I’ll Give You the Sun(70)
Author: Jandy Nelson

“You look so upset, Noah.” She’s staring at me through the mirror.

(PORTRAIT, SELF-PORTRAIT: Trapped in a Mirror with Mom)

I’ll tell the Mom in the mirror. It’ll be easier. “I don’t want you to mention to Dad what you saw. Not that you saw anything. Because there was nothing to see. Not that it means anything anyway . . .” Mayday, mayday.

She puts her brush down. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Absolutely okay. It’s your private business. If you want to tell your father what I didn’t see, you will. If what I didn’t see ever actually does mean something, then I encourage you to. He’s not really the way he seems sometimes. You underestimate him. You always have.”

“I underestimate him? Are you serious? He underestimates me.”

“No he doesn’t.” She holds my eyes in the mirror. “He’s just a little afraid of you, always has been.”

“Afraid of me? Sure. Dad’s afraid of me.” What’s she saying?

“He thinks you don’t like him.”

“He doesn’t like me!” Well, he didn’t. Now he does for some reason and I want to keep it this way.

She shakes her head. “You two will figure it out. I know you will.” Maybe we will, maybe we are, but not if she tells him. “You’re very much alike. You both feel things very deeply, too deeply sometimes.” What? “Jude and I have quite a bit of armor on us,” she continues. “It takes a lot to break through it. Not you and Dad.” This is news. I never thought I was anything like Dad. But what she’s really saying is that we’re both wusses. That’s what Brian thinks too. I’m just someone who “draws pictures.” And it burns in my chest that she thinks Jude’s like her and I’m not. How come everything I think about our family keeps changing? How come the teams keep switching? Is this how all families are? And most importantly, how do I know she’s not lying to me about not telling Dad? She just lied about the doctor’s appointment. Why is she meeting him then? And hello? She said: Something happened with Noah last night.

She absolutely is going to tell him. That’s why they’re going to The Wooden Bird. I can’t trust her anymore.

She walks over to her closet. “We can talk more about this later, but I really do have to get ready. My doctor’s appointment’s in less than an hour.” Pinocchio! Pants on Fire!

As I turn to leave, she says, “Everything’s going to be okay, Noah. Don’t worry.”

“You know what?” I say, bunching my fingers into fists. “I really wish you’d stop saying that, Mom.”

Of course I’m going to follow her. When I hear the car back out of the driveway, I make a run for it. On the trails, I can get to The Wooden Bird almost as fast as she can by car.

• • •

No one knows who made The Wooden Bird. The artist carved it out of a humongous redwood stump, wooden feather by wooden feather. It must’ve taken years, ten or twenty even. It’s huge and each feather is unique. Now there’s a trail to it from the road and a bench by it that overlooks the ocean, but when the artist carved it, there was none of that. He was like Jude, doing it because he liked to, not really caring if anyone ever saw it. Or maybe he did care and liked the idea of strangers stumbling on it and wondering.

I’m hidden in the brush, yards away from Mom, who’s sitting on the bench staring out at the sea. The sun’s broken a hole in the fog and light’s reeling around in the trees. It’s going to be hot, one of those weird warm winter days. Dad’s not here yet. I close my eyes, find Brian; he’s everywhere inside me now, always swimming up my body. How can he shut this off? Will he change his mind? I’m reaching into my pocket for the rock when I hear footsteps.

I open my eyes expecting to see Dad; instead there’s a strange man strolling down the trail. He stops at the tree line and stares at my mother, who doesn’t seem to sense his presence at all. I pick up a stick. Is he a psycho? Then he turns his head slightly and I recognize him—that face, its geographic scale. It’s the artist from Day Street. Here! I drop my sword, relieved. He’s probably making a sculpture of her in his head, like I do with paintings. Is he out walking, I’m wondering, when all of a sudden, the sky comes crashing down in shards because my mother has flown to her feet, dashed over to him, and fallen into his open arms. I feel myself ignite.

I shake my head. Oh, it’s not Mom, of course, that’s it. The barking maniac sculptor has a wife who looks like my mother.

But it is her in his arms. I know my own mother.

What. Is. Going. On?

What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?

Things start coming together. Fast. Why she was in front of his studio that day, her kicking Dad out, her phone conversations (his phone conversation! Hurry, my darling), her happiness, her unhappiness, her spaciness, her cooking and baking and stopping at green lights, her salsa dancing, her bangles and circus clothes! Everything clicking madly into place. Them, there, so clearly together.

The howling in my head is so loud I can’t believe they can’t hear it.

She’s having an affair. She’s cheating on Dad. She’s a two-timer. A toilet-licking asshat liar. Mom! How could this not have occurred to me? But it didn’t occur to me exactly because she’s Mom. My mother would never do anything like this. She brings donuts—the best donuts I ever tasted—for the toll collectors. She doesn’t have affairs.

Does Dad even know?

Affair. I whisper it aloud to the trees, but they’ve all run away. I know it’s my father she’s betraying, but it feels like it’s me too. And Jude. And every single day of our lives.

(FAMILY PORTRAIT: And Then We All Blew Away)

They’re kissing now and I’m watching and can’t stop watching. I’ve never seen her and Dad kiss like this. Parents aren’t allowed to kiss like this! Now Mom’s taken his hand and is leading him to the edge of the cliff. She looks so happy and it cuts into me. I have no idea who this lady is spinning around in this stranger’s arms, spinning and spinning, like they’re in some lame movie until they lose their footing and fall to the ground.

(PORTRAIT: Mother in Blinding Color)

What did she say this morning? It takes a lot to break through her armor. This man has broken through her armor.

I pick up the stick. I need to defend my father. I need to fight this asshat artist. I should throw a meteorite at his head. I should shove him off the cliff. Because my poor artichoke of a father doesn’t have a chance. And he knows it. I understand now that what is shrinking him, what is turning the air around him that awful gray, is defeat.