by Carrie Mac
“Corbin!” Owen hollered. “You did that on purpose!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“I can get it.” Salix fished the stuffed owl out of the branches. She put an arm across my shoulder and laughed. “That was about as unprivate as you can get.”
“Welcome to my current life,” I said. “All the privacy I ever had is back in Port Townsend in a little log cabin in the woods, all locked up.”
My house seemed a lot farther away now: the bus ride to Seattle endless and the drive to Port Townsend impossibly long. It was as if the distance had stretched, and now it was easier to be here, in Vancouver, than to make my way back home. Maybe this was home enough for now. Maybe I didn’t want to go back to Port Townsend. I hadn’t checked the bus times in days. Not since that day at the park when Salix reunited me with my half of the cookie.
Five months and thirteen days, and then I’d have to say goodbye. To Salix, the new baby, Claire and the boys, and even Dad. Unless I had to say goodbye to him sooner.
—
That night I checked my email. There were two messages from Mom. And none from Ruthie. Just as well.
The first message from Mom was a reply to my request for advice.
Honey, stay out of it. Let Claire and your dad sort things out.
Your dad has a history with alcohol, as you well know, but he’s always managed to pull himself up, right? Sounds like you’re having a great time with Salix. Don’t worry. Send pictures!
xoxoxo
Mom
The other email was short too. Dan had stacked our cordwood for us and would I please send him a little something in the mail as a thank-you. Maybe some maple syrup. Love you, Maeve. Love, love, love.
Firewood. For the winter. When I’d be back in Port Townsend. Back to getting up and starting the fire in the stove each morning, because I was always up before Mom. I’d be home in January, when the garden was finally finished, the last of the kale wilting, the ground muddy, rotten leaves and endless rain. I didn’t mind the rain at all, especially in the forest. Mist shrouded the cedar trees in the morning. Sometimes I had time to sit out on the porch before the bus came and watch it lift. The rain on the tin roof, the eaves so blocked with leaves that the water poured over the edges, making a muddy little trough in the dirt. Last year Mom and I stacked some bricks at one end of the porch and put a metal fire pit on top of it so we could sit on the porch by the warmth and watch the glimmering flames.
I didn’t want to think about deep, dark winter. I loved winter at home. The black sky awash with stars. The crisp air. The stillness when it snowed, which was so rare it was like magic.
Salix and I were at Continental one late afternoon after we’d been swimming. We were both tired, our muscles sore, when it suddenly occurred to me, as it so often did, just how much time I had left. One hundred and fifty-two days.
In the two weeks since the spray park, I’d seen my father twice. Both times in the morning. Once, he was sitting on the couch doing up his bootlaces. He was pasty and pale and hardly looked up before leaving. The other time he was throwing up into the kitchen sink.
“Good thing we have a garbage disposal,” Claire said as she nudged past him to reach for the bowls.
She tried to keep things normal. She tried to make light of it. She tried not to care that he was never home, and that when he was out he was getting shit-faced. What kind of family was this baby coming into? Would he even be around when the baby came? Maeve, she said, I know you don’t want to, but there really isn’t anyone else I’d want. She handed me a stack of books that I’d already read. I need a backup. I just don’t know about your dad right now.
I didn’t know about my dad right now either. And so I read the books. Not because I wanted to. But because it’s like when you take an umbrella and it doesn’t rain. You have a lighter in your pocket that you never need until the one day you leave it home and it’s someone’s birthday and no one can find the matches. I read because by my doing so, Dad would show up and do what he was supposed to do.
Until then, it was one more thing to worry about.
“It must be nice not to worry,” I said to Salix.
“I do worry,” she said. “A lot.”
“What things do you worry about?”
“If my mom’s cancer will come back. Not getting into Juilliard. Playing in front of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. To name a few.”
Mr. Heidelman had invited her to perform at one of their rehearsals, but she hadn’t talked about it since then. I’d thought maybe it was a good-luck thing. I’d had no idea she was worrying. “You never said.”
“Terrified, anxious, nauseous,” Salix said, “whenever I think about it.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It’s not only you,” Salix said. “Everybody worries.” Her words were clipped, and her gaze slid toward the street. “We all have our worries. There is no corner on the market.”
“No. You’re right. Sorry.”
So she didn’t understand. And that was fine. Most people didn’t. Only 3 percent of the population has an actual anxiety disorder. Worrying is different for those people. We always think things will go wrong, even if they’re not likely to. We are almost always fearful and uncertain. Sure, everyone worries. But not everyone worries in the same way. Even worrying about her mother’s cancer coming back could be easier for her than one panic attack for me about whether I left the stove on. That was wrong, and I knew it. But it was true. Even though her mother’s cancer was so much more important than leaving an element turned on on the stove.
I could hear Nancy as if she were right beside me. I could practically smell the incense. Worrying is something everyone does differently. We all think our worries are the worst. Never compare your worries with someone else’s. No one wins.
“No.” Salix took my hand. “I’m sorry. There is a corner on the market, I know. I know it’s harder for you. I know that it makes things hard for you.” She took my other hand. “Things like life.”
