Eden – the musician's sister

           Eden was certain, more certain than before, that picnics were supposed to be incident-free. No more than blankets upon grass, food wrapped in plastic, lazy musings, background of grass and trees and forgiveness. But her family did not picnic like other people.

On a Sunday afternoon that premediated what was to come, they had all trekked down to the lake – Eden herself, her parents, Seven, and Corrin. The setting was not idyllic. The water was the color of mucus and covered in lily pads; groups of suspicious-looking characters were running around with bikinis and cigarettes and rap music; the ground was crawling with little red bugs; one table was unclaimed, only one, and when they had set down their baskets of food they had found it to be a mixture of obscene graffiti and bird poop.

Linen shorts sticking to her skin, Eden was sitting, on the edge of her tailbone, upon a patch of grass she had pre-cleared. From time to time an ant meandered across her toes. Her lungs hurt and her throat was raw.

Her mother was opening chip bags with large exclamations of air, cheese powder showering out. Her father, Stefan, was sitting on the dock at the edge of the lake, drinking out of a paper bag – Jack Daniels, she knew it was. She loved him for passing on the gift of music, but his nerves, so fragile, so much like Seven's, were his frequent excuse for consuming alcohol. Rocking through the dirty water in a canoe technically just big enough for one person, Corrin and Seven took turns beating their paddles against the ripples; the younger grinning wildly, shouting, the other perched with a breathless expression and drained white cheeks.

After taking stock of her family – disparate, even when close together – Eden turned her attention back to herself. Even her ears were sensitive, and she winced at each sharp, punctured phrase of the music playing a few yards away.

The previous night she had landed a gig opening for a local band. Courier, Courier was an alternative band that had acquired a sizable following in Silverton, the only city within fifteen miles of North Twain. It had been sheer luck – and a knockout audition, for which she had practiced three weeks in advance – that the venue had booked her. The crowd had been lukewarm, a kind of responsive that usually greeted unfamiliar opening acts.

Still, Eden had been cheered. At least she was progressively performing, instead of sitting on her hands contemplating her bad luck. And she had another gig at a coffee shop in town.

Progress, she thought, at least, minor progress. Shifting position, she kicked a spider off her big toe.

"Mom." She tipped her head back. The world upended; blood rushed through her ears. "When are we eating?"

"As soon as –" her mother wasn't looking at her, she was watching the dock. One hand moved to indicate the open bags, the stacked plates, a pickle jar around which flies congregated.

"So, soon."

"Yes. Fifteen minutes, twenty."

With her hands megaphoned around her mouth, her mother shouted for Seven and Corrin to come off the lake. She turned to her daughter, greeting her with mild surprise, as if she hadn't seen her that morning, hadn't noticed her presence, the strained look on her face or her ill-fitting shorts. It was almost as if, sometimes, she forgot. That she had children beyond Seven, the glorious, successful Seven. Eden had grown up minding this and now it failed to affect her.

Well. She rubbed her arms. It was hot, and yet goosebumps decorated her upper arms. Not sometimes. On occasion the lapses cut across her resurrected walls. Settled deep down in her bones, came back to plague her when she least expected.

"Eden?" Her mother was waiting. The mild surprise had changed to mild impatience. "I said, can you watch the food? I'm going to get your father..."

She didn't wait for an answer. She never did, Eden reflected, rising from her position on the grass. Twisting, she examined the red creases on the back of her legs, and attempted to rub them away. The bugs were worse at the table; flies and ants crawled, trying to get under plastic coverings, into chip bags. A few floated in a pool of spilled soda near the plate of sandwiches.  

"Hey –" Corrin came hurdling up the hill. Socks wet, expression gleeful. Since Esau left for college he had joined their family outings more and more often. His own home was chaotic, stressful. The basement, the drums, Seven – even awkward picnics – put him at an ease that he should inhabit, as a kid.

Though it had been an adjustment at the beginning of the summer, another teenager boy coming over and banging away in the basement, Eden had adjusted. Now, facing September, she felt for him a fondness she had never managed to feel for her own brother.

"Oh, man, Mountain Dew. Was this you?" He grabbed a can. Droplets sweated out over his hands. "Eden? Thank you – Aunt Joanna always packs Pepsi, that stuff is crap –"

Eden cracked open the pickle jar. "It wasn't me, but you're welcome."

"It was me, actually." Seven trailed up behind Corrin. His shoulder-length hair was bound back into a ponytail; the skeletal structure of his face was prominent, and almost sickening. "I, uh, requested it. Because."

