Swimming Through Clouds (A YA Contemporary Novel) (3 page)

The teakettle hisses softly as Dad enters the kitchen. As if
on cue, the hiss rises in pitch. Without hesitation, he walks over to me, grabs
my left arm, pulls it over the kitchen sink and slams my hand against the tap.
I hold on tight, swallow, and bite down on my lower lip. I am not going to cry
this time.

“Don’t even want to know what you wasted your time on
today.” Dad speaks calmly, void of any sign of emotion.

There’s no “Hi. How are you? How was school?” It’s straight
to business. The business of destroying me.

“You know the rules.” His voice drones, sounding almost
bored with the whole proceeding. “If you don’t get at least half the list done
by the time I walk in the door, I’ll give you something to think about for the
next time.”

The bowl of apples tips on the counter, and several slices
fall to the ground. I never finished making Jesse’s smoothie. After seeing his
fingers tighten their grip on his wheel chair armrests, I turn away. It’s not
his fault. He’s just stuck—in his chair—in this house.

Dad plucks a pen out of his shirt pocket, and as he writes,
he speaks, his voice unwavering. “So, we’re going to add sweep, mop, and wax kitchen
floor to your list.”

I hope that he somehow forgets what he is about to do next.
I wish foolishly. I am the fool. Dad never forgets.

Examining the thermostat on the kettle,
impatience expedites Dad's routine. His map to punish me. Enough to hurt me but
never enough to warrant an ambulance. One ER visit was more than enough. For
all of us.

Like a mad scientist brewing the perfect concoction,
Dad adds tap water to the kettle, radiating heat from the metal vessel taunting
the flesh on my arm. He takes one last glance at the gauge to verify the
desired degrees before Dad says, “Don’t move.”

“Yes, sir.” I speak without raising my eyes.

The list on the countertop, numbered one to ten, now eleven,
mocks me. I only finished number one. Translation: I earn ten seconds. Ten.
Long. Seconds.

“Okay. Straighten your arm and start counting. Slowly, like
I taught you.” Dad sounds like a dance instructor, except no applause will
follow this show.

I will not cry
, I tell myself.
I
will not cry this time
.

“One thousand...” Dad tilts the teakettle, and hot water
splashes and spreads across my lower arm, burning trails down to my wrist. I
bite down on my bottom lip, and my fingertips nearly rip the tap off the sink.
“And one.”

Jesse’s fists pound his thighs.

“One thousand...” I bite harder. “And two.” I taste blood.

“One thousand...” Nausea rises up my chest.  “And
three.” I swallow my vomit.

“One thousand... ” The sound of sizzling confuses me. “And
four.” It’s my skin—cooking.

“One thousand...” I bite my tongue. “And five.” More blood
in my mouth.

“One thousand...” The colors on the wallpaper blend. “And
six.” My right knee buckles.

“One thousand...” The ceiling fan spins. “And seven.” Or is
it my head?

Jesse moans, swinging his head side to side.

“One thousand...” The tiles blur. “And eight.” My eyes burn.

“One thousand...” No, not again. “And nine.”

My. “One...” Arm. “Thousand...” Is. “And...” On. “TEN!”

Fire!

The dropped kettle clangs into the sink, an exclamation
point ringing in the air. Then Dad turns and simply walks out of the kitchen
leaving behind two words:
or else
.

I collapse to the ground, where I wish I could stay and
continue to cry. But there’s no time for that. Somehow I manage to crawl to
Jesse, hugging my wet, ignited arm. I hold his legs with my good arm, lay my
head on his lap to sob. I hold him, because he won’t hold me.  

My homework remains untouched till the morning. But I
complete the list after I pile on the aloe until my arm is covered with green
slime. Then I swallow six Tylenol that I stashed away weeks ago, help Jesse to
get into bed, and climb in next to him. I don’t want to sleep alone.

All night long.

All I know. All I feel. All I see. All I dream. Are five
little words: My arm is on
fire
!

