The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(34)
—Yanking on my hair, pulling up up backward—
—My father’s belt making a sound as it swung through the air, the slap as it connected—
—A knee pinning me down as a razor ran over my scalp—
—A baby’s cry—
I press my fingers to my temples.
One of the things my therapist has been working on with me is my wrecked nervous system. Right now it feels shattered, maybe broken beyond repair. All these years I’ve turned the traumas of my life into bricks I could use to climb up and out, but now all those steps are crumbling and—
A bright knock lands against my kitchen window. I yelp, crossing my arms defensively as I stagger backward.
But it’s a seagull. He’s landed on the railing around the deck, and the noise is him rapping his big yellow beak against the glass.
He’s a big bird. A factoid I know from Phoebe, the bird fanatic, is that some of the largest seagulls in the world live around here. This one is bright white with black wing feathers and banded stripes on his tail. He’s fully two feet tall, and when he cocks his head sideways, looking at me, some of the wild terror in my body eases. “Hello. Has someone been feeding you?”
He taps his beak against the window again, as if he’s answering me, and it surprises a laugh from me. “You’re used to getting your way, aren’t you?” Phoebe would kill me if I fed him, but I’m sorely tempted. I mean, I perform for my supper. Why can’t seagulls?
But I don’t feed him. Phoebe has impressed upon me the importance of letting wild animals be wild. Instead, I brew my tea and watch the waves, trying to anchor myself in their rhythmic movements. A low bank of clouds rolls in, heavy and purple, and beneath them the sea starts to toss. I wonder what storm is out there on the feral ocean, and something in me eases as I think of it, the water and the beings beneath it, and the clouds and the rain. A hardness in my chest slips away. The gull sits with me, just on the other side of the glass, until rain starts pattering against the window and his feathers. As if it annoys him, he flaps his big wings and flies down to join his cronies at the shoreline, where the rough surf has left a thick row of debris. Good eating for birds.
My phone rings with a number I don’t recognize, but it’s a local area code. I pick it up and cautiously say, “Hello?”
“Hello, ma’am,” says a woman. “This is Blue River Electric. We had a cancellation and can fit you in today if you want us to take a look at that breaker box.”
“Oh!” Ben must have called them already. Since the alarm system is connected to that box, I’m grateful. “Yes, please. When?”
“Like now-ish? He can be there in about ten minutes, if that’s okay.”
My immediate reaction is to put it off, but why? It needs to get done, and what else am I doing? “Okay. That’s great.”
“He’ll be right there.”
I hang up and call Phoebe. “The electrician is already on the way. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I thought it would be better to get it taken care of. We probably don’t want that house to burn down.”
“No, that would be sad.”
“Jasmine and I are taking our rest, but we’ll go down to the studio after. See you there, okay?”
“Yes. Thanks, Phoebe.” I almost add, “I don’t deserve you,” but she’d just agree.
Before I’ve fully hung up, the doorbell rings. Smoothing my hair, which is a fool’s errand since I know I’m a mess, I call out, “Coming!” and open the door.
A man stands on the porch, sheltered from the rain. His long, salt-and-pepper hair is pulled back into a braid. His brows are heavier than I remember, and the jawline is going a little soft, but he’s still himself, tall and lean, wearing jeans and a good jacket.
All the air leaves my lungs and I stare at him for a long moment. A million memories roll through me, glazed with grief and incandescent love and a longing so sharp and pure that I feel it still in the depths of my gut. “Joel,” I say in an airless voice.
His expression is unreadable, but he stares right back at me. In my peripheral vision, I see his hand clench. “Suze,” he says.
It’s madness, because I haven’t seen him since we were fifteen years old, but there’s no resisting it—I step forward and hug him. Hard. It’s completely impulsive and probably really weird considering how many decades it’s been since I’ve seen him, but his arms come around me, too, tight, and we press together in wordless memory, things too hard to speak, things too big. Into his neck, which smells exactly the same, of rain and earth and hope, I say fervently, “It is so good to see you.”
He stands there, quiet, hugging me back. Our bodies are tight together, as if it were just the other day we did this, instead of years and years and years. Enough years to fill a whole life.
And it doesn’t matter. He feels right. He says, “Jesus, you smell exactly the same.”
It goes on a long time, until I feel like I might dissolve entirely.
“Sorry,” I whisper, but I can’t quite let go. So many things rise through my body, dark and bright, side by side. My shaved head. His fury. The endless days we spent here and in his mother’s house when she was at work. The days I spent wondering why he deserted me. Learning he’d been sent away.