Red Lightning (12 page)

I rinse out two glasses that I find in a dusty cupboard. Stare at the boxes. I can't help the vomit rising up my throat. I swallow it down, but it rises again, and eventually I have to hold my hair back from my face and puke in the sink.

                
She's a skeleton, a skeleton.

                
Death is probably tickled pink

                
by everyone's efforts to avoid him.

                
Probably he's a really nice guy.

                
Hold it together, Tess, hold it together.

In between heaves, I hear “Cripes, Tess—” and then, “I should have known,” and “Clean up your mess.”

I rinse out the sink, rinse out my mouth, rinse off my face. I'm not drunk. Just bikepedaling thirsty, soulwrenched. I very much want to be, though. Want to be drunk. I find the whiskey, pour us two glasses, grab a box of crackers, and go back out to the living room. It's the same ragtag-olivegreen carpet that Baxter had when he lived here.

Our fingers touch when I hand her a glass. I raise my arms, let them settle by my sides. Look out the window at the night, at the bugs flying in the beam of the single light on the outside of the shed.

Kay clears her throat and waits until I turn to her. “Let's drink,” she says. “Cheers. So, Amber was open to seeing you?”

My stomach churns, not wanting the whiskey as much as the rest of my body does. “Yeah, she was.”

“What she needs to do is go ballistic. Cuss you out.”

“I suppose.”

“As should I. But as you can see, I got enough trouble on my hands. So if you're bringing any trouble yourself, or want any sympathy, you can forget that. And if you're going to act like you have a chip on your shoulder, which is how you've been acting since the day you were born, you can just leave.”

I flop into a chair, across from her, and stare. Drink. Regard her.

I pop my neck. “Amber says you stepped on a nail.”

“It's true. And then I went fishing. That's what I want my death certificate to say: Nail and fish.” Her eyes light up for a flicker of a moment, and she sadly laughs. “Sounds somehow like Jesus, doesn't it?” She sighs and scratches her arm. In the lamplight, I see the flakes of skin rise and then settle. “Getting older is just dealing with new kinds of pain. But yes, I stepped on a nail. Nearly went all the way through my foot. Through the sole of my shoe. Foot swelled up. Libby dragged me to the hospital. Got it cleaned up, got antibiotics. But then it came back. Then I went fishing. A lark—hadn't been for years. Waded in. Because it was hot. Is that such a crime? Well, now that I've had time to reflect on it, perhaps it was. Because you never should forget that the earth can kill you.”

“And?” I sip the whiskey, place a cracker on my tongue. Oh, relief. The buzz is good now, a nice head spin, a bodysoftening.

Another sigh. “My foot streaked purple. There's a new strain of staph. There's a bad one called MRSA you get in hospitals. But there's a new one, in Colorado's rivers, called CA-MRSA. Or something like that.” She stares off into space, breathes in. “I've been in many hospitals, for many days. I guess some people should just die. The world is too crowded.” She closes her eyes out of pain. A tightness between the eyebrows, a sorrow seeping through eyelids. “But it's harder than you think. You're lucky I'm sick. Otherwise, I might not be so forgiving. You sure are one shithead for leaving like that. All this time, with no
way to contact you. I couldn't even tell you about Baxter's funeral. He loved you so much, you know. And he never got to tell you goodbye.” She opens her eyes briefly.

I know I should voice words, find my vocalchord voice. “Where's he buried?”

“Ashes scattered across this place. Where the pretty rock outcrop is. That's where I want to be scattered too.” She scratches her thigh, looks at her foot. “Ugly, isn't it? He was always telling me that he asked his guardian angel to leave him and go follow you. ‘That Tess,' he'd say, ‘She's giving our guardian angels gray hairs, and I can hear them bitching about it now.'”

That makes me smile. “Yeah, that sounds like him.” Then, after a pause, “You can have them back, now, the guardian angels. Seems like you need them more.”

