Finally, I focus in on dozens of pictures—some Polaroids, others regular four-by-sixes—of me and Ellie over the last five years: at parties, at school, with different hairstyles and different clothes, glaring at each other and laughing, sleeping on sofas and floors and campsites, and dancing at proms and homecomings.
The box falls to the floor. Pictures scatter everywhere. I stumble to my bed. Bury my face in my pillow. Take that ball in my chest and suspend it in midair.
I repeat the word “stoic” for hours.
Finally I am calm enough to put the box back together. I take it to my walk-in closet and slide it so far into the darkness someone would have to build a tunnel to China to find it. Then I flick off the light and try to sleep.
17.
Us hurtling toward that last memory: a Fourth of July squished together on a patchwork quilt, the sky exploding above your open mouth, Dad’s arm around Mom’s shoulder, the edge of your toes pressed against mine.
Jake
AFTER. FEBRUARY.
Less than a week after Amber’s visit, I’m called in to see Dean Schwartz. The office is dark, a grand display of masculinity, and there is a familiar smell, but I can’t place it right away. It’s only after Dean Schwartz has settled himself comfortably behind his mahogany desk that the smell links to a memory of another office similar to this.
In that memory I am twelve, and I sit beside my sister, who stares listlessly at the walls. My mother sits opposite us, closer to the shrink. His name was Bob, I believe, and he had gray hair and kind eyes. We went to see him for weeks. Mostly, Bob asked questions. Mom dabbed at her eyes, doing her best not to cry. Ellie stayed silent, and I tried to somehow make them both feel better—a smile for Mom, a goofy face for Ellie—but nothing worked.
The memory is too disturbing. I close my eyes and rub my hand across my face, trying to shake it off, but it lingers, as clear and present as that pain that I get sometimes.
“Mr. Meyers,” Dean Schwartz says, clearing his throat, “it’s been brought to my attention that you’re struggling in your classes. I’m afraid your grades just aren’t up to par. And according to your professors, you’re barely in attendance.” He pauses, lowers his voice, because this is how you approach such a delicate subject. “I understand you experienced a huge loss last semester. But it says here that you’ve repeatedly refused school counseling. Why is that?”
Because it’s the most obvious and self-explanatory response, I say, “I don’t need counseling.”
He squints his eyes and nods his head, as if he understands yet respectfully disagrees. “Well, then . . . maybe what’s best for you and your future is that you take a break? Clear your head. Give yourself some time to heal.” He pauses to flip through pages in his manila folder. Then he stares at me from over the rim of his glasses. He’s nearly bald except for a few patches of thin gray hair that sprout from random spots on his head. This, along with the grim expression on his face, makes him look like an unhappy owl.
“Well, what do you think?” He clicks his tongue, and I wonder if he’s put out by my silence. If he prefers standing in a classroom, lecturing students, rather than dealing with issues of academic probation and life crisis and someone’s sister dying. Someone’s sister maybe, possibly, committing suicide.
When he leans forward, I notice his golf-ball cuff links. I try to imagine him on some green, his bare arms slightly burned despite the careful application of sunblock. He seems like the kind of guy who takes his time lining up a shot. Like he has the available headspace for all that concentration. I don’t know why, but that fact alone says a lot to me about his life.
He lifts the stapler from his desk and clicks it absentmindedly. I fight the urge to pull it from his hand. That kind of behavior will get you suspended. “This is hard for you, isn’t it?” he asks.
It’s a stupid question, so I give an equally stupid response. “Life is hard, right?”
Dean Schwartz nods vigorously, like I’ve said something wise. He snaps my file shut and clasps his hands together. “Yes, life is hard. But we survive. We move forward. I’m sure you’ll be fine after the summer’s over. Nothing like a little sun and rest to set you straight. And you’d be surprised how time heals most wounds. It’s a cliché because it’s true, you know.” He rises, and because it seems logical, I rise too.
