The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  She started to say something else, but I couldn't wait. I was half watching the open door, and I saw Zack slip by outside.

  “Thanks,” I said, and took off after him, as fast as you can take off on crutches. “Zack,” I called, and everybody on the street turned around.

  Zack stopped and waited for me. “Yeah, Sport?”

  This is easy, I told myself. You know Zack. Just talk to him. Like he was your friend, which he was. Just talk to him like you used to. This is really easy. But it didn't feel easy. I opened my mouth and it was like glee club tryouts all over again.

  “Yeah, what is it, Sport? I gotta get back to work.”

  “Uh, Zack. I. Uh. Would you … ?”

  “What, Sport? Would I what?”

  “Would you help me fix my tree house?” I didn't know I was about to say that. But I knew I missed my tree house. Life had been looking real bad from the ground floor.

  “Well, I guess, but … I don't think your mom would take to that so good. Having me come over.”

  “Come in the afternoon. She's so drunk by then, she won't even notice.”

  Something came over his face. That little quick second when you get to see inside somebody, all the way in to a place that hurts. I guess he didn't know, until I said so, that her drinking had gotten so bad. I'd forgotten that my mom was somebody Zack used to care about. I didn't much like having to remember. That was a very weird moment, suddenly having to think about how there was once a Mom and Zack.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Maybe. I work on weekdays. But maybe Saturday. Yeah. Saturday afternoon. I guess. Wait a minute. How can you even get up there with that big cast on your leg?”

  Then I felt really stupid. My face felt hot, and I really hoped that didn't mean it was getting red. “Oh yeah. Well …” I couldn't believe he'd just said he would come over Saturday, and now he was about to take it back again. “Maybe for when the cast comes off.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Sometime between now and then. I'll help you make sure the tree house is ready.”

  I felt like he'd just said “never” or “in your next lifetime.”

  “Maybe you could take me for another ride on your motorcycle. That was so much fun last time.”

  “With that big old cast on your leg?”

  “Why not?”

  He frowned. “I'm not so sure. Anyway, the bike is running bad. I have to tear it all apart and put new bearings in the bottom end. It'll be all over my garage. Maybe when I'm done working on it.”

  “I could help you.” I felt like I was grasping at straws now. But I couldn't help it. I felt like if he got away this time, he might be gone for good, or at least for a long time, something that felt like forever, like last time.

  “Pretty technical work, Sport.”

  “I meant just hand you tools and stuff.”

  He was still frowning. Like he was trying to find a way to say no. And I thought, you still like me, don't you, Zack? We're friends, right? We're alike, you and me. But I couldn't ask. I couldn't. What if he answered? What if it turned out he was all fixed now and didn't want to be around somebody like me?

  “I guess,” he said. “Yeah, why not? Saturday.”

  He gave me his address and I borrowed a pen from one of the meeting people and wrote it down on my hand.

  When I got home there was a letter from Nanny and Gram- pop on my bed. Mom had left it there, I guess.

  It was my picture of Bill, with a little note. He was standing up in his playpen, hanging on to the side. Smiling into the camera. He looked really happy.

  It made this little knot in my stomach.

  I was thinking it was pretty nice of them to send me a picture after everything that happened. And he looked fine, too, not like he was hurt. But then I got to wondering when they actually sent it, so I looked at the postmark, and it was almost six weeks old.

  I found my mom looking out the window in the living room. “What the hell have you been doing with this?” She jumped a mile. “Why didn't you show this to me?”

  “I didn't know it was for you.”

  “Like hell you didn't. You must've known when you opened it. It says Cynnie right on top of the letter.”

  “I didn't read it,” she said. I just waited. I started wondering what else I could do with my life if I could get back all the time I spent waiting for my mom to finish her thoughts. Maybe learn a musical instrument or something. “Usually when she writes, it's to give me advice. It's getting hard to take.”