"Settles your nerves?"

Incomprehensible, he stared at her. "No. It's just soda."

"Dad isn't on 'just soda'."

"No," he said again. "Alcohol doesn't help me. Remember?" Raising his right arm, the one broken in his balcony fall, he arched his eyebrows. Defiant. Torn apart.

Feeling guilty, because she wasn't kind, wasn't who she wanted to be, but also insolent, because his condition wasn't her fault, she averted her gaze. She fished a pickle out of the glass jar, shaking off the sour-smelling juice. "Doesn't do a thing for Dad."

He followed her eyes – their parents, standing stiffly apart, climbing up together. Their father cradling his paper bag, unshaven; their mother disapproving, lipstick bleeding orange.

"It's not a medication."

"I know that!" apprehending herself, trying to reconcile her sharp response, she turned from her brother to Corrin. "How are the drum lessons going?"

"Um..." Looking to Seven, looking back. Corrin shuffled his feet. "We're, uh, taking a break. For a bit."

Eden ripped the stem off the pickle and dropped it on the grass. Lips pursed, she examined her brother for signs of emotion. Blank. Stony-faced façade.

"Why?"

"Because, like, um –"

"Because I showed him the video." Seven, deceivingly nonchalant, took a drink of his soda. His eyes met hers over the metal rim; his pupils were dark, red, haunted.

Sympathy shot through her before she could contain it. Her stomach was twisting and her heart ached, as if it were entrapped in an iron coffin. It was strange, this feeling. She hadn't pitied him before. But seeing her brother, for the first time, as simply her little brother – not her competition, not the ruiner of her dreams – but just the dark-haired kid that had grown up peering over her elbow as she practiced music. Glued to his own guitar, head bowed in concentration. All the days of rain and overhead arguments that she had taught him how to play chords, how to write melodies, how to move his short, fat fingers over the piano keys. And suddenly, Eden was overwhelmed with a guilt that crushed her.

What had she been fighting against? Why had she been holding it, venom and poison and relentless jealousy, caged in her fists? Focus, she reminded herself. Remember the first song? The dinner table? Your words, not in your voice, on the radio?

Pressure rising around her ears, she managed to ask, for a second time, "Why?"

"Because –"

"Fame is a monster, devours souls, I'll end up as a construction worker if I pursue it. Right?" Corrin, challenging, sat on top the picnic table. He planted his legs on the bench below.   

"I just," Seven said, and stopped. "I just want you to be careful."

"Yeah man, I got that. Thanks."

Each glared at the other. Looking between them, Eden tried to reconcile the sudden burst of anger with the relative peace and tolerance that had perched, an invisible connector, in the canoe with them. By then their parents had made their way all the way up the hill and to the table, and now their mother squawked with indignation when she saw Corrin, the seat of his jeans threatening the squash the sandwich plate. "Get off there, get off the food..."

In one swoop, she had retrieved the plate and nixed her own Diet Coke. She handed a jug of water to her husband – attempted to hand it to him, because right as she was reaching out he bent down, and was hunched over trying to stuff his paper-bag-whiskey into the tall grass around the table leg.

Chaos diverted, three teenager and two adults settled into comfortable poses on the hard wooden seats, passed chips and cracked drinks open and avoided each other's eyes. Eden turned buttering bread into a science, plastic knife held at an angle, leaned forward in a concentration that was really just an effort to ignore her brother and Corrin.

And then her father broke the silence. "So," he said. "You three arguing?"

"No –"

"It's just a –"

"Well, actually –"

Seven, Corrin, and Eden started talking at the same time. Fell back to quiet at the same time. Glared across the table, again, and then barged back into an explanation.

"He's not going to help C with music anymore," Eden said. When she pointed her knife in accusation, the plastic quivered.

"Stop acting like a teenager, okay?" Her brother wiped the corner of his mouth. Stared up, up, at the muggy sky.

"It's fine, dude," Corrin said. He addressed both his uncle and his cousin. "I mean, like, I can always go somewhere for lessons. I mean, I don't have a car, but I have a skateboard, and besides, I mean, if I was –" he heaved a sigh "– like, a real musician I could teach myself."

Still fixated on the sky, Seven said: "That's stupid."

"Well," Eden located an eyelash in her food, flicked it into the wind. "I taught myself a bit. But I have dad to help me. He doesn't have that. Don't you feel responsible?"

Her mother picked up the sandwich plate again. "Hey, kids, there's ham left –"  

Turning his shoulder on the offer, Seven finally moved his gaze to his sister. "What should I feel responsible for."

