Mom was holding Molly’s preschool picture. Worriedly she glanced up at Lucy. “He’s been sleeping off and on all day, so be quiet when you go upstairs.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, nothing serious, honey.” It hadn’t crossed Lucy’s mind that Dad might really be sick. Now that Mom said that, she was worried. “He just didn’t sleep very well last night, that’s all, and he woke up with another bad headache this morning, so I called him in sick again.”
“Is that okay? To call in sick?”
“He gets ten sick days a year.”
“He’s stayed home four or five times just since just in the last couple of months.”
Mom looked at her over Priscilla’s picture, which she was holding against her chest. Lucy suddenly found herself wondering what Pris would look like and act like when she was a teenager. “He’s having a really hard time, honey.”
“Are you having a really hard time, too?”
“Sometimes. Some days are worse than others. I’m going to be all right. I used to think I couldn’t stand it if I lost one of you kids or Dad. I used to put a lot of time and energy into doing things so I wouldn’t lose anybody I loved ever. But now I have lost one child and maybe another one, and in some ways it’s even worse than I thought it would be. But I’m going to be all right. I don’t understand it, but I’m going to be all right.” She shook her head a little. “I think now that I could stand it if I lost everybody.”
“Everybody?” Lucy breathed.
“I don’t understand it, but yes. Everybody.”
“You wouldn’t care if I died?”
“Oh, Lucy, of course I’d care. I’ve been amazed both by how terrible the pain is and by how much a person can stand. It would break my heart to lose you, just like it’s broken my heart to lose Ethan and Rae. But it wouldn’t destroy me. I always thought it would, but it wouldn’t.”
Lucy wasn’t sure she liked this. If you really loved somebody, you never got over losing them. Especially parents never got over losing their children. It was how you knew they were parents, how you knew they’d really loved their kids. “Is Dad going to be all right?” Her neck and shoulders hurt from holding herself so still.
Mom hesitated just a split second before she answered. “Of course. We have to help him through it. We all have to help each other through it. That’s what families are for.”
“I thought families were to keep you safe.”
“There are some things families can protect you from.” Very gently, Mom laid Priscilla’s picture back with the others on the table. “Some things nobody can protect you from.”
“I don’t like that.”
“I don’t either.”
Mother and daughter gazed at each other for a long moment across the table littered with photographs. Lucy felt something pass from her mother to her, some cold wisdom that hurt, but that made her feel filled up. She blew her cheeks out with all the pent-up breath and said, “I’ll take Dad a cup of tea.”
“That would be nice, honey. But don’t wake him if he’s asleep.”
Lucy started for the kitchen, then asked, “Any news?”
She didn’t know why she kept asking that.
As always, Mom shook her head. “I called the police again this morning. Nothing. The first person I talked to wasn’t even familiar with the case, didn’t even recognize our name.”
Has she been to see Dad? Is that why he can’t sleep and why he stays home from work? Is Rae here now?
“How was group today?” Mom was gathering all the pictures together and putting them into one envelope. Soon they would all appear in frames in the living room shelves.
“Fine,” Lucy said automatically. Sometimes that satisfied them when they asked, and then she was sure they weren’t really interested. Sometimes they kept on asking her stuff and that made her mad. One week they hadn’t asked at all. That was the week Jerry had talked about how parents couldn’t really understand you because they were parents and she’d seen that he was right.
“Well, what’d you talk about?”
“Nothing much.”
They’d talked about anger. They always talked about anger. “Anger is the most powerful force in the universe,” Jerry’d told them, and Lucy could tell from the way he’d said it, from the look in his eyes and the set of his huge body at the head of their circle, that he knew what he was talking about. “And it’s nothing to be afraid of. Anger is the form of energy most accessible to us, most usable. It’s a high-energy food. One of the things you’ll learn in this group is how to use your anger in nourishing ways.”
“Mom?” Pris came tromping downstairs with her science book. She didn’t use crutches anymore, and she didn’t even limp. If you hadn’t known she’d broken something inside her body, you couldn’t tell. “What’s the difference between an earthquake and a volcano?”
“Ask Lucy. I bet she knows.”
It was an old trick. Get one kid to teach another kid something, and they both learned. But even though Lucy could see through it, she still liked being smarter than Pris, so she explained. “A volcano is when all this melted rock comes out of a hole in the ground. Lava. An earthquake is when pieces of the ground move.” She looked at Mom. Mom nodded.
Priscilla frowned. “You mean pieces of the ground move? And rocks melt?”
“Someday California is going to fall off into the ocean,” Lucy told her smugly. “There’s this big giant crack in the ground and there are earthquakes all the time and someday it’s just going to break off and sink.”
“What about all the buildings?” Priscilla’s eyes were wide. “And the people? And the cats?”
“They’ll die,” Lucy said flatly.
“Oh, you lie.”
“And you know what else? Once upon a time there was this city called Pompeii, and it was right by a volcano and all the people knew but they lived there anyway because they did all the things the gods told them to do and so nothing bad could happen to them. And then one day the volcano blew up—”
“Erupted,” Mom said.
