for a dog bed
turns once
twice
three times a charm
His mouth falls open into a yawn
Run through with a whine
As he flops back into his nap
I look out my bedroom window
Where the moon has swallowed the sun
The stars poke through the dark
Reminding me how late it is
As I shove my legs into my pajamas
I pull a sweatshirt over my head
Wondering
Hoping
Dad’s still awake
Maybe
We can talk
Watch TV
Or
Something
Because I’ve missed him
On these nights
He’s been gone
I’ve missed him
A lot
What If
Our house breathes
In creaks and groans at night
Even my moccasin slippers
Make the stairs complain
As Blue and I walk down and
Into the living room
Where I find Dad
Asleep
On the couch
He says it’s more comfortable than his bed
When his back is tired
After a day of driving
Dad’s arms are crossed
With his hands
Pressing the book
He must have been reading
To his chest
The woodstove is going
But he still might get cold later
So I grab the ivory-and-blue blanket off the rocking chair
Drape it across him
Dad snuffle snores
As I click off the reading lamp
Shining down on the couch
I wonder if this is what Dad looked like
When he and Mom first met
The creases around his eyes and mouth
Relaxed smooth
High school sweethearts
Like Cody and me
We don’t ever talk
About what we’ll be
After college
Cody plus me
Without me
I try not to think about it
But sometimes I wonder
Blue winds around the coffee table
Goes to nose Dad’s arm
Blue, I whisper. Let Daddy sleep.
My fingertips find my collarbone
A bite-my-nails kind of habit
That never keeps the fluttering that fills my throat away
When I think about
Blue.
He cocks his head at my whisper
Follows me back up the stairs
Mom used to say that to me
When Dad would fall asleep in the living room
“Let your daddy sleep. He works so hard. We have to let him rest whenever we can.”
It always made me feel so grown-up
Giving Dad the break he hardly ever let himself take
But I don’t know why it came out now
Just the way she used to say it
He’s not Daddy
He’s Dad now
The stairs aren’t cooperating
They’re creaking so loud I stop
My fuzzy shadow freezes too
Let Daddy sleep
Repeat rewind over and over in my head
What if I had woken him
The night after she came home from the hospital
I look at the pictures
Running up and down the wall
Alongside the stairs
Pictures of her and me on her red roan mare
Before I was even old enough to walk
She and Dad and I standing in the ocean the summer I was six
I hadn’t known where we were going for our vacation that year
Until the day before we left
I’d come down to breakfast
Found a metal sand pail
Full of starfish-shaped sand molds
With a picture of the sea taped to the side
What if, I whisper.
She’s not going back
Dad had told me
And I’d known what that meant
Mom should have been better
Because the breast cancer was gone
That’s what the doctors had told us anyway
But it was her heart
Sick from the drugs
That were supposed to keep her well
Keep her here
That last night
I hadn’t woken Daddy up
Not with him being so tired
Let Daddy sleep
Mom would have been proud
But I should have known
I should have woken him up
because
maybe
if I had
he could have helped
stopped the inevitable
and we would have had
one more night
with her
Monarch Wings
I was there when she died
I’d crept across the hall
Barefoot
Into her bedroom
Where I’d stood
Next to Dad
Crumpled in sleep
In the rocking chair by her bed
I’d listened to her breath rattling in her lungs
Like leaves
Browned and brittle
Chased down the sidewalk by a jagged breeze
I’d caught a tear with my pinky
As it fell from my eye
And laid it on her cheek
I’d set one hand on Dad’s arm
And placed the other on her wrist
Where a Monarch’s wings fluttered beneath my fingertips
I’d pulled the quilt back and slid into bed beside her
Careful not to disturb her sleep
I wrapped my arms around her
Counting the spaces between her breaths
Each one longer then the next
When the sunlight pried Dad’s eyes open
That’s what he saw
Me curled on my side
Pressed into Mom
Breathing for us both
Incrementally
There’s nothing drastic
About what I’m
Going to
Do
Minus five
Will simply mean
Smaller
Leaner
Lighter
Faster in a sport
Where every tenth of a second
Counts
So now
As long as I’m awake
Not that I ever really went to sleep
Even after Dad got home
What with my mind being so busy
Thinking about
My lunch
Standing at the kitchen counter
I pack my lunch
As the sun creeps over the horizon
Leaking slivers and swirls
Of yellow and orange
Across the sky
Carrots first
Into a Ziploc bag
Red pepper
Celery
Snow peas
Each into another
Some crackers
Just for show
Because the veggies
They’re all I’ll eat
I drop them all
I
nto my lunch sack
Tabulating the calories
Adding
Up the numbers
That will equal
That number
On the scale
Minus
Five
World Geography
It’s the three of us
Cody
Asia
And me
At a table built for four
In the classroom papered with maps
Where we should be working on our geography presentation
About the country
Of our
Choice
“I think we should consider asking her,” Asia’s saying.
But I hear
Only the sound of my heart
Thrumming
Of my dog
Crying
“Oh, do you?” Cody quips in a faux professor brogue.
“I do,” Asia says.
Not that I care
That they want to ask
Her
Not that I care
That she and Asia are now closer than close
Study partners
In Spanish
Where I take it they talk
About more than their assignments
“We need to elect a new secretary since Jaycee moved and she’s the best choice.”
Why? She hasn’t even practiced with us yet.
Not even trying to dull the edge
My voice gets
When I’m as annoyed
As this
“That doesn’t matter. I mean, I obviously wouldn’t ask her to run—”
Asia pauses here
double-check
checking to make sure I heard the way her voice dipped
at the
obviously
best friend alliance signified
“But we need someone with her fund-raising experience.”
