Still Life with Tornado (21 page)

Here's why I like making things. I like making things because when I was born, everything I was born into was already made for me. Art let me surround myself with something different. Something new. Something real. Something that was mine.

I don't know if this means I could also be a competent architect. Or a car mechanic. Or a carpenter. I just like constructing new things that are real.

I believe this is a side effect of growing from seed in soil made of lies.

I believe this is a side effect of being born into ruins—this need for construction.

Mom is quiet on our walk up Spruce. I say, “I think you and Dad should get a divorce.”

“You're sixteen years old,” she says.

I am sixteen, I am ten, I am twenty-three, I am forty. After last night with Bruce, I understand everything. “That doesn't make me stupid.”

“It means you don't understand divorce.”

“Do you even love him?” I ask.

She sighs. “I don't think so,” she says. “In fact, no. I don't. Isn't that horrible?”

“It's not that bad.”

“It's horrible,” she says. She has tears in her eyes.

“Not really,” I say. “The truth will set you free, right?”

“Easy to say.”

She's walking too quickly. I decide to slow down to see if she'll notice. She doesn't. She just keeps walking. Doesn't look back. Doesn't do much else but look both ways at intersections and then crosses streets. I lose sight of her and stop walking. I just stand on the corner of Pine and 17th and nobody is around, really. No chatting friends walk by. No random art students on their way to class carrying large black portfolios, nobody walking their dog, nobody at all. I look up at the sky and feel like someone has me under a microscope.

I am safe—squished between two glass slides. I am easy to read, easy to identify. I am a human being. I am sixteen years old.

Inside my brain lives the image of a woven wire headpiece. It's the only place it exists—in my brain. If we focus in a little closer, there are many images of the headpiece. Partially made, wire sticking out from many angles. Finished and polished and mounted on a Styrofoam wig stand covered in black linen. Crumbled into a ball, pieces severed with wire snips, in a trash can behind Miss Smith's desk. If I could go back in time and figure out who did this, if I could go back and stop them, who would I be now?

Look. This isn't a temper tantrum. I'm not some teenager you can blow off because you made a myth about teenagers being dramatic. You go work hard on something you love. And you find it in the trash like it's garbage. Tell me how you feel. Tell me what's missing when you're done. I can tell you what's missing. You. You are missing.

I stopped going to school because I was missing. I was either in the past or in the future everyone always talked about. I stopped going to school so I could focus on the
now.
But the
now
is my mother telling me she doesn't love my father. The
now
was always feeling like something was wrong, only I didn't know what. The
now
is one of Carmen's tornadoes. Since the meat grinder, I am trying to adjust.

Ten-year-old Sarah walks toward me on 17th. Next to her is twenty-three-year-old Sarah. They look well adjusted.

I wave to the ten-year-old Sarah and then focus on twenty-three-year-old Sarah. I ask her, “Do Mom and Dad get divorced?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Right about now,” she says.

“About time,” ten-year-old Sarah says.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I want to see Bruce,” twenty-three-year-old Sarah says.

“Me too,” ten-year-old Sarah says.

“Maybe tomorrow,” I say.

“We can meet at the house,” they say.

“Bruce isn't going to the house,” I say.

Twenty-three-year-old Sarah says, “Yes he is.”

They are the glass slides on either side of me. They keep me safe under the microscope. Both Sarahs are carrying the umbrella. The umbrella can exist in two time periods and in one space. I can exist in three time periods in one space. Living for the
now
suddenly seems pointless.

“Do I ever get to find out who stole the headpiece?” I ask her.

“No.”

“Do I stop caring?” I ask.

“No.”

“I have to go,” I say. They both know I'm going to see Bruce. They might even know we're going to the Mütter Museum. “Please don't just show up, okay? I really love you both but I want to just be in the here and now for a day.”

“Sure,” they say. “We're going to the park anyway.”

They walk north. I walk south toward home, where a divorce is waiting for me. I'm oddly happy for Mom.

I am a human being. I am sixteen years old.

She is a human being. She is forty-seven years old.

This should be enough.

•   •   •

Last night Bruce talked in therapy words. He said, “I was abused.” He used the term
domestic violence
. These aren't terms I can relate to. I've lived in an abuse-free domestic-violence-free lie for sixteen years. And yet I live in a house with both a victim and abuser. Until I was ten I lived in a house with two victims and an abuser.

