Skeletons Out of the Closet

by M. Katherton

  As I settled into bed, plugging my phone into the charger to scroll mindlessly through social media for a while, I got an incoming call from Ross. I feared the worst: Mom had freaked out and he wanted me to come back and face the wrath myself. However, when I picked up, the voice on the other end was Macy’s.

  “Are you coming back?” She blubbered, once again hysterical. I felt bad leaving while she was at dance but it was the only way to go without Mom making a scene.

  “Yes, of course. Just going to stay with Aunt Kathleen for a little while.” I assured, a little caught off guard by how affected my little sister seemed to be by my absence.

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  She didn’t speak on the other line, just sniffled like she had been told I was never returning. Maybe Mom jumped to that conclusion when Ross told her I had left and said something to lead Macy to believe the same. I wished I could teleport through the phone to hug her but the best I could do right now was reassure her I would be back.

  “Mommy’s still pretty mad at me and I just want to give her some space. I promise I’ll come back soon, okay? You can call me whenever you want to. Just ask Daddy.”

  “Okay.” She whimpered.

  “It’s almost your bedtime. Get some rest, okay? We’ll talk soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you, May.”

  “I love you too.”

  I wished Mom and Ross could work things out between them for my siblings' sake, even if that meant Mom never speaking to me again. Macy would probably have trust issues for awhile after Mom had left Friday and I left today. Spencer was still young enough to be optimistic and believe everything would magically turn out okay but Macy was old enough to know better.

  Thursday, March 28th, 2019

  Ryan went to math tutoring during lunch so I was left to fend for myself. I considered going to the library to waste time on the computers for forty minutes but instead decided to pull an Emelia and leave campus. Mom was already mad at me so I didn’t have much to lose if I got busted and got two days of on-campus suspension, the typical punishment for getting caught.

  I drove three minutes to Tucker Elementary School, the building where I spent kindergarten through sixth grade. I had already missed Spencer’s lunch period according to the school website but Macy’s lunch started in five minutes. I signed in at the office, thankfully wasn’t questioned by the secretary why I wasn’t in school, then waited in the cafeteria hallway for my sister. Every year, the sixth grade teachers took a class photo on the last day of school to hang outside the cafeteria. The fourth from the right was the class of 2014, crowded on the playscape, posing like we thought we were the coolest sixth grade class ever. I was in the bottom left corner beside the faded red slide, arm wrapped around Emelia, smiling like I was on top of the world.

  “Jessica?!” Macy’s exclamation interrupted my reminiscing. She ran out of line in the quiet hallway to bear hug me, getting an evil eye from her teacher Mrs. Grayson. “What are you doing here?!”

  “I came to eat lunch with you!”

  She hugged me again as though I’d told her we were going on a vacation then grabbed my hand and dragged me into the cafeteria, still filled with hideous faded red and off-white tile from when the school was built in the mid-90s. They had circular tables aside from the regular lunch tables where parents could sit with their kids when they visited for lunch. I only remembered a couple of times that Mom visited but I frequented the circle tables quite a bit when Barbara Christiansen came to eat with Emelia and they invited me to join them. I thought Macy might invite a friend to eat with us, but she didn't. We hardly sat down before she launched into a story about how Lincoln Perry, the fourth grade crybaby, had fallen in the mud at recess and predictably cried. She then told me all about how Mrs. Grayson made the class do silent reading for an hour because she ‘had a migraine’, something Macy claimed happened frequently. It was the chattiest I had seen my sister in weeks. With all the drama going on at home, she enjoyed having a chance to talk.

  When her lunch period ended and it was time for me to head back to school, I gave her a giant hug and made her promise not to tell Spencer, Mom, or Ross that I had come to have lunch with her. She said she wouldn’t tell and asked if I would come again sometime. I told her I would try my best though I knew I couldn’t make a habit of sneaking off campus for lunch.

