—
February lay there for hours with the bed rail sunk deep into the flesh of her hip, watching as her mother’s breath became shallower and sparser, until she could tell she was still there only by watching her pulse jump in her neck. At around midnight, the nurse listened to her lungs once more, said goodbye for the night, told February to press the call button if they needed anything. Mel, who’d commandeered a second chair for her feet, finally fell asleep, and though her presence was still a comfort, on some level February knew that this was what her mother had been waiting for—a quiet moment alone. In the end there was only an exhale, a low hiss that contained more air than she had seen her mother take in all night, so that February wondered where it had been hidden and whether it might have been breath her mother had carried for a very long time. Then it was gone, commingled with the dry and acrid hospital air, no longer special, and her mother was gone, and February had no idea what to do. She’d had her parents for more years than most, and they’d lived good lives; this was bound to make certain aspects of her coming anguish easier. For now, though, the pain was not abated by adulthood, or prayers, or last goodbyes, or even Mel’s reassurances. It was a wound, a stone fruit ripped in two, red and bruised and sweet-tinged with rot, a yawning void where the pit should have been. And she would stay that way, emptied and splayed open in the putrefaction of grief, for weeks. It was 4:04 a.m. on Black Friday, and February nearly laughed when the nurse wrote it down for the record—as if it was something she could possibly forget.
charlie let the bite of her mother’s accusation ripple through her for a while, standing stuck in the foyer even after Wyatt came back down the stairs and gave her an odd look that made her wonder how long she’d been there. Finally, she shook herself loose and returned to the kitchen, where Wyatt neatly lined the wineglasses to dry on a strip of hand towels before retiring to the basement to do whatever he did down there. It was only 7:30, but it felt much later. She tried casting about on Wyatt’s satellite for something to distract her, but everything was reruns and commercials for tomorrow’s sales, and she soon turned the TV off. She wondered what Austin was doing and switched on her phone to send him a video message, but once she’d pressed record, she wasn’t sure what to say. She imagined him at home, he and his family gathered around a boisterous dining table like a big Deaf Brady Bunch, so sure they were exactly who they were supposed to be. She stopped the recording, pulled up the web instead, and googled the Gas Can—“Open,” their hours said. It was a Thursday, after all. Was Thanksgiving a holiday for anarchists? She was about to find out.
She had never known her mother to emerge from any substantial interaction with her grandmother without a blistering hangover, and tomorrow promised to be no exception. She slipped into her mother’s bedroom and mumbled nonsense at her sleeping form until she said, “Okay Charlie, okay,” and rolled over. In the morning, she’d be forced to take Charlie’s word for whatever permission she claimed to have extracted. Her mother, a proper lady, would never admit how drunk she’d been.
Charlie pulled on her sneakers and boarded the bus into East Colson. Already she was feeling a little giddy at the possibility of seeing Slash, and when a lick of remorse about whether she should be feeling something toward Austin surfaced, she snuffed it back out. The real problem, she told herself, wasn’t that she needed to choose Slash or Austin, but that she had positioned them to be diametrically opposed in the first place. There was no reason why she shouldn’t be friends with multiple boys, neither of whom she owed a thing, so what if she did find them both attractive? She disembarked at the casino and trekked up to the Gas Can.
Inside, it was warm and nearly empty. There were a few people spread out at single tables across the room, mostly older men who looked like they’d been at it a while, but no sign of Slash or his crew. She took a stool at the end of the bar, and the bartender held out a beer like a question mark.
Thanks, she said.
Oh, you talk.
What?
Slash mentioned you were deaf the other night, so I didn’t know, said the bartender.
Slash mentioned me?
He did.
I talk.
He didn’t mention that.
The bartender took his own beer out from under the bar.
Cheers, he said.
They clinked bottles, and he stayed there, staring at her so intently she swiped her sleeve across her mouth, thinking there was something on her face.
What? she said.
Nothing, sorry. My cousin’s deaf.
Charlie was always unsure what she was supposed to do with this kind of information. Congratulate him?
Cool, she said.
He has one of those implant things, though. He hears like everything.
Good for him.
Did you…ever think of getting one?
She brought the bottle to her lips, took an aggravated slug. She wasn’t a stranger to this line of questioning—when her fellow students at Jefferson had deigned to engage with her, it was often in exchanges like this, to inform her that they had once had a deaf dog, or inquire why she didn’t want to get cured like those babies they’d seen on YouTube hearing their mothers’ voices for the first time. She’d just been hoping maybe the world outside of high school was different.
I have one.
The bartender’s mouth twitched in a way that might have been imperceptible to a person less accustomed to studying mouths.
See?
She pulled the magnet from beneath her hair.
Right on, he said, and put his beer to his lips as if to silence himself.
You’re surprised, she said.
No.
No what?
It’s just you—he—never mind.
I what? Don’t talk as good as him?
Just…different, he said weakly.
Right on, she said, letting the magnet snap back against her head.
Sorry, he said. That was really rude.
Yeah, well.
It was Charlie’s turn to wash her words down with beer. Then she felt a hand on her thigh and turned to discover Slash on the stool beside her. She found respite in his touch, and not only from the prospect of getting her out of this conversation.
What was rude? Slash said.
I was just putting my foot in my mouth, said the bartender.
It’s fine, Charlie said. My implant’s shit, it’s not a secret.
She began the habitual rearranging of her hair to camouflage the spot.
The fuck you say to her?
Forget it, said Charlie. Hi.
Hi, he said, and kissed her on the cheek.
Didn’t know if you guys would be here tonight.
Every Thursday, he said.
Charlie couldn’t tell whether he even realized it was a holiday. For a moment she pictured his mother standing on the porch of their McMansion, with her arms crossed, peering out into the windy night, and felt a little sorry for her.
Come on, he said, taking her hand. I gotta tune up.
* * *
—
They reconnected after the show, Charlie tearing herself away from the front left speaker.
So, do you have to get home, or…
Or what?
You wanna stick around for the real fun? Actually, we could use you.
Use me? said Charlie.
A project we’re doing. You could lend a hand?
O-k, she said.
O-k.
Wait. You know how to fingerspell?
She wondered whether she’d taught him while rolling. Then she felt hurt, as if this were a secret he’d been keeping, though in fairness it wouldn’t have come up in most of their Jefferson-era relationship—if you could call it that—she hadn’t known sign language then.
Only what I learned in Sunday school. So, the alphabet. God Jesus Bible…
SIN, he signed dramatically, baring his teeth at her.
Charlie laughed. She couldn’t imagine Slash, even Slash when he was Kyle, anywhere near a church.