“Erupted, and the whole city got covered with lava, and people and houses and cars and everything got buried alive.”
“Lucy,” Mom said, laughing a little, “there were no cars then.”
“You mean, they died? Everybody in the city just died?”
“They were all just stuck in it, and years and years later scientists found them. Like, whole families would still be sitting at the dinner table or something. There was this one little boy and his dog. Or they’d be looking at school pictures and doing homework.”
“Lucy, come on,” Mom objected. “Don’t tell her stuff like that. There were no cameras then, either.”
“You lie,” Priscilla said again.
Lucy looked to their mother for confirmation, and Mom said gently, “No, Pris, she’s right. Not about cars and cameras, but she’s right about the volcano in Pompeii and the fault and the earthquakes in California.”
“Yuck,” said Pris.
“It’s weird to think of the world not being solid, isn’t it?”
Lucy had known about volcanoes and earthquakes, but she hadn’t realized they meant the world wasn’t solid. Thinking about that made her skin crawl. She went into the kitchen to make Dad’s tea.
She’d never made him tea before, so she didn’t know what he liked in it, or what kind. She picked orange spice because it smelled sort of good in the little packets, and she stirred in a spoonful of sugar and a lot of milk.
Dad was asleep. At first, Lucy was disappointed. But she stood outside the bedroom door and listened to him snoring, and was comforted by the pleasant, even sound. She wondered about his dreams. She wondered about her own dreams. She’d been afraid she’d have really bad dreams after Ethan had died and then after Rae had disappeared, but so far she hadn’t. She thought maybe dreams lived inside you all the time, like mites, and fed off stuff you’d have thrown away if you’d known it was there.
&nbs
p; Something smelled funny. Lucy looked around but didn’t see any cat poop. It was coming from Mom and Dad’s room. Not a real strong smell, but kind of sickening, like something half-dead or really, really dirty.
Lucy eased the bedroom door open. Hot tea sloshed onto the back of her hand, but she didn’t jerk or make any noise. Dad gave a little gasp as if he’d just dreamed something that hurt him, then said something that didn’t seem to be in words. Lucy stood still and held her breath, afraid she’d awakened him, hoping she had. She’d never watched her father sleep before.
Dad rolled over, pulled up the sheet, started snoring again. Lucy let out her breath. She didn’t see anything in the room that would make that smell. Maybe Dad had on dirty socks. She wrinkled her nose.
She took the tea into her room. It smelled bad in here too, so maybe it was coming from outside. Her math homework was spread out on the floor and she sat down among the papers. Pre-algebra, spotted now with tea stains. She didn’t understand any of it and didn’t know why she should. The idea of letters standing for numbers made her nervous; why couldn’t they just mean what they seemed to mean? She went through the first couple of problems and wrote down letters and numbers, but she didn’t know whether they stood for each other or not, whether underneath the surface they had anything to do with each other. Then she folded up all the papers and stuck them inside the book and put the book on her dresser. School was dumb. She hated school. If it wasn’t for the chance to see Jerry, she wouldn’t go to school at all. She could count on seeing him every Wednesday after school in group, and lately he’d been showing up a couple of times during the week, waiting for her after class or to walk her partway home.
She opened her diary and, blushing, read what she’d written last night.
He’s so cute. He’s not really fat, he’s just big. He’s got big brown eyes and his skin is pink and soft. I know it’s soft. I haven’t really touched him yet, but someday I will. He still thinks I’m a little kid but someday he’ll look at me and he’ll see that I’m not. Sometimes I worry about him. He looks sick. He acts like he’s really tired and doesn’t feel good. But after the group his cheeks get all rosy and his eyes sparkle. I think he likes us. I think we make him happy. I want to make him happy.
She turned the page.
The whole two pages open before her were covered by two words written in huge, fat, very faint letters, so that she had to turn the diary at just the right angle to the light to be able to read them.
BE CAREFUL
And at the bottom, smaller and fainter and shaky:
LOVE, YOUR SISTER, RAE.
18
“Hi.”
“Hi, Lucy.”
He recognized her voice. He didn’t sound surprised that she’d called. He seemed glad to hear from her, as if her being alive was more important than other people being dead. “What’re you doing?”
“Oh, thinking about you.”
He didn’t laugh to show he hadn’t meant it. Her throat tightened.
“And about everybody else in the group,” he said. “Wondering how everybody’s Christmas is going.”
She fingered the heart locket Pris had given her; she could tell that it was really pretty, but she didn’t like it much. She wriggled her toes inside the fuzzy red slippers from Mom and Dad; they were exactly what she’d asked for, even pointed out in K-Mart, but somehow they weren’t what she’d wanted, and Mom and Dad should have known what she wanted. “It’s okay,” she said.
“Christmas can be pretty depressing.”
She nodded. They’d talked about this in group, but she wanted to hear him say it all again, just to her. She wanted to hear anything he had to say; the sound of his voice pulled something out of her that hurt.
“Because we’re expected to be loving and happy and at peace, and because a lot of us don’t really feel that way, Christmas can make us feel even more sad or angry or just plain pissed off.”
