Chapter Eight
Pal’s spirits returned moments after Bear kicked him that night in the bedroom I had shared with Amir, but he was never as physically strong again. By the time I was fourteen and Pal nine, he had the stiff gait of an older dog. He was hesitant to follow Amir and me down to the beach, a place he had once loved as much as I did. The rocky path along the cliff bothered his old injury, as did the shell-strewn sand. Amir and I had learned to ask Pal to wait at the chicken coop while we visited the cove. There he would busy himself with protecting the hens—a grave insult that infuriated our rooster, Crosby, who believed himself the only protector the hens required.
Late one sunny morning, we left Pal at the coop and walked down to the beach. Two knives glinted in the basket that hung from my fist. Rei had recently given us a bottle of sesame oil and told us that it was delicious drizzled over cooked seaweed. As we walked down the path that cut into the cliff, I was happy to see that the rocks exposed by the retreating tide were covered with the deep-red fronds of grapestone.
We kicked off our shoes at the bottom of the path and made our way out to where the warm sand became wet and cold below our feet. Our knives cut easily through the gleaming tongues of seaweed. It was the sort of glorious, sun-soaked day that demanded I still my knife every few minutes and simply look around. From the top of the bluff you could see the curve of cliffs for miles in either direction, but down at the water’s edge the only cliffs visible were the arms of the cove that stretched out on either side of us, carved by the pounding of the ocean so that they rose in a tenuous golden arc toward the sky. My father used to tell me that each touch from the sea, even one as soft as an exhaled breath, forever changed not only the land, but the shape of the sea itself.True love’s embrace,my father called it.Ever-changing. Eternal.
When our basket was full, we stretched out on the warm, dry sand. Amir had taken off his shirt while we had worked. His brown shoulders were broad now but still bony, his torso narrow but strong. I knew his body as well as he knew mine. I was aware of how his body had changed, just as I knew he was aware of my own changes—namely, my breasts, which I caught his gaze lingering on from time to time. I knew the white flecks on his hands were nicks from his whittling knife. And I knew the trail of bruises on his upper arm were the exact thickness of Bear’s fingers. He had grabbed Amir the night before, pulling him up from his seat and then shoving him to the ground.
You’re disgusting,Bear had said, spitting and thankfully missing Amir.Dad would be disgusted by the two of you.
We had not been doing anything more than sitting on the steps of the back porch together. I was reading Mary Shelley’sFrankensteinand Amir was bent over his geometry workbook. Still, even as I read, I felt acutely aware of every movement Amir made, no matter how small. Heat spread across my skin each time a part of his body grazed a part of mine. Our feelings for each other were changing along with our bodies. There were moments when he would look up from his notebook and smile almost shyly at me, and the question in his chocolate, black-rimmed eyes would make me aware of an answer that was buried deep within me.
We weren’t smiling at each other when Bear stumbled out of the house. We were just sitting with our books on our laps. But I had recently begun to suspect that what existed between Amir and I was something the world could sense if not entirely believe, like the mysterious blur of a falling star in the corner of your eye. It turned out I was right.
Later, I wondered if Bear threw Amir to the ground at that moment because he saw that Amir did not have his knife in his hand. Perhaps my brother sensed the depths of anger quietly roiling within Amir, the untold lengths he would go to protect his place at Horseshoe Cliff.
You’re disgusting. Dad would be disgusted by the two of you.
It had been years since I had cried; Bear had broken me of the habit. But that night I came as close to tears as I had in a long time. I felt my brother’s words poisoning my feelings for Amir. I hated Bear for making me feel ashamed.
What if,I wondered for the first time,the way I feel aboutAmir is less like a shooting star, bright with drama, and more like the strange glow of a distant planet, foreign and incomprehensible, a place where we are not meant to live?
I had tossed from side to side in my bed that night. We slept in separate rooms now—Bear had moved to my father’s room, the biggest of the three, and Amir slept in Bear’s old room. When at last I fell asleep, I dreamed of a red bird that peered down at me with a dry eye before turning and flying away.
ON THE BEACH,I gently touched the bruises on Amir’s arm. He looked down at my hand and didn’t speak. When I touched his arm, I felt a tremor run through me. I had never been kissed, but I wondered if this was a more intimate gesture, allowing someone to be so close that they touched your pain, shared it.
“We could run away,” I said. “Hitchhike to San Francisco.”
Amir’s gaze shifted to the horizon. “I don’t want to leave.”
I sighed. We had had this conversation so many times. “Don’t you want to get away from him?”
“This is our home. He can’t chase us from it.”
“He’s not chasing us if we’re running toward something. I love it here as much as you do. But there’s so much more I want to experience. You’ve lived in India and New York. Rei lived in Japan. The farthest I’ve been is Osha. We could go anywhere together. There’s no one to stop us.”
“With what money? Where would we stay?”
“My father came to San Francisco from Nebraska with no plans and next to nothing in his wallet. My mother did the same from New York. We’ll figure it out. You can sell yourcarvings. I can...” I thought about this. What could I do? I wasn’t so naive as to believe that there was a market for my stories. After writing, my next best skill was that I was a quick reader. My shoulders sank. “I don’t know. I don’t know! But I want to see more thanthis.” I gestured toward the ocean. Even as I said those words, my fickleness made me feel contrite. Horseshoe Cliff was my home and I loved it. Was I wrong to feel as I did?
Right then, as we both looked out at the ocean, a humpback whale rose from the water, its mouth gaping as it breached. It was close enough that we could see its teeth sparkling below the seawater that churned and poured from its mouth. And then it was gone. And then it returned. For nearly an hour we watched in silent awe as the whale surfaced and disappeared, surfaced and disappeared, until it had eaten its fill and moved on from our little cove.
AT THE TOPof the cliff path, when the noise of the waves faded, high-pitched yelping filled the air. I ran, the basket of seaweed banging against my leg. At the edge of the horse pasture, a coyote looked over his shoulder at me before loping away. The chickens in the coop darted and squawked. Feathers and dust filled the air. In front of the coop, Pal staggered and sunk onto a swath of dirt that was dark with blood and fur. His yelping abruptly quieted.
I dropped to the ground and pulled him onto my lap. “Oh, Pal.” His blood poured out of his wounds in a dark, warm rush, drenching my clothes. He closed his eyes. The weight ofhis body was too heavy, as though the spirit that had always lightened it had already left.
Amir crouched beside us and stroked Pal’s head with a shaking hand. “Pal,” he murmured. “Sweet, brave Pal. We’re here.”
I curled my body over Pal’s and felt his tongue lick my cheek. I pressed my face against his neck and sobbed, whispering his name over and over. “You did it, Pal,” I said. “You kept the chickens safe. What a good boy.” Amir’s arm was around me, his cheek against my shoulder, his tears falling with mine. After a length of time I would never know, Pal sighed and became still in my arms.
I lifted my head and howled with grief and rage.
When I finally looked around, the chickens were quiet, as though dazed. Amir wiped his eyes.
“I’ll get a blanket,” he said, standing slowly.
I kept Pal on my lap, my head hanging, until Amir returned. Then we wrapped him in the blanket. Amir handed me the shovel he had also brought from the shed and hoisted Pal into his arms.