If I think about it too hard, I end up in the meat grinder again. Earl said to me today that the truth will set me free. I don't feel free yet.

Mom and Dad went to look for Bruce. Day 6—last day. I was sunburned and stuck inside watching Mexican television. They told me not to open the door for anybody. They told me to lock the door with the inside door lock that nobody could open from the outside.

But when Bruce came about ten minutes after they left, I let him in.

“Did you tell Mom what I told you?” he asked.

He was angry and I didn't know what to say. “Maybe?”

“About them getting a divorce?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

He sighed. “God, Sarah. Mom told Dad. He yelled at me so bad.”

“I'm really sorry. It just slipped out when Mom and I were taking care of my sunburn. I don't know. It just slipped.”

Bruce plopped on the couch next to me.

“I don't want them to get a divorce,” I said. “They're my parents.”

Bruce didn't say anything.

“I'm really sorry,” I said again.

“It's okay. I just know I'm never coming back home now. I can't live with him.”

“You'll still come home for holidays like last year,” I said.

“No.”

“What do you mean no? Of course you will.”

“No.”

“I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to get you in trouble.”

“After this, I can't come home.”

“It'll be fine. Dad's just mad because the housekeeper stole his ring.”

“I took the rings,” Bruce said.

I looked at him hard for a few seconds. He didn't look guilty or ashamed. He looked satisfied somehow. “You?”

“I probably shouldn't tell you. You'll tell them.”

“I will not!”

“Just don't tell Mom. Or Dad. It was about time someone stopped pretending around here. I'm just mad I was the one who had to do it.”

“Mom and Dad are out looking for you,” I said.

“I guess they'll find me here, then.”

“I didn't get to go bungee jumping.”

He looked at my shoulders. “Wow. Your sunburn is
bad
, man.”

“Mom says the blisters will drain. Gross, right?”

“Totally gross.”

“Why did Dad yell at you if he's the one who told you that they were getting a divorce?”

“There's a lot of things you don't know about them,” he said. “There's even things you don't know about me.”

I turned off the TV. “So tell me.”

“He'll kill me.”

“He won't
kill
you.”

“He could.”

“Anyway, we'll be home tomorrow and everything will go back to normal.”

“I'm moving. I told you.”

“To Oregon?”

“Probably.”

“Tomorrow?”

“As soon as I can.”

I started to cry a little. “It's dinnertime. I hope they come back soon,” I said. “I'm hungry.”

“You just want tortilla chips.”

“I wish you weren't moving away. It'll just be me and Mom and Dad. I won't have anyone to hang out with this summer.”

“Do you know what I think?” Bruce asked. But right when he said it, Mom's knock came at the door and Bruce shut up and got real tense and I got up and undid the lock on the door so Mom could come in.

She took one look at Bruce and shook her head. She produced a huge handful of single-packaged Earl Grey teabags and told me I had to have another tea bath for my sunburn. She said we were meeting Dad at the restaurant. She said he had things to take care of before we left the next morning.

•   •   •

Last dinner in Mexico. You know what happened at the end. You know we all told Bruce to shut up because he was so mad. But before then, I got to eat a lot of empanadas (actually good) and taquitos (mostly flavorless) and piles of tortilla chips. Mom and Dad kept drinking fancy Mexican drinks. The drink of the day was a piña colada, Dad's favorite.

During dinner, we didn't talk much and it was awkward. My back was on fire and freezing cold at the same time. Mom put so much aloe on it that it never dried.

Finally, Mom said, “So, let's talk about our great vacation. Who has memories?”

“I do!” I said. That's when I talked about the fish and how they were my friends and how we said hello to each other every day and how I'd remember them forever. Complete lies. I have no idea why I told them.

Mom and Dad said some stuff about how nice that was.

Bruce said, “They aren't your friends. All the people here see them.”

Mom and Dad told Bruce to shut up. I said, “Yeah. Shut up, Bruce.”

Bruce said, “Fish don't like humans, Sarah. Not even you.”

“I think they like me,” I said.

“You're delusional,” he said.

“She's ten,” Mom said. “Can't you just pretend to have a good time?”

“Why pretend?”

“Jesus Christ, son. We brought you here. We paid for the whole week. Why are you such a pain in the ass?”

