Arcadia's Gift (Arcadia Trilogy) (7 page)

A smudge of color appeared in the background, and I readjusted my focus. It was my neighbor, stooped over in her herb garden clipping leaves and dropping them into a pouch at her waist. I didn’t know her name. We had adjoining backyards, but her house faced the next street over. The woman had moved in a year ago after our old neighbor died. My mother frequently complained about how poorly this one kept her yard. The garden took up almost half of the space, the bushy plants over-grown and planted haphazardly. The back half of the yard, the half which reached all the way up to our chain link fence, was a large patch of grass which had not been mowed once since the woman moved in, like an urban haven for all kinds of woodland creatures.

I trained the binoculars on her face. The woman rarely came outside, so I was curious to get a look. She was younger than her long baggy dresses led me to believe. Auburn hair cascaded down her back in wavy tangles as if she hadn’t bothered to brush it that morning. She wore no makeup, but was exceptionally pretty with a smooth, creamy complexion. A slight smile rested on her lips as she clipped away like she might have been having a silent conversation with herself.

Zooming the focus out, I captured her whole body in my view. Her clothes were weird. I’d noticed them before in the glimpses over the past year. She favored long flowing skirts layered over each other in a way that my mother would have called Bohemian. Her top was a simple, long-sleeved t-shirt in bright blue. I was thinking of zooming in on her house when the woman glanced up and looked right at me. Her face broke into a toothy grin and her hand raised in a little wave.

I shot out of my window, dropping the binoculars on the carpet, embarrassed to have been caught spying. Oh, well. It was time to do something more productive than stare at birds anyway.

The text books that Shawn had brought sat in a neat stack on my desk. Just the thought of school overwhelmed me and made my palms sweat. I’d already missed eleven days in a row. Neither of my parents had mentioned anything about me going back. The doctors at the hospital advised them I should take it slow and suggested a therapist who specialized in post traumatic stress disorder. I had an appointment scheduled for Wednesday.

I carried the school books over to the bed and opened my literature text. A blue envelope baring Ms. Crowell’s loopy handwriting on the front dropped out from beneath the cover. I opened it to find a sympathy card with a little note inside.

“Words can’t express how deeply sorry I am for your loss. I know school is the last thing on your mind, but you might find it helpful to focus on something else for a while. I marked a few pages in the poetry section that you might find comforting. I’ve also enclosed a list of assignments that you’ve missed. Don’t worry about the due dates, just do the best you can. If you need any help, please feel free to contact me anytime.”

On the bottom, Ms. Crowell listed both her home and cell phone numbers. I ran my finger over the digits. I had only been in her class for a week before the accident, not nearly long enough to decide whether I liked her as a teacher or not. Somehow, that handwritten note with her phone numbers meant more to me than any of the hundreds of sympathy cards we’d accumulated since the funeral.

Maybe Ms. Crowell was right. I needed something more than a family of cardinals to distract my mind. Reviewing the assignment list, I noticed the class had already moved on from the Greeks and had skipped ahead to the Elizabethans. I heaved a sigh of relief at seeing we were to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’d watched the movie on television once and liked it well enough. I couldn’t have handled reading one of Shakespeare’s tragedies. I flipped open the thick book and began reading.

I’d just gotten to the point where Nick Bottom’s head was turned into a donkey when the land-line phone rang. Probably Dad checking in on me again.

“Hello?” I answered, my eyes still half-reading the page.

There was a long pause before the caller spoke. “Uh, may I speak to Arcadia please?” His voice was soft and unsure, not familiar to me at all.

“This is Cady,” I replied.

“Hi. This is Bryan…Bryan Sullivan…you know, the new kid.”

It took me a moment to place the name. When I did, my belly did a little flip. “Oh, right, from literature class.”

I sat up straight on my bed. Boys called the house all the time, but other than Shawn, they had usually wanted to talk to Lony.

“I hope you don’t mind my calling. Are you busy? Do you feel up to talking?”

I shoved Ms. Crowell’s card between the pages to keep my place. “No…I mean, yeah…it’s cool. I was just catching up on some homework, but I could use a break. How’d you get my number?”

