Flight Season: A Novel Page 18

  “Ángel wanted to see sky today,” Vivi’s mom says, pointing toward the whiteboard. I know what’s there, since I wrote it eight hours ago. Ángel’s goal for today: to lie on his back and look up at the sky.

  “So Mom’s giving him a sky full of birds!” Vivi says.

  “Origami birds!” her mom proclaims, smiling wide. “We made them out of his prescriptions!”

  His prescriptions. Every morning, during rounds, the resident brings in a stack of those things and leaves them, as if Ángel has any intention of reading through the drug interaction warnings or checking to see if the nurse is administering the right doses. It’s absurd. They keep piling up on his bedside table, but no one has the courage to move them.

  “Let me see one,” I say. Vivi’s mom hands me one—it’s folded to resemble a bird taking flight, and someone has used the blue dry-erase marker to draw elaborate doodles all over it. Truth be told, it looks pretty cool.

  “How many of these did you make?” I ask.

  “Twenty-six?” Vivi says, looking to Ángel for confirmation. “Ángel got good at it.”

  “And where are you planning to put them?”

  “We can tuck them into the edges of the ceiling tiles,” Vivi says. “Which is why I need you.”

  I squint, entirely skeptical of their plan. “I can’t reach,” she says, explaining the obvious.

  “It works!” her mom calls out. “I promise!”

  “C’mon, my vato,” Ángel says. “We ’bout killed ourselves makin’ those. Give your homeboy a hand, a’right?”

  I sigh and motion for Vivi to get off the bed. “Hand me one at a time,” I say, climbing up to stand on the bed.

  It’s pretty easy to pop out the ceiling tiles. “I need some tape—there’s medical tape in that drawer,” I tell Vivi, motioning to the supply cabinet.

  She gets the tape and breaks off a small piece. And then she starts handing pieces to me, one by one.

  That’s how I end up climbing around Ángel’s bed, taking commands from Vivi and her mom (“Higher!” “No, lower!” “Just an inch to the left!” “A little more, a little more, STOP!”). I’m filling the ceiling with origami prescription birds, dangling from dental floss at varying heights over Ángel’s head. And I’m praying that Prashanti doesn’t walk in.

  When I’m done, I climb back off the bed to check out my handiwork.

  Ángel adjusts his bed so that he’s lying completely flat. Then he looks straight up at those birds and says, “Boss.”

  “Does that mean ‘good’?” Vivi’s mom asks.

  “Yup,” Ángel says. “The ballz. G’on now! Y’all people better bust on outta here before Bertrand shows!”

  Vivi and her mom lean down to hug Ángel while I give his fluids and oxygen a quick check.

  “We’re gone,” I say.

  The three of us head through the door and hurry past Bertrand, smiling and waving and using every ounce of our willpower to keep from busting out laughing.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later we’re cruising down I-4 toward Orlando. I’m in the backseat, listening to Vivi and her mom tell stories about some insane trips they took. It’s amazing, listening to the two of them. They tell a story as if they’re one person—where Vivi leaves off, her mom picks up without missing a beat. Listening to them, I get the feeling that they have told these stories together many, many times before. I also get the sense that they have engaged in some sick travel. I mean, off the rails.

  “Remember that time we went canyoning in Borneo?”

  I don’t even know where Borneo is—not even which continent it’s on.

  “And the adventure guide—what was his name? Oh yeah. King Charles.”

  King Charles? Maybe Borneo is a tiny island in Britain or something.

  “Dad kept calling him ‘King Charles,’ remember? He was, like, an expat from Australia or something? And we were in that cave filling with water, and Charles was just cruising along like it was no big deal, and Dad was like, ‘Uh, King Charles, Your Majesty, I’m in need of some sort of royal decree right about now.’ And I was laughing so hard that I started gulping in water.”

  A cave filling with water? Is that even safe?

  “And then King Charles almost forgot to attach your second crampon?”

