Lila and Hadley

by Kody Keplinger

  “Oh, Lila, don’t snap at bees! You’re gonna get stung in the mouth!”

  I’m glad for Beth’s voice pulling me out of my thoughts, because I was starting to get choked up. And crying in public—or in front of her—is the last thing I want.

  I look down at Lila. I can’t see the bumblebee flying around, but I can hear it and kinda guess where it might be based on the direction her big, square jaws keep snapping in. I reach out my leg and nudge her with my foot. She looks at me.

  “Leave the bee alone.”

  She huffs and puts her head down on her paws.

  “I think Lila is more dramatic than me,” I tell Beth. “She makes that huffing sound an awful lot.”

  “I’d say it’s a toss up.” Beth takes a bite of her sandwich, then says, “She’s doing so much better, though. Before you got here, I never could have imagined being able to take her for an outing like this. Half the time I’d put the leash on her, and she’d just lie down and refuse to get up. She’s come a long way. All thanks to you.”

  “She’s all right. For a dog,” I admit. “I still ain’t a dog person.”

  Beth chuckles. “Sure. Whatever you say, Hadley. Now, if I remember right, you had a stuffed dog as a kid that you dragged around everywhere.”

  “No! Pickles was a fox, not a dog. Big difference.”

  “Right. My mistake.” She shakes her head. “Lord. That thing got so disgusting. Then when Mama tried to wash it, it was ruined. You were so upset. I don’t think I ever saw anyone cry so much.”

  “Is that when you gave me Bunny Bear?”

  “My stuffed pig? Yeah. I felt bad that you’d lost your favorite stuffed animal, so I figured you could have my old one. I was too big for it by then anyway.”

  “Why did you name a stuffed pig Bunny Bear?”

  “Because I was four when Daddy got it for me. And I guess I wasn’t good at knowing what different animals looked like. I don’t know. But it stuck.”

  “I did like Bunny Bear,” I admit. “But I remember staying up all night with my eyes half open trying to watch it because you told me that when I was asleep, it got up and walked around the room and played with my other toys.”

  Beth grins. “Oh, I forgot I did that. Well, I might have been being nice giving it to you, but you were still my little sister. I had to mess with you somehow. Mama was so mad when she found out, though. Every morning for like a week you looked like a tiny zombie because you were so tired. Whatever happened to Bunny Bear anyway?”

  “I … dunno. Don’t remember.”

  That’s a lie. I remember exactly what happened to that stuffed pig. I was so upset after Beth left that, when she hadn’t come home after a week, I tossed Bunny Bear into the trash. Mama tried to talk me out of it, but I didn’t wanna look at it anymore.

  There’s a bit of a pause, then Beth says, “I’ve missed you, you know. I know I didn’t see you after I left home, but that didn’t mean I stopped thinking about you.”

  I look down at Lila again, watch her lick her paw so I ain’t gotta look at my sister.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, voice quiet. “That I wasn’t there. But I’m glad I get to spend time with you now. I know you might not feel the same—and I wish it were under different circumstances—but … but I’m happy to get to be in your life again.”

  I open my mouth to ask the question I’ve been wanting to ask for weeks, but I close it again. Real tight. Because I don’t want her to know it’s the thing I’ve been thinking all this time. After a minute, though, the urge is too strong to avoid, and I blurt out, “Why’d you leave? Why did you leave Mama and me?”

  “I … It’s …” Beth lets out a sigh. “It’s a long story. And old news. No sense digging it back up now.”

  I scoff. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Hadley … I am sorry.”

  But she’s not sorry enough to tell me why she left us, apparently. So I ain’t sure what that’s worth. Or why I bothered bringing it up. All it’s done is remind me how much it hurt all those years ago, when she left. I feel the weight of that settle on me. I wish I was back in my room, under my covers, alone with just Lila.

  I finish off my sandwich and bag of chips in silence. Beth gets done eating right around the same time.

