by Darlene Ryan
“Apologize,” Mom orders.
I let my eyes slide off her face until I’m looking just beyond her ear. “No.”
“Apologize to your sister. This is your last chance.” She says each word precisely so I’ll know she’s not kidding.
“No,” I repeat. “I’m not sorry and I won’t say I am. You can ground me for the rest of my life. I won’t say it.”
“Then I will,” Mom says. She forces me to face Claire, and I hear her teeth grind against each other. “Claire, I am sorry. Tell me what was broken and I’ll track down a replacement.”
Claire’s face is white with anger except for a small red spot on the edge of each perfect cheekbone. It looks like someone has pressed their thumbs hard into the skin. “Didn’t you hear what I said? This china is irreplaceable. It was my grandmother’s.” She glares at me with angry, slitted eyes. “It was always supposed to be mine.”
“I’ll go online. I might be able to replace what’s broken.”
Claire stands up, holding the box of dishes. “I don’t want a replacement, Leah.” She looks around the room and shakes her head. “No wonder my father killed himself.”
Mom’s hand comes up and I think she’s going to slap Claire, but instead her arm wraps around me, hugging me against her body. “Get out of my house, Claire,” she says softly.
Claire doesn’t say a word. She just walks out the door. In a moment I hear the car start and drive away.
There is a long silence. Mom goes to the counter and pours herself a cup of coffee.
“What the hell were you thinking, D’Arcy?” she asks, her back to me.
“She doesn’t deserve to have Dad’s watch. It’s like you gave her a reward for being so horrible.”
She turns, cup in hand. Her eyes are cold and there are deep lines around her mouth. “It’s what he would have wanted me to do.” She walks past me, out of the room.
twenty
Political science. I’m trying to listen. Trying at least to seem like I’m here. I make myself watch Mr. Lawrence’s lips, try to concentrate on what he’s saying.
“...family; Mom and Dad, two point three kids, a dog, a ranch-style bungalow and a station wagon. It’s how a lot of people lived when your parents were kids, and it became the definition of a family. Does it work today?” He’s sitting on the edge of the desk and he leans forward as he talks, pulling the class in.
Everyone tries to answer at once. “One at a time,” Mr. Lawrence says, holding up a hand. “Kevin, go ahead.”
Kevin sits sprawled in his seat, on his tailbone with his legs in the aisle. He can’t get away with that in any other class. “No way.”
“How so?”
“Families may start out like that, but they sure don’t end up that way,” Kevin says. “I mean, I have a mother, a father, a stepmom, a stepfather, two half-brothers and a stepsister.”
“Good point. Andrea, what about you?”
“It’s not fair.”
“Why not?”
Andie gestures with her pen. “It says if you’re not this one kind of family, then you’re not a family at all. Where does that leave single-parent families? And what about people who aren’t married? Or aren’t related at all?”
“What do the rest of you think? Is that true?” Mr. Lawrence asks. “Do you have to be related to be considered a family?”
There are mostly “yeahs” and nodding heads around the room. “What about the Cane family?” someone shouts from the back. We’ve been studying twentieth-century crime. Joshua Cane had three wives and a bunch of kids. Nobody knows for sure how many people “the family” killed.
Laughter.
Mr. Lawrence holds up his hand. “Seriously, what about someone like Joshua Cane and his followers? Why do we call them a family?”
Words are coming from all over the room now.
I stare at the frost etched on the window. Then I realize that Mr. Lawrence is saying my name.
“D’Arcy, you’re shaking your head.”
I am?
“You don’t agree?” he asks.
“It’s bullshit,” I say. “Don’t you get it?” Everyone is staring at me. The bell rings. I gather my books and stand up. “It’s all bullshit.”
Mr. Keating hands me a slip of paper. “See Ms. Wilson at the guidance office.”
“I have English class,” I say.
“It’s all right,” he says. “Take that to Mrs. Young and then go.” He looks...disappointed, as though he was expecting me to confide in him and I let him down because I didn’t.
