A Breath Too Late - Rocky Callen Page 0,20
your room. You are lying on your floor amid the wreckage that you created and you stare at the ceiling. I lie down beside you and my breath catches when I see it. There is a canvas pinned to your ceiling.
You painted me as if I was the sky, and my freckles the constellations. You painted me wild and wondrous. You painted me and I want to stand up and feel every brushstroke. When I stand, I see in faint white letters in the corner a date.
The date you must’ve painted this. The date was last week.
The thought tickles something in my chest, a memory, a feeling, but I can’t place it.
I had still been alive. You painted me in stars as if I could be beautiful enough to be among them.
12
Magic,
In August’s room, I see a little note in gold ink in my handwriting. I could only see the very first line.
Once upon a time …
I should’ve told August the truth about fairy tales and happy endings.
But when I see that note, I remember that I once believed in magic.
And it lived in gold ink.
There was a gold felt pen in Sheldon’s corner store in the center of town. It was a tiny display of bright metallic pens that you could try on black paper. I would go there after school every day just to hold the pen in my hand. There was a feel to how it brushed the page, like an artful stroke. Like a soft kiss. The contrast of the gold shimmery ink and the stark black looked like magic.
I wanted to wield your power.
I wanted my stories and words to soak into that shimmering ink and grow wings.
The pen was such a simple thing. It sat in a plastic display and the black paper had expletives and initials and inappropriate doodles. Other town kids came here to mess with the new rack of pens, but none of them knew how to wield the magic in them. Not like me.
It cost only $3.79. But I didn’t have $3.79.
I just had two hands, two eyes, and one heart.
I walked out of the store with the pen hiding in my pocket.
I stole the pen.
It was wrong. I knew that. I could feel the trespass like an itch in my hand and when I was older, I left the money on the counter for Sheldon to find. He never knew I stole the pen, but that didn’t matter. I knew.
I still used it.
I used it to unbreak my heart on sad nights and write new worlds with August.
Magic pinched between fingertips.
Until the ink faded and dried up, it let me hold your power, your freedom, in my hands.
13
Momma,
I needed that magic for what came later that year. I even had the pen in my back pocket when it happened. Father’s anger seeped into the floorboards and doorframes. We could feel it everywhere, lurking and hungry.
When I was eleven, there was a day he had a late-night shift and wouldn’t be home until after midnight. When I came through the door, I saw the grocery bags. I could smell the sweetness in the air.
“Momma, what’s—”
You appeared in the kitchen doorway, your smile bright. There was flour on your shirt. “You got straight As this quarter, little dove. We need to celebrate.” Your makeup covered old bruises, but your eyes were soft and warm and gooey.
Even though Father wasn’t home, I walked in slowly, listening to the creaking floorboards, making sure not to let the surge of giddy excitement bubble up and make a mess. You sensed my apprehension, and just as I was about to say my protest, a handful of flour puffed against my chest. I looked down, white on my T-shirt. I looked up, innocent face and a waving powdery hand.
The burst of laughter was so shocking that I clapped a hand over my mouth the second it was out. I lunged for you.
The war of sugar and flour was on. We were childish and ridiculous and for that hour, you smelled of burnt sugar and everything I had missed about you. Our kitchen turned into a flour and frosting war zone and we were ruthless opponents. In lieu of helmets, you had a strainer on your head and I had a bowl. I stood on one side of the kitchen island as you kneeled on the other.
“One, two, three…”
“Go!” I said, jumping out from behind my side of the island and taking a big handful of flour