That's when Bruce got up from the table and went back to the room.

You know I ate cake. You know Mom thanked Dad ten times for the vacation. She looked scared, that's what she looked like. Scared. I'd seen that look before and I'd heard Dad be rude to Bruce before and I felt bad right then for telling Bruce to shut up. I guess I was just used to everybody ragging on Bruce. It was a tradition in our family. But when I ate the three cream cake and cried, I wasn't crying because the cake was so good. I was crying because I'd goaded Bruce the way he'd been goaded his whole life. Maybe I was why he was moving so far away. Maybe I was one-third of it, anyway.

I was ten. I knew better than that. We had no-bully rules in our school. We had be-kind rules in our school. I vowed to be kind to Bruce from that moment forward. In my head I vowed this. I couldn't tell Mom and Dad because they were too busy being mad at Bruce.

But I vowed it.

•   •   •

What happened next went as fast as I'm going to tell it.

I didn't tell Mom and Dad about the rings.

Bruce did.

I was on the balcony again. Mom closed the door all the way again. It was a clear night and I could see the stars. It was a quiet night at the resort—no pool parties or beachside romantic dinners—and I could hear them all fighting through the sliding door to the balcony. The people in the room next door even called the manager about how loud they were. The phone ringing made Dad madder.

I didn't hear whole sentences. I heard words and phrases. I heard
divorce, Sarah, liar, you're the liar, divorce, rings. In the ocean now. Because you're living a lie. It's not helping her. Oregon. Never giving you another penny. Stay away from this family. Never coming back.
Bruce was right near the sliding door when he said this last thing. He said, “You think because you stopped beating on us that this isn't the same? It's the same, Dad. You're the same psycho you've always been.”

I heard that.

Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a punch. Just like in movies or cartoons—I heard it land and I heard Bruce fall and scream out and I heard the reading lamp go down with him. And I heard Mom yell, “Stop!” and the phone rang again and Dad let it ring and Mom tried to answer it and he said, “Don't you dare, Helen, or you're next.” And Bruce said, “See? See?” from on the floor. You must know that a part of me had to make up another story right there and right then when I was sitting on that balcony by myself with my sunburn and looking out into the sea where the sea god had no idea how to help me. You have to know. You have to know that this crisis didn't start with the headpiece in tenth grade. You have to know that from that moment when I turned around and saw my brother on the floor, spitting blood and my mother held tight by Dad's hand as the phone rang and rang and rang that I was alone and life meant a little less than it ever would mean again.

•   •   •

Bruce lost a molar. He showed it to me before bed. Mom had given Dad something to sleep. She packed our bags herself and didn't fold anything. She just threw in the clothing—wet and dry together. She threw in our souvenirs. She used the foot of my double bed for each suitcase—packed all of Dad's things and her things and then zipped everything up, looked under the beds one more time, and then zipped our bags up, too.

Bruce had a huge plastic bag of ice on his jaw. Mom said it wasn't broken. Mom said she was sorry. Mom said Bruce was wrong for taking the rings. Mom said anything she could to get Bruce to talk but Bruce wouldn't talk.

I went over to the side of his bed and I knew he was awake but he had his eyes closed. He was crying. I said, “I'm so sorry.”

“It's not your fault,” he said, but he sounded like his mouth was full.

“I love you. Please don't go.”

He said, “You can always come stay with me, no matter where I am.”

I stayed until he fell asleep. Mom had given him something for pain and it didn't take long. She checked on him one last time and I was back in my bed pretending to sleep. I opened one of my eyes and watched her pull out a string of cotton from Bruce's mouth. It was soaked with blood. Instead of putting it in the trash, she flushed it down the toilet.

When Mom went to bed and closed the door between our rooms, I went to my suitcase and found some shells I'd collected. There was some loose American change on our table so I grabbed that, too. And the notepad and pen with the resort's logo. I went to the bathroom and I wrote two notes to Bruce. One said “I'm sorry.” The other said “I love you.” Then I sneaked back into the room and slid the items under his pillow as he slept. His pillow was soaked from either the melting ice or tears—I couldn't tell.

My sunburn didn't hurt at all that night. I didn't feel a thing.

Day Six: over. Day Six: sunburn, a molar,
you can always come stay with me, no matter where I am.