Glass Girl

ALSO BY LAURA ANDERSON KURK

Perfect Glass

Glass Girl offers up a story of mercy as vast and unending as the Wyoming sky. A delicately powerful book.

Darby Karchut, author of Griffin Rising and Finn Finnegan.

As everything around her shatters, Meg Kavanagh’s reactions are a testament to author Laura Anderson Kurk's skill at weaving authentic characters who become part of the reader's life. Forever.

Nicole O'Dell, author of the Diamond Estates series 

Perfect Glass is a book you absorb. Kurk’s writing is solid, fragile and reflective, just like glass. Clarity appears in the unexpected—in ways too beautiful to predict or explain.

Laura L. Smith, author of It’s Complicated and It’s Over

This is a gorgeous love story, but not the kind you're expecting. Perfect Glass is full of depth and dimension, and is a profound look at the longing for a place to belong.

Jennifer Murgia, author of Between These Lines and Forest of Whispers

Glass Girl

Copyright © 2013 by Laura Anderson Kurk.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For information, contact Birch House Press at birchhousepress.com.

Cover Design ©2013 Angela Llamas

Glass Girl/Laura Anderson Kurk. – 2nd ed.

ISBN 978-0-9911525-0-6

ISBN 0-9911525-0-6

First printing 2013

Printed in the United States of America

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

For Alan, Amelia, and Anderson

Love never fails.

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

—Tennessee Williams

ONE

Wyatt told me once that if tenderness were a disease, I’d be terminal.

You’re just a little glass girl, he’d murmur every time I blushed or cried or stared too long at someone.

I didn’t mind it so much. The point was he knew that one day I’d break—not my heart, but all of me. I suppose he was right. I feel physical pain when I see a stranger hurting. When it’s someone I care for, I come undone.

Robin, my counselor, had been trying to fill the fissures that opened on the day Wyatt died. Her voice no more than background noise, she tried to coax me into talking. I did my best to block her, but something she said at the beginning of this session slipped in, called to mind a memory as sharp as razor wire, and suddenly I was there again—in a happier time and place. I was little, and Wyatt sat next to me, all warm and alive.

Meggie, you’re drooling on me! You’ve gotta wake up. Meg, we’re here. His whispered words smelled like the waffles he’d had for breakfast.

I couldn’t have been more than seven on this vacation because I’d just finished the first grade. Wyatt was ten and tall for his age. People treated him like he was much older, and he usually rose to the occasion.

Dad got a wild hair and decided his East Coast family needed to see the South. So we’d driven a rented black Suburban from Pittsburgh to Nashville, Tennessee. Mom insisted that if he planned to torture us like that we had to at least stay somewhere decent. We ended up at the Tennessean Hotel, a garish testament to the fact that Nashville considered itself the Hollywood of the South.

Every hotel employee patted my head and told me I would be blown away by the laser light show. I started believing them. The first night, after my bath, I begged Mom and Dad to let me stand outside our door to watch the show to beat all shows.

Even at seven, I knew it was overplayed. Locals crowded into the atrium waiting for it to start. Then the lights went low, the fountain started dancing, and a few lasers changed the color of the water in a predictable pattern. Somebody banged out a patriotic song on a white baby grand.

Misplaced histrionics—that’s the only way to describe the crowd’s reaction.

Mom, haven’t they been to Niagara Falls? I clearly remember asking.

It’s human nature to make a big deal out of something if you’re told it’s a big deal, she’d whispered. You just remember to let your own mind form your opinions.

I’ll never forget the look in her eyes as she pressed her finger to my temple.

I didn’t ask to see the show after that night.

That memory wasn’t the one eating at my heart. On our second day in Nashville, Dad insisted we go to the local theme park. Wyatt and I thought it had potential—he was into roller coasters and I was into cotton candy.

We pulled into the parking lot that morning, ready to hit the gate as soon as it opened. It was July, and every paved surface in Nashville steams in July. I could already smell the asphalt around us heating up as Wyatt handed me the sun-block and bug spray. I copied the way he put them on himself.

Loaded down with maps, cameras, and illegal water bottles, we piled out of the car and started the mile-and-a-half walk to the park gate. Ahead of us, I could see a crowd gathered around an older red pickup truck. I worried that they were looking at a dog that had been left in the truck in this heat. The spectators jeered at whatever was in the truck’s bed.

Wyatt told me to put my hands over my ears, and I did, but I left slits on each side between my fingers. I never wanted to miss anything important.

