Ten

Madison made her entrance on April 13th, which Joslyn would never forget because it was the exact same day that, four years earlier, her brother Bryce had made his grand exit – grand because of the turmoil that his death stirred up, not because it was in any way glorious. Four years was a long time in the history of a nineteen-year-old, yet Joslyn felt the heaviness in her chest the minute her eyes struggled to open that morning. April 13th was never a good day. At least it wasn’t a Friday this time around. Rather, Joslyn woke up alone in the house: Dora was at church downtown, Grant typically went to the studios at school Sunday mornings because they were empty, and Giordi . . . well, who really knew what he did?

Joslyn knew she didn’t need to be alone, but the time difference made it too early to call back home yet. Then it dawned on her that Orlando wouldn’t have a rehearsal on Sunday morning – the perfect opportunity for them to catch back up! There wasn’t any room today for the dull ache from Orlando’s missing presence; she refused to accept his absence from her life any longer. Not even bothering to shower or dress, Joslyn threw on her sneakers for the short run across the courtyard. After knocking for several minutes, Samantha and Orlando’s housemate Ashley answered and explained that Samantha had gone home for the weekend and Orlando wasn’t awake yet. Joslyn considered waking him up but decided no, she could wait. He was cranky as hell if you woke him up too early.

How does one kill time in isolation? The house felt big and lonely, so Joslyn turned the television on, but the voices sounded nasally and obnoxious. She tried the radio, but the music hurt her head. She went for a run, since the weather was surprisingly warm; Dora said it was never this warm so early in April, and Grant had snickered that maybe the gods were sick of Joslyn’s whining, too.

She made six passes around the neighborhood before her chest was ready to collapse and the blood was pumping in her ears, her nose and ears pink from the wind. She showered and tried to watch television again, but her brain was humming with disturbing thoughts. She scrubbed the kitchen counters because as long as her hands were moving, she could focus on getting rid of the marinara stains on the white linoleum and not the images tattooed on the backs of her eyelids.

Blue. They had dressed him up for the funeral in a navy suit with a peach dress shirt. The funeral home had asked for clothes that were actually his. He hadn’t owned a suit so that had been new, but the peach dress shirt was an old favorite. He had always worn it with low-slung jeans and a black belt, unbuttoned with a white tank beneath. Being his favorite shirt, it felt grotesquely appropriate that his body would decompose in it.

Joslyn felt sick at her stomach. She stuck her head in the freezer, a habit that had developed when the migraines had started. She didn’t get them as much anymore, but the first year after her brother’s death, she had missed so much school that she was forced to attend summer school in order to not repeat the year.

Blue. The family had turned out in their finest blacks, and Joslyn had felt awkward and ugly in the simple dress her mother had bought her for the occasion. She spent the funeral fidgeting in her seat, tugging on the short hem, wishing the service was over already. Everyone stood on eggshells. Jake maybe shouldn’t have come, but he did, dark circles clear under his eyes and more hair on his chin than Joslyn knew he could grow. He took the chair between Anthony and Joslyn, his two remaining siblings, but the Kerrigan family would never be whole again. And Joslyn blamed Jake, and Anthony blamed Jake, and probably their parents did too, and he knew it. Jake hadn’t forced the needle into Bryce’s arm, but he had introduced him to the habit, invited him over several times before to ‘chill’ while they partook of the needle. Jake had introduced Bryce to his murderer.

That had been the easy part, though. Blaming Jake. He had disappeared that afternoon, driving off with his arms hanging out the window, the muscles of which bulged beneath full sleeves of tattoos, and Joslyn had hardly seen him since then. He had come to her graduation, and one family Christmas, but the eggshells were still there and he began avoiding them.

Bryce had been the favorite child, if everyone was honest; it was always the golden child that fell the hardest. Then after his death, Mom had left Dad and taken Joslyn to Vegas with her while Anthony stayed on Kirtland Base in Albuquerque. It was such a giant ugly mess. Dora was the most stable family Joslyn had, and really no one could blame her for high-tailing it to London as soon as she had raised the money.

Joslyn had told Bryce first that she was going to move to London. They had been eleven and seventeen at the time, and Bryce had just returned home from a date that had gone awfully. The girls liked to flirt with him but never to stick with him, and he had sought solace in his younger sister, joining her in the living room to play a half-assed game of dominoes while they sipped hot chocolate with rum. What their parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. She had just decided that day she wanted to go to London after high school, for no reason really other than that it was an idea she had. Her father had laughed in her face; her mother had shrugged, “Well if that’s what you want, honey.”

