A Mango-Shaped Space (19 page)
A light drizzle turns the air to mist, and by the time I get back up to my room, a steady rain is pounding the ground. I climb under the warm comforter without even bothering to brush my teeth.
Sometime around three-thirty in the morning, a loud burst of thunder wakes me. I raise my head to look for Mango, who hates the thunder. Even in the darkness I can see the orange glow. I reach down to bring him into my arms, but my hands land on an empty blanket. As if on cue, a flash of lightning shows me that Mango is definitely not on the bed. The only thing there is, is a Mango-shaped space. I sit up and try to remember when I saw him last. I must have given him his medicine before I went to bed. But why can’t I remember giving it to him? My memory used to be so good, but last night is all a blur. I stare at the Winnie-thePooh blanket, mentally willing Mango to appear.
It doesn’t work.
As I’m concentrating I notice a faint orange trail leading off the bed and out my door. I decide to follow it. When I get to the front hall I have to choose between the thick orange trail leading down to the kitchen and the very faint trail leading straight to the front door. My heart pounding, I open the front door to find Mango curled up in a tight little ball on the doormat. He looks so cold. I quickly gather him in my arms, and he sluggishly opens one eye, then lets it close again. Holding him tight against my chest, I push the door closed with my hip and hurry back to bed. We lay there, under the comforter, as my body heat slowly warms him. I spend the next hour holding and nuzzling him, alternately wondering how I didn’t see him slip outside, hating myself for letting him get so cold, and debating whether or not I should give him another pill. Mango might not know any better than to go outside in the freezing cold, but the part of him that’s Grandpa should’ve. Maybe the Grandpa part was asleep at the time. Finally Mango starts purring, and I let my eyes close.
The next time I wake up it’s a few hours later, and the clacking of the furnace almost drowns out the sound of Mango’s heavy wheezing. Almost. I try to wake him up, but he won’t respond. Then he starts twitching his arms and legs but still won’t wake up. For the second time that night I jump out of bed and run into the hall. This time I run to my parents’ room and knock frantically on their door. My mother opens it and immediately looks worried.
“What is it, Mia?”
I’m wringing my hands, and my heart feels like it’s going to burst in my chest. “We have to take Mango to the vet right away. There’s something wrong with him! Please hurry!”
Together we run back to my room. She takes one look at Mango, who is still twitching, and tells me to wrap him in a blanket and meet her in the car. I slip on my rain boots and briefly wonder whether I should put real clothes on. Another twitch from Mango makes the decision for me. I grab the Pooh blanket, wrap him up in it, and head downstairs. My mother, also in her pajamas and rain boots, is hanging up the phone in the kitchen.
“What did the vet say?” I ask, terrified of the answer.
“The storm last night flooded the main road,” my mother says helplessly. “She can’t get to her office, and we can’t get to her house.”
I stare at my mother as I digest this information. “We’ll have to take the helicopter,” I say, panic building in my chest. “It’s not raining anymore, right?”
Mango wheezes loudly, and my mother tells me to wait by the door while she runs back upstairs. I wait by the stairs, my ears buzzing with fear as every second seems like an hour. Finally my father appears, hopping on one foot as he pulls on his thick boots.
“Where will we land, Dad?” I ask, my throat tight.
“Leave it to me,” he says. “Wait here while I warm up the engine.”
I watch him run across the rain-soaked field and disappear into the cockpit. I remember how Mango’s mango-colored wheezes used to be comforting because they meant he was still around. They are anything
but
comforting now. Mom and Zack join me in the kitchen. Zack gently strokes Mango’s head while we wait. Every few seconds I feel a twitch through the thin blanket, and my stomach flip-flops.
Dad flashes the lights on and off, signaling he’s ready for me. I race outside, hunched over to keep Mango warm. I climb in and strap myself into the seat. Still holding Mango tight, I lower my head and rest it on his as the propeller speeds up. The helicopter begins to lift and then settles right back down again, the propeller sputtering. I realize I’m holding my breath, and I force myself to breathe. Tears slip out as I exhale.
“Hurry, Dad, please!” I’m pleading and crying at the same time.
“I’m trying, Mia, just hold on.” He makes some adjustments on the panel, and the propeller slowly winds up again.
