Читать книгу Among the Dead and Dreaming - Samuel Ligon - Страница 12

5

Alina

I know something’s wrong by the tone of her voice, but even after she tells me Kyle’s dead, I don’t believe her.

It’s a trick, I think. She must have learned he’s coming to Interlochen Wednesday to visit.

“This is about next week,” I say, “isn’t it?”

“Next week?”

“You know.”

But she doesn’t know.

She tells me about the accident. Crying and everything.

“Okay,” I say, still not believing, even though there’s electricity in my hands.

“They’re going to scatter his ashes in the Sound Saturday,” she says.

But he’s coming here Wednesday, I think.

“This woman he died with,” she says. “It’s crazy.”

And I’m like, “What woman?”

“This girl he grew up with. Cynthia.”

And I’m like, “What girl?”

She doesn’t say anything then.

I swear to god, she must be in shock.

And then, for a second, it hits me. Kyle. But just as fast I don’t believe. Then I do, then I don’t, then I do. And I’m like, Kyle. Then nothing. My big heavy dorm phone against my face. Then Kyle. I’m crying hysterical so a part of me must know. But another part doesn’t. He’s coming here Wednesday to visit. Just him and me. He’s dead. One thing seems to have nothing to do with the other. He’s coming here Wednesday to visit.

Nikki

I walk the beach and boardwalk for hours, a faraway line of container ships shimmering through the waves of haze and humidity. When we first moved from Seattle, Alina wanted to live down here near the ocean, but my job selling ads for the Long Island Weekly barely covered our bills month to month. We kept looking for a place we could afford until we found our little cottage in Long Beach, and then it seemed like nothing could ever touch us again. The best part of Alina’s childhood has been here, the most stable part, and these last few months with Kyle have made her feel, I don’t know, fuller maybe, part of why I wanted to build something with him—because she loved him so much. And after so many years, it seemed like I was ready for something, too.

A shopping cart sits on the beach, its tracks leading back to the water, as if somebody pushed it out of the ocean. I want to preserve her ignorance, buy her peace with my silence, but every second I wait to tell her feels like a betrayal.

When I finally go home and call her, she makes me say it again and again—Baby, there’s been an accident. Kyle’s gone. Yes. An awful accident. No. Kyle’s dead. I’m sure, yes. Oh, honey. He’s gone. No, I’m positive—until she finally breaks, crying and crying, and I know I should have told her in person, of course I should have. What kind of mother gives her daughter such news on the phone? I couldn’t afford another ticket, though, and put off calling for far too long, hoping to never tell her, as though I could have kept her safe and away forever.

She cries and cries, and I can’t touch her, can’t hold her. What kind of mother?

Hours later, when I hear her sleeping across the miles, her breathing soft and even on the phone, I take Cash’s finger bone from its pouch, but the finger tells me nothing. Years after he died, I felt bad for Cash—sad and sorry—just because he was responsible for Alina. I’d look at that fingertip as it rotted and became nothing but a chip of bone, all that was left of him, and feel as though I’d taken something from her. I never forgave him for what he did, but I couldn’t forgive myself either. I couldn’t even tell what might be forgiven in me, exactly, and what pieces of my past would always be unforgivable.