Because of the Sun Read online

  I tell my brain it is stupid. I push that thought away. Because that wasn’t my mother. And I wasn’t that daughter.

  I leave all the lights off, except the one in my room. I don’t want to see anything else. I head back to Helen’s.

  “You sure?” Helen asks when I tell her I’m going to school and she sees my backpack slung over my shoulder. She doesn’t think I should go.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. She’s eating microwave pizza for breakfast. “Just didn’t figure you’d go.”

  “What else would I do?” I ask her. She shrugs and takes another bite of her pizza.

  But I’m serious. What else would I do? I can’t think of a single other thing I could do. I can’t even remember what I’ve been doing. Days have passed and I forget them as soon as I think about them too hard.

  I finish cereal I don’t remember pouring and head outside.

  The sun is unbearably hot as I walk to the bus stop. Others are already there, but they stop talking when they see me.

  Nobody talks to you when your mother has been mauled to death by a bear. Not that they talked to me before. No, they don’t talk to me, but they look at me. They look at me the way their moms looked at my mom. They turn their heads and whisper to each other. But I see the words, big, blocky, black-lettered words, coming out of their mouths and filling the air. Bear. Mother. Half-naked. Euthanized. Poor bear. Torn face. Missing fingers.

  I think of the word unbearable. My face smiles at the irony. I watch it collide into the other words. Crash and jumble, until the letters dislodge from one another and they’re no longer words, just letters. Until they’re nonsense, and a big yellow bus suddenly appears in front of me, swallows me up, and takes me away.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” some guy in the guidance office asks me. I haven’t bothered to learn his name. Who cares what it is. Who cares what anyone’s name is or why we’re called what we’re called for our whole lives. I can hardly remember my own.

  My mom’s name was Ruby.

  Ruby Falls.

  Names are ridiculous.

  Dani. Dani Falls. All my life I imagined myself tripping, and all because she refused to give me my father’s name. Or maybe, most likely, she didn’t know it.

  Maybe names do matter. Maybe your future is in your name. Maybe if my father had given me his name things would have been different.

  “I wish we could change our names,” I tell the guy. “We should be allowed to change our names on a daily basis.”

  “Why?”

  I shrug. Dani. Ruby. Falls. I string them together in my head until none of them make sense.

  I stare out the window. The heavy rain of moments ago that had rushed down and sounded like television white noise is stopping. The last heavy drips of silver are being wrung from the clouds and plopping lazily to the ground. Water. Falls.

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  “Why would you like to change your name?”

  Is he still talking about names?

  “The rain looks silver,” I tell him. Rain looks silver. Water looks pink. The water in the pool has turned pink. Drops of water are falling in that pink pool right now. Maybe it’s clear again.

  The word pink reminds me of the nail polish.

  And dangling pinkies.

  I wonder what made her choose shell-pink. Usually she wore orange or red polish. Flaming-hot colors that made her stand out. All she ever wanted was to stand out. And she did. Her hair, her clothes, her voice. She was loud. There was a pitch in her voice, her laughter, that hurt my ears.

  The bell rings. I get up and leave. Mr. So-and-So is still saying something, but his voice trails off as the door closes behind me. I stalk through the office, down the crowded halls, and into a bathroom stall. Another bell rings. I wait until the halls are empty. Until five or six more bells ring and the muffled silence that always follows noise covers me like a blanket. I fall asleep on the toilet. It’s the smell of lemons that finally wakes me up.

  The custodian is wide-eyed when I come out of the stall. I walk all over her freshly mopped floor.

  I feel like a sleeping bear.

  I wander around the mostly empty school, realize I’ve missed the bus and my only choice is to walk home.

  But there is no home, my brain reminds me, and there’s no one home.

  I wonder what I should do.

  I shrug off the panic creeping around me, look over my shoulder, wonder if the bear made it out of my dreams and followed me here.

  I walk until I’m outside the school library, and I tell my brain Shhhhhhhh, be quiet, as I reach for the door handle and go inside.

  The media specialist looks up from her stack of books and I know instantly that she knows. Those looks are what I felt all day. They’re why I hid in the bathroom.

  It was one of our students’ mom? That’s terrible. Which student? Oh, I think I know who she is, the one who comes in here in the mornings. Oh, that’s terrible. Just terrible.

  The media specialist offers me a sad smile and I want to tell her she doesn’t have to be nice, but I walk toward the display of summer reading books instead.

  She came to our class and talked about them, the books we had to read over summer. But this one, The Stranger, is the one that suddenly comes rushing back to me.

  The media specialist stood in front of the class, holding the book in her hand, pitching an absurd story about a strange guy. She tried to make it sound interesting, but I could tell she didn’t like it. I could tell she didn’t like him, the stranger.

  She read the first paragraph to us.

  His mother was dead.

  I remember.

  I wait for something to happen. It seems like something should happen, like the world should shake, like the bear should come crashing through the glass door, shattering the silence, the stillness in the library. The clock ticking high on the wall sounds as if it’s being held up to my ear. Each second sounds loud and endless.

  I look over at the media specialist, but she quickly looks away.

