I’ll Give You the Sun(37)
Author: Jandy Nelson

To bring joy back to a grieving family, sprinkle three tablespoons of crushed eggshells over every meal

Dad seems to always appear like this now too, without the foreshadowing of say, footsteps? My eyes migrate to his shoes, which are indeed on his feet, which are indeed on the ground and pointing in the right direction—good. Well, you start to wonder who’s the specter in the family. You start to wonder why your dead parent is more present and accounted for than the living one. Most of the time, I only know Dad’s home because I hear a toilet flush or the TV turn on. He never listens to jazz or swims anymore. He mostly just stares off with a faraway perplexed look on his face, like he’s trying to work through an impenetrable mathematical equation.

And he goes for walks.

The walking started a day after the funeral when all Mom’s friends and colleagues still filled the house. “Going for a walk,” he’d said to me, bowing out the back door, leaving me (Noah was nowhere to be found), and not returning home until after everyone had left. The next day was the same: “Going for a walk,” and so were the days and weeks and months and years that followed, with everyone always telling me they saw my dad up on Old Mine Road, which is fifteen miles from here, or at Bandit Beach, which is even farther. I imagine him getting hit by cars, washed away by rogue waves, attacked by mountain lions. I imagine him not coming back. I used to ambush him on his way out, asking if I could walk with him, to which he’d reply, “Just need some time to think, honey.”

While he’s thinking, I wait for the phone to ring with the news that there’s been an accident.

That’s what they tell you: There’s been an accident.

Mom was on her way to see Dad when it happened. They’d been separated for about a month and he was staying at a hotel. She told Noah before she left that afternoon that she was going to ask Dad to come home so we could be a family again.

But she died instead.

To lighten the mood in my head, I ask, “Dad, isn’t there a disease where the flesh calcifies until the poor afflicted person is trapped within their own body like it’s a stone prison? I’m pretty sure I read about it in one of your journals.”

He and Noah share one of their “glances” at my expense. Oh Clark Gable, groan.

Dad says, “It’s called FOP and it’s extremely rare, Jude. Extremely, extremely rare.”

“Oh, I don’t think I have it or anything.” Not literally, anyway. I don’t share that I think the three of us all might have it metaphorically. Our real selves buried so deep in these imposter ones. Dad’s medical journals can be just as illuminating as Grandma’s bible.

“Where the hell is Ralph? Where the hell is Ralph?” And a moment of family bonding ensues! We all roll the eyes in unison with dramatic Grandma Sweetwine flair. But then Dad’s forehead creases. “Honey, is there a reason why there’s a very large onion in your pocket?”

I look down at my illness deflector yawning open my sweatshirt pocket. I’d forgotten about it. Did the English guy see it too? Oh dear.

Dad says, “Jude, you really—” But what I’m certain is to be another artichoke lecture about my bible-thumping tendencies or my long-distance relationship with Grandma (he doesn’t know about Mom) is cut short because he’s been shot with a stun gun.

“Dad?” His face has gone pale—well, paler. “Dad?” I repeat, following his distraught gaze to the computer screen. Is it Family of Mourners? It was my favorite of the Guillermo Garcia works I saw, very upsetting, though. Three massive grief-stricken rock-giants who reminded me of us, the way Dad, Noah, and I must’ve looked standing over Mom’s grave as if we might topple in after her. It must remind Dad too.

I look at Noah and find him in the same condition, also staring intently at the screen. The padlock is gone. A red glow of emotion has taken over his face and neck, even his hands. This is promising. He’s actually reacting to art.

“I know,” I say to both of them. “Incredible work, right?”

Neither of them responds. I’m not sure if either of them even heard me.

Then Dad says brusquely, “Going for a walk,” and Noah says equally brusquely, “My friends,” and they’re gone.

And I’m the only bat in this belfry?

The thing is: I know I’ve slipped. I see my buttons popping off and flying in all directions on a daily basis. What worries me about Dad and Noah is that they seem to think they’re okay.

I go to the window, open it, and in come the eerie moans and caws of the loons, the thunder of the winter waves, stellar waves, I see. For a moment I’m back on my board, busting through the break zone, cold briny air in my lungs—except then, I’m dragging Noah in to shore and it’s again that day two years ago when he almost drowned and the weight of him is pulling us both under with each stroke—no.

No.

I close the window, yank down the shade.

If one twin is cut, the other will bleed

Later that night when I get on the computer to learn more about Guillermo Garcia, I find that the bookmarks I saved have been deleted.

The Family of Mourners screensaver has been changed to a single purple tulip.

When I question Noah about it, he says he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but I don’t believe him.

• • •

Noah’s party’s raging all around me. Dad’s off at his parasite conference for the week. Christmas was a bust. And I just made an early New Year’s resolution, no, it’s a New Year’s revolution, and this is it: to return to Guillermo Garcia’s studio tonight and ask him to mentor me. So far since winter break began, I’ve chickened out. Because what if he says no? What if he says yes? What if he bludgeons me with a chisel? What if the English guy is there? What if he isn’t? What if he bludgeons me with a chisel? What if my mother breaks stone as easily as clay? What if this rash on my arm is leprosy?

Etc.

I put all such questions into The Oracle a moment ago and the results were conclusive. No time like the present, it was decided, egged on by the fact that people from Noah’s party—Zephyr included—kept knocking on my door, which was locked with a dresser in front of it. So out the window I went, sweeping the twelve sand-dollar birds I keep on the sill into my sweatshirt pocket. They’re not as lucky as four-leaf clovers or even red sea glass, but they’ll have to do.

I follow the yellow reflectors in the middle of the road down the hill, listening for cars and serial killers. It’s another white-out. It’s way spooky. And this is a really bad idea. But I’m committed to it now, so I start to run through the cold wet nothingness and pray to Clark Gable that Guillermo Garcia is just a regular sort of maniac and not a girl-murdering one and try not to wonder if the English guy will be there. Try not to think about his different-colored eyes and the intensity that crackled off him and how familiar he looked and how he called me a fallen angel and said, “You’re her,” and before too long all that not-thinking has gotten me to the studio door and light is pouring out from beneath it.