Christopher Hebert - Angels of Detroit

The mistake Darius had made was assuming everything with Sylvia would always come that easily.

He’d tried to change, and he’d failed. Ever since the day he’d seen what was in Michael Boni’s garage, Darius hadn’t been able to go a single day without getting tangled in Violet’s limbs. Nothing had worked out like he’d planned. He’d wanted to be a better person. Instead, he’d just made things worse.

In less than an hour, Sylvia would be waking up. If he wasn’t there when it happened, he’d miss his chance to see her. Another day would pass in which he wouldn’t get to curl up beside her, wouldn’t feel the warmth at the back of her knees. And then Darius found his mind wandering up from Sylvia’s knees to warmth at higher points on Violet, places less subtle but agonizingly unforgettable, no matter how hard he tried to forget them.

“Where are you going?” Michael Boni said as Darius rose from the table.

“Home.”

April was sliding toward the end of the bench, making way.

“You can’t leave,” Michael Boni said.

But of course he could. It was just a matter of will, of following through. And Darius had been practicing. Not for this moment in particular, but it seemed to him now the skill was transferable. If he could just squeeze out of the booth and then allow his feet to carry him out of the restaurant, he thought, he’d be okay. He’d go home, wake Sylvia up, tell her what he’d done. She might forgive him; she might not. Either way, it would be over.

“You’re a fucking coward,” Michael Boni said as Darius reached the door. “I always knew it.”

“I’m going, too,” April said.

McGee’s frown sharpened. “What do you mean?”

April shifted in her seat, slid the phone back into her pocket. “I’m going home.”

“You just got here,” McGee said. “You came all this way.”

“Let her go,” Michael Boni said. “We don’t need them.”

April rose, and McGee did, too.

April was so much taller, she had to bend low, scooping her friend in her arms, almost like a child. “I’m glad I came.”

“I need your help.” McGee’s voice was muffled in April’s shoulder.

“No, you don’t. You never really have.”

McGee said, “I told my parents you’re coming.”

“It’s you they want to see, not me.”

“I can’t do it alone.”

April shook her head, smiling sadly. “They’re your parents.”

“What do I say?”

“Tell them the truth.”

McGee stepped back, laughing without a trace of humor.

“If you’re so sure you’re doing the right thing,” April said, “tell them the truth.”

McGee kept drifting backward, collapsing against the corner of the booth. “Everyone’s gone.”

Were those tears in her eyes?

“You can go, too,” April said. “There’s nothing stopping you.”

“Everything we ever did was a failure.”

“Go to Portland,” April said softly. “Find Myles.”

McGee looked almost disappointed. “Portland doesn’t need me.”

April looked as if she were about to say something more, but even from across the room, Darius could see it wouldn’t do any good.

“Please be careful,” April said, folding McGee one last time in her arms. And then she was coming toward him, and Darius stepped aside, holding open the door.

They are asleep.

At this hour, as if they might be doing something else.

How little a tree changes, even over years.

Always one dog barks and then another.

Never alone.

And did I leave footprints across the lawn?

Mother, father.

And yet my tree, still.

Mom, Dad.

Otherwise, how incredibly silent.

Cold.

A winter carnival, a carny, and Myles picking his prize, a fluorescent green dog.

The random things one thinks of at the randomest times.

And what did I expect to find?

I should have brought another sweater.

Maybe to find the curtains drawn, something, anything, blocking the view.

Music, they say, for some reason being a trigger for memory.

Instead, an open window, the moon like a faint spotlight on their bed.

Familiar smells and tastes, too.

If I trust my memory.

As if I had anything else to trust.

The things one finds oneself wondering.

Knots and limbs, stabbing through the seat of my pants.

How something so large must have appeared to someone so small.

Thirty, forty feet tall to a girl two, three times shorter than the lowest branches.

Someone , as if I weren’t thinking of myself.

And Myles grinning in the frigid air, as if that green dog were the answer.

To think I used to climb up here in shorts.

What was the question?

Nothing between me and them now but a window screen, a few branches and leaves.

Certain sensations you can never return to, never experience again.

Comfort, to a child, an insignificant thing.

If you’re not careful up there, darling, you’ll break your etc. etc. Quote unquote.

What did Myles think it meant, the dog’s green fur, so bright it hurt to look?

The temptation to tweet and caw and wake them up.

The afternoon Mother brought home the mechanic, the song that was playing on her car stereo.

When you sit up in the tree staring, we wonder what you see. Quote unquote.

The ache in my back.

When we got back from Seattle, silently stuffing that green dog in the bottom of my duffel bag.

Like the world is a movie playing inside your head. Quote unquote.

And Myles never knowing I kept it.

In the driveway the mechanic raising the hood, and Mother leaving the engine running, the radio playing.

Before the tree itself, before I could climb, my fascination with the seedcases covering the ground.

And what was the name of that girl down the street who remembered events by the outfits she’d been wearing?

For me the place of memory always outdoors.

A summer day with the car stereo playing, and everything a little too bright, the sun, the blue and whites of the sky.

And in my head.

Propellers, were they called, the way they spun and twisted to the ground?

Wings?

No expectation of being able to see them at all.

The same duffel bag where I kept the poems Myles wrote, all those slanting, skidding rhymes.

Darling, what do you mean you don’t want a tree house? Quote unquote.

Even after Mother and the mechanic went in the house together, the engine, the radio, still going.

A chorus repeating baby, baby .

Along with the CD mixes of songs Myles thought I’d like.

The girl down the street remembered what everyone else was wearing, too.

The mechanic Dad said he didn’t trust.

Seedcases the first things I ever dissected.

A summer day, the engine running, and Mother walking into the bedroom and closing the blinds.

Our daughter the squirrel tamer. Quote unquote.

As if I would ever tame anything.

And it was the middle of the afternoon.

The brittle hulls, and inside the case the seed itself, slightly wet and bitter.

The yellow shorts the neighbor girl wore the day Dad ran over her dog.

His brown suit, her dead dog.

Dad rolls onto his other side, moonlit blanket rippling like a wave.

And where was I supposed to be that summer day?

A friend’s?

A neighbor’s?

When I was ten, I vowed I would never again cut my hair.

Was I supposed to be anywhere?

Along with the necklace Myles gave me for our first anniversary, a pendant of tarnished brass watch gears — which I told him I lost.

In her sleep, Mother scratches her cheek.

And for some reason they decided I should go to music camp.