by Susan Vaught
“Course, it could have been a woman. Well, at your age, a girl.”
Moving down, I dropped one more line and wrote, 6. Elana Arroyo.
Mama Rush glanced over to my list. She saw what I had written, went very still, then nodded. “That’s the girl you and Todd fought about. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Why did we fight over her? Do you know?”
“No. Wish I did, but Todd kept the girls and dating part of his life private. You’ll have to ask him.”
I started to ask her how, when he wanted to break my jaw, but she had already turned her attention to all the broken stuff from my bag.
“These gifts—thank you for trying, Jersey. You come back here this weekend on Saturday—every Saturday for a few hours—and we’ll see what’s what.” She lowered her cigarette, letting the smoke make a haze all around us. “I suspect we’ll find some things can be fixed, but some things are just too broken.”
I thought about Elana and Todd and Leza, and Dad and Mom, and school and assemblies and the credit card woman in the red dress, and I really thought about my stupid-mark.
Some things can be fixed. Some things are just too broken.
“Credit card blue,” I mumbled.
Mama Rush took a deep puff and gave me a slow, solemn nod.
chapter 6
I have this dream where both legs work and both arms work and I don’t have any scars on the outside. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed in dress blues holding a pistol. Sunlight brightens the dust and sand in my room and darkens all the places where I’ve nicked the walls and doors. The football rug, the one Mama Rush gave me when I made the team my freshman year, is folded neatly on my dresser so it won’t get messy. I give it one last look before I turn back to what I’m doing. My fingers tingle as I lift the gun to my mouth. It tastes oily and dusty all at once as I close my lips on cold gunmetal—but I can’t. Not in the mouth. I’m shaking, but I lift the barrel to the side of my head. The tip digs into my skin. I’m thinking about drugs and girls and how the tip feels, and my hand’s shaking, and I feel guilty for a lot of stuff and my life sucks, and that my room has so much dust and sand in places I didn’t even know. Then I’m squeezing the trigger and looking at the dust and sand and feeling my hand shake and thinking guilty thoughts and there’s noise and fire and pain and I’m falling, falling, my broken head smashing into my pillow ….
Why do you stay in this room?
J.B.’s whisper woke me from my constant dream of killing myself. My head throbbed hard enough to make me think about throwing up, and my bad hand was curled up so tight I had to pry the fingers open. With a sigh, I glanced at my closet, where my hand and foot braces lived.
Why do you stay in this room? J.B. sounded more demanding this time, like he might get mad. In the three days since I had seen Mama Rush, he had talked more and more and more, hardly shutting up when I was in my room—especially when I was on the bed, trying to sleep. Especially when I had a headache.
I sat up slowly, blinked, and wished it was a rainy morning instead of being so bright. The sunlight felt like ice picks in my eye.
Or bullets.
“Shut up, J.B.” I put my hand over my ear, but that didn’t work. When he talked again, I heard him inside my brain.
The bullet felt like a sword in the head. Like somebody stuck a knife right in front of—
I stood up too fast, overbalanced, and fell back on the bed with my head near the bottom. “Shut up!”
This time when I blinked, I thought I saw a silvery outline standing in the sunlight. The outline looked like a tall, shimmering boy. The boy looked strong and healthy, like an athlete.
No way. Couldn’t be. It was only sunlight, brightening the dust. Darkening all the places where I had nicked the walls and doors—
The image vanished.
Biting my lip hard enough to block the pain in my head, I sat back up and flexed my bad hand. Then I stretched my weak leg to be sure I didn’t fall again.
“I don’t know why I stay in this room,” I admitted as I slowly eased to my feet. “Maybe the answers are here, at least some of them.”
It’s a bad idea. You hurt yourself in here.
“No, I didn’t. You did.”
Maybe if you didn’t have this room, you wouldn’t have shot yourself. J.B.’s voice was distant, floaty. He sounded like he was talking through a pipe or a vent, with the hollow way the words drifted through the room.
“Pipe.” I looked around, but I didn’t see any pipes. My vent was on the floor, and nothing was coming out of it. “Vent.”
You should move to the guest room, J.B. insisted. Things would be easier there.
