Phantom Limbs (22 page)

I whispered to Dara, “Okay, let’s go.” But she clung to me. “Come on,” I prompted her gently, trying to extricate myself. “Here comes Meg.” When Dara finally released me, I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with Meg, who stood by the car. She held out my bag to me.

I took my clothes and flip-flops out of my bag and pulled them on, then tossed the bag into the backseat.

“I want the back,” Dara said, crawling in back and moving my bag to the floor. She curled up on her side, holding her stump.

I waited for Meg to climb in the passenger seat. She bit her lip, then opened the other back door and climbed in next to Dara.

“What the fuck?” Dara said.

Ignoring her, Meg opened her bag and pulled out a towel and a bottle of water.

I still stood outside the car, staring in. Towel in hand, Meg scooted closer to Dara and dabbed her face. “Your bandage is coming loose,” she said softly, leaning over and pressing the edges lightly. Dara eyed Meg suspiciously, but she didn’t stop her. Meg opened the bottle of water and held it out to Dara.

Dara was lying on her arm, so she had to shift and sit up a little. She took several long swallows. “God, that’s good,” she muttered, wiping her mouth with her forearm. “So cold.”

I sat in the front seat but turned to look at Meg. “Where’d you get cold water?” There hadn’t been time for her to go inside to the vending machines.

“From a cooler.”

I bit back a smile. “Whose cooler?”

“I didn’t stop to get names, Otis.”

“You steal the towel, too?”

“‘Steal’ is a harsh word. I gathered supplies.”

I glanced at Dara, who I knew was impressed but trying not to show it. She handed the water bottle back to Meg and lay back down.

I set my phone to navigate home, since I wasn’t sure I knew the way. Then I started the car and pulled out.

Dara was sniffling in the backseat, and I knew how much it must be killing her to cry in front of Meg. It was going to be a long ride.

“Sit up,” I heard Meg say. When Dara didn’t respond, Meg repeated, “Come on, sit up.”

What was she doing?

There was a rustling and then a small click. I glanced back, but I was going to crash this beautiful piece of machinery and possibly kill us all if I kept staring into the backseat.

I heard Dara ask softly, “How did you know?”

Meg responded, “Otis.”

I heard some more movement and murmuring, and then things grew quiet. When I came to a red light, I looked back. Meg sat close to Dara, and Dara stared at something, calming down.

Meg held a mirror steady as Dara opened and closed her hand next to it, watching.

Meg.

God, she gave me such an ache. She said I didn’t know her anymore, but that was bullshit. She hadn’t changed as much as she thought. This was Meg to the marrow. She had always understood what was important — had always been able to put other people before herself.

A horn startled me. The light was green.

We drove back to town in silence, save for the navigation lady who piped up with directions. Occasionally, Meg repeated after her softly, in the damnedest exact same voice. After a while Dara fell asleep.

When we got to Dara’s house, Dara leaned on me as we went up the long walkway, Meg following behind.

“Four-seven-six-three,” Dara mumbled, and I pressed the code onto the panel and went inside.

“Pills.” Dara waved her arm toward the kitchen.

Meg and I exchanged a look, but we went into the kitchen. Dara swallowed a couple of pills from a prescription bottle with a glass of water that was already sitting on the counter.

“I’m so tired.” She slumped over onto the counter, her head resting on her forearm.

“Come on,” I said softly, herding her toward the stairs. Meg followed behind.

“Do you want the box?” I asked Dara.

She shook her head. “It’s not so bad now. I just want to sleep.”

“Want me to close the curtains?” Meg asked. When Dara nodded, Meg pulled the curtains closed, then came around the bed to stand next to me.

“The dosage was one,” Meg whispered. “I looked at the bottle. One capsule.”

I let out a sigh. I mean, what was I going to do about it?

Dara seemed three-quarters asleep already, but she looked up at me. “Don’t turn off —”

The bathroom light.
“I won’t.”

She closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed and became regular, and soon she was all the way asleep.

THE BANK OF WINDOWS IN THE LIVING room was a study in gray: the sun had vanished and the sky grew ever darker. Meg sank onto the sofa — butter-soft leather, of asymmetrical design. It probably cost more than both my parents’ cars put together. I sat in a nearby chair, having no idea what range of proximity would be welcome or appropriate.

“What if she calls out or something?” Meg said. “We need a baby monitor.” As soon as the words were out, her hand went to her mouth, and then she dropped her face into her hands.

No. Not this.
“I’ll check on her in a while,” I said, craning my head to look toward the stairs. “She’ll probably sleep hard.” I whipped my head in the opposite direction and stared out the window at the deepening gray. Anywhere but at Meg. Anything but this. Why did it always come back to this?

The fact was, I didn’t know the exact details of Mason’s death. All I knew was that at 1:30 he was in Meg’s room, supposedly going down for a nap, and at 2:00, as I tore through our basement looking for a video game, sirens were screaming, emergency vehicles piling up on our street. I went to the front door to see what was going on. Meg’s dad stumbled over, white-faced. He intercepted me before I could go outside. I don’t remember what he said. He steered me back inside and sat with me in my basement. We watched old episodes of
SpongeBob.
One of them was the one with jelly-fishing. That I remember. I must have been worried. I had to have been. But I can’t remember what I knew, what I was thinking or feeling. I remember getting caught up in
SpongeBob
after a while — I remember laughing at it. I laughed, and I looked at Mr. Brandt, wanting him to laugh, too. But of course he didn’t. And to this day, I think,
How could I have laughed? How the fuck could I have been laughing?
Even now, I cannot bear the sight or sound of
SpongeBob.

Unfortunately, I also can’t forget the look on my mother’s face when they got home. If I live to be a thousand, I hope I never see that look again. She sank to her knees in front of me, her face pressed against my legs. It was weird. Embarrassing. Terrible, barking noises came out of her; in another context, the sounds might have been comical. My dad stood limply in the middle of the room, a faraway look in his eyes. Like he wasn’t really there. Just his body.

We kept a baby monitor at the Brandts’ around that time, since we sometimes stayed there past Mason’s bedtime and let him go to sleep in Meg’s bed. Maybe, if the monitor had been on, they would have heard the signs of trouble. Maybe, if it had been on, Mason would still be alive. I could only guess that’s what Meg was thinking.

There was much I was spared. I know that he choked to death. That was all I knew. I didn’t ask anything. I didn’t want to be left with images, questions, ammunition for assigning blame. He was gone and he was never coming back. Nothing else mattered.

But the truth would always be this: I wasn’t there when Mason died. But Meg was.

I stood up and went to the window. The trees leaned hard with the wind, as if they were trying to pull free. “Did your dad really get transferred back to California?” I said.

I tracked her approach: The sticky sound of the leather releasing her legs as she stood. Her footfalls, light like always. Her hands on my shoulders, her forehead pressed against my upper back.

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

My mind reeled. I was losing my sense of time and place. She couldn’t possibly be telling me that they left because she
wanted
to? That she lied to me when she told me it was because of her dad. Maybe they had all lied to me, including my parents.

Outside, the wind picked up, the sky a deep gray-green. The color of my mother’s eyes.

I pulled away from Meg and walked out the front door. On the porch I watched the low, dark clouds rolling in. The wind smelled of rain and ozone, of summer memories from my childhood, happy times from another life.

Meg came up behind me again as the first drops plunked down. I could feel her there.

She put her hands on my arms and turned me around to face her. She took one of my hands and held it in both of hers, clutching it to her chest. Her hair whipped in the wind, strands crossing over her face. “I’m sorry.” She blinked as her eyes filled. “I couldn’t tell you the truth, because it would mean telling you what happened.”

