Searching ~ Mia
I park the car and check the time. Three o'clock. School should be about to let out. I grab my sunglasses and my straw sun hat, put them on, and turn the car off.
I reach behind my passenger seat for my sketchbook. Open it to the marked page to make sure I haven't lost the photograph of my little girl. Of course, it's still here, paper clipped to my drawing of what Miri might look like at fourteen. I kiss my fingers and touch the drawing. "Happy birthday, baby."
I get out and lock up the car, start down the long sidewalk toward the beach. There aren't many teenage girls in sight, and I don't see anyone with my daughter's beautiful dark hair. But the beach is huge. It takes an entire afternoon to cover the whole area, and I'm planning to search it over twice, maybe even three times.
If she's here, I'll find her.
Recover the Fall ~ Jim
I put the finishing touches on the grid, step off my ladder, and admire my work. This mural will be great.
Now for the maddening part. I grab my heavy-duty scissors and roll my chair up to the wall where I mounted the butcher paper. My hand already aches from the mere thought of cutting out each square on the grid. I take a seat and start with the bottom left corner, resting my hand for a second after cutting out each square.
The sound of squealing tires breaks the silence in my studio. That's close. I stand and hurry to the window. It's Mirna. She speeds into the driveway and slams on the breaks in front of the garage. She slams her car door shut hard and storms up to the front door. The whole house shakes as she slams that door too.
Oh, boy. The Lone Star becomes a meteorite. Time to go recover the fall.
We meet in the hallway, but she doesn't even act like she sees me. For some reason she doesn't slam her bedroom door shut after her. That's an invitation to talk if she's ever given me one.
I stand in her doorway. Mirna crash-landed on her unmade bed. The pillows and bunched up comforter actually give me the impression of an impact crater. "Hey, Sapph."
"Hi Jimmy." She makes her voice sound carefree and airy. Well, she tries to anyway. Instead she just ends up sounding incredibly miserable, but apathetic about the fact that she's miserable.
"How was your day?"
"Horrible."
I move up and take a seat on the edge of her bed. "Horrible?" I put my hand on her shoulder. "Was there an earthquake at the school that I didn't hear about?"
She pushes my hand off, but for just a split second she can't hide her smile. "I can't have a bad day unless there's a natural disaster?"
"Just trying to put it all into perspective." I drop the tone. "Seriously now, tell me about it."
She hesitates, then shifts and lies back on her bed, staring up at the mural of the night sky covering her ceiling.
I turn and lie down next to her. When she doesn't start talking, I softly begin to sing my favorite song by Owl City: "Shooting Star." "Close your tired eyes, relax and then count from one to ten and open them," I sing softly, my clear voice visibly draining the anger out of her. "All these heavy thoughts will try to weigh you down but not this time."
"School sucks," she says finally. "I hate you for making me go."
Instead of reminding her that we homeschooled her to catch her up so she could go back to school, I calmly search the mural overhead for my favorite constellations—Orion, Cassiopeia, Drako—while I continue to sing. "Way up in the air you're finally free. And you can stay up there right next to me. All this gravity will try to pull you down, but not this time. When the sun goes down and the lights burn out then it's time for you to shine brighter than a shooting star. So shine no matter where you are."
"A meteor disaster you mean," Mirna says.
I stop singing. It's her turn to talk. I have to wait so long, I begin to worry that she's going to give me the silent treatment today.
She finally breaks the silence. "Jimmy?"
"Sapph?"
"...Do you have any idea what it's like to eat lunch alone?"
"I hate to break it to you, but I ate alone today too," I say.
"Sure, but you didn't have to sit in the cafeteria all by yourself, alone in front of everyone. Besides, it's different when you do it by choice, you know?"
"I admit it, you have a good point." I turn to my side and prop my head up. "But here's the deal. Deb didn't invite me to lunch, but I'm not mad at her, because I didn't ask her to eat with me either."
"So, what you're saying is that I'm not allowed to be mad at you because no one invited me to eat lunch with them today?" She sounds incredibly sarcastic, but she's humoring me now.
"Absolutely not. Be as mad as you want, but don't blame me, and don't blame the kids at school who didn't know you wanted to eat lunch with them."
"Hrm." She turns to her back.
"Also, I give you permission to hate me, but your reason is lacking. I'm not the one who doesn't have time to homeschool you anymore because I finished school and got a new job."
"I can hate Deb, then?" She smiles at me.
"Don't tell her I gave you permission."
She laughs—a light tinkle on the air.
"Actually, I hate to pile on the bad day with this, but you won't be driving to school anymore."
"What?!" She sits up and stares open-mouthed at me. "That's not fair! I have my permit; why can't I drive?"
I sit up too. "You could get in an accident when you drive the way you did today. I'm just looking out for you."
"Just trying to ruin my life, you mean." She crosses her arms and clenches her jaw. Her eyes are fiery-blue.
"How about this? You agree to let me drive you to school, and in return I'll let you drive whenever we go anywhere else together, and I won't tell Deb about your reckless driving today. Deal?"
"How long do I have to deal with this?" she asks.
"Until you can prove that you can drive safely."
"... Fine." She tilts her head and smiles. "Wanna go out for dinner?"
I laugh. "Sure thing."
Mental Image ~ Mirna
The bell rings. "Good morning class," Mrs. Rivera says. "Today I am assigning your semester project. It is worth two hundred points and is due at the end of November." She starts passing out a handout. "I've done this project before with groups of four or five and with groups of three. In my experience groups of three do a better job of splitting the work fairly and just work better together, so groups of three for this project."
Group project? Oh no! I glance around the room. I never even talk to anyone in here. How am I supposed to find a group?
