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Mia wanted to celebrate completing one year of working at Grossberg Law Offices by treating Ema and Lana to a nice restaurant, just like Lana did for her and Maya when she was promoted to detective.
"Hey Mia… these prices… they're kinda…"
"Lana, it's okay. We're celebrating. We're going to have a great time. Did you pick what you want?"
"Okay, let's split the bill. Please."
"No, Lana. Don't do this again. I want to treat you and your sister. Come on. Just this once," Mia said.
"But—"
Ema came back from the bathroom. Lana got up so Ema could sit in the middle of the semi-circular booth, her favorite spot.
"Hey Ema.. you little cutie, you. What do you wanna eat?" Mia said.
"I want the steak, please!" Ema said.
Lana winced. Ema had ordered the one thing she hoped she wouldn't. She had tried to tell her before.
When we're out with Mia, please don't burden her too much. She's just like me, right? Still new at her job? You know how it is, Ema. Please be nice to Mia and don't make her pay too much.
And Ema would sagely nod, but forget all about that when the prospect of eating something other than frozen vegetables, canned goods, brown rice, and (maybe) tuna was on the table.
"Oooh.. a little carnivore, this one. Just like Maya, haha," Mia said.
"Ema, why not get the… uh.. mashed potatoes instead? See here?"
Lana pointed at the picture of a plate of mashed potatoes portioned for giants.
"But Lana… I don't want that. We already eat it all the time at home…" Ema said.
Lana, reminding herself that it was a special occasion, let it go. For now.
"Okay, so steak for little Ema. What else do you want, baby?" Mia said.
"I want the Greek salad too," Ema said.
"Oh you are so cute when you make your little nutritionally-balanced choices, Ema," Mia said.
"Yeah… Lana said I have to eat different things to be okay"
"Yesss, that's right.. listen to her. So you can grow to be as tall as her one day," Mia said.
"I don't think girls can get as tall as Lana… she's too tall…." Ema said. She was contemplating, as much as her little, clever brain would allow, the logistics of people growing up to be tall or short. Lana was tall, yes, but the way Ema made it sound like Lana was Jack Skellington made Mia laugh.
Lana was pinching the skin of her knuckles and arm. Ema's bill so far was pricey, but manageable.
"Okay, is that all? Do you want a drink?" Mia said.
"Can I have the kiwi juice? Please, Mia?" Ema said.
Out of season fruit. Imported. Up-charged. Long glass too so they can create the illusion of volume. All the times I told you to not do this, Ema, and you're doing it right now.
Lana was quietly simmering. She hated how Mia kept prompting Ema to order more and more.
"Alright then, let's order," Mia said.
"And after we eat, can I get dessert? I want the tiramisu," Ema said.
This capstone to a long list of gluttonous demands (as Lana saw them) was what finally made Lana boil over.
"Hey Ema, who do you think is going to pay for that?" Lana said.
"M..Mia? I heard you guys talking about it when I came back," Ema said.
In Lana's mind, not only has Ema placed the burden of paying for all of this on Mia, she did not even allow Mia the grace of being a last-minute benefactor. To Lana, Ema has just expressed her intention, unequivocally, to suck Mia's blood dry. This was the worst possible answer delivered in the worst possible way.
"So, we're leeches? We mooch off people's good will? Is that it? We're charity cases?"
"Woah.. Lana, calm d—"
"No, Mia. She does this every time. I tell her not to do that, but she still does it."
"Lana, I'm sorry, I'll—"
Ema was panicking because her sister's face was flush with fury and all her features were being disfigured by rage. She saw Lana get angry sometimes, but never, ever anything like this.
"Why don't you take this knife and just rob her? Huh, Ema? Just shove this knife right in her throat and take her wallet. No?" Lana was waving around the knife.
"It's so much easier than whatever you're doing right now. Just a few stabs here and there" Lana feigned a series of vicious stabs to her own throat with the dull tableware.
"And snatch her wallet from her blood-soaked hands," Lana picked up her purse like she was breaking the clasp of someone trying to hang on to their belongings as they bled to death and slammed it back on the seat.
"Why not?" Lana threw back the knife on the table, the loud, rolling clatter of it giving way to silence.
"Jesus Christ, Lana. I said it's fine," Mia said.
Ema was shaken by how detailed Lana's miming of a mugging was. Nothing about it was playful or pretend. It seemed to Ema to be something Lana had conjured up from visual memory rather than imagination. She was also scared of how much bite was in her words, how ferocious they were. Ema felt her face scrunch and her eyes well up.
"Hey… don't cry. Seriously. Don't make a scene," Lana said.
Ema found no comfort in Lana's stern commands and pointed finger but found great terror in her iron gaze.
"Lana, stop," Mia said.
Lana briefly broke away from intimidating Ema to brusquely address Mia.
"You stay out of this."
And although Mia felt like a dagger had just punctured her lungs and Ema felt like her sister——the same sister who had carried her to bed when she fell asleep on the couch; who dried her tears, fed her bread, played hide-and-seek with her, laundered her clothes, combed her hair, taught her how to boil eggs, gathered up splotches of baby food from the edges of her mouth, held her hand as they crossed the street; who stayed up all day and all night when their parents died, trying to console the inconsolable Ema without shedding a tear of her own; made her laugh, made her happy, made her feel safe; that exact sister——was about to wring her neck like a caught bunny, Lana was not done hurting the two people she loved and cared about the most.
"Hey Ema…. Look at me…" Lana leaned in closer to Ema, and Ema tried to lean away from her. Ema was trying to avoid Lana's gaze.
When Lana was close enough, she sprung her right arm out, like a mantis, and pincered Ema's jaw and mouth, forcing her to pucker. She used her left hand to continue wagging her finger in Ema's face. Ema felt Lana's grip bearing down on her teeth.
"Listen to me, Ema. If you cry... you won't like what happens next, okay?"
When Lana let go, Ema fell back in her chair.
Mia had wanted to break Lana's grasp, but she felt like she was in a terrible nightmare where her arms were made of heavy stone. She was only able to move her arms again when Ema started shuffling away from Lana and towards her. Once Ema was close enough, she wrapped one arm around her and the other arm held Ema's face, still tender from Lana's hand.
When Lana saw the look of terror, overwhelming terror, in both Mia's and Ema's eyes, she realized what she had done. Ema buried her head in the nook of Mia's arm, her tears soaking Mia's sleeve. Ema, even in the midst of sobbing, was still trying not to cry.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Mia said.
Lana was like someone snapped out of hypnosis. She started hearing the clatter of forks against plates and smelling the aroma of food again. When she looked into Mia's eyes, it was as if she had just come into existence at that very moment, the Lana who lived the last 23 years being someone else entirely.
"I.. I'm sorr—"
"You're a goddamn psycho you know that?"
Mia was still cradling Ema's head.
"I'm sorry..." Lana said. Mia was too busy checking on Ema to Lana's whimpering apology.
"Are you okay? Ema?"
Ema was sobbing. She couldn't answer Mia.
"I was—"
"I don't give a damn what you were. Just what the fuck was that?"
"Mia please just—"
"No. I'm not putting up with this. I'm taking Ema to the bathroom. When I come back, we're all leaving."
Mia got up and held Ema's hand as she walked away from the booth.
Ema was glad to be away from Lana and to be with Mia. Her crying petered out in proportion to the distance between them and Lana. When she felt the strength of Mia's grasp on her hand, she felt safe.
Mia put Ema up on the bathroom sink and helped her wash her face. Ema calmed down with each splash of cold water. She was down to just sniffling and shaking rather than locked into full-bodied terror.