Someone dropped a drink and the glass smashed. Someone pulled up in a pink Vespa. We laughed at a woman in high heels walking a tangle of eight tiny poodles and carrying one draped over her shoulder like a baby. We shared a muffin. Someone Salix knew stopped to say hello, and Salix held my hand and introduced me as her girlfriend. She said the word so easily, I hardly noticed. But once I realized it, it was all I could hear.
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Girlfriend.
Pay attention, Maeve. They’d been in junior orchestra together, Salix said as he left. And then a girl walked by, and Salix leapt to her feet.
“Maya, hey!”
It was the girl from the ferry terminal in Gibsons. The one with the clipboard and ponytail. She was wearing a cute little dress, like something out of the fifties. Robin’s-egg blue, with tiny white polka dots. Her ponytail was up high, and she was wearing cat’s-eye sunglasses. I was so busy noticing how cute she was and how frumpy I was and how good she would look beside Salix, I could barely say hello before she said her goodbye and continued down the street.
“Her mom just lost her job and they might have to move.”
Salix was going to compare. This worry is worse than that worry. But then she didn’t.
“Which is not a big deal to her. But it would be for you, am I right?”
I nodded.
“I get it. At least I think I do. It’s worse for you.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“Why would you?”
I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I took out my sketchbook and began to draw the girl sitting against the newspaper box. She had dreads, and a big backpack with a cat sleeping on top of it. She had a sign that said BE A DEER AND SPARE SOME CHANGE. She wore a pair of fuzzy antlers, the kind you’d see in a dollar store before Christmas.
There was worry, and then there was worry. Ninety-seven percent of people worried just fine. They felt the range of related emotions, but they could sti
ll do life, even simultaneously. The remaining 3 percent? We were incapacitated.
“Let me see?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“Would you ask to see someone’s diary?”
“No.”
I closed the book. “Same thing.”
“But it isn’t, is it? It’s a sketchbook. Pictures. Drawings. A collection of your talent, right? Like listening to me play.”
My palm was warm on the worn cover, each corner so battered it was almost rounded, the spine reinforced with rainbow duct tape. Could I show her? I had never shown anyone my sketchbook. Not even Ruthie or Dan.
I slid it across the table. Salix opened it to the first page and smiled. A sketch of the fox with the limp.
“It’s not in any particular order,” I said. “S-s-sometimes I add things after. Glue on bits. Or color stuff. Things.” I could hear my words get thick and clunky as she turned the pages. A portrait of Jessica.
“That’s her?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Your first girlfriend.” She studied the portrait and then glanced up. “Did you hear me call you my girlfriend?”
I nodded again. I wished I could say something, but I felt like I was sitting there naked at a table outside a coffee shop. Absolutely naked.
“Is that okay with you?”
Say something, Maeve. Don’t just nod again.
“It’s perfect,” I squeaked as my heart started to pound. Oh no. The panic. The fucking panic. Salix turned the page, and then again, and then there were the dissected hearts.
“Sorry.” I snatched the book back and stood, clutching it to my chest. “I can’t.”
“Are you going to run away again?”
“No.” But I backed away from the table, as if I was.
The girl with the cat grinned up at me, antlers swaying.
“Spare change?”
“No!”
Salix dropped a dollar into the yogurt tub by the sign and took my hand and led me back to the table. She pushed my sketchbook away from her. “You’re right. It is like a diary. Playing the violin is different. I won’t ask to see it again.”
“Okay. Th-th-thank you.”
Everybody worries.
Which is why it’s so hard to be someone who worries more. More often. About more things. More intensely, and with my whole body. My heart pounded, and my arms grew stiff. My fingertips prickled, which always happened just before they went numb. I stared at the street.
“Maeve?”
What’s there to worry about? Don’t make such a big deal about things. It’ll blow over. Don’t dwell on it. Shake it off. Choose to not worry.
As if it were a choice!
“Maeve.” Salix packed up our things and took me by the hand. She walked me home, like I was some kind of invalid, silent and incapable beside her. When we got to my door, she said goodbye. And then: “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“That I pushed you to let me look at it,” she said. “And I’m sorry that sometimes you panic and get so anxious.”
“Me?” I managed a small smile. “Never.”
She pulled me into a tight hug. “It doesn’t have to be so hard.”
“It just is what it is. Until my parents let me take something for it.”
“But right now, it doesn’t have to be so hard.”
She was being so sweet, but she didn’t understand. It just wasn’t that easy.
“If you start freaking out, call me and we’ll go for a walk. Or we’ll ride the night buses. We’ll smoke some pot and get the giggles and eat a whole bag of chips. We’ll walk up and down the alleys looking for treasure and avoiding skunks. Any of those things. All of those things. None of those things. Whatever you can think of.” She pushed me away just enough that she could look into my eyes. “In fact, you don’t even have to think about all the silly things.” She kissed me. “I can do that too. Your girlfriend will be in charge of distractions.”
“My girlfriend.” I smiled. “That’s a pretty good distraction right there.”
