by Liz Fichera
Clean the house.
Make something to eat.
Call the restaurant and the golf course and tell them that Mom and Dad won’t be at work for a while.
Call the high school.
Call Coach Lannon.
Calling the coach was the thing I dreaded most, only because of what I needed to tell him.
I fingered Ryan’s cell phone, just to make sure it was still safely tucked inside my pocket. I would have hated to lose it, especially after he’d insisted that I keep it, at least until our phone got reconnected. “I just charged it, so it’ll be good for a while,” he’d told me. “Use it whenever you need to.”
I smiled, but then the warm feeling faded when I remembered he was leaving for San Francisco. How could his parents let him leave? Dad barely liked that I left the house to attend Lone Butte High School. I couldn’t imagine that parents like the Berengers would let their son leave for another state. They loved him too much. Even I could see that.
Ryan had asked me to call him later, if it wasn’t too late. “Just press 1 on the speed dial,” he’d told me. “That’s my home number.”
With my eyes half-closed, I stumbled onto the front step with Trevor right behind me. I flipped on the light switch just inside the front door.
“Oh. My. Gosh.” My eyes burned from the bright light.
“Jeez…” Trevor mumbled.
Someone had already been to the house. The trailer had been cleaned, top to bottom. Chairs that had been knocked over by the paramedics had all been straightened. All blankets, folded. The bookcases were shiny and dusted. Even the rugs had been vacuumed. The sharp, ammonia-like medicinal smell was gone, replaced by something lemony. The windows were all open, and a sweet desert breeze wafted through the house. Everything felt almost, well, normal.
Or like normal had a chance inside our trailer.
“Check this out,” Trevor said, stepping around me.
A platter of cheeses and fresh fruits covered in plastic, leftovers from the impromptu hospital-waiting-room picnic, sat on the kitchen counter next to a clear juice glass overflowing with yellow wildflowers, round silky petals and green skinny stems. A handwritten note balanced against it. It said:
Come find me if you need anything. You know where I’ll be.
“Who did all this?” I said, my eyes sweeping across the front room and the kitchen. No one had ever cleaned our trailer before, no one except us. I wasn’t sure if it had ever looked so tidy. Even the picture frames and family photos on the wall had all been dusted and straightened where before there had always been one or two that hung crookedly.
“Doesn’t say,” Trevor said. He lifted something small from the kitchen counter. “It was folded inside the note.” He turned to show me. It twirled between his thumb and forefinger.
A feather, white and as delicate as silk.
Trevor and I stared at each and grinned tired smiles. “George Trueblood,” we said together.
Chapter 52
Ryan
I LAY IN BED IN THE dark, my legs crossed at the ankles. I was still dressed, the house phone resting on the pillow next to me. I didn’t know how long I’d been without sleep—two days? Three? Despite the sleepless nights, my head buzzed like an airplane during takeoff.
I kept playing the day over in my mind. It was as if someone else had pulled the strings, making my arms and legs move. I wanted to talk about it, which was crazy weird for me because I wasn’t like that. I never talked about my feelings. Until recently, I wasn’t sure I had any. Normally, I held everything inside like a deep breath. But the day pressed against my chest, begging for release. Unfortunately, the only person who mattered barely knew how to use my cell phone.
“Ryan?” Mom knocked on my door. “Mind if I come in?”
I rubbed the burn in my eyes with the back of my hands. “Sure, Mom.” My voice was raspy from exhaustion.
Mom opened the door, just a crack at first and then wider. The glow from the hallway dome light shone over the bottom half of my bed. Quietly, she approached the edge of my bed and sat on the right side, adjusting the belt on her robe. “Can’t sleep?”
I shook my head.
Mom placed a cool hand on my forehead. With her fingertips, she swept my bangs to the side. It felt so good.
“I wanted to talk to you…” she started in her mom voice, not so different from her Doctor Berenger hospital voice.
My body tensed, and her hand snapped back. As usual, I wondered what I’d done wrong.
“Easy, Ryan.”
I said nothing.
“I just want to talk.”
