Chapter Fifteen
Erin drifted on a sea of cozy, snuggly warmth and struggled to open her eyes. Light floated around her, and slowly she came to realize that she was on a sofa cushion on the floor of Shara’s beach house. She rolled over and came face-to-face with a sleeping David.
She instantly sat up, only to see that she was surrounded by many sleeping couples. They were curled and bunched next to one another on cushions and pillows spread across the floor. Crumpled taffeta and crushed satin gave the room an eerie look, as if a magic spell had been cast and people had simply dropped in their tracks.
Erin’s muscles ached from sleeping on the floor. She arched her back and rubbed her arms. Carefully she studied David. How childlike he looked as the sunlight pouring in through sliding glass doors turned his hair the color of spun gold. Erin watched him, trying to remember the evening before.
It returned in snatches, like scraps of photographs tossed into the wind. Walking the beach with David and crying … sitting in the sand while David rocked her … coming back to the house only when the music had stopped and the lights had gone out … stepping over bodies stretched along the floor, and David wrestling a sofa cushion from someone already asleep … David pulling her down next to him and holding her until the rhythmic sound of others breathing had lulled her into an exhausted sleep.
Shed made a fool of herself the night before. Why had she started talking about Amy in the first place? Why had she broken down and cried? Where had all the anger and tears come from? Maybe it was the medication, she told herself. Yes, that had to be it. She’d taken the pills to stave off a headache, and they must have caused her to “lose it” in front of David. How could she face him today?
Quietly Erin rose and carefully threaded her way into the bathroom. Once there, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, at her tangled hair and mascara-smudged eyes, still red and swollen. God, she looked awful! She wondered where her purse was and her hairbrush. She splashed water on her face and rinsed her mouth. She needed some orange juice and decided to go to the kitchen.
Pinky and Andy and three other couples were sitting at the pine table talking quietly.
Pinky grinned. “Did we wake you guys?” Her eyes were glassy, and Erin realized that this group hadn’t slept at all.
“No. Is there any juice?”
“Help yourself.” Erin took the paper cup Andy shoved toward her. She found the juice in the refrigerator and filled the cup.
“Some party, huh?” Pinky asked. “Where’d you and David spend the evening?” There was an innuendo in Pinky’s voice that Erin didn’t like.
“We just walked the beach.”
“Uh-huh …” Pinky drawled, cutting her eyes toward Andy.
Erin didn’t care what they thought. She was exhausted and wanted to go home, take a shower, and sleep in her own bed. “What time is it anyway?” she asked.
“Seven o’clock.”
The last time Erin remembered seeing a clock, it had been four A.M. “Short night,” she said, draining the last of her juice.
“I’m glad Ms. Thornton said no play practice today,” Pinky said.
The play. Inwardly Erin groaned. The performance was a week from Saturday, and suddenly she was dreading it, as if it were too big a chore to tackle.
“Hi, guys. What’s for breakfast?” David stepped through the doorway.
“Whatever you want to fix,” Pinky told him, and everybody laughed.
He tried to catch Erin’s eye, but she refused. He’d seen her soul last night, and now, in the light of day, she felt more exposed than if she’d stood before him naked.
“You don’t think I can cook?” David said, stepping around her. “What do you want? Eggs, French toast, pancakes? Just name it.”
“How about cereal?” Seth said, sauntering into the room. “Its hard to screw that up.”
“Ye of little faith,” David said. “Watch this, hair ball.” In minutes he had everyone organized, and eggs were being scrambled, toast was browning, and the aroma was bringing other sleepy kids into the kitchen.
Erin stood aside, impressed by the way David could take over a room, grateful that she didn’t have to interact with anybody. Later he drove her home, but she avoided talking by feigning sleep, and at her front door he asked, “Can I call you later?”
“I’m gonna crash for the rest of the day. I’ll see you at play practice Monday after school.” She went inside before he could say anything else.
