Dear Blue Sky (17 page)

CHAPTER 42

LOOK FOR ME

 

To: Cassie

From: Blue Sky

Subject: Interview

 

Dear Cassie,

I answer all your interview questions now for your class. That is it. We leave. I am to sad.

1. My blog name is Blue Sky because when I think of Iraq in passed days I think of blue sky spread forever. I start to write blog because my cousin do. He tell me. Now I write because writing makes me feel much more good.

2. I am 13 years old. My first memory is of my 3 birthday. I have photo of the day. My grandfather is there with me. The cake is chocolate inside and vanilla outside with flowers. I am happy.

3. My life center around my family and school and friends. Now we spend most time home and school when safe but before we travel and I miss that. We try to stay normal but home is like jail because of bombings and raids and war on us. Some days I measure time by number of bombs fall. The sky is terror. Hard to say in words what war do to us.

4. Chocolate cake is my best food.

5. I like to study English. My bad subject is physics. If I study better I figure out how to go to the moon and live.

6. I have one old sister. We share a bedroom and fight much. And one younger brother, 2. He stopped talking after a loud bomb. Now he say some words.

7. My mother is a doctor and my father is English teacher and translator.

8. My dream is to help rebuild Iraq one day. That take my life.

9. I tell the world Iraq was a beautiful place. I love my country. One time it will be beautiful and have peace and blue sky. No war, no bombs.

10. I want my name to be my own name. My Iraqi name not my blog name Blue Sky. I who I was born. I hope for my children to live safe and I wish to live and die in my own country.

Thank you for your words over time. I not miss the heat without running water and electricity or the sound of fighter planes, tanks, dogs crazy barking. May Allah protect us from what is to come. I hope your brother Sef come home quick and safe and this war end. Look for me in the blue sky.

My breath caught in my throat like I was going to choke. I pushed it through. I had to. I opened my window to look up at the sky that had turned dark gray and thick with clouds. I thought I could make out a few stars. They were barely visible, but they were there. I kept looking up at the sky because I wanted to believe in something higher than here on earth.

But I was here. Right here. Soft rain was coming down now, melting the snow. I licked a drop from the windowsill. It was warm and tasted like dirt. All of us were trying to escape from some pain. We each had our own way of dealing with what we were afraid of. I looked up at the sky then and prayed that Blue Sky's family would be safe.

CHAPTER 43

THE LETTING GO

JACK HAD PILED
Mom's poetry books up next to the bookshelf. He was flipping through one of them. The phone rang. Mom's head jerked up like it always did when the phone rang. Jack's head snapped back, too. “Sef,” he said. “Sef is calling me.”

“Oh, my God, Jack! You talked!” Mom yelled. “And it's Sef! Why does everything always happen at once!” Her voice cracked when she snatched up the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Sef!” She fell back on the chair and started to cry. “I know, I know, I'm trying. Are you all right? Thank you for calling.”

Jack bolted back and forth in the living room. “It's Sef! It's Sef!”

“Jack, Sef wants to talk to you,” Mom said.

Jack clutched on to the phone. For a minute, I thought he wasn't going to say anything. I came closer. I could hear Sef's voice like a murmur, a stream coming from the other side of the world, and everything was good again.

“They're fine,” Jack told Sef. “I'm taking care of everyone. But I want to drive a tank. I got my Christmas presents. Now I can come to Iraq with you.”

I heard Sef laughing, and my chest hurt. He was so close.

Mom said, “Cass is next.”

“My friend Cass is next,” Jack said. “How are the troops doing? Okay, ten four.” He said good-bye and passed the phone to me.

“Hey, Sef.” I turned away from the others.

“Hey, Cass. How are things?”

“Things are okay. I miss you, Sef. Nothing's the same here.” I glanced at Mom. “But things are fine. Everyone's fine, really. Except Finn broke up with Van.”

“Well, that's good, right? See you later, peaze train!” He laughed. “Are you running?”

“Yeah, I'm running, but not with sixty pounds on my back.”

“We'll race when I get home.”

