Catch the Light, page 14
Only Nora and Bennett are still here, hanging by a thread of texts and FaceTime—a photo of my favorite kind of donut, the dip between Bennett’s ribs.
“How was your trip?” Sam asks Jesse, biting into a rectangular slice of cafeteria pizza. She’s wearing a bright green wool sweater today, with big wooden buttons down the front, and a thick gold necklace, her hair parted exactly in the center. Her eyes look tired, bluish rings underneath.
“Good,” Jesse says around a mouthful of SunButter sandwich. But there’s tightness behind his eyes too. It feels like we are all full of secrets. But today, for once, I have a good one.
We wait for Jesse to say more, but after a while it becomes apparent that he’s not going to. He’s tired, spacey, hidden behind his dark hair. So I turn to Sam, a sly smile on my face. “Guess what?”
“What?” she says. The tips of her fingers are covered in ink.
“I talked to El last night and she says you can work for her.”
Sam sets down her slice of pizza. “Seriously?”
I smile. “Yep.”
Her face cracks open under a giant, crooked smile. “Oh my god, Mary, that’s amazing!” she says, jumping up and down a little in her seat. Then she pulls me into a suffocating hug, and for once I feel like I’ve done something right.
When she gets up to return her tray, I poke Jesse in the ribs.
“What’s up?” I say.
“I don’t know,” he says, running a hand through his hair.
“Was it NYU?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says again. He sighs, his shoulders sagging under the weight of something heavy. “It was beautiful. The darkroom was a work of art. But the financial aid meeting didn’t go that well. I thought my dad was going to faint.”
“Shit,” I say. I look down at the table, brushing away the crumbs. I try to think of better words to say, but nothing feels quite right.
“What’s happening with you and college?” he says. His eyes move over my face.
I shrug and say, “I’m figuring it out.” It sounds so believable that I almost think it’s true, until I remember sitting at my desk last night, tearing my entire folder of college printouts into shreds. I feel like the scum at the bottom of a lake.
Jesse picks up his Empire apple, spins it around on the tabletop.
“You’re so lucky,” he says. “You could go anywhere you want.”
I can tell he’s being earnest, because Jesse Keller is always earnest, but the truth in this statement makes me uneasy.
* * *
• • •
That night I stop by the co-op, just after closing. Jesse, in a navy blue sweater that droops down below his wrists, is stocking the beauty products, and I sit on the counter for a while, researching scholarships on my phone.
This afternoon, painting with Sam on Turnpike Road, I couldn’t shake our lunchtime conversation and the tired look in Jesse’s eyes. My own future is losing focus, but Jesse’s seems so clear. He needs to go to NYU. We have to make it happen.
Now I kick my heels against the counter, bookmarking another scholarship application.
“You’re going to be writing essays from now until the end of time,” I say.
“I like writing essays,” he says, emptying a small box of shampoo bottles and placing them gently on the shelf.
I shake my head. “You would.”
He tries to peg me with a biodegradable packing peanut, but it catches an updraft and floats slowly to the ground at my feet.
“It will be worth it anyway,” he says. “You should have seen that darkroom.”
“I will see it,” I say. “Next year when I come to visit and you’re showing me around.”
He looks at me for a long time, like he’s trying to tell if I’m for real. I suddenly feel a little exposed.
“You don’t have to do this,” he says. “I can figure it out myself.”
I straighten, feeling defensive. “I want to.”
He tucks a piece of hair back behind his ear, working his jaw back and forth. “I want to help you too,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “You will.”
Jesse lets the tension build for one more second, like he knows I might be lying, then a smile breaks through his cryptic expression and he tosses another peanut into the air.
“So,” he says, turning back around. “Tomorrow.”
He could be talking about our physics quiz or his end-of-season cross-country banquet, but I know he’s really talking about my dad.
“Yeah,” I say, setting my phone on the counter. “Tomorrow.” I feel like I finally might be ready to face it, right on time.
I watch Jesse’s hands as they straighten rows of bottles, turning the labels to the front.
“Is there somewhere you’d want to go?” he asks carefully.
“I don’t know,” I say, looking down at my hands.
Dad was cremated the week he died. We left the cedar box that held his ashes on the mantel above our nonfunctioning fireplace for weeks, and the whole time I secretly wondered if it would be creepy to open the lid and take a picture of what was inside.
“I wonder which is worse,” Bea said one afternoon as we sat, pretending to watch a movie but really just staring at the box of Dad between the spider plant and the Russian nesting dolls. “Being incinerated in an oven or rotting in a coffin.”
“I don’t think anyone feels that part,” I said, a shiver working its way down my spine.
A week later, Mom drove us up to Big Sur, and we pulled over at a lookout point on Highway One and dropped his ashes into the sea. As we careened back around the hairpin turns of the Pacific Coast Highway, all of us still crying, Hannah said, “Did you know that ninety Americans die of traffic-related fatalities every day?”
And Bea said, “Driving over a cliff on our way home from scattering a dead person’s remains. That would be ironic.”
