“Quiet”

On the day the cat went missing, I woke to find I could not get out of bed. I suppose it wasn’t the first time I woke up that way—with the feeling of a carved-out hole in my stomach and a heaviness that extended all the way to my fingertips—but it was the first time I really noticed it.

I sensed you standing in the doorway before I heard you. Max? I pretended to be asleep at first, hoping you’d go away and leave me with this new, inexplicable hollowness. But instead you said my name again, this time louder. When I turned toward you, you said it all in one breath, vomiting it all out onto the carpet. The cat is gone. I’ve looked everywhere. She must’ve gotten out somehow.

Did you look under the bed? I mumbled, trying to learn how to breath with puncture wounds in my gut.

Of course I looked under the bed, Maxine. Jesus. You ran your fingers through your hair, looked at me imploringly. A declawed cat, out on the streets. If she dies, it’ll be our fault.

So what do we do? I asked, because these kinds of things—the kinds of things like decisions—were always for you.

You were silent for a long time, so long that I was almost able to drift back to sleep. I guess we wait for her to come back.

*

I was fourteen when my sister left. I don’t talk about this much, because I know how you feel about her. Polarizing was always your favorite way to describe her. Almost exactly a year younger than me, I frequently thought of us as opposites: where I was soft and malleable, she was solid and stubborn, prickly when crossed. She was tumultuous; being around her sometimes felt like walking across a bed of coals. Painful and exhilarating, scary and empowering. I stopped telling stories about her around age nineteen, when my relationship to you took over the center space and she moved to a more peripheral position in my life. You always hated the way she was wild, untamed. Like a feral cat who threatened the health of your inside, pedigree cat. A bad influence, you’d said to me after you met her at my cousin’s wedding.

*

On the other hand, you loved to hear the stories about my parents. They had wanted boys. Andy and Max, my sister and I were called. Our hair was always kept above shoulder length, we were dressed in blue jeans and ratty old t-shirts. And we grew up with our feet almost permanently stuck in the murky creek water of Perryville, Missouri, where we spent full days hunting for tadpoles.

And all this happened while my father told us stories about the desert. He’d been talking about the desert for as long as I could remember. It was his dream—to lay with his skin against the sand, to stare up at nothing but blackness and stars, to live in a place where no one else did. He talked about the quiet most of all. If all the sounds outside of us were quiet, even for a moment, we’d be able to hear sounds within ourselves. He always ended his stories this way, while my sister and I stared up at him in awe.

So by the ages of five and six, the desert was our dream, too. My mother hated the idea; she’d been born in Missouri and she planned to die there too, where everything was green, and frogs could be heard singing. My father rarely talked about the desert when my mother was in the room.  

When my parents split, they divided their assets down the middle. My mother got the house, but my father got the furniture in it. My father got the dog, but my mother kept the cat. My father got Andy and my mother got me.

*

When Dad and Andy left, they drove straight to Arizona.

It’s finally happening, Andy had thrown herself onto my bed the night before their departure. She entered rooms like a tornado, always leaving evidence of her presence in the aftermath.

I’m going to live in the desert, Maxy. I’m going to see rattlesnakes and finally get to hear all the noises inside of me. I gripped her hand tight. Nodded, then started to cry.

Oh, sis. Don’t cry. She wriggled her way under the covers, rested her head in the crevice between my neck and shoulder.

I struggled to find the right words, how to tell her: I do not know who I am without you.

Instead, I said, I’m going to miss you, which was not right, because to miss someone was not strong enough to describe the way I was about to feel: unanchored, irretrievably lost.

You won’t have to miss me. I’ll call every day until you can come join us. You won’t be here forever, Max.

What about Mom? I asked. But Andy only shrugged.

I fell asleep that night dreaming about the stars.

Part of me wishes I didn’t understand why my father chose Andy to accompany him to the desert. The problem was that I did; as I stood on the driveway and watched them take the truck, its bed full of what furniture the two of them would need, as I tried to wipe my eyes dry before my mother saw, I knew that I would have chosen her too.