Her mother was waiting for her inside the door. “Did you have fun? Are you all right?” She was trying to sound pleasant, but Erin saw the circles under her eyes and realized that shed probably been up most of the night too.
“Im fine, Mom. I told you not to worry.”
“I wasn’t worrying. I was just asking. Can’t I even ask if you had a good time or not?”
Erin felt guilty, but she was too tired to hassle with her mother. “Can I tell you all about it later? I’m really wiped out.”
“Yes, of course. Go on to bed and we can talk tonight.”
“Are you working today? Should I start dinner?”
“Well go out for dinner.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“Out. He said he’d be out tonight too. No use in cooking for just the two of us.”
“No use,” she agreed. “No use at all.”
“Erin, it’s really great to see you. I’m so glad you called and wanted to come over.” Beth Wilson’s eyes shone as she spoke.
Erin sat cross-legged on Beth’s bed, munching popcorn. “I’ve been wanting to come over for ages, but with school and play practice and Spring Fling and all—”
“How was the dance? Tell me about it.”
Erin still wasn’t caught up on her rest, but Sunday afternoon at her house had been filled with its usual tension, so she’d called Beth and practically invited herself over. “The dance was fun, and afterward we stayed up all night at Shara’s beach house. We all sort of fell asleep together on the floor.”
Beth clutched her knees and giggled. “Sounds romantic.”
Erin recalled how snuggly and content she’d felt in David’s arms. “Hardly,” she said. “My bones still hurt from the hard floor. I’d never make a camper.”
“We used to camp,” Beth said wistfully. “Before my mom got real sick. Before Dad left.”
“How is your mom?”
Beth shrugged. “About the same. She has to go for dialysis again every other day, and they’re trying to locate another donor kidney for her.”
Beth’s house smelled of sickness. Erin noticed it as soon as Beth opened the front door, but she smiled and came inside anyway. It reminded her too much of the hospital, of the Neuro-ICU unit, and of Amy’s cubicle. “Then they’ll do a second transplant?” she asked.
“Yeah, just as soon as they find a donor kidney with a good tissue match. Of course, there’s no telling how long that will take, so all we can do is wait and continue the dialysis. But Mom’s a priority. You know how it is.”
Erin knew how it was. Somebody had to die in order that somebody else could go on living. “You can’t just turn off the machines. You can’t just give Amy away in bits and pieces,” she had pleaded with her parents.
Her mother had said, “Something has to make sense. Organ donation is our only way of making this whole thing plausible.”
“So,” Beth was saying, “how’s your love life?”
Erin blushed. “What love life?”
“You know—David Devlin? Didn’t you have fun with him Friday night?”
“David’s all right.”
“Just all right?”
Erin studied a spot on the wall, above Beth’s head. “I don’t know why everybody’s trying to fix me up with David. It’s not like that between us. He’s just a guy I do things with. That’s all.”
“Gosh, Erin, I didn’t mean to make you mad. I was only teasing.”
“And I didn’t mean to snap,” Erin said. “It’s the play and
finals coming up. I don’t know. I guess it’s just me.”
“And I’m trying to live vicariously,” Beth admitted with a quick smile. “Because my life’s the pits.”
“Are you going to finish the school year?”
“I have to. When Mom found out I was skipping classes to help around here, she exploded. For a sick woman she really let loose. But even though I’m finishing high school, I refuse to go away to college.”
“Will you go at all?”
“Just to Hillsborough Junior College. That way I can be at home, look after Mom and my brother and sisters, and still get some sort of college degree.”
Erin was counting the days until she could go away and start living on her own—if only her parents would let her. She felt sorry for Beth. It didn’t seem fair that she was having to give up her plans all because her father decided he couldn’t cope with having a sick wife. “Has your dad ever called or written?”
Beth shook her head. “But we do have some help financially now, and I don’t think Social Services is going to break up our family. A social worker with the dialysis unit figured out that things weren’t going so hot for us, and she’s been a big helo. She checks on us every week, and so far I’ve been able to convince her that I’m doing a good job.”
