Chapter 13
We leave the debate behind us and walk into the desert. The night sky is velvet-blue and feels like a weighted blanket for the soul.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ellis says simply.
Our clasped hands swing between us with our slow, unhurried steps out into the abyss. “I’m glad, too.”
“Glad to be here, or here with me?” He’s teasing but it’s also serious.
“Both.” I look up at the stars. “I take this trip alone because I always tell myself it makes me feel closer to my mom. But if I’m being completely honest…it doesn’t.”
He squeezes my hand. I squeeze back and say, “She died on my birthday.”
His step falters and he grips my hand again. “Oh, god.” My little squeeze messages to him that it’s okay but he is quiet as we keep walking.
I’m not someone who keeps my feelings bottled up inside, who avoids living in the hard emotions.
But it’s rare that I talk about my mom’s death.
If only because, with time, my childhood feels both far away and painfully oppressive.
Mar knows about it; we’ve had a few drunken nights of emotional unburdening.
But never with my aunts and grandparents.
It’s to protect them, but also myself. I don’t know what will come out, and with how much velocity, and if it’ll cause more damage than healing.
But Ellis feels so far removed from that fear. In fact, he feels safe. So I start talking.
“It was a school day, but she had made me birthday eggs. We didn’t do shit like pancakes for breakfast because neither of us had a sweet tooth.
Birthday eggs involved ketchup happy faces and hearts and eight candles.
My mom was an artist—not in some abstract, looking-back-fondly-on-my-mother’s-quirky-crafts kind of thing.
She worked in animation. She designed some characters you probably know from your childhood.
Maybe not, considering you’re a zygote.”
At this he doesn’t even react, that’s how deadly serious he’s taking my monologue.
I continue, “She took the day off from work because she always did that on my birthday. I often think about that because—well, we’ll get to it.
She dropped me off at school that morning, in her cool beat-up old Jeep—she never cared what anyone else thought.
Anyway, she dropped me off and I really hate that I don’t remember what her last words to me were.
Probably ‘Bye!’ if I’m being real. She told me she loved me all the time, so that’s a possibility, too.
But maybe I deny myself that version because it’s too brutal. ”
We are just walking, walking through the desert. And I can feel every star in the sky, and the love of the universe wrap me up. I keep going.
“My class sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me that day and my best friend, Jennifer Rivera, made me a daisy-chain crown at recess. And then, sometime after lunch, the principal came into our classroom and looked straight at me. I don’t remember a lot after that because, you know, traumatic.
But I do remember my teacher, Ms. Lark, had tears in her eyes when she took me out of the class to tell me.
Seeing your teacher cry…it’s world-shifting to say the least.”
I think Ellis might be crying, too, because I see him swipe at his eyes with the hand that isn’t holding mine. I want to tell him it’s okay, to stop crying, but whatever is happening in my body feels like it’s okay, it’s all okay. Crying about a stranger is fine! My tragic soliloquy continues.
“I found out later, from Sunny, who was the only possible person in my life with the strength to do it, that my mom had died swiftly around the time I would have been eating lunch. Brain aneurysm. She was discovered because of Betty. Betty was screaming bloody murder until a neighbor came by to see what was going on.”
This gets a reaction from Ellis. “Betty?”
“Yeah. That’s why I haven’t put her in a pie yet.”
“How? How is she still alive?” Ellis is seriously shocked, and it makes me laugh. A lot. This detail is what often stops people in their tracks. Sorry, Mom, your brain aneurysm tragedy is always completely overshadowed by your Rip Van Winkle bird.
“Cockatoos can live to be one hundred,” I say. “It’s the curse of my life.”
But he doesn’t laugh. “She’s a terrible pet. But now I get it.”
“Yeah. So now you know why I take these trips. I have to be far away from the family who misses her just as hard as I do.”
Ellis stops completely and lets go of my hand, scrubbing his face with both his hands. “Cassia.”
“Hey, I’m okay. Really.”
But he doesn’t believe me and wraps both arms around me, his tall, solid body completely engulfing me in a protective cove.
And I don’t know if it’s the mushrooms or what, but I feel utterly at peace here.
In Joshua Tree, but specifically with Ellis.
He speaks into my hair. “I really hate that this happens to anyone, but I really hate that it happened to you.”
Something in me cracks wide open, and I squeeze him harder. “You know what the worst part is, though?” I say, ironic laughter spilling out from me. “I never think about my dad. But when I think about how my mom died, I do. I wonder if…if he had stuck around, if she wouldn’t have died.”
Ellis looks concerned and confused. “What do you mean? Wasn’t it an aneurysm? You can’t control that.”
I wave my hand. “It’s like, on a rational level I know that. But…aneurysms can also be caused by stress.” My voice gets quiet, so quiet Ellis has to lean in to hear me. “Maybe, if she wasn’t a single mom juggling a very emotional eight-year-old daughter, she wouldn’t have—”
“Hey.” Ellis tilts my chin up so I have to look at him. “The aneurysm had absolutely nothing to do with you.”
I must not look like I believe that because he says it again, “It had nothing to do with you.”
I nod and my eyes, horrifyingly, fill up with tears. “I don’t want to end up like my mom. I need to start a family with the right person. The one.”
Some big emotion comes over him, his features trying not to show whatever he’s feeling. He presses his lips to my forehead and says, “You deserve that, Cass. You really do.”
We stand like that for a few seconds. When enough time has passed, I feel sufficiently composed to say, “So, hey, this is where we unload our traumas. Tell me yours.”
He’s quiet. Too quiet. I swivel my head to him. “Did you have a perfect childhood?”
A rumble of laughter goes through him and because we’re still pressed together, I feel it through my body. “I mean…”
“Wow, I hate you.” I lean back and push him away, jokingly.
He starts heaving with laughter and I throw my arms around his waist, trying to tackle him to the ground.
All six-feet-two of him. It’s impossible but he trips over something, and we both end up on the ground, rolling in silty desert grit.
And I don’t mind. It’s not even the shrooms, it’s him.
Something about Ellis makes me feel like saying “Fuck it” to caring about sand in my hair, to caring about being high.
He continues to unlock different layers of me, somehow.
We’re both laughing hysterically, our hair and faces getting caked in sand, when he rolls me on my back, ending up on top, arms braced on either side of me.
Uh-oh. My laughter dies in my throat as we lock eyes and I feel the pressure of his hips against mine. And then, he says in a choked voice, “I’ve been married before.”
“What?” I breathe out, the words not computing with the sensory overload of my body.
Not moving an inch, his eyes still on mine, he says, “I married my high school girlfriend after graduation. Then we got divorced before I turned twenty-two.”
“Wow.” I look at him with renewed interest. “What happened?”
“We were…twenty-two?” he says with a huff of laughter. It moves his body in a way that is seriously a problem for me. “It was mutual and we’re still friends, but she moved out of the country. Probably for the best.”
His eyes, normally light and multifaceted, are so dark in the darkness of the desert. I reach up and touch his cheek. “Why did you want to get married that young?”
Balancing impressively on one arm, he holds my hand, pressing a kiss into my palm.
“Because we were in love, silly.” I think about our conversation at dinner, and how defensive he got about romance and the future.
Something is clicking into place. The sweetness of it all crashes over me and I bring him down so that our mouths can meet, letting the magic of the moment take over all logic and faith.