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“One of these excuses will work on you. I just have to find the right one”
Veronica rolled her eyes and shifted her phone to stop it from slipping off her shoulder. With a brightly coloured hamper now in her grasp she shuffled through the cluttered hallway. They had been going back and forth for a few days now and she was reaching the end of her rope.
“Rae… If I didn’t believe the extra shift or the fever, what makes you think I’ll believe you have homework?”
I do!”
The indignation in Rae’s tone did nothing to dissuade her. She soldiered down the stairs and on with her assault.
“Homework you’re actually going to do!?? You can’t honestly expect me to believe that. I have met you before you know”
Rae was somewhat of a coaster, much to Veronica’s irritation. She sailed through school with Cs despite everyone knowing she could do better. Whenever pushed to go further; with a barrage of pleas and spittle: she’d rise to the occasion and to a B. The report cards would come swift through the letter box and mock them for their concern, demanding satisfaction. She’d turn at her heel and let the praise wash over her before slipping through the cracks again like water through lax hands. It had been a lot harder to control her since she moved into dorms but her obvious intelligence didn’t waver even from a distance.
Clearly realising that this wasn’t in fact the right excuse, Rae scrambled for a counter.
“Look it’s a group presentation and I promised – “
“ENOUGH!”
Veronica slammed her basket down, having arrived in the kitchen. She keeled forward and braced her arms on the counter. The phone clattered down with a sharp clack, her body heaving. The air was tense for a moment and the white noise from the receiver faded into the background. A beat passed. The tension in her shoulders faded into reluctance and she raised the phone to her ear defeatedly.
“Just stop fighting me on this; please? I promised Mama that I’d get you to come.”
On the other side of the phone she knew Rae was clenching her jaw.
It was a familial habit really. Back when things were easier, they used to joke about the McClain chin. The strong jut was their self-proclaimed best feature. Abuela used to whisper to them “a chin meant to open its mouth and taste the sun”. Veronica remembered being puzzled by this as a child. It was a competition for all the McClain children to try and decipher what it meant. Uncles would look over them screaming about it during barbeques and place bets over their beers. The kids weren’t meant to know but Veronica had heard the distain of their wives snipping from the kitchen one hot summer night while looking for a glass of water. On Abuela’s ninetieth birthday the whole family had reconvened once again. As the eldest it had been her job to usher the kids away from the campfire and drunken relatives. In a desperate ploy to keep them entertained Veronica remembers crouching down and telling them if they stayed upstairs, she’d let them know grandmother’s greatest secret. They had looked at her in such admiration she swore she’d never tell them it had been a lie. The grown-ups had theorised it was a symptom of dementia. There was no good tainting what had become such a staple for the household.
The end of the memory got caught in her throat. Because, in the corner of her mind she could see a little boy with the bluest eyes and the widest smile. She could see her parents huddled together by an IV. She remembers looking on in horror at a little boy who was almost certainly left in the care of an aunt rushed through the door. A little boy who was ignorant to death. A little boy who at seeing his abuelita leapt onto the bed and wrapped scrawny arms around her wizened neck; Who listened to her mumbles with attentive ears. A boy who smiled even wider and promised not to let anyone forget. Back when times were easier. It was with this little boy in mind that she continued.
“Rae. I know you miss him. I miss him. God knows mama misses him. I know you don’t want to see Dad’s new girlfriend or Marco drinking himself to death. And you don’t want to explain to Luis’s kids why he’s missing again this year. But I need you there okay.”
“Vee. There’s no point going back there okay. It’s an empty house full of empty memories. Mama is making herself sick by staying there. Dad had the right idea in moving on. Luis as well, although he did a crappy thing leaving the kids behind. I left that misery and I’m finally starting to feel happy again."
“It’s the 5th anniversary. You know how important this is. Just come back okay. It’s only a 45-minute train journey. I’ll even give you the money for a ticket. Please Rae”
“You are no better than me you know, that right? You were the first to run away when things got tough. You stopped coming back during the holidays, always claiming you were busy.”
Rae stops and stifles a sob.
“You – You only lost a brother Vee. You didn’t lose a son like mama or a best friend like Marco or a twin like me. He used to call me; he told me you barely acknowledged him at the academy. Going back hurts too much, and Lance doesn’t want that for us”
The laundry long since abandoned; Veronica looks up and blinks back tears.
“He’s dead Rachel … he doesn’t want anything”
“If I come back and have to see our empty room and the headstone and his altar, I’ll be dead too Vee”
On the other side of the phone, Rachel is choking on saltwater.
Her room seems empty and lifeless as she sits leaning against the wall. Her suitcase is laughing at her, at her weakness. She’d tried. She really had. But getting out of bed was a struggle for her let alone confronting the horrible vacuum that always stirred beneath her chest. She’d always believed it would be Lance who went to university. He’d had it all planned out. Graduate at the top of the fighter class pilots. See the stars with his own two eyes and then after exploring all he could, come back home and show the stars to everyone who couldn’t get there. He’d find a beautiful girl to settle down with and find a pretty little house along the beach front. He’d swim every morning, teach during the day and look as the stars at night. Mouth open wide and smiling, blue eyes gleaming and staring into the distance. Proud to have been out there, close enough to have tasted the sun.
But here she was at university, running away from it all and there he was so badly obliterated they didn’t have anything to put in the ground. She wasn’t coasting like her mother and sister believed. She was drowning. She didn’t dare do better than him. He had finally gotten somewhere and look where all that hard work got him. A flight accident had robbed him of everything. Him and a handful of other cadets. He’d finally gotten into fighter class. She still remembers the phone call as he screamed with excitement. He was so full of life. She suspects that it was that livelihood that killed her too in the end. Because she had almost been as happy as him. At the end of the day, she supposed she can’t blame Veronica too much. She missed everyone wholeheartedly, but she also knew it wouldn’t be her family she’d be coming back to. They were all tethered to his ghost.
“You still there?”
Rachel shudders out a noise of affirmation.
Veronica spits bitterly. “So, you aren’t coming then?”
“I feel like I’m dying without him Vee”
“All of us are Rae. Hell of a fucking excuse”