Six Goodbyes We Never Said Read online

  There’s a lull in the conversation. My thoughts return to the hands still stealing the cheese—my cheese—across the way.

  “What are you two up to?” she asks us.

  “Celebrating the birthday we missed,” JJ answers. “Just turned seventeen.”

  “Dew’s sixteenth is in August. What do you like to do for your birthday, Naima?”

  The question catches me off guard. All the birthdays before, I’d have run down my list of usual preferences: wishing on six red balloons, sorting and counting my marshmallows, going on whatever adventure Dad pre-planned, eating white cake with vanilla frosting (not white-on-white), eating cheddar jack cheese on a toothpick, going to Tuscany Grove for breadsticks, and winning an epic dance-off battle.

  I shrug. My fingers begin to pick, toes scrunched, eyes flitting from thing to thing. It’s starting. I survey all the ways out of this moment. It’s the suffocating feeling that creeps back; invisible walls closing in from all sides.

  She and JJ lock eyes. “So,” Stella interrupts my sequence, “maybe you could come over sometime.”

  “Why would I do that?” I don’t mean to say it.

  “Dew doesn’t have many friends that I know of, and he’s struggling, and I was hoping … maybe … I don’t know. I’m sorry; it’s not my place.” Her voice fades as a customer approaches. “I’ll be right with you,” she tells them.

  “She’d love to,” JJ interjects.

  “I don’t want to—”

  JJ’s face sharpens, along with her words. “We’ll talk about it later.”

  “So much for consent, am I right?” The words shoot fire, singeing off every hair on their bodies.

  “Oh, no.” Stella sighs. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to. Please. Forget it. And don’t feel guilty. You do what’s best for you. Forget it, please. Dew will find his own way. I shouldn’t put that on you. Especially now.”

  JJ tries to smooth it over. “We’ll let them sort it out. They’re almost grown and probably don’t want us meddling.”

  “You’re right about that,” I add.

  She turns her neck in my direction and I know I’m pushing the boundaries. My mouth clamps shut to keep further incriminating words from marching out. She’s the one who taught me these things; shouldn’t she be proud or something?

  Stella smiles. “I get frustrated. He’s had a hard time adjusting in town, and the kids at school weren’t very kind last year. But, if you know Dew, he doesn’t let anything get to him, at least on the surface. But it gets to him. He only wants a friend and can’t seem to find one. What a lonely place to be.”

  “Breaks my heart,” JJ says. “Kids can be so cruel.”

  “Not only kids.”

  “Shame.”

  “I hoped Ivy Springs would be more accepting than it’s been. His recorder makes him a standout, but he’s always been outside looking in. It’s hard to watch. I feel helpless.”

  My features soften. I try to stay silent, but can’t. “Why does he have that thing anyway?”

  She sighs again, heavy and long. “His therapist suggested different things that might help him cope with social anxiety and I remembered how much my recorder helped me in college. Plus, he loves pretending he’s on the news. It’s sort of his thing. We understand not everyone gets it or accepts him as he is.”

  “Being recorded is a violation of my rights,” I blurt. “And it’s weird as hell.”

  “Ima!” JJ cries out. “I know what you’re trying to say, but remember to word things with kindness and compassion, okay? I’m sure he means no harm.”

  I shrink. “Being recorded without permission is against the law, isn’t it? It’s intrusive to stand outside, minding your business, only to be interrupted by him narrating my every move into some machine. I don’t want to be on Dew’s News. I didn’t give him permission.” The irony of intrusion pulses through my veins. As if I’ve never been that to everyone around me, simply by existing with my exhausting routines. I won’t admit our similarities aloud, but I’m beginning to see more of me in him.

  Stella thinks on it. “I never thought of it like that. I’ve been so focused on helping him get better. I certainly don’t want you to feel violated. God—what an infringement on your personal feeling of safety.”

  I relax my tightened posture as a way of saying thanks.