But then she surprised me. Her voice lost some of its edge. “I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you.” She paused, unable to hide a small crack in her voice. “How very proud your father and I are of you today.”
My breathing stopped. “What?”
“You heard me.” There was the hint of something else in her voice. Pride?
“But I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who saved Mr. Oday’s life. Remember?”
Mom chuckled. “No. That’s where you’re very wrong. I wouldn’t have had anyone to save if you hadn’t done CPR.” She paused. “When did my baby boy grow up? How did I miss it?”
“Mom. Stop. Please.” My cheeks flushed.
Her voice cracked again, and in the dim light, I could see that her face was shiny with tears. She didn’t bother to hide them. Totally unlike her.
“Really, Mom.” My feet began to cross and uncross at the ankles. “It was nothing.”
“It was certainly something,” she insisted. Then she began to stroke my forehead again with her fingertips, and I closed my eyes. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll be a doctor someday.”
Instead of tensing up like I normally did whenever they tried to predict my future, I just said, “Maybe.” Seriously, it had felt good helping someone else for a change.
“I do wish you’d reconsider staying with your uncle, though. I’ll miss you terribly. We all will.”
My throat thickened. She’d never said that before either. “I don’t know, Mom. I think it might be a good thing. All I ever seem to do is get on your nerves.”
“Not true.”
“So true.”
Instead of arguing, she bent down and kissed my forehead. “You need sleep. We all do. We’ll talk more in the morning. But promise me you’ll reconsider?”
I couldn’t promise.
Sighing, Mom lifted from the bed. She shuffled to the door in her slippers. Then she turned one last time and looked at me over her shoulder in the dim glow of the hallway light. I saw the whites of her teeth. She was smiling.
I smiled back.
Her voice cracked. “I love you, Ryan.” Then, very quietly, she shut the door.
“I love you, too, Mom,” I said to the closed door, but loud enough that I was certain she could hear me. I think my eyes finally shut about the time Mom’s last footstep reached the end of the hallway.
But I was pretty sure that I fell asleep happy, and maybe even a little proud. And it felt good.
Chapter 53
Fred
“MR. LANNON? HI. It’s Fred Oday.”
“Fred? What can I do for you?”
It was Monday morning. I pictured Coach Lannon sitting in his office, his sunburned eyelids narrowed as he stared at the golf bags stacked against his back wall, probably wondering why he didn’t see the plaid eyesore.
“We had an emergency this weekend. At home.” I paused, wondering if I was talking too loudly into Ryan’s cell phone. My voice echoed in my ear. “I won’t be at school for a few days.”
“What happened?”
I swallowed. It wasn’t easy to say the words, even though the doctors said that Dad would be fine. He didn’t look fine, especially lying in a hospital bed hooked up to a million clear tubes and silver machines that never stopped buzzing. “It’s my father. He had a heart attack on Saturday.”
“Hank? Oh, my god.” Coach Lannon exhaled. His chair creake
d in the background. “I am so sorry, Fred. Is he all right?”
“Yes. He’s better.”
“Good, good. So glad to hear that.” He paused. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. But thank you.”
“When do you think you’ll be back?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. I need to help my mom. Wednesday? Thursday, maybe. I don’t know.”
“So you’ll have to miss Thursday’s tournament.” He said it like it was already decided.
“Maybe.”
“No worries, Fred. You take care of your father. That’s what’s most important. You can’t replace family, and golf you’ll have forever. I’d give anything to have one more minute with my dad.” Coach Lannon’s voice actually cracked a little before he cleared his throat. “Golf can wait, Fred.”
I took a deep breath. I had practiced this last night a thousand times, but it didn’t make me any less nervous. And it just felt strange asking for something, especially from a teacher. I pulled my shoulders back and did it anyway. “I do need a favor.”
“Anything,” he said, his voice back to normal. “Name it.”
“It’s about Ryan Berenger….”
“Ryan?” His voice got louder. “What about him?” I heard the wheels of his chair shift and shuffle.
“I’d like you to put him back on the team.”