“Pipe-vent platitudes.” Ignoring him was hard, but I needed to do it. He was like some sort of demon, poking and poking all the time. Between him and my headache and my bum arm and hand, it took forever to get my pants and shirt on right.
Why won’t you move to the guest room? J.B. asked as I pulled on my left sock.
“The same reason I won’t go to a different school.” I was imagining him now as that silvery athletic boy, twinkling dust in the sunlight of my room. “Platitudes. I need truths, and things—well, things don’t need to be easy.”
This shut him up long enough for me to pull on my right sock and get the Velcro fasteners on my tennis shoes opened. His next question was calmer, with lots less whine.
Why can’t things be easy? Do you feel guilty?
“No. Well, yes, maybe a little? I don’t know. Easy.” I rammed first one foot and then the other into my shoes and worked on fastening the Velcro. “I don’t remember doing anything, and I don’t know why I did it. Easy. I shouldn’t feel guilty if I don’t remember anything, right? I mean, it’s not like I’m a criminal pretending stuff to get out of jail. Guilty. Easy.”
J.B. stayed quiet the rest of the time as I combed my hair, straightened my clothes, double-checked to be sure I had remembered my deodorant, and checked three times to be sure I had cab fare to The Palace for later in the day. Mama Rush had said we should meet around three p.m., and I planned to be early. I had gone over and over the first item on the Why List, even talked Dad into giving me my old emergency room records to read my lab tests. I was almost 100 percent sure I hadn’t taken drugs, at least not on the day I killed myself. I mean, tried to kill myself. Just a few more things to check out, and I’d be ready for Mama Rush’s grilling.
“Pipe-vents. Grilling. I’m ready for questions.” I nodded to myself in the mirror and ignored the mental image of glitterboy drifting in front of my window. J.B. wasn’t real. He couldn’t be real, so he was just like the pipe-vents—something my brain got stuck on and couldn’t turn loose.
I hope you’re right, he whispered as I picked up my memory book and left the room. I didn’t know whether he meant about being ready for Mama Rush or the other thing—that J.B. wasn’t any more real than my pipe-vents.
Downstairs, I found my stiff, cardboard, smiley parents sitting at the breakfast table.
“You don’t have to make breakfast for me every morning,” I said as nicely as I could. “Glitter. Pipe-vents. I mean, we didn’t eat together a lot Before, right?”
Dad shrugged. Mom didn’t respond.
I held back a sigh and sat down, resting my memory book on the table beside me. The pen string was getting dirtier and dirtier. I figured I’d need a new one, but I didn’t know if I could tie the knots, and I didn’t want to ask the paper doll parents to help.
“Glitter,” I mumbled as I stared into the bowl in front of me.
“Where did you get ‘glitter’ from?” Mom asked, keeping her eyes on her bowl.
I was so surprised to hear her talk that I dropped the spoon I had started to pick up. It clattered against the bowl, then bounced off the floor. “Dang! I’m sorry. I’ll get it.”
“No!” My parents called out at the same time, but I leaned over to grab the spoon.
“Whoa!” My head swam. Up-down. Down-up. The room shifted. My b
ody moved, fast and heavy. Down. My good side crunched against the floor. My cheek smacked cool linoleum. Bang-ouch, down in my joints, up in my teeth.
My ears rang, but they stopped fast. Cool. I didn’t even turn the chair over.
“Oh, God.” Dad scrambled down to the floor to help me.
I tried to wave him off. “It’s okay. I know how to—”
Dad picked me straight up off the floor like I was six or seven years old and cradled me for a second. Then he settled me back in my chair, even handed me my spoon. I wondered if he’d go find a bib before he was done, but he didn’t, thank God.
For a few seconds we all just sat there, Mom and Dad staring at the table and me mentally counting the number of new bruises I would have. Spoons. I had lots of bruises already, and I wanted to try to talk to Leza, needed to ask her a question before I went to see Mama Rush. Between having snot on my face last time I saw her and bruises this time, Leza was really going to think I was a freak.
Finally, I remembered Mom had asked me a question, but I couldn’t remember what it was no matter how hard I tried. When I asked her, she just shook her head.
