And I suppose I have.
I look at Mother. Her eyes dart from Father to me and back again, jumping, caught like a hooked fish. Caught between two worlds again. ‘It’s for you, Jenna.’ And now we’ve come full circle. As we always do.
‘Everyone has to die eventually,’ I say.
Father lifts the bottle of wine. He holds it in front of the candle to judge its remaining contents. He empties half into Mother’s glass and half into his own. He takes a leisurely sip.
‘No more,’ he says.
Tossing
I don’t sleep.
I hold on to my bed.
The backups must go.
My fingers dig into my sheets.
I want sleep. Forget. Melt into night.
But.
What if something goes wrong?
I may need them.
It is only information.
Limbo.
Dreamland.
That’s all.
And if I try hard enough
maybe I can forget the dark place where
they
we
are.
Viewpoint
It is a rare day. Rae is teaching a lesson.
In her own way.
I am tired. But fidgety. My lack of sleep did not merit my staying home from school. Mother and Father have a distorted sense of normalcy. ‘You wanted to go. You will go. It will be good for you.’
We watch Net News covering a session of Congress. A senator talks. And talks. It is the longest filibuster in history. Senator Harris is breaking the record of Senator Strom Thurmond set back in 1957. No one has been so long-winded—or driven—until now. He has been droning on now for twenty-five hours and thirty-two minutes, one hour and fourteen minutes past Thurmond’s record. For this, Rae has commandeered the floor. For this, even Mitch has joined us in the classroom. Mitch mimics Rae’s nods, and then sighs so there is no doubt. This is historic.
I sit between Ethan and Allys, focused on their presence beside me. I want to lean over and whisper in Ethan’s ear in one breath and weave my fingers into Allys’s hand in the next, and I don’t want to listen to the senator at all. I want to define my place in their worlds and not try to understand the definitions the senator spews forth about his own. Right now I feel the overload—like I could burst in two with needing friendship on one side of me and love on the other. These are the definitions I need to refine.
Dane sits behind me. I feel his tap on my chair. Tap. Tap. I am here. I am here. I am everything. Pay attention. And the senator drones on. And Rae beams. Glows. Historic. Pay attention. Tap. Tap. Allys. Ethan. I do.