Mrs. Rivera raises her eyebrows. "Okay, let's take some time to form groups. Get up and move around the room. When you find your group, sit down together. Choose wisely." She waves her hands like she's trying to stir the wind.
"Hey." Someone taps me on the shoulder.
I turn to see the two girls who sit behind me.
"We need one more," the oriental girl says. "You in?"
"Yeah!" I breathe a sigh and smile at them. "I'm Miri." I hold my hand out to shake.
"I'm Nora," the oriental girl says. She has thick black eyeliner and a stud in her nose. Instead of shaking my hand, she gives me the same kind of play that Tequana used to do with me. That really brings back memories.
"I'm Laurel," the other girl says. She's a pretty blonde in chic street clothes with pink ear buds in her ears, hidden under her long hair. I could totally relate to her. "Know anything about community service art?" She sounds sarcastic, like she thinks this project is lame.
"Actually, I have an idea. I know someone who paints murals to cover up graffiti. Wanna do that?" I raise my eyebrows.
"Murals? That sounds cool." Laurel nods and takes her seat behind me. Nora sits down too. I grab my stuff and move to the second row to sit with them.
This is so awesome. I have a group, I have two new potential friends, and I had the idea for our project. This is the best day of school ever.
Everyone is sitting down. Mrs. Rivera goes to the front again. "Community Service Art Project. You will brainstorm an art project for the community, do some research, interview people in the field, and create your own art piece—"
White sphere, in the corner of my eye, spreading quickly!
I close my eyes and imagine the beach. It's so real, I can hear the waves on the shore and the wind in my ears. I can smell the salt on the air when I inhale. I can feel the sand underneath me, the pencil in my hand, the drawing pad against my legs.
I take a deep breath, and I can see the waves, golden from the sunset, and the little sailboat that I'm drawing, the one that belongs to Jimmy, just about ready to leave the beach. Jimmy splashes in the water as he pushes the boat out, climbs in, and catches the wind. I sit and watch him until he's a speck on the horizon and my drawing is finished.
I hold onto the mental image and open my eyes.
The white is still there, but it's only a small ball in the corner of my eye, and it isn't spreading anymore. I concentrate on breathing instead of looking at it. In a while it will go away. Mrs. Rivera's talking, but I can't make myself listen. Nora and Laurel are still sitting next to me, oblivious to what just happened. If my mental image wasn't working, would they be there when I woke up? Or would they be gone just like Tequana, or Roger and Angela? ... Or my mother?
Disclosure ~ Jim
Mirna emerges from the school. Two other girls follow beside her. She's actually walking with them. Well, well, looks like today wasn't as bad as yesterday.
Mirna says her goodbyes and rushes up to the car. I put my hands up on the steering wheel and smirk at her as she gets in.
"Hi Jimmy!"
"Hey there, Miss Popular."
She doesn't even attempt denial. Instead, she smiles from ear to ear and does a silly dance in the passenger seat.
"How was your day?"
"Great! I made friends, Jimmy!"
"I noticed. See what you can accomplish if you put yourself out there?" I put the car in drive and start down the street for home.
"Is it lame that we're friends because of an art project?"
I glance over to see her frowning out the window. "Of course not. Deb and I are married because of a car accident. In comparison, an art project is much cooler."
She laughs and then furrows her brow. "A car accident?"
"I never told you that story?"
She shakes her head at me.
"I was fresh out of college, looking for a job... I never found out if the car accident caused the seizure, or if the seizure caused the car accident, but either way, I had my first seizure while driving across the Bay Bridge—"
"You were on the bridge?!" Mirna leans forward. "Holy crap, did you drive off?"
"No." I let out a laugh. "Allegedly, I barely bumped the fender of the guy in front of me and only made the grid lock worse." I stop at a red light. "Anyway, Deb was the EMT who got me out of the car and rushed me to San Francisco General. I woke up in the ambulance and she was so ... amazing. That accident changed my life in more ways than one."
"So you never had to tell Deb about the seizures, because she always knew."
"You wanna know something?" The light turns green, and I go. "Until you came along, the only one who knew was Deb."
"What?" Mirna says. "You mean you never told your parents, or the people you work with, or your friends?"
I shrug. "They never needed to know. My parents just thought I was in a car accident, plain and simple. I wasn't diagnosed with epilepsy until three months later anyway, and by then it seemed natural to never tell them."
We reach our street. I take the right turn and coast down to our house, where I pull into the driveway, park the car, and cut the engine. Mirna doesn't move to get out, and neither do I.
"What about work though?" she asks. "What if you had a seizure?"
"Well, that's why I have Nessa. I wake up in the morning and put on Nessa's uniform. If she gives me the signal, I take an extra dose of medication and stay home all day just in case."
"So no one ever finds out." Mirna tilts her head.
"Exactly."
"Nessa is so smart."
I sigh. "You know, sometimes I think she's too smart."
"What do you mean?" Mirna smiles at me.
"Well, lately she's been giving me false alarms a lot. I think maybe she wants to keep her uniform on and play with me all day."
Mirna laughs. "If I was Nessa, I'd do that too."
"You might think it's funny, but you try wasting your whole day at home because a dog tells you you shouldn't go out all day, for absolutely no reason." I push my door open and get out of the car.
"Jimmy?" Mirna gets out and leans across the roof of the car.
"Hmm?"
"Should I tell my new friends about it?"
I wish I had a straightforward answer for her. "I'm sorry, Sapph, but I can't tell you what to do. I will say ... You've learned a lot about prevention and intervention from Deb. You haven't had a seizure in over a year. You can wait until you get closer to your friends to tell them, but you need to make that decision for yourself."
Mirna nods. "Thanks Jimmy."
~*~
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