"Are you hurt, Ema?" Mia said.
"N-no."
"You can be honest with me. It's okay."
"J-just a little bit. My teeth hurt," Ema said.
"Here. Take this. Some Tylenol." Mia handed her the small tablet and a bottle of water from her purse.
Ema held the bottle with both tiny hands. Her drinking was erratic and she swallowed with a chop.
"You'll feel better soon, okay?"
"O-okay."
"I'm gonna give Lana the what-for. Just watch me. She'll be sorry. Really, really sorry. Don't worry. She's going to be very nice to you when I'm done." Mia said, dabbing up Ema's stray tears with a damp cotton pad.
"T-thanks, Mia."
"You're my little sister too."
Ema was surprised and happy to hear that.
"R-really?"
"Yes, of course. You're like Maya to me. Remember Maya?"
"Y-yeah! I wanna see her again," Ema said.
"You'll see her. I just have to teach Lana some respect first," Mia said, a distant, aggressive gaze in her eyes. She was imagining dragging Lana through the street by her hair. Slapping her senseless. Maybe grabbing her by the jaw in just the same way she grabbed Ema. She moved her attention away from these violent fantasies to focus on something really important. She grabbed a bit of paper and wrote down her phone number.
"Hey Ema, you have a phone, right?"
"Yes I do."
"Okay, good. This is my phone number. You can call me anytime. Do you know how to text?"
"Texting? Like SMS? Is that it?"
"Exactly. You can send me SMS. I'm going to text you later and check in on you. Is that okay?"
"Yes, it's okay."
"I'm sorry I don't have more cash on me, but take this too. Buy more food if you want it at your school cafeteria. Or anywhere else. It's okay."
"Mia please Lana will—"
"I don't care what Lana wants or says. I want you to have this. Okay?"
"O-okay. Okay. Thank you."
Ema gingerly took the money from Mia's hands, placed it in the pocket of her overalls, and gave her a sheepish, grateful smile.
"We're gonna go back to the table now. Don't say anything to Lana, okay?"
"Alright. I won't say anything."
"Good girl." Mia smiled and pat down Ema's hair before resetting her newsboy cap.
When Lana saw Mia and Ema approaching, she stood up like a soldier at attention.
"Hey Ema, Mia, I'm really sorr—"
"Shut the fuck up. Listen to me closely, Lana," Mia said.
Lana clammed up. Mia's nostrils were flaring like a bull. Lana felt her hearing becoming acutely sensitive.
"You're going to go back home now. You won't touch Ema. You won't talk to her. You'll get her food on the way if she asks for it. As for me, I'm leaving. You're being crazy and you don't know what you sound like or look like. I wanted us to have a good time but you ruined that for all of us now."
"Mia please just—"
"No, no, no. This isn't a discussion. I'm leaving. Pick up your bag and let's walk to our cars."
Lana picked up her purse. She trailed behind Mia and Ema, who seemed to be laughing about something.
When Mia reached Lana's car, she waited for Lana to get in the driver's seat. She accompanied Ema to the passenger side, put on her seatbelt, and was leaning her head into the car.
"Ema, you remember what I said?"
Ema nodded.
"Okay, good. Bye-bye!" She waved to Ema and smiled warmly at her.
She didn't say bye to Lana.
Ema had a fanatical determination to look out the passenger-side window. She would not allow herself to look at Lana for any reason whatsoever. For five minutes, nothing was heard except the sound of the car traveling over the road.
"Hey Ema… I'm really sorry about—"
"Don't talk to me."
Ema's interruption made Lana choke on her words. Lana was feeling more and more suffocated. She could taste and smell nothing but the staleness of the cold air coming from the AC. She cracked the window, but that didn't help. Nothing would have helped Lana at that moment.
"Do... you still want to eat something?"
Ema was devoted to her mission of ignoring everything Lana said.
"Ema? Do you want to eat something?"
"I don't want anything from you."
Lana was unable to untie the knot in her throat for the rest of the drive.
Whenever they reached the apartment, Lana liked to hold Ema's hand all the way to the elevator. Ema did not allow that to happen that day. She unbuckled herself and got out of the car as soon as it was stopped. She didn't start running either, she was calmly walking away. When Lana caught up to her, Ema treated her as a stranger who happened to share the same walking speed.
Lana stopped to call the elevator, but was surprised to see Ema head for the staircase door.
"Ema, where are you going?"
"I'm taking the stairs."
"You'll get tired, we're on the third floor," Lana said.
"I don't care," Ema said, slowly trundling up the long steps.
The elevator opened behind Lana and she turned around to walk into it. Never before had the elevator looked so dilapidated and felt so cramped.
On the third floor, Lana waited for Ema at the top of the staircase. She patiently listened to the echo of Ema's footsteps and occasionally leaned over the railing to see her. When Ema was approaching the last set of steps, she was out of breath, but Lana could tell that she didn't want her to see that.
"A little bit of exercise? Haha…" Lana said, in a bad attempt at humor. She was trying to prick a single point of light into the darkness that she brought down on herself. Ema stepped past her without a reaction or a glance when she got to the top. Ema planted herself in front of the apartment door and waited for the door to unlock, as if it was automatically activated. Lana came over and had to awkwardly place the key into the door since Ema refused to move away from near the door handle.
Inside, Ema took off her shoes, placed them into the cupboard, used the lint roller on her overalls, and headed to her room right away. It was 9pm on a school-night. Lana watched her as she walked away into the dark corridor.
In her room, Ema's phone beeped a bunch of times.
"ema hi"
"this is mia"
"im smsing u hehe"
"hi mia what does u mean" Ema was a slow typer and unfamiliar with the contractions used in texting.
"u means you"
"like i love u (you)"
"ok got it"
"U ok?"
"im ok"
"lana do smth? (something)"
"no"
"okay baby. go 2 (to) sleep. love u"
"okay mia"
Mia could not show it to Ema then, but she was torn up inside. When she was driving home, she cried her heart out. She could not get the image of Ema being held by her lower jaw like a scolded dog out of her head. Her blood froze over and over again every time she remembered how Lana was looking at Ema. The impact of what she saw wouldn't diminish each time it would play itself back in her head. She was wounded in a different way and by a different detail each time.
What started as sadness curdled into rage by the time Mia got home. She couldn't think of anything but how mad she was at Lana. And Mia wasn't the type to sleep on her anger. The notion was as plausible to her as sleeping on a bed of red-hot coals. She called up Lana.
"Hey Mia—"
"What is wrong with you?"
"W-what?"
"Hey Lana… you better shut your mouth and open your ears because I'm not going to repeat myself."
Lana could tell that it was taking everything within Mia to not shout every word she was saying since her voice vibrated with anger.
"O-okay."
"What. Is. Wrong. With. You?"
"Mia, I'm sorr—"
"Well you better fucking be Lana because I'm pissed! Sorry is the least you can be after what you did today!"
Mia fired off the sentences and then coughed. The force with which she suddenly ramped her voice made air catch in her throat.
"I.. tried.. I tried to have a good day with you…" Mia was still coughing. "And you just had to ruin it by being a total fucking psycho!"
Despite the fact that Mia was not on speaker, her voice, tinny and staticky but having suffered no diminution in force, could be heard blasting out of the phone.
"Mia, please can I—"
"No, okay? I don't want to hear anything you have to say! You're just going to listen."
