by Wylie, Sarah
When twenty minutes later I hear voices, I figure it’s number two. Too bad I didn’t ask how he feels about cremation while we were outside bonding.
Mom is speaking in a very controlled but firm voice.
I’m expecting a door to slam—the closest Dad ever comes to asserting himself—and I refuse to let myself sleep until I hear it.
Half an hour passes, though, and nothing. An hour.
My head hurts. Elephants march across my eyelids and they weigh down my eyelashes.
I dream that a boy comes to my window, throws stones, and strums a sweet, homemade melody, inspired by me. His voice is husky, rich, and controlled; his kiss is anything but.
We giggle and breathe not-whole secrets, but whispers of secrets into the night. My hands melt into his strong, rough-but-not-farmer-rough hands.
The night envelops us in its warmth, a world where there is nothing but us and love and tonight and an eternity of more.
It’s a good dream, but it’s over too soon and then I’m remembering that no boyfriend of mine can do that now, because my father has tainted that particular fantasy.
I’m the last one to get up in the morning.
Why didn’t anyone wake me?
I jump into the shower and get dressed for school. When I go downstairs, I accept Mom’s offer to pour me a bowl of cereal. Jena sits across from me reading, and Dad is on his laptop. I search for rolled eyes behind backs, proof of the silent treatment, battle scars and traces of last night’s “incident.” Surely there were some.
“What are you staring at?” Jena asks, in turn staring at me.
“Do you know Dad rented an RV?” I ask loudly, still looking at my mom and dad, who are drinking a cup of coffee and typing away on a keyboard, respectively.
“Yeah, I do,” she says.
I have plenty more questions: Did he throw snow pebbles at your window, too, and make you come out to see? Do you know if this means he now actually believes what he’s been saying from the start, that you’ll be okay, or does this mean he believes the marks all over your body, the way your limbs are loose and tired—like your bones are not only sick, but absent? Does he think things are getting better, or that they’re about to get worse?
I don’t ask any of those questions, but I find out answers that are actually useful.
Like, they had a slight “disagreement” when Mom woke up and found Dad outside caressing his RV (he was lucky he’d already put out his cigarette), but soon resolved the situation when they stopped to listen to the other person’s side. Which means they probably had good makeup sex, something I do not need to think about this early in the morning. Or over my breakfast, for that matter.
The most important and shocking fact, though, is that Mom is not making Dad take it back.
We’re going on vacation today. In an RV. In the middle of winter.
23
“It’s the perfect way to spend time together,” Dad keeps saying after breakfast, as if he’s on repeat, a hopeful grin plastered on his face.
The rest of us follow in submission, dutifully preparing for the next three days, and silently thinking of ways to avoid one another. In truth, I should be ecstatic, since I’m missing school today for this, but somehow I can’t conjure up any enthusiasm.
Dad does most of Mom’s packing, while she makes a million phone calls and last-minute trips to the pharmacy.
“The key word,” Dad says, “is minimalism. Don’t take anything you won’t need this weekend.”
Jena wanted to pack her own stuff. I’m not sure what’s happened to her, but today she actually told Mom to back off and let her be. Those were her exact words. Mom was stunned, of course. Disoriented. What was she supposed to do now? Eventually, she fluttered off to make sure we’d bring Jena back in one piece (see: the never-ending pharmacy runs), which, really, one can only be grateful for. Dead-person stench within the confines of an RV would not bode well.
Dropping my second bag on the ground, I head to the living room.
Mom is sitting with the phone in her lap, staring straight ahead. If I keep my head down and walk briskly, maybe she won’t—
“Oh, hey.” She glances up at me, a small smile on her face. “You all ready?” The corners of her lips spasm and I realize that she is working hard to keep her smile in place.
“Why are you letting us go?” I ask, before I think better of it.
“What do you mean?” She frowns, still somehow managing to keep the smile intact. “It’s been a rough couple of months. We could all do with a break.”
