I’ll Give You the Sun(74)
Author: Jandy Nelson

Guillermo greets me in the mailroom with safety goggles on his head. There’s nothing in his expression to indicate he’s recently taken a circular saw to Oscar. He does look different, though. His black hair’s powdered with dust like Ben Franklin. And a large paisley scarf, also dusted with white powder, is wrapped a few times around his neck. Has he been carving? I glance up at the loft—no sign of Oscar. He must’ve left. Not surprising. Guillermo sure wasn’t holding back on the tough love. I can’t even remember the last time Dad went at Noah or me like that. I can’t remember the last time Dad was really a dad.

“I was afraid we scare you away,” Guillermo says, examining me a little too closely. The examining and the “we” make me wonder what Oscar might’ve told him. And that makes me wonder if what I overheard before might’ve had something to do with me. “Oscore say you leave very upset yesterday.”

I shrug, feeling heat in my face. “It’s not like I wasn’t warned.”

He nods. “If only the heart listen to reason, right?” He puts an arm around me. “C’mon, what is bad for the heart is good for art. The terrible irony of our lives as artists.” Our lives as artists. I smile at him and he squeezes my shoulder the way I’ve seen him squeeze Oscar’s, and instantly, my mood brightens. How did I ever find this guy? How did I get so lucky?

When I pass the stone angel, I reach out my hand and touch hers.

“The rocks call me back,” he says, brushing dust off his smock. “I am outside with you today.” I notice how dingy and graying his smock is, like all the others that hang on hooks around the studio. I should make him a better one, a colorful one that suits him. A Floating Smock.

When we pass by, I see that the clay man survived yesterday’s battery, more than survived. He’s no longer huddled and defeated but unfurling like a frond. He’s finished, drying, and beautiful.

“So I look at your practice rock and model last night,” Guillermo says. “I think you are ready for some electricity. You have a lot of stone to remove before you can even begin to find the brother and sister, understand? This afternoon I teach you to use the power tools. With these you must be so, so careful. The chisel, like life, allows for second chances. With the saws and drills, often there is no second chance.”

I stop walking. “You believe that? About second chances? In life, I mean.” I know I sound like an Oprah episode, but I want to know. Because to me, life feels more like realizing you’re on the wrong train barreling off in the wrong direction and there’s nothing you can do about it.

“Of course, why not? Even God, he have to make the world twice.” His hands take to the air. “He make the first world, decide it is a very terrible world he made, so he destroy with the flood. Then he try again, start it all over with—”

“With Noah,” I say, finishing his sentence.

“Yes, so if God can have two tries, why not us? Or three or three hundred tries.” He laughs under his breath. “You will see, only with the diamond blade circular saw do you have one chance.” He strokes his chin. “But even then sometimes you make a catastrophic mistake, you think I am going to kill myself because the sculpture is ruined, but in the end it come out more incredible than had you not made the mistake. This is why I love the rocks. When I sculpt with clay, it feel like cheating. It is too easy. It has no will of its own. The rocks are formidable. They stand up to you. It is a fair fight. Sometimes you win. Sometimes they win. Sometimes when they win, you win.”

Outside, sunlight has gathered from all corners of the earth. It’s a gorgeous day.

I watch Guillermo climb the ladder up to the female giant’s head. He pauses for a moment, pressing his forehead to her massive stone one, before rising above her. Then he lowers the safety goggles, lifts his scarf to cover his mouth—oh, I see, he’s too cool for a face mask—picks up the diamond blade circular saw that’s resting on top of the ladder, and wraps the cord around his shoulder. A loud jack-hammer-like noise fills the air, quickly followed by the shriek of granite, as Guillermo, without any hesitation, takes his one chance and slices into Dearest’s head, and then is lost in a cloud of dust.

It’s crowded in the yard today. In addition to Guillermo and the unfinished couple, The Three (extremely frightening) Brothers, and me, there’s Oscar’s motorcycle, for some reason. Also, Grandma and Mom are at the ready, I sense it. And I keep thinking someone’s watching me from the fire escape, but each time I look up, there’s only Frida Kahlo basking in the sun.

I forget everything else and work on freeing NoahandJude.

Slowly I chip, chip, chip away at the stone, and as I do, like yesterday, time begins to rewind, and I start to think and can’t stop thinking about things I don’t normally let myself think about, like how I wasn’t home when Mom left that afternoon to reconcile with Dad. I wasn’t there to hear her say that we were going to be a family again.

I wasn’t there because I’d run off with Zephyr.

I think about how she died believing I hated her because that’s all I’d been telling her since she kicked Dad out. Since before that.

I drive the chisel into a groove and hit it hard with the hammer, taking off a big chunk of rock, then another. Had I been at home that afternoon and not with Zephyr raining down bad luck, I know everything would’ve been different.

I take off another hunk, a whole corner, and the force of the hit sprays granules onto my goggles, into my exposed cheeks. I do it again on the other side, hit after hit, the misses bloodying my fingers, hitting and missing, hacking away at the stone, at my fingers, and then I’m remembering the moment Dad told me about the accident and how I threw my hands over Noah’s ears to protect him from what I was hearing. My first reaction. Not over my own ears but over Noah’s. I’d forgotten I’d done that. How could I have forgotten that?

What happened to that instinct to protect him? Where’d it go?

I take the hammer and crush it into the chisel.

I have to get him out of here.

I have to get both of us out of this fucking rock.

I slam into the stone again and again, remembering how Noah’s grief filled the whole house, every corner, every crevice. How there was no room left for mine or Dad’s. Maybe that’s why Dad started walking, to find some place where Noah’s heartbreak didn’t reach. I’d see Noah all curled up in his room and when I’d try to comfort him, he’d tell me how I didn’t understand. How I didn’t know Mom like he did. How I couldn’t possibly comprehend what he was feeling. Like I hadn’t just lost my mother too! How could he have said those things to me? I’m beating on the stone now, taking off more and more rock. Because I couldn’t believe he was hogging her in death, just like he had in life. Making me believe I had no right to grieve, to miss her, to love her, like he did. And the thing is I believed him. Maybe that’s why I never cried. I didn’t feel entitled to.