I did there was an outline of a person bathed in the light from my bedroom window. He was standing on his side of the property line, smoking a cigarette. He looked just like his brother and for a split second my heart seized.