To Erin it seemed as if Beth were doing a superb job. “You are coming to the play, aren’t you?”
“I’m planning on it. How’s it going?”
“You know how it is toward the end of rehearsals—it seems like a disaster, but somehow it all comes together at the last minute, and you make it through. We’ve got dress rehearsals all this week.”
Beth looked disappointed. “I was hoping that maybe we could go to a movie or something Friday night.”
Erin wanted to tell Beth that the big rehearsal was all day Saturday and that she would be free Friday night. But she’d made up her mind to do something else on Friday night.
Maybe losing it in front of David on the beach was what finally pushed her into it. Maybe it was the stark, raw anguish she kept remembering from that night when she’d shouted about how angry she was at Amy for dying. Erin didn’t know. She only knew she wanted to be happy again and think about dancing and college and her future. She wanted to be free of headaches and ghosts and the past.
“We’ll do something as soon as this play’s over, all right?”
“You’re on,” Beth said with a grin.
Erin had decided to attend Dr. Richardson’s grief support group meeting on Friday night. She would hear what others her own age had to say who’d lost family members. For a moment she was once again tempted to tell Beth about her therapy sessions. And even though it would be nice to bring a friend along to the group meeting, Erin figured it was something she really should do on her own. Besides, Beth seemed to be doing all right now, especially because of the social worker she’d mentioned.
Debriding the wound, Dr. Richardson had called it. Erin winced, thinking of the emotional pain that lay ahead of her. Was there really no magic balm?
Chapter Sixteen
“It’s good to see so many of you here tonight,” Dr. Richardson said. “And a special welcome to you newcomers.”
Erin looked nervously around the circle of chairs set up in Dr. Richardson’s conference room. She managed a self-conscious smile, certain that she was the only newcomer there. Ten other kids nodded, waved, and said hi. They all looked normal to her. What did you expect? she asked herself. Do people who’ve lost family members wear marks on their foreheads?
“I’ve ordered pizza for everyone after tonight’s session,” Dr. Richardson said, and a cheer went up. “Will somebody tell me what kind of a week he or she had?”
Silence fell on the room, until an overweight boy of about twelve spoke. “My mom found the box of Twinkies I hid under my bed and blew up.”
“Why’d you hide them there?” a girl asked. “That’s the first place my mom always cleans.”
The boy shrugged. “I shouldn’t have had them, I guess.”
“Then why did you?” someone asked.
“My dad and I used to sneak into the kitchen at night when everybody was asleep, and sometimes wed eat Twinkies together. I kind of feel like he’s still around when I eat them.”
“Sounds like an excuse to pig out to me,” a girl said with disdain.
The fat boy leapt from his chair. “That’s a rotten thing to say, Michelle! Take it back!”
Dr. Richardson interrupted. “But, Todd, you’ve been telling us for weeks that you want to lose weight. How can you if you sneak Twinkies?”
“I told you, it makes me feel like my dads still alive.”
“Well, I wish I could eat,” another girl said. “But my stomachs upset all the time. All my mother does is try to push food on me.”
“I’ll trade you,” Todd told her. “All my mom does is yell at me.”
Erin listened as others talked, feeling close to them even though they were strangers. A thirteen-year-old boy named Benjie said, “After my baby brother died in his crib last summer, my mom sort of freaked out too. She started staying in bed all day and cried all the time. Dad always had to make supper, but we just sat looking at each other at the table. He wasn’t a very good cook.
“Once I sneaked into the baby’s room, but it gave me the creeps. Everything was just the same, except the baby was gone. It was like everybody kept expecting him to come home. I really wished Mom would put his things away. I stepped on one of his rattles by accident and broke it. and Mom slapped me. I cried. But I didn’t want to, because I’m too old to cry.”
His story sent shivers up Erin’s spine as she remembered the boxes and trunk stored in the garage. And now that Amy’s bedroom was her mother’s office, it seemed as if Amy had hardly lived with them at all.