Coach Lannon laughed nervously. “But I can’t—”
“Yes, you can, Coach. You have to. Ryan didn’t put that club in my bag.” I paused.
“Who did?”
“Someone else” was all that I’d say.
Silence.
Coach Lannon breathed heavily into the phone. Finally, he said, “But I’ve already told Ryan—”
I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter to steady myself and squeezed my eyes shut. The coach wasn’t making this easy. But it was the only thing that made sense in a sea of so many things that didn’t.
Finally, I said, “If you don’t put Ryan back on the team, I’ll have to quit.”
Chapter 54
Ryan
RILEY AND I DROVE INTO THE school parking lot on Monday morning with time to spare before Homeroom. I even stopped to talk with Peter and Sam after Peter’s dad dropped them off at the curb. We talked about meeting up for lunch in the cafeteria.
Then, instead of walking straight to the courtyard to hang with Seth and Gwyneth, I went to the library to study. It felt totally weird, but it didn’t feel wrong. More like I needed to practice it.
As I opened my backpack inside a library cubicle, I heard the front doors open followed by heavy footsteps across the carpet. They came straight toward me. I lifted my head, curious.
“Coach?” I said, surprised. I rarely saw Coach Lannon away from the locker room or the football fields.
“Berenger,” the coach said with one of his trademark tightly wound smiles that really wasn’t a smile at all. It was usually a prelude to bad news, and I wasn’t sure how much worse the news could get. I guess I was about to find out. Was I getting expelled? The idea should have bothered me more than it did.
“How’d you know I was here?”
“Just talked to your sister. She said you’d be here,” he said, as he dragged a chair across the carpet from the adjoining cubicle. “Mind if I sit?”
Like I had a choice.
“Um, sure.” I leaned back in my chair, my chemistry and English books unopened on the desk. So much for the extra studying time.
Coach Lannon cleared his throat. “Anyway…” He scratched the side of his head. “I’ve been doing some thinking.” He cleared his throat again.
I sank lower in my seat. This sounded bad.
“And I think I may have reacted a little too harshly last week.”
Huh?
“I’ve recently been handed some new information about last week’s tournament.” He paused. “What I’m trying to say is that maybe I shouldn’t have taken you off the team without asking a few more questions. Dropping you was probably a little extreme, considering.”
Considering what? I blinked slowly. “But I told you that I was the one who put the club in Fred’s bag. Isn’t that grounds enough?”
The coach leaned closer, close enough so that I could smell the morning coffee on his breath. “But did you? Really?” His eyes leveled with mine.
My throat turned dry. I said nothing.
The coach lowered his voice and leaned even closer. “Will you tell me who did?”
I shook my head slowly. No. Way.
“That’s what I thought.” Coach Lannon exhaled and leaned back, his eyes still locked on mine with his chin lowered, assessing me. “So,” he said after a pause that lasted an eternity. “What d’you say?”
This was completely unexpected. I had accepted that I was off the team. “I’m not real sure,” I said finally. “I’m going to be moving to my uncle’s house in a couple of weeks.”
“Moving?”
“Just for the rest of the school year.” Just till I get my head screwed on right. “Then I’ll be back.”
“But what about golf?”
“They have a golf team at the school in San Francisco. A pretty good one, too,” I added, although I really didn’t know for sure. My uncle said they did.
“But…” the coach stammered. “You’re needed here.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But my mind’s made up.”
“You’re sure? You’re completely sure?”
I nodded.
Coach Lannon dragged his hand through what was left of his hair. “Well, someone’s going to be real disappointed if you don’t return to the team.”
“My parents?” I shrugged. “Yeah, I know that already.”
The coach’s hand moved to his chin. “Well, not exactly.”
I shook my head, confused. “Who, then?”
The coach sighed heavily as his hands dropped to his knees like gavels. “Fred Oday. She insisted that I reinstate you. Starting immediately.”
Chapter 55
Fred
“WHAT IS SO fascinating about that damn phone?”
