The Brilliance of Fireflies Read online

  Aunt Jules finally speaks. “Jim, I have to get back to Paris. I have a job and a life, and it’s not set up to handle a teenager. Especially a sweet girl who deserves so much more.”

  “I understand.” Uncle Jim sighs again. “We just have our hands full, and like you say, she deserves so much more. I wish...” He doesn’t finish the thought.

  “I know. Me too.”

  I don’t stay to hear any more. I know how they want to finish that thought. It’s how we all want to finish it.

  I leave my plate on the bottom stair and slip out the front door. I sit on the front porch and take my phone out of my back pocket to text Callie. I have three messages. One is from Callie that reads Didn’t hear back from u. Hope everythings ok .

  I put the phone down and stare out into the night. The fireflies are out tonight. One zips in front of me and lights up. I blink once and its brightness vanishes. I try to see it, to follow it in the darkness, but it’s disappeared.

  Ever since I was little, I’ve always loved that fireflies make their own light. One of the several years I was a firefly for Halloween, my dad rigged me up with all sorts of light bulbs so I could illuminate myself. When I did, all the kids and adults stared wide-eyed. They were in awe of me.

  I long for that feeling now. All these people—my family, my friends—they love me, but I can’t do this, be their lost puppy charity case. I don’t want to be someone’s burden or some fragile bird with broken wings. I can’t be; I made a promise to my mom.

  I think of the back-up plan I’ve been working through. I don’t know yet if it’s possible or even if it would be a good idea. Or maybe I should just go to Michigan. I don’t know what to do. My mom always helped me with important decisions.

  I close my eyes and decide that if there’s a firefly right in front of me when I open my eyes, I’ll go with my idea. If there’s no light, I’ll head to Michigan. I’ll let the magic of the fireflies choose for me.

  I count to three, and when I open my eyes, there are almost half a dozen fireflies glowing in front of me.

  Chapter 2

  Two giant maroon suitcases take over the center of my bedroom. They are open and ready to be fed all my Ohio belongings before spitting them out in sunny California. That’s where I’m headed to live with my Grandma Connie. These twin maroon mouths have been waiting for twenty-four hours. Clothes piles surround them like a prairie dog habitat. I’ve packed and unpacked nearly half of my clothes. What do people wear in California? Do I need any sweaters at all? Or do people just wear shorts and flip-flops every day, even in the winter? Compounding the problem is that I have very few summer clothes because Mom and I were supposed to go shopping right after school ended.

  Instead of choosing which shirts to take, I wish I could dismantle this house and pack its pieces to recreate like a dollhouse in California. There are so many memories I don’t want to lose. I had my first pet here, a bird named Tweety. Tweety escaped from his cage once and flew around the house. We couldn’t catch him, and eventually he flew smack into the kitchen slider. He never really recovered.

  And our backyard hosted all of Connor’s soccer team parties. I hated being forced to stay home for those, but my mom and dad made them such fun that before I knew what was happening, I was running around with all the boys in the middle of a soccer game.

  And I’ll miss the creak in the fourth stair on our staircase that always called me out when I tried to escape emptying the dishwasher.

  I open the closet door to take out another batch of clothes and gaze at the marks on the wall. These aren’t the marks of my height; these are tallies my mom made of all the books I read when I was eleven. I stacked them one on top of the other, and she marked the height by month. I wanted to see if I could read my height in one year. I did it, and her eyes danced the day I put that final Harry Potter one on the stack, nearly toppling my giant leaning tower of books. She said she’d take me anywhere, but all I wanted was an ice cream cone from the neighborhood ice cream parlor. That scoop of white mint chip plopped on top of a delicious sugar cone was pure happiness.

  The image of my mom sitting next to me at the ice cream parlor that day shifts to the last day I saw her. She waltzed into the kitchen in that ridiculous Toledo Mud Hens T-shirt. She was a sucker for souvenirs and befuddled by sports. She always wore the wrong sports shirts to every game, but she didn’t care. It drove Connor crazy, though. At least this last time, she’d matched the right sports—minor league baseball.

