In Harmony

Neither Angie nor Bonnie pushed the point; I guessed I was becoming a really good actress.

That night, wrapped in blankets on the floor, I read my Hamlet script by the light of my phone. I was struggling with the little songs at the end of Act Four, which Ophelia sings after she descends into madness.

“It’s hard to know what to do with these lines,” I’d said to Martin at rehearsal.

“At the root of all madness is an unbearable truth,” he said. “It is known only by the person suffering the delusion. Ophelia’s songs reveal the truth. Think about what it could be.”

In my nest of blankets, I pondered. Was the root of Ophelia’s madness grief for her father? Was it her broken love for Hamlet? Was it both?

“In order to keep her father’s love,” I murmured, “she gives up Hamlet. Then she loses her father’s love anyway. She’s left with nothing. And it’s unbearable.”

It was unbearable she hadn’t followed her heart.

I shut the script and pulled up “Imagination” by Shawn Mendes. The song Isaac and I danced to at the overlook.

I shut my eyes and sleep took me down along the current of the beautiful song. My blankets became Isaac’s arms. The hard floor was his chest. My last thought was something else Martin had said: when confronted with yes or no, always choose yes.

Choose yes, I thought, drifting.

Isaac looked down at me, a question in his eyes.

I smiled.

Yes.

Isaac

Sunday afternoon, I had lunch with Benny and Yolanda, then went over to the trailer to check on Pops and give him some money. He wasn’t there, and the mess was worse. The coffee table top was completely hidden by bottles, cans, stubbed-out cigarettes and fast food containers. I did a quick clean-up, washed some dishes and set them to dry in the sink. Then headed out to the edge of our grounds, toward the gas station. God, it looked so dilapidated and shabby. I could practically feel the gravity of the unpaid bills and royalties pulling it down into a bottomless sinkhole, swallowing my father with it.

Pops sat at the gas station window, staring at nothing and smoking a cigarette. I slid a thin envelope under the glass—most of my paycheck from the auto-shop in Braxton. Pops’ smoke danced and swirled against the glass.

“I’ll bring more next week,” I said.

He nodded and slid the envelope toward him, eased off the stool and disappeared in the back.

Conversation over.

He’d hardly spoken to me after the incident with the beer bottle. But I didn’t like this silence, or the look in his eyes. Whatever light he had was fading. Or drowning.

Being poor will do that to you, I thought with sudden anger as I strode back to my truck.

The constant heavy weight of want and need was a giant hand pressing you down. I know what people in Harmony thought: if my dad got his shit together, he’d be okay. He was the boxer in the ring, and they were the spectators who didn’t have to fight his fight. They lounged in seats, yelling, “Get back up!” As if it were easy after you’ve been kicked so many times.

I’ve got to get

out, I thought again. I had to take care of my old man. He was blood. Family. That was all there was to it.

And Willow?

“Nope, not doing this shit today,” I muttered, getting into the truck. My Hamlet script lay on the passenger seat. My plan was to run lines at the hedge maze. Alone. Learn all my lines cold and keep to the words. Be professional.

But when I got to the windmill shack in the center of the maze, Willow was there. Wearing jeans and a loose peasant blouse with flowers. Eyes lighting up in surprise as she called, “Hi.”

Oh, Christ.

Her smile was full of expectation and possibility. Every nuance of her thoughts playing over her beautiful face.

Knock it off.