Mom closed her magazine. "I'm worried about her. She had some scratches on her wrist."
That's what this was about. Mom wanted Haylee to come over so she could play psychologist. "I know," I said.
Mom folded her arms. "Do you know how she got them?"
"She cut herself," I said. "Her parents know. It's not a secret."
Mom studied me, as if trying to decide if I was lying. "And do you ever think about doing that?"
I shuddered. Split open my own skin? I didn't know how Haylee did it without passing out. "No," I said. "No way."
Mom nodded, satisfied. "I think I might call her mother, just to make sure she knows."
"Don't," I said. "That won't help."
"You don't know that," Mom said.
"Believe me. I do."
"Hazel might be glad to know that other adults are looking out for her daughter."
"If you think that," I said, "then you don't know her very well."
Mom narrowed her eyes at me. "What exactly don't I know?"
"She doesn't want anyone to know that Haylee has problems," I said. "She's got Haylee seeing therapists and doctors and taking medication, but it's all supposed to be this big secret. And she doesn't want you talking to Haylee because she knows you work with this stuff, and you'll figure out that their family isn't perfect." That was part of the reason we hung out there and not here. Otherwise, Hazel was always bothering Haylee about where we'd been and what she'd said, especially to Mom.
Mom sighed. "No family is perfect."
"You don't have to tell me. But leave Haylee alone."
"Okay," Mom said. "But if Haylee stops seeing a therapist, you let me know, okay? I want to make sure she's getting the help she needs."
"Fine," I said. And I ducked out of the room before she could pump me for more information about Haylee.
Mom was nosy. Maybe Hazel did have a point.
Chapter Nine
Mom and I have this Christmas tradition: on Christmas Eve we'll go to the home of a family—maybe someone who needs cheering up, or who doesn't have a whole lot of extended family around—and we take them sugar cookies and hot chocolate. Mom started the tradition fifteen years ago, which was both the year I was born, and the year she split up with my father. I obviously didn't make cookies that year, but Mom said she let me shake the bottle of sprinkles. Mom said we did it because traditions made families stronger, but I was pretty sure helping other people just made her feel better about herself.
Mom caught me in the kitchen on Christmas Eve morning, downing Pop-Tarts.
"You're having a nutritious morning," she said.
"It's Christmas," I said. "Should I be eating spinach to counteract the cookies?"
"You should be eating protein," Mom said, "in preparation for this evening's sugar rush."
She had me there.
"You could make eggs," I said.
Mom nodded. "I think I will."
And as she was breaking the shells carefully over the pan, she let this drop: "I was thinking we could take cookies to Haylee's family tonight."
I took a long sip of my glass of milk. I should have realized that's where we'd be going.
Mom dropped the egg shells into the trash. "Is that all right with you?"
"Yeah," I said. "It's fine." I want to say I was thinking about how nice it would be for Hazel and Aaron to know we cared, or how I wanted to let them know I still felt like they were part of my family. But truly, all I could think about was the journal. If Hazel invited us in, this could be my chance.
Mom whisked the eggs while I broke the crust of my Pop-Tart into tiny, tiny pieces.
This time, I was bringing a purse.
Mom let the eggs cook and mixed up some orange juice, which I obviously couldn't drink with Pop-Tart mouth. Instead I grabbed the Christmas boxes out of the closet, and started sorting our fake-tree branches by length. I'd have preferred a real tree, but Mom was allergic. Mom seemed to think that plugging in a pine air freshener amounted to the same thing, but she used the same one every year, so by this time it barely smelled at all.
That's what I should have gotten her for Christmas. A refill.
Mom brought me a plate of eggs and helped me put the branches onto the tree trunk. She started wrapping the string of lights around and around while I opened up the boxes of ornaments. Mom gave me a new one every year, and she hadn't thrown away one single ornament that I'd made as a kid. They were all there, jumbled together in heaps: the construction paper wreath with the malformed marker-drawn berries, the paper-mache snowman with the dented head, even the single seashell sequin I had hung on a hook about four times its size.
