Only Child: A novel

by Rhiannon Navin

  I was afraid to turn around to see what it was, and all of a sudden I thought there were going to be dead people on the floor behind me and blood everywhere. I walked faster, and my whole body started to feel hot all over. I saw a door at the end of the hallway, and I wanted to start running to the door, and the scary feeling got bigger still. Then the security guard Dave stopped walking and I bumped into him. He said, “Whoa, slow down, champ. Here we are. This is Miss Russell’s classroom.”

  [ 36 ]

  Thunderstorm

  “ZACH! HI! I DIDN’T EXPECT to see you today,” Miss Russell said when the security guard Dave opened the door. She came from the back of the room, and she looked very happy to see me. She bent down and gave me a hug. All of my friends from my old class were there, and they said “Hi” to me and said they were happy I was back and stuff like that. I didn’t like all the eyes on me, but Miss Russell showed me my seat, and I was at the same table with Nicholas again. It was like we were still at McKinley and nothing was changed.

  “All right, class, let’s get back to work,” Miss Russell said. Everyone had workbooks out, and they picked up their pencils and did some quiet work. “Zach, why don’t you come sit with me for a bit?” Miss Russell said to me, and I sat next to her by her desk.

  “Do you still have the charm I gave you?” Miss Russell said to me in a quiet voice so that I was the only one who could hear her.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s in my…I put it in a safe spot and I look at it a lot.”

  Miss Russell smiled and said, “Good. It always helped me when I…was sad about something. It helped me to imagine that my grandma was out there somewhere looking over me, you know?” I shook my head yes. “I really do believe that with all my heart,” Miss Russell said. “Your brother, too. He’s not gone, he’s looking over you, too.” Miss Russell put her hand up and touched my cheek, and I started to feel a big lump in my throat from that.

  “Have you been doing some of your schoolwork? Should we go over it together?” Miss Russell asked, and then she stopped touching my cheek. She got out a folder from her desk and she showed me the work the class did when I didn’t come to school and it was the work Mimi brought home for me to do, and I did some of it, but not all of it.

  I liked sitting there with Miss Russell. The room was really quiet, and everyone was doing their own work. But then all of a sudden somebody, I think Evangeline, did something and I didn’t see what it was, but Miss Russell called over to her to stop. When she talked, her warm breath went right in my mouth. It smelled like coffee. And just like that the big scary feeling from earlier in the hallway was back, and I remembered Miss Russell’s breath from in the closet. My heart started beating fast again, and I was starting to feel sick like when Mommy drove me here in the car.

  I did big, heavy breaths because I knew I was going to throw up, and I hate throwing up so much.

  “Are you all right, honey?” Miss Russell asked, and her voice sounded really far away, even though she was sitting right next to me. When she asked me that, I could smell her coffee breath again, and the throw-up came out in a big giant Whoosh! all over Miss Russell’s desk and the front of my shirt. I started to stand up and another giant Whoosh! of throw-up came out and it landed all over my shoes.

  “Ewwwwwwwww!” “Groooooooooss!” all my friends in my class were saying.

  “All right, honey, all right. Don’t worry about it, it happens,” Miss Russell said to me, but she also had an “Ew” look on her face.

  A few more throw-up Whooshes came out—mostly on the floor—and then I was done.

  “Are you feeling better?” Miss Russell petted my back.

  I couldn’t talk. There was throw-up still in my throat and up my nose. It felt burny, and I felt like I wanted to cry.

  “Nicholas, take Zach to the nurse’s office, please,” Miss Russell said. “I’ll clean this up. Zach, don’t worry about it.”

  Nicholas looked at me like I looked really gross, but he walked to the nurse with me anyway. The nurse helped me wipe everything off and she called Mommy. I wasn’t happy that I threw up everywhere and everyone watched me, but I was happy that Mommy was coming to pick me up. Nicholas went back to class, and I sat on the nurse’s bed and waited for Mommy. I could smell the throw-up on my clothes, and it was starting to make me feel sick again.