  “I'm sure you don't take it,” I said, but under my breath. She never took any advice from anybody as far as I could tell.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  I locked myself back in my room and stared at the picture some more. Trying to think why it made me feel so weird inside. Something about the fact that he looked so … happy. But I wanted him to be happy. Right?

  But I didn't want to think he was getting along fine without me.

  Then I thought, What a terrible thing to think. What kind of sister are you? What, you want him to be miserable? No. Maybe. I don't know.

  I just didn't want to think maybe he forgot all about me.

  This is the point at which I would've gone to Kiki's. If I could've. I would tell her I had a date. Borrow her makeup. Maybe look in her closet for something to wear.

  Instead I went up to the attic and plowed through her boxes.

  When she left home it was kind of sudden. She left a bunch of stuff behind, clothes and stuff. A curling iron that didn't work when it didn't feel like it. Some old makeup. When it came to makeup, Kiki had everything. I've seen people stockpiling supplies for the great earthquake who don't keep so many spares of things around. I'd boxed it all up and taken it to the attic so I wouldn't miss her so much. I tried extra hard not to miss her now.

  I weeded out a couple of dresses and a slightly dry tube of mascara. And tweezers. Then I shoved everything back in the boxes and got downstairs as fast as I could. I felt like the attic was haunted. Like my sister was a ghost. I didn't know I missed her so much.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. I knew this wasn't what I wanted to look like, and I didn't have much time to change it. I plucked a few stray eyebrow hairs. I knew I was definitely in love, even though I never had been before, because nothing short of love would make a person do something that hurts as much as plucking your eyebrows. It made my eyes water, and the skin where I'd been plucking looked all red. I got an ice cube and rubbed it on the red places. Then I tried to figure out how to put on the mascara.

  The dresses were all too big. But that wasn't really the problem. When I put on one of Kiki's dresses I felt like somebody else, somebody I never meant to be. Like if you know something doesn't fit in a space, and you just fold it over and squish it in anyway. I decided I'd wear some makeup and dress as myself. Zack would just have to like me for me.

  I sat on the back stoop, waiting for it to be afternoon. The minutes went so slow it was silly. It was a warm day, and my leg started to itch under my cast. Then I rubbed my eye and got worried I might've smeared the makeup, so I went in the house to look.

  Mom was passed out on the couch with a cigarette butt burning in her hand. The living room smelled like burned filter. I slipped it out of her fingers and squashed it in the ashtray.

  I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and I had a black eye from rubbing the mascara. I had to clean it all off and start over again. This grown-up woman thing was hard. And weird. I mean, how are you even supposed to rub your eye?

  On my way back through the living room I saw the bottle on the coffee table. Mom's gin. I almost had a slug, to settle my nerves. Then I thought, I can't go over to Zack's smelling like I've been drinking. He's in the program now. He might think badly of me.

  I never once thought about how it would blow my probation. Nothing really mattered now except going over to Zack's.

  He had half the bike engine all apart on newspapers on the garage floor.
I leaned on the wall, trying to look casual. I had Kiki's mascara in my pocket, in case I forgot and rubbed my eye. It dug into my hip, but I didn't move.

  I forgot I was supposed to be handing him tools.

  He was lying on his side, kind of half under the bike, and some of his hair spilled off onto the newspaper. It looked almost blond. Who knew, when it was only half an inch long, that it would grow out almost blond?

  Because he wasn't looking at me, I thought I could say something. But I had no idea what it should be.

  I said, “What's a sponsor?”

  He sat up. Picked up a shop towel and wiped off the wrench and his hands. He looked right at me, which made it harder to have a conversation. I remembered the conversations we used to have. They were so easy. Why couldn't it be that way now?

  He said, “Somebody in the program who works with you, kind of more one on one. Helps you figure out the program when you get stuck. And you can call them if you think you want to drink. Or even if you just need someone to talk to. And they help you work the steps. Which can be kind of confusing at first.”

  “So how do you know who your sponsor is?”