At the door, he pats me awkwardly on the back, nodding his head the way guys do to each other. Then his gaze shifts just a little to the right. He seems elsewhere now, thinking of more pleasant things, like golf carts and wooden tees. Or maybe his thoughts are of what he must do next, the moment after I leave. All I know is that his thoughts are no longer with me.
THREE YEARS BEFORE.
I said, “You’ve got to talk to her, Mom. You’ve got to say something to her.”
Mom sat across from me at the kitchen table, wearing her scrubs and smelling like disinfectant. Several gray strands hung loose from her ponytail. “What do you want me to say, Jake?” Her eyes drooped down to her hands. She rubbed the stem of her wineglass, dipped her finger into the liquid, and pressed the wet tip to the dark wood. “You know how your sister is. She’s different.” She paused, and for a second I thought she wanted to say more, divulge some new piece of information that might help me understand Ellie. But that was not the case. “Sometimes, she likes attention. A part of her wants to do things to shock us. If I talk to her now, that part will know her antics worked, and she’ll just get more and more dramatic. That’s not what either of us wants. This cutting thing is just the latest stage. It’ll fade.”
“But what if it doesn’t?” I studied her, the dark bags under her eyes, the skin cracking across her palms.
She sighed, took another sip. “We’ve been through this before. The self-tattooing. The nose piercing. The running away. Remember she did that every other night last December? She’s like that. She’s . . .” Again she dipped her finger in wine and pressed it to the table. Two red fingerprints side by side. “She’s still angry and probably incredibly confused. And she won’t go to therapy. And the therapist said that’s because she’s not ready. I tried to force the issue. Remember? But she just got worse. She wouldn’t talk about it.”
“That was before, Mom. She was scared. She’s fourteen now. She’s ready.”
“Yeah?” She stood up, went to the kitchen counter, and grabbed her pack of cigarettes. “Maybe she’s not. Maybe we just need to let it go for now. And maybe you,” she said, turning to me, her eyes hard, “should just leave all of this alone. I know you think you understand what’s going on, but you don’t. You need to trust me, okay? I’m the mom here. When your sister is really ready for help, she’ll ask.” She grabbed the bottle, tucked it under her arm, and went outside to sit by the pool. I watched her for a while, even though I knew she’d dangle her feet in the water and smoke cigarette after cigarette until her bottle was gone. This was her after-work routine.
Eventually, I went to Ellie’s bedroom. I didn’t know why, exactly. I thought maybe I could talk some sense into her. A part of me expected that her door would be shut and that she wouldn’t open it for me no matter how hard I knocked. But she wasn’t in her room, and when I went into the living room, I found her sitting there in the dark.
She said, “I heard every word. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. And she’s right, you know. I just want all that to be in the past. Why can’t you let it be in the past, Jake?” She looked at me, tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, but I knew they wouldn’t fall. She’d just stand at the edge of it, somehow able to hold it all in.
I sat down beside her, rolled up the sleeve of her striped shirt, and stared at the cuts on her arm, raised, ridged. Painful, red-puckered skin in different stages of healing. I looked at Ellie, and I knew that my eyes had welled up too. I found it hard to breathe. I said, “This is not fine.”
She looked toward the kitchen. “You heard what she said, Jake. She wants to forget everything that happened. She wants to make
me disappear.”
I reached for her hand, remembering her at age four, when she always wanted to hold mine but I never let her. “I think you’re misunderstanding what she means. She feels like she’s tried with you.”
Ellie laughed. She said, “You know she bought me an extra-long robe to use when Sargeant’s around? She tells me my shirts are revealing when they’re not.”
“That’s not true,” I told her. Ellie often had a way of misconstruing my mother’s words and intentions. “She’s just being protective. She’s just taking precautions—”
“Then why bring Sargeant here at all? Why’d she get married again if she wants to take precautions?”
“She has to move on, Ellie. She has to . . .” I stalled out here. Explaining why our mother always needed to be married was beyond me.