"I don't know – nurturing a new generation? Helping out those who haven't, just magically, achieved widespread success."

"This isn't even about drum lessons." He shook his head.

"Well, it isn't about you. Which is my point."

"Of course," Seven said. "Of course it's about me! Always, it's about me!" he swung one skinny leg over the bench, then the other. Standing, he shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe, maybe, the music I make is more accessible. Because it means something."

"Blood stains? Insomnia? Nightmares, suicide? That means something, yes, something to your psychologist." 

"You know what, man." Corrin cut in. "Um, wo-man. You both. It's relatable. He's being relatable. Because it's an issue..."

"What, you're both suicidal? Is that a genre prerequisite?"

"Eden," her mother said. Turning to her husband, "Stefan, say something."

Corrin climbed off his seat, too. Dropped his Mountain Dew in the process. "I don't want to kill myself. God, you're melodramatic. You remind me of Haven."

"Oh, who's Haven?"

"Shut up!"

"I'm not degrading your talent." her brother said. "I just think you need to stop worrying so much about being commercial. I mean, who cares about that shit?"

"Eden, Seven, Stefan –" their mother was angry, snapdragon angry, flashing hazel fire and admonishment. "No swearing at the table!" she swatted her husband's shoulder. "Back me up on this, honey!"

"No swearing at the table," their father said. Half-drunk. He peered up at them, their sweating, reddened faces, their words prepared like barbs and maces and knives. Glanced down, at the paper bag next to his foot. Back up, at his family.

"Dude," Corrin said, "Eden, I thought you were cooler than this? To bash Seven?"

"He's not an icon!" she kicked the table leg. "Would everyone stop acting like the boy, with the problems and panic attacks, is the central constellation of this family?"

"Oh, Eden..."

"Mom," she said. "Stop it. I'm a grown woman."

"Right." Seven, blinking furiously, laced his fingers together. Knuckles white, he struggled to keep his rage, his disconcertment, equal to hers. "You're acting very grownup today..."

"What – getting drunk, falling off a balcony and breaking a limb, that's mature behavior? Hmm, we're now condoning reckless intoxication. Public intoxication."

Her mother, her father, and Corrin all launched into a flurry of stammering and preventative measures and worried reassurances:

"She didn't –"

"Aw, man, it's –"

"Let's just all –"

"Stop acting like I'm a damn piece of china! Or something – that'll snap! I'm not, I'm just, I'm – I'm – I'm –" Breathing in short, curt pants, his entire body shaking, as if from chill or shock, color mounting on his cheeks, neck, forehead, and ears, Seven let out a feral, unrestrained scream. It wasn't one of his stage screams, maneuvered with care through his vocal chords. It was ragged and breaking and painful to listen to. "I'm leaving! I'm freaking leaving! This is – I can't – I can't take being here, with all off you, I'm sorry Corrin, I can't."

With that final, dramatic denouement, he staggered away. Over to the car, where he slid down and sat, shoulders twisted inward, against the hot metal. The silence left behind erupted, like cooling lava. Shoving her children up and the scattered condiments in the wicker basket, their mother cleaned up the picnic with a harsh, hurried enthusiasm. Their father caved into the call of his paper bag, picked it up and cradled it close. He lurched off for the dock again. Corrin threw himself on the grass; knees of his jeans stained green, he squirmed onto his stomach and fought snotty tears.

Eden stood up. She walked to the car, the side opposite where Seven was sitting, and slid into a fetal position of her own. Hands wrapped around her dust-covered toes. She inhaled the charcoal scent of rage and choked on an exhale of bitterness, the dead-fish taste of a thing irrevocably wounded.

Tearless, she squinted against the bright-hot redness on the back of her eyelids, seeing stars and yet still – even after such a brutal fight, such a brutal denial of the dreams she had been fighting for – daydreaming of a future far way, where thousands screamed her name and her very presence, without introduction, was granted the respect she sought.

***

Of all the people in North Twain she had been least expecting to see, it was him. Even from the back she could recognize him. Sitting on the front porch step, hands clasped and hanging loose on his lap. His shaggy, unruly brown hair was corralled underneath a beanie; a white collared shirt, sleeves unrolled, sat ill on his frame; Chucks jogging up and down to a hidden rhythm. He appeared to be waiting for someone.

She stood, frozen, in the entryway. Why did he always show up when she was unprepared? Face free of cosmetics, oversized tunic hanging about her thighs, she wasn't in any condition to talk to stragglers. Least of all Taegan. Least of all Taegan in a dress shirt, in formal attire.

