I look down the hall toward MiMi’s bedroom door. Hear her muffled cries behind it.
Goddamn us all.
Twenty-Four
I’M ALREADY AT THE DOORS WHEN THE CITY BUS PULLS UP across the street from Taco Bell. As soon as they open, I spill out onto the curb. I’m almost a half hour late. I try to go right into a jog, but my whole body aches. Not sure why. The only amount of exertion I’ve done all day was roll over from one side of the bed to the other. I couldn’t make it to school, and MiMi couldn’t make it out of her own bed to tell me to go to school. I think both of us knew it would be too soon to go into our usual routine. It would be tough to eat fried eggs and discuss our To-Do Lists for the day while staring at Nic’s empty spot at the kitchen table. Yeah, it’s been empty for over two weeks, but now that we know she’s never going to fill it, breakfast would be hard to swallow.
I thought twice about not showing up for work. Okay, I thought more than twice about not coming here. But with Nic gone and MiMi still recuperating from her stroke, I have to step up. Bring home some cash until we catch our breath—though I don’t see that happening any time soon.
I push my way through the doors of the restaurant and get smacked in the face by the smells of shredded chicken and chili powder. One of my coworkers at the cash register gives me a slight nod before getting back to work. I can hear some of the others cracking jokes in the kitchen. It’s business as usual here. Not sure why I thought that time would freeze because my world turned inside out.
I make my way toward the breakroom to clock in, when Joshua Kim appears out of thin air and steps in the middle of the hall. “You’re late,” he says. Crosses his arms across his chest like a big shot.
“I know,” I say. I’d like to not be even later, but he’s standing in my way. “I have a lot going on right now, but it won’t happen again.” I shrug my shoulders at him, ask for permission to pass.
“We all have a lot going on, Jayson,” Joshua says, not budging a muscle. “Cars that won’t start, babysitters canceling at the last minute. Heck, even Carmen had to recently put her ferret to sleep. But guess what? We all still make it here on time.”
I blink at him. A ferret. A fickin’ ferret? He’s going to compare my shitty-ass life to having to part ways with a weasel? I cough out a laugh and shake my head. “I win,” I say.
Joshua frowns at me in confusion. “Excuse me?”
“I win the woe is me card,” I say. “Your Honda Accord needs work? Try riding your bike or catching public transportation just to pick up a carton of milk. No babysitter? I don’t even know what a babysitter is. I’ve had to warm up dinner plates after school since I was nine years old if my grandma ever ran late. And a dead . . . ferret?” I bark out another laugh. “You think I give a damn about a stretched-out rat? I buried my dad in elementary school. Gonna bury my sister in the next few days. My grandma is barely hanging on, and I might end up in the fickin’ system because my mom’s serving a fifteen-year bid. So yeah, I win!”
There are more eyes on me than just Joshua Kim’s. My coworkers stop cracking jokes. Customers in the dining area stop ordering. Hell, the flies buzzing around probably stop being annoying. But I don’t care if I’m disturbing anyone because Joshua Kim’s complaining about scuffing his diamond shoes while I take thirty minutes out of my shift to mourn my goddamn sister.
Joshua finally clears his throat and shifts his weight to his other foot. “Okay, I understand now that you’re going through it, but I can’t have you causing a scene at work.”
“Causing a scene?” I repeat. “All I was doing was trying to clock in. I haven’t even started to cause a scene. But this is causing a scene . . .” I swipe at a stack of trays at the end of the counter, send them plummeting to the floor. Joshua jumps but I’m not done. “This is causing a scene.” I yank out as many napkins from a nearby dispenser that I can. Ball them up in my fists, then make it rain in the dining area. “THIS is causing a fickin’ scene!” I intercept an order of tacos from an unsuspecting customer and pitch them to the floor. I step on them for good measure just to make sure the tacos are dead. The crunch underneath my feet is oddly satisfying, so I keep stomping and stomping until I turn those tacos into powder.
Soon, I’m out of breath. The eyes that stared at me with amusement now look at me with concern. I even see fear from some people—including Joshua Kim. Good.
“If you haven’t caught on by now,” I say in between breaths, “I’m not cleaning any of this shit up. I quit.” I snatch the apron over my head and toss it to the floor. Step on it just to prove an extra point before pushing out of the doors. I never want to eat a burrito again.
I get home with one thing on my mind: crawling back into bed. But as I trudge down the hall, I pause outside of Nic’s bedroom door. I think about all the times I popped my head in to see if she made it home. I think about all the times before then, when she’d let me pile my blankets at the foot of her bed after a night of watching too many Saw movies. I think about Father’s Day five years ago, when I caught Nic crying into her pillow, so I sat on her floor. Resting my head on her legs until she was ready to speak. Willing to still sit there even if she didn’t want to speak at all.
My hand reacts before my brain does. It turns her doorknob, pushes her door open. Everything’s still slightly askew from me and Riley’s snooping, but Nic’s bones are still there. All her scents are still there. I walk over to her bed and plop down. I wonder when’s the last time Nic actually slept in here. Maybe a little over two weeks ago. Did she fall right asleep, or did she fart around on her phone to pass time? And when she did fall asleep, what did she dream about? I hope it was something nice. I hope it was something about Mom and Dad and me before all the storms came. I hope we were piled up in Dad’s car, listening to Mom and Dad sing along to their oldies. Groaning every time they kissed or held hands, but passing secret smiles to each other because our parents still wanted to kiss and hold hands. Our parents loved each other. Our parents loved us.
The first cry comes out like a hiccup. I touch the pit of my throat to make it stop but the levees have already broken. The tears come out in steady streams now, like they’ve been backed up for far too long. Nothing I think or do can make them stop from overflowing. I fall back onto Nic’s bed, bury my face in her pillow like I saw her do all those years ago. I let out a rumble that doesn’t even sound like me. It’s deep and hoarse and sounds like it came from a man who lived through years of pain. Who doesn’t know how he’ll ever pull himself out because the sorrow feels too deep. So deep it’s swallowing him whole.
There’s a hand on my back. I peek up and MiMi stands over me, blinking back tears. I choke up again and MiMi sits down, rubbing my back so hard to help me get all of them out.
“I . . . I quit . . . my job,” I barely get out.
“It’s okay, baby.” She shushes me, keeps rubbing.
“I quit my job . . . because I think she’s really dead.” My voice breaks even more and I slap once at my face. Pissed at the tears that won’t stop leaking. “She’s gone, MiMi. She’s gone.”