“Phone book.” He paused and took an audible breath in and out. “Listen, I’m really sorry about your sister. I actually went to the funeral, but you looked sort of overwhelmed with people, so I didn’t come up and say anything.”

“Oh…” I don’t know what surprised me more, that I hadn’t noticed him or that he’d been there at all. “Told you I’m not very observant.”

“Well, you had a good excuse.”

We both went quiet for an awkward moment. A faint metallic taste touched my tongue. I realized I was gnawing the chapped skin on my lower lip.

“So, um…how’s school going?” I asked. Lame, I know.

“It’s good, I guess. I mean, it’s school. If it weren’t at least a little emotionally damaging, they wouldn’t be doing their job, right?”

“Right.” I squeezed my eyes tightly and willed myself to come up with something to say that wouldn’t make me seem like a complete moron.

“So, do you know when you’re going to come back yet?”

“No idea. My brother, Aaron, went back today, but he hasn’t been home yet, so I haven’t asked him how it went.” I picked at the pilled fabric of my bedspread. “I don’t know how to tell if I’m ready to face it again, and my parents have been like zero help.”

“I understand. Actually, that’s why I’m calling.” Bryan paused as if gathering the courage to say something. “Um…my older brother...Jesse? He passed away last year. Thought you might like to talk to someone who’s been there, you know?”

“Didn’t you tell me that you’re an only child?”

“I am…
now
I am. After Jesse died, my parents thought we should be closer to our extended family in the Midwest. My mother’s side. So when my dad scored a job transfer to Dubuque, they couldn’t pack us off fast enough.”

“Oh. How...how did Jesse…?” My tongue stumbled over the question.

“Die? Do you know what hemophilia is?”

“Some kind of blood disease, right?”

“Yeah. It’s a genetic disorder where the blood can’t clot very well. A cut or a bruise can be fatal if doctors can’t get the bleeding to stop in time. Anyway, Jesse was snowboarding —something he was absolutely forbidden to do because of his condition. He was always doing stupid things he shouldn’t. The slope wasn’t even all that dangerous; he just banked too hard on a curve and tumbled into a tree. He was able to get up and walk back to the lodge, but by the time he got there, a huge bruise had formed on his side and began spreading across his back.”

“Oh, no,” I whispered.

“Yeah. His friends drove him to the nearest hospital, but he’d lost consciousness before they arrived. He died before my parents could get there. I guess he’d torn his liver when he fell.”

I squeezed my eyes tightly. Even hearing about the death of a boy I didn’t know could bring me to tears. “I’m so sorry, Bryan.”

He sighed on the other end of the phone as if he were forcing himself to be strong. “It’s okay. I mean, it was hard at first —it’s still hard —but it gets easier. I wanted you to know that. It gets easier.”

My chest tightened and my skin warmed for what seemed like the first time in days. “Thank you, Bryan. It means so much to me that you called. It’s like no one really understands what it’s like to lose a sibling. My friends have tried to help, but they’ve never experienced anything even close.”

“Have you been able to talk with your family?”

“Yeah, right! My mother has banned my father from the house and won’t let me go over to his place. And she’s been in a Valium haze since the funeral. My brother and I are spending all of our time in our bedrooms on opposite ends of the house. It’s like we brought the mortuary home with us.”

“I saw your brother today, at school. He looked like a guy walking in a dream. I thought maybe you would’ve come back, too.”

“I don’t think I’m ready yet. It just seems so hard. I can’t stop thinking about her as it is. How will I be able to look at her locker or her table in the lunch room or the cheerleaders walking around in their uniforms without thinking of her?”

“You can’t. You’re gonna see Lony everywhere for a while. It will totally suck…but that’s okay.”

“No! It’s not okay!” Tears were spilling down my face in earnest now. “These reminders just make the hole she left in my life bigger. She was my sister…my
twin
! All of my life we were defined by our relationship to each other. Lony’s the outgoing one, and I’m the introverted one. She’s got the style, and I’ve got the brains. She’s liked by all of the boys, and I’m liked by all the teachers. I don’t even know who I am without her!”