  “Honestly, if he knew it made others uncomfortable, he’d feel terrible and probably stop using it. Even if it set him back.”

  “If it’s helping, let him be,” JJ says. “Maybe just mention he should ask before using around Naima, which she’ll have no problem deciding for herself. He’ll move on when he’s ready. Might even end up being a top anchor on WTHR someday and we’ll say we knew him when. Right, Ima?”

  They both look to me with different expressions. JJ with a you’d better agree so we can move on, and Stella pleading please say it’s okay. They refill the cheese tray across the street, so I nod.

  “You’re too evolved, Ima girl,” Kam often says. But I can’t help how fast the awesome moves. I just follow.

  “It’s settled,” JJ says in her professor tone. “Do you need more apple butter? I’ve got so many in the cupboard, Kam’s threatened to set up shop on the side of the road.”

  “I’d be happy to take them.”

  “Have Dew come over to get them later.”

  “Thank you for being so kind to us. Makes this small town feel more like home.” Stella touches JJ’s hand, lets it linger, and releases. Vomit rises up into my throat. Think of all the microorganisms swimming around. “It was lovely to meet you,” she tells me. “Thank you for your honesty.”

  Lovely. Lovely. Lovely. Lovely. Lovely. Lovely, Mom.

  “She can’t help herself,” JJ jokes. They chuckle as I’m pulled off toward another effing stand that’s not the cheese stand. I try and I try and I try and I try and I try and I try to be good with perusing all this crap I don’t care about, but at some point, I snap. I break away and sprint to the only place that will make this day better—the cheese stand.

  “Do you have any cheddar jack?” I ask politely, and with a level of kindness JJ would praise.

  “Just sold the last of it,” the man says.

  This is fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. *

  *screams forever into the black hole I’d like to fall into

  Dad

  cell

  November 24 at 6:33 PM

  Transcription Beta

  “Happy Thanksgiving, baby girl! I hope you’re … [sigh] … okay. Be sure to give thanks to Nell and Christian for taking care of you. I know they’re not your preferred company, but they care. You haven’t answered the last few calls, and, well, remember when we’d sit along the edge of the bed and breathe together until you relaxed after an attack? [undecipherable] [coughs] I was hoping you’d count the breaths with me. As you can hear, it’s kind of noisy and, well, most of the time it doesn’t bother me, but others, well, I was hoping to hear your voice right now. Nell … she’s great … but she doesn’t understand. I’ve been rubbing the worry stone you lent me—thank you—and writing in my journals to distract myself. I might be home sooner. I hope. [undecipherable] I’m … thankful … for [undecipherable]” [no signal]

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  I don’t expect you to understand,

  Why I can’t hear your voice,

  Pretend everything’s fine,

  But you should know,

  I’ll never forgive you

  If you don’t come back this time.

  If you can’t breathe,

  Think of me

  Not breathing with you.

  Because I haven’t

  Since you left.

  Today’s forecast had a sudden shake-up. Storms unexpectedly headed this way. Take cover.

  After purchasing one red
balloon from the general store, I am forced to follow the swell of crowds on my journey home. I’m careful to sneak past the tent where Stella and Faith could blow my cover. Stella’s waist-deep in sales while Faith stands near the back shouting at the air while kicking and punching at nothing in particular. I melt into the shadows.

  If you are hoping to understand why I’d go to such lengths for a soul I’ve barely met, you’ve not much paid attention. Kindness is something you choose each day.

  “Choose to be kind at your darkest hour, my darling,” Mom said, “and you already rule your world.” She’d rub the dimple in my cheek and kiss the curls atop my head.

