Saundra Mitchell - Mistwalker

Though she didn’t mean anything by it, the advice rankled. Since the funeral, there was always somebody asking about my parents. Wanting to know how they were. If I was being strong for them. Telling me to take care of them.

All along, I tried. The bills got paid; the phone got answered. I donated my boyfriend for sternman when Daddy wouldn’t let me go myself.

If people didn’t ask how I was, that was fine. It was my fault, a disaster I built with my own two hands. People were good enough to keep that to themselves. Still, it seemed backwards that everybody expected me to take care of everything.

I did it because Dixons are proud, and they keep their own. I would have done it anyway. It was everybody whispering it in my ear that left me full of sour, bitter anger.

Had anybody taken my dad aside and reminded him to care for me? I knew Mom hadn’t gotten that advice, because it would have insulted her. She would have ranted the air blue about it and probably made me pancakes.

Losing Levi had been a direct ticket to the hall of mirrors. Everything distorted. Nothing certain. I scraped up a buttery mouthful of dough, then dropped my spoon into the sink.

“Fanks for the cookies,” I said.

Then I took the stairs two at a time. Photos quivered on the wall, all the way to the landing. Bailey grew up step by step—her hair crazy white blond when she was a baby. With each school picture and summery snapshot, it grew darker. Her eyes grew more thoughtful.

The bathroom door opened, and Bailey padded into the hall. Swathed in orange terry cloth, she looked like a steamed tangerine. Smiling curiously, she tightened her towel. “What’s up?”

“Chicken butt,” I replied. I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. “Ma caught me on the trellis. She punished me with cookie dough.”

With a laugh, Bailey started down the hall to her room. “That’ll learn you.”

“Won’t it, though?”

I ducked into her room and helped myself to the bed. With my gaze, I traced the patterns we’d made with the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. We grew up with real astronomy: a constant, nagging awareness of the moon, the stars, the tides. So in sixth grade, we made up our own constellations.

While Bailey dressed, I drew outlines in the air with my finger. The witch ball. Captain Jack’s rum. The bloodworm. My throat tightened, though I wasn’t sure why. We had a year yet. Our stars were immovable.

“So how’s things?” I asked.

Bailey pulled a sweatshirt over her head. “With Cait? Still weird. With SAT prep? Still terrifying. Oh, and my best friend. She went and got a little barmy, so I’m worrying about her, too.”

“Screw her,” I said with a snort. Rolling onto my side, I stuffed Bailey’s pillow under my head. “I saw the Grey Man. Up close.”

Another snort and Bailey hauled her hair from her collar. “What have you been smoking?”

“I’m being dead level with you, Bay.”

“Okay. I don’t want to upset the delicate nature of your fish senses or whatever, but here I go. Don’t freak.” Twisting her hair into a loose knot, Bailey fixed it with a pencil and then flopped at her desk. One of her toy tops wobbled, threatening to hit the floor. Scooping it into her hand, she set it on the floor and spun it. “There’s no such thing as the Grey Man, baby.”

“What if I told you I really, really have seen him?”

Bailey stepped on the top to still it. Picking it up with her toes, she tossed it out of the way and came to sit beside me. Her hands were still hot from her shower, radiating heat right through my jacket. “Then I’d be really, really worried about you.”

“He made me cocoa.”

“Why are you messing with me?”

Things were a lot simpler back in our fake-constellation days. We’d believe anything together, back then. The time that had passed had cured us of fantasy, though. Even if I spilled out the whole truth, she wouldn’t be convinced. Not unless I carted her to the lighthouse and made her sit down for a cup of tea with Grey. That would happen half past never, by my clock.

I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m just mean, I guess.”

Bailey used me for a chair. Leaning against me, she planted her bony elbows into my back. Echoing my sigh, she rolled her head to look at me. “You seen Seth?”

“I’ve been trying not to.”

Soft laughter bubbled from Bailey. Digging one elbow in, she leaned over to whisper. “He’s pretty miserable.”

Closing my eyes, I sank into the bed. Breathing Bailey’s perfume, still tasting the buttery-salty-sweet of the cookie dough in my mouth. This room was familiar as my own; maybe more than mine. This is where I spilled my secrets, and I was safe enough to let my heart lurch here. The breaking up was ugly; the being together had been good.

There was more of the latter than the former, so I said, “I don’t want him to be.”

“Uh, Denny?”

“I’m not happy, ” I clarified. “I just wish things were different.”

Agreeably, Bailey nodded. She looked to a faraway place, probably one where senior year and two different colleges weren’t looming. She plucked at the seam on my jacket, fingers working without thought. “I liked it better when we had everything planned out.”

Didn’t we all? Sometimes, it seemed like it should be possible to give up now. To reboot back to fourth grade, when we were old enough to have our own minds but young enough that nothing mattered. It seemed like it should be possible, but it wasn’t.

Everything ended: fishing season, summer break, fourth grade . . . There was no comfort in that. So I reached back to pat her awkwardly. Then I picked the one thing that I knew would make her recoil.

“At least nobody cuts the crusts off your tuna fish anymore.”

Spasming, Bailey elbowed me in the gut in her hurry to flail off the bed. “Gah, I hate that! I hate it! If you cut the crusts off, it’s a goo sandwich! It’s just goo, Willa! Augh!”

Yeah, it was inconsequential, but it was nice to know that some things did stay the same.

All around me, the world was a secret.

Every door in Broken Tooth led to a story I was never gonna know. Walking home in the dark, I glanced at houses, familiar addresses. There had been enough block parties and co-op parties and Christmas parties that I knew what plenty of those foyers looked like.

But the lives behind them: mysteries. I felt like a mystery too. As much as Bailey and Seth knew me, they didn’t know me. Likewise me for them. It was the kind of talk I usually walked away from at the bonfires. You got the Jewett twins high and they were regular philosophers.

“What if we’re somebody else’s dream?” Amber asked once.

Ashley’s eyes went wide, and she held out her hands. Like they might suddenly disappear on her or something. Staring at them, she murmured, “What if they wake up?”

Then Nick dropped a SweeTart down Ashley’s top. That was real enough that they stopped worrying about being the spark of an idea in a space alien’s brain. It seemed to me like Levi smoothed that over. I didn’t remember how. He was subtle.

My brother was subtle. And sweet. And starting to go hazy in my memory.

I hadn’t been to his grave since the funeral because he wasn’t there. I’d been in his room a hundred times. Mom had sent me up there to get his leftover laundry, so she could wash it and donate it.

It never got washed. It was still sitting in a basket in our basement.

Levi’s books, I thumbed through, then gave to Seth and Nick. The manga, I gave to the school library because he always complained they wouldn’t buy any of the good stuff. His CDs, I parceled out; some I kept. Posters, I packed, along with his ribbons from school science fairs. The trophy he got for a Washington County talent show. The stack of report cards he kept in his desk, because he was actually proud of his grades.