Red Lightning (15 page)

The earthquakes and thunder and lightning speak for me: Yes, I know it.

The wind has dropped. The wind has shhhhhsed, the airtemperature is dropping. The smell of soil and of wheat nearby. The Milky Way, the Pleiades. He turns me toward him, hard. “Promise me. Swear to me. Don't do anything for the next few days. See your daughter, your sister, and just pretend the rest of this hasn't happened. And then we'll figure it out.”

I nod, but he squeezes, and so I offer him a manysplendored lie. Yes.

Later, much later, when I hear his first snores, I slide out of Slade's arms and the sleeping bag—
oh it's cold, so cold
—and it takes a sheer force of will to climb out of the back of the truck and to put my clothes on and move. One last look: his eyelashes, his scruffly cheeks, his soul.

Chapter Eleven

The stars with their tiny teeth are biting the sky, shining as bright as
they can when I make it back to the farmhouse. When I find the keys in the ignition of Kay's truck, a melancholy laugh flutters out of me: Kay's theory on life being that you shouldn't own anything worth stealing, and you never put shit anywhere else than where you use it. The little details of knowing a person.

The door at Libby and Ed's home is unlocked per the same theory. I close it quietly. Ringo darts out at me, but I'm able to say,
Hey now, hey
, before he gets his bark off, and he rings my legs, tail wagging. I orient myself in the house and tiptoe down the hall to Amber's room. Ringo follows me, lifting his head into my hand, jabbing his nose into my crotch to smell.

Amber. It's a cliché thing to do. So be it. I want to see this kid sleep, in the inout of breath, eyes closed, tender.

I move quietly in. She's sprawled on her stomach with a quiet breath coming from her, one arm flung up above her head, hair spread out across her pillow. I want to see what I can feel, to see this child of mine alive and well. Her hand moves a bit, she rolls to
the side, makes a noise with her lips, sinks deep again. Her lips are slightly parted. Air. Fire. Wind. Water.

The sky behind her is starting to turn from black to a strange gray. “Back then, I didn't think you'd be enough to fill my heart. Now you would be, I think, but it's too late.” I whisper this to Amber in a voice so quiet that not even I can hear. “You are beautiful, though. I'm so sorry I've disappointed you. That's a secret I hadn't told you. There is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived.” I reach out, touch her hair like a mother might, let my hand rest there and close my eyes and beg myself to remember this moment at my last. I watch her breathe. In, out. Her hair is a dark cascade on white sheet. In, out.

*

I sit on the couch and pull the cushions over me—so
soft
—and I
stare out the window, at the moon thus framed. Ringo flops on the floor, graceless. I feel the pull and sway and dance of it all. Emotion comes and goes like the moon, like the immigrants crossing the border, like the
coyotes
that transport them, like the rotation of the earth itself.

Ringo looks up at me, thumps his tail, watches me as I reach over to find a pen, a slip of Amber's notebook paper.

*

The rosy-fingered dawn
. Amber has the book sitting out on the
kitchen table, the same Lattimore translation I borrowed off of Libby with some of my handwriting on the inside. Nothing changes that much, not from Greeks to now, not from my childhood to Amber's.

I look out the window. It is, in fact, a rosy-fingered dawn, the curve of earth lighting under a pink glow. I regard the kitchen table,
put a Saltine cracker in my mouth, make coffee, take a handful of aspirin, rummage through the fridge. Just this one last day of effort.

Ed wanders down the stairs first, frowsyheaded and handsome from sleep. I have to look away from his tender openness. Libby comes right after, equally as foggy. Ringo stands up from where he's been lying at my feet to greet them. Gives them a hello nudge in the crotch.

“Okay,” I hear myself saying. “Fried potatoes. Omelets.”

Libby looks at me suspiciously, shoots Ed a look that says something. “Morning,” she says. “I thought you were at Kay's.”

