You Are Here(36)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

“Something’s burning,” Charles called out from the other room, but they both ignored him, looking evenly at each other, unsure exactly how to proceed.

A part of Emma wanted to wait until Annie apologized, until she reached for the phone to get their parents on the line so that Emma could listen as they all cried and wept and asked her forgiveness for keeping something so important from her for so many years. But the bigger part of her was tired from all the wondering, exhausted by the strain of not knowing, worn out by the guesswork and uncertainty, the near constant reminder of an unsettled past.

And so the question she finally asked was the one she’d been carrying with her the longest, since the moment she first discovered the yellowing piece of paper in the bottom of the box in the attic and saw the name so similar to hers.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not that we meant to keep it quiet,” Annie said. “But after a while it just seemed easier not to talk about it, not to upset anyone. It wasn’t that we were pretending it never happened. It was just a way of surviving it.”

Annie was an engineer; her job was to test the weaknesses in buildings, to guard against even the faintest of cracks. But Emma could see now how silence had worked its way through the core of her family like an invasion of termites, burrowing and gnawing until the whole thing was on the verge of crumbling. And yet Annie had stood by along with the rest of them, just watching it happen, just waiting for the inevitable collapse.

Emma shook her head. “But even now?” she asked. “So much time’s gone by, and still nobody …”

“It just became a habit, I guess,” Annie said. “I mean, every once in a while someone would try to bring it up, but everybody else would just kind of shut off. You know how our family is; it’s always been easier for us to stick our noses in a book than deal with what’s really going on. Dad had his poems and Mom had her research, and Patrick and Nate and I had school and jobs and futures to think about. It wasn’t that we forgot. But things like that sometimes get stored away, and there never seems to be a good time to dig them up again. It hurts a lot less to keep them buried. That doesn’t make it right, but it’s just the way it is.”

The kitchen door creaked open, and they both looked up at Charles with red-rimmed eyes. “Oh, sorry,” he said, seeing them huddled on the floor. “I just thought … the popcorn … never mind.” He backpedaled out of the kitchen in a hurry, leaving them alone again.

Emma looked away. She didn’t know whether to be frustrated or upset by all this, whether to launch herself into her sister’s arms or stay pinned against the cabinets, keeping a safe distance between them. She felt simultaneously betrayed and abandoned and grateful and sad, her heart banging hard against her rib cage.

“What happened?” she said, in a voice so small she almost didn’t recognize it.

Annie looked as if she were about to cry. “We don’t know,” she said. “Nothing. Everything. It just happened. One night you were both fine, crying and laughing and wiggling your toes, and then the next morning, all of a sudden, he just … wasn’t.”

Emma wrapped her hand around a chunk of the dog’s soft white fur as if to steady herself, swallowing hard as she watched her sister fight back tears.

Annie’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle, low and gravelly and full of emotion. “You have no idea what it was like just afterward. We were all completely devastated, but Mom especially—she didn’t get out of bed for weeks. And Dad walked around like a robot, talking in this awful monotone voice, like his heart had just gotten up and walked away.” She paused and shook her head. “But you were still there, needing to be fed and changed, not knowing what happened. Patrick and I did the best we could, but I was your age at the time, you know? Nate was supposed to be spending the summer doing research in Maine, but he came home to help out. And after a while, Mom and Dad came back to us too.”

Emma had been staring at her lap, absently petting the dog, but she now ventured a look up, setting her trembling mouth into a straight line.

“It was because of you,” Annie said, her eyes bright. “Because you were there, needing them. Don’t you see? It’s never been about excluding you, or keeping you in the dark. We might be completely scattered and hopeless in the ways that count for most families, but we were there when it mattered. We needed you as much as you needed us. You brought us all back. You saved us.”

When enough time had passed, Charles ventured back into the kitchen to check on them, this time with Peter in tow. Annie and Emma were still seated on the floor, only now they sat side by side, their shoulders touching, their cheeks both wet with tears.

“If this is about who gets the top hat …,” Charles joked, looking from one to the other, and Emma laughed a wet little laugh, coughing and wiping her eyes as they got to their feet.

Annie had a hand wrapped loosely around Emma’s wrist, as if afraid to let go, and as Peter retrieved the blackened bag of popcorn from the microwave and Charles finished pouring the drinks and the dog danced around at their feet, Emma felt both lighter and heavier all at once. She felt like yelling as loud as she could until someone heard her, and she felt like her call had finally been answered. She felt like crying until there were no tears left, like running until there wasn’t another step in her.

She felt scared. She felt relieved. She felt ready to go.

And later that night, once Annie and Charles had gone to sleep and the lights had been turned off and the alarms set for the morning, she tiptoed back out of the guest room and into the living room. Peter was curled beneath a blanket on the leather sofa, the dog stretched out on the floor beside him, both of them already breathing steadily.

When Emma cleared her throat, Peter jerked upright and grabbed for his glasses, which were folded on the coffee table. The dog pricked an ear in her direction but otherwise remained still, his white coat bluish in the shadows from the long windows.

“You okay?” Peter asked, making room for her on the couch. She sank down beside him and pulled her knees to her chest.

“I think so,” she said. “We talked about it. About him.”

Peter nodded. “I figured.”

Though they’d been in the car together for days, just inches apart, she felt somehow closer to him now, his breathing soft and measured, his skin smelling of soap.

“You okay?” he asked again, but she was looking off toward the window, their blurred reflections in the glass.