Male voices whined in the heat.

Hey, big girl, did they drive you to town and forget about you?

What’s your dress made out of? A hot air balloon?

There’s a weight limit on this axle, lady.

Three men were speaking—three men who looked and sounded alike to me. They were thin and sunken-chested, and they had the twitchy look of dogs with fleas. Mom and Dad crossed us quickly to the other side of the row of cars, and Wyatt watched my face intently to make sure I couldn’t hear them.

Did Wyatt know what was in the truck? I couldn’t see it yet, because I was too short. And then, just as we were directly behind the truck, the crowd walked away laughing, and I saw her.

She was gigantic. She must have weighed five hundred pounds. Her body filled the entire bed of the truck. In fact, parts of her bulged over the sides, and I think that must have been painful.

Her short black hair had probably been cut with dull kitchen shears, because it stuck out in greasy, spiky strands. She wore what looked like a blue bed sheet sewn together, with holes cut for her arms. More tragic still, it was too short, or maybe it had been pulled up when she slid into the truck. No one would have been able to settle it down around her knees if she was sitting on it. It fell awkwardly just to the very top of her thighs.

She fiddled with a bag of malted milk balls—my favorite candy—and when she finally opened the bag, it exploded. The chocolate balls flew into the air in a thousand directions and fell. They made no sound, falling on her soft body or on the hot asphalt.

Her eyes have haunted me. I only caught them for a second as she glanced our way, wondering what we had to say to her.

Don’t stare, Meg, it’s rude, Wyatt said through his teeth, taking my hand in his and tugging me along gently.

But I wasn’t staring to be rude. I was intensely curious about the emptiness I saw there. I caught no hint of interest, no flicker of emotion. I looked back over my shoulder to make sure she was breathing.

She turned and tilted her head as she watched me and then, most amazingly, she smiled. And it wasn’t a malicious smile meant to scare me into not staring. Hers was a smile with sweetness in it. She liked children—she must have children, grandchildren—and she liked me.

Her eyes softened when I smiled back and waved, and she held her hand up to wave.

And because I was there, she was happy.

I repeated this story to Robin when she asked me, again, why I would feel guilty about Wyatt’s death. I couldn’t explain away my guilt; I just knew that I’d played a role. I’d touched the stage before the actors had entered and my touch had screwed something up. Wyatt died and I lived.

I pleaded with Robin to understand.

My mother would be able to function if Wyatt were here instead of me, I said.

Robin shook her head and put her pen to her lips. That’s not true.

Wyatt’s death is connected to everything ugly in the world, I added. How can you not see that?

The fan, buzzing away in the corner, oscillated my way, blowing long strands of my hair across my face. I left them there as an excuse to close my eyes.

Why is your brother’s death part of a worldwide tragedy, Meg?

Through my hair, my gaze met hers in a look that I hope conveyed serious disdain. Nope. Not what I said. You’re doing that thing where you turn my words around and try to feed them back to me. Every adult in my life did that and I hated it.

Then tell me what you meant when you said— She stopped to read from her leather-bound notebook. —‘Wyatt’s death is connected to everything ugly in the world.’

I chose to be long-suffering to speed this session up. I meant that the hatred of that July day in Nashville was alive and well on that horrible day in Pittsburgh. People hate others so they strike like snakes. It’s all connected—we’re all connected, bumping around into each other, some of us good, some bad, most a mixture. Every thought acted upon has consequences. Every one.

I cleared my throat. I’d finally put into words what I’d concluded on the day Wyatt died. I’m sure my surprise registered on my face because Robin studied me for a moment. Then she adjusted the throw that she had over her crossed legs—she used these visual cues to relax me—and looked at me calmly.

Meg, you’re feeling pain, and it’s palpable; you’re feeling guilt, and it’s normal. But these feelings don’t define you. They are false constructs that your mind has created to make sense of your loss.

She clicked her pen several times and took a long time considering what to say next, what I would actually hear.

This assumption you developed when you were little—that you are somehow responsible for the happiness, or even the safety, of others in your life, whose paths you cross, that woman in the truck in Nashville—is wrong, and it’s dangerous for you. That’s something you need to come to terms with.

She turned back to her notebook, thumbed to a page in the middle, and read quietly for a minute. Maybe she was waiting for me to say something. I cracked my knuckles, trying to stop myself from filling the dead air with more words. Words don’t change anything.

A smile flickered at the corner of her mouth and her eyes softened. I flipped my hair out of my face so I could see her better.

