An Invisible Sign of My Own Read online

  I looked at the two burned circles in the grass, each with the open mouth at one end.

  You’re good at circles, I said. Look how even they are. Did you make these freehand?

  He nodded.

  They’re very even, I said.

  He stepped inside first one, then the other. He smiled at me, welcoming. It seemed like he wouldn’t mind now if I came closer, now that there were two, but I stayed on the uncircled grass, the grass that was just blades. He did a few stretches inside the larger circle, and then stepped out.

  When it was time to go, we went out front to get in the car, and my mother muttered something about candles and ran back inside. Day was becoming night, and some new kid I didn’t know was on his bicycle, out on the street, pedaling, back and forth, back and forth, tires rattling. The breeze was chilly, tree trunks cool to the touch.

  I sat on the curb to wait, and my father walked over and sat down next to me. The kid biked by, focused the way kids on bikes are.

  We sat side by side, my father and I. We sat alike, legs pushed out in front, feet crossed. He looked like he always looked. I was watching our legs, watching that kid on his bike, when, in the middle of this, of all people, the art teacher popped into my head. How whenever she laughed, she clamped a hand over her mouth. I laugh just like my mother, is what she usually said, in horror. Oh God, she said, I’m so terrified I’m going to be exactly like my mother.

  I nodded when she said it, but I never really understood her. I didn’t understand the big deal. Everyone said what she said, but it was the opposite that broke my heart.

  This.

  My father sat, feet out, on the curb, a walking half-century. A faded photograph. The pewter moons of his fingernails, the old black stems of his eyelashes, the distant circles around his pupils, the distant circles burned into the grass of the backyard. The gray, carefully creased pant-leg bulb of his knee.

  I sat, feet out, on the curb, a walking fifth-of-a-century. But my dress had purple flowers all over it. I’d put it in the washing machine once on hot even though they said not to do that. I’d stuck a week’s worth of newspaper in the dryer with it to see what the print might do. I drew all over it with pencil until it shimmered with lead but still. Still. The cloth was stubborn with lilacs and violets, held together by vines of rich greens and browns.

  The kid went by on his bike again. He had a lot of freckles on his bare arms. I thought he might glance over, and notice; laugh and point out the difference between the two people sitting on the curb. But he just rode on by. I looked back and forth, from the purple to the gray, and waited for my father to tighten up. To accuse me of something. Treason. But he just said: You look lovely Mona. He sat on the curb and complimented my necklace. I told him happy fifty-first, and his cheeks darkened, a soft blush.

  I’m sorry, I said, quietly, but I don’t think I can keep you company anymore.

  He just smiled. He just said: Mona. My wonderful child. My beautiful daughter. It’s fine with me if you’d rather wait in the car.

  28

  Turned out Ann DiLanno’s parents didn’t die yet either. In fact, what happened was they won the state lottery. Ann’s mother had a thing about 4’s so she used 4, 14, 16, 24, 32, 44, and nailed the sterling combination. Ann got out of the hospital with those spider stitches climbing up her thigh, and on the second day she was back in her own bed, one day before her father turned 43, the family cashed in that winning lottery ticket for an even million dollars. They got their stuff together and moved out of town.

  Ann returned to school for five minutes, the same day I was there, cleaning up the stuff I had left. The new math teacher had taken down my gallery of numbers, which were probably now poking out of garbage bins, fading 5’s and 2’s among banana peels and cartons of milk, and she was droning on by the chalkboard about the tens place. Two of the kids at the table were asleep.

  I hadn’t seen Ann since the accident. We ran into each other in the front room, among all the coats and lunch boxes. Kids milled about, waiting for recess to begin.

  I stood over her, holding a box full of workbooks. Ann, I said. I am so, so sorry.

  She tossed her hair, loose from her ponytail, straight brown and practical. She was wearing a little purple mink coat, and holding up a 3 made of gold that she wore on a gold chain around her neck.

  I have a real one now, she said. It’s gold. 3 + 3 = 6. 3 − 3 = 0.

  Hey, said John Beeze. Can I see the stitches?