“But what about Jena?”
“What about Jena?” Speak of the girl and she will appear. Her one duffel bag hangs from her shoulder. She drops it to the ground beside mine and my eyes remain there. I wonder if she packed so light so she could carry her own bags.
Mom is up now, moving toward her. “Feeling better?”
“I was fine before.” She turns to me now, speaking pointedly. “I’m sick, not dead.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mom scolds. “Nobody said that. Do you want a glass of milk with your pills?”
My sister rolls her eyes. I leave her and Mom in the living room, their voices bristling, clashing, but still too timid to throw any real punches.
In my room, I find a bunch more stuff I want to take with me. I pack a third bag and bring it downstairs.
“Danielle,” is Dad’s expression of disapproval. “Did you see how little your sister packed?”
“Exactly,” I say. “I want to minimize our waste of space. Besides, you never know when you’ll feel like listening to some Van Faling. And I can’t fall asleep without Mr. Blankie.”
“What are you, five?” Jena asks.
Ignoring her, I continue, “I also packed a few boxes of tampons because lately, I’ve been a bit irregular.”
Dad coughs. “You can take the bag. Jena, sure you don’t want to add anything else? This is your last chance.”
“Eric.” Mom reappears from the dining room, clutching the Jena Book. It’s a hardback black notebook that travels between my mother and sister, documenting each medical issue or near-issue, and any mother-daughter secrets they’ve got between the two of them. “Was it last Thursday or Friday we had the meeting with Dr. Leon?”
“Friday,” Dad answers. Then, “My God, Dani, what did you put in this bag?” before he heads down the hall and out again.
As morning turns to afternoon, Mom suddenly realizes that Jena won’t live without food either, so she tries to convince Dad that we should wait till tomorrow morning and leave bright and early. “There’s no way we can get everything together in just one day. It’s unreasonable.”
Dad says nothing, his face flushed from all the heavy lifting (mine) he’s spent the last hour doing and the cold.
Now, I think. Here it comes.
I’m pretending to watch TV, some lame game show where the host has an unfortunate receding hairline and a faux Australian accent, but am inwardly thinking: Fight! Fight! Fight!
My responsible father, who has spent the last sixteen years chastising my mother’s crazy whims and spur-of-the-moment decisions, has spent all of five minutes putting together the family trip we’ve been planning for years. My eccentric mother is being rational and not jumping at the thought of spending an entire three days with her workaholic husband and lost-cause children.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m assuming they want their predetermined roles back.
Instead, though, Dad’s expression softens. “What if I help? We could all pitch in.”
My mother sighs, blowing up her bangs. “We’ll see.”
I’m forced to get up and help, too. When we finish in about ten minutes, I wonder if that wasn’t Mom’s last “attempt” at stopping this trip. It still doesn’t make much sense to me. Jena’s barely been allowed outside since she got sick, and now it’s fine for her to go camping? Granted, both my parents will be there to keep an eye on her. But still.
“God, you need to stop staring,
” Jena says. “It’s widely regarded as rude.”
“So did you get bad news or something?”
“You mean because of the trip?” she asks.
I nod.
“Nothing has changed. Is that good or bad?”
“Subjective,” I mumble with a shrug. Then I sneak into Mom and Dad’s bathroom upstairs and open the cabinet where Mom keeps the sleeping pills she doesn’t use. I smuggle them downstairs, add them to my bag of toiletries. Just in case something goes wrong while we’re gone; in case Jena needs me.
“All right, Bailey women!” Dad cries out. “Ready to head off on the Great Adventure?”
His gusto, and Mom’s poor attempt at it, more than make up for my and Jena’s lack of enthusiasm. Although, by the time we get into the RV and Dad has given us the “deluxe tour” of what is to be our home for the next three nights, my sister starts to brighten.
She loves being outdoors, getting dirty, hiking, roughing it.
How did I forget that?