  When I got back to school, I noticed Hannah’s green jeep pull into the parking lot. Emelia and the rest of her crew climbed out a minute later, all giggling about something. I thought back to the picture in the hallway at Tucker where we had huddled side by side, back before she knew any of those girls, back when she liked soccer and science instead of cheerleading, back when we thought we would be best friends for the rest of our lives. I wondered if Hannah, Karli, and Grace were everything she hoped they would be when she ditched me for them. I wondered how many secrets they had shared and inside jokes they had between them. I wondered if she ever talked to them about me and the childhood we shared. I wondered if she acted like I never even existed.

  I went back to Kathleen’s house after school. Tonight she cooked up spaghetti and garlic toast and we ate on TV trays once again since her dining room table was covered in mail, magazines, and other junk. Being single with no children, Kathleen lived by her own rules, which often meant neglecting to tidy up. I tried not to let it bother me.

  “So tell me, Peanut.” She started as we watched TV after dinner. “What’s the deal with you and your mom?”

  “She’s mad because I’ve been talking to my dad.” I answered evasively though I knew she knew that much.

  “I know. But have you talked to her at all?”

  “Are you kidding? She wont even look at me?”

  “Sounds familiar.” She joked, reflecting on the thirty-four years of fights she had previously mentioned. The biggest fight I remembered them having in their adult lives was when my great-grandma passed away during my seventh grade school year. Mom and Kathleen didn’t speak for weeks fighting over who got to keep the opal stone necklace. It was only settled once my grandma intervened and told them she was going to keep it if they couldn’t work it out. Mom finally agreed to let Kathleen have it as long as she could keep the pearl necklace. Otherwise they probably still wouldn’t be speaking.

  “I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.” I opened up, letting go of my hesitance to talk to Mom’s sister about our problems.

  “Let me tell you something about your mom.” Kathleen kicked her feet up on the coffee table as if she was going to tell a casual story about getting drunk in college. “She has a temper. You know that. But I know that Vanessa loves you more than anything. When she was pregnant and she and James broke up and she got ostracized by her friends and classmates, she was in a really bad place. I was away at college and she’d call me in the middle of the night crying about how she didn’t want to live anymore and how she didn’t think she could do it. Grandma had to encourage her to get up and go to school and eat and shower. It was bad. But then you were born. And you saved her life, Jess. She completely turned her life around. So yeah, she’s mad right now. But I promise she’ll get over it. She loves you too much to let this come between you.”

  I shrugged, feeling a little emotional about Kathleen’s story about Mom not wanting to live anymore. I still didn’t know if she would ever get over me going behind her back to meet and build a relationship with my dad. Even if she could let it go, things would never be the same.

  “Give her some more time, wait until she’s in a good mood, then sit down and talk to her. Explain why it was important for you to meet your dad and that it wasn’t done to hurt her. Then listen to whatever she has to say. Don’t get defensive or upset. That only winds her up more. But I think she mostly just needs time. She loves you so much. She’ll come around.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Do you want me to talk to her? See where’s she’s at?”

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p; I shook my head no, knowing Mom would just be more upset if I got someone else involved. She was already pissed at Ross for withholding information from her. I didn’t want Kathleen to get all twisted up in this too.

  “Okay. I’m happy to let you keep staying here but I don’t want you to give up on your mom, okay? I love you but this can’t be permanent. I didn’t sign up to be a parent.”

  “I know.” I hadn’t expected it to be a permanent living situation but hearing Kathleen say it out loud stung a little.

  “That’s all I’ve got. Anything else you wanna talk about?”

  I shook my head no then claimed I was going to shower and get ready for bed though it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. I knew eventually I would have to speak to my mother. It had almost been a week. Right now it just seemed impossible.