“Yeah, when you get home. I can't wait, Sef. I can't wait.” My voice echoed back at me as Mom pried the phone out of my hands.

I stood close to the phone to hear his voice talking to Van, Dad, and then Mom again. When Mom hung up, it was suddenly too quiet. Even though all five of us were here, the room felt empty.

Mom wiped her eyes and turned to Jack and said, “You talked, Jack. And you knew Sef was calling. How did you know that? Come here, baby.”

“I knew. I was waiting.” Jack frowned. “And I'm not a baby. I'm going to Iraq with Sef.”

Jack looked at me, his hands clenched. He came closer, crouching a little as he walked, squinting through his thick glasses.

“What is it?” I asked.

“What is a retard?”

We looked at each other. No one said anything. He said it louder, “What is a retard?”

Mom cried out, “You're not a retard. Who said that?”

Jack turned to me, waiting.

I said, “Someone who does things a little slower than other people.”

A huge smile spread over Jack's face. “I'm so fast. Look at me.” He struck a running pose and sprinted from the living room into the kitchen. He did it again and again, and we laughed.

Mom clapped. “You're the fastest one around here. I missed you. It's been too quiet around here.”

He stopped in front of Dad. “I don't want to talk to Ben Adams ever, ever, ever.”

Mom looked at Dad.

“If that's what you want, Jack. You're the boss,” Dad said.

“Oh, honey.” Mom held her face in her hands and cried.

Jack wasn't through. He crossed his arms and faced us. “I'm going to Iraq. I'm going to sign up.”

“You're not old enough.” Mom tilted her head toward him.

“I need to go,” Jack said. “I'm going there, and I'm going to be just like Sef. I'm going to
be
Sef.”

“Oh, Jack,” Mom said.

“You have to be Jack,” I said. “You don't want to be anyone else. And remember you promised Sef you'd take care of everyone while he was gone?”

Jack frowned.

“Besides, you're just right the way you are. I'd miss you if you were Sef.”

“Me too,” Mom said. “I'd be so lonely. It's bad enough having Sef over there.”

Jack took a deep breath. “I'm just right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Jack is?” He breathed out. He seemed to give in to his body.

“Yes, Jack is.”

• • •

Jack was lying in bed with Mom's book open on his chest. “Can you read this to me?” He flipped the book over.

I did. It was open to a poem called “After Great Pain.” I read the last lines. “This is the Hour of Lead/Remembered, if outlived,/As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—/First—Chill—then Stupor, then the letting go.”

Jack said, “Then the letting go,” and he closed his eyes. I slid off his cracked glasses.

CHAPTER 44

BREATHE

AFTER SCHOOL JACK
was doing push-ups and sit-ups in the kitchen. “I'm gonna be so fast and strong. Feel this.”

He flexed one arm, then the other. I squeezed.

“Pretty good, but if you're really going to be fast, you should run.”

“Like Sef?”

“Yup. With me. Get your sneaks on.”

He stared at me.

“Why not?” I took his hand.

He followed me out in his camouflage and sneakers. The snow was dripping from the trees.

“Like this?” Jack bolted down the sidewalk as fast as he could, kicking up slush behind him.

“Not too fast, or you'll be wiped out right away.”

He sprinted, walked, then jogged beside me. I went slowly like Sef did for me when I first started with him. The air felt good on my face, and I liked hearing the
pit pat
of Jack's feet beside mine. After a loop, we headed back. When our house came in view, Jack said, “You need me here. I have to take care of everyone.”

“That's right,” I said.

“I have to do everything Sef did.”

“Well, maybe not everything, but a lot of things. You might even beat him in a race when he comes back.”

Jack beamed. After a minute, he said, “But I didn't kill anyone.”

“Who killed someone?” I asked.

“You know. Sef.”

“How do you know?”

“He did.”

“Well, what do you think happened?”

“He was scared, and it was dark.”

I tried to look in Jack's eyes, but he was looking up at the sky. “Did you see him? Have you actually
seen
Sef since he left, Jack?”

He stopped and squinted up at me. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Sometimes.”

