Glass Shatters (7 page)

“Ouch. Well, you better not tell her about all the heroin you’re doing or all the knife fights you’ve been getting into.”

Julie shoves Charles in a playful way. “Haha, very funny. I’m surprised she lets me out of the house without a full suit of armor and an EpiPen.”

“You two think your parents are bad?” a voice chimes in behind them. “Try being gay in a household of evangelical Christians. I woke up last night to my mother standing over me with a feather duster. She was trying to give me an exorcism. I swear, next time I wake up in the night, she’s gonna come at me with a butcher knife, speaking of knife fights.”

“Hey Steve,” Charles says. He gives Steve a big pat on the back. Steve is short and stocky, his skin smooth and cherubic compared to Charles’s pockmarked face, a hedge of curly black hair on his head.

The group reaches the reservoir, and as Steve and Charles sit down by the water, the scene looks almost exactly like it did in the oil painting. The thunderclouds above are thick like sludge, but still Julie slides off her sandals, burying her toes in the dirt. She pulls her sketchbook and a charcoal pencil from her knapsack and begins drawing.

“You know, we don’t have to settle.” Julie continues to sketch, shading in one of the figures. “We could run away together. We could start our own family, just the three of us.”

The last of the sun drips down below the horizon, and they lay back under the twilight blue sky. Charles’s shoulder presses up against Julie’s. He knows he could shift away but leaves his shoulder against hers.

Charles closes his eyes. He imagines what life would be like if they ran away together. He imagines living in a small cabin in the forest, away from civilization, chopping their own wood, growing their own food. Most of all, he imagines waking up every day to see Julie sleeping beside him, and at that moment, he realizes this is something he’d very much like to happen.

By the time they get up, it’s already dark out, and Charles can’t get enough of Julie’s face in the moonlight.

I
TURN THE PAINTING OVER
. H
ER SIGNATURE SWIRLS
across the canvas in a stream of black ink:
Julie H., 1994.
I trace the letters with my index finger, wondering why Julie wasn’t sitting with Charles and Steve in the painting, wondering where her eyes have gone. I think of the memory with the marionettes, of the rainy night in December. When did we
finally admit our love for each other? How did I feel when she said she loved me back? I set the painting on the windowsill, hiding it behind the curtains, hoping that it will be there when I return. I close my eyes, giving in to an enormous yawn, the painting warping in my mind, Julie cowering beneath my open hand, her empty eye sockets elongating into screams. I shake the image out of my head. What if Julie and Jess didn’t disappear but left? What if they were running away from me?

I tell myself not to think about this anymore. It’s too late. I’m too tired. I plod back down the hallway, slipping off my shoes at the entrance to what I’ve now come to think of as my bedroom. Through the window, I can see the sky has become almost orange, like the flesh of a peach. I’ve stayed up nearly all night long. But the room is still dark, and the rising sun casts gaping shadows across the bookshelves and the wall.

I climb into bed without even taking off my clothes, the exhaustion like a lead apron, weighing me down. I slide under the quilts and sheets, but as I dig my feet under the warmth, the bed is even warmer than I anticipated. My left hand comes across the old man’s shuttering chest, rising and falling with each breath, so frail that each rib is completely distinguishable from the next. I curl up next to him, resting my head against his shoulder, the peaks and valleys of whatever relationship we may have had irrelevant in this single moment. I imagine I’m a little kid again, and this time, I get along with my father.

With a jingle and a thump, Einstein jumps onto the foot of the bed. He makes his way up to the pillows and wedges himself between the two of us, letting out a satisfied lawn-mower purr as he settles into a more comfortable position that
of course takes up the majority of my pillow. Our heartbeats all fall in sync together.

For the first time since I’ve been in this house, I feel safe. I feel at home.

I
WAKE UP THE NEXT DAY ALONE IN THE BED
. T
HE
pillows are covered with a layer of cat hair. When I stretch across to the other side of the bed, I’m surprised by how cold the sheets are. I think about what it must feel like to lose a spouse suddenly. I wonder what that first morning without Julie felt like for me, losing that warmth, that love. I get up and peer through the window—the children outside squeal and laugh as they splash through the puddles, mud soaking through white T-shirts, parents in rain boots squashing around after them, teeth chattering in the blustering wind.

I then hear a loud, oaky knock, followed by the echoing chimes of the doorbell. I take a peek through the broken window and see Ava standing on the steps. She has on rainbow galoshes and a ladybug umbrella, and her hair is pulled back in pigtails. She holds a basket of homemade chocolate chip cookies in the crook of her arm, ringing the doorbell again and again. I smooth down my shirt, trying to push away the wrinkles. I touch my short hair. It’s standing straight on end. My lips are dry and cracked like sunbaked clay. I need to wash up.