Bryan stayed silent for a few minutes while I sobbed. When I calmed down, I set the receiver down to wipe my face blow my nose with a wad of tissues.

I picked the phone back up and cradled it into the crease of my neck. “I’m sorry, Bryan. I didn’t mean to lose it. I’m doing that a lot lately.”

“Cady, don’t apologize,” he said. His voice was as soothing as hot chocolate. “Don’t ever apologize for what you are feeling. I understand.”

I sniffed again and asked, “So with Jesse…how did you move beyond it? I mean, how did you go on with your life?”

“Well, it sounds cliché, but I took it one day at a time. I got back into my routine, you know, going to school, doing my homework. I had a few close friends who helped me along. They kept me busy, but didn’t get offended when I didn’t have as good of a time as they did.”

“What about your family?”

“My mom also was lost for a while, but she pulled herself out of it after a few weeks. My dad…well, he doesn’t show his emotions much. I never even saw him cry, which seems weird, but if you knew my dad, it’s not a shocker. He went back to work the day after the funeral like nothing even happened. I don’t think my mother has forgiven him for that yet. They’re not talking a whole lot anymore. I suspect this move is a last-ditch effort on keeping their marriage together. It’s weird living in a house where no one speaks to each other. Sometimes I wish they would just separate and get it over with.”

“I know what you mean there. My dad had actually moved out the day before Lony’s accident.”

“Whoa! Brutal.”

I pulled a blanket out of my closet and carried it over to the window seat where I curled up all cozy-like with the phone. Bryan and I talked for over an hour. I told him about my upcoming therapy appointment, and he told me about the psychologist that his mother made him go see after Jesse’s death and what I might expect.

“So,” he said finally, “I have to go. My father will be home soon and my mother has dinner almost ready. Will I see you in school tomorrow?”

I could tell by the way he asked it that he thought it was time I get back in the swing of things, but didn’t want to pressure me.

“I don’t know, Bryan. I don’t know if I can walk in there. Everyone is going to stare at me.” I knew I sounded whiney, but didn’t care.

“Tell you what…I’ll pick you up in the morning and walk in with you.”

“Seriously? You’d do that? Why? I mean, you barely know me.”

He paused as if weighing his words. “Like I said, I’ve been there. And, since you’re one of the few people who has spoken to me outside of class since moving here, it’s my way of thanking you. You can always go home early if it gets to be too much.”

I thought about it for a moment. I was going to have to go back sometime. Aaron did it. I guess it was my turn.

“You don’t have to come get me.”

“I want to. Just tell me where you live.”

I had to admit to myself, having someone there for support would be nice. For some reason, this total stranger was able to comfort me in ways my family and friends had not. Part of it, of course, was because of Bryan’s experience with his brother, but I think the other part was because he never really knew Lony. He had nothing to compare me to, unlike other kids at school. Bryan saw me as a whole person and not as a half of a matched set.

“Okay. I’ll give it a shot."

I gave Bryan my address and was ready to hang up when I thought of something. "Wait a sec. Before, you said that your brother's hemophilia was genetic..."

"Yes. It is passed by females and carried by males. My mother is a carrier. She passed it down. I have hemophilia, too."

I couldn't sleep that night. After my conversation with Bryan, I waited for Aaron to come home so I could ask him about his day. It was past ten before I heard his truck pull into the driveway and he slipped quietly down to his bedroom before I could catch him.

In the morning, my head was a fuzzy mess of cobwebs, and my eyes were dry and red. I hadn’t slept well. After showering, I wasted over a half hour trying on and taking off clothes, unable to make a decision about what to wear to school. When I saw how late the time was I yanked on a pair of faded Levi's and a long-sleeved t-shirt. My stomach felt acidic and queasy. I gulped down an Eggo waffle, but it sat in my belly like a rock. I thought about poking my head into Mom's room to tell her where I was going —I hadn't seen her at all the previous evening —but remembering the wall of depression that had overcome me the day before when I went in her room, I decided to just leave a note for her on the counter.