Learning Not to Drown (24 page)

“
Maximum security
, Clare,” Peter spits out. “The place for rapists, murderers—serious, serious criminals. That's where he was.” He pauses, then adds, “Sorry. I thought you had figured it out.” I blink in the dark. I hadn't. Everyone had told me, little blind Clare, that my favorite brother was in prison for theft, no big deal, nothing major.

My stomach churns. Maybe it's the pain medication. Probably not.

“Do you know what he did, to get put in there?” I ask, even though I am pretty sure I don't want to know.

“I don't keep track. I'm just happy when he's locked up, scared when he's not.” His voice breaks. “Can't we stop talking about this? Stop talking and go to sleep? He'll stay away, for now. He won't come back, because the police might be watching our house.”

I wish that Peter's room had no windows, and a lock on the inside of the door. But it doesn't.

And I finally realize what I'm afraid of.

I'm afraid of Luke.

I am afraid of my own brother.

The clarity of the thought takes me by surprise. I am afraid of Luke. I never feel safe in my own house, my own room, my own bed. Never. Because of Luke. It's the most awful truth, one I've never wanted to admit.

I lie on my back, looking from Peter's window to Peter's door. Waiting for Luke to smash in, a weapon in hand. A fork, a knife, Mom's cheap candlesticks. Maybe even her angel ornament has sharp enough wings. An escape plan forms in my mind. I keep imagining it until I am certain it will work. Slowly that blends with my half-asleep dreams.

Icy blue air.

Stairs, stairs, and more stairs. Old and splintering. My bare feet sting as they hit each one. Tall figures under thin black cloaks rise from the shadows and close in toward me. I run to the top. The stairs end where a door had been. Only hinges now. Silver metal covered in red rust. A room. Large and open with
no furniture. A baby girl in the corner. On the floor crying. Floorboards groan. I'm running toward her to protect her. My arms swoop her up. But the shadows are near to me now, wrapping me in silence. The baby girl isn't crying. She is soft and innocent and important to me. She is dead. Trying to run, to protect myself, I trip. Fall to my knees, land on something sharp. My legs won't work. I can't run from the shadows. I scream.

“Clare, Clare, Clare! Wake up, Clare!” Peter's face. Peter's room. Peter's door. I am on the floor, looking at Peter's door. Shaking and shallow breaths. Is my throat closed completely?

“You were having a nightmare.” Peter takes my hands. “See. You're awake now. I'm here.” He reaches over, clicks on his desk lamp. Blood is coming from my right knee. My left knee is turning blue. The bunk bed is on the other side of the room.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Peter examines my knees.

“No.” I hate that no one understands how real my nightmares feel. Why try to explain them? “I wish it were morning. This is so stupid. I'm seventeen years old. I'm not supposed to be afraid of the dark.” I look down. “And why in the hell is my knee bleeding?”

Peter looks around the room. “That.” He points at his hockey skates, lying on the floor, blade-side up. “I should have cleaned up before we went to sleep. I'm sorry. I forgot.” He shoves everything into his closet.

“I'll be back in five seconds. Are you okay alone?”

“Sure. I'll be okay.” But I'm not. Concentrating on
the posters of Peter's all-time favorite athletes, I stay frozen to the spot where I woke up. Studying the faces of Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Lionel Messi, Alex Ovechkin, Pelé, and Kobe Bryant, I try to think of something other than one of my brothers stabbing the other with a fork, and my nightmare. But I can
only
think of one of my brothers stabbing the other with a fork, and my nightmare.

Peter returns with two glasses of water. An ice pack. Hydrogen peroxide and Band-Aids. I gulp my water and hold the ice to one knee as he cleans the other.

“The cut isn't bad at all. It looked worse with the blood. Only two Band-Aids,” Peter says. I look at my bandaged feet and my knees.

“Maybe I'll fall and accidentally slit my wrists next.” I try to make a joke.

Peter shakes his head, forces out a “Ha.” Then adds, “Don't even joke about that shit, Clare.”

I shrug.

“Do you want to try to sleep again?” Peter asks. The answer is no. I never want to sleep again. I look at the window. The clock. It won't be light for a whole two more hours. “We can leave the light on, okay, Clare?”