  What the hell is a crampon? Is that like a tampon? Are they talking about feminine products?

  “And I was about to drop three hundred feet and I was looking at him like, ‘You can’t weigh more than a hundred pounds—how are you going to hold me up?’”

  Three hundred feet? Isn’t that almost as long as a football field?

  Vivi’s mom turns to look back at me. “I’m telling you, TJ, Charles was smaller than Ángel, even.”

  I smile and say, “Wow,” because … wow. Who are these people?

  Vivi pulls off the interstate at a downtown exit.

  “I have a meeting,” Vivi’s mom says, turning to look at me. “It won’t take too long.”

  At seven on a Friday evening?

  “Lawyers,” Vivi says. “They work around the clock.”

  Her mom laughs. “We’re meeting over a quick dinner,” she says. “I’ll take a cab home.”

  Vivi shoots her a threatening look. “It’s a long way, Mom. I’ll come back for you.”

  “No need,” her mom says.

  “You can’t take a cab, Mom,” Vivi says, her voice stern.

  Her mom shrugs. “Oh, fine. John will be at the meeting. I’m sure he can give me a ride to Winter Park.”

  Vivi nods and pulls up to a curb in front of a fancy high-rise office tower. Her mom jumps out and waves. “See you kids soon!”

  Vivi turns back to look at me as I sit dumb and silent in the backseat.

  “Climb through,” she commands. “I refuse to be your chauffeur.”

  I jump into the front seat. “Your mom doesn’t really get the whole flat broke thing, does she?”

  “So you caught that?” Vivi says through a smile. “It’s not really her fault. She’s never been broke before.”

  “Neither have you,” I tell her, “but you’re figuring it out.”

  She stops at a red light and turns to look at me. “Really?” she asks. “I mean, that’s a huge compliment. Do you really mean it?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “You’re doing your best, Viv.”

  She smiles and her cheeks turn a little pink, which makes me want to reach out and put my hand against her face, which freaks me out.

  This is still a complication I do not need.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  VIVI

  BIRD JOURNAL

  July 28, 7:39 P.M.

  No birds seen today, unless I count Mom’s paper cranes.

  Highly unusual.

  THE CAR GROWS VERY QUIET around the time we turn onto Park Avenue. I glance at TJ, intently watching as we pass through the picture-perfect town center. Pottery Barn, Starbucks—nothing unique, but everything is impeccably maintained.

  “We’re almost there,” I say. My voice sounds anxious.

  I turn onto our street, which dead-ends at the lakefront. I can see the still, blue water in front of us.

  “Nice lake,” TJ says.

  I don’t respond, because my house comes into view. I take in a sharp breath. Suddenly it all makes sense—why Mom wanted to be in St. Augustine this summer.

  I don’t think I can do this.

  I pull into the driveway and look out across the lake. Afternoon clouds have gathered—they always do. But it’s not going to storm. Still, it feels like sheets of rain suddenly pour down around me. I can barely see through the windshield because I’m drowning.

  I’m drowning in memories that I don’t want to have.

  The car has stopped, but I seem unable to move. I’m not sure I can breathe. I rest my elbow on the steering wheel and let my forehead drop onto it. It feels so heavy.

  My entire body is heavy. I think maybe I am going to drop into the earth, right here. I think ma
ybe it will swallow me whole and the rain will keep hitting me and I will curl into a tight ball and stay there.

  Oh God. This hurts.

  “Um,” TJ whispers. “Uh, I’ll get the bags.”

  He steps out of the car and closes the door quietly, like he’s trying not to wake someone.

  But oh my god, it’s too late. Every single aching part of me has woken up.

  I can’t do this.

  “I can’t do this.”

  I can’t do this.

  I think I said it out loud. I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

  The trunk pops open. I sit perfectly still while TJ pulls bags from the car. I watch as he carries them to the door, grateful for this, at least. I can watch TJ move through this space, and maybe I can avoid seeing my father.

  No, he’s everywhere. My father is everywhere.

