Vacation Read Online Free PDF Page A

nod.
    So.
    One after another, she positions the tiny vials a range of distances below my nostrils.
    Peppermint, eucalyptus, lemon, rosemary, frankincense, chamomile, jasmine…
    One after another, nothing happens.
    Until something does. Maybe because of the smell. Maybe because I’ve given myself permission to search my memories.
    The bear with pink fur and blue marble eyes, she’s on her knees on the carpet crying tears of honey that she licks the instant they touch her mouth. Mom, you’re there, and you, dad. You’re both standing at my bedside with your arms crossed, and you’re not crying.
    Every night me and Bear talk and fall asleep, side by furry side. Tonight though, mom, you say, “It’s time to say goodbye, Berny.”
    Dad, you say nothing.
    “No!” I scream. I’m angry. I’m desperate.
    “You’re too old for this, Berny,” you say, mom. “Say goodbye.”
    Dad, you say, “She’s not real.”
    Yeah, that may be true, but Bear doesn’t know that.
    But my parents are my parents, and when they’re standing there, arms like x’s, looking at me like I’m a bad channel on TV that you flip away from the moment I enter the room, well, then, there’s really nothing else I can do except say, “Goodbye.”
    “Goodbye who?” you say, mom.
    “Goodbye, Bear.”
    “Good.”
    You leave the room, mom and dad.
    Bear’s gone.
    I’m alone.
    Mom, I know. I know you were doing it for my-own-good. I know I’m picking out a moment of cruelty from a lifetime of affectionate and loving parenthood.
    But.
    I’m making a point.
    I’m trying.
    You think, because Aubrey died before I was born, I had it easy.
    You think, I didn’t have to grieve, so it didn’t affect me.
    Grieving is a terrible feeling, but at least it makes sense. Someone you love dies so your heart shatters.
    But what I feel, it doesn’t make sense.
    Here’s a trauma I own, but don’t know how to feel.
    Years later your little boy is in a big body and he’s passed out blotto in his bathtub, and his sister says, “So those statue things, the maoi, they were, like, magic to the people who built them.” She smells like manure, and she flosses her teeth as she speaks. The yellow stones point out of her gums in all directions, compacted, so the floss snaps at her each time, and she flinches with every hit. “Eventually, these same people started breaking the statues. Now some people think they did this ‘cause of tribal competition. Whoever has the most magic wins, right?” The floss smacks her gums especially hard and she yelps. “But there’s another theory that the tribes broke their own statues. The people were tired of their religious leaders like obsessing over who had more magic. They got sick of focusing their whole lives on building the stupid heads. So one day they said, ‘Forget this crap,’ and busted all the magic right out of their lives.” She twirls the globby red string around her finger. “Personally, I like this theory best. Because, sometimes, what you think is magic in your life is actually poison. And other times, what people say is a poison, is actually magic.”
    And, what you don’t know, what I never told you, is an imaginary bear isn’t always an imaginary bear.
    Sometimes she’s an imaginary sister.
    “Remember anything?” Krow says.
    I think about how much she’s shared with me, and how much I want to share with her, but still I say, “No.”

Part 5
    The only asymmetrical part of the Taj Mahal, Jack tells us, is the casket of Shah Jahan, who built the mausoleum for his second wife Mumtaz Mahal. Jack says that Jahan wanted to construct a replica of the Taj out of black marble, where he could be buried, and the two buildings would be linked by a bridge across the Jumna River. But, Jack says, Jahan battled with his son Aurungzeb for the throne, and lost, and so the replica was never made.
    However, the night before, before we even visit the Taj, Aubrey says, “Anyone that knows anything about Islamic