The window was still open when she woke just after dawn. It was much cooler today; a damp film of condensation coated the desk, with a few tiny scuffmarks in the dew telling the tale of some early bird having enjoyed a crumb breakfast indoors.
Cassie shivered and tried to sit up, but stopped with the first motion, sucking air in between her teeth. Every muscle protested yesterday’s marathon trimming. She had to roll to her stomach and push herself out of bed with her hands before staggering over to close the window. Her shower this morning was hot and uncontested by any other water use, although the pipes still banged in protest, so Cassie stood and marinated for a long while. It gave her time to make a decision.
It was a shame to fold the drawing Mom had so lovingly kept flat all these years, but Cassie didn’t want to try bringing it through the bramble tunnel unprotected. Unless there was a folder or something…? She could probably find one.
Cassie padded down the hallway to the office barefoot, jeans and t-shirt sticking to her slightly damp skin, and pushed open the door.
Tyler jumped and stared at her like a deer in the headlights. He held a large yellow envelope in his hand.
Cassie froze with a similar expression on her face. Then, in unison, they broke into scowls.
“What are you doing here?” Tyler hissed. For once, he was taking care to be quiet.
“Oh no you don’t,” Cassie snarled back, also at a whisper. Mom was sleeping in the next room. “Don’t you dare pretend like I’m the interloper here. You thought I’d be in the shower long enough for you to do whatever it is you’re doing.” Cassie stepped closer. Tyler held his ground. “What are you doing here? What’s that in your hand?”
Tyler’s hand spasmed, as though resisting the urge to clutch at the envelope. “What’s that in your hand?” he shot back.
Cassie brandished the drawing in his face. “A picture I drew that Mom and Dad saved.” She whipped it away again before he could get a good look and folded it roughly, then stuffed it in her back pocket. Oh well. “Show me what you’ve got.”
Tyler drew himself up. “It’s private,” he said stiffly.
“Bullshit.” She lunged forward and snatched the envelope out of his hand. He started after it but then stopped himself, eyeing her warily. The envelope was already open; she fished out a dense stack of financial paperwork. Shit. There was no way she could parse this while she stood here, wired with suspicion and rage. “What is this?”
Tyler ripped it back out of her hands with a glint of triumph in his eyes and slid the papers back in, but before he could answer—truthfully or otherwise—the door pushed open wider.
“What are you two doing in here?” Mom stood in the door bundled in her fuzzy blue bathrobe and matching socks, deep lines of sleep still creased below her eyes. Tyler adopted an air of martyrdom and sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “I was looking for information on the 529s Dad had started, like we talked about last night after Cassie went to bed. Is this it?” Looking directly at Cassie, he gave Mom the envelope. “I didn’t mean to wake you so early,” he added pointedly. Cassie felt her face going red.
Mom cracked open the envelope and peered in muzzily. “I don’t have my glasses on,” she said, “but this looks like it.” She handed it back. “If it’s not the right thing, just bring it back.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He brushed past Cassie, gave Mom a quick peck on the cheek, and strode out the door.
“You’re not staying for breakfast?”
“Nope, sorry,” he called down the hallway, “Just wanted to grab this before heading to work.” No longer attempting to be stealthy, Tyler thundered down the stairs.
Cassie turned to Mom as Tyler slammed the front door. “What’s a ‘529?’”
Mom rubbed her eyes. “It’s a college fund. Your dad wanted to start one for all his grandkids and seed it with a couple thousand dollars each. Tyler needs to get another one started for the second twin.”
Cassie felt her flush deepen. She’d probably been in the wrong here. And yet.
“Why was he being so sneaky about it, then? Isn’t Matt supposed to be executor anyway?”
Mom stopped rubbing her eyes and blinked owlishly. “I think he was trying not to wake me, Cass. That having been said…” Mom rubbed her eyes again. God, how late did she stay up last night? Did Tyler keep her up? “That having been said, I suspect he’s embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed?”
“He doesn’t know how he can afford five kids.”
Cassie almost said something very mean, but managed to bite her tongue instead.
“When I sell the house—” Mom started.
“When?” Cassie sat on the saggy old sleeper couch wearily. “Not if?”
Mom sat down next to her. “Cass,” she said, equally weary, “Dad and I talked about this before he passed. He wanted me to sell the house. Sell it, and do something good with the money.”
“Good?”
“Meaningful. Fun.”
Cassie rubbed her face. “What do you want, Mom?”
“I want to honor his memory. And I want my kids to be happy.”
Cassie pulled her face out of her hands and turned to her mother. The ancient springs in the couch creaked like a cicada. “Mom,” she said firmly. “What would make you happy?”
“That would make me happy.”
“If Dad hadn’t said anything about the house one way or the other, would you want to sell it?”
Mom looked blank. “I don’t know. But it’s not relevant.”
Cassie gave up. Mom looked so tired. She leaned over and gave the soft cheek a kiss. “I love you, Mom.” She rested her head on Mom’s fuzzy shoulder. “And I love this bathrobe.”
Mom laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Good thing I’m wearing it, your hair’s all wet still.”
“Oh! Sorry.” Cassie tied her wet hair back into a loose knot that immediately began to unravel.
