Face Painting

           When I was five, my Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Vincent, read us a story about how Jesus made the blind man see. We were all sitting in an eager circle, everybody but my sister, Julia.

Mrs. Vincent pointed to the picture and said, look. Jesus smeared mud on the blind man’s eyes, and when the man washed the dirt away, he saw the world for the first time.

            I turned to Julia, who was sitting in the back of the room. With her long blonde hair tied in a French braid and her clear blue eyes staring softly at nothing at all, she looked just like how I imagined the angels in Heaven. Julia was only two years older than me, but sitting primly in her chair, pouring over a Braille map of the Sea of Galilee and scratching behind the ears of her guide dog, Indigo, Julia seemed so much older than the rest of us.

            I asked Mrs. Vincent to read the story again, this time just to Julia. But Julia said she’d heard it, she had ears, you know.

Dad picked us up from Sunday school, but we skipped the grown-up service. Mom and Dad hadn’t been to church since Julia’s seizures started the year before. Mom usually stayed at home to paint in her studio and Dad went grocery shopping. They said they just needed a quiet hour to themselves to think, while we were in Sunday school. Afterwards, we dropped by Dunkin’ Doughnuts, and Julia ordered a powdered sugar doughnut, so I did, too.

While we were eating, Dad asked us what we’d learned in Sunday school. I told him about the blind man. And Julia said it’s just a story, Luz.

Nuh uh, I said. I can prove it!

Julia was holding her doughnut neatly with a napkin, and she hadn’t spilled a speck of powder on her teal sundress. That was just the way with Julia. As for me, my jeans and hot pink Disney Princess T-shirt were dusted in white.

The car ride home was mostly silent. And I watched the trees pass by in a green blur. I couldn’t wait to get out and prove Julia wrong.

When we pulled into the driveway, I struggled with my car seat and was out of the car before Dad had even parked. Dad barked a warning, but I was already running to the door. I was halfway up the stairs before he and Julia were in the house. I could hear Dad below, fuming about how I’d gotten out while we were still moving, but I was already busy digging through the paint set Mom kept under her bed in case of late night inspiration.

I found Julia sitting quietly in her room, surrounded by wall-to-wall Braille maps of all the places she wanted to go. Italy, Brazil, Laos, Chile, Russia, Cambodia, India. I’d promised to come along to describe everything and take lots of pictures in case the doctors were ever able to remove the tumor that had blocked her sight since she was five.

Julia was fingering her flute, when I came in with Mom’s paint set.

You know how you said that what Mrs. Vincent told us about the blind man and Jesus was just a story? I asked.

Mmmm hmmm, she said.

Well, I thought we should try anyway, just to be sure.

Julia put down her flute, and I loosened the tops on Mom’s acrylics.

What are you doing? Julia asked.

I thought we’d try color, I said. So you won’t get dirty with mud.

Julia stood up. Don’t come near me with Mom’s paints, she said.

But I’d already squeezed several big dollops of red, yellow and orange into my hands.

Let’s just try, I said, walking towards her.

Julia backed into her desk and a glass of water spilled onto the floor. I raised my hands to her face and we grappled. I can’t quite remember how we managed to get paint all over ourselves and splattered across Julia’s maps.

But what I still do remember is Dad’s purple pulsing temple when Julia came to him wailing that paint was on her eyelashes. Her face was a mosaic of red, blue and green. She cried orange tears.

It had been three years since the face-painting incident and while Julia was still blind, the doctors said that the tumor had shrunk a little, so Mom and Dad took us to the beach to fly kites. We’d dropped by a souvenir shop right outside Kitty Hawk, and I’d helped Dad pick them out. I grabbed a red one for myself, and then looked for a blue one for Julia.

Blue was more than Julia’s favorite color. She had an infatuation with blue, claiming it was the last color she’d seen before the doctors discovered the tumor pressing against her optic nerves.

I searched through three bins, but there wasn’t a single blue kite. The closest was purple, and that’s not the same thing.

Hurry up, Luz, Dad said. Just pick another color.

But there wasn’t another one that would suit her, so I said she could share mine.

You get blue? Julia asked, when I got back in the car and squeezed in beside her and Indigo.

I said yes and handed her our red one.

