Six Feet Over It (22 page)

My hollow chest, my red swollen eyes, my stupid sore body; all this crying is getting me nowhere, and sleeping has only made it worse.

Ovid and the butterflies, all that metamorphosis crap. Pointless.

Kai lies down next to me. Moves my hair off my forehead, pulls off one of her bulky woolen mittens, reaches into the pile of mail.

“This came today. Just now.”

A package. Small butcher-paper-wrapped parcel addressed to me.

Stamps, all different sizes, watercolor butterflies, orange and black.

Mexico postmark. I sit up.

“You got the mail? Not Wade?”

“I did.”

“Don’t say anything.”

“I won’t,” she says. “I swear.”

I rip the butcher paper open.

Familiar red thread, nest of tissue.

Ana.

Dario.

A skeleton. A little girl riding a pony. There are flowers in her hair, flowers in the skeleton pony’s tail, glitter and bony smiles.

She is Emily.

“She’s so beautiful,” Kai whispers. “Why is she dead?”

“Because I’m … because of me.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why. I don’t know.”

What am I going to do about it?

Empty as I am, apparently tears are never ending. Who knew? I cry. And cry and cry.

Amazingly, Kai does not.

“Leigh. You have to tell me.”

“What?”

“Everything.”

She is in her track shorts, even in this cold. She must have skipped practice to bring the package to me. Didn’t go to Rivendell. Came here instead. For me.

She gets up. Brings me a cool, wet washcloth.

We stash the package in my closet and wait until the sun is nearly set behind the pines around Dario’s trailer.

“This is breaking and entering!” Kai chatters, pulling her sweatshirt tighter around her.

“We’re not breaking anything.” I find the key in a cremain canister beneath a river rock and unlock the door. We step inside.

“Wow,” she breathes.

Evening light seems to pulse within the blue walls, makes the color practically vibrate.

He has finished painting: blue tape gone, newspaper off the floor. The tiny bedroom area is filled almost entirely with the
PennySaver
queen bed, neatly made. New blue-gray bedspread, two plump white pillows.

Two.

Kitchen immaculate, as always. Clean white cloth on the table.

“Okay, let’s see.”

Kai pulls a paper package from her coat, folds back a nest of tissue, and here are the crystals she’s brought from Rivendell. Ran all the way there and back, she is so fast.

We hang one in the kitchen window, one in the bedroom, one in the window above the table.

“What is this?” she calls, and holds up a plain paper bag.
Leigh
in tall black letters.

Three one-pound bags of Yorks.

Two disks of Pátzcuaro chocolate.

One folded piece of stationery.

Kai reads over my shoulder.

I forgot to tell you. There are these other butterflies that come for Los Muertos. They migrate the same path, not nearly as many and they’re not as bright and showy as the monarchs, so they don’t get the same attention. They’ve got dark wings with little blue dots along the edges. They’re called Mourning Cloaks. I’m not kidding, that is their real name. Mourning Cloak butterflies. They are beautiful.

Pass your test.

“What does
that
mean?” she whispers.

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

I unwrap a disk, put a piece of chocolate in her mouth.

“What the …” She closes her eyes. “Oh my
God
 …”

“I know. Don’t chew.”

She takes the letter from me, sits at the table. “Is he coming back?”

I fill a jar with water. Arrange the stargazer lilies I’ve borrowed from Clambake’s sister. Roses from the veterans, daisies from Shag Haircut’s husband. They are cheerful on the white tablecloth. On the kitchen windowsill, below the spinning crystal, I set the blue sweet pea egg carefully on a saucer.

Out the open door the river rocks line the smooth pebble path from the door, flowers blooming in the cold among the stone. The blue walls sing.

I break a piece of chocolate for myself.

“Yes,” I tell her. Tell myself. “He is. They will. He promised.”

Back at the house, Wade is making biscuits from a cardboard tube. Rene jumps around barking, waiting for bits of raw dough. Gramma and Grandpa sit on the sofa watching
Entertainment Tonight.
Waves and acetone signal Meredith’s presence in the laundry room.

“Leigh!” Gramma calls over the din. “We were just talking about you!”

Fantastic. I pour glasses of milk for myself and for Kai.
That chocolate.

