Careful
by Nina Zehr

"Hello?"

"You know what I saw in the paper today? They were talking about one of those things where monster trucks drive over cars, you know, like, on T.V., 'cause one of them flipped into the audience and totally creamed this old guy because he jumped in front of it to push a little kid out of the way. So this guy didn't even know this kid and now he's dead because of him. Isn't that totally fucked?"

It was her little brother, calling from Washington State University , drunk. He got philosophical and eager to talk when he drank. Eager to talk too much about things she didn't want to understand. He inhaled deeply on what she hoped was a cigarette and sighed.

"That kid is so not allowed to fuck up his life now. Seriously, he can't do shit ever again."

Julia closed her eyes. Hello and how are you doing to you, too, she thought. "That's pretty messed up." She paused. "How much have you had to drink? What time do you have class in the morning?"

She could hear him smiling stupidly as he answered, "Shut up, Mom, I'm not going, the professor is a bitch." The smile disappeared from his voice. "She doesn't like me because she says I use too many pronouns in my papers and it confuses her but really it's not that hard to confuse her. I mean, she acts really confused sometimes." He inhaled again. "Isn't that a fucked way of not liking someone? Seriously, I think that's totally a stupid reason for, I mean, the bitch gave me a B, not even a B plus, just a fucking B. Do you know how long I spent on that thing? It's not even like usual where I didn't do it 'til I had to, I skipped.."

Julia's eyes were still closed. She didn't know what "thing" he was talking about, and she probably wasn't going to find out, but she doubted it was important. ".besides, that was a Monday morning and you know I don't do Mondays, like last time so she comes up to me." he rambled. She wandered into her tiny bedroom and let her eyes roam across the single bed, the mammoth bookshelves filled with shabby paperback versions of classics, and the small dresser while the incoherent stream of his drunken words flowed across her brain without pausing to be absorbed.

Her eyes fixed on a framed picture of her family-her, Jacob, their mother, and their Aunt Rose-and she studied it, even though the details of it were already cemented in her mind. Jacob's brown curls had been blond then, and he sprawled on the drying grass with a toothless grin. Julia sat stiffly next to him, her legs carefully crossed, her back too rigid for an eight-year-old. On the brick porch behind them sat Rose, filling it with her wide shoulders and long, broad legs. Her mouth was open and smiling, as if she'd been in the middle of saying something to make them all laugh. Rose always managed to make them laugh.

Their mother was leaning against the flimsy handrail; her arms slumped into the pockets of a battered, hooded sweatshirt and her legs bent, as if she was a tower on the verge of collapse. Her small mouth vaguely smiled, but her gray eyes looked exhausted. The fatigue in her mother's young eyes reminded Julia of one night when Jacob was particularly argumentative.

"No, Ma, Lily doesn't feel like going out in the cold. If I walk her she's just gonna get mad at me." He plunked his pudgy body down onto their thinly carpeted kitchen floor and wrapped his arms around the dog's furry neck defiantly, whispering something into the mutt's ear and then turning to their mother. "She wants to stay in here."

Their mother slowly and deliberately turned from the counter where she was separating eggs, wiping her eyes with the back of one of her hands and gripping the sink with the other. "Jacob, you're making me tired. Go do what I say."

Julia felt like that now-tired, like she always did when she tried to make sense of Jacob's ranting. She wiped her own eyes and sank quietly into the pillows of her bed, her fingers groping for cigarettes while her mind groped for some meaning in what Jacob was saying.

".plus he never helped me so I was totally screwed. What was I supposed to do?" He paused expectantly, and Julia seized the opportunity to steer the conversation into a more familiar place.

"I don't know, Jacob. Did you get my message?"

"Why do you think I'm calling you?"

"Okay, okay. I wanted to tell you something, jerk." She hoped the "jerk" sounded affectionate and not hostile.

Ice cubes clinked. "So tell me already," he said, as if she was the one who'd been delaying. She flicked her lighter on, held a cigarette to the flame, and took two slow drags, wishing they could somehow give her strength. Even though he was complaining, she could tell he was in a good mood, and part of her resented him for being so carefree. She got up and walked to her tiny window, cracked it open, and gazed out unseeing, trying to picture Jacob's face instead.