  Sunday, March 31st, 2019

  After five days of staying with Kathleen, I decided to go home on Sunday. Her house was too much of a drive to get to and from school everyday and I knew she wouldn’t stop pushing me to talk to Mom until I left. Macy and Spencer were happy to see me when I came home but Mom continued ignoring me. When I went downstairs to the kitchen to look for something to eat, she was unloading the dishwasher. I didn’t know if she was up for talking now but with her spread so thin during the week between work and my siblings, I feared if I didn’t try now it would be a while before I had another opportunity.

  “Oh.” She said when she realized it was me beside her. Ross had been over at his parents’ house today helping his mom paint her bathroom and no one was here to referee if she came after me. I didn’t know if Mom and Ross had made any progress on their own relationship since I had been gone. I didn’t know if she had taken any time to reflect on what happened. I just wanted to know where we stood.

  “Need any help?” I offered though just a few dishes remained in the dishwasher.

  “I’m good, thanks.” She tried to dead-end the conversation. I wasn’t letting her win this easily though.

  “Can we talk?” My voice wobbled as if I was at a job interview instead of speaking to the woman who had raised me.

  “What is there to talk about?” She asked, tone sharper than the steak knife sitting on the counter waiting to be dried. “You went behind my back, you took the beautiful life I gave you and threw it all away for a man who didn’t even want you. There’s nothing else to say. The damage is done.”

  I sighed, frustrated that nothing had changed in the time I had been gone. She continued unloading the dishes as though I didn’t exist. Maybe her plan was to push me out until one day I never came back again. She could forget I existed and start telling people Macy was her only daughter and erase the seventeen years we had spent together.

  “I never meant to hurt you.” I whimpered.

  Mom turned around as she picked up the final plate in the dishwasher, thankfully not the knife, and glared at me with daggers in her eyes.

  “Well you did, Jessica. And I’ll never get over it.”

  Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019

  Ryan texted me during the passing period before lunch that he got lunch detention from his history teacher for chewing gum in class. Though I knew it wasn’t intentional, I felt a little resentful that Ryan and I likely had limited time left together yet he kept missing lunch periods.

  As I people-watched a freshman group of boys vaping at a picnic table and a group of choir kids comparing notes on their sheet music at the next table, someone sat down beside me. I expected it to be an acquaintance taking pity on me for being alone but instead I turned around to find Emelia. She gave me a casual “hey” as if sitting by me at lunch was a regular thing. I wondered why she was here and not sneaking off campus in Hannah’s jeep.

  “Didn’t ditch lunch today?” I questioned, sounding more accusatory than I meant to.

  “Hannah had a dentist appointment. Karli’s with her choir friends. I don’t know about Grace. Why are you alone? Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “Lunch detention.”

  “Wanna have lunch together?”

  “Sure.” I answered out of obligation. I still didn’t fully trust Emelia’s intentions but sitting with her was better than sitting alone. She pulled out a plastic bag of apple slices out of her backpack, making me feel guilty about the bag of potato chips I bought out of the vending machine, the result of me being not motivated enough to pack a real lunch this morning.

  “Haven’t seen you at the bowling alley in a while.” She noted.

  “Yeah, it’s complicated.” I admitted, not sure I wanted to spill my disaster of a life on her.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” She said, thankfully not pushing any further like Kendra would have done.

  We sat quietly for a minute, once again watching the vapers and the choir kids. When Emelia opened her mouth again, I expected her to make small talk about the weather or how she thought the vaping kids were ruining their lungs but instead she blurted out,

  “I’m really sorry about how everything went down between us.”

  The statement caught me so off guard that I just sat there with my mouth hanging open like an idiot. That didn’t faze her though. She continued on as if she had rehearsed this spiel like it was one of her football game cheers.

  “It was shitty of me to drop you for my cheer friends. I thought they were my ticket to popularity and I took it. But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. I miss how things used to be. And I understand if you don’t ever want to be my friend again because I was really shitty but I was wondering if you’d give me another chance. I keep thinking about all our childhood dreams of getting ready for prom together and being roommates in college. Maybe it could still happen.”

