Authors: Lauren Rowe
I grab ahold of Mariela’s skirt. “
No me dejes, Mariela.
”
Don’t leave me.
“
Te quiero, Jonasito.
” Mariela’s crying really hard. “
Te quiero siempre, pobrecito bebe.
”
I love you forever.
“No me dejes, Mariela.”
“Mariela?” It’s Josh. He must have heard her voice and woken up. He runs to her and hugs her.
Mariela kneels down and hugs him while I continue grabbing onto her shoulders.
“
Te quiero,
” she says to Josh. “
Te quiero, bebe.
”
Josh understands my secret language with Mariela, but he doesn’t speak it very well. “I love you, too,” Josh cries.
“It’s time to leave,” Daddy yells at Mariela. He picks up the phone. “I’m calling the police.”
Mariela holds Josh’s face in her hands (which makes me a little bit angry because I wish she’d do that to me) and she cries really hard. “
Cuida a su hermanito,
” Mariela says to Josh. “
Sabes que él es lo sensitivo.
”
Take care of your brother. You know he’s the sensitive one.
“Okay, Mariela,” Josh says. “I will.”
“
Te quiero, Mariela,
” I say, holding onto her skirt. “
No me dejes.
”
Don’t leave me.
“Oh, Jonasito,” Mariela says. “
Te quiero, bebe
.”
Mariela tries to hug me, but Daddy pulls her away from me and drags her toward the front door. I beg Daddy to please let my Mariela stay with me. I scream her name. I tell her I love her. I cry and cry. But no matter what I say or do, Daddy makes my Mariela leave and never come back again.
Jonas
She looks so pale.
“Blood pressure ninety over fifty,” the EMT says. They’re crowding around her, edging me out. Space is limited in the back of the ambulance, so I’m sitting down by her feet, clutching her ankle.
“What’s her name?” the paramedic asks me.
I see his mouth moving—hear his words. But I can’t speak. I promised to protect her. I promised her I’d never let harm come to her. And then I sat in that classroom and listened to fucking music on my laptop while she stood in that bathroom fighting for her life. My entire body shakes.
One EMT holds something down on her neck and the back of her head. Another holds something down on her ribs. An IV is attached to her arm.
“What’s her name?” the guy asks me again.
I want to answer him, but my voice doesn’t work.
“What’s her age?”
I swallow hard. I won’t let The Lunacy take over again. I’m stronger now. I’m different now. Sarah needs me.
“Sarah Cruz. Twenty-four.”
She moans. Her eyes flutter open.
The EMT repositions himself, making room for me to lean into her. I shove my face into hers.
Her eyes are wide. Scared. A tear falls out the corner of her eye and down her temple.
“Jonas?” she says. Her voice is nothing but the faintest of whispers—but with that one barely audible word from her, my teetering mind lurches sharply away from the brink of darkness and leans toward the light, toward Sarah, toward my precious baby. With that one faint utterance from her, The Lunacy retracts and skitters away like a cockroach after the kitchen light has come on. With that one word from Sarah, my mind reenters my body.
“I’m here, baby. We’re on our way to the hospital. You’re going to be fine.”
“Class starts in five minutes,” she says. “I have to go.”
“Do you know your name?” the EMT asks.
She looks at the EMT blankly. “Jonas?”
“I’m right here.”
“Sit back a little, sir.”
I sit back. “I’m right here, baby. Let them work on you.” I choke back a sob.
“Do you know your name?” the EMT asks her.
Her eyes are wide.
“Do you know your name?”
She doesn’t answer. Her face is pale.
My heart is pounding violently against my chest wall.
“Do you know what today is?” the EMT asks.
“Con law.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Who are you?” she asks the EMT.
“I’m Michael, an emergency medical technician. I’m taking you to the hospital. Do you remember what happened to you?”
She moans. “Class starts in five minutes. You have to let me go.” She’s strapped to the stretcher.
“Stay still, Sarah. You’re hurt. You have to stay still. We’re going to the hospital. Tell them your name.”
She stares at me blankly. “Jonas?”
“I’m right here, baby.”
She bursts into tears. “Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll never leave you. I’m right here.” I choke back another sob. I promised to protect her. I promised no harm would come to her. “I’ll never leave you, baby. I promise.”