“Why do you always defend her, Jake? Why can’t you ask yourself why we’re not enough for her?” Ellie pulled her hand back onto her lap and rolled down her sleeve. “And I’ll tell you something, Jake. I don’t care what she says; she blames me for what happened. I know she does.” She stood. It was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I could have forced the issue, but I didn’t. These conversations were just too hard.
She pointed to her arm and said, “I’ll stop. Okay? I won’t do this anymore.” She walked to the hallway and paused. She didn’t turn around, but I heard her say, “I’m sorry, Jake.” Seconds later I heard her music blaring.
Alone again, I returned to the kitchen. I stood at the sliding glass door and watched my mom smoke cigarette after cigarette. I imagined each burning ember was a memory she hoped would disappear.
18.
It only takes an instant for me to be back there with you. “Oh, Ellie, I like to make you laugh,” you’d say, and I imagine how that must have sounded to my mother in the kitchen, her hands submerged in soapy water as she stared off into the distance. But we were in the family room. Me, floating somewhere outside my body, praying this time would be different, hearing the nervous sound of my laughter until your hand found that place Mom calls private. Then the room went silent. The only noise the sound of your heavy breathing. And me, pinned beneath the weight of my fear, eyes glued to the distorted length of Mom’s shadow, spilling into the hallway.
Jessie
BEFORE. AUGUST.
Thirty minutes after Lola left, I made my way downstairs, past my parents and my sisters still lying on the couch, and through the kitchen door. Outside, I stopped to let the heat wrap around me. It was a balmy night with a light breeze, a full moon hanging low in the dark sky.
I eased my way into the bushes beside the stairs, crouching low until I felt the dirt. I emerged a few minutes later with scraped palms, dirty hands, and Ellie’s sketch pad. I stopped at the foot of the stairs to brush the dirt from my jeans. That’s when I heard Sarah’s voice behind me: “What are you doing?”
I spun around, the sketch pad hidden behind my back. She and Ellie stood a few feet away, watching me.
“Spying, Jess?” Ellie asked, an amused expression on her face. It was the first time she had really spoken to me since we kissed.
“What’s behind your back?” Sarah asked.
“Nothing.” I shuffled backward, felt the stairway just beneath my heel.
Sarah stepped forward, her face scrunching up. “No, you’re hiding something, and why are you dressed like that?”
I looked down. I was still dressed in Lola’s black leotard and leggings.
“Rob a bank?” Ellie asked, and again we made eye contact.
“It’s just something Lola left me . . . for a project.” I took step after step until I reached the door, my hand desperately seeking the knob.
“Jess, you’re freaking me out,” Sarah said. “What’s behind your back?”
“Yeah, weirdo.” Ellie skirted Sarah and hopped up the stairs. She stopped before me, placed her hands on my waist, and whispered, “Let me see, Jess.”
Sarah laughed. “You’re scaring her, Ellie. Look at her face. Just leave it. She can have her secret.”
“Let. Me. Go,” I whispered.
“You don’t want me to let you go.” Ellie’s voice was dangerously low. “Do you?” She gripped my hips tighter. “Do you?”
I shook my head, because the truth was, I didn’t want her to let me go. Not ever.
“Ellie, come on.” Sarah watched from the grass below, amused. “Let her go. I’m totally going to pee my pants.”
“I will,” Ellie said over her shoulder, “when she shows me what’s in her hands.” She turned to me, her expression serious. “Show me.”
Finally, I found the doorknob. The door swung open, just as Ellie reached for the sketch pad. Our bodies pressed together. I could have stepped back, but instead I held still. She did the same. When she pulled away, the sketch pad was in her hands.
“How did you get this?” Her eyes widened in disbelief.
“I—I don’t know,” I whispered.
“What do you mean, you don’t—”
“Well?” Sarah now stood a step below. She peered over Ellie’s shoulder, but the staircase was too narrow for her to see much of anything. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Ellie said, slightly dazed. She handed the sketch pad back to me and gave me a little shove. “God. Go on, weirdo.” Her voice had somehow resumed its typically bored tone.
I spun around and through the doorway, as Sarah called out after me, “Wait! I wanted to see.”