When we first met, she said, I asked you to tell me about the Meg before Wyatt’s death.

I remember.

You told me about how she wore her skin inside out. I found it interesting that the people in your life have always treated you like you’re breakable. What was it Wyatt called you? A glass girl?

The familiar protective impulse snagged the threads of my mind. Wyatt hadn’t meant any harm. He hadn’t known how sharp I’d be when I brokehow I’d cut someone if they got too close. My eyes burned with the effort of staying dry.

In an unprecedented move, Robin stood, letting her throw fall to the ground with a soft whisper of cotton and fringe and air. She knelt next to my chair and touched my arm like she meant it.

Meg…you have to let that go. You’re tougher than you think. For goodness’ sake, you are not responsible for Wyatt’s death. Your mother doesn’t wish it had been you. And the woman in the truck? She was trying to make you comfortable, not the other way around. You were the child, Meg…she was the adult.

I shifted away from the invasion. It was uncalled for, really, so I studied the black-and-white print on her wall, a picture meant to inspire her clients. The girl in the print had just reached the top of a mountain. She stood peacefully and looked at the sky. It said, Gratitude under it.

Robin followed my gaze, sighed, and backed into her chair again, like a film editor had suddenly rewound her.

We all have a gap after we lose someone, she said. We think that we will always have this hole that’s obvious to everyone around us. We won’t. The hole will be filled with life. It will be something entirely different, but at least it won’t let the wind in anymore.

You say all this like you think I should move on. I leaned over, curling into myself. So I’m failing therapy now, too?

Robin stood again and paced. She seemed at loose ends today. Here’s what I’m saying. Your whole life is a much bigger story than this terrible thing that’s happened. She stretched her arms out wide in illustration. Yes, your story will be shaped by that moment, but you were already well on your way to living a profoundly meaningful life. Wyatt’s death gave you even more perspective. You get to see the world more clearly than the rest of us. She stopped and mumbled something to herself that I didn’t catch.

What? I said. Her burst of passion intrigued me. In my recently extensive experience with therapists, they preferred equilibrium to passion.

I said I think you’ve always seen the world more clearly. Hands on her hips, she stared at me for a minute, lost in thought.

I could tell, then, that she believed there was hope for me. I sat up a little straighter.

Robin nodded. It’s just like when you chose to tell me the story about being in Nashville on vacation. That story had nothing to do with Wyatt’s death. But in choosing to tell me, you showed your hand.

What hand? I squirmed under her scrutiny.

The hand you have to play, she said. You see things that others miss. That is who you are and it’s what consumes your time and energy. It’s not a bad thing but it’s a tool that you’ll have to figure out how to use. Your story is bigger than a mentally ill kid with a gun.

There’s nothing on earth bigger than that.

Right now it seems that way, I know. She sighed. I think she struggled with her own non sequitur.

Think of it this way, Robin said. You’re different. You’ve got an advantage over others your age because you know how precious life and relationships are. But—here’s where I give you my professional opinion—you had that knowledge, that wisdom, before Wyatt died.

Yes, I said. Hence the glass girl thing we previously discussed. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms. I knew what Robin was trying to say and the part that scared me was that it kind of made sense.

She shook her head. No, the nickname is off the table. I’m not talking about that. One of these days, you’ll find that someone recognizes your strength and wisdom and loves how very big your spirit is. That person will want to be part of your story because it will be beautiful.

TWO

Dear Wyatt—

We’re leaving Pittsburgh. This was Dad’s idea. He doesn’t like living with memories. You know I’ve never handled change well, so I’m not sure how to do thisto leave you and our home.

I want to say this to you—when you look for us, don’t look here. But do keep looking, Wyatt.

I wish you were here to make this okay. I write that and realize that it doesn’t even come close to what I wish. You know, though.

Love always,

Meg

THREE

The cloud I’d been watching for several miles finally burst and steel gray rain fell in sheets. August is a wet month in Pennsylvania. This trip marked my introduction to highway driving in a blinding rainstorm. Nice.

I drove my brother’s black and silver Jeep west out of Pittsburgh on I70. Since turning sixteen, I’d followed the same rules that Wyatt had—no passengers that aren’t family, no texting, no eighties hair bands. That last rule had more to do with Wyatt’s fondness for Poison. Talk Dirty to Me at high volume probably contributed to distracted driving.