“Hold on, Mango,” I beg as I gently pet him. “You’ll be better soon, I promise.”
Mango meows softly. I feel a second of relief, thinking maybe he understood me and knows we’re trying to get help. The helicopter starts to lift again, and it takes my brain a second to realize that something is different. Mango isn’t twitching anymore. He isn’t wheezing. He isn’t breathing.
“Dad! Stop!” The chopper bumps back down.
My fingers shake uncontrollably as I unwrap the blanket and stare down at Mango. He looks like he’s asleep except his chest isn’t moving. I shake him but nothing happens.
“Turn him onto his back,” my father commands.
Time has stopped. The only things that exist in the world are me, my father, and Mango. The tears are streaming down my face now and making Mango’s fur wet. My father tips Mango’s head back and breathes into his mouth and nose. Then he presses lightly against Mango’s chest with two fingers. My head is swimming, and I feel like I’m going to pass out. After a minute of this Dad looks up at me, his face ashen, and shakes his head.
My eyes open wide, and the pain hits me in thick black waves. Then I scream loud enough to wake the dead.
Only it doesn’t.
I refuse to get out of this seat. The rest of the family is in the helicopter now, and Mango is on the floor in front of Beth, rewrapped in his blanket. I can’t even look at him. I am dimly aware that Zack and Beth are crying and that my parents are whispering. I still have my seat belt on and am hunched over my knees, gagging. It feels like someone kicked me in the stomach, only a hundred times worse. This can’t be happening, this isn’t real, this is not my life. If I keep repeating this, maybe I’ll wake up from this nightmare. I was so happy last night. Now I can’t feel my legs. My chest is burning, and the numbness in my head blocks out everything else.
“Mia?” my father says in a low, gentle voice as he touches my shoulder. “Why don’t we all go in the house now?”
Still hunched over, I shake my head vehemently.
“C’mon, Mia,” my mother says. “It’s no use sitting out here. I think it’s starting to hail.”
The sound of ice pelting the chopper breaks through the haze in my head. From some dark corner of my brain I realize I can’t see the colored shapes that would normally accompany the sound. All I see are gray blobs that look like used chewing gum. In fact, when the helicopter was moving, the propeller noise didn’t have any color either. The last color I remember seeing is the orange from Mango’s wheezes when I held him. I’ve lost everything.
My mother has unbuckled my seat belt, and she helps me up before I can protest further. My eyes fall on Mango’s stiff shape on the floor, and a fresh torrent of tears flows from my eyes. Mom grabs my arms to keep me from falling back into my seat.
I follow my mother and Zack out of the chopper, vaguely aware that Dad and Beth have stayed behind. In a daze, I walk slowly back to the house, barely noticing that I’m being struck by tiny chunks of ice. My coat and the front of my pajamas are instantly wet. I wish the ice would go right through me and take all the pain away.
I go straight to my room, not caring that I’m tracking water and mud through the house. Locking the door behind me, I strip off my wet pajamas and throw on a fresh pair. I want to smash things. I want to grab my precious clocks off the wall and hurl them across the room. So I do the only logical thing — I climb back into bed and pull the covers over my head.
It’s just a dream
, I tell myself, curling into a tight ball. I’ll wake up for real, and everything will be back to normal. My eyes shut tight; I force myself to take a deep breath. Opening my eyes, I peek out from under the covers and look down at the end of the bed. All I see is a colorless Mango-shaped space and Mango’s beloved Tweety Bird. I grab the small stuffed animal and hold it against my chest. There are little holes all over it from where Mango carried it with his pointy cat teeth. I start to shake, and the tears come so quickly that my eyes burn. Why did Mango have to go out in the cold? He knew he wasn’t supposed to. How is it possible that I’ll never hold him or pet him or hear his wheezes again? He’s gone, and he took what was left of Grandpa’s soul with him. I’m all alone. Did Mango know how much I loved him?
A while later a knock on the door prompts me to bolt upright, confused. I must have cried myself to sleep. Everything that happened comes crashing back in on me, and I flop back down.
“Your door’s locked, Mia,” my mother says, jiggling the knob.
“I know,” I answer, my voice muffled by the pillow.
