To Know Me (The Complete Series, Books 1-4)

by Marcy Blesy

  “He broke down the door,” finishes Mom.

  “No, ma’am. I broke down the door,” says Matt. I sit in a chair in the corner of the room, watching Carmen try to soothe an again shaking Ty. Why is she here?

  “Mae, can I talk with you privately?” asks Mrs. Barber. We walk into the kitchen.

  “Ty’s been drinking for years,” she says.

  “For years?”

  “Yes, to excess, starting when he was thirteen. No one knew. We brought in outside help, told the school he had mono, and sent him through in-house detox and education within our own house. When things are good, he’s great. And things have been good. We made sure to keep a watchful eye over him, but when he went away to college and was around other influences and the two of you started having problems, well, things spiraled out of control. He blames himself for that accident, too. He knows if he’d left you alone and not tried to guilt you back into his life, you’d never have been in Ann Arbor for that party, and neither would your friend. I know it sounds like I’m making excuses for him, but add Patsy’s public problems to the mix and rumors he believes about us, and you can understand. You do understand, don’t you?”

  “I do understand, Mrs. Barber, but I don’t know what he would have done to me today if Matt hadn’t shown up again.”

  “I know. We’re flying him to Colorado today and enrolling him in a program. He’ll go. He won’t like it. It’s a six-month program, but they can give him the help he needs. He won’t hurt you, Mae.”

  “He already has.” I walk out of the kitchen and leave Mrs. Barber standing there alone. Mr. Barber has taken Ty outside. I watch him stumble down the sidewalk and out of my life forever, another blip on my lifeline I want to block out. Carmen is watching him, too. She glances up at me with sad eyes that tell her story. She’s in love with Ty. Maybe she always has been. The second choice girl in love with someone else’s boyfriend. I pity her more than anything. She deserves so much better.

  When they are gone and Mom and Greg are cleaning up the mess, Matt takes my hand and leads me outside. We sit on the steps of the front porch and watch the children across the street in a competitive game of freeze tag, too young to be tainted by the harshness of life. Matt puts his arm around my shoulder, and I lean against his chest. I’m too numb to cry. We don’t need to talk. His presence is all I need right now, and he knows it.

  Greg and Mom order Chinese take-out for the four of us. Nobody feels very hungry. Greg stays the night, sleeping on the couch, which I find quite cute. Mom’s trying to be proper for my sake, and I don’t blame her for not wanting to be alone. I don’t, either. Matt promises to stay with me in my room until I fall asleep, rubbing my back and twirling my hair in his fingers. As I drift to sleep, he’s singing Love Me Tender by Elvis Presley. I’ve never felt as safe as I do right now.

  Chapter 14:

  The last few weeks have been busy. After final exams this week, my freshman year of college will be over. It’s been a blur, really, and a shock to my mom that I managed to make straight A’s. No one could call me lazy. That’s for sure. A few days after my last contact with Ty, I ripped up my acceptance letter to the University of Michigan. Whether Ty returns there in the fall or not is of no concern to me anymore. I just know that I don’t want to be there. The university’s better off without me, too: no more bad Mae karma floating around campus. What Matt’s definite plans are for next year remains a mystery, not because he won’t tell me, but because I don’t really want to know. Living in the present isn’t easy, but I’m trying very hard to enjoy it more than I ever have in the past.

  Mom put our house on the market last week. She and Greg have decided to buy a condo across town, both of them leaving the homes they had once shared with their spouses. Greg recently told me that his wife had died of cancer. Anyone that stays with a loved one through everything, good and bad, deserves admiration, and, according to Greg, she’d been ill for over five years before she died. That is true love. Greg’s not my dad, but he’s a good guy. Mom deserves nothing less.

  Mom and I have had a lot of good times recalling happy memories of Dad and Laura and Grandma when we come across things as we pack for the move. Sometimes we laugh. Sometimes we cry. Grief is funny like that, the way it changes, sometimes seeming to disappear one minute only to be replaced by a tsunami wave of overwhelming sadness the next. We’re making a box of things just for me that I’ll take when I move out permanently, things Mom doesn’t really need or want, but things that neither of us wants to throw out like Dad’s old baseball trophies from high school or a baby quilt Grandma made for me, or Laura’s first Barbie doll. Between helping Mom and seeing Matt most nights at work or for dates, the questions about my future haven’t had space to move to the front of my brain, which is fine by me.

