Oh Zoe—but maybe losing you was not exactly what I did

3

From above, what the pictures will resemble is her mother’s mother’s quilt, made half of scraps and half of Amy’s grandfather’s blue uniform, ragged in the middle of one square from the night that he got shot and killed. Amy will wonder how to tell Javier this story, how to explain that it’s that very gash that makes it sacred, but then she’ll wonder if they even have such things as quilts in Argentina, where he’s from, or if they even have them here, in France.

Although it will be easier for her to tell the stories of her childhood in any other language, there will be frequent obstacles like these.

As she searches her vocabulary, Amy’s eyes will travel back and forth across the images, verifying their positions. It will occur to her that laid out step by step like this, in order, the pictures also form a kind of path. But it will strike her as precarious, as though it’s made of breadcrumbs. If she follows it, it may lead her to the source of her own sadness, sacred and ragged like the deadly rupture in the fabric of her mother’s mother’s quilt—but it may lead her astray, or lead her nowhere.

From down the hall she will hear the faint scrape of the razor against Javi’s jaw and know she doesn’t have much time left. She will get dizzy as she gathers up her passport and the photographs and one of Javi’s scarves.

On the train she’ll think that certain cozy words, like homesick, may be the hardest ones to translate. She will have come to understand that words mean more and less than what you think they mean; cozy words are like quicksand.

Amy will surround herself with Javi’s heavy, benevolent scent, and not look out the window as the fields flash past.

The ambulance takes them to the pink hospital by their grandparents’ house

Amy recognizes it when they all pile out. This isn’t where they went the last time, and this time Zoe and their mom run away into a secret room the nurses won’t let Amy into. Amy is told to sit and wait.

Amy sits and waits. She tastes like salt, and the wet neck of her t-shirt sticks to her skin. She squeezes and unsqueezes her hands in her lap. She looks around and sees the room is full of dirty people yellowed by the light, not sitting up straight. She would like to go look for her sister, but she is scared that if she doesn’t sit and wait they’ll never let her see her sister again. She looks down at her hands, whitened at the knuckles, splashed. The old man sitting across from her begins to cry, and Amy’s own eyes dry up, and she would like to hold the old man’s hand, but she is scared he might have germs and scared that if she doesn’t sit and wait she’ll get in trouble, and then they’ll never let her see her sister again.

Sometimes their mom sings them lullabies, and Amy likes her voice but not the songs

Zoe doesn’t listen to the words, but Amy does. Zoe always asks for the one about the boat, which goes like this:

O there was a lofty ship and she sailed upon the sea

And the name of the ship was the Golden Vanity

And she feared she would be taken by the Turkish enemy

As she sailed upon the lowland, low low lowland

Sailed upon the lowland sea.

Now up stepped a cabin boy, a cabin boy was he

And he said to the Captain, what will you give to me

If I sneak along the side of the Turkish enemy

And I sink her in the lowland, low low lowland

Sink her in the lowland sea.

O I will give you silver, and I will give you gold

And the hand of my daughter if you will be so bold

As to swim along the side of the Turkish enemy

And to sink her in the lowland, low low lowland

Sink her in the lowland sea.

Well up jumped the cabin boy, and overboard went he

And he swam along the side of the Turkish enemy,

And with brace and a bit he bore holes one two and three,

And he sank her in the lowland, low low lowland

Sank her in the lowland sea.

Then he swam to the side of the Golden Vanity,

And he called to captain to pull him from the sea

But the captain would not heed, for his daughter he did need,

So they left him in the lowland, low low lowland

Left him in the lowland sea.

Then his mates pulled him up, and on the deck he died,

And they wrapped him in a sail, so very square and wide,

And they threw him overboard to float out upon the tide,

But he sank beneath the lowland, low low lowland,

Sank beneath the lowland sea.

By the last verse Amy’s stomach churns, causing her to writhe beneath their puppy-print sheets and their mother’s mother’s quilt, but nobody can tell.

Amy knows exactly what she would do if they got into a car crash off a bridge

She would unbuckle her sister’s seatbelt and then unbuckle hers as she was simultaneously rolling down the window on her side of the car. Then they would swim out the window holding hands until they got to the top of the river. If it is winter Amy knows for a fact that she can simply kick through the ice because there was never all that much in the middle of the river, only around the edges.