That sequin had been a gift from Haylee, the largest sparkle from a pack of sequins she'd brought to school for an art project when we were seven, just months after we became friends.
The rest I could have thrown away, but that one would stay forever.
The ornaments amounted to four boxes of tangled hooks. They could have come from ten kids, instead of just one.
"I think we need to start a new tradition," I said. "Every year, we throw five ornaments away."
Mom's arms stretched far over her head as she wrapped the lights around the top of the tree, passing them from hand to hand. "Which would you suggest?"
From beneath a pile of paper snowflakes I extracted a wooden Santa on which I'd glued so much glitter that it shed as I pulled it from the box. The thing had been shedding every year since I was four, and still the glitter was thicker than the wood.
Mom laughed. "You spent two hours on that thing. All the other kids at your preschool drew a line of glue and wandered away. I had to pry you away from it when I came to pick you up. You just kept insisting that you weren't done."
"And you have a story like that for all of these?" I shook the cardboard edge of a box; hooks and bells jingled within. On the top I found the ornament Mom had bought me last year—a teddy bear wearing a catcher's mitt and holding a bat. There was no reason to wear a mitt and hold a bat at the same time, but apparently the people in the sweatshop where it had been made didn't know that.
Mom rested the lights on the floor, with only the top half of the tree wrapped, and came over to look in the boxes. She pulled out a paper chain made from construction paper so faded, I could no longer tell the red links from the green. "I don't have a story for this one," she said. "Except that you made about a million of these. All I had to do was give you a stapler, a stack of paper, and some scissors, and soon there'd be paper chains draped all over the house."
"Does that mean I can't throw it away?" I asked.
"Hey, I only kept one," Mom said. "Be proud of me for showing restraint."
If this was restraint, she was hopeless.
Mom poked through another of the boxes, and dug out a plastic Christmas tree. I'd scribbled all over it with markers, and glued rhinestones over every inch, in no particular pattern. "I have no story about this," she said.
I stared at it. "Haylee's ninth birthday party," I said. Her birthday was right before Thanksgiving. She'd made an ornament identical to it, which hung in her bedroom window for years. Her mother wouldn't let her hang it on the tree—she liked their tree to look perfect.
"Ah," Mom said. "So that stays."
I sighed. "Who are we kidding? We're just going to hang them all." And I started draping ornaments over the top part of the tree, where Mom had already hung the lights. Mom finished wrapping the bottom of the tree, and then ran up to her room and came down with a little white box: my new ornament for this year.
Mom hesitated before handing it to me. "I bought this months ago. I thought about getting you a different one, but I wasn't sure . . ."
I took the box from her and opened it. Inside, lying on top of silver tissue paper, was a pair of gold painted tragedy and comedy masks.
Mom bit a nail. "You and Haylee went to all those plays last summer, and you have every softball ornament on the planet—"
"It's perfect," I said
.
Mom looked relieved.
I wasn't just saying that. Haylee liked theater, and I liked to go see theater with Haylee. The tragedy mask was the perfect symbol for the end of this year. Anything happier would have felt like a lie.
I hung it near the top, next to the tacky rhinestone Christmas tree. "Thanks," I said.
Mom gave me a surprised smile.
"What?" I asked. "I can't be grateful?"
"Of course you can," Mom said. And she busied herself untangling a chain made of misshapen clay beads that I didn't remember making.
We hung ornaments until all that was left in the bottom of the boxes were hooks and stray limbs of dismembered ornaments. The masks stared at me—the two halves of Haylee, one grinning, one crying. Mom plugged in the lights, which glowed beneath the thick layer of memorabilia. The one benefit of having a fake tree was that it looked the same year after year. Our Christmas tree, in all its tacky glory.
And I guess Mom was right about traditions holding people together, because of all the moments in the year, this one made us feel most like a family. Mom sat down in the living room. "Do you think we should take anything special over to Hazel's?"