“You know what gets me?” Kristy, a fifteen-year-old, said. “When my mom died of cancer, people came up to me and said, ‘The good die young.’ Was that supposed to make me feel better? Is dying some sort of reward for being good? If so, then I’m gonna be bad!”
Erin sympathized with Kristy’s anger. After Amy had died, some adults had told her, “Amy was so special that God must have wanted her with Him.” Erin had held her tongue, but she’d wanted to shout, “God’s got the entire world to choose from, and I’ve only got one sister. So why did He have to pick her?”
“The things people say at funerals and wakes often do sound pretty empty,” Dr. Richardson said. “But expressing sympathy is an awkward thing to do, and it takes a lot of courage. At least the people who said something cared enough about you and your family to try.”
Dr. Richardson looked over at one boy who had propped his booted feet on an empty chair. “What do you think about being good, Charlie?”
Erin studied Charlie’s sullen expression, his black leather jacket, and his unkempt hair. “Oh, I’m
real good, Doc. Just ask Terry Parker. I made it with her real good last night.”
“That’s disgusting,” Kristy said.
“I can make it real good for you too, babe. Want to meet in my car after this is over?”
“That’ll do, Charlie,” Dr. Richardson said quietly.
Charlie dropped his feet with a thud and leaned forward. “Look, I’m here because the judge says I gotta be here. I don’t care about this little goody-goody group.”
“Good for you,” Todd said. “But the rest of us want to be here.”
“Butt out, Tubb-o.”
Dr. Richardson calmly shook her head. “I won’t allow name calling, Charlie. We’re here to build one another up. If you can’t be polite—”
Charlie stood abruptly and crossed to the door. “I’m out of here. Give my share of the pizza to Fatso.” He left, and Dr. Richardson excused herself and followed him.
For a moment no one spoke, and Erin could hear the clock humming on the wall. “Uh—what was his problem?” she finally asked.
Kristy fiddled with her bracelets. “He was driving drunk and hit anot
her car head-on. His cousin was killed, and the guy in the other car is crippled for life.”
Erin’s eyes grew wide. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” Kristy agreed. “And Charlie walked away without a scratch. I guess that’s why we put up with him. He’s hurting like crazv. He made a bad mistake, and he can’t change it. One time he sort of broke down and cried in front of us and said he wished it was him who’d died.”
The boy who’d been sitting next to Charlie added, “ ’Course it wasn’t, but Charlie keeps acting so hateful that maybe someday somebody will do him the favor of taking him out.’ ”
Erin shuddered. There was so much anger and guilt and pain in the room, and she wondered how she fit into it. She thought back to the night of Amy’s accident.
“What was she doing driving in the rain at night anyway?” her mother had demanded.
“I let her take my car.”
“Why? Amy’s not an experienced driver. I’ve always counted on you, Erin, to have common sense.”
The door to the conference room opened, and Dr. Richardson came back in. “Charlie’s all right,” she assured them. “He’ll be back next week.”
“Whoopie,” Todd said sarcastically.
They talked some more, and the session passed quickly, and afterward, when the pizza arrived, she noticed Todd greedily grab for the first slice. Erin took a piece too, but she didn’t really want it. Her appetite had fled much as Charlie had. And worse, a tightening sensation was starting up the back of her neck. It was good to be around kids her age with similar problems, but not if it brought on a headache. She’d tell Dr. Richardson at her next counseling session that it was doubtful she could ever come back.
*
The backstage area was in chaos. The final performance of West Side Story had come off beautifully, and the applause of the audience still rang in Erin’s ears. “Weren’t we sensational?” Shara shouted, giving her a hug.
“Next stop, Broadway,” Erin called.
People swarmed around them, offering congratulations. Erin felt euphoric, but then performing always gave her a “high.” The cast kept telling her how good she and David had been. Erin kept smiling, searching the crowd for Beth, who didn’t seem to be there.
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