It was a year for signs and stealing, nothing major, anything I could get: dog chews from pet stores, handkerchiefs, Duck Tape, maxi pads. Mom photographed splotchy sores on your ankles and compared you to Jesus. Whatever. I changed into a black sweatshirt to go help empty the garage. The radio was fading out Johnny Cash.
‘Man in Black!’ Mom said, ‘Don’t you ever want to be colourful?’
‘Don’t you ever want to blend in more?’
She handed me a broom. Isola had the idea to convert the garage into a chapel for your visitors — all those Hallelujahs wouldn’t fit in the house.
‘You don’t need this,’ Mom said, holding a skateboard by a wheel.
‘I do. I just don’t use it.’
I scurried inside for the bathroom. On the way, I wandered into your room. Was it ever mine? The walls were oyster. Pearly cards and gifts squatted among medical supplies. I flicked open a card: ‘God bless you, Jessica. They gave me six months. I wrote to you. Now I’m better…’ I put it down and slipped a glass angel on the nightstand into my pocket. You slept on, surrounded by angels, an army of paper, glass and plastic guardians.
You flap your water wings by the pool, want to fly.
On Monday, I slipped the angel into the backpack of a girl at school with a blind brother — sort of stealing in reverse. It felt so good I thought I’d never steal again.
‘Grab something out the fridge, Ben. I haven’t time,’ Mom yelled on Tuesday.
It was another frantic morning. You had a cold. The doctor was coming. I raided another lunchbox from a locker with a 007 combination. Sandwiches shaped by heart-shaped cookie cutters, crusty brownies, optimistic apples slipped in by healthy Moms: I ate the lot, licked bloody mayo off my fingers and stuffed the napkins up my sleeve.
You didn’t have to remember stuff like birthdays. You hit eleven, but you were still always five, swaddled in pink T-shirts covered in kittens, Sesame Street duvets on your bed. I was sixteen. Isola burnt a Betty Crocker. Mom opened a medical bill and promised we’d celebrate properly next month. The cards slumped on the kitchen counter, fenced in by your letters. I gave myself the gift of fingering a girl.
We were ditching. I ditched gym eight out of ten and I always cut French. (Who needed to know what Mom said that summer?) The girl sat on the floor of the storage room behind the canteen. Everything smelt of congealed pizza and the deodorant I caught her stuffing up a sleeve and squirting at her armpits.
‘I thought I was the only one who knew about this place?’ I said.
She shrugged. ‘No one’s the only person who knows anything.’
I sat beside her, surrounded by vast bottles of ketchup and monster cans with terse labels. I was waiting for the bell. So was she. I put a hand on her knee. She didn’t move. I took it as a sign.
I withdrew my fingers, aware, so aware, of my sleeves sliding down my wrists. If she didn’t want me to stop, she didn’t say.
‘Do you think I’m pretty?’ she asked. ‘Amy Morgan called me a pig yesterday.’
I saw her look at me, waiting for me to say yes, knowing it was some sort of fingerer’s etiquette. I looked away, unable to say a word. The question depressed me to death.
I slide my sunglasses onto my skull. I stand by the pool. I never dive.
‘Hey, what’s wrong with you? You’re bleeding.’ She reached for a blood-streaked hand. I clamped down my sleeves and ran.
Mom rubbed lotion into your hands. Your big day was approaching. The anniversary of ‘your calling’ was on Friday. People were coming from all over the country to pray all over you. I stole a box of tissues from by your bed. Let them sniff. I was out of there, on a bus across town.
The house had a swing set and a birdbath draped with Big Bird. I stood across the street and watched Dad push small twin boys on the swings. One looked like the good twin. One looked like the one who’d grow up and never get laid, even though he and his brother were supposed to be the same. Dad pushed one swing, then the other. The kids flew away, then came back. One, then the other.
You wouldn’t know Dad looked different. You were barely here when he left. Once, Mom told me it was his idea to call you Jessica. Jess, Jessie, Jessie James. I guess he wanted to be clever, and Mom was stupid enough to let him. You stopped being an outlaw when you got miraculous on us. Everyone lengthened your name as if they just wanted it in their mouths a little longer. The only person who still called you Jessie was me.
The paralegal wife slipped outside with sunscreen. I sloped off to the dime store, killing time, pocketing a flag and a packet of Band-Aids. The swings were still when I returned. The kitchen window was misted with steam. I laid the flag on the porch, took a shit on it and ran. The whole bus ride home I regretted it. It would have been better to shit first and put the flag on top like an umbrella in a bad cocktail to make some sort of statement. I stated shit.
On Friday, I rolled my bike down the drive after school. The lawn swayed with strangers fanning themselves with bibles in the sun. The garage door was open. People on folding chairs prayed to oil stains on concrete. Others queued by the house, admitted by Isola to see you in pairs.
‘You can pray with Jessica and ask her to pray for you,’ she said. ‘She always listens, she’s non-verbal, but if you hold her hand it may move.’
I weaved through the crowd to the door, and was detained by some guy in a bandana. He rolled up his shirtsleeves to wave you in my face.
‘Have you been before, dude? I visited last year. That little girl saved my life,’ he said.
I looked at you in inky blue on his forearm, your name tattooed to his skin, bearded in hairs: Saint Jessica. I don’t know what you cured him of, but it wasn’t of being an asshole.
‘Her name is Jessie,’ I said. ‘Jessie James, like the train robber.’
I pushed into the house and made for my room. Your bedroom door was ajar. I watched a young man and woman place a floppy baby on your bed and grip your hand. I recalled you asleep in theme parks, dropping off right there on a ride as if your fun circuit was fried. You’d be carried home, stiffening your legs against Mom’s manoeuvring you into pyjamas, you’d mumble, ‘Sleep. Sleep. Now.’ I wondered if lying there was like that, if you just wanted to sleep and people kept keeping you awake by speaking your name, if it was like drifting off with the TV on and hearing it in your dreams.
‘Do you want to pray with us?’ the woman asked. She looked up, eyes like holy water. The baby gurgled on your bed.
I stand by the pool. I never dive.
I locked my door and sat on the bed. The cowgirls on the walls watched me wind bandages off my wrists, the punctures between the bones slowly weeping. Don’t ask how often it has happened, I don’t count. Don’t ask why, I don’t know. You’d call it a miracle, perhaps. I call it a pain, taping tissues to my skin all day, long sleeves, lying ‘I’m cold’ in July. It’s cutting gym, stealing psychology textbooks and kind of hating yourself like that cutter chick at school. Except, I’m not that chick, I don’t think. I’ve never cut myself to see why I’m bleeding. Not that I know of. I’m a sleepscratcher, or some such shit.