Close Your Eyes. Amanda Eyre Ward

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СКАЧАТЬ who was staring, his jaw set. He had written my mother a birthday poem, made her a pan of walnut brownies. ‘I just thought of you when I saw them, Jordan,’ said Mr. Schwickrath.

      ‘Are they the right size?’ asked my father.

      My mother had peered at the strappy shoes. They were a silvery color, more expensive than anything we could afford, I knew. ‘Adam, how did you know I was a size seven? They’re beautiful!’ my mother had said. She held a shoe to the light, admiring. But her hand fell when she saw my father’s face. ‘Oh, never mind!’ she said brightly, dropping the shoes back in their box and placing it on a chair. ‘Let’s have some appetizers, why don’t we?’

      Alex and I snacked on corn chips, answering stupid questions about soccer, long division, and what we wanted to be when we grew up. Alex, who was ten, wanted to be a fighter pilot and I, a ballerina. At long last, our parents said we could take our leave.

      We climbed the ladder quietly and lit the candle we’d taken from the sideboard. The caramel light made the tree house seem otherworldly. It may have taken him a while, but my father had built our hideout with care, lining up each board, framing windows.

      My father loved to tinker in his basement workshop. My mother earned the money to pay for our real house, but my father took bits of driftwood or discarded lumber and assembled other dwellings. Besides the tree house, he made me a dollhouse that I called the Fairy Lair. He told me long stories about the fairies who lived inside, and sometimes I would come home from school to find a new piece of furniture: a bed made of daisies or a bathtub carved from wood, painted with flowers. He made birdhouses and gave them to friends as gifts.

      My father. He smelled like cigarettes and cardamom. When I was small and wanted comfort, he would put down the wooden spoon when he was cooking, or the pen when he was writing. Always, he would halt what he was doing and crouch down. I would press my cheek to his warm chest. In his arms, I was safe. The sleeping bags nearly filled the tree house. Alex poured the soda, and I heard my mother’s laughter as I sipped. Sometimes, when I concentrate, I can still hear her.

      We pretended we were on an adventure and talked about where we were sailing. I said, ‘Alexandria, Captain!’ and my brother told me he saw the great port outside the tree house window. The pyramids were in the distance, and the sphinx.

      At some point, our parents called to us. I remember my mother saying, ‘Good night, my loves!’

      ‘Good night!’ we cried, waving to them. They stood below us, next to each other. My father, as always, was disheveled, his hand in my mother’s long hair. As they walked to the house, I saw him wrapping her hair around his dark wrist: a golden bracelet.

      This was the last night I dreamed. The last night, anyway, that I remember any dreams. Now I don’t sleep very well, and I am scared of midnight visions. I take pills that lower me into slumber cleanly, and ebb away until morning, when I wake fuzzy, my mind pleasantly numb until after a few cups of coffee.

      That night I dreamed of dolphins, of riding a dolphin in a warm sea. I slipped underwater and was scooped up again. Then a bolt of lightning cracked in the sky and my dolphin disappeared under the waves for good, leaving me alone. Rain hammered the ocean; I felt water on my head, driving me down.

      My house was underwater. I swam across the lawn and floated upstairs. There were terrible noises coming from my parents’ room. I saw bad things – it is a blank now, a black hole of memory – and I fled the house, back to Alex.

      When I woke, my father and brother were sitting on either side of me on the floor of the tree house, tearing into cinnamon buns. My father often took us to the Holt bakery for pastries – this morning he had risen early and gone himself, he said. He held the bag open for me, and I selected a bun, took a bite sweet with frosting.

      We finished our breakfast and walked to the house to get our swimsuits. I was rummaging in my room for my red one-piece when I heard an awful sound – a cry like a screeching cat.

      There was a long carpeted stairway in the house on Ocean Avenue. I was halfway up the steps when Alex slammed my parents’ bedroom door behind him and rushed to me, grabbing my shoulders.

      ‘Turn around,’ said Alex. His face was white as milk.

      ‘What—’

      ‘Turn around!’ he screamed.

      I fought, straining to find out what had happened, but Alex was stronger. He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me back outside. I asked him what was going on, and he said, ‘Shut up. Just shut up! Just shut up!’

      I was dizzy and too hot. I clutched my bathing suit in my fist.

      A police car arrived – flashing red lights and sirens. An ambulance followed. Brawny, stone-faced men rushed inside our house. When they came back out, they were no longer in a hurry. They bore a heavy stretcher.

      My father emerged on the lawn with two policemen. I heard him shouting about his children, Find my children. The men put my father in a patrol car, shut the door, and drove away. Alex and I waited to see what would happen next.

       Book One

       AUGUST 2010

       Chapter 1

      ‘A road trip,’ said Alex, sounding hopeful for the first time in a long time. ‘To see Gramma. We can visit her and then go to the beach. We can rent a cottage in Galveston. We can rent a condo.’

      ‘A condo?’ I said, clamping the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I gathered tomatoes in the produce aisle.

      ‘I have some news, Lauren. Can you get away this weekend, so we can talk?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s a hundred and ten degrees. I have three open houses on Sunday. What do you mean, news?’

      ‘Well, at least you have your priorities in order.’ My brother sounded like he was pouting. I remembered the way he would hide under the kitchen table when our parents fought, refusing to come out.

      I placed tomatoes on the scale, printing out the price and pressing it to a plastic bag. It was August in Austin, and the cost of tomatoes was rising with the temperatures. ‘Oh, Alex, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Just tell me the news. Is it good news?’

      ‘I get it,’ said Alex. ‘Mr. Cheapskate won’t let you out of his sight?’

      I shut off my phone and stowed it in my handbag. I picked out a bunch of bananas, just a bit green, then gathered organic baby spinach, fresh thyme, and new potatoes. In the meat department, I asked for lamb and a pound of ground chuck. I passed the lobster tank, grabbed a six-pack of Lone Star and a bottle of cheap white. I tossed two boxes of strawberry granola and a pint of Mexican vanilla ice cream into the cart. Cheddar cheese, skim milk, bagels, baguette, warm tortillas, chocolate-chunk cookies. I was shopping for a family of five, it seemed, though it was just Gerry and me in the one-bedroom rental. I smiled when I thought of Gerry: the slight curl in his auburn hair, his broad shoulders. Gerry had been a wrestler in high school and still had a rangy, stocky build. He was my height, and when we swayed in the kitchen to a slow tune on the radio, we fit together like wooden jigsaw pieces. Like Illinois, nestled next to Missouri in my old puzzle of the United States.

      By the register, I grabbed a lemon soda and a bouquet of tulips. I paid with my MasterCard, my СКАЧАТЬ