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“Okay,” Lena said. She didn’t really want to leave anyway. She would stay and water the plants if that were her only excuse.
Annik left supplies out on a free easel. It was like leaving drugs out for an addict. It had been Lena’s easel; that’s why it was free. At first Lena just stood in the back of class and watched people draw. Then her fingers started itching for a piece of charcoal. She ambled over to the easel, just drawing with her eyes at first. She hesitated. Then she picked up the charcoal and she was lost until the bell rang.
Annik came over. “That’s lovely,” she said, studying the three poses of Andrew laid out on the sheet. “Do you want to go outside and talk for a minute?”
“Okay.” Lena expected they’d talk in the hallway, but Annik led her down the hall, up a ramp, and out into the courtyard. Annik rolled up to a bench, and Lena sat down on it. The dogwood trees rustled and a small fountain gushed appealingly in the middle. Various sculptures and found-object works, one involving a stack of car tires, decorated the perimeter.
“Are you comfortable drawing Andrew?” she asked. Annik’s hair was a beautiful red, made only more so by the sunlight. There was orange and gold and chestnut and even pink in it. Annik was fairly young, Lena realized, probably in her late twenties, and her face was delicate and pretty. Lena wondered, absently, if there was a man who loved her.
“Yes,” Lena said. “I felt a little awkward the first day, but then it went away. I don’t think about it anymore.”
“That’s what I thought,” Annik said. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen at the end of the summer.”
Annik nodded. “Can I tell you what I think?”
Lena nodded.
“I think you should take the class.”
“I think I should too. I wish my dad felt that way.”
Annik put her hands on her wheels like she was getting ready to roll away.
Lena wondered, as she had many times before, what had happened to Annik that made her need a wheelchair. Had she always been in a chair or had she grown up on her legs like a regular kid? Had she had an accident or a disease? Lena wondered what of Annik’s worked and what didn’t. Could she have a baby if she wanted to?
Though Lena wanted to know, she didn’t dare ask. She shied away from the intensity that might come from asking such a question. Intimacy came faster when a person wore their pain and poor luck for all to see. And yet, not asking felt like an act of neglect or cowardice. It kept a distance between them that Lena regretted.
Annik rolled back and forth a little, but she didn’t go anywhere just yet. “You do what you need to do,” she said.
Lena wasn’t sure whether this meant take the class or listen to your father, but she had a pretty strong suspicion it was the former.
“I’m not sure how I’d pay for it, for one thing,” Lena mused.
“I’m allowed a second monitor,” Annik said. “You’d need to help set up and clean up every day, including mopping. But you’d get free tuition.”
“I’ll do it,” Lena said instantly, not aware of making the decision.
Annik smiled openly. “I’m so glad.”
“I’m not sure what I’m going to tell my dad,” Lena murmured, half to herself.
“Tell him the truth,” Annik said.
Lena shrugged, knowing that this was the piece of Annik’s advice she was not going to take.
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.
—Oscar Wilde
Tibby sat frozen on a chair in the den watching Nicky watch cartoons. Her thoughts came together and broke apart, occasionally punctured by the sadism of Tom and Jerry. Her whole body hurt; every bone ached when her mind flashed on Katherine. She let herself think of Katherine for only a second at a time and then she pulled away, because it hurt too much.
Nicky didn’t know anything yet. They didn’t want to scare him. Whereas Tibby was good and scared, wanting desperately for the phone to ring, but only if it was good news.
Tibby was not raised religious. For the early part of her childhood, her parents were devout atheists, spewing Marx’s “opiate of the masses” rhetoric. Nowadays Tibby wasn’t sure what they believed. They didn’t talk about it anymore.
But Tibby was not them. As far as Tibby was concerned, you couldn’t have someone you loved, really loved, die and not believe in some kind of god. It was the only way to look at it. And besides, Bailey herself—as she had lived, not as she had died—had been proof that somebody or something existed beyond the realm of rational things.
And when Tibby thought of Bailey, it made sense, because a god who was smart enough to want Bailey back as soon as possible was also smart enough to see the beauty of Katherine. Katherine was too good for the world Tibby lived in. Tibby belonged there just fine, but not Katherine. Katherine was brave and generous and passionate. If she weren’t on God’s dance card, then who would be? Tibby would stand in the corner of heaven, if she ever made it there, but Katherine, like Bailey, would be doing the polka or the bunny hop or maybe the bus stop with God.
Please don’t take her yet, Tibby implored. She’s only three and we love her too much to survive without her.
Tibby was asking selfishly. Because she knew it was her fault. She had opened a window that was always shut. Why had she done that? She knew Katherine wanted to climb the apple tree. She knew that was how Katherine fell out the window. It wasn’t on purpose. Please, God, believe that.
It was an accident. It was horrible, but not nearly as horrible as the ways in which Tibby had failed her little sister on purpose. Tibby was jealous and resentful. She hurt Katherine’s feelings on the pretense that small kids didn’t have actual feelings. And yet Tibby knew in her heart they did—possibly the deepest feelings of all.
If Tibby had loved Katherine as she deserved, maybe she wouldn’t have fallen out the window. If Tibby had paid attention to her and given her a boost to the branch of the apple tree, then Katherine wouldn’t have been climbing out anybody’s window. If Tibby hadn’t been so preoccupied with Brian, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.
Love was the best padding anybody could have. And though irrepressible Katherine deserved it a million times over, Tibby hadn’t given it.
I do love her, God. I love her so much. Tibby just wanted a chance to do better.
The phone rang and Tibby threw herself on top of it.
“Tibby?”
It was her dad. She ran the phone into the kitchen so Nicky wouldn’t hear. “Dad?” Her body was shaking.
“Honey, she’s doing better. The doctors say she’s going to be okay.”
Tibby gave herself full permission to cry now. She wept and sobbed and heaved and shook. Her dad was doing similar things on his end.
“Can I come?” she asked.
“She’s still getting X-rays. Her skull is fractured, which is the most serious thing. She also broke her wrist and her collarbone. We’re hoping that’s the extent of it. She’s talking and alert now, but I’d rather you stay home with Nicky for a couple more hours. Bring him over around six when things settle down here, okay?”
“Okay. But I want—I want to see her so bad, Daddy….” Tibby’s voice got swallowed up in tears.
“I know, honey. You will.”
“Tib, it’s me, Carma. We’ve been terrified all day. Lenny made me stop calling your house, and then she called five more times. I’m so glad K’s gonna be okay. I’m thinking about you. Please call when you get a second. I love you.” Beeep.
“Tibby! It’s Bee! God, Lena called me here to tell me about Katherine. I’m still shaking. She’s going to get better so fast, though. I know it. Call me? Love you.” Beeeep.
“Tib, sorry I kept calling before. It’s Lenny. I just couldn’t stand waiting. I’m so glad the news is good. I’ll come visit tomorrow, okay? Hang in there. We love you.” Beeeep.
“And I saw it really close, so I wanted to get
it.” Katherine was propped up on pillows in her hospital bed, slightly woozy from medication but still eager to recount her adventure to Tibby and Nicky, who were both sitting cross-legged on the foot of her bed.
Tibby nodded eagerly, trying not to show her agony at each word of the retelling. Her heart ached at the sight of Katherine’s bruised, bandaged head, her cast, her sling and multiple cuts and scrapes. It was made almost more heartrending by the fact that Katherine didn’t seem to notice.
