Cyclone

  Riley was coming home? “She’s coming home?” I asked, shocked. “She can barely talk, Mom. Or walk! She’s not better yet.”

  “Honey.” She pushed her coffee cup away. After a moment, she said, “Nora, it’s going to take more than a few weeks for Riley to recover.”

  “What do you mean?” Archie was at my feet, sniffing for fallen cereal. I shooed him off angrily. “Riley is getting better. She gets better every day. Even Dr. Mejia said she was getting strong, and she’s practically walking!” I exaggerated. She was enough of her old self to pick a fight with me, I added, but only in my head.

  “Sorry, Nora, but we’re going to be here the rest of the summer. We’re family. Everyone has to pitch in,” Mom said in her end-of-discussion voice. She brought her cup to the dishwasher.

  Wait. What? WHAT? Did she say the rest of the summer?

  “The whole summer!” I cried out. Now I was desperate. “That’s not fair!”

  “I’m sorry, Nora.” Mom closed the dishwasher.

  “Mom, please?” I begged. “Just call Marisol. Her mom will let me stay with them. You know she will!”

  Mom rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. Her well-rested look was gone. “I’m sure they would be happy to have you, Nora,” she said. “Mari is a good friend and so is her mother, but the right place for you right now is exactly where you are.”

  I felt my options fizzling out. The whole rest of the summer? “It’s so not fair! Why does my whole summer have to be ruined too?” I stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and I didn’t see the stupid Abraham Lincoln book on the floor and tripped over it. Dang it! Who knocked over my backpack? Everything was spilled on the floor! Archie!! I picked up the stupid book and threw it against the wall. Hard.

  I kicked Abraham Lincoln again and he slid across the floor and under the bed. I lunged for George Washington, pulled him off the shelf, and threw him to the floor. KICK. Calvin Coolidge. KICK! Ulysses S. Grant and his stupid horse! KICK. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, you too!! I pulled Andrew Jackson off the shelf and slammed him on the floor. KICK.

  Nobody came running to see what the commotion was. Nobody yelled. After about twenty more kicks, I collapsed down on the bed. Archie whimpered and hopped up next to me. I’d looked at the disaster I’d created. Riley’s books were scattered all over the floor. Her favorite books. Some were even ripped. I picked them up, flattened the pages, closed them carefully, and put them back. I’m sorry, George Washington. I’m sorry, Andrew Jackson. I’m sorry especially to you, Abraham Lincoln. I took Ol’ Abe back off the shelf and slid the book back into my knapsack.

  Archie moved closer to me, nudging my other hand with his giant face. I scratched the top of his head and he lowered it right against my leg.

  “I’m sorry for everything, Archie,” I confessed to the dog. “I’m really, really sorry.” And that was the truth. Archie and I spent the rest of the day together on the couch staring at the television, then on the back deck staring at squirrels, and in the kitchen staring at each other as he waited for me to drop crumbs.

  DAY 8

  You look like crap,” Aunt Elayne declared before I was even all the way into Riley’s room. She was right, of course. My mother sighed and ignored her, a classic move. No mention of my father, so I guess everyone except me had known that he was leaving yesterday. I hadn’t even answered him when he had come to say good-bye before he left for the train station. He had kissed me anyway.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, flooding with relief when I saw Riley’s empty bed.

  “Rough night?” she asked. “Riley’s gone to a PT session,” she added. She studied me for a moment. “Maybe you should take a walk . . . or a nap . . . or . . . something.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Mom agreed. “Why don’t you head down to the family room? I’ll meet you there in a bit.”

  “I meant a real walk, Paige; you know, with air and sunshine.” Walking anywhere sounded good, actually. My legs were beginning to feel foreign to me from the hours I spent every day sitting in the car, sitting in the family room, sitting in Riley’s room—and then sitting in a car again. My legs were getting depressed, and I didn’t want it to spread to the rest of me.

  “I don’t think so,” Mom replied.

  “She needs to get fresh air every day,” suggested my aunt, sounding surprisingly like a calm adult with a rational idea.