  “You just ask somebody.”

  “Will you be my sponsor?”

  I knew there was nobody else I could stand to have except him.

  He kept looking right at me. I was getting dizzy, waiting for him to answer. I was starting to think that if the answer was yes, he would have said it by now. He had that look on his face, like when I asked to come over here today. Like he wanted to say no.

  “That's good that you're ready for one.” I didn't know if that meant yes, but I couldn't ask. “But not me, though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. I've only got sixty days. You need someone with more time.”

  “Sixty days! That's, like, two months! That's tons of time.”

  “Not really, Sport.” He was looking at me real hard. It made me squirm inside. “The other reason is more important. Women are supposed to have women sponsors. Or girls. You know what I mean. And men have men sponsors.”

  “Why? What's the difference?”

  “Let me see. How do I explain it? That sponsor relationship, you have to keep it real simple. Not get it mixed up with other things. Other feelings. Know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. I guess.” I guess I was getting that—how things can get so complicated with somebody like Zack. But it scared me, too, because it made me think again that maybe he didn't want to be around me anymore. Because maybe we weren't alike the way we used to be. I said, “Zack? Now that you're in the program … are you … fixed?”

  He looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about. It was like he'd forgotten that whole conversation we had. How could he forget that? It felt like the most important thing that had ever happened to me.

  “What do you mean, fixed?”

  “You used to say we were broken, remember?”

  “Oh. Well, it's only been sixty days, Sport. It doesn't happen quite so fast. I'm just not acting quite as stupid and crazy now. It's like I'm the same person but I don't always act on my first impulse.”

  “So you're just trying to be fixed.” Which was bad enough. That already broke the pact.

  “I'm just saying I'm a little better. Why?”

  “I was worried that now I'm the only one.”

  He sat there sort of chewing on his lip for a minute. That's when I figured out there was no easy answer for that one. Or if there was, he didn't know it, either.

  After a while he said, “Why don't you try the program, too? What've you got to lose?”

  I felt like I could lose everything, but I wasn't sure how to explain. I felt like I could lose me. What if I woke up and something had fixed me, made me whole again? Made me so I didn't even want to do crazy shit? Who would I be? I sure as hell wouldn't be me. But I didn't know how to explain all that to Zack.

  So I said, “It's a total mistake that I even have to go there. That car accident had nothing to do with drinking. I hadn't even had that much. It was about wanting to drive fast. Just because … Well, you know why. You told me yourself. You said it makes you feel whole for just a minute. So I wanted to try it. This whole AA thing is a mistake. But I couldn't say all that in court. How could I?”

  Zack was looking at me funny. Like I was talking in a foreign language or something. “Cynnie—”

  “You don't think I'm an alcoholic, do you, Zack?” I thought if he said he did, I would just die.

  “Nobody gets to decide that for somebody else. You are if you say you are. Let's say you're not. It was all a big mistake. You really have nothing to lose by working the steps. Right?”

  Except that I wouldn't be me anymore. But I think I loved that crazy me so much because Zack was there to share it with me. Now that he'd turned his back on it, I wasn't sure how much I even cared. Maybe this “me” thing wasn't even worth hanging on to.

  “Now, my mother,” I said, “she could really use it.”

  The minute the words came out of my mouth I regretted them. I forgot Zack actually cared what happened with my mom.

  “How 'bout if you give it a try … for me?” he said after a minute.

  The only reason he could possibly have given me that I couldn't ignore.

  When I woke up the next morning I lay in bed for a while, feeling like I couldn't move. Well, maybe like a cross between couldn't and didn't want to. It was like that feeling I had when I knew they were going to take Bill away. Like you're a sailing ship scooting along on the water, but then all of a sudden there's no wind.

  And I wasn't thinking much, either. It was like all the thoughts I could think were bad ones. But I do remember thinking that if I saw Pat at the meeting that evening, I'd ask her to be my sponsor. Partly because of the promise I'd made to Zack. Partly because when things like this happened, like not being able to move, I wanted to feel like there was somebody or something to help me with them.

