Birthday(12)

I’ve got a beard in the charcoal sketch too, but this time with short hair and a white lab coat. There’s a stethoscope around my neck, and I’m striding purposefully between a room marked RADIOLOGY and a room marked ONCOLOGY.

Memories of the last days at the hospital flood to the surface. I have to close my eyes and breathe to keep from running to the bathroom to throw up.

I’m beardless in the acrylic painting, thank god, kneeling in profile with a big professional video camera slung over my shoulder, staring intently at whatever I’m filming.

My fingers trace over the pieces of paper, careful not to smudge the charcoal or take flecks off the acrylic, every nerve singing with the thought that she also touched these pages, that every rough bump of paint and ink is a footprint in time. This is the closest I’ll ever come to touching her again, and realizing that makes my breath come in short, quivering bursts.

My mother was so talented in so many ways I’m only now learning to recognize—a painter, a gardener, a baker, a deep thinker. But for all her insights, she never knew me. My hands shake so bad I’m afraid I’ll damage her art, so I fold it and slip it back in the envelope, then slide it all into the videotape box in the hall closet for good measure.

She never knew the real me and she’s gone forever. She died thinking of me as her son, and unless heaven is real, I will always be her son in that last, horrible, infinite moment.

I stay crouched in the hall, sweat and tears coursing down my temples and dripping from my chin. I rub my eyes and pull my knees to my chest, distantly aware of small, desperate chirps escaping my throat, sounding like nothing so much as an animal, wounded, begging for help when it knows none is coming.

Eventually my alarm clock screams, letting me know it’s time to wake up for school. Before I can think about what I’m doing, a roar rasps out of my throat and I run to the bedroom, grab the thrift store clock, snatch it out of the outlet, and fling it against the wall.

There’s a satisfying crack and tinkle of glass as guilt, embarrassment, and comforting emptiness rush in to replace the need to cry. I wipe my nose with my forearm and take a breath through clenched teeth. I wash my face with cold water so nobody at the cell block we call a high school will be able to tell I’ve been crying, throw on a pair of shorts, and head out for another productive, enriching day of ninth grade.



* * *



The field churns below us like fluorescent white noise. I know Eric’s jersey number, 32, so I can focus on him running across the grass as the quarterback gets ready to throw the ball. He was never a great choice for the offensive line, and now that he’s grown tall and lean, wide receiver suits him way better. Next to me, Jasmine jumps to her feet, clapping and yelling.

Jasmine knows I have complicated feelings about football, but ever since we became friends in Spanish I at the beginning of the school year (she called the teacher an illiterate goon in Spanish, the teacher couldn’t understand her, I cracked up) she’s made it her life’s work to pull me out of my shell, even though she’s so much cooler than me, with her Cleopatra bangs, red lipstick, and jean jacket covered in band patches. People give her shit, like apparently Latinas aren’t supposed to enjoy indie rock or shop at Forever 21, but they’re idiots and she’s become my best friend. Except for Eric, of course. And to her, apparently leaving my shell means I have to attend the big September game against our rivals, the Dogwood Pioneers, and cram into the bleachers with the rest of my school and probably most of my town—even if it is my birthday. I’d guess there are close to three thousand people here, all desperate to forget their sons dying overseas for no reason and their daughters wolfing down pills for a momentary escape from their dead-end lives.

A spurt of motion catches my attention and I focus on the field to find Eric as he leaps in the air and catches the pass. He made it onto the JV team just like Dad predicted, and since the varsity wide receiver broke his leg on an ATV last month, Eric’s gotten a lot of time on the field. Carson says Eric has more natural talent in his pinky than Tom Brady. Sometimes I don’t even know if Eric likes football, but he says it’s nice to be good at something and it makes his dad happy. I try to tell him he’s a good guitarist, try to encourage him by recording him while he plays, but he always gets embarrassed and quits, and half the time he mutters that it’s a waste of time since Carson won’t pay for his college. It’s a football scholarship or a job at the used car lot under his dad’s thumb. I know what I’d pick too, if those were my choices.

And anyway, while I don’t know about the Tom Brady comparison, Eric is good. I never would have told him this, but back in peewee and youth league I did a lot of covering for him—I was fast enough at snapping off passes that nobody really noticed how often he let tackles through our line. Dad says Eric’s found his niche now, and that’s definitely part of it—he’s never been aggressive enough for close-contact play at the line—but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say playing guitar did a lot to get him where he is. A good receiver isn’t just fast, he’s also good at thinking on his feet and has sensitive, nimble hands.

Jasmine cheers beside me. I look back to Eric and wince. Things aren’t going great down on the field, but they aren’t hopeless either, and even though we’re down by nine points, I can tell Eric hasn’t let it get to him. He breaks out of locks with guys half again his size like he’s coated in butter, he rolls over defenders’ backs and lands on his feet where other guys would crumple to the dirt, and he almost always reads when to push for extra yards and when to dive out of bounds—on the rare occasions he actually gets the ball.