“Wasn’t Kierra the president of the rodeo team at her last school?”
How does he even know this?
Cody, who can hardly remember Asia is our club’s president and Micah’s our vice
“Yes, and she helped put together a mammoth auction that pulled in all the money they needed for their entire rodeo.”
“That’d be nice,” Cody says.
“We could do it too. One or two big fund-raisers instead of a bunch of little ones,” Asia says. “I felt like I was a first-grader selling candy bars last year.”
“That was the most expensive fund-raiser ever,” Cody sighed.
I’d almost forgotten
How Cody had eaten an entire case of chocolate bars
Before he had even realized it
One here
Another there
Promising to pay himself back
Until suddenly
They were gone
My throat goes tight
Thinking about
Streaks of
butter
oil
fat
Along the edges of the chocolate wrappers
“We’re still doing the car washes though, aren’t we?”
Cody wraps his arm around my shoulders
Grins at me big
As he pulls me close
“They’re my favorite.”
No
No
No
Stomps through my mind
My stomach clenches at the thought
Of putting
On a bikini
Even just the top
With a pair of shorts
Like Asia and I did last year
Dancing around on the sidewalk
Waving cardboard and Sharpie signs
Pulling rigs off the road and into the high school parking lot
For the rest of the team to scrub
Because whose truck doesn’t need
A wash and a shine?
“Stop being such a guy,” Asia says. “I’m serious. We need to talk her into running. I’m not selling candy bars again.”
Asia pauses
Raises her eyebrows at me and Cody
“Unless one of you two wants to run.”
Which isn’t fair
She knows neither of us will
Because we’re selfish like that
Refusing to focus on anything
But our events
“No, Kierra would be perfect,” Cody says.
Perfect.
I repeat
Because as much as I hate the idea
Of Kierra
In the position
I’m not going to run
“That’s what I thought.”
Asia presses the eraser end of her pencil against her forehead
As she leans closer to the textbook
Spread open between us
“Japan,” she says. “We should definitely do Japan.”
The topic of Kierra
Open-shut-closed
For them
Not for me
How can I let it rest when—
“We should,” Cody agrees.
He slaps his hand against the table
“Sushi! Think of the extra credit we’d get if we bring in sushi!”
Asia rolls her eyes
Attempts to pull me into the joke Cody wasn’t trying to make
But really
“How could we make sushi?” Asia asks. “Where are we getting raw fish?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying, if we did, we’d probably get an A.”
“That’s all you then, Cody. See if you can round up some raw fish.”
Asia glances at the clock
Twelve minutes
Until
Lunch
Her cue to say
“I’m so hungry.”
Because she says it every day at this time
Leaner
Lighter
Faster
I think about my goal
Minus five
Me too.
Wondering when I became
At telling
Lies
Picture Perfect
I doubt she needed an invitation
But she got one
From Asia
A quick wave and a smile
Tossed across the cafeteria
Was all it took
To bring her
Over
To stand between us
Balancing a stack of library books in one arm
Her lunch tray in the other
Featuring today’s cafeteria special
A BLT and fries
Deep fat fryer fries
Sweating shadows of grease
Through their paper tray
How can she eat them
And still be so thin?
“Didn’t you elect officers last spring?” Kierra asks.
“Yes, but Jaycee moved, so we’re short a secretary.”
“Nobody will vote for me,” Kierra says.
“They will,” Asia says. “Trust me.”
Thumbs to my hip bones
I can feel them
Through my jeans
But they should be
Will be
Sharper
Soon
“Just think about it, okay?” Asia says.
“I will.”
Kierra picks up the conversation
Spins it from Asia to me
“How’s Blue?”
I hate that she asked
Would have raged if she hadn’t
I wish she would go
Good.
“I’m so glad.”
“Hey, Kierra,” Cody says.
As he and Micah materialize
Emerging from the lunchroom crowd to
Sliding into their spots at the table
Across from Asia and me
Back from chasing down drinks
Because it seemed like such a waste
For all of us to stand in line at the vending machines
“Sorry, but they were out of Sprite,” Micah says.
As he slides a Sierra Mist across the table to Asia
Nods a greeting to Kierra
Cody hands me
A Diet Coke
“I don’t know why you drink that. All the chemicals are so much worse for you than the sugar in this,” Cody says as he pops open his Coke.
There’s something about the chemical taste that I like
It feels cleaner
Lighter
Than the corn syrup sweetness
That would leave my throat thick
If I drank a regular Coke
Kierra is still standing
I don’t know why
“Grab a seat,” Cody suggests.
Kierra smiles at him
Looks at me
“Thanks, but Morgan is waiting for me.”
“Let me know what you decide,” Asia says.
“Okay, I will.”
Plan confirmed
Kierra slips away
I turn the Diet Coke can
Slick and cold
In my hand
Read the panel on the side
Nutrition Facts
Zero
Zero
Zero
Attention Diverted
I want to say something
Snide
But Asia’s distracted
Unpacking the almond butter and honey sandwich
She brings every day
Eyeing the Oreos
Micah is pulling out of his lunch sack
Too busy to notice me
Watching her
“That’s sweet that she does that, isn’t it?” Cody says.
Watching Kierra sitting across from her cousin now
A freshman who struggles
With everything
Especially math
After coming off his quad
Hitting his head
Last year
Their calculators are out
She’s sorting through his binder for him
As he thumbs through his textbook
“So sweet,” Micah says in a little girl voice.
Cody punches his shoulder, “Well, it is.”
Micah punches him back
Barely nicking his ribs
Asia leans across the table and swipes Micah’s Oreos
“Want one?” she offers.
No thanks.
There’s an empty space on the table