When Mia was about to begin bludgeoning Lana with her grievances, the memory of Ema's weeping face as she sat on the bathroom's marble counter drained her vehemence. She didn't want Lana to have any excuse to dismiss what she was about to say, so she calmed down as much as she could. All Lana heard for a while was Mia panting.
"What you did to Ema... that was horrible..."
"I know it was and I—"
"Be quiet, Lana. Be verryyy quiet now. I'm not done. You'll talk only when I tell you to..." Mia had to pause and compose herself every time she tried to speak.
"What was that knife bullshit? Huh? Lana?"
"I.. I.."
"What? What was that? Speak up!" Mia said.
"I.. I don't... know...," Lana said.
"You don't know?"
"I.. was.. upset," Lana said.
"Not good enough... Not good enough... Lana..."
"I—"
"I didn't say you could talk yet."
If Mia had ripped out Lana's lungs with her bare hands and threw them in her face, it would have felt the same to Lana and about equally as painful, possibly less.
"Mia.. please stop..." Lana said, unable to speak any louder than a whisper. The beginnings of a sob were in her wobbly voice.
"How does it feel, Lana? Feels bad, doesn't it?"
Lana, for a very long time, would not forget how humiliated, small, and utterly worthless she felt during that phone call with Mia. She wanted to tell Mia that she was hurt by her words and the way she was talking to her. She wished Mia was in front of her so she could rest her head on her shoulder. She wished Mia was holding her from behind and whispering things into her ear with a soothing voice like she always did in bed. She wished Mia could save her from Mia, but that hope, like all impossible hopes, only added more to her pain.
Mia wasn't done. She heard Lana's voice crack but she wouldn't let that stop her.
"Would you do that to Maya? Huh? Would you, Lana? Would you grab her by the mouth like that because you got too angry?"
"No… I would nev—"
"Liar! Don't fucking lie, Lana... if you did it once, you'd do it again. Try doing it in front of me one more time... I'll snap your fingers like carrots... I swear.."
Lana trembled with fear. She had no doubt that Mia would make good on her promise, but the fact that Mia saw her as a monster pained her more than having every bone, tendon, and ligament in her hand splintered. She remained silent as Mia recovered her breath.
Mia's anger was taking its toll. Her voice softened not because she wanted to go any easier on Lana, but because she just couldn't sustain it. Rage gave way to hurt.
"I was so scared of you, Lana… I was so scared. I wanted to break your arm in half... but I couldn't... My body... it was like I was frozen... I'd never seen anything like that from you. I didn't know you had that kind of thing in you. And for you to tell me to 'stay out of it'... That hurt me, Lana. That hurt me so bad. Ema is my little sister too. I treat her like my own flesh and blood... And.. and you tell me to 'stay out of it'? Is that how it is, Lana?"
"No... no... It was a horrible thing to say and... and... I shouldn't have... said it."
"Shouldn't doesn't mean you didn't, Lana. Goodbye."
Mia hung up.
What was merely a feeling of being suffocated while driving on the way home now felt like a boulder was sitting on Lana's chest. She couldn't draw one smooth breath. She was taking in air like there was a flap in her throat that only opened partially sometimes, all the way sometimes, and not at all other times. She couldn't see anything but only felt the brightness of the lighting in her room. When she started crying, it was so alien to her that she couldn't coordinate her breathing and sobbing. She cried in small, stuttering, sobs; only to be followed afterwards by child-like wails which she bellowed out into her pillow so Ema wouldn't hear her.
Ema still heard Lana cry. She didn't care.
Ema didn't wait for Lana to come wake her up, like usual. She got up out of bed by herself and dressed herself. She combed her own hair and boiled her own eggs. She didn't boil an egg for Lana. She readied her backpack, sat by the dining table, and waited for Lana to come out.
"Good morning, Ema," Lana said. She was in her uniform, but her eyes were puffy, baggy, and bloodshot red. Her epaulets were misaligned, normally an impossibility for Lana, but Ema noticed it.
She didn't respond to Lana and simply got up and went to the door.
Dropping her off at school after a completely silent ride; Lana, with a sincere, child-like wish in her heart, hoped Ema would give her the usual hug and a kiss before leaving the car.
Ema unbuckled herself, got out, got her backpack, and closed the car door. She didn't say goodbye to Lana.
On her way to work, Lana was dizzy with pain. She felt her eyes throb. She still couldn't draw one smooth breath. Driving, something she had been doing for seven years now, was an uncanny experience. She felt like she was twisting the steering wheel and pressing the accelerator the way a puppet-master would have a marionette do those things: clumsily, with unequal force, and in mimicry of the real thing.
At their usual meeting spot, Lana searched out Mia and went to sit down next to her. Mia didn't see her approaching, but as soon as she sat down next to her, Mia got up and left.
Lana tried to catch up to Mia.
"Mia, please, just wait." Lana hooked her arm into Mia's arm, but Mia violently broke away.
Mia turned around to face Lana with a look of intense disgust, like she had been held up by a giant insect.
"First of all, don't touch me," Mia said.
"I—" Lana bit her tongue. She meekly moved her hands behind her back.
"Second of all, I don't.. I don't want to talk to you, Lana."
"For now? Forever? Wha… what—"
"I don't know. All I know is that I'm very upset with you. I left the documents you asked for with the clerk."
While Mia didn't say she wouldn't talk to her ever again, being shunned like a leper for an indefinite period of time was cold comfort. Lana wished Mia would just split her head apart rather than hold a sword over it.
Were it not for the memory of how carefully Lana removed the bone from fish before serving it to Maya two years ago, all the love she had for Ema, all the happy times Mia and Lana had in college, the memories of holding Lana's wiry frame in her arms as they slept and feeding her breakfast when she would wake up, Mia would have ended things with Lana there and then. Mia was paying the price for loving Lana in blood. She wished so badly that she didn't love her, that she didn't see a single drop of good in her, that Lana's touch didn't make her shudder. She wanted her body to dispose of all the deposits of pleasure Lana's hands had precipitated. All the times she worked herself up into a frenzy over her long, smooth white legs Mia wanted deleted from her mind. It would have made tossing her aside so easy. Instead, trying to get rid of Lana felt like mincing both kidneys.
Lana went about her day like a reanimated corpse. She shuffled to places. She was slow, uncoordinated, and was easily startled by everyday sounds. When she briefly exited the courthouse and was blasted by the brightness of the sun and din of cars moving past, she felt her eyes water and her ears ring.
It was time to pick up Ema soon. Lana was so sleepy she excused herself early from work just to sleep in her car for a bit. The peace and quiet of the courthouse B2 parking, alongside the bit of dark setting her bowler hat upon her face provided, was intoxicating. Even if her muscles randomly fired, even if she had vivid quasi-dreams that were closer to waking hallucinations, and even if she kept imagining someone calling out her name and waking up in a brief panic only to collapse back into her seat. She did not give up on trying to sleep.
Don't touch me.
Mia's words had slit Lana from the head down. She was carrying her insides and trying to keep them from falling out all day. Lana's mind was restlessly churning the brief moment when Mia broke away from her. In her groggy, half-asleep state, Lana kept hearing Mia's voice as intensely and as loudly as if she had spoken them with a megaphone into her ear.
Don't touch me.
Not my face, not my mouth, nor my hair.
You will never sit in my lap and kiss me again. I won't let you run your bony hands wherever you want them on my body. I won't. I'm not allowing you anymore.
Not my breasts, not my stomach , nor my back.
Never. I'll cut your hand off if you touch me. I promise you that. Cut your tongue and lips, too.