“Don’t tell Dad,” she whispers confidentially, sitting on the bed we’re supposed to share, “but this might not totally suck.”
How did I forget that, and she’s not even dead yet?
24
It’s late afternoon when we set off, and by the time we arrive, it is dark outside. The RV park we’re staying at is only four hours away from home—in case of emergency, they don’t say—but somehow Dad and Jena have managed to convince themselves that this is the equivalent of backpacking through South America.
Mom tries, too, but there’s a reason she retired from acting.
After dinner, Dad roasts marshmallows with his lighter, which just happened to be on him when we needed it. (He mumbles about not having dry-cleaned his jacket in years, which I think Mom buys. She’s tuned herself into believing the impossible, after all.)
Mom makes popcorn and, since it’s too late to do anything else tonight, we squeeze onto the sofa at the back, buttered popcorn slipping between our fingers and landing under our feet. We watch old sitcom reruns and laugh at appropriate times.
I laugh, too, waiting for Jena to fall asleep next to Mom. Dad will have to carry her into the bedroom and tuck her into our oven-bed, where it’s too hot for me under six blankets but too cold for Jena under five blankets, and she’ll melt into a puddle because my warmth won’t be able to reach her.
She doesn’t fall asleep, though.
Mom does.
She sleeps for almost an hour, after which she wakes and starts apologizing profusely, like it’s some kind of failure on her part, leaving Jena unattended. Dad tells her not to be silly and sends her to bed. I don’t know if she sleeps again, but the three of us drink hot chocolate and play cards, whispering so we don’t wake her.
Then Dad goes back to the sofa and watches late-night news. I stick my iPod earphones in and Jena goes to the front of the RV, reappearing a couple of minutes later with her book. I try not to make it obvious that I’m watching her. She scribbles for a long time.
Scribble scribble, scratch scratch.
I turn up my music so I can’t hear.
Scribble scribble. Scratch scratch.
She still hasn’t stopped writing.
Scribble. She chews on the pencil, squints. Scribble scribble.
She must hurt in a lot of places.
I wonder which are the ones I can see.
* * *
Dad goes out sometime in the morning to “explore” the park.
“What day is it?” Jena asks.
“Saturday,” Mom replies, even though I’m one hundred percent sure Jena was addressing me and not her. It’s disturbing to think that my mom can hear what we’re saying in our “bedroom” from the front.
Mom is walking back toward us now, holding a steaming cup of coffee, her hair pulled back, ready for the day.
“How are you girlies feeling?” she asks.
“Homesick,” is my answer.
Mom smiles. “Well, that’s a legitimate ailment. What about you, Miss Jena?”
“Really good.”
“Really?” Mom straightens, her voice hopeful and worried all at the same time. “Better than yesterday?”
Jena nods. “I feel good. Maybe it’s all the fresh air.”
They laugh at this—Mom the loudest—because, of course, we’ve barely gotten any fresh air. If anything, we’ve been even more cooped up and isolated than usual.
Jena gets out of bed, takes a shower, and proceeds to plant herself in front of the TV, relieving me of five blankets. The sound of clanking and cheerful conversation makes it clear that Mom is in a good mood. A good Jena day is a good Mom day. A good Mom day is a good Dad day.
I pull the blanket over my head and try to tune them all out. Why do people always feel like nothing can go wrong just because they’re having a good day? It’s like the assumption that if you accomplish a goal you’ve set, the fat in your Kit Kat reward bar won’t go straight to your hips.
“Guess what?” Dad’s voice travels all the way from the front. “The people who own the campground have invited us to come over.”
Mom, Dad, and Jena talk among themselves. It seems Dad wants us all to go out and socialize. Mom, predictably, is less keen. “It’s too cold to be gallivanting outdoors.”
I manage to tune out their conversation. What I can’t tune out, though, is Dad’s voice, which appears to hover right over me.
“Wake up, sleepyhead, or the whole day will pass without you.”