And the whole way back, I imagined myself down at the bottom on the rocky beach, trying frantically to pick up all of the tiny pieces of Dad and closing them back up in the box.
Jesse picks up a tube of lip balm, rolls it between his palms. His sweater has a homemade elbow patch. His hair is falling into his face.
“There’s not a grave or anything, but maybe we could go to a cemetery,” I say. “Just to see what it would have been like.”
“Yeah, sure,” Jesse says, getting to his feet. “Anything.”
He turns out the lights and I follow him out to the back of the creaky old building, to where his car is parked next to El’s Subaru in the darkness.
The next day, the tenth of November, Mom leaves for work at the crack of dawn, just like she always does. I walk with Bea through the doors of the school and then I circle back around to the parking lot, where Jesse is leaning against his car, waiting for me. I feel guilty leaving Bea, even though when I invited her to come she just rolled her eyes and said, “That sounds stupid.”
Since Halloween, she’s retreated further into herself. The earbuds are always in. The door is always closed. Her eyes are storming all the time, at me, at Mom, at the universe. I know she’s feeling something, just like me, but I don’t have the words to name it and I don’t have the guts to bring it up.
Nora texted me this morning: Thinking of you today.
I said: Thanks. I love you.
For one second, I let myself ache over the weird distance between us. And I then turned off my phone.
* * *
• • •
Jesse drives us out to a cemetery that’s just past the edge of town. The shocking green of the grass rolls out like a carpet under the gray sky and the naked trees, and it’s so beautiful that when I get out of the car I think, Cumberland has gotten me. The wind blows bitter cold against my giant thrifted down jacket, but the damp color of the landscape spreads over everything, making it hard to feel anything else.
We walk down a gentle slope and hop over a small wooden fence, Jesse leading the way in his caramel-colored jacket. There are hundreds of grave markers here, partitioning the landscape into neat rows. Some are from the 1700s, thin and dull, small and hard to read. There are newer graves too, thick stones with ornate script and marble that shines like glass. I wonder if these losses are still fresh, if they keep finding new ways to sting like mine does.
This morning I woke up to a glimpse of my father, caught through the window of his study, a line between his brows, the glare of the sun right over his eyes. As I walk through the cold grass, I try to bring back that memory, to think of what came before or after, but all I can see is the flash of his forehead, crinkled with frustration.
We wander around without talking for a while. I don’t know how this is supposed to go. No one has ever shown me. I almost wish my family had planned something. I could have been with Bea and Mom, maybe even Hannah, following El through the woods. Maybe we could have talked about him. Maybe I could have admitted that I don’t even know who he was.
Jesse pulls a bunch of greenish-white daisies out of his backpack. We stopped at the gas station on the way over, and they were sitting in a sad plastic bucket near the door for $3.99. “We should bring something,” Jesse had said, pulling a crumpled wad of singles out of his pocket.
He pulls the bouquet apart now and hands me some, wadding up the cellophane and shoving it into his pocket. I turn and start walking toward the tree line, dropping one on each grave I pass until I run out. Dad isn’t here, but we might as well leave flowers for somebody.
After a while, Jesse stops and looks at me as if to say, Well?
I can see my breath puffing against the cold air like white smoke—the holy kind.
“This isn’t working,” I say. I can’t feel my fingers.
The push and pull of remembering and forgetting is starting to exhaust me. I feel like I’m trying to gather up all the pieces of Dad that still make sense, but even then, even when I think I have them, they disappear or turn into something else.
Jesse squints against the sun, which has emerged from behind the curtain of gray. He puts his hand up to shield his eyes, like he can’t quite see me.
“Working for what?” he asks.
And then for one second I can’t feel anything at all. The numbness in my hands threatens to take over every part of me. I think of all the dead bodies under our feet.
“I don’t know,” I say, my teeth chattering. “Let’s get out of here.”
He nods and we weave our way back to the Rabbit, Jesse’s long strides and my short ones. I drop into my seat and wait for the heater to kick in. It almost feels colder inside the car, and I rub my hands together, trying to warm them with my breath while Jesse adjusts worn-looking knobs and sliders, blasting us with various intensities of freezing air.
He drives us back into town and pulls over in front of the diner. I’m moving slow, so he comes around and opens my door. He stands there over me, one hand in his pocket, one arm on the car door, his eyes darting between mine like he’s speed reading.
Cumberland is the kind of place where they’ll know we’re ditching if we go into the diner at ten a.m., but Jesse doesn’t seem to care. He tugs me by my sleeve, through the doorway of the restaurant. It’s all counter and booths, and it’s warm and smells like cinnamon and butter. We sink into the last booth, next to the kitchen, and I peel off my layers, feeling itchy from the red wool sweater I’ve been wearing. I watch as Jesse pulls off his sweater too. His shirt tugs up to expose a corner of skin that looks warm and smooth and reminds me of how alive he is under his many layers.
“Sorry,” he says, as if all of this is somehow his fault.
“Nah,” I say. “It could have worked. I think the problem was me.”
Jesse picks up a packet of Sweet’N Low and starts spinning it on the Formica tabletop. “What do you mean?”