He leans against the base of his desk, his eyelids fluttering as he tries to keep them open. I can't ask him to stay awake with me.

“Okay,” I say. “I need to read something. Something nice to get my mind off of . . . everything.”

“
Sports Illustrate
?” Peter suggests. I don't play sports, except when I'm recruited by Chase or Skye so they can
practice. I don't get sports. Reading about sports is exactly what I want to do right now.

Back in the bottom bunk I tuck the covers around me. Peter lays his pillows on the floor next to the bed.

“No, Peter. It's okay. You don't need to do that.”

“I can use a rolled-up sweatshirt. I'll sleep better knowing you have something there in case you fall out again.” Two nightmares in one night. I can't handle that.

•  •  •

In the morning Peter's desk lamp is still on.
Sports Illustrate
is lying across my chest. My body is sore all over, but I have made it to daylight nightmare-free.

Wondering where Peter is, I slowly roll out of the bed, stretching my arms as I stand up and limp to the window. I pull the shade up, letting the gray light of a cloudy sky fill the room. Placing one hand on the glass, my fingertips feel the cold air leaking through. It could snow today.

Gazing out on Peter's view—our front path that leads to the parking area where all our cars sit—I start sifting through my memories. Through all of those spinning pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of my past.

Looking out at the front path, I can still feel how my heart quickened when I saw the broken front window, the trail of blood.

I allow myself to remember. I allow myself to follow the droplets and turn the corner.

Dad was standing next to the couch. Tall, straight, strong. But his face was pale and blotchy red, veins strongly pounding beneath the thin surface. A mix of anger and fear. I stepped backward.

“GET OUT!” Dad shouted, pointing at the back door.

“Leave me alone! Let me go to sleep.” Luke leaned against the couch, running his bloody fingers down his face, showing us the red under his lower eyelids.

Dad grabbed Luke by the shirt, pulled him close.

“I said, GET OUT!” Dad pushed him toward the door. Luke stumbled, slammed into the wall. I shut my eyes tight. Was this really Luke? Was it really my dad?

Luke's face morphed and mutated. He showed his teeth and his blood-filled eyes. Ugly.

Then he attacked. He attacked Dad, fists and hands and fingers clawing. They wrestled like two dogs, faces reddening as their breath ran low. Luke pinned Dad to the floor, his knees on his chest. His fingers around Dad's neck. Red spatters and smears on their faces, arms, shirts, teeth. There was so much blood. So much blood.

Dad coughed. Spurted. Gurgled. Luke didn't let go.

Skeleton wrapped his fingers around my eyes, but I pushed them away, running to the middle of the room.

“STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP! STOP!” My screams froze the room, froze the scene for one tiny moment. Luke's hands dropped from Dad's neck.

I expected something more to happen. Did I break the spell? Dad moaned as Luke stood up. Fumbling, Dad grabbed the phone off the end table.

With his eyes on Luke, Dad said in a raw voice, “Go. Now. Don't make me call the police.”

Luke stumbled, stretching out a bloodied hand. He pushed me to the side, leaving a handprint of red squarely on my chest, more complete than the ink prints in our baby books.

Then the sounds of the front door slamming. Of Luke leaving the house. Where did he go, red with blood?

“Clare, be a big helper. Get old towels in cold water, bandages, hydrogen peroxide, and ice packs. Go on now.” Dad's voice was so weak.

I ran to get everything.

The old towels soaked the red covering Dad. As they cleaned his skin, they revealed slivers of cuts, some deep and long. Ice pressed on his nose and eyes and neck to keep the swelling and bruising away.

“This mess,” Dad said faintly, “is going to be harder to clean up than a roadkill skunk.” He sputtered a fake laugh, looking out of the corner of his swollen eyes to me. I could tell it was for my benefit. I couldn't join him.

“Clare, you know we need to keep some things just in the family, right?”

I nodded.

“Anyone asks . . . I fell down a hill while I was working.”

I nodded again.

I carefully picked up pieces of glass, scrubbed stains of red, placed thrown objects back. Imagined the house was not mine, the brother was not mine, the father was not mine, the Skeleton was not mine. Allowed this memory to cloud over, eclipsed by all the good memories of Luke being kind and gentle and loving, giving myself permission to forget what Luke was capable of doing.

