Life in the Balance

by Jen Petro-Roy

  (Said?)

  No, definitely says. It’s not like Mom’s dead or anything. She’s just gone.

  Temporarily away.

  There’s a word for that, those expressions that sound all fancy so you don’t have to say the really awful thing. Euphemism. It sounds like euphonium, an instrument my Aunt Kristen played in high school.

  It also sounds like euphoria, a fancy word that means “really, really happy.”

  None of those euphemisms give me euphoria. Not at all.

  Neither does being super-duper late for school. Anyway, I know Mom’s not here, but why didn’t Dad wake me up?

  “Dad?” I shout it from my room, then again when I’m in my bathroom, a toothbrush dangling from my mouth. Good thing I took a shower before bed; I have no time for one today and I don’t want to go to school as a total stinkasaurus.

  I’m having a total flashback to last night, when I roamed the house looking for my missing dad. And after I throw on a pair of jeans (my too-tight, too-short, “whoops! everything else is in the laundry” ones) and a t-shirt, that flashback becomes a reality when I find another note on the refrigerator. Dad even pinned it up with the same magnet.

  Veronica—

  I had another meeting this morning. Have a great day!

  Love, Dad

  I narrow my eyes at the note, like there’s another line hidden in there somewhere. Like if I put it under the lamp, I’ll discover that Dad wrote something in lemon juice, like I used to do when I was a kid.

  Like there’s a logical explanation for all this secrecy.

  And “Have a great day?” How can I have a great day when it’s starting out like this? When I’m totally going to be late and my Dad’s transformed into the Amazing Disappearing Man?

  Dad never has sales meetings at this time. He can’t be visiting Mom this early, either. What could be going on? I think back to Claudia’s admission yesterday—are my parents going to get separated, too? Did Dad finally get fed up with Mom’s drinking and decide to meet with a lawyer? Or what if he’s at the doctor? What if Dad’s sick in some way?

  What’s going on?

  Fourteen

  Luckily, I don’t have much time to worry about Dad. Seeing the bus out your front window and having to sprint to catch it will do that to you. I’m huffing and puffing worse than the wolf in “The Three Little Pigs” by the time I settle into a seat.

  (There’s a reason I do softball instead of track, and the stitch in my side is exactly it.)

  I’ve finally caught my breath by the time I meet up with Claudia in front of school. She’s sitting on the stone bench outside the door, playing with the Apple Watch her parents got her for her birthday a few months ago. She was totally shocked when she opened her present—she’d begged for that watch for months and months, but we both knew her parents wouldn’t get it for her. Claudia’s parents usually got her things like socks and new notebooks for her birthday. Things that she needed, yeah, but boring practical stuff. Nothing as extravagant as an Apple Watch.

  But now that I see it on her wrist, I wonder if there was a reason for that present. Like her parents were setting the scene for their upcoming separation. Buttering Claudia up so she wouldn’t be so upset.

  I scroll back across my own memories of the past few months. Did Mom and Dad do anything to cushion the blow of Mom going to rehab? My mind whirls, but of course there’s nothing there. Because Mom’s trip to rehab wasn’t planned. It didn’t happen because she realized she had a problem and wanted to get sober for me.

  No, Mom’s “trip” happened because she got caught by her boss. Because she had no choice. She’s not on some exotic beach or taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower. She’s in treatment. She’s being treated.

  “Veronica?” Claudia waves her hand by my face. I’ve stopped right in front of her at the door, lost in my own thoughts. “Are you okay? You didn’t show up this morning.”

  “This morning?” I motion for Claudia to follow me inside. Mrs. Fink hates when we’re late for class. “Were we supposed to do—”

  I remember just as Claudia reminds me. “We were going to meet at the softball field, remember?” Claudia points at the softball field in the distance. “You said that since your mom couldn’t do after-dinner practices with us now, we could meet up a few times in the morning?”

  “Ugh.” I shoot an apologetic glance back at Claudia, even as we both continue speed-walking to our lockers. (Carefully, because Mrs. Hicks in the office is a total stickler for kids running in the halls.)