“It was nothing . . . ,” I heard Ellie say. Her voice lowered, the words a series of mumbles, followed by the faint sound of Sarah’s laughter.
* * *
That night I climbed into bed early, tucking Ellie’s sketch pad beneath my pillow for safekeeping. I listened to my family below—my parents and baby sisters finishing The NeverEnding Story, while Sarah and Ellie joked around in the kitchen.
The block was quiet. Old Mrs. Sawyer had turned out her porch light. And Mr. Lumpnick had just walked Molly down the street, stopping to sneak a cigarette by the fire hydrant as she sniffed for scents of friends or nemeses.
When the music for the movie’s final credits rolled, the TV was turned off—Mom herded Mattie and Meg off to bed while Dad went into the kitchen to tell Sarah and Ellie to take it upstairs.
Minutes later, Ellie entered the room alone and found me reading the nearest book. From the bathroom came the definitive gurgle of water running through pipes, and Sarah singing.
“Reading?” Ellie asked, her voice neutral despite our previous encounter.
“Um, yeah.” My plan was to seem busy until Sarah got out of the shower, but I wasn’t exactly convinced this was enough to avoid the inevitable confrontation.
“Interesting?” she said.
“Um, yeah.” The nearest book had been Sarah’s SAT prep book, and so I added, “I want to give myself plenty of time to prepare.”
I heard her unzip her overnight bag.
“So, not interesting?” she said. “You don’t have to stare at the wall, Jess. We’re both girls.”
“I—I was reading my book,” I said, but I lowered it slightly to prove I was perfectly capable of looking at her. She sat on Sarah’s bed now, wearing only a pair of panties. Her nightgown was folded neatly beside her.
I lifted the book up quickly so that it blocked my view of her completely. But the image of her undressed stayed in my head.
A few seconds later she sat down beside me, the heat of her body pressing against my thigh. She was wearing the gown now, the hem just barely covering her upper thigh. She lowered my book and stared at me with intense eyes. “Is what you’re reading or what you just saw more interesting than my journal?” Her voice was cold, the indifference replaced with a quiet anger.
“I . . . I . . .” I looked down, my eyes focusing on a tiny bleach stain on my blanket. “I’m sorry,” I finally said, my voice unbearably hoarse.
She took the book and set it aside. “Look at me, Jess. Did you break into my
house tonight?”
Slowly I raised my eyes to hers, afraid of what I might find. Her mouth was a straight line, but there was a slight quiver in her jaw.
I nodded. “Are you going to tell Sarah?” I asked. Her answer to that question was mostly irrelevant. I just didn’t know what to say, and I wanted to steer her away from my reasons why and toward something safer: the consequences.
“You did it on your own?” she asked. “Or with Lola?”
I didn’t want to lie to her, but I knew that if I told her it was Lola’s idea, she’d go after her. That would only make things worse for all of us. So I said, “Just me.”
She nodded and looked away. I studied her face, the dark bags beneath her eyes, her sharp chin, the thick streaks of eyeliner, which she wore even to bed. The silence stretched, just the sounds of our breathing, the water beating against the shower curtain, and Sarah singing.
Our fingers were near each other on the bed, and for some reason I let my hand inch forward until the very tips of my fingers rested on hers.
This brought her back to me. She looked down at our hands, and then at me. Her features softened, but only for a second. When she spoke, her voice was hard. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
I wanted her to kiss me more than anything, and I tried to tell her that with my expression. Maybe she understood, because she leaned forward a little, her mouth open slightly.
Suddenly the water stopped, followed by the sliding rings of a shower curtain pulled aside. Ellie glanced at the wall; her lips snapped shut. She stood, everything about her closed off now, and said, “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
The words stung, even though I didn’t believe she meant them entirely. She moved back to Sarah’s bed and slipped beneath the covers. A minute later Sarah entered the room, smelling of Irish Spring. She glanced at Ellie, who was already turned on her side, her arm covering her eyes. “Okay if I turn out the light, Jess?”
34 Pieces of You Page 10
