The Glass City, a collection of climate fiction I released in 2017 with Press Americana (Prose Winner), was reprinted on Zero-Emissions Day. This story (one I dissected in a previous post) is also featured in a slightly different form. I post in a mini-workshop here.
Our Sky, the Ocean
© Jen Knox
We were waiting for rain the day my sister stopped talking. We examined the swollen clouds. Mom and Dad prattled on about the football game that was holding up traffic to I-10, the sandwich shop opening on Fifth, and the sad state of our garden.
I chimed in from time to time, keeping an eye on my sister as she watered the vegetables. The broccoli and basil leaves were withering up like prunes, and the lettuce resembled the tops of Grandpa's hands. My sister patted the ground and traced the leaves with her fingers, as though speaking to them without words.
"Do your job," I told the sky.
The twenty-day drought was right on schedule. It was the middle of August, and droughts often hit the panhandle this time of year. Still, no one ever seemed prepared.
"Do you think it will rain?" I asked my sister. When Em didn't answer, I said, "How much money you think we'll earn if we help Mr. Jerry paint his garage next week?"
I asked more questions, so many I don't remember.
Em responded with smiles and raised eyebrows, shrugs and tightened lips. She walked with urgency, as though excited, but she didn't make a single sound.
"You okay?" I asked.
She smiled with a brightness I wasn't used to.
"Why aren't you talking?"
She examined me with her wide eyes. They were the same brown as our kitchen table, which Dad had stained extra dark, only they had flecks of gold at the edges. I wished I had her eyes. Mine were light blue like the sky on a day with no chance of rain.
Later, we ran around a nearby store and tried on clothes, but my sister never opened her mouth to chuckle. "You girls are being so good," a worker said. She gave us watermelon candies and instructed us to tuck them into our pockets for later.
My sister didn't appear ill. At dinner, she ate her corn and mashed potatoes like a champ. Toward the end of the meal, Em winked and gestured toward the door.
The air was pregnant with moisture. My parents were talking about who bought the house at the end of the street and why our neighbor got fired from the automotive shop. They talked about how much the cell phone bill would be and what time they'd be home from work on Monday.
"Why aren't you talking?" I asked again.
A year before, my sister had closed her eyes and refused to open them for almost the entire day. She had spent hours feeling around the house to get where she needed to go. After, when she finally opened them, she said that she had been trying out a different way to see.
My sister slipped the watermelon candy in her mouth. She felt the dry earth around our vegetables.
"It's like sand," I said. The sky was our ocean.
Em sat down on a patch of dirt and began to carve a message with a small stick. "Try it," she wrote.
I closed my lips, traced my finger over the wrinkled lettuce and looked up at the sky. Together, we waited. I could hear my parents talking about this and that, but after a while, I began to hear the wind too, then the whoosh of cars nearby. I began to understand.
The first drop of rain hit my arm and made all the little hairs stand up. The next drop landed on my cheek. My sister and I leaned back and closed our eyes, listening to the world, absorbing each drop.
Our Sky, the Ocean