If (36 page)

“I visited Ash at the hospital. He seemed perfectly sound. He was in his right mind. And I told him. I told him what you would be giving up for him and that’s it.”

It took a few beats for me to process everything Jordan had said. “That’s it?” I asked sarcastically.

“I just knew that he cared about you and he wouldn’t want you to lose out on the opportunity either.”

I shot up from the couch. “You told him to leave me?”

“No, I never told him that. I just told him he should know. He understood on his own that as long as he was around, you would do anything you could to help him.”

“I can’t believe you,” I sneered. “All these years you knew this and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to be mad at me. He made his choice and he was gone. Telling you wouldn’t have changed that.”

“Oh my god, Jordan,” I yelled, balling my hair up in my fists. “Why do you think he was out in the streets in the first place? He saw himself as a burden. And you went over there and you told him he was a burden all over again. Of course he would leave. You made him think he was hurting me!”

“Wasn’t he?”

“Not your call. Not your fucking call!” I jabbed my finger at him. “What is it with men making my decisions for me?” I asked myself in despair. “Do you even understand how dangerous that could have been? I don’t care how normal he seemed. There’s a lot going on up there. Someone with his issues can get to a dark place fast.”

Jordan gripped his forehead. “I didn’t—he seemed fine again. You were my priority. I didn’t want you to have regrets.”

I laughed sarcastically. “You think I didn’t have regrets after he left?”

“If I told you right away, I was afraid there was a risk you might still quit and try to find him. Then time passed and I thought you had moved on.”

“Those were not your decisions to make.”

“When Ash left, you were able to fulfill your dreams. And now he’s back. Maybe this was meant to be. What good would it have been to tell you before now?”

“It would have made me suffer so much less. So many nights I asked myself why? Why he lied, why he said he would be there and then he just left. It’s because of you! You meddled. You went behind my back! And then you lied about it for years. You are my best friend and you deceived me. You watched me suffer and you didn’t have the mercy to ease the pain.”

“You lied to Ash, too. You didn’t tell him about the tour because you knew he would tell you to leave. Or maybe you knew he would leave himself.”

“Don’t you put this on me,” I snapped.

Jordan paused and closed his eyes, taking a big breath before opening them again.

“I’m sorry, Bird. I am so sorry.”

“You’re not sorry. You’re only telling me now because he might be back in the picture.”

“I’m telling you because I want you to have the full picture of the decision he made. I do think he loved you and I think he left because of that. I think that is the only reason he left.”

“Whatever, Jordan.”

“I really thought and still think it was for the best. Look at all you have.”

“God, you are such a know it all. You don’t have all the answers, Jordan. You think you have it all figured out with your perfect husband and your little Asian baby.”

“Nice. Very nice, Bird.”

“Five years. You held in that lie for five years. You never wanted Ash in the picture. You had your mind made up early on.”

“That’s not true. I liked Ash.”

“At a distance. And you of all people should know what it’s like to live on the outskirts of society. For people who don’t even know you to judge you.”

“Oh, so because I am gay I have to be the patron saint of homelessness?”

“There it is, ladies and gentlemen. How Jordan really feels!” I announced to an invisible audience.

Jordan rolled his eyes.

“You made Ash feel like he was a problem that needed solving.”

Jordan looked away in shame.

I walked over the painting and pointed down. “And that’s what he thought of you. You manipulated him.”

I don’t think I had ever been that angry before. There was always something that didn’t make sense about Ash leaving. It made me feel like I had imagined our relationship and how important we were to each other. Jordan held the answer to it all. He watched me suffer, and he continued to hold onto it. All along, he knew he was wrong for going behind my back.

“I can’t hang out with you today. I just can’t,” I said, going upstairs. “You don’t have to leave, but if you did, that would be great.”

“I’ll go,” Jordan said. “I love you, Bird.”

I put my hand up to make him to stop. I didn’t want to hear the bullshit. I really didn’t.

I went to the bathroom, ran some hot water and rinsed my face in an effort to gain some clarity. I heard the door to my apartment close as Jordan exited.

I meandered back out to the loft and looked over the edge back down to the painting. Things were so much less complicated back then.

ASH

I was too late. Too fucking late.

Miller and I sped to the hospital. Our mother was sitting in the waiting area, alone, looking down. Her eyes were dry, maybe she was still in shock. It happened so fast. She was talking to him. They were joking about putting him on a huge diet when he returned. Miller told them I was coming. Apparently, he had already decided he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

She left to get some coffee and when she returned, all hell had broken loose around him. Then he was dead.

“Mom,” Miller called out.

I think the moment when she saw her sons, the reality of what had just happened hit her. She stood and burst into tears, nearly wailing. We both hugged her. It wasn’t awkward. There was no room for awkwardness. We were all raw.

She turned to me, grasped my face in her hands and took me in. “My boy . . . my beautiful boy.” She embraced me, weeping into my chest. “Your father loved you so much. We missed you so much.”