I counted to ten, picked up my pen, and held it poised over my memory book. “Did I ever take drugs?”
Both of my parents stared at me, spoonfuls of Dad’s nutritious oatmeal frozen in midbite. Dad had added a slice of whole wheat toast to this meal, with sugar-free grape jelly that looked like glue mixed with Kool-Aid.
Mom actually spoke first. “Excuse me?”
Dad stopped chewing his oatmeal and Kool-Aid glue, but he didn’t seem to be able to talk.
“Pot, meth, speed, alcohol, steroids, crack, crank—”
“I know what drugs are, Jersey,” Mom cut in, speaking precisely, like a banker. “And of course not. Why would you ask that?”
The pen tapped the table when I shrugged. “I need to know if I was a junkie. If I was, you can tell me. I read through all my hospital records and none of my labs showed Kool-Aid. I mean, positive results. Glue.”
Dad put his bite down. “Is that why you wanted to read through all that junk? I thought you were trying to—of course you didn’t use drugs. You were a good student, a great athlete. You were a good boy.”
In my mind, the Mama Rush djinni landed right behind Dad, carrying Kool-Aid in one hand and glue in the other. You were a good boy, she whispered. Were. Were. As in not are, right?
Mom stared at me, frowning.
I started to tell the djinni to shut up and go away, that I didn’t need a smartass djinni downstairs when I already had homicidal ghost-boy upstairs, but I kept my mouth shut. Pragmatics, Hatch. Kool-Aid glue. Mom was staring. And frowning. Dad still wasn’t eating.
Okay, maybe I wasn’t a freak, at least not the drug kind. Still, I couldn’t cross it off the list just because my parents said so and the records said so. I needed to talk to one other person or Mama Rush would never be satisfied. I wouldn’t be, either. Kool-Aid. That’s why I needed to talk to Leza. She was just in middle school back then, but Leza—she was smart and she knew stuff. She always knew stuff.
Of course, it was Saturday, like last week, so Todd would probably be there and he would probably crush my skull. For the moment, my skull was safe enough, even though my sanity wasn’t. I blinked really fast and kept blinking until slowly, slowly, the djinni image behind Dad faded away.
Acting braver than I felt, I took a big bite of Kool-Aid glue toast. It tasted even worse than it looked, like Dad had added shredded paper into the mix. Blech. It was the first time I remembered being glad my sense of taste was less than what it used to be.
“The therapists told you you’d have to work harder on focusing outside the hospital,” Mom said. Her voice shook a little bit. “I’d appreciate it if you’d try concentrating on normal conversation rather than coming up with off-the-wall questions.”
She still hadn’t started eating again, unlike Dad, who was wolfing down his oatmeal until he stopped and said, “Sonya. He can’t help that. It’s worse when he’s tired or nervous. Adjustment time, remember?”
Mom stiffened in her chair, but she didn’t back down. “He wasn’t so bad at Carter even when he did get nervous. I think he can help asking crazy questions.”
“Brain cells.” I put down my spoon, careful not to drop it. “Crazy questions? About what?”
“About drugs—and Elana Arroyo.” Mom looked at me a little like Mama Rush did, when I thought she might be counting my brain cells. “And the way you’ve been talking to yourself. Is it real, or are you just… just … needling us, or something?”
“Sonya!” Dad covered Mom’s hand with his. “The therapists all told us …”
He was trying hard to get her to look at him, but she wouldn’t.
“We need to call Carter,” she said. “See if they can get hold of that outpatient therapist and move up our counseling sessions. Jersey needs more help.”
“Help. Carter. Needling. Brain cells.” I wanted to figure out what she meant, what she needed, but all my stupid mouth did was fire back what she said. “Arroyo. Talking. Outpatient.”
“Stop it.” Mom jerked her hand out of Dad’s and stood up so fast the table bucked. My oatmeal sloshed on the Kool-Aid glue toast. “Focus and try, and just stop it!”
Stop. Stop it. Stop what? Or was it Dad—the way he was holding her hand? Harder to think in the real world. Harder to think under pressure. Lots of pressure.
“I’m sorry,” I said, just in case it was me that made her mad.
Pragmatics.
Wrong pragmatics.