Bryce had suggested, “You could live with Dora.”

“You think I should do it?”

“Why not? I think you should do whatever you want. I’m going to start a band. Who cares? People care too much what other people do. If you’re doing what you want to, all the power to you. People need to get over themselves and let people be who they want to be.”

Apparently what Bryce had wanted to be was a druggie, but what he wanted to be caused nothing but pain and destruction for the rest of them. Was that fair? Should they resent him for that or admire him for pursuing his own happiness? But what he had wanted had resulted in his death, and Joslyn highly doubted he had wanted to be dead. There were still so many questions Joslyn had, and she was no closer to any answers four years after his death than she had been at the time. Bryce had always tried to challenge her, get her thinking for herself and questioning the opinions and values their parents tried to instill in them. His death had only been another proponent of this.

Bryce was dead and Joslyn was in London and still, eight years later, wasn’t sure who she wanted to be any more than she had been at eleven. But at the funeral, Joslyn had still been a Kerrington, and had sat beside her brothers knowing she would never be able to joke with them the way she had with Bryce. Jake was too rebellious; Anthony was too ambitious. She knew Anthony had almost missed the funeral, claiming to be knee deep in studying for his medschool tests. But he had come, and Joslyn accepted the condolences of a dozen faces she couldn’t see, then walked heavily up to stare down at the only one that couldn’t see her.

She had dropped his red guitar pick into the coffin by his head; no one deserved to wield it the way he had, playing Johnny Cash songs to cheer her up when adolescence had left her sobbing in her room. He had only been six years older, whereas Anthony and Jake had been nine and eleven when Joslyn was born. Joslyn had only been eight when Anthony left for med school, but Bryce had continued to live at home, attending a local college and starting a band. The group had finally been taken off; record deals were beginning to pour in after their demo had been released to the radios.

Bryce looked so peaceful lying there in the casket, and Joslyn had wondered if it was the same sort of peace he had sought through the heroine. His dark lashes didn’t flutter against his freckled cheeks, and his blond hair had been combed too perfectly. His hands were folded across his stomach with an air of grace that Bryce had always been too animated, too energetic for. The peach shirt was buttoned, and Joslyn didn’t like the look, but she was scared to touch him, and that made her feel ashamed. They had powdered his face to hide the paleness of death, and rouged his cheeks and painted his lips, and she wondered, if there was an afterlife, if Bryce was looking down and grimacing at the make up.

But then she saw it, the streak of blue on his lips where the color had perhaps not gone on evenly, or smudged. Or perhaps it was Bryce’s one final act of contrariness, a secret sign to Joslyn to remember all he had tried to teach his younger sister. Whatever the case, the beauty of his image was ruined by this icy reminder of the lack of a soul or mind or beating heart in the body. This wasn’t Bryce any more, but the realization was impossible for Joslyn to wrap her mind around, especially not once she noticed the blue. It was all she could look at. Her eyes stared unblinking at the blue line, and her mother had to bodily pull her away from the coffin. She saw icy blue every time she closed her eyes.

The tears were pouring down Joslyn’s face by this point. It hadn’t been this rough last year, but last year she had been with her mother. They had gone to the spa and then to the movies and the mall and done everything they possibly could together to keep busy and feel like a family. But now she was alone in this empty house. She wished she could hear Bryce’s voice on the phone, and remembered with familiar distress that she had long ago forgotten what his voice sounded like.

Joslyn had hoped someone would be home by now, but no one was. She couldn’t be alone any longer, though. Not bothering to throw on shoes or a jacket, she darted across the courtyard, glad to see the kitchen lights on and Orlando moving around inside. It looked like he had just gotten up; he wore long sleep pants but nothing else, his hair a mess of unkempt curls. She smiled just the tiniest bit as he erupted in a fit of laughter, pointing at someone else in the kitchen out of view. Yes, seeing Orlando would help her get through this day.

But it was not Ashley who suddenly slunk into view, wearing nothing but one of Orlando’s T shirts. The girl was petite and blonde and thin with a firm ass, as Joslyn was forced to witness when the girl stood on tiptoe to maul Orlando’s mouth with her lips. He playfully slapped her bare ass with his hand and ducked away, but quickly returned to kiss her neck.