  She glanced back at me before the garage door shut and said, “Last chance, Emma. You’re sure you don’t want to go and get something silly?” She pointed a newly manicured pink nail right at the angry Mud Hen swinging a bat in the middle of her chest.

  “No, I’m good,” I said. Those were the last words I said to her. No, I’m good. A lump forms in my throat, and it’s difficult to swallow. The flood rises again, up through my chest and into my eyes. I shut them and cast off the thoughts. I promised her.

  “Emma?” A knock follows the voice at the bedroom door.

  “Yeah, come in.” I step away from the closet, and the movement helps me refocus.

  Aunt Kellie opens the door and enters. “How are you doing up here?” Her eyes scan the piles scattered throughout the room and settle on the empty suitcases.

  “Okay. It’s just hard to know what to bring.”

  “Well, you know we’ll ship anything you want. So don’t worry about that.”

  “Thanks,” I say although that still doesn’t make it any easier.

  Silence follows, and Aunt Kellie studies the posters on the walls as if she’s never been in this room before. I stare down at the carpet, focusing on the tiny daisy on my big toe—goodbye pedicure courtesy of Aunt Jules.

  Eventually Aunt Kellie breaks the silence. “Emma, are you sure you want to do this? Your grandmother isn’t in the best shape. I don’t know that it’s the best place for a seventeen-year-old.”

  I look up. “But she said she has a nurse there all the time. So if anything happens, I won’t be alone.”

  “The nurse doesn’t spend the night. And dementia is serious, sweetheart. It’s not something a teenager should be handling.” Her eyes implore me to reconsider.

  “It’ll be fine,” I reassure her. “Grandma has sounded good on the phone, and she was fine when she was out here for the funeral. Besides, if she thought it wouldn’t be okay for me, she would have said so.”

  Aunt Kellie scratches at her head the way she does when Chelsea won’t pick up her toys or when Joey won’t stop his video games. “You’ve gone through so much, Emma. We just want you to be taken care of. Your uncle and I think it would be better for you to come to Michigan with us. We’d love to have you.”

  I don’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her I don’t want to go to Michigan and get lost in the swirl of their family chaos or that I don’t want to be the wayward niece they have to explain to all their friends. Instead I say, “I need a change. A real change. I think going to California will be good for me.” I make it about me.

  She steps forward, taking my hands in hers. “I get it. And you know we’re just a phone call away, right?”

  I nod and tears swell in her eyes.

  “You call us anytime, and we’ll get you on the next plane to Michigan.” She lets go and dabs at the mascara smudges a few leaked tears have left behind. “And Aunt Jules has already contacted your new high school, and she emailed back all the signed paperwork. So you’ll have no trouble registering. Uncle Jim set you up with insurance on your grandmother’s car. So you’re all set there, too.”

  Twin waterfalls stream down her cheeks as she talks. I reach out and hug her.

  “Oh, sweetie, we all miss your mom and dad and Connor so much.” She sniffles, and I give her a squeeze, focusing on consoling her and not the emotions swelling within me.

  Joey’s voice travels upstairs and interrupts my aunt’s sniffles. “Hey Emma, your friends are here.”

  My aunt
steps back and wipes at her face. “Are you sure you don’t want them to stay for dinner? I can order some pizzas for you.”

  Even though I just want to say a quick goodbye, this will make her feel better. “Okay. Sure. That would be fun.”

  She blinks away a few leftover tears. “Good.”

  My friends’ voices grow louder then they barge into my bedroom—Callie, another friend Hannah, and Derek, my sort-of-but-not-really boyfriend.

  “What’s up, Em!” Callie calls out, and her bright green eyes grow wide when she sees I’m not alone. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Noland,” she says, wincing and rubbing the back of her neck.

  “Hi guys,” my aunt chirps, all of her tears bottled and put away. “I’m ordering pizzas. We’d love to have you stay for dinner.”

  I raise my eyebrows and glance at them.

  “Sure,” they respond simultaneously.

  “I just have to text my mom,” Hannah says.

  “Me too,” adds Callie.

  Derek adds awkwardly, “Yeah, same.”

  Moments later, their fingers move in unison like a choreographed dance, tapping away at their phones.