  “If you’re ready, we can head out of here. There’s some other places I wanted to show you around town. There’s this cute bookshop a few blocks from here. I thought maybe we could pick out a book to read together?”

  “Together?”

  “Sure,” she says. “I thought if we found one, I could read it out loud to you? Mama used to read out loud to me all the time as a kid. Even when I was in high school, sometimes after she put you to bed and Daddy was working late, she’d turn off the TV and grab a book and read it to me. I thought maybe you and I could do that?”

  I stare at her for a minute, surprised. I had no idea Mama had done that with Beth, too. Most of my memories of the two of them weren’t too nice. When they’d bicker or yell at each other. I didn’t know they’d ever gotten along well enough to do something like that.

  Beth gathers up the garbage on the picnic table. “I’ll be right back. There’s a trash can right over there. Then we can walk to the bookshop.”

  Once she’s walked off, I stand up and unfold my cane. Then I bend down and untether Lila from the table, looping her leash back around my hand. When I straighten back up, I notice something I hadn’t before.

  There’s a girl at one of the other picnic tables. One of the ones that’s close by. She’s got wavy, dark brown pigtails and looks to be about my age maybe. And she’s staring right back at me. Just staring.

  I look down, wondering if I have jelly on my shirt or something. And then notice the cane in my hand.

  I think that must be what she’s staring at. But I can’t see her expression real well. I can’t tell if she’s looking at me because she thinks I’m weird. Or because she feels sorry for me. But I don’t like it, either way. It makes my skin itch. I feel embarrassed and exposed.

  I’m overcome with the sudden desire to throw my cane at her. Or just to throw it away altogether. I don’t care how helpful it might be. I don’t want people staring at me. And I know this girl can’t be the first. She’s only the first I’ve noticed. I bet people stare at me all the time and I just can’t see them. The thought leaves me feeling sick.

  I glare at her, then turn away real fast, just as Beth walks back to the table. “Okay. Ready to do some more training with Lila on the way to the bookstore?”

  “I’m going home,” I mutter, shoving past Beth and pulling Lila along behind me as I head for the path that led us up this hill.

  It takes Beth a second to start following us—she’s still gotta get her backpack—and by the time she catches up, we’re already halfway down the hill.

  “Hadley?” she asks. “Hadley, slow down, you’re gonna trip.”

  “I’m fine!” I snap. “Just because I’m blind now don’t mean you gotta tell me what to do. Don’t treat me different just because I can’t see!”

  “I wasn’t.” And now Beth sounds irritated, too. “I’d tell you to slow down either way. And what brought this on? I thought we were going to the bookstore? Why are you storming off like this?”

  “I don’t wanna go to your stupid bookstore.”

  “Hadley.” As we hit the sidewalk, our feet back on flat pavement again, Beth manages to swerve in front of Lila and me, blocking our way. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing!”

  Beth throws her hands in the air. “You know what? Fine. I don’t know why I even bothered trying to have a nice day with you.”

  I freeze for a second, startled. It’s the first time since I got here that Beth’s actually raised her voice at me. She’s sounded irritated or annoyed with me, sure, but never angry. She’s angry now, though, and it’s come on so sudden that I can’t help but be shocked.

  “I’ve tried and tried and tried to be patient with you,” my sister say
s. “Because I know what you’re going through ain’t easy. I’ve tried to let it go when you’ve been rude because you’re having a hard time right now. But, dang it, Hadley, I’m getting sick of it!”

  “I didn’t ask you to baby me because you feel sorry for me.”

  “I wasn’t! I was just trying to be a good sister! And today—I wanted one nice day together—I tried to make everything relaxed and fun. But I guess that wasn’t good enough! Because without warning you storm off and snap at me and won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  “And I didn’t ask for a nice day!” I yell back at her. “I didn’t ask you to do any of this! This sucks. All of it. Being blind and Mama being gone and having to live with you! I didn’t want any of it!”