I haven’t heard a better proposition in a long time so I stay put, unmoving. He shakes me awake. “Dani?”
“Some of us,” I hiss, “are trying to sleep.”
“You can take a nap after we get back.”
Accepting that I can’t compete with his enthusiasm, I groan. “Fine. I’ll come and meet you guys after I shower.”
“Great,” Dad says, clapping his hands. “Jena, you ready?”
Mom and Dad discuss her coat and its warmth, or lack thereof. Then the door of the RV closes and they’re gone.
After a quick and barely-warm shower, I’m heading to the kitchen to find something to eat when the door bursts open and Dad walks in.
“There you are! I started to think you weren’t coming.” He grabs the camera off the sofa. “Wanna hear something crazy?”
“We’ve gone back in time and are now in something B.C.”
Dad laughs. “Nope. Even your mom would agree that it’s not quite cold enough to be Canada.”
I stare at him.
He rolls his eyes. “I was joking. Misinformed parents do that sometimes … What, you thought your sense of humor was some freak mutation?”
“Dad,” I say, “this is the official end of this conversation. What is your something crazy?”
“Two things, actually,” he says as I grab a muffin and start to follow him out of the RV. “One, the owners are taking us ice-fishing! Two, there’s this kid here that knows Jena.”
“No shit,” I mumble.
“Danielle, really.”
“Mmhmmhmm.”
Dad assumes it’s an apology. “Yeah. They’re a great family. The boy’s the same age as you two. He goes to your school.”
It’s right then that I start to get this strange feeling. Not the kind you get when there’s nonstop rain and there is no God, or when you’re walking into a dungeon of lions and there is no God.
“His name is Jake, I think. Or Jack. Something like that.”
It’s more the realization that there is a God.
And He’s out to get me.
25
Outside our RV, there is a rug of dirty yellow snow sweeping over the ground like ten-year-old powder on a great-aunt’s face. Snatches of highway appear between a patch of trees, and the only other objects in sight are two buildings several hundred feet from our RV.
“Apparently this is where they host big groups and retreats,” Dad is saying as we reach the door of the bigger building. I’m assaulted by a wave of warmth as
I go in after him. It looks like a cafeteria inside, spacious and dimly lit, with those blue fluorescent lights people convince themselves work. Two round tables are pushed close together with chairs around them.
Mom and Jena are sitting with a group of people. My eyes scan their table, then the one shoved next to it, for Jack. But I don’t see him.
“Well, hello! You brought another one.” From close-up, I realize that the man who is talking is not actually sitting on a plastic white chair like everyone else, but in a wheelchair.
Dad laughs. “Gareth, this is our other daughter, Danielle.”
I smile and shake his outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you.” The man has a round face, with silver sideburns and strong hands, like maybe he was a builder or professional athlete when he was younger.
There are five other people at tables—two women, another man, and a boy and girl around age nine and seven, respectively.
I run my right hand over my cast, feeling strangely self-conscious.
Once the introductions are over, I come back to stand behind Mom’s chair. Dad is chatting to the other man and Jena is, as usual, beside Mom. I notice she’s wearing two winter coats—hers and Mom’s.
“Oh, good man!” Gareth says. “He’s got more chairs. Danielle, I believe you know my son, Jack.”
I turn around and he’s standing there, a pile of chairs in front of him. His usually neat, academic hair looks like it’s fought and lost a battle with the wind, and his eyes don’t quite meet mine as he lifts a chair from the pile.
“Hi,” I say, holding my hand out to him. “I’m the Other Daughter.”
Everybody laughs, except Jena, because she doesn’t like the way I phrased that sentence (even though I’m only repeating what Dad said), and me, because it’s unfortunate to laugh at your own jokes, and Jack, because I think he understands that I’m calling a truce. We’re not at school. We’re in the awkward meet-the-family stage, where both of us have our relations to embarrass us, without me adding to it.
