Slowly, thoughtfully, Kestrel raised the crystal up to the light and beamed, her bright eyes glistening with so much emotion it made me want to scowl.
“Oh, Elaine,” she whispered, voice warm with fervent delight, “this is exactly what you need.”
She turned to me, and her face, all golden and glowing in the refracted sunshine, spoke of many conversations with the earth, and with spirits, and with God. I gave her silence.
“Citrine,” she continued, unprompted, smiling. “Good for those who need a little positive strength in their lives, or something to bring them good fortune amidst dark days.” She didn’t have to give me a knowing glance to send a jolt of hot anger rocketing from my head down to my feet. How typical of her, my insensitive little sister. How inadvertently thoughtless. How cruel. I took a deep breath, with the intent to let it out, but found myself holding it instead. It hissed out between my teeth as I replied.
“I swear to god, if you hand me that stupid rock, I will absolutely lose it.”
An older woman browsing further down the aisle gave me a disapproving look, putting the antique vase in her hands back onto the shelf with a thunk. What I would’ve given to smash the old thing on the floor. Let her step on the sharpest pieces.
The dark thought soured in my mouth, too foul, and I glared at Kestrel, the responsible party. She brought out the worst in me—that was for sure.
But Kestrel only blinked, her face raw with innocence and nodding all the while. She even smiled at the old woman—always sweet to strangers—before turning back to me. The sympathetic jangling of her earrings made me want to roll my eyes, but I resisted, for fear they wouldn’t roll back in place. With one firm hand, Kestrel gripped my shoulder in an uncomfortable, comforting gesture, and I got to see all of her rings up close—the gold band with an inset milky white stone, the engraved iron coyote with angry sapphire eyes, the thin silver knot marked all along the edge by runes, and the many simple midi-rings that appeared to serve no purpose at all. Just looking at her made me angrier. I could feel the ten years of silence hanging between us, like a slab of hot, shiny meat between two wolves, and I wished that she’d stayed in Sedona.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was mad because she had returned or because it wasn’t me she had come back for. Perhaps it was both. Perhaps it was neither.
With my plain hand, I brushed her off. She pretended not to notice how I’d bitten down my nails like a rabid dog. She’d learned long ago that any mention would only make me chomp down on them harder. Of course, she didn’t know that I’d stopped since Jason and started again since Pearl.
“We can leave, if you like. My errands aren’t urgent, and it’s only a few hours before...”
She didn’t finish, wasn’t sure where I’d drawn my line, and for a moment, I almost felt touched by the genuine sensitivity. But then I remembered that the only reason I was even standing in a shitty antique store at 9 a.m. was because she had refused to learn how to drive, and I couldn’t back out of helping my sweet, lovely, estranged sister without looking like a bitter bitch to everyone at the funeral. Or, more importantly, looking like a bitter bitch next to Pearl. And I didn’t exactly want to spend another day in an empty bed, staring at the wall.
I plucked the stone out of her hand and set it back onto the shelf. It made me feel like I was thirteen all over again, grabbing her hand and dragging her out of the store before the owners caught on to our little tricks. But nearly twenty years had passed since that day, and we walked toward the exit with a cold barrier of air between us.
Kestrel gave one of her rings a rub as we pushed through the glass doors. “For luck,” she whispered, giving me a wink. I didn’t have a chance to ask why, because suddenly I was sprawled onto the hard pavement, bare knees stinging against the concrete with what I could already guess would be a bit of blood. I squeezed my eyes shut, against the threat of embarrassed tears—which did not come—and the bright, hateful sun. I felt Kestrel’s hand in mine as she pulled me to my feet.
“Are you alright?” someone from within the store shouted out to us. I couldn’t bear to open my eyes, couldn’t bear to imagine the dusty lines that were likely drawn across my stiff black dress.
“We’re fine!” Kestrel replied, all chirpy and reassuring.
“It says ‘watch your step,’” said the voice of someone afraid to be sued.
“She said we’re fine!” I snapped back. Kestrel’s hand tightened around mine, and I felt it all over again—the past, like a heat wave slicing through my skin and leaving me warm and afraid. The door clanged as it shut behind us, sending me back those twenty years in a second.
“You didn’t take anything, did you?” I asked, just like before. I felt small, but she felt smaller.
“Of course not,” Kestrel said, and my heart was hard and alone in my chest. She never got the lines right. Maybe she was too young to remember. “Just a bag of chips,” she was supposed to say, with the crinkling bag begging to be released from between her pants’ elastic and round belly.
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I let go of her hand.
“You know, I haven’t stolen anything since we were eighteen,” she said. “Healers make good money.”
“And charlatans make good money off dopes and fools. And drug dealers make good money killing their clients.”
“Maybe,” Kestrel said. And she clicked her heels as she walked over to the car.
I opened my eyes, and everything was blue. A sickly cerulean, really, and I blinked wildly until my eyes adjusted, reminded of Jason, reminded of Pearl. A different past was haunting me now.
What kind of person wears a blue wedding dress and expects nothing to go wrong?