  “Do you think you’re the only one who’s having a hard time with all this? Do you think I planned to be a twenty-four-year-old taking care of my little sister? You’re not the only one put in a situation they didn’t ask for, Hadley!”

  Woof ! Woof ! Woof !

  Beth and I both stop yelling and look down. Lila is standing right between us, her massive, boxy head turning from one side to the other, glaring at each of us in turn as she barks. I think Beth and I are both startled—Lila grumbles and huffs and groans an awful lot, but she don’t bark much at all. Yet, here she is, scolding my sister and me for yelling at each other.

  Even after she stops barking, she keeps glaring at us. Like she’s daring us to do it again. A few people walk by us, and even though I can’t hear what they’re saying, I’m pretty sure they’re talking about Beth and me. We were just yelling at each other in public, after all. But I’m too angry and upset to be embarrassed.

  I look back up at my sister. “So is that how you really feel, then?” I ask. My voice is quiet now. Not quite a whisper, but close. “Were you lying earlier? About being happy to have me back in your life?”

  “No,” Beth says. Her voice is softer now, too, and the way it cracks is painfully familiar. She sounds so much like Mama whenever Mama was on the verge of crying. “I love you, Hadley. What I just said … I’m sorry. I—”

  “It don’t matter,” I say, and I move to walk past her again. “Let’s just go.”

  “Hadley …”

  But I’m already walking down the sidewalk. Lila’s moving along next to me, at a perfect heel, and I can feel the twitch in her leash every time she turns her head to look up at me, like she’s checking that I’m okay. I pretend not to notice. I don’t want anyone, not even Lila, feeling sorry for me.

  A minute later, Beth falls into step beside me. Neither of us say a word to each other the rest of the walk back to her house.

  On top of sending letters every week, Mama keeps calling. Every. Single. Night.

  After she first picked me up six weeks ago, Beth had to call a special number on her cell phone and set it up so Mama could make calls to her from the jail. I told her she was wasting her time. That I wasn’t gonna talk to her. But Beth did it anyway, and now every evening, right at dinnertime, her phone rings.

  “Hi, Mama,” Beth says after waiting through the automated voice at the start of the call. “Yeah, it’s me … I’m doing all right. How are you?”

  It’s weird hearing Beth talk to her, even after all these weeks. At first, it had seemed like she didn’t know what to say and was just filling the silence until she could get off the phone. Now, though, Beth seems more comfortable. She always spends the first few minutes of every call telling Mama about her job or Vanessa or plans she’s made with her friends. I don’t know if that means they get along now or what. And I don’t know how I feel about it, either.

  I don’t gotta think about it for long, though, because after a few minutes, Beth pauses and says the same thing she does every single night:

  “Yep. Hadley’s right here. Let me ask her.”

  Then she turns to me. The first few times, she asked if I wanted to talk to Mama. But after I said no enough times, loud enough I knew Mama could hear it on the other end, she stopped asking. At least with words. Now she just looks at me and waits.

  Tonight, though, when Beth turns to look at me, I’m already leaving the room. As soon as the phone started ringing, I went to rinse off my plate in the sink. Beth usually makes me do the dishes on nights when she cooks, but I can do them later. For now, I’m going to my room, and Lila is following close behind.

  I hear Beth sigh as she says, “Um, she’s busy right now, Mama. She’s … she’s doing some training with Lila … Yeah, that’s going pretty well. She’s real good with the dog, already made some good progress with her … Uh-huh, she’s still doing that mobility training. She’s getting lots of practice with her new cane.”

  I grit my teeth and shut the bedroom door behind Lila and me so I ain’t gotta hear Beth talk about me anymore.

  I guess there’s a limit on how long they let you talk on the phone when you’re in jail, because Mama’s calls only last about fifteen minutes. But tonight, when Beth gets off the phone, she comes to my bedroom door. And for once, she knocks and waits to come in.

  “Hadley,” she says from the hallway. “Can I come in a minute?”

  “I guess.”