“I called Jerry earlier and explained why you didn’t go to the meeting today,” she says through the door. “And now Adam’s on the phone for you. Do you want to take it?”
It takes me a minute to piece together what she said. The meeting hadn’t even entered my mind. Neither had Adam. And I didn’t want to think of him now.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” I tell her. “Or anyone else.”
“You should at least eat something. It’s late afternoon already.”
“I’m not hungry,” I call out. I can’t imagine ever being hungry again.
I wait to hear her footsteps go down the hall before I get up to go to the bathroom. The smell from the litter box wafts out of the hall closet and seems to taunt me. It says, “If you had cleaned me more, maybe Mango would have stayed around.” I kick the closet door shut and hurry into the bathroom. By mistake I catch my reflection in the mirror. My eyes are red and swollen like I’ve been crying for a week instead of just one day. I pick up my toothbrush and almost throw it down again as the memory of my decision not to brush my teeth last night comes flooding back to me. I always used to give Mango his pill right after I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I’d have realized he was missing earlier.
Someone knocks on the door. “Come to Beth’s room when you’re done in there,” Zack says.
I ignore him, and he knocks again.
“Go away.” I place the toothbrush back in its holder, unable to use it.
“Just come when you’re done.”
“Not unless Beth can use her magic to bring Mango back.”
Zack doesn’t answer, but I can hear him out there breathing. “I … I don’t think she can do that.” A minute later I hear him shuffle down the hall in his feety pajamas. I guess he didn’t bother to get dressed today either.
I can’t face going back to my empty room yet, so a few minutes later I find myself in Beth’s doorway. She and Zack are sitting in the middle of the floor inside a lopsided circle made from rope. Candles are burning on every flat surface.
“We waited for you,” Beth says.
“For what?”
“It’s a healing circle,” Zack explains. “Beth said it will make us feel better after what happened. With Mango, I mean. We know what you’re going through.”
I feel the anger rise in me. “You have no idea at all what I’m going through!”
“We loved Mango too, Mia,” Beth says. Zack nods vigorously.
“Not the way I loved him. And you didn’t kill him. I did. I killed Mango.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize they are true. It isn’t Mango that I should be mad at for leaving, it’s myself, for letting him go. Like in that book we had to read in school last year,
The Little Prince.
You are responsible for what you tame. I tamed Mango. I was
responsible
for him and I failed him. I let him slip outside. I didn’t give him his medication last night. I didn’t pay enough attention to him lately. I put my hand over my mouth. “Oh my god,” I whisper. “I killed Mango.”
I can hear them calling out to me as I run down the hall to my room, but I don’t stop. No brown rings appear when I slam my door. I throw myself down into my desk chair and lower my head to the smooth surface of the desk. The guilt is more than I can bear. I let Mango die. Wherever his soul is now, he must hate me. Grandpa must hate me. I lift my head too fast and get dizzy. After a minute of rifling through my bottom drawer, I find what I’m looking for. A little white box with a green piece of the moon in it. I don’t deserve to have this special gift from Grandpa anymore. Shoving open my window, I open the box and let its contents fall onto the front lawn. I toss the empty box into the wastebasket and slam the window shut. I don’t feel any better.
The phone rings with no red spirals. A minute later my mother comes to tell me it’s Jenna.
“Tonight’s her birthday party, right?” my mother asks as I follow her, zombielike, back to her bedroom. “Mia,” she says in a gentle voice, “why don’t you think about going?”
I stare at her incredulously. “Did you tell her what happened today?”
“No, I thought you would want to.”
I brace myself and reluctantly pick up the phone. “Jenna?”
She launches right into the attack. “Why aren’t you here yet? I have something important that I wanted to give you before the party started. Molly and Kimberly have been here for over an hour helping me set up.”
“I’m sorry, I —”
“You stayed late at your big meeting this afternoon, right? Because those people are more important than me. I bet you didn’t even wear our friendship bracelet to the meeting.”
I flash back to Adam asking me about the bracelet and touching my arm. Was that just last night? It feels like a year ago. And that girl on the bench couldn’t possibly have been me.
Jenna assumes my silence is a confirmation. “I knew it! Don’t even bother to come,” she says coldly and hangs up the phone.