I’ll Give You the Sun(87)
Author: Jandy Nelson

Or maybe he’ll do it like this: the forest a blur of green over our heads while we lie on our backs, playing Rochambeau.

He picks rock. I pick scissors.

I pick paper. He picks scissors.

He picks rock. I pick paper.

We give up, happily. It’s a new age.

Noah’s looking up at the sky. “I’m not mad, because I could’ve just as easily done it to you,” he says. “I did do it to you. Just in smaller ways. Over and over again. I knew how you were feeling at the museum all those weekends with Mom and me. I knew how left out you felt all the time. And I know how much I didn’t want Mom to see your sculptures. I made sure she didn’t. I was always afraid you were better than me and she’d realize.” He sighs. “We got all messed up. Both of us.”

“Still, CSA was your—”

He interrupts. “Sometimes it felt like there wasn’t enough of Mom to go around.”

This thought silences me and we’re quiet for a long time after that, breathing in the scent of eucalyptus, watching the leaves fluttering all around us. I think about how Mom told Noah it was his responsibility to be true to his heart. Neither of us has been. Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to know what that truth is?

“Does Heather know you’re gay?” I ask.

“Yeah, but no one else.”

I roll on my side to face him. “So can you believe how weird I’ve gotten and how normal you’ve gotten?”

“It’s astounding,” he says, which cracks us both up. “Except most of the time,” he adds, “I feel like I’m undercover.”

“Me too.” I pick up a stick, start digging with it. “Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people,” I say. “Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time.” Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.

He grins. “Each new self standing on the last one’s shoulders until we’re these wobbly people poles?”

I die of delight. “Yes, exactly! We’re all just wobbly people poles!”

The sun’s setting and the sky’s filling with pink wispy clouds. We should be getting home. Dad returns tonight. I’m about to say so when Noah speaks.

“That painting in the hallway of his studio. The one of the kiss, I just saw it for a second, but I think Mom made it.”

“You do? I didn’t know Mom painted.”

“Neither did I.”

Was that her secret? Another secret? “Like you,” I say, and something clicks into place, perfectly into place. Noah was Mom’s muse. I feel certain of it, and unbelievably without jealousy, understand it.

I flop onto my back again, dig my fingers into the loamy soil and imagine Mom making that incredible painting, wishing with her hands, being that in love. How can I be mad at her for that? How can I be mad at her for finding her split-apart and wanting to be with him? As Guillermo said, the heart doesn’t listen to reason. It doesn’t abide by laws or conventions or other people’s expectations either. At least her heart was full when she died. At least she was living her life, busting out of its seams, letting the horses gallop, before she had to leave.

Except, no.

Sorry.

How could it have been okay for her to break Dad’s heart like that? To break all the promises she made to him? To break up our family? Then again, how could it not be okay if she was being true to herself? Argh. It was right and wrong both. Love does as it undoes. It goes after, with equal tenacity: joy and heartbreak.

Her happiness was his unhappiness and that’s the unfair way it was.

But he still has life and time to fill it with more happiness.

“Noah, you have to tell Dad. Right away.”

“Tell Dad what?” And there is our footstep-less father looking down on us. “This is a sight for sore eyes, sore, tired, traveling eyes. I saw you two running into the woods hand in hand when I drove by in the cab. It was like a time warp.”

He joins us on the forest floor. I squeeze Noah’s hand.

“What is it, son? What do you need to tell me?” Dad asks, and my heart spills over with love.

• • •

Later that evening, I’m sitting in a chair as Noah and Dad move swiftly around the kitchen making dinner. They won’t let me help even though I’ve promised to retire the bible. Noah and I made a deal. He’ll stop jumping off cliffs if I stop bible-thumping and suspend all medical research, effective immediately. I’m going to make a giant-size, paper flying woman sculpture out of each and every bible passage. Grandma’s going to love it. It’s the first idea I put in that blank idea pad I’ve been carrying around since I started CSA. I’m going to call the piece: The History of Luck.

When Noah told Dad the truth about Mom and Guillermo hours ago in the forest, Dad simply said, “Okay, yes. That makes more sense.” He didn’t burst out of granite like Noah or have oceans break inside him like I did, but I can see that the storm in his face has quelled. He’s a man of science and the unsolvable problem is solved. Things finally make sense. And sense to Dad is everything.

Or so I thought.

“Kids, I’ve been thinking about something.” He looks up from the tomato he’s chopping. “How do you feel about moving? Not out of Lost Cove but to another house. Well, not to just any old house . . .” His smile is ridiculous. I have no idea what he’s going to say. “A houseboat.” I can’t decide what’s more amazing: the words coming out of Dad’s mouth or the expression on his face. He looks like the unicycle-riding super-kook. “I think we need an adventure. The three of us together.”

“You want us to live on a boat?” I ask.

“He wants us to live on an ark,” Noah answers, awe in his voice.

“I do!” Dad laughs. “That’s exactly right. I’ve always wanted to do this.” Really? News to me. Um, who is this man? “I just did some research and you will not believe what’s for sale down by the marina.” He goes to his briefcase and pulls out some pictures he must’ve printed from the Internet.

“Oh wow,” I say. This is no rowboat. It is an ark.

“An architect owned it previously,” Dad tells us. “Renovated the whole thing, did all the woodwork and stained glass herself. Incredible, isn’t it? Two stories, three bedrooms, two baths, great kitchen, skylights, wraparound decks on both floors. It’s a floating paradise.”