The ambulance stops. The back doors swing open.
Doctors surround her and whisk her away. I jog alongside her stretcher through the hallway until someone stops me outside the swinging doors.
“What’s her name?”
“Sarah Cruz. C-R-U-Z.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Any known allergies to medication?”
“She’s never mentioned any.”
“Do you know if she’s taken any medication today? Anything at all?”
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“Does she have any medical conditions?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Are you her husband?”
My entire body quivers. “Yes.”
Five minutes later—or is it five hours?— someone finally approaches me in the waiting room. “We’re running tests,” the guy says. He’s wearing scrubs. His eyes drift down to my shirt.
I look down, too. There’s blood all over me.
“Were you injured?”
I shake my head.
“That blood is hers?”
I nod.
“She’s conscious and speaking. Are you Jonas?”
I nod.
“She keeps asking for you.” He grins sympathetically. “The minute we can, we’ll bring you back to hold her hand. Just sit tight. We’re running a bunch of tests to figure out the extent of her injuries.”
I nod again.
“Just sit tight.”
The doctor leaves and I sit back down. I’m shaking. My mind is not my own. The longer I sit here, the more my mind hurtles into space. I promised to keep her safe and I failed her. I’m losing it. I need Josh.
I reach for my phone in my pocket but it’s not there. Where is it? I don’t know Josh’s phone number by heart. When I want to talk to Josh, all I ever do is press the button on my phone that says Josh.
My mind is not my own—it’s bobbing and weaving and careening through space, trying its damnedest to outrun The Lunacy. And failing miserably.
Jonas
“You wanna go climb the tree?” Josh asks.
I don’t speak, as usual. I haven’t spoken since Mommy left two months ago—not even when they sent me away to that mean place right after Daddy made Mariela leave. I never want to go back to that mean place again—I missed Josh and Mommy and Mariela and Daddy and my soft bed and I wanted to go home—and all those doctors cared about was trying to make me talk even though I can’t ever talk again.
I knew the whole time I was at the mean place if I did what they wanted me to do, if I said anything at all, they’d let me go home to be with Josh and Daddy again. But they didn’t understand my mouth isn’t allowed to say anything ever again, not since my mouth said, “I love you, Mommy” and she didn’t say it back.
“Let’s go climb the tree like we used to,” Josh says.
Back when Mommy lived at our house with us, Josh and I used to climb the big tree every day—but now that Mommy’s gone I don’t care about climbing the tree. I don’t care about doing anything anymore. All I want to do is go to heaven with Mommy.
“Come on,” Josh says. Josh grabs my hand and pulls me out of my bed.
When I just stand there and don’t crawl back into bed, he smiles and grabs my hand again and drags me all the way downstairs, through the kitchen, out the back door, into the backyard, across the field, and to the big climbing tree.
“Come on, Jonas,” Josh says. “Let’s climb.”
Josh starts climbing, but I stand at the bottom of the tree and watch him for a couple minutes. He’s so much slower at climbing than me—he’s doing it all wrong. Oh my God, it’s killing me to watch Josh climb the big tree like he’s a fish. Mommy always used to say, “If you judge a fish by how well he climbs a tree, he’ll always fail—so why not let the poor little fishy swim, instead?” Well, I’m sorry but it’s true—Josh is a dang fish trying to climb a tree. I start climbing after him, but only because I can’t stand watching Josh the Fish be so bad at it anymore.
In no time at all, I pass Josh on my way up the tree. When I get up as high as I’m allowed to climb, I sit and look up at the sky, waiting for my brother. When he finally reaches me, he sits and looks up at the sky, just like I’m doing. I don’t know what Josh is thinking about, but I’m making pictures in my head with the puffy white clouds.
“You know what I figured out?” Josh says.
I don’t reply.
“Mommy’s floating in the clouds in the daytime, and at night, she’s in the stars. When you see a star twinkle at night, it’s Mommy winking at us, telling us it’s time for bed.”
I don’t want to talk about this so I start climbing down. I thought my magic hands would make Mommy all better, and they didn’t.