Not my thighs, not my calves, not my feet.
I won't give you even the lowest parts of me. I'll push your slobbering face away from between my legs and kick you off the bed.
Don't touch me.
Lana was shivering even though car was balmy. When she woke up, she felt like someone who had barely survived a fever. Her hands were weak and clumsy as she tried to turn the ignition. She left a black streak all along the sidewall of the ramp as she was leaving the parking.
Lana saw Ema saying goodbye to her little schoolgirl friends. She was laughing with them, but put on the most glum look as soon as she was facing Lana's car.
Lana got out and opened the rear door so Ema could put her backpack in there. She opened the passenger door, while Ema stared straight ahead like someone disgruntled at the slowness of a chauffeur.
"How was your day?" Lana said.
Ema looked over to Lana. She saw Lana giving a hesitant, weak smile. She looked away and out the passenger window.
Lana punctuated her attempts at talking to Ema with five minutes of silence each time.
"Are you hungry?"
Ema looked over again. She responded to Lana only out of the same politeness towards strangers which Lana had inculcated in her.
"I want to sleep," Ema said.
"You mean at home or—"
"I mean now. Let me sleep," Ema said.
Ema retrieved her backpack from the backseat, took out her newsboy cap, leaned back in her chair, and placed the cap on her face.
Although going to sleep in the car had been an avoidance strategy, Ema actually fell asleep.
When Lana came to unbuckle her and carry her out of the car like she always did when this happened, Ema jolted awake as soon as she felt Lana wrapping her arms around her.
"I.. I'm awake. I'm awake," Ema said. Lana gently unwrapped her arms from around Ema and moved out of the way.
She got out of the car, took her backpack, and headed right for the staircase. Lana waited for her at the top, just like last time. Ema's heavy backpack and the balmy, unventilated staircase made it so that Lana heard Ema trying to regain her breath halfway up the 2nd floor. Lana went down the stairs to where Ema was sitting down. Ema's face was flush and glistening with sweat. She was panting heavily. Without a word, Lana carried her from beneath her two shoulders and Ema clung to her with both arms. Ema's labored breathing was all Lana could hear. She carried her the rest of the way and put her down at the front door. She unlocked the door for Ema and Ema walked into the bathroom to wash her face. Lana got her a glass of water and handed it to her as soon as she was out of the bathroom. Ema drank from it and handed it back without looking at Lana.
Having prepared mashed potatoes and set them down on the dining table, Lana was walking over to Ema's room to call her for dinner when she saw her already on her way over.
"Mashed potatoes and gravy for tonight," Lana said, like a hostess.
Ema ignored the hospitality staff and sat down to eat. When she was done, she washed her hands and just went back to her room, instead of sitting down to watch a movie with Lana like she used to do.
Ema's phone was beeping again. She thought it's best to check who it was and respond before she went to sleep.
"hey baby"
"its mia"
"u ok?"
"yes"
"u ate food?"
"yea potato"
"hehe nice"
"lana do smth 2 u?"
"no"
"ok good"
"go 2 sleep soon okay?"
"love u little ema"
"love u mia"
It was lights-out at the Skye household. Ema was in her room, but she wanted to know if Lana was still crying at night. Maybe it wasn't because she felt bad for her but because Lana crying was a unique phenomenon that she was curious about. Maybe.
Ema snuck out of bed, carefully opened the door to her own room, and put her ear cautiously to Lana's door. Lana was still crying, though she was forcing herself to no longer belt out anguished wails, which made it sound like she was occasionally choking between fits of sobbing.
Ema didn't know what to feel. She went back to bed.
Ema slept well, but she couldn't say much the same for her sister. At least, from what she could tell. Lana had puffy and baggy eyes, but they weren't red all over. Her voice was a low rasp. The cold shoulder must continue, Ema decided. Lana understood what was happening, but that didn't stop her from still saying 'Good morning', still harboring hope that Ema would hug and kiss her. And although her hopes would not come to pass, when she saw Ema meeting up with her uniformed schoolgirl friends, she smiled at the sight of them locking arms with Ema and putting her in the middle, their black pumps marching towards the gate in unison.
Lana was sitting down at the usual spot she and Mia occupied in the courthouse cafeteria, only Mia wasn't there at all. It dawned on Lana how little people she knew other than Mia. She saw her fellow graduate from the police academy, Angel Starr, sitting around with the (so-called) senior cops, Jake Marshall and Bruce Goodman. She was contemplating going up and sitting down with them when the queasy warm lighting of the cafeteria was blotted out. Some Gabriel-like figure was standing in front of Lana. Although it didn't seem to have much (if any) in terms of wings, it did have long, beautiful brown hair.
"Hey Lana… Lana…"
"W-wha..?"
"I bought you your lunch," Mia said. Her tone was flat, too flat to be the result of anything but the deliberate ironing out of affection.
She placed two bananas and some milk in front of Lana.
"Oh.. thank- uh- thanks, Mia. Sit down with me?"
"Uh… I'm busy. Can't right now. Maybe later."
"O-okay," Lana said.
Mia gave Lana a polite smile and was on her way. Lana stared at Mia as she walked away for as long as she could. When Mia, far enough away, looked back at her, Lana pretended she had been looking in a different direction all along. Lana wanted to believe that she saw anguish in Mia's face, that the pain of the one doing the shunning was as much as the pain of the shunned.
It was true. Mia felt bad seeing Lana in the state she was in, but it was too early for mercy. Lana's words still smarted, the look of fear in Ema's face as she pleaded her sister still fresh in Mia's mind. The way Mia saw it, She would take care of Lana because Lana had to take care of Ema, but that didn't mean that she had to comfort Lana. It only meant throwing some bananas and a carton of milk her way so she wouldn't fall down and crack her head open. Nothing more.
It was time to pick up Ema again. She saw her break away from her pack of rosy-cheeked girls with a wave. She could tell Ema was saying "Bye! Bye!" and something close to "See you tomorrow!". Lana couldn't believe how quickly Ema would put away all this warmth when she was getting in the car.
Last time she had asked two questions and waited five minutes between, this time she decided it would only ask one, so she took ten minutes to think of what she would say.
"You—"
Lana did not expect Ema's sudden gaze to cause her to freeze up a bit.
"You.. made friends?"
"Yeah," Ema said, before turning away from Lana and fixing her sight on the city rushing by her.
Good enough, Lana thought. One word. Not so bad. Maybe tomorrow she would be lucky enough to hear two words, but she didn't want to get ahead of herself.
When it came to the staircase routine, Lana thought about going up with Ema, but then they'd both get tired, so she stuck to the plan.
Wait for Ema. Hear her tiny lungs struggle to get up the last flight. Wish Ema would talk to you. Wish you could hear Ema's laugh again. Go down and pick her up. Tired? Too bad. Store the moment she locks her arms around you away like a bit of grain in a famine. Put her down and unlock the door. Wish Ema would talk to you. Get her a glass of water before she leaves the bathroom. Savor the moment her small, innocent hands take something from your violent, brutal hands. Watch her go back to her room. Sad? Good, you should be. You don't deserve to be happy. Someone who hurts the only people who care about them doesn't get to be happy. Check the fridge. Can't do mashed potatoes twice in a row. Peas, maybe? Maybe lentil soup. Yes. Lentil soup. Still tired? Too bad. Wish Mia was here next to you, helping you cook like she does sometimes. Wish Mia would smile at you, embrace you, love you again. Dice some multi-grain toast to add to the lentil soup; it's fortified with Vitamin D and iron. Wish you hadn't been so cruel and so mean to a child who has done nothing but adore you and revere you and look up to you and gush with love for you and praise you to everyone she has ever met in her small world. A child who has no one but you.