  “I forgot,” I continue. “I went to bed late last night, then didn’t hear my alarm. Mom’s away and Dad didn’t wake me up.” I pause for breath. “It was a whole mess.”

  My stomach grumbles and Claudia giggles. “It sounds like it. Literally!”

  I laugh, glad that Claudia isn’t mad. The last thing I want to do is to start letting down other people the way Mom did to me. “See? I haven’t eaten anything all morning.”

  “I think I have a granola bar in here somewhere.” Claudia opens her locker, then rummages around on the top shelf, finally emerging with a crumpled, ball-like object. “Um … well, it was a bar once. It’s more of a … granola sphere now? It probably tastes the same, though,” she quickly adds, as I raise my eyebrows dubiously.

  “How long has that been in there?” I take the granola sphere and peer at the wrapper. “Do they even make this flavor anymore?”

  “Hey!” Claudia puts her hands on her hips, but her mouth quirks upward. “I’ll have you know that … wait…” Now she looks at the wrapper. “Oh no, I think you’re right. They discontinued this flavor last fall. Ew!” She drops the sphere on the ground and we both burst out laughing.

  Brrrrrrring!

  “Ladies! Class.” Our principal, Mr. Fredette, looms above us, his glasses slipping down his nose. We both jump, then simultaneously grab our Language Arts binders and bolt down the hall. Somehow, we make it through the doorway before the late bell rings, and as I turn to look at Claudia across the room, she holds her hand up for a long-distance high five just as Mrs. Fink pulls up a new slide on the Smart Board.

  “I’ll make it up to you later,” I mouth, and Claudia nods.

  She’s smiling, like of course I won’t let her down. Of course everything will get back to normal—to a new normal, maybe, but still nothing out of the ordinary.

  How can I tell Claudia that she’s totally wrong?

  Fifteen

  When I was in elementary school, we used to go to Cape Cod every summer, in a town where my Grandma Helen grew up. We’d fly to Boston, then drive the rest of the way. Even though the time in the car was way less than the time we’d just spent on an airplane, as a seven-, then eight-, then nine-year-old, those ninety minutes (sometimes longer if there was a backup at the Sagamore Bridge) seemed to drag on forever, like time was something measured in dog years. One human minute actually equaled seven travel minutes.

  I’d sit in the backseat of our rental car, crossing and recrossing my legs when the seats got too hot and sticky. I can still feel the seat peeling and squelching away from my bare legs.

  “How much longer?”

  I was allowed to ask that question three times per trip. Mom and Dad had made that rule after our first trip to the Cape, when I asked for an update approximately every fifteen seconds. They decided that three times was reasonable—one question for the early flash of excitement, one question during the endless middle, and once when I could smell the salt water in the air.

  I’d sing along to the radio at the top of my lungs, then curl up against the window and stare out at the other cars when Mom and Dad got fed up with me. I made up a game where I imagined a story for every face flashing by.

  The elderly lady with the floppy straw hat was a retired Broadway actress traveling to her summer home, one of the mansions right on the water with wraparound porches and hydrangeas spotting the lawn.

  The three fighting kids staring out the back window of the huge blue
minivan were sick and tired of their parents dragging them around the country and just wanted to settle down, maybe in a little cottage by the sea.

  The man in a business suit and tie, his hair slicked back like he’d already been in the ocean, was meeting his family at their vacation house after finishing up a long week of work, desperate to change into a bathing suit and feel the sand between his toes.

  Everyone I saw was either going or leaving, stuck in that boring in-between place, where the fun either hasn’t started or is starting to drain away.

  “We’ll get there when we get there,” Mom would always say, then turn right back to her book. I usually tried to read in the car, but got carsick after about two minutes, while Mom could read practically an entire novel during our trip. “No sooner, no later.”

  Over the years, though, I started noticing the landmarks around me: the gas station at the rotary, where we always stopped so I could pee, and where I always convinced Dad to get me a blue raspberry slushy (the yummiest flavor).