“Couldn't sleep. Plus, you know, I thought you should eat before you went to work.”

“I took off work today.”

“To see me?”

She pauses, looks down to pull up her pajama bottoms. “Yes.”

Ed pulls on his shoes but looks up from his hunched-over position. “Any word on the fire?”

“It's growing. It's just . . . never going to stop.”

“It'll stop.” But he looks miserable, and then, without a word, goes outside.

Libby watches him go. “He'll do chores first.” Then, as she pours herself coffee, she says, “So, hey, about a month ago, Kay and I went through all her old stuff, to sort it, you know. Pare down. She'd been bugging me for months. I've got two plastic containers. Of yours.”

“There's nothing I care about, Libby.”

She walks up and tousles my hair. “You look cute this way, with short hair. Some of that old stuff is funny to see again. Old school projects. Artwork. Clay pots and bad clunky things that say ‘I love mom' and stuff.” She sits down at the table and sips her coffee. “Tess, I think you should see a doctor while you're in town. You're so pale, so thin . . . Just run some blood tests, get a checkup. I'll pay for it.”

I give her some line about how as soon as I go to a doctor, it
puts all kind of shit into motion, names and social security number, and I've never paid taxes, and I want to be disappeared, so give me a day, and I'll be better. When she objects, I finally agree. It doesn't matter. There will be no test. To distract her, I ask, “Hey, Libby? Are you happy?”

She looks over to see what I'm cooking to hide her surprise. “I'm glad I've taken Amber. If that's what you're asking. Is that what you're really asking? It's been tough, especially those baby years—I didn't particularly like those—but now it's just fun. Actually
fun
. It's fun to hang around a person who is one of the most intelligent, curious, wonderful humans on earth. Plus, it's fun to do everything the exact opposite of Kay. To realize that you can change the pattern.”

“So, all in all, it hasn't been a mistake? Wish we'd given her to some other family?”

“No, I've never been sad. Even when it was tough.”

“So it's enough? To . . . I don't know, fill you up? Do you know what I mean?”

She looks at me, straight on. “Of course I do. You're not the only one who feels empty, you know. Sometimes I get lonely. Sometimes it still feels like something is missing. The Buddhists say life is suffering. But that's a bad translation. They mean
unsettled
. To want more. To be seeking. For a while, I thought it might be a kid of my own. To carry a baby and then hold it. But I couldn't. We tried to have a baby, and we couldn't. So, see, Amber was a real gift.”

My eyebrows move up on their own, my hand reaches out to grab
The Odyssey
to my heart. “Oh, wow. I didn't know.”

“How could you? You've been gone ten years with no way to stay in touch. And just so you know, I quit asking for a well-being check from the police. I was afraid it would just get you in trouble. I knew by instinct you were fine and wanted to be left alone.”

The potatoes are thinly sliced, burbling around in hot oil. I stab
my fork into one, bring it out onto a paper towel, salt it. My stomach feels unsure of food. I tap my chest, hard. “There's a monster that lives there. It feels like there's actually something inside. Anxiety, I suppose. It used to just be in the mornings. Now it's all day.”

She looks at me, blinks her doebrown eyes. “That's where I feel it too. There's medicine to help with that, you know. And counseling. Meditation. Things you can do.”

I hand her a plate of potatoes and an omelet and chew a bite myself, gingerly, as if eating it slowly might not hurt my teeth, might make my stomach more accepting. “I guess I didn't know that the emptiness could just . . . I don't know . . . get deeper and deeper. I assumed there was an end to it. I've learned one thing, which is that one should never assume anything. Sometimes I missed Kay, if that's possible. I didn't literally miss her, but I missed her in the abstract. As in, there were a few nights here and there where I wanted a mother. Someone to hold me and sing lullabies. And you. I missed you.”

She chews more slowly, wondering, perhaps, if I can be believed. Then she nods.

“I know you haven't forgiven me.”