*

She called me on the night of my twenty-second birthday. Max, finally. You can come out West with me. I’d cleared my throat and opened my mouth. Cleared my throat again. Finally, I told her I was happy in Missouri. That I was moving in with you after graduation. Andy didn’t go to college; neither did my parents. I was going to be the first to graduate.

But this was our dream, her voice, like ice, finally cut in as I tripped over my words.

Andy, it was your dream.

So what are you saying? You’re staying there forever?

I’m saying I don’t think I can leave right now.

She’d sighed in that huge, heavy way she’d always done when we were kids, as if there was nothing in the world sadder to her than what had just happened. I hung up.

This is what I thought about on the morning of the cat’s escape, as I laid in our bed and listened to the sounds of you making your coffee.

*

I finally crawled out of bed around 10:00. You’d already been in twice to ask if I was okay. Just worried about the cat, I’d lied. It was true that I was thinking about the cat. But she was not cold and scared, as you chose to believe. She was free to explore the forest behind our house, independent and unrestricted for the first time in her life.

It was a Saturday, so when I sat at the kitchen table you were still there, watching the news on the kitchen television set. There was no TV in the living room or the bedroom, just this one. You insisted on watching it while we ate.

I looked across the table at you as I sipped my coffee and realized it was possible that I no longer loved you. At least this felt true as I stared at you.

I thought about how we’d met, in the back of the bookstore during our first week of college. You’d carried my books to the register. I thought about how easily I’d molded my life into yours after that day. How we’d meshed our lives so wholly over the past six years.

I thought about how my mother always did your laundry along with mine on the weekends. The way you scoffed at my literature courses while you learned finance and economics. The way you always called my drawings cute, even the ones that now hung in other people’s houses.

You were from a town only thirty minutes from my own, so somewhere along the line it became obvious to you that this was where we would stay. I would stay at home, writing and illustrating children’s books, while you would become a marketing manager at some company (which one, however, had yet to be decided). We would have three children, because this was the kind of family in which you’d grown up. There would be a screened-in porch in our house.

These were things I agreed to without considering the possibility of disagreement.

Maybe that is what happened when you said we were in love, too.

*

Andy called daily at first, as she’d promised me on what I’d come to think of as the last night of my childhood. But then days became weeks and eventually months. She got tired of asking what was going on in Missouri, only to hear again and again: Oh. Just the usual. Quite frankly, I got tired of hearing about Arizona too.

She flew home to visit Mom and I about once a year. Dad came sometimes too, and he stayed in the guest bedroom of our house as if this was normal, as if he had always been an outsider in this family. It was every 6 months with Andy at first, and she’d stay for a few weeks of the summer or winter breaks. But by the time she was sixteen, she only came for special events, like weddings and funerals. Sometimes, at night, when I stared at the ceiling and missed her with a longing that made my whole body ache, I found myself almost willing our relatives to die, begging them to give her a reason to come back to us.

I never went to Arizona to visit them. Mom asked me not to, and something always kept me from defying her. I used to tell myself it was loyalty.

Sometimes I wonder if you remember your first meeting with Andy as vividly as I do. It was during one of those obligatory visits—our cousin Lucy’s wedding. You and I had been together for nearly three years, but it had been an unusual couple of years, free of death and lifelong commitment. I hadn’t seen Andy in almost two full years. So when she stepped off the airplane, twenty years old, I felt the breath leave me. She was as I remembered—cool, collected, an aura of wilderness about her. Her hair was un-brushed in a flattering way, turquoise glinted on her fingers. Her calves were toned from frequent hiking. She was tan and freckled and, shockingly, an adult. Somewhere in the past two years, she had shed that inevitably awkward teenage skin.

Andy’s bag was left in the terminal as she noticed me, running full speed at me. Sister, she exuded so much warmth in just that one single word that I no longer felt like I needed the cardigan wrapped around my shoulders. She collided with me, nearly knocking us both to the ground. We balanced ourselves and stood, holding each other tightly for several minutes, not sure when we’d be ready to let go again.

