This Is What I Want to Tell You (16 page)

I know you need to go to Virginia. And I know none of us quite know how to handle what’s going on with Noelle. But I need to know what’s happening with you and me.

Whoa. I stepped back. Keeley folded her arms. She blinked her eyes. What do you mean? I asked.

You know what I mean, she said quietly.

Keeley, I said. You know how I feel about you and I want to be supportive but you gotta give me some space, too. My sister, my mom, I want to be able to be there for all of you but you gotta give me a little bit of a break here, Kee.

I’m trying. I want to give you space. But that’s not what I’m talking about. She stared at me.

My hands were starting to feel numb. I shoved them in my pockets. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen Keeley outside of school—alone. I couldn’t. She knew what I knew, which was that I was avoiding her. That I felt guilty. That I was afraid protecting my sister might mean leaving Keeley. But the problem was, she knew something else too. I thought about the photograph. I thought about the way my sister had just whispered
okay
. I took a few steps closer to Keeley. I took my hands out of my pockets. My fingers were numb with cold. I put them against her icy cheeks.

I’m sorry, I said. She nodded, and my hands moved up and down with her.

Let’s just be honest, she said. I know it’s gonna be hard, but let’s at least do that.

Okay, I said. Here’s the thing. I love you. And I don’t want you to say anything back. Say it another time, when I don’t feel like you’re saying it because you have to.

I could feel her smiling as I kissed her.

* * *

In the morning, Ben picked me up before anyone was awake. It reminded me of the first day of school, when I left the house before anyone was up and everything felt like it was just waking up. This time, everyone in my house was still sleeping but now the morning was dark, and the air was sharp with cold and frost spider-webbed on the windows.

The inside of his van was warm and smelled like coffee. Newspapers littered the floor and back seat. There were two other volunteers with him—Kevin and Silas. Both of them were actual construction workers. I wasn’t sure what I was doing there.

Get in, son, it’s cold out there, Ben said.

Talk radio whispered.

Ben looked sideways at me as he backed out of the driveway. I’d told him that my sister wasn’t doing well. I didn’t tell him any more, but who knows.

Kevin and Silas nodded hello.

We appreciate you coming along, son. I know it’s not the time of year for outdoor work but this family’ll sure appreciate your help.

I’m happy to do it, I said. I need some distraction.

We drove in silence. It was easy to be silent with Ben. Something about him let you forget he was there, and then he coaxed the words out of you right when you needed them to be coaxed. Kevin and Silas seemed to whisper when they spoke, which was hardly at all.

The house was covered in plastic, big sheets of plastic that tented out over the half-built structure. There were just the four of us there but I was the only one who had no idea what he was doing. Mostly I just hauled trash from the house site to someone’s truck. I used a hammer and pulled nails out of old boards, I tossed the boards into the back of the truck. Sometimes I drove the truck to the dump and unloaded it there.

It was still cold but not as cold as at home. The mountains were full and blue-green. We were sleeping on cots in the office of the church, a drafty, high-ceilinged room. Ben and Kevin woke up early and made eggs and bacon and muffins and we ate while the sun came up over the church. It felt really good to be around people who were quiet and busy and determined. There was nothing else there. We were just trying to repair this house so a family could move back in by Christmas. Period.

On the third and last day, the family stopped by. They drove a station wagon that probably used to be white but was now kind of gray and rusted and filmy. It was a mom and a boy and three girls; they all looked younger than about eight. They piled out of the station wagon, running and tumbling. They all looked sort of square and hard and sad, like the pictures on the cover of
The Grapes of Wrath
, only in partial color. Their clothes were worn and layered. The mom walked over to me. She was wearing a thick blue plaid jacket. I was the only one out front, tossing the last load of debris into the back of the truck. She held out her hand.

I’m Anna Lowry, she said.

I took her hand.

Nadio Carter, I said.

Thank you.

She was holding a basket over her arm. An actual picnic basket covered in a towel.

I brought y’all some lunch. She dropped my hand. It just really means a lot, what you’re doing here.

She gestured around her. The kids had spread—running, chasing, it almost looked like they had multiplied. One of the girls, the youngest probably, clung to her mother’s leg.

We’re happy to help, I said.

Anna shifted the basket, absently patting her daughter’s head.

I’ve known Ben for a long time, she said. When he moved away we stayed in touch. He’s always been a big help to me.

Me too, I said.

Anna smiled.

It’s just me and the kids, so I just really appreciate this. The fire was a shock. I could never have done all of this on my own.

Sure, I said again. We’re really happy to help you.

I didn’t know what else to say. She looked so gaunt and sad and the kids took up so much space. She seemed to want me to say something else.

My mom raised us on her own, I said.

Anna continued to smile.

I mean, I know how hard it is.