“You never asked.” She tilts her head at me, questioning. “I missed you. For a couple of years. I wondered how you were doing. Sometimes I was angry. You never called or texted or emailed, and so I stopped waiting. I stopped looking out the window, hoping to see a truck pull up and you jump out. I wasn't angry, either, till you showed up. You became dead to me, I guess. So it's weird to see you again. It was . . . tough. To see you.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

She finishes her breakfast, stands up to clear her plate into a bucket that says ChiKEN SCRapS on it with marker in kid handwriting. “I guess that's the only thing I really want to know. I mean, I have a million questions. But if I only got one, I would like to be clear on how long. What's your plan here? What about this fire? We need to talk about this.”

The coffee must be kicking in, my head is clearing. “The honest truth, Libby, is that I'll be going soon. There is trouble . . . I didn't know that when I came here. Honestly. I just thought that I didn't find the
pollos
, and so I came here, and then my plan was to see you for three or so days, and then disappear again.”

“Where?”

I pause. Shrug. “I don't know. I guess it depended on how things went here. I guess I needed to see if I had a home. But now you and Ed know about the fire. I just don't know . . . There are things . . . I can't really put words to them . . . How guilty am I? I don't even know. I was supposed to pick up a group of people. I couldn't find them. They started a signal fire. That fire is out of control. I don't know what that
means
. But I'm not staying much longer. I wanted to come to say goodbye. Out of love. And respect. And, well, this is the hard one for me. To ask forgiveness.”

“Okay, then.” Her voice is very soft, and she looks above my head, deciding something, and then back at my eyes. Here we are, two sisters, staring at one another. Simple, real, open. “You don't exactly deserve this, Tess,” she says. “I think there's probably more to the story. But I do have a secret. Something real. A surprise for you.” Her smile is sad, but still she winks and stands up. “Ed will tell you all about it. And show you. Because I want to be here when Amber wakes up. So that we can talk. For real. Without you here. Because she is my first priority. About whatever she is feeling about you and your return. But Ed is going to tell you something. And Tess? I hope you're worthy.”

Chapter Twelve

Ed eats his breakfast standing, leaning against the kitchen counter
, and says seriously but also playfully, knowing he'll annoy me, “I'm grateful for the chickens who gave us the eggs, for the sun and water, for the wheat and corn that fed the chickens, for the earth that provided the nutrients for this particular potato, for the space here to make our own food, and to you for making it, Tess.” When I smile, he adds, “And that is not all goofy crap. That is real gratefulness. Now, Tess, let's take a walk.”

“Well, is that negotiable? I don't feel so good—” I'm not going to tell them about Alejandra. That she was in the group I was to pick up. That she likely started the fire. That she is gone. I push it down deep, deep, so that I can have this final day. The time limit is the only thing that makes it possible.

“Nonnegotiable.”

“I didn't actually sleep—”

“—It will be about a mile. I'll bring water. I have something to show you. Something important. You owe us that much. One walk.”

I glance toward Libby for confirmation that I need to do this, but
she's doing dishes, purposefully avoiding my gaze. I wander over to the door, where shoes are stacked, and lace up some of her tennis shoes. The blisters on my feet haven't yet healed, and they'll open back up now, but it doesn't matter.

Ed sets his plate on the counter, escorts me out the door, and guides me west, toward the distant and hazy mountains. He lifts his ballcap off, pushes the glasses to his face, runs his hand through his sandy-curly hair. The sky is brilliant blue, the grasses turned into a dry-golden, the row of cottonwoods even more golden.

“Not so smoky today,” I venture, look at him sideways.

“No.”

“Maybe it's calming?”

“No. Just checked. Moving fast. I would prefer not to talk about this particular tragedy . . . at this particular time. There's nothing we can do at the moment. Except to say that all our actions have consequences, that everything we do puts a chain of events into action, and for that reason, Tess, we have to be careful. We have to be aware and careful.”