Ava looks me up and down when I answer the door. She hands me the cookies with the very tips of her fingers, attempting to keep the greatest distance between her and me.

“You really don’t want to get close to me, do you? How awful do I look? Hopefully I don’t smell that bad.”

“Your head,” she says, staring at my scalp as if it’s covered with flesh-eating insects. I realize that the bandages must have slipped off while I was asleep.

“What does it look like?”

“What happened to you? Are you dying?”

“I don’t remember what happened, but I’m not dying. One sec,” I say, and I pull the knit hat off the front rack, sliding it over my ears. I had never even thought of that possibility, that I have some sort of chronic illness, that maybe I’ve had surgery for cancer, a brain tumor. But if that were the case, I wouldn’t have been left alone with my father. Unless I sneaked out from the hospital? No, probably not. I slow down, tell myself again that the simplest answer is most likely the correct one.

I turn to Ava, striking a pose, modeling the hat for her. “Is that better?”

“Yeah, sort of. How come you’re wearing the same clothes as yesterday?”

“Because I thought I just looked so good in them.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Ava says. She takes a cookie from the basket and chews on the edge. “Do you want to come over for dinner tonight at six? My mom said to invite you over cause you’ll probably be sad all by yourself … oh. I wasn’t supposed to say that part.”

“It’s okay, I appreciate it. Six sounds good.”

“Make sure to shower and put on new clothes and a hat cause my mom would be afraid of your head too. It’s already five so you should do it soon.”

Right at that moment, the old man passes behind me in his dark robe and slippers, cradling Einstein in his arms like a baby. He pauses, studying Ava like a laboratory specimen, his lower lip drooping open. Then he wipes his nose and disappears into the living room. I hear the television flip on.

“Who’s that?”

I lean down so that I’m at Ava’s level. “That’s my father, Ava. He lives with me now. He’s very old and sick, so sometimes he does strange things.”

At first, Ava doesn’t seem to register what I said, but a moment later, her cheeks flush red.

“I have to go,” she says, dropping the rest of her cookie and running out into the rain. Lightning streaks across the sky, a drumroll of thunder crashing in the distance.

“Ava, wait! What’s wrong?” I call after her. She doesn’t turn around. Her rainbow galoshes splatter through the mud. Her ladybug umbrella lays sprawled on my front porch. I gather the basket of cookies and the umbrella, ducking back inside. I wonder what set her off like that. I didn’t say anything provocative or out of the ordinary. Maybe it was just a delayed reaction to the old man? Or maybe she just noticed the marionettes for the first time. I imagine how frightening it would be, seeing all of those ghoulish faces staring back at you.

The only door on the first floor that I haven’t explored (either in real life or in a memory, as in the case of the dining room) is the door at the front of the living room by the entryway. The knob turns easily and it is indeed a bathroom, the walls inside royal blue, the paint bright—a recent coat. There’s
a toilet, a shower, a sink, and several hand towels. I turn on the faucet and take a few large gulps of water from my cupped hand. I can’t get enough. I stick my mouth under the stream to drink even more. When I finally lift up my head, wiping the water from my lips, I notice a seam running down the wall, ending just above the sink. At the very bottom of the seam, a corner of the wallpaper is starting to peel up, just a fraction of an inch. I take the corner in my hand and pull. The dense layer of paint over the seam begins to crack. I can’t help myself. As I continue pulling, more of the wallpaper starts to come off. The section above the sink must have been a later addition.

With one last yank, the entire section of wallpaper peels off, leaving behind a gluey residue. I turn the faucet to hot and take one of the hand towels, soaking it with water and soap. I scrub vigorously at the glue, put my whole body behind it. My suspicions are confirmed as more residue rubs away. The extra piece of wallpaper was plastered over a mirrored cabinet. I hold my breath as the first small circle of glass appears underneath. I work at the edges. The circle widens.

It’s the first time I’ve seen myself up close. I recognize the solid blue eyes gazing back at me, the blond hair cropped close to my head. Every detail of my features looks like those of the Charles from my memories, memories that I’m now sure have to be my own. Except that I’m thinner now, thinner than I should be, my eyes leaner and emptier somehow. But there’s still warmth in each smile I try, with teeth or without, broad or slight.

I scrub at the glue residue at the edges of the mirror, and with a firm tug, I’m able to pull open the cabinet. There’s an
assortment of bathroom products, lotions and razors, cologne and old toothbrushes. Tucked away on one of the shelves is a tiny square picture frame, the back facing outward. I expect it to be empty, abandoned like the others, but it holds a photograph of Julie in a royal blue dress.

March 1, 1996

Age Eighteen