Almost every night since Mommy left, I’ve dreamed about the big man with the hairy butt cutting Mommy up into little tiny pieces. Sometimes, I dream he’s coming after me, too. Once, after I dreamed about the big man cutting Mommy up, I woke up to find Mariela hugging me and singing one of her songs in Spanish—and that made me cry really hard because I was so happy to see her and I’ve missed her so much. But then I woke up again for real and Mariela wasn’t there. No one was there except for stupid Josh, sleeping next to me in his bed, drooling. No Mommy. No Mariela. Just Josh with spit on his chin.
I keep climbing down the tree. The magic in my hands didn’t work. And I don’t understand why it didn’t.
I can hear Josh climbing down after me, still talking about Mommy. But I don’t want to talk about Mommy ever again, even with Josh. It makes me think of the blood—so much blood like an ocean of it—and that man’s butt when he pulled his pants down. It makes me think about how Mommy looked afraid, but I didn’t come out of the closet to help her. Because I was bad.
Josh hops down to the grass next to me.
“Let’s get the football and throw it around,” he says. He grabs my hand like he’s going to pull me toward the shed where we keep all the sports stuff.
I pull my hand away.
“Come on, Jonas,” he says, but I stomp away. He follows me. “We can throw a baseball, instead, if you want—we can do whatever you want. You can pick.”
This is new. Josh never lets me pick. He’s usually so bossy. I kind of want to pick, but I keep marching away, anyway.
Out of nowhere, Josh tackles me. I fall to the grass with him on top of me and he punches me in the stomach and then in the arm and then in the face. I don’t fight back. I want him to punch me. Everyone should punch me. I was bad. It’s my fault Mommy had to go away. If he punches me hard enough, maybe I can go to heaven with her. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be with Mommy.
“Why don’t you fight back?” Josh says. “Come on!” he screams.
I just lie there and let him hit me. I start to cry and so does he. He’s crying and punching. I’m crying and getting punched. After a minute, Josh stops. He sits on top of me, breathing hard. Tears and snot run down his face.
I don’t move. I wish he’d punch me some more.
We stare at each other. We don’t know what to do. This is weird. We’re both crying really hard.
Josh takes a big breath and then he slaps himself in the face. Really hard.
I smile, even though I’m crying. Why’d he do that? That was a dumb thing to do.
Josh smiles really big when I smile. This is the first time I’ve smiled since Mommy went away. He slaps himself again, even harder, and that makes me laugh.
“If you aren’t going to fight back, I guess I’ll have to do it for you,” Josh says.
I slap myself, too—really hard—and that makes Josh laugh.
“Now doesn’t that make you feel better, Jonas?”
It does.
Josh leans down and lies on top of me and we pretend to wrestle, but what we’re really doing is hugging and crying for a really long time.
“What the hell?” It’s Daddy. “Get up.”
Oh man, I know that voice. That’s the voice that tells me we’re in big trouble. We get up really fast and wipe at our eyes.
“What the hell’s going on? I come out here and this is what I see—you boys rolling around in the grass together, crying your eyes out?”
Oh boy, we’re in such big trouble.
Daddy covers his face with his hands for a minute. He looks really sad. “If you boys want to cry, okay, but you can’t do it where everyone’s going to see you and you most certainly can’t do it around me. I understand you might sometimes have to cry—but I don’t want to see you do it, boys. I’m doing my best to get out of bed each day and I can’t be around anyone, even you two, who can’t keep his shit together. It’s time for all three of us to pull ourselves together and stop fucking around.” He shakes his head and makes a weird sound. “If you two boys need to talk about your feelings and cry your little eyes out, then I’ll send you to a shrink and you can do it behind closed doors ‘til you’re blue in the face. But when you’re home and in my presence, you boys are gonna start acting like men from here on out. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Josh says.
I stare at my father, but I don’t answer him. I want Mommy.
Daddy’s eyes flash at me. “Jonas Patrick, I’ve had it with you. I’ve been patient with you up ‘til now, thinking you just needed to get it out of your system, but your time’s up. It’s time to quit fucking around and start talking again. You think you’re the only one who feels like the world’s crashing down around him?” His voice sounds funny, like he’s going to cry. “Your mother was a fucking saint. She was my savior. And now she’s gone and who’s gonna save me now?”