Present: Dust
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt like I used to when I was little, like a million voices were running through my mind at once, all of them with the volume cranked all the way up, and I had to figure out which one to listen to. I chose the one telling me to go back to Isaac’s apartment.
The first night after the hospital, I stayed at home with Mom and Dad. It was okay that night. But in the morning, I could tell they were keeping their distance from me. When I came from from school, I might as well have been a ghost walking through the house. Mom didn’t even tell me when dinner was ready and I had to eat my mashed potatoes and peas cold. It was like they were afraid if they acknowledged me, I would do something horrible like Isaac did. Having them leave me alone for once would normally have been a nice change, but now it was almost as terrible as if they had been looking over my shoulder all the time.
Isaac had been released from the hospital after a day a half spent in his private room with nurses constantly watching him to make sure he had recovered from all the pills and to be sure he didn’t try to kill himself again. I wondered what they really thought he could do with his hands all bandaged up. Hit himself over the head with the food tray? Anyway, after they let him go, he called a taxi to his apartment, packed up his bags and checked himself into the Psychiatric Hospital without so much as a word to the rest of us until he had already moved in. Mom was mad, and I wanted to remind her that it was his decision and he didn’t really have to tell anyone. But I didn’t.
Now that he was gone away, his apartment would just sit completely empty. I knew he had paid all the bills for a couple months in advance – because he was always that thoughtful, unlike me or Taylor – so the power and everything would still be on for a while, even if he wasn’t there to use it. When I walked in, the air was already growing stale and cold. I found the thermostat in the hallway and turned it up a few notches. Isaac and Taylor, when Taylor still lived there with him, had always liked to keep the place colder than I could stand.
I had to keep working to keep my mind quiet. The first thing I did was walk into the kitchen and start rooting through the refrigerator. I poured the milk, which had gone bad almost five days ago, down the drain. I ate the lone apple sitting on the shelf, then packed up all the food that would go out of date soon. I figured I could take it home and keep it in the fridge in the basement to snack on. I spent most of my free time down there, playing my drums or Taylor’s old keyboard. After I had piled all the bologna, salad dressing and sliced cheese that I could into my backpack, I started the actual cleaning.
I worked for an hour or two scrubbing all the counters and cabinets in the kitchen. I even took the burners off the stove and plunged them into soapy water to get all the burnt stuff off. At some point I had to turn on the radio and turn the volume all the way up because even the cleaning wasn’t doing enough to soothe my brain. I sang along at the top of my lungs with Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson while I used one of Isaac’s old shirts to wipe the dust off everything in the living room. Usually Ike was a good housekeeper so it surprised me how dirty the place was. I had noticed the dust the last time I was there, but it didn’t really bother me until now. Now I had to get rid of it. All of it.
A knock at the door interrupted me during “Tracks of My Tears,” and I threw the shirt down over the end of the couch before I walked over to answer the door. I couldn’t even imagine who it could be. I hoped it wasn’t someone looking for Isaac; I wouldn’t have known just what to say to them.
Since the apartments were cheap and old, the door’s peephole was rusted over and I just had to fling the door wide open and hope for the best. When I did, I found myself face to face with Portia, this girl Isaac had been seeing off and on for a while. She was almost as tall as me, so I really was face to face with her, staring into her big brown eyes.
“Jessica told me you were over here. Your mom didn’t want to,” Portia said.
I looked down at my feet, at my big toe poking out of the hole in my sock. “You wanted to see me?”
Portia looked like she was ready to push on past me into the apartment. It wasn’t my place anyway, so I felt silly blocking her way and I stepped aside to let her in. I walked over to the little table next to the kitchen door and turned the volume down on the radio. Portia just stood kind of awkwardly in little area between the front door and the living room. She bit her lip, then said, “I can’t very well see Isaac here, can I?”
“Do you want something?”
She stared at me for a second, then walked by me and collapsed onto the couch. “Look, I’d really like to go see Ike, okay? But your mom won’t tell me where he’s staying. All I know is he’s at some kind of mental place. I don’t understand, Zacky.”
I picked the shirt off the couch’s arm and went back to my dusting. “I don’t know, Portia. Can’t imagine why our parents don’t like you. I mean, your brother was the last person to see my brother alive.”
“So we’re cursed or something? We’re trying to kill all you Hanson boys? Better watch out, I’m coming after you next,” she replied.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I can understand why she’d not want anything to do with you guys. She’s not dealing with all this well.”
“Well I’m sorry you guys feel that way,” Portia said, standing up and dusting her jeans off. “I just wanted to go see Ike, if I can. That’s all. I’m trying to keep myself together here. Everything and everyone is falling apart, okay? It’s not just you guys. Alex will barely talk to me at all. He just goes to work and comes home, like a robot or something.”
My shoulders fell. Maybe we had all been too wrapped up in our own pain to think about how this must be for them. “Okay, fine. I can tell you were he’s at, but I don’t think he wants any visitors. Or if he can even have any yet. Maybe not even me.”
“That’s better than nothing,” she replied.
I dug my hand into my pocket, pulling out my wallet. Stuffed in there where the money should have been was a folded up piece of paper with Isaac’s room number and address written on it. I had already memorized what it said, so I handed it over to Portia without a word.
“Thanks, Zac,” Portia said, taking the paper out of my hand and unfolding it. She looked down at it for a minute, her lips moving just a little as she read the words and numbers. I imagined she was trying to memorize it too. She looked up and said, “I really appreciate this. You know me and Alex aren’t the bad guys in all this.”
“That’s what I wanna believe,” I said softly, staring down at the floor. I realized I would need to vacuum it next and I didn’t know if the old Hoover Taylor stole from our parents still worked.
Portia looked like she was ready to cry and I knew if I were a better person, I would give her a hug. She sniffled a little and said, “I mean it, Zac. None of this was our fault, okay? Alex didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t make that happen to Taylor.”
I suspected there was a double meaning in what she said, but I tried to ignore it. I twisted the shirt in my fingers and replied, “I know, I know. It’s just weird, you know? I don’t know what to think about any of this. Life doesn’t make sense.”
She nodded. “I know. Life hasn’t made sense at all for the past six months. Maybe things will get better, though.”
“I don’t know how. I really, really don’t know,” I said, my voice trailing off to a whisper at the end of the sentence.
Portia nodded again, then refolded the paper and stuck it in her pocket. “Thanks again. I’ll come by and see you some time, if that’s okay. You’re the only thing I have left of Isaac besides Isaac himself, and he isn’t anything like himself at all now.”
“Just… just come here. Don’t come to our house, okay? Not for a while,” I said, hoping that didn’t offend her and that she would understand.
A little frown graced her lips but was gone in seconds, like she was trying to hide it from me. Finally, she spoke, “Okay. I don’t like it, but I get it. Bye, Zac.”
At that, she turned and walked out of the apartment, closing the door gently behind her. I turned the radio back up and resumed my cleaning. I could stay there for hours more, just working my way through all the rooms. It was dark out by the time I started home and I didn’t really care if my parents had even noticed I was gone.