Wish you were dead, you brutal, heartless monster.
Ema walked down the hall. Lana was playing hostess again as she stood to the side.
"Lentil soup and brown toast today. Do you want some lemon for the soup?"
Ema, a regular patron, simply raised her hand up to indicate disinterest. Lana was storing away these acknowledgements of her existence by Ema. Each one was cashed-in as a thirty minute rebate on time spent crying, allowing her to sleep more.
Ema went back to her room. She was starting to get really bored of this august routine befitting more a retiree rather than a young girl. She wanted to watch movies with Lana again. She wanted to watch Lana play the game with the ladycop who shot zombies in a really big and scary house. She wanted to play that colorful game with the monkey in a ball, but she always needed Lana's help to use the controller. She wanted to have Lana come to her room and read books together like they used to. Ema was trying to read the big, colorful astronomy textbook on her own, but she didn't know a lot of the words. She felt so lonely thumbing through the dictionary to find what each word meant when she could have just asked Lana. Ema kept briefly looking up and turning around to ask someone that wasn't there.
But.. how? What could she.. say? How to... stop? How can... things be... normal... again?
Ema didn't know. She was scared she would never get her sister back and would have to live with an overly eager, polite, and privately weepy butler instead, forever.
"baby ema"
"hey hey"
Ema's rumination was interrupted by her flip-phone causing a racket on the wooden counter next to her bed.
"mia here"
"did u miss me?"
"yes"
"did u eat?"
"yes"
"lana say anything mean 2 u? do smth 2 u? make u feel bad?"
When Ema's response took longer than usual, Mia's heart sank. She was terrified. She couldn't bear to imagine—
"no she is nice 2 me all the time now"
Ema simply wasn't used to typing out long sentences in text. Mia breathed out like someone had let go of her throat. She had to lay down in bed for the room to stop spinning. Her thumbs were shaky as she typed back.
"ok good"
"does lana do anything weird?"
"like what"
"like does she walk weird? smell weird? speak weird?"
"no she walks normal and talks normal and smells nice"
"nothing weird at all?"
Ema didn't know if crying at night was weird or not, but she figured it was worth a mention
"she cries at night"
"really?"
"yeah i dont think she sleeps okay anymore"
"hmm thats okay baby dont worry about it"
"mia im scared"
"why are you scared baby?"
"lana is very sad all day"
"ill talk 2 her tomorrow dont worry"
"please mia"
"love u baby ema"
"love u 2 mia"
Whatever the reason Lana had been treating Ema nicely, whether it was penance, fear, or total devotion, it did not matter to Mia. What mattered was that Ema, little Ema, Maya's best friend, was okay. Maybe Mia could talk to Lana now, for Ema's sake.
Ema was usually scared to get up and leave her bed so late at night, but she wanted to check on Lana. She put her ear on Lana's door. Nothing. Not a breath could be heard. She only heard Lana's bed briefly creak.
Ema was very sad. She went back to bed.
Cool, autumnal sunlight was visiting the Skye household. It got comfortable all around the living room, but felt particularly happy to spread itself out on the dining table and through the lace curtains. Lana woke up earlier than she expected. She couldn't go back to sleep, so she boiled a few eggs for her and Ema, chopped up some cucumber, carrots, and tomatoes, and left them on the table. She dressed herself up and made sure her patches were not misaligned for today. She polished her shoes, combed her hair, rolled all the lint off her jacket, pants, and proceeded to gently collapse from exhaustion when she sat down to eat breakfast.
Ema, a bit later, walked out of her room. When she went into the kitchen to make her own breakfast, she caught a glimpse of a figure uniformed in teal hunched over the table. She approached carefully. She saw the haggard, sallow face; the sunken eyes; and the hardscrabble features which retained a softness to them. Whoever this was, they were in a peaceful sleep.
Groggy, half-awake, Ema thought she was looking at her mother. But Mom didn't have stripes on her shoulders or an empty leather holster. Mom didn't have plaited, beige rope hanging from an epaulet. Mom never wore bronze buttons. Mom never lived long enough to cheer Ema on in the pipsqueak graduation ceremony her elementary school held when Ema went to middle school. Mom wasn't around to see all the friends she made. Mom couldn't help her build her science projects or pot plants. Although Mom, for the brief time she existed in Ema's mind as a distinct person rather than an abstract maternal presence, had loved her, she was no longer there to love her.
Mom was dead. This was Lana.
"H-hey..." Lana rose up in her seat.
"H..hi..."
"I uh.. I made you breakfast. You like carrots?"
"Y-yeah.."
"Okay, I'll be in the kitchen. Come get me when you're ready," Lana said.
She smiled as she got up and let Ema eat on her own. She went to the kitchen and sat down on the wooden chair Ema used to reach the freezer to continue her nap.
Lana was used to it by now, as much as anyone can get used to being stabbed in the gut every morning. Ema looking out the window, not saying goodbye, not hugging her anymore. She imagined that anticipating the pain could make it hurt less. She tried to brace herself before, but it always hurt her just the same when Ema got out and closed the car door without so much as a glance. This time, she insisted, it wouldn't hurt as much.
When she parked the car by the school gate, Ema took longer than usual to unbuckle herself. She gave Lana a strange, searching look. Ema's eyes were soft, hesitating; like a doe's. She stared at Lana for a while.
"D-do you need something? Is there something wrong?"
"N..no. Everything is okay," Ema said. She got out of the car and kept glancing back at Lana as she walked away.
Lana didn't know if this was a good omen or a bad one. She kept pondering over the matter as she drove to work.
Good thing. Maybe, maybe. No, no. She hates me. I don't know. I'm so tired. I'm so sad. I want to die.
When Lana walked into the cafeteria, the idea of seeing Mia sitting at their spot, already waiting for her, was a notion from a vanished time. A wish like that was too lavish, too extravagant.
But there was Mia, sitting there, waiting for her.
"Hey, stranger."
Mia got up to embrace Lana. She held on to Lana for longer than Lana was accustomed to.
"I bought two bananas and your mocha latte. I'm just a perfect angel, aren't I?" Mia gave an awkward laugh, which Lana mirrored.
"I.. I want to talk to you, Lana," Mia said.
"I was.. really harsh on you, Lana. I tore into you really bad. I—"
"I deserved it," Lana said. That was utterly obvious to her.
"Don't... It's not... It's not about that, Lana."
Lana stopped fiddling with the hot coffee cup to look at Mia.
"I was.. I was heartbroken about Ema. I wanted her to be ok. It wasn't about... about..."
Mia was searching for the words. The words she was looking for were 'punishing you'. She couldn't find them.
"It's okay, Mia. It happened, it's over... yeah..." Lana said, without a scrap of conviction.
"I'm sorry, Lana. I-I am. You did something bad, you hurt me, but..." Mia said.
"But what, Mia? There's nothing more to it. I hurt you. I hurt Ema. No need to get it twisted." Lana's hands were shaking as she clasped them together into a ball she could rest her forehead on.
"You're killing yourself. You're doing it slowly, but that's what you're doing. You think it's what you need to do, but it's not. Ema still needs you. I still care about you... I'm just not going to let that blind me when you fuck up. And you did fuck up. Badly."
"What do you want from me, Mia? I know I fucked up."
"I'm trying to say, Lana, that there is something that matters more than your pain."