Mrs. Young glances at my get-out-of-jail-free pass and says, “Make sure you get the assignment from someone.”
The guidance office is next to the main office. “I’m D’Arcy Patterson,” I tell the secretary. “I’m supposed to see Ms. Wilson.”
She points at the open door behind her. “You can go in.”
Ms. Wilson is behind her desk, writing on a long yellow pad. About me? She’s maybe twenty-five, with shiny dark hair pulled back in a bouncy ponytail. She’s wearing a yellow sweater with embroidered daisies around the neck. Somehow I know that there’s a daisy on the ponytail elastic too.
She looks up. “D’Arcy? Hi. C’mon in and close the door please.”
Closed door. Trouble. I sit in the chair on my side of the desk.
“D’Arcy, the reason I wanted to talk to you is...” She pauses.
And I say, “Because I said ‘bullshit’ in Mr. Lawrence’s class.”
“Not exactly.” Ms. Wilson smiles as though we’re friends or something. “I’m sorry about your father. I just wanted to see if there’s anything you need.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
She looks down at her pad. “You caught up on the work you missed?”
I nod.
“And you’re keeping up with your assignments?”
Nod again.
She looks at me. Here it comes. “Several of your teachers say you haven’t seemed like yourself. You’ve been having a lot of stomach pains, the nurse tells me.”
I grimace, swallow and put my hand on my stomach for effect. “Mrs. Sutton says it’s stress—because of everything.”
Ms. Wilson puts her elbows on the desk and leans forward. “I know it’s difficult for you. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”
With her? No. Nothing bad has ever happened in her perky ponytail life, I can tell. And I’m supposed to pretend she’s my new best friend and tell her how I feel.
“Nothing you tell me will leave this room.”
Oh yeah, right. She’s giving me a look like a dog watching you hold a treat in the air, waiting for it to hit the floor. “It’s just... hard, you know,” I say. I look down at the floor for effect.
Ms. Wilson reaches across the desk and pats my arm. “I know,” she says. “It takes time. Let yourself grieve.”
Let yourself grieve? What teacher manual did she get that from?
I almost laugh. I turn it into a fake sob and add a little shudder. She keeps patting my arm. I count to twenty slowly in my head, then take a deep breath and let it out before I look at her. “Thank you,” I say.
“I’m here for you, D’Arcy,” she says. “Anytime you need to talk.”
I’m here for you? I was wrong about Mr. Lawrence’s class. That wasn’t bullshit. But this is. I have to get out of here.
I do my apologetic face then, lips together, eyes down. “I’m really sorry I said ‘bullshit’ in class. I’ll apologize to Mr. Lawrence.”
Ms. Wilson gives me another understanding smile. “That’s a good idea. But don’t worry about it. I’m sure he’s heard worse.”
I stand up and give her my best almost-a-smile smile.
“Remember, you can come and talk to me anytime,” she says.
I only make it down the hall and around the corner before I start laughing. Laughing and laughing until my knees go weak.
Marissa and I are sitting near the top of the double stairway that l
eads down to the front entrance of the school. Nobody ever uses those doors. They’re so heavy it takes two people to pull them open, and that’s after you’ve already climbed three sets of steps from the street. Then when you get inside, you have to climb more steps just to get to the center hallway.
I think the main doors are pretty much for show. Mostly everyone just hangs here on the steps until there are too many people, and then some teacher comes by and says, “Don’t you kids have something better to do?”
“You wanna do something Saturday?” Marissa asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve got a ton of math. And I’ve got that project for political science.”
Marissa is eyeing some blond guy down by the doors—the baggy T-shirt, torn jeans, pierced, musician type she always goes for. “Oh, yeah, you’re on Mr. Lawrence’s shit list because you said bullshit in class.” She elbows me. “Get it? Bullshit. Shit list.” She smirks like she just came up with something brilliant. “So what did they do to you, anyway?”
“Just sent me to the guidance counselor, that’s all.”
