Things that Drift Away

Ella.

“Last night, as I was driving home from your place, I hit a boy riding a bicycle on North Ave. I think he’s dead but I’m not sure. I haven’t heard the news yet.” There’s a pause and I can hear him scratching his chin. His tone is offensively lazy. “I didn’t stop and I’m not turning myself in. My car is at Dad’s house with a tarp over the front.” He changes tone; the next line was rehearsed. “Freedom is the only currency I have left. Yes, I messed up, but going to jail or paying the state isn’t going to help that boy.” I can hear him unfolding a piece of paper. It’s big, maybe a newspaper. He sounds distracted now, pausing between words. “So I’m staying in town. There wasn’t anyone around. I’m just going to play it like normal. So give me a ring later if you still want to go the bookstore. You’ll have to drive.” He fumbles with the receiver, no doubt a big clunky plastic deal in a payphone booth.

Next message.

“Hey honey. Umm, I was calling to see if you’ve spoken with Stephen at all lately. His car’s at my house.” He pauses for a moment; I can almost see him craning his neck to check if the car is still there since he last saw it. “Yeah, and it’s all dented and his windshield looks done in, like he hit a deer. Humph. Well, I was just calling to see if you knew anything, or if he’s okay. Give me a call later if you can, sweetie.”

I hang my key chain from the hook over my sink and unbutton my coat. I’m five months pregnant and haven’t told anybody yet. I’m twenty-four and I’m a waitress and my older brother thinks he may have just killed a boy. My superpower is the ability to stay calm. Stephen’s arrogant ineptitude is my kryptonite.

The phone rings and I walk towards the bathroom to piss. It rings four times and the caller gives up before the answering machine steps in. Good. My friend Karen was telling me the other day that if my life were a story, nobody would believe it because so many terrible things happen. I don’t really have a friend Karen. That was a lie and I’m sorry. I think she’s right though. God isn’t a very believable author.

So now I’m starting to get fat and I’m sure that it isn’t a dream that I’m pregnant. I try to remember why I wanted to go to the bookstore in the first place. I can’t. I turn on the television and wait for the local news. He did die. I exhale slowly and struggle to a stand. I’m hungry all the time now.

My friend Dan is coming over in a bit. When I first found out I was pregnant, I tried to trick him into sleeping with me so I could make him the dad, but he didn’t go for it. He’d be a better dad than Jeremy. Jeremy works at the Mellow Mushroom and is nineteen. He doesn’t want to go to school, but who does anymore. I eat a can of peas cold. They aren’t too bad if you cover them in salt or butter.

So as sorry as I feel for myself, this kid is fucked. It was two straight weeks of praying for a miscarriage before I called my motherly instincts into question.

There’s a knock at the door and I recognize Stephen’s fat lazy knock. I stand still, ignoring it. He knocks again and I slink to the window to see if he’s alone just in time to catch Dan hopping down the stairs.

“Hey wait!” I yell out the open door after him. “I thought you were Stephen.” I look around quickly to make sure Stephen isn’t there. That would probably hurt his feelings. Dan walks back and I can tell he wants to say something. “What?”

* * *

Dan.

“I heard about your brother; is he okay?” Mentioning Stephen to her is touchy. They don’t get along very well. That is to say, she doesn’t get along with him. I’m convinced that Stephen could accept anyone if given enough time. I mean, the guy could probably learn to love Hitler if you stuck them together in a room without books for a week.

Her face contorts and then goes limp. She turns halfway around and then back to me. “How do you… who told you about that?”

“Your dad called me earlier to get your new number.” She looks like shit today. She still thinks it’s a secret that she’s pregnant. It starts to rain a bit.

“Oh yeah, he hit a deer last night.” She smiles and regains composure. “He’s fine. We’re going to the bookstore later. Come in, I was just having some peas. Want anything?”

Her house is unlived-in immaculate. I’ve known her for almost a year now and there’s never even been a spot of clutter or a full trashcan. I think she owns like four or five things. She only keeps books long enough to read them. We small talk for a while. Most of our conversations stay there. This one is no exception. I leave after an hour or so and now it’s raining pretty hard.

“Do you want an umbrella?” She stands and walks to a closet in her hallway, opening it to reveal a single umbrella hooked around the coat rod. It’s empty otherwise.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I stand and turn up my collar. She hunches her shoulders forward when we hug, throwing her ass back to hide that stomach.

I walk a ways down the street. I turn around before the corner and see her in the doorway. Her hand flutters up into a brief wave. I almost run into Stephen. He’s only wearing a tee shirt and shorts. It must be fifty. “Hey Stephen, how’s it going?” He looks at me briefly and nods before walking up to Ella’s doorway, where she’s still standing.

* * *

Stephen.

The smell of the rain is particularly strong by Ella’s house. I always find a reason to visit her when it’s raining. She’s in her doorway like a negative silhouette on the backdrop of her darkened hallway.

“I think he collects best friends.” I say, and I know she won’t believe me because he’s her only friend and it’s easier to believe that I’m an idiot than it is to confront the painful reality that her only friend is an entomologist and she’s nothing more than a derelict phytometra erestinana. She sidesteps to a more relevant matter.

“Did you see the news yet?” I can’t help but to detect a spark of excitement behind her words. I edge by her into the hallway; she still seems to think it a secret that she’s pregnant. An idiosyncrasy we can all humor for the time being.

“Not yet, what did it say?” She places a hand on my arm and readies herself to deliver the grave news with predictable tells cultivated by prime time television and commercials for diamond wholesalers. Her brow furrows; she bites her lower lip; is that a tear in her eye?

“He’s dead, Stephen. There’s nothing anyone could do for him.”

I try not to laugh at her predictable delivery. This really is livening news. I couldn’t deal with a paraplegic. Death is enough of a mystery to assuage guilt for now. “Oh, how terrible.” I’ll give her what she wants. I need to be on her good side when that kid is born. My eyes well; an arm shoots over my face; my frame trembles delicately, soaked through and shivering like a wounded aerial antenna supporting sleeping pigeons on my crooked spines. “Oh, Ella. Please. I don’t think I can be alone right now.”

I collapse into her arms and she adjusts her girth to hide the subcutaneous time bomb that I think should be named Leif, regardless of gender. I see a can of peas with an attendant protruding spoon on the counter in her kitchen and the pseudo-stratified columnar epithelial tissue of my mouth begins to secrete what is known as saliva.

“It’ll be okay.” She says, crying at the first display of affection that I’ve ever granted during our twenty-four years as siblings. She’s on team Stephen—bless her heart. “It’ll be (snort) o (sniff sniff) kay.”

As much as this warms my soul, it’s imperative that I get to the bookstore before dark. Smooth transitions are not my forte. The phone rings and rings and rings and rings and then the machine intercedes.

“Hi, you’ve reached Ella. Leave a snappy message,” a pause which is, I’m almost sure, a break to allow for laughter, “and I’ll get right back!”

Beep.

* * *