“It’s okay,” Jed said.
“I’m with Cam,” Ana said, patting his hand. “High school blows.”
“Yeah, okay,” Jed said. “I think it blows, too.”
“I hated high school,” I said, remembering what a shell of a person I’d been.
“Let’s cheers,” Ana said.
They reached for their apple juices. I grabbed my water. We held our glasses high above the flames.
Ana made the toast. “Fuck you, high school!”
Mid-sip, I paused. Movement to my right, and there was Chuck in the doorway looking either confused or angry or both. It was hard to tell with all the lights off.
I cleared my throat. “Chuck.”
“Fuck high school?”
Okay, he was definitely angry. Which—I might have been too if I were him.
“Come here, Chuck,” I said. “I want you to meet Ana.”
Ana stood up, which was very polite. Chuck walked toward her carefully and they shook hands, and she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Chuck. And we were kidding about fucking high school.”
Chuck took his hand back. “Why is there a tree branch on the wall?”
Ana raised her eyebrows. We all tried not to laugh.
“It’s moving.” Chuck leaned closer. “There are ants crawling all over it.”
“It’s alive!” Jed made a scary face.
Chuck looked at me: Are you serious?
I may have winced for him. I’m sorry?
“Anyway, Chuck,” Ana said, “thank you for letting me stay here.”
“You’re welcome,” Chuck managed. I could tell he was really trying.
“Are you eating with us?” Ana asked.
“I just came to get my shirt,” he said. “I have a game tonight.”
“Nan tells me you play pool,” Ana said.
“I do,” Chuck confirmed. And then to the boys, “Boys, did you work on the shed this afternoon?”
“No, Dad,” “No, Dad,” they echoed.
Chuck nodded. He didn’t look pissed. He just looked sad, which was worse. “Well”—he pointed to the hall—“I’m just going to…”
“Get your shirt,” Ana finished.
We were quiet while Chuck got his shirt. It took two seconds. When he came back out, I said, “Please be careful tonight, Chuck.”
“Don’t worry.” He walked toward the door. When he stopped, I knew exactly why. “What is this?” he said, pointing at the tank and then crouching to see more.
“A lizard,” Ana said. Candlelight flickered on her face.
In a flattened voice Chuck said, “It doesn’t look like a lizard,” and then he walked out the door.
We were completely silent, listening to Chuck’s footsteps recede down the stairs. Ana closed her eyes. She said, “The energy in this room has changed.”
?
In bed, I said, “We were like a happy family tonight.”
She grabbed my hand. “I love your boys.”
“They love you,” I told her. “Jed called you a baller.”
“He did? When?”
“After dinner.” I held her eyes. Remember her now, remember her like this. “I’m so happy you’re here, Ana.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather die.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to die.”
“I wonder what it’s going to feel like.”
“Me, too.”
“I hope it feels like nothing.” A beat. “You didn’t flush that turd I left for Eunice, did you?”
“No.”
Her smile. “I knew you wouldn’t.”
“I thought you would know if I flushed it.”
“How would I know?”
“I don’t know. You know things.”
“I don’t know jack shit, Nan, I just talk.”
“No,” I said, because she was wrong. “You know things. You pay attention. That’s why I like you.”
“Okay,” she said, “I know things.” She hit my leg with the pillow.
“Hey!” I hit her back.
She got up on her knees and started batting me with a new pillow. I got up and fought back. We laughed, laughed harder, laughed until we could barely breathe. We kept going until Ana said, “Wait, wait, I’m sweating. This is going to ruin my night cream,” and fell onto the bed. I hit her once more and fell onto the bed next to her. We landed on opposite ends, with her feet at my face and my face at her feet.
“Good night, Nan.” She put her hand on my foot and left it there, so I put my hand on her foot.
“Good night, Ana.”
“Good night, Nan,” she whispered. “Don’t say anything else. I like to be the last one to say good-bye.”
Wind
25
“Your shoulder blades are wings made of ice,” she said. “Melt them. Melt them onto your back. Feel them drip. Stand up tall. Taller. Taller. You are an ivory tower. You are a telephone pole. You are attached by a string to a cloud. The cloud floats up. You lift. Lifting. You are lifted onto a higher plane. Good. Now extend your hands up, up, up and look up at that cloud. Yes, Nan, that’s beautiful, yes.”
Remember this, I told myself. Everything Ana is saying about these postures and the neon-green gecko with two hot-pink spots and one orange one making kissing noises on the overhang and how Ana strokes her cheek with the eraser of that huge I HAWAII pencil when she is concentrating.
When Ana put me into savasana, I splayed my arms and legs expansively off the mat to show her that I was a person who was willing to take up space in this world. She pressed my shoulders down with her warm hands and traced my eyebrows with her warm fingers. I heard her walk back to the chair and take a sip of the peppermint tea I’d poured her. The pencil made a soft scratching sound on the yellow legal pad as she wrote. The birds and the geckos and the water heater and how there were so few people in the world you could really be silent with like this.
After one or five or ten minutes, she said, “Now come back. Back, back, back. Wiggle your fingers, your toes. Roll to your right side. This is important for your kidneys. When you’re ready, sit up. Head comes up last. Press your palms into one another equally. The right into the left and the left into the right. Good. Now touch your thumbs to your third eye. This is your intuition. This is the voice you should never ignore.” A pause. “Ooooommmmmmmm.” Just the two of us and we were so loud. The power of our voices together reverberated up the mountain, down the mountain. Its echo might have carried for miles.
“Peace to all beings, no exceptions.” We bowed. “And that means no exceptions.”
I opened my eyes. Ana had put a blanket over her head like someone in the wilderness preparing for a natural disaster. She smiled at me, a huge smile. All those glistening white veneers and how they dulled the brightness of everything else.
She whispered, “You are reborn.”
“I am reborn,” I whispered back.
She tapped the eraser against her lips. “I wonder what they’re doing down at the beach without us.”
“I miss that class,” I said, thinking of Patty and Kurt and Sara Beth. I wondered if Patty had bought a new cat yet.
“I don’t,” Ana said certainly.
“You don’t?”
“No,” she said. “I’m dying, Nan. I don’t have time for longing.”
I told myself to remember that: I don’t have time for longing. I watched her write something down and thought, I should start writing some of this stuff down.