I don’t help her move. Not one box, not one bag, not one suitcase full of her crap. It’s a perpetual flow of furniture and lamps and mirrors, books and bedding. Our house is contaminated now. Infected. I want to call the health department and ask them to condemn it. I would if I had a phone.
Mom passes by my open bedroom door and peers in. I meet her eyes. We’ve barely spoken since “the incident.” I hate her. Jo and Mom had a yard sale when we moved from our old house to this one, after I pummeled Josh Lever on the playground. This feels like instant replay. Except all I gave Kerri was a bruised rib, and we’re not moving away.
Our yard sale that day made three hundred dollars. As Jo put it, “One person’s trash is the next person’s treasure.” Mom had told Jo to sell her old stereo and Jo said, “That’s not trash. That baby’s a classic.” Mom said, “You don’t use it. Sell it.” Jo said, “I keep it around to remind me.” “Of what?” Mom asked. Jo said the past. It was the one thing she took with her when she left home at sixteen. Mom told her, “You can’t live in the past, Jo. You have to let go.” Jo didn’t want to sell it, but she gave in.
Eventually, Mom always gets her way. You learn that.
The day of the sale Jo asked me to make a sign. In black Magic Marker, she had me print: “Damaged Beyond Repair.” She wore the sign around her neck.
Mom was wrong then, and she’s wrong still. You don’t have to give up your past to move on. You can’t. Your past is the part of you that makes you who you are.
Kerri materializes in my doorway. I cringe a little every time I see her. She walks slow and holds her side. “Hey, Nick. Could you give us a hand with my big-screen TV?”
I roll off the bed and cross the room. I shut the door on her.
“Thanks,” she calls through the wood. “Same to you.”
I wake up in a cold sweat. I’m freezing. My sheet is twisted up in my legs and I’m bound tight. I’m wet. Everything’s wet. I wonder, Did I have a wet dream? I must have. I stink. My muscles are tense, sore, like I’ve been hacking through the jungle to outrun the enemy. I’m hot and cold. Burning up.
My thick head lolls to the side and my saltwater aquarium comes into focus. The water is cloudy, murky. I should check the pH, the temp. My arms and legs are paralyzed. I’m bound.
I close my eyes. My heart pumps gallons and gallons of black, brackish blood, water, fish water, waste. I pump, pump. The roaring waves beat in my ears and eyes. My skin is crawling. I can’t scream. My mouth won’t open, close, work.
Death, I think. This is it. The realization that I’m dying is not unwelcome.
That scares me more than dying.
Jo, please, I pray into the night. Hear me. Come and get me. Give us back our life.