Red Lightning (9 page)

“I know. Kay taught me. Baxter too.”

“Yes. Life is like that. Move
toward
danger. It's safer that way. Either that, or get the hell out of the way.” I pause. Try to look brighter, more alive. “Not that you are in the mood to be taking any advice from me. For sure. But I learned something from leaving you.” And here, I take my hand off the counter and put it over my eyes so I can have the dark. My voice goes soft again and not even really of my own
accord. I just hear it, with a bit of surprise. “To me, Amber, you were a danger. Your infant self. Because you represented everything I didn't want to give up. My freedom, my partying. So I ran off. I got far away from that danger. Which was you. I'm sorry to say. But Libby did the opposite. She looked right at the danger, which was you—because you were also a danger to her—she had no money, no real job, no love, no nothing—and she pulled you in. In
close
.”

I open my eyes to find her staring at me, biting the inside of her upper lip. “Okay.” And then, because I look so pleading, she adds, “Either get far away from the danger, or move in really close. That's what you're saying.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, Tess.”

“Another example. Let's say I'm driving and a deer steps out in the road. If I swerve to miss that deer, if I take a half-assed position, I'm likely to die. I could drive off a cliff or swerve just enough to hit an oncoming car. They'll teach you this in driver's ed. If you must, you go ahead and keep the car straight and hit the deer. You go
at
the danger. Now, if you can stop, and avoid the deer altogether, then great, do that. But do not, ever, ever, ever, put yourself in that land in-between.”

She bites her lip again, regards me. “You're softer than I thought you'd be.”

A soft, genuine laugh burbles out of me. “Worn down, like a river rock.” I don't say: I'm crazyferal and that has made me soft now. I reach out to touch her cheek. “Life is a crazy mix of knowing when to step forward toward danger and when to run as fast as you can.”

                    
That's what Tess came here to say.

                    
Oh, Amber.

                    
Please try to watch for the two paths

                    
and pick the right course.

She says something about her homework and reaches out to touch my arm and then wanders off. I put my hands on the counter and lean forward and look out the window toward the mountains. I can't stay now. I'll need to go far away, as far as I can go.

Chapter Seven

As we set the table and pass plates and move food from serving plate
to dinner plates, the silence I keep nearly breaks my eardrums. I must guide the ship through calmer waters. In this way, we have our main course, which is to stay the course. Instinct tells us what will not be discussed. (The running of undocumented immigrants.) (My current situation.) (Whether I will see Kay.) (What caused the fire.) (What I should ask to be forgiven for.) Instead, we allow what will be discussed: “What happened to your tooth?” (Got it pulled by a dentist.) And “Do you need to see a doctor? For a checkup?” (No, I do not, but thank you.) And “How was Kay after Baxter?” (He'd helped her improve, so she handled it better than you might think.) And “She quit drinking?” (She slowed way down for a while, only took it back up recently.) And “She gonna die soon?” (Pause. It's possible.)

What nearly lets the sails out, nearly takes me off course, is the miracle of an honest meal. Not cellophane wrap, not pizza, not chips. No. Here is steamed broccoli and grilled zucchinis and summer squash in herbs, salad, wild rice mixed with diced mango, yesterday's leftover roasted chicken.

The four of us sit at a table with bright plates, bright napkins. Blues, oranges, yellows. The energy feels quietly bright, too: Amber, still in her turquoise sweatshirt, her brown hair pulled back in a pony, nervous but settling. Ed in a clean light purple T-shirt and thoughtful as he looks out the window, at the twilight, considering something. Libby, who came home from work and put on a skyblue dress and who has braided her hair and who looks prettier than she did at eighteen. She glances at me from time to time, whispers something along the lines of “You look better” or “I'm not so worried anymore” or “You just needed sleep and a shower, I think,” to which I nod and nod again. From time to time, I speak little phrases, too—“Thank you for letting me sit here and eat with you”—which seems to surprise Libby every time. She looks particularly startled at one moment, in fact, but it's at something out the window, and we turn to see a fox calmly trotting by, barely visible from the leftover light in the sky and the outdoor bulb on a telephone pole.

“That fox doesn't get your chickens?”

Ed chews thoughtfully. “Not yet.” Then, “Ringo, go give that fox a scare.”

Ringo seems to understand and charges out of the house through a dog door in a bounding woof, but the fox is already gone, and Ringo seems too lazy to take pursuit, and instead sits down to scratch himself in the circle of light.

“Did you know,” I say, “that there are about twelve million illegal immigrants in the United States?” I do not say: My pick-up location was called Lobo's Pass, because it was Lobo's favorite spot. White Wolf Creek. But what are the chances?

“Tess?” Ed hands me a plate of vegetables. “Are you okay?”

Blink, blink. “Oh.” Crack my neck. Then, “Do you ever feel like everyone is just pretending?”

He pauses, does a little relaxed bob with his head, which means,
Maybe, yes
.

“We're all suckers for a happy ending. Or a happy story in the middle. Go around in our own private movies.”

“Sometimes, yes. Why?”

“I was thinking that I never even tried to grow a vegetable.” I clear my throat, feel my stomach churn. I thought I had a couple of days, and there is a lot I had hoped to say. I take a big breath. “Did you know that there are whistle languages in rural Mexico? When people need to communicate, and they're far away from each other, and it's too hard to yell? When your voice won't carry? Lots of people use whistles, of course. Hunters. Campers. But this is a whole language.” I demonstrate. The whistle of a meadowlark. The whistle of a canyon wren. Some deep whistles, some twittering, flighty ones. “Did you know, for example, that a yell only travels about five hundred feet? But a whistle can travel for nearly ten thousand. No joke. One thing I did learn in my line of work was whistle language. But you don't just whistle. If you need it to travel, you have to use your hands. It's a real trick, a real skill.” Here, I put one finger in my mouth, another cupped around my lips, and blow.