Just then Ben came around the side of the house. Anna’s smile broke across her face. The kids ran to him. Anna walked slowly toward him. They laughed while the kids crowded around his legs.

Family happens in ways that have nothing to do with what we’re born into. We think it’s supposed to be mom and dad and brother and sister and house and car and high school and summer camp and college and career. I think that isn’t how it is anymore. I think mom and dad and brother and sister is the exception and not the rule. And sometimes the pastor at the soup kitchen or the neighbor fills a role that is just as important as blood. I think we mess up somewhere between high school and career and get terrified and become another person, and then another person again.

My sister is the other half of me. I hadn’t really let myself think about what would have happened—about the possibility of being a twin without a twin. Anna Lowry and Lace were moms without husbands and we were kids without dads and Keeley was a sister without a brother. But Noelle and I wouldn’t be—you can’t be a twin without a twin. I felt it in my stomach right there, and for the rest of the day as we finished the house, and all night, awake, as we drove north back home, I felt it until we got home and Ben dropped me off just as the sun was coming up. I’d felt just a glimpse of being one half without the other.

Family isn’t what I thought it was at all.

I have to do something and I want you guys to come with me.

What, Keeley said. She looked scared.

Nadio stared at me.

We were in the kitchen. It was Saturday morning and almost spring—warm enough that we’d just gone on our Snake Mountain hike, but cold enough that Nadio was holding his hands near the burner where he was boiling water for tea.

I wanna get a tattoo.

You’re crazy. Nadio turned back to the stove.

Okay, Keeley said.

Nadio looked back.

You’ll come with me? I asked.

Yeah, she said. Of course. And Nadio will too.

I’ll come, he said. But you’re both crazy.

I hadn’t gone back to school. The more days that passed, the farther away it became. I had a social worker I started to see, Christa. At first she was sort of adamant that I go back, but Lace and I were doing assignments at home and I had a tutor for Chemistry and a special home-school agreement and I was doing really well on exams. The idea of the classrooms and hallways felt sort of impossible. And then Christa looked everything over and realized I was okay. And anyway, I promised I’d go back for my senior year. I just felt like I had to figure this new person out—who I was.

In the afternoons Keeley would come over, or I’d sit with Nadio or both of them and they’d go over assignments with me. Once it got warm, we sat on the porch and they told me about what was happening at school, how Jessica Marino was kind of crazy and no one really wanted to be around her (she looks bad, Nadio said, like messed up). They told me about Model U.N. and how maybe next year they’d get the school to host a conference. I didn’t really care about Model U.N. but I liked to hear about it. It felt normal. Keeley and I were okay. My brother and I were okay. And I was okay with them, now. Everything was different, and sometimes I felt so lonely it made my chest hurt, like I was sitting on the fringes of everything. But other times I felt like I had this strength that they had no idea about.

There is a certain strength in being alone.

I felt like something was missing though, like I needed one last thing to start this new self. Sometimes Parker’s tattoos would show up in my dreams; never his face, never any more of him really, but the lines and curves and shapes of his tattoos, and all of the stories there on his skin. I couldn’t stop thinking about them—all beautifully out there and perfectly engraved.

I needed my own.

I knew exactly what I wanted to get. It was a quote from a book Lace always used to read to us. It would be a reminder, like my journal, only on my skin.

Noelle was quiet in the car. Keeley drove. I sat in the back seat. I watched the back of their heads. Black and gold and still. Noelle kept reaching behind her, tentatively touching the bandage that peeked out above the neck of her sweater. She’d asked me to go into the room with her at the tattoo place. They’d only let one person in with her. Keeley was sitting in one of the leather chairs, holding a binder spilling out pictures of tattooed strangers.

I’ll wait here, she said.

The tattoo artist looked at me. He was stooped over, tall with a long gray beard.

Well? he said.

I followed my sister into the room. She took off her sweater and laid down on the weird tattoo chair. The bearded guy looked down at the piece of paper Noelle had handed him. They whispered more to each other. I felt a little nauseous.

Over here, he said to me.

There were two stools on either side of Noelle. He sat in one. I sat in the other one.

Hey, Noelle said.

Are you nervous?

No, she said. Are you?

Yeah.

I looked at the bearded guy. He was messing with a few bottles and something that looked like a drill. I decided to look at my sister instead. She reached out for my hand.

For a long time there was the buzz of the needle and the grip of Noelle’s hand. I stared at her white knuckles. Her eyes were closed. I gripped her hand back. I closed my eyes too.

Nothing can be normal the way we once thought of normal, but these last few months had felt right. The three of us had found our footing. My sister lost her anger. But she’d become distant too. As if all of this had forced her to give less out. Even here in this chair, gripping my hand, I could feel that her strength was bigger than all of ours, and I could feel that part of that was everything she didn’t say out loud. She’d never say
that really hurt
. She’d just bite her lip and grip my hand.