“Jessi,” Mom says, and my attention snaps back to her. “Your father and I raised you to be more responsible than this.”
I feel myself flinch. Did she just say that?
To be more responsible than what exactly?
And she raised me?
She raised me.
Something inside me snaps.
“I can’t do this right now,” I say, heading for the stairs.
“I’m talking to you!”
“And I’m walking away!” I shout back. “Because you know what? You do not get to show up on the scene eighteen years late and start telling me what to do. You do not get to decide when to start giving a fuck.”
Her eyes widen. “How dare you—”
“How dare I what? Tell the truth? Call you out for something you couldn’t control?” I seethe. “I’m not calling you out for being sick, Mom. I get it. I’m sorry having me made things so bad for you.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Well, let me make it more simple. You do not get to have a kid and then opt out of her life. And if there’s no opt-out, there sure as hell is no opt-in option.”
“What’s going on?” Dad’s voice comes from the top of the stairs.
“I tried my best,” Mom says, and she’s crying now.
“So did I. I found homes in other places, with other people.”
“Mel,” she says. Not a question, just one accusing word. It’s the first time I know for sure that it bothered her how much time I spent at the Cohen house. Somehow it still hadn’t been enough to wake my mother up to fight for me. She is here now, apparently; what pisses me off is that she’s acting like she never left.
“Yes, Mel,” I spit. My voice trembles like I’m about to cry, which just makes me angrier. “She’s been more of a mother to me than you ever were.”
“Jessi!” Dad calls sternly from halfway down the stairs. “Stop that right now.”
I laugh. “What is it with people who never gave a fuck about my life caring all of a sudden?”
“I always cared,” Mom says teary. “I loved you. You knew that.”
“Did I?” I ask. “What did you ever do to show me that? What did you ever do?”
I’m surprised at myself, the way my voice is rising, the way I’m spitting my words. I never thought we would talk about all of this. How do you condense eighteen years into one conversation?
“I kept going.” Mom’s voice is small. “I woke up every day, and I kept going.”
She shakes her head. “I know now that I should have gotten help sooner. I was so stubborn, and I hate myself for it every day, but my family . . . you have to understand that being depressed wasn’t considered a sickness, just a weakness. I thought I could fight it on my own.”
“That’s what you call fighting it?” I ask. “Being in bed for most of my life?”
Mom gives Dad a desperate look. “I made a lot of mistakes, Jessi. But I’m trying to right them now. I know you can see how far I’ve come the last few months. It’s a work in progress, but I’m doing better. Everything is going to be different now.”
“It’s too late.” I hear myself saying as I back up, starting up the stairs past my father.
“Can’t we talk about this?” Mom asks, her voice breaking.
But it’s too late for that, too. We didn’t talk for the past seventeen years. We didn’t talk one year ago, when Mom started treatment and tiny changes started happening. We didn’t talk when she was back in bed a few weeks ago. We never talk. Why start now?
I break into a run down the hall until I reach my room.
I slam my door and then bury myself in my bed.
Tears come unbidden, for everything I’ve lost and everything I never had. Two families. Two homes. Two brothers. My best friends.
Mel.
I’ve lost it all, and the saddest part is, I’m still not sure if they were ever mine to begin with.
I sniff my clothes, hoping they still have Luke’s scent that I love so much. But I smell nothing; it’s all me.
21
NOW
Willow’s lips form a long, thin line when I arrive at work.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to call you back,” I say, remembering the three missed calls from her that I have on my phone.
“That’s okay,” she says coldly. “I guess you were busy.”
“I was. Luke and I worked all day yesterday on this surprise . . .”
Willow holds up her hand to stop me. “Honestly, it’s fine, Jessi. You don’t need to tell me. You don’t need to tell me anything about your life.”
I’m surprised at the bitter tone in her voice. I know I should have called her after Friday night at the lake, but I was kind of preoccupied with other stuff.
“Wills, come on,” I say, reaching for her shoulder.
She shrugs off my touch. “No, you come on. I came here to this town and I wanted to be your friend. I told you about my channel. At camping, I told you about my issues from before . . . And honestly, let’s talk about camping. Luke told us about his mom. You told me you like country songs,” she hisses. “Country songs.”
“I do,” I say lamely.
“Well, whoop-de-doo,” she says. “So does everyone in Texas, where I came from. Tell me something that freaking matters.”
I’m not sure if she’s actually asking me to tell her now, and then the moment passes, and she’s looking even more pissed than she was a minute ago.
“Um . . .”
“Just forget it, Jessi,” she says. “College is a couple weeks away. I’ll make friends there. I’ll be fine.”
She starts to walk away before she turns back. “Honestly, it’s you I feel sorry for. You push everyone away. You act like you have some kind of plague. You think no one will like you if you tell the truth, but it’s only because you don’t like you. And I hate to break it to you, but you’re only one person. You do not get the final say on everyone’s opinion of you.”
“Willow, I’m sorry,” I say, feeling like I’m about to cry. “I really didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Luke had a brother?” she asks.