They all startle, and Amber jumps in her seat and covers her ears.

“Cripes, Tess,” Libby says, scowling. “Please don't shatter our eardrums.”

I laugh, do a softer one, this time rolling my tongue, cupping my hands around my mouth. “People have studied these languages. And once, it saved a girl. Can I tell you that story? I'd like to. There was a young girl that I did mother, once.” I look at Amber. “I didn't do right by you, Amber. I wasn't here for you. But I just wanted to tell you, I guess, that I was good to a child, once. Would it bother you to hear such a story?”

Amber glances at Libby and then back at me. “No.”

“This girl, I suppose she was twelve-ish at the time, and that was about five years ago, well, she simply came to me when I was ready,
when I was a bit softer, and a bit more open than when I had you. Her own mother, Lupe, was a good one, but tired, and sometimes it helps to have an extra person who cares.” I stare out the window for a moment, at the twilight, at Ringo, who is still resting in the circle of light. “I guess I just wanted to tell you about her. To show you that I had it in me to be kind.”

Amber nods, weighing this. “How did you meet her?”

“She was in a group of immigrants I was supposed to pick up in the desert.” At this, Ed clears his throat, and Libby starts to say something, and so I quickly add, “Back when I was doing this stuff, which, of course, I should not have been doing.”

“I knew you were doing that anyway.” Amber glances at Libby. “Kay told me a long time ago. Plus. Well. I'm not stupid. Let her tell the story. Please?”

Libby rolls her eyes at the ceiling but then nods, and so I continue. “She was whistling to me, the loudest whistle I ever heard. Otherwise, I may not have found them, they were concealed so well. I had driven out there in a truck with a horsetrailer. I parked the truck and walked up to them, and I could see right away that they were all tired and . . . well . . . not doing so well. I took the group to Denver, which was what I'd been assigned to do. But unlike every other person I ever drove, I stayed in touch with her. Helped them get on their feet.”

I listen to how quiet the room has become, breathe out, determined to try to finish my story. “When I met her, she was so thin, she'd been pounded thin by life, and her hair was so matted and filthy that I couldn't brush it out. She said, ‘I'm feeling neargone.' That was her word for it. I had to give her a haircut, just like I did today on me, and that made her cry. But it grew back, and she grew so fast that next year, just shot up. She's back in Mexico, now, with her family. She went back because her grandmother was dying. We've fallen out of touch. I guess that's my fault. Although I did send her packages
sometimes, but she quit writing back. People move on to their own lives. Probably she's working or in love . . . it would make me happy to think so, at least.”

Amber is smiling softly in a way that makes me think this story isn't hurting her. Perhaps she never expected my love, so it doesn't hurt that it went elsewhere. She waits for more and then finally says, “Is that the end of the story?”

I glance at Libby and Ed. “More or less. It's just that I took good care of her.
I
took
her
to the zoo and the mint. I helped Lupe get a job. I cooked for them sometimes. It's the last time I made a salad, actually. It's the last time I had a home. I know I'm not supposed to talk about this stuff. But I just wanted to tell you about one person. This Alejandra.”

Amber puts her elbows on the table, picks them up and straightens up, glances at Libby. “Where have you been sleeping since then?”

I shrug. “Oh, here and there. With friends. In a tent. In a car.”

“And where are you gonna sleep tonight?”

I dig my fingernails into my wrist and smile at her. Bless kids for saying what needs to be said. I shrug again, and Libby says, “Tess, you're welcome here. There's only the couch, though. It's probably not long enough for you. There's also a cot out in the shed that we use when one of the horses is foaling or there's a good reason to sleep outside. Kay also has extra rooms. Remember Baxter's old farmhouse? Lots of rooms, lots of beds.”

I glance around the table and settle on Amber. I clear my throat, look past them at the twilight outside the window, back at her. “If you don't mind, I have a certain penchant for sleeping outside in the back of pickup trucks. Just a roll or a pad and a sleeping bag? If the mosquitoes and bugs are bad, I sometimes stretch mesh over the top. Could I do that? I'm too tired to see Kay. I'll go in the morning. I sleep really well even with the wind, and the crickets, and the cold.
I like to wake up and look at the sky. Out here, I bet the Milky Way is clear as can be. It's no joke. I really love outside. I know it's odd.”

“We've got mosquito netting,” Ed says. “I can't say that I blame you.”

Libby stretches her neck one way and then the other, just like I do, but she doesn't twist hard enough to make it pop. “We have camping pads. That sounds nice. But Kay. You really need to see her.”

“Tomorrow, I'll find my bravery. Thanks for the vegetables. Thank you all for . . . well . . . this.” I bow my head in what feels like prayer, pull myself back to my body. How unloved I have been. How unlovable I have been.

                
This is the opposite

                
of what is raging in Tess's heart.

                
It's simply nice—perhaps a moment of grace—

                
for Tess to quietly witness the opposite.

It's Amber's sharp voice that brings me back. “Look, hey, look!” I glance up to see her pointing outside.

We all stand up to look out the window. For a moment, there is nothing, and then a soft red glow in the distance—one here and one over there, like someone turning on and off a faraway lamp, the clouds fuzzing and dulling a distant storm. Then a streak of lightning cleaves the sky, a red brighter than any mountainflower, any blood, any fruit. A red that pierces the dark of the eye. We gasp at the same time that the echo and boom hit us, and the thunder rolls as the branches of lightning fade from the main channel. For a moment, then, nothing. Then the whole sky lights, as if daytime has surged into the night, and then the sky goes dark again. One last red bolt flies across the dark sky.