  Matt’s become a part of our family. Mom gives him a lot of the heavy-lifting jobs. Greg just laughs when she puts something in the for Matt to do pile. Greg’s much better at the details of the move anyway, like how is Mom ever going to have enough room for all her shoes? I am the justification for keeping all the shoes, with her thinking that as soon as I move out in a year or so, she’ll take over my room. It’s about the size of a closet anyway. I am grateful they are letting me stay, though I can’t imagine having to find my own place.

  After putting on a pair of denim shorts and white eyelet tank top and white platform sandals, I twist my hair up into a loose bun and text Matt to meet me at the cemetery. He’s going to help me plant a lilac bush between Dad’s and Laura’s graves. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. The first time I took him there after I told him all about my past, the deaths and the running away, and all the insecurities that came with it, his reaction was almost comical.

  That’s it? That’s the big secret you’ve been afraid to share?

  It’s a big deal, Matt, I’d said. I ran away from home and pretended to be someone I wasn’t. I still feel like trouble follows me, and I may be a danger to anyone who knows me. And what had he done? Hugged me and asked if I wanted to get a caramel coffee at Starbucks. Typical Matt, and that’s why I love him.

  I load the lilac bush in the back of my car and drive to the cemetery. Matt is waiting with a shovel, sitting against a tree that lines the edge of the cemetery. I have a flashback to when Sarah shook me awake near that very spot after finding me when I’d come back to visit the graves during the months I’d been running. She’d been so angry at me. And to think I was trying to save her. What a failure of a friend I proved to be. Now her grave rests in this very same cemetery, near the Jesus statue at the back of the cemetery.

  “Hey,” says Matt, getting up to hug me. “Why the sad face? I mean, I guess that’s a stupid question when you’re at the cemetery.”

  “Always thinking,” I say.

  “Well, let’s have less thinking and more working.” He takes the lilac bush and hands me the shovel. “Start digging where you want the bush. I’ll finish the job.” We work for the next half hour, digging, planting, and watering the bush. It’s already in bloom and looks beautiful. I am pleased with our work. “Ready to get some dinner?” he asks. “We deserve it.” He puts his pearly whites on display in a big smile.

  “Sure,” I say. “Can I ask you something I’ve been thinking about this afternoon?”

  “Go for it.”

  “How come I’ve never met your family in Iowa? And your sister never visits anymore like you told me she did? Are you trying to hide me? I mean, I’d love to meet your grandparents in town.” Matt’s smile disappears. I’ve never thought once about pressing Matt on this big secret he says he has, figuring he’ll tell me when he’s ready, but if this secret is why he won’t introduce me to his family, maybe it’s time he tell me the truth.

  “Would you like to meet my family, Mae?”

  “Yes, very much so.”

  “They’re a crazy clan. I mean, you think I’m competitive. You should meet my mom. She made me cry when she skunked me in Connect Four over and
over when I was a kid. It’s true. She never let me win.”

  “And your dad?”

  “Let’s just say that he has very high standards.”

  “I think they sound perfect. I’m up for the challenge. When can we go?”

  “I’ll call Mom tonight and see if they are busy next weekend.” He takes my hands and turns serious again. “It’s time you know the truth.”

  “About your family?”

  “About everything,” he says.

  “I’m ready.” He shakes his head like he’s not so sure. This topic will not come up again for the rest of our evening. I am positive.

  Chapter 15:

  Matt has told me to pack casual clothes for our trip to Iowa this weekend. I’m not sure that’s clear enough. Casual dressy, like you’re going to church? Casual country, like you’re going four-wheeling? So, I do what any girl in my position would do. I pack a little bit of everything, or a lot bit. I wear a springy scoop neck light blue dress with white sandals.