I nod hopefully, thinking maybe she’s forgiven me enough to want to know details now.
“And he died?”
I nod again.
“And that’s why Eric hates you? Not because of some childhood grudge, but because of whatever happened,” she says.
“Yeah. I mean, I think we’re fine now, but . . .”
“Wow,” Willow says, shaking her head in disbelief. “Eric told me all that. I really should thank you for something.”
Hope springs eternal, and my eyes light up again. “What?”
“I realized because of you how completely awful it is to be lied to. If you love someone, you tell them the truth. Everything else is an excuse,” she says. “So I told my dad about my channel, and about Brett, and about not wanting to major in business.”
“And?” I ask.
“I’ll tell my friends in college what he had to say. I have no interest in telling you anything more about myself.”
Her words feel like a physical slap. Two of our campers arrive at exactly that moment. Willow busies herself setting up, leaving me to approach them, welling eyes and all.
“Hey, Kelsie, Lydia,” I say. “How was your weekend?”
They launch into a story about their Slip ’N Slide, and I nod and try to seem like I’m listening.
Getting to lunch is more of the same, and it’s excruciating. The whole thing with Willow hasn’t given me enough time to worry about seeing Luke after the weekend, and a sick feeling falls over me as we walk over to the science station. Except it’s Sunshine there, not Luke. Maybe, after the way I left him, the thought of seeing me today was too much and he decided to take a sick day. I would probably have done the same.
At lunch, I check my phone and nearly have a heart attack.
I have nine missed calls.
Five from Naomi.
&
nbsp; Three from Mom.
One from Dad.
No, I think.
No no no no.
Willow’s walking past me in the locker room, about to go out to the cafeteria, but she stops when she sees the expression on my face.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, despite herself.
I can’t speak. I just show her my call log.
“I don’t get it,” she says. “Who’s Naomi?”
“Luke’s mom’s best friend. I think . . . I think . . .” The room is spinning around me, and suddenly it makes sense why Luke is not here today.
No no no no.
Willow looks stricken, but she quickly schools her face. “Did anyone leave a message?”
When I shake my head, she says, “Okay, so we don’t know for sure. Maybe there’s another emergency. Maybe . . .” She seems to reconsider putting any other potential emergencies in my head.
“Let’s just sit down and call someone. It’s probably nothing,” she says.
But it’s not.
It’s not nothing.
I know it the way I knew what had happened to Ro.
Still, I nod, and my shaking fingers touch Naomi’s name on my screen.
After the fight with my mother, the last thing I want is to hear it from either of my parents. Besides, they won’t know as much as Naomi knows.
As the phone rings, I start to tell myself that Willow’s right. It could be a million other emergencies. I mean, Mel is the most likely one, but it might not be the one. She might have another infection. Maybe she’s in the hospital.
Maybe it’s good news.
“Jessi?” I can tell from Naomi’s stuffy voice that it’s not good news. I look at Willow, but she just nods encouragingly.
“I saw you called.”
She’s not dead she’s not dead she’s not dead
“Mel’s unconscious.”
She’s not dead.
She’s not dead.
“Okay, so what do we do? Is there a drug or a surgery . . .”
“Honey, they’re not expecting her to wake up,” Naomi says now. “You probably wanna come and say goodbye.”
22
I want to tell Mel . . .
That Naomi called me honey.
I want to tell Mel that I never got over her oldest son.
I want to tell Mel that I lied to her, that we lied to her.
I want to tell Mel that she saved me, that she cared about me when it seemed like nobody else did.
I want to tell her that I’m sorry. There’s a whole list of things I’m sorry for, and I’d start at the beginning and go through it.
I’m sorry that the day we met, when she put me and Ro in the minivan and drove us to her house for our first playdate, I purposely spilled the root beer she bought me, because I think root beer tastes like toes.
I’m sorry that a couple of years later, when my dad took me to the clinic because our babysitter canceled, I saw Dr. Cohen walk by the store window, laughing with a blond woman, and I never told anyone. I thought she was beautiful, and I’m sorry for that, too.
There’s so much that I want to tell Mel, but when I sit down beside her and hold her hand, all I do is cry.
Cry, whisper “I love you I love you,” and choke on the rest of my words.
23
Mel dies two days later in the middle of the night in the guest room of her house. Her nurse is just outside the room, but she’s not in a hospital and there are no doctors around. When she was still well enough, she’d made specific arrangements so she could die in her own house.
I’m asleep at home, my home, and I’m tossing and turning, the way I have been since she went into a coma, but I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel a jolt or an earthquake or an absence in the world. Maybe that’s because I felt the jolt the day she told us that her doctor suspected something but it was probably nothing. Maybe I felt the earthquake on the day she told Ro and Luke and Naomi the news, but not me, because I was not family and Ro didn’t want me to see him cry. And maybe the absence has been there, growing deeper and deeper every day with each piece of her that was stolen by the Big Bad.
Maybe, maybe not.
Dr. Cohen flies back for her funeral, which Naomi says would irritate Mel, but at least he doesn’t bring his new wife, which Naomi says would make Mel die all over again.