“Why is your father telling us this garbage about your birthday?”

“What garbage?”

“You don’t
celebrate
your birthday anymore?”

Wade smiles to himself, happily arranging raw biscuits on a cookie sheet, two inches apart for optimal browning. Wade, Meredith always says, just loves to stir the pot. I bump into him a little harder than I need to as I put the milk back in the fridge.

“I don’t know, Gramma,” I say.

She rolls her eyes. We all come rightly by it with the eye rolling.

“What the hell are you talking about? What’s there to know? It’s your
birthday
! What’s the matter with you?”

“Oh, Mother, leave her alone.” Meredith strolls in, grabs a roll of paper towels and an orange. Gramma purses her lips and goes back to her manic, tightly wound crocheting.

I imagine Elanor leaning over to put a hand on Gramma’s arm, easing the tension on the hook.
Not so tight, Irene; it’ll be prettier if you let it go a little.

“Disrespectful. God puts you on this Earth, gives you a life—
two
lives!—and you’re just throwing it in His face. In your mother’s face!”

I slide into a chair. She crochets furiously, Rene pouting at her feet. Grandpa dozes beside her. “And aren’t you supposed to be in Mendocino?” she practically shouts at Meredith. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here, Mother.” Meredith sighs.

Kai turns to me, eyes round.
She lives here?

“And Leigh isn’t throwing anything in anyone’s face,” Meredith says. “Let her be.” She heads back down the hall to her seascapes.

Gramma shakes her head and clucks her tongue. Meredith standing up for me tingles the back of my neck, leaves me slightly woozy.

“I don’t mean it that way,” I say.

Gramma turns to look at me over the back of the sofa. “Well, what in God’s name way
do
you mean it? Your sister knows what gratitude is; that girl is glad every second she’s alive, aren’t you, Kai?”

“Leigh’s grateful, Gramma.”

“I don’t mean to not be. …”

“Don’t listen to her,” Kai whispers, and grabs my hand, kisses my knuckles noisily.

My eyes well up and spill. For the millionth time. I let them. Gramma reaches into her bra and I gratefully accept a warm, wadded tissue.

“Wallace!” Wade calls from the kitchen. “Come have some biscuits!” Grandpa puts his hands on his knees and shoves himself up.

Meredith’s waves crash. The sun sinks below the kitchen window.

“These are some very flaky biscuits, Wade,” Grandpa announces.

Wade smiles. “Aren’t they?” he gloats, pleased with himself. “Not bad from a can.”

“Hey,” I say to Biscuit Jones. “You busy later?”

“What for?” He slathers butter on a huge hunk of dough and tosses it down his throat.

“I need your help.”

He chokes. I whack him on his back.

“You need what?”

“Dude.” I hand him a glass of water. “I’m not saying it again.”

He beams.

“JESUS, WHAT HAVE YOU
two been doing all this time? I thought he was
teaching
you!” Wade is white-knuckled the next day, pale as I kill Dario’s truck for the third time in two minutes. I have only days to get this right.

“He
did.
” I shove the brake back on and start over. “It’s been a while. Give me a minute.” I get it going and try to ease the clutch out but it dies again, jerks us forward.

“You’re going to kill us!”

“Shut
up,
I’m trying!”

“You’re not gonna pass if you can’t get out of the parking lot.”

“It’s your duty as my father to do this, so just knock it off. Hold on a second.” I give it a little gas, gently,
gently
pull my foot back, and—

“Duty, my ass! I
offered,
but oh no,
‘Dario’ll do it,’
and I’ll tell you what, when I was your age—Okay, now there you go. …” He grips the dashboard with both hands. We move out onto the dirt road and slowly up over Poppy, past Emily, past Serenity, past the veterans, past the babies. I’ve got it. I remember.

“Shift down for this hill.”

“I can’t yet, just hold on—”

“No, do it—get off the gas and do it!”

“I can’t!”

“Oh yes, you can, too! Is this how you’re going to be on the freeway? All timid and
I can’t change lanes, I’m not ready
? For Christ sake, this is life or death! You have to think fast! Just do it! Do it!”

“I’m not gonna be shifting down in the middle of the freeway!”

“You
might
! Traffic jam, accident, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Let me see you do it!”

