Authors: R. K. Ryals
“You’ll be added,” she promised after a
moment.
She chose friend.
My gaze met Jonathan’s.
He pushed away from the wall. “I think Eli
and I are going to go for a drive.”
“Now?” Ivy screeched.
Pops looked between us, eyes narrowing. “Be
careful.”
“You can’t be serious!” Ivy exclaimed. “You
shouldn’t let Jonathan go anywhere with Eli at night! It’s bad
enough he’s chauffeuring him around during the day. He’s a bad
influence on Jon.”
“Afraid of what I’ll tell him?” I asked.
Ivy ignored me, her glare directed at Pops.
“You can’t let them go!”
Mom talked in exclamation points. She made
people cringe when they saw her in public. She didn’t speak, she
yelled, screeched, laughed too loudly, or pouted so much that to
approach her meant becoming part of a scene. She lived for moments
like that.
“They’ll be fine,” Pops assured.
We didn’t wait to hear what she said
next.
The night air was a wet slap in the face, the
thick humidity and sudden encroaching clouds promising rain.
“Maybe the weather will be bad tomorrow,”
Jonathan mumbled, rushing to his car.
I stopped in the gravel driveway, my gaze on
his lamp lit figure. “Do you really want to leave? Not that I mind
a drive, but leaving isn’t like you.”
He paused next to the Porsche, his hand
resting on the hood. “I don’t know what I want. There’s so much to
take in lately. This stuff you told me about Mom. Whatever Lincoln
and Mandy are up to. This town. Tansy and Deena Griffin … those
girls just came out of nowhere, you know, and they’re pretty messed
up. Not the kind of messed up our family is. I don’t know.” He
glanced at me. “We shouldn’t be mixing all of our messes.”
Sighing, I waved him away from the car. “A
drive isn’t going to fix where your head is right now,
brother.”
Jonathan didn’t move. “Everything about Mom,
about this family … I still love all of you the same, but I also
wish I was with Dad.”
That was the difference between me and my
brother. He had a good father, and he could say things like “I love
you” or “I give a damn about you” and it not feel awkward. Me? I
stumbled over the words.
“That’s because you’re a decent guy, Jon. One
day, you’re going to be one hell of a man. This family,” I gestured
at the house, “it’s all pretty appearances with spots of ugliness.
That’s everybody. Not just us. What was that reality shit Heather
made us sit down and watch with her? Wasn’t there always some kind
of pregnancy, cheating, or abuse crap in it?”
Jonathan laughed, and the sound encouraged
me.
I stepped toward him. “One thing I’ve learned
is that you can’t judge people by their families. What and who you
are may start at home, but what you become later, on your own,
depends entirely on you.”
He looked up at the sky, at the wisps of
darkness crowding the moon. “The Griffins,” he sighed, “did you
notice how separate they all were tonight?”
“Separate?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I mean, we might have
our crazy problems here, but we interact. Even when we don’t want
to. Look at you and Mom. That relationship sucks ass, but we all
acknowledge there’s an issue between you.”
Despite my interest in Tansy, I hadn’t
noticed the way her family interacted. All I’d noticed was Deena’s
attitude and Tansy’s hidden pain.
“It’s like they’re working hard not to see
each other,” Jonathan pointed out.
“Grief is a great divider,” Pops’ voice said
suddenly, his figure materializing out of the porch’s shadows. “You
were engrossed in conversation,” he informed us, as if we needed an
explanation for his eavesdropping. “I didn’t hear the car start or
see the headlights, and I got curious.”
“You know what they say about curiosity,” I
muttered.
Pops huffed. “That’s only when us old folk
aren’t adulting. I’m adulting.”
“Adulting?” I laughed.
“You got that off the meme I shared this
morning,” Jonathan accused.
Startled, I stared at my brother. “He uses
social media?”
“Three separate accounts,” Jonathan answered,
grinning.
“Back to adulting—” Pops began.
“Don’t use that word,” I insisted.
Pops smirked, his gaze shifting to Jonathan.
His lined face fell. “Grief makes strangers out of people.
Depending on the situation, it can take away who they thought they
were and leave behind someone they don’t understand.”