  The roadside diner where we’d stopped one year for a late lunch, and where Mom had left her favorite bracelet on the table, the one Dad had given her for their first anniversary. She’d cried for the entire rest of the drive after we went back and she realized it was gone.

  Then the rock-filled driveway of the house we rented, the one with the weathered gray shutters and the bright pink roses lining the driveway. I always ran out of the car and buried my face in the flowers (watching out for thorns, of course—a cut-up face is no way to start a vacation!). For years, I thought those flowers bloomed just for me.

  The rest of the week always felt the same way. It was filled with bumper boats and beach days, lazy mornings on the beach slathered in sunscreen, a pail in one hand and a shovel in the other. Mom and I searched for hermit crabs and shrieked as we jumped over the frigid waves, while Dad lay on his towel, his pale skin slathered in SPF 5000.

  And every night before bed, we’d roast s’mores in the firepit behind our rental or walk to get double scoops of chocolate chip from Sundae School down the street, an old one-room schoolhouse that someone had converted into an ice cream parlor.

  It’s not the fanciest trip in the world, but it’s still special, way better than the “epic summer vacation plans” Camille and Abby are gushing about in the lunch line ahead of me.

  “I can’t wait.” Camille tosses her long red hair over her shoulder. I’m not even standing that close to her, and she still almost whips me in the face. Camille has the longest hair I’ve ever seen. It’s Rapunzel-worthy. “We’re going to Aruba for two weeks, then to California, where our second house is. You have to visit. There are two supercute boys who live right next door.”

  Abby squees and claps her hands together. “That’s amazing.” She reaches for a fruit cup and settles it next to the chicken nuggets on her tray. “I totally would visit, but we’re going to be away the whole summer. It takes a long time to travel all over Europe, you know.”

  I roll my eyes, just managing to stifle the groan that’s actively trying to claw its way out of my mouth. We know you’re rich, I want to exclaim. You don’t have to tell everyone all the time.

  They both do tell us, though. And the rest of us have been well aware of that fact since kindergarten, when Abby and Camille compared how many stuffed animals each of them owned during “sharing time” the first day of school.

  I take a slice of pizza and a bottle of water (luckily I have some money left on my account, because there was no way I had time to make anything this morning), then head in the opposite direction from Abby and Camille, a heavy feeling weighing down my stomach even though it’s totally empty.

  It’s not that I’m jealous of Abby’s European tour or Camille’s fancy second house. It’s just that their conversation is like a slap in the face, the one totally random thing that made this whole “Mom’s in rehab” thing seem one hundred percent, “going to affect the future” real.

  Maybe I don’t want to go to Europe, but I do want to go to Cape Cod. Will we still get to go on vacation this summer if Mom’s in recovery? Dad told me that after Mom comes home, she’s going to have to go to support groups and meetings all the time. She’s going to have to meet with a therapist and keep a routine.

  Are s’mores part of a routine?

  I probably don’t even need to ask Dad about our vacation plans. Mom’s addiction will change that, just like it’s changing everything else. Her “illness,” as Mom and Dad call it, is like a bunch of dominoes lined up in a row, ready to topple over.

  I don’t know what set the whole row of dominoes into motion—what made Mom take that second sip after the first sip, and then the third sip after that. Whatever it was, I feel like I’m a domino now, with life pushing me forward and the ground rising up to meet me.

  With everything falling down.

  That’s why, once Mom gets home, I have to work as hard as I can to keep things as normal as possible for her. And a big part of that normal is softball. It’s what we do together. It’s what we share. And, once I get through all this pressure and worry (which I know will totally fade away), it will still be what we both love.

  Once I make the All-Star team, Mom will be so happy and proud that those dominoes will be glued to the ground. She’ll never want to go back to drinking again.

  Never ever.

  I settle at our usual lunch table and stare at the slice of limp pizza in front of me. My friends went to the bathroom after class, so there’s no one to ask me what’s wrong. Just like there’s no one to ask me what’s wrong at home, either.

