She asked me how I felt, but she never asked what I was thinking. I think she hoped that the food and the attention, the constant kindness, would make me into the girl I was supposed to be.
But that girl could never be—not ever—and so that night, I ran.
I was in bed, wrapped up in my covers with my hands resting on my belly so I could feel myself breathing. My eyes were gritty as I waited for sleep, only to have it come for moments. I was waking up with a start as soon as dreams came for me, trying to take me somewhere I knew I didn’t want to go.
I lay there and remembered running at soccer practice, remembered how I had been able to just focus on it. How, for a little while, I had felt like I was really here. I got up, got dressed, climbed out my window, and slid down onto the porch. From there I dropped onto the grass, and then I ran.
I ran down our driveway, our street. The trees were dark shadows, like everything else, and I ran past them, too busy hearing myself breathing, too busy feeling my body working slowly, clumsily.
I ran until I couldn’t anymore. I didn’t get very far.
I had to walk back because I’d overdone it. I could feel my hamstrings tightening in protest already and when I got back to the house I stood on the driveway for a second, looking up at the porch.
Looking up at my room waiting for me, looking at the open window leading to my bed, leading to me lying there awake and waiting for another day I didn’t want.
I climbed up anyway, feeling my arms shake as I pushed myself onto the roof.
“What are you doing?”
I looked around and saw Joe leaning out his bedroom window watching me.
“What does it look like?”
He grinned. I could see what looked liked a hickey on his neck, a dark spot on his pale skin, and his hair was sticking up in the back, like someone had been running their fingers through it. “Did you lock yourself out?”
“No.”
I was sliding one foot toward my window when he spoke again. “Then what are you doing?”
I glanced over at his window. He’d leaned out of it far enough so I could still see him, head tilted to one side as he watched me.
“Not what you’re doing.”
He grinned again, wider, and touched the hickey. “What, this? I got it earlier. Believe me, if I had a girl in my room right now, I wouldn’t be watching you try to break your neck.”
I froze halfway through my window, my arms burning as I held myself still. “I’m not trying to break my neck.”
“You wouldn’t anyway. You’re not up high enough. You’d just mess up your mother’s flowerbeds and maybe break your arm.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Beth saw your brother jump off the roof the time he made a parachute,” he said. “And when he was in the hospital getting his arm set, she calculated that it would be almost impossible to die jumping off your roof. She wanted to put that in the get-well card she made, but Mom talked her out of it. She said ‘Feel Better’ was nicer than math problems about death.”
“I’d forgotten all about David and the roof,” I said. “I bet he might still have the card Beth—”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said, and I heard his window close. I slid inside mine, shaking my arms out and wondering what Joe had seen in my face to make him say what he had.
I pushed the thought away and went back to bed, hoping that now I could sleep.
I didn’t.
Eleven
I got to school late the next morning and was greeted by the sight of Coach Henson standing in the parking lot, arms folded across his chest as he paced back and forth like it was game day. Maybe it was. I didn’t know the team schedule anymore.
He waved me down as soon as I got out of the car like he’d been waiting for me.
“Talked to a few of your teachers the other day,” he said. “Seems you’ve had trouble keeping up with your schoolwork. Also, your guidance counselor says you’re behind on your independent study. You were supposed to turn in your outline and a general thesis statement last week, remember?”
I shrugged.
“Look, normally I wouldn’t say anything but—” He broke off, sighed, and then cleared his throat like he always did before he said something he thought was important. “I know classes can be boring sometimes, but that’s how classes are, right? And everyone—and I mean everyone—is impressed by how courageous you are. But you need to keep applying yourself, because if you don’t—well, if you don’t, you’re going to be letting yourself down. And I know you don’t want that.”
I stared at him. He smiled at me. I didn’t smile back.
“Well,” he said, “I know you’ll power through. And look, I’ll take care of your late slip, so you just get over to the auditorium with everyone else.”
“Auditorium?”
He nodded. “Senior portraits, remember? Now go on, and think about what I said.”
Things only got worse from there.
The auditorium was so crowded, people packed together everywhere. In the aisles, by the doors, and it was hot too, everyone crowded together, so close and I—I dug my nails into my palms trying to steady myself. It didn’t work.
I had to get out of there, but when I turned around there were already people behind me, leaning against the doors I’d just come through. Behind their heads I could see the tiny windows at the tops of the doors, high enough to offer only a view of the hallway ceiling, of empty space.
Airplane windows were about that size, and people pressed up against them too, looking out into nothing.
I headed toward the exit at the far side of the auditorium, my legs shaking so badly I thought I was going to fall down. I tried not to look at anyone but I saw Jess and Lissa sitting together. Jess said something and Lissa laughed, doubling over the way she did when she got caught up in a giggling fit. Jess laughed too and then hugged Lissa. Her eyes caught mine as she did, and her smile slipped.