She holds an ice chunk in her cheek. “I used to not worry about death. But here I am. At the door. And it's not easy. Tess, if the alcohol-and-pain-pill mix gets me, well, know it was my choice. It's a nice, neat, no-questions-asked-after way. You know? But still. I guess I should have prepared more.”

Pause, pause. Can't argue that. Finally, “It's your life. As you used to tell me.”

“It was,” she says quietly. “I suppose I wasted it. I suppose I always felt like I'd gotten the shaft or deserved better. Nothing ever went my way. Never got much of a break. Lord knows I tried. I suppose you know what I mean.”

The nonsurprise of her saying such a thing sends me up and to the window staring at the moon, and it reminds me of my theory formed on the bus here, about cavernous apologies and thank yous meaning diddlyshit unless you voice them to the appropriate person. Kay never did, and she never will. Perhaps Kay knows what I'm thinking, because just to drive the point home, she adds, “You were always a little shit,”
which once-upon-a-time would have sent me storming out, but now I stand firm and keep my eyes trained on the moon.

                    
The joys and love Tess expected

                    
from life

                    
were arid nothings.

                    
The lifejoy turned out to be badly placed.

                    
But it was Tess's job to change her expectations,

                    
and she didn't.

*

“Tell me one thing about your life.” Kay says this after a few hours of
us both drifting in and out of sleep. “So I can try to understand you. Libby will be here sooner or later. Before she gets here, just tell me one true thing. The kind of thing you wouldn't want her to hear.”

I sip the whiskey. The blurbuzz of the alcohol has been established, and it must be for her, too, otherwise she wouldn't ask something so real. The alcohol in my blood helps with my goal of giving her the respect of looking at her, though my eyes keep wanting to dart away.

I open my mouth. I want to form the words. I want to ask her: Did you ever feel any motherlove?

Kay looks at me, sharply. “Say something, Tess. Something real.”

But I shake my head, no. She closes her eyes and does not open them.

*

The room has settled into the sounds of predawn. Crickets, birds, an
awakening of the earth itself. Kay winces, shifts. She pokes her finger into her leg. “It used to be hot all the way up to the knee. The heat is
moving down. Got any open wounds? Keep 'em covered, if you do. This is contagious.” Much later, she rouses herself and says, “Every Saturday, Libby scrapes off my skin. My skin tries to cover the wound, and she scrapes it right off. Because the wound needs to heal from the bottom up. Having skin cover it will just keep the infection buried in the body. She's still hoping I'll live.”

I clear my throat. “There was a young girl I helped. That I loved once. Named Alejandra. I loved her whistles,” I say. “I loved her language. She invented words, just like I did as a kid. She'd say the funniest things—‘Come on, guys, show some leaderism!'—when she wanted the group to perk up. When you did something dumb, she would say,
‘Estupiota!
' When she wanted the radio turned up, she would say, ‘Loud it up!' She would say ‘limitated' when she meant limited. When she wanted to eat something, she would say, ‘Where are some gobbles?' As in, where are some snacks I can gobble?”

“That's funny. Like you used to be. I don't know what happened.”

I look at her, cold.
You did
, I almost say.
You happened
.

But Libby's quiet footfall makes us turn. She's on her way to work, in her nurse outfit, walking in the door quietly. Without stopping, she gives us a chirpy “Good morning” and me a “You rode Amber's bike over?” and gives me a look that means
It's good you came here
and
I know about the fire
. Then she moves to the kitchen, returns with a plastic bag. “I'm going to flush out the tubing with saline and hook up a new bag,” she says. “I'll teach you later, if you want to learn.”

Kay murmurs, “I know you wish I'd just die.”

Libby's hands move over Kay, one fluid motion. She's graceful, even in her hurry. “Bodies can and do heal.”

“Don't bullshit a bullshitter. Well,
I
want me to die.” Kay closes her eyes. “I'm so unhappy. I'm so uncomfortable.” Then she glances at me. “So how do you feel about your runaway sister coming back? What do you think she wants from us?”