I back away from Peter's window, letting the memory completely finish, down to the slow process of watching Dad's face morph—blacks, purples, blues, greens, yellows—finally back to skin tones, even the scars eventually fading. Once the house looked normal again and Dad's face looked normal again, I could make myself forget. I could pick and choose the memories of Luke that I wanted to keep, playing over and over and over only the good ones.

But as I look at my bandaged feet and think of Peter's arm, I realize: It has done nothing for me to filter memories and leave that one out. In fact, maybe if I had allowed myself to remember what Luke was capable of doing, I would have been more cautious. Maybe Peter and I wouldn't have gotten hurt yesterday.

I limp my way to the living room and lie on the couch for most of the day, mindlessly watching balloon after balloon float down the Macy's parade route. Then I watch hours of football with Peter, until dinner is ready.

One twenty-pound turkey, four family members. Mom sets the table for five, stands back and sighs, then
puts the other place setting back in the cabinet. Sitting down, all together, the room feels full. Especially with Skeleton clunking around the table, dancing by the cabinet, pointing at our family portrait and counting on his bony fingers. Four, not five. He wraps one long arm around Peter.

We all pretend to ignore him. Peter wears long sleeves, concealing the holes in his arm. My bandaged feet are under the table. Saying aloud we are thankful for food and shelter and the love of friends, and of family. No one says they are thankful for safety. Skeleton sits down on the counter, between the apple and pumpkin pies, and watches us eat.

As soon as I've taken the last bite of the last piece of pie, I hobble to my room. I'm still scared to be alone, but Peter is going out with friends tonight, and there is no way that I'm going to resort to sleeping on the floor in my parents' room. I guess I could call Drea, but then I'd have to explain my bandaged feet. I just don't want to talk about it.

The light outside my window illuminates our backyard. I watch as fat snowflakes begin to fall from the sky, kissing the branches of our apple tree before dissolving. It's so beautiful, so peaceful. My eyes blur, and I imagine the yard in the summer, my mother happily sitting under the tree, clapping as Luke and I chase my frog. I want to jump into that memory, live there forever. Forget everything else about Luke.

No more, I resolve. No more floating back into my good memories. No more avoiding the truth.

I double-check to make sure the window is shut and locked, before pulling the curtain closed and crawling under my covers. My bedside lamp is still on, and I plan to sleep with it on for the rest of my life if I need to.

The snow continues to fall, on and off for the next five days. The roads are icy enough to cancel school Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday morning the sun is shining and my feet have healed well enough for me to go to school and be able to walk somewhat normally. It's nice to be back in class, surrounded by my friends. It's comforting to know that even with my world at home flipped upside down, there will always be a steady stream of lectures and assignments, the security of bells keeping me on schedule. There's an avalanche of extra homework in my AP classes to keep us to date on our syllabuses. I'm extra busy for the month of December, barely having time to help Mom decorate the house.

Finally, the Saturday before Christmas, I have a morning free to patrol the mall for gifts. One day of shopping. That's all I have time for.

I fight the urge to buy something for Luke. If he shows up at the house for Christmas, I
will
call the detective immediately. No shower. No food. No nothing. Skeleton walks beside me, nodding his head at every thought. Even he agrees.

But. What if he shows up sober? Sober and happy and sweet?

I catch myself stroking a black sweater that I know Luke would love. I picture him wearing it. Skeleton tries it on. It fits just right. I shove it back onto the pile. No. I will not buy him anything. If he shows, I will call the police. Even if he's sober.

After I buy my last gift—a new pair of slippers for Mom—I make one more stop before I go home. Yesterday an envelope appeared in the mail, containing a congratulatory letter and a five-hundred-dollar check. One of the essays I wrote this summer for a scholarship was picked as the winner. I'm figuring what I have in my account: $9,125 plus the additional $500 that I will be depositing today makes a total of $9,625. It seems like a lot of money, but I know it won't even get me through the first year of school, especially if I live on campus, which I plan to do. Considering no one will hire me in my crap town, I'm relying on scholarships now, a good job wherever I move to later.