“Does he say anything?”

“He tells me to ‘Breathe! Dammit, breathe. You have to!'”

“Like when you were at the ocean that time?”

He nodded.

“Did you tell Mom that?”

“No.”

“Did Sef say anything else to you?”

“No. Don't worry, Cass.” He smiled at me.

• • •

When we got home, Van was making chocolate chip cookies. “I made it super buttery and with extra chocolate chips.”

“It's not your execution meal, is it?” I asked her, smiling as I scraped around the side of the bowl with my finger.

“Not quite.” She smiled. “It's Finn's.”

I laughed and took a spoonful of the dough. Jack did too.

“What would you have for your last meal if you could have anything, Jack?” Van asked.

“Hot dogs like Dad makes and ice cream. But I want them every day.”

“Good plan,” I said. “Yum, this is so good. Why would anyone cook this stuff?”

“Um, so they don't get sick?” Van said.

“Don't tell Mom. It's so good.”

Spoon after spoon, we ate almost half the bowl before Van said, “Okay, I think I'm officially sick now.”

“I'm never sick!” Jack yelled. He took the old umbrella stroller out of the back of the closet. “Can we?”

Van and I looked at each other. “Sure, why not?”

He got in, and we took turns zooming him down the hallway, through the kitchen, and around the corner into the living room like we used to. I looped around so fast, the stroller skidded on two wheels.

“Faster,” Jack said. We tied him in with a scarf and went even faster. Laughing, zipping back and forth until Van said, “I need to stop.” She lay on the couch. “I think I'm going to die.”

“Me too,” I said.

“I feel great!” Jack tried to push himself with his feet in the stroller.

“A week until your birthday, Van,” I said.

“Sweet sixteen,” she said sarcastically. She sighed and wiped the corners of her eyes. “Why is everything so hard sometimes?”

“I can help.” Jack put his face close to Van's. “Breathe.”

“Breathe?” she said.

He took deep breaths in and out. “Like that.”

Van smiled and breathed.

• • •

That night Dad came home early. The warm air must have gotten to him. “I'll fire up the grill,” he said to Mom.

“There's still snow out there,” she said.

“A little snow isn't going to hurt the burgers any.”

“Suit yourself.” Mom laughed as he headed out armed with his grilling spatulas and tongs.

“Looks like you're going to get your hot dog,” Van said to Jack.

It wasn't long before the smoke was rising from the grill in gray slivers. I helped Mom cut tomatoes and lettuce for the salad. Van baked the rest of her cookies, and Jack ran in circles around the kitchen table, punching the air. “I'm going to be faster than Sef!”

When we sat down to eat, Dad raised his Heineken. “Cheers,” he said.

“Cheers!” Mom raised her wine, and Jack lifted his glass of milk.

“Listen, I've been thinking that we should go away for the weekend just to relax. Maybe to the Cape to that same place we went before.”

Jack jumped up. “Without Sef?”

No one said anything. Dad swallowed his beer.

“Without Sef?” he said again. “I can't swim without Sef.”

“It's winter,” Van said. “It's too cold to swim.”

But Jack never got cold. “You can swim, Jack. You can do everything,” I said. I wondered if Jack still felt like he was dying sometimes. Did he lose his breath too and feel his heart pounding like crazy? Is that why Sef told him to breathe?

“He said I could do anything.”

“You
can
do anything,” I said. “You're the one.”

“Yup. I'm so fast, no one can stop me.” He ran from one end of the kitchen to the other, stopping at last in front of me. His eyes shone pale blue like mine, but they were blurry behind his glasses. He said, “Here I am.”

Later when I went upstairs, I saw that the door to Jack's room was open. Jack was asleep on his bed with White Kitty tucked into his camouflage shirt, her head poking out the neck. He still had on his running sneakers.

I remembered him choking at the beach that day when he was little, as Sef whacked him on the back and told him to breathe, to stay alive. Told him he could do anything. I closed my eyes and forced breath through my body.
Sef was close.
I could see him and hear him. I pushed air in and out.
I could breathe.
We were all in this together.