  Then I thought how nice it would be to have one of those mothers who came in and pulled you out of bed and helped you get dressed and handed you a nice packed lunch and made sure you got out the door on time.

  But I didn't. Which made having a sponsor sound like an even better idea.

  I was nearly half an hour late for school because I couldn't break the spell. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get any wind into my sails.

  I asked Pat if she would drive me home, and she said yeah, she would, so I called my mom and told her not to bother.

  “Thanks,” I said, while we walked out to her car, which turned out to be an old beater of an Oldsmobile. “This is much safer. To go home with you. My mom is so smashed by this time of night. It scares the hell out of me to drive with her. I swear I'm taking my life into my hands.”

  I waited in the cold for her to unlock the passenger door and let me in. Then we sat there and she let the engine warm up for a while and ran the heater.

  “Sounds like things are bad at home.”

  I shrugged. “Just the same as they always are.”

  “And they were always bad. Right?”

  I shrugged again. “Hard to know how other people's lives are, you know?”

  She looked at me in the dark, like she could look close and see all the things I didn't say. But then all she said was, “Seat belt.”

  I put it on and we started for home.

  After a few blocks I said, “You told me a couple of times you'd be my sponsor. You know. If I was ready for one.”

  “Are you?”

  “I guess. I don't know. I'm ready to work the program for real.”

  “Good,” she said. About time, I thought I heard, even though she didn't say it.

  I didn't tell her why I was ready to do it or who I was doing it for. I'm not stupid.

  “So what do I do? I mean, if you're gonna be my sponsor.”

  “I'll give you a book tonight and I want you to read the chapter on the first step.”

  Ah. See? I knew t
his would be like school. Sooner or later. She pulled into my driveway. We sat there for a while with the motor running. I was glad the house was there, all in one piece. I always expected my mom to burn it down or blow it up while I was away. But I never really knew I was thinking that until I saw it in one piece again.

  Pat said, “So, you got a mother, but she's usually drunk.”

  “More like always.”

  “Father?”

  “He died a long time ago. I only just barely remember him.”

  “Friends?”

  “I had a couple. A while ago. But I chased one off, and the other, I don't know where he is anymore.” And the best friend I ever had ran out on me, but now I found him again, but he's not really acting much like my friend anymore. But she knew Zack, and like I said, I'm not stupid. “And I had a kid brother. He was my friend.”

  “Did he die?”

  “No, my grandparents came and took him away. Because my mom didn't look after him right.”

  “What about you? Why'd they leave you?”

  “That's what I wanted to know.” Then, after a minute, I said, “Everybody always does. Anyway.”

  I could see her nodding a little in the dark. “Never really had a chance, did ya?”

  That made me a little uneasy, so I took off my seat belt and got out. She had to lean over and close the door because it was sticky. She had to pull it hard from the inside. I couldn't swing it hard enough to make it catch.

  I walked up the driveway in the dark. In the cold. Wishing she hadn't reminded me how much I'm on my own in the world.

  “Cynnie.” I turned around, and she had her window down and her head stuck out, talking to me. “You forgot the book.”

  Oh yeah. My homework. God forbid I should forget my homework. Like I don't get enough at school.

  Just as I was taking the book out of her hands, she said, “Call me every day.”

  “And say what?” “ ‘Hello’ would be a good start. After that we'll just wing it.”

  When I got inside, my mom was nearly passed out on the sofa. I mean, her eyes were open, and her head was nodding around a little. But she sort of looked in my direction, and you could tell she had no idea who or what she was looking at, so that qualifies as passed out as far as I'm concerned. It's close enough. She had an empty bottle of something on the coffee table in front of her, and a full ashtray, and a cigarette in her fingers that was all burned down into the filter. But at least it had gone out on its own, before she burned the house down. The smell was nasty.