You stood beside me and raised your eyebrows.

*

Lucy and Daniel had an open bar. Nobody was checking IDs. I was twenty-one but rarely drank; Andy was not but frequently did. By the time dinner was served, we were raucous and warm, our stomachs crackling with champagne.

I am not sure if either of you truly tried to know the other. I do know whatever attempts were made were futile. You hated her; I could see it in your eyes. And I could tell by the stiffness in her stance that she was not fond of you either. I pretended to ignore this, pretended I simply did not notice. Instead, I got drunk with my sister and acted as if I couldn’t feel the intensity and disapproval with which you watched us.

At some point in the night, at a time she probably deemed was safe due to my own drunkenness, Andy broached the subject of you. Max, I don’t like him.

I looked at her hard; she’d been wrong to think the champagne would have softened me to this announcement. Well, good thing you’re not dating him.

He’s too boring for you.

Everyone is boring compared to you, I told her.

That’s not true. She was quiet for a minute. I just never thought you’d settle for boring.

Andy, I don’t care what you say. Greg is good, I told her seriously, even as my words slurred together.

No, Max. Greg is safe.

And when you tucked me into bed that night, after I’d emptied the champagne from my guts onto the bathroom floor, I thought, what’s so bad about safe?

*

On that morning, when the cat disappeared, when I was twenty-four years old, I woke up sick of safe. When you went outside to cut the grass (it was late spring, May. The time of year when things are supposed to start feeling good again), I went back to bed. I crawled under the covers and I dialed Andy’s number.

She picked up the phone with hey. Then, when I said nothing, Max? Pause. Is everything okay?

I laid there and tried not to breathe audibly, listening to the sound of her voice. I hadn’t heard it in so many days. It was still cold outside last time we had spoken.

I listened until finally, she hung up.

As I packed my bags the next day, I filled them with nearly a month’s worth of supplies. I wanted to bring more, but I couldn’t fit it all in the two suitcases I owned. I didn’t know what I was doing or why, but I did know that once I started to pack, I would not stop until I was finished.

*

On the day I left, you blocked the door and said Maxine please, I love you. Do you not love me anymore? And I said I need to know how to love myself before I can answer that, because it was something Andy told me once, years ago, as we curled against each other in my twin bed, our legs tangled and gangly with adolescence. That doesn’t even make sense, you scratched your head and waved your hands with exasperation. If you really loved me, it would, I told you, my head held high. You stepped out of my way then, looking at me with eyes full of confusion but also a sort of fear. It was something I had never seen in your eyes before. And with that, I left Missouri.

I know you will never understand this, but something inside of me was broken on that morning, Greg. And I knew Andy was the only person who would be able to fix it.

*

I drove to the desert with the old Camry in our garage, and I left you with the pickup truck. It was a 21-hour drive to Sedona, Arizona. I stopped in a dusty, quiet town of western Oklahoma, where I spent the night in a hotel next to a rundown McDonalds.

On the hotel’s wifi, I looked up the town my sister now lived in for the first time in my life. Sedona, Google said to me, “Home to Collared Peccaries” and “John Wayne Was Filmed Here.” Google also said: red rock walls, hub for artists, population: 10,336.

I fell asleep staring at photos of the town, wondering which of the houses my sister lived in. When I woke up in the morning, I found that it was a Monday, and I got back in the car.

You called once, somewhere in New Mexico. I didn’t pick up; I was afraid the sound of your voice would turn me around. Instead, I turned the music louder and pretended not to hear the ring.

*

When I got to the desert, it was past midnight. Andy’s house was none of the homes I’d inspected on Google Earth, zooming in close enough to see if maybe I could see her inside one of them. Instead, it was a small cabin, several miles outside of the town’s main road. Where we grew up was dark; there were many trees and little light pollution. But this was a whole new darkness that I had not experienced before. The moon was just a sliver, shyly peeking out from behind its own shadow.

I sat outside in my car and stared at the door. I was surprised to find myself there; part of me had always thought I would turn around. But I hadn’t and I was here now, where I had never been, where you would never go. Something about this—the victory of this—compelled me to climb out of my car.