Libby keeps working with the clear plastic bag she's hanging. She looks beautiful in this morning light—someone who is doing something, who has a purpose, who has a reason. Her hair is in a raggedy ponytail, and she's still got on her cheapbrand tennis shoes, but somehow in the nurse outfit, and when she moves so efficiently, she glows.

She glances at me. “Tess, the drip is set for every two seconds. Kay always tries to speed it up, but don't let her touch anything. It needs to drop at two seconds.” She waits until I nod, then turns to wrap the bandage around Kay's wound with a little flair. She tucks the edge under in one swift movement.

“It's too damn slow.” Kay closes her eyes. Her words are blurry, marred with the little bit of alcohol she had, the mix with pain meds. “It's so painful. What kind of god would make us hurt so much?”

“Exactly,” I murmur.

“This is the PICC line.” Libby holds up the plastic tubing. “It can
not
get infected. It's an opening right into Kay's core. And if it gets infected, Kay gets sepsis, and she dies. Okay? Kay, you cannot open the drop to be too fast.”

Kay looks at her. “Libby, ask us if we've been drinking.” Then, “We sipped whiskey all night! I fess up. I'm drunk from exhaustion, and drunk from whiskey, and drunk from this dying business.”

Libby looks above Kay, as if examining the walls for patience and love. “I'm going to work,” she says. “Tess, there are bedrooms upstairs. Sheets might be dusty, but they're clean enough. We'll see you tonight? Perhaps we could bring over some food and all eat here. Together.”

“No!” Kay's voice startles us both. She moves herself in her chair, grunting. “Tess, I think you owe your sister an apology. I want to hear it.”

I look at her. Bite my tongue. I look up at Libby, tilt my head. “She'll never change, will she? But you did. And that's what I came for. To see it. Also, to come home and say something real. We used to care for each other, didn't we, Libby? When we were kids? Because each
other is all we had? You were a good sister. You protected me. And Kay, you were a lousy mother, and I turned into a thickskinned fuck.” I look at the ceiling. “And Libby kept taking care of me, because you didn't. Then she took care of my kid. And the kid turned out great. I look like shit, and Kay looks like shit, and Libby looks like a happy woman stuck with a bunch of responsibility but with a real genuine life. Ed is good, and Amber is good. Thank god for that. I thank you, Libby, for your courage. That's the core of what I want to say.”

Libby keeps her eyes on the wall behind me, turns, and leaves. Kay mumbles some quick farewell, and Libby lets the screen door shut gently. I let out a whistle that will carry to her as she walks away.
I love you
, it means, although she doesn't know that. I see her pause, hear it, and keep going, toward her truck and toward the mountains, which are blurred with haze from fire.

PART III

Fire

Chapter Ten

What would be the relief in redemption if it were a simple
sorry
,
forgive me
? Grace is not achieved so easily. Redemption is to purchase back something previously sold, the recovery of something pawned or mortgaged, the effort it takes to make things right. Bless me, self, for trying to reacquire some of what I sold somewhere along the line.

*

I wait for Slade's whistle to strike my eardrums. I listen while I do
Kay's dishes, laundry, bring her tea, sweep the gray blooms. My ears ache with the seeking, with standing to attention, like an alert deer in a road, holding her position, large ears tipped, knowing there's danger coming, exhausted by the stillness required to catch the very first moment of sound, the one that will tell her which way to go.

Enough time has now passed, hasn't it? His realization I was gone, him finding the empty van in Alamosa, his figuring out where I'd be. Wouldn't something guide him here? The fire in his loins? The fire in his heart? The fire in the mountains? But no: I had spoken my
goodbyes. Told him we were over. That I was doing this last run and then was gone. This last kiss and then was gone. I had made my list of people to say goodbye to and in which order—Slade, Libby, Amber—and he was the first to get the news.