A Symphony of Cicadas (23 page)

John stirred, shifting under the thin blanket before opening his eyes and blinking
with heavy lids
.
He saw Sara and smiled,
his murmur so soft
she couldn’t hear what he had said
.
But I heard it
glisten through the air to my ears
.

“Rachel.”

He opened his eyes
a little wider as he woke,
and rea
lized with a start where he was
and who was holding his hand
.
“Sara,” he said, praying she didn’t he
a
r him call her by her sister’s name
.
She smiled and squeezed his hand
.
“How long was I out?” he asked her.

“Half of yesterday and
pretty much all
of today,” she said
.
“But that’s main
ly
because they’ve been keeping you sedated
.
I’m supposed to let them know when you come out of sleep.”

“Not yet,” he said
.
“What time is it?”

“It’s late, about
eleven
o’clock at night
.
They allowed me to stay when I said I was your sister
.
”
Her smile held notes of guilt.
He chuckled.

“You’re a bit fair to be my sister, but whatever works
.
I’m glad you’re here
.
Does Sam know?”

“Yeah, they called your ex-wife first and she told him
.
He’s the one who called to let me know,” she informed him
.
John was
startled
by this, so was I
.
It seemed so out of character, strange even, that
Sam
would even think to call Sara
.
“I assume it’s because he needed someone
who wasn’t his mom to be here
,” Sara explained, making sense of the confusion
.
“I think
…
” she began, hesitating
before she continued
, “
I think,
that I just happened to be the closest person to Rachel he could think of to be here with you and with him
.”
She said it in one breath,
hoping that by doing so, John would be unscathed by the reminder that she was just my stand-in
.
It didn’t stop John from wincing, hiding it under an exaggerated yawn
.
“He was here earlier today, but needed to get home since he has school tomorrow.”

“It’s nice to know he cares,” John said,
and grimaced, regretting
the words
as soon as they left his mouth
.
“I mean…I didn’t mean that
.
I guess I just meant that with him being a teenager and all, and especial
ly
now that he lives with his mom, it’s hard to know exact
ly
what
he’s thinking
.
It’s just nice to know…that he cares,” John said,
followed by an awkward chuckle
.

“He cares,” Sara told him
.
“He was worried about you
.
He stayed here for a few hours while you slept, and we chatted about how things are going at his mom’s house.”

“He talked with you?” John asked
.
As he said it, he tried to sit up with his elbows, on
ly
to have his face twist with pain as he collapsed on the bed
.

“Don’t overstrain yourself
;
here,
let me help you with the bed
.”
Sara reached over him and pushed a button on the
railing of the bed, and the back of it
raised
so he could sit in a
n
elevated
position with no effort
.
“You had a heart attack, John, which is not
normal for
a
forty
-
year
-
old
man
. It was like
ly
caused by stress, but
the doctors still need to run a few more tests
.”
She paused, looking uncomfortable
.
The shift in her demeanor wasn’t lost on John, even as he fought to stay
awake
under the lingering effects of the sedatives.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her
.

Sara gave him an embarrassed smile, and I could hear her thoughts mulling over how to ask the question
.
She took a deep breath and let it out before speaking.

“I don’t know how to ask this, and hate to even bring it up while you’re just waking up
.
But your ex-wife was the first person they called
.
Apparent
ly
she’s still listed as your next of kin
.
You didn’t have Rachel on there?”

It was John’s turn to be uncomfortable
.
I waited for his answer, though I could hear his mind tumbling over excuses loud and clear
.
He had Wendy on there instead of me?  Aunt Rose touched my arm, and I was reminded to still my thoughts and just be an uninvolved observer.

“I know,” he
admitted
.
“It’s not that I didn’t want Rachel on there
.
I blame it on laziness more than anything
.
It’s my downfall, putting everything off until last minute
.
In the weeks before her death, I had planned on adding her to all that I owned, including power of attorney and next of kin
.
I just hadn’t gotten around to it.”

