Confrontations II
“Has there been any change,” the boy asks again. He stands at her door step and waits as if he owns time and she does not. He figured out some trick to being peaceful when the world is falling apart, when everything around seems shrill,especially her own sound. It's the way his voice sounds, low, and soft that nearly drives her to slam the door in his face.
“I don’t have a good answer for you,” Ally says.
She almost speaks to him the same way she does to Father Beni sometimes, “I knew she was having problems and growing up without a dad is hard, but I never expected, didn’t believe it at first when I saw her room and how she packed up. She left the jeans I bought her the day she told me she became one of those Wave girls.” She’d like to say more, but if she starts talking about the other truths she knows, the ones about Thom and the drugs that turned out to be Tic Tacs and how Emily heard all that stuff she said on the lawn to Grizzly and what happened because of all that, she won’t be standing upright. “Some guy wasn’t paying attention and slammed into her with his car. But you already know all about Emily,” she says. “You know better than the rest of us.” And she looks him over then as if she can find some kind of sign of who or what he is.
And when Mickey says, “I’m sorry,” the way people do when they do not know what else to say, she touches the door like it is the first time she notices it, and it becomes both an anchor and an object in her way. She looks all over the yard and then, anyplace else but not at his scarred face.
(She wants to ask whether Emily is coming home but the words stay stuck in her throat. And instead she says, “It wasn’t what I said at the party. I gave her and her mom a good home.” (Are you an angel, a ghost? She almost asks. And she feels cold even though it is eighty-five degrees outside.)
And when he tells her goodbye and turns away, she pretends not to notice how he changes - the way his hair goes from long and shaggy to short and clean cut almost in an instant and how she could have sworn he was wearing a wrinkled oxford shirt with pushed up sleeves. He had looked sloppy not preppy solid. She follows his pressed polo down the street. After a few minutes she doesn’t remember if he wore a blue shirt or a gray one. After a few more minutes, she believes Emily returned hours ago and the house is quieter now. Emily’s door is closed, she has stopped blasting music and isn’t this what always happened? Ally rebounds to the sound of Don and Thom together in the kitchen, she thinks, preparing a mid-afternoon snack. Life is still good. She clings to this idea - everything will be good again.
“I don’t have a good answer for you,” Ally says.
She almost speaks to him the same way she does to Father Beni sometimes, “I knew she was having problems and growing up without a dad is hard, but I never expected, didn’t believe it at first when I saw her room and how she packed up. She left the jeans I bought her the day she told me she became one of those Wave girls.” She’d like to say more, but if she starts talking about the other truths she knows, the ones about Thom and the drugs that turned out to be Tic Tacs and how Emily heard all that stuff she said on the lawn to Grizzly and what happened because of all that, she won’t be standing upright. “Some guy wasn’t paying attention and slammed into her with his car. But you already know all about Emily,” she says. “You know better than the rest of us.” And she looks him over then as if she can find some kind of sign of who or what he is.
And when Mickey says, “I’m sorry,” the way people do when they do not know what else to say, she touches the door like it is the first time she notices it, and it becomes both an anchor and an object in her way. She looks all over the yard and then, anyplace else but not at his scarred face.
(She wants to ask whether Emily is coming home but the words stay stuck in her throat. And instead she says, “It wasn’t what I said at the party. I gave her and her mom a good home.” (Are you an angel, a ghost? She almost asks. And she feels cold even though it is eighty-five degrees outside.)
And when he tells her goodbye and turns away, she pretends not to notice how he changes - the way his hair goes from long and shaggy to short and clean cut almost in an instant and how she could have sworn he was wearing a wrinkled oxford shirt with pushed up sleeves. He had looked sloppy not preppy solid. She follows his pressed polo down the street. After a few minutes she doesn’t remember if he wore a blue shirt or a gray one. After a few more minutes, she believes Emily returned hours ago and the house is quieter now. Emily’s door is closed, she has stopped blasting music and isn’t this what always happened? Ally rebounds to the sound of Don and Thom together in the kitchen, she thinks, preparing a mid-afternoon snack. Life is still good. She clings to this idea - everything will be good again.
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