“I don’t want to know!” I said, pulling my hand away and turning my back to her, afraid of what she might say.

“You never wanted to know!” she shouted. “But did it ever occur to you that maybe I
needed
you to know?”

The rain seemed to increase relative to Meg’s emotional pitch. It flattened the little pink flowers that encircled the base of the big oak tree.

I stepped off the porch and onto the grass, letting the rain soak me. Again, Meg was right there. She moved in front of me, pulling on my shirt, pleading. “I kept
seeing
him, Otis. I couldn’t make it go away. I had nightmares. I started sleeping with my mom! I missed school all the time — do you remember? Did you notice? I lost weight. You didn’t even notice!”

The rain washed the mascara off her lashes, charcoal rivulets running down her face.

I tried to remember details from those awful months — to remember
Meg
specifically — but I couldn’t. I barely remembered going to school myself, apart from the agony of having to bear up to people’s nervous glances — and my teachers’ soft words, their offers of support and leniency. They didn’t seem to understand that talking to me about it was the worst thing they could do. Their kindness was unbearable. I just wanted to be left alone. As for Meg . . . All I remembered was that she was there, by my side, through it all. Until she wasn’t.

“Your parents stopped talking to my mom and dad.” She was shivering, her teeth chattering. “Your mom . . .” Her face crumpled. “I
begged
my parents to move.” She wiped water and tears off her cheek.

She talked about her dad’s boss agreeing to a temporary transfer, but I wasn’t really listening anymore. I felt strangely calm, blank. Somewhere inside, a storm was brewing. But I couldn’t face it. Not now. Maybe not ever.

“I have to check on Dara,” I said, backing away from her.

“I told you, Otis!” she cried, her voice breaking. “I told you you wouldn’t like me anymore! This whole thing was a terrible idea. I could never come back here.”

“Come inside,” I said firmly, loudly, over the rain.

She followed me, choking back sobs. We were soaking wet and the air-conditioning in Dara’s house was set to “tundra.” I grabbed a towel from the kitchen and handed it to Meg, then turned and went upstairs.

Dara was still asleep. She had pulled off her shirt; it lay on the floor beside the bed. Bruises covered her chest and ribs — awful, purple bruises in places, others fading to yellow and green. Her tiny bra was tugged slightly to one side, exposing one of her nipples. I pulled the sheet up to cover her. Her face was so relaxed, her expression serene. At that moment, I almost would have traded places with her.

I sat down on the floor by her bed, pushing away thoughts of the things Meg had just said. I picked up Dara’s mirror box. It was heavy, a fairly crude construction of unfinished wood — pine, maybe. I put my right hand in. Two hands, ta-da. I twisted and turned my hand, watching its twin obediently copy every motion. What was the source of this magic? What mysteries of the human brain does a mirror reveal?

I set the box aside and lowered my head into my hands, unable to fight the onslaught of information, of thoughts.

Meg was right. I didn’t remember her missing school. I didn’t notice she lost weight. My grief was a river that drowned me, a black hole that sucked me in, a fire that devoured me. I was consumed with losing my brother; I didn’t think about Meg’s loss — Meg, who loved Mason with all her heart. Meg, who had to live in the place where he took his last breath. Where one of them found his body. Was it Meg? I hadn’t asked, because I didn’t want to know. I
still
didn’t want to know.

No wonder she wanted to leave, no wonder she never talked to me again. When I went through the hardest time of my life, she was there for me, as constant and strong as she could be. But
she
was also going through the hardest time of
her
life. And I was blind.

And I finally saw the truth of it: It wasn’t that Meg wasn’t there when I needed her most. It was that
I
wasn’t there when
she
needed me most.

“Hey.”

I looked up. Dara watched me with one groggy eye.

“What’s wrong?” she asked drowsily.

I shook my head.

“Don’t cry, Mueller.” She rolled toward me so she could reach me with her full arm. She tried to pat me but managed only to jab her thumb into my ear.