I cringed. “Please say he didn’t get that off
one of those therapy talk shows.”
“You know this from losing Grams?” Jonathan
asked, ignoring me.
“No, I know this from war. Your grams was
different. I knew who I was with her. I didn’t change when she
left, I just became lesser.” He looked at me. “I don’t know what
your interest in Tansy is, or vice versa, but there’s something
brewing in that girl. She needs this place. She doesn’t need
you.”
“Like
I
need this place?” I asked, sarcasm
dripping from the words.
Pops grunted. “You don’t need anything, Eli.
You figured yourself out the day you left your mother’s house. You
just need a place to stay and enough time to work off your debt to
society. A little forgiveness, less hatred, and a lot of resolution
wouldn’t hurt. But this place? No. Your grams needed this place,
and I see that same kind of need in Tansy.”
Looking at him, I realized Pops saw what I’d
seen in Tansy, the darkness swirling beneath the surface, hidden by
a calm façade. For some reason, I was jealous of him for noticing
it, jealous I wasn’t the only one who saw past Tansy’s emotional
smokescreen.
“Whatever,” I mumbled. I’d liked the idea
that Tansy needed me. Had I been wrong about that?
Rain began to fall, the misting kind, slow
and barely there.
“It’ll be coming a flood soon,” Pops assured
us, gazing at the sky.
“Then I’ll leave you to it,” I said, heading
for the cottage.
Let the rain come. Better yet, let it
stay.
Tansy
Rain battered the house, coming down so hard
that I didn’t see it ending before morning. This relieved me more
than it should. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Eli or his
family again, but seeing them meant taking on more than I wanted
to. I hated myself for that. I’d always thought I was a strong
person. It scared me to think I wasn’t.
My sister, Nana, and I were strangers. We
cared about each other, we cared about what happened to one
another, but it was all pretense. We weren’t scratching beneath the
surface.
We’d forgotten how to breathe.
As soon as we walked into the house, we went
separate ways. Deena and I disappeared into our rooms, half of the
cats following my sister, and Snow following me. The dog had made
it her mission to become my shadow despite the fact that I wasn’t
the one who fed or took care of her. The cats, on the other hand,
simply liked to antagonize Deena and her them. They’d turned it
into a game.
Hetty went to the kitchen. She spent a lot of
time sitting at the table at night with her paperwork, reading
glasses, and tea. She found comfort in it.
I laid on the bed with the
lights out, my knitting next to me, my eyes on the ceiling. Rain
beat the roof, like someone
tap,
tapping
a window, and I listened to it, my
hands above me, a knitting needle pressed into my palm.
“Cry, damn it!” I begged myself.
I pressed harder, the needle digging into my
skin until the sting was unbearable. My eyes watered.
Come on!
No tears came, but the pain filled me with
peace. It was the pain I needed, not the tears. I needed the pain
because it needed me.
Stop it, Tansy! It isn’t your fault.
“Yes, it is,” I told the room.
Snow whimpered, jumped on the bed, and nudged
my hand, dislodging the needle. A red spot. No blood. Would it feel
better if there was blood?
“Why didn’t I stop him?” I asked Snow.
She circled and plopped down next to me, her
head on my stomach.
I shoved her away, antsy dread filling my gut
as I sat up and threw my legs over the side of the bed. Getting up,
I left the room, walked into the kitchen, picked up my
grandmother’s cordless phone, and said, “I’m going to call
Jet.”
She didn’t look up from her paperwork.
Very few people had a landline anymore. My
grandmother was one of the exceptions, which was good because I
didn’t have a cell phone. My brother did, though.
Stumbling into my room, I slammed the door,
rejoined Snow on the bed, and dialed his number.
Three rings, and then, “Hello?”
A moment of silence.
“Hello? Who is this?”
“Jet,” I whispered finally.
“Tansy?”
He wouldn’t have Nana’s number programmed
into his phone. Until now, he hadn’t needed it.
“Yeah,” I said, my grip tightening on the
phone.
More silence.
“Look, Tansy, I’m at work—”
Garbled words rushed out of me. “I’m sorry I
said you were like Dad.”
“What?”
“I’m sor—”
“I heard you, Tansy. I just … are you
okay?”