  “Great.” Aunt Kellie claps her hands and winks at me. “I’ll order in a little bit.” She disappears out the door, and I hear her stern voice shout at Chelsea as she heads downstairs.

  “Uh Em,” Hannah says, her phone back in her white jeans shorts pocket, “are you aware you’re leaving tomorrow?” Her eyes stare at the two empty suitcases as she twirls a strand of hair around her finger.

  “Yeah. I just don’t know what to pack. I mean, what do they wear in California?”

  “I think they wear shorts and bathing suits all the time.” Hannah giggles.

  “You for sure won’t need this.” Callie holds up my favorite steel gray North Face down jacket. She tosses it aside and continues sifting through my piles. “Oh my God, you have to bring this.” She holds up my “Don’t Pinch Me, I’m a Greek!” navy blue shirt. “We spent hours online searching for this for International Day last year.”

  I laugh, especially when I notice the tag still on it. “And then I didn’t even wear it because the Italy shirts we found for you at the mall were so much cuter.”

  I don’t know why but everything of Callie’s has always seemed so much better. Even her curly hair is better than mine. Her dark curls fall gracefully at her shoulders, and she can even straighten it like she has today. My hair is an out-of-control, angry frizzy beast. It is humanly impossible to straighten my curls or go a day without some sort of headband or clip to tame them. Callie was also never subjected to the humiliating poodle taunts. That’s probably where my envy of her life started.

  “Hey.” Derek’s soft voice interrupts my thoughts. The girls continue to sort through my clothes, making yes and no piles.

  “Hey,” I say, tilting my head upward. At six feet tall, he’s nearly a half foot taller than I am.

  “So, uh, how are you?” His eyes blink a mile a minute.

  “I’m good.” I feel pretty bad for Derek. We had just started hanging out when this all happened. He didn’t know what to do. We weren’t close enough for him to be part of all the family stuff, but we were close enough that he’d be a jerk if he weren’t around. So mostly he’s been here—like he is now—awkwardly standing in the background. I’ve tried to tell him that it’s okay for him not to come around, but he’s too nice for that.

  Hannah holds up my NYU sweatshirt and demands our attention. “Hey Em, I can’t wait for you to get into NYU. We’ll practically be neighbors if I get into the design institute.” She shakes her head at Derek. “Sorry Derek, I’m stealing her. You’ll have to pine for her all the way from North Carolina.” Derek wants to study business at Duke and is hoping for a football scholarship. That’s how I first got to know Derek last year. I was interested in Duke, too.

  “Are you still going to apply to NYU?” Derek asks.

  In a flash, the room is quiet and all movement ceases. It takes a moment, but Derek’s eyes finally show he understands the silence the way the rest of us do. His chin dips, and he picks at the drawstring of his sweats.

  A clap of thunder breaks the silence and sets the rest of us in motion. “Where is your bathing suit, Em?” Hannah says, moving us to a new topic. “Didn’t you say your grandma’s house was a few blocks from the beach? You can go like every day!”

  “Yeah, and no more snow,” Callie adds. “You’re so lucky.”

  The room freezes once more. Every thought and every word these days sounds a discordant death knell, silencing any conversation or fun we try to have.

  “Hey, you guys want to go downstairs and get something to drink?” I propose, desperate to extract all of us from this discomfort.

  A collective “yes” is exhaled, and we head downstairs into the safety of the family chaos.

  After a couple hours, some pizza, and a few more uncomfortable moments, my friends leave. The girls take me into a group hug and tell me to be strong and that they’ll text me all the time. Derek and I exchange an awkward hug and kiss before I set him free. We will never talk to each other again, and I’m relieved for him.

  I head back upstairs and spend another couple of hours sorting through the yes pile and filling my suitcases. I take a break and check my phone like I always do—a million times an hour, according to my uncle. There had been a couple of dings while my friends were here.

  My phone screen lights up with a news alert. A bombing. Ever since that day, I’ve wanted—no, needed—to know who else is out there like me. My body freezes, but my eyes move through the headline—in Rome at a rock concert. I stare at the words for a few moments then my feet lead me downstairs. It’s completely dark except for the kitchen clock that shines 11:12.

