Marla’s so engrossed she probably won’t even notice. She’s the only one who wants to see the objects, and she’s the only one who hasn’t actually gotten anything in the mail.
I don’t really want to think too hard about that particular sadness either. If we were the siblings on the front of the book Mom sent, Marla would be the one tugging on the mother’s shirt while the mother looks away.
I head back to my room and check on my star, let the warmth hit my face. It calms me down a little, but I need more. So I grab a few art supplies I’ve been hoarding from the cabinet downstairs and head into the closet. I’m ready to go back. I’m ready to snap out of the Mom-daze.
Within moments, I’m lying on a beach of pink crystallized sand, and there is an ocean made of blue feathers lapping at my feet. It should be a dream. It has all the signs of a dream: hyperactive colors and never-before-seen landscaping and the way I feel calm and light. I feel my UnWorry.
I’m laughing at the way the feathers tickle my toes when there’s a knock at my door.
“Hm?” I say. I can’t muster up words. I’m not ready to leave this moment, this place I created with nothing more than a handful of plastic beads and a bag of feathers that Dad bought when Astrid insisted she wanted to be a bluebird for Halloween.
“I need you,” Marla says from the other side of the closet door. She isn’t whining, which is sort of unlike her lately. I roll onto my stomach and reach my fingertips toward the waves of feathers. I’m not ready to leave. Marla knocks again. “Silly. Get out of there.”
“Give me a little bit,” I say. I dig my hands into the sandy crystals, then lift them up again. I could do that same movement over and over all day and I don’t think it would get old.
Marla swings the door open. I jump up and take a step outside the closet. The beach of feathers and crystals is mine, and I’m not ready to share it with Marla.
Quickly, the feathers turn all fake and cheap, and the sand is a pile of plastic beads that are now cracked and broken, and the light is ugly and the closet smells like feet and the world I created is officially completely gone.
Marla hugs me. It’s not like we’ve never hugged before, but we don’t do it often, that’s for sure. Her body is skinnier than mine, bonier, all pointy and arrowed, and unexpected. Looking at her is so different from holding her.
I wonder if I’ll grow straight and narrow like her. I’m not sure I’d want to be so bony. There aren’t any soft parts of her, and I think it’d be scary to walk around the world without a bit of padding. She’s so angular. The angles are how you get hurt, I think.
“Let’s go,” she says. We’re still hugging, and it’s impossible to talk and hug at the same time, as far as I’m concerned. I take a step back and wait for her arms to loosen, which they eventually do, but after way more time than any sort of normal hug.
“Go where?” I say. “And why?”
“I think if I show you more about Astrid’s closet, you’ll get it,” she says. “It’s not evil. It’s maybe a little scary sometimes but in a good way.” I shrug. “And I have an idea,” she adds.
I shiver, thinking of the little dollop of Astrid’s closet that I have already experienced. The way beautiful turned scary. The rapid speed of the wings flapping. The darkness in Marla’s eyes. I don’t want to experience any of that again.
“I need someone to help me,” Marla says. “I need you.”
“I’m good with my closet,” I say as nicely as possible, because Marla looks like she really does need someone’s help. But I’m mostly wondering if I can get Marla out of my room quickly so I can go back in the closet and re-create the world I had going. My hand finds the closet doorknob, grips it tightly.
Marla notices but doesn’t make a move toward leaving. We’re both quiet and still, each waiting for the other to move. Our house creaks and it makes me jump, but not Marla. Marla is steady.
“I did your thing for you,” she says. “With the princesses and the boat and stuff. We tried that. Can’t we try this? You and me?” There are rings under her eyes. Like she hasn’t slept in forever. She looks more and more like Mom every day. I don’t bother reminding her how very, very little she invested when we tried to make my fairy tale happen in the closet. She’s right. She did, technically, do it for me.
“Maybe you should go in with Astrid. Since it’s her closet? Don’t you think?”