“You are a lot like him,” I babbled. “You’ve
got the pull, you know? But you’re not him, okay?”
Something moved over the phone, muffling it,
a distant, “I’m taking my break early. It’s my sister,” coming
across the line.
Rustling, and then, “What’s up with you,
Tansy? Everything going okay at Nana’s? Is it Deena?”
“Why is it always
Deena!”
my mind shouted.
“No, Deena’s okay,” I answered.
“And you?” he asked.
I’m suffocating.
“How do you feel about Dad?” I asked.
A sigh came over the line. “Tansy, come on
now. Really? Dad’s gone. I thought you got that. More than Deena.
She’s fighting it, I think, but you … we’ve got to let all of this
go.”
“Is it that easy for you? Really?”
“Am I grieving? Is that what you’re
asking?”
“Maybe.”
“Then yeah, I am a little. Not like with Mom.
Dad is different. I don’t feel as sad, I guess. I just feel
weird.”
But not guilty because you weren’t there
that last year. You were gone. In college. Forgetting us.
“Okay,” I murmured.
“Tansy—”
“I shouldn’t have called. I know you’re
busy.”
“God, Tansy, why are you doing this?”
“I love you, Jet,” I said, hanging up.
I may have been wrong to call him, but life
had taught me to never hang up without saying, “I love you.”
Laying the phone on the bed, I let my gaze
drift to the window, to the splotches of water against the glass.
They mocked me. Nature’s tears.
This time, when I placed the knitting needle
against my palm, I pressed hard enough to draw blood. It took a lot
of pressure. It brought a lot of pain. It brought a new me.
I didn’t know this Tansy, but she was there
inside of my head and under my skin. She’d crawled there, waiting
with Dad to die. Now that he was gone, she was trying to dig her
way out, breaking me.
If Eli knew this Tansy, he would hate
her.
Eli
Glitter. Jewels. Rainbow prisms. The orchard
turned into an entirely different world after it rained. Blindingly
beautiful. Enough to make Tansy’s shitting sun babies look tame in
comparison.
The rain had stopped, leaving behind cool
breezes and clean smells. The van from the Rescue League rattled
down the lane, tempting me from the bed I was loathe to leave. What
was the point really? This summer was full of work and dealing with
emotional issues no one wanted to deal with.
“You’re a dick that needs to
quit pitying himself so much for what happened. People pity you
enough as it is,”
Lincoln’s voice rang
through my head, making me wince.
“Fuck you,” I murmured because he was right.
Hell, Jonathan was right, too. What Mom did was wrong, but beyond
that I had a stable family. It was time to make some changes. Train
harder. Do more. Prove to everyone that I wasn’t just a ghost from
my mother’s past.
I got up, dressed, and found coffee before
moving onto the porch, my hands hugging an old black coffee mug.
Steam rose, rising over a damp landscape touched by sparkles. To
the side of the house, her cut-off shorts clinging to her backside,
Tansy stooped, her hands pulling at weeds among the azalea
bushes.
“You’re early,” I called.
Glancing over her shoulder, she gave me a
forced smile. “Better than being home, I guess.”
Something about her voice threw me, and I
sauntered down the stairs, my eyes narrowing. “You didn’t want to
come, did you?” I accused.
The screen door on the porch creaked, and
Pops stepped out, hands behind his back. “You planning to help, or
are you here to get in the way?”
Tansy’s wary eyes flicked between us, and I
grinned. “Oh, you know me, Pops.” I winked.
His brows arched, his gaze on me, his words
for Tansy. “Let me know if he gives you any trouble.”
The screen door swung shut, his thudding
footsteps fading into the house.
“Back to my earlier question.” I stepped over
a pile of weeds to reach her side, lifted my mug, and swallowed
back the coffee. Black and strong. “You don’t want to be here, do
you?”
She glanced at the screen
door, hoping I assumed, to find Pops standing there. “Honestly?”
she asked finally, her eyes dropping. “I’d rather be anywhere but
here, and not just here at this orchard, but
here
. As in this town.”
The confused Tansy I’d seen on the hospital
roof the day we met, the one that often disappeared behind a
pretense of strength, reappeared.
“It’s a little on the boring side,” I
admitted.