CHAPTER
THREE

That
night the house is on fire. In my dreams. Then I wake up, realizing that the
house is my arm. Tucking my arm underneath me, I fall asleep again, listening
to the sound of Jesse breathing, a song that almost faded to silence last
winter.

Shortly after Jesse turned fifteen, he broke the rules.
Jesse stood on the roof. The roof of our old house. He was not allowed on the
roof. Dad had two rules. Number one: No going on the roof or in his office.
Number two: Do as I say. Or else. When Jesse and I were three and four years
old respectively, Jesse couldn’t say the word
else
. Instead, he said, “Or elf.” If Dad were
an elf, Santa would fire him. Santa didn’t visit our house on Christmas Eve,
anyway. December 25 passed by, just like any other day of the year. Same old.
Same cold.  

It was a cold night before Christmas, and Jesse stood on the
roof. Snow fell. Nothing unusual about that. Benton Harbor lies in the snowy
part of the mitten state. Both Jesse and I were born in the bedroom of our
harbor town home, in our little house about half a mile from the water where we
both learned to swim. Mom taught me the doggy paddle, back when she was halfway
healthy and occasionally engaged. Jess never got the hang of it. Because he
loved clinging to mom’s neck and riding her back like a superhero cape. Mom was
his hero. I loved Mom, but when things got rough, she left. A hero isn’t
supposed to leave. Not like that.

Before she ever forced Jess to let go and learn to float,
Dad put an end to our beach days. “Beach days are for beach bums,” he used to
say. He hated anything or anyone that suggested laziness. Didn’t help that he
despised sand entering his palace too.

Those days were long gone. During her last days, Mom slept a
lot. And moaned. And cried. Her beautiful, long black hair all gone when she
died. She wore a beige woolen cap on her head, a maroon turtleneck, and a
tassel-edged red shawl too.

Our lists doubled after Mom’s death, and with our homework
increasing each year, we both struggled to do it all. That night—the
night before Christmas—Dad finished his 8:00 p.m. rounds. My list passed.
Jesse’s did not. As a junior, I mastered the art of doing my homework while my
teachers taught. Jesse didn’t multitask well, and sometimes he dropped the
ball. This would be the last day he ever ran to catch a ball. He forgot to
empty the garbage from the wastebasket under his desk when he took the rest of
the trash out. Only one piece of crumpled up paper remained. The point? The
basket was not empty.

When I heard the boom of the wastebasket hitting Jesse’s
bedroom door, I ran upstairs to see if someone had fallen. My first thought
was,
Oh crap, Dad saw something unacceptable on his computer
screen.
Earlier that month,
Jess convinced Dad that we needed e-mail accounts to keep in touch with
teachers and homework partners. As a result, we never had to go to our
classmates’ houses, a nonexistent option regardless. Dad hesitantly agreed but
carefully kept tabs on all our Internet activity. At least we communicated with
a few people online, even if we could never go out with them. But we knew to be
ultra-careful, always aware of Dad’s watchful eye. Jesse and I both remembered
to erase our e-mails, delete our histories, and empty the
trash
every few minutes anytime either of us
used the computer.

Then one winter afternoon Jess forgot to empty his trashcan.
And now, it was too late. As I reached the top of the stairs, Dad left Jesse’s
room, shaking his head. I held onto the banister until Dad passed me to descend
the steps. When I heard his feet step off the bottom stair, I ran to Jesse’s
room. He knelt by the foot of his bed, his back to the door, and his waste
paper basket lay on the floor nearby, mangled and empty. The computer keyboard
on his desk looked as irreparable as the trashcan.

“Jesse?” I said his name to let him know I was here. Too
late. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say a word. I approached him and placed my arms
around his shoulders. I knew not to ask. We had been in this place too many
times to know that asking never helped. Asking could not turn back the clock.
Diminish the blow. Change things. Asking just made us relive it. And forgetting
was already hard enough.

