The night before, on the way home from the coffee shop, Kirsten had told Whitney about her film, and how it was similar to the piece she'd read. Whitney wanted to see it, so tonight before dinner, Kirsten had set up her laptop on the coffee table and we all assembled to watch.
My parents sat on the couch with Whitney perched on the arm beside them. Kirsten took a seat at an angle, motioning for me to sit closer, but I'd just shook my head, hanging back. "I've already seen it," I told her. "You sit there."
"I've seen it a million times," she replied, but took the spot anyway.
"This is so exciting!" my mother said, looking around at all of us, and I didn't know if she meant that we were all there together, or the film itself.
Kirsten took in a breath, then reached forward to push a button. "Okay," she said. "Here it is."
As the first shot of that green, green grass, came up, I tried to keep my eyes on it. But slowly, I found myself looking instead at my family. My father's face was serious, studying the screen; my mom, beside him, had her hands curled in her lap. Whitney, on my dad's other side, had pulled a leg to her chest, and I watched the light flicker across her face as the piece continued.
"Why, Whitney," my mother said as the girls pedaled down the street, "this is kind of like that essay you let us read a while back, isn't it?"
"It is," Kirsten said softly. "Weird, right? We just figured it out last night."
Whitney didn't say anything, her eyes on the screen as, in the distance, the camera showed the smaller girl, now off her bike, the wheel spinning. Then there were the scarier images of the neighborhood: the lunging dog, the old man getting his paper. When it finally ended with that last flash of green, we were all quiet for a moment.
"Kirsten, my goodness," my mother finally said. "That was incredible."
"Hardly incredible," Kirsten replied, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. But she did look pleased. "It's just a beginning."
"Who knew you had such an eye?" my father said, reaching across to squeeze her leg. "All that TV-watching finally paid off."
Kirsten smiled at him, but her real attention was on Whitney, who hadn't said anything yet. "So," she asked, "what did you think?"
"I liked it," Whitney told her. "Although I never thought you'd left me behind."
"And I never would have guessed you turned back," Kirsten replied. "It's so funny."
Whitney nodded, not saying anything. Then my mother sighed and said, "Well, I never realized that day was such a big deal for either of you!"
"What, you don't remember Whitney breaking her arm?" Kirsten asked.
"Your mother has a selective memory," my dad told her. "I, however, have distinct recollection of the collective trauma."
"Of course I remember it," my mom said. "I just… had no idea it had resonated with you both so much." She turned, glancing around behind her until her eyes found me. "What about you, Annabel? What do you remember about that day?"
"Turning nine," my father said. "Right?"
I nodded, because they were all watching me. In truth, though, I wasn't sure what I recalled most about that day, as so much of it had been retold now, through other eyes. It had been my birthday, I'd had a cake, I'd run to tell my mom Whitney was hurt. But the rest, I wasn't sure of.
All through dinner I watched my family: Kirsten telling stories about the intense people in her filmmaking class,
Whitney explaining the details of the sushi rolls she'd been working on all afternoon, my mother's cheeks, pink and flushed, as she laughed. Even my father was relaxed, clearly happy to have everyone together, under such better circumstances. It was a good thing, and yet I felt strangely disconnected. As if I were now a car on the street outside, slowing down to stare, with nothing in common at all but proximity, and barely that.
Now, I pushed back the covers, getting up, then went to my door, easing it open. The hallway was silent and dark, but as I suspected, there was a light visible from the stairs. My dad was still up.
As soon as he saw me crossing the living room, he muted the TV. "Hey there," he said. "Can't sleep?"
I shook my head. On the screen, I could see the grainy black-and-white images of an old news report, two men shaking hands over a table. Behind them, a crowd was clapping.
"Well," he said, "you are just in time to help me decide. It's either this fascinating show on the beginning of World War One, or something on A&E about the Dust Bowl. What do you think?"
I looked at the TV, which he'd flipped to the other channel. It showed a bleak landscape, a car moving slowly across it. "I don't know," I said. "They sound equally compelling."
"Hey," he said. "Don't knock history. This stuff is important."
I smiled, moving to the couch and sitting down. "I know," I said. "It's just hard to get excited about it. I mean, for me."
"How can you not get excited about this?" he asked. "It's real. This isn't some silly story somebody made up. These are things that actually happened."
"A long time ago," I added.
"Exactly!" he said, nodding. "That's my point. That's why we can't forget it. No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together. You see what I'm saying?"
At first, I didn't. But then, I looked back at the screen, those images moving across it, and realized he was right. The past did affect the present and the future, in the ways you could see and a million ones you couldn't. Time wasn't a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past behind, but it would not leave me.
Sitting there, I could suddenly feel myself getting more anxious, even as I tried to focus on the images on the screen. My mind was racing, too fast to even think, and after a few minutes I went back to bed.
This is crazy, I thought as I found myself again staring at the ceiling, my sisters quiet in their rooms on either side. I closed my eyes, the events of the last few days blurring across my vision in bits and pieces. My heart was pounding. Something was happening I didn't, or couldn't, understand. I sat up, kicking off the covers; I needed something to calm me down, or just even take away these thoughts, if only for a little while. Reaching over to my bedside drawer, I grabbed my headphones and plugged them into my CD player, then went to my desk. In the bottom drawer, after digging through all the CDs Owen had made me, I finally found it: the yellow disc that said's,c just listen.
You might totally hate it, Owen had told me. Or not. It might be just what you need. That's the beauty of it. You know?
When I hit the play button, all I could hear was static, and I settled in, closing my eyes, and waited for the first song to begin. It didn't. Not in the next few minutes, not ever. Then I realized: the CD was blank.
Maybe it was supposed to be a joke. Or something profound. But as I lay there, it only seemed like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.
It was the weirdest thing, so different from music. The sound was nothing, empty, but at the same time, it pushed everything else out, quieting me enough that I began to be able to make out something distant, hard to hear. But it was there, albeit softly, coming to me from some dark place I'd never seen but still knew well.