“Will you help me with something today?”
There was something else Cassie was supposed to do today, but she couldn’t remember what it was any more. The Tyler encounter had completely driven it out of her head. “Absolutely.”
Mom smiled. “Let’s get rid of that treadmill.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
Neither of them could budge the treadmill, so Cassie settled for photographing it and posting it on Craigslist. They spent the rest of the day cleaning Cassie’s old room, stretching out yesterday’s abused muscles. Most of the mess wasn’t Cassie’s; her items had largely been cleared out over time, in stages. When she went away to college. When she moved out of the dorms and into an off-campus apartment. When she started her PhD. Things went into the trash bags and shredder, with a few odds and ends winding up in the Goodwill box. None of it was saved. By the evening, her room was completely clear except for her closet and that stupid treadmill.
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Mom went downstairs to order a pizza—they had finally eaten the last of the casseroles—and Cassie opened her closet. Given the depth of boxes that had been stacked against the door, and the smell of stale cedar potpourri that wafted out, it had probably been years since this closet was last opened. A few stickers blazed from the corner of the mirror mounted on the inside of the door, and a slinky fell on her head.
She found her old sewing kit and put it in the Goodwill box (sorry, Mom). She found her old pillowcases and put them on the bed. She found her Illustrated Dictionary of Greek Myths, spine so exhausted by constant use that it had split somewhere in the H’s. She found her prom dress: green, corset-backed, and bedazzled with a burst of rhinestones across the bust. Cassie put it on; it still fit.
She laughed and flounced down the stairs to show it off. Mom laughed too—it was so good to hear her laugh—and went to scan and email Cassie’s prom photos to her while they waited for the pizza. They ate in front of the TV in the den, Mom back in her bathrobe and Cassie still in her prom dress, petticoats rustling every time she reached for another slice.
The closet was almost clear; just a basket of Beanie Babies and a large accordion portfolio on the floor. But it was late, and she’d gotten up early. Cassie took off her prom dress with a whispered farewell, feeling a little silly, and folded it gently into the Goodwill box. She put on her pajamas, brushed her teeth, answered two work emails, dumped the Beanie Babies on her bed, and fell asleep looking up the prices of a little mottled crab on eBay.
She couldn’t remember what she dreamed, but she jerked upright and swung her feet out of bed before she was truly awake the next morning, knocking a bear and a bird to the floor with little beaded plops. She’d forgotten something. It was important. She checked her phone—no new emails. A blessed rarity. Cassie fumbled on her jeans with sleep-numbed hands and threw her shirt on backwards in her rush, but then stopped; she couldn’t remember what she was rushing for. Cleaning? She looked at the closet. Cleaning shouldn’t feel this urgent. It was just the accordion portfolio in there. But she couldn’t remember what else it could be. So she lifted the portfolio to her desk, where it could be lit by the weak morning sun, and started pulling things out.
There wasn’t that much in there: two awkward geometric still lifes from art class, acrylic on canvas. An abstract watercolor study of some sort. A few charcoal nudes, both male and female, of significantly better quality. Mom had had a fit when she heard that live nude models would be making an appearance in a high school classroom, for Pete’s sake, and almost didn’t sign the permission slip. Dad had talked her into it.
Deep in the last pocket of the portfolio was a stack of sketches, slightly warped by time and long-ago moisture exposure. Cassie pulled one out for a better look. This was a different set. Earlier, probably middle-school-era, and less refined, sketched from charcoal and pastel rather than pencil and watercolor. She’d forgotten how good she used to be, even then. Unprotected in the pocket, the drawing had smeared against its neighbors, but the subject was still clearly identifiable: blackberry.
“Oh my god,” Cassie muttered aloud. That was what she was forgetting.
She felt the judgment of technicolor jaguar stickers on the closet mirror staring at her with their enormous eyes. Her brain must be disintegrating, to forget something like that. Eaten away by grief. She almost leapt to her feet then and there to go charging into the bramble and demand answers, but something held her back. There was something in here she needed to know first. She pulled all the sketches out instead and laid them on the floor, one by one.
Blackberry leaves. Blackberry flowers. Blackberry berries, whole and in cross-section (not a true berry: “aggregate fruit”). Cane. Thorn. Root. Then: a hand. Long-fingered and sinewy, clearly belonging to an adolescent boy. Cassie felt the blood drain from her face as she set that sketch down. No wonder she’d kept these quasi-hidden with the nudes; this looked like the artistic collection of a serial killer. She crossed the room and locked the door quietly before continuing. Another hand. An ear. An eye, bright green iris ringed and flecked with brown under heavy charcoal lashes. A foot, bare and buried in duff almost to the ankle, as though it had taken root there.
Last of all, on a smaller piece of paper: a sketch of Cassie. Pubescent Cassie, looking up at something, eyes large, mouth thoughtful. It was superb, and clearly drawn by a different hand. She held this one rather than setting it on the floor. It was drawn in colored pencils—possibly the same set that drew the picture that now sat burning a hole in Cassie’s back pocket. She had a vague recollection of deciding that colored pencils would hold up to the elements better than other media; she’d left him the entire set, along with a pad of paper.