"Rose is back in the hospital." Silence. She tapped ash into a faded blue plastic mug and wiped her eyes again. "Mom didn't want me to tell you, but I think.since you're not going to class anyway, it might be good if you could.come home." Jacob exhaled slowly, and she hurried on. "I'll split the ticket with you. I told Joe I would move in with him and he's paying part of my rent until I do, so I'll be able to afford it this month." She cringed and waited.

"Awwwwwwwwwwww, shit, Julia, Joe's a fucking dufus. He's boring. You're going to regret it and you know it. Donate an organ or something if you need money, I don't care, just don't move in with that stupid fucking boring dufus."

"I knew you were going to do this, asshole!" Julia felt her face tingle as anger seared through her stomach and up out of her mouth in an unreasonably furious torrent of words. "And I don't mean asshole affectionately either! You're changing the subject and you don't know anything about him, he won't hurt me, I'm doing what I need to do. For Rose and for mom and for you." She pounded her fist against the window and whirled from it. "Rose is dying, Jacob. Remember her? Stop telling me how to live my life and come home."

She moved back over to her bed, let her legs give out, and sucked on her cigarette, trembling. Her ears were ringing. Jacob exhaled again.

"Geez, you're a total buzz kill, Jules. And you're just pissed at me because you know I'm right." His voice was quiet and subdued now, and the hurt in it made the muscles in her face seem to stop working. She felt them collapse and tried not to sob into the phone. Her throat ached as she choked out: "Whatever, I just don't want to hear it right now, okay? Are you going to come home to see Rose or not?"

"Are you gonna buy beer?"

Julia pushed her fist into her right eye and laughed hesitantly. She was suddenly drained, too drained to go through the stages of this conversation with him. She didn't want to keep talking. She didn't want to risk letting him convince her he was right about Joe, and she didn't know how to deal with the fact that she'd just admitted out loud that Rose was going to die. Rose was going to die.

"Yeah, I'll buy some beer, okay? Can you book a ticket and call me back? When you're sober? I wanted to talk to you when you were sober."

"I'm never sober. I'm high on life." He was trying too hard now. She knew he'd be upset when he hung up. And she knew he'd come. He loved Rose as much as she did, maybe more. "I'll call you back in the morning. But only if you say you're sorry for calling me an asshole."

"I'm sorry for calling you an asshole. Go to sleep."

"Planning on it."

"Love you. Thanks."

"Yup. 'Bye."

* * * * *

That night, Julia was sitting on the futon in the living room, reading "A Room with a View" and wishing for a cigarette when she heard Joe knock at the door. She took a quick breath and glanced at the clock. He had said he would be over at seven. It was two minutes till.

She got up and opened the door. "You can just come in, you know," she told him, like she did every time. He pecked her cheek and handed her a large paper bag that smelled like curry. "I didn't want to scare you." He smiled and carefully scraped mud from his shoes. She smiled back with her mouth instead of her eyes and turned away, mildly irritated. You wouldn't have scared me. I was expecting you, she thought. As she walked into the kitchen, she knew he was still at the door, making sure all traces of mud had disappeared from his shoes before bending over, untying them, slipping them off, tucking the laces inside, and setting them, side by side, next to the mat.

She'd felt an inexplicable sense of dread as she'd waited for him to arrive, but she was grateful to him for bringing dinner. There had been a mix-up with her paycheck from the school library last week and she was getting low on groceries. Besides, even though she never told Joe, she really didn't like to cook. She didn't want to disappoint him, though, and so tonight, she was thankful for the food.

He came into the kitchen and sat down at the table, watching while she set dishes on the counter and began to empty the white paper bag. "Ugh, today was a long day. Juanita called in sick again so I had to try and make sense of her handwriting on my schedule by myself and I was late for a meeting. Then later my computer froze while I was working on a spreadsheet and I had to start all over. If it wasn't one thing it was another. I'm beat." Julia clucked her tongue sympathetically and shook her head dutifully. "Oh, how's Rose? How was your day?" Joe shifted in his chair and folded his hands.