Mom froze into that ice statue with moving lips. I sucked at pragmatics. Dad’s toast sucked. His oatmeal sucked, too.
“Sucky ice statues.” I couldn’t hold my mouth tight enough to keep the words inside. When was I going to remember that sock? I really, really needed a sock.
“Why don’t we go talk?” Dad said as he stood up and put his arm around Mom’s shoulder. She shrugged him off, then got up and walked away, saying something about banks or hospitals or both. I couldn’t make it out.
Dad gave me a silly look. “She’s—ah—she’s a woman. You know?”
“Um, yeah.” I nodded, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know at all. Something was wrong with Mom. At least I thought something was wrong, but I had no idea what, and no idea what to do.
Something was wrong with Dad, too. He looked torn in half, like he wanted to stay with me and go after Mom at the same time.
“I have a list to do,” I blurted. My tongue felt heavy and all sticky with Kool-Aid glue. “I’ve got to go, so you should take care of the ice. I mean, Mom. I so need a sock.”
“Okay, Jersey.” Dad backed away from me. He couldn’t smile right. As he left the kitchen, he said, “Stay away from the Rush house. I don’t think they want … well, they still aren’t very comfortable with—with what happened, okay?”
Not okay. I clenched my jaw.
I wasn’t comfortable, either. I needed to get some answers, didn’t I? Before J.B. found a way to get far enough into my head to kill me again. Before I went off on my mom for being totally weird. Before Mama Rush poked a finger into my stupid-mark because I wasn’t getting the list done fast enough.
Whatever.
Breathing hard, I stood up and lurched over to the sink to run water into my oatmeal bowl. Then I hitched back to the table, got Mom’s bowl and did the same. Dad’s bowl came last. Oatmeal really did turn into glue if it didn’t soak. That much I learned for sure at Carter.
“Oatmeal Kool-Aid glue.”
The toast, I just threw away. It seemed the kindest thing to do.
In the background, I picked out bits and pieces of my parents yelling at each other.
“… On purpose … he never thinks about anybody’s feelings but his own… .” This from Mom.
“Carter … brain injury … tolerate … support….” This from Dad.
Mom: “… Do any good at all.”
Dad: “Don’t think like …”
Wiping the table took the longest because I couldn’t really wipe with one hand and catch crumbs with the other. I ended up using my shirt as a catch-all, like I did when I was cleaning up in the hospital.
Dad: “Do things new … hope.”
Mom: “Go to hell.”
Or maybe she said, “Go to work.” I wasn’t sure.
After I got the crumbs dumped, I had to wash grease spots off my shirt with hot water, but overall, it wasn’t so bad. At least my parents finally got quiet. I didn’t understand the big deal, like I didn’t understand a lot of big deals.
That’s an excuse, insisted the Mama Rush voice in my head. You told me you still had your smarts.
“Sorry, sorry, glue,” I whispered like a little song as I ignored her. “Sorry, sorry, glue. Sorry, sorry, glue.” Moving as quietly as I could, I picked up my memory book and headed straight to where Dad told me not to go.
chapter 7
“Do I want to know why you’re all wet?” Leza leaned against the doorframe with her arms folded. She was wearing warm-ups again, very silky, this time, gold and green. School colors.
I glanced down at the front of my blue shirt and jeans. There was a big wet spot covering my stomach and the front of my pants, like I’d forgotten to unzip before taking a whiz. Great. I covered up the dark area as best I could with the memory book. “Whiz. I mean, pee. No, no, no. Wait. I don’t know—wait. I do know. I did the dishes. Crumbs and glue. And … and stuff.”
She was so pretty. I was never going to be able to think straight around Leza, much less talk. Harder to talk outside the hospital. Harder to think. But I probably wouldn’t have talked that well around Leza even if I didn’t have stress and word problems and a hole in my brain. She didn’t seem to mind, though. If I ignored the whole totally-stacked thing, Leza was starting to remind me of Mama Rush, not making a big deal over much.
“Todd’s at the lake,” she said. “And my parents have gone over to the university for a charity telethon. I just got back from the track.”
“Are you going to be a social worker?” I asked too fast, still thinking about Mama Rush.