Joslyn froze and stared, not even feeling the cold stones beneath her feet. The scene playing before her was certainly more than she could take, on today of all days. A girlfriend? Certainly this was not a one-night stand. Orlando had told her about the one-night stands he had partaken in, and he made a point that they were always at the girl’s place so Samantha wouldn’t be forced to deal with her brother’s lustful philandering. It was a very considerate move . . . Joslyn supposed. Fortunately, one-night stands weren’t a norm for him, and as far as she knew, there hadn’t been any since they had met. No, the way he whispered into the girl’s ear, they were certainly more . . . but when had that happened? Why didn’t Joslyn know? Why hadn’t he told her he was even interested in someone . . .

But the last time they had really talked had been in Switzerland, and then they had screwed, which apparently, clearly, judging by Orlando’s new status, had been nothing . . . So to correct her earlier thought, Orlando had had a one night stand since they’d met. It had been her.

With the bile once again rising in her throat, Joslyn turned and dove back into her house, slamming the sliding door shut behind her and swiping the blinds closed. She stood gasping, her back against the wall, tears streaming freely, recklessly down her face. No one, she had no one right now. Dora’s church would probably get out soon, but until then her phone was silenced. There was—

And then the front door opened, Giordi coming home with donuts he had bought on his way home from Cherry’s house. Cherry was a sweet girl, though not too bright. Giordi wasn’t sure he wanted to see her again, but she was fun to pass the nights with sometimes.

Joslyn heard him call her name as he slammed the door shut and tossed his keys and the box of donuts on the counter. One look at her flushed, tear-streaked face made his smile evaporate.

“Joslyn, what’s—“

Joslyn threw herself into his arms and sobbed into his neck, and to his credit, Giordi handled this very well. He didn’t know anything about the death of her brother or the fall of her house, or about Orlando’s new girl or the meaningless sex he had gotten out of Joslyn. He never had done well with handling emotional outbursts from others, but now displayed a surprising maturity. He kept his mouth shut, rubbed Joslyn’s back, and fed her donuts, gratefully retreating to a safe but close distance when Dora got home and took over caring for their friend.

Houses liked to crumble on April 13th.