Blond Guy has noticed Marissa, so now she has to look somewhere else as though she’s not interested in him. “Which one? Mrs. Henessey or Malibu Barbie Counselor?”
“Ms. Wilson. Why do you call her Malibu Barbie?”
Marissa keeps darting little glances at Blond Guy. “C’mon. She has a tan in February. The only things faker than that are her boobs.”
I pick at a hangnail on my finger. My nails look kind of raggy and chewed. I forget when I last did them.
Marissa jabs me with an elbow. “Who’s that?” She tilts her head toward a guy who’s stopped to talk to Blond Guy.
I look. It’s Seth. I haven’t seen him since the piano. He’s missed the last two math classes. “That’s Seth,” I say.
“Isn’t he some kind of student teacher in your math class?” Marissa asks, tugging the neck of her orange sweater.
“Peer tutor.” I look away, but then I look back.
“He’s cute,” Marissa says.
“He’s not your type.”
Marissa leans back on her elbows, making her chest look bigger, which is why she does it. “I’ve decided I want a guy who’ll challenge my mind.”
I turn to stare at her. “Do you want me to puke on your shoes?”
“I’m serious.”
I just keep staring.
“I am.” She makes a face. “Well, sort of.”
I know Seth is looking at me before I turn my head. He doesn’t smile or wave and neither do I. Marissa is still talking but I don’t know what she’s saying.
And then Brendan leans over me and slaps his hands over my eyes.
I start and suck in a breath.
“Guess who,” he says in a goofy fake voice.
My neck stiffens. “I know it’s you, Brendan,” I say.
He drops his hands and sits on the step above me. “You’re supposed to guess,” he says. Then he leans down and kisses me on the mouth, even though we’re not supposed to do that in the hallways. His tongue pushes at mine.
I pull away and look over my shoulder, but Seth is gone.
twenty-one
Somebody’s smoking somewhere. I can smell it faintly.
I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell in my hair and my clothes, and I hate kissing someone who smokes—not that I’ve done it much. Brendan doesn’t smoke, because he’s an athlete and he has to look after his body. So no cigarettes. Beer apparently is different. All the guys on the team drink a lot of beer.
“Want some?” Brendan asks, sticking the can in my face.
I don’t like beer. And I’ve only told Brendan that about two hundred times. But every time we’re at a party, he still shoves the can in front of my face and says, “Want some?”
I shake my head. “No.”
It’s too warm in here. I shouldn’t have worn this sweater, but Brendan was waiting—and talking to my mother, which isn’t a good idea—so I just grabbed it out of the drawer and hauled it over my head. Plus Brendan is sitting right behind me on the arm of the sofa, his chest against my back, one arm around my waist, and he always gives off so much heat it’d probably be cooler sitting with my back next to the woodstove in the corner.
“I thought we were going to celebrate,” Brendan says close to my ear.
I turn my face toward him. “I thought that’s what this party’s for,” I say.
He kisses me on the mouth and smiles. “I mean just you and me,” he whispers. He licks the curve of my ear. He thinks it’s sexy. It isn’t.
Brendan chugs the last of his beer. Then he lifts me to my feet and stands up himself. “Let’s go,” he says. “There’s no one at my place.”
“Where are your mom and dad?”
Brendan grins and gives me a little leer. “Some party thing at the hotel. I don’t know what for. But they got a room—they’re staying the night. So the house is empty.” He hangs his arm around my shoulders and we start moving toward the door.
Crap. How am I going to get out of this? Is there any way I could puke? I try concentrating on it as we cross the deck of the cottage. Nothing. And I can’t shove my finger down my throat. Gross.
I can’t say I’m on my period. I’ve used that one twice. I wish I could just tell Brendan that I’m tired and I want to go home, but he’d take it the wrong way.
I’m still holding a bottle of orange pop. It’s what I always drink at these parties. Except this time my orange pop is a little bit of orange and a lot of a wine cooler called Tropical Fiesta. I found it out on the deck and emptied it into my pop bottle. It tastes better than regular wine. I take a quick drink and then a second one.