"Jacob finally called me back. He said he'd come down." Julia poured spicy noodles into a serving bowl and shrugged, glancing over her shoulder at him. "Rose isn't any better."

"You know, I was reading an article on lymphoma the other day, and it said that people with a family history of it can get this new test done to catch it early. You should read it and find out where they're giving them."

"It's not really family history, Joe. My dad died of leukemia, it's not the same thing," Julia said as she filled a glass with water and handed it to him.

"Oh." Joe looked confused as he accepted the water. "I thought your dad died of the same thing that Rose has, but I guess not."

"Yeah, I guess not."

* * * * *

The next afternoon, Julia shifted her weight cautiously on a hard plastic bench in the train station and looked up from her book at the clock on the cold cement wall. An ad pasted next to the clock screamed, "It's your life. Live it!" A woman in a red dress and a ridiculous purple party hat was pursing her pink mouth, wide-eyed, preparing to blow out birthday candles while white-toothed, unwrinkled models crowded around her, laughing and clapping.

The poster made Julia think of Rose, even though the woman was thin and brown-haired and olive-skinned and didn't look like her at all. Rose loved birthday parties, ridiculous purple hats and all. Julia's mind drifted back to a rainy Monday when she'd come home from kindergarten to find Rose hunched over their Formica table, painstakingly squeezing rosettes out of a tube of frosting onto waxed paper. "Hey, doll, I missed you! Did you have a wonderful day?"

Julia had thrown her backpack onto the floor and climbed into her lap. "I dunno. What are you making those for? Can I have one?"

"They're for your Mom's birthday cake. We're going to have a parrrrrrrty!" she sang. "Here." She'd squeezed a blob of frosting onto the table, stuck her finger in it, and flicked it onto Julia's nose. Then she'd wrapped her soft arms around Julia and kissed the back of her head, rocking her back and forth. "My mom used to make these for us when me and your dad were little."

"Why aren't you putting them on a cake?" Julia had asked, rubbing her nose with her sleeve.

"We're going to, silly goose. You dry them out first and then they're like candy. We used to have to hide them from your dad 'cuz he always ate too many and gave himself a belly ache." She'd tickled Julia's stomach, making her squeal. "Come on, let's wake Jacob up and go play in the rain. Betcha I can beat you!"

A mechanical voice startled Julia out of the memory. "Attention passengers, will Robert White please report to the front desk. Robert White to the front desk." Julia focused on the poster again and smiled wistfully to herself as a pang of longing for Rose mixed with the dread that seemed to have permanently tightened her insides. Rose couldn't play in the rain anymore. She watched it from a hospital bed now.

She shivered as a train whooshed into the station and stood up uncertainly, craning her neck and scanning the sudden swarm of people for Jacob's familiar brown curls. Cold hands covered her eyes, and she shrieked and whirled.

"Geez, Jules, it's just me. You need a beer." He was wearing a black trench coat and a grimy beige duffel bag hung from his shoulder.

She drew her breath in sharply and picked up her purse. "You scared me." She reached up and hugged him awkwardly. "Ready to go?"

"Foo, I'se always ready." He grinned and punched her playfully. "Where's Schmoe? Organizing his sock collection?"

"Ha ha. He's at work. So is Mom. They called her in because one of the other waitresses was in a car accident."

"That's horrible. It wasn't a nice car was it? OH! OH!" He punched her again, his way of commanding her to lighten up. She tried to smile and turned away, frustrated. She knew kidding around was his way of dealing with painful situations, but she'd never been able to join him in the jokes. As they walked towards the exit, he adjusted the duffel bag, fished in his coat pocket, and handed her an envelope. "Here, take this thing before I lose it."

"What is it?" She hoped it wasn't money. Jacob didn't have a job.