I sat on the bed before I first saw his eyes. Fear didn’t
fill them anymore. Nor anger. Not even sadness. Instead, a hollow gaze stared
past me. Empty caves of lifeless defeat. At the age of fourteen, Jesse had seen
enough. Now he stared at the wall, and for the first time ever, I couldn’t read
him.

We sat there awhile in silence. The sounds of snow pelting
his window and the ticking of the wall clock were our only companions. Jesse’s
revised list lay on the bed, and when I read it, his eyes reflected the words.
Madness. Madness walled us in without a fire escape. Dad’s precise penmanship
made out seven new words that, at first glance, could easily have been mistaken
for a grocery list. Instead, it stacked seven words that Jesse could not carry
nor accept.

So a little past midnight, when everyone was asleep, Jesse
pried open his window and pulled himself up to the roof of the house. Without a
hat. Without a scarf. Without a coat. With only one thing crumpled in his left
hand. The list.

A nightmare startled me awake, and I dreaded closing my eyes
and returning to it. So I wandered to the bathroom, hoping to steal a minute of
unnoticed privacy. A frigid draft snatched my naked toes, changing my route,
and I headed to my brother’s room. When I opened the door, I saw a lumpy mess
on his bed and the window wide open, the screen nowhere in sight. I ran over to
it and looked out, up, and all around. Then I noticed the fresh footprints on
the fire escape.
The roof! No! Not the roof!

I didn’t have time to think as I climbed out and followed
the footprints up to the roof where I found Jesse, straddling the highest
visible peak. His back faced me as he shivered in his pajamas, his left foot,
bare and sprinkled with snow.

“Jesse?” I whispered, hoping not to startle him and praying
that I didn’t wake up Dad with the creaking of my tread.

“Jesse.” A little louder this time.

“What?” His back to me, his voice sounded cold, matching the
chill in the air.

“Jesse. What are you doing out here? Get back inside. Don’t
be stupid. You know the rules. And you know Dad’s punishment for this one.
Whaddya
thinking?”  

“I’m done thinking.” He spoke calmly. Too calmly. “I’m
done.”

And before I could respond, he stood up, moved to face me,
spread his arms open and mouthed the words
I’m sorry
. Without blinking, Jesse fell back and
off the roof.

“No!” I screamed that one word till I ran out of breath as I
scrambled up the roof, slipping and sliding on the snow.

I screamed when I reached the peak and looked over to see
his body on the driveway, in front of Dad’s car, a puddle growing under his
head, and his left leg flipped awkwardly over his body. I screamed when I slid
back down to the balcony and scrambled back into Jesse’s room. I screamed all
the way down the hallway when I ran right into Dad’s chest. I pushed him aside
and screamed as I stumbled down the steps out the front door. I screamed as I
ran out to the driveway and up to my brother. I screamed as I bent down and
gathered his limp body into my arms. I screamed and screamed and screamed and
looked up to heaven and screamed some more.

I saw Dad on the roof, looking down and shaking his head.
Who knows, in disbelief? Possibly confusion? Probably rage. I rocked Jesse back
and forth and rubbed his arms, wondering if by any chance this nightmare was
playing inside my head and I was still asleep in my bed. That’s when I saw it.
The paper crumpled up, now loosely held by his limp fingertips. My screaming turned
to whimpering as I reached over to retrieve the note. The list. The seven words
on Jesse’s final list. The seven words that literally pushed him over the edge.
The seven words Dad transferred to me, since I did not stop Jesse. The seven
words that sentenced us to maximum isolation.

Zero

E-mail

Until

You

Get

It

Right

I tucked the bloody verdict into my robe’s side pocket and
resumed rocking him.

“Jesse. Jesse. Jesse.” My words sputtered out as I wished
for the impossible. “Don’t leave me, too. We already lost Mom. I can’t lose
you, too. Jesse. Wake up, Jesse. Wake up. Wake. Up. Please. Jess. Please.” I
pleaded with anyone, heaven, whatever or whoever would listen.  

Dad pummeled out the front door, running toward us while
talking frantically into his cell phone. I could hear his words, but he sounded
so far away.