  I glance at the time: I’m running behind. Again. I wish I could rewire my brain to manage time the way everyone wants me to. If you were to ask why time is my nemesis, I’d have to lie by omission. To say the truth aloud—that if my parents had left a few seconds later on their way to pick me up, they’d still be alive—reduces me to an angry, unkind me. My parents would hate knowing their only son can not let go of how time stole them from him, that it’s what fuels him. It keeps him awake at night, humming August Moon as the seconds tick by. The only way to avenge what time took from me is to take time from myself, burning it into the ashes of my parents’ effigy.

  I am fire.

  NAIMA

  We are stopped by an old friend of Dad’s on our way to the car. Her name is Constance McGreevy and she’s carrying three cloth bags overflowing with produce and bath salts. She sets the bags on the ground, tugs at my shoulders and studies my face, uninvited. “I’m sure you hear how much you look like Ray, but you’re all Josephine.”

  The time is 2:17 P.M. EST. Exactly six weeks ago, I aged another year, whereas seventeen years in the past, I came to life. Four pounds, three ounces, and two months premature, I rapidly surfaced, a mass of dense caramel curls, colossal pale green eyes brimming with apprehension, and a heart pleading for acceptance in a world I’d soon find excessive fault with.

  In the backseat of an old green Camaro, Dad said, I shot out of Mom’s body like a cannon. I wasn’t expected yet; at their ages, I hadn’t been expected at all. Mom had a difficult time carrying due to her diabetes, and I didn’t make it easier (story of my life) by arriving so suddenly; breach at one point, with the umbilical cord tangled around my neck at another. My father, equally as young and terrified as my mother, would prove to be the one who’d ensure my healthy delivery, despite the mess it’d make in the car he’d worked so long to afford. I was created in unsettled form, between Mom’s family, who couldn’t accept her decision to keep me, and the financial burden Mom’s medical needs placed on my parents’ relationship so early on. Every molecule of me twinkled and electrified into this force so unstoppable, even Mom couldn’t survive me.

  I’m told once I came out, Mom called me Butterfly; said to fly far and free. Except it was her time to fly far and free. By the time Dad got us to the hospital, doctors couldn’t save her, but they saved me. I became Dad’s reason. To laugh and cry, love, and to hope. But mostly, to go. Because when I look at myself, I’ve always seen Mom.

  He must’ve, too.

  This would prove to be the origin of my internal restlessness and the punch line to every bad joke Nell made when Dad left on another tour. To make herself feel better, she’d say, “If you could look a little less like her, he’d stay.” What I wanted to tell her was, “If I looked a little more like you, Nell, he’d still go.”

  Because you are not Mom.

  Never could be, no matter what you do.”

  Not that I remember any of it.

  Except that I became her Butterfly.

  And so when it comes time

  I will fly.

  And I will do it looking like Mom. Josephine.

  Just like me.

  * * *

  The ride back to the house is quiet. The radio is off and JJ’s conversation stifles. We’re both soaking in the grief, pretending we aren’t a big, tangled mess.

  She finally breaks the silence. “I didn’t know what to do when Constance said that.”

  “I know.”

  “She came out of nowhere. I couldn’t find the words to make it stop.”

  Her hands clutch the wheel so hard, her knuckles have lost all pigmentation.

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine,” she says. “It’s not … fine.”

  I look out the window and pretend to fly away. Up into the sky, out of the galaxy.

  She clears her throat, diverts entirely. “Do you want to say something at the memorial?”

  “About what?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  My stomach lurches. “No.”

  “Okay…” We round Pearl Street as she takes a long, thoughtful sigh. “A few years before retirement, there was this one young lady who’s always been in the first couple rows during class. One day, I noticed she moved to the last row. Couldn’t take my eyes off her. It distracted me the entire lecture. When she tried to sneak out, I asked if I’d done something wrong. She was one of my best students, genuinely interested in the syllabus. But that day, nothing. She was a different person.”

  I move my gaze from the window to JJ. “What happened?”

  “Her mom died. And she let the loss define her. Never sat in the front row again; barely passed the class. If we don’t find a way to cope with the grief, it’ll strip us of living, ourselves.”