"If I didn't believe that already, I would have drowned myself yesterday and been done with it all."
"Don't... don't say that. Please. Look at me, Lana."
Lana looked over to Mia. An aura of overwhelming vulnerability radiated out from her which Lana couldn't bear to witness. Lana returned to staring at the wavy, flowing hair of the mermaid emblazoned on her coffee cup. She found her serene smile and cute star-tipped crown comforting.
"I know it's hard. I know. I take care of Maya, too. She's made me really mad a few times, as well. I'm no saint. You need..."
Mia would not allow the search to fail this time. There was one word, and one word only, that would say what she really wants to say.
"Grace. You need grace to move on from those moments where you just... fail," Mia said.
"I don't deserve that either," Lana said.
"God... you're still stuck there? Deserve this, deserve that... nobody has ever gotten exactly what they deserve, good or bad," Mia said. She took a deep breath. "I'm telling you that... you need to step past all that. If you really love Ema, if you really love me, you won't let one moment, one bad, horrible, awful awful awful moment, stop you."
Lana stopped contemplating the split fish-tails of the mermaid to look into Mia's eyes. She saw it. The look which Lana never saw Mia give to anyone else. That look. Lana was so happy that she had not been forsaken and left to rot in the sun that she wanted to cry, but she didn't want to make a scene.
Mia could have chalked up any amount of excessive force she used on Lana as due payment, justice enacted, rightfully, at great personal cost to the aggressor. She could have easily let Lana fester in her humiliation and righteously bludgeoned her over and over with the horrible thing she did forever, and no one would have bothered to balance the scales.
Two wrongs have never made a right for Mia, however, and they never would. If one day she had fallen into a pit as dark and deep as the one Lana fell into that day at the restaurant and hoped someone would reach down to get her out, she had to not let the prospect of repeatedly beating down someone guilt-free intoxicate her. She had to reach down and pull Lana out.
Lana gave Mia a small, sincere smile.
"Thank you, Mia. You're very kind."
"I'm not pitying you, Lana. I'm telling you the truth."
"I'm telling you the truth, too. I love you, Mia."
"I love you too, Lana."
Mia reached out to hold Lana's hand. She had to pry open Lana's hand since it was balled up into a fist.
"Jeez, who are we beating up, huh? Haha.."
Lana found that pretty funny. She laughed but started coughing soon after. It had been so long since she laughed.
"Your eyebags are so… serious. Use this eyecream, my god," Mia said.
"I'm in the red on my beauty sleep… I owe a vig too" Lana said. She said it so seriously that Mia laughed.
"You sound like you need protection from wiseguys, huh?"
"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in..."
"Alright calm down, Lana Corleone"
They both laughed.
"How is Ema doing, Lana?"
"She's okay. She's made a lot of friends at school. They wait for her and say goodbye to her."
"Awwwhh.. so cute. Her ratpack. A tiny little crew," Mia said.
"Her teensy-ieensy gals," Lana said.
Ema did not contort her face into a grimace when she left her friends and started walking to the car, but she didn't smile either. Lana penciled in exactly zero questions for today. Whatever Ema was feeling or thinking, she wanted to give her as much space as she could to express it.
They drove all the way home in silence, but Ema stole long looks at Lana, and swiftly turned away when Lana looked back at her.
In the elevator lobby, Lana was surprised to see Ema waiting with her for the elevator.
"You.. don't want to take the stairs?" Lana said.
"I'm tired today. I had PE," Ema said.
Even though Lana was disappointed she wouldn't get to carry Ema today, she was content with standing next to her in the elevator.
Ema smelled macaroni n' cheese, her favorite. She also smelled chicken nuggets, a contraband delicacy at the Skye household (too oily, nutritionally-bankrupt, too mysterious in origin and production, Lana had said). Lana, dutiful as always, was standing by the side of the hallway. She had almost begun enjoying this ritual of greeting the little princess with the feast of the day.
"Mac 'n' Cheese. 'Chicken' nuggets too. Hope you like it," Lana said. She couldn't help but draw attention to the suspect nature of the 'chicken' in 'chicken nuggets'.
"Thank you," Ema said, acknowledging, for the first time, the chef who was also responsible for the front-of-house.
"Sit down with me?" Ema said.
Lana would previously take her own portion into the kitchen and eat it there, like an employee making sure to eat out-of-sight of customers. She was caught out by Ema's question.
"Uh.. okay. Let me get my food from the kitchen," Lana said.
Plate in hand, Lana briefly hovered behind Ema to ask her for permission to sit next to her.
"Okay," Ema said.
Lana couldn't see what expression was on Ema's face when she answered her, but she thought it was the sitting down next to her that was the victory.
"Take my nuggets. I don't like them, anyway," Lana said, grabbing each individual nugget in her plate and placing them in Ema's plate.
"Thank you," Ema said.
Still, Lana didn't want to get too eager and start yammering away with Ema. She was content to be quiet and watch Ema eat. She never realized how much she loved seeing Ema eat. The way she blew air on her food to cool it, the way she finagled the too-big spoon into her small mouth. Some other time, a distant, happier time, she would have dabbed the spots of food on her mouth with a napkin; but Ema was all grown up now and could do it on her own.
"Why aren't you eating?" Ema said.
"Oh... I'll start now," Lana said.
"That's weird... you weren't eating all this time?"
"I'm a slow eater, haha."
"I'm all done anyway. I'll put this in the sink," Ema said.
Lana was happy she had a conversation with Ema that required more vocabulary than 'Yes' and 'No'.
Ema could say it. She had been trying to synthesize the words from raw emotional intuition for the past few days, and she finally had them ready. She struggled so hard to figure it out, but, bless her heart, she is such a clever kid that she finally figured it out. She knew how to give these words voice, to give them a body, mass, and let them fall into the world. It wasn't fair. No child should have to think this hard, but shouldn't has never meant they didn't. She was tired of living with this amicable, pliable, recently-tamed monster and wanted her sister back.
She knocked on Lana's door, but she didn't hear anything. Lana would wear headphones all the time, so she tried the door handle.
Lana scrambled to put away the racy book she had been reading. Discussing Anais Nin was a Mia-activity and most definitely not an Ema-activity. She did not expect Ema would be barging into her room like that. She was in bed and wearing her glasses.
"H-hi.. Ema. Everything okay?" Lana let her headphones hang around her neck.
Ema paid no attention to her panicked mannerisms. Lana could have been juggling flaming swords and it would not have distracted Ema from her task in any way. She had something very important to say, something that required all the energy her ten-year-old body and mind could call upon from the reserves of mystery-meat nuggets.
She approached Lana's bedside. Lana was scared something happened or Ema did something bad.
"Ema... what's wrong?"
"You hurt me."
Lana's worries about something bad didn't dissipate because something even scarier was happening.
"And Mia. You hurt me... and hurt Mia," Ema said.
Lana's throat was dry. She knew how to disassemble and reassemble a firearm in less than a minute, how to tie a seaworthy knot, drive stick-shift; but this was a complete unknown.
"I was really scared," Ema said.
Lana was listening to every word Ema said with intensity. She sat up and leaned closer to hear Ema better.
"I was scared of you. I was scared you'd hurt me again."
Lana tried to say something but Ema continued.
"I know it's hard. Mommy and Daddy they... died. And... it's just us now... but you hurt me."
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Ema."
Lana tried to get up and hug Ema, but Ema stepped back.
"Wait... You have to promise something."
"Anything... Anything you want..."
"You can't hurt me again. And... and you have to be nice to Mia"
"Okay.. Okay.. I promise. I swear. It won't happen again."