I dragged my suitcases quietly up the porch steps, rang the doorbell, and waited. I glanced at my watch. 12:47. I rang the doorbell again. When she answered the door, she wore only a large, ratty t-shirt with a wolf on it. She blinked several times before she recognized me.

Oh Jesus, oh God. Mom’s not dead, is she?

No. I shifted my weight uncomfortably. I did not—could not—explain why I was here. I didn’t even understand it myself.

Max. Who died?

When I said nobody, she blanched. Somebody had to have died. Why the hell else would you be here? At one in the fucking morning.

I don’t know, Andy. I really don’t. I just needed to come here.

What the fuck? I said nothing to that, just stood with my shoulders slumped, waiting for the shock to pass. Well, she softened finally, get in here. And she pulled me through the door and into her arms.

*

Andy did not ask many questions of me, after the initial: where is Greg? To which I replied: Not here. That was good enough for her.

There was so much I didn’t know about her life. She works as a guide at Red Rock State Park, just a few miles from where she lives. She spends her days among the rocks and the sand, under the sun, where I’d always pictured her. There is a girlfriend; this was why she’d moved to Sedona in the first place from Wickenburg, where Dad still was. Ria was clever and snappy, rivaling even my sister in ferocity. The first time I met her, I thought of how she would terrify you, and it made me laugh. I asked Andy not to tell Dad that I was here; I would visit him when I was ready to, I would show him that I’d made it here even after I’d been left behind all those years ago.

During my first week in the desert, I rode with Andy to work, where I spent my day hiking and exploring, hoping that at the end of one of the days, when I emerged from a trail, I would be done feeling lost.

When four days had passed and the ache inside of me was still there, Andy handed me a backpack and a sleeping bag. Pack this. We’re going camping. I still haven’t shown you the best part. And so I listened, like I’d done my whole life. But there was something different about it this time, something more deliberate in what I chose to do.

We drove until there was nothing, for miles. Nothing but rocks and dust and night sky. We laid on the sand and I finally felt the grains against my back, the way my dad had always described.

Dad drove me out here one weekend when we first got to Arizona. I wouldn’t stop crying; I wanted to go home. I never told you that. I begged him to bring me back to you. To my life before. I was silent, listening.

We drove two and a half hours just to get here, the middle of fucking nowhere. He told me his friend had told him about this place, a place where you could forget the rest of the world even existed. So we came, and we laid here, just like this. And he said to me, Andy. Look up. So I did, and I’ve only ever been homesick for this place since.

Max. She turned to me then. Look up.

And so I did. Quiet echoed in my ears as I met the stars.

*

When we got back the next day, I picked up the phone and called you. I don’t know if I’m coming back. And if I do, I don’t know when it will be. And you said, Please come back, I will make you happier, which already had the feeling of an empty promise. And I chose honesty for the first time in a long time. I don’t know. Greg, what if we only love each other out of convenience?

You said, I love you out of love.

I just don’t know. I still don’t, Greg. I’m sorry.

Okay. I love you, you finally said.

*

This all happened more or less a month ago, and so my suitcases have been emptied and never repacked, my clothes have been worn and washed, my feet have grown dirty from the dust.

This morning, Andy grabbed my hand across the table during breakfast. Look, sis. Don’t take this the wrong way, you can stay as long as you want. But how long do you think you’ll be here?

Maybe forever, I told her. But also, maybe not.  

You left a voicemail about the cat last week. You found her curled on the back porch five days after she disappeared, waiting to be let back inside. But she was not the same, you said. I don’t know what’s different, your voice crackled on the other line. But something is.

Emma Wunderlich is a self-proclaimed “weird cat girl.” Her favorite movie scene is the end of Homeward Bound, she admittedly puts too much stock in astrology and personality tests, and she’s been accused of a Smarties addiction on multiple occasions. Emma is a senior Zoology and Creative Writing student at Miami University. Her work has appeared in her university’s literary magazine “Inklings Arts and Letters.”