THE TIGERSEYE
by Jennifer Wolf
The clock says 6:35, even though it’s really 6:25. If everything was normal, the alarm would ring in five minutes. I’d hit the snooze button, pull the covers around my shoulders, and go back to sleep until Mom came in and forced me to get up. I used to stay in bed until the last possible minute and then dash around getting ready for school—looking for my shoes or a clean t-shirt, finally grabbing a granola bar and running out the door to the sound of my boyfriend Trip laying on the horn of his black Chevy pick-up.
Nothing is normal, and no one makes me go to school.
Mom comes in and stands at the door to see if I’m awake.
“You think you can handle school today, Allie?” She’s quiet, so if I am asleep I can stay asleep. I shake my head without rolling over. She hovers for a minute or two, so I can see her concern before she leaves to get ready for her own orderly life.
Andrew is next, twin telepathy guiding him to my door. He knows or at least senses more than anyone how much I’m hurting. I know he does, because until now it’s been me on the other side, watching him hurt. You can’t share a womb with someone for nearly seven months without creating an unbreakable bond.
His wheelchair hums and bumps against the wall. Our house is small, one level, old. Perfect for Andrew. The hallways and doors are wide enough for him to maneuver his chair. Only Mom and Dad’s room is upstairs in the converted attic.
A tap at my door, barely audible. Thump against the wall. He grasps and then loses his grip on my door handle. When we moved in, Dad changed all of the doorknobs for long handles so Andrew can open the doors, but it’s still hard for him. I should get up, I should help him, but my quilt—the one grandma gave me—feels like lead. I can’t make myself move.
The latch clicks, and his chair pushes against the door. He moves forward until its open enough for him to see my bed. For Andrew, I roll over so he can see my face. He stays in the doorway. That’s new, the invisible wall between us, a barrier at the threshold of my room that he never crosses anymore. He breathes hard and speaks in his halting voice that no one outside our family can understand. “Okay, today, Al? School?” Andrew is smart—brilliant—but most people think he’s retarded, because of his body and because of the way he talks.
Andrew has cerebral palsy, brought on by a lack of oxygen when we were born—eight and one half weeks early. I came out screaming like a full-term baby. Andrew was cold and blue. His body is twisted and barely in control, but his mind is sharp. His injuries from our birth are easy to see. Mine are less obvious.
I shake my head and avoid Andrew’s eyes, but I’m drawn there. His eyes are soft, brown, and deep. The pain I see there, pain for me, makes me look away.
He lingers for another minute before he leaves too.
The red numbers slide by on my clock. Morning sounds carry through the network of vents into my bedroom. Mom helps Andrew with breakfast. His bus pulls up out front. A group of grade school kids laugh as they pass in front of my house. Then the middle school students. A motorcycle flies by, Trip’s friend Randall, probably with Angie glued to his back. If I sat up and opened the blinds, I could watch the whole thing from my bed. Like a parade or some reality T.V. show—a reality I no longer belong to.
Crazy. How do they keep going like everything is the same?
The days have started to run together, but I think it’s the fifth day of school, the second week of what would be my senior year. Over a month since the accident and three weeks since I came home from the hospital. There’s an untouched pile of school books and papers in the corner by my desk. Blake brings my homework by every day—part of my new routine.
I slide out of bed and head towards the bathroom. I don’t have to go into the hall or see anyone. There’s a door that leads to the bathroom from my bedroom and a door that leads from Andrew’s side—Jack and Jill, like us.
I catch a sideways view of myself in the mirror. Trip would hate my hair.
I can hear Mom and Dad through the vent that connects their remodeled bathroom to our bathroom downstairs. Dad being home this late is a bad sign, no appointments or no cars to be worked on in the shop. He owns an auto shop/wrecking business. The business is new. He’s only been out of the Army for a month. He says things will get better in the summer when he can rescue tourists who get stuck on the beach or have their car break down with no other town for miles. His problem is that everyone in town is loyal to Barney’s Auto shop. Dad says that Barney’s is rip-off, but they’ve been the only shop in town for like forty years.
“There’s a new guy down at the Sherriff’s Office,” Dad says. I’m grateful to hear them talking about something other than me. Dad isn’t a coddler. Twenty years in the Army made him tough. He harps at Mom to make me get up, go to school—get on with my life.
“Oh?” Mom says. “How long do you suppose this one will last?”
Dad snorts a laugh. Pacific Cliffs is a small town, one of those places where everyone knows everyone and no one locks their doors at night. The long arm of the law is the Sheriff Jerry Milton—Mom’s Junior Prom date. Jerry by himself is sufficient police for Pacific Cliffs, but there are always a couple of deputies around, usually young and straight from training. They get bored and move on.
“This guy is from Seattle
I catch my breath, and I can imagine Mom above me doing the same.