I looked away and kept walking. It was hard to get past the seemingly endless rows of seats, so close together they could have been on a plane. I looked at the floor, trying not to think about that, but when I looked up everyone had vanished and there was nothing to see but row after row of empty chairs. It was only for a second but my heart started beating so hard I could actually feel it fluttering in my chest. I ran the last few steps to the door and pushed it open.
Outside, I sat down, curled up tight with my arms around my legs and my head pressed into my knees until I could breathe again.
There was no way I could drive home. Just walking by the lot and seeing my car made me feel sick. So I walked, but between the road and the trees and myself, I felt worse and worse with every step I took, shaky and light-headed, hollowed out. I started to be afraid that if I took another step I’d die or vanish or, worse, realize I was somewhere else, like on a plane . . .
I dug my nails into my palms again to force myself to keep walking and, after a while, realized I was by the church. Reverend Williams’s car was parked by the office that had been built off to the side. Margaret’s car was next to it.
It was cool inside the church, and dark. No trees. No road. The pews looked like pews and not airline seats, and I sat down.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
Margaret was behind me, carrying a bunch of flowers for the vases up by the altar. I shrugged, not wanting to talk to her, but not ready to get up and leave either.
“Well, don’t just sit there. Come give me a hand with these flowers.”
So I helped Margaret arrange the flowers. She didn’t talk much, except to say things like, “Taller ones in the back, please,” or “You’ve got too much greenery on the right side. Pull some out. No, your other right side.”
“Good enough,” she said after she decided we were done, pushing her glasses up with one finger and squinting at the flowers. She looked over at me. “Didn’t see that car of yours out front.”
“Didn’t drive it.”
I shrugged and told myself not to look away from her. It was surprisingly hard.
“You know, you look terrible,” she said. “Hard to tell where those circles under your eyes end and you begin. Come on, I’ll fix you lunch and then take you home.”
Why were old people able to get away with being so rude? “I’ll walk, thank you.”
“All right,” she said, and turned back to the flowers, rearranging them again.
I left, but outside I only made it to the edge of the parking lot before I had to stop. I didn’t feel like I had before, sick and frightened. I just felt trapped. Where could I go? Back to school and my car? And then what? Home, where I’d lie around trying not to see things that weren’t there, where I had to act like everything was fine, like I was a miracle?
I was trapped, and realizing that made me want to throw things. To reach up and grab hold of the sky with both hands and pull, rip the world apart.
“You can’t stand here all day, you know,” Margaret said from behind me, and touched my shoulder.
I jumped; I couldn’t help it, and stepped away from her. She took a step back herself, and flinched at the look on my face. It was strange to see someone so old do that. Wrong, somehow.
“I’m going to walk home and make some lunch,” she said. “You can come if you want.”
I went. Not because I wanted to, or even because it was something to do before I went back to the inevitable and waited through the rest of the day.
I went because she flinched. Because when she looked at me, she clearly didn’t see a miracle. She saw something the opposite of that, something lost and broken.
I went because she saw me.
I’d never been to her house, not even when Rose was alive and they sometimes invited people to come back across the street for coffee after church. Inside, it was smaller than I’d thought and ruthlessly clean. “Leave your shoes there,” Margaret said as soon as I walked in, and pointed at a neat row of them by the door. I recognized one pair. Rose had a pair of bright blue clogs she’d worn in the summer and I put mine as far away from them as I could. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Rose or anything like that. It just seemed like a good idea to stay away from dead people’s things.
I already had enough dead people around me.
“Sit down,” Margaret said when I came into the kitchen, and then gave me a glass of milk.
“I don’t like milk.”
“Everyone likes milk.”
“I don’t.”
“Drink it anyway. I have to take a pill once a week to help my bones and it’s all because I never drank enough milk.”
I took a sip. It was skim, not the 2% Mom bought, and it tasted like water. When I was a kid I’d sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a grandmother. Now I knew I wasn’t missing anything.
Margaret opened a cabinet and got out some bread and a can of something. “You know, it was very pretty over in Vietnam. Not during the fighting, of course, and certainly not after, but sometimes when I’m talking about the war, or even when I think about everything that happened, I’ll remember that, how pretty the land was. I don’t think I noticed it more than once or twice, really, but it’s stayed with me all these years.”
She opened another cabinet and got out two plates. “Rose didn’t agree with me, and after a couple of fights, I just stopped trying to explain how I felt to her.” She glanced at me. “You want mayo?”
I shook my head. She was making deviled ham; I’d smelled it as soon as she’d opened the can, and I only liked ham with mustard on it. I didn’t know what to think about what she’d just told me. I didn’t know much about Vietnam and I didn’t know what her story meant.
I guess she could tell because she stopped making sandwiches long enough to squint at me. “When we got back, I couldn’t stand loud noises. Reminded me of things I didn’t want to remember. So I made myself walk by Derek Ginty’s house back when he got his first car—this was well before you were even born—and listened to it backfire when he was trying to work on it. I used to end up standing there looking like you did today. And Rose . . . it was different for her. She couldn’t stand hospitals. The thought of all the sick people inside, all their suffering, it—it got to her. So she stayed away from them, and wouldn’t hardly ever even go to see a doctor. She had a hard time going to LaMotte, even when it was toward the end. A bitter, hard time.”