We spent a good three hours trying to get the kite in the air. That is, I ran up and down the shoreline, dragging a red-blue kite behind me. And Julia, donning large leopard print sunglasses, flopped onto her stomach and opened a tour book of India.

But I wouldn’t give up. We couldn’t have a kite-flying celebration without flying kites. I wound the line and started again. Seashells dug into my feet, but I ran on. Indigo chased after me for a while, but a few rounds later, even he got tired, and rejoined Julia on her blanket.

The kite would lift in the air for a few breathless seconds and then, just as I called for everyone to look, it would sink again. Mom and Dad always turned in my direction, but Julia would just shake her head and keep reading, her fingers moving over the lines at top speed.

Finally, with the sun setting in gentle pinks and blues, I collapsed sweaty and frustrated on the blanket beside Julia. She was stretched out, arm over her head, book resting facedown beside her.

You comfortable? I asked.

She just nodded and asked how my kite flying had gone.

I told her, and she laughed.

I did it for you, you know, I said turning away.

She said, let’s go for a walk.

I nuzzled Indigo to get up, but Julia said, no, let’s do it without her, I’ll just hold onto you.

I helped her up and Julia hollered to our parents that we were going for a walk. Mother nodded from her easel, where she was mixing oils for a scene of tossing waves on canvas.

And bring the kite, Julia added.

We walked down to the ocean’s edge and let the water run over our toes. But Julia said, let’s climb the sand dunes.

I said maybe we should go back and get Indigo, but Julia said not this time.

The dunes, nestled between a maze of hotels and apartment buildings, were within easy walking distance of the shore. And with a sign reading “100 Meter Ascent,” I felt pretty good about making it up and back before Mom and Dad were ready to leave.

Julia pressed hard against my shoulder as we started to climb. We passed a few kissing couples on our way up, and I guess they were loud, too, because Julia made a face before I’d even described them to her.

As we neared the top, Julia’s feet slipped in the sand, and she squeezed my hand.

Don’t let go, she said quickly.

And I smiled because she never said things like that. And I said, I won’t, promise.

Are we there? she asked, and I said, yes, and the sunset is even prettier up here.

Show me, she said.

So I described how the sun seemed to have grown long gold fingers that stretched from the water’s edge far up to the heavens and set the whole sky a kindle.

Good, she said. Now, hand me the kite.

So I gave her the now-raggedy kite, which was torn at the corner and had lost half its tail.

Carefully, she wound the remaining string and then handed it back to me.

She said we were going to try something that she’d read about in her guide book to India. She said that in Old Deli the kids would climb onto their roofs, where the wind blew hardest, to fly kites. Sometimes, they’d even tie shards of glass to the kites and try to cut each other’s down.

Wait to release it, til I say go, Julia said. Just hold your arms over your head, and wait.

I waited.

Keep holding.

I kept holding.

Still holding?

I nodded.

Well?

Still holding, I said.

I turned to watch her, standing proud and straight. The wind teased her light blonde hair into a halo of ringlets. She smiled and lifted her face to the sky. Now this is the perfect wind, she said. It’s time. Let go.

So I let go.

The wind buoyed the kite high above our heads and out to the ocean. The waves thrashed below, softly roaring. Our parents looked like little specs as they set about folding blankets and lawn chairs.

Higher and higher the kite rose, twirling against dark purple clouds.

It’s flying! I cried.

Julia smiled. Now, just imagine a whole sky-full of kites, she said.

            Mom said we’d get ice cream after Julia’s ten-year checkup. Julia had just turned fifteen, and we hadn’t been back to the hospital in a few years. But the place hadn’t changed much in our absence. The walls were still that same shade of white. The same mute watercolor prints hung between every other doorway. The same blue-ringed eyes and baldheads hobbled down the hallways, as they walked with the assistance of nurses and machines that beeped over any chance of a conversation.

            Julia said Thank God that’s not me, and held Indigo’s leash tighter.

            Mom said, Let’s just get through your checkup first.

We waited in a little back room for the doctor to arrive.

Julia sat. I stood. Mom paced.

The doctor came in scratching his head, his lips too close together.

Mom winced.

Only Julia still smiled. Well, doctor? she asked, looking in his general direction.

The doctor cleared his throat.

He talked about how tumors can grow. He said, we need to do chemo. Otherwise the seizures could start up again.