“He wouldn’t want to talk to Allie would he?” Even with the echo through the vent, I catch the nervous edge.
“If he convinces Jerry to reopen the investigation, she’s the first person he’ll talk to.” Dad—matter of fact—he could be talking about a news story, not commenting on the police coming to question his daughter.
“Hasn’t she been through enough?” Mom’s ‘always in control’ voice strains.
“Honestly, Lu”—something thumps over my head, probably Dad stomping one of his boots onto his foot—“I think he might be right, if I was Roger Phillips, if it was my kid who got killed, I’d want it all looked into too.”
“What good is that going to do?” Mom’s heels click on the tile floor. “Everyone knows Trip was reckless in that truck, and that there was probably alcohol involved. He took the cliff turn too fast and went over the edge into the ocean. End of story. It was a miracle that Allie was thrown free before he went over.”
Another thump right above my head this time. “No body, no truck, no wreckage of any kind except the back bumper scraped off on the rocks.” Dad pauses, probably to tie his boots. “No witnesses. And Allie, lying on the side of the road, head bashed in, and no memory of what happened.”
“I hate the thought of her going through all of that questioning again. She’s shattered. She can’t remember the week before the accident, much less what happened just before.”
“She’s tougher than you give her credit for. I don’t think we’re doing her any favors by letting her hide out in her room.” Now they’ve morphed into the argument I keep overhearing. “She needs to face what happened and get on with her life.”
“She needs time—” Mom’s voice is firm.
“All she has right now is time.” Dad’s voice raises a notch. “Time to think. Time alone. It’s not good for her. She needs to be with people, with kids her own age. She needs some normalcy. She probably has survivor’s guilt or post-traumatic stress disorder—maybe both. A lot of guys come back from the war with that stuff. Pretending it didn’t happen isn’t going to help. I think we need to get her into some kind of counseling.”
Mom shuts the medicine cabinet harder than she needs to. “But she doesn’t have any of that. She can’t remember anything. Maybe that’s the blessing in all of this—she can’t remember.”
“She remembers Trip,” Dad points out. “She remembers what she lost.”
I leave the bathroom without flushing the toilet. I don’t want them to know I was listening.
If Dad thinks I need counseling, I must be messed up. He’s always thought anything like that was a load of crap. He’s big on being self-sufficient, toughing it out, working things through. Now it seems like their roles are reversed. Dad wants to bring everything out in the open, wants me to go to counseling, and Mom wants to pretend nothing happened.
She remembers Trip. I glance at the picture I keep on my dresser—me and Trip on the jetty. I’m sitting on his lap, his arms are around my neck and the wind is blowing my hair over my shoulder and almost in his face. I’m laughing at something. I can’t remember what now. Trip took the picture by holding the camera out in front of us. It was the first summer we were together, more than two years ago. The guy in the picture I barely recognize—the girl either. Another lifetime.
…what she lost…
Trip’s eyes are everywhere. Staring at me from other pictures scattered around the room, stuck in the side of the mirror, lined up on shelves—Prom, homecoming, us just goofing off. Only the last one, the one from the Cotillion, the last picture ever taken of Trip, is missing. I put it on the top shelf of my hutch—the shelf I need a chair to reach. I shoved it there without even looking at it. Trip’s parents gave it to Mom after the memorial service because I was still in the hospital. Memorial service—I guess you can’t have a real funeral without a body.
Cotillion is a big deal in Pacific Cliffs. It goes along with the Beachcombers Festival, the biggest event in town. There’s a pageant, a carnival, and the dance. Most of the festival is for tourists—designed to bring money into the town, but the dance is all about the town. The Cotillion has been held at The Inn since time began. It’s the only big event in town that isn’t held at The Resort. This year, the last summer I would ever spend in Pacific Cliffs, the dance fell on my eighteenth birthday.
Before I get back in bed, I glance towards my closet. I can’t see it, but in the back is a garment bag, so long and full that it could be a body bag with an actual body stuffed inside. Sometimes I imagine that it is a body bag and if I open it up I’ll see Trip. It really holds the dress—long and emerald green, strapless, with little pearls and white lace across the front. The front and back are cut lower than I would have chosen, but I didn’t pick the dress out for myself.
The scar on the back of my head throbs.
Do you like it? It’s to wear to the dance.
I can still see his face, the way he tilted his head. How excited he was when I opened the package. The pain spreads from the back of my head, cuts across my right temple and curls around the smaller scar over my eye.
But not a birthday present.
He always acted like a little boy when he had something to give me. His crystal blue eyes would sparkle and his expression would vary from excitement, to fear and doubt, back to excitement. It almost made me feel guilty for what I did with most of his gifts, almost, but not quite. I paid for everything he gave me.
I’m saving something special to give you on your birthday.
My whole head throbs.
I don’t want to remember.