I’m glad, though, that he’s here for Luke. Luke, who no longer has any other family in the world but the father he hates so much. Luke, who I hurt over and over and over again, who I haven’t spoken to since the first night I came to visit Mel after she came home from the hospital. He was in the living room, talking with Bobby, Naomi’s husband, and he said “hey” when I walked in and I said “hey,” and that was it.
The second night when I came, he was upstairs on the phone. Probably with Courtney. And I hate that I’m petty enough to think that even now. He deserves someone who didn’t break his heart, who didn’t let his brother drive drunk, who didn’t leave his bed in the middle of the night.
The funeral is beautiful. Naomi asks me if I’d like to say a few words, but I refuse. Then she asks me to choose one of Mel’s favorite jazz songs for the ceremony. Apparently Mel said in her instructions that I would “know.”
I don’t know, but I pick “Detour Ahead” by Ella Fitzgerald, and I hope that’s okay.
Naomi makes me and my parents sit two seats behind the family row. I’ve refused to sit any closer. When my mother takes my hand and leads me into the church, I let her. The day Mel passed away, my mother was at my side constantly, running her hands through my hair and asking if I needed anything. I wanted to repeat what I’d said to her—that it was too late, it was already so, so late, but I didn’t have the energy for words. And anyway, I no longer know if it is true.
Luke is a pallbearer.
Again, Luke is a pallbearer.
He walks with his head down, takes long, sad steps that look all wrong on him.
The pastor reads from Psalm 23. I guess Mel decided it wasn’t too cliché after all.
I cry through the whole ceremony and all through the ride back to Mel’s for the wake.
I almost throw up when I step into the house.
It smells like baked goods and food, and it sounds like conversation and life, and it makes me realize that for the last few months the Cohen house smelled and sounded like death and loneliness.
When my parents get caught up talking to one of Mel’s neighbors, I can’t take it. I can’t take the past tense or the sadness, the way they sum her up in simple words.
A “good” lady. A “brave” battle. A “strong” spirit. A “wonderful” mom.
No no no no.
I see his head moving above everyone else’s, watch as he says something to his father, and Dr. Cohen pats him on the back and moves aside so Luke can go. Luke starts up the stairs, and before I can stop myself, I’m following after him, squeezing through people’s circles.
I watch him from the second step, see the way he exhales and lets his head fall before pushing into the bathroom he and Rowan shared. I pad upstairs behind him, knowing I should let him grieve in peace, knowing I’ve done enough damage, but needing to be near him.
I knock once on the door.
“Just a minute,” he calls back over the sound of running water, and even with a door between us, he sounds broken and lost and afraid.
A couple of seconds later, the door swings open. Luke’s face is wet, like he just washed it.
“Sorry, there’s a . . .” His voice trails off as he sees me. He just stands there, lets me slip around him into the bathroom.
He shuts the door and looks at me.
I walk back toward him and throw my arms around him. I feel him shaking in my arms and then I’m crying and it’s hard to say who is holding who up. All I want is to make this better for him, so I kiss the side of his jaw. He turns so his lips are facing me, and I kiss them too. He kisses me back, and our mouths taste like tears and grief and anger. He presse
s my back against the vanity, and I untuck his dress shirt from his slacks. His kisses grow wild now and desperate, and he hikes up the skirt of my new black dress. I match his desperation and undo his fly. He reaches above us and opens a medicine cabinet, pulls a box from it and a foil packet. As we get louder, I reach back behind me to open the tap, letting the water drown us out. We hold tight to each other and kiss and cry and fill each other for as long as we can. We stay that way, breathless, for several minutes after, and then he lets go and starts to get dressed again. I watch him, my dress still up around my stomach.
He doesn’t say anything before he leaves the room, but he looks back once, and our eyes hold.
When he’s gone, I slide down to the floor, pull my knees up to my chest, and sob.
24
Luke doesn’t come back to work.
My mom says she heard from the neighbor at Mel’s wake that he’s spending the next few weeks at his dad’s.
I haven’t seen him since that day in the bathroom.
On my first day back at work (a week after Mel’s funeral), I arrive early to set up. As soon as Willow sees me, she hurries over and gives me a hug.
The day I found out about Mel’s coma, Willow was the one to drive me home. I think she’s forgiven me already, but I want her to know that everything I didn’t tell her was about me and my shame and my guilt. It wasn’t about not trusting her or not wanting to be her friend.
She nods. “I get it. I’m sorry everything sucks so much right now.”
I swallow to keep from crying. “Can I tell you about them?” I ask. “The Cohens?”
“All of them?” Willow asks.
“All of them,” I say.
She nods.
So I do.
When I enter Ernie’s unit after two weeks away, he heaves a huge sigh of resignation. “I thought you’d finally heard me and left while you were ahead.”
“I told you it’s not happening,” I say, trying my best to be as lively as possible.
“So what happened to you then? Jail time? Food poisoning?”
I laugh. “Food poisoning for two weeks?”
He cuts me with a withering look, as if I don’t even know the things he has seen.
Some Other Now Page 27