Hazel's. Not Haylee's. "No," I said. "I think the usual cookies will be fine."
In truth, the only thing I wanted to carry over there was a purse. I spent the afternoon in my room, searching for the perfect one.
The trick was to take one that was small enough not to attract attention, but big enough to fit the journal in without looking like it was leaving far fuller than it had come.
Eventually I settled on a khaki bag, with a strap long enough that I could wear it on the opposite shoulder. I put in my wallet and keys and the school copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles that I should have returned before break. If I wasn't going to read it, it could at least form my bag into the right general shape.
There were several cars in the Ricks' driveway as we pulled up their street. As we traipsed up their walk we passed the front window, and I could see Haylee's grandpa sitting on their couch. He always creeped me out, maybe because he always said my name real loud like he knew me, even though I never said a word to him. Today, though, I was glad to see him. More people meant more distraction; it would be easier for me to sneak upstairs.
Mom reached the front porch and raised her hand to the doorbell, and I could hear "Jingle Bells" ringing through the door.
"I'm sure they'll appreciate the thought," Mom said to herself. She must have been pretty nervous about it, because she pasted on a big fake smile. I was glad I was the one holding the cookies—you appear less useless when you arrive bearing sweets.
Hazel opened the door and looked at us in surprise. When she saw the cookies, she smiled and got all teary. "Oh, Patty," she said to Mom, "You didn't have to do that." And even though she had real tears in her eyes, her smile was as fake and plastic as Mom's. "Come in, come in," she added, and ushered us in before we had time to sigh in relief.
Usually Haylee's living room glowed at Christmas, every inch of space filled with matching decorations until it looked like the holiday section of a department store. This year Hazel hadn't put up any decorations besides a sparsely-dressed tree, strung with a couple strands of lights and some silver balls.
Hazel flitted around the back of the couches, making sure everyone was comfortable. She was that kind of hostess—always taking care of everyone else, but you knew she was only doing it because she was supposed to and not because she really cared.
Nick leaned forward on the couch, catching my eye from where he'd been hidden behind his grandpa. He wore a shirt with rows of tiny numbers on it. I wondered if I should go talk to him, but he was squished between his grandfather and the arm of the couch, so the only way to sit near him would be to perch on the couch arm with my butt against his arm, which would be way more flirtatious than I was capable of being in a room with this many people.
The other couches were occupied by Haylee's other aunts and uncles. I knew some of their names, and recognized the others. I didn't know any of them well enough to talk to them, and even if I did, I didn't know what to say. Merry Christmas? Sorry Haylee isn't here? The only way to be sure I wasn't saying anything stupid was to keep my mouth shut.
I didn't see Aaron—again.
"Kira!" Haylee's grandpa said, leaning toward me. "Come in, for crying out loud." Nick shot me an apologetic glance, and that's when I realized that I was still standing in the entryway, while Mom had stepped into the room.
Hazel stood close behind me—if I stepped back, I'd stomp on her feet.
"How are you doing?" she asked in my ear.
"Fine," I said. I'd have the magic worn out of that word by the New Year, for sure.
"Haylee's dad is out in the garage," Hazel said. "Maybe you could talk to him."
I looked at her over my shoulder, stunned. "Are you sure?" I asked. "If he's hiding in the garage, does he really want to see me?"
"At this point," she said, "I don't see how you could make things worse."
I slipped through the hall and into the kitchen. If Hazel wanted me to talk to Aaron alone, she obviously hadn't found the journal. Talking to him alone would give me the perfect excuse to sneak around afterward, and grab it from upstairs.
I walked through the kitchen and opened the door to the garage. Aaron sat on top of their chest freezer with his feet on some boxes, a cigarette in his mouth.
I'd never seen Aaron smoke before, and he was a pitcher in college—an athlete—so I'd have thought he'd be more health conscious. That explained the garage, though. Hazel would never let anyone smoke in her house.