"Pinky promise?" Ema said.
"Pinky promise," Lana said.
Lana let Ema's pinky curl around hers.
"Cross your heart and hope to die?"
"Stick a needle in my eye if I lie, haha."
Ema cleared her throat. She gestured to Lana's heart. She had not crossed it. Ema took her oaths of fealty as seriously as a medieval knight.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," Lana said, matching Ema's seriousness and completing the gesture. When Lana was done, Ema smiled.
Ema hugged Lana. Lana then picked her up and had Ema sit on her leg.
"I was scared too," Lana said.
"Scared of what?" Ema said
"That I lost you... that... you'd hate me."
"I did hate you... I hated you and I didn't want to talk to you anymore," Ema said. Just hearing that, even as a bygone past, chilled Lana to the core. It meant that her despair, for a time, was in its place. There was a world where Ema didn't see her as anything but a threat at worst and a necessary burden at best.
"Lana... why are you crying?"
"I'm not.. I'm not.."
Lana's attempt at denying it only made it harder for her.
Ema was confused. She thought Lana would be happy to be forgiven. Lana couldn't do anything but cry into the top of Ema's head as she held it. Ema was thinking of what she could say.
"Lana... don't be sad… I'm saying I don't hate you. I... love you," Ema said, which didn't help because it only deepened Lana's sense of how much of a monster she'd been, but, at least, she could draw a smile through her tears and let Ema know that she heard her. Ema stayed in Lana's lap for a while. She missed being so close to her sister, who always smelled so nice and had such soft hair.
Lana had to pull herself together, for she too had something important to say.
"I... love you too, Ema... I'm sorry."
Ema boiled four eggs instead of two the next day. Lana was sleeping for longer than usual. She was not up at dawn like a military bugler, waiting for first light to rouse the troops. Ema went into her room to check on her; but when she saw her peaceful, resting face, lit up by the slice of light let in by the opened door, she left her alone. Ema dressed herself and lay down on the sofa. She closed her eyes just a little bit. Nothing in mind but a small nap. Ema dreamed about the time she and Lana went to the waterpark together. Lana was teaching her how to orient herself and paddle like a puppy. She remembered how gently Lana guided her body underneath the water with her hands and the feeling Ema had of being a shark.
The sun slowly continued to clamber up the sky, while both Skye sisters remained asleep. It was 9 am by the time they hastily rushed into the car. Lana's bowler hat was askew, her coat unbuttoned.
One was late for work while the other was late for school.
"Alright Ema, we're here. Give Lana a hug?"
"Okay, but…" Ema hugged Lana in the stilted way people across each other in car seats hug, and sat back down.
"What's wrong?" Lana said. Ema started giggling.
"We forgot my backpack!"
"Oh no!"
Lana opened the armrest compartment and rummaged through for a pen and paper. Best she could manage was a leaky fountain pen and a coffee-stained legal pad.
"It's okay.. I can read with my friend. She'll give me a paper and pencil," Ema said.
"Really? That's so nice. They used to make fun of me when I forgot my stuff," Lana said.
Ema laughed at the absurdly comedic image of someone bullying Lana. She could never imagine her as a child or anyone younger. The few times she caught a glimpse of teenage Lana in a photo, it made Ema feel like she was looking at optical illusion or some other kind of impossibility.
"You mean like now?" Ema said
"What do you mean?" Lana said.
"Where's your uh… thingy?" Ema slid her finger across her own shoulder in a stripe pattern.
When Lana touched her left shoulder and found nothing, she started laughing. Ema joined along.
"Okay, I have to go now. Bye Lana!"
"Bye, baby."
Driving away, Lana felt a strange equanimity. Being late to work didn't seem so bad. Getting fired didn't seem so bad. Anything could be endured as long as she saw Ema laugh.
Lana was waiting for Mia. Lana was smiling now. All throughout the day, a smile was on her face. A dopey smile, like someone totally blitzed out of their mind would have; or, perhaps, the subtle, perpetual smile of the saved. Even if she was sitting around missing an entire rank (forgetting one of her epaulets at home reduced her back down to a beat cop), Lana was somewhere happy and far away. Mia could tell as much because Lana was completely oblivious to her.
"...Hey... Bimbolini... anyone there?"
"W..what? Oh, Mia!"
Lana was up and embracing Mia. Mia found Lana's sudden activation strange, but still appreciated the hug. They sat down. Lana put a chocolate chip cookie in front of Mia and Mia put the two bananas in front of Lana.
"Thank you, Lana."
"Thank you, Mia."
Mia doffed a hat made of air and Lana doffed her felt bowler.
Mia was eating her cookie, but she stared at Lana for a while. Something about her uniform seemed off.
"Hey Lana, you get demoted? You were too much of a maverick and they threw you off the case? Did the sergeant get in there and rip your stripes clean off?"
"Haha, very funny Mia. I just overslept."
"And got into a fight with a bear. Your hair? No make-up either?"
"You don't think I'm naturally beautiful?"
"Of course I think that.. I just don't want anyone else to know. I'm keeping you all for myself."
Lana chuckled. "You don't want anyone to covet me."
"I don't want anyone to what?" Mia said.
"Covet me. Like… want me."
"That's right, Moses. Noooo coveting allowed whatsoever. I am the only one who gets to covet you," Mia said. She leaned in close to Lana.
"Hey Moses.. Do you covet me?" Mia said.
"I am coveting you all the time," Lana said.
"And never another man's... well... woman's wife?"
"Never ever," Lana said.
"Good. The Law will not be broken," Mia said. She gave Lana a serious stare, but something about the word 'covet' tickled her back into a laugh.
"covet, covet, covet..." . She loved the sound of the word, more so when it came from Lana. "I don't know what the word means anymore. We've said it too many times."
"Would you like to move on to 'crave'?" Lana said.
"No, but I did want to tell you something. I'm finally eligible for annual leave. I just have to get my disgusting fat pig of a boss to approve it. I'm going to Kurain Village for a bit. Do you want to do something when I get back?"
"Yeah. Halloween party," Lana said.
"I'll have so many ghost stories up my sleeve..." Mia was already relishing the scared look in people's faces as she explained spirit channeling to them.
Lana saw the crowd part for Ema and her crew of girls. She was out in front, and when she turned back to say goodbye, they were standing in a dignified way. She smiled as she approached Lana's car.
"Hey Lana."
"Hey baby. How was school?"
"Good, but um..."
Ema was thinking about how to describe the bizarre day she had. Teachers mistook her missing schoolbag as Ema having a devil-may-care attitude towards her education. A kid might forget a pencil case, a book, their homework, but the entire bag? That was blatant thuggery pretending to be innocent. It didn't help that Ema was blase about the whole thing, too. When a teacher asked her where her bag was, she just shrugged her shoulders and said she forgot it.
"You forgot it? What does that mean?" The disgruntled, underpaid, stressed-out teacher said.
"Yeah... it means you need to make me sit next to someone and hand me a paper and pen," Ema said.
And although she really wasn't trying to be funny and was trying to genuinely answer the teacher's question, her tone came off as sarcastic. Her classmates started laughing and thought she was pretty cool for being so chill about coming to school with nothing but the clothes on your back.
Ema was sent to the principal's office and had to explain herself.
"You forgot it?"
"Oh my God, what's the big deal? Yes, I forgot my schoolbag. Jeez..."
"And you were late to school. Very late."
"Is that a crime?" Ema said.