  “Matt’s here!” yells Mom from the living room. I zip my suitcase, because a duffle bag just isn’t enough room, and roll it down the hall.

  Matt laughs when he sees me. “It’s an overnight trip, not an entire summer vacation,” he says, pointing at the suitcase.

  “It is the start of our summer break, so let’s just treat it like a vacation, okay?”

  “Crazy girl.”

  “I do get it. Honestly. See those containers over there?” I point to four blue Rubbermaid containers stacked by the fireplace. “Those boxes contain Mom’s shoes. Greg couldn’t get her to part with a single pair, not one pair!”

  “I’m doomed then, aren’t I?”

  “I like to think of it as, ‘What a lucky man you are, Matt,’” says Mom. Before we leave for Iowa, we help Mom load the containers into the back of her car since they are starting to move things a little at a time to the new place.

  “Are you nervous?” asks Matt as we pull up in front of his parent’s home: a simple ranch with a two-car garage and huge front yard. A basketball sits along the edge of the drive, and a bike lies on the sidewalk leading up to the house.

  “No, not at all. Are you?” Matt has been fidgeting for the last twenty minutes of the drive, like he has restless leg syndrome or something. Clearly there is some unspoken can of worms about to spill open on this trip. Rather than be anxious, I am really quite relieved to have everything out in the open. We can’t truly move forward unless we’re both honest with each other, at least that’s what I tell myself, because deep down I am a teensy bit nervous, too.

  Matt turns the knob on the front door. No one seems to be in the house, though the mess in the living room and kitchen, which I can see from the foyer, tells me that there is a lot of activity here. It’s not mess in the sense of dirty, more along the lines of something new being opened or started without the previous project or snack being put away. A monopoly board clutters the coffee table with play money scattered about. A stack of newspapers sits aside the easy chair with another left open to the sports page sitting on the chair itself. There’s a bag of Sun Chips on the couch, and a pile of dishes on the counter, neatly sitting next to an empty sink, like someone was getting ready to wash them.

  “I take it your older sister doesn’t live at home anymore?”

  “Huh?” Matt asks.

  “Sorry. I was just kidding. You said that she was the neat freak in the family.”

  “Yeah, about that…”

  “Hey, Matt, about time you got here!” A teenage boy comes bounding through the back door with a handful of beanbags. “Lanie and I challenge you two to a game of cornhole.” I raise my eyebrows at Matt to explain.

  “You throw beans bags in a hole, and this is Zackery.”

  “Zack,” he says. “Call me Zack.”

  “Nice to meet you. Call me Mae.” I reach out to shake his hand. He shuffles the bean bags to his free hand and gives me an awkward teenage handshake. He’s cute like Matt, but a much slimmer build. I wonder if Matt has always been so built or if his workout routine went crazy after he left high school.

  “Do you know where Mom and Dad are?” Matt asks.

  “Mom ordered a cake for dessert, so she went to the bakery to pick it up. Dad’s, well, Dad’s out. Don’t worry about it.” I look at Matt. His shoulders seem to slump.

  “He knew I was coming home with a friend. Couldn’t he for once, just—”

  “Forget about it, Matt. Come on. Lanie and I are waiting out back. She’s wearing a stupid pair of new shoes she thought Mae might like.” He looks at me. “They’re completely ridiculous, and she can’t walk in them to save her life, but tell her you love them, okay?”

  “No problem. I’m sure they’re not that bad.”

  “Oh, they’re that bad.” We follow Zackery outside and find his fifteen-year-old sister Lanie tanning on an old lounge chair. She’s wearing flowered capris and a bright yellow shirt with matching yellow heels with prints of bright red roses crocheted in a lace that covers the shoe. Oh, they are so that bad. She jumps up when she sees us.

  “Matt! You’re here!” She runs into the arms of her waiting brother who is bracing himself from her impact. Just as quickly, she regains her composure and grabs my hand before I can be in position to shake hers. “And you must be Mae. We’ve heard so much about you from Matty.”

  “Matty. That’s cute,” I say, winking at Matt. He doesn’t smile.