  “Don’t tell me what she needs,” snapped Mom, now tapping away at her phone. “She’s not your daughter.” Oh no, not again. I wanted to tell both of them to shut up.

  “I’ll go with her,” said Elayne. “How about that?”

  Now I was quietly rooting for Aunt Elayne to win this one.

  “Okay, Mom?” I added quickly. Honestly, I would have preferred to go alone, but it was better than nothing. Anything but being here when Riley got back. I studied my mother’s face, not sure if she didn’t want to let me go, or if she just didn’t want to agree with her sister.

  My mother sighed. “Fine, but only right outside the hospital.” Mom was treating me like I was five years old. She hadn’t mentioned the book-throwing incident during the drive this morning, but it was still pretty heavy on my mind. Was I losing it?

  I could barely keep up with Aunt Elayne as she strode to the elevator. The doors opened and the elevator was packed, as usual. Aunt Elayne pushed right in and pulled me on with her. The fifteen strangers in the elevator car didn’t faze her in the slightest—she kept right on talking like we were everybody’s business. “What is wrong with your mother?” she was ranting. “What does she think I’m going to do with you? Throw you into traffic?”

  The lady next to me hoisted her giant bag up on her shoulder, and it rubbed against my arm. I felt like it was some kind of protest for invading her space. It’s not like I had a choice; there was no room to step aside.

  “I don’t know,” I half mumbled, watching in surprise as Aunt Elayne stripped the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes she’d pulled from her bag and then put one in her mouth.

  “You can’t smoke in here!” the lady with the giant bag announced.

  “Do I look like an idiot?” asked Aunt Elayne. The lady rolled her eyes.

  “You smoke?” I literally did not know one single grown-up who smoked.

  “Only on special occasions,” she answered, the cigarette bobbing up and down at the corner of her mouth. The elevator door opened to a new crowd of people waiting to go up. “Come on. Let’s go outside.” She was three steps ahead of me already.

  I pointed to the red sign on the building. NO SMOKING WITHIN 30 FEET.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. Fine. Come on. Ocean air will do us some good.” She pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her bag and slid them on. “It’s close, right? The beach?”

  “Pretty close,” I said, using a very loose definition of the word “close.” I had never walked to it before, but Jack had said it wasn’t too far.

  We split up for a second to make our way around a group of people in front of the hospital. “This way,” I said, nudging her to the left when we met up again. Aunt Elayne was moving more slowly now. Maybe she only rushed when she was trying to get away from my mother. I stopped at the corner to wait for the walk sign. Aunt Elayne rushed forward, but I pulled her back to the curb. She took the opportunity to light her cigarette, close her eyes, and take a long, long puff. When she exhaled, the smoke seemed to just hang there, trapped by the heat and humidity. “Which way?”

  “Straight ahead,” I said. Abraham Lincoln eyeballed me from a lamppost in front of a namesake high school across the six lanes of traffic.

  “Are you sure?” She spun around in a little circle, trying to get her bearings.

  “Positive.” The beach was a straight shot from hospital, I knew that from the cab ride. The light changed at last and we crossed. I didn’t blame Aunt Elayne for doubting me. There really was no reason to think that there was a beach nearby. At the next corner, we had the walk sign, but one after another, the
cars made their turns right in front of us, like we weren’t even there. Aunt Elayne let loose a string of obscenities, supplemented with hand gestures for those drivers with their windows closed. “Where the hell are we?” She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her cigarette-free hand. She dug through her bag again, then handed me another pair of sunglasses.

  “Just another few blocks, I think.” I could see the raised subway tracks, so I knew the boardwalk wasn’t much farther.

  “If you say so,” she said. “I’m just following your lead.” But the closer we got to the beach, the more my throat tightened. At the next corner, Elayne flicked her cigarette into the street as she stepped off the curb, but I pulled her back.

  “No, wait . . . ,” I said. We were really far away from the hospital. It felt too far.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “We should go back.” I let go of her arm. “Mom will be worried.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, waving me off. “Here, I’ll text her and let her know. She won’t be happy about it, but she won’t worry.” She groped through her bag, looking for her phone. A dog shot out of a nearby apartment building and ran straight at us. Aunt Elayne pulled me out of the way. “Idiot,” she grumbled, as the owner grabbed ahold of it.