  A fifth grader that I knew from McKinley walked in, and when he saw me, he threw his arm over his mouth. “Oh my God, it smells so bad in here,” he said very loud.

  “All right, Michael, pipe down,” the nurse told him. “Why are you here?”

  But the boy Michael didn’t give an answer to the nurse. He was still talking to me in a loud voice: “Ew, is that puke on your shirt?” A few other boys came into the nurse’s office to see why he was talking so loud, and they all stared at me and covered their noses with their arms.

  “Hey, aren’t you Andy’s brother?” another fifth-grade boy said to me.

  I didn’t say anything back.

  “All right, boys, if you’re not here for the nurse, get out of the office.” The security guard Dave came up behind the boys, and a few of them started to leave. But Michael and a couple other boys stayed.

  “Hey, isn’t Andy’s mom the one who’s on TV all the time now?” Michael said to the boy next to him.

  “Yeah. My mom said it’s not right how she’s talking about Charlie,” the other boy said, and I started to feel the mad feeling in my stomach. I wanted to tell Michael and the other boy to stop talking about Mommy, but I couldn’t open my mouth to talk. I was being stupid scared again.

  “She’s trying to get famous or something,” Michael said, and then he looked at me and put his hands up. “No offense, kid.”

  That’s when the mad feeling made my whole body get tight. Michael and the other boy were still talking to me about Mommy, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying anymore, because my heart was pounding loud in my ears and it was all I could hear. Mad tears were on my face, and Michael was making a face at me like “Ohhhhh, he’s crying,” and that’s when I went crazy.

  I don’t even remember what happened exactly, only that I heard myself yell, “Stop talking about my mom!” and then I was on top of Michael, and then somebody pulled me off of him. When I looked down, Michael was on the floor and he was holding his mouth, and I could see blood on his fingers.

  Somebody was holding me tight from behind, and I was still trying to kick my legs to reach Michael. I wanted to beat him up, and he was a lot bigger than me, but the mad feeling gave me super strength. Just the person holding me was stronger. I turned around and it was a man I didn’t know. He was talking to me, but my ears were still full with my loud heart pounding.

  Then I saw Daddy come in the nurse’s office and say something to the man who was holding me tight, and he gave me to Daddy and Daddy sat down on the floor and put me on his lap.

  “OK, all right. That’s good, settle down.” Daddy was talking in my ear, and I was starting to hear what he was saying.

  “Let go of me,” I yelled at Daddy. “Let go of me, let go of me!”

  “OK, I will let go, but you have to stop hitting and kicking, OK?”

  The nurse was next to Michael. She helped him get up and made him sit on the bed. Michael was crying and holding his lip, and more blood was on his hands.

  Daddy got up to talk to the man who was holding me earlier.

  “I apologize, Mr….,” Daddy said, and the man reached out his hand and they did handshakes.

  “Martinez. Lukas Martinez. I’m the assistant principal here at Warden.”

  “Jim Taylor,” Daddy said. “I apologize for my son’s behavior….”

  I got up from the floor and walked out of the nurse’s office and to the front door. I opened the door and walked outside.

  “Zach!” I heard Daddy calling behind me. “Wait, Zach!” But I ke
pt walking. I saw Daddy’s car was parked in front of the school, and I walked in that direction. Daddy came up from behind me and opened the door and helped me get in. I was cold because my clothes were still all wet from the throw-up and from when the nurse tried to clean it off with a wet towel. I started shaking a lot from the coldness. Daddy got in the front seat and he sat there for a while.

  “Wow, what a clusterfuck,” he said, and started the car.

  When we walked in the house, Mommy and Mimi were waiting for me, and they made a big fuss when they saw me and Mommy took me upstairs for a shower. I was still shaking when I was standing under the hot shower water. I was still mad. Mad at Michael and the other boy, and mad at Mommy and Daddy. I stayed in the shower for a long time, and after a while the shaking stopped and the mad feeling went away. I pretended like the shower water was washing it off and I was watching it disappear in the drain.