"And you have an attitude about it! You're a delinquent in the making. I'm going to call your parents about this."
"Go ahead, try," Ema said. She crossed her arms in defiance and sulked, but her defiance shortly became sadness so heavy she had to hang her head down and stare at the floor. The principal herself deflated when she saw that Ema's only guardian was her very young, police officer sister. The principal switched modes from dealing-with-a-spoiled-kid to dealing-with-a-sad-kid.
"Uh... listen, Ema... Can you... tell me what happened instead? I'm sure you didn't forget it on purpose."
Best Ema could do to summarize her day was to ask Lana about the meaning of the word 'delinquent'
Lana laughed. "Who's calling you that... oh my God... You're like ten years old... That's too funny."
"The principal. She said I was a delinquent for forgetting my bag."
"Wow, things have changed. Delinquents in my day smoked cigarettes and skipped school," Lana said. They also got pregnant and smoked weed, but that was a conversation to be stockpiled for teenage Ema.
"So it means you're like... a cool kid?" Ema said.
"It means you're a mom at fourteen years old and do drugs all day like a loser," Lana said. She had to immediately use the stockpile to shoot down the idea that any of that was cool.
"Oh..." Ema said.
"Yep... yeeeeppp..."
"I don't want any of that... I wanna be a scientist," Ema said.
"Now that... that's a good choice, little Ema. You already look cute and smart in a lab coat. You'll be perfect."
"Ema Skye, nuclear scientist!"
"That's right!"
"Ema Skye, astrophysicist!"
"With you All. The. Way."
"Ema Skye, Herlock Sholmes reborn!"
"You know about Herlock Sholmes?" Lana was surprised, but very happy.
"Of course I do! I read the books! 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains is the truth.'"
"I'm so proud of you, Ema."
Ema didn't take one look at the staircase when they got home. She was happy to take the elevator with Lana.
While eating kidney bean stew together, Ema wanted to arrange the evening's entertainment.
"Hey Lana… can we do movie night tonight?"
"Aww.. sure. What do you wanna see?"
"I wanna see Ratatouille again."
"Oh, come on, Ema…"
"Pleeeaseeeee?"
"Fine, but then I get to play the scary ladycop game for the rest of the night."
"But it's too scary! Why not the game with the monkey in the ball?" Ema said.
"Nahh... Don't worry about being scared... I'll be next to you," Lana said.
Later, when Ema had fallen asleep during Lana's extensive backtracking through the Spencer mansion, she picked her up and carried her to her room. Ema was muttering in her sleep.
"...Curare...in the linguine...Chef Jill...eat a blue herb..."
When Lana gently put down Ema in her bed and covered her with her blanket. Lana was about to leave when she heard Ema call out.
"...Hey Mom..."
"Yes?" Lana said.
"...Thanks..."
The end of October was approaching. Lana and Mia had been planning this outing for some time now, each sister exciting her little sister about the other little sister.
"Mia, put Maya on the line for a bit," Lana said.
"Okay, hold on." Lana heard Mia calling for Maya. She heard Maya's upbeat 'Really?' when Mia said that Lana wanted to talk to her. Lana heard the patter of her running footsteps on tatami mats.
"Hello? Hello?" Maya said. She was breathless.
"Hey you."
"Hi Ms. Lana!"
Mia could be heard grumbling in the background about how maybe Ema should call her 'Ms. Mia'
"Hi Maya. Are you Mystic Maya yet? Or still plain ol' Maya?" Lana said.
"I'll be a mystic like Mia uh... soon. Yes. Soon. And I'll beat up other kids who don't call me Mystic Maya, like Mia used to do," Maya said.
"WHAAAT? I've never laid a hand on anyone," Mia said, close by.
"Except Dahlia, Aunt Morgan, and—" Maya said.
"There's no way my little sister actually believes in the 'Mia slapped Aunt Morgan story'... The betrayal.." Mia said.
"Iris told me. I believe her." Maya said.
"You can't tell her and Dahlia apart! Shut up, Maya."
Lana was laughing. She was enjoying this discussion on Mia's history as a marauder in Kurain Village.
"Ms. Lana, I'm sorry, I had to set the record straight."
"It's okay, Maya. Do you want to see Ema on Halloween?"
"Yes! I'll wear my spirit medium outfit."
"Our culture is not a costume, Maya," Mia said. Maya shooed away Mia's objection with her free hand.
"Great! Ema is so excited to see you! I'm excited too!"
"Aww.. thank you Ms. Lana. Do you want to talk to Mia?"
"Yes, put her back on the line."
Lana heard Mia saying "I'm never letting you use the phone again" to Maya as she passed it over. Lana laughed.
"Hey Mia"
"Mystic Mia, actually. When I'm at the village, you use my honorific. I can't be seen to lose face here."
"Mystic Mia, the plan is in place. Your costume ready?" Lana said.
"Yea. You?"
"It's ready. We're going to have a great time."
"I've been imagining how you're gonna look in it, Lana," Mia said. She imitated the rolling snarl of a cougar.
"I'm... excited to see you too, Mia."
Lana and Mia were walking around the neighborhood, Ema and Maya orbiting them.
Ema was dressed as a ghost and Maya was a giant spider.
"Ema, Ema, if you come to Kurain Village, we'll show you a real ghost! You can talk to them too!" Maya said.
"What? No way! You don't have ectoplasm at Kurain.. You can't summon a ghost without the necessary material."
"W...What's echo plaster?"
"Ectoplasm, Maya. Plaster is what they use in walls."
"Ohhh so you know everything? Well—"
Just before Maya was about to wipe Ema's smug, know-it-all grin off her face, she tripped over a pumpkin someone left out on the side of the sidewalk. The plush carapace of the spider protected her, but the sight of her struggling to get up like an overturned bug was hilarious to Ema.
"Hey! Watch where you're walking, Maya," Mia said.
"Ema, help Maya up instead of laughing," Lana said.
When Ema held Maya's hand, dusted her off, and the two returned to their bickering, Lana and Mia were also free to return to their own bickering. They had agreed to both be bunnies, but to highlight their own individual strengths.
"Now, Lana, what part of 'Leggy Bunny' did you interpret to mean wearing mom jeans? How is that sexy? Where is your cotton tail? Fishnet stockings?"
Indeed, Lana looked ridiculous with her long bunny ears and the oversized jacket which hid the skimpy black vest.
"Mia, we're walking our little sisters around, trick-or-treating. Not the time to be sexy. Besides, all the goods are under these 'mom jeans' you're making fun of."
"They are? Let me check," Mia said. She reached over to grab Lana's butt, but got her hand slapped away.
"Oh my God, Mia! Hands off!.... For now..." Lana said. Mia had a devious smile impress itself on her face. Lana gave Mia a knowing look before returning to her usual poise.
"What about you? Where's the 'bust', Ms. Busty Bunny? Your gray hoodie makes you look like a hobo," Lana said.
Mia laughed with scorn. "Your ignorance is astounding. This is a tearaway. It's meant to be torn off all sexy-like in a moment of intense eroticism, obviously." Mia gave Lana that look she always dreamed about, always called to memory whenever she was fantasizing.
Lana laughed.
A secret feeling was budding in Lana. It wasn't something that could be told to anyone. It was private, hidden away. A reorientation that, if it had any sound at all, had the sound of a sunflower briefly rustling as it turned to face the sun. An intimation so fragile that, if exposed to the air, it would burn up like flashpaper. It was the kind of unshakeable resolution to not lay down one's weapon a soldier would have upon seeing the morning sky:
I want to live.