He’d wanted to learn to draw.
⥈
“I’m going away now,” she’d said. She was crouched in the bramble, holding a gallon-sized Ziploc bag filled with colored pencils and a fresh pad of paper.
“That sounds ominous,” the boy replied. He’d just learned that word from a book last week and was clearly seeking a reason to use it in conversation.
Cassie rolled her eyes and set the bag down. “Only for three weeks.” She retrieved the scrunchie that had been dragged out of her hair by the blackberry passage and slid it onto her wrist. “I’m going to camp.”
“I remember,” the boy said. “With the archery and the canoeing. And the s’mores.” He mimed the act of roasting a marshmallow. Cassie had described it to him in vivid detail.
“You said you wanted to learn how to draw, so I brought you colored pencils and paper.” She handed them over and watched as he opened the bag carefully. “The bag is to keep it dry and clean when you’re not using any of the stuff.”
“Thank you.” He pulled out a green pencil and touched the tip curiously.
“It won’t draw on your skin,” Cassie said helpfully. “Only on paper.”
“Not like pens or markers.”
“No.” She watched as he pulled out the brown pencil and gave it the same treatment. “What will you draw?”
“You.”
Her face blazed. “No,” she said. “You can’t.”
The boy studied her thoughtfully, put the brown pencil back in the bag, and pulled out a pink one. “Why not? You draw me all the time.”
Her face was going to catch this entire bramble on fire. They would both die horrible burning deaths. It was probably for the best at this point. Him drawing her was different, somehow. She couldn’t explain why. “Because I won’t be here to draw,” she said instead.
“That’s okay. I’ll remember.” He settled into the duff, crossing his gangly legs and leaning forward to put his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. Cassie held her breath as the birdsong stilled. The bower grew lighter. At first she thought it was simply the sun coming out from behind a cloud, but when she looked up she realized she could see the sky. She blinked in surprise. A neat hole had opened in the roof, illuminating Cassie in unfiltered sunlight. A thrill of delight warped by unease pulled her gaze back down. She couldn’t see the boy any more after the brightness of the sun. All she could see through the afterimages was a labyrinth of thorny eigengrau and unblinking green eyes.
Possessed by some madness, she leaned forward, hand outstretched, to touch the boy in the shadows. Her fingers brushed his neck, felt his pulse, slid up over his ear and into his hair, gently, slowly, so she wouldn’t cut herself on any thorns. He didn’t move. She still couldn’t see him; her other hand touched his face, found his lips. His eyes closed. She kissed him.
After that, it went all wrong.
She fled the bramble without another word—that part wasn’t so bad, she had to go anyway, what else was there to say—but then on the bus to the campgrounds all the girls played Hangman and MASH and when it was Cassie’s turn to suggest a boy to marry, she said she didn’t know. They said, you have to pick one. Have you ever kissed a boy? Pick him. And when Cassie said yes, it turned out she was the only girl among them who had kissed a boy for real, not like Spin the Bottle or Seven Minutes in Heaven, which Heather admitted was just a peck on the cheek because nobody could make them kiss on the lips if they didn’t want to.
And they wanted to know all about him. What was it like? When had they kissed? THIS MORNING? The MASH paper disappeared under Sarah’s knees as she crowded in and the pencil rolled away under the seats, completely forgotten. Cassie was the center of attention of the entire bus now, boys and girls alike. If she thought she was going to catch on fire earlier, it was nothing compared to the spontaneous combustion she longed for now. She was almost weeping with mortification. A crying red tomato.
She wouldn’t tell them anything else. A few defended her. A few didn’t believe her; that was what she wanted. Forced to confront the truth in the cruelest of unkind circumstances—a busful of thirteen-year-olds—everything that was wrong with the situation boiled over her mind and into her throat, choking her. His autonomy, his behavior, his evident residence in a bush. The things that happened around him.
His name.
It was the first time Cassie considered the possibility that he might not, in fact, be real. She felt sick. She tried to say it was a joke; this made everyone decide it wasn’t. The boys across the aisle hooted and called her Kissie Cassie. Meghan threw her water at them. The bus had to pull over.
The campers eventually moved on to new topics of discussion, after the bus had to pull over again so that a reedy little boy could throw up halfway up the mountain, and Jessica got her period for the first time ever that night in one of the girl’s cabins, staining a loud red blotch all the way down to the mattress. Cassie canoed, and wove friendship bracelets, and won second place in the archery contest. She ate at least one s’more each night and precision-roasted marshmallows for other campers prone to losing theirs in the firepit. Kissie Cassie was forgotten by all except one boy who tried to kiss her on the last day of camp, right there by the mess hall milk machine.
She dumped her Froot Loops on him.
He called her a slut.
When Cassie came home from camp, she didn’t go to see the boy in the bramble. Not that day, and not the next. She didn’t go to take her pencils or paper back. She didn’t eat a single blackberry. When the portrait of her appeared on her desk one early morning, vibrant and incredible, after she’d slept with the window open, she sleepily picked it up, put it in her portfolio, climbed back into bed, and decided she’d dreamed it.
She never saw him again.
Until the day of her father’s funeral.