Lucky

Even two weeks after the fact, what happened is still twisted in my head like what a battlefield must be like—too many events going on at once to make sense of any of them. I wake in my room, if I’ve slept at all, and hear my stepmother, Glorieta, downstairs making breakfast, and my father, who goes outside to get the newspaper. The shower comes on in the bathroom down the hall—Yolanda is up. She works at Chipotle and is late. Light is already breaking over the Lakota hills and across the wheat and corn and alfalfa fields to the buildings collected here years ago because of the railroad, which still to this day, hauls coal and new cars and other junk people claim they need.

My father’s house is at the edge of a cheap subdivision, and my room is at the back, the view cut off by the corner of the Carters’ house. Still a big sky fades up into sunrise over the Hartbooths’ alfalfa field that needs windrowing and onto the mesa at the horizon. Before I’m fully awake, I’m leaving town, though I haven’t yet figured out how or with what money. I have permission to miss school for as long as I need to settle down, undergo counseling, and get past the trauma—whatever “get past” means: how much good can talking do? Maybe cutting and baling hay for Hartbooth would be good therapy.

I get dressed, still shaky, and go downstairs. My father’s in his overalls, and Glorieta has on a dress too tight for her; and they’re eating Eggo waffles and greasy bacon with way too much syrup. I pour myself the last of the coffee from the carafe. “You’ll have to make more,” Glorieta says. “We weren’t counting on you.”

“Going somewhere?” my father asks.

“School,” I say.

“You ready for that?”

“School or the army,” I say, “or cutting alfalfa for Hartbooth.”

“This household could use a few more dollars,” my father says, “if you ever get around to it.”

“He’s doing the best he can,” Glorieta says.

Yolanda skips down the stairs and swings around the corner, her hair still wet from the shower. She’s buttoning the blouse of her uniform and has got on too much lipstick and eyeshadow. “Jesus,” she says, “it’s Jorgé. I didn’t know you occupied the world at this hour.”

“I used to. I’ll make more coffee.”

“I’ll get some at work,” she says. “Anybody want a ride?”

“Jorgé’s going to school,” Glorieta says, “if you can wait two minutes.”

“I’ll walk or hitch,” I say. “No big deal.”

“Nobody’s going to pick you up, hon,” Glorieta says. “People won’t know what to say to you. They don’t know what to say to me.”

“Me, either,” Yolanda says. “It’s like off-limits to say anything. Every once in a while someone asks me if Jorgé is coping or how he is, but that’s it. And at Chipotle I see a lot of people.”

“People are uncomfortable, that’s all,” Glorieta says. “It’s only been two weeks. It takes time.”

“It’s not like I’m to blame,” I say. “I didn’t do anything. Nobody’s more uncomfortable than I am.”

Right after, in the hospital, Leah’s parents came into my room and wouldn’t look at me. They asked how I was, whether I was in pain, can we get you anything, Jorgé? But they didn’t make eye-contact or listen to the answers. “How awful,” Leah’s mother said and turned away and wept.

“Worse than awful,” I said to Mr. Stewart.

“You were brave,” Mr. Stewart said.

“Lucky,” I said.

Janie’s mother came in, too, the next day, wearing a yellow raincoat, though I didn’t know rain was in the forecast. Strands of her hair were sticking out from her scarf, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept. I knew her better than the other parents—she was younger, divorced, joked a lot...