	Ten Madison made her entrance on April 13th, which Joslyn would never forget because it was the exact same day that, four years earlier, her brother Bryce had made his grand exit – grand because of the turmoil that his death stirred up, not because it was in any way glorious. Four years was a long time in the history of a nineteen-year-old, yet Joslyn felt the heaviness in her chest the minute her eyes struggled to open that morning. April 13th was never a good day. At least it wasn’t a Friday this time around. Rather, Joslyn woke up alone in the house: Dora was at church downtown, Grant typically went to the studios at school Sunday mornings because they were empty, and Giordi . . . well, who really knew what he did? Joslyn knew she didn’t need to be alone, but the time difference made it too early to call back home yet. Then it dawned on her that Orlando wouldn’t have a rehearsal on Sunday morning – the perfect opportunity for them to catch back up! There wasn’t any room today for the dull ache from Orlando’s missing presence; she refused to accept his absence from her life any longer. Not even bothering to shower or dress, Joslyn threw on her sneakers for the short run across the courtyard. After knocking for several minutes, Samantha and Orlando’s housemate Ashley answered and explained that Samantha had gone home for the weekend and Orlando wasn’t awake yet. Joslyn considered waking him up but decided no, she could wait. He was cranky as hell if you woke him up too early. How does one kill time in isolation? The house felt big and lonely, so Joslyn turned the television on, but the voices sounded nasally and obnoxious. She tried the radio, but the music hurt her head. She went for a run, since the weather was surprisingly warm; Dora said it was never this warm so early in April, and Grant had snickered that maybe the gods were sick of Joslyn’s whining, too. She made six passes around the neighborhood before her chest was ready to collapse and the blood was pumping in her ears, her nose and ears pink from the wind. She showered and tried to watch television again, but her brain was humming with disturbing thoughts. She scrubbed the kitchen counters because as long as her hands were moving, she could focus on getting rid of the marinara stains on the white linoleum and not the images tattooed on the backs of her eyelids. Blue. They had dressed him up for the funeral in a navy suit with a peach dress shirt. The funeral home had asked for clothes that were actually his. He hadn’t owned a suit so that had been new, but the peach dress shirt was an old favorite. He had always worn it with low-slung jeans and a black belt, unbuttoned with a white tank beneath. Being his favorite shirt, it felt grotesquely appropriate that his body would decompose in it. Joslyn felt sick at her stomach. She stuck her head in the freezer, a habit that had developed when the migraines had started. She didn’t get them as much anymore, but the first year after her brother’s death, she had missed so much school that she was forced to attend summer school in order to not repeat the year. Blue. The family had turned out in their finest blacks, and Joslyn had felt awkward and ugly in the simple dress her mother had bought her for the occasion. She spent the funeral fidgeting in her seat, tugging on the short hem, wishing the service was over already. Everyone stood on eggshells. Jake maybe shouldn’t have come, but he did, dark circles clear under his eyes and more hair on his chin than Joslyn knew he could grow. He took the chair between Anthony and Joslyn, his two remaining siblings, but the Kerrigan family would never be whole again. And Joslyn blamed Jake, and Anthony blamed Jake, and probably their parents did too, and he knew it. Jake hadn’t forced the needle into Bryce’s arm, but he had introduced him to the habit, invited him over several times before to ‘chill’ while they partook of the needle. Jake had introduced Bryce to his murderer. That had been the easy part, though. Blaming Jake. He had disappeared that afternoon, driving off with his arms hanging out the window, the muscles of which bulged beneath full sleeves of tattoos, and Joslyn had hardly seen him since then. He had come to her graduation, and one family Christmas, but the eggshells were still there and he began avoiding them. Bryce had been the favorite child, if everyone was honest; it was always the golden child that fell the hardest. Then after his death, Mom had left Dad and taken Joslyn to Vegas with her while Anthony stayed on Kirtland Base in Albuquerque. It was such a giant ugly mess. Dora was the most stable family Joslyn had, and really no one could blame her for high-tailing it to London as soon as she had raised the money. Joslyn had told Bryce first that she was going to move to London. They had been eleven and seventeen at the time, and Bryce had just returned home from a date that had gone awfully. The girls liked to flirt with him but never to stick with him, and he had sought solace in his younger sister, joining her in the living room to play a half-assed game of dominoes while they sipped hot chocolate with rum. What their parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. She had just decided that day she wanted to go to London after high school, for no reason really other than that it was an idea she had. Her father had laughed in her face; her mother had shrugged, “Well if that’s what you want, honey.” Bryce had suggested, “You could live with Dora.” “You think I should do it?” “Why not? I think you should do whatever you want. I’m going to start a band. Who cares? People care too much what other people do. If you’re doing what you want to, all the power to you. People need to get over themselves and let people be who they want to be.” Apparently what Bryce had wanted to be was a druggie, but what he wanted to be caused nothing but pain and destruction for the rest of them. Was that fair? Should they resent him for that or admire him for pursuing his own happiness? But what he had wanted had resulted in his death, and Joslyn highly doubted he had wanted to be dead. There were still so many questions Joslyn had, and she was no closer to any answers four years after his death than she had been at the time. Bryce had always tried to challenge her, get her thinking for herself and questioning the opinions and values their parents tried to instill in them. His death had only been another proponent of this. Bryce was dead and Joslyn