  In the afternoon, Mr. Stanley came over to our house, and it was about how I acted at the new school. He talked to Mommy and Daddy about me, and it was like I wasn’t there, even though I was sitting in the room also.

  “I would suggest that we give him some more time,” Mr. Stanley said.

  “Definitely,” Daddy said.

  “He’s been keeping up with his work quite well. And it’s almost Thanksgiving. I don’t see a reason why we can’t push it until…say, after the Christmas break,” Mr. Stanley said.

  “That’s quite a lot of school he would be missing,” Mommy said. “I don’t think it is in his best interest to—”

  Daddy interrupted Mommy’s sentence. “It’s first grade, for heaven’s sake. He’s not prepping for the SATs. He’ll be fine!”

  Mommy looked at Daddy in a very mad way. Mr. Stanley looked a few times from Mommy to Daddy and he looked like he didn’t know what to say. “OK, well, I wanted to let you know there is no rush from our point of view. If he keeps working and doesn’t fall behind, there will be no need to think about repeating the grade or anything like that. But I do want to mention the importance of counseling in this kind of scenario. I…that really is important. That’s…that’s really all,” Mr. Stanley said, and he started to get up.

  “Thank you, Mr. Stanley,” Mommy said. “We will discuss it and get back to you,” and she walked Mr. Stanley to the door. Then she came back in the living room and she didn’t sit back down, but she walked over to the window next to the chair I was sitting on and she stared out of it. She put her hand through my hair a lot of times, and I heard her take deep breaths in and out.

  “Please let me call Dr. Byrne for Zach now,” Daddy said in a quiet voice.

  Mommy shook her head yes slowly. “I…yes, I think that would be for the best,” Mommy said, and she stopped putting her hand through my hair, but she left her hand on top of my head.

  Dr. Byrne is Andy’s doctor, the one he went to for his ODD, and he made Andy do time-aways and so now Daddy and Mommy wanted me to go there, too, because I acted bad at school.

  “I don’t want to go to Dr. Byrne,” I said, and my voice came out whiney. “I’m sorry how I acted bad in school today. I’m sorry, Mommy. I won’t do it again, I promise.” I could feel tears come in my eyes, and I started to feel hot all over. I grabbed Mommy’s hand so that she would look at me instead of out the window. “I’m sorry, Mommy, OK?”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Mommy said, and she touched my cheek with her hand. “Don’t get upset again. We’re not deciding anything right now, don’t worry.”

  “No, we are deciding this now, buddy. This is not a punishment. This is to help you feel better. Do you understand?” Daddy said.

  “Well, we’ll talk more about it,” Mommy said, and she looked at Daddy. They didn’t say anything for a while. They both just stared at each other in a mad way.

  “Zach, do me a favor and go upstairs,” Daddy said, and he didn’t look at me, he was still looking at Mommy and I knew why he said that. It felt like when you know there’s going to be a big storm: it’s like extra quiet right before, but you can see the dark clouds in the sky and they’re coming closer, and you can start to hear some thunder sounds far away. Then you wait for the thunder and lightning to come right above you.

  I didn’t wait for this storm to come in over me. I ran out of the living room and upstairs and into my hideout and closed the door before the thunder and lightning started.

  [ 37 ]

  Thankful

  MOMMY AND DADDY made the world’s longest thunderstorm. It went on for days. The storm wasn’t happening all the time, but mostly when Mommy and Daddy were together it happened. It only took breaks when Daddy was at work. Daddy started to stay at work a lot again, and it went back to how it always was before when he was at work all the time, so he didn’t come in the hideout anymore.

  When Mommy and Daddy were in the same room, right away I could feel the storm clouds starting to grow, like they were getting all dark and heavy at the ceiling. I know a thunderstorm happens when warm air goes up and cold air comes down and they crash together and make big clouds, and the clouds make rain and lightning and thunder. Well, in our house it was like Mommy was the cold air and Daddy the warm air, and when they crashed together, they made a storm of words and yelling and crying.

