In Sight of Stars(5)

I feel better now that I’m walking.

“Yes,” she calls. “Like that. Cross through and make a left when you reach the hall.” I feel her waiting, watching, but at least I’m in motion, away from her.

The hallway walls are Ace bandage beige. A hideous fish mural stretches half the length of the far wall, garish in primary colors. Cartoon fish swim about as if painted for five-year-olds by five-year-olds.

At the far edge of the waiting area, I stop in my tracks.

A girl sits in the corner, her back to me. Long, shiny black hair.

Sarah!

I must make a noise, because the girl turns and stares. Not Sarah. Not even close. The girl is young, Asian, pretty. She looks nothing like Sarah at all.

I find my breath, make my legs move again toward the fountain, but I feel clammy and my whole body shivers. The bright fluorescents overhead flicker and buzz, creating an insistent drumbeat in my ears. The air grows thick and swirling, as if I’m slogging through a blizzard to get there.

When I finally reach the fountain, I put my lips into the stream and drink.

I’m so cold and parched.

I feel like I’ll never stop drinking.

I push my face farther down into the stream. The water shoots up, filling my mouth and my nose.

Sarah. My father …

The shower …

The drumbeat grows louder and louder.

The phone calls.

The fighting.

The blood.

My mother, packing our things—

I drink more, but can’t steady myself. The blizzard takes over my brain.

*

“I don’t want us to move, Mom. Jesus, not now. They say a year. He’s barely dead three months.”

I’m talking to her back. What else is new? She’s in her favorite pink Chanel suit, leaning in toward her vanity mirror. Putting on lipstick, getting ready for an appointment with the broker. My mother is expert at this: managing her same mundane shit even after the world has fallen apart.

A cockroach after the apocalypse.

Her eyes go to mine in the mirror. I get that this is what she wants, but can’t she wait one more year?

“Seriously, let me just graduate and get out of here. One measly school year and you’re rid of me, too,” I beg.

Her eyes flash soundless daggers, as only my mother can throw.

But I threw one first.

She recaps the lipstick and drops it into her handbag.

“There’s practically a snowstorm out there, Klee. Do you think I want to be doing this? Sometimes…” She pauses, then says, “Look, I need to go sign the contracts.”

She starts to get up, then sits back down heavily, waits for a moment, and searches for a tissue, which she presses to her lips to blot them.

As I watch her, this memory comes to me from not so long ago, of my father in a suit and tie, watching her as she readies for some formal event. He puts his hands on her shoulders and kisses the top of her head. His gesture is so tender, but she flinches. That’s what I remember: how my mother flinches.

“Mom, please…”

She cuts me off and stands, determined.

“I’ve told you this already, Klee. You can stay and finish your senior year here if you need to. Graduate. I’ll be okay. Aunt Margaret said you’re welcome to stay with her. Then you’ll come up and spend the summer with me after graduation. Before you head off to school.” I can barely look at her. I’ve grown to hate her. She knows I’d never leave her alone. Not now. “Before you leave for Boston, for SMFA, in the fall.” She gives this last statement a weak smile intended to impart that I have her vote of confidence as far as my art is concerned.

Her voice has softened and she thinks I’m a shoo-in there. I should appreciate that, but instead it makes me furious. Like art is good enough for me, even if she didn’t think it was good enough for my father.

“The bottom line is, I don’t have a choice here, Klee. They think it best if we sell by May, and close on the Ridge house by June. As soon as school ends. More families are willing to move at that time. So at least you can finish the school year here.” She sighs deeply, as if the choice is out of her hands, as if she’s not the one who decided to trade in our whole life, or what’s left of it, for a water view up in the boonies. “Either way, I cleared it with Aunt Maggie. She’s happy to have you stay with her if you want. She’s still a mess, too, so she’d love the company.”

I glare at her until she turns back to the mirror. Because, first, there’s the implication of the words “still” and “too,” as if not being over the death of my father says something weak about my character. Just because she’s some sort of fucking Ice Queen who is more than ready to move on. And, second, we both know Aunt Maggie’s place isn’t a viable option for me to spend an entire school year. She lives in a tiny studio apartment on the Upper West Side. Not exactly an ideal living situation for a seventeen-year-old. Besides, hate her or not, I’m not going to abandon my own mother a few months after her husband died. I’m not going to do that to my dad.

My mother grabs her purse and turns to go. “You could commute. That’s an option, too. It’s an hour. Hour and a half, tops. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

“Shouldn’t the broker come here?” I ask, changing the subject. “Bring you the contracts? She’s the one about to make a mint off you, right? Shouldn’t she be the one pandering?”