  “Really . . . let’s go back,” I insisted. The farther we got from the hospital, the more anxious I felt.

  Aunt Elayne lifted her sunglasses to look at me. “What’s wrong? Not that any of us are at our best, but you really do look terrible today, Nora. What is it?”

  “I don’t want to go for a walk,” I lied. Well, not really. I just didn’t really want to walk . . . there. But I didn’t want to be at the hospital, either. There was just no place I actually did want to be. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

  Now she lowered her sunglasses and looked at me over the frames. “Try.”

  “Riley’s mad at me. I don’t want to see her today.” Even so, as soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.

  “Nora, honey, if I had to avoid people who were mad at me, I’d still be in San Francisco right now.”

  “Is that . . . what . . . what took you so long? To come?” There. It was out.

  “I know . . .” She slipped her glasses to their regular position, covering her eyes. “I know I took my time getting here. I guess I was hoping that a few days would pass and I’d get a phone call saying . . . you know . . . that Riley would be just fine, some special treatment, a few weeks of therapy and she’d be back to her old self. But it didn’t turn out that way.” Aunt Elayne glanced away, choking back tears.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, honey. I am. I’m just sad about all of it. All of this.”

  “Um, sad isn’t okay,” I said. “Sad is sad.”

  “Trust me,” she said. “You can be sad and still be okay. And if you can’t, you better learn.” That was news to me. As we crossed the last street before the boardwalk, the smell of food was overwhelming. “Only in Brooklyn would the beach smell like onions.” She pointed to the source—a huge restaurant sitting on the corner across Ocean Avenue. The split ramp up to the boardwalk was directly in front of us now. We stepped aside to make room for a family of bicyclists on their way down. They waved a thank-you and stopped in front of an ice-cream truck.

  At the top of the ramp to the boardwalk, we could finally see the ocean. I could tell Aunt Elayne was surprised. Wind whipped her hair into her eyes, and she held it back with one hand.

  “I really need to sit down for a few minutes.” Aunt Elayne put her arm around my shoulders. “Pretty close, my foot, by the way.” She picked the first empty bench on the boardwalk, tugged off her shoes, and sat cross-legged. I did the same. The boardwalk was like a busy city sidewalk. People walked alone, in pairs, in groups; some gathered on either side and yelled to each other over the middle. Some cut across from one side to the other, headed down to the beach below. In front of it, the ocean hissed and pounded.

  “Is that why you’re not staying with us? Because of Mom?” I asked. A plump seagull with a limp seemed to be loitering in front of us, hoping for food.

  Aunt Elayne swung her shoe in the seagull’s direction. “I’m pretty comfortable where I am, and I’m out of everybody’s way.”

  “Did you ever get along with my mother?”

  She sighed. “I’m not here to fix my relationship with your mother; I’m here for Riley and for Maureen. I grab a taxi early in the morning and I get to spend a little extra time with Riley every day. Give your aunt Maureen a chance to take a shower and spend some time alone in the chapel.” I didn’t know that she was helping my aunt Maureen like that. I wondered if my mother knew?

  “Are you going to stay until Riley’s better?” Aunt Elayne was quiet for a minute, staring toward the water.

  “Nora, Riley may not get much better. She may never be . . . the same as she was before.” She was crying for real now, unable to hold back this time. I couldn’t look at her. She hung her head, and it went on for a full minute or so. When she stopped, she wiped her eyes and said, “This is Riley now. This is the one I’m getting to know. In a strange way, I may be the lucky one. I didn’t know the old Riley, not very well, so I’m not waiting for her to come back. You might want to think about that too.” Now I choked back my tears. No! She was wrong! Riley was getting better every day. Aunt Maureen said it, my mother said it, even Dr. Mejia said it.

  Riley had words.

  She could sit in a chair.

  She could eat with a spoon.

  I could barely keep up with all the sparks!

