She smiles, a lump in her throat, her heart tentatively unfurling, and commits to memory every exquisite detail of this moment—their faces tinted blue-gray by the storm light, the warmth of his palm, the feeling of his finger gliding against her hand—so that someday, she can pull the memory off the shelves in her mind and revisit it as if nothing has changed, as if they had a chance to go on like this forever.
When she finally arrives home later that afternoon, still giddy and lightheaded from Ari’s words, she sees two police officers standing outside her front door. She stops in her tracks. Her breath catches in her throat. The joy warming her stomach cools into dread.
“What’s happened?” she asks them. “Is my mom in trouble?”
One of the policemen just sighs and searches for the right words to say.
The official report states that Mandarin Palace Chinese Food’s kitchen had a gas leak from corroded piping that had been ignored for years. A lit cigarette set off a blast that rocked the street. It is all over the local news. Every newscast about it ends with a general public warning that “gas line maintenance is essential!”
At least her mother survived. There is nothing left of Hayes from the explosion.
Half of her mother’s body is covered in a lattice of burns, angry and red and weeping, that lace up her chin and down her thighs. Even so, she left the hospital after only a week in order to avoid accruing more bills, spending the rest of her recovery time writhing restlessly at home, their apartment filled with the smell of singed flesh, aloe, honey, and oil diluted from egg yolk.
“What about your pain?” Sam asks. She can’t help hovering around her mother, worrying over the fearsome wounds. Her eyes are perpetually red from crying. “What about the hospital bills?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” her mother says. She slaps her daughter’s arm in irritation. “Go fetch the yolk and put some on my wrist.”
At school, Sam drifts through her classes, barely touches her lunches, fades into herself.
Are you okay?Ari asks her in a letter.
The worry in his eyes is nearly unbearable to her, and she almost writes down everything to him in return, desperate to spill the pain in her chest onto the paper for him to see. But at the last moment, she feels a panic at being so seen, a dread at centering herself. It is not that she doesn’t think their problems deserve attention—only thatherproblems don’t. They have never discussed anything personal in their letters before, have never asked each other for help. And the fear of being the first to apply such a stress test to their bond, the thought of potentially losing her only friend by airing all her pain to him, is so potent that she can’t bring herself to do it.
So she only tells him that something happened to her mother. “But don’t worry,” she says immediately as they walk in the hall between classes. “Everything’s okay now.” And then she hurries away as the bell rings, unable to meet his eyes.
So their letters return to their usual topics, a sprawl of vague questions and random musings. Did you watch that special on ABC about the teen who ran away from home, and have you ever readWatership Downand do you think it’s changed your opinion about rabbits, and what’s your favorite food in the world, and why do people have different palates, and what would you do with a billion dollars? They talk about everything except what’s important, and as the letters go on, the unsaid digs deeper between their words, until Sam feels like she is writing bridges across a widening ravine.
Ari is careful not to ask again, but he does bring her little gifts. A caramel he’d saved from the cafeteria. A sketch of her profile illuminated by the sun. A pretty rock, sapphire blue, worn smooth by the ocean. Each thing feels like a quiet check-in.I’m thinking of you. I hope you’re okay. I wish I could do more.She keeps his sketch on a shelf of her desk at home, and puts the rock in her pocket, carrying it around like a good luck charm.
Her mother sits at the kitchen table early in the morning and late at night, filling out job applications online. Sam sees her occasionally emerge from a neighbor’s apartment with a bucket of detergent and scrubbers, having cleaned a home for twenty bucks. She applies for work in restaurants, motels, theaters, office buildings. Her English isn’t good enough for the call center. Her face is too scarred for the grocery register; she might frighten the customers. Her injuries make her too slow at washing dishes in a kitchen. Sam can always tell when the interviews don’t pan out. She comes home from school and sees her mother already back, curled on the couch and staring blankly at the TV, face drawn and tired, ignoring Sam so wholly that it seems like she’s unaware Sam is there at all.
Sam’s stomach hurts all the time from worrying. She tries to have dinner on the table for her mother when she’s too exhausted to cook, makes sure her mother eats something, endures her mother’s increasingly volatile temper, tells herself it’s not her mother’s fault that she forgets to tell Sam when she’s coming home late. Sam looks around their neighborhood for jobs she can apply to, although her mother is vehemently against her taking on anything that might cut into her studies.
At night, Sam counts up the meager earnings her mother must be scraping together at her various gigs and comes up with a number far short of their rent, let alone her mother’s medical bills. Earning money seems like the hardest thing in the world. No matter how much they try, there is never enough.
And then, one afternoon, Sam comes home to see a yellow eviction notice taped to their front door. They have until the end of the week to pay, or vacate.
The next day, Sam writes in her letter for Ari:
When beech trees know they are going to die, they throw themselves into bloom so that they have a chance at surviving through their seeds. It uses up all their strength, leaving nothing behind for their own protection. Insects and fungi sense their weakness and devour them.
When are we the most spectacular? If something bad happens, do we turn into the best version of ourselves? If we are the best version of ourselves, does it mean something terrible is going to happen?
It’s not quite a confession. But Ari must sense some of her despair, because he writes back:
When we become the best version of ourselves, we can do anything. If something terrible has happened, it means you are about to become invincible.
Don’t be afraid. I’m here.
I’m here.
Maybe he is telling her that she can ask him for help. That night, Sam goes to bed with his letter tucked under her pillow, trying to convince herself to confide in him. But if she does, then what? What could Ari possibly do about her situation? Give her thousands of dollars? Give her and her mother a place to live? How could she impose herself on him like that, when he doesn’t even feel comfortable telling her where he goes after school? What if he shies away?
What if she loses him?
When she finally falls asleep, she dreams. She and her mother are holding bags full of their things, making their way toward the bus stop. It is an impossibly cold night, the streets blue and dark, and the wind is so strong that Sam struggles to push her legs forward. Across from the stop, the familiar Odyssey Theatre is fully illuminated, its golden glow so warm that Sam can feel it against her skin. A premiere night. She stares at the patrons crowding around the front of the theater, their rainbow of outfits contrasting boldly against the red carpet.
How beautiful they always are,Sam thinks in despair.How perfect.She admires their polished heels and glittering dresses, their shiny loafers and elegant suits. She can’t read the title on the marquee tonight, but it doesn’t matter, because if they could only make it inside the theater and get out of this roaring wind for a second, they could catch their breath.