  Ann twirled the 3 around her index finger.

  This is what I wanted to show you all, she said. I’m going to take it with me, my gold 3. I liked your class Ms. Gray, she said to me. She looked at everyone milling around. I was glad to know y’all, she said.

  They were moving to Texas. She’d already morphed into a Texan, before she’d ever even left town.

  Grab a brochure on your way out, I said.

  She leaned against the table. She didn’t seem to be limping much. She looked around the room, forehead sweating from the mink coat, and a couple of the younger kids were standing near her arm, petting it. She was a celebrity at school now for multiple reasons: wounded Ann, wealthy Ann. On impulse, she lifted her skirt and showed the little kids her spidery stitches, so black and so many they made my heart drop, the straight-line thick scar that lovers would touch later to identify their Ann in the darkness. The smaller kids shrieked and shivered and stared.

  Her thigh the longest memory of Numbers and Materials, ready to announce rainy weather, to outlive both me and the school.

  Lisa walked over from another room to look at the stitches. She had her own in a row on her forehead. There was some mutual admiration and then Ann nudged Lisa and fumbled in her pocket, handing over a box of crayons, all beige—every shade, from ivory to tan.

  I hope your mom gets better, Ann said.

  Lisa took the crayons and nodded. Have fun in Texas, she said.

  She paused for a minute, and then ripped out a few ratty hairs from her head.

  Here, she said. Here’s some hair to remember me by.

  Ann folded it into her mink pocket, pleased.

  Lisa poked me. I bent down. Ms. Gray, she whispered into my ear, there is nothing to draw that’s beige.

  Ducks? I whispered back.

  She rolled her eyes and walked away. Later that day, as I was leaving, I found the crayons stuffed in my jacket pocket along with a folded drawing of a duck done in rich metallic greens and blues.

  I am a rich kid now, Ann declared right before she left, looking a little nervous.

  I wanted to give her a hug but wasn’t sure it was allowed. She leaned into me awkwardly. I squeezed her shoulder, hard.

  Just remember you are good at math, I said.

  After Ann left, I brought my box of supplies to my apartment and put them under the bed for some other day. Then I went back to the school, and skulked outside until Lisa was done. I saw Danny in between classes and he smiled at me. Hello Ms. Gray, he said, the most polite I’d ever seen him. He had the clear eyeballs of a good milk drinker, a future star quarterback. I waved once from the front doorway to Benjamin, who was busily combing his hair and dumping salt and pepper into a bowl full of water to prep for a demonstration about magnetics. He said he’d come by later. I told him I was taking Lisa to the movies and then the hospital, and hopefully he could meet us after. BANK ROBBERY! had finally switched, and now they were playing a musical about New York City. Lisa had liked my 3 note and I’d found one in my mailbox two days later, with twigs taped together in the shapes of a 5 and a 6, and a piece of paper that said Okay.

  When she was all done with her classes, Lisa put on her backpack, took my hand, and we started over toward the park. I told her that the stitches on her forehead made her look like addition: + + + + +, and she smiled. Plus plus plus, she said. I want to start on division now, she said.

  We walked past the Stuarts’ old house. Joanna off swimming somewhere. We walked by Mrs. Finch’s old house. We walked by my pare
nts’ house. We walked by Mr. Jones’s house. He was out watering his lawn, wearing a 20. I waved. How are you doing Mona? he asked. Pretty good, I called, and you? He’s 20, announced Lisa. That’s right, said Mr. Jones, winking. I squeezed Lisa’s hand. Will the store be open later? I asked, and he said: Sure thing, and Lisa said: I didn’t sleep well last night. So I’m about 11 today. Mr. Jones nodded firmly, and my heart brimmed with both of them.

  We reached downtown, and I bought our tickets at the box office. Lisa suggested we sit in the park, since there was an hour or so before the movie started. It was about three-thirty and the sky was a nice easy blue. I gave her a few dollars to buy us ice cream and she went across the street while I looked at the ducks moving around on the dirt—the electric green of the mallard’s neck, the egg brown feathers of his lady.