“Well, I guess it’s a moot point now. Besides, it was probab
ly
a good thing Wendy
was still on there since they may not have known who to call otherwise
,” Sara said,
smiling
.
He squeezed
her
hand with a returned smile, and she was reminded that her hand still grasped his
.
Embarrassed, she
pulled it back in her lap.

“So, Sam talked with you about life in Sebastopol,” John said
, changing the subject
.
“What did he say?  Does he like it?  Is he miserable?  Is his mom a tyrant and he realize
d
he made a huge mistake?”  Sara laughed at this.

“Well, he seems to enjoy his new school,” she told him
.
“He’s made a few friends that he already sort of knew from his mom’s neighborhood
.
And he says there are a few cute girls there, even though he misses one girl in particular from his old school
.
His mom is
okay,
not bad but just different
.
And even though he’d never admit it to you, he told me that he misses living with you
.
He says you don’t visit him that much, blaming it on you being busy with work and the house in
San Anselmo
.
But I think he’d like
the two of
you to hang out more.”

“I guess I didn’t…I mean, I didn’t realize… I didn’t think he wanted to hang out
.
I don’t know
.
I mean, I feel like a total idiot now
.
I thought that since he didn’t hang out with me much before he moved out, he wasn’t going to want to see me much after
.
And…I guess I just didn’t know how to call him up and ask him to go do something
.”
John
moved his arm to run his hand through
his hair, wincing at the pain of
the
simple motion
.
T
he wires attached to his arm brushed against his face and rattled the IV bag
.
Sara reached over and helped him to untangle from the awkward wires.

“I think because he doesn’t live with you, he especial
ly
wants you to call him up and ask to hang out
.
He’s testing you, trying to see how much you care.”

“I know,” John admitted
.
He made an inner resolution to try harder with Sam
.
He wasn’t sure how - maybe a phone call or a lunch out, perhaps an afternoon to work on his throw even though Sam’s interest in baseball was starting to wane
.
But once he got out of this hospital he swore to himself he’d be a better dad. It seemed like he was always making promises like that, something he realized even as he did it again
.
This time, he swore, he would follow through.

“I should real
ly
let the nurses know you’re awake,” Sara said
.
“They’re going to want to poke you in all sorts of fun places to see how you’re doing.”

“Sounds kinky
.
Any of them cute?” John asked
.
Sara grinned.

“You’re such a pervert
.
I’m going to take off now, but I’ll be back tomorrow to check in on you
.
Don’t go anywhere,
okay?
”

“Heck
,
no
.
I got ladies waiting to fulfill my every whim
.
I’d be a dummy to take off now
.”
Sara grinned, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek
.
Without
thinking
,
John inhaled, catching
once again
the familiar scent of my hair
in my sister’s blonde locks
.
It stirred something inside him,
just as it had before
.
Except this time, instead of seeing my face in front of him, he saw Sara’s
.
The
feeling caught him off guard
,
but he managed to tuck
it
away
.
Sara didn’t see it, but
the newness of this emotion inside him felt like a slap in my face
.

The struggle to keep my emotions at bay became too heavy a burden to control
.
I felt the bitter acid of jealousy brewing inside of me, the taste of it sparking on my tongue at the reality that John
could
move on, and my sister could be the one to help him do that.

Before I could jeopardize him any further through emotions beyond my control, I knew I needed to escape
.
And I needed to go alone
.
I moved out of Aunt Rose’s reach and focused on a place as far away as I could manage
.
On
ly
when the room began to evaporate around me did Aunt Rose turn toward me
.
Her saddened eyes were the last thing I saw before I was cast into darkness.

Sixteen

“W
hat do you want from me?!” I screamed to an invisible God from where I stood
.
“You’ve taken everything else from me. Why this?  Why now?  Why her?”