"A poem I wrote." She looked at him, surprised, and he hunched his shoulders, looking unusually self-conscious. "No big deal. I thought she might like it. 'Cuz, ya know, she used to read us poems and shit."

Julia swallowed. "I'm sure she'll love it." She didn't know what else to say.

* * * * *

Rose's bony face smiled up at them as they entered the tiny hospital room, and she held her arms out for Jacob like a little girl. He bent down and hugged her warmly and carefully.

"Hey, Rosie. I missed you," he said.

"Missed you, too, doll. Sit down here and tell me how things are. Any good parties lately?"

Julia was relieved. Rose seemed to be having a good day. She sat in a green chair and watched her aunt and her brother. They had the same hazel eyes and the same smile. In fact, Jacob looked like he was Rose's son instead of her nephew, and Rose treated him like one. She knew that Rose thought of her as a daughter, too, and she thought of Rose as a mother. But not like Rose and Jacob. When they were together, no one had ever been able to touch them; no matter how hard she or her mother tried, they could never manage to bring them down to earth. Julia watched them now, hugging and smiling in this room, this horrible white room. Death hung like a bleached cloud in this disinfected room, and Rose and Jacob were hugging and smiling. She remembered suddenly the first time she'd realized the difference between Rose and her mother, between Jacob and herself. One night when she was supposed to be asleep she'd gotten up to use the bathroom and had been halted when she heard her mother's voice floating down the hallway.

"I just wish he'd stop doing it on purpose, Rose. He knows exactly how to get to her. Pass."

"Hon, it goes both ways with those two. He pisses her off, but she's easy to piss off, and if she'd lighten up he'd leave her alone. Oh, ho, ho, you're going down."

"Probably. This is a horrible hand. You know, I was exactly like her when I was her age. I suppose I grew out of it."

"No, you didn't, sweetheart. You need a beer." A chair had scraped the wooden floor.

"What do you mean I didn't?" Her mother sounded indignant. "No, thanks, I have to open tomorrow."

"I mean, you're sitting here refusing to have a beer and worrying yourself to death that your kids are going to kill each other. She gets it from you, you know." A can popped open as the chair scraped again.

Her mother huffed. "Well, excuse me for being nervous about raising two kids without anyone. I wasn't like this before Aaron died, but now I'm trying to do it all by myself."

"You're not by yourself, you have me. Besides, you know they're crazy about each other deep down. Me and Aaron were the same way. Fighting all the time, I mean. Know what I think we should do? Slip Julia some Valium."

"Rose!"

Both women giggled. "Seriously, I think that'd solve a lot of our problems. Here, red's trump."

Julia had forgotten about the bathroom and shuffled back to bed, her face burning. The picture of her father that sat on her dresser was usually comforting, but that night it made her angry. If you hadn't died Mom would be happy like Rose and then I could be happy, too. I don't want to be like this. I don't do it on purpose. That night, she'd vowed to try to be happier, but somehow, knowing that everyone thought she was too serious had made it even harder for Julia to lighten up.

"So we got kicked out. You should've seen the look on this chick's face, Rosie, it was hilarious. She did not know what to do!" Rose chuckled softly and touched Jacob's face.

"You'd better be careful, hear me?" Julia and Jacob both looked at her, startled. Rose never chided Jacob. She smiled at both of them and shook her head. "I worry about your mother sometimes. Because she worries about you all the time, Jacob." She paused, still smiling. "She's going to go nuts when I'm gone unless you settle down." Jacob shifted his weight in his chair and looked out the window. "I mean, getting kicked out of bars is one thing. Just don't get kicked out of school."

Julia suddenly felt like an intruder. She stood up quickly and muttered something about the bathroom, escaping into the wide, sterile hallway. She watched the lights reflected in the gleaming white floor zoom past as she hurried outside, fumbling for a cigarette as she went.