was in London and still, eight years later, wasn’t sure who she wanted to be any more than she had been at eleven. But at the funeral, Joslyn had still been a Kerrington, and had sat beside her brothers knowing she would never be able to joke with them the way she had with Bryce. Jake was too rebellious; Anthony was too ambitious. She knew Anthony had almost missed the funeral, claiming to be knee deep in studying for his medschool tests. But he had come, and Joslyn accepted the condolences of a dozen faces she couldn’t see, then walked heavily up to stare down at the only one that couldn’t see her. She had dropped his red guitar pick into the coffin by his head; no one deserved to wield it the way he had, playing Johnny Cash songs to cheer her up when adolescence had left her sobbing in her room. He had only been six years older, whereas Anthony and Jake had been nine and eleven when Joslyn was born. Joslyn had only been eight when Anthony left for med school, but Bryce had continued to live at home, attending a local college and starting a band. The group had finally been taken off; record deals were beginning to pour in after their demo had been released to the radios. Bryce looked so peaceful lying there in the casket, and Joslyn had wondered if it was the same sort of peace he had sought through the heroine. His dark lashes didn’t flutter against his freckled cheeks, and his blond hair had been combed too perfectly. His hands were folded across his stomach with an air of grace that Bryce had always been too animated, too energetic for. The peach shirt was buttoned, and Joslyn didn’t like the look, but she was scared to touch him, and that made her feel ashamed. They had powdered his face to hide the paleness of death, and rouged his cheeks and painted his lips, and she wondered, if there was an afterlife, if Bryce was looking down and grimacing at the make up. But then she saw it, the streak of blue on his lips where the color had perhaps not gone on evenly, or smudged. Or perhaps it was Bryce’s one final act of contrariness, a secret sign to Joslyn to remember all he had tried to teach his younger sister. Whatever the case, the beauty of his image was ruined by this icy reminder of the lack of a soul or mind or beating heart in the body. This wasn’t Bryce any more, but the realization was impossible for Joslyn to wrap her mind around, especially not once she noticed the blue. It was all she could look at. Her eyes stared unblinking at the blue line, and her mother had to bodily pull her away from the coffin. She saw icy blue every time she closed her eyes. The tears were pouring down Joslyn’s face by this point. It hadn’t been this rough last year, but last year she had been with her mother. They had gone to the spa and then to the movies and the mall and done everything they possibly could together to keep busy and feel like a family. But now she was alone in this empty house. She wished she could hear Bryce’s voice on the phone, and remembered with familiar distress that she had long ago forgotten what his voice sounded like. Joslyn had hoped someone would be home by now, but no one was. She couldn’t be alone any longer, though. Not bothering to throw on shoes or a jacket, she darted across the courtyard, glad to see the kitchen lights on and Orlando moving around inside. It looked like he had just gotten up; he wore long sleep pants but nothing else, his hair a mess of unkempt curls. She smiled just the tiniest bit as he erupted in a fit of laughter, pointing at someone else in the kitchen out of view. Yes, seeing Orlando would help her get through this day. But it was not Ashley who suddenly slunk into view, wearing nothing but one of Orlando’s T shirts. The girl was petite and blonde and thin with a firm ass, as Joslyn was forced to witness when the girl stood on tiptoe to maul Orlando’s mouth with her lips. He playfully slapped her bare ass with his hand and ducked away, but quickly returned to kiss her neck. Joslyn froze and stared, not even feeling the cold stones beneath her feet. The scene playing before her was certainly more than she could take, on today of all days. A girlfriend? Certainly this was not a one-night stand. Orlando had told her about the one-night stands he had partaken in, and he made a point that they were always at the girl’s place so Samantha wouldn’t be forced to deal with her brother’s lustful philandering. It was a very considerate move . . . Joslyn supposed. Fortunately, one-night stands weren’t a norm for him, and as far as she knew, there hadn’t been any since they had met. No, the way he whispered into the girl’s ear, they were certainly more . . . but when had that happened? Why didn’t Joslyn know? Why hadn’t he told her he was even interested in someone . . . But the last time they had really talked had been in Switzerland, and then they had screwed, which apparently, clearly, judging by Orlando’s new status, had been nothing . . . So to correct her earlier thought, Orlando had had a one night stand since they’d met. It had been her. With the bile once again rising in her throat, Joslyn turned and dove back into her house, slamming the sliding door shut behind her and swiping the blinds closed. She stood gasping, her back against the wall, tears streaming freely, recklessly down her face. No one, she had no one right now. Dora’s church would probably get out soon, but until then her phone was silenced. There was— And then the front door opened, Giordi coming home with donuts he had bought on his way home from Cherry’s house. Cherry was a sweet girl, though not too bright. Giordi wasn’t sure he wanted to see her again, but she was fun to pass the nights with sometimes. Joslyn heard him call her name as he slammed the door shut and tossed his keys and the box of donuts on the counter. One look at her flushed, tear-streaked face made his smile evaporate. “Joslyn, what’s—“ Joslyn threw herself into his arms and sobbed into his neck, and to his credit, Giordi handled this very well. He didn’t know anything about the death of her brother or the fall of her house, or about Orlando’s new girl or the meaningless sex he had gotten out of Joslyn. He never had done well with handling emotional outbursts from others, but now displayed a surprising maturity. He kept his mouth shut, rubbed Joslyn’s back, and fed her donuts, gratefully retreating to a safe but close distance when Dora got home and took over caring for their friend. Houses liked to crumble on April 13th.