I take a breath, shift from third to first and kill it.
“See?”
I burst into fresh tears. Wade sucks. I want Dario back. Dario never made me cry. About driving.

“Yes! Good! There you go!” he yelps happily. “That’s it!”

“It’s
dead
!”

“That’s okay! You gotta have balls; go ahead and kill it! That’s why we’re here and not on the road yet. Go. Do it again! Do it!” I slump in the seat.

“No, now look. Sit up straight. Adjust your damn rearview, and drive this thing.
Drive
it. Nothing bad will happen if you stay in control. Tell it what to do. It can tell you’re scared. Who is in charge?
Who
is in charge?”

“Me,” I sigh.

“Who is in charge? Who is driving?”

“Me.”

“Who?”

“
Me!
Me! Okay okay okay, just let me …”

He is wide-eyed and clearly scared, but he is
really
trying. And he is right. I know he is, but I cannot seem to find my proverbial balls, the lack of which, until now, has benefited Wade more than anyone. I turn the key firmly, Dario’s voice in my head,
Clutch in, key, shift, gas …
I am in charge. I am in charge. I am in charge.

The engine turns over. I take it around the hill again, all the way to the shed, past Rene tied up and yipping in what was once our front yard but is now Rene’s petrified poop pen. I make a confident, successful four-point turn that Wade nearly comments on but has the sense at the last second not to. Because I am on a roll. And four is better than five. Or seven or eight.

I drive past the office, through the Manderleys, and onto the highway. In charge on the highway. In my periphery I see Wade instinctively move his hand to his pants pocket, where his wallet is not. Awesome. No license. He says nothing. He is confident we will not get pulled over. His belief in my ability to not get us killed bathes me in warmth. The hours, days, and weeks driving with Dario come back. I am driving.

He is coming back.

I honk and brazenly take my hand off the wheel to wave at some pedestrians.

“All right now, don’t get cocky,” Wade says. I give him a sidelong glance and see his seat belt dangling, unfastened.

“Hey!” I say. “Get that thing on! What’s the matter with you?” He makes a face, keeps his eyes forward.

“Seat belts are stupid. Goddamned death traps. Put your blinker on and turn here.” I signal and turn left onto a surface street heading downtown.

“How are they a death trap?
That
is completely stupid. Put it on!”

He shakes his head. “Say you drive off a cliff into a lake and you break your arms in the fall. You can’t get out of the car to swim up because
why
?” He reaches up, jerks the dangling strap a little. “Because you can’t get the seat belt undone. So you drown in the car. That’s just great. Or the car catches on fire and you break both your arms. Can you get out to rescue yourself from the flames? Nope! Screwed again! Trapped, all safe and sound in the fire with a strap across your chest. Burned alive. Horrible way to die. No thanks.”

My eyebrows are so high, they are hidden in my hair. “Each of those scenarios involve both your arms being broken.”

“Exactly.”

“And what lake are you driving around?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“What if the DMV guy gets mad when I don’t wear a seat belt?”

He is totally affronted. “Of
course
you wear your seat belt!
You
always wear your seat belt. Don’t ever let me catch you without your seat belt! Jesus Christ!”

“But you said—”

“That’s me. That’s for
me,
dummy!
You’re
not going to break your arms; you’re a goddamned good driver. A
good
driver—yes, you are. I’m a horrible driver; I’ll definitely end up on fire in a lake with two broken arms, so I need to be ready for that. But don’t
you
dare drive without your belt on. Ever. You understand me?”

I do.

“All right, then.” And with barely any terror in my heart at all, I take us all the way back to the cemetery, alive and well.

Rhetorical question of the day: What kind of parents ditch you on what was once your birthday, just twelve—okay, now
eleven
—minutes before your driver’s test, which only hours before they
promised
to take you to?

Kai comes huffing white clouds of breath and slams the front door against the cold.

“He’s not in the office!” She tosses her arms in disbelief. “This is so stupid! What time is it?”

The microwave’s green digital numbers glow the sick nervous color of my stomach. “Ten minutes. I have to be there in ten minutes or not at all. I have to do it today,
today
! It has to be now!
Where are they?
”

“All right!” She matches my volume but undercuts my desperation. “We’ll get there. We’ll just … we will.”

