Tiffany McDaniel - The Summer That Melted Everything

I went toward the sound and the dark kitchen, where I found Sal crawling on his hands and knees across the linoleum. All around him were circles of yellow. I saw the emptied mustard bottles piled on top of the table.

As he crawled, he slammed his hand down onto each circle he came upon, causing the mustard to pop and splatter.

“Whatcha doin’, Sal?” I quietly asked.

“Popping all the yellow balloons,” he answered without stopping. “All the yellow balloons in the world so no more will get caught in trees. And no more girls will die because of it.”

“You know it wasn’t your fault, Sal.”

“Wasn’t it?” Pop and splatter . “I stepped on the branch.”

“No, you didn’t.”

What more could I do but lie. What more could I give him but the shortest way to the light.

“I was watchin’ you, and you didn’t even touch that branch. It fell on its own, Sal. Sometimes branches just do that.”

He slapped his hand down on the circle before him, the mustard splashing onto his face. He turned to me with yellow freckles.

“Go to bed, Fielding. You’ve got the funeral in the morning.”

* * *

By morning, the only thing remaining of the mustard balloons were the empty bottles in the trash can. The linoleum smelled of Pine-Sol. The mop still wet in the bucket. Sal didn’t leave the kitchen all night.

I was already in my black suit when Dad walked into my room, saying it was time to get up and go.

“How’s it fit?” he asked of the suit. He’d been the one to buy it for the occasion.

“Fine.” My feet shifted under the weight of it.

“You look … grown.” He felt his tucked tie. “Where’s yours?”

I pointed to the black tie draped over the back of my desk chair. “I didn’t know how to put it on.”

He went over and picked it up.

“Dad?” Grand was in the doorway. “The sheriff’s downstairs. He wants you.”

“Here.” Dad handed Grand the tie. “Help your brother with this.”

Long after he heard Dad go down the steps, Grand stayed leaned into the doorframe, the tie loose in his hand.

“You don’t know how to put it on?”

I shook my lowered head.

The floor creaked under his steps, and I closed my eyes in broken joy as I felt his fingers come gently under my collar. They lightly brushed my neck, and though his skin was hot, I felt the cold disaster of the wound we called being brothers.

“Inside out. Cross. Over and under.” His hands followed his instructions. “Are you listenin’, little man?”

I nodded.

“Pull. Tighten. Take this end here and another pull. Behind this loop. Bring it through the knot. Like this. Then just tighten. Gentle, though. There you have it.”

His hands stayed on the knot before following the tie down to straighten it.

“Fielding, look at me.”

I slowly raised my eyes, but could get no further than his chin.

“What?” Was that my voice that had come out so thin, so vanished in its presence?

He sighed and tilted his chin up, leaving me his neck, glistening with small drops of sweat. “Nothin’.”

The room echoed of this as he left. I could hear him softly close his door. He wouldn’t be going to the funeral. Neither would Mom, for the obvious reason.

I looked down at my tie and picked up its end, smelling my brother. I laid my lips against the silk and said what I couldn’t say to him. I love you.

I straightened it back and went downstairs. The sheriff was gone, and Dad was asking if I was ready. I nodded before following him out to the freshly washed Lincoln.

“What’d the sheriff want, Dad?”

“To make sure we wouldn’t be taking Sal along with us to the funeral. I told him we already sat him down and explained to him why it wouldn’t be wise for him to go.”

“Dad? I don’t know if I wanna go.”

“She was your friend, wasn’t she?”

“She was Sal’s. I was just … someone she knew.”

“Look, son, I wish he could go as much as you. As much as him. But emotions are very high at the moment. No one wants a scene at a funeral. Do we?”

Mom watched us from the window as we drove away. The handkerchief she gave me, folded in my pocket.

“By the way, do you know who used all the mustard?” Dad turned the car’s air conditioner on high. “Your mother was upset. Someone’s used it all. She puts it on her burns.”

“What burns?”

“Burns she hasn’t gotten yet. If she touches a hot pan handle or something like that. Just kitchen burns. Yellow mustard takes the sting out.”

“Dad, look.” I pointed to the field, where Sal was running toward the woods. “Stop the car.”

“The funeral, Fielding.” His hands were sweating on the steering wheel.

“Please, Dad, stop. I wanna see where he’s goin’. I’ll meet ya at the cemetery.”

“Fielding—”

“Dad … I just want to see for myself.”

He understood those words and stopped the car, looking straight ahead as I jumped out, slamming the door maybe too hard.

As I followed Sal, I could’ve been as loud as I wanted. I could’ve screamed his name and threw sticks at his back. He wouldn’t have noticed. He was the boy running toward the something he had to do, and everything else was lost to that cause.

When we got to the pasture, the horses seemed to be in the same spot they were in that night we first saw them. They looked at Sal and remembered him. They even seemed to ask where the girl was.

Did they see me?

One did. The black one with the white on its forehead. It kept eyes on me as I fell back behind a tree at the edge of the pasture and watched Sal walk out to the fence. He gathered the candles still on the posts and with them fell down onto the ground, where he held all thirteen candles close to his chest.

I couldn’t hear him from where I was and yet didn’t I know what he was saying? Something like: You were my favorite thing, and in imagination your death will not exist. It’s all as if from now on. As if you are not gone. You will be the girl beside me. Never more than a heartbeat length away. The woman who will be the hill of my bed. A climb to the top and such views to make little things of. Little us that will be part you and part me and whole in those two things. As if you are not gone and will be with me to get the wrinkles, the white hair, the spine shaped like a rocking chair. As if you are not gone and so will have the love of going in my arms, warm and with me. Yes, you are my favorite thing. You always will be.

He slowly laid the candles down while he dug a hole with his hands. It was a frantic tearing of the ground. Sometimes I close my eyes and see his body rocking toward that hole, scooping dirt, shoving it up underneath his fingernails. Over and over again, that grave digging has never passed for me.

In this hole, he placed the candles. The burying of them was a shove away, a short task for a life cut short. As he sat there, patting the dirt, I reached into my suit jacket and took the handkerchief out of the pocket. I rolled it like a long white snake I pulled through my fingers as I sat there, staring out at the grave between him and me.

I was the first to leave. I knew he wouldn’t for longer still. I left the handkerchief rolled on the ground. I thought maybe it might slither its way out to him.

Hours passed by the time I got home. Dad was already returned from the funeral. He was still in his suit, the jacket pinned back by his hands on his hips.

“Fielding, where were you?” He was sweating even more. God, why hadn’t he taken that black suit off yet?

“Fielding, answer me.”

His voice fell behind me as I went up the steps.