My mom drove ahead of me in her sedan and, ahead of her, my dad led us in his truck. Our little caravan raced to make it to Chapin, Wyoming before the moving truck hit town. In the rain, an unwelcome complication, I slowed to forty and flipped on my headlights. Dad caught my lagging position and slowed down, too. My mom’s head turned to check me in the rearview. Yeah, I’m here. I’m here.

I couldn’t blame them for worrying. Their eighteen-year-old son had died a year and three months ago. It didn’t really matter how it happened. It only mattered that it happened.

I remember a picture of the two of us taken the day they brought me home as a newborn. He was three and sitting in an enormous green corduroy chair. His head looked too big for his body and his hair appeared combed into place, maybe for the first and last time. My parents always said that, when they laid me in his lap, all pink and tiny, he put his palm on my cheek and said, Sweet baby.

I’d have gladly followed Wyatt off the nearest cliff. And I wasn’t alone in that because he was a magnet. Guys all wanted to be his best friend and girls couldn’t get enough of him. He always had someone calling him at odd hours. Jealous and a few steps behind, I waited for my turn.

But when he died, I faded even more into the background. That’s where I’m most comfortable anyway. I deleted all my social media accounts and dropped out of everything not specifically required for a standard high school diploma. I disappeared.

I tried to do what was expected. I clammed up around my parents, picked up the chores they dropped and kept the business of our life going. My family had lived in Canning Mills, a suburban utopia outside of Pittsburgh, for a couple of generations, so we had a steady stream of people stopping by to wish us well.

I washed and returned the hundreds of casserole dishes, and placed phone calls to wider and wider circles of people who hadn’t heard yet but for some reason needed to know.

The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt my parents more, so I ate my grief and steeled my resolve. This gave me time to steady my reactions, to learn to hide in the crevices of life. Chaos seemed to dog our steps and it would no doubt find us in Wyoming, so it was best to be ready. If I were betting, I’d lay it all on my mom causing the next catastrophe.

When Dad broke the news that he’d accepted a job with a hotel in Wyoming, she told him he was insane. He’d been a senior vice president for the largest marketing firm in Pittsburgh, so he pulled hyperbole out of his briefcase. Crime is nonexistent in this town! People don’t lock their doors! There are probably only seven hundred kids in the high school!

Mom, a fine artist who’s had shows in major galleries and wasn’t easily fooled, rolled her eyes. We can’t leave Wyatt here, she said. We can’t leave our home.

Their marriage had steadily disintegrated over the months. They’d gone from being blissful to bickering. Mom picked fights with Dad every day.

She did it in a whisper, through gritted teeth. She did it loudly, following him as he pushed a lawnmower through the overgrown grass. She stepped right through the muddy tracks that the mower left in the soggy ground, pointing her finger in his face and screaming at him to look at her, not caring that the neighbors were watching. She watched him from the breakfast table as he came in hunting coffee and sprang it on him before he could even take a sip.

My dad endured her near constant threats with an inhuman patience. He simply nodded his head and waited. So while it appeared we were all together in this move, we really weren’t. We were limping along and withholding judgment for the time being.

My phone buzzed in the passenger seat. I pushed the hands-free button and waited for Wyatt’s best friend Harris to talk. Whenever possible, he and I connected at four o’clock—the time Harris and Wyatt had run together since they were fifteen and up-and-coming long distance stars.

Sometimes we wouldn’t say anything, but having the line open between us, just in case, helped us both.

What’s that banging in the background? I said.

I’m feeding the dogs. Hold on.

I drove another mile listening to Harris’s dogs panting and crunching food, and to Harris speaking to them like they were children. Lots of good girl and who’s your daddy. Finally, a door shut and I could tell he’d closed himself in his room.

How far away are you? he said.

I don’t knowa few hundred miles? It’s raining.

Yeah, here, too. Harris clicked around on his laptop and then one of his favorite bands played softly in the background. What’s your mom’s psychosis rating today?

Dad’s letting her drive so she must be functioning at a higher level. Or he slipped her a pill. The other option was to hitch her car to the moving truck and she won the argument against that.

Harris snorted. I can’t believe it. She was always my favorite mom before. My God, she’s Adele Kavanagh—famous artist—and she walked around with broccoli between her teeth half the time.

You’re weird, I said.

"Nunh-unh. He used his ten-year-old boy voice. You and your mom were cool together."

He was right. My mom and I used to be very close. I always thought she loved Wyatt more, but she loved me, too, with the strength of a mother bear. She counseled me through skinned knees, stringy hair, training bras, braces, and the savage meanness