I shake my head, not sure how to describe this feeling of emptiness. “Never mind,” I say, almost too quietly to hear.
The waitress comes, wearing a scallop-edged apron over her jeans, and we order coffee and muffins.
While we wait for our food, Jesse builds a house out of sugar packets. I stare out the window, following the slanting lines of the telephone wires that crisscross above the street. I’m thinking about the graveyard, embarrassed by my complete inability to feel emotion. It’s like every day I find something new about myself that’s broken.
“What was your dad like?” Jesse asks, relaxing against the booth.
And somehow, his question doesn’t knock me to the ground. “What do you want to know?” I ask, wondering if I might still be numb from the cold.
“Anything,” he says.
Right as I’m about to speak, the waitress drops off our coffees. I smile at her and Jesse nods and they chat for a minute while I pour in cream and sugar and clink my spoon around my cup. I smile and nod in all the right places, but mostly I feel too shaken up for talking to strangers.
When she’s gone I take a deep breath and start telling Jesse about my dad. I start at the surface because that feels easier.
“He liked art. And music. Neil Young and the Velvet Underground. He loved being in the car, which is weird for LA. He had a beat-up Honda, but he drove it like a Ferrari. Even just to pick us up from school.”
I wrap my hands around the mug, and the warmth seeps into my cold fingers. Then I look down into the cup, and for some reason, I keep talking.
“But he liked to be alone,” I say. “He might have liked that more than anything. He had this whole other side of his life that we couldn’t be a part of.” I look at Jesse, feeling the truth bubbling up from my guts. “Sometimes I wonder if he regretted having us.”
My secret lands between us and in my mind it’s like a bomb blowing down all the walls of the diner, but Jesse’s face is blank, open, a smooth plane. He barely even blinks.
The waitress comes back with our muffins, and just like that my admission comes and goes. Now Jesse knows almost everything.
I spread my paper napkin across my lap, trying to pretend like my hands aren’t shaking.
“Tell me about your dad,” I say.
“My dad,” Jesse says, tearing off a corner of his muffin, “works way too hard.” He leans forward a little, rubs his forehead. “I try to help out as much as I can, but he is definitely the kind of guy who likes to do it himself. That’s why I feel so bad about this college thing. I think it’s hard for him that I want something he can’t really give me.”
He looks down at the table, wiping away a few errant crystals of sugar. “But we’ll figure it out,” he says, almost to himself.
“You will,” I say, and he smiles a little.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I think I get your point about college. It’s wrong that we give power and meaning and money to this stupid system of prestige.”
His hands keep moving, spinning his plate around and around.
“But at the same time,” he says, “it could make a big difference for me. I’d be the first person in my whole family to ever go to college.”
There’s a long beat of silence after that, during which I scramble for the right thing to say.
“Anyway,” Jesse says. “None of it really matches up. I get that it’s not easy.”
I swallow, looking down at the table, at the plate that’s still spinning and spinning between Jesse’s long fingers, then up at his hair, which has fallen all the way over his eyes. We sit there for a long time, in the space of the conversation left open by my inability to speak.
Finally he looks back up at me, shakes the hair from his face, half smiling, composure regained. “What do you want to do next?”
I crumple my napkin, relief spreading warm through my limbs, and set it carefully on my plate.
“Anything,” I say.
When we’re back outside, the air doesn’t feel as cold as it did before. The clouds are gone and Jesse drives us out of town in another direction. We cross the Vermont border, then hike along the river with our cameras. I take photographs of the light on the water, the edge of Jesse’s sleeve against the deep blue sky. We find a town with a used bookstore, and we read the first sentence of as many books as we can. We walk down the crooked side streets, our breath making clouds in the air.
By the time we head back to Cumberland, the sun is already setting. It’s a different kind of sunset than I’ve ever seen, pale and diffuse against the winter trees. Subdued, like my spirit as we wind around the endless curves between here and home.
The closer we get to Cumberland the emptier I feel. The magic of the afternoon leaks out of the improperly sealed windows. I’m exhausted and I have no idea what awaits me at El’s. I can’t face the thought of trying to talk about Dad with anyone. Especially Mom. And I can’t face the thought of trying to think of something to say to Bea when I see her Dead Sea eyes.
Jesse sighs.
“What?” I say.
“I wish I could fix it,” he says.
“You can’t,” I say, looking out the window at the gentle colors of the sky stacking up like china plates.
I turn to watch his dark eyes, which are glued to the road, his hand on the gearshift as he works the gears all the way down to first, to stop at a lonely intersection in the middle of two deserted country roads. He looks over at me while the car idles, nods his head. “I know.”
I smile. “Thanks for today though. I can’t be sure, but I think it helped.”
“Yeah?” he says, and his smile is small, subtle, like the light pink streaks in the sky. Like the crepuscular moon hanging just above the trees.
* * *
• • •
The whole way home, I’ve been preparing myself for some kind of big, awkward moment with my mother, but when I get to the house the kitchen is empty. The living room is empty. No light under her bedroom door.