  Lisa returned with two cones: a chocolate for me, a purplish one for herself.

  What’s yours? I asked. Chocolate raspberry?

  It’s raisin, she said, sitting back down next to me.

  I took a lick of mine. It swept a line of chocolate onto the roof of my mouth.

  Raisin? I said. They have raisin-flavored ice cream?

  She counted the change into my hand. I threw it in the duck pond. Yes, she said. She blew some air out her mouth and said she was mad at Elmer because he always drew the same house picture and never anything else.

  Raisin, I said, still taking that in.

  We settled into the bench and watched the woman walk her scraggly dog and the man with the briefcase go into the candy shop.

  Lisa was mostly quiet. She had a new tic, touching the stitches on her forehead back and forth, like a xylophone. She was barely eating her raisin ice cream. One short lick at a time. And Lisa was not a slow eater. Poor raisin, she sang, bringing it up to her mouth and then holding it out in front of her like it smelled bad; no one ever buys you, she said. Do you like raisin? I asked. No, she said, but I do like raisin-bran cereal. I laughed at her. I don’t want raisin ice cream to go out of business, she added, looking a little annoyed at me. I gave her another two dollars and told her to go back and get what she really wanted. She came back in a few minutes with a blob of chocolate fudge for herself. She still gripped the raisin in her left hand. The chocolate disappeared in a few minutes and the raisin drooled a line of dark purple down her wrist.

  She held the cone tight.

  You want? she offered.

  I shook my head. No thanks. I’ve never been a big raisin fan, I said, even in its regular form.

  It’s not bad, she said. She took another lick. She’d barely made a dent. It’s good, she said.

  You can throw it out, I told her, it’s fine with me. You don’t have to be polite, I don’t mind.

  I was squinting at the new brochures facing out of the touristoffice window when I said that, and not at Lisa, and so when I turned back a minute or so later, I was surprised to see her eyes had filled and were spilling over, glittering with water. She spent a few minutes wiping her face.

  Oh Lisa, I said, what is it? I put a hand on her head. She cried for a little while, tears racing lines down her cheeks. After a few minutes, she spoke up. You can’t throw out raisin ice cream, she said.

  By now, the cone was melting in on itself, gloppy globules of purple-brown. Lisa kept sniffing. A green duck walked by. Across town, Ann’s family was packing up their boxes into big moving vans. The hospital loomed over the trees, a vase of toothless daisies.

  We still had a good half hour until the movie started.

  What do you want to do? I asked. We could go to the drugstore, I said. She shook her head. We could go to the candy shop, I said. She shrugged. She was still clutching that ice cream cone.

  We could do some long division, I said.

  Do you know any math stories? she asked.

  She tucked up her legs beneath her on the bench, and licked a little ice cream off her wrist.

  Math stories? I said.

  She nodded, yawning. She had raisin all over her hands now.

  I leaned back and thought for a second, looking at the archway of trees around us. My mother’s tourist office. The watery blue of the sky. The hardware store, closed.

  I knocked on the bench. She knocked back, staring up at me, eyes vivid and livid and limpid.

  I know a math story, I said then.

  29

  Lisa balanced the raisin ice cream cone on the bench. She stretched out into a good listening position, resting her head on my leg. I put a hand down and smoothed the bumpy lumps of her hair.

  Okay, I said slowly.

  She looked up at me, blinking, expectant.

  A couple of ducks floated by on the duck pond, tucked into green and brown ovals. My throat clogged up.

  And I backed out.

  It was a pond of addition frogs, I said suddenly. There were twelve frogs in one pond and fourteen in another. How many frogs were there total?

  I didn’t look down at Lisa.

  She gave a gentle hiccup in my lap.

  That’s the math story? she muttered. That’s not a story. Twenty-six.

  She pulled a scrap off her raisin cone and threw it into the pond where it floated along, uneaten. Then she turned on her side, curling her body up on the bench. I would be meeting her mother after the movie. We had a plan to go buy a Gravlaki address at the hardware store and bring it up to Mrs. Venus’s unnumbered room and present it to her. It’s important to have a number on your door so Elmer can know where you live. Lisa was excited about it. She said we could all eat hospital dinner together and maybe if I was lucky she would show me how to skid down the hallway in my socks.