  He’s stepping out of the car holding a bag filled with vegetables from the farmer’s market.

  He’s standing in the middle of the driveway, waving his arms around wildly as he argues on the phone with opposing counsel.

  He’s shuffling across the lawn in his slippers for the Sunday Times.

  TJ places the bags under the awning and then he looks back at the car, where I sit, paralyzed. He catches my gaze and nods once, then he walks around toward the back of the house, toward the lake.

  My father, he’s crouched at the end of the dock, tying his boat to the cleat.

  He’s standing at the edge of the water, morning coffee in hand, looking out toward the horizon.

  He’s sitting beside me on the swing, telling me that he refuses to die.

  He’s stuffed into a bright blue urn, perched on a table beside the water.

  And hundreds of people are rising from their seats to sing, and that stupid songbird refuses to shut up.

  Cheerily cheer up! Cheer, cheer, cheerily cheer up!

  I will not cheer up. I cannot cheer up. I can’t even feel myself standing up.

  I am moving through crowds of people dressed in black, under a blinding blue sky, and I am nothing. I am disappearing.

  I can’t do this. I can’t even be. How can I be without him?

  I should go inside. I should lift my head from this steering wheel and look toward the front door. My mind is telling me what to do, but my body won’t move.

  I don’t know how to be here. Because to feel my father’s absence was easy compared to this. The hard part is feeling his presence—I can’t stop loving him. I can’t keep him away any longer. Not here.

  After I don’t know how long, TJ’s back at the car door, tapping lightly on the window.

  “Vivi,” he says. “Let’s go inside now.”

  * * *

  “What’s the hardest part?” TJ asks.

  He’s standing by a stack of empty boxes in my entryway, holding a roll of tape. I look from his face to the boxes, wondering what sort of question he’s trying to ask. Is this an existential sort of question? Does he really want to know the hardest part of losing my dad at eighteen? Or is he talking about the disaster that is my family home?

  Every piece of furniture in the house has a blue tag attached to it, a dollar amount written on it.

  The sofa where my parents and I snuggled for Friday movie nights? $1,350

  The wooden side table where I always dumped my backpack? $830

  The small silver bowl that held my father’s keys? $320

  Jesus, why is all of this stuff worth so much money? And who is going to buy it? And who did all of this?

  Last week John—the estate-planning lawyer who Mom is currently having dinner with—told me he had hired someone to run an estate sale, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

  But now? All I can think is that estate sales are for dead people, and Mom and I are still alive.

  We’re still here.

  “Viv?” TJ asks.

  I scan the living room. Mom said that she’d almost finished packing our personal items last week, when she came over to meet with the Realtor.

  She lied. Our stuff is everywhere.

  “Tell me what to do, Viv.” TJ looks through the hallway toward the living room, where half-full boxes litter the floor. “I want to help.”

  “The hard part?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “I don’t even…”

  I feel myself sinking to the floor.

  “Maybe his closet?” TJ asks. “Has anyone done his closet?”

  His closet.

  I shake my head, and then I feel my arms wrap around my knees.

  “Upstairs?”

  I nod, pulling myself into a tight ball.

  TJ picks up two boxes and tucks them under his arm. “I’m gonna leave you alone, okay? I mean, I think maybe you need to be alone. But, uh, if you need me…” He tilts his head toward the stairs.

  I take one long look at the stairs, and then I tuck my forehead between my knees and close my eyes.

  On the terrible morning after my spectacular drunken idiocy, I woke up in a lawn chair outside of Gillian’s condo. My face hurt. My hair smelled like puke. My stomach gurgled and I felt like I might vomit (again? I don’t know. I don’t remember). I called a car before I could even figure out where the others were or what had happened to my clothes and my sandals.

  The ride from Ponte Vedra was long—long enough for me to try, a hundred times, to piece together all the things I couldn’t remember about the night before. Long enough for me to study my face in the car’s side mirror, wondering about the deep purple bruise and the small scratches on my cheek.