  I stare at the book cover, wondering if the stranger could have known what was going to happen to me before it happened, if he’d been making his way to me even before the bear.

  My mother’s face fills my mind. Small black dots cloud my vision and I wait for the panic I felt outside to find me.

  But it doesn’t.

  I blink and focus on the cover. He wants me to take him. He wants me to read his story.

  I wait again. But nothing happens.

  Okay, I say to him, the stranger. I reach for the book and walk over to the checkout counter, to the media specialist, who pretends she wasn’t watching me but was. And I set the book down in front of her and we both stare at it.

  “We’re not checking out books anymore,” she says softly. “Too close to the last day of school.”

  I keep my eyes on the book. “I have to read this,” I say. Because I know how his story starts, but I don’t know how it ends.

  She takes the book in her hand. “Do you…know what this book is about? There are other books you could—”

  I cut her off. “I know what it’s about.” Because there are no other books. Only this one.

  I wait. And I think if she doesn’t check it out to me, I’ll fight her for it. I’ll take it and run.

  But after a moment, I hear the soft beep of a scan. When she holds the book out to me, I don’t look at her face. I grab the book and go, clutching it tighter with each step, all the way to Helen’s house.

  “Did you talk to Dr. Gary today? At school?” the lady from child services asks. She’s waiting for me at Helen’s when I get there. I worry she’ll know I have The Stranger in my backpack and she’ll know what it’s about and she’ll take it away. But she repeats her question and I just nod and try to remember who the hell Dr. Gary is.

  “Nice guy, right? He goes to the schools when we need him. They notified us when you showed up today.” She sh
oots an annoyed look at Helen, who is watching television in the other room.

  I want to ask her how many others like me she has, and what it’s like going around dealing with people’s blown-up lives. But I don’t. Because that would lead to getting to know her and there’s no point in that.

  So I say, “He’s fine.”

  “I was going to have you see him once a week, but…” She takes some papers out of her briefcase, looks at them, and puts them down. “Well, the thing is…your aunt says she’ll take custody of you, but you have to…”

  I stare at her. I don’t know what is coming out of her mouth. I try to make sense of her words. But I can’t. Because you said there was no one.

  You have no one but me, Dani!

  “An aunt?” I say.

  Black dots cloud my vision again and I blink them away.

  She nods. “Did you know about her?”

  No one but you, that’s what you said. That we were on our own! That we only had each other! That I only had you!

  I feel like I’m floating.

  How many other things did she never tell me? How many other things did she take with her to her grave?

  I swallow.

  “Maybe, I don’t know,” I manage to say.

  “Your mother’s sister. She lives in New Mexico. That’s where you’ll be moving. And, well, you’ll leave in a few days….”

  She takes a deep breath, searches my face, waits for me to say something. But I can’t.

  “Dani?”

  An aunt. Somewhere, there had always been someone. Someone other than my mother.

  The child services lady looks at me. Her face is concerned, like the media specialist’s. But I don’t want her to look at me that way. I don’t want her comfort or her pity. I don’t need it. Or her. I’ve never needed anyone. Not even my own mother.

  “Dani?”

  She’s waiting for me to fall to pieces.

  But my mom was the one who liked falling to pieces. Who liked people feeling sorry for her. Who groveled for attention. Not me.

  Say something, I tell myself. Say something!

  “Yeah, okay,” I tell her.

  She looks at me funny. No doubt she came prepared with all the reasons this move would be good. I can tell. I can see the words lined up on her tongue, waiting to be dispatched. I can see her finger on her cell phone for an emergency call to Dr. What’s-His-Name. I can see she was ready.

  But I’m ready too.

  She’s saying something now about my school waiving my final exams because of my A average. I don’t even have to go back. It will give me time to adjust to all this…to prepare for the trip. I focus on her moving lips and nod.

  I learned not to get attached to people or places long ago. To simply get up and go without a care about who or what we left behind.

  Besides, I don’t want to stay with Helen anymore, even if she was nice enough to take me in. In fact, I almost understand why Mom never liked her much. And I don’t want to go back to school either. So flying somewhere else is fine, just fine with me.

  The panic subsides. Everything comes back into focus.

  I nod. “Sure. That’s totally fine. Will you be taking me to the airport?”

  “Uh, yeah. I mean, sure. I can do that.” She stares at me. I wonder if she thinks I’m asking her, if she thinks I need her, when really I just don’t know if there’s some child services bus that does things like this, takes orphaned kids to airports to fly to faraway places to meet strangers. I try to clarify that I don’t need her to take me, but she starts talking before I can.

  “You’re sure you’re okay with all this?”

  Again I nod. What say do I have in any of this anyway? This was decided for me; the only solution. I saw it. I understood. What am I supposed to do other than comply?

  “I’ll be ready,” I tell her.

  She pats me on the back, a strange little pat, and tells me she’ll call with more details. “You sort of amaze me,” she says as she stands up.

  It’s a strange thing to say, but when I look at her, I think she means it. She does look a little amazed. Or scared.