I wanted my heart to warm, but it was overwrought with regret. I was always too late.

I was convinced she’d be angry, but all I felt was her unconditional love. I don’t know why I ever allowed myself to think my parents only saw Sarah’s death when they saw me. My illness and guilt had shadowed my thoughts. All I could see was darkness.

Bird had been my only light in that time. Just before I left Bird, I was becoming the Ash who lived with hope. Then I let her go, falling back into the shadows. Would I do it again? Hell yes. I would do it all over again to ensure that Bird would become the star that she is. But this—missing the opportunity to see my father—was the price I had to pay.

I thought I had time. My father was always so strong. I still thought of him as someone who towered over me. He would always be the fearless Marine. I remembered as a child how I thought he looked like a superhero when he put on his uniform. He had gone to war and returned unscathed. I thought my father would never die.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” I whispered into the top of her head.

“I’m just glad to see you again. Honey, I know you were in pain. I just wished we could’ve helped. I wish you had allowed us to.”

“No one could. I’m my own worst enemy. I am so sorry about dad, but I’m gonna stay here. I’m gonna make it up to you.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I brought you into this world. I’m supposed to take care of you.”

I gave myself all the time I needed to grieve and when my mother was weak, I never gave her the time to become herself again. Mourning is temporary, but I had assumed I had ruined her irreparably.

Miller chimed in. “Mom, we’re going to take care of everything. I know dad and you already had plots set up with a funeral home.”

She nodded.

“Why don’t we head home? Ella is going to meet us there so we can all be together,” he said.

ASH

My childhood home had barely changed and that included both Sarah’s and my room. Just like Miller said, it was like we had both died, both frozen in time.

The urge to drink tugged at me. I hadn’t had a sip since seeing Bird and it wasn’t that hard. I had hope again. But so many emotions were swirling inside of me and I couldn’t manage them all.

My mother had taken a few sleeping pills to force herself to get some rest. She had been at the hospital for two days straight. Miller was on the phone downstairs with Ella working on the funeral arrangements. I wandered around the house.

It was rife with memories. I saw the ghosts of Miller chasing Sarah and I through the upstairs hallway and my dad yelling for us to cut it out. I saw Miller and I under a glowing blanket fort in the middle of the night. I saw myself banging on the bathroom door on a school morning, telling Sarah to hurry up and reminding her she was going to look like crap no matter what. She used to
loooove
that.

I slipped into Sarah’s room and locked the door behind me. The room was filled with tokens that proved her existence: Soccer trophies, school photos, posters of her favorite musicians and bands. I spent a lot of time in museums and now I found myself in a morbid memorial to my sister.

A scrapbook rested on her desk. I picked it up and flipped through the pages. Stick figure drawings, a lanyard, ticket stubs to a concert. A childhood homework assignment. A sentence was written and she had to complete it.

One of them said: When I grow up I want to be _________________.

In her clumsy handwriting she wrote:
Like my brother Ash. He sees rainbows everywhere and paints them.

I slammed the book shut and sat back on her bed and wept. I hadn’t lived up to that. I stopped seeing the rainbows. I let her kill my spirit when it would have been the last thing she wanted.

I started to feel myself slipping into the hole. The monster of depression might consume me if I didn’t find a way to stop it. I peered into her bathroom as the ugly thoughts tried to make themselves heard. I knew they were irrational. I knew I needed to call my therapist. I might need to recalibrate my meds: the travel, the unexpected high stress, the triggers. But I didn’t want to call. I just wanted to heed to the ugly thoughts.

I knew I would devastate my mother, Miller, even Bird, but the drop was so sudden and fast, like someone had pulled the floor from underneath me and there was nothing to slow the descent.

I got up and walked into Sarah’s tiny bathroom, rummaging for anything to make the free fall stop. To make the empty sinking feeling end once and for all. There was nothing, and I was so distraught, I punched the mirror in front of me and it shattered into pieces.

Then they were staring at me: Shards of glass, hundreds of broken Ashes looking back at me, judging me, taunting me.

I slid my bloody hand into the sink, reaching for a piece and gripped it. Blood flowed as I tightened the grip and it sliced into my palm. The searing pain made me feel real again. It gave me something to grasp on to and distract from the hollow feeling of a free fall.

My phone’s ring jarred me out of the fixation on the glass. I shook my head as if to break the spell, and whipped my phone out of my pocket.

I didn’t recognize the number.

“Ash?” The doorknob to the room jiggled. “Ash?” Miller began pounding on the door. “Everything okay in there? We heard a bang.”

“Hello?”

“A—Ash?” the voice on the other line was broken by tears.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me . . .”
Bird, but something was wrong.

“Bird? Are you okay?”

“I—I need you here. Puh—please,” she was hysterical. In an instant, I forgot about all of my own misery and wanted to make her better.

“Calm down, Bird. What’s wrong?”

“Jordan. Jordan,” was all she could muster.