Aaron looked up at me as I opened the door, blowing a puff of smoke in the opposite direction. I tried not to make a face at the smell. I really don't get how people can breathe that stuff into their lungs on purpose, since it doesn't even smell good. Incense, maybe. Cigarette smoke, definitely not.
I watched Aaron from the doorway, waiting for him to yell at me or say something—anything to tell me whether I should stay or leave.
Aaron gave me a sharp nod and looked down at his feet, smashing his half-burned cigarette into the ashtray next to him. The tray was full of cigarette butts, and I wondered exactly how long he'd been sitting here, just smoking. "Hi, Kira," he said.
"Hey." I searched for something else to say. I spent a lot of time with Aaron, but we didn't really talk, unless it was about my pitching form, or game strategy, or what I needed to drill next. None of that told me how to act, now. I wanted to make him feel like I understood what he was going through, but the truth was, I had no idea. I wasn't sitting and smoking in the garage.
Just when I was about to step back, shut the door, and pretend I'd never gone out there, Aaron motioned me forward. "Come on out," he said. "You're letting the smoke in the house."
I closed the door behind me and sat down on a little metal stepladder in front of a pile of boxes.
"How's pitching practice?"
"Okay, I guess," I said. "I haven't been practicing as much as I ought to."
Aaron nodded, then reached down and plucked his cigarette out of the ashtray, relighting it. "You need any help?"
I'd have said yes to just about anything that would get him out of this garage. "Yes," I said. "I can definitely use it."
Aaron took another drag, and blew the smoke up toward the rafters. "Come over some afternoon and we'll practice."
"Okay," I said. "You mean after you get off work?"
Aaron gave me a long look, then shook his head. "I'm taking some time off."
I wondered if he had already planned that for Christmas, or if they gave you days off work when your daughter died. "Okay," I said. "How about Friday?"
"That's fine." He lowered his hand, flicking ashes into the tray.
Neither of us had said anything about Haylee, which felt wrong. Still, I didn't know what I could share with him. The only helpful thing I'd heard anyone say so far was what Bradley said.
It was worth
a try. "This really sucks," I said. Aaron raised his eyebrows. "About Haylee, I mean. And everyone is acting like we all just need to move on, and that sucks, too."
Aaron closed his eyes and took another long drag on his cigarette. It was then that I noticed the deep bags under his eyes, like his whole face was filled with fluid. His skin had a gray tone to it that might have been from lack of sleep, or maybe prolonged smoke exposure.
"Yeah," Aaron said. "I guess it does." Aaron waved his arm through the cloud of smoke that hung in the air around him, causing frantic little eddies to spiral away. "You should get back inside," he said. "I'll see you Friday."
I wanted to say something else, something that would make everything better and convince him to come in the house and smile and act like it was Christmas. But I knew I couldn't, so instead I just said "Thanks" and headed toward the door. As the door cracked open, streams of smoke shifted through the air around Aaron like little dark spirits.
"Merry Christmas," I said. Then I closed the door behind me.
Eighteen Months Before
The summer I turned fourteen, my mother couldn't afford for me to be on the community team any more, so Aaron offered to sponsor me. He paid my fees for the regular season, and for the tournament season as well. Mom was so grateful to him that she let me spend twice as much time practicing, to show him that I was using his investment wisely.
In June, Aaron and I were practicing in Haylee's front yard, getting ready for the first big tournament of the year. My arm was off that day, so Aaron kept reaching way out of the strike zone to catch my wild balls.
"Watch your landing leg," Aaron said. "Finish tall."
Pitching is all about physics—you have to use your body just right to move the ball with a mixture of velocity and control. I wound up again, concentrating this time on my posture at the moment I let go of the ball.
Haylee sat down on the front porch. She often sat there, watching us, but today she was glaring. She looked from Aaron to me, put her head in her hands, and sighed a sigh that Mom would have described as passive-aggressive.
Everything's Fine Page 9
