Swansong Read Online Free PDF Page A

knows—maybe your hands will stop.”
    “I hope so…”
    “Wendy.”
    “What?”
    “Go get your paints.”  Judas stands.  “I’ll help.”
    We head into my room and pick up the paint cans.  I’ve got tubes full of oil paint, but for acrylics, I always use house paint.  It’s cheaper, for one.  They tell you not to use house paint on canvas, but if you mix it with coffee or jelly, it glides just fine.  Pails hanging from my arms, I follow Judas back into the sitting room.  He sits on the floor and twists the lids off of the cans.  They’re already mixed.
    “Go ahead,” Judas says, and nods at the very bare wall.
    It’s not like me.  I always follow the rules.  I never make a burden of myself.  I never make a mess.
    I dip my hand into one of the paint cans.  It comes back swimming in blue.  I swing my arm back, as hard as I can—and let go.  A glob of blue flies at the white wall.  It splatters and streaks, loud in its vibrance, offensive in its saturation.
    Handful after handful, I fling paint at the wall.  Blue and red and yellow.  Purple and orange and green.  My hands are cold and wet.  Rivulets stain my clothes, my face.  Harder and harder I throw the paint until I’m breathless, until I want to scream, but can’t.  The paint screams for me.  It screams This isn’t fair and I should have died and Mom, Dad, where are you?  How could you leave me?
    The wall looks like a rainbow threw up all over it.  I stop slinging paint and collect my breath.  My anger ebbs away, catharsis flooding through me.  All my anger is painted on the wall.  All that’s left in me is realization.  Aftermath and realization.
    They’re gone.  The people I love are gone.
    “This world is insane, Judas.”  The words slip past my lips, muffled, accidental.   I’m crying.  It’s soundless.
    “So make another one,” Judas suggests.
    I laugh.  I have to laugh.  God abandoned us on my birthday.  I know he’s not coming back.
    But the person who lets me throw paint at his walls—the brother I never really knew—he’s right here.  He has nobody.  I have nobody.  We have each other.
    “We match, you know,” I tell Judas.
    He looks at the paint on my hands; then at my face.
    I smile.  I try to.  “The scars on our faces.  Everybody will know we’re family.”
    We’re family.
    Judas smiles reluctantly, a sad smile, a crumpling smile.  Half of his face doesn’t move.
    Please, God.  You took my family away from me.  Please don’t take my new family, too.
     
    * * * * *
     
    The social worker arrives the very next morning.  He’s a weedy, flustery man who keeps touching his glasses, like he’s afraid they’ll fall off.
    “I’m so, so sorry for your loss,” he tells me.
    We’re alone in the kitchen.  Apparently Jude’s not allowed in the room when Mr. Tenner—the social worker, I mean—questions me.
    I smile briefly.  “Me, too.”
    Mr. Tenner asks me a whole lot of questions that don’t have straightforward answers.  What are my first impressions of my brother?  Do I feel safe here?  Do I feel suicidal?  I hedge my responses.  Judas is great, not at all scary, and this apartment is very nice, the neighbors are friendly (I haven’t met them), and no, I’m not suicidal, I’m just lucky to be alive.  I don’t know whether Mr. Tenner believes me or not; he touches his glasses so frequently, I can’t see his expression behind his hands.  He takes so many notes, he makes me feel like a walnut, cracked open down the middle and—well—edible, I think.  The coffeemaker finishes brewing and I pour Mr. Tenner a cup.  I don’t drink coffee; I just use it for my paint.  Judas doesn’t care much for it, either.
    “That’s a lovely bracelet,” Mr. Tenner says, blowing the steam from his mug.
    The little gilded swan jingles around my burned wrist.  I touch her outspread wings with my index finger.  “Zeus seduced Leda when he was a swan.”
    “Oh?”
    “Their