Chapter Twenty-Four

I WALK INTO THE HOUSE WITH a smile on my face. I’m still replaying the evening’s events—with a special emphasis on the kissing parts—when the lights over the counters flare bright for an instant, a surge of energy that draws my attention. That’s when I see the sink, and the warmth on my lips is overtaken by dread, cold like a bucket of ice water dumped on me.

A dish is shattered—pieces are in the sink and on the floor. I think it used to be a plate, but now it’s nothing but shards of yellow ceramic. There’s uncooked pasta still in its package on the counter. I smell burnt chicken, and see a blackened pan in the sink among the shards. There’s a pot of water still boiling furiously on the stove, and I quickly move across the kitchen and turn off the blue flame. When the water calms, I realize how quiet everything is.

I walk into the darkened living room, and then I hear it. A whimper. I drop my bag and jacket on the floor and climb over furniture in the dark until I find Campbell and Juniper huddled up together in the corner of the room.

“Are you okay?” I ask, but my voice echoes off the walls. It’s like the house is amplifying the sound, making it feel dangerous to speak.

“We needed you,” Cam says.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” Juniper adds.

I can’t make out much in the dark, but Cam’s eyes shine where the light from the kitchen catches them. Dammit. I should have been here.

“I’m so glad, too, June Bug. What happened?”

“We burned the chicken,” she says. “So he threw the pan into the sink and shattered the plates and then Mom told him to stop and then . . .”

“And then” is enough. I can figure it out. He was mad. And she got mad. So he got madder. That seems to be an unspoken rule in our house: no one is allowed to be madder than him. I walk to the bottom of the stairs and listen, but I can’t hear anything. It’s awful and scary when he is screaming. But it is always worse when things are quiet.

“Did he take anything upstairs?” I ask Campbell.

“Anything?”

I glance at Juniper.

“Like a knife? His gun?”

Campbell’s eyes widen. I regret the question, but she answers anyway.

“Not that I saw.”

“Stay with Junie,” I say, and step onto the first stair.

“Don’t go up there!” Cam hisses.

I don’t want to.

“I’ve got to check on Mom.”

“Please, Leighton,” Juniper says, her voice catching.

“Okay, okay.” I back down the stairs. “I’m staying.”

I squat down beside the girls, and we sit still and quiet in the dark for several minutes.

“Hey, Juniper, how was school today?”

Juniper climbs into my lap before answering.

“Goooood,” she draws out.

“What did you learn?” I ask, my fingers fiddling with the soft strands of her hair. She needs a trim.

Junie seems to think hard about my question. The floor creaks upstairs, once. Then all is silent again.

“I learned about Amelia Earhart,” Juniper whispers.

“You did?” I ask. “What did you learn about her?”

“She was one of the first ever women to fly planes, and she flew all over the world.”

“That’s great, June Bug.”

“Leighton,” Juniper whispers. “Do you think Amelia was fearless?”

A voice raises and then quiets abruptly upstairs.

“Yeah, Juniper, I think she had to be fearless.”

Campbell’s eyes are fixed on the ceiling.

“What about you, Campbell? What did you learn in school?”

Cam ignores me. I reach over and squeeze her hand. “I’m here now, Cam. I’m sorry.”

She keeps staring. I can’t help but glance up, too. Even if I had X-ray vision, I don’t know if I’d want to look. My mind filters through the what-ifs. The worst cases. The nightmares.

She is hurt. She needs me, and I’m sitting down here. She might be crying or scared. He could have a knife, or his gun out. He could be threatening her.

She could be dead.

The floor creaks, and I look back down.

“Cammy? What did you learn about?” My voice is barely audible, but I know Cam hears me.

“I don’t remember, Leighton,” Cam says, her voice soft like mine, but cold.

We hear footsteps upstairs, and three necks crane back to look at the ceiling in unison. One set of footsteps.

No, two.

The door opens fast, slamming into a wall upstairs, and I startle, scaring Juniper in my lap. I hug her tightly and briefly—in reassurance and in apology.

“She’s okay,” I whisper to the girls as our parents come down the stairs. I can see their faces only in part. Half in shadow, half illuminated by the far-too-bright lights in the kitchen. He looks smug. A stupid smirk on his face. I know it’s better than his anger, but I hate this face he makes. My eyes leave his ugly look and go to Mom. She’s tired.

“Hi, Mom,” I say.

“Oh, Leighton, you’re home,” she says.

“Are you okay?” I ask. He scoffs, crosses the living room.

“Of course I’m okay,” she says.

Of course.

“We were worried about you,” I add.

Mom sighs, opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off by “Welcome to the Jungle.” He twists the knob until it’s as high as it goes. Level: 100. The house is moving with the bass.

He goes into the kitchen, and something crashes into the sink.

“And no one thought to clean up the fucking burnt food,” he yells. More dishes clatter, and Campbell jumps to her feet.

“Coming,” she announces, her voice steady and clear, cutting through the music. Her voice holds none of the fear that had her so still and serious and soft a moment ago.

For some reason, Cam’s enthusiasm for cleaning up burnt food makes me furious. Mom’s casual of course makes me want to scream. I count to three in my head, my jaw shut as though it were wired that way. Don’t make it worse. Don’t make it worse. I need these words tattooed on my arm so I always remember. I stand up and deposit Junie on the sofa next to Mom.

“Tell her about Amelia,” I yell over the music, and step past a kitchen lit so bright it hurts my eyes. I am sure the damn light is getting brighter and brighter, until I have to turn away from it, the outline of Campbell at the sink washing broken dishes imprinted on my eyelids. I blink, and the light is fine now. Back to its normal level of still-too-bright. It’s like the house wanted that image to stay with me, burned into my retinas.

I walk around the living room picking up the frames. I hang them on their nails, letting them swing back and forth until they find their own resting place. When I pass the window, there is a flash of gray, and Joe lands just outside in the grass. I keep going, hanging a frame by the stairs. I step into the bathroom and pick up the towels that fell to the floor. And then in my bedroom I fix the posters on my wall, which don’t hang on nails at all but on sticky tack, and I don’t know why they are always down, too. Why this house falls apart without being touched. In the girls’ bedroom, I unfurl stained-glass window stickers that have fallen to the carpet like dead flower petals and stick them back on the window. They used to form a butterfly, I think. Now they are just parts of an incomplete whole. The pieces we haven’t lost yet.

Joe lands on the windowsill outside, and this time I pause because it feels like he’s following me from window to window for a reason. I slide the window open slowly, giving him time to fly away. Then I reach my hand out, one finger extended, and he stays still as I brush my fingertip down his feathered side. Once, twice.

He turns and drops something onto the windowsill, then flies away.

I reach for the object.

It’s Juniper’s leather cuff, with her initials pressed into it. It looks a little weather-worn, but it’s intact. Joe brought it back.

It’s strange how some things are lost to us forever, and some find their way home, and we have no way of knowing which ending it will be until and unless they return.

A long time ago, Amelia Earhart flew away and never came back. She’s always described as being lost. But now she reminds me of a piece of crow folklore I read for my column. The Babylonian flood predates even Noah. In the older story, when the whole world floods, those who survive on a boat send out birds to seek dry land. First they release a dove—but the dove, unable to find land to rest on, returns quickly. The second bird they send is a swallow. Again, with no land to rest on or fresh water to drink on the wide, endless sea, the swallow returns. Finally, they send the crow, who flies off toward the horizon, the third bird entrusted to find land. She does not come back.

Maybe Amelia wasn’t lost to an endless sea. Maybe, like the crow, she found dry land, and decided to stay where she felt safe.

Maybe surviving can be fearless, too.