So that I would not affect John with the ridiculous feelings that threatened to devour me, and ultimate
ly
him,
I
had to get
far away from the hospital
.
I knew I could have gone f
a
rther, that
I could have
traveled
to the f
a
rthest
corner
of space
where I’d gone before,
b
ut I was afraid of the voice that s
poke to me within th
at
emptiness
,
and
of
the churning tornado on the other side of the barrier
.
So I envisioned a different point that
was still safe
on earth, choosing to keep my feet grounded in the familiar rather than exploring the unknown.

Well, sort of.

I’d seen pictures of Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain in Hawaii, in a National
Geographic when I was young
.
The article
read
of tours to the domed observatories at the top of the mountain with a view of the surrounding islands and an uninterrupted night sky that boasted millions of stars
.
In the colder seasons, the
bald peak
of the mountain was covered in snow.

The fact that there was a mountain in Hawaii that had snow fascinated me
.
Though I had never been there in life, it seemed like the perfect
escape
for me
.
I needed to be
able to process my thoughts without killing anyone, and to remain
hidden
for
at least a little while
.
So this was where I now found myself – on the top of Mauna Kea in my escape from whatever was manifesting itself between my sister and John in a hospital in San Francisco.

It must have been autumn on top of the Hawaiian mountain, because, much to my dismay, no snow could be found
.
The air was cold,
with
a slight drizzle wetting the ground
.
But the whole top of the mountain remained bare
.
I clenched my hands in anger and willed time forward
.
In my determination, the motion was effortless
.
Day became night, night became day, and the stars moved across the sky in mere minutes. The air around me changed from cool to colder
.
The light rain changed into snow flurries
.
Soon, the ground was covered in white, the season having changed from autumn to winter on the Hawaiian peak of Mauna Kea.

My
feet
left
no footprint in the frozen slus
h, but
I
still
slipped through the ice, kicking at it with
anger
.
I yelled out at the ocean far
below, screaming with everything I had
.
A few explorers wandered around the observatory, passing right by me as I
shrieked
into their ears. But they heard nothing as I bellowed
against
a life I didn’t ask for and circumstances that were beyond my control.

“God damn it all to hell!” I
blasted into the air
.
“Why?  What the hell is the reason for all of this?  As if being dead wasn’t enough?  You give me all this power in exchange for
life, but you’ve placed too many limitations on me!  I can’t touch John
.
I can’t
even
get him to he
ar me
.
And I definite
ly
can’t feel too strong
ly
about anything
around him
or else
I’ll kill him
.
What kind of joke is this?  It’s not fair!  I have shackles
on m
e when I’m supposed to be free!” I cried out
.
I breathed hard against my anger, feeling the fury racing through me
.
Here I was,
unbound
from the laws of gravity without an earth
ly
body
,
and the ability to travel anywhere and be anything
.
And yet, the rules
of
this world kept me in a
n inescapable
prison
.
I was trapped, unable to just dive deep into
my yearning
so I could
mourn
all
I
had
lost
.

“
And then Sara?  Why Sara?  Why her? 
Please God, anyone but her!” I pleaded
.
I couldn’t bear the thought of my sister wrapped in John’s arms, even though I knew that any girl who replaced me in John’s heart wouldn’t be worthy in my eyes
.
But Sara?  This truth stung
.
Why did she have to visit him so much, attaching my memory to her presence to make him fall for her? 
Why did so much about her have to be so similar to me, and so familiar to John?

I screamed into the wind,
haunted by the inequities of the situation, and
the atmosphere
shook
around me
as
sound waves
rippled through the air
.
A few adventurous birds that had traveled to the top of the mountain looked in my direction
.
But even they steered clear of me, afraid to come close to the crazy ghost causing such a racket
.
Storm clouds brewed
in the sky
, threatening to break open and envelop the earth and all the injustice it held
.
But they
just
churned as a covering to the heavens,
becoming
a fogged
-
up mirror to the stor
m within me
.
The torrential rains were restrained from
spilling
over
, just
as I was forced to bottle up
the pain from my sorrow and devastation.