  “I’m amazed by bear attacks in backyard pools,” I tell her. It’s the wrong thing to say, but I don’t care.

  She winces, then fiddles with her briefcase and takes a deep breath.

  “I’ll talk to you soon,” she says, and leaves.

  I sink into the couch. You’re fine, I tell myself, you’re fine. If I keep repeating that, I can’t hear what the other part of me is saying.

  Maybe it’ll do me good, going out west. I think of orange sunsets and rust-colored earth.

  “So, you’re leaving?” Helen asks. She’s leaning on the doorframe.

  “I guess so.” It’s not a big deal.

  She shrugs. She almost looks sad, or maybe I want her to be, which is odd. She turns and goes back to the kitchen.

  An aunt.

  Aunt what? I didn’t even ask her name.

  New Mexico.

  I wonder if the dust will fill my nose and cloud my head so I can’t think. I wonder if tumbleweeds will roll through my mind and all my memories will get caught up in them and tumble away. I wonder if the bear will leave me alone and stop coming to me in my dreams if I am no longer here.

  Because last night, he brought Mom back. She was next to me. But we were on our knees with our hands tied behind our backs. And I knew we were going to be executed.

  I just knew it.

  But she didn’t.

  Or she didn’t care.

  Because she was laughing. I told her to stop. I knew he was near and would hear her and find us. But she wouldn’t stop. She just kept getting louder, her high-pitched laughter slicing the air.

  Suddenly I realized there was something in her voice that only bears can detect, something that conjures them up and brings them running.

  I told her she would get hurt, but she kept laughing. She couldn’t hear a thing; she couldn’t hear me screaming or crying. He was getting closer.

  I could feel the floor shaking as his paws hit the ground running, coming to get us.

  And then he was behind us.

  And she stopped mid-laugh.

  And I waited.

  “Ms. Overton will pick you up at three o’clock,” Helen says. We’re at my house. School is over, I guess, because June 1 is written on the ticket to New Mexico that somebody bought me and I printed at Helen’s. I fold the paper and put it in The Stranger, look around my room deciding what to take. I have a couple of band posters, but I only take the one with the guy standing alone, looking away from the camera.

  “Ms. Overton?”

  “The child services lady.” Helen looks at me with her small eyes that I can’t read. “You know?”

  “Right.” I stuff more clothes into my bags.

  “Don’t worry about the things here. I’ll pack them.”

  Worry? I hadn’t thought about any of it. Hadn’t even wondered what would be done with it.

  “All the furniture was here when we moved in,” I tell her. “None of it is ours.”

  When we lived in apartments, they were always practically empty. Then there were the houses. Small at first. Isn’t this better? Then bigger. Look at this. Isn’t this better? She always thought the next place was better.

  But no matter where we moved, everything was the same. The rooms, the walls, the schools, even the kids at school. I barely remember the blur of faces that didn’t matter after the ones that only sort of did. Like Fanny, who gave me an ice cream magnet and held my hand and told me it meant we were best friends. But that was so long ago; now I wonder if Fanny ever really existed.

  Sometimes I forget we moved and sometimes I dream about people and places I’m not sure were real. All the apartments and houses with their rooms and halls had a way of melding into one big, sprawling house with endless halls and mazes. Each new place was another wing added on to this odd house that lived in my memory, and each made things worse somehow, not better
.

  Helen nods. “Dave and Ken will be here soon, I’m sure. Get it ready to rent again.”

  “Dave and Ken?”

  “The owners.” She stares at me. Blinks.

  “Right.”

  I think of Helen walking around our house, going through our things. It makes me uncomfortable.

  I push the thought out of my mind.

  “I have some space at my house. I can store everything there until your aunt figures out what to do with it.”

  I nod. I wish she would stop talking. I wish she hadn’t brought up the idea of our stuff at her house. There was hardly any room there, crammed as it was with new and old items. She called the old things vintage and antiques. But they looked mostly like unwanted, damaged trash. I think of how Helen took me in and suddenly wonder if I’m just another unwanted, damaged thing she collected.

  “It’s kind of strange that your aunt didn’t come. I thought she’d attend the funeral.”

  I’d made myself forget about the funeral. I can’t pack fast enough. I want Helen to be quiet, to magically disappear. I’ve already managed to believe the funeral didn’t happen. I’m not even sure I went.

  “I can do this by myself. You don’t have to help.”

  She shrugs. “I don’t have anything to do.” She looks around my room. “You don’t have much stuff. When I was your age, my room was so cluttered you could barely walk in it.”

  I don’t want to think of Helen at my age. Or of her room.

  I zip up my suitcase, my duffel bag, and my backpack. “That’s it,” I tell her.

  She looks at me. I know she’s been generous, but I’m starting to dislike her.

  “That’s it? What about all that?” She motions to the bottles of lotion on the dresser, the hair products, the clothes that still hang in the closet and the shoes just under them. But it all looks strange, like it belongs to someone else. “Your duffel bag is hardly full.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  She takes a deep breath. “Okay. But you’ve got some good stuff there,” she says, eyeing the dresser. I have a feeling that when I’m gone, she’ll take it all for herself.