  When the driver pulled up to my house, an ambulance was there. Lights flashing, sound off.

  I threw the door open and I ran into the house. I only made it as far as this entryway. I leaned against this very wall and watched two paramedics rush ahead of me, up the stairs. I heard them moving quickly, talking loudly. Too loud. Too fast. My mind couldn’t catch up.

  I slumped to the floor, and the paramedics arrived at the top of the staircase. They carried a stretcher down the stairs. My father, unconscious on that stretcher.

  They swung the door open to a too-blue sky. The sunlight was too crisp, the grass looked too green, and the lake behind us was too calm.

  My mother followed behind them. The paramedic—a woman with long braids and a kind smile—whispered to her, almost cooed. She coaxed my mother along. Mom stayed close to that woman, and I don’t know what the woman said, but whatever it was must have kept my mother from collapsing—kept her walking forward, stepping up into the ambulance.

  Looking back on that moment, the only thing I’m grateful for is this: through her anguish, my mother couldn’t see me.

  Dad lived another day, but he never woke up. I spent every one of those twenty-four hours in his hospital room. I sat beside him, holding his hand, leaning forward occasionally to rest my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and talking to him about my favorite memories from our travels. I told him how sorry I was for leaving him that night. I told him I never should have left at all—I never should have gone away to Yale, when he was at home, dying.

  I told him so many things, but I will never know whether he heard them.

  God, I hope he heard me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ÁNGEL

  “HELLO?”

  “Hey, man. It’s TJ.”

  “TJ? You’re calling me?”

  This is a first.

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “So, what’s up, my vato? You sound kinda messed up or somethin’.”

  “I don’t know, man. It’s like—”

  “Where are you?”

  “At Vivi’s. I’m in her dad’s closet, actually. I think maybe I’m, like, hiding up here or something.”

  “Where’s Vivi?”

  “She’s downstairs.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I dunno, man. She’s, like, really sad. And I mean—oh Jesus—it’s killing me, Ángel. She’s so sad.”

 
“So you’re hiding in the closet?”

  “Not exactly. I’m packing up her dad’s clothes. I wanted to do the hard part for her, you know?”

  I wonder what that would be like, to be able to go back home, to walk into my house and see it all—the stool where my mom knelt over the fire, the wooden bed where my parents slept, the bright red blanket with black stripes. My dad didn’t have a closet—houses over there are just like one big room. But he had a little table that he put his jeans on every night. He would sit down in his chair and fold them all neat, and then he would lay his plastic belt on top, and he’d put his boots under the table and hang his straw hat on a rusty nail. I watched him do that every night, until I didn’t.

  I’ll be honest with you, I never even thought about that table, or the pants or the belt, Dad’s work boots. They were pretty new, too. In good shape. I wonder what happened to all that stuff. Is it still there?

  “Ángel? Are you there?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “I don’t know what to do, man. What should I do?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  Can you people believe he’s asking me for advice? How messed up is that?

  “Yeah, I’m asking you. You’re, like—I mean, it’s like you two know each other or something, like you get her.”

  I’ll go ahead and tell you, since you’re up here in my head and I’m being honest: he’s right. I knew it the first time I saw her eyes. We do know each other. We know what it’s like to keep living when the memory of death is threatening to take us down. That’s what we both know.

  “It can’t kill you,” I say.

  “What?”

  “How sad she is. Death. I don’t know. It’s not like you’re gonna catch it.”

  “Jesus, Ángel. I’m not worried about me. I’m not a total coward. I can handle it. I just don’t know what she needs. I wish I knew—”

  “Have y’all eaten?”

  “What?”

  “Have you eaten dinner?”

  “What the hell, Ángel?”

  “Just answer. Have you?”

  “No, uh, I guess no. What time is it?”

  “Like, eight. Go make the girl some dinner, vato. She’s probably hungry.”

  He breathes really deep. “Okay, yeah. I can do that. I can make dinner.”