  “Sorry, Matt.” And to me, “That’s what everyone from home calls Matt. He doesn’t really like it, not after the accident and all.

  “That’s enough, Lanie. Why don’t you go grab us a couple of pops, and we’ll set up the cornhole game.”

  “Sure, whatever, Matt. Don’t be pissed at me. I didn’t do anything wrong.” In true teenage fashion, she turns on the heels of her flowered, yellow shoes and marches into the house to retrieve drinks for everyone.

  “I told her to keep her mouth shut,” says Zack. “You know she likes to stir the pot.”

  “Yeah, whatever, Zack. Can we play the stupid game?” I’ve never seen Matt so angry, even when he was mad at me for clinging to stupid hope that things could work out with Ty and me.

  Zack reads the rules to me. Don’t cross the imaginary line in the grass. Toss the beanbag underhand at the hole in the box across the yard. Points are scored for getting the beanbag into the hole or on the board, but not if any part of the beanbag touches the ground. It sounds simple enough. Lanie comes back out with a root beer for Matt and a Coke for me.

  “We ran out of diet, but you don’t look like a diet girl to me,” says Lanie as she hands me the cold can. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not, so I just take the can and pop the tab open. It’s a warm spring day, and the drink is welcomed.

  After a couple of rousing games of cornhole, I have deduced a couple of things from Matt’s younger siblings. One, they are super-competitive. Two, they like to talk smack to each other. Three, despite the slip-up earlier from Lanie, they are all fiercely loyal to keeping some big secret from me. I only hope that before the weekend is over, I know this secret, too, and Matt is set free from the burden that’s been consuming him.

  Somewhere during the middle of our competition Mrs. Philips has come home because when we go back into the house, the aromas of homemade spaghetti sauce fill the room, a mixture of oregano and garlic. She sets down the knife she’d been using to cut the bread when she sees us.

  “Matt, it’s so good to have your home.” She embraces him with the same sentiment as Lanie, though not as enthusiastically.

  “Mom, this is Mae.” He presents me in a ta-da sort of flare with both hands waving in the air. I roll my eyes but inside I laugh.

  “Is he always this dramatic with introductions?” I ask.

  “Always,” she says as she hugs me, too. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Thank you for having me.”

  “I’m sorry that my husband could not be here. He’s…he’s working late.�
� Again, I know a cover-up when I hear it. My mind runs wild with possibilities. Maybe Mr. Philips is a murderer serving a sentence on death row, or he’s a drug runner living covertly as a middle class father, like in Breaking Bad, or maybe he’s in the witness protection program with the US government because he’s a foreign spy returned from his oversea adventures. “So, tell us a little about you, Mae,” says Mrs. Philips. I look at Matt, and he squeezes my hand for encouragement.

  “I’m the oldest child in my family. My little sister Laura died in an accident when I was in high school. My mom and I live in Andersonville. My dad, uh, he died in an accident, too, a year before my sister.”

  “Holy crap,” says Zack.

  “Zackery! That’s quite enough,” says Mrs. Philips.

  “Sorry, Mae,” he says sheepishly.

  “No, it’s okay. Really. I get that a lot.” No one knows if they are supposed to laugh or not, but when I smile to cut the tension, everyone lets out a nervous laugh.

  “Were you a cheerleader?” asks Lanie. “Because you’re super cute like a cheerleader.”

  “No. I…I didn’t have a lot of time for school activities.”

  “What about you, Lanie? Are you a cheerleader?”

  “Me? No way. I spend all my time designing clothes, well, at least making sketches of clothes. I’m going to design school when I’m done with high school.” Oh, great. Matt’s sister wants to be just like Jess, Ty’s fling from Woodson. “Don’t you think that’s a great idea?” she asks, looking hurt that I didn’t respond to her life’s ambition.

  “Oh, sure. I mean, with those great shoes you have on, I can see you have a keen eye for fashion.” I catch Matt punching Zackery in the side when he starts to laugh. Luckily, Lanie doesn’t seem to notice. Eating dinner with Matt’s family, I realize how much I miss my sister. Who else has such common life experiences but a sibling?