  I’m sitting on my bed, holding one end of a short rope toy as Lila, standing in front of me, tugs on the other. Lila hadn’t really shown any interest in toys until Beth brought this one home a few days ago. The minute Lila saw the rope, she got more excited than I’d ever seen her. And now, pretty much any time I sit down, she grabs it and runs over, hoping to coax me into a game. She braces her front legs and clenches her jaw as she pulls, sometimes even letting out a little play growl. Lila’s pretty strong, so when she inevitably manages to pull the rope out of my hand, she always freezes, waiting for me to take it again so we can pick up right where we left off.

  The door opens, and Beth watches us play for a minute. I think I even hear her chuckle a little before she moves into the room, sitting down in the desk chair across from my bed.

  “Can I talk to you?” she asks.

  “Ain’t that what you’re doing right now?” I ask, still watching Lila as we continue our game.

  Beth and I ain’t talked much since our argument by the park a couple days ago. I didn’t think either of us had anything left to say, but apparently she does now.

  “Hadley …”

  I sigh and let go of the rope. Lila tries to offer it to me again, but I shake my head. “Go on,” I tell the dog. “We’ll play later.”

  Dramatic as always, Lila huffs, then just lets the rope drop from her mouth and onto the floor. Clearly disappointed in me.

  “Blame Beth,” I say. “She’s the one who wants to talk.”

  Lila looks over at my sister before hopping up onto the bed beside me, head turned to glare at Beth. Like she’s also waiting to hear what’s so important as to stop her playtime.

  “So …” Beth says, “I was just talking to Mama …”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “She misses you, Hadley. A lot.”

  I shrug.

  “You know … she can have visitors. They have visitation days. She’d really love to see you.”

  I don’t say nothing.

  “I know it’s a long drive back down to Tennessee,” Beth continues, “but I’d be happy to do it. It’d be good for all of us. We could even make a day of it. Like a little road trip. We could stop by one of those big shopping malls along the way. Or maybe meet up with some of your friends in Tennessee and get dinner after? You can tell Mama all about your training with Cilia and what you’ve been up to with Lila and—”

  “No.”

  “But, Hadley—”

  “No!” I say, louder this time. Loud enough it makes Lila jump. “I don’t want to see her. Ever again.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” I demand. “Mama taught me never to steal or lie. She taught me that those were bad things. And then she did both. Why should I want anything to do with her?”

  “Because she st
ill loves you,” Beth says. “She made a mistake. A real bad one. But she did it because she wanted to take care of you. I’m not saying that’s an excuse or that it was right. But it doesn’t change how much she cares about you, Hadley.”

  “I don’t care.” I fold my arms over my chest. “I don’t want nothing to do with her. Besides, I thought you were about done trying to have nice days with me after what happened on Saturday.”

  Beth looks down at her feet. “I shouldn’t have said the things I did that day. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I say. “You weren’t wrong. Neither of us asked for any of this. No sense lying about that and pretending we’re happy.”

  “But we can make the best of it,” she offers. “Hadley, I did mean what I said that morning—I’m happy to have you back in my life, even if I didn’t … didn’t plan for it to be this way. I want to do nice things for you and spend time with you. It’s just … it’s hard when it feels like I can’t do anything without getting you mad at me.”

  I shrug. I don’t know how to tell her that it ain’t her fault I got upset on Saturday—that it was really because I saw that girl staring at me. And I don’t know that I wanna tell her that, either. Because I know she don’t always deserve the way I treat her, and sometimes, I do feel bad about it. But I don’t know how to stop it. I got no clue how to stop being angry or how to not take it out on her. So maybe if she just accepts it now—that it ain’t gonna change—then she’ll stop trying so hard.

  “Anyway … I don’t see why you’re the one telling me I should, considering you don’t even like Mama.”

  “That’s not true,” Beth says.

  “Ain’t it, though?” I ask. “You took off and then never called or wrote or nothing. Not to me or her. If you can go off and decide never to see her again, why can’t I?”