  I feel like I’m in that old rental car again, stuck in the in-between place. If anyone was looking out their window at me, they might see a sunny smile on my face.

  They might see a girl picking up her pizza and taking a bite, then washing it down with a sip of water.

  They might see her greeting her friends when they finally arrive, and giggling with them over a shared inside joke.

  They might imagine she was someone without a care in the world.

  They’d be wrong.

  Sixteen

  I rush home right after school. We don’t have softball on Tuesdays, and I use the “I have a ton of homework” excuse to explain why I can’t go to Claudia’s to hang out. In reality, I just want more time to plan out how to explain everything to Claudia. Even though I know she’ll be fine (I think), I still want to get the words right. It’s like how Mrs. Fink tells us to plan out our essays before we write them. If we don’t get our ideas down first, the final product will just end up being a scribbly, murky mess.

  Life is enough of a murky mess already.

  I’m working—trying to work, actually—on my assignment for tonight when Dad comes home. Mrs. Fink told us to write about a courageous act, and I’m stumped. I don’t want to pick an activist or a president or someone that everyone else will choose. I want to be original.

  My brain isn’t cooperating, though.

  “Do you have any ideas?” I ask Dad as he rummages through the fridge. Maybe he’ll sit down and help me and then we’ll be so bonded that he’ll tell me his big secret. Maybe.

  All Dad does is pour himself a glass of pink lemonade and lean against the counter. “What about me?” He strikes a wrestler pose. “Did I ever tell you about the time I wrestled a lion? Or climbed Mount Everest?”

  “Dad,” I groan. When I was a kid, he used to tell me super-exaggerated bedtime stories about his adventurous life. He was a spy, a superhero, and a pioneer. He swam with sharks and rode on elephants. Of course, because he was my dad (and because I was a kid), I believed him. I laughed.

  Today, though, I am not in the mood. “Daaaaad.” I draw the word out. “I’m too old for those stories now. Mrs. Fink wants us to talk about what it means to be courageous in real life.”

  “Hmm.” Dad leans back in his chair and arranges his feet on the one next to him, right on top of the blue-and-white-checked cushions that Mom bought last year.

  I
f Mom were here right now, she’d have yelled at him: “Put your feet down! This isn’t a zoo!” She’s yelled those same words tons of times before—when Dad forgets to close the cabinet doors and when he tracks grass clippings into the house after cutting the lawn.

  Mom always says it with a smile, of course; it’s not like she’s really mad at Dad. But I could always tell that she was kind of serious. That’s why Dad always put his feet down right away.

  Today, though, Dad’s feet stay up on the chair, even as Mom’s words whisper in my ear.

  This isn’t a zoo!

  I don’t say anything, though. And obviously Mom’s not here to chide Dad. So his feet stay up, his toes wiggling in the air, his yellow socks too bright for my grumpy mood.

  “I have an idea…” Dad trails off, his eyes twinkling mysteriously. “Someone you’re related to, even.”

  “Really?” I lean forward. “Has anyone led a protest or backpacked around the world? That’d be exciting.”

  Dad shakes his head. “Nope. Nothing like that.”

  I tap my pencil against the paper. “Is the person super famous?” I look at Dad hopefully, but he shakes his head. I sigh. “Has anyone even saved a kitten in this family?”

  “Oh! I did!” Dad’s eyes brighten, and he reaches out and steals a cracker from the pile in front of me. “When I was a boy. There was a stray kitten in the woods behind my house and my friend John and I brought it to the veterinarian. She adopted it and everything.” His eyes crinkle up. “I think that story made your mother fall in love with me.”

  I roll my eyes, but my heart still does a little leap at the thought of my parents being in love. Maybe they’re not getting a divorce. “I’ll do my project on you and your eight-year-old heroics. I’m sure I’ll get an A.”

  “I was actually ten.”

  “Because that makes all the difference.” I pick my backpack up off the floor, then sling it over my shoulder. “Was it the Queen of England’s kitten by any chance? Did you cross a rickety bridge to get the kitten? That might help.”