With renewed fervor, I dug around in my purse for the keys to the Lexus and clicked them twice so Kestrel could climb into the passenger seat. But after the two beeps, she squinted her eyes at me.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
I glanced down. My black dress was covered in the zigzag patterns of dirt I’d expected, highlighting all of the wrinkles I hadn’t ironed out, and—sure enough—there was a line of red racing down my left knee. With a tissue I’d been saving for the funeral, I blotted away the blood.
“Give my ring a touch,” Kestrel called from the car. “Everyone needs a little luck now and then.”
“Pass,” I said and stomped over to the driver’s side.
----------------------------------------
We were on I-10, almost halfway to the cemetery, when Kestrel broke our silence with an A-bomb.
“I know you’re still angry I left.”
“My god, Kes. It was ten years ago!”
“You are, aren’t you?”
I was, so much so that I couldn’t talk about it. Not then, not now. I focused on the “lucky” bird feathers she’d hung on my rearview mirror this morning, then I focused on the road.
“Look, Elaine, I had to go. I was lost, and it was a journey I could only take alone. You don’t get how I felt—it was like I was a ghost in my own skin, and I would’ve given anything to find my way home.”
I barked a laugh. “Bullshit. It’s all bullshit!” With surprising smoothness, I took the right exit and eased off the highway. My hands were clenching the wheel at ten and two, mind ablaze, but the rest of my body felt calm. After everything I’d been through over the past few weeks... this conversation was little more than inevitable.
“I would’ve disappeared if I hadn’t found Sedona,” Kestrel said.
“You did disappear,” I said.
“I get it, Elaine. It’s an emotional day for you. What with Jason’s funeral... and the fact that Pearl is coming. But don’t take it out on me.”
My head spun at her nonsense, but all I could get out was, “Don’t you say her name. Not today.”
“She loved him, too, you know. She has a right to be there.”
I was searing with hot, trembling fury as I slowed for the red light. I couldn’t bear to look at her. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do more than whisper. “How dare you, Kestrel. Honestly, how dare you?”
“I’m not trying to incite you. I’m serious. She’s a person, too.”
“She got knowingly involved with a married man. She cannot come to the funeral where his grieving widow will be trying to remember everything good about him.” The green arrow flicked on ahead, and I turned onto the back road to the cemetery. The car jostled against the gravel, forcing us to raise our voices. The lucky feathers bounced between us, like a nervous bird come back to life.
“You’re not the only one who lost Jason, you know. I remember what he did for us when we were younger, after Mom and Dad stopped caring. We would’ve died without his help. And that woman—you can’t blame her. Everyone loved Jason. I know you can be cold. I know you can push people away. Sometimes that means pushing them toward someone else who will love them when you can’t. And that’s okay, El! You’re only human. But this isn’t only about your pain.”
I parked the car, stunned by her little speech. The audacity. “Are you saying I’m making this all about myself? I can’t believe you!”
“Please. I’m not blaming you, El. All I want is for you to let the woman be. She cared about him and wants to honor his life, just like you do.”
“She has no right.” And then I spotted it. Pearl’s car. The mistress arriving earlier than the wife? I wanted to yank down Kestrel’s stupid feathers, throw them in her face. So I did.
She flinched, then quietly gathered them up in her hands and got out of the car. I followed suit, without thinking, and when I slammed the door shut, the car began to roll. We both jumped back, gasping as it slid down into the ditch, the metal hood wailing as it curled around the tree below. Ears ringing, I looked at Kestrel, who was gripping the lucky feathers, a look of horror etched onto her face, and it took everything I had to settle my shuddering heart. Then she came to me and held my arms, as if she sensed I was about to collapse, and let the feathers fall to the ground.
“Please,” she begged, gripping me with a concerned intensity. Her other hand slipped into the space between her pants’ elastic and belly, and she pulled out the citrine from the store.
“You stole it,” I said.
“Please,” she said again, pressing it into my hand. “For luck.”
I tried to push the crystal away, its jagged edges digging into my palm, clinging to me.
“Why do you refuse help?” Kestrel cried. “First you don’t want me to leave, and now you don’t want me to stay. Please, just take it. Humor me. You need it.”
I shook my head, but when I looked back down at the car in the ditch, felt the stinging scab forming on my knee, I could not help but accept the stolen gift.
“I’m going to call someone,” she said. “I’m going to call someone.” And she stepped away.
I gripped the stone until my hands turned white and watched as she walked back toward the highway, her phone pressed to her ear. My sister. My sister, who I raised, like a daughter of my own. My sister, who I fed when we had no money, who I hid at Jason’s house when our parents came back around, angry and drunk and high. My sister, who I saved when they stopped coming back at all. My sister, who could not breathe until she left me, who I let leave, although it was I who could not breathe when she was gone. No. I couldn’t go back to that. I couldn’t get used to her being around again, when I knew she’d race off to Sedona the second Jason was put in the ground. I looked at the stone in my hand and realized the ridiculousness of it all. She was wrong. I wasn’t being selfish enough. I didn’t need her stupid rock.
Because it just wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be right for me.
I took one last look at Pearl’s pristine silver Camry and resisted the urge to throw the citrine at it—smash a couple windows. Instead, I let it slip from my fingertips, fall lightly into the grass with an almost imperceptible thud. Carefully dusting myself off, I walked past my wrecked car, past Pearl’s, past Kestrel’s feathers, past the stone, thinking only of my husband, of myself, of the hole in the ground.