“I hate Christmas,” Lucy whispered.
“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I hate Christmas,” she said aloud, as loud as she dared with people right downstairs.
“Good,” he said. “Good for you, Lucy.”
She was talking on the phone in the upstairs hall, her face to the wall and her free hand cupped over the receiver. They wouldn’t give her a phone in her room, because they were afraid it would make her even more isolated from the rest of the family. They were right. It would. A phone in her room had been at the top of her Christmas list.
Downstairs, the little kids were yelling and squealing over their new toys. It scared her and made her mad that they could get so happy about such dumb things. A month from now they’d find something else to make them happy. Why bother liking anything when it was just going to get broken or die or disappear?
But she liked stuff, too, and that made her even madder. She liked the noise of the little kids playing. She liked the fudge Mom had made this year like every other. She liked Christmas.
Last night, late, she’d found Mom sitting alone in the living room with just the Christmas tree lights on and Christmas music playing on the stereo so quietly you could hardly hear it. Lucy had stood silently in the doorway for a long time, thinking how beautiful her mother looked, even with the white streak like glitter in her hair. How sad she looked. How fragile, like the glass angel hung on the tree with gold thread that you could see through her body and her wings. Lucy had been afraid to go in, afraid she’d spoil something or make something break.
Then Mom had looked up and seen her and held out her hand to her. Lucy had gone to her, snuggled beside her. Mom was warm, as she’d always been, and she’d held Lucy lightly, so they could both look at the lights and the snowless night outside the windows, both listen to the music. Lucy wished it would snow.
“Life is so full of things,” Mom had finally whispered. “So abundant.” Lucy didn’t exactly know what that meant, but it was a word people used a lot at Thanksgiving, and, warily, she liked the sound of it.
She’d sort of fallen asleep there, and had wakened gently when Mom had told her it was time to go to bed so Santa could come. She’d walked up the stairs holding her mother’s hand, and still feeling absolutely alone, but filled with wonder that she and her mother were in the same place at the same time, and touching.
“I hate Christmas,” she said again, to bring herself back.
“A lot of people hate Christmas,” Jerry assured her. “There’s a lot to hate.”
“What about you?” It seemed awfully bold to be asking this. Nosy. She plunged ahead. “Do you hate Christmas?”
“Yes.”
A terrible thought struck her. “You were with somebody today, right? Your family or somebody?”
“I don’t have a family.”
“You have an Aunt Alice,” Lucy said suddenly. “She lives in our neighborhood.”
There was a pause, and when Jerry answered, she could hear the smile in his voice. “I don’t have an Aunt Alice. I thought you knew that, Lucy.”
Lucy blushed at her own stupidity. He’d sent her a secret message, and she’d missed it. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I don’t have any family. You kids are my family.”
Neither of them said anything more for a while. The smells of turkey and ham that had filled the house all morning got stronger, as if somebody had opened the oven door. Suddenly frantic that Jerry had faded away, that it had been dumb in the first place to believe she could actually talk to him on something like a telephone, Lucy asked him, “So are you all alone for Christmas?”
“Not exactly. But I am—lonely.”
“That’s awful.”
“Yes, it is pretty awful. I hate Christmas, too.”
“Come over here.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lucy. I don’t think your parents would like it.”
“It’s my house, too,” Lucy protested.
“I’m really not feeling very well.”
“I could come visit you.”
“That would be nice.” She could tell by the change in his voice that she’d said the right thing.
“I could bring you some turkey and stuff.”
“I’d like that. I’m really hungry. I can’t seem to get filled up.” He chuckled.
“But I don’t know where you live.”
“How about if I meet you and bring you here? At that little park by your house, the one with the slides?”
“I thought you were sick,” Lucy said, at the same time that Dominic yelled up the stairs, “Lucy! Dinner!”
“At about four o’clock?” Jerry insisted.
He’d been expecting her to call, she knew.
And, somehow, the idea of meeting him and taking him some Christmas dinner had been his all along, not hers. “Okay,” she whispered quickly, and hung up.
Christmas dinner was the same as it had always been. That bothered Lucy. If she died, if she disappeared, wouldn’t anybody care any more than this? Would they still put on red napkins and the tablecloth with the holly on it?
At the same time, Christmas dinner was totally different and never would be the same again. It wasn’t fair that things you loved could change. It wasn’t fair that good things didn’t last.
She didn’t know which to believe, the differentness or the sameness. She didn’t know whether it was the inside that had changed and the outside that was the same, or the other way around. Her stomach hurt when she tried to imagine what Christmas would be like next year and for the rest of her life, who might go away, how she herself might change inside and out.
Mom always fixed both turkey and ham, wheat and white rolls, apple pie and pumpkin pie, because different people in the family liked different things. Lucy hated ham. She wondered who knew that. She’d never even noticed what Rae and Ethan liked. Maybe if she’d noticed stuff like that, they’d still be here. Last year Rae had thrown a fit over the whole wheat rolls they were like rocks, they stuck in your throat—even though there were white ones, too.
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