Bus

Nobody in the Tater family really stood out financially when they were alive. Nobody had a great job that brought them fame, nobody was a millionaire. Money was just kind of…there. We didn’t squander it but we didn’t make a surplus.

When somebody died, which was common since we dropped like flies for some terribly unlucky reasons, their savings got passed down to their immediate successor, unless that person was underage. As of 2001, the only two people who held all of the Tater family’s money was my aunt Sandy and my uncle Paul – and thanks to insurance and the fact that everyone who was six feet under lived awfully boring lives with no extravagance, they held a pretty penny. Now, it would’ve come in handy if it was the case when I was eighteen and wanted to go to Minnesota State University, but by the time all the legal issues sorted out and the cops had just decided to accept the fact that we were just riddled with bad fortune, I was already out in Arizona, living in my dead cousin Sal’s apartment.

It was no surprise that Aunt Sandy threw some money Carrie’s way, considering the fact that she had a bright future ahead of her at North Carolina Central University studying biology, her being the most ambitious out of all of us at the moment. I didn’t mind it at all. In fact, I was glad for Carrie – at least she’d end up doing something with her life, unlike me. The last thing I’d want for anybody I love is for them to end up like me.

She worked at a library throughout high school, so Aunt Sandy wasn’t just paying her way completely, but the extra padding that sprouted from our dead relatives and their dead lovers and kids definitely helped. And when Aunt Sandy finally kicked the bucket years afterwards from falling into a river, the rest of it was split up between Carrie and I, since our weird uncle Paul had taken half of the initial split between him and Sandy.

When I flew out to Yuma way back when for the first time, I made a promise to myself and to Carrie that I would be there for her graduation, no matter how much money I’d have to save. That’s where working at Mal-Wart came in, taking extra shifts near the end of her senior year to scrape up as much dough as possible so I could get a plane ticket.

It meant hailing a taxi to get to my old house I’d lived in just four years before, yet somehow I didn’t mind it. It was probably the excitement that built up in me all on the way there, eager to see Carrie and make sure that her hopes hadn’t been crushed. I hadn’t told her in advance that I was coming back to Minnesota for her high school graduation, nor had I told Aunt Sandy.

I think that’s why it meant so much more to walk up the familiar driveway and ring the doorbell with my duffel bag in hand, to see Carrie open the door and immediately scream and throw her arms around my neck, to feel carefree for the first and last time in a long time – to feel like my actions actually meant something.

I don’t think I have to tell you how excited Carrie was that I had flown over to see her walk across the stage and get her diploma. There was something that was just assumed in a family this small – if you grew up together, you stuck together. Kind of ironic how we’ve drifted over the years, but that’s beside the point. The matter at hand is that if I hadn’t been there, the only person in the crowd cheering for Carrie would’ve been Aunt Sandy, because God knows weird Uncle Paul wouldn’t have left his loft to see a distant relative.

It was beautiful, that week back in Duluth. I got to ride past city streets and neighborhoods I hadn’t seen since I was eighteen, and being twenty-two let me realize just how weird it was to be so used to dry heat and desert, when I had come from a place that was practically Canada. I don’t know exactly why, but I felt more at peace. Maybe it was the nostalgia goggles I was wearing. Or maybe it was the fact that I was so damn proud of Carrie for taking life by the reins and controlling her own destiny rather than wallowing around in death like the rest of us were doing.

She had a shit ton of stoles wrapped around her neck when she walked up and proudly accepted her diploma with a huge smile plastered to her face. National Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, Academic Team, Magna Cum Laude, Jazz Band…I lost track of all the stoles she shoved in my face the day of graduation as she put them on, layering them in complex patterns. She was destined for such bright things and she was the first person in our family to actually achieve them. It was sad, really.

The next day she invited friends over and they had a little graduation party, and when she talked to them, it was bittersweet seeing her find it so easy. A part of me wanted to coddle her and keep her as my baby sister forever, take her with me back to Yuma, but I knew there was no way that would be fair. It seemed like both of us wanted desperately to get out of Duluth, and I couldn’t blame her for that.

She cried when she drove me back to the airport the day after her party, and she held me tight at the terminal when my plane was boarding. She even said she loved me, and I said it back to her, because that’s what siblings do. She’s the only person I’ve ever said it to, and it’s because, well, it’s true. I tried to smile when I waved back at her when I boarded the plane; I know I looked like I was trying too hard.

It was a brief retreat, but it meant a lot, going back to a place that was nothing more than a hometown to me. My memory was refreshed of all of the places that used to be so commonplace. I got to see my only sister again, the only person in this family who has found a way to actually live and not survive. It’s strange – of all of the dead people in our clan, you’d think I’d be one of them.

Sometimes I don’t know if I’m glad I’m one of the survivors. All I know is that I’m happy Carrie is one of them and that she’s been able to pull herself out of our unlucky, gory, tragic, French-Canadian rut known as the Tater family.