She put a sandwich in front of me. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I stared at her and my throat felt tight, like there were things—words—trapped in it.
“I should go wash up,” I said, and pushed away from the table.
“Down the hall on the left,” Margaret said. “And don’t use the soaps in the little basket. Or touch the green towels.”
The bathroom, small and painted a pale green, was right across from a bedroom. The door to it was closed, and I figured it had been Rose’s. I washed my hands and dried them off on the little green towels I wasn’t supposed to use, glancing at the other door in the bathroom, the one that led into Margaret’s room.
I fiddled with the door that led back out into the hallway, and then looked at the other one. I couldn’t help but wonder what Margaret’s room was like. I bet everything was arranged according to size or alphabetically, something like that. I didn’t know how Rose had put up with her, best friend or not, for all those years.
But the room wasn’t Margaret’s. It was Rose’s. I could tell as soon as I opened the door. The walls were a sunny yellow, the bed had a bright homemade quilt on it, and a couple of the bears she’d made for every kid in church the Christmas I was seven were on a dresser, the ones that hadn’t been taken because some of the parents wouldn’t let their kids have them. There were some pictures too, but I wasn’t close enough to see them and I didn’t feel right walking around the room.
I saw a pair of Margaret’s glasses next to one of the pictures, like she’d come in to look around and had to leave in a hurry. I guess she didn’t feel right in here either. That was sad.
I went back into the bathroom and headed into the hallway. I didn’t feel bad about peeking in the other room now, especially since I’d already accidentally seen Rose’s. Plus I really wasn’t in a hurry to go back out to my sandwich and Margaret. I’d wanted someone to understand how I felt, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted that someone to be Margaret.
I opened the other door.
It wasn’t Margaret’s room. It wasn’t a bedroom at all. It was a study or something, a desk with an old computer in one corner, and a bunch of bookshelves along the walls. There was a comfy-looking sofa in the other corner, two more of Rose’s teddy bears sitting on top of it. One of them was wearing glasses perched halfway down its nose, and the other one was wearing a pink sweatshirt that said SILVER FOX. They were holding hands.
I don’t know how long I stood there before I figured it out. Before I got that those bears were supposed to be Margaret and Rose. Before I knew that I could look in every other room in the house and never find another bedroom.
“Meggie, what on earth are you still doing in the bath . . . ?” Margaret’s voice, loud at first, trailed off altogether. I could feel her looking at me, at the room, at the bears sitting together, and then back at me.
“You didn’t know.” She sounded surprised. I guess she should have been. I’d always wondered why some people in town and even at church wouldn’t talk to them, why Jess’s mother had glanced at mine and muttered, “Let’s hope not,” the time I said, “Me and Jess are going to be friends forever just like Margaret and Rose,” after we got drunk on peach schnapps we snuck during her aunt’s bachelorette party.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t.”
“Well, you do now. You want me to drive you home, or do you want to walk?” Margaret’s voice was crisp but when I looked over at her she was staring at the bears with a sad look on her fa
ce, like she’d had this conversation before. Like people looked at her after they knew and stopped seeing her.
“Can I have my sandwich first?”
She glanced at me. She didn’t smile. She frowned, then squinted at me, and after a long while she nodded.
So I ate my sandwich, and then she drove me home. “Tell your parents you were at my house,” she said when I got out of the car. “I don’t want them hearing from someone else.”
“They won’t care.”
“Tell them anyway,” Margaret said.
Twelve
“It’s a nice surprise to see you here and not up in your room,” Mom said as she came into the living room. I was sitting on the sofa watching a bunch of news guys yell at each other about taxes. It was just like a talk show except everyone was wearing ties. “Want a snack?”
“Nah. I’m still kind of full from lunch.”
“What did you have?” She sat down next to me.
“Ham. Margaret made it. Well, not the ham. The sandwiches.”
“Margaret? From church?”
“Yep.”
“You . . . you ate lunch with her? At her house?”
I nodded.
“Well. That’s . . . did you have a nice time?”
“Sure. Have you ever been to her house?” I already knew the answer. One of the guys on TV was yelling so loud his face was bright red.
“No,” Mom said, and her voice had gone high and sort of strangled sounding. “Is it nice?”
“Small. One bathroom. One bedroom.”
She got off the sofa. “I didn’t see your car in the driveway. Did it break down?”
“No, it’s at school.”
“I’ll call your father and have him go look at it,” she said, and went into the kitchen. I could have heard what she said to Dad if I’d turned the television down, but I could already guess what it was.
Dad came home about ten minutes later. He stopped in the kitchen, saying something to Mom I didn’t try to listen to, and then came into the living room. “What happened to the car?”
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