Just after midnight, I heard the front door open and close. It was Dad, creeping home yet again. He probably was out of clean underwear, or wanted some food, or needed a shower. This was my chance. Confront him. Face it head-on. Don’t let it get the best of me. A worry will cease to exist once it has been confronted, Nancy said. You kill it by facing it.
I sat in the dark for a moment, Salix’s words loud in my head.
You are brave, Maeve.
What are you afraid of?
What’s the worst that can happen? He gets better? He gets worse? So then it will either make a difference or it won’t. You can’t lose, Maeve. If you call him on his shit, he has to answer. He has to. He owes you that much. He loves you.
I could hear him moving up there, the floor creaking quietly. Maybe he wasn’t fall-down drunk; maybe this would go a lot better than I hoped. Or maybe I should call Salix and tell her to meet me at the park with a big bag of chips. No. No. I needed to stop running the other way. If there was anything I could do to get Dad back on track, it was my responsibility to do it, fear or no fear. I still had to do it. For Claire. For the boys. For me.
I stopped at the top of the stairs, out of sight.
He was sitting on the edge of the couch. He’d pulled the coffee table to his knees and was leaning over it. The light from the one lamp on cast him in a warm, orange glow.
What’s the worst that can happen?
Never mind anything that came before, because then he tucked his head down and snorted a line of cocaine through a rolled-up dollar bill.
And this wasn’t even the worst thing. I could see it all unfold from here. The family, undone. My dad, unemployed and drunk and high and living on the street. Maybe we’d never see him again. Maybe this was the end of everything.
“Dad,” I whispered.
“Maeve. Shit! I didn’t see you….” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “It’s not what you think—”
“What are you doing?”
I should’ve stayed downstairs. There was no point in confronting it head-on. This was worse than not knowing. This was worse than worrying. I wanted to take it back. I wanted to take the trip downstairs in reverse, undoing it along the way, and then I wanted to run in the opposite direction. Running away was better than this.
“What is that?”
I knew what it was. But I wanted him to say it. Admit it. Or dare to deny it. I wanted to hear him say something, give me some kind of explanation that would make sense. But he wasn’t saying anything at all. His hands were folded in his lap, and he just stared at me, his face in shadows.
“Dad?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“It is.”
“Maeve, it’s not—”
“It is! I’m not stupid.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t…I just…it’s been…”
There was nothing he could say and he knew it.
“Fine.” I stepped into the light.
“What are you going to do?”
“What are you going to do?”
He lifted his shoulders, and after a long moment he let them drop. That made me angrier than all his other bullshit heaped together into a great big stinking pile.
A shrug. It turned out to be the one thing that made the difference between all my hopeful coasting and pretending and shutting it all out, for better or for worse.
I headed for the stairs.
“Maeve.” He stood. “Maeve, stop. Don’t—”
“Don’t what?” I spun. “Don’t tell her? She already knows you’re a fucking drunk, Dad.”
I started to cry. I stood halfway up the stairs, gripping the railing.
“Don’t tell her. Please.”
“And then what?” I was sobbing now. “And then I’m holding your secret? And then it’s okay? It’s not okay! We all thought it was bad. And now it’s even worse.”
“Le
t me fix it. I can fix it, Maeve. I’ve fixed it before.”
“Fuck you.”
“Maeve—”
“Fuck you!” I ran up the stairs.
Claire was sleeping on her side in a cocoon of pillows. Owen was asleep beside her with Hibou wedged under his chin. I wanted to scream, and I wanted to whisper. I wanted to tell her, and I didn’t want to tell her. I wanted to be right there, and I wanted to evaporate. Sure, everyone worries.
I put a hand on Claire’s shoulder.
“Claire?”
She opened her eyes. “Maeve? What is it?”
“Dad’s downstairs. You need to come.”
She looked at me in the dark and silently said everything.
“Before he leaves again.” I pulled away the pillows and helped her out of bed.
She lumbered down the stairs ahead of me, tying her robe over her belly.
Dad was already at the door, shoving his feet into his shoes.
“Where are you going?” Claire said.
“I need some fresh air.”
“Tell her.” I took Claire’s hand. “Tell her!”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were!”
“Were what?” Claire’s grip on my hand tightened. “What’s going on, Billy?”
He stared at his feet. One shoe on. One shoe off. He was not going to say it.
“You have to tell her!” I shouted.
“The boys—”
“What?” I said. “You’re worried that you’ll wake them up? That’s what you’re worried about? Because I’ll go wake them up right now and you can explain yourself. How about that?”
“Maeve thinks—” He shook his head. Kicked off the one shoe. “Maeve thinks she saw me snort a line of coke. But I—”
“Tell the truth, Billy.” Claire pulled away from me and turned on all the lights, one switch at a time, until the room was ablaze with light. She marched up to him and jabbed his chest. “I can handle the truth, but don’t you dare throw your daughter under the bus. Don’t you dare.”
Dad looked past Claire, at me. His mouth was set in a straight line. His eyes danced from me to Claire, from me to Claire. He was trying to stand still, but he couldn’t. He kept shuffling his feet back and forth.