  I pause. “I get what you’re saying, but I’m not talking at the memorial. I can’t.”

  She sighs again. “If you change your mind—”

  “I won’t.” Before any tears fall, I turn back to the window. Moments later, we’re in the driveway. Neither of us reach for the door handles. Her words catch inside her throat as she tries to speak. I feel Dad’s absence right in this car, more than I have since we left Albany. My hand tenses on my phone, the sweat pooling, making me cringe at the feel. It’s as if Dad’s calling from beyond, though I know I wouldn’t answer.

  Would you rather get a call from a ghost or a call from your worst enemy (Nell, obvs)?

  JJ angles toward me; I’m frozen. “When I brought him home from the hospital, he didn’t cry, didn’t fuss. Just had these big old eyes—like yours—and a head full of curls—like yours—and I could tell he had a heart too big, too open, for the world—like yours. He was special from his first breath. All parents say that, but he really was.”

  It’s too quiet with the ignition off. No hum of the engine; only our breaths and thoughts weaving in and out of each other.

  “Even after losing Jo, and his heart was ripped in two, he said the same things about you,” she continues. “That you brought her back to life. I know he’s here. I feel it.”

  “Nah. He’d give me a sign.” My throat strains.

  She lays a hand on my leg. I flinch, but her hand stays. “The signs are everywhere, if you’re looking.”

  My jaw is clenched, fighting to argue against her nonsense (because I don’t usually win), but in my entire life, I’ve never felt my mother’s ghost hovering or the chill of hairs standing on end. Those in the afterlife avoid me, much like the living.

  “Pennies,” she continues. “Lights flickering. Something misplaced. His voice out of nowhere in a memory—that’s Ray. I believe it, and you should, too. It brings me comfort to know he’s with us.”

  I want to say something—anything—but before I can, she points to the floor where a dull penny lies face-up. I pick it up, rub the edges between my fingers, and wonder, hope, Dad can hear me when I think, If you’re going to leave money, please let it be in hundred-dollar-bill form. The coin fell from JJ’s purse, I’m sure. She wants me to believe in something I’m not sure I can.

  Twenty-three seconds pass before she opens her door. “We’re gonna keep on with our day. It’s what Ray would want—that penny told me so.”

  She smiles, shuts the door, and goes inside while I wait. For three minutes, forty-seven seconds—until the silence hurts. If I could gra
b ahold of it, smash it against the concrete—if only to watch the destruction—I would. The quiet lets my thoughts fester and accumulate. Until I can’t sit here another second. Sitting here feels wrong. Sitting here means I’m alone.

  I swing the door open, the heat washing over me like a tsunami. Before I go, I lay the penny back on the floor. I don’t want it.

  I just want you, Dad.

  Dad

  cell

  December 11 at 5:01 PM

  Transcription Beta

  “I guess it’s the holiday season. Nell says you haven’t told her what you want this year, which isn’t like you at all. Where’s the detailed list with proper buy links? There must be something you want (and don’t say for me and Nell to divorce because it’s not funny a second time and I might start to think you’re serious). You know what I want? Remember the Christmas before I met Nell and I was feeling down and in a lot of pain? You, JJ, and Kam wheeled me around Ivy Springs and we went door-to-door singing—but not Christmas carols. We sang our favorite hip-hop and rock songs, and everyone who opened their door was confused but it made us laugh. That’s one of my favorite memories because we didn’t need anything but each other. That’s what I’m missing tonight.”

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  I remember that Christmas

  It was the happiest

  I’d felt in a long time.

  Because of your injuries,

  I was so sure

  You’d never go back.

  And then you met Nell.

  And you went back.

  And I’ve never loved Christmas

  Again.

  Local boy to make a friend if it kills him.

  Naima finally emerges. She appears more tattered than before. “The princess returns empty-handed,” I say with delight. “This leaves the boy to wonder, what is she looking for exactly?”