“I knew he would do this. I
knew
it! Why do I ever listen to him?”

“Because we’re dumbasses who never learn,” Kai sighs. Even in my harangued state, this makes me smile for a second—at
last
some age-appropriate resentment.

I try to gather myself, regain composure,
think.
“Okay. Okay, we’ll walk. Right? You run ahead, tell them I’ll be right there, and maybe they have, like, a test-taker car I can use.”

She shakes her head. “You’d know better than I would, but don’t you have to have a car? I mean, don’t you need to drive the one you’ll be using?”

The three-ring circus of anxiety, lack of sleep, and irritation at Wade and Meredith reach an apex of lunacy. I hold my head in my hands.

Pass your test.

But something is going to fix this. I can tell.

Silent seconds pass. And then:

“What’re you kids up to?” Grandpa yodels, and pushes yipping, jumping Rene to the floor as he and Gramma come schlepping through the door, back from their weekly grocery store visit.

I pick up Rene, turn everyone right around, and herd them all back out the door.

My legs burn from the effort of keeping my knees from touching Grandpa’s truck’s gearshift. We are smooshed so close together in the cab of the truck, we can’t move our arms, and so Rene has free rein to run and jump all over our laps, licking our faces with his stinky liver lips. Maybe we should stack some wood while we’re at it.

“Rene, get
off
!” Kai yelps, turning her head from his slobbery, spazzy love.

“Wallace,” Gramma says. “Here it comes. Put your signal on.” Grandpa drives on, humming happily. “Did you hear me? Wallace. Are you listening?
Wallace!
” she screams, clutching the dashboard. “Slow down! It’s here, here it is, you’re going to kill us, here it is, turn!
TURN!
” The DMV, still three blocks away, sends a shivering thrill up my spine.

If I weren’t so sardined, I would pat Gramma’s leg.

“Here we are!” I sing. My heart is suddenly warm, my stomach calm.

“Here we are!” Grandpa echoes. He parks the truck in a testing spot, smiles vaguely at me, thrusts the keys ceremoniously into my hands, and tips his straw cowboy hat.

“Be careful!” he yells at my face. “Have fun!”

“Totally!” I yell back, and I run for the DMV doors, waving to them, and to Rene, still barking his head off.

I make a luxurious left turn into the parking lot and guide the truck back into the test spot. Lovely. The test guy scribbles notes; the only sound in the cab is pen against paper and my heavy, relieved breathing. I have held my breath, apparently, for the entire trip.

Aced my written. Remembered my hand signals. Parallel parked with confidence. Changed lanes without hesitation. With balls.

At last Test Guy looks up, unclips his seat belt, and slides past the Rene-hair-matted Navajo blanket Grandpa keeps folded on the bench seat to open the door. “That your family?”

Across the lot, a group of people stands near the low cinder-block DMV building. They are huddled together in the cold. They are holding what looks like a sheet cake ablaze with candles. I squint at them. At Gramma and Grandpa. At Wade and Meredith. At Kai holding Rene’s squirming body. I sit back and sigh.

“Yes.”

“Well, come on in and get your picture taken.” He takes another look at the Fools. “Sure nice of them.”

I climb out of the truck to a wobbly, chattery-teeth version of “Happy Birthday.” It
is
a sheet cake, covered with coconut flakes, snow-white and fluffy. Store-bought. Tiny candles blaze and sputter in the cold November air. Meredith smiles and sings. Wade smiles and sings, lifts the cake in the air. Kai is annoyed; she was not in on this. But she sings. Gramma scowls and sings. Grandpa sings super loud. Rene howls. I stand on the sidewalk, hands in my coat pockets, politely attentive until they finish.

“Leigh,” Gramma says before I even make a move for the candles, “I want you to have this.” From her giant purse she pulls a gift-wrapped package with a stick-on bow. “You need it more than I do.” I tear it open.

Grandpa holds one end, I step back with the other, and the entire Last Supper unfurls, enormous, eerily accurate. Finished at last.

I kiss her leathery cheek.

Kai mouths the word
yikes.

I step forward, take a breath, all my collected confidence right in Wade’s face.

“I quit.”

His face falls. “What?”