Mom sat alongside me in a mostly stuffed vinyl chair at the foot of Dad’s bed in the hospital. She continued to watch me press buttons on a cell phone no bigger than a candy bar. It became impossible to pretend I didn’t notice.
Then she purposely dropped her People magazine to the linoleum floor when I didn’t answer. The magazine opened to a page of a bare-chested Liam Hemsworth. “And where’d you get it anyway?” she added.
I turned to her and smiled sheepishly. Mom made a playful face, too, despite her snippy tone. For once, her expression wasn’t pinched around the eyes and mouth. She’d been a lot happier—a lot calmer—since Dad had improved. “It’s Ryan’s. He lent it to me.”
Her eyebrow arched. “The white boy?”
I sighed. We’d been doing so well. “Please don’t call him that. It sounds awful. And I hate it.”
Mom’s eyes dipped briefly. “Sorry, Freddy.”
I looked across the hospital bed at Dad. Still pumped up with heavy medication, he lay motionless, wheezing loudly, a clear tube jammed up his nose. Even so, I would swear that he heard every word we said. Whenever Mom and I started to talk, his purple eyelids flickered.
“So, this Ryan—what’s his last name again?”
“Berenger,” I said, turning toward her. Then I lowered my voice. “His mom is Dad’s surgeon. Remember?”
Mom nodded. “I know that, Freddy. I may be exhausted, but I’m not a moron.” She swallowed back her sarcasm and then looked across the bed at Dad. A wistful smile spread across her face. Still watching Dad, she said, “So, is this Ryan Berenger someone…special to you?”
My hands began to fidget. Special? He could be.
Currently our relationship felt pleasantly mushy again, its lines fuzzy and undefined. But then I remembered that he’d be leaving soon. “He’s just a friend,” I said finally, palming the cell phone in my hand. “A good friend.”
<
br /> “Is that what they call it these days?” Mom chuckled. “Okay, Freddy. If you say so. But then, why do you stare at his phone all day?” Her head tilted as though she already had her answer.
I bit down to suppress a nervous grin. “Well, for one thing, he’s popular. He gets a ton of calls. I just want to keep track of who’s calling him, you know, in case he wants to know. It’s the least I can do, after everything he’s done for us.”
Mom rolled her eyes predictably, but at least part of my lame explanation was true. I’d already had to tell him that Gwyneth had called him six times and Seth once. Ryan had said not to worry about it and to let the calls go to voice mail, not that I had any intention of taking phone messages for either of them. Mostly, I just waited for Ryan to call.
“Well, he does sound kind of special,” Mom said. “Just like my daughter.” She reached for my hand and put it between hers like a sandwich. Her skin was so smooth and cool. I couldn’t remember the last time Mom had reached for my hand, except to slap it.
When she looked at me, her eyes brimmed with shiny tears. It was a wonder she had any left.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said, swallowing back a lump in my throat. “Everything is going to be okay.” I suddenly remembered an old Indian legend that Dad once told me. He’d said that stars in the night sky were made from the tears of Indian mothers.
Mom choked back a sob. “I know,” she whispered. “I know it will.” She brought my hand to her face and brushed it against her cheek. “But I’ve been such a lousy mother, a lousy wife. A lousy everything.” Her voice cracked. It was difficult not to start crying with her. “Look what I’ve done to your father.”
“You didn’t cause his heart attack, Mom,” I said quickly as my throat thickened. “Dr. Berenger says the buildup in his arteries had been going on for years.”
Mom chuckled. “Yes, but living with me didn’t help any.”
I said nothing. I knew that I should have said something reassuring like No, Mom, that’s not true, but I’d have been lying, not that there hadn’t been better times at home. I remembered when I used to sit at Mom’s feet while she wove straw baskets with bright patterns, telling endless stories about the Children of the Clouds and the Fox Woman. Or how Dad used to compete at the all-Indian rodeo every year at Mul-Chu-Tha, the place where they first fell in love. I’d begged her to tell that story a zillion times, scolding her if she tried to gloss over the slightest detail, like how her hair was braided or the color of Dad’s cowboy hat.
