That Night
Page 21
I blink, startled, and it’s not because of the stupid nickname. I don’t have a license, just a learner’s permit. My mom had me driving all over the place when we first came here, but that was back then. Back when this was a simple two-week jaunt to get an old house she’d inherited ready for sale. There wasn’t another car in sight, so she figured, why not? She’s all about giving us kids experiences, about making sure we aren’t slaves to our iPhones, like so many of my friends back home. My mother’s always marching to her own drummer, general consensus be damned, usually to my horror. But back then, I had that thrilling, invincible, first-days-of-summer-vacation feeling that made anything seemed possible. Too bad that was short lived.
We’ve been nestled at Bug House like hermits for months. Well, that’s not totally true. Mom has made weekly trips down the mountain, alone, to get the mail and a gallon of milk and make phone calls to civilization. We were supposed to go back to Boston before school started, but that time came and went, and there’s no way we’re getting off this mountain before the first snow.
Snow.
I peer out the window. The first dainty flakes are falling from the sky.
Snow. Oh God. Snow.
My mother appears in the doorway, her body drowning out most of the morning light from the windows behind her. She’d never be considered fat, but substantial, tall and striking. Mom is someone people intrinsically want to imitate. She was one of the most popular professors last year at Boston College. My father used to say all the young men in her lectures were in love with her, and all the young women wanted to be like her. She can make a glamorous entrance even when stepping out of her car to get gas. That—and her size—are what separate us, people say. I’m short and rail thin, and people don’t usually pay attention to what I say or do.
“Why the sourpuss?” Mom says airily, twirling her blond curls into an elegant chignon at the base of her neck. “Is it because we’re not going back just yet?”
I don’t know how to respond. She says just yet, but I hear ever. The snow only cements the word in my head. My mother loves changing plans. She doesn’t let other people’s schedules dictate what we should do, which is why I’ve always missed lots of school. My mother will get these crazy ideas for adventure, like crabbing in the bay or going off to Old Sturbridge Village for a candle-making seminar, and we pick up and go. Like I said, life experience. Books and the inside of a classroom can only teach you so much, she says. It’s part of why her students love her.
“It’s only a little longer, all right?” she says, surveying the foyer in a lovestruck way. “We’re very close to having a buyer for the house.”
She’s told me that before, but plans have changed a dozen times since June. I hate to think of what will happen if they change any more. Fun is what my friends used to call my mother. Except that brand of “fun” can wear you down.
“But…” I trail off, a million buts dying on my lips. But everything. It’s one thing to live in such a remote place during the summer, when the surrounding landscape is bursting with color and the birds are singing. But in the winter?
What are you complaining about? Sawyer asks me. People like you shouldn’t be part of the general public.
And maybe it’s true. Maybe being alone with my family on the side of a mountain will keep everyone from finding out what is going on inside my head. That he is there, always threatening to take over. Maybe, without the outside world to intrude, Dr. Maya Helm’s crazy daughter can just go on being crazy.
Not that I can tell my mother that. No, to her, Sawyer was my fictitious childhood playmate who has long been forgotten.
But the thing is, Sawyer had been coming to me more and more since we came here. He’s always in the back of my head, that little voice spurring me to be a little wild whenever I want to hold back and play it safe. At first, I thought everyone had a Sawyer, like when he told me to throw a binder at Lucy Willis for calling me ugly in third grade or touch a hot radiator when I was two. Gradually though, I learned Sawyer’s voice was something to keep quiet. Still, back home in Boston, I had distractions to drown him out. I had studies and color guard and friends.
Here, he is front and center in my thoughts, twenty-four seven.
And Sawyer likes it this way. Even though my head is screaming that we need to get as far away from this place as possible, one part of me, the part of my stomach that’s supposed to get queasy and unsettled, feels warm. Comfortable.
My mother comes up to me and swipes a stray lock of hair from my face. I flinch. “Don’t.”
“Everything’s OK, love.” She gives me a convincing smile, even though the world might as well be crumbling around us. “I know you’re bored to death here, but I promise, we’ll be back home soon.”
I wish it was just boredom. I swallow and nod, then slide the money and keys in the pocket of my sweatshirt and head out the door before the kids can notice me. If this weather continues, I can’t delay. The mountain road we live on is no joke. Our van nearly slid into a ditch during a light rain, so snow won’t be any better. Not that I’ve ever been here in the winter.
The van creaks to life, and I pull out of the decaying three-bay garage and down the winding driveway, pinging gravel into the air behind the car. The snow looks almost pretty, landing delicately on the windshield.
It’s twenty miles to Art’s General, the closest store. I listen to the radio part of the way, but the only station we get is all static-filled talk about the blizzard that’s coming. Twenty inches expected, at least. I switch off the radio and try to ignore the tension in my hands from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. I concentrate on the tree-lined road. Of course I’d noticed the days getting darker and colder, but I thought it was only September. I’m losing track of time now, ever since Dad checked out in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye.
August 31. Three days before the official start of school. That was the last I saw him. The details are hazy, like a dream. Sawyer sees to that. But the outcome is the same. Dad’s gone. And we are alone with Mom and her whims.
This early in the morning, the parking lot at Art’s is empty. Not that it’s ever crowded. When I lived in Boston, weather like this packed the stores with frantic people stocking up on bread and milk and toilet paper. But there simply are no people to pack Art’s. It’s a wonder the store stays in business, but a good thing it does. Otherwise we’d probably starve to death.
I navigate around the old snowblower carcasses he has for sale on the sidewalk, then push open the heavy door. When the bell over the door tinkles, Elmer, who took over after Art died, stares at me like I’m a ghost. “Seda?”
I give him a wave.
He cranes his neck to look out the window. “Your mom with you?”
That’s the most he’s said to me, ever. Elmer’s never been a talker, so if I go about my business, he should leave me alone. “Not today,” I say, then turn to my list. It’s a mile long and has things like hot cocoa and canned vegetables and bottled water on it.
Either she’s way overestimating our appetites, or this is a We’re not going back to Boston list.
I slump against the canned goods display, then startle at the horrifically loud crash as half a dozen tomato soup cans go scattering and rolling in all directions. Elmer just scowls and picks up his crossword puzzle. I fish after the cans and restack them quickly. As I’m piling items into a basket and trying to decide whether I should buy the kids SpaghettiOs as a treat, the bell dings again and I hear a sound that makes me freeze.
Laughter.
Alone
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Books. Change. Lives.
Cyn Balog, That Night