Outside, it was raining again, and she pulled the hood of her thin blue jacket over her head. She lit the cigarette and puffed it quickly, leaning against the rough brick building, away from the glass doors. A little blond girl in a pink plastic raincoat and purple corduroys appeared behind the doors, pressing her nose to the glass and puffing at it, watching the resulting fog evaporate with wonder. Her father (or her uncle, or maybe even her brother) reached around her and zipped up her coat, brushing her hair back gently as he settled the hood onto her head. He pushed the door open and, holding the little girl's hand, began to jog across the parking lot. The little girl's short legs became an awkward blur as she dashed to keep up with him, and Julia watched them jealously until they disappeared behind a maroon van. Smoke trickled from her nose as she sighed and looked up at the gray sky. When was the sun going to shine again?

Rose was really going to be gone soon. She'd been saying goodbye just now, saying things while their mother wasn't around as if she knew it was the last chance. Julia slid down the wall until she was sitting on the wet pavement and put her forehead in her hands, her face burning at the injustice of it. It wasn't fair that Rose, of all people, should have to die. Most people took up space and waited for circumstances to make them happy, but Rose had always made her own happiness. Growing up carefully, Julia had watched her glow and been envious of the delight she seemed to take in everything. She looked at herself sorrowfully now, sitting in the rain, and wished for joy.

"Hey, the nurse says we have to leave. You gonna come say goodbye?" Jacob towered above her. His eyes were dry but his mouth was tight. She stood and brushed at her jeans.

"Yeah, I'll be right back." She handed him the rain-sodden cigarette and ducked inside. It was a good sign the nurse had asked them to leave. It meant they might have a little more time.

* * * * *

They were sitting in front of her T.V. in silence when her phone rang. Her stomach dropped. She picked it up slowly, praying it wasn't the hospital.

"Hello?"

"Hello? It's me." She shook her head at Jacob and moved into the kitchen.

"Hi, Joe. What's up?"

"I just got off the phone with the moving company. They have you down for next Tuesday. It was the only opening they had for the next month so I went ahead and told them yes. Will that suit you?"

Julia sat down at the tiny table. She pulled a cigarette out of the pack and toyed with it, biting her lip.

"Hello? Did I lose you?"

"No, I'm here. But.well, Tuesday's kind of soon for me. With Rose sick and all. I don't know, Joe, maybe we could wait a little while."

"Why? I thought you needed the money. And I already cleared a spot in the closet for you and everything." He sounded confused, and it irritated her. She looked at the picture of Rose on her bulletin board and took a deep breath as Jacob appeared in the doorway, his glass of beer in his hand.

"I've just been thinking about it and.I just think it's not a very good time." She felt like an idiot, but all of her being rebelled at the idea of changing her mind now. Jacob was watching her. Rose's picture seemed to be watching her, too.

She had to learn how to make her own happiness.

"I can let you pick the movers if you want. Did I do something wrong? Did something happen?"

"Yes, something happened, Joe, my aunt is in the hospital, for Christ's sake. I just can't deal with this right now, okay?" I can't deal with this, ever, she thought. "I'm sorry. I don't want to feel rushed into this, that's all. I haven't really been taking the time to think about things lately."

He was quiet for a second. "When will you have had enough time?"

She laughed in spite of herself. "I don't know. I'll call you, okay?" And she hung up before he could answer, before she could lose her nerve. She dropped the phone as if it were hot, lit the cigarette, and looked at Jacob.

He was grinning. She smiled back and kicked at the chair opposite her. "Don't look at me like that. I didn't break up with him yet, I just said I wasn't ready to move in with him right now."

"Same difference!" he cried as he sat down. "Way to have balls, Jules. Finally. Here, you need to have a beer."

She thought for a minute about how she had to be at the library early the next morning and how she wanted to leave even earlier so she could take Jacob back to the hospital. She thought of Joe, sitting in his empty house, probably still puzzling. And she thought of Rose and her mother, playing cards. Her stomach still hurt when she thought of Rose. But somehow, she felt that if Rose had been there, she would have agreed with Jacob.

"Yeah." She smiled at him again. "Yeah, I think I need one, too.

Nina Zehr is studying English at Daemen College . She doesn't like to write, but she likes to have written, and plans to "have written" as a career.