  “Shall we?” Aunt Elayne stood.

  “Shall we . . . what?” I asked, confused.

  “Walk down to the water,” she said, picking up her shoes. “Why come all the way to the beach and not actually go into the water? Well, our feet, at any rate.” She waited for a break in the boardwalk traffic and then jogged across to the sand. I picked up my flip-flops and broke into a run—and then took off. Yikes! The sand was burning hot. Aunt Elayne actually managed to run to the water faster than I did!

  “Holy Christmas, that’s cold!” Aunt Elayne held her shoes up higher so they didn’t get clobbered by the spray. The surf rushed past our feet again, then back into the ocean, sinking us farther into the sand.

  “I hear you’re a runner,” she said. The ocean was loud and she had to yell, even though she was only two feet away from me.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Cross-country.”

  “You should run here!” There were all kinds of runners on the beach and on the boardwalk. Athletes, definite nonathletes, older people, high school kids. But still, it wasn’t how I usually ran.

  “I don’t usually run on sand—or barefoot!” I told her.

  “Running is running,” she answered. “Who cares how you do it?” She chased the surf a little as it receded. “Go on!” she ordered. “Go ahead. Run.” She spread her hands out in both directions. I looked up and down the beach. To go right meant I had to run toward the Cyclone. I handed her my flip-flops and chose left.

  “I’ll meet you where the onion smell starts!” she called after me.

  I was a little rusty and felt out of place, especially as I was wearing jean shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt (the hospital is always so cold!), but I took off in a jog. I had only gone about three paces before I realized that I was still wearing Elayne’s extra pair of sunglasses and they were bouncing up and down on my face. Not meant for running, that’s for sure. I turned around to see my aunt still standing ankle deep in wet sand—watching after me. I jogged back, handed her the sunglasses, and jogged off again. “Onions!” she reminded me.

  “Onions!” I called back. My mind started wandering, and I struggled to find a good pace. Then I reminded myself what I needed to do: keep my gaze up, breathe all the way into my stomach, use my arms. I didn’t run very far—maybe a half mile—but it felt far enough. My legs felt sturdy again—useful—like they had when I had run in the stairwell, so
much more familiar to me than my sitting legs. It felt good to have them back. And then I felt instantly, instantly guilty. Riley. Would Riley run again? Not that Riley was a big runner, but she deserved strong, steady legs. Was Elayne right? Would Riley never be the same? I made a U-turn and headed back, on familiar turf now. My heart was beating that great working-hard beat, and I caught a nod and a wave from a runner going in the opposite direction. Elayne saw Riley exactly as she was now without comparing her to the old one, like I did. I didn’t want to admit it, but each morning on the way to the hospital, I wondered if this would be the day that Riley was back to old Riley. I took a hard right at a volleyball game and picked up the pace, mostly because the sand was so hot! The boardwalk wasn’t much better. I didn’t see Aunt Elayne on the boardwalk when I got there, but I did smell the onions. I did a slow-down jog down the ramp and found her at the ice-cream truck parked at the bottom.

  “Ready?” she asked, a chocolate ice-cream cone in front of her mouth, framed by even bigger, fuller, crazier wind-whipped hair. Beach hair. She held out her ice cream as an offer. I declined.

  “Ready.” Was I?

  “Lead the way,” she said.

  * * *

  We walked off the elevator and right into my mother. Her face and neck were bright red. “Where have you been? Do you realize how long you’ve been gone?” She was frantic and grabbed my arm harder than I expected. “I’ve been looking all over for you! I told you to stay close to the building!”

  “Leave the poor girl alone, will you, Paige?” Aunt Elayne waltzed right past my mother toward Riley’s room, deliberately nudging her with her bag. A few of the nurses at the station stopped what they were doing.

  “I’m talking to you, Elayne!” snapped my mom. “I just asked you a question. Where the hell have you been?”

  “We took a walk to the beach,” my aunt answered. It sounded a lot more casual than it actually was. Like we had a picnic or something.

  “Oh, I see. Did you need a break from the hospital, is that it? Is this too hard for you?”