I’M ALMOST RELIEVED WHEN JETT DROPS ME OFF AT THE Castle. Almost. But I’m also a little bit sad, because it’s starting to feel like there’s so much we need to say to each other. But there’s not much I can do about that. At least not right now.
I fish Chris’s key from under his right tire and pray his ancient Volvo will start. He locks the door as a formality, since both back windows are covered in clear plastic and duct tape. Mercifully, the car starts on the first try, and I manage to stall out only twice on the way home. As I pull into my driveway, I half expect to hear Chris hammering away in the blacksmith shop out back.
But no. Birds sing and cars race by on the freeway, making a low, steady hum in the background, but my house is quiet.
It’s so quiet, it almost feels like a funeral home with its empty stillness. I move through the house, opening drapes, clicking on light switches, and gathering laundry. I take the last few bills out of the jar on the table, hoping it will be enough for all the loads. Then I head downstairs to Chris’s room.
Since Chris’s room is in the lower half of our split-level, only small slivers of afternoon light make it through his grimy windows. I flick the light on, looking for dirty laundry to gather up. My eyes land on a LEGO model of the Sears Tower (well, now the Willis Tower, but it’ll always be the Sears Tower to us here in Chicago) on top of Chris’s bookshelf. I haven’t been in his room in a while, and I didn’t realize he still had this.
I pick it up carefully, blowing the dust off it.
It’s something I bought for him a few years ago, after he and I took the train into downtown without telling Mom. As we walked the concrete corridors of Michigan Avenue, Chris brimmed with plans for the buildings he would design.
“Mine will be as tall as these,” he gushed, pointing up at the skyscrapers. “But I want them to look like the gorgeous buildings in Singapore or Dubai. To achieve that, I’ll have to …”
He went on and on, sharing his dreams and plans.
We went to the top of the Sears Tower and the Hancock Building. The views of Lake Michigan captivated me, but Chris was fascinated by how the buildings were held together. He told me—in exacting and excruciating detail—about the type of steel used, how long it took to construct each building, how much concrete was required, how many feet of wiring the buildings contained, and much, much more that can only be filed under the category of “shit Chris cares about and Kit spaces out on.”
But I knew he loved it. And that his dream was as tall as those buildings piercing the sky. So, I saved up money from babysitting jobs and my first shifts at the Castle and bought him this LEGO Sears Tower building set. Clearly, he was too old for LEGOs, but that didn’t matter.
“It’s so you can have something to look at when you forget what you want out of life,” I said, handing it to him.
He laughed and began building immediately, like he used to on the rare occasions when he got LEGOs as a kid.
A few hours later, it was built, and he hugged me. “It’s perfect, Kit. Thanks.”
Now, it gathers dust on his shelf. Forgotten, pushed aside. Like so many other dreams.
A lump rises in my throat as I start to put it back, knowing there’s nothing I can do to help him this time.
But, no. That’s not thinking like the Girl Knight. The Girl Knight takes action. I carry the LEGO Sears Tower upstairs and set it by my bag. If—and admittedly, this is a very big if—I can manage not to break it, then Chris can see it while he recovers in the hospital. Maybe it will inspire him to pursue a new dream.
Or maybe it will just be some dumb LEGO, but it’s worth a shot.
When I get to my room, I raise my blinds and flop onto the bed. Above my bed, my poster with “KIT’S BIG PLAN” mocks me with its assertion that the world can be ordered, that it’s tidy and plannable.
But life isn’t like that, is it?
There are accidents, and mistakes, and brothers who fall off horses, and absent dads who reappear. And boys who should be kissed, no matter that it’s not a smart idea or against the rules.
As I stare up at the bullet points on the poster board, I feel them closing in around me. They were supposed to be ordering points. Compasses to move me forward. But now they feel more like bars, holding me back.
Have I trapped myself behind all the walls of my own plan?
But another voice whispers somewhere inside me, my mother’s voice: “Kit, if you don’t have a plan, life will just sweep you along in its current. That’s what happened to me. I got swept away and never found my footing. You can chart your own course and steer your own way.”
I’m not even sure what the way looks like anymore, and so I stand up and rip down the poster with “KIT’S BIG PLAN” written on it.
I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away, but I don’t want it staring at me either. Shoving it under my bed, I leave my room.
There are things to do. Tomorrow I can revise my big plan. Today I need to do the laundry, visit Chris, and do my homework.
I gather the laundry and the Sears Tower and head back out to the Volvo. A weary Lady Knight, leaving home again, for another day of questing with the most ordinary of dragons.