  I was still speechless. She would have shocked me less had she come to school wearing a paper bag. I thought Emelia thought she was too cool for me, that if someone from the cheer squad came around the corner she would quickly get up and act like she hadn’t been sitting here.

  “Sorry.” She flustered. “I’ve had that on my chest for a while. Tried to work up the courage the last time I saw you at the bowling alley but couldn’t do it.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” I stuttered, not sure whether I should illustrate how much she had hurt me and how it had given me trust issues and how I didn’t know if I could ever trust her again. Maybe I needed to let that all go. Maybe she deserved another chance. I didn’t know.

  “That’s okay.”

  “I need some time to process this. I just…I don’t know. Freshman year took a huge toll on me.”

  “I know.” She looked guiltily down at the concrete. “And I’m sorry. I know I keep saying that and I know they're just words, but I really am sorry.”

  “I know.”

  We sat quietly for a few more minutes, watching the choir kids do hand signs as they marked through their music. She eventually delved into other topics, asking about what courses I planned to take senior year, how my family was doing, and about Ryan. I didn’t feel like going into detail about the current situation with my mom so I lied and pretended everything was fine. I also didn’t feel like talking about Ryan possibly moving to Maryland so I pretended that was all good too. Years ago, Emelia would have been the person I went to about all of this. I would have sat up in her bedroom and cried while she braided my hair and assured me everything would be okay. I didn’t think we could magically go back to that though. We had a gap in our history now. Even if we could try to be friends again, things would never be the same as they were before freshman year.

  When we parted ways after lunch, I told her I would think about what she said and that I would see her around. Tomorrow she would go back to sneaking off campus with her cheerleader friends and Ryan would hopefully be back to eat with me. Our worlds were so different now. I didn’t know if it was possible for them to collide again.

  Thursday, April 4th, 2019

  The rainy Thursday afternoon depicted my mood as Ryan and I ate lunch in the cafeteria at a table by the window. My mother stil
l wouldn’t look at me, state testing was coming up so all the teachers piled on extra homework to ensure we were prepared, and I still couldn’t get the conversation I had with Emelia on Tuesday out of my head. I half-listened as Ryan went into detail about a scary movie he and Garen watched last night, more mesmerized by the sideways rain slamming against the window.

  My afternoon classes blurred together with lectures and busywork until eighth period psychology. Mr. Wallace, who usually opened the class with terrible dad jokes, stood at the front of the room fiddling anxiously with the whiteboard eraser. As the last few students trickled into the room at the sound of the tardy bell, he closed the classroom door, then returned to the front of the room and took a deep breath. I didn’t know what would cause him such distress. There wasn’t a psychology state test so he wasn’t under the same tremendous amount of pressure some of my core class teachers were. I thought maybe he was upset about students slacking off at the end of the year and not taking the class seriously because it was an elective. However, as he swallowed back tears and wiped sweat from his forehead with his right hand, I knew it was something more serious.

  “I don’t know how many of you have heard but there was a car accident during lunch.” He announced, raspy voice wavering. He glanced over at Karli Martin’s empty desk in the front right corner and my heart dropped. “Your classmate Karli and a few other students went off campus for lunch. Roads were wet and the car skidded off the road and into a tree. There are two confirmed fatalities and two critically injured. Names haven’t been released yet so we don’t know what happened to who but it’s a really bad situation.”

  A boy in the row behind me who frequently monopolized class discussion ranting about his crazy aunt who he claimed had every mental illness we learned about raised his hand and asked Mr. Wallace if he knew who the other students were. I already knew the answer. Fighting tears, Mr. Wallace confirmed it was Emelia, Grace, and Hannah. Despite his constant goofing around, he was a sensitive guy. Regardless of all the times Karli showed up late or got caught texting in class, the thought of her being injured or dead made him emotional. Then it hit me that Emelia was injured or dead too. I was gonna be sick. As Mr. Wallace continued on talking about how counseling services would be available to anyone who needed them, I got up from my desk, hand cupped over my mouth, and ran out of the room.