  I got pretty good at noticing when it was about to happen, and I tried to get out of there just in time. Upstairs, in the hideout, shut the door! Sometimes the storm got so loud, I could even hear it all the way in the hideout, but most of the time the closet door kept it outside.

  The week before Thanksgiving, Mimi came over with dinner and her, me, and Mommy sat at the counter and ate. It was sausage and peppers, and that’s one of my favorites. Daddy was still at work, so no storm.

  “Have you thought about Thanksgiving at all?” Mimi asked Mommy. “It’s only one week away, and if you want to do something, we should probably start planning.”

  Mommy looked down at her plate and moved her food around with her fork. She put her fork in a piece of sausage and moved it around the sauce and the rice like it was a car driving through an obstacle course. “I…I really wish the holidays weren’t right now,” Mommy said with a quiet voice, and she sounded like a little girl.

  “I know, honey, I know,” Mimi said. “And you don’t have to do anything. I just thought maybe for Zach…”

  “I know,” Mommy said, and she looked up at me, and her eyes had tears in them.

  We always have Thanksgiving at our house, and it’s a big party with our family and friends. Mommy gets really excited about it, and she tapes a lot of lists on the kitchen cabinets, like what the menu is going to be and shopping lists and stuff, and she makes a special table with special place mats and decorations. We put an extra table next to the table in the dining room, so it’s one really long table, and we need three tablecloths to cover it and Daddy has to get out all the extra chairs from the basement so there will be enough for all the guests.

  Last year I got to help with the decorations, and we made the name cards for the table together. Me and Mommy went for a walk around the lake by our house and collected pinecones, and it took us a long time because there were going to be eighteen people for dinner and the pinecones couldn’t be too big or too small. We had a whole bag of them when we came home from the lake. Mommy cut out leaves from brown and red and orange paper, and I wrote everyone’s names on them. Mommy tried to get Andy to help, too, but Andy said arts and crafts are for girls. He said that with my bad handwriting no one was going to know where they were supposed to sit, and that wasn’t fair because I used my best writing and Mommy said it looked very good.

  Andy only made one name tag, the one for himself, so at least he was going to know where to sit, and then he went and played on the Xbox again. So I made the rest without him. We tied the leaves to the pinecones, and Mommy gave me a chart where everyone was going to sit, and I put the name-tag pinecones on top of the plates.

>   Last year on Thanksgiving, Mommy got up early because she had to put the stuffing inside the turkey and tie the legs together, and then it had to go in the oven, because it takes a long time to cook a turkey. Then we watched the Macy’s parade on TV for a little while, and it was quiet with just the two of us, because Daddy and Andy were still sleeping.

  At dinnertime we sat down around the table that looked beautiful with mine and Mommy’s decorations, and everyone said how much they liked my name tags, so I gave Andy a “so there” look, and he gave me a “yeah, right” look back.

  It was a little sad at the beginning of the dinner, because it was our first Thanksgiving without Uncle Chip, and Grandma and Aunt Mary cried when we went around the table and everyone had to say what they were thankful for.

  That’s the only part I don’t like about Thanksgiving, because I don’t like saying what I’m thankful for, and everyone has their eyes on me. At least I know it’s coming and I can be ready, and that way the red juice spill isn’t so bad. “I am thankful for Mommy and Daddy,” I said, because everyone was saying the people they were thankful for, so I picked Mommy and Daddy. “Oh, thanks a lot, Dumbo,” Andy yelled across the table, and Daddy got mad at him and that wasn’t such a good moment at dinner, but I didn’t feel thankful for Andy, so I didn’t say his name.

  “I’m thankful for my Xbox” was what Andy said when it was his turn, and that was a stupid thing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.

  I thought about last Thanksgiving, and I didn’t think it was going to be nice this year and anyway, I wasn’t sure what I should say I’m thankful for this time. My hideout, that was the only thing, and I wasn’t going to say that in front of everyone because it was a secret.

  “Front door!” the alarm box robot lady said, and then Daddy walked in the kitchen and Mommy looked back down at her plate. Another sausage car started to drive on the obstacle course.