Brendan drives with one hand on my leg all the way back into town, talking about basketball and a bunch of other stuff I don’t really hear. I say “uh-huh” every once in a while between drinks, and that seems to be enough. And then we’re at the house, we’re in Brendan’s bedroom—cleaned up, which means he’s been planning this. I pop three orange-flavored Tic Tacs so he won’t taste the wine. His mouth’s on mine and his hands are up under my sweater. I can feel him breathing faster.
“I love you. I love you so much,” he whispers.
I kiss him hard and use my tongue so he’ll stop talking, and I hope he won’t notice that I didn’t say anything back.
A sound wakes me. I sit up in bed listening. Waiting. There it is again. Soft. Low. The hairs rise on the back of my neck. What is it? A cat? A raccoon? What else could it be? I’ll get up. I’ll look and it’ll be nothing, just two cats on the lawn trying to date each other.
The living room light is still on. I step into the room and Mom is there, doubled over on the sofa. Her whole body is shaking, trembling uncontrollably as if she’s having some kind of seizure.
I sway dizzily for a second, then get my balance and run to her, crouching at her feet. I put my arms around her. “What? Mom, what is it? What’s the matter? What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong.”
She makes a gagging sound and clutches her stomach. She is going to be sick. She is going to heave and there’s no bathroom down here.
“Don’t throw up here,” I tell her. “Mom, don’t puke!”
I pull her upright, start toward the stairs. She’s still shaking. She makes another retching noise. “Not here,” I beg as I half drag her up the steps. There are too many. She’s so heavy. Her feet slip on the treads and fall over themselves.
I can’t let her fall. Another step. Another. Another. Another.
The top.
I pull her into the bathroom and lean her against the toilet, wedged between the bowl and the bathtub. I squat on the floor beside her, holding her shoulders. She retches over and over. The sound curdles my own stomach. Nothing comes up. It’s just the dry heaves.
“Won’t...come...up,” she chokes out between gags.
What do I do? Should I make her throw up? Was this in first aid? I don’t remember. I don’t remember.
And then s
he vomits. I hold her head over the toilet and breathe through my mouth, looking away.
Oh God! Oh God, don’t let me be sick, God, please don’t let me be sick, I say over and over in my head.
Mom vomits again. I try to shut out the sound, the smell. I just hold on to her as hard as I can.
Finally there is nothing but empty retching. I reach up and flush the toilet.
I shift around so that I can hold her with just one arm across the front of her body, pull a towel down into the tub and douse it with cold water. I squeeze out as much as I can with one hand and fold it over into a lumpy roll. I hold the towel to Mom’s forehead and then against the back of her neck. Water drips from one end down along my arm and seeps into the neck of Mom’s sweatshirt. Slowly the retching eases and the trembling begins to lessen. I wipe her face and throw the towel into the tub. Her body suddenly slumps against mine, knocking me onto my knees.
She’s crying. No sound, only tears, soaking her face. I hold her with both arms as tightly as I can.
I don’t know what to do next. I don’t know what to do now. I can’t think five minutes ahead. I can’t think five seconds ahead.
We can’t stay here like this. Her body is a dead weight against me. “We’ve got to get into the bedroom,” I say. I try to get her upright, but even though she is thin, she is still too heavy for me. I struggle into a crouch and move around so that most of her weight is against my left shoulder. “Help me,” I whisper as I lift her, pushing with my legs.
Somehow I manage to get us both up and down the hall into the bedroom. I sit Mom on the bed. Her face is blotchy, her eyes are red and swollen, brimming with tears that spill over, slide down her face and drip off her chin. Her arms are pressed tight to her stomach. There are bits of vomit on her sweatshirt.
“Sit here for a minute,” I tell her. “I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“No.” It comes out more of a moan than a word. She reaches for me with one hand. “No.”
“You’re sick. You need to go to a hospital.”
“No.” She rocks back and forth, eyes closed.
What do I do? What do I do? I want to run. I want someone else to do this. But there’s only me. “All right,” I say. “All right.”