Mother nodded. When’s the first treatment?

He said next week.

Julia stared out the window.

The car ride home was quiet. We were home before we even remembered passing the ice cream shop. But there was nothing to celebrate, so we didn’t go back.

How did you know? Julia finally asked me.

What do you mean? I asked.

She was sitting in front of the piano in the living room, running her fingers over the keys. She’d learned how to play both the flute and the piano without sheet music.

When did you know that something was wrong? she asked.

I saw it in the doctor’s face, I said. It was like he didn’t have any lips.

I knew before that, she said. I could feel it in the pressure of the room. Like everything was closing in.

But you sounded so cheerful, I said.

She ducked her head and hit the keys harder.

           

            At first it was as if Julia’s diagnosis had never happened. I overheard Mom whispering the news to Dad, when he got home from work. And I know that he and Julia discussed it because from my bedroom window, I saw them huddled on the porch swing, talking until late into the night.

            But after that, we never mentioned it. We went to school, and Julia was the same Julia that she’d always been. I went to cross-country meets, and she went to band practice. I baby-sat on the weekends, and she volunteered at the neighborhood ESL center. When I asked her if she’d told anybody about the diagnosis, she said there was nothing to tell. Then she changed the subject to how her classmates were all getting their drivers’ permits and wouldn’t it be a hoot if she went to the first day of drivers’ ed. She’d love to see the expressions on their faces.

            Then one day, shortly after I got back from a run, I heard a banging sound coming from Julia’s room. I knocked on the door, but it wasn’t shut, so it pushed open.

            Julia was thrashing around the room, ripping her maps off the wall and hurling books towards the door. Papers flew everywhere – half of the African continent lay on Julia’s bed, the other part was balled in a corner, along with a slew of upturned books with torn out pages.

            I jumped out of the way, just as a copy of The Odyssey whizzed past my shoulder.

            Get out! she screamed. This is none of your business.

            Paradise Lost thudded near my feet.

            I stood quietly against the door.

            I know you’re still there, she said, narrowing her eyes. I can feel you staring at me.

            I still didn’t say anything.

            Mom says I can’t go, she said, finally. Tears streamed down her face, and she took several shuttering breaths.

            I knew, without her saying it, that she was talking about the band’s upcoming cruise to the Caribbean.

            Mom says she’s afraid something will happen to me, Julia said.

            She laughed, but it came out more like a bark. Like, really, what’s the worst that could happen?

           

            Six months later, and still nobody says anything about it. Julia says that’s the worst part. She says she’s not afraid of death. Just the silence.

            She tells me this one afternoon, when I’m making hot cocoa, the smoke from the kettle warming, then cooling, my tear-stained face.

            She says since the news got out, the silence follows her everywhere. When she walks into a room, people stop talking. Parents. Classmates. Friends. She says she’s become the STOP at the end of a telegram.

            She says the silence has always been there. But she’d been able to avoid it until now. Before, she’d never study in a library because the silence was claustrophobic. She’d never stay in a room by herself without playing music, or opening the window to hear the birds singing. But now even with the radio blaring and the windows open, she says she can’t escape it.

            We’re sitting on the porch swing, drinking hot cocoa, even though it’s 90 degrees out and sweat’s dripping down my back and pooling in my bra. Julia’s wrapped in a quilt with Mother’s afghan draped over her shoulders and her hands hugging her mug.

            But aren’t you angry? I ask.

            Sure, sometimes, she shrugs. But you remember how long it took to fix all my maps.

            Lots of time, I agree. And lots of tape.

            There are a lot of places I want to see, she says.

            I know.

            I just have to believe that I’ll still get to go somewhere, you know, after.

            After you get better, you mean?

            She smiles. Do you remember that time you painted my eyes so I could see color? She asks, suddenly.

            That was Mrs. Vincent’s fault, I say. She should never have told us that story.

            It wasn’t just a story, Julia says.

            I turn away.

            You believed it, she says, touching my shoulder.

            I also painted your eyes, so that’s not saying much.

            She laughs. There are very few times that I really wish I could see, she says. But that was one of them. I wish I could have seen Dad’s face that day.

            He turned purple, I say. He looked like he was going to burst.

            She smiles. It’s a quiet sort of smile, peaceful. Keep talking, she says.