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Authors: Carol Lynch Williams
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going?” Taylor asks.
We creep along, that’s how hard the rain comes down.
We’re blind.
“Your house?”
I don’t say anything. I’m exhausted. Limp from almost-living. From trying to live in a place that is crooked, where I can’t get a grip on anything.
“Mine?” he says.
“Yours.”
“My mom’s not home.”
Mine is, I want to say, but that’s a lie. Bodies that don’t speak aren’t a presence. They don’t count.
Zach on the hospital bed.
Slight bruises on his neck.
His lips tinged blue.
Hooked up to everything.
Already looking gone.
Is he gone?
How can I stand it? How? My legs won’t hold me up, and I fall, catching myself at the foot of his bed.
Across from me, Daddy has given up praying that Zach will make it. It’s three days later.
My brother’s an organ donor. “We can’t let the organs fail,” the doctor says.
“Right.” That’s my father’s voice. It comes from a tin can.
It comes from a different world.
Right?
And Mom, screaming at me as the time comes to let him go, screaming at me!
We are a family, lost.
I’ve never told anyone about all of it.
Not about all of it.
Not Zach talking to me before.
Or him telling me about the baby.
(Or the fight. Oh! The fight!)
Or how my lungs felt so crushed inside that I couldn’t let any more than a gasp of air between my lips
when it was finished.
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
I sit on a bar stool in Taylor’s kitchen. The storm rages on outside. I have on a pair of his shorts and a giant T-shirt of his. Even his socks are too big for me, the heel hitting up above my ankle.
I shake my head.
He slices two BLTs in half, puts them on creamy yellow plates.
“What? The girl always remembers. It’s the guy who doesn’t.”
I offer him a bit of a smile. “I can’t keep a lot in my head. Sorry.”
Taylor pads over to the fridge, pulls out a big bottle of Coke, and pours two glasses full. “Want ice?” he asks as the Coke reaches the tippy-top of the second glass.
“No, thanks,” I say.
He brings the drinks over, sets one in front of me, then slides the sandwich over too. He settles on the other bar stool. Lightning changes the colors of the kitchen to an odd white-blue, then thunder rocks that whole house. The lights go out. We’re in the dark.
(I’d still be walking if Taylor hadn’t picked me up. Would Mom care if I was struck dead by lightning coming home from my brother’s grave? Or hit by a car? Or picked up by a bunch of rapists? Would she care?)
“We were over, a bunch of the football team, for hamburgers. Remember? Your dad was cooking them.”
“What?”
“When we met. The first time. And you got that weird round brush caught in your hair, and your mom thought it would have to be cut out. But your dad and Zach got it free and burned a whole grill of burgers.”
Lightning splits the sky again, and it sounds like the thunder might be right on top of us this time.
I cover my ears. Close my eyes. “You were there?”
Taylor laughs. “Yes. I was the guy drooling all over myself.
I thought you were so pretty, London.”
More lightning. More thunder. And me saying, “Oh!”
Sometimes I cannot swallow for the pain.
Even here, with Taylor, where I know I’m safe.
Sometimes I feel like I’m still stuck in those last few days.
That I can’t get past anything that happened.
That the last real moment for me was hearing my brother, Zach, alive.
I keep trying to remember him that way.
Remembering his last day with me, his room, dark. Him so sad.
But there.
Right there where I could reach out and touch him.
Sometimes there is no air or too much air, there is no floor, no real feelings, no truth—not even from my father.
My daddy.
The missionary who writes about God and goodness.
It’s like God shook the world side to side, and for some reason I can’t find my feet under me.
Taylor and I kiss for a long time,
We creep along, that’s how hard the rain comes down.
We’re blind.
“Your house?”
I don’t say anything. I’m exhausted. Limp from almost-living. From trying to live in a place that is crooked, where I can’t get a grip on anything.
“Mine?” he says.
“Yours.”
“My mom’s not home.”
Mine is, I want to say, but that’s a lie. Bodies that don’t speak aren’t a presence. They don’t count.
Zach on the hospital bed.
Slight bruises on his neck.
His lips tinged blue.
Hooked up to everything.
Already looking gone.
Is he gone?
How can I stand it? How? My legs won’t hold me up, and I fall, catching myself at the foot of his bed.
Across from me, Daddy has given up praying that Zach will make it. It’s three days later.
My brother’s an organ donor. “We can’t let the organs fail,” the doctor says.
“Right.” That’s my father’s voice. It comes from a tin can.
It comes from a different world.
Right?
And Mom, screaming at me as the time comes to let him go, screaming at me!
We are a family, lost.
I’ve never told anyone about all of it.
Not about all of it.
Not Zach talking to me before.
Or him telling me about the baby.
(Or the fight. Oh! The fight!)
Or how my lungs felt so crushed inside that I couldn’t let any more than a gasp of air between my lips
when it was finished.
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
I sit on a bar stool in Taylor’s kitchen. The storm rages on outside. I have on a pair of his shorts and a giant T-shirt of his. Even his socks are too big for me, the heel hitting up above my ankle.
I shake my head.
He slices two BLTs in half, puts them on creamy yellow plates.
“What? The girl always remembers. It’s the guy who doesn’t.”
I offer him a bit of a smile. “I can’t keep a lot in my head. Sorry.”
Taylor pads over to the fridge, pulls out a big bottle of Coke, and pours two glasses full. “Want ice?” he asks as the Coke reaches the tippy-top of the second glass.
“No, thanks,” I say.
He brings the drinks over, sets one in front of me, then slides the sandwich over too. He settles on the other bar stool. Lightning changes the colors of the kitchen to an odd white-blue, then thunder rocks that whole house. The lights go out. We’re in the dark.
(I’d still be walking if Taylor hadn’t picked me up. Would Mom care if I was struck dead by lightning coming home from my brother’s grave? Or hit by a car? Or picked up by a bunch of rapists? Would she care?)
“We were over, a bunch of the football team, for hamburgers. Remember? Your dad was cooking them.”
“What?”
“When we met. The first time. And you got that weird round brush caught in your hair, and your mom thought it would have to be cut out. But your dad and Zach got it free and burned a whole grill of burgers.”
Lightning splits the sky again, and it sounds like the thunder might be right on top of us this time.
I cover my ears. Close my eyes. “You were there?”
Taylor laughs. “Yes. I was the guy drooling all over myself.
I thought you were so pretty, London.”
More lightning. More thunder. And me saying, “Oh!”
Sometimes I cannot swallow for the pain.
Even here, with Taylor, where I know I’m safe.
Sometimes I feel like I’m still stuck in those last few days.
That I can’t get past anything that happened.
That the last real moment for me was hearing my brother, Zach, alive.
I keep trying to remember him that way.
Remembering his last day with me, his room, dark. Him so sad.
But there.
Right there where I could reach out and touch him.
Sometimes there is no air or too much air, there is no floor, no real feelings, no truth—not even from my father.
My daddy.
The missionary who writes about God and goodness.
It’s like God shook the world side to side, and for some reason I can’t find my feet under me.
Taylor and I kiss for a long time,
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