As if sensing her footsteps he looked over his shoulder. "Eden. Hey."

"Hello. Hi. Let me just – I'll call for – oh, wait he isn't –" common sense was not on her side. Because he wasn't remarkable, but he still reduced her to speechlessness. Eyes, eyes, greyish eyes, she thought, deciding whether to flee or put down her coffee mug or scream for Seven.

"I knocked," Taegan was saying, "but no one answered...there aren't any cars in the driveway...I thought I'd wait, Seven said it was urgent."

He hasn't heard. Eden felt the color diverge from her face, taking flight, leaving her pale-cheeked a fumbling for words. "He's gone."

"You aren't serious."

"No. I mean, yes, I'm very serious." In a noble attempt to stop staring a hole through the rumpled, half-open collar of his dress shirt, Eden looked at the floor. Her toes, painted sea-grass blue, hooked around the edge of the rug. "He left two, two-ish, days ago."

He fixed her with a firm stare. It was softening rather than intimidating. Her heart lurched and spit out butterflies. And, promptly, he killed them: "You drove him out."

"No! I mean..." she took a deep breath, let it fill the gaps in her ribcage. Let it lift her, like a velvet balloon, into coherence. "This weekend, we all went picnicking. I asked him how Corrin's drum lesson were going; before, um, I was really even aware of it we were fighting about music and values and – this is terrible. Did he tell you he was going to be here?"

"Yes." Taegan narrowed his eyes. Suspicious, as if she hadn't just told him the absolute truth.

"Are you going to go look for him?

"What?"

"I said," Eden was growing impatient, "are you going to go look for him?"

"Your parents didn't?"

"Ah – no. I think they assumed he was going to go find you guys."

Taegan lifted himself from the step. "He could be anywhere."

I know, she was saying, I know, but at the sight of him, broad-chested and soft around the stomach, blondish stubble on his cheeks, face a round circle, as if he had been painted into existence with gentle hands, stoppered up her words and took the righteousness from her lungs.

"Well? What does that mean?"

"That means..." his critical look vanished. He stepped towards her, rubbing his solar plexus. "Are you worried about him?"

"I feel responsible."

Another step. "Was it one of those arguments?

"Which ones?"

"Past, present, and future. All manner of dredging-up."

"Maybe." her voice came out whispering, ineffective. She realized that they stood eye-level, heights matching, and her chest tightened. Biting her tongue, she tossed her next question around her mind before speaking it. "Where would you look?"

"Bus terminal. There's this one in Syracuse – we stayed there two weeks, for a festival – that he really likes, it's abandoned. Philadelphia – his cousin lives there, he talks about him a lot. Or, he used to. And probably some graffiti den around our apartments."

"Which are where?"

"Nashville."

"That's a lot of distance. Do you have time to just take off like that? Go looking for him?"

"No," Taegan said, "but I have to. Think I'll have Percy or Braxton check near the apartments, they're back there writing. As for the rest..." he grimaced, slid his hand across the back of his neck. "I'll just get some black coffee and start driving."

"You'll need help."

"You need an income," he said. "What, are you going to leave work for two weeks? Take a vacation to find the brother vacationing from you?"

Eden winced. The jab caught her, with warning, right on the upper lip. "Thanks."

"Sorry." But he didn't sound sorry. "I've gotta go."

"Please. Taegan."

He studied her. "If you care about him, why don't you express it differently?"

"I don't –" feeling bashful and ridiculous, she dragged her foot across the floor. Her toenails, which had seemed to her so cheerful, now looked like miniature stones. "I'm figuring out –"

"If you want to hate him?"

Gesturing uselessly, she said, "How to be expressive. In a non-musical way."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay," Taegan said. "Go pack a duffle bag."

"Thank you."

He shrugged again. And smiled, the kind that left tingles like live electricity under the surface of her skin. "You can help me navigate."

"I expect a double expresso for my troubles."

"As you wish," he said. "Thank you, for telling me he left."

"Right."

Eden ran the entire way upstairs. Yet instead of pulling clothes from her drawers and dumping them across the floor, she rested her head in her hands and smiled wide enough to break her self-control open. She had second chances; she had time to talk to Taegan; she had a chance to redeem herself to her brother. The potential was impossible, horrifying, and relieving. Because she didn't want to change who she was, at that very moment in time, but she did want to change who she could be, and here – resting like salvation – was her golden chance.

***