When I had no more
words
left
,
my emotions having drained me of anything else I could scream to an uncompassionate God,
I sat on the icy ground and stared out at the horizon. The fog was just starting to creep in,
covering the ocean and lopping off the bottom of the mountain so that I appeared to be standing on just a mere hill. The carpet of white
went as far as I could see, and I had the sudden urge to just jump out at it and land upon the fluffy covering
,
curl
ing
up inside
until I could sleep
away the injustices of this in
-
between world
.
On
ly
one thing stopped me as I stared out at the inviting cloud of white, and that was a memory of my father.

As a child,
I once asked my father why we couldn’t just drive acro
ss the foggy covering
of the valley that led to our home
.
I was
around
five years old
, peering out
from my passenger side window
of our fami
ly
’s car
, trying to catch a glimpse of the vineyards that were concealed under the thick white cloud
.
We had just rounded the bend towards our home in Sonoma, and the fog looked more like a solid blanket
than a fluffy cloud
.
He chuckled, a deep baritone sound that filled my soul with gingerbread and hot cocoa, a laugh I hadn’t heard in so long that just the
memory
of it warmed me on this
morning
atop a
snowy
mountain in Hawaii.

Back then, he’d taken the time to describe the way moisture and the
different temperatures
of the air created
the
fog, and
how
we were
able to pass right through it
.
He
explained that it wasn’t a blanket
at all
,
though it did help to keep the ground warmer
than it’d be without it
.
He always was one who believed the truth in science was more important than the magic of the imagination, even when explaining things to a
five
year
old child
.
He figured that bypassing childhood “lies” would ensure my education wasn’t tampered with, giving me an edge compared to my classmates
.
To him, magical things were a waste of time.

A
s I sat looking out at the Hawaiian fog, I knew that I could curl up within it and sleep hidden within the confines of the misty padding.
Escaping within the magic of the impossible seemed like the perfect game of pretend
.
But
just as important, I needed my dad to be right -
even in my death where the impossible was possible
.
And right now, I wished more than anything that he could be here next to me, telling me the science of air and temperature, and
a better truth
-
that
everything was going to be
all right
.

I hated that I was having such a strong reaction to
the mere
passing thought
that was shared between John and Sara
.
It didn’t mean anything. So what if John smelled me in Sara’s hair?  It wasn’t as if they were having an affair, or even entertaining the idea of one
.
At least, I didn’t think so.

But what if they were?

I shuddered at the thought, trying to pinpoint what
it was that
was bothering me so
much
.
He was going to move on
at some point or another
.
I knew this to be true
.
And if I claimed to care about him, I would want him to
find someone else
and not be
alone
for the rest of his life
.
Of course, the selfish part of me still had to get on board with
that notion, because all I wanted him to do was dress in black and wait until he could be by my side once again
.
In my imaginary reality, it was all very dramatic and full of angst.

But the twinge of jealousy I was feeling was more than just the thought of him finding someone else
.
It pained me to think of John moving on
.
But it killed me all over again to think of him with my sister.

Sara ha
d always been the beauty queen, the one who had all the friends and was the center of everyone’s attention
.
Being on
ly
a year apart, we’
d been raised
almost
like twins
.
She was the
older
of us,
claiming the spotlight right from the beginning as the oldest, and holding
that spotlight tight
when I was born
.
My mother used to
boast
that I was such
a great baby
right from
the beginning
, how she would prop me up in a chair with a bottle to entertain myself while she tended to my
sister’s
many
needs
.
She bragged about how easy I was
compared to my temperamental sister.

A
ll I heard was how easy I was to forget.

We shared a room growing up, from our ear
ly
years all the way through high school
.
My side of the room was always a pile of clothes I had worn throughout the week, some more than once
, even
in their wrink
led
state
.
Sara’s side was clean to a fault, from
the hospital corners on her
tidy
bed to the clothes that were color
-
coordinated in her closet
.
She saved her money to spend on the latest fashions, wearing the latest trends with the rest of the school while I opted for more of a t-shirt and jeans motif
.
I found that
books and junk food were a much better investment, even if they were also the reason behind my pudgy appearance.