  Don’t you know any other stories? she asked, on my lap. Better ones?

  I moved my hand over her hair, slow. Through the trees, a tiny albino eyebrow of moon waxed high and far on the blue.

  Lisa licked chocolate off her fingertips.

  Okay, I said.

  She stuck her wrist in her mouth, licking off more ice cream, waiting.

  Here’s a story I made up for you, I said.

  Put a 3 in it, she mumbled.

  I rested my hand on her forehead.

  And a pirate, she said. I like pirates.

  Okay, I said. It starts with a kingdom, I said.

  I like kingdoms too, Lisa garbled, mouth full of wrist.

  I kept my voice low. It was hard to talk through the swell in my throat.

  There was once a kingdom, I began, of pirates.

  This pirate kingdom had discovered the gift for eternal life, I said. That means no one ever died there, so there were no cemeteries, and no obituaries. The eye patch was just a fashionable accessory. No one walked the plank, except to go swimming. Wars weren’t tragic. Flags were not revered. There were no glass hospitals and red wigs and I.V.’s; there weren’t any bad eye cells or casseroles. Cancer was not a big deal.

  Lisa murmured approval, running damp fingers over her stitches. I stroked the rolls and waves of her hair.

  But there was a big problem in this pirate kingdom, I said. It was way too crowded. Food was running out, and water was at an all-time low, and so the king pirate, who was also known throughout the land as a great mathematician, decided to issue a decree. He said: “I have done the math and the truth is clear. According to the ratio of birth to death, factoring in the amount of oxygen needed per person, using exponents and dividing by three, one pirate in each household must die.” He said, “Come to the town square and bring your volunteer, or else please leave.”

  But none of the other towns knew the secret to eternal life.

  I looked at the head on my leg. Are you okay so far? I asked. Lisa nodded, eyes closed, listening. I put my other hand, soft, on the wood of the park bench.

  So on the chosen day, I said, keeping my voice low, the entire town congregated at the town square, where the skull-and-crossbones flag was flying for the first time in years. The executioner, wearing a big black pirate hat with a red carnation in the brim, rested a hand gently o
n the gallows. The king pirate held a huge piece of scroll covered with numbers. “Now,” the king boomed, “it is time, as a town, for us to make more by making less.” There was a little bit of scattered cheering. He bowed to the families, who each tearfully offered forward their special chosen volunteer, and the king checked each person off his list. All was settled and ready to go except for one family of pirates. This family said they couldn’t decide. First the mother had offered to die, but no one liked that, and then the father, and then the sister, brother, baby pirate. But no one was happy with any of the options. The mother announced: “We’ll all die.” But the town didn’t like that, and frankly, neither did the rest of the family.

  So the father stepped forward and said, “Why don’t we offer forward a piece of each of us? I’ll cut off my nose, my wife will cut off her arm, my daughter can cut off her ear, my son his foot.”

  I whispered it into the air. So quiet only we could hear. Lisa was resting on my leg, sucking on her wrist, her breathing steady and calm. The wave rose, thick, inside my throat, and I pressed my palm on the bench. Listen: I tell the wood—listen to what I’m doing here. Mark this down. Notice.

  The king pirate, I whispered, the great mathematician, said it wouldn’t be quite as effective as the removal of an entire person, but he was intrigued by the concept of fractions and was willing to consider the idea of a group effort.

  The mother nodded eagerly, and the father nodded nobly, and the brother held out his foot, wanting to get it over with as fast as possible.

  But the daughter shook her head and stepped forward.

  “In the next town over,” she said, “I’ve heard they have a fish pond. Can’t we just leave and go there?”

  “But daughter,” said the mother, father, brother, and baby. “If we leave, we’ll all die eventually. This town is special, this town is the only town that knows the secret to eternal life. Only one pirate has to die to save the rest of us from disease and death forever.”