  I turn on the TV in the living room and lower the volume. I scroll to the news channel. The banner across the screen reads “Breaking News: 32 killed and hundreds injured at concert arena in Rome.” I move the ottoman closer to the TV and sit. I study the picture grid on the screen. Inside the arena, people of all ages are running, scattering like a pile of leaves in a sharp autumn breeze. In another shot, police cars race down darkened streets to the arena, blaring those odd European nasally sirens. The pictures change. In this next one, there are white body bags strewn haphazardly across the sidewalk outside the arena.

  I listen as the dark-haired male news anchor recounts the facts he knows so far. It’s a medium-sized venue, and an American band called Black Dawn—I’ve never heard of them—was playing the second of two nights. As the concert was coming to a close, there was a minor explosion near the stage almost sounding like a blown electrical fuse. People inside panicked and fled to the exits. At that point, some sort of explosive seems to have been detonated, killing and injuring many in the stream of people pouring out of the arena. They have not confirmed that it’s a terror attack, but the anchor, the guest analyst, me—we all know it is.

  For the next thirty minutes or so, I continue watching. They’ve begun to interview eyewitnesses. These adults and college-aged kids describe a spine-chilling fear as they ran in any direction, desperate to escape. One girl recounts seeing people trampled by the crowd screaming about a terror attack. The news anchor shares a sad social media post that pleads for information about a woman’s missing daughter. She was waiting to pick up her daughter from the concert, but she never came out.

  After a while, there are no new developments. The same pictures flash onscreen, but I can’t tear myself away. I move closer to the TV. I want to know every detail. I want to see—to know—the victims, who they were and who their loved ones are. I need to know this event like I was there. I need to live it and feel it coursing through my veins.

  My eyes glaze over as I continue to stare at the screen, and soon my own news report takes over.

  I was right here in this living room on that day I refused to go to the minor league baseball game in Louisville with my family. Connor wanted to go see the Reds Triple-A team play, but I threw a fit
and claimed I couldn’t miss cheer practice. We had one final performance at the end-of-year assembly. More than practice, I just didn’t want to miss any fun with my friends.

  I went to practice that day while my mom and dad took Connor to see the baseball game. I was watching one of those home remodeling shows my mom loved and had only been home from practice for a little while when the doorbell rang. I heard Callie’s voice call out, so I got up to answer, wondering what she could want since I just saw her.

  In an instant, I knew something was wrong. Both Callie and her mom had red eyes, and Mrs. Maguire had her arm around Callie. Both of their heads tilted in that sad way that people do when there’s bad news.

  “Emma.” Mrs. Maguire’s voice was slow and gentle.

  “What? What’s wrong?” My eyes opened wide.

  “There’s been... there’s been an... an accident,” Callie’s mom stuttered, and her hand gave Callie’s shoulder a squeeze.

  My first thought was that Callie’s dad was hurt. Even then, it didn’t dawn on me that it could be my own sad news.

  “Emma... your family... there’s been, they were in... there’s been a bombing at the stadium,” Mrs. Maguire finally spit out as tears tumbled out of her eyes like giant raindrops and splattered on her bright blue shirt.

  “What?” I heard her words, but I didn’t understand what they meant.

  “Emma, sweetie, we need to take you to the hospital. Your mom is there.”

  “What?” I repeated. It was as if all her words were puzzle pieces I was trying to fit together. “What about my dad and Connor? Where are they?” I suddenly noticed Callie’s tearstained face and red eyes staring blankly at me.

  My question unleashed a gush of tears from Mrs. Maguire.

  Somehow I found a set of keys, and they rushed me to the hospital. At some point, I fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. Connor and my dad were killed instantly by shrapnel from the bomb. The lone wolf attacker had tried unsuccessfully to get into the stadium, so he’d detonated his vest outside as people were entering, just as my family had arrived. Somehow my mom had merely suffered life-threatening injuries. And I might not even have known any of this